What are holidays like in prison?” It’s a big and important question because so many fears course through our minds as we walk this path, and this is one of them.
An important aspect of a justice journey is understanding that everyone’s experiences are their experiences; they aren’t set in stone. This was my experience; it doesn’t mean it will be someone else’s experience.
—
“Remorse is the poison of life.” – CHARLOTTE BRONTË
There’s a sadness in the air. It’s not just mine; it belongs to all of us. None of us complains.
What’s the point? We’re all in the same boat, all wishing we weren’t. We keep our wishes to ourselves, doing our best to maintain our routines, all the while struggling with what we should be doing, not what our reality is. There’s no reason to say it because we’re all thinking the same exact thing.
We all wish we were home with our families doing whatever each of us does on Christmas Day. There is a collective, unspoken desire that Christmas disappears just for the time we are in prison. We’d like to skip the day or at least be unaware of it.
I should be home but I’m not. I should be waking up next to her, kissing her shoulder, wishing her a Merry Christmas, as she rolls over with a sleepy smile, saying, “Hi, baby, Merry Christmas.”
I can hear her morning voice in my ear, not yet awake, soft and gentle. I love it.
I should be bringing her lavender tea in bed and the first present of the day. I should be next to her, celebrating not only Christmas but the anniversary of my proposal. We should be sitting on the floor, under the light of the tree, opening our presents, opening Matisse’s and Athena’s gifts. We should be making breakfast.
We should be together. But we’re not and it’s my fault. I want to escape the regret and the weight of this day. I look to our last Christmas together but I ruined that one too. We woke to the shadow of prison in the air and the pain from the accident in our bones. Two Christmases have been destroyed and I’ll be here for the next one as well.
This isn’t Christmas. It isn’t an anniversary. It’s just another day I want to end.
As a thought leader in personal reinvention, Craig’s mission revolves around guiding individuals from the anguish of unfulfillment into the joy of a purpose-driven life of meaning. His work empowers people to break free from their status quo, reconnect with their true selves, and unleash their full potential so they can discover more profound meaning and purpose in life beyond professional, financial, and material success.
Craig Stanland is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. On Monday, June 19, 2023 we will hold our 365th weekly meeting.
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I wanted it to be done.
I don’t know what done actually meant, I just knew I wanted it, and I wanted it more than I wanted anything.
I’m referring to how I felt after I was arrested by the FBI.
I wanted the situation to be over, but I couldn’t see the other side; I had no idea what it looked like, so I just wished it was done.
And I spent quite a bit of time in this limbo of purgatory.
Intellectually I knew my circumstance and sentence had an expiration date, but it felt emotionally infinite.
Sometimes I live in my intellect; most of the time, especially when it’s all-consuming, like the uncertainty of prison and life after prison, I live in the emotional.
I don’t know what shifted, but my mentality shifted ever so slightly, but enough to make a huge difference.
I transformed from wanting to be done to wanting to make it through.
I still didn’t know what the other side looked like, but I desperately wanted to make it there. And this energy was enough to help me move forward, to slowly but surely put one foot in front of the other.
Carrying the wickedly heavy burden of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and inadequacy, a burden so heavy there were more times than I can count that I thought I’d collapse under its weight.
But sometimes all we have, and it’s all I could find, was a burning desire to just make it through.
I don’t know what the energy was that kept me going; maybe it was the desire to actually find out what was on the other side, but I experienced another shift, and this was the shift that changed everything.
It was the moment I understood that the burden I was carrying, the shame, guilt, unworthiness, and inadequacy, contained a gift.
I saw the diamond in the coal.
It was the story of how I carried that burden up to this point and how I’d carry it to the mysterious other side.
Understanding that I could alchemize my journey in a meaningful and vulnerable way that could help someone who’s two steps behind where I am now and desperately wants to be two steps ahead.
My pain could be of service; it had a purpose, and now so did I.
Something extraordinary happened at this moment:
The burden that moments ago was almost crushing me grew lighter.
I took myself out of the equation; I don’t carry the burden for myself; I carry it for others.
And that’s the moment I made it to the other side.
