Forty Powerful Principles Trigger and Sustain Personal Transformation!

Take a clay vase, before you glaze it, return it to the potter's wheel and shape it into an ash tray and you have reformed the piece of work. In other words, despite significant changes in shape and purpose, the object remains a piece of clay. Now consider a sperm uniting with an ovum. This union produces transformation. A completely new creation emerges from that union. That's transformation!

Since I've been writing for AC, I've received numerous emails, even telephone calls from individuals who followed the links on my AC work to various pages of my large and informative websites. Most people who have contacted me asked the same questions: 1) how did you go from being a criminal to becoming a successful law-abiding citizen?, 2) how in the world did you get a job so quickly? 3) How did you become a professional writer, a college professor and all the other stuff you've done with such a long crime and prison record?

Those are, of course, excellent questions and I've struggled with how to answer them once and for all! How do you tell such an incredible 60-year story, from the day when I was five-years-old and stole five dollars from my aunt's pocketbook, to now as I operate a very successful, international homebased business consortium, with corporate and individuals partners across the nation, with monthly income flowing in from 12 principal sources? Particularly how do I tell this story so that it's helpful to others, rather than a mere litany of self aggrandizement? How do I make this story readable, relevant and replicable so that some of the more than 600,000 men and women released from prison each year can learn how to accomplish similar outcomes?

Before I delve into how I've decided to tell this story, incredible as it is, let me share some of the specific benefits of achieving your crime and prison record into insignificance. Many of you who have read some of what I've written for AC about this arduous trek from crime to contribution along what I refer to as the Change Continuum know that I contend the following:

Crime is a way of thinking that justifies harming others for self-gain. Criminals operate according to a three-part prime directive: 1) to get over, 2) to get away with it, and 3) if caught to get out of custody as quickly as possible so the criminal can get back to getting over.

To transform into contributors, criminals must 1) break the crime habit, 2) earn an ever-free life, and 3) achieve the crime and prison records into insignificance. Do the crime and prison records follow you all your life? Yes and no! During the summer of 1994 when I served on the original Criminal Justice Partnership Program State Advisory Board, I asked the people in Consolidated Records to let me see my field jacket from my time in the North Carolina prison system. The staff found no field jacket, but they did find my name, birthdate and inmate number listed in an old database in the computer system. Recently, I went online to check my name in the Prison Department's current database. The system found no one, active or inactive in its database with my name. That's one thing I mean by the phrase--achieve your crime and prison record into insignificance. During the past few years, I have checked the public records in police departments in Durham, Washington, NC and other communities across this state where I had been arrested and charged with various crimes. Guess what? No records! Oh, there are some bad check charges that I committed as I struggled with the financial issues that accompany transformation. I also have a terrible driving record. That's why about five years ago, I closed my last checking account and stopped driving, as far as I know now, forever. With debit cards, smart cards and e-commerce, I function, quite well, thank you, without a checking account. Since I have reduced my travel to less than 20 percent of my time, buses, trains and airplanes, in that order, get me wherever I need to go. That's also part of the transformation process--achieving the records into insignificance--doing whatever you must do, however, non-traditional, even drastic, to conquer the bad habits that will sometime plague you for years.

Today, as I begin this seven-part autobiographical series, I am 149 days from my 40th anniversary out of crime and prison. In this seven-part series, I will try to answer all the questions many have asked over the years. More importantly, I will try to detail a "map," if you will, from crime to contribtuion, from tragedy to transformation.

In Part 1, I will explain "Getting to today!"

In Part 2, I will cover "The mission of my new life!"

In Part 3, I will give you an "Introduction to the 40 laws of transformation!"

In Part 4, I will focus on "Professional Transformation!"

In Part 5, I will reveal "Personal Transformation--inside/out

In Part 6, I will discuss the fact that "I have a new heart!"

In Part 7, I will explain "How to make the trek from crime to contribution

This series represents the ultimate meaning of "achieving the crime and prison record into insignificance." I can reveal it all! I don't have to hide! Of course, I will not discuss gory crime details, because that's not the emphasis of this series. During the past four decades, I've been blessed to achieve enough that when set beside my previous lifestyle, this new one towers higher, serves more, and accomplishes outcomes that many former criminals never dream of achieving.

I am not writing this series to brag, but rather to testify! In this series, I will report the S.L.A.P. of my existence. The aconym stands for Successful Living After Prison.

See you next time!