From a Chaotic Upbringing to an Abundant, Compassionate Life

 Today I interview Rick Evans. Rick is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, activist, veteran, and author of a book titled My Life for Yours, a memoir about the challenges he's overcome in his life. In our interview, Rick discusses how he navigated the extreme hardships of his childhood. including his mother's incarceration for murder when he was only six years old, and how he ultimately embraced leadership, hard work, compassion, and positivity to create a life of abundance and service to others.

Rick, it is so nice to have you here. Thank you for being here with me today. Thanks for having me, Beth. I'm glad to be here with you. You are a business owner, you're a father, you're a veteran, you have a nonprofit, you've really created a lot of things in your life, but your road to get there. I think anyone would say was not easy.

I'd like to start at the beginning in your childhood, if we could, and you had some. Traumatic stuff happened when you were a child in a particular event with your mother. So if you could start by talking about that, what happened there? Okay. Yes. Childhood was actually very dramatic, blur, big blur. I witnessed my mother commit murder at six,  at six years old.

And from then, just life was a rollercoaster ride because I never had counseling or anything for that. And just visiting my mother in and out of prison.  Actually, that was like a bad thing to mention that your mother was in jail for murder. I thought it was, especially as a kid. So I really never mentioned it to nobody, kept it to myself the entire time.

A lot of people would say, as I was growing up, where's your mom? And I would just say at work or wherever, but they never got to meet her until she actually came home after serving a time and stuff like that. But for the most part, I kept it hidden inside. What happened? Well, how did she end up killing somebody?

It was another young lady that was dating the same guy that she was dating and she found out. And she actually took it out on the young lady, actually killed the young lady, ran her over with the vehicle. And you were in that car? I was right there outside. Yeah. Her outside. Okay. Yeah. So you mentioned that you did visit her.

You did maintain a relationship with her through your childhood to whatever extent you could.  Right. And when I was young, of course, uh, family members would. Get me to a site where you meet up and you go visit people in prison and stuff like that. I remember downtown Philadelphia. But as I got older, I was able to go on my own as I reached a certain age.

But yeah, in a nutshell. So to see my mother, well, maybe once a month would be a bus ride. A long bus ride as I can remember. All I know was Muncie. Muncie is a female prison in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It's called Muncie. How long did that go on where you could only see her like that? Years.  Throughout your childhood, throughout your entire childhood.

What about your father during that time? He came into the picture. They came into the picture, but he was a real standoffish. He had a real negative feeling towards her and always was bitter cause they weren't together at that time. So we had real negative feelings towards her and he basically for revenge for, I don't know how they broke up, was split up.

I'm still a child. So I really didn't know what was going on. We needed some adult situations and he had animosity towards her. She had animosity towards him. And we were left stuck in the middle. It was four of us. I was the middle child. Yeah. I'm next to the oldest. It was four of us, but it was difficult.

But yeah, we were labeled on the street, let's just succeed. Basically they used to tease us. You know what I mean? Cause we were always. All over the place. I stayed in over 50 houses in Philadelphia. Went from house to house. Nobody have a baby picture of me right now. Nobody can produce it at all. We were all over the place.

How did that happen? Basically, people were saying, okay, we could take care of you now, then hand you off to somebody else. You can imagine four boys. It's hard to take care of four boys, so she had to split us up. Tuesday here once they hear one stay over there is you can, that's not going to do and get four boys and somebody to see and to take care of.

And then it was for a week at a time, couple of days, maybe sometimes I never, we never knew, but because of the instability, your schools, your education is messed up. Your school was messed up. You're messed up mentally. You're not like, you feel like you're not like the other children and you're not getting your.

Proper care consideration. It was difficult. Family alike. Family. A lot of times it was more so our friends. Uh, my mother's friends that were caring for us as opposed to family because the families was like a lot of people didn't want nothing to do with it. Your mother's in jail for murder. People are standoffish.

Been a lot of standoffish. Yeah, so I just told myself I didn't want to be like that when I grew up.  As long as I have my doors open, take care of people that I can take care of. So you mentioned that instability, just that feeling, you're a kid and I think you were maybe six when your mother went to prison.

So you're a young kid, you're going around from home to home. Is there any way you could describe what that really feels like as a child? I know children are adaptable. We know that. And they go with what happens to them to some degree. But what did that feel like if you had to put words to it? The feeling of not having a set home.

It was dark, it was dark, but you still had that unconditional love for your mother. And it was just dark. The more people talked about her or said anything negative, the more your love grew and the more your anger grew towards people that's not helping and just making the matters worse. But it was difficult.

