Preview:

Imagine being addicted to meth and leading an organized crime ring, only to be arrested and sentenced to life in prison. That was the reality for our guest today, the best-selling author and motivational speaker Damon West.

 

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More About This Episode:

His story of transformation is unlike any other, filled with tales of resilience, hope, and a unique perspective on life that only prison walls could provide. He went from being a college quarterback with a bright professional future in business to a life sentence in a matter of years. But a prison mentor named Mr. Jackson changed his life with the coffee bean message.

We met Damon during the South Carolina Coaches for Charity event this summer and were blown away by his remarkable story. That’s why we wanted to bring it hear and share it with you. Since leaving prison in 2015, he’s spoken to college football teams like Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and expanded in a way that requires him to travel 24 days out of each month.

His life-altering insights are a testament to the power of change, and the strength of the human spirit to rise above adversity and we’re excited to share that with you today.

 

Sky Snippets:

0:00 – Intro

1:50 – His life of drugs and crime 15 years ago

3:47 – How ‘be a coffee bean’ started

8:09 – Success since being paroled

12:41 – His first encounter with Dabo Swinney

17:42 – Talking to the Clemson football team

19:24 – How the coffee bean message exploded

 

Learn more about Damon: https://damonwest.org/

Check out some of his appearances here: https://damonwest.org/resources/

South Carolina Coaches for Charity: https://bit.ly/3Ro0Dog

 

Audio Version:

 

Resources:

Retire Pilots – https://retirepilots.com

Get your FREE Retirement Toolkit – https://bit.ly/3ZmZsaX

Pilot Tax – https://pilot-tax.com/

The Pilot’s Advisor Podcast is also on video. Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3EIEBW2

 

Episode Transcription:

(Note, this is an automated transcription. Please forgive any errors.)

Walter Storholt
In the vast skies of opportunity pilots chart courses with precision guided by instruments, training and instinct, but beyond the horizon of the aeronautical lies and other challenge the intricate tapestry of finance. For every pilot the journey doesn’t end upon landing. It’s about securing the future, understanding the nuances of investments and crafting a legacy. Where do you turn when the charts and maps of finance seem as intricate as the schematics of an aircraft? Welcome to the pilots advisor with Ryan Fleming of first officer with FedEx on the seventh seventh seventh at the hill. On this show will delve deep into tailored financial strategies, insights and wisdom crafted exclusively for those who rule the skies will help you navigate your financial flight plan with the same mastery you exhibit in the cockpit Prepare for takeoff into a journey of financial clarity and empowerment. The pilots advisor starts now.

