My Trek from Crime to Contribution

The caller asked excellent questions! How did I do it? "It," in this case, refers to 39 years of personal and professional transformation that carried me from being seen as a high school dropout, criminal and prison inmate to being a professional writer, college professor, television and radio show producer/'host and successful homebased business operator.
The caller surprised me recently, not by the call itself, because I am intentionally easy to find. Goggle my name and you can easily discover my crime and prison background, my business website, copies of articles I've written over the years, and other information as well. No, I was not surprised that the caller found me, but that the person had checked the facts. He had checked with Campbell University and North Carolina Central University, where I claimed to have taught for 10 and 9 years respectively. This caller said he'd checked every fact he could, and was surprised that he could find no record of me in the database of the North Carolina Department of Correction.

That's called achieving the crime and prison record into insignificance.

As I listened to this confessed racist talk, I realized what a wonderful opportunity God has put in my hands. I don't have to try to change this man's thinking, but I can still help him help people he loves because though he didn't say it, I believe this man has loved ones in crime, maybe even in prison, and he's struggling with the challenge of trying to help.
Criminal thinking perates as an Equal Opportunity Life Destroyer. Embrace criminal thinking and it will eventually destroy you. Kenneth Lay, the former and late chairman of Enron provides a national example. On the North Carolina front, former State House Speaker, veteran legislator and optometrist, Jim Black serves as a "local" example. To be politically correct, I should also mention Martha Stewart, of course. What did they and others do? They embraced a way of thinking by which they could justify harming others for self-gain. Embrace that thinking, and family background, political connections, superlative DNA or even extensive good luck will not save you. That thinking--crime--destroys lives with no allowance for who you are or who you know.
Can a person suffering with this type of "stinking thinking," a term popularized by the great motivator, Zig Ziglar, be cured? Is transformation possible? Yes, without a doubt.
So the caller's questions are good ones! How did I do it? Can this process be taught and replicated? Can anyone do this? Yes and yes! Therefore, in a series that I will call my Trek from Crime to Contribution, I will provide exhaustive details about what I have accomplished, but more importantly, how.
For those of you who have yet to read the glimpses and snapshots of my background in other pieces published at AC, consider this detailed summary.
Currently, I run a successful Home-Based Business Operation (HBBO) that features three divisions--Health, Education and Wealth-creation, and four operational centers--Networking, Educating, Writing and Strategizing. I operate internationally with more than 90 percent of my work focused online. I work with local, regional, national and international partners that include other homebased business owners, as well as manufacturing, distributing and marketing corporations. I launched this particular iteration of my HBBO in 2003, the third restructuring of a strategy that began in 1979.

This personal and professional development strategy began in December 1968, following my final release from prison, after spending 84 months of the 1960s decade incarcerated. The 39 years--as of this December--between then and now include the following career highlights:

More than 30 years as a professional writer that include work as a journalist for several North Carolina newspapers and free-lance work for local, regional and national publications. My last newspaper job before launching my business efforts was five years with the Charlotte Observer, one of North Carolina's foremost newspapers.

I resigned from the Charlotte Observer in February 1979 to establish my first homebased business opportunity that focusd exclusively on free-lance writing for various publications, My work has been published in Newsweek (My Turn), the Afro-American newspaper, American Education Magazine, Jet Magazine, Black Enterprise magazine, Business North Carolina magazine, the Weekly Independent newspaper and scores of other local, regional and national publications. During this time, I also helped to launch two small regional magazines in South Carolina, bought another one that published for a brief time in eastern North Carolina.

More than 10 years as an adjunct college professor and guest lecturer. My collegiate teaching career began in 1983 in the Continuing Education Department at Duke University, where I taught a course entitled Write For Profit. After that, I taught similar courses at Wake Technical Community College, Southeastern Community College and Durham Technical Community College, before joining the adjunct staff at Campbell University in 1987. I taught regularly at Campbell until the end of the 1996 academic year. For the final two years of that time, I also served as advisor to the University's award winning yearbook. In 1989, I began a similar adjunct position at North Carolina Central University in Durham (NC) where I taught until 1998. I have also lectured at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte (NC), Clark College in Atlanta, the University of Houston, Benedict College in Columbia, (SC), Appalacian State University in Boone,(NC) and NC State University in Raleigh, (NC).

During my time in Wilmington, North Carolina, and after resigning as a staff writer with the Wilmington Star-News, where, among other issues, I covered the world-famous Wilmington 10 case, I was also coordinator of a grant-financed program called The Rumor Control Clinic. I also recruited students and taught in the Night High School Program that eventually evolved into the Extended Day program in public school across the state.

More than 22 years working parttime in radio and television. I began this work in 1973 when I produced Wilmington's first television public affairs program that focused on issues in the local African American community. We called this program The Black Beat. I also worked as the first station manager for Wilmington's first "soul," (urban contempary) radio station--WWIL-FM. During this period, and after leaving Wilmington, I sold radio advertising for a similar station in Fayetteville (NC)--WIDU-AM. Since 1982, I have been a guest regularly on three different news/public affairs programs produced at the UNC Center for Public Television, including Black Issues Forum where I also served as researcher/writer for more than five years.

Almost 28 years as a Home Based Business Owner, a venture I launched after leaving the Charlotte Obsever in 1979. Initially, I called my company The Writer's Group, and following a restructuring in 1982, I named it Jordan & Associates. In 2003, I restructured again into my current configuration as KOG Unity PLUS Group.

These highlights developed after a challenging early life that began in 1942 when I was born to a unmarried woman, who gave me to the local welfare department when I was nine-days old. I started a 20-year crime career when I was five-years old by stealing five dollars from my adopted aunt's pocketbook. After that, I did something criminal almost every day, even while incarcerated. I was arrested for the first time when I was 11 yeas old, and went to prison for the first time in December 1959, after dropping out of school within the initial 90 days in the 10th grade. After more than two years in prison, I was released in May 1962, and returned to prison in August 1963 after being convicted on new charges. I was paroled in December 1965, but returned to prison with new charges, including parole violation, in 1966. My final release came on Dec. 9, 1968.

Okay, that's the summary. Now all of you, even first time readers of my AC content know why the caller didn't believe some of the things I had published. I understand. More importantly, I understand that every year for the next decade there are 660,000 sons, daughters, neices, nephews, husbands, wives, etc. who will be released from the nation's state and federal prisons who need to know what I know.
How do you transform yourself in the process of making that arduou trek from crime to contribution? Can anyone do it? Was I just lucky?
Next: Transformation begins with a vision and a mission!