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Craig Stanland is a Reinvention Architect & Mindset Coach, TEDx & Keynote Speaker, and the Best-Selling Author of “Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison.” He specializes in working with high-achievers who’ve chased success, money, and status in their 1st half, only to find a success-sized hole in their lives. He helps them unleash their full potential, break free from autopilot, draft a new life blueprint, and connect with their Life’s Mission so they can live extraordinary lives with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. Craig can be reached at [email protected].
Craig Stanland is a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. On March 6, 2023, we will hold our 350th meeting – 7 years of community!
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I wrote this 7 years ago (2016); I was just released from the Brooklyn halfway house and was navigating the shame, uncertainty, and fear that shadowed me.
I was learning how to get back to myself and who I am. – Craig Stanland
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Having completed my twenty-four-month sentence in Federal prison, I’m at the beginning stages of supervised release.
Essentially probation in the federal system.
My supervised release will run for three years.
During this time, I will report to a probation officer.
As part of this process, I’m required to complete financial disclosure documents.
I understand why I must do this and accept responsibility for my actions.
I received the documents during my initial visit to the probation office.
I didn’t really look at them at the time.
When I got home, I decided to start working on them. Grabbing my pen, I turned the page and found myself staring into the past.
These were the same forms I was required to fill out before I was sentenced to prison.
I was immediately transported back in time to the day my attorney told me to fill out the form.
Fear and uncertainty shadowed my every step.
The dark cloud of prison looming over me. Moments of joy snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Unaware of where I would be going, my safety was a perpetual concern. I feared that I had permanently destroyed my life and I would never recover.
Now, sitting in my apartment, as free as I’ve been in years, I’m consumed by the same feelings I had two years ago.
He specializes in working with high-achievers who’ve chased success, money, and status in their 1st half, only to find a success-sized hole in their lives.
He helps them unleash their full potential, break free from autopilot, draft a new life blueprint, and connect with their Life’s Mission so they can live extraordinary lives with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. Connect with him here.
This is Your Invitation to Attend Our White Collar Week Tuesday Speaker Series
Please feel free to forward to friends, family members, colleagues and clients.
Craig Stanland
Author of Blank Canvas: How I Reinvented My Life After Prison
Tues., May 31, 2022, 7 pm ET, 6 pm CT, 5 pm MT, 4 pm PT
On Zoom
We are honored to have Craig Stanland as the next speaker in our White Collar Week Tuesday Speaker Series. Craig is a close friend who has been a member of our White Collar Support Group and ministry since 2013, and was a guest on our White Collar Week podcast. We sent copies of Craig’s book, Blank Canvas, to all of our support group members currently in prison – with rave reviews! Stay tuned for more information about upcoming speakers and events. – Jeff Grant
Craig is a powerful example of how to come back from the depths of professional and personal destruction and despair, survive and evolve in prison, and become a better, more fulfilled person living the life God intends for him. These lessons are universal – I’ve read Craig’s book several times and I highly recommend it for anyone navigating life’s difficulties. I guess that means everybody! Five stars!
The group has been instrumental in my journey, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.
We have people on the call at pretty much every point in their justice journey.
From just indicted to being out of the system for over 20 years.
This is just one aspect of the group that makes it so powerful.
Multiple perspectives.
When one of our members is set to report to prison, we’ll dedicate the call to them and share our collective wisdom so we can prepare them as much as possible.
There is one piece of advice that stands out amongst the rest:
For the first couple of weeks in prison, be an observer.
Nothing more.
If a group of inmates is sitting next to you trying to come up with the name of the movie starring Russell Crowe set in ancient Rome, do not, as badly as you want to, interject with the answer.
Sit and observe.
Observe the inmates, decipher who’s a trouble maker and who’s not.
Observe the CO’s, decipher who seems to treat the inmates with a modicum of respect, and who to steer clear of.
Observe the unwritten rules of prison life so you can navigate your time as smoothly as possible.
Observe.
It took going to prison and being a part of the support group to understand that this piece of advice is not just for prison.
It’s for each and every one of us and the lives we’re living.