You go to sleep at night and you hope morning never comes. You try to drown yourself into a bunch of cartoons and wrap yourself around television as much as you can to block out the outside world and what was going on. I really didn't know what was going on. You're still a child, no counseling, but you didn't sit down with a counselor three or four times a week to explain things to you to help you overcome and you have to overcome the best you can.

And so that's what I did. And we always wanted to know where she was always want to know what she was doing. Letters were important. And  you found somebody to care for that. Those are the people you cling to, or try to just wrap yourself around because you knew they cared. Understood things happen, but it's still your mom.

And then I just wanted to try to be the best I could be. So whenever she got out, I knew it would be difficult for her having been to prison and stuff like that. It will be a struggle. So I wanted to be able to receive her and help her the best way I could when she came home. You were a child and you loved your mom, but also there's a, I think to this day, there's a compassion that you have for her.

And. The place that she was in when this happened, when she did this thing that got her into prison. So what was that like with you and her, your feelings towards her, or the way you would talk about it, or if you would talk about it, how, how did that all play out between the two of you? It was real good. I was actually her favorite son because I really, I looked just like her.

So I was a favorite, but she would always spend her time crocheting or making me something to wear, something that I would like devoted to making something to share with me whenever I went to see her. We had a bond and I just knew I had to be there for her because all that time lost. And it was difficult.

And when she came home, it was a nightmare and it started all over again. I actually had a job. I was the youngest assistant manager for Burger King in Philadelphia. I was worried. Determined to, I was, anytime I touched something, I was always trying to go to the top. So I'm the manager, Burger King. And one night  the drive thru window was like, Mr.

Rick, there's somebody in the window screaming and stuff and saying to say, where's your mother? She don't have no shoes on and nothing. The lady's crazy. I go to the drive thru windows, my mother,  that type of thing. I said, what do you do? I had to embrace that. It can be embarrassing, but you have to. How do you deal with it?

You know, it's your mother, it's your mother, but that's why in the organization that I have today, that's why I look at people different because you know how people say, hey, that could be your mother. It was my mother at one time, somebody on the street walk around, she had developmental issues because of the drugs she was taking and everything.

She developed a lot of psychological issues. I probably visited every mental hospital in Philadelphia. Yeah. I used to tell my fellas, Hey, I'll be back on the weekend. I'm like, where you going? I'm nowhere. But one guy used to share with, he got on the bus with me one time. And I went and I say, we went cause you're riding the bus.

You don't have a car. And it took us like three, four hours to get there. He's like, where are we going? I said, see my mom, your mom. He was like, I was like, yeah, mom's in here, man. He was like, man, your mom. And he didn't let nobody know. It's not nothing you share with somebody. People on the street don't take it the way they should.

But I used to take long bus rides, and I've been to every mental institution in Philadelphia. They're not in the city. A lot of them are outskirts of the city. And so I'd go there, and I went to visit her sometimes, and she would curse and didn't recognize me. So how do you think that felt? While I was out, she didn't recognize me.

It's come four hours back, and the doctor and people would come out and say, right now is not a good time, because she's not adjusting to the medicine well, or whatever, and she wouldn't even recognize me. So you had to take that ride back and adjust. I didn't take the ride back. and go see a counselor the following weekend to ride back and adjust.

I'm still in junior high school, still going through it. No counseling at all. And to be honest with you, no family was really there to sit down and they don't know how to deal with it. They didn't talk to you. They didn't know how to talk about it. My father never, he never shared, never shared five minutes with him, you know, about the, uh, about no, none of neither answer that. 

She would be taken into custody. Like against her will kind of thing where she'd have to go into these mental institutions. Is that how it worked? A lot of, a lot of times it was willingly, she would go in because she wanted to get herself better. You got to remember these doctors that day, it was trial and error with medicines back then.

And it still is today. They would try this medication to see if it worked, try that medication to see if it worked. But she would have side effects or something else. And then if you drink on your medication, and maybe she had a drink or two, I don't know. But a lot of times it didn't work and it didn't work out, but she was fine.

Then a lot of times she would, I would go to some of these places and it was nice facilities and she was okay. She was okay. Now I was always real particular. I checked the room. I wanted to know who the doctors were, the nurses were. I wanted to know everything. What was going on? How long was she there?

How long was she going to be there? Everything. Things that I'm a child. Things that I should be out there getting involved, more involved with my education and sports, but that was my extracurricular activities. So right there is wearing by my mother. And I was the only one to do it out of the four sons.

Yeah, I was the only one to do it. My older brother went to Minnesota. Goodbye. He left the rings to me. You next in line, you have it. And he never, yeah, he never came. He never came back. So I was like, okay, then I got two under me.  Two little brothers under me. So I had, they looking at me. I got it. I can't fault you for taking off.

