(Click the Play button above to listen to the whole podcast)
On April 28th, 2008, my mom and brother drove me to the federal prison camp in Taft, California, three years to the day after the FBI came to my front door. Shortly before we pulled off into the prison, we stopped at a Carl’s Jr. outside Bakersfield. I ordered a huge meal—burgers, fries, and shakes. I wasn’t hungry. I was full halfway through. But I kept eating, stuffing myself like it would somehow fill the emptiness of what I was walking into. I told my family I was ready. I lied.
That last meal wasn’t about food. It was about fear. I thought I could fill the space that denial left, but I couldn’t.
I had set very few goals. Learn some Spanish. Exercise. Keep my head down. Wait out the year. That was it. I figured I would just stay quiet, never talk about what I had done, and let the DOJ, the FBI, or a case manager decide who I was and how quickly I should be released. That’s why I ate like I did—because I wasn’t walking into a plan, I was walking into a void.
If you’ve read my book or watched my videos, you know I met a mentor in prison, Michael Santos. When I shook his hand, he had been inside 22 years of the 26 he would serve, and he became my mentor and guide. He encouraged me to use my time productively. For months, I didn’t. I lost myself in endless exercise. I read books without purpose, filling time but not building anything.
Then I noticed men getting ready to go home. They were scared. They didn’t know what awaited them without their licenses, without their reputations. And I realized—that was going to be me. I had been successful once, but now I had lost everything. If I didn’t change, I would go home the same way I walked into prison: unprepared.
Michael kept pressing me. We walked the dusty track, and he gave me Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Dante’s Divine Comedy. At first, I didn’t get it. Then it began to sink in. I was still lost. I needed a new routine. I cut my exercise from six hours to two. I started reading with questions: Why this book? What did I learn? How will I use it? I began writing letters home that showed I was working on something real. My family could see I looked stronger, but I wanted them to see I had a plan.
On October 12, 2008, I handwrote a blog. Michael helped me. I mailed it to my mom. She put it online. The next day, I wrote again. And again. That first blog became the start of Lessons From Prison. It gave me direction. It was proof.
That proof mattered. Judges and probation officers don’t want to hear you say you’ll change. They want to see a record. My family didn’t have to guess if I was okay—they could see it. My mom slept better. She walked with her friends again. She traveled with my dad and stepdad. Somehow, my prison term even brought my divorced parents closer together. They saw evidence.
Looking back, the three years of waiting before prison were worse than prison itself. The anxieties, the denial, the last meal I ate as if it could prepare me—all of that was harder than the twelve months I served.
Prison was easier for me because I did it. I broke the law. I enabled. I turned away for money. And once I faced that, I could begin to build.
That’s the point. If you’re going in, your family is watching. They can endure truth. They cannot endure silence, excuses, or self-pity.
That meal I ate the day I surrendered wasn’t about hunger. It was about denial. It took prison and a push from a mentor to replace hopelessness with a plan.
So I’ll ask you: if you had to surrender tomorrow, what would you bring to show who you really are?
Justin Paperny
