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Bare It All with Linnsey is where nothing is off limits. From thriving in recovery to building businesses, raising kids while chasing dreams, diving deep into mental health, and making a real difference in the world — we talk about it all. This podcast is raw, real, and completely unfiltered. Whether you’re healing, hustling, or just trying to make it through the day, you’re in the right place. We’re here to inspire, empower, and remind you that you can rise from anything.
Then I finally went to a prison for twelve years for attempted murder. Seven years for attempted murder, four years for a great bodily injury, and another year for gang enhancement. 1989, I believe, was the year I joined the gang at 10. My dad used to, like, beat the shit out of me. So he's the first person that I wanted to kill.
Speaker 1:When my mom died on the phone with me, there was no I love you, there was no I miss you, there wasn't anything like that. It was just she just wanted me to change my life. I got out with, a passion, and a purpose. So I had a passion and purpose for my freedom, and a purpose was to just stay out and to try to make as much as I could by helping people. So I've been making six figures for fifteen years.
Speaker 2:How long into your sentence did you realize I'm gonna change my life?
Speaker 1:I'm not just some tattooed missing tooth guy. I'm also the little kid that misses his mom.
Speaker 2:Joe, welcome to bear it all with Linnsey. You guys, I'm so excited for my guest. So I was on a Zoom, what, like a few weeks ago?
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, about three, four weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Okay. And with some really good friends of mine talking about an event we're gonna do. And our friend Angela was like, you gotta meet this guy, Joe. You guys have stuff in common. And then I heard a little bit about your story.
Speaker 2:And I was like, you have to come on my podcast. And you flew to LA to come on the podcast. So I'm so excited
Speaker 1:to you. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:And I wanna hear your story. So you did twelve years in prison.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Twelve twelve straight years in prison. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you gotta take it back to the beginning. Tell me your story. I have to hear this.
Speaker 1:Well, was born in Romania, Timischada, 1979. Ceausescu was the president. My parents wanted to come here to America legally, so it took a long time. So they applied for a visa. It took seven years.
Speaker 1:I was born, and then we moved to Mobile, Alabama in '83. And then a year and a half later, I think we moved to Houston, Texas roughly because I was a kid. And then after Houston, Texas, we moved to Sacramento, California in Oak Park. And in '19 yeah. So I would say probably that was '86, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1:And Okay. In 1989, I believe, was the year I I joined a gang at 10. So I grew up with a
Speaker 2:Holy shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah. 10 years old. So I didn't really know what gangs were. I just knew that I was very, very close with one of my friends. He was also at my party as well.
Speaker 1:And my dad was very abusive. He's an alcoholic. I tried to justify why he was so abusive because he came from a communistic country, Eastern Europe. They do things and conduct themselves a lot differently than they do here in America.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So at 10, I joined a gang, and then, at 12, I wanted to kill him. So he's the first person that I wanted to kill, at 12 years old.
Speaker 2:Your dad?
Speaker 1:My dad. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. First person, one of the last as well too. So we never really had a a very good relationship. But from the time I was 12 years old until I went to prison, I was in and out of juvenile hall. They committed a lot of crime, more than I can that I can count on.
Speaker 1:And then I finally went to prison for twelve years for attempted murder. And then
Speaker 2:So attempted murder?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I tried to I tried to kill somebody.
Speaker 2:And you were how old at that time?
Speaker 1:I was 19 when I committed the crime, but I was 20 when when I went in. So I committed the crime when I was 19. And then at twenty three days later, I went in because I was on parole from the California Youth Authority, which they no longer have. Apparently, they deemed it too violent. So I
Speaker 2:also So you were on parole at the time that it happened?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. I was on parole from the California Youth Authority for another crime I committed.
Speaker 2:So you got attempted murder and you get sentenced to what were you actually sentenced to?
Speaker 1:Seven years for attempted murder, four years for great bodily injury, and another year for gang enhancement.
Speaker 2:Oh, so they made you serve the whole time?
Speaker 1:Well, 85%, but I kept getting into fights and I was
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wasn't a a role model. I went from a level three to a maximum security.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you get a time added in there?
Speaker 1:A lot of time. Yeah. And I caught two DA cases while I was in there, but the district attorney didn't wanna pick them up. Because the prison that I was at, they were only picking up, like, murderers and severe crimes.
Speaker 2:So you get twelve years in prison. Yeah. How so tell me about, like, that time in there. You so it sounds like at first, were still like, fuck it, not ready to change your life, still live in that same lifestyle. How long were you still in that same lifestyle in prison?
Speaker 1:Oh, most of my time.
Speaker 2:Oh, really?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. I would say most of my time because from the time I was 10, that's all I really knew. You gotta think about it. So you have a 10 year old that you have a how many kids you have?
Speaker 2:I have six, and I do have a 10 year old.
Speaker 1:Okay. So imagine your 10 year old wanting to join a gang.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:And then imagine a 12 year old finding a firearm and then one and and pointing at the his father or her father.
Speaker 2:Right. But I do know, like, in South Sac, there is a lot of that shit going on.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. I try to explain that to people, but it's just for them, it's kinda hard to fathom because nowadays they're too busy on their phone. They're too distracted with phones and, like, fake guns and fake fake video games. I didn't I I I didn't really have that as a kid.
Speaker 1:I was outside all the time, and I'd leave, come home whenever I wanted to. So I just wanted to get out of the house. So it was a very interesting upbringing. I thought it was very normal. So to me, was very normal.
Speaker 2:Because it was normal to you.
Speaker 1:It was very normal. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So most of the time product of their environment. So when you're raised there, I mean, it definitely Sal Sac and Oak Park, that's the norm there. It really is.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I have friends that still a couple friends that still live there. And I remember go I went and visited them there. And, like, I was like, oh my god. This is shithole. Like, I stopped at the little grocery store right there and I was like, okay.
Speaker 2:Like, I need to hurry the fuck up. I do not even wanna be in this environment, but then that was the normal environment then. Right? But when you take yourself out of it, it's so different. So, no, I understand, like, that was the norm at that age.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. Well, at that age for us, it was the norm.
Speaker 2:But for In that area.
Speaker 1:Right. Exactly. People definitely wasn't the norm. Right. Like, our normal was trying to get out somehow, and then the norms that I find now, like the people that wanna portray that they're in a gang, that's a little confusing for me because I thought that the goal was to get out, not to portray to be something you're not.
Speaker 2:Right. So tell me about your time in there. So you you're 19 years old. You're literally 20. Just oh, 20.
Speaker 2:20. But 19 when the crime happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The crime happened at at 19. I go in at 20.
Speaker 2:20, you get sentenced. And so tell me about what it feels like sitting in there and they tell you you're sentenced to twelve years.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, at the time, I'm I'm trying to go back. Right? Because right now, like, I just came up on fifteen years of being free March 17, Saint Patrick's Day.
Speaker 2:Congratulations.
Speaker 1:So, you know, fifteen years is, yeah, is much longer than than the twelve. But if if I were to take myself back at that time, I also found out that I had a son. So I I have a son that's we don't we don't we don't talk, which I created the YouTube channel in hopes that he would see some of the videos, letters to my son.
Speaker 2:That's so cool.
Speaker 1:So that's a that's another story. But then I found out that I had a son, so I was I was I was angry. I was very, very angry and I was a very violent person. I didn't know how to control my emotions. I didn't know how to actually think without actually reacting first.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I was in an opportunity to be very violent, and I took I took advantage of it. Now granted, prison, there's a politics, you know, because I didn't run with the whites, I ran with the Mexicans. So in Oak Park, you had Mexicans and you had blacks. You'd you'd really didn't have oh, there's another Romanian family, and that's it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That that was it. So I thought, yeah, you're not gonna be a skinhead in Oak Park. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No. I totally get it.
Speaker 1:And I didn't speak English that well. So, you know, English is my second language. I speak Romanian. And then, Romanian is Latin. So we kinda we we related on that.
Speaker 1:So being in prison as a Romanian in a Mexican gang was definitely interesting. I didn't really have any lash from it or anything, but very violent. So I remember seeing a guy get thrown off the tear in Tracy, which Tracy is no longer around. I did a podcast there because I I I tried to visit all the prisons that I was at and do a podcast there.
Speaker 2:Oh, you gotta tell me about that here when we get to that part.
Speaker 1:There was there was an incident in in Tracy because Tracy is so old. That's why it shut down. I'm I'm not Sure. It's very, very old. There was a situation in there where I had to take a shower, and I was thinking to myself, why is is are we taking a bath or a shower?
Speaker 1:Because the water was just so full. Like, it was just, like, it was up to, like it it was
Speaker 2:wasn't draining?
Speaker 1:It wasn't draining. It was just very dirty. And I remember walking past this guy that was that was just kinda hovering on the on the on the water just you know, in prison, you don't really ask, you know, is is he okay? Out here, you see a body and you're like, oh my god. Let's check on him.
Speaker 1:In prison, you just walk over him. You don't know him, you just walk over him. I've seen that so many different times where, like, people would just pass by me because they had to go attack somebody. It it happens all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. My sister's a president or a CEO.
Speaker 1:Oh, right.
Speaker 2:So I hear stories.
Speaker 1:Oh, where is she a CEO at?
Speaker 2:Folsom.
Speaker 1:Oh, a new Folsom or a Folsom?
Speaker 2:I think she's a new.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So so the maximum security one? Yeah. A, B, and C yard? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's definitely a different way of living. It's it's much different than who I am today. Like, back then I was more interested in taking lives.
Speaker 2:Doesn't it feel like it's, like, not even this lifetime ago? Like, do you feel like that? I feel like that. When I think about my addiction, it was ten years ago. It was like a different lifetime.
Speaker 2:Like, it doesn't even seem like it was me. It's like I was having, like, an outer body experience or something because it was so different. Like, I'm so different today that I can't even like, my thinking now, I can't even connect with the person that was in that mindset, with the person that was homeless drug addict, you know, six months pregnant doing dope with a baby in her stomach. Like that person, I don't even know her. Like, it's hard to connect.
Speaker 2:So do you feel like that with that old person, the old Joe that was violent, that was in prison, that was like that?
Speaker 1:Sometimes when I do my speakings, I have to, like, I have to connect back to who that person was. I do speakings and there's a surge of emotion that comes out, and I have just learned to just let it go. So if I have to tear up, I I tear up. But for a long time, I wasn't allowed to express my emotions at home, in prison, love, caring, compassionate. Those qualities aren't revered in prison.
Speaker 1:Those qualities aren't really gonna get you anywhere. And then I came out here with those same qualities that I learned, then it didn't necessarily fit the mold of being in a in a relationship either with another woman. So I read a lot of books on, like, you know, financial wealth, freedom. I'm very stoic, so I'm huge into stoicism. So I read all of these things to change my mind frame, but I spent no time in, like, relationship development.
Speaker 2:And did you read those things in prison or outside of prison?
Speaker 1:I still read those things. Yeah. Yeah. In prison.
Speaker 2:You started reading those in prison. And at what point in those twelve years did you or did you ever in prison say, okay. This is enough. I don't wanna waste the rest of my life, and Did I wanna change my that happen in prison or outside?
Speaker 1:No. No. That happened in prison. One one instance that I've talked about on a few different occasions, when I was in in prison, there was an individual and they did to come to the cell and he didn't belong on on on the yard. Right?
Speaker 1:So my group just I didn't really ask what he did. You don't really ask what. So I was the one that had to take care of him. That process, you know, it didn't really matter how I took care of him, whether I killed him or whether I just beat him up, it didn't really matter. But the type of person that I was, I wasn't just gonna beat him up.
Speaker 1:And it was just me and him. And you had the gunner and you had a rotunda door that was open for those of you that did time. For those of you that don't, that just means it's a door. You have a gunner, you have an open door, and another open door. All the other cells on a 180 are locked.
Speaker 1:So that individual is gonna come through a certain path. There's no getaway. There's there's no I didn't do it because it's just a couple doors open and the gun was looking at me and I was just sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. And then the rotunda door closes and I'm thinking to myself, you know, what's going on? It's like, this normally doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:And he never came. And then my door closed and I just dropped to my knees and I just I started I started really thinking about what the fuck am I doing. Like, I started crying because I really didn't love myself. It's somebody asking you, hey, this person has to go. We don't really care how, but, you know, you need to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Because if you don't, then you're gonna go. That's just the way it works. But that's love. That that's a
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Taking somebody's life shows that you care about, you know, the cause
Speaker 2:In their mind. And they're sick. Yeah. Twisted thinking that's love to them. Right?
Speaker 2:That's you showing love for them. That's I mean, they're a product of their environment. They've been raised that way. That's their whole lifestyle.
Speaker 1:It's And it's also what I signed up for too, you know. It wasn't like I said, hey, I don't think I wanna do this anymore.
Speaker 2:You signed up for I
Speaker 1:get it. Yeah. I was I was also participating in these things as well too.
Speaker 2:So if that guy would've walked, he would've came
Speaker 1:We wouldn't be here right now.
Speaker 2:Right. You would've gotten life.
Speaker 1:I would I probably would have died. I would have died because the gunner probably would have shot me.
Speaker 2:And so at that point though, you were fine with that. You were like, I don't give a shit. You didn't see a future. You didn't anything. So that was God working in your life or your higher power, whoever your higher power is, for sure, working in your life.
Speaker 2:Thank God he didn't come.
Speaker 1:That's just that's just one that's just one moment of many, but that was a really pivotal one for me right there. And then I really didn't have any direction. I didn't have a mentor because I was 20 I wanna say I was 23. A close friend of mine, he said all this dude wanted to do is just listen to Eminem and sad people because Eminem was making attempts early February, something in '99, so 2000 Oh, For sure. 2002.
Speaker 1:Right. And then I was just listening to Eminem and and, like, even my cellies had a hard time talking to me sometimes, like, you know, because we've be on lockdown for a long time. Longest time I spent in the cell was two and a half years straight. And then we'd just, you know so you just you get to know your Sellies. And sometimes we'd wrestle and we just end up getting into a fight and then for fun.
Speaker 2:That's wild.
Speaker 1:I laugh about it now, but I I I couldn't see myself wanting to be violent with anybody anymore because the level of violence that I'm used to isn't the level of violence that would be appropriate out here and there's no way that I could ever turn back from it. I gotta do everything in my power now not to be violent and I work on it a lot because I still go out. So I go out to to clubs or if I wanna go out to to a bar. It took me a long time after I was out of prison to even feel comfortable putting myself in that situation, not knowing if I can control myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's one thing to to to disassociate from things or from alcohol or drugs if people have an issue with that. It's another thing to be around it and know that you have so much control over this thing that you can still be around and not do anything Just because I enjoyed violence.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Some people So you enjoyed it. That's so wild. But I mean, I I could see it. There's people who like when I was in my addiction, I enjoyed getting fucking loaded. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it. So at how long into your sentence did you realize I'm gonna change my life? And what did that look like? Right? Because if you're running with the gang that you're running with in Yeah.
Speaker 2:At what how hard was that to let him know like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1:I didn't let
Speaker 2:anybody know. Not me. Okay. So tell me about
Speaker 1:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:You're like, I didn't fucking tell nobody. You're driven.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, Warren Warren you know, Warren Buffett. Right?
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:It's funny that he would say something like this, but Warren Buffett said, if you have an idea that's gonna make so much money, why are you gonna advertise it? It diminishes your idea. I had an idea and I knew that it was gonna work and why diminish my idea? Or why tell people that you that won't even understand?
Speaker 2:I that is exactly what I was thinking. They fucking won't support you. They won't understand. They won't
Speaker 1:need anything. I mean, there's people like that in my current life right now where I try to help them. And and if I find something out about anybody, I don't tell them, I just hold onto it and I just sit on it and I've always done that. I just sit on information until I need to use it because in prison, you sit on information until you need to use it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure.
Speaker 1:So out here, the tactics that I learned in prison, I still use out here. It's just in a different way. So what did that look like? I had no idea. I just I knew that I I was dyslexic and and I taught myself how to read and write through writing letters.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, I used to have my friend proofread my letters and it was so bad that he would just couldn't stop laughing. He said, you can't send that out. That makes no sense. Your letters are crooked.
Speaker 1:And I said, well, that's just what I see. So when I was 13, I started to read and write because I was incarcerated. So, you know, I was incarcerated most of my life from 12 on.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I learned how to read and write in there. And because I was so adamant about not wanting to be dyslexic and I also stuttered and I wanted to fix all these things on my own that I just read. So I got a dictionary, I got a thesaurus, I got a Romanian English dictionary, I taught myself how to read and write in Romanian as well, and I used to write my mom. And then I just came across, like, an entrepreneur magazine and then Success Magazine. So those two magazines definitely, I would say, probably saved my life the most because back when I was in high desert state prison, I read an article that in twenty years, the biggest boom in, America or in the world is going to be wellness.
