Prison: My 8,344th Day

During my 23rd year of imprisonment, I read Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The story portrayed the protagonist, Ivan Denisovich, and his ability to find small joys and meaning in the most mundane tasks while serving a ten-year sentence in a Soviet prison camp. The book shows how we can be resilient under oppressive circumstances.

In Earning Freedom, I showed readers the strategies that I learned from leaders. They taught me how to stay motivated and focused while I worked through multiple decades in prison. Some people, however, need insight that will help them find strategies to stay productive and motivated through a single day. I wrote this book about a single day, as I read in Solzhenitsyn's novel.

Rather than writing a work of fiction, I wrote about the mindset that helped me work productively, making every hour count. It begins with the time that I wake, and then it shows the activities and thoughts that carried me through the remaining hours I was awake, until I lay down to sleep, eager to resume the next day.

That's the monotonous pattern of prison.  Solzhenitsyn's character found a way to make every day count, to find purpose and meaning in his seemingly mundane routine. I had to do the same. The pursuit of success after release from prison, for me, began with the goals I set at the start of my prison term. By the time that I reached my 23rd year inside, I had mastered the art of making goal-oriented, values-based decisions. Every minute counted, because every minute could advance my plan.

Staying productive and motivated through every day in prison requires a person to find purpose and meaning in even the smallest of tasks. It's easy to get caught up in the monotony of daily life. If we don't have a plan, we wake, go through routines, repeating the same actions over and over again. If we don't have purpose, we feel as if we're wasting time. Consequences follow. Before we know it, years can pass and if we look back, we won't have made any progress.

In Prison: My 8,344th Day, I offer a different perspective. Instead of waiting for the government, or the system to offer anything that will help us grow, I show how we can work toward personal development. We should live as if each day brings an opportunity to accelerate prospects for success.

Think of Prison: My 8,344th Day as a workbook on personal development. I didn't write it as a novel. It's real. It shows that regardless of what decisions administrators make, or where they hold us, we can always work to advance our plan. The workbook includes many self-directed exercises, prompts to help us think about being productive. Readers should see an example of how to make intentional, deliberate decisions while serving time.

People sometimes live in oppressive conditions, like lockdown, or they may not have access to classrooms, or teachers. Through this workbook, they'll find strategies that they can use to hold themselves accountable, and make better progress toward the goals they set. Those who are truly motivated can open a profile on PrisonProfessorsTalent.com, and write out all that they're learning. It's one way to use time inside to prepare for success outside.