It’s too easy for our lives to be set on autopilot, to get so wrapped up with egotistical things, careers, money, cars.
The millions of little acts we do every day/week/month/year to keep our lives moving forward.
We don’t get into the habit of standing back and observing our lives and inquiring,
“Am I fulfilled?”
“Is something missing?”
“Is what I’m doing serving me?”
In order to create the lives we want to create, we need to understand the lives we’re living.
We do this by stepping out of the rushing river and observing the river.
Try to be an observer in your own life; you might surprise yourself.
Craig Stanland is a Member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
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There are seemingly countless ways to experience freedom. There are nuances and layers, and I’m fascinated by all of them.
That’s because freedom is one of my core values. A couple of years ago, that core value and my commitment to it was challenged.
I was fortunate to land a job after prison. That’s not an easy thing to do.
I worked the front desk at a gym, making $12 an hour. There were plenty of nights I’d skip dinner because I didn’t have enough money to take the subway to work and eat.
A far cry from my six-figure salary, plus commission, expense account, and car allowance.
Over time I became friends with many of the members, and we spoke in great detail about life and work, and of course, working out.
One of my friends learned about my corporate background; they knew what I was capable of in a corporate sales setting. I generated 21M in sales in my best year. I was consistently in the top 3 in the country.
And I hated it. There was no fulfillment; there was no joy. When asked if I liked my job, I replied the same every time,
“I don’t like my job, but I like what it affords me.”
The facade it provided, the cars, the watches, the extravagant dinners, multiple homes.
I was always chasing, and I was never satisfied. Deep down, I wanted to innovate, create my own company, write a book, and deliver a TED talk.
But I was too damn afraid to give up everything and create the life I wanted to create.
The gym didn’t pay a lot, but it provided the freedom to create the life I wanted.
That’s when I faced one of my most significant tests:
My new friend offered me a job back in the corporate world that would generate 350K/year.
I looked at my non-existent bank account, my skinny frame, and my rumbling stomach.
I thought about the watches I could buy and the new BMW I would lease. A new apartment in a cool neighborhood in NYC.
I spent my paycheck before I even got the offer letter.
What the hell was I doing? What was I thinking? Hadn’t I learned? What do I genuinely want to do?
Write. Speak. Utilize my experience in service to others. To have the freedom to create, innovate and carve my own path.
I turned the job down.
Because I was done chasing, I was done living in scarcity. I was done doing things that didn’t make me feel good.
I knew my definition of freedom, and I made my decision from the center of that definition.
It was singlehandedly one of the most empowering moments of my life.
When we live in alignment with our core values, we generate an energy that will not be denied. It flows from our very being and ripples out to every aspect of our lives.
We seize agency by the horns, and we, nobody else, are responsible for our lives.
All the distractions, all the BS, all the noise falls by the wayside when we know what we value and operate from the center of that.
Our decisions, and in turn our lives, become crystal clear.
I wrote this book from my heart, and I gave it everything I had.
My dream, my goal for this book is that it helps one person—the one person who feels right now how I once felt.
I’d be honored if you checked it out.
After hitting rock bottom, Craig Stanland was forced to make a choice: give up or rebuild. He thought he had “it all” until he lost sight of what’s truly important and made the worst decision of his life, losing everything along the way, including his own self-worth. Through the painful, terrifying process of starting over, Craig ultimately discovered that when you have nothing, anything is possible.
Today, Craig is an author, speaker, and Reinvention Architect. He specializes in working with people whose lives have fallen apart, helping them reinvent themselves by showing them how to rebuild their self-worth and create the extraordinary lives they’ve always wanted.
We meet every Monday, and the topics vary; however, a few issues rise above the rest.
One of those issues is Judgments, particularly as it relates to our family and friends trying to reconcile our choices and actions.
This article was written with the group in mind, however it’s lessons apply to everyone.
The author Cheri Huber stated the following in her wonderful book, “There Is Nothing Wrong With You,”
“When you judge someone else it’s simply self-hate projected outward.”
When I look at my own judgments of others, she’s right.
However, there is another component of negative judgments I’d like to add to this and explore.
