Richard Bronson|A Wolf Of Wall Street to Federal Prison

Aaron Smith Reentry
04/27/2023 11:16am 42 minute read

Introduction - Richard Bronson|A Wolf Of Wall Street to Federal Prison

Host Aaron Smith interviews Richard Bronson, a former partner of Stratton Oakmont who served time in prison and went on to become a successful entrepreneur. Bronson shares his journey and discusses his social network, Commissary Club, which connects and supports people with criminal records. The episode also features a group discussion on the importance of employment for reducing recidivism rates and the necessary resources for successful reentry into society after incarceration.

Objectives:

Hear the stories of men and women switching hustles and escaping the odds through entrepreneurship after prison.
Unlock business tips for financial freedom.

Group Discussion Questions

How easy or how challenging was it for Richard Bronson to pivot from 70 million jobs to Commissary Club? What advice would you give to someone who is considering pivoting their business?
Why is employment considered the silver bullet for reducing recidivism rates? What other factors contribute to the high rate of recidivism among formerly incarcerated individuals?
How can social networks like Commissary Club help connect and support people with criminal records?
What other resources or support systems do you think are necessary for successful reentry into society after incarceration?

Feature Video

Transcripts - Richard Bronson | A Wolf Of Wall Street to Federal Prison!

*Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be entirely accurate or free from errors.

(00:00)

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.

(00:17)

Thank you all for tuning in to another dope episode of Escaping Odds. I am your host, Aaron Smith, and today we have a good brother on here, Mr. Richard Bronson. We interviewed a former incarcerators who are now successful entrepreneurs, and this brother came home from prison and really hit the ground running.

(00:37)

Started a social network called the Commissary Club. But before then, he started 70 millionjobs.com to help men and women such as myself be able to come home and be able to survive and provide for their families to gain for employment.

(00:50)

So he switched it up a little bit, but yet still helping out this population, and we're going to get into his backstory and Commissary Club and the whole nine. So I want to welcome Mr. Richard Bronson to the show.

(01:02)

What's going on, man? Hey, Aaron. Nice to see you for having me. I appreciate it. Oh, no, absolutely, man. You're doing some pretty remarkable things, kind of change the landscape as it relates to a place where the formerly incarcerated can come and actually kind of hang out and kind of meet other people that went through the same situation.

(01:21)

They have exchange resources and all things of that nature. So I think it's pretty adult concept, and I want to get into that. But before we get into that, I want to kind of get into your backstory and kind of talk about how you came up with the idea and even your whole experience, like, leading up to prison and actually in prison.

(01:39)

So if you can walk us through that, that'd be great. Yeah, sure. I am from New York, like you chicago. You're from Chicago? I went to school in Chicago. All right. Not the same, though. Yeah. Cold is what?

(02:01)

I'm from New York. Sorry. And you sound like you're from New York. And I used to work on Wall Street, and I worked some big banks, and I made a lot of money. And then at a certain point, I actually started working at this firm on Long Island called Stratton Oakmont.

(02:22)

And I eventually became partner of this firm. And if you saw the movie by Martin Scorsese called Wolf of Wall Street, that was who we were. And I was very much involved with all of that. It was just as crazy as the movie showed it to be.

(02:43)

Oh, my God. It was off the chain completely. Twenty four seven. And we had a lot of fun. We broke a lot of laws, but I left there and I moved to South Florida, I moved to Miami, and I started my own firm.

(03:02)

Okay? And it was based really, about the prior firm. It would be run the same way. And I had a great deal of success with it. Within a couple of years, we were doing about $100 million in business, and I had about 500 employees throughout the country.

(03:21)

And I was making a lot of money. That was pretty serious. And I was collecting art, and I opened up a nightclub on South Beach hottest club and driving Ferraris and dating supermodels and all this kind of stuff in Miami Beach, which is a lot.

(03:45)

What year was this? This was 1991 to, like, 97. Okay. Got. Um but unfortunately, I was breaking laws while I was doing it. And I knew what I was doing was wrong. I can't say that it was someone else or the government made a mistake didn't make.

