Easier to Say Than Live | Chapter 5

The Fall Interrupted

May 20, 2010: Jonesboro, Arkansas

I was 30 seconds into an ethics lecture when a big man in the back interrupted me.

I had said something I frequently used while working my way into a presentation.

"Anyone can make bad decisions under pressure," I said. "Anyone can rationalize a shortcut, tell themselves they'll fix it later, and end up somewhere they never imagined, like federal prison."

"Not me," the big man said.

Then he stood up. He must have been six-five, with a beard down to his chest and arms folded like he had been waiting for this moment.

For a second, nobody moved.

"It's not time for commentary or questions yet," I told him.

"I know," he said. "I just don't want you thinking everyone in here could fall like you did. Your decisions are your own. I've been an accountant for more than 20 years and have never taken a shortcut or made a bad decision under pressure."

Every head turned. The room went quiet. I got the sense some people were hoping the exchange would turn ugly.

It was May 20, 2010, one year to the day after I left Taft Federal Prison Camp. There were 1,000 accountants in that room, all there for continuing-education credit.

I had already spoken to more than 100 classes around Southern California: USC, Long Beach State, UCLA and Cal State Dominguez Hills.

At one of those early events, after eight classes in a single day, a professor handed me $100 for gas. I was grateful. I needed the practice. Those classrooms led to Jonesboro, where the organizers purchased 1,000 copies of Lessons From Prison and paid me a five-figure honorarium.

Now, a man in the back was challenging me before I had finished my opening.

For a second, I wanted to prove him wrong. Then I stopped.

"You're right," I said. "It was wrong to suggest everyone in this room, or the entire human race, could make the same terrible decisions I made. I apologize."

I waited for a moment.

"I'm here to share my story. I knew right from wrong and crossed the line anyway. I created victims, embarrassed my family, ruined my career and spent 388 days in federal prison. I hope you'll find something useful in what I share. Again, I apologize for implying that everyone could fall as I did."

He nodded and sat down.

Some people looked relieved. A few looked disappointed that the show was over.

Once I settled in, I told them about prison. I described walking the dirt track every morning and falling in love with philosophy, even though I understood very little of what I read.

"Truth is," I said, "99 percent of it went over my head. One line from Nietzsche stayed with me:

'The value of a thing lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it.'

"Some people skip their child's game for a meeting," I said. "They stay quiet when something feels wrong because speaking up might cost them a bonus. Maybe they work in a culture that rewards turning the other way."

I wasn't guessing. I had done it.

I attained status, bonuses and a title. The cost included my health and eventually my freedom. In my case, the bill arrived as United States of America v. Justin Paperny.

At the end of the presentation, I expected the big man in the back to approach me.

He didn't. That would have been too clichéd.

Instead, an accountant waiting for me to sign Lessons From Prison pulled me aside.

"Man, that quote about attaining versus cost makes sense," he said.

By then, I had noticed something about speaking openly. People I had never met would tell me about crimes they committed and never got caught for, arrests, family problems and decisions they regretted. I had just described my worst decisions to a room full of strangers; some of those strangers responded by telling me theirs.

"For years I just worked," the accountant said. "Chased every credential: CPA, CFA, MBA. I got the titles, the business, the income. But I'm burned out. I can't stop working, and I feel this compulsion to keep proving myself. I can't believe all the books you read in prison. I can't read for two minutes without checking my email. I'm tired."

Another accountant joined us. He was in his mid-forties but looked 60.

"I've been walked over my entire career," he said. "I say yes to everything. Clients, long workdays, no weekends off. I've got possessions, but I have no peace. I feel like a pushover. I attained it all, but at what cost?"

I thanked them for telling me.

Then I slipped back into lecture mode.

"There has to be something you agree to do," I said. "Otherwise, this lecture was useless, and I'm just some guy from California who got reprimanded 30 seconds into his presentation for suggesting the whole human race could end up in prison."

The Bill Comes Due

After Arkansas, I returned to airports, hotels and lectures. That year I spoke at business schools, law-enforcement trainings and eventually the FBI Academy.

As a stockbroker, I had managed several hundred million dollars, much of it annuitized. On the first day of every quarter, I knew a commission check was coming from transactions completed months or years earlier.

That income was comforting. It also made me lazy.

As a speaker, I only got paid when I spoke. I was grateful for the work, but I kept comparing it to my old life. Before prison, checks arrived from work I had completed long ago. After prison, if I wanted to earn money, I had to get on another plane.

One night in a Chicago hotel, I sealed a restitution check and stared at the envelope before dropping it at the front desk.

Whenever I sent a restitution payment, I thought about what I had lost.

My mind went back to a Saturday in the prison library when I first read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde wrote about "those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats."

I understood that sentence immediately.

