Lesson Plan
This lesson in A Convicted Life is about showcasing the stories of formerly incarcerated individuals who have become successful entrepreneurs and learning business tips for achieving financial freedom. The group discussion questions cover the challenges that formerly incarcerated individuals face when starting their own businesses, the importance of financial literacy and understanding credit scores, low-cost high-return businesses, the importance of having a strong team and infrastructure in place, and ways to support and uplift formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs in our communities. The lesson features an interview with Travis Richey, a formerly incarcerated individual who has become a successful entrepreneur and advocate for those who have been incarcerated. The lesson also includes a video and transcripts of the interview.
Objective
The objective of A Convicted Life is to showcase the stories of formerly incarcerated individuals who have become successful entrepreneurs and to learn business tips for achieving financial freedom.
Group Discussion Questions
- What are some of the challenges that formerly incarcerated individuals face when trying to start their own businesses?
- How can financial literacy and understanding credit scores help those who have been incarcerated?
- What are some low-cost, high-return businesses that are good for beginners?
- How important is it to have a strong team and infrastructure in place when starting a business?
- What are some ways that we can support and uplift formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs in our communities?
Introduction
In this episode of "Escaping the Odds," we will hear from Travis Richey, a formerly incarcerated individual who has become a successful entrepreneur and advocate for those who have been incarcerated. We will learn about his journey and the lessons he has learned along the way.
Feature Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wbkpLYW4KQ
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be entirely accurate or free from errors.
Transcripts
(00:12)
Hear the stories of men and women switching hustles and escaping the odds through entrepreneurship after prison. Not only will these stories inspire you, but also unlock business tips for financial freedom.
(00:23)
Let's get it. Thank you all for tuning in to another Dope episode, sword of Escaping the Odds podcast. I am your host, Aaron Smith, and we interviewed a formerly incarcerated who are now successful entrepreneur.
(00:36)
Welcome to the third season today. I have a good friend of mine, my mentor, grateful to be able to say that he's an advocate, investor, CEO of Accomplished Ventures. Convicted Life is another program he's working on.
(00:50)
So he's going to get his story, talk about his experience being incarcerated, but also what he's doing for the incarcerated demographic to this day. So welcome to the show, man. Thank you for having on, man.
(01:01)
And let's talk about it, man. So what pretty much got you into the system, right? Did a little bit over two years incarcerated? I did, yeah. I wasn't a prison guy, as I always like to say. Growing up.
(01:14)
I wasn't in and out of the system for drugs or gangs or violence or anything like that. At the age of 25, I ran a hedge fund. We registered with the securities and Exchange Commission, which is a federal organization, and had about $10 million under management in that particular fund.
(01:31)
And I didn't register with the state of Arizona, and the state of Arizona came back six and a half years after that fund closed and indicted me for what they call trans actions of an unregistered securities dealer or salesman.
(01:46)
Wow. Big, long word, right? It's actually kind of a funny story. I was so naive to the process. Wasn't arrested, didn't have any of, like, the usual fanfare. I just had two guys in suits knock on my door one day and then serve me with this indictment, this grand jury indictment.
(02:06)
So nice and pleasant, right? It was good morning, right? It's this thick. It's like a thesaurus. And I was so naive. I thought, man, whoever this attorney is that did this to me, we should just talk about this.
(02:22)
We could figure this out easily. Lee so I drove downtown to this guy's office, this Attorney General's office, and knocked on the bulletproof glass. And his assistant on the other side of the window, she said, you're not talking to him.
(02:35)
You should go get a lawyer. Wow. And I realized it was pretty serious. So for me, I thought, you kind of do all the right things. You check all the right boxes. I had registered properly. I had brought in the right investors, had the attorney set up the paperwork.
(02:52)
But sometimes that's just not enough. This was also during the time of the financial meltdown, the Great Recession, as they call it. 2004. Five, six, seven, the pinnacle of eight, when everything kind of collapsed in the financial sector.
(03:07)
So when you have a young guy like I was with quite a bit of money under management, ambitious, ambitious. I had a big target on my back for not registering in that state. It's not that it is illegal not to register, but they want you to register with the state so that they can understand where the money is coming and going.
(03:29)
So we fought that good fight for about two and a half years. Almost three years. Yeah. Brought in some of the biggest attorneys in the state. Spent a lot of money. Yeah. A lot of money, a lot of time.
(03:40)
And there comes a point where you're exhausted and mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, you're drained and get it over with. Just get it over with. The pain of not knowing is sometimes greater.