(04:08)

And I knew eventually I'd have to pay the price. And indeed I did. One day, a couple of people with badges and guns on their hip knocked on my door and said, do you mind if we talk to you for a minute?

(04:23)

And then at that point, I just knew, okay, let the deal go down. I've been waiting for this to happen. It's finally happening. So they said to me, well, if you like and help us bring cases against other people, then you probably won't have to go to prison.

(04:40)

You're still going to be indicted. You'll get a felony, but you're not going to have to do time. Do you want to do that? I said no. I feel bad enough about shit that I've done. I'm not going to ruin other people's lives to save my own ass.

(04:54)

I'll never forgive myself for that. So I went away to prison, and I went away for a couple of years, and I lost everything I used to be. I had art, I had money, and then I had nothing. And I came out of prison.

(05:11)

I had less than nothing. I was homeless, actually. Wow. And I was completely destitute. And I really had no idea what to do with my life. I used to have this huge ego and everything, and I was probably a complete jerk most of the time.

(05:30)

As you know, you go away scrubbing toilets all day. If that doesn't teach you a little humility, nothing is, nothing will, right? Nothing is. And I got to see that was a good lesson to learn. So I came out of prison.

(05:45)

I was certainly a changed person, and. Over. You know, it took me a while, honestly. It wasn't like I hit the ground running because I couldn't figure out who was I. Was I a home run hitter, or should I just take it easy and start slow and rebuild things?

(06:03)

And I had no idea, and nobody was really around to help me to tell me. So I wasted time, and it was a very difficult time in my life as it is most people. What year is this? I got out in 2005. Okay. Got you.

(06:22)

So eventually, I actually found a home working at a nonprofit in the reentry space in new york called defy ventures. And that was good. It was good work. I felt good. My soul, I was doing something that wasn't crooked.

(06:41)

But when I would think about it, I go, how much impact are we really having? How much impact are all of these well meaning nonprofit organizations? How much impact are they having? And the answer is, really not that much.

(06:55)

Unfortunately. The unemployment rate in this country for folks with records right now is over 50%. The rate of recidivism how three out of four people who leave jail or prison are going back to jail or prison, 75%.

(07:13)

That isn't good. And I don't have to tell you, it's just a cycle that just never ends. And I just looked at the way reentry was being handled and the way it's been handled for, I don't know, hundreds of years s and I'm saying it's just not working.

(07:33)

It's completely broken. And I think anybody could do better. And I thought, okay, maybe I can too. I thought, first of all, I'm going to do it not as another nonprofit, because the world doesn't need another one of them.

(07:48)

But I'm going to do it as a for profit company because that's what I know. And for profit nonprofits are not as aggressive. They get good people working there, but they're kind of thoughtful, they're smart, but they don't really do much, truly.

(08:06)

And I just felt like we could be a lot more aggressive and we could be accountable and we could really this thing. And I can attract for profit people and I can attract capital as well. That's a good point.

(08:20)

Nonprofits have to rely on donations and they sort of live month to month, which is not no way to run a business. So I was very lucky. I came up with this plan. And there's an organization out in Silicon Valley called Y Combinator.

(08:41)

And Y Combinator is considered globally the very, very top number one accelerator program. So they take companies, some of their companies you've heard of, like Reddit and Dropbox, Airbnb, Airbnb and DoorDash and a whole lot more.

(09:04)

And they invest in them and then they train them. And they train them in a lot of things how to run how to run a tech business. They train them in how to go out and raise money and how to do a pitch deck and how to pitch and all of these things that people wouldn't normally know unless you learned, you know?

(09:28)

And and I will tell you for any of I know a lot of your listeners are entrepreneurial and have an interest in building a big, successful company, which I think is great. And that's one way to sort of take control of your economic future.

(09:46)

Y Combinator. You can apply and you just go online to Wine Combinator and you'll see where you can apply. But they also have something called the startup school where they will accept pretty much anybody and it's done online.

(10:01)

It doesn't cost a penny. And they give you access to all of this information that you could possibly need from the smartest people around. Truly. And I learned so much there. Without it, I would have been nowhere going through it.

