Chapter 2: Walking Cliche

May 25, 2009

“Throw it away. This suit is not fixable.”

That’s what the woman at the cleaners told me when I brought in the same suit I’d worn to my sentencing only fifteen months earlier.

The one that was too tight the day Judge Wilson sent me to prison and now, after countless laps around that dusty track, hung loose. So loose it looked absurd.

“Really, that bad? I think I just need to put a new hole in this belt to tighten it. I feel good about it,” I told her, as she practically strong-armed me into throwing it in the trash. She had a motherly instinct; she knew what was coming.

I used my first four-hour pass from the halfway house to run six miles through the streets of Hollywood, enjoy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, pop into Barnes & Noble to buy Why Good People Do Bad Things, and talk with a nice woman who tried to throw my suit in the trash.

I was gearing up for the four-hour pass I had the next day, where I intended to follow through on my prison commitments: a cold walk through the streets of downtown Los Angeles to meet lawyers.

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Yet part of me took satisfaction knowing I was going to wear this huge suit while cold-walking through the same streets of Los Angeles where I’d been sentenced. I had to close the loop, to walk back into the city that once watched me fall and show up this time on my own terms.

And with fewer funds, to put it lightly, I wasn’t ready to buy a new suit. I remembered a line I’d copied into my prison journal from Thoreau: “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” In practical terms: enjoy this experience and be grateful for what you’ve got.

Are You in the Circus?

The next morning, I waited anxiously at the halfway house for my four-hour pass to begin. I’d been practicing my “pitch” since 4:00 a.m. and rereading Lessons From Prison.
I was already in my suit and appreciating the feel of Kiehl’s lotion on my face, a very different feeling than the pasty lotion from the Taft Prison commissary.

It would be the start of a constant game of comparisons: “Wow, this is so much better after prison.”

While waiting outside for my mom to pick me up (I didn’t yet have permission to drive), people in the halfway house started asking questions.

“Dawg, where you going with that big suit on, the circus?” one said.

So clichéd, I thought. The circus. The good old circus cliché. Thank goodness I don’t do that.

People were curious and bored, not much different than prison.

Rather than engage—hence, why then and now some label me aloof, reserved—I smiled and stayed focused on my plan.

With traffic and the drive downtown, I’d have about two and a half hours to make it all happen. I was ready.

“I wrote a nice letter to Michael,” my mom said as we drove.

“He’ll read it and respond, I’m sure,” I told her.

Considering my mom had driven me to hundreds of baseball games, she knew I didn’t say much before big events. For forty-five minutes in the car, I sat there saying nothing, yet not one moment of silence was uncomfortable. In fact, it was comforting.

The Cold Walk

The lobby inside the 333 South Grand Avenue building in downtown Los Angeles was packed. It felt like the security guard watched me more than any prison guard ever did. It was as if he knew I was about to sneak past him and walk uninvited into law firms, peddling my book. Perhaps I was paranoid.

For about seven minutes, I played dumb on my phone, pretending to be busy. When I saw him duck around the corner, I made my move and slipped into an elevator—a huge bag full of books slung over my shoulder.

All I could think was: This is about to happen. It’s going down. I was taking my book to lawyers who were going to love it. This is it, man. I wish Michael could see me now.

I mapped out the lawyers I planned to visit, based on location and connection. I’d served time with some of their clients and assumed name-dropping would help. I think you know the cliché about assuming.

“Hi,” I said. “I’ll only take thirty seconds—I’m not selling anything. My name’s Justin Paperny. I just got out of prison. Quite a journey. I help people your firm helps—people under federal investigation, facing sentencing, or about to surrender to federal prison. I served time with Matt Case, who suggested I reach out. I wrote this book, Lessons From Prison, from prison.”

“I brought a few copies to give to Mr. [insert lawyer name]. Some firms keep them in their conference room for scared defendants—like me. I’d love to meet the person I should hand these to.”

My delivery was strong—so strong I expected her to say: “Wow, congrats. Who writes a book from prison? That’s impressive. Before I connect you to (insert lawyer name), will you sign a copy for me?”

Instead, she said, staring at the suit, “Who are you?”

“Justin Paperny. I’m not selling anything. I’ll only take thirty seconds.”

I was so nervous, with so many people staring at me, that I started reciting the same pitch again. You’d never think I was once a broker who raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

While standing there with all those eyes on me, I did the unthinkable. I kept telling myself the most overused cliché in history.

Damn it, I thought. Straight to Nietzsche? I’d been free from prison for five seconds and I was quoting Nietzsche? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

“Jason,” she said.
“No, Justin,” I said.
“Yeah, just leave the books—or take them. No lawyer is available to see you.”

Some version of that happened nine more times.

One lawyer even threatened to call my probation officer: “What part of the no-solicitation sign can’t you read?” she asked.

The Mirrored Wall

“My God, they hate me,” I told myself, staring into a mirrored wall outside the elevators on the tenth floor, precious time running out on my pass. “This isn’t going as planned.”

A million thoughts ran through my mind, including something Morgen, a developer serving twelve years at Taft, used to say. He loved quoting paradoxes.

“We’re living the shrinking paradox,” I heard him say in the chow hall.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You’ve got to get smaller before you can get any bigger,” he said. “Lose the weight, the noise, the ego. That’s the trade.”

Standing there alone on the tenth floor, I finally understood it. This was what shrinking looked like—awkward, humbling, necessary.

“Now what?” I wondered. “Get in the car, or visit one more office?” I already knew the answer.