(03:54)
So I remember I walked into that last, like. Pretrial conference. Up until this point, I had months and months and months, years gone into a courtroom, and nothing happened. Nothing happened. Right. And you're numb to it at that point.
(04:08)
You're nauseous when you walk in. You're numb at the end. There's no outcome. You don't have any answers. It's this unknown. And so I just told my attorney, like, let's figure out what the deal is. And so the prosecution gave a recommendation of 66 years.
(04:25)
How long? 66 years. 66 years. Wow. Yeah. And casually like that? Casually, 66 years. Yes. I had something like, boy, if I go back, I'd have to remember I had something like 30 or 40 class four felonies.
(04:40)
Wow. There's a $99,000 threshold in that state. Anything that's not registered over 99,000 is a felony. I think I had like 30 or 40 of those. Wow. Luckily, fortunate for me. And so my attorney said, there's no reason.
(04:56)
There was no fraud, there was no misappropriation of dollars, there was no mail fraud, wire fraud, embezzlement, nothing typically sexy. Okay. And so my attorney said, no, this is a probationary case, or maybe civil.
(05:09)
Could be civil. Okay. So they just wouldn't let it go. So both sides agreed to put it in front of the judge and let the judge decide. Got you. And so that was around it's actually around Thanksgiving of nine.
(05:27)
And I remember walking out of that courtroom and I said to my attorney, I said, why are we postponing this again? Keep in mind this is from six. I'm just like, nauseous at this point. And she said, because I want you to spend the holidays with your family.
(05:42)
Yeah, good lawyer. Right. And walked in. January january 121, 2012, and first day of prison. Boom. Shackled. Boom. Wow. Yeah. Judge got in front and she said, we're going to make an example out of you.
(06:04)
Wow. Those were her words to me. All right. You didn't register right, so I know you would do that differently. But what else as you look back on that situation, in hindsight, of course. What would you do differently to not get there?
(06:18)
Yeah, man. Nothing, to be honest. Okay. Yeah. Like you did everything properly. I do. Okay. I do. Yeah. I felt like I was honest with everybody. I felt like I did everything that I knew I could do. Yeah, definitely.
(06:31)
I kind of relate it so that people can understand it. It's a lot of big words and goofy terminology. But in today's world, you have this legalization of marijuana and I can purchase it in this city, but I can't take it to that city.
(06:43)
I can buy it in this state, but I can't take it to that state. Right. So the federal government and the state government are looking at marijuana in two different lenses. Right. The securities industry is the exact same way.
(06:57)
So the state of Arizona or the state of California? The state of Illinois looks at a security differently than the federal government, which is regulated underneath the securities and Exchange Commission.
(07:07)
SEC. Got you. So over the course of time and history, this is the Martha Stewart case. This is where Mark Cuban got in trouble. This is where Elon gets his hand slapped. Every time he says something on Twitter, the SEC comes in and finds him.
(07:22)
So you have these securities laws that are crazy in depth. And keep in mind, I'm in my early twenty s. I think I'm doing everything right. I got the tiger by the tail. I'm treating people well, my mom's living well.
(07:38)
It was all positive momentum. And I'm able to say nothing, obviously, because of where it's brought me to this day. Yeah. So speak about where it brought you to this day. Right. But while you were inside.
(07:52)
What did you what was one of the things you noticed about the men that were incarcerated there that kind of put it in your mind, said, okay, when I get out, I want to come back and help these men? Man, I knew I had to change that narrative.
(08:04)
I knew it. So I was very fortunate because I was able to get off the yard every day. I went and taught at the community college because of my degree. Oh, dope? Yeah. So because of my degree, they let me off, and I went and taught a business course.
(08:20)
And at the community college, all the four yards met there under the education program. And quickly, I started talking to everybody and realized that most people inside were hungry for some financial literacy.
(08:34)
And so what I wanted to do was figure out what I knew and how I could make an impact on the ones that are going to be incarcerated. And it started very simply, very simple. Many moons ago, I thought, okay, credit the FICO score, right?
(08:53)
What is the FICO score? How do I unpack that for somebody? Very simply, most people don't even understand that FICO is just a company. Two gentlemen in San Francisco many years ago. Started Fair, Isaac and Company.
(09:06)
FICO and that's the company that now gives you a credit score of 500 to 800, plus or minus, based on credit worthiness. Most guys that are incarcerated for a length of time come out with either a no credit score or a low credit score, and they then have to get a job to satisfy conditions of parole or probation.
(09:26)
And in order to get from point A to point B, whether it's for family or for work, you need a vehicle. Yeah. And because of a low credit score, you walk on a buy here, pay here lot, some corner lot, and you get a 1964 Saturn 40% interest rate.