Speaker 1:And one of those was a personal trainer. This was back in the early two thousands. Okay. And I kinda gravitated towards that. And I had my sister send me a book on personal training, so I read that.
Speaker 1:And then in there, it said, if you are good at these topics, you'll do well as a trainer. I got all books on those topics and I read them all. And then I had, like, anatomy charts and and and nerves and bones. So I just studied. I always read and studied.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that that was gonna lead to, like, books like Napoleon Hill or as a man thinketh by James Allen or John Maxwell. So I just read. I read, I read, and I and I wrote. I would write letters to my son at least every other day. And then I would write letters, some of them like 26 pages.
Speaker 1:Just I I love to write.
Speaker 2:And this is why you were still in. Right?
Speaker 1:This is why was still in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I I read well, I mean, I spent most of my time in prison in a cell, not out. Right. So there's
Speaker 2:different had nothing but time.
Speaker 1:I had nothing but time and I used I used it. But mean, so did everybody else. So I didn't I didn't drink in there. I made Pruno to sell because I wanted to make money. Right.
Speaker 1:I I didn't really use, like, heroin. I didn't I wasn't an addict. I didn't use heroin or needles or anything, and I I stopped smoking as well because marijuana, I found, were making me very paranoid, so I don't like that.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. I used to get so paranoid when I'd be high. Ugh. It's the worst.
Speaker 1:So, through these books, I would say Think and Grow Rich is probably the most powerful book
Speaker 2:I love that one.
Speaker 1:Because he interviewed so many successful people before he wrote that book. So then I started to think, well, I haven't been out of prison for me to know what that looks like, so I'm gonna use the people around me and ask them questions because they've been out and they keep coming back and they've been out. They keep coming back. So I say, if he did it, well, maybe I should do the same thing. So I would just find people that kept coming in and out and but can I ask some questions?
Speaker 1:And so I found out why they kept coming in and out. Drugs, alcohol, lack of stability, no direction, no purpose, no support. They they they didn't have anything and they were going right back to the streets with the same mind that they were just in. And I've seen so many people, like, zoomed in on television, wasting their time. They're getting high and drunk before they went home, and I'm thinking to myself, there's no way that you're going to leave tomorrow and be a different person when I'm struggling to change and to do away with all of these things that I love to do, like violence.
Speaker 1:Like, I struggled to to to not be violent.
Speaker 2:When you say you love violence, I you loved violence. Did you was it like did you get a high from it? Like, tell me, like, what about that? Because I've interviewed a lot of people and I I hear I love, you know, getting high, love alcohol, sex addiction, all these. But I have not came across somebody who loved violence.
Speaker 2:Like that was something they enjoyed. Tell me about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Oh, well, I went to prison for attempted murder. Right. There's a lot of things that I have never been caught for.
Speaker 2:But you got right. But you got, like, an actual enjoyment out of it. Like, you enjoyed it. It was a high. Like, you got a dopamine hit
Speaker 1:from it. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not gonna say anything to incriminate myself.
Speaker 2:No. No. You're good.
Speaker 1:But but but but yes. The the the things that you see on television, like when somebody gets stabbed or shot, that's not real. It doesn't it doesn't really happen like that.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a disassociation of your emotions for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean, my my my my dad, used to, like, beat the shit out of me. No man has ever beat me like my dad.
Speaker 2:So you've you started disassociating your feelings early on. So Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely. It's one thing to to, like, watch MMA. I I I I don't get an enjoyment from it anymore just because I disassociated so much from it Yeah. That I choose not to to to watch things like that.
Speaker 1:I have a friend that's a few friends that that box. One's a pro fighter. It's not something that I'm just I'm not into it anymore. I'm I've lost count on how many fights I've been in. I blackout most of the time.
Speaker 1:One time in prison, I almost got shot because I didn't wanna get off this individual, so I had to get drug off of him. But the the guards, you know, they, you know, they pulled out the mini 14 and I was gonna get shot. There's been many times in prison where I was gonna get shot because I just didn't want to stop. Like, I I just didn't wanna stop. There there's no there's no off button and I know that about myself.
Speaker 1:And if you know something about yourself also too, I I don't I don't have the the luxury that a lot of people hear of. Like, I have I have two strikes. I don't I don't I don't I'm not playing with my life because some somebody wants to pick an argument or their feelings got hurt or because they're having a bad day or or because they're an addict or or drunk and they can't realize their own stupidity.
Speaker 2:Why would you give it up?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I have to make decisions for other people, and I knew that when I was in prison. I had to make decisions for them because they were being stupid. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs.
Speaker 1:I didn't watch television. I was so different towards the end of my sentence. And then when I was in San Diego at Donovan State Prison, that's when my mom died. And that was probably a catalyst. Like, I've always been into fitness, but that was a catalyst for me when my mom died on the phone with me.
Speaker 1:There was no I love you. There was no I miss you, there wasn't anything like that. It was just she just wanted me to change my life. Like they came here to give us freedom and I literally squandered it away from the time I was 12 until I got out of 32. You know you know how bad that makes me feel?
Speaker 1:That she didn't see me who I am today. It's a it's a fucked up feeling.
Speaker 2:I feel like she probably still sees it, though.
Speaker 1:And for and I still had three and a half more years. And after she died, I probably got so involved in fitness and I read so much and I probably wrote the most. I would rewrite the books that I was reading and I would try to dumb it down and hand out pieces of paper in in prison so that they can understand it. Like, I did everything awesome. I did everything in my power to try to help in there.