That's what you got. You do it. But then I had to lead the way for the other two. So I did raise them. It was way rough. Yeah. What do you think? What do you think that was when your older brother left? That That was just like, I got to take care of things. It's just, you're the next in line. Is it that simple?

Or what do you think it was about you? No, he was getting abused by my father and he knew what happened to my mother, but he was getting abused by my father. And the bottom line, he's the oldest. He don't have nobody to talk to. So he couldn't deal with it. So he went to job Corps and job Corps sitting somewhere far away.

And he ended up being in Minnesota. He stayed there as we camped out at rest of his life. But what about you? What was it about you that. That had you step up and take that role. You could have just said, I'm not going to go visit my mom. I'm not going to check in. You could have done that. Yeah. Born leadership.

That's just it. Born leadership, not giving up. What would my mom do? That was her kids too. Those are my baby brothers. But I stepped in step. They clung to me as well. They love me as well. So I stepped up. I'm still the older brother. He was my oldest brother. Okay.  Let's see. When he left, I went to the streets.

I was, I don't have an older brother. So I went to the streets. I started at the streets. Raising me. So I was raised on the streets. Tell me about that. Tell me about what that means to you to be raised on the streets. It's a training ground for anything that happens to you in the world. I was raised right on the streets of Philadelphia, but they never knew it.

They never knew it. They never knew it until I wrote a book about it. And I started sharing it with them, but I was in 50 different houses. I go, I hung out with guys in West Philly. So I was, I stayed. Everywhere, all over Philadelphia, and when they would go home at night and stuff like that, or we finished doing whatever we had to do, they would say, I'm going home.

Or they would go to go home and say, Hey, I'm going to go on here to eat. Sometimes I visit their houses. The parents would love me and say, Hey, where's your mom? I'm losing my mother. And I was your mother. Where's your father?  That's a blank. That's a big blank. I would make up something. You know, I would like to meet her.

They probably said they wanted to meet for four or five years. They never got to meet her. You know.  But I used to walk into the house and see that dining room table and see a smell, the smell of dinner cooking and be like, wow. And then they'd say, Hey, I'm going to eat, I'm going to be a couple of hours or whatever you, what you, I'll be back.

I'll come back and get you around eight o'clock. I would go walk all into the distance, wherever I come back. But they never knew it. I hid that for my entire time on the, on the block. I would call it on the block. There's nothing you want to share with nobody. It never really had a place to stay. That's a solid place to stay.

I might have been here for a couple days, here for a couple days, here for a week. That's why I wrote a thing in my book called imagine this, imagine that, imagine this. Because at night you just, is it a dream? When I wake up will it be different? No, it was never different. It was a struggle. Even in school,  look at the people you sitting in class.

You might not have the proper hygiene that people had, you know, but what can you do? You just didn't. But some counselors reached out because some teachers may have said something. Sometimes I was known to daydream a lot. I was known to daydream. Yeah, I was known for that. And they'll ask you something wrong, but I was intelligent that I'll come back to the lesson and then I could knock a lesson out.

But I was known in the daydream a whole lot. I want to hear where you went from there. Okay, so you had this very unstable. You're moving around. You're just doing your best you can. You're visiting your mom. So where was your next stop after that? My mother did get out of prison. What I did was went and stayed with her father, which is my grandpa.

So I bounced around with him into a few apartments. I made a stay with him for two or three years, but then I was in trouble a couple times, but I would kept, I was trying to balance,  But at the same time, I was boxing and doing gymnastics. I'm trying to do that to offset some of the negative things going on in my life.

So I happen to be the best six best of the city in the floor exercise. I was actually good with gymnastics and boxing and I graduated junior high school, went to high school, but then I got kicked out of high school. And it was still, it was bumpy for me, but I had to adjust. It wasn't a straight flight for me.

I had to adjust, but they said, his grades are good. We're looking at him and his grades are good. So we're not going to send him to all bad boys school. We didn't give him another opportunity. I took that opportunity and I graduated and went to another school and graduated. So that shows you, I failed, but I got back up.

I kept trying and trying. I wanted to do the best I could. I knew I couldn't be a failure if I wanted to have my mother succeed. So I tried college. At the same time, I remember I got two younger siblings on the street. So I tried college. I wanted to try college. I went to college for maybe about a year and a year and a half.

I got a call home, talked to my mother on the phone a couple of times. And she was like, you got to come home. I don't know what you're doing in college. I need you home. I need money. You got your two little brothers here. They drive me crazy. I can't do it. Okay, mom, I can't either. So I came, I went home to help her out.

So I went home. She had a house, a little house that she rented. And I went home. My little brothers was there. So I helped bring them through school and raise them with my mother. And that's the story. That's how it goes. And then I had to find time for my life. I had to try, I was too busy worrying about it.