I believe we judge people/circumstances/situations negatively when we don’t understand them. When the person/circumstance/situation doesn’t fit into one of the many boxes we have in our minds.
We, as humans, love to put things in boxes. We love to label things.
We do this because if something doesn’t fit into a box, then it’s unknown. And anything unknown, according to the oldest parts of our brains, is scary.
Anything scary is a direct threat to our survival, and our brain’s primary function is to keep us alive.
So we have to label it, and because it’s scary, it’s inherently “bad.”
Hence, negative judgments.
Now, all of a sudden, this scary, bad, unknown thing has a label, it’s no longer unknown, and we’ve taken a step towards keeping ourselves alive.
We have the illusion of control.
Why do I say illusion? Because we don’t really have control over anything, only our response to any given situation.
We, as members of the white-collar justice impacted community, are in the minority.
I read this online; please fact check me if I’m wrong,
“White-collar crime makes up just over 3% of overall federal prosecutions yearly.”
Three percent is not a lot. It’s barely a blip on the radar. And this is important because it ties to what I’ve been discussing.
To our family and friends, what we’ve done, and what we are currently experiencing or have experienced is unknown.
It’s scary.
I think we’d all like to believe we have the capacity for compassion, and for the most part, we do.
However, compassion becomes a challenge when we face something we don’t understand, and we feel fear (even if it’s fear for the person we love).
Fear clouds our thinking.
It becomes easier to seek control in the form of negative judgments so we can feel better about a situation.
Now, obviously, I can’t speak for every person on the planet, but I know I’m guilty of this.
And I bet if you’re honest with yourself about negative judgments you’ve made in the past, you’ll find you’ve done it as well.
Equipped with this awareness, we can change our perceptions of those who judge us negatively.
We can see that they are either:
Experiencing an inner turmoil that’s eating them up inside, and they need to project that self-hate elsewhere.
Or
They’re afraid.
Even equipped with this perspective, it will most likely sting when someone judges us; we’re human beings having a human experience, after all.
But, if we’re able to bring awareness into the situation and understand where their negative judgments are coming from, we can do something that sounds counterintuitive to every reaction we want to have:
We can feel compassion and empathy for them. Because they either hate something about themselves or they’re scared.
This may sound ludicrous,
“Someone calls me a “fraudster,” a “crook,” a “liar” and I’m going to feel empathy towards them?”
I’d argue yes, and here’s why:
Viktor Frankl said it best,
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Here is something essential to note:
We have the right to be angry at negative judgments; we have the right to be hurt.
As long as we are choosing these responses and not reacting with these responses. And, when the moment passes, we make a critical choice:
Will we choose to stay angry and hurt? Or will we choose compassion and empathy?
When we choose compassion and empathy, we seize something that may seem foreign for many of us:
Agency
The moment we have agency in our lives, we change the narrative, we open a new chapter.
When we live with agency, we give ourselves one of the greatest gifts we can wish for in our situation:
The ability to reinvent our lives into whatever we are meant to do.
Congratulations to our friend Craig Stanland on the publishing of his first book, “Blank Canvas: How I Reinvented My Life After Prison“! Craig is a powerful example of how to come back from the depths of professional and personal destruction and despair, survive and evolve in prison, and become a better, more fulfilled person living the life God intends for him. These lessons are universal – I’ve read a review copy of Craig’s book and I highly recommend it for anyone navigating life’s difficulties. I guess that means everybody! Five stars! – Jeff
“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we
cannot change, the courage to change the things we
can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
— REINHOLD NIEBUHR
I spend half of my time wishing I wasn’t in prison,
the other half wishing I had made a different choice. I fantasize about going back in time to the day I discovered the loophole I exploited. I see myself at the dining room table, staring at my laptop. A black-and-white composition notebook to my right, the pages filled with notes, yellow Post-its stuck everywhere. I look like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.
The puzzle pieces were coming together. I had discovered a treasure map that only I knew about. I feel the excitement I felt, the pure rush of it all. My performance at work was not what it used to be; my paychecks were shrinking. My need to buy more things, to fill the hole inside, was growing. This was a lousy equation but I had solved it.