When I struggle in life, I always think of baseball, the way it conditioned me for failure and rejection. Yet, as described in Lessons From Prison, it taught me all I needed to know about discipline, commitment, and character.

The highlight and low point of my unimpressive baseball career at USC followed an 0-for-5 game against the Japan National Team. I struck out three times; we also stole their signs in the first inning, so I knew every pitch that was coming.

After the game, Coach Mike Gillespie told me he was “proud of how I responded and that no one would have known if I was 5-for-5 or 0-for-5; all that mattered was that we won.”

Baseball taught me persistence through humiliation. That lesson was about to pay off in a way I didn’t expect.

Find a Mark Werksman When You Come Home

“Hey, I’ll only take thirty seconds—I’m not selling anything. My name’s Justin Paperny—” (okay, you know the rest of the pitch).

“Hold please,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ll get Mark,” she said.

Now this I wasn’t prepared for. At that point, I was conditioned to failure. Rejection had become familiar, like a uniform. I wasn’t ready to actually talk to someone.

“Justin, Mark Werksman. How can I help you?”
“Mark, every lawyer has ignored me today. One even threatened to call security and my probation officer. I just got out of prison. I wrote this book, Lessons From Prison. It would’ve helped me when I saw The United States of America vs. My Name. I’d be grateful if you’d review it and consider giving it to your clients. I’m not a lawyer, and I’ll never give legal advice. I’m grateful you came out and shook my hand. Truth is, I’ve got to get back to the halfway house, my mom’s waiting in the car. I’m on a four-hour pass. Will you please take the books?”

“Would be my pleasure,” he said.

He probably took pity on me. Didn’t matter. I’ll take it.

When I left his office, I felt satisfied, at peace. Truth is, even if he threw me out, I’d have felt that way. I’d passed my first test: doing something uncomfortable, awkward.

Nothing I’ve experienced in my career, live television, speaking in front of fifteen thousand people, compares to that cold-walking day in Los Angeles.

“Mom, we’ve got thirty-three minutes to get back to the halfway house. If not, I could end up back in prison, and not Taft, but MDC downtown. Let’s party.”

“So, how did it go?” She knew I was ready to engage.
“Mom, I had a good day.”
“Oh, they loved the book. I knew they would!” she said.
“Oh no. Hated it. Didn’t take it. One lady threatened to call my probation officer. Only one lawyer shook my hand. But I did it. The epilogue of Lessons From Prison says, ‘If you’re going to do something, you do it.’ I got thrown out, but I did it. I’m thrilled. Please drive faster.”

After I checked in at the halfway house, I went straight to my room. My bunkie John, who’d served forty years for robbing banks, was sitting in a chair reading The Catcher in the Rye.

“Hey, John,” I said. “My mom got you a sandwich. You want it?”
“Sure,” he said.
I paused for a second, then asked, “What are you, five-ten, five-eleven?”
“About that.”
“You want my suit? It doesn’t fit.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said.

I was careful how I asked. Prison and the halfway house are emasculating. You never want to presume someone doesn’t have anything. I’d learned to ask in a way that carried respect, not pity. It was meant out of kindness, not need.

I lay on my bed in that halfway-house room and wrote about my day in my journal.

The next morning:
“Justin, Mark Werksman here. I read most of your book. Would you send me ten copies? I’ll hand them out to my clients.”
“It would be my pleasure,” I told him. “Thank you, Mark.”

All at Once

As I wrote this in early September 2025, I reflected on another paradox Morgen introduced me to: the growth paradox.

Everything that grows takes longer than you think, and then it happens all at once.

That morning after the cold walk, when the phone rang and Mark asked for ten copies of Lessons From Prison, I finally understood what the growth paradox meant. Nothing had changed overnight; it only looked that way.

All those early mornings and long days in the quiet room with Michael, reading the same passages twenty times, walking the compound with a hundred index cards, enduring the mockery from those who hated my blog, had led to one moment: Mark saying, “I read your book.”

It wasn’t I loved your book. Simply, I read it was enough.
Growth hides for years, then shows up all at once.

What I didn’t know at the time was that day would become a million-dollar walk—not a metaphor, an actual turning point that led to years of business with Mark. One handshake, one “yes,” and it grew into a relationship that’s lasted more than sixteen years.

White Collar Advice has achieved extraordinary outcomes with Mark, whom I now consider both a mentor and a friend. Truth be told, if you can afford him, you won’t find a better lawyer.

The takeaway for you, the reader: do the uncomfortable thing, the thing you fear.
Make the cold walk. Write the book. Film the video. Start the business. Knock on the door. Send the email. Tell your story. Walk into the room. Ask for the meeting. Admit what you’ve avoided. Say thank you. Say I’m sorry. Do the thing that keeps you up at night. Face the person who deserves to hear from you. Take the first lap. Try again when you think you’ve had enough.

And if there’s one more thing to leave you with, it’s this: the earlier you start, the better. That’s the effort paradox. It takes years to make something look easy, the way my friend Brad Fullmer could hit a baseball 400 feet with such ease, or the way Michael could handwrite Earning Freedom, 150,000 words, in six weeks. What looks effortless is always built on thousands of unseen repetitions.

I wish I’d started the day UBS fired me on January 15, 2005. I wish I’d started when the Feds showed up on April 28, 2005. Or when I pled guilty. Or when I stood before Judge Wilson. I waited for the perfect moment, and it never came.

It wasn’t until October 12, 2008, three years later, that I finally wrote that first blog with Michael at Taft. Oh, how I wish I’d started earlier.

If you’re reading this, you have the chance I wasted. Start now. Do the work. Build the thing that will, someday, make your effort look effortless.