My life was 75 percent of my life or more was devoted to  helping others out or making sure others were okay. But then my life was in the ruins. I had to figure out what I needed to do. You ended up in the military. So I'm curious. When did that happen? For some reason, my younger brother committed a crime.

He committed a crime right next door to where my mother lived. Went home, I guess he burglarized the house. Brought the TV into my mother's house. They both ended up in jail. Same jail. So I ended up visiting him in jail. I went down to the jail. And I said, I'm Rick Evans. I'm here to see Audrey Evans and Lamont Evans.

And he's writing it down. And he said, who's Audrey? I said, that's my mother. Who's Lamont? I said, that's my brother. They said, your mother and your brother's in here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting down. I got both of them at the table pass. And I'm like, Hey mom, I love you. I'm looking at my brother, man. Why'd you do that?

Now you got mommy in here. You know what I mean? Y'all, I said, yeah, y'all got it. Y'all got it.  I told him I don't know how much time y'all getting, but I'm gonna have to go to Minnesota and try. I might either end up dead or I'm gonna be in here with y'all because I'm not making no money to care for both of y'all.

It's real crazy out here.  So I called my older brother and told him, I said, Hey, I'm I'm going to come out of Minnesota for a little while, just a couple months or something, just see what I need to air out, man. My back's against the wall. They're in jail. Mommy and your brother's in jail. I'm on my way out there.

Went out there, and there was a jungle out there in itself. You remember, I'm going out there with nothing but a luggage. And so, I found out that, I said, I'm going to have to go somewhere. I'm going to have to go into the military or something. So, that's why I went into the military for Minnesota. When I joined the military, by the time I graduated from A.

I. T. with basic training, it's movies like The Officer and the Gentleman. There's a scene in The Officer and the Gentleman when he graduates, his partners and everybody, their families there, and he just walks around in a circle. I mimic that same scene. I graduated from A. I. T. and basic training, but I graduated in a fast track program.

They put me in a fast track program, meaning this guy's got skills and intelligence. So I graduated at the top. And everybody's family's out there and everybody's patting me on the back. And then where's your mom? Where's your pop? Who's there for you? Just the wind, just the wind. That's it.  And you can see them, everybody going off, car door slamming, stuff like that.

And you know how crowds slowly disseminates, right? And I'm standing out like, wow, it's ugly, but it's me, lone wolf. So I just embraced the military and made that. But what happened was it was a steady pay, constantly doing something. I had a purpose. And then when my mother got out, I actually had her come stay with me in the military.

So then I was caring for my mother and then I cared for her until she died. Yeah. So when you were in the military, were you able to find any sort of Sense of family or community in that your leadership is my anger and whatever I had inside I use in training. You understand what I'm saying? But I actually met a young lady and I got married in the military.

Then I have two children, two daughters, but when I got married, then I'm starting to make my own family. And that's when I brought my mother to see a different side of life. And she loved, I got a picture of her and I standing on the ocean side and stuff like that. They just bring her out of that environment.

But the family, I started building my own family, but that now I have my own family, but then I still had them to care for as well. They looking towards me, the family for them here, but I'm building my own family at the same time. And at the same time, trying to excel in the military. That's real demanding.

That's 24 hours. And then you deploy. I was in a rapid deployment unit, Kuwait, Iraq. What was that like when you deployed? What do you take away from those experiences? Um, yeah. Loved it. That was the crazy part. I loved it because I was doing something. I don't know. That's the crazy part of me I loved it, but I remember one time being on the airplane. 

That was 18 hour flight something like that We had to refuel on the air, but I personally was hoping the plane crashed. I was tired. Yeah Everybody else was on there eating and geared up. I was hoping the plane went down to the ground. I didn't care Every time we hit turbulence, I was like, I hope this is it, but he pushed through it.

What was that? What was, what do you think got you to right there when you're thinking, I'm wishing the plane goes down? What, what's going on right there with you? Just tired, mentally tired, overwhelmed, tired, pushed to the brink. Just not wanting to wake up and deal with whatever comes. Just tired. Just want somebody else to get it.

I mean, somebody else deal with it. That type of thing. Yeah. Too much of that. When you're dealing with a lot of grief and a lot of it stops with you. That's like when my mom passed. Prior to her passing, I was a sole provider. Doctors called me. I had my younger brother. I lived in Virginia and I had my younger brother in Philadelphia.

I was going to see about her because he was quick. But anything that needed. My intention, I would take the hour and a half drive to Philadelphia. But he was like, was you on the phone? Man, mommy's trying to ask her for you. All right, I'll be down there. So I got in the car, drove down there. And the last time I was there, it was a radio.

