Troy's Times - July 1st, 2005
Hi Friend! IN THIS ISSUE
“It is not important How we come to the events in our lives, but how we Deal with those events”- Troy
This week’s article: Hope is a powerful thing. It has near euphoric qualities, but hope alone cannot get you to your goal. Following my arrest, I had spent the following eight months waiting for sentencing in a federal detention facility while going through the trial process. “Federal Detention Facility” sounds a lot like prison, but there are a few integral differences. Within the walls of a federal prison, drugs are more easily obtained than they are on the streets. Heroin overdose is a regular occurrence, bloodshed over drug deals gone bad take place routinely, and stemming the drug flow into the institution is a constant battle for the staff. I wasn’t ready to face that availability on my own. That eight-month period within the detention facility gave me a chance to clear my head, to think rationally, and to make a conscious decision to turn my life around without the ready availability of drugs that the prison system would have to offer. That was the best and only leg up that the system gave me. Without the drugs, I gained clarity. With that clarity, came some of the scariest moments of my life. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at my permanent facility. Faced with a 13-year prison sentence, I'm sure you can imagine the apprehension and fear that I felt. This was pure, unadulterated reality, no drug haze to stifle the fear. My brain cells were operating to full capacity and, for the first time in years, I knew true fear. My son had given my life value again. In the short period of time I had within the relative safety of the detention facility I went from being a suicidal drug addict to a man with too much to lose and I was facing the legends of prison. I, like everyone else, had heard stories of the terrors that take place inside prison walls, the beatings, the rapes, and the murders. The funny thing was that it wasn’t any one of those things that kept me awake at night. It was all of them and none of them and various combinations. What would it be like? Would it be as Hollywood portrayed it in the movies? Would I be beaten, stabbed, forced into a gang? All I knew was that I wasn’t looking forward to fresh meat orientation and whatever that might have implied. Then it dawned on me. My greatest fear was not simply that I would have to face all of these potential threats, but that if I were to carry through with my promise to my son, and myself I would have to do it without the drugs. During that time, I thought about drugs a lot. I craved the numbness. I wanted that familiar switch that I could flick and make all of my worries go away. But somewhere a certain knowledge came with my newfound clarity that told me that this was a challenge that I needed to face head on if I was ever going to be able to come out of it the man that I wanted to be. So, on the day that I first entered the Florence Federal Correctional Institution, that was the way that I approached it. Head up, with a brave face. Was I scared? You can’t begin to imagine. But since then, I have learned that the only way to face change is to embrace it, welcome it, and learn to love it with your head up and a brave face. ............................................................................................................................................................ One of the most amazing things that I witnessed throughout my incarceration is what I call “dead time.” It seemed to physically hang in the air, as though it were something you could touch or feel around you. When I first arrived in prison I would sit in the common areas and watch guys play cards, play dominos, and watch TV. Some of them would spend their entire sentences doing the same thing, for up to 16 hours a day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Some of them doing this in five, ten, fifteen, even twenty year stretches. I watched them and made a decision that this was not the way I was going to spend the next eleven and one half years of my life. This was not going to keep me on my path and it certainly wasn’t going to help me pay the bills once I was out. That’s when I realized that being inside walls and razor wire was not the prison, dead time was. While inside, I knew that dead time was not good enough for me. The irony is that I had been serving my dead time before I ever got to prison. I just never recognized it. Now that I do, I notice that free people choose to do it every day. They choose it without ever knowing that they are doing it. We sit on our couches, trudge into jobs we don’t like, live as people that we don’t want to be and we do it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. We construct our own prisons and they are not made out of bricks and mortar or razor wire but of fear of change and the excuses it breeds – the little voice. It's funny, I have to be one of a very few people in this world who can make a statement such as this: The very worst thing that ever happened to me in my life, going to prison, is at the same time the very best thing that ever happened to me. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had not been caught, convicted and incarcerated, I would be dead. There's also no doubt in my mind that if I had not been forced to confront great changes and the overwhelming fear that was associated with them, I could never have become the man I am today. I would never have been awakened from my dead time. The fear of the unknown keeps us from reaching out, from taking chances, from exploring new possibilities, from pushing ourselves to realize our full potential. After all, we might not succeed. We might lose our comfort zone. We might CHANGE! …Or, we could succeed. We might benefit. And, we might be one step closer to being the people we want to be. I had help thanks to the officers who arrested me without allowing me
to forfeit my life. Only by being forced into this harsh environment was
I finally going to make some changes, finally going to face my past. Once
I did that, I learned that facing change head on and learning to love
it made it possible for me to do anything I set my mind to. It is not
enough to have hope, that is just the first step. It is the courage to
face and embrace change that helps you make the second step and then what
you have is something very powerful – momentum. See me being interviewed
on CNN! - Click to Watch! Please note that my opinions in all sections are just that- my opinions. Feel free to disagree with them, argue them or dismiss them. As a professional speaker and author, I find that from time to time I offend or upset people. To this I say that I better be offending some people, otherwise I am not doing my job. By making people look at things they are not always comfortable looking at, I expect to ruffle some feathers and welcome your feedback at any time) Featured product for this issue! MY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK- " From Desperation to Dedication: Lessons You Can Bank On"…Click
here to order
Download a free chapter of my book, The Preface is available here - Click to begin! If you live in or near one of the following cities where Troy will be speaking over the next few months, please contact The Evans Groups for details on an opportunity that does not come around often- see Troy present for free!
Sign up for my affiliate program and earn money while you sleep! Click here for details! Commission for booking me - I offer a commission of 10%-20% ($650.00-$1,300.00) for anyone who refers me for speaking engagements and/or bulk product sales. Please contact The Evans Group for details. Subscriber opinions and impressions of this electronic newsletter: I invite subscribers to write me with their questions as well and I will answer them in the next issue. Also readers, I invite you to send in profiles of yourself and how you have used the information from my electronic newsletter, products or speech in your personal and/or professional lives. Once a month I will feature one individual for all others to read about!
Note: You are free to reprint any portion of this electronic newsletter as long as the portion remains complete and unaltered, and the “About the Author” section is included. About the Author- Troy Evans is a professional speaker and author who resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Pam and his dog Archibald. Troy travels the country delivering keynote presentations, and since his release from prison has taken the corporate and association platforms by storm. Overcoming adversity, adapting to change and pushing yourself to realize your full potential- other speaker’s talk about these issues, Troy has walked them.
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