Beat Up By The Police | Kyle Hunter
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Hey guys, it's Ian Bick, and we are back with another episode of Locked In. On today's episode, I interview Kyle Hunter, who grew up in Chicago and experienced a life of crime at a young age, until one detrimental moment and an act of God prevented him from a lengthy prison sentence...

and changed his outlook for the rest of his life. Thank you guys for tuning in to the show. Thank you guys for all the love and support. And if you could please, please, please take a one quick second and go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify Podcasts to leave us a review. It helps improve our show and helps get the show out there to more people. Sit back, relax, and enjoy my interview with Kyle Hunter on Locked In with Ian Bick.

Kyle Hunter, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. You just drove, what, 15 hours from Chicago to come on? 15 hours from the city, yeah, from the north side. That's awesome. Well, we appreciate you coming out here and sharing your story. This is the first time you're going to be talking about your story on this level, which is exciting. I really think the viewers are going to appreciate your story and kind of look at the what-ifs of what could happen if they continue on or don't continue on a certain path.

So let's start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? What's your childhood like? Yeah. So I grew up in Glenwood, Illinois, which is a South Chicago suburb, like 15 minutes from like the city line.

Went to school there through grade school, started to have issues with like disciplinary stuff, getting into fights and that kind of thing pretty young. And then my parents decided to move me to Will County, which was a town called Mokino, which is much smaller and smaller.

They had this idea of moving me away from like a higher crime area would help with a lot of the stuff that was going on. And it didn't clearly, but I moved there at seven years old, stayed till I graduated high school and then moved to DeKalb for a couple of years, which is like a college town area.

And ended up in Chicago for seven or eight years after that. And now I'm in the suburbs where it's quiet and safe and it's great times. So you've spent your whole life in Illinois so far? Yeah, absolutely. Are you an only child? No, I have a younger brother who's five years younger. Okay. And growing up, is your family wealthy, middle class, poor? Middle class. My dad was a truck driver when I was a little kid. Didn't make a ton of money, but worked constantly, traveled a lot.

And over time, I think he started to find other opportunities and started to have more success in his career, which kind of allowed us to have the flexibility to move. And when we were in Mokena, we were like middle class, but definitely not towards the upper part of the food chain. Like that was like a relatively wealthy area. So that's, I mean, I wouldn't say we were poor, but we definitely didn't have like a ton of

ton of money, you know. What about your mom? What did she do for work? She didn't work. So she worked until I was born and then was a full-time stay-at-home mom, so. Yeah, my parents did the same thing. My dad worked and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. I mean, looking back on it, I think that was probably the best thing that could have happened because you have that one parent that's like devoted to the kids. You hear some stories where the, the

both parents are working and like some kids I knew growing up like they're always in daycare they're always in child care a babysitter like there's no family interaction right and they say that like that those years leading up to being like seven years old are so impactful on your mental stability later in life that it's just kind of crazy to think about like being left with another person that's not a parent for so long I don't know who knows how that affects a psyche and

Yeah, and it can affect our actions or like abandonment or anything like that. It's just it's interesting like to see how people's like the early development we've been getting into that recently on a lot of episodes on what their childhood is like and the relationships with their parents and how they affected that.

uh, the future. So you had like a pretty normal childhood in that. Yeah. For the most part, I think, uh, my dad not being there was, um, was kind of difficult, like just with his work schedule was kind of nuts. So he was traveling, I'd say 80 to 90% of the time, um, to make sure that he had the money to take care of us.

Um, so that component of it was unfortunate because it's like, you know, when he was home, that's who I want to spend all my time with. It's like, you know, my hero growing up as a kid, especially as a male, you know? Um, so, uh, that part of it I think was a little different than a lot of households, at least when, where I ended up moving later on. Uh, but for the most part, yeah, I mean, my parents are still together and

They didn't do anything off the wall crazy that made me, you know, nuts. So they were pretty normal. So even though your dad was always working, you gravitated more towards your father than your mother? Absolutely. Why do you think that was? It's like a combination of things. I've always respected his work ethic. It's been something that's still instilled in me now. He's a blue collar guy. It's like just seeing how hard he would work to put food on the table and to be there for us.

um, was inspirational to me at a young age. And then you value that time with him so much more because he's rarely at home. So the, you know, a couple of nights every other week that I'd see him when he'd be there, it's just, I'd be so excited to spend time with them. And it was like, there was like that ample excitement for nights that I knew he'd be home early enough to get me from school or whatever. Um, he protected me a lot when I was a kid. Like I remember, uh,

um, at six or seven years old, getting into a fight outside of the school that I was at. Um, and the kid that, you know, I always had like a brain that was thinking 10 steps ahead with, um, later in life with the criminal aspect. And as a child, uh, just trying to think of consequences cause I was real small. So I didn't want to just get into fights with people for whatever reason and then get beat up. And, you know, I've always wanted to have some kind of fair, uh,

So I remember him, I would wait for him to pick me up from school before I do anything to one of the other kids, because I knew if that didn't happen, like I was screwed, you know? So, so I remember once, uh, I had like a lunch pail, right? These, um, you remember these like ice packs they made? They were like these blue rectangle things. Yeