December 27, 2014
How Will Prison Influence My Future?
I am in the process of updating a series of lessons plans that will help guide my consulting practice. Once the new site is designed I will give away the first lesson plan to any one who expresses interest in learning more. As a guide, I offer a response to the first question I pose in the lesson plan - In what ways will challenges you face with the criminal justice system influence your future?:
"Googling" white-collar crime after learning of my investigation gave me an idea of the challenges ahead. Traveling under the illusion that I could somehow manage the fallout only made matters worse.
For example, rather than work openly with counsel and the government, I told half-truths. I obsessed over losing my real estate and securities license, my reputation, and assets I had worked over a lifetime to build.
Living in denial brought some short-term benefits, I suppose, but in the end failing to prepare led to a longer prison term and additional financial penalties, including legal fees and criminal restitution. Worse, I brought more pain to those that loved and supported me.
Surfing the Internet for quality white-collar crime information convinced me that it did not exist. Further, the horror stories I read about educated white collar offenders struggling in and out of prison taught me the only option was to do what ever I had to do to stay free—accepting responsibility was the last item on my list.
What I needed was a plan, a strategy. I didn’t get it until I met Michael Santos in prison. With his tutelage I realized how many prisoners, myself included, failed to prepare. With his help, I finally began taking steps to prepare for the myriad obstacles that awaited me (or any felon). Once I embraced the reality of those obstacles we created a plan that would ensure I left prison stronger— we proudly teach those principles through the programs offered at Federal Prison Advice.
It might sound self-serving to some, but the programs that we have created at Federal Prison Advice are exactly what any white-collar offender needs to overcome the challenges ahead. I urge you to seize the opportunity to work with us. Had our programs existed before my surrender to Taft Federal Prison Camp on April 28, 2008, I would've been better prepared for all stages of the journey, from the indictment to the presentence investigation to prison, supervised release and everything in between.
Justin Paperny"
I know I battle fear of one sort or ahonter that hampers me from creative output, whether it be on my blog or in tackling art projects that I have started or what have you. Even making some of the changes I would like to make at work, as far as what kind of worker I want to be and the culture I want to create for my employees is something that is often hampered either by fear of failure or lack of gumption to actually pursue it and get it going. As an effort to push past this I am re-reading Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. This time I’m reading it aloud to my wife so that I have someone to discuss it with, bounce ideas off of, etc. While my life is very, very good and I have little to complain about, I do know that I’ve become complacent in many areas and this is no longer good enough for me.