(09:43)
40% interest rate, paid weekly with a battery cuff on it in case you don't pay over $900 a month. And it's not sustainable. Right. And you go back to doing things that you shouldn't do because you have a payment that you shouldn't have and a vehicle that's unreliable.
(10:02)
And so I thought, man, this is easy. This is free. This knowledge from the three credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax, Experian, you can get that twice a year for free. Yeah. So I developed that financial literacy course kind of all based around the FICO score.
(10:18)
It was where I started. If I can get you to a 660 or a 620 or a 680 or a 720, and you can walk out with a decent score, and then you can get financed on a vehicle, you can get a loan, you look like you're a reputable individual from a credit perspective, then you got a leg up.
(10:39)
So I thought, okay, I can fix that. I can teach these guys how to get their score inside for free. I can teach these guys how to build their score inside for free. And then when they walk out, they can go get a Honda Civic that's reliable and lease it for $199 a month.
(10:53)
Wow. And that, to me, was a game changer, that little piece, that little component of financial literacy. Yeah. And so once you got out, you were able to actually extend that teaching, that education.
(11:05)
So how were you able to do that? Some of the things you're doing right now, it's kind of an extension of that work that you're doing behind the wall. The financial literacy piece is where my heart was at.
(11:15)
I love to show guys how to build a business, how to make a business, how to start a business. And there's a lot of nuances in that small business entrepreneurship realm. And what I mean by that is a lot of guys that I speak to, that you speak to and we've talked about this is they'll get out and they'll go to Google, they'll go to YouTube, how do I set up my business?
(11:35)
And there's going to be, on the first six pages of your Internet search, some charlatan that wants to charge you 2000, $3,000 to set up your business. But the Secretary of State website in any state is accessible.
(11:50)
Typically, it's going to be less than $100 nationwide to file your articles of incorporation, your LLC documents, and then you can obtain your Ein number, your SS Four form from the IRS website for free in about 15 minutes.
(12:04)
Right. So just that piece right there to me, was just as important as the FICO score. If I can teach a guy how to build a business, so many guys that are behind the walls and they get out, they think that starting a business is this monumental task.
(12:19)
It takes 16 months and costs $10,000. It doesn't. It takes about three days and cost about 100 and $150, depending on your state. So that, to me, was a real game changer, and I wanted to focus on the entrepreneurship, because I know everybody's shocked who's listening to this, but it's a little difficult for guys like us to get a job when we get out, or the jobs that are available are the 725, 950s.
(12:45)
No disrespect to anybody out there working those, but for guys like us who've come this far, we have goals and visions and desires that 725 just doesn't support. Absolutely. And so from the other side of that right.
(12:57)
I'm an entrepreneur. I'm looking for funding, because whether you're someone come home from incarceration or just a regular person, you may not have the funds to start up that dream business. Right. As an investor that invests in companies, like, what are some of the things you would suggest?
(13:13)
Right. For people that's approaching you to have the game plan together, what are you looking for as an investor? Good question. So I like blue collar, high touch point businesses. What I mean by that is, like, trucking, for example, blue collar, high touch point.
(13:30)
I like fitness. I like personal training. I like gyms. Blue collar, high touch point. And what I mean by high touch point is, like, the customer service level is very high in those industries. When you look at your gardener, your landscape, or your pool guy, your pest control, those individuals.
(13:48)
They have to have a certain sense of charisma about them. They have to have their sensibilities about them to say, I'm going to show up every Friday and cut your lawn for $35. So most of the time, those guys don't lack the hustle, they just lack the knowledge.
(14:00)
And so I like to invest in those businesses because you can get a small Chevy pickup truck or a Ford or Dodge, whatever, get a small pickup truck, get some tools, get a business license. You can kind of start that business start to finish for $10,000, and you can make your money back in month one.
(14:21)
Those are the types of businesses that I love. And I think that for guys like us that are just coming out, that's really an easy place to start, especially in today's world where the economy is on fire and everybody's moving.
(14:32)
You're going to take people who went from the city to the suburbs or vice versa. And their amenities are what they're looking for. They still want to go to their favorite gym. They still want to go to their favorite coffee shop.
(14:42)
They still want to go to their favorite dog park. So how do I create value within that world? And then in terms of how do you reverse engineer it? If you're looking from a business plan perspective, every investor wants to know how they're going to make their money back.
(14:57)
And if you listen to the greats, the incredible investors, they'll tell you that they don't invest in ideas, they invest in people. Yeah. And that leads me to my next point. So now you have your business together, right?