Speaker 2:So did you have, like, people that tried to retaliate on you because you didn't wanna work with them anymore or run with them and they just left you alone? No.
Speaker 1:I still ran with them. I I still had to I still had to do jail stuff. I didn't say I was an angel.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I'd I'd I never that never came out of my mouth. I never I I never said that I was good. I just wanted to change, but I'm still
Speaker 2:prison. Lived that lifestyle, but you were preparing yourself for the outside. So tell me about what it was right. Tell me what it was like when you got released.
Speaker 1:When I I was excited. My sister picked me up in a in a car that I told her that I would have. It was a white Dodge Challenger, and that was the car that I wanted to get while I was in prison, and I own that. I own two of them. I don't have them anymore.
Speaker 1:I gave one to my ex wife and then I sold the other one. She picked me up. So I had $2 gate money, $200, and a 30 of it went for a for a ticket because they they I needed a bus ride.
Speaker 2:Gate money, they give you money when you get out.
Speaker 1:$2,200. Yeah. So I I got I had $200 and, 30 of it went to, a ticket. My sister picked me up. We get on the plane.
Speaker 1:We land. I go to Joe's Crab Shack in Osak and my son's there, family members.
Speaker 2:Oh, you've seen your son. Okay. I was gonna I ask about
Speaker 1:I did. Yeah. He was, 12 at the time, so he met me at the airport. I wrote him every day. Remember, I wrote him.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 1:I sent him, drawings, letters. He probably has thousands of letters from me. I don't know if he still has them, but so what was it like? It was amazing. I was on a high high risk parole, I was on ankle monitor.
Speaker 1:I knew that I had to get a job, so my parole officer said I had to get a job. I said, well, I created a job. It's called Bad Boy Cleaning. It's a cleaning service where I go clean houses, clothes are optional, read between the lines. And he started laughing.
Speaker 1:He goes, what? I said, yeah. You told me to get money. I created it because I read Entrepreneur Success magazines. I wasn't gonna get a job.
Speaker 1:Wait.
Speaker 2:Tell me about this cleaning company that you created. Is this real or you were joking?
Speaker 1:No. I was dead serious. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's called Bad Boy Cleaning. The one cleaning naked or
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep.
Speaker 2:Shut up. Yes. I love that. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Show me.
Speaker 2:Tell me about it.
Speaker 1:Well, he didn't believe me. So and he also didn't know if I can do it because I was on an ankle monitor. So, like, they can trace to see how many different houses I would go to. Like, I I was on parole, high high risk parole, not just parole. Like, they had I had to get you know, I couldn't go past 50 miles.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But I knew that I wanted to make money and I wanted to make it legally. So I I had to purchase a special business license, and then I I was doing it for quite some time and then I went to So what were
Speaker 2:you in? Hold on. I wanna know more about this. So were you, like, butt naked or
Speaker 1:That's what they wanted. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. And did you actually clean?
Speaker 1:If they wanted me to. Yeah. I mean, that was the it was still a cleaning service. So
Speaker 2:So butt naked cleaner with an ankle monitor.
Speaker 1:Yep. The bad boy cleaning. Don't get no more don't get no loose.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's bad boy. Okay. So women like I mean, I was a stripper for years. I went and applied at the strip club the day I turned 18.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was a stripper for years. I was an escort when I was in my addiction. So that's why I was like, oh my gosh. And now I'm I mean, I have a cleaning company.
Speaker 2:I've had it for years. But when I first started, my cleaning company had always get people when I actually clean myself, asking if I would do it topless and all that. And I I mean, I definitely thought about it, but I was like, maybe I don't live like that anymore. But that's so
Speaker 1:Well, I did I did research on it. And I wasn't tech savvy, so I didn't know how to use the the Internet, so I had help. And one of my friends at the time, he helped me with it. I ended up leaving him the business. I I don't know what he did with it, but and then I wanna get women on.
Speaker 1:I had business cards with men and women, so I can attract both. But nowhere in Sacramento did they have anything like that. They have things that women would do, but not men.
Speaker 2:Right. That's what he said that I was like, that's pretty fucking cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there's an opportunity there.
Speaker 2:There's definitely an opportunity. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I got it I got it approved, so I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. And then I went to college and I had to get permission to go to college because I was on ankle monitor and I had to talk my way into that. But I had a list. Like, I had I had goals. I had 15 like, I had an an an agenda to become successful, to get off of parole and never go back to prison.
Speaker 1:And I was relentless. Nobody was gonna tell me no. Like, even when I applied for 24, I didn't have a certification and I interviewed very well. You gotta think about some of the, interactions that I had in prison were to negotiate people's lives. You think I'm gonna let some interview or some some person ask me questions about anatomy and physiology that I read and I studied for years?
Speaker 1:Do you think that's gonna intimidate me? Like, he's just another man just like I am. So it's kinda hard for me to be intimidated when I went through some shit that should be really intimidating. So interviews to me aren't really a big deal. It's just talking about things.
Speaker 1:Right. So I didn't have a certification. I didn't have a piece of paper that said that, you know, I was a certified. So I went home. I found one online.
Speaker 1:I took it. I brought it back in. I said, here's your paper. He said it's not he's not nationally recognized. I said, look, you said that I interview well, you like me.
Speaker 1:Your fitness manager says I'm the smartest person he's ever met. What's the problem? So I had to train a district manager and then he was like, I'll just hire him. So I got a piece of paper approved. Now that same piece of paper is nationally recognized.
