Rehabilitation SECRETS That Will Change Lives Forever

[0:00]  you know we we work with guys that are lifers too and interestingly enough they love working you know and you have to think about that for a moment like they're never getting out what are they working for they're working for the satisfaction of they doing something worthwhile they don't know what who's getting that product they don't know but we tell them a lot but say this is going for this purpose or that purpose we keep them informed you you let them know and they live for that Keenan I mean that's their life it it's it's a little hard to grasp that how long does it take them to get there but they do get there those laughers get there and they're they're honestly some of the best employees all right guys welcome back to

[1:00]  a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I am sitting across this digital table if you will with another amazing leader who truly represents what it is to be a heart and hustle leader now I'm sitting across from Blake Brown the CEO of Pride Enterprises now Pride Enterprises is unique because they are looking at rehabilitation in a different way Blake welcome to the show man thank you Kenan great to be here I appreciate the opportunity Blake if you had to be described by by your friends and family and work was off the table how would they describe you I think they would say loyal uh committed uh follow through you know if I say I'm going to do something I will do whatever even if it costs more for me personally I I like keeping my word I I I I hope people see me as a

[1:49]  person that keeps their word that'd be the most important thing I think the follow through the commitment is really interesting to me because when it comes to working with people that are in our correction facility in prisons giving them opportunities to come out on the other side with more skill sets the soft skills things that they can lead into from a dignity perspective what you guys have been doing is absolutely amazing would you mind giving us a little bit of an introduction to yourself in your 39 plus years of experience in manufacturing and how we kind of got to be here today well I'll I'll try to keep it brief 39 years is a long time to cover but uh so I I uh I was the first person in my family actually to go to college since my ancestor my direct ancestor came to the to the continent not to America because my first ancestor came

[2:38]  in 1654 so we and he was college educated from England but um but no one else told me so I was the first now there's I've got cousins and nephews and nieces all all kind much higher degrees much better than mine but but uh but I was very interested in education so so I did that and and I'm an engineer so um I I didn't really know what I wanted to be till it kind of got into it and I start I thought maybe I'm going to be a teacher my wife's a teacher great profession but okay I wanted I like my working with my hands I like design I like building things um so I went into engineering instead and and I loved it and and I was in that field for a good while I moved up I was a engineer a senior engineer and engineering manager

[3:25]  you know so I went through the the sequence but I started watching I was always in manufacturing plants right so I was a manufacturing engineer an Industrial Engineer and and so I realized like man someday maybe I'd like to be a plant manager I mean that's a cool job you they're running the whole facility you know they're they they do everything from The Ordering of they're over the ordering of materials to the shipping and they handle the customers and oh by the way they do all this neat stuff in the middle so I started making some inquiries before long you know uh I got the opportunity I was with a major Pharmaceutical company we had a great Mission great work saving lives and and so I started moving up with them um I just moved up to the chain had to move around had to travel change States yeah but I eventually became a plant manager

[4:13]  uh uh out in the Midwest and and I loved it uh then I moved back East to Georgia became a director in a medical device Factory and and um and just kept moving up eventually I ended up with u with a military products group again saving lives safe you know keeping military and police alive and safe it was very important I loved it um and I became a VP of operations across for the whole us which was really nice I travel from Mexico California uh the Northwest Wyoming uh had plats in Michigan uh pits of Massachusetts West Virginia Florida all over and it was it was great fun and I enjoyed that for many years and eventually I moved on after about 12 years I moved to another

[5:01]  industry and never did really you know they didn't really they didn't have the mission right it didn't have the mission so that's inevitably how I ended up with pride it's it's it's a worthwhile Mission and I that sits kind of in me to be part of a mission it's good to make money it's good to advance in your career I'm all about all that I'm very driven person but having something that you do at the end of the day that you can see that that actually changes lives is very fulfilling I was having a conversation earlier today before we hopped on with the ne founder out of Georgia and he used to be in the tech industry and he pivoted to work in um Human Services to help people with disabilities and as we were having our

[5:49]  conversation I asked him do you ever feel like you made the pivot because you weren't fulfilled by the money and he said you know what at some point in time you recognize that you have enough money to be safe you you have enough money to provide for your family and do things that you want and then you get this itch to impact lives and it sounds like you had the exact same experience I did I mean and I and I got I was there early on with the pharmaceutical company you know you know a lot of people Chris I was big farmer companies this was a big one I won't name them it's a big company had 60,000 employees worldwide so it's a big company but we were still doing good I I remember during the first golf War uh we had to make a million IV bags to support the war now there turns out that we didn't really go no one really we didn't lose many soldiers right it was