I had good years while I was breaking the law. Actual victories. Big accounts, recognition and money. Remembering those years made starting again more difficult than I expected.

In prison, I quoted the Stoics and said I would appreciate what remained. Sitting in that hotel room, I was doing the opposite. I kept comparing every speaking check with what I had earned before.

It was easier to sound Stoic than to live that way.

The comparisons also gave me another reason to delay the personal life I said I wanted.

The Cost of Waiting

"Steve, she'd have to work full-time," I said as we ran up a hill along Ventura Boulevard.

He looked over.

"Who's she?"

"My future wife."

He laughed. "You're already building a family in your head?"

"I'm just saying, my mom stayed home when I was little. She worked when I got older, but she didn't have to. I think a mom should be home with the kids. I'm just not there yet."

It was July 2011, and I was running in Woodland Hills with my friend Steve Cain.

We had known each other since high school, played baseball together and later played in college. I was at USC; he was at UC Santa Barbara. Steve had seen every version of me before, during and after prison.

"Do you think maybe she'll want to work?" he asked. "Or maybe she isn't concerned with how much you make?"

He continued running beside me.

"You keep telling audiences to measure life not by what they attain but by what it costs them. What's this waiting costing you?"

I didn't have a good response.

At 35, I had created a financial requirement that had to be satisfied before I could become serious about marriage or children. I told myself I needed to provide the same lifestyle I had growing up.

That could take years. Maybe forever.

The requirement forced me to keep waiting.

A few weeks later, I returned from a speaking trip in Virginia and reactivated my Jewish dating profile. I had taken it down because I told myself I needed more time to build.

This time, I put it back up.

The Record Speaks

August 2011: Marina del Rey, California

Sandra called while I was driving to Pepperdine Law School for my 11th lecture in two weeks. I was excited to speak to law students; most of my presentations had been for business schools, accounting programs and brokerage firms.

"So what do you do for work?" she asked.

"I'll text you my website," I said. "If you're okay with what you see, let me know."

"Your website?"

"Yes. Check out my website."

"Okay, will do."

When I hung up, I knew I had taken the easy way out.

I'd built a career out of standing in front of rooms full of strangers and telling them exactly how I ended up in prison. Sandra asked one simple question over the phone, and instead of answering it, I sent her a link.

Two days passed. No response.

I texted her again.

"So sorry we were rushed the other night. Can you talk at 8 p.m.?"

Nothing.

Two more days passed.

"Hi Sandra, Justin Paperny here. You've gone dark. Dark is not good!"

Later that day, she responded:

"Hi Justin, I've reviewed your website, your past, what you did. I've enjoyed reading some of your blogs and truly believe you want to help people. I can see you're trying to make something good out of something bad. Still want to talk?"

"Yes," I typed immediately.

A week later, we met near the Cheesecake Factory in Marina del Rey. Instead of eating, we walked around the lake.

Sandra started by asking about my family. She wanted to know about my mom and how my parents handled everything when I went to prison.

I was proud to tell her how supportive they had been.

Her questions didn't feel like an interrogation. She was curious, and I was willing to answer.

We talked about the books that helped me in prison. I told her about Michael Santos, how he mentored me and how I was still trying to develop my own voice while giving him credit for everything he had taught me.

"I'm grateful for him," I said. "He taught me more than anyone, but I'm trying to form my own voice now."

"That makes sense," she said. "I can see that in your writing."

I told her I had become obsessed with Ayn Rand in prison. I read Atlas Shrugged twice and learned more than 200 words from that book alone. I admired Rand's defiance, but for a while, I confused copying her with thinking for myself.

We kept walking.

I learned that Sandra attended Cornell, far from her home in Orange County. The first time we texted, she was traveling alone in London. I admired that independence and told her.

"I could never have done that back then," I said. "I was the mama's boy who picked USC partly because it was 30 minutes from home."

She laughed. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Maybe. But I see how much confidence it takes to go across the world by yourself."

By the time we finished walking around the lake, I could tell she wasn't judging me only by the conviction. Before meeting me, she had read the blogs and reviewed the website. She had seen what I had been doing since prison.

I had spent years writing those blogs for probation officers, judges and prosecutors. I never imagined Sandra would read them before deciding whether to meet me.

At a red light on the way home, I texted Sandra, "When can I see you again?"

The next morning, I emailed Michael in prison and told him I found the person I would marry.

Chapter 5 Reflection Journal

Nietzsche wrote that the value of something includes what we pay for it. Choose one achievement you are proud of. What did it cost your health, family or time?

Oscar Wilde wrote that past triumphs can make later failures bitter. Which earlier version of your life keeps making the present look inadequate?

I told myself I could not marry until I could provide a particular lifestyle. What requirement have you invented that allows you to postpone the life you claim to want?