After a week on the East Coast advancing our advocacy efforts, I’m grateful to be back at my desk and resuming focused work on our website. Travel creates momentum. It builds relationships. It opens doors. But it also creates a backlog.
I have a lot to catch up on.
The only way I know to make meaningful progress is to follow the same principles I encourage others to follow every day. I must set clear goals. I must define what I will finish over the coming days and weeks. And I must execute with discipline.
The lessons I learned over the past week will inform the goals I’m setting now. Those goals will be specific and they will have clear timelines. Either I will hit the goals or I will fail. I won’t be able to blame anyone but myself for getting things done.
We must develop patterns of making intentional decisions.
I encourage anyone who uses our resources to make the same decision. Work toward the result you want to build.
Define success,
Set goals,
Prioritize your decisions,
Built tools, tactics, and resources,
Measure your progress with accountability systems,
Adjust as necessary,
Execute your plan
Scalable Daily Prompts
This week I will work with my team to build a scalable system that delivers daily prompts to the thousands of people in federal prison who use Prison Professors resources. I’m thinking about the strategy as follows:
We will create a streamlined section on our Staff Page where correctional staff can easily download a daily lesson in PDF format. Staff members will be able to upload that PDF directly to their institution’s computer system. Once published, anyone who logs in to the prison computer system will have access to that lesson.
Simple. Scalable. Sustainable.
Each lesson will be short, with fewer than 500 words and one focused prompt. We’ll have to make the plan consistent, so any staff member can log in to our website, any time, and download the PDF that is ready to upload into the Bureau of Prisons’ computer system. That way, we can offer self-directed lessons for thousands of people each day.
A short lesson with a clear reflection question will prompt people to document progress. Over time, those entries compound. A few hundred words per day turns into thousands of words that will show how a person has used time today to prepare for success tomorrow.
Our profiles platform motivates people to engage in self-directed learning. Anyone will be able to see how many people are working to prepare for a more successful future, as the person defined success.
I’m enthusiastic about building that system this week.
Self-Directed Courses
In addition to the daily prompt system, I’m outlining more self-directed lessons.
While flying back from the East Coast, I drafted an entire course on the history of the federal sentencing guidelines. I wrote the full content on the plane. Now I need to produce the accompanying video and audio files.
Why focus on sentencing guidelines?
Because people who want the best possible outcome must understand the system that will judge them.
Knowledge reduces fear.
Knowledge builds strategy.
Knowledge supports intelligent communication with counsel and probation.
Too many people enter the system without understanding the system of sentencing or prison. If someone wants to work toward the best possible result, they should invest time learning how sentencing systems evolved and how they operate today. In my view, Prison Professors should help more people develop practical preparation strategies.
And we will do so without charging anyone anything.
Authenticity
Through these daily journals, I hope members of our community will see a pattern. We do not ask members of our community to do anything we are not doing ourselves.
If we tell people to document progress, we document progress.
If we tell people to build systems, we build systems.
If we tell people to prepare daily, we prepare daily.
That mindset carried me through 9,500 days in prison.
One of the guiding principles that sustained me came from the Parable of the Talents. It taught me that we are entrusted with opportunities. If we invest our time to develop those opportunities wisely, we’ll find more opportunities. If we squander opportunities, we may lose the opportunities we have.
That lesson still shapes how I work today.
Preparation compounds.
Effort multiplies.
Discipline creates opportunity.
Result Focused
If you’re reading this, I encourage you to make an intentional decision today.
Set one clear goal for this week.
Define what you will finish.
Document your progress on the profile you build.
Work toward the result you want to experience.
Do not wait for the system to change before you change yourself.
Do not wait for certainty before you act.
Build and build.
And when you do, you will see something powerful happen. The very act of preparation creates momentum. Momentum creates confidence. Confidence creates new opportunities.
That pattern works inside prison. It works outside prison. It works in advocacy. It works in business. It works in life.
Build and build.