[6:36]  very fortunate that we didn't but we work seven days a week for a month to produce because we were still providing for our other customers but we had to provide for the military to prepare them for this massive war they they thought they would be engaged in and so that mission was always there and you know and I my employees I'd go out and they're like man another Saturday Another Sunday like yes but think about the the people people who are Defending Your Country who are putting their lives on the line for you and me and you it always made things a little easier for them um but at the end of the day they ended up they didn't have to use a lot of those IB bags I was grateful for that too when it comes to being different with pride Enterprises how are you guys approaching rehabilitation in a different way I want to give you the

[7:23]  stage so you can kind of architect and narrate why you guys are doing things differently and why that's important well I think you there's there's transition programs there's a lot of things out there I see other nonprofit type organization they're doing good work um but being who I am being a manufacturing guy my entire career engineering and Manufacturing the ability to make something and see it brings a different kind of confidence in the human being than than just going through some classes and and trying to pick up some soft skills all good absolutely support that but in our environment we create by law our statute that the Florida law

[8:10]  requires us to create a real life real world environment for these people oh and by the way we're self-funded so we have to make enough money to pay for that we don't get any tax money nothing from the state the way it was set up which is beautiful right we have to earn our own way and our inmate workers know that they they understand that and I tell you Keenan it's an amazing thing cuz you know coming from the outside in and I used to do prism Ministries so I I knew kind of how the inside looks right and I knew how the people thought uh but coming from the outside in no pun attended you we we do these kin now I got a captive audience okay no pun have a captive audience uh we' bring in inmates put them on Ken teams and then I would bring staff you know normal normal

[8:59]  employees would come in on the team they the guys that get to go outside the fence T night right so we put them together and we've done these multiple times now it never failed that the inmates were the most intense the most determined to make it work I mean if you could just see it Kenan it's amazing they took so much pride they won they appreciated the attention that they were getting a trained in a skill they didn't know anything about two they were the subject matter matter experts the first one I did was with a group of fabrication and welders they would go back to their dorms at night and fortunately our inmates typically the Department of Corrections keeps them in the same dorms which is great it's really great because they talk to each other talk about work what else you have to talk about right

[9:46]  so they talk about work and I remember the first kazen the first day and we did the training and we started the kazen and we had a real problem like how do we make sure the parts are exactly the same and they fit together correctly and the quality is built in and all came in the next morning I went in and two of the welders had already built fixtures to I mean I couldn't have engineered these and me and a group of Engineers could not have created something as effective and and and and accurate as they did and it worked perfectly they had thought through it overnight got in early the next morning before we got there already had them built and it was the key to making that successful here's the here's the scale they were making a product they could make 200 a month that was that was what they could do when we

[10:35]  finished those inmates were making 200 a day that was the scale and and the pride they took in that and we recog we have a big recognition lunch for them fed them big mail and brought in you know the warden and other dignitaries to speak to them gave plaques out you know and and um that is much more appreciated than coming from the Free World we did all that stuff too but it's like yeah what are you going to do for me next you know it's kind of the little bit of the attitude in in the outside world but in the inside world that's meaningful because when the families come to visit they're going to show them the plaque they're going to talk about that and it just it makes a huge difference for these people you're giving people purpose is what I'm hearing the ability to learn a skill that they can contribute to that they can own that has

[11:23]  a meaningful impact in the work that they do every day like that's a beautiful thing you said something that was really interesting to me as we were kind of starting off here you said there's no better feeling than building something what was your early experience in building something if we go back into your memory bank do you remember the first time where you were like oh my gosh I built something like look at this how prideful you were of that it actually wasn't something I built but it was something I repaired CU my dad was Heavy he worked heavy construction so in the summer me my older sister my little sister have been born yet so we you know we we're out we're in the appalache mountains okay we're in the middle of nowhere there's no all the dirt roads you know it's you got Creeks you got streams that you can go pull weeds to the Garden but uh dad had bought me a used tricycle and my sister had maybe