And she said, put that radio on jazz. And we did. And she was just talking to me real candid. She already knew it. Probably that was her last time seeing me. So she was just telling me stuff. Finish your book. Everything. But when I left out of the room, I heard her, she was like fighting with a nurse or something like that.

And I just told my little brother, I told him, come on, we walked off. And probably two days after that, he called and he said, mommy passed. But I felt something at where I was living at. I felt her passing and stuff like that. And I blacked out. Next thing I know, I woke up. Fireman was in my house and stuff like that.

And my brother asked me, he was like, what do you want me to do? I said, I don't know. She was Muslim. Last thing she was doing was a Muslim. Barrier Muslim. I had family, 15, 20 phone calls coming to me about that time talking about barrier Christian. You know what I wanted to say? He wasn't there when she was alive.

And now y'all trying to advise me on how to bury my mother. That's when they really found out about me. I told them all they can go wherever they want to go. But it wasn't a nice place. I took the flight down to Philadelphia and we buried her. And there was a sense of relief and a sense of pain and relief.

You understand? Cause pain, cause you, you missing your mom, but relief cause she was in pain. She was, yeah, she was in pain. She was in a whole lot of pain prior to passing and been through way more than I can endure. And then she knew it was a burden. She was putting the burden on me, but she knew I could deal with the burden because I love her as much.

You know what I mean? In the aftermath of her death, what Was your reaction because you did have such a strong connection with her and you were always taking care of her. It sounds like so the loss of her, it would seem that it would trigger something to happen. Where did your life go from there? I had a blacked out as far as I went into depression, a depression mode, trying to figure out what to do with myself.

That was really lost. So I signed up to go, which was crazy. I signed up to go to Iraq, ended up staying in Iraq, 2005, six and seven for three years straight. I was basically on a death mission, but I was just trying to find myself and ended up making it and coming back home. But, um, went to Iraq, came back and then just started dealing with it, picking it all up piece by piece, dealing with it.

You have to deal with it. And I dealt with it. And then I wrote a book, finished the book. Like I told her I would start an organization, Noah's Ark. And that's where I am now with the organization to help the less fortunate. Yeah. The homeless, the people that's on the street, I can look at them and know exactly what they're doing.

It's just devastating, but it's getting worse. It's not getting any better, but I feel them, and that's why I started the organization. What is the specific focus? Is it homelessness? Poverty? Homelessness, poverty, it's just being an ear for somebody to talk to, and being the link. For somebody to say, okay, there's an organization, no reputable organizations that provide certain assistance and lead people to that organization.

But they just, you just be able to say something to somebody, to talk to somebody. Like it was a lady that there's a couple of people that I got off the street, the lady that I got off the bus stop, those people. And there's a guy was walking and not too far from where I am. And I sat down and talked to him.

I had to sit on the other side of him because when the wind blew, the odor was crazy, but I sat on the other side with him. And I just sat there and talked to him, shared a beer and he said, can you give me a beer? I went and got two beers, sat down and shared a beer with him. You know what I mean? And he appreciated it.

And the next time I drove by, I told him I come by every weekend or something like that, I'll go get him something to eat and bring it to him.  But that thing right there, just taking time out for people, just seeing where they at, why are you here? What got you here? You wasn't born there. Huh? And wasn't born there, right?

Definitely not. And when you was born, it's a boy, it's a girl. Oh, he's so cute. Oh, she's so pretty. But as you age, you become,  oh, he's so ugly. Oh, she's so ugly. Right. It is a difference when everybody born cute and pretty. Jeffrey Daher was cute.  Oh man. What do you see when you're out there? When you're out there though, and you're talking to people and connecting, what kinds of things do you see that have gotten people to that place? 

I know what got him there. It is, there's only one thing. It's either drugs or depression. Depression is worse than drugs. You sometimes wake up and you don't have a purpose. I know a guy right now that I paid his rent for two years and filled up. He just grew up with me, a childhood friend, went home and they tossing quarters at him on the street.

And he's got his Mind and everything. And I'm like, Hey, what's wrong, man? He was like, Hey, man, started tears coming out. I was like, I'm glad to see you shook my hand. And when he let my hand go, it was like I had oil on my hand. But I took him to the motel where I was staying. I went to the front desk, got another room, and I went by a dollar store, grabbed all this bleach, soap powder, incense, and I had barber clippers with me already.

And I cut his hair, ran the water. I got everything I knew what to get. I knew what to do. I got trash bags and everything and he was like, he got in the car with me and all this took no less than two hours and I did it on purpose and it was a crowd of people where I took him from and when I brought him back, they says, see what that boy just did?

That's a real friend. You see what that boy, look at that guy. He just took, he ain't been going two hours, came back with a nice bad haircut, looking like new money. Felt good. You, you look good. You feel good. It only took two hours, a hotel room, and that had the whole, and we, we chopped it up the rest of the day, but that's just it.