(10:19)

I felt like I became like a made man in Silicon Valley where people would respect the fact that I went through this program and I knew what to say and what not to say and whatever and I was able to raise a couple of million dollars for my company.

(10:34)

Okay. 70 million jobs? Yes. So the company was 70 million jobs and the company is the first for profit national employment platform for people with criminal records. So the whole point here is unemployment correlates directly with recidivism.

(10:53)

If people don't get a job, well guess what? They got to get money somehow. They're going to break the law. If they don't get a job and they have kids, they got to put food on the table. I mean what the fuck else are they supposed to do?

(11:07)

If they get a job, they almost never get in trouble again. They live happily ever after. It's that cut and dry. So I said, well, employment is the silver bullet. That's what I'm going to work on. So we launched 70 million jobs and a couple of years ago raised money.

(11:26)

As I say, I was out in San Francisco. I moved the company to Los Angeles, which is where I am now. And we were successful. We've been successful in helping thousands of people get jobs. And I'm really proud of it because that's far more than any organization has ever come close to.

(11:45)

And we were actually making money too, which was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus had other plans for us because our people were working in manufacturing and construction and warehousing and shipping and meat packing and all these other jobs.

(12:02)

And when the Coronavirus hit, those were the first to go. They all got laid off, every one of them. And our business, US, which was doing great, all of a sudden dropped like a rock to like zero. Wow.

(12:15)

Yeah, it was like overnight. So what do we do? It's either we pack it in or we go to plan B. And that was plan B was ultimately what me and my team chose to do, and that was to build out Commissary Club, which is the first social network for folks with records.

(12:36)

Let me ask this question, right. How easy or how challenging was it for you to pivot like that? You have put all your time and energy into 7 million jobs. Of course, it was something that was really heavy on your heart because you've been through the whole experience.

(12:51)

So for someone who's listening and they have a business and they're trying to figure out, do I let my baby go and work on another baby? Or what kind of work do you give them to? That yeah, that's a great classic question, because there's two schools of thought here.

(13:08)

My answer is not going to result it's for anybody. On the one hand, the modern thinking now is if you're doing some kind of tech business, particularly, the idea is to get it up running, get it online as quickly as you can.

(13:27)

Don't worry if it's not perfect, okay. You create what's called an MVP, a minimally viable product. In other words, it gets the point across. People get it. And then if people really like it, the market likes it, then you're on to something, and you just start building it out and proving it.

(13:45)

And if they don't, you walk away from it, and you don't go down with the ship. You don't waste time and money. You go on to the next one, because ideas are a dime a dozen. So that's one school of thought.

(13:57)

At the same time, there's another school of thought that says a good entrepreneur, a good founder, is gritty and determined and resilient and tough and keeps pounding away and pounding away. Take airbnb, for example.

(14:15)

Everyone knows what airbnb is. They rent out rooms in people's homes for people who are traveling. But that wasn't their original business. Their original business was providing air mattresses for people traveling.

(14:29)

And they worked at that, and they worked at that, and it wasn't going anywhere. And normally you would say, all right, that was a stupid idea, just shit, can the whole thing and forget about it. But they kept at it.

(14:39)

And then accidentally, they hit upon doing what their current business model is. They went public, I think, was it last week? And now the three founders are multi billionaires because they hung in there.

(14:54)

So there's conflicting advice that you can get, and you got to just trust your heart, ultimately. Listen, being an entrepreneur, the smartest ones who went to the best colleges and all the advantages, most of those don't work out.

(15:10)

So how are guys like us who have less resources, how are we supposed to make it? All I can tell you is if you were a hustle like your sweatshirt, I'm going to sell sweatshirts right now. The idea is, if you were an entrepreneur, if you were successful on the street, if you were selling drugs and you did it and you were doing a lot of it.

(15:33)

You're a fucking entrepreneur. You should be doing this. Just switch the hustle a little bit. And the idea is not to make money. The idea is to keep money. And I made a lot of money, but I have nothing to show for it, so that's not the approach.