Ryan Fleming
Welcome to another edition of the pilots advisor we have a very very special guest today. Famous famous author, speaker travel world traveler travels all the time almost are actually more than airline pilots. We were just comparing travel schedules and and this cats traveling more than most of our airline guys. But welcome to the show. Damon West. David wants you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Damon West
Brian, first of all, thanks a lot for having me on brother. I’m excited to be here with you today. And ever since I met you a few weeks ago, I’m glad that you you follow through man. You said hey, let’s do this podcast we talked about Listen man we met at Clemson because I was there to speak to Dabo swinney’s football team and Dabo Sweeney has a very special place in my heart because Dabo Swinney was the guy that really gave me a new start in life. And when I say it new start in life. Because 15 years ago, I was a completely different guy than the guy that you’re seeing in front of you now. I mean, I wasn’t this best selling author, I didn’t have movie deal. I wasn’t friends with guys like Dabo I didn’t travel all over the world. Because 15 years ago, I was a full blown meth addict. And I was the head of an organized crime ring that was operate throughout the entire city of Dallas. I was I was the top criminal on the criminal period, the guy that called the mastermind the shot caller, that was me. And I was in that was in his dirty old apartment 15 years ago, so July 30 2008 day, and they take me down, they take me to Dallas County Jail, they arrest me, my bond is set at $1.4 million. And I’m being arrested for the crime of engaging in organized criminal activity. This is Rico, this is everybody. Right now at this current time we’re recording this everybody in America is talking about Rico cases right now, because there’s a very big Rico case that just got filed in Georgia. But I got filed under the RICO statute, and it’s organized crime, and I was charged as the mastermind of it. So 10 months later, I go to this trial and a jury cynicism into life in prison for engaging in organized criminal activity to commit burglary of habitation over meth. It was all a bunch of meth related burglaries. And after that trial was over, I had a really serious conversation with my mom and my dad. And they, they asked me, like, look, you know, you can’t come back as someone we don’t recognize you can’t get one of these gangs come back with a bunch of tattoos. In fact, my mom says no gangs, no tattoos, you come back as the man we raised, or don’t come back at all. And Ron, I’m floored man, because I don’t know how I’m gonna do this. Because every guy that I’m talking to Dallas County Jail, is telling me you have to get to a gang that sort of couldn’t survive without a gang, not to the part of prison I was going to. But I ran into this older black man in Dallas County Jail. And he Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Jackson is what you would call a seasoned convict. He’s been in and out of prison his entire life. But he was the most positive guy I’ve ever met in my life. And he had a smile on his face everywhere he went. So one morning, Jackson comes up and I’ve got just a little bit of time for the prison buses coming to pick me up and take me off to prison who have served my life sentence and he comes up to me, he’s very serious. He’s like, Listen, you know, don’t listen to these idiots about getting to gang, but let me tell you what prison is gonna be like. And so he’s telling me about the dynamic in prison about how all the gangs run the prison system, and all the gangs are based on race. And because you’re a white guy, you got to fight the white gangs first. After that, you’ll find the black gangs if you want to be independent, which is what your mom and your dad made your promise to be. And he sees the fear in my eyes and he says, Hey, listen, man. Let me break it down for you a different way. He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. He said anything we put into this pot of boiling water will be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said I’m gonna put three things in this pot of boiling water and watch how they change a carrot, an egg and a coffee bean. So he walks me through the changes that happened to each one of these objects the carrot, he said In the pot of warm water will become soft. This happens to people in life, he said they get beat down and get soft and sad and weak. He said the egg in the same pot of warm water goes down with that hard outer shell, the soft liquid inside. But eventually the water will transform that soft liquid inside into a hard, hardened heart. And he said, you don’t want to become the egg either because the egg is institutionalized. But he said the coffee bean in the same pot of warm water changes the pot of boiling water into a pot of coffee. And he said the Coffee Bean was the only thing that would change the water because it is a change agent. And the power he said is inside the coffee bean. He said just like the powers inside you. And the last words he ever spoke to me in 2009 when the prison buses coming to pick me up. The last words he ever said were be a coffee bean run. I remember how I felt the day that I heard Mr. Jackson explain the coffee bean to me. Because right then and there, it clicked in my mind immediately of how I was going to turn this whole thing around. Because I had three choices. And that’s the thing when I understand what my choices are, I can choose the path I want to go because the choice is mine every single day of if I want to be the carrot, the egg or the coffee bean. And so I took this pot this message of the coffee beaten into the biggest pot of boiling water. There is a maximum security prison in the state of Texas. And I didn’t just transform myself. In that pot of boiling water. I transformed the entire prison around me like, everywhere I went, the positivity went with me. Seven years into this prison sentence. The Parole Board comes to visit me. I don’t think I have a chance to make parole. But the parole board comes to visit me and the lady from parole goes over my story. She’s like, listen, we just don’t see a lot of people like you come through the system. And she’s going through my backstory, right? I mean, she said you came from a great family, your mom and your dad are still married. You know your dad was a sports writer, your mom was a nurse. You were a great football player. You know I was I was a really great athlete in life avoid division one college football at the University nortex I was a quarterback. The jobs I had I mean, I worked in the United States Congress, I worked for God running for President of the United States. I was a broker for UBS. And in fact, it was at UBS in 2004. And Dallas when I was introduced to meth for the first time by another stockbroker. But she told me she said, You made some poor choices in life, you chose a life of crime, you became the leader of a bunch of other criminals and you broke into people’s houses. And even though my crimes weren’t physical crimes, no one was ever physically hurt. I never saw my victims, they never saw me. She said it doesn’t change the fact that you stole something from your victims. They they can never get back. She said that is their sense of security. She said, But my question for you is this if you could be remembered for being anything in life, anything at all? She said, Tell me what that would be in just one word. Go. And man, Ryan, I remember just breathing out exhaling because that’s an easy question for a coffee bean. And I told her, I said, Ma’am, I just want to be useful. That’s what I want to be I want to be useful again, I can be useful inside this prison. Or I can be useful in the free world again, finding more coffee beans. And now November 16 2015, seven years and three months after the SWAT team took me down in 2008. I walked out of a Texas prison. Now I’m not free. I mean, because you know, this is like the prison sentence isn’t over when you walk out. I’m on parole. And it means I’m on parole for the rest of the 65 years. I’m on parole to the year 2073 In the state of Texas. And this is like, I’ve got the shortage leads only show me anybody can have. But I don’t let it hold my background. I’ve been able to do stuff in the last eight years that have been out of prison that, frankly, it blows my mind away. But I tell people all the time that man God, God doesn’t set bushes on fire anymore, right? He sets people on fire. And that’s when you see someone just burning and glowing and something that like, the only way to explain that is the existence of a Supreme Being because how else do you explain what’s going on in my life and the eight years I’ve been out of prison. I’ve gone from being an inmate West number 1585689 to becoming a three time Wall Street Journal, best selling author, I went back to school got a Master’s, I’m a college professor. I’m a family man. I’m a businessman. And I’m friends to guys like Dabo Swinney, who bring me in to talk to their teams, Nick Saban brings me in to talk to his teams to share the message of the coffee bean because everybody is struggling with different things in life. And that’s why I wanted to come on here tonight and talk to a pilot’s group, which I’ve never talked to you before. Because you have your own pot of boiling water that you’re in and the airline industry right now. And this coffee the message can help you to