[12:13]  she had a bicycle she was older and I I rode that thing to just I couldn't ride any and one day the front wheel fell off fell off I'm like four years old five years old but I still remember it and I knew Dad could fix it but Dad wasn't going to be home after dark you know and I knew he it was like Tuesday so I'm going to go all week without my bicycle so I go into the shed and I start looking for and I found some some uh some screws and some different stuff and inevitably I fixed it and I got it working again and my dad when he saw he couldn't believe like you you fixed your own tricycle I mean it's a tricycle I couldn't even run a bicycle but uh I'll never forget like I was so proud you know and and I think that kind of got me in that mindset like you you know God gives us the capacity to do far more

[13:02]  sometimes than we think we can do and you know and once you start doing it it's it's really fun and the sense of accomplishments there I see it in those guys man I just see it all day long when we're working with them out of all the things that you could have done Blake why do we invest so much time and energy into people who are behind bars I'm sure you've gotten asked this question before out of all the things that you could have done with your career why are we spending time with this certain population of people well you know I kind of wish I'd gotten into it earlier to be honest but I did I did um I did prison Ministries two different places two different times both in Florida uh I just kind of wish I'd gotten into it earlier because it's so meaningful but um I think you know to see a person have a second

[13:50]  opportunity we hear it all the time like there but by the grace of God go out right I mean there's a lot of Truth in that little cliche I mean there there's a lot of Truth in it I mean I remember things I did grow up I was kind of a mean kid I did stuff and even as a teenager I did mean stuff stuff if I'd got caught I might have been in a juvie for a while I don't know um so we all do stuff right and and you know some of it's a lot worse than you want to talk about but some of it's not some of just bad decisions right I like drum dealers bad decision right it's a but they see the money so we get in in with these guys and we we deal with a lot with of the particular the ones who don't really want to go back and I'm going to give you one little story I was working with a juvie not in Pride this was when I was

[14:37]  in prison Industries and I was working I was going over and mentoring him once a week and he you know he's 17 cuz a juvie um and um and we were talking about different things and we were talking about what are you going to do when you get out because I was you know I was doing my Christian um you know uh study with him as well but then I'm also say what's the plan when you leave leave and and he he was going to get married he had a fiance who had a full ride to UCLA so he was going to go from Florida to uh to California she had had his child he's 17 but she's older but she'd had his his son and he said he looked me in the eye big tears streaming out his face big guy he's like your size Kina big kid right and he goes I was a drug dealer my dad was a drug dealer and my grandfather was

[15:27]  a drug dealer I don't want my son to be a drug dealer that moves you I mean that really you know it's worth being there and in that case I was a volunteer I wasn't there doing the work I do now but it's still the same right some of these guys really want to get out and and make a difference and and you know our recidivism rate is is is is really good um I went to a National Conference back in March or April in Dallas and so all the correction industries from all over the country are there and and when I got being a you know the lead of my state I got to talk with all the other and it went around the table every all 50 states had to say something and and I said something about the reism for our group and they're like oh wow you know no one else seems to have that level

[16:15]  because we're down around 10% so for every hundred guys we send out only 10 return and then we're very proud of that we we wish you were five or two um so we have work to do so but that when you see that um and all of our group our entire company takes so much pride no pun intended with pride the word pride this said for prison rehabilitative Industries and diversified Enterprise mouthful hard to put on a shirt but um we all do take a lot of pride in seeing that and working hard to try to bring it down and working hard to try to get more people in the work programs uh we have to find new businesses to get into to do that I'm really interested in how you are building the culture of pouring into others so you as the CEO of Pride

[17:05]  Enterprises how are you thinking about casting a vision so large that other people who want to give back in pour into other people who might have made mistakes is something that's possible because I couldn't imagine that there are so many people who are out there who are saying I want to do this work but if they knew your story and your vision for rehabilitating and allowing people a second chance on the other side of the mistake that they made they would very much want to work for an amazing organization like you guys is we look for those people Kenan we purposely look for someone who has a connection and it's kind of what happened with me when I came and interviewed with pride you know I could sit there and say I've been inside of Prisons I've been inside multiple prisons um even in foreign countries and and and so I had a

[17:53]  connection and I think that was one of the things that was appealing to the pride leadership at the time to hire me so so we do that I'll give you an example uh we just interviewed for a pretty high level position on my staff okay and we brought the first guy in I brought my whole staff in not mean there's three of us four of us right four of us we interviewed this person and the person was extremely capable right I mean the the the history of the work was impressive we knew this person could do the job and do it very very well but not much interest in the mission not a lot of discussion of the mission no questions about the mission I'm not sure how much he'd even researched us right so and so we talked to the recruiter like this guy can do the job but we we'd like to talk to another person so this person just suddenly