(15:09)
Let's talk about the team to actually run that business, right? Because when I initially talked to you told me, I already have back systems, I got this, this and that, right. Basically an infrastructure.
(15:21)
So we can kind of talk about that, like, who's in that infrastructure to make sure that the wheels of your business is rolling and you could be successful. Yeah, it's a good, great question. So I would encourage everybody to find out where your energy is at in the business.
(15:35)
Where your energy goes, that's where your focus flows. And so when you're focused on sales, for example, just as an example. You'll need a heavy individual behind you that's an operations person. Why is that?
(15:50)
Because you're out there selling contracts. Right. You get a pest control business, you're out there selling contracts. Boom. Door to door sales, sale, sale, sale, sale. But now when you bring that paperwork back, who's the individual that's fulfilling?
(16:02)
Who's doing all the unfund paperwork to make sure that the administrator the operations piece? Okay. All right, aaron, you just sold 30 counts. Are they Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Are they Tuesday, Thursday?
(16:13)
Are they a m, or they p m? Are they every month? Are they every other month? Right. Who's that scheduling that individual that takes care of your operations, your administrative piece got you or vice versa?
(16:24)
I've met a lot of guys who want to be heavy on the operations. They're really good tactically. They know how to use social media. They love technology, and so they can set up a business, a calendar. I'll give everybody a little tip.
(16:37)
One thing that I use is an app. It's a board called Trello. T-R-E ll o. It's free for the most part. But if you're in a partnership or a business or you have multiple things going on, the Trello board will allow you to real time put up with your partners, what's your focus, where your energy is at, what's super important, what can be put off till later.
(17:01)
And then in each of those board pieces, you can upload documents, photos, videos, MP4 files. And then when it's completed, you can drag it over and say, aaron completed this task. Wow. Okay. So a trello board isn't super important or something of that nature to keep you focused.
(17:19)
But I digress. Some guys love the operational piece, and they just want to be the engine behind the scenes. So what I would tell you is, from an ego perspective, a lot of us don't want to hire people who aren't like us.
(17:35)
I'm real sales focused. He's not or she's not, but really look in the mirror and find out. What it is that you love to do, where you find your energy in the business and then find somebody who's who's alternate to that.
(17:48)
Got you. Okay. And so finding that person, I want to kind of stay on team. I'm a startup. I don't have the funds to bring on the best talent as possible, right? And so how do I convince someone to believe in what I'm doing and to come on board probably for less than what their core value is, right?
(18:07)
And to believe in my mission and this thing that I'm doing? So what does that look like? What does that conversation sound like? Yeah. So I'll tell you, that what I found. And you hear this all the time, but people will work harder for a cause than they will for a paycheck.
(18:22)
And so not that being paid is not important, but if you can align yourself with individuals who find that same passion that you do, and then tell them that there's a big opportunity here. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, on Facebook, owns less than 20% of Facebook, right?
(18:40)
And if you budget, you can live off of his salary, right? So I tell people that all the time. Like, when I sit down with folks, and they go, oh, I've got to own 80%. Well, you got 80% of a watermelon.
(18:54)
It's nothing, right? So 80% of nothing or 20% of a billion. I'll take the there you go. 20% all day long. So sometimes that's where our ego leads us to believe. And sometimes it's social media or it's Google or wherever.
(19:08)
Oh, you need to have majority. I really don't know really where that fits in today's world any longer. You've got sites out there. Sorry? You got sites out there, like crowdfunding sites. So for anybody that doesn't really know what crowdfunding is, crowdfunding is where you've got a widget or an idea that you put on on these crowdfunding websites, and strangers all around the world, you know, can donate to this idea.
(19:32)
I got a new watch, a new sneaker, you know, a new business idea, and then they'll get an investment piece, an equity piece, or they might even get the widget. When you bring it to market. Got you. That really changed the game for a lot of people looking for funding.
(19:46)
Because now you can go out and get 5000, 50,000, half a million dollars from total strangers if they believe in your widget. Which is kind of a brilliant idea. It is that whole peer to peer model, man.
(19:59)
Smart. Yeah. So a lot of resources out there for guys that are out and guys that are coming out to really make it, you know? I love it, man. So you spend a lot of time inside the prisons now, right? In fact, we'll be next year going inside Idaho State Prison.
(20:14)
Looking forward to that, man. So we're having a conversation and a gentleman said, my buddy Ed was like speaking is like the new rap, the new rapper. Right? Everybody wants to do it. Yeah. Right. And so how do you unpack your story?
(20:32)
Everyone has a story. How do you unpack that story and get in front of that audience and make a living for yourself? Because you've done well with that. That's just one of the things you do. Yeah, I've enjoyed that.