(15:49)

So we switched to this thing, Commissary Club, which is a social network, which is sort of like Facebook for people, for ex cons, basically. And we still do employment, but now, like on Facebook, we are connecting this population, 70 million of us, one in three adults.

(16:10)

We're connecting. That's a mind blowing statistic. One in three adults have a record. But mostly we sort of live very sort of solitary lives. We're sort of in the shadows. We want to stay out of the system.

(16:26)

We want to keep our head below the radar. But the problem is there's this connection gap. We're not there to hook each other up. We're not there to provide role models or give advice. You leave prison, and they put you on supervised release, and they tell you, well, you got to get a job.

(16:47)

You got to get a home. You got to get your life together. Oh, but by the way, you can't talk to anybody with a record. Well, who the hell are you supposed to talk to? Who do you know? Certainly people I knew, and I wasn't allowed to do it.

(16:59)

Well, we want to create an environment where people can talk and learn and inspire and hook each other up. Women did that. In the women's movement. They call that sisterhood. As far as I'm concerned, everybody with a record is brother and a sister.

(17:14)

And if we all looked after each other and if we all spoke with one voice, we could elect any president we want. We could get a whole lot out of life, and mostly we could say, we're not second class citizens.

(17:28)

We did our time. Enough is enough. No, absolutely, man. I was talking to someone about how with the women's movement or even the LGBTQ movement, they become like, a protected class, and I think we have definitely the manpower to be able to do something like that on that level.

(17:54)

You know what I mean? Just a matter of having platforms such as yours to be able to kind of bring everyone together. One room, sort of, right? It's never been done. So that's what we're trying to do on the site.

(18:10)

And people are connecting with each other, and they have groups that they can go in. If you're interested in finance or sports or music or whatever, and you can connect with each other based upon that, or if you're in Chicago and other people in Chicago and you want to connect these days, you're not going to hook up with people too much, but you could.

(18:30)

So that's exactly the point when you consider maybe we all don't have a lot of money, but together we do. Together we buy a lot of mobile phones and we buy a lot of sneakers and we buy a lot of food and we watch a lot of TV and video game and on and on and on.

(18:50)

And yet nobody, nobody, no company takes the time or considers us worthy of just marketing. To us, no bank does. Hey, you got a criminal record? No problem. Come on in and open an account. We'll welcome you.

(19:04)

Nobody does that. To me, that's wrong. And to me, it's also a business opportunity because no one's doing it. It took the words right out of my mouth with that. So if you can walk me through what does that whole process look like when I do sign on to the commissary club?

(19:29)

Basically, what's the business model? I'm sorry. What's the business model of commissary club? Okay, that's a good question you're asking. First of all, there's no cost or charge to anybody. So, number one, you come on, and this is designed exclusively for folks with records.

(19:49)

In other words, people ask me, well, why don't people go to facebook? I go, people do go to facebook. But the problem that we hear people tell us is that facebook is where grandmothers are and little kids are and whatever, and I don't feel comfortable there.

(20:05)

That's not my place. We deserve our own place. Number one, we all deserve our own place. So this is what we want to create. We make money, or we will make money a variety of different ways. We'll continue our employment, work, and with that, companies pay us to get people basically in a variety of different ways.

(20:29)

So it's companies there. That's one way. Number two, like facebook will have advertising. That's where facebook makes all of their money. $85 billion a year or some ridiculous amount. They control more advertising than anybody by far, them and instagram, which they are.

(20:47)

So we'll have that. But I think the biggest place we'll get is we figured out how to get people jobs. And right now, governments I'm in California, the state of California, the city of Los Angeles, the county of Los Angeles, new York, Chicago, believe it or not, they spend about $350,000,000,000 on reentry to help people so that they get jobs, but that ain't working.

(21:20)

To help them get homes, but that ain't working. They're essentially getting very little value for all this money they're spending. We figured out how to get people jobs. That part we cracked. And we know they can pay us a little bit, or they can continue paying a lot for lousy results.