Ryan Fleming
well, there’s so many other things about how we met and how I had heard about you didn’t want to talk about to me and obviously I can relate. A lot of people that were college athletes to play football, I mean, I love college football, but college football ends whether it’s injury or you don’t go into the pros or or as they say at 100% of every car, every athletes Life one, you know, their, their sports career wins and we all handle it differently. You know, you worked at UBS, you are a trader, and I can’t say I did math or any of that. But we all struggle and make choices in life. So I had actually heard your story before because of somebody I knew a very good friend said, you have to listen to this. And so I had heard your podcast, right? And so it was so powerful. I was like, wow, that is amazing. Attention

Walter Storholt
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Ryan Fleming
So I ended up I was at Clemson and Tracy Sweeney Diablos. Brother introduced me to you, and I heard you talk. And then he had walked away. And I was like, something clicked inside me. And I was like, Wait a second, I know this guy, you know? And I had asked a trace, like, what’s his name again. And he said to me, and that’s when I came back to you. And I gotta be honest with you, as good as the podcast was listening to your message to the Clemson football team and hearing though the whole story was off the charts. I mean, Rob. So

Damon West
thank you very much, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I’m blown away that you, you know, because to me, in my mind, I’m just this guy from a small town called Port Arthur. And it’s like, when people recognize me somewhere. I’m like, How do you know who I am? But it’s really cool. Man, that’s really cool that you heard that Ed Mallette podcast, and they even know where you work that tells me it was impactful?

Ryan Fleming
Well, absolutely. And the reason why I wanted to do this podcast and we met knotel again later, and you brought it up, like, hey, let’s do a podcast together. And I’m like, Well, hell yeah, I’m gonna hold him to that. And the reason is, for me, is it was impactful enough on my life that I want others to hear, okay, because regardless of what somebody gets out of your message, they’re, they’re gonna get something that’s going to help them. And and I think it’s so important to get it out there. So I very much appreciate you telling us about it. But I also want you to tell the story about you talk about how Dabo changed everything for you how he helped you, kind of go on this path. And I think that I always used to tell people that I mentored or even my teammates, persistence is power. Because if you never give up, you never fail. And I think the story of you