And I, but I ended up, I found a place for him to, uh, to get to stay. And I paid his rent for two years. And we've been friends since to this day. His mom just passed, but he doesn't have a purpose. He wakes up, he has a house, but he wakes up now and he don't have a purpose, nothing to live for. You understand.

He's just missing. Activity. And I talked to him yesterday, just last night. And I told him sometimes before a person's body goes, the first thing is their mind. You got to keep your mind going. Keep calling me, find some activity, get your little dog or something, a puppy or something. I said, I'm going to come down here and see about you shortly.

And he understood that. Because he's sitting in the house all day, every day, and we just watch westerns on TV and eat.  You already did. So that's my connection. I know when I see a person out there on the street, I know how they got there. Everybody have a different road, but it's similar. But the bottom line is that person has a family who turned their back on them.

Nobody that's out there just fell out the sky. You understand what I'm saying? And I know everybody's family hasn't perished, but people turn their backs. People turn their backs for whatever reason, but even organizations, organizations are hit and miss. I've tested some of the wars out there. The organizations are not what they need to be.

A lot of them are a dog and pony show. And you'd be surprised, uh, police officers don't even want to arrest a homeless person at all. They would drive past them rather than put them in handcuffs and put them in their patrol car. Their patrol car is their second home. That's their homie. I don't want to smell him like that.

Why would you incarcerate a person with a problem, but you won't just take them off the street when they have a problem and put them in a facility to take care of them? You understand? It's a gap. It's a gap. But when you do go, when they go to prison, if they got a mental problem, they're going to receive medication, psychological counseling, everything.

Why do we have to put them there? And you can do a better job out here. You know, whatever your need is, they got a place for you. You committed that crime. Same thing. So if you're on the streets, whatever your problem is, they should have a place for you for whatever that problem is. But they just let them roam, let them gather.

And now look at it. Look, it's all over the place. So let me ask you, if you're comfortable talking about it, you did have a relatively short stint in prison yourself and you did well there because of the type of guy you are, which I think anybody listening to this interview can understand. Okay.  I'm interested in talking about what was your experience from inside?

What was it like if you would share a little bit about that? I assume it's crazy, Beth, that when you step off, you end up in prison. I, first of all, let me tell you what the judge said before she sentenced me. She said, where you been for 46 years? I said, what do you mean? She said, you're 46 years old. You only have a traffic ticket.

So don't, doesn't that tell you something? But I got to sit here and act. So why aren't you not listening to me? I suppose it's a five criminals with criminal background. I had a public defender. I didn't have enough money to pay for the go battle back and forth. And then I was tired. I didn't want to sit any longer than I already sat waiting for them to see people to come to court.

They even reached out to the VA. The VA didn't even send nobody down that they was supposed to. But anyway, I went on with the sentence. I ended up doing two years in prison. But it's just like I stopped saying, why me? And I said, maybe this is, maybe I'm just here for a reason. You know what I mean? Start, start looking at it like that.

So do what you do, what you do best. Lead and I led. One day I woke up and I wrote this thing down. It was a Christmas list and the Christmas list had everybody's cell number on it and what their wish would be. And I gave it to the bully. We had a bully in there. I gave it to the bully. And I said, here, read this Christmas list.

Read this Christmas list out to everybody. When they read that, the whole place was silent for like an hour. They showed them whoever wrote that. There's a genius because I knew what each and everybody's problem was in every cell.  You see what I'm saying? But so let me understand this. Well, let's take a step back.

Okay, so you're in there. You collect this list. You go to the bully. Okay. And somehow you get this bully to read this list.  See the bully. He bullied them, not me. And he didn't like me.  He was cool with me. He didn't bully me, but I call him a bully because I know he could say something to make the whole place shut up, which he always did.

And I used to laugh at her. I said, boy, I said, you got a brownie finger on these. And I said, here, read this. It was a Christmas verse. But when he read it, it had him on there too. And he, when he left out of it, it was like, man, which, who, who wrote that, man? Everybody asks, who wrote that? Can't tell you. But that told them, whoever wrote that, there's a genius in here because he knows exactly what's going on in every cell in here. 

And I know a person till today that got out and they still shocked by the list that he know I wrote it. What were you trying to do there? What was the strategy?  Pull the irregularities out on the people, you understand, because you can sit back so long and you can hear it, you can see it, what people's shortcomings were and stuff like that.

But that's what I wanted to do was let them know I see it, put it in front of them, so they know,  somebody knows your card, how you can get beat, or what you need, you understand what I'm saying? And I did everybody like that. It's like everybody. The light and get you  more intelligent. You have the answers.