(21:39)

So we're marketing our services to governments, and that's where the money is, and the need is there. And they know how lousy the system is. I mean, it's the only thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on, is how fucked up the criminal justice system is so we can do some of these things a little bit better.

(22:02)

And we think they'll be very happy to pay us. And I've offered that already, so I know that to be the case. So that'll be the primary driver. If I'm thinking of starting a business, Richard, how should I be thinking about scaling that business?

(22:19)

Like, really taking it to the next level. What are some of the things I should be keeping in mind? Okay. There's certain classic mistakes that entrepreneurs make. Number one, they move much too slowly.

(22:34)

Okay. They want to wait until everything is perfect before they go out in the market with it. Why do they do that? Because they're afraid of rejection. They tell themselves, well, you're ready yet? I'm not ready yet.

(22:49)

I'm not ready yet. Bullshit. The best thing you can do is get it out there and let the market tell you, it doesn't matter what I think or you think about our businesses. It matters what the market thinks.

(23:00)

Right? So if you're doing a catering business or a sweatshirt business or whatever, even if it's not perfect, get it out there. People will get the idea. And you don't go to your friends, and you don't go to your parents.

(23:15)

You go to people who don't know you, who are potential customers, and you say, hey, this is what I'm doing. What do you think? It's not perfect, but it will be. But what do you think, basically? And if they go, wow, that's really cool, that sweatshirt of yours.

(23:30)

I don't think I like that color. Well, don't worry about the color. I can change the color. But what about the concept? Does the concept make sense? So number one, get out as quickly as you can, okay?

(23:42)

Get out as quickly as you can. That's one thing. Another thing is worrying about the wrong things. When I worked at Defy, we were teaching entrepreneurialism there, and I can't tell you how long. I mean, I would talk to people and I go, so what's going on with your business?

(24:02)

And they're going, It's going real good. Okay, tell me, what are you up to? Well, I'm working on getting my LLC. I can't tell you how many times I heard this. There's nothing less important than hearing than that.

(24:15)

That's not again, what matters you have to be able to say, what are the make and break things about my business getting an LLC? First of all, you could do it online in 15 minutes, so it shouldn't be taking you very long.

(24:31)

And that's just the legal thing. It has nothing to do with your business. The idea is get your business out there and show it to people. If you're in a catering business, like a lot of brothers that I came across through Defy, they wanted to do that, and they had their recipes or the mama's recipes or whatever, I go, what have you done?

(24:50)

Well, I'm working on my business card. Another meaningless thing. I go, no, that's not what you should do. You should go home and you should create. I go, do you have a specialty dish? You do? Yeah, I do ribs or whatever it is.

(25:04)

I go get little cups and repair samples of your ribs, make like 50 of them. Could you do that? Put them on a tray? Pick out a building in Chicago when people were working in buildings or an apartment building, go in there and knock on doors one after another and go, Hi.

(25:25)

My name is Richard Bronson. I have a catering business that's brand new. I think you're going to love my food. Can I give you a taste? Not everybody's going to like it. Not everyone's going to want it.

(25:35)

But if you go to 50 people, someone's going to say, man, this is really good if it's good. If it's bad, you shouldn't be in the business. And I hate to tell you, but that's tough love. It's better to find out now than to wait time.

(25:50)

So let the market tell you and get it out there. You can't screw it up. Get it out there. Yeah, that's excellent advice, man. Really oftentimes I started doing something else before I started escaping.

(26:06)

Odds, actually, in the tech industry. Thankfully, I had a mentor who's also in the tech field, and for a while I was feeling kind of bad about failing for it, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, Man, I almost felt like a quitter.

(26:23)

But as he explained it to me, just based on his experience, and he gave me that term, to fail for it, you know what I'm saying? Like, hey, look, you know what I'm saying? You just got to accept that it was a failure, but not like that you failed.

(26:34)

That okay. It's something else that you want to. Do and you learn from it the next time. Absolutely nobody cares if the next idea is a good one. In Silicon Valley, combinator is where we were and where the tech world exists, it's almost considered a rite of passage.