[18:43]  became available we don't know how this kind of one of those things those mysterious things that happen and the recruiter called me the next day said I have the per because our recruiter he knows us he comes inside he knows what we do and and he said Blake I know what you're looking for I found that person well okay he's a recruiter you know he might be blowing a little smoke at me so we bring the guy in and we all sit down with him again they're very C we don't like it's not like one of these he's got a lot on him and just not we're sitting at the couch in a in a in the in the lobby area of a of a hotel that's where we did we all the C very casual just kind of like this discussion you and I are having and we start talking to the gentleman and he had researched Pride he knew us inside out and he begins to tell a story his brother-in-law had been incarcerated for 10 years and he and his

[19:33]  wife it was their brother they visited him every weekend and so they saw the struggles they saw the the addictions and the things that he had thought and how you know he was trying to reform himself in the prison system and and so this guy told tells a story and and he's tearing up when he's talking about his brother he loves his brother-in-law and it's like oh and by the way he had all those other skill too and he had all the skills we needed for the position like when he left the room everyone's going there's we don't want to see anyone else we found our guy you know and and and that happens a lot with us Kenan we really do look for those people and that is what I was hoping you were going to say because you know I think a lot of leaders often fill seats just to fill seats but often we find that if

[20:23]  people aren't connected to the mission then they're not the right fit but it's very difficult for us to find those right people so it sounds like you're willing to almost go without to make sure that you do feel fill that right seat that can be sustainable to help the organization fulfilling the amazing mission that you guys are on we definitely I mean we're used to spreading out covering for each other and even areas that we have no I have no background in some areas like sales or marketing but yeah we do what we we can but uh and yeah we have gone longer in fact that was about a year in the making what I just described to get that one key person um and we went to a lot of guy I mean not not we didn't go we didn't hire other people but we had like an interim guy came in great guy you know then then the interview process and just took our recruiter was really

[21:10]  trying to find the right person and we spent a lot of time with recruiters explaining what we need and in fact after the one I told you there was another gentleman we brought in to uh review for general manager position and and it was so similar he had experience with prison in missions um had a distant relative that spent time incarcerated and he liked this person they spent time together and and when we hear those stories number one we know when they go behind that wire and you hear the double click as the double sets of blcks lock behind you they don't panic right you don't panic uh you you have to this is my work area and um in the past I've been told War Stories they've hired people before my time uh who lasted one

[21:59]  day and most of it was because just the sense of being behind that wire I'm in here with 1400 criminals and me you know that's kind of how they see it they don't some people don't see them as human beings and that's a problem you mentioned that to me in our previous conversation you said you know eventually the blue suits start to disappear and you see the human let's talk a little bit about that how long that take for you uh well because I had experience with prison min Ministries it didn't take as long for me as it may have taken um but you got to if you're just going through for a walk through okay I'm just going through I'm just walking around looking you're more distant you're distant to the people okay this guy I don't know what he did I

[22:45]  mean he may have killed his mother I don't know you know your brain's like rattling around where really the rubber makes the road for me and others is when you sit down and you do a project or you got a you you've got a new piece of equipment and you got to train on it or uh there's there's an efficiency problem we got to go in and work on this and you're sitting down with these guys and you realize this guy's an engineer this guy's a mechanic this guy's a welder I mean they become you know skilled Craftsman and people wom men and women that become skilled people to us and then they're contributing they want Bas you know because they want to be recognized for doing good they contribute immediately and and more engaged unlock the Free World The Free World sometimes you have to drag people

[23:31]  kicking and screaming to sit down and make Improvement not with these guys and I'm telling you the blue goes away really quickly when you get in that inir and this is a a message about seeing the human that I think we need to talk a little bit more about in our public settings you know we are very quick to judge we are very quick to make assumptions about certain people but at the end of the day we've all been through our life experience some of us have made mistakes but at the end of the day that human connectedness is something that I think we need more of the belief in the second chance is something that's really powerful it's very powerful Keenan and and you know not all of them you know we we work with guys that are lifers too and interestingly enough they love working you know and you have to think about that for a moment like they're never