(20:42)
For sure. So how do I do it? My story, to me, where I put the relevance to my story is that I have every reason in the world to be on the next episode of Jerry Springer. I come from a broken what's that now?
(21:00)
Mari. No, mari is a little too high class. Mari kind of is a little uppity at that point. But I come from a broken home. I come from a drug addicted father formerly incarcerated. You've got every great making of a Jerry Springer episode.
(21:19)
But for me, what I firmly believe I can tell you this and this is rooted within my faith is that we are all here in order to make mistakes. That's the perspective that I view life through. Every one of us here have a purpose, a unique purpose.
(21:36)
And the only way that we are able to understand that purpose. Mistakes. And I firmly believe that. So when I unpack my story, I like to tell these guys that my story is less about prison. My story is more about turning a mess into a message.
(21:50)
Got you. My story is about pain. And we all have pain in our lives. You don't have to be incarcerated or formally incarcerated to have a boatload of pain in your life at present or in your past. Most of the time, we use that pain as an excuse.
(22:07)
You look at our society, we're the most obese medicated in debt society ever. And we have more resources, more how to resources than we've ever had at our disposal. So it's not how to that gets us here.
(22:20)
So what gets us here is using our pain to take us from where we are to where we want to go. And that's my message on the inside, is take what you have learned from this pain and turn it into your passion.
(22:34)
Take this mess and turn it into a message. So my story is about finding your passion, finding your why, and then really giving these guys the tools. When I started accomplished, I wanted to make sure that the tools were tangible.
(22:52)
You hate to say this out loud, but I don't know if anybody's really meant met a prison program that's life changing. That's a tough pill for us to swallow. Because and I say this gently, if seven or eight planes fell out of the sky today, there would be no airline industry.
(23:12)
And if that happened every day at 70 or 80% failure rate, there would be no airline industry. Those same failure rates are present prevalent in the department of corrections in the bureau of prisons.
(23:23)
And yet each year it's funded more and more dollars. So it's an industry. It's a business, right? And so when I go in and I teach these guys it's to stop looking at the woe is me. It's to stop saying my codefendant snitched on me.
(23:40)
Terrible Attorney General. Whatever. Like a cop that should have never arrested me. That's not the story anybody wants to hear. What people want to hear is that you came here, you made a mistake, you owned your mistake, and now you found your purpose inside of that pain, and now you're helping other people change their lives.
(23:56)
That's the real purpose of life, in my opinion. No, I love it, man. So speaking of helping other people change their lives, want to get into the e courses? Because that's really big. Everyone has a course online.
(24:08)
That's one thing I noticed when I came, I was like, man, everybody's an educator. They're selling something. Right. And I know that's something that you're really proficient in. And so how does that work?
(24:18)
Like, someone that has an idea or skill set, how does that person or your formula to make a living with courses online? Yeah. So speaking to everyone's an educator, in my signature, I used to put I have a PhD in MSH.
(24:34)
It was just a PhD in making shit happen. Okay. Yeah. Everybody right to your point. Everybody. But I said it a half hour ago. I'll repeat it. There's so many of these guys out there that are selling courses for a curriculum that they don't even take themselves.
(24:56)
(16:13)
Are they a m, or they p m? Are they every month? Are they every other month? Right. Who's that scheduling that individual that takes care of your operations, your administrative piece got you or vice versa?
(16:24)
I've met a lot of guys who want to be heavy on the operations. They're really good tactically. They know how to use social media. They love technology, and so they can set up a business, a calendar. I'll give everybody a little tip.
(16:37)
One thing that I use is an app. It's a board called Trello. T-R-E ll o. It's free for the most part. But if you're in a partnership or a business or you have multiple things going on, the Trello board will allow you to real time put up with your partners, what's your focus, where your energy is at, what's super important, what can be put off till later.
(17:01)
And then in each of those board pieces, you can upload documents, photos, videos, MP4 files. And then when it's completed, you can drag it over and say, aaron completed this task. Wow. Okay. So a trello board isn't super important or something of that nature to keep you focused.
(17:19)
But I digress. Some guys love the operational piece, and they just want to be the engine behind the scenes. So what I would tell you is, from an ego perspective, a lot of us don't want to hire people who aren't like us.
(17:35)
I'm real sales focused. He's not or she's not, but really look in the mirror and find out. What it is that you love to do, where you find your energy in the business and then find somebody who's who's alternate to that.
(17:48)
Got you. Okay. And so finding that person, I want to kind of stay on team. I'm a startup. I don't have the funds to bring on the best talent as possible, right? And so how do I convince someone to believe in what I'm doing and to come on board probably for less than what their core value is, right?