(26:58)

Like if you haven't failed, they won't trust you. That the greatest lessons come from failing, and that if you fail and yet come back, that really says a lot about your character. If you fail and you go, Shit, I'm a failure, I can't do this.

(27:14)

Goodbye. They don't want to invest with that person. They want the person who just keeps coming back. Rockham sockham robot. Nothing's going to stop. You're going to make it with or without your help.

(27:29)

I'm thinking about based on what you told me, far as, like, your life. Right. Okay. You were astradden oakmont, and you had this lavish life as being, like, this banker or someone in the financial market.

(27:41)

That was one life. Right. You went to prison. Yes. Another life. Right. Meeting all different. Kind of extraordinary. I call them extraordinary people. I'm sure that you mess with people that you remember, like, a whole lot of characters, both good and bad, then now released, and now you have to reinvent yourself.

(28:02)

Yes. Right. And so the question I have for you is, like, all the people that you came across in prison, a lot of great entrepreneurial mind, good ideas, and things of that nature, what pretty much differentiated them from, I guess, the people that you met, like in your previous life, you know, I what?

(28:25)

Mean as far as on Wall Street and then even now in your present life to people in the tech world. That's a good question. I will tell you that there's a certain gene that successful people have, and their success comes in many, many different ways, obviously.

(28:48)

But what all successful people in my experience and as you point out, I'm an old man with a lot of experience who's had many lives, as you point out. Thank you for making me feel older. Hey, experience.

(29:02)

Yeah. Okay. What successful people have is the ability to take a deep breath and dive in the deep water and say, what the fuck? I'll figure out how to swim when I get there. A lot of people. You know, you know, they want they're they're smart.

(29:24)

They're good people. There's nothing wrong with them, but they'll come up with 100 reasons why it's not a good idea to pursue their dream, and they'll take a safer path. And in life, like investing, there's a risk reward thing.

(29:39)

The more the risk, the more the reward. The less the risk, the less the reward. You want to take a safe path, go work at the post office. Go work at McDonald's. Go work at a big company where you're never going to be the owner.

(29:56)

In sports, you can be a singles hitter, and there's successful people who hit singles for average. But I always saw it myself. I was put on this earth for a reason, to do something great and swing for the seats and take a chance.

(30:12)

I'm a gambler, and I trust myself. My ability to sort of deal with it as it comes along, and sometimes that's worked out and sometimes it hasn't for me, I admit. But that's the difference between really successful people and people who aren't.

(30:35)

They just had the you know what to go ahead and just go for it. And I always tell people, if that's really what you want, the big if you want to hit a home run, you just got to take a deep breath and go for it.

(30:52)

Were you surprised about the different men that you met while you were incarcerated? Because I was you know what I mean? And I'm from inner city, and I've been around these kind of guys, but not in that capacity.

(31:08)

As far as being incarcerated and even knowing the business mind of some of these men, even myself, I got back to the essence of who I was. Like, prison allowed for me to really. It's going to sound crazy, but I think this will resonate with you.

(31:23)

That like a sense of freedom and creativity, you know what I'm saying? Because I had the opportunity to kind of really get back to who I was, and part of that I was able to meet other people that was like minded like me.

(31:35)

And in the beginning I was kind of like surprised, like, wow, man, a lot of these cats, man, such as myself. It's like we're taking on a whole another level, different business, this is stuff like that.

(31:46)

It's just that we wasn't exposed in a lot of cases to the resources and things of that nature. Did you find it the same thing? Because it was guys like you that I could think back on that were like coming from Wall Street that really laced my boots up, if you will, like mentor me.

(32:04)

Did you notice the same thing? I had a lot of guys who are a little younger and who I became friendly with, who I would not have come in contact with. Like you wouldn't have come in contact with some hedge fund, rich, absolutely middle aged white guy.

(32:24)

I wouldn't come in contact with some of the people that I did, what I learned. So that was a great lesson for me, is that, number one, people are people, and it's not like you're in prison and you're some evil person.

(32:38)

Morality is a very it's not black and white. Number one, there are good people and there are bad people, and there are good in prison and elsewhere, I believe. And I came across a lot of guys who, as you said, had they been born into a different world, a different set of circumstances, socio, economically, they would have gone to school at Stanford or Harvard or whatever and would have had that path and never would have seen a day in prison.