Speaker 1:So before people get on the bandwagon, a lot of innovative people are already there. And I recognized that a long time ago. Even in prison, I was doing things that people in there weren't doing, interviewing people, and they thought I was crazy. But the recidivism rate in prison is very high. And after a certain amount of years, it gets lower and lower that your success rate to stay out and not just stay out to thrive.
Speaker 2:Right. I agree. I mean, addiction's the same way. You the addiction and alcoholism, like, unfortunately, look, if you're in a like, I tell people, when you're in a room with other addicts and alcoholics, look to your right and look to your left because only one of are gonna make it, unfortunately. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The others, are gonna go back out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So
Speaker 2:And it's gotta be the same thing with that lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Well, it is too except except mine, there was there wasn't another chance. Like, I I you know, all the crimes that I committed were sober. And I know a lot of people commit crimes under the influence. That wasn't me. Like, the group that I ran with, we didn't really revere people that did drugs.
Speaker 1:We we looked at them as, like, low lives. You're you're you're a drug addict, you're doping. Like, how are you gonna be in a gang and think clearly
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And really call yourself a gang member when you're just too busy chasing the next high? So the people that I grew up with, we didn't really look at people like that and be like, oh, I wanna be like that. We were on a mission to create a name for ourselves through extreme violence. And and everybody goes to prison for different reasons. Like, there's level ones, level twos, level threes, level fours.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a shoe which, you know, in Pelican Bay, I heard that they did away with it. So all indeterminants went just to regular population. The life that I lived wasn't normal, and it was extreme violence, which is that was my addiction.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Some people's addiction was drugs and alcohol. It was that's never really been my thing in terms of, like, it being a problem.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's not a problem because I don't really get, like it it's it's nice. It's cool. I can I can do away with it? I can have it from time to time, but it's not something that I absolutely need. What I do need is my freedom and money.
Speaker 1:Because without money, I don't have the type of freedom that I imagined in prison.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Money is a tool. Money is the tool for the lifestyle for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean, it got it got me the opportunity to come down here. It you know? Like, I would miss out on a lot of opportunities if I didn't have the freedom or the the wealth that I created for myself, and I do it through helping others.
Speaker 2:I love that. So tell me a little bit about your life now. You've been out fifteen years. Yeah. And I've heard how incredible you are, so you've definitely made a name for yourself.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit about your life today, what that looks like.
Speaker 1:Well, I work at a facility called G Force, formerly known as Self Made, and then I'm the the head trainer there. Prior to that, I guess I can start with my career in fitness. Yeah. So, while I was in prison, I needed to figure out what I was gonna do legally. Remember, legally.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because I also ran drugs for the cartel as well when I was, out. So that's a yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You can't do that.
Speaker 1:So I remember I told you I've been in Compton and Watts. Right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I've been in Beverly Hills. Of Rodeo Drive just came from there, but I've also been in Compton and Watts.
Speaker 2:Got it. Got it. Now that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay. So running drugs for for the the cartels, very exciting to me. Well, not anymore, but it it was. We're talking a long time ago. This is the nineties.
Speaker 1:So Sure. 9098, '99. Getting out of prison, I got out with a passion and a purpose. So I had a passion and purpose for my freedom, and a purpose was to just stay out and to try to make as much as I could by helping people. Zig Ziglar said, the more people you help, the more you can help yourself.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:And I actually took that around with it because for a long time, all I did was hurt people. And if I can hurt people with that same intensity, I wanna help people with that same intensity. It's the same it's the same intensity. The negative intensity that I had, the passionate and caring and wanting to help is the same intensity. Right.
Speaker 1:Still gotta be focused. Still gotta be committed. Sometimes days are gonna be harder than others, and I got a job as a trainer. So I got bad boy cleaning because I needed to make money. Like, I don't wanna ask people for help.
Speaker 1:But then I knew that I couldn't do that forever because I wasn't gonna help anybody. It was just entertainment, and I knew that. Right. Training was something that I knew that I wanted to do because that saved my life in prison. And that was a catalyst after my mom died that she wanted me to to just change, and I did.
Speaker 1:So I used fitness, and I used education to change my personal life, and I knew what it did for me. So I got so addicted to training and fitness that I would put on, like, different fitness events for people, and I got really into it. So I got out here and became a trainer. I started at twenty four hour fitness, and every year I got promoted. So every in three months, it would take for me to get to about 10 over $10 in sales in every facility I've ever been to.
Speaker 1:And that's not a a feat that anybody can do. I've been doing this for fifteen years, so I've been making 6 figures for fifteen years. And in every single facility, because I've been in a lot of them, I would just repeat the same thing. In prison, you gotta know humans.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, there's no way that you're gonna survive in prison without understanding humans and the bullshit that they feed you. If somebody's gonna tell you a lie, you gotta be able to tell tell signs. They're they're they fidget mannerisms or eye contact. They breathe differently. They avoid eye contact.
Speaker 1:There's just a number of different things that I learned in prison that I can just read a bullshitter mile away.
Speaker 2:I I feel like I can read a bullshitter mile away too and I use that that I mean, being a employer when I'm interviewing.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, a mile away, I'm like, oh, yeah. They'll they'll last. They won't last. They'll make it.
Speaker 2:They won't because you can read people. It's a talent.
Speaker 1:Well, it's no. It's it's not that I can read people. It's that I'm aware and I pay attention. So we lie with our mouths, but not with our habits. And human behavior is nothing more than a habit.
Speaker 1:So in prison, I got really good at spotting a lot of things and and spotting if I'm talking to somebody and if they wore glasses, I can see if people were coming behind me. I prefer certain things. And out here, I can predict if somebody's gonna make it as a trainer very, very quickly or I can see certain changes and tides, and they can lie to you all they want with their mouth, but long before an addict is an addict, the whole room knows it. Long before somebody realizes with themselves that they're
Speaker 2:They're not the last ones to realize.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So long before anybody knows, they're the last one to know.