They don't even think you belong in it. Some  walk in Jesus or something like that. So the actual, the actual warden came in and said something to me, said, I don't know what it is about you. But my guard's even talking about you. He said one of his guards went home last night and he shared with his wife and he was talking about there's an individual, there's an individual in there.

Nobody, they don't even fight no more. And the old people can walk around and it don't say nothing to them no more. You know what I mean? And it's just peaceful. And the guy, he actually came and he told me, he said, Hey, I don't know how to tell you this man, but And he wasn't my race or nothing, okay? And he said, I don't know why you're in here, but that's obviously a mistake.

He said, I'm a guard, okay? You don't need to be here, and it's obviously a mistake. And then, and now, they ended up waking me up one morning and telling me, hey, you gotta see the warden. So I went to see the warden. He said, I got something on my plate that I need your help with. And he said, I need you to go to death row.

I said, it's nice talking to you, Warren, but he sent me back where I just came from.  He said, you're the only person that I know that has the skills to keep his mouth shut and do this what I asked. He said, cause they will try to kill you if they knew you wasn't on death row because that would get them to come out again.

Cause on death row, they only come out, they got to go to court. And he said, we're trying to kill you because they don't have no reason not to kill you because they're going to die anyway. He gave me all the scenarios. He said, so I need you to just go over there and everybody else knows you over there.

The staff over there. He said, yes, that staff knows you over there. And you just follow what we ask you to do. We're going to have you talk to a couple. People over there and stuff like that. And you'll only be over there for a couple of months or something like that, but you won't eat what they eat.

You'll eat good. So what was the, what was their mission? What were they looking for? They needed, they, they wanted me to help prepare the inmates for execution, like getting the haircuts and stuff like that. And just talk. Yeah. And just talk. So I was like, I did it. I said, okay. And I did it. I was like, I seen Brian Nichols come through and a whole lot of other people.

It took a lot out of me. It made me lose appetite a lot of times, just talking to them. I don't know what it was that painted the picture for me because knowing where I was and knowing where they are, I was like, man, I'm nowhere. Damn. I didn't get the lead on Jackson. I just found out so much more that you really don't know unless you're there.

You understand? There's organizations that send them money. They get all kinds of time. Their sales are filled with cookies and goodies and honey buns and soups. And they would give me jolly ranchers. I definitely asked them why they were there. I just told them. Triple homicide. I just stuck with that triple homicide and they would tell me why they were there and how long they've been there.

Oh God. And it was devastating. Did you feel an ability to connect with them? Did you feel compassion?  I've really felt compassion, but I  The disconnect where it's nothing you, it's not like the guard said to me, you don't be, you don't need to be here. They went the extra mile and they took him to  heinous crimes or whatever, but it was a one night thing.

Or then they had even a guy over there that was the pastor for a death row. And he was so mind's changed, but the actions already been done. You understand what I'm saying? And yes, the punishment now he's got to face his punishment, which is lethal  is one guy. I talked to him. Oh, Sam does. Christmas killer, the Santa Claus killer, whatever, and all this isn't from Georgia and the UPS killer.

He came home. He's a good guy. He's married to a woman. He just wanted to surprise his wife, came home, and I seen the movie. I seen the movie and he surprised her. He goes upstairs. She's laying back down with another man. He just pulled out a knife, started stabbing them both. Put her in the trunk of his car, drove around for three days with the body in his car, and then got so tired, he just pulled up to the police station and said, Hey, you're looking for me.

All these guys are in there. So  it's crazy. So you can imagine what that does to you to hear their stories. And then I had a guard right there. That guard could not leave. My cell while I was cutting their hair and they would put their hands through the gate and they would take their handcuffs off of them and stuff like that.

But if I sensed anything or that guard, he was coming through that door. I've seen people since I've been home on TV that got lethal injection. I was like, wow, because I interviewed them. This people been in there for 20, 30 years. Yeah, that long.  I got bit on the back by a rat. And when I was laying down, the rats just crawled all over, and I'm on top bunk, and I was looking on the list.

What's that? I said, rats. I said, what? And they said, rats have been here longer than you. They're going to be here. And I knew I felt something. I was like, ah. It was just like a big old fist on my back the next morning. I finished the book while I was in there writing it. But when I got out, soon as I got my hands on 500 something dollars, I used that money to publish the book.

Yeah. It's, it strikes me that through all of these experiences, and you do talk about your innate leadership and. At some point you said they come to you because you seem like the guy who has all the answers. And so it makes sense to me that after a while, all of that being the guy who has the answers or being the guy who's taking care of things is exhausting, right?