(33:10)

Whereas maybe in the world they grew up in, there were no obvious paths other than a life. Slinging drugs. That's where you make money. That's where other people did it. That's where your brother did it.

(33:24)

That's where your father maybe your father did it. And you're going to follow suit like I followed suit, and you use what's around you, and that's what you learn. I found that there were many guys who I became friendly with.

(33:43)

I mean, who I love, I used to go to the weight pile with, and we hung out, was in bands playing with them. So they became my buddies, and they were very eager to learn what I had to tell them to teach them.

(33:56)

And they wanted to make sure that we stayed connected when we got out, because they were smart, and they took it as an opportunity. It's like networking goes on all the time. You can do networking in prison.

(34:09)

When I was in prison, I was in prison. Jared Kushner, who was Trump's son in law, his father was in prison with me, okay? And there were congressmen, and there were successful business people and all types, because I was in prison in Florida, so a lot of people knew me.

(34:29)

When I walked into prison, I'm walking through the yard, and all these people are coming up to me, and they go, I know you. They all knew me. And I go, like some mobbed up guy or something. They go, I went to your nightclub, or I used to deal drugs at your nightclub, or I did this or I did that.

(34:48)

They read about me and all this other shit, and they all became my friends. And we got to do the time. You got to hang out with somebody, and they were very they were entrepreneurs. We were talking about a guy before.

(35:02)

His name is KAS Marte, who went through this defy venture program. He's in New York and in prison. He was fat. And he was sick because he was so fat, and he was in solitary for, like, six months straight, and he had to lose weight.

(35:21)

So he came up this whole workout program, and he was a huge drug dealer. He supplied Wall Street with a lot of blow back in the day. So that's why he was in. He comes out and he decides, I'm going to build a fitness company.

(35:37)

I'm going to build a chain of gyms. And he calls it ConBody. I'm sorry. And it's like a prison yard workout system. And he's been enormously successful. He is a real entrepreneur, and he a great entrepreneur.

(35:55)

No matter what you are, that okay. Absolutely. You are clearly that you have the gene. You wear it on your forehead. Okay? So I recognize that. And you just got to make sure you're doing what the best way to use your precious time and go for it?

(36:15)

And why not? You like, who the hell is that? Much better than you or smarter than you or whatever. Nobody is just believe enough and take a deep breath and just throw yourself into it. And I'm telling you, someone like you has great success lying ahead.

(36:38)

No, absolutely, man. Thank you for that. I appreciate that coming from you. It's obvious. Yeah. Thank you, man. So what's next for commissary club man? What can we expect going into 2021? 2020 has been crazy, man.

(36:52)

Oh, yeah. Um, so we have a lot of cool things going on. You know, we're in La. Nipsey Hussle was was great in La. And everybody loved him. We were approached by his brother. And we are working out details with Atlantic Records to do.

(37:12)

The next great rap artist who would end up the winner would get a contract with Atlantic Records and work on Nipsey's Brother's, work with him as well. And we're very excited about that. We're in talks with some people about doing a show about prisons for TV and we have something that everybody is invited to.

(37:41)

It's called the yard. And it's Wednesday night. So if you go to Commissary club and we're going to get you on there, Aaron, but for your people watching who are in prison every day, you'd have an hour or 90 minutes or whatever to go out in.

(37:59)

The yard and get some fresh air and you'd see your friends and maybe you'd be on the Bleacher seats if they had them, or a picnic table or somewhere. You would just hang out and you would talk about everything or nothing wherever the conversation went, and you just kick it with them and you'd laugh and you'd yell and you'd carry on.

(38:22)

But it was important we do that every Thursday night. And if you go to Commissary Club and we have some guests on who are really interesting and funny and we don't want them to be too serious, of course, sometimes it is, and people sometimes have a lot of emotions about their time spent down.

(38:44)

But we also remember the times when we laughed very hard as well and I would invite everybody to come check it out. And mostly so you can be with your brothers and sisters. Nobody understands you like people have been through it.