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Because it's denial, it's justification, it's entitlement, it's I I feel like I'm better than I really am. But if you stop and look at Denial. Yeah. Denial is just he has a motherfucker.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 1:So I went through these different facilities. I started off at the one at Micron, being that you're from SAC. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Then I went to Fulton and Hurley as assistant fitness manager.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Went to the one on Sunrise as a as a fitness manager. Went to the one in Roseville as a fitness manager. I just kept moving up every single year. The pandemic happened. I opened up my own gym, Ironflex Fitness, with a business partner that didn't necessarily it didn't work out.
Speaker 1:Same thing, reading
Speaker 2:Was that the one in Roseville?
Speaker 1:No. That was one that think of in El Dorado. Yeah. El Dorado Hills. And then yeah.
Speaker 1:So we had a falling out. I went to a different facility, and then Kenny, the one that owns G Force, then, Self Made approached me, and I walked it before, like, any of it was even there, you know, as a referral. So I'm just well known in the air. I've been doing it for a long time. I I I don't just bounce around from job to job.
Speaker 1:Right. Fitness is is my life, and I'm gonna continue to pursue it. Also created a course online now, so there's an online course that I created.
Speaker 2:Smart.
Speaker 1:So it's a my I'm it's patent. So Ironflex Fitness, it's it's a patent. It's copywritten.
Speaker 2:Do you have funnels? So you have funnels going with it? I do. Courses. Nice.
Speaker 2:Smart. Is it like a subscription based or a one time purchase?
Speaker 1:It's a one time purchase. So I understand that I've been exchanging time for money for a long time, and I knew that the true
Speaker 2:Changing time for money. That's yep. That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It doesn't really matter. Like, people try to impress me with how much they make an hour, and I'm like, that still doesn't impress me because you're doing the same thing I'm doing. Yeah. We're just exchanging time for money.
Speaker 1:So I'm trying to create different avenues to not exchange time for money to true wealth and freedom. If you're attached to the business, that's not an asset, that's a liability.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You buy vehicles and you're struggling to, you know, to to pay rent, but you're still out there partying and drinking and and expressing that you're living your best life when you're struggling. You gotta look in the mirror and tell yourself if you're really living your best life, not me. I know that I'm living my best life because where I came from, I'm doing pretty good. Am I doing great? No.
Speaker 1:Because I'm hard on myself. I'm probably doing better than a lot of people, but I'm still not happy and I'm still not where I wanna be.
Speaker 2:Well, you wanna stay hungry. Right? It's a fine line. I do that with myself. There's a fine line of, like, I'm proud of myself and pushing myself.
Speaker 2:Like, be you know, stopping and going, okay, look how far you came, but no. Like, we have a lot more. We need to go way further. So you had mentioned about going back to, like, prisons and places doing podcasts. Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:The only place that I haven't went to yet was High Desert. But I was in San Diego for my friend's birthday, and I also wanted to make sure that I got down to Donovan State Prison. That's where I lost my mom. But I didn't get much sleep the previous night. It was a party, so I think I took, like, a two hour nap.
Speaker 1:And me and my friend, Ina, she was like, sure, you wanna do this? And I was like, I mean, I'm here. You know what I mean? Like, I'm always telling people to show up in there and and just be present, and this is where I'm at. So let's just start rolling.
Speaker 1:So so we rolled and I probably wanna go do it again because I wanna speak a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Do you go inside the prison?
Speaker 1:No. Outside.
Speaker 2:Outside. And then do a podcast and, like, a blog or something Yeah. From Yeah. So cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's all on the the my my my YouTube channel. Yeah. So it's that that that came across because me and my friend Miles, you know, we we came back from a rave, I'm talking to him. It's, like, 11:00, 12:00, and then I just kinda go on a rant.
Speaker 1:And I was like, you think somebody would actually listen to some of the stuff I had to say? And he was like, you lived a very interesting life. Like, the person that you are now, there's so many different sides to you. Like, you don't really say no to a lot, but you don't associate to any one of those things. Like, I never call myself a bodybuilder.
Speaker 1:I don't call myself a trainer. I don't I don't call myself a a speaker. Like, I do public speaking, but I don't present myself as, like, I'm a public speaker.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:I have a story, and I got some things to say, and I've overcome some stuff more than just my my my latte wasn't to my liking. That's not overcoming anything. Like, I overcame something that I that I could have died in, and I I still feel like I'm a failure in terms of, a son and a father, but that's I don't I'm not gonna attach myself to that. I'm an ex gang member, but I don't present myself like an ex gang member because I still associate with some of my friends that were ex gang members. I'm all of those things and none of those things.
Speaker 1:Sure. I feel like we got too many titles that, you know, I'm this person, I'm that person, I'm this person. Why can't we just be who we really are genuinely as long as you don't wanna hurt anybody? I still work on that every day.
Speaker 2:No, man. Hey, it happens. We all have struggles. That's that's pretty freaking awesome. What an incredible story.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So go to these prisons to reflect. Like, I've been to Preston, I've been to to Mill Creek, I've been to Solano. And I go and I just and I don't know what I'm gonna talk about because there's so many I mean, it's these videos are only, you know, fifteen minutes. So how can you take a fifteen minute or eight minute video and condense that into and I was in Tracy for just, you know, three or four months and then Solano for about a year and a half.