(18:07)
And to believe in my mission and this thing that I'm doing? So what does that look like? What does that conversation sound like? Yeah. So I'll tell you, that what I found. And you hear this all the time, but people will work harder for a cause than they will for a paycheck.
(18:22)
And so not that being paid is not important, but if you can align yourself with individuals who find that same passion that you do, and then tell them that there's a big opportunity here. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, on Facebook, owns less than 20% of Facebook, right?
(18:40)
And if you budget, you can live off of his salary, right? So I tell people that all the time. Like, when I sit down with folks, and they go, oh, I've got to own 80%. Well, you got 80% of a watermelon.
(18:54)
It's nothing, right? So 80% of nothing or 20% of a billion. I'll take the there you go. 20% all day long. So sometimes that's where our ego leads us to believe. And sometimes it's social media or it's Google or wherever.
(19:08)
Oh, you need to have majority. I really don't know really where that fits in today's world any longer. You've got sites out there. Sorry? You got sites out there, like crowdfunding sites. So for anybody that doesn't really know what crowdfunding is, crowdfunding is where you've got a widget or an idea that you put on on these crowdfunding websites, and strangers all around the world, you know, can donate to this idea.
(19:32)
I got a new watch, a new sneaker, you know, a new business idea, and then they'll get an investment piece, an equity piece, or they might even get the widget. When you bring it to market. Got you. That really changed the game for a lot of people looking for funding.
(19:46)
Because now you can go out and get 5000, 50,000, half a million dollars from total strangers if they believe in your widget. Which is kind of a brilliant idea. It is that whole peer to peer model, man.
(19:59)
Smart. Yeah. So a lot of resources out there for guys that are out and guys that are coming out to really make it, you know? I love it, man. So you spend a lot of time inside the prisons now, right? In fact, we'll be next year going inside Idaho State Prison.
(20:14)
Looking forward to that, man. So we're having a conversation and a gentleman said, my buddy Ed was like speaking is like the new rap, the new rapper. Right? Everybody wants to do it. Yeah. Right. And so how do you unpack your story?
(20:32)
Everyone has a story. How do you unpack that story and get in front of that audience and make a living for yourself? Because you've done well with that. That's just one of the things you do. Yeah, I've enjoyed that.
(20:42)
For sure. So how do I do it? My story, to me, where I put the relevance to my story is that I have every reason in the world to be on the next episode of Jerry Springer. I come from a broken what's that now?
(21:00)
Mari. No, mari is a little too high class. Mari kind of is a little uppity at that point. But I come from a broken home. I come from a drug addicted father formerly incarcerated. You've got every great making of a Jerry Springer episode.
(21:19)
But for me, what I firmly believe I can tell you this and this is rooted within my faith is that we are all here in order to make mistakes. That's the perspective that I view life through. Every one of us here have a purpose, a unique purpose.
(21:36)
And the only way that we are able to understand that purpose. Mistakes. And I firmly believe that. So when I unpack my story, I like to tell these guys that my story is less about prison. My story is more about turning a mess into a message.
(21:50)
Got you. My story is about pain. And we all have pain in our lives. You don't have to be incarcerated or formally incarcerated to have a boatload of pain in your life at present or in your past. Most of the time, we use that pain as an excuse.
(22:07)
You look at our society, we're the most obese medicated in debt society ever. And we have more resources, more how to resources than we've ever had at our disposal. So it's not how to that gets us here.
(22:20)
So what gets us here is using our pain to take us from where we are to where we want to go. And that's my message on the inside, is take what you have learned from this pain and turn it into your passion.
(22:34)
Take this mess and turn it into a message. So my story is about finding your passion, finding your why, and then really giving these guys the tools. When I started accomplished, I wanted to make sure that the tools were tangible.
(22:52)
You hate to say this out loud, but I don't know if anybody's really meant met a prison program that's life changing. That's a tough pill for us to swallow. Because and I say this gently, if seven or eight planes fell out of the sky today, there would be no airline industry.
(23:12)
And if that happened every day at 70 or 80% failure rate, there would be no airline industry. Those same failure rates are present prevalent in the department of corrections in the bureau of prisons.
(23:23)
And yet each year it's funded more and more dollars. So it's an industry. It's a business, right? And so when I go in and I teach these guys it's to stop looking at the woe is me. It's to stop saying my codefendant snitched on me.