Damon West
Oh, man, yeah, I know exactly the story. So here it is. This is what Ryan’s talking about. So I can tell you the date. This is like one of those things like you knew where you were at the gym when you heard that podcast with me. So it was January 12 2017. And on January 12 2017, I’ve been out of prison for 14 months, and I got a job working at a law firm Ryan. So it’s a pretty good job for a guy that just got out of prison. But I’ve got this dream of sharing my story with college football players. And the reason why is because I played division one college football, I know it can relate to these, these men, and they can relate to me. But I don’t know any college football coaches. It’s been 20 years since I’ve taken a snap at the University of Texas. But still, I know I’ve got a great story. I just got to get in front of some of these coaches. And look, I’m having, you know, 14 months out of prison, I’m struggling to get anywhere to talk to you at this point. I mean, you can’t just walk out of prison, you know, one day and go knocking on the doors of local high schools and saying, I just got out of prison, I want to talk to your kids, you know, they may lock you back up. So it took me some time to even getting traction locally where I was and the dream of talking to college football programs is so far away from where I am and the reality of, you know, just put my life together on a prison and being on parole for the rest of my life. So for the most part, when I get out of prison, I don’t have anywhere to talk but in my parent’s spare bedroom, there was a mirror in there and every day that I wasn’t speaking somewhere which was most days in those first two years. I was in front of that mirror, practicing my presentation getting in my reps. Because whatever it is you want to do in life, you’ve got to get in and read to be good at, the more reps you get, the better you are. And so January 12 2017, I met the law firm at work a buddy of mine calls me from Houston. He works at Houston media. He said, hey, get down here to Houston right now. And I’m I’m 90 miles away in Beaumont. He said tonight is the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year award that the eight best coaches in the country are in this room. I’ve got an extra press pass if you want to go so I was like, You bet I want to go so I drive 90 miles from Beaumont to Houston after work and practice my elevator pitch the whole way there on it. When I get to the Toyota Center, he hands me a press pass, he sneaks me in. There I am. I’m on the floor. All these coaches there USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, they’re all there. And I get to go up and meet all these coaches. I shake their hand and tell them why they should bring me in to talk to their team. And man, every single coach I met that night Ron slammed the door, my face. They all told me no, everybody was saying no. In one hour, I’ve been told no seven times by the eight coaches are there. That’s a no every eight minutes. So there I am. I’m in the corner of the Toyota Center. I’m licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself. And the voice in my head is telling me go home. You’re in a posture, you don’t belong in this room, I think and I think we can all relate to the voice, right? The imposter syndrome, like things aren’t going out how you think they should and maybe I don’t belong here. That’s what’s going through my head. But let me tell you something I quit doing a long time ago, listening to myself. You shouldn’t listen to yourself either because the voice in your head. It can be fear talking to you. And you never want to listen to because fear is a liar. So instead of listening myself, I talked to myself, I do it a lot. So I’m in the corner Toyota Center, I’m pumping myself back up. I’m like, No, you’re not going anywhere. That last coach is gonna tell you no to your face. And then you’ll go home and run the last coach. Well, you know who it is. He’s the hardest guy to get to in the room. Because his team had just beat Alabama two nights before for the national championship. Everybody wants Dabo swinney’s time. So for the next hour, I stalked Dabo Swinney around that room, and I look I got a nut man, I’m hiding behind fake plants, weaving in and out of tables. Every conversation Dabo has him on the edge of it trying to jump in. And finally I get in front of Dabo man and I give him my best stuff for about a minute and I come up for air and Dabo is like, Dude, you got a quarter when you so I gave him a card. He took it from me and he said, I’ll check you out. And he was gone. I mean, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. So I went home that night. I went over it. And that’s in my mind went over eight but I felt good about that last No, because I left it on the field. And that’s what we learn when we’re younger playing sports and but in life in general, Mr. Jackson and county jail he told me, he said you don’t have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. So I felt good about that night because I fought all my fights. I lost them all. Four months later, I get an email from the director of football operations at Clemson this guy named Mike Dooley and Mike Dewey’s email said, Hey, Damon, Coach Sweeney met you to watch show in Houston. And he’d love to have you come talk to the team. Do you have August 1, open? Mic? Dude, I got every first open mic. Do we come right now? I mean, yeah, I got it. I got it open. So August 1 2017. I get to go speak to the Clemson Tigers, the defending national champs to college football. And when I get done my presentation that night dad blows up in my face, man. He’s in devils very high energy himself. He was like, he’s like, man. It’s the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. Damon, I’ve never seen my player spawn like that to his speaker. He said, If you’ve been to Alabama yet, and I’m like, No, I’ve been to Clemson I hadn’t been anywhere. Dabo I’ve been it. No, I’ve been Alabama. He said I just text Nick Saban. The back of the room. We’ll see what happens. And the next day when I went to my flight lands Intercontinental Airport in Houston, I turned on my phone, got a voicemail, a text message from the director of football operations at Alabama. We’ll see in Tuscaloosa in three weeks Dabo called then it’s Kirby Smart Call, then it’s Lincoln robic on every coach in America is call on my phone. Because Dabo is calling the boys advocating for me. He became my biggest advocate and it said idea that that growth follows belief. And the thing about it is is you have to believe in yourself before other people will believe in you. But once you show that once you believe in yourself, people will buy into you people will believe in you but they’ll never do it until you believe in yourself and Dabo felt so compelled because he felt the sincerity, the energy of that story, the authenticity of it. And then he connects me to this guy named John Gordon. John Gordon’s one of the biggest motivational speakers and authors in America. John Gordon calls me the next year out of the blue and says, Hey Damon look Dabo introduced the coffee bean message to me. And he’s you know, he’s like Damon, we need to write a book about this. The world needs a coffee bean message and the next year Ryan I write this book with this multi best selling author named John Gordon. And my life changed overnight. I mean, just exploded. I mean, just put my name out into this this new scene of the speaking circuit out there and but everything in my life, you know, goes back like I said, We’re beginning to Dabo Sweeney man Dabo Swinney that one guy, the one yes, in a room full of notes. And I mean, imagine, if I leave that room that night, imagine if, when I’m in the corner Toyota Center at seven nose and I walk out that door, then we’re not having this conversation, the world doesn’t have the coffee message. And so a tip about time and don’t give up before the miracle happens and those hopes and goals and dreams, you have to keep working at that because you never know what you’re Dabo Swinney moments going to be,