Speaker 2:Do you talk about your time in there? Like, when you go to a certain location, so you talk about I'll have to watch some of those tonight. So you talk about, like, what it was like at that time and
Speaker 1:Certain, yeah, certain things that happened, my experiences with them. Because sometimes my current clients don't know that side of me. They just see me as this person that read a lot of books that, you know, can can figure things out, doesn't really take things personal. I'm very stoic. Don't talk about feelings around him because he's gonna hit you with some stoicism.
Speaker 1:You know, that's but that that that that couldn't be further from the truth. Like, I I cry, I feel, but I'm not governed by my by my feelings. I'm governed by what the things that I should be doing, which is why I show up every single day. I mean, I've been training six days a week, and I have anywhere from 12 to 13 clients a day as a trainer. And if any trainers are listening out there, most trainers are struggling to have four clients a day, five, and they're like, oh, I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:This is too much.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you're in a wrong line. Maybe you're just doing it for money or maybe just do it better or maybe you're not that good.
Speaker 2:See, that's when you make good money at something when you're not doing it just for the money. When you do it for just the money, it you don't tend to get successful with it. But if you're not doing it just for the money, you end up getting making really good money doing it and loving it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, fifteen years is a long time, so I got the experience. I got the book smarts. I've had countless certifications. I've been a part of a few of them that people needed to be certified in, and I've just made a lot of connections along the way.
Speaker 1:And then I had a client, she goes, you ever thought about, like, putting all this together, all this information you have, and and for other trainers? Because, like, you have a process to everything. You know, most people don't get out of prison and thrive. They're just trying to, like, get some type of job and just, you know, some boxes and and call it good. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:And just go ahead and take a check. And I'm like, I'm not just taking a check. And, like, I knew that the w twos that I were making, even though it said that I was making an x amount, I was like, man, it should take a lot in taxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They do.
Speaker 1:So I stopped and thought about it, you know, and then when I talked to people, you know, they say they make six figures. I'm like, but you don't take home six figures. There's a difference between, like, taking home in your pocket and actually having that as an asset, like
Speaker 2:There is.
Speaker 1:Liquid and just claiming that that you do what you do. So I was like, well, maybe I should create other revenue sources. So then I started to create other revenue sources as well too.
Speaker 2:So you have your course. Tell us about your course and how to find it.
Speaker 1:It's it's on it's online. Could just Google it. Ironflex Fitness Coaching.
Speaker 2:Ironflex Fitness Coaching.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. So if trainers are interested or if people are interested in becoming a trainer, but not just becoming a trainer, making six figures.
Speaker 2:Becoming a successful trainer.
Speaker 1:I mean and I understand six figures is only a $100,000, but I'm talking about upper six figures. So I've been doing, you know, six figures for a while. I'm trying to create a platform that I could do seven figures. So but going from six to seven, that's different. And I always tell people trying to lose weight is different if you're, say, two hundred and fifty pounds, trying to get down to a healthy normal range than somebody that's already healthy and normal trying to do a bodybuilding show.
Speaker 1:That's extreme. The same tactics and the same mindset that it takes to lose that weight is totally different than somebody trying to do a bodybuilding show.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:It's much more extreme, much more diligent, and you really, really have to want it. So it's the same thing as making 6 figures and seven and realizing it's a different way of thinking. One, you're exchanging time for money, the other one you're not.
Speaker 2:So smart. Time freedom is the most valuable thing in the world. And just to me, being able to live my life on my terms.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is my number one goal always is to live life on my terms. To do what I want, when I want. Right? Especially because and you are in your I would consider you in your bonus round of life. I just or my drug and alcohol treatment facility I just opened, it's called Bonus Round Recovery because I'm in my bonus round of life.
Speaker 2:Like, I should have been fucking dead. I should have been dead. Walking down the street fucking homeless, drug addicts. I should be dead. I put myself in so many situations I could have died and I was saved and I got a second chance at life.
Speaker 2:And so like last night when you text me and you were like, we both said it at the same time, you get one life.
Speaker 1:And I'm
Speaker 2:like, fuck yes. You get one fucking life and to live it to the fullest. It looks like you lived your birthday to the fullest.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. I'm like, okay. You got strippers and all the money. I was like, okay, shit. Live in your bonus round.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, that's not that's once again, those are the things that I like to participate in, but that's still not who I really am. And then sometimes, so I I got my Joker backpack over here and
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:I I associate myself to the Joker because sometimes, like, you asked, is it hard is it hard to to think about the person that I was? Yeah. Because there's a side of me that, you know, that's that's who I was. That is an identity of mine.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And then I got this new identity, and sometimes the the two get, they go back and forth. They they they
Speaker 2:That's such a wild way to explain it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So sometimes Makes sense. Yeah. That's why I don't wanna associate to one thing, not just a trainer. I'm not just somebody that wants to help people.
Speaker 1:I'm not somebody that just wants to have a good time and flashy. Not I'm somebody who just goes to the to the gym and trains all the time. I mean, I was on Rodeo Drive, we got two guys come up to me, they're like, oh, well, you work out. And I was like, yeah. I work out a little bit.
Speaker 1:So so then I started talking fitness stuff. It always comes up. Doesn't matter if I'm at a rave or a club, but that's not who I am.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like, I'm I'm all of those things. I'm not just some tattooed missing tooth guy. I'm also the little kid that misses his mom. I'm also the guy that misses his son.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah. I do got a second chance, but, you know, sometimes people think that I'm not in pain because I'm very stoic and and I I just don't give life to it a lot. But we should just accept that we're all of those things and none of those things.
Speaker 2:Well, the way to put it. So we have to wrap it up. Can you tell everyone how to find you on your social media platforms?
Speaker 1:Instagram, Joseph, j o s I f number four, and then Ironflex Fitness is my business page. And then YouTube is letters to my son.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Awesome. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.