(23:40)
Terrible Attorney General. Whatever. Like a cop that should have never arrested me. That's not the story anybody wants to hear. What people want to hear is that you came here, you made a mistake, you owned your mistake, and now you found your purpose inside of that pain, and now you're helping other people change their lives.
(23:56)
That's the real purpose of life, in my opinion. No, I love it, man. So speaking of helping other people change their lives, want to get into the e courses? Because that's really big. Everyone has a course online.
(24:08)
That's one thing I noticed when I came, I was like, man, everybody's an educator. They're selling something. Right. And I know that's something that you're really proficient in. And so how does that work?
(24:18)
Like, someone that has an idea or skill set, how does that person or your formula to make a living with courses online? Yeah. So speaking to everyone's an educator, in my signature, I used to put I have a PhD in MSH.
(24:34)
It was just a PhD in making shit happen. Okay. Yeah. Everybody right to your point. Everybody. But I said it a half hour ago. I'll repeat it. There's so many of these guys out there that are selling courses for a curriculum that they don't even take themselves.
(24:56)
I'll go back to my days, my financial days. We used to say this all the time to people. I would never accept advice from an individual who had less money than you. I would never accept stock advice from an individual who had a smaller stock portfolio than you.
(25:11)
And it was kind of like, stay focused on where you're trying to go. Right. Who's the individual or individuals or whoever that's out there? That's at your end game right now. Right. Your next level goal.
(25:22)
Those are the people that you want to surround yourself with. So to go back to courses, for. Example, before you go there. Right. How many courses do you have because you're one of the largest provider of health education.
(25:34)
Yeah. At this point, we're the largest provider privately held outside of the universities and college. Okay. Inside the Department of Corrections. So inside, we have just over 40 courses. Inside, they range from financial literacy to entrepreneurship.
(25:48)
Got you all the way through mental health, physical strength, emotional resilience, mindset, motivation. They kind of run the gambit. But that works out here, too, though, in real life, you'd be surprised.
(26:00)
It's shocking, right? People say that all the time. Does that work on the outside? And so I go, well, have you ever met an individual who had a limited belief outside of prison? Yeah, everybody. Then I guess it worked, right?
(26:10)
Yeah. No, it does. And that's been the kind of the beauty of it. When I first started, I wanted to go back inside, give my time, give my talents, give my resources, and bring people along that could educate these folks for real life.
(26:23)
Because you know this, you've done it yourself. You're here on season three. Everybody, like Ed said, everybody wants to be a speaker, everyone wants to be a podcaster. Yeah. And so they think that you just set up a tripod and you're off to the races and YouTube just sends you checks in the mail, right?
(26:40)
I wish. Right. But the logistics behind it, the time, the talent, the resources, the energies, the money, the late nights, the friends that help you out, shout out Drake. It's like all of those things, they add up to this three seasons.
(26:56)
This is a lot of work. And so it's not just a course you can put together and tell people, here you go, and then you're good. It's not how it works. So in terms of courses yeah. Where we have found our success in courses is taking guys from a tangible end result.
(27:13)
Okay? So if you want to be a podcaster or if you want to be a trucker, or if you want to own a trucking business, that's the end result. And so how do I reverse engineer into that? In today's world, colleges have been shut down because of COVID Universities are shut down.
(27:27)
And so now you have this curriculum that's everywhere. You have master class who is gigantic. And all these people are going, okay, if I can make 40 or 50 or 60. K a year doing something that I'm passionate about, taking this vocational course.
(27:43)
Well, then why would I go this other route, get myself into debt for six figures and make the same dollar amount and be a little less happy? Yeah. So Gary Vaynerchuk says it the best. Gary Vee says, I'd rather be incredibly happy at 72,000 instead of miserable at 104,000.
(28:00)
Right. That perspective to me is gold. So with the courses, I always suggest that people run through a twelve week course. Okay, twelve weeks. It's kind of simple in people's head. People are comfortable with twelve weeks.
(28:13)
People like it's a quarter. It works well if you're going to sell it inside of Department of Corrections. It also works well. People on the outside, most people will see results over the course of 90 days.
(28:24)
It takes some time. So this isn't a society of six minute ABS any longer. We've kind of realized that was a scam. No disrespect there, but Instagram tells us, unfortunately, that you could become a millionaire from your mom's basement in about four or five days.
(28:42)
Get the body of your dreams with the girl of your dreams with, like, a little bit of barely any work. And that's just not the case. Life is hard. Life is a lot of work, a lot of hustle, a lot of grind, a whole lot of processes, and a boatload of luck along the way.
(28:55)
So if you want to go out, you want to create a course, I always tell people, make sure that you can speak to the energy in that course. What do I mean by that is if you are passionate about this particular idea or this particular widget, it needs to be present in your life.