Ryan Fleming
well, it’s such an unbelievable story. And I’m gonna have links to your other podcasts that you’ve done with some other individuals, your books, I’m gonna have it all linked to this podcast. But but the story is so powerful that we got to get it out there. And I appreciate your work ethic, too. Because we were talking before we went got on the podcast, and I was telling how, you know, normally we traveled 12 days out of the month and, and I was like, yeah, so I know a little bit about travel. And then this guy tells me travels how many days,

Damon West
at least 24 days of the month, man, I’m on the road, I spend more. I was telling my wife and I go, I spend more money on hotels every month, the mortgage on our house. I spend more money on rental cars every month, then the two cars that we have together, my wife and I, I mean, yeah, every month, I’m on the road constantly. I’m in airports every day, I’m on planes every day. I could talk a little bit about the airline industry, if you want to talk about that.

Ryan Fleming
We were we were talking a little bit about that. I mean, you guys that listen to my podcast, you got united pilots, you got American pilots, you got delta pilots, you got FedEx, UPS, you got to be nice. But yeah, we were we were talking a little bit about just the airline service right now and what’s going on in the industry.

Damon West
It’s it’s tough right now. It’s tough all the way around. And I understand that there’s a lot of deals that are being negotiated right now.

Ryan Fleming
I think, yeah, contract negotiation, contract negotiation, what

Damon West
you call it? Yeah. So I mean, that. That makes a lot of sense, man. And I mean, you got to you got to pull your leverage when you got it. Man, you don’t always have leverage in life. When you have it, you got to work it.

Ryan Fleming
Absolutely, absolutely. And I love I love your story about you know, you’re gonna get knocked down or you have to fight all your fights. And I encourage everybody to go out and listen to some of the links that we have on here because I was actually just listening to to one of them before we met up again, and it just got me fired up all over again. It’s just an amazing message. Just like I promised my listeners all the time. And I told you, we’d keep just the 30 minutes, but I can’t thank you enough for coming on the podcast and I look forward to seeing you in the future. When you come back and then keep the message going.

Damon West
100% MAN Yeah, I’ll come onto your lake house out there, man. I can’t wait. Bring it.

Ryan Fleming
Bring it anytime you want. Damon West. Thanks so much for being on our show, man. We appreciate it. And I look forward to keeping in touch with you.

Damon West
Yeah, brother. Thanks, Ron. All right. Take care.