[24:17]  getting out what are they working for they're working for the satisfaction of they're doing something worthwhile they don't know what who's getting that product they don't know but we tell a lot but said this is going for this purpose or that purpose we keep them informed you you let them know and they live for that Keenan I mean that's their life it it's it's a little hard to grasp that for how long does it take them to get there but they do get there those laughers get there and they're they're honestly some of the best employees I mean I'm I'm a big believer in um we are we're meant to work we are meant to apply ourselves we are meant to overcome challenges we are meant to have purpose we are meant to keep pushing forward and we're meant to accomplish things no matter what your life situation is every

[25:04]  man is literally meant to do those things and I feel like that is the commonality that we're hearing in this conversation no matter what your situation your address or location where you live at we still have those common threads within us absolutely there's um absolutely like there's some there's some interesting conversations that I hear a lot about on the podcast which is you know nonprofit CEO burnout incredibly High because often it seems like the mission that we're on the fight that we're trying to fight against is an Ever moving goalpost if you will you know often when we get our goals right they turn into a destination or an event or a Finish Line but when we get it wrong they turn into a horizon we take one step closer it moves one step further away how do you stay grounded in the sense of accomplishment on the mission that you guys are on at Pride Enterprises well the good always in my

[25:53]  mind always outweighs the bad and there's bad trust me I I won't go into it has nothing to do with inmates it has nothing to do with my staff it's it's got a lot to do with bureaucracy right so there there are things that really frustrate me and people that are close to me know it it it really it really does bother me but when I walk into that prison setting and I see the next project I see the next industry we're starting up a brand new facility in in West Florida right now and I go out there and I see the excitement in those guys eyes I mean they're just charged up they're ready to go that re-energizes me and it offsets all the bat it just it does out I hope that lasts till I retire Keenan and you know I'm getting older and then I'll retire in a few years um and I think it will I mean because always every day is something new if you

[26:40]  look at the good the the stack it's good here's the bad stack right it's kind of always there and I have to deal with it often and it's like the last thing I want to do but I do deal with it then I look over here and I see the good stack oh I get to go I get to go look at the new tiny house Factory and work with the inmates and the staff of laying this new process out and see all that I get to do stuff like that Keenan it's like it's like going it's like a kid going to Disneyland or Disney World right it's it's so fun um and it just offsets all this other stuff and and I think we always have to keep something going this is the other thing we're really into is what are the new things out there like last year we started a diesel mechanic program in South Florida it's the only one in the entire country in a correction setting the only

[27:29]  one in the entire country I know that because I go to the conference and I talk about my new diesel my new diesel our new diesel program and they're like how do you guys do that wasn't easy we had to find the right people we connected with the right State College systems and by the way there's only one State College in the State of Florida has it guess who we co-oped with that college and they had had a a Dean who's also a a a pastor who had a real heart for this right and he helped he bent over backward to help us make this work so now we're certifying diesel mechanics 425 hour uh College certified course and they're eligible to take the ASC certification which is the highest level mechanic you can get and oh by the way

[28:17]  we have a shop we have a class A shop they're already taking our old equipment we have plenty of it and they're refurbishing it they even paint it make it look new make it run it's very very talented and in the State of Florida the last time I checked there's over a thousand job openings for diesel mechanics so these guys a lot of them are like seven or less years left on their on their on their sets when they get out they walk out making well the days dollars it' be 35 bucks an hour you know when they get out some it'll be more but they make a great living wage and that's not counting the overtime they'll get right and there's people waiting to grab these guys so the the possibility of them coming back should be extremely SLI they they should be in that 1% recidivism right not the 10 right but um but we're always looking

[29:05]  for that new thing keen and that's what really gets my juices going it offsets the bad and you ask my guys everything new like that is just it just charges me up and if we can now there's risk we have to remember we take risk when we were starting a tiny house Factory I don't know if anyone's going to buy those I'm being told they'll be bought and um you know we're we're to build them and and we're not going to build any inventory so we're you it's kind of like fill the dreams we're going to build them and they'll come and they'll buy our houses there is one stigma though that that I feel is important to address and some people don't want to buy prison products produce products they said okay well there that's just prison that's just slave labor and there's nothing farther from the truth we pay our guys they're

[29:54]  all volunteers we force no one to work for us they want to work for us and there's two levels of pay there's what's called traditional and there's what's called Pi traditional is if we sell to an institution or we sell in the State of Florida basically they make that 35 to 95 Cent an hour rate right but if we sell commercially let's say name a big box store and they want to buy our our grills okay uh we pay Market wage for that product so if I'm a welder I'm going to make 25 bucks an hour when I'm working on that product so now the state does take some of that money back from them to pay for board and such but they get a good Chun of that money uh so that but it is a stigma out we I've ran into this we've had people stop buying from you're you're you're using slave labor