(29:10)
It can't just be something that you are acutely aware of and just throwing out ideas on a daily basis. Got you. You have to be so in tune with it and understanding where the market's going for that particular niche and understanding where people are going to end up if they take your course.
(29:27)
Got you. Right. If you tell people, what's my pain point that my course is going to solve? What's my process that the course is going to walk you through. And then what's my profitability after I take this course?
(29:27)
Got you. Right. If you tell people, what's my pain point that my course is going to solve? What's my process that the course is going to walk you through. And then what's my profitability after I take this course?
(29:40)
Those are the three P's that you want to answer with that course. Oh, wow. That's dope you all see why he's a mentor? Definitely. I appreciate it on that one. That's a whole lot of game. So what's next with accomplished ventures?
(29:52)
Convicted Life? I know we got some big moves you're making next quarter. We are. We're excited about 2022. With Accomplished, it was really focused on the individuals that are currently incarcerated rated, and I wanted to take that process of having a successful individual on the outside of the fence.
(30:09)
So with Convicted Life, we have four pillars of Convicted Life. You've got mental, physical, spiritual, and financial. So with the mental, we believe that a lot of us come out and we've got some limiting beliefs.
(30:25)
Right. We've got a little bit of pain that's there some trauma, some childhood nonsense. Right. There's some stuff. And so we want to make sure that your mind's right. We want to make sure that you're understanding where we're at and why we're here.
(30:37)
Then we move into the physical just like when we were locked up. What did you do every day? What's your routine? What's your habits? What are we priming the pump for? And then we move into the spiritual.
(30:48)
And I'm not talking religious. I'm talking spiritual from the perspective of what's my purpose and my passion? Right. What's my why inside? Why am I here? Why do I want to make a difference? What's a legacy that I want to leave?
(31:00)
And when those three things are aligned, finances flow. It's not a hard decision to make because you go, no, it feels right. It looks right. It sounds right. And in my heart, now we make the move. Got you.
(31:12)
So with Convicted Life, those are the pillars of the program. Him. And the goal is March of 2022 to put 1000 guys and girls I've been asked that question, but I want to put 1000 formerly incarcerated folks in a room, and I'm wicked passionate about this because there is no network for people like us.
(31:36)
Everybody out there who's got a mastermind program is talking to guys that make six and seven figures. We've all made rich guys richer. What I want to do is I want to talk to the underdog. I want to talk to the guy or the gal who's got a nine to five, but has a passion that they want to work on.
(31:49)
Five to nine. I like it. I want to make sure that if we put 1000 people in a room, that they've got the resources, they've got the legal, the financial, the HR, the operations, the sales, and it's all of us, us pushing one another to that next level.
(32:03)
And when we find that particular drive, that particular community, I think it's going to be unstoppable. So my year one is four events in 2020, 2000 people in the room where we level up. Your network determines your net worth.
(32:20)
We level up, we help one another. Year two, I want to put together a felon founded fund where we put where we pool resources and money together, and we start investing into some of these concepts and ideas and businesses that came out of the first year.
(32:35)
Okay, fell in backed industries. And then year three, some of those dollars that we received from the previous year, we start putting the right people into political power at a local level, at a community level, where when communities are regentrified, we know and we make sure that the woman and the man that are in that community as a staple that they receive the training that they need to take on the jobs that are coming to that community.
(33:03)
Got you that it's not somebody from the outside that's getting the salary, but that money is staying in the community. It's going to the schools and the parks and the churches and that those people are really, really invested in that community.
(33:13)
So year three is politics. And that, to me, folks, is that's the game changer. The game changer? Yeah. And that's where convicted life stems from. In order to make a change in life, mental, physical, emotional, financial, you need to be convicted.
(33:27)
Yeah. So how do people reach out to you, man? You want to be a part of Aaron? All right. Phone won't blow up. Yeah, you can kind of find me on Instagram at I am Travisrichie. You can find me on LinkedIn at Travisrichiemba.
(33:43)
You can find [email protected]. You can find [email protected]. I'm pretty accessible. If you Google me travisrichie accomplished or Travisrichyconvicted life, I'm pretty accessible. My phone number is on there.
(33:58)
So happy. Help anybody, anytime. Well, there you have it. Another dope episode of Escaping the Odds podcast. We interview the formerly incarcerated who are now successful entrepreneurs. This has been season three with Travis Ritchie and look forward to you all continue to hang out with us.
(34:14)
Check out the podcast on Escaping Odds.com, instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, pretty much everywhere. Just reach out. Peace.