I wish I could travel back to that moment, to speak louder than the rush and say, “Stop. Don’t do this. You have everything you need. This is not the way.”
I would have made a different choice. The first domino would have never fallen, the criminal complaint never filed, the investigation never initiated. The FBI wouldn’t have aimed fifteen guns at Kyla. I wouldn’t have hurt the people I love. I wouldn’t have to strip naked, lift my balls, spread my cheeks, and cough.
I’d be free. The short film of my suicide would have never been produced.
The voice was there and I knew it. I chose to ignore it. In those moments of clarity, when I calculated the damage done, my heart tightened. I felt like I was always on the verge of a heart attack. I tried to erase the pain with lies, and it usually worked — at least for a little bit.
I wish I had listened to that voice. But I didn’t. Now I’m sitting in a prison library trying to start over. I will never have the freedom to paint whatever I want if I continue to fight what can’t be changed. I must do what I am afraid to do.
I have to practice acceptance.
I don’t want to. It feels like giving up, passive. Fighting equals progress. But does it? What am I fighting against? As much as I wish it existed, there’s no such thing as a DeLorean time machine.
I’ve locked myself in a past that can’t be changed, in an existence that fills me with shame and regret. Fighting isn’t progress; it’s running away from the truth.
I was wrong: Acceptance isn’t giving up, and it isn’t passive.
It is an act of courage to say,
“I accept that I betrayed myself and chose to commit a crime.” I hit the Enter button, the single keystroke that started it all. “I accept I made the choice to continue in the face of the universe screaming at me to stop. I accept that I’m in prison. I accept that I hurt the woman I love, my family, my friends. My finances are in ruin; I’m getting divorced. I’ll have a criminal record until I die. I accept that I don’t trust myself. I accept that I’m scared.”
Holy crap, that felt good. I don’t feel as trapped. I feel something extraordinary. I’m in prison but I just gave myself freedom. No one else, nothing external, I did this.
A thought pops into my head: This is my life now. What am I going to do with what is left of it?
Congratulations to our friend Craig Stanland on the publishing of his first book, “Blank Canvas: How I Reinvented My Life After Prison“! Craig is a powerful example of how to come back from the depths of professional and personal destruction and despair, survive and evolve in prison, and become a better, more fulfilled person living the life God intends for him. These lessons are universal – I’ve read a review copy of Craig’s book and I highly recommend it for anyone navigating life’s difficulties. I guess that means everybody! Five stars! – Jeff
Craig is a member of our online White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. He has been a guest on our White Collar Week podcast, links to YouTube (video) and podcast below.
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From Craig:
On September 30th, 2013, I had what many would call,
“It all.”
A successful career, multiple homes, nice cars, nice watches, I ate at the finest restaurants in Greenwich and Manhattan. I was married to an amazing and beautiful woman.
On October 1st, 2013, I lost it all.
Even though I had “it all,” I never thought I did, and what I did have, I didn’t feel worthy of.
I didn’t feel worthy of my success; I didn’t feel worthy of my beautiful wife.
I was chasing anything and everything outside of myself to feel whole. To feel complete. To be someone people would respect, like, and love.
I was desperately trying to become someone I would respect, like, and love.
Chasing, chasing, chasing.
I was on a treadmill, trying to catch the horizon.
The next purchase, the next high, the next extravagant dinner – all of them would make me feel worthy and complete.I would be someone.
Until the rush would inevitably fade, and I’d be off to the races, chasing the next thing. It was exhausting.
My self-worth and my identity were inextricably tied to the things I owned, the things I purchased, and my ability to purchase those things.
I was my BMW’s, my Panerai watches, my $300 bottle of Rioja, my Platinum Amex Card.
I had no idea what I was doing at the time. I had no idea of the absurdity of the task I was taking on. I was trying to fill a broken glass with my things and utterly blind to the fact that I never could.
The equipment I was selling was becoming more commoditized, the profit margins were shrinking, and so were my paychecks.
My job performance was also dwindling; I was too consumed with chasing.