[30:42]  and Kenan it's so far from the truth if you came and saw these guys you realize this this is not accurate these guys are learning really highend skills they're getting paid uh and they want to be there and they want they're looking for that day when they can walk outside and and and be a contributing me member of society a word popped into my head as you were talking about you know the diesel mechanics and all these other type of things that you were doing it sounds like you're an incredibly curious CEO if you're always looking for new opportunities about how you can think about problems differently how do you think about that skill set of curiosity well it's funny you say that word because I tell all my guys you know there's there's some requirements when we're hiring one is one is that they they're interested and they like the

[31:29]  mission but one of my other big ones they have to be curious Keenan I don't want to hire someone it's not curious if I'm this status quo I'm a lean guy right I'm a Toyota production system guy the deadly stuff is called status quo it's just I'm just here and I'm okay I'm not curious about what's on the other side without curiosity we'll never take a risk we'll never know we'll never know nothing ventured nothing gained another clich J no curiosity that's your reality which means your life is not very interesting for the most part I mean if that's your that's what you choose I mean that's your choice uh I choose to do the other and sometimes it you that stack of bad will slam me and knock me sideways for a day right but the next

[32:17]  day there's like this whole big stack of good out there and I'm like this is worth it right it's worth it I hope that answers your question it does you know I think about curiosity in two veins here being curious enough to explore but you're also curious in an element of believing in others you know there's a a famous quote that I bring up on the podcast often it's like you lead by letting others know what you expect of them which often may exceed what they expect of themselves provide a reputation that somebody can live up to do you think that you've been doing that for those inmates my goal is all has been for a long time I won't say always is to be a servant leader I mean I really believe that I cannot ask anyone to do something that I'm not willing to do myself now I'm in my 60s I'm in good health though I can

[33:06]  still do a lot I can still do a lot right and I'll still do it but I'm not going to ask anyone to do something that's so bad or so hard that I wouldn't be willing to do it myself and I've had that philos Philosophy for a long time Keenan and then I remember back you know 10 12 years ago like we're trying to get orders for armor out for a military group in Afghanistan and we're working Saturday you know I'm the VP what I do I come over I go to the lines okay okay I'm not skilled to do that what can I do you can pack that box if You' like or you're the BP okay I'll pack boxes or I'll I'll I'll put the boxes on the pallets I even I've even brought my own trailer and hul product to FedEx so that this product gets to the end user that's

[33:56]  waiting a live saving product they're waiting and and that's just something I enjoy doing it and and people know you're you're you're serious right that you're you're not just a guy like I could be fishing you know I I don't play golf I like to fish don't ever get to do it but I get more fulfillment out of being part of the team and being a servant leader to be honest ask me a question where I don't sound like I'm beating My Own Drum this is what the podcast is all about brother you know what I mean it's like this is a highlight of you man um you know there's there's one thing that I want to ask you about and this is you know me being selfish with my time is if you had to go back let's say 30 years into the past when you're in the middle of building your career what would be a piece of advice that you would give to

[34:43]  that younger version of Blake Brown as he navigates the next 10 15 20 years of his career that's a question that has an ugly answer um because I just did the math and I was in a position I was I would just become a VP at that time 30 years ago and I got so into career and myself and me you know at that time I'm like I'm going to be a CEO I I'm going to be you I'm already on track I'm only 30 something and man I'm going to be there in a few years and you know my family took us back seat my my God took a back seat everything took a back seat Kina and and it ended disastrously for me I mean it just one day they

[35:32]  reorganized a company and they sent me out the door it was a disaster and and and and so I would say make sure your your your goals are set correctly put things in the proper priority order mine I'll tell you mine it's God family country and work it's that order 1 2 3 4 I had it completely upside down and and I think for for people that want to progress get your order right get it flipped right and I thought say it's going to be perfect world for you but you won't have that day I had right it's a really bad day when you're going that direction and I was so career focused my wife knew it she knew it and then when I had my reconing and I got was on my