(39:01)

And from my point of view, if we're not looking after each other, then shame on us. That's what I think. So that's what we're trying to do, and I welcome everybody to kind of be part of that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, richard, man, and you're absolutely right, man, as far as the camaraderie, right?

(39:21)

In that environment, I tell people all the time that most of my closest friends are still incarcerated, and it's like because you can spend once you're in there, you spend 24 hours with someone one year.

(39:40)

Spending 24 hours with somebody every day is probably one year, 1020 years somewhere on the street, because you don't see them every day, right? You don't see them in a good, bad, their emotional issues, their problems with their wives and girlfriends and baby moms, all that kind of stuff.

(39:58)

It's a different kind of dynamic, man. I'm definitely looking forward to coming on the yard, man, and just supporting any way that I can. I believe in what you're doing. I think it's pretty dope and just how you switch hustles and kind of winning the environment, man, that you never would have thought in a million years that you'll be immersed into what came out and kind of seen the value in it and wants to provide a service that's valuable.

(40:27)

I believe so. I think it's pretty dope and cool, man. So I look forward to seeing everything you're doing 21, man, and also definitely stand with you, man. I got to pick your brain as if we were on the yard.

(40:40)

You know what I'm saying? Sit down on the bleach. So to pick and take business together, do together, it sounded like that was very evil when I said we can do some business together. You're building a media empire, and I have interest in that, too.

(41:01)

There's lots of things that and my feeling is. Along these lines is there are other good people, smart people who got their hustle, and we're not enemies, and it's not like a zero sum game. Well, you're successful.

(41:17)

That means I can't be. We can all be successful. We can all help each other be successful. We can all celebrate at the top. The day is going to come when clubs are open again, and we can get together and enjoy an adult drink together and listen to music together and dance and have fun and celebrate.

(41:44)

My message is always listen. What we've gone through has made us better, stronger people. Absolutely. We've gained strength. We've gained wisdom, and, yeah, I certainly don't wish that. I certainly would have preferred not going to prison, but having done it, I got a lot out of it, and I'm proud of who I am, and I'm proud of that.

(42:09)

I did my time honorably, and I bring all of that stuff to any situation I'm in now. So I don't apologize. I don't apologize. I did what I did, and I did the best that I can do, and I gained from it, and I'm a better man for it.

(42:30)

And if you don't dig that, then that's on you. It is what it is. So tell all this man what they can reach out to you, man, or reach out and check out Commissary Club and all the contact information. Yeah, all right.

(42:43)

So Commissary Club is the website, and please check it out. And then there's instructions if you want to register to be there for the yard, which is Thursday night. You got to sort of get your name on the list there, and we have a lot of people who sign up for that.

(43:05)

And I'm going to give you my email, which is Richard at commissary Club. And if you have questions or you want to share what you're up to or you want to tell me what we're doing wrong, whatever you want to do or just to say hello, I welcome you to please do it.

(43:25)

I'd love to hear from everybody. And I'm really very, very appreciative that you would consider having me on your show. And I think you're doing great, and you're doing great work, too. So please keep it up.

(43:42)

All right, thanks. I appreciate that. Well, I want to thank the audience for tuning in to another dope episode of Escaping the Odds. We are in season two. Season one was really great, man. Really a learning experience, man.

(43:55)

Really enjoyed all the guests I have. And this season, man, we continue to do remarkable things. Don't forget to review on Apple podcast, the YouTube escaping Odds. Escaping Odds.com. You can watch all archive videos as well.

(44:12)

Got the merchandise switch hustle by Escaping the Odds. Don't forget to support that. And yeah, just check me out. Facebook, Instagram, pretty much everywhere. And as we like to say here, opportunities over penitentiaries unlocking freedom.

(44:27)

So I want to thank everybody for tuning on there and continue to rock with us. Don't forget to support Commissary Club. Yeah, let's rock out with us and change the narrative. Thanks a lot, bro. Appreciate you coming on.

(44:38)

Have a good night, everybody. All right, you one.