My dwindling checks and performance were a direct threat to my very identity and sense of worth. I had to do something.
I could have been honest with myself and my wife. I could have told the truth that I couldn’t maintain our lifestyle.
I didn’t. I was too afraid; I was too scared to be seen as “less than.” I couldn’t find the courage to shed the facade I created.
I had to do something else to maintain this house of cards.
I discovered an opportunity to exploit our partner companies warranty policy for my financial gain. This would solve the problem; this would make everything ok.
For just under a year, I committed fraud against one of the largest technology companies in the world.
I committed this fraud in the face of my heart telling begging me not to.
With each click of the mouse, each time hit the enter button to perpetuate the fraud, my heart spoke,
“Don’t do this.”
“This is not the way.”
“You know this isn’t right.”
And I ignored it every time.
It came to a screeching halt on October 1st, 2013, when the FBI caught up with me.
I was arrested and charged with one count of mail fraud.
This was the first day on my long descent to rock bottom.
I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years of federal prison.
I was consumed with shame. I destroyed for my life; I ruined my wife’s life.
I hated the man I had become; I hated the choices I made. I hated the crystal clear clarity that I did this.
That I was wrong. That I was responsible. That I could have avoided all this suffering if only I had been honest.
I had to make the pain stop; I begged the hand of death to kill me in my sleep, suicide became a viable option.
This was my rock bottom.
I was lucky; my best friend of over thirty years visited me in prison. It was from here that my life turned around.
This was the day I started to rebuild.
If you had told me that eight years later, I would experience one of the most emotional, transformational, joyful, transcendent experiences of my life resulting from that pain, I would have thought you were insane.
But that’s precisely what happened.
On May 13th, 2021, I carried three heavy cardboard boxes up four flights of stairs into my apartment in Brooklyn.
I carefully opened the boxes with a razor knife, removed the packing paper and saw, and held, for the first time, my experience in its physical manifestation.
I took all of that pain, all of the shame, all of the embarrassment, all of the guilt, all of the fear, and I alchemized it into a book.
“Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison”
I wrote it because I had to.
I know that sharing my experience at rock bottom will help someone with theirs. They will see that they are not alone.
This book took over six years to write, spread across eight drafts and approximately one million words. I had to write those one million words to get to the fifty-two thousand in the book that capture the truth of my experience.
It’s the truth that will help someone who feels right now how I once felt.
Writing is a solitary practice. It’s me and the words.
But the emotions and the experiences I capture, that’s not only me.
That’s my family, friends, and the Progressive Prison Ministries. They guided me and supported me on my rapid descent to rock bottom and the slow journey out.
To know that you’re not alone when you feel most alone is one of the most powerful realizations we can have.
This is what our family and friends do; this is what a community does- they inform us that we are not alone.
Sometimes that’s all we need.
The Progressive Prison Ministries is that community.
After hitting rock bottom, Craig Stanland was forced to make a choice: give up or rebuild. He thought he had “it all” until he lost sight of what’s truly important and made the worst decision of his life, losing everything along the way, including his own self-worth. Through the painful, terrifying process of starting over, Craig ultimately discovered that when you have nothing, anything is possible.
Today, Craig is an author, speaker, and Reinvention Architect. He specializes in working with people whose lives have fallen apart, helping them reinvent themselves by showing them how to rebuild their self-worth and create the extraordinary lives they’ve always wanted.
Best of White Collar Week with Jeff Grant: From Sept. 2020
Podcast Ep. 11: Blank Canvas, with Guest: Craig Stanland
Today on the podcast, we have Craig Stanland. Not only does Craig have a great TED Talk out there, and a new book, Blank Canvas,to be published next year, but he is one of my very first ministees. It’s hard to believe that he first contacted me in 2013 after he was charged with fraud. He’s been a good friend and colleague ever since, and is a regular member of our online White Collar Support Group that meets on Monday evenings.
Craig actually led the discussion on the very first episode of White Collar Week, where we had sixteen of our support group members tell their stories. You can find the link to that episode here.
So, coming up. Craig Stanland. On White Collar Week. I hope you will join us. – Jeff