[36:20]  knees praying and crying the next day and I and then it was just revealed to me this is This Is What You Did Blake you did 4 321 instead of 1 2 3 4 and it scared my it honestly it scared my wife a little bit when I had that Reckoning I'm like I'm never doing it again I I know what I need to do I've been told I've been I feel like I receiv received that message um and I'm going to follow it and I and I here I've done that ever since and and it just uh you know don't always the world is not always perfect we live in the Fallen World it's not going to be perfect uh but it's been pretty darn good Kenan pretty darn good and I have a lot a lot more peace about everything so that that happened about 30 years ago just so you know it's a being able to reflect on those moments I think is

[37:08]  really important um this is why I like hosting the podcast because it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we could have done better and I Can't Tell You Blake how many leaders that I speak across who are leading amazing organizations doing a ton of Revenue with a huge impact that often say I wish I could go back and be more align mind with my end goal purpose right the scariest feeling is obtaining the life that we thought was going to make us happy but it doesn't feel like how we hope for it's like how many times can we make that mistake right you know and there was a point after that happened my goals my my part's changed my goals changed I had no desire to be a CEO no desire to be a president of the company none I I want to contribute I want to I want to always be a good worker I mean

[37:56]  like you said earlier we're designed to work and to accomplish and I felt that and and I gave my all always after that but I just didn't have this you know this really arrogant uh me me me mindset anymore and and then lo and behold one day when I came to Pride when I was hired uh the former president he was President he said you know you're coming in as VP of Ops um you um you you're going to be considered if you do well you'll be considered for my job when I retire and I looked at him he he didn't look that old to me I'm like okay well I'm GNA do the very best I can but I I don't really know anything about being a CEO right a year and a half later I'm the CEO so I didn't look for

[38:46]  it didn't ask for it but it came you know it's just it's kind of interesting how it worked uh it wasn't my goal but it happened how do you think you've stretched and changed in the last year and a half like we talked about you know to become the CEO who needs to be here every day to show up to continue to push this Mission forward funny because I was just on the phone asking one of my guys just had a board meeting and and sometimes there's things that you just have to challenge like untruths get said by certain individuals and and I have to challenge it and I I always pray that God gives me the right words because the old self wordss would be really ugly Keenan I mean I'm a blunt guy I can be very blunt and and so I think my stretch is i h as

[39:36]  a CEO you always have to be professional I was just on a conference call earlier and I'm looking at a letter from a CEO back to an organization I'm involved with and and there's three of us board members looking at that CEO's letter we going that's so unprofessional what the guy wrote I mean so so it and and that I think that's my stretch I could have written that letter easily if when now when I write a letter or an email I don't if if if I'm angry it doesn't go out it's going to sit overnight and it may never go out or it may if it goes out at all it's probably completely Rewritten because now I think more about the perception if you're in this role you you I I could be the Serv leader all day long but I have to

[40:24]  project a strong character one that's Bots the tongue when I need to bot the tongue don't stream of Consciousness say what's you really you mean it's not like you're not saying what you really think because I asked one of the guys from the our board meeting that was there and I said you know I challenged this person in the meeting did I do it correctly now I asked one of my guys did I do was I was I was I rude in any way and he and he told me said no you're very and he actually said I went back and listened to the to the audio cuz we all we had to we minutes he said I listened to the audio already and he said Blake you you you did it correctly you didn't call him a liar although he was Li he said you didn't do any of that stuff right you you did it correctly and like okay cool we'll take

[41:11]  it and that's what I have to learn I had to learn to bite my tongue and be professional because I'm representing hundreds and hundreds of people now right I mean um my staff 1,800 inmates you know there's people I have to think about besides old Blake right had the pleasure of interviewing a uh a brain surgeon with a PhD in neuroscience and I asked him what is the most important skill set that a human being can develop a leader in this example and he said emotional regulation because if you let your emotions take over how you perceive a moment what somebody else said Somebody's Behavior the actions that somebody's taking or even your own actions you're very likely to make a mistake or make the wrong WR judgment in that moment but being able

[41:59]  to create that space right that insulation from the outside world to our core in how we react is the true example of a character of a leader not letting the world shake you and having that time and that space to be able to kind of react in the appropriate way that that that's exactly where I was and and and that's my stretch Keenan is is learning to to deal with that and learning how I should respond and be professional in all cases you know regardless of what might be churning inside here what comes out here make it professional and and and it it is a stretch for me you know there's there's a lot of power in your willingness to be transparent honest and humble enough to admit that because a lot of leaders say I'm perfect I don't