Like why you get to that point where you're just full exhausted to be honest with you. And there, I wasn't exhausted. I felt it was needed. The leadership was needed. And that strikes me too, when you talk about people that you find on the streets who are homeless, that depression is such a big thing, and the lack of purpose, even with that guy that you've spoken about, who you pay his rent, everything.

And so how much do you think that just really that lack of purpose, that lack of meaning? Depression that sets in how much is that a part of what is happening when you are in prison and you're talking to people there when you're out on the streets? How much is that a play into all these people you've met or seen big play big play the end result is everybody in there.

They haven't started refocusing and I explained two different energies to him. Like when I go talk to him, when I sit down and talk to him, I said, you got negative energy, you got positive energy. Whenever you used all your energy to do something negative in the action, you said, I'm going to go do it. You got up and do it.

I said, on the positive side, you got to do the same thing. You got to say, I'm going to do it. You got to get up and do it. No matter what. I said, I see it going on in here all day. I can see a person over there talking about, I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna get up in a few minutes. And that guy keeps talking.

I'm gonna go over there and slap him. The guy actually gets up and he goes in and slap him. You said he's going to do it and you done it. I said, it's negative energy. When you get out of here and say, I'm gonna get up in the morning by 10 o'clock. I'm gonna have a job. Go get it. And do the same thing, but depression and not having a purpose, it has a lot to do with it.

And that leads to homelessness. A lot of people don't have a purpose and you're just out there. I see some of the people that's on the same bus stop every day. If you think that they had somewhere else to be, they would be there. But also talking to you, you have strong intuition and you understand people and a lot of that probably comes just naturally and some from all of your experiences and a whole mix and, but it's understandable.

I think how people can end up in situations where they don't feel positive energy, where they haven't really seen it, they don't feel it. And so you have somehow found that inside yourself. But on the other hand, it's also very understandable how sometimes People, they have a different outlook, whatever.

What would you say about that with what you find inside yourself compared to what other people, what is that difference? It is the experience and the compassion and it doesn't what we see when we look at something like. When I'm driving all day, one of my buddies said, he said he was with his wife and they drove past a homeless situation, and he was like, see, we just drove past that.

But see, he said, Rick could drive past that and it'll, he'll feel something. And that's what it is. We could, we, and we can all look at the same, a same picture and get something different from the picture based on what's on the picture. It is just about what you feel, what you experienced, and what you, you'd experience it in your heart and your mind.

A lot of people drive as the same person every day. But they, they have guilds on, they don't see it. I see it and I'm feeling it. I even know what the solutions are saying, but am I in the position to do it? Change, change the world? No, or change the situation? No. But what do you do? Do you just join the rest of the bandwagon and drive past?

No, you do what you can. And that's what I do. I do what I can and then I, and I hang it up at night, do what I can. Exactly. And you know what? That does change the world. In my mind, it does change the world. Obviously nobody can fix everything. And there's always stuff going on that is just beyond one's power to, to deal with.

Anytime you step out, anytime you do anything, that's changing things. It's creating something different. It's creating something different than was there before. I agree.  You also, you've started a business. You have this nonprofit Noah's Ark, and you're also a father. What has that been like being a father?

Productive purpose, definitely privileged father and a grandfather. Phones are always ringing, but that's a good thing because you can say it rings too much all you want. What if it didn't ring? See, ask yourself that I'd rather have it ring too much than don't ring at all. Yeah. So it's good. Purpose.

Daughters are well, grandkids are well, not never, none of them ever experienced anything that I've been through, which is, which was my goal to make sure that they have it and they have not. So that's good. And you have a business as well. And so basically you've really built a whole, a lot of things.

You've built a whole environment for yourself. That's so different from where you came from. And then anything that I do that I use life experiences in some way to align with the business or anything that I get involved with. I've seen a lot of suffering and a lot of tragedy not to excel in anything.

I'll go full, full speed ahead. I won't feel no pain. I just look for gain when I'm doing something. And that's where the drive comes from. All the life experiences tied together and I moved forward. Yeah, that's, it's amazing. Is there anything else that you'd like to get out there that you'd like to say?

Lessons learned? Any other thoughts you have? Lessons learned is each one reach one and don't turn your back on nobody because it could be you, it could be somebody in your family. But at the end, when all this is over with the world, what will your report card be? What have you done? To help someone else besides yourself, because a lot of people in the world have grown selfish and I could turn my head and just like a lot of other people, but I feel like you owe it to someone else to reach everybody.

Always saying, God bless you. God bless. God bless everyone to be able to bless someone. So you have a blessing in you to be able to bless someone. Just do it. You know, no matter how minimal it is, just do it and never give up. I like that. I like that. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. I really appreciate you being here.

Well, you're welcome, Beth. I enjoyed speaking with you. Get my message across.