[42:47]  have things I need to improve on but we all recognize from the outside that there's a little bit of truth that's being omitted in some of those statements so Blake I'm really glad that you feel comfortable enough to just have an honest open conversation CU there are other leaders who are tuning into this conversation who can find themselves in your story in the examples of other CEOs who might not be acting appropriately but that does not dictate our Behavior which is so powerful um you mentioned the word stretch there I want to talk about the stretch that's happening over the next couple years with pride Enterprises what are we thinking about what's the vision where are we going well we we have to get into here's our reality we're we're working around 1,800 in inmates right now uh in the State of Florida there's around 8,000 that are eligible to work for us because we have

[43:35]  requirement we have what they call tape scores which is you know uh how they where they would be in the equivalent of a house or a grade school or High School level we can work guys down to about like a grade four up of course we want them like a grade 11 but but we can go down depending on the work um so so our objective is how many of those people can we interface with now we're working on a system that the Department of Corrections has asked us to do and we're going to engage a number of inmates to just a it's a contact thing soft skills they don't get paid they can come into our classrooms we're building take classes and it reduces idleness and it can walk out with some certificates not real actual job application and they're

[44:23]  not getting paid so we're going to do more than that that'll help us with the reach uh but my real goal and and the Department of Corrections is right there with us too is our goal is to put more inmates to work and so uh we have a lot of opportunity I have three empty buildings around the state right now and our challenge is what can I put in and we're always interviewing and talking to different companies about uh you know these opportunities they come along quite often Keenan you just have to be careful will this it has to be something that we can break even or make some money on if we're losing money it's taken away eventually we have to do something ugly um so that's my stretch and that's my challenge I want to I want to impact more of that 8,000 available inmates that that are looking and

[45:11]  wanting to do better um so we're going to have to take some risk we're going to have to find those things that look look like they're going to work and then just put our backs into it sometimes we just have to work a little harder to make something work just like I told you the tiny house Factory it's almost built so we're going to make tiny houses uh we're we're in too far to stop now but we'll we'll take more risks like that in other Industries I'm I'm certain of it and uh we have a few things on the horizon that we'll take off as part of our tradition here on the podcast we end by having our previous guest ask you a question now the previous guest um was an amazing leader and she wants to know if you could do one thing over in your career what would it be one thing

[46:01]  over you know that's a good question because I've made a lot of mistakes you know but then on the other side good things eventually started to take place you know so I I I think the one the one that comes to mind um when I left poten this is a poent I won't say that this may have been better it it probably would have been better for Blake from a retirement standpoint okay uh I left that major pharmaceutical company to go work for a a very small company right um because I liked what they were doing it was it was a it was a a a chance for me to grow stretch right uh I was offered multiple other roles with the larger pharmaceutical company

[46:49]  to stay I've been with them for 11 years and I turned them all down and so I think if I'd stayed I don't know I certainly would have been the CEO as a big company not that that was you know that was something that got in my head later but um I you know the that kind of got me away from work that was meaningful so therefore a time I got into the work at I'm not say all work is Meaningful but as far as the product and service that comes out of that work uh who's it impacting so you know we're making you know I don't know name something carpet or something okay that's great you got to have it but is it meaningful well it's not lifechanging so I deviated there and then eventually I got back to it with pride right so I

[47:36]  mean you had the military products had the pharmaceutical off here in the ditch doing stuff that did it it helped me because I learned more I I I learned I learned how to run pnls for example I'm an engineer i' had never taken an accounting class in my life seriously so but I learned how to run pnls because I stretched and went over here and this work it wasn't so Mission focused but eventually I got back to Pride so I think if I had to change something I would have probably tried to stay in the lane where I was doing stuff that was meaningful to people lifechanging to people I would have tried to stayed in that lane and not jumped off but but again there was gain in that jump I stretched I learned more that's I hope that answers the question it's kind of a sideways it

[48:25]  absolutely does I mean you're the you are um you are the culmination of all the experiences that we've had which have brought us together here and you're unique perspectives the things you've been able to share today on the podcast have been absolutely amazing Blake I just want to say for everybody who's tuning in and watching today hosting you on the show has been an absolute blessing being able to share this space has been amazing thank you so much for joining me man I really I really thank you for the opportunity this is a great podcast I watch some of the previous ones I really appreciate what you do thank you so much and there we go guys that's a wrap we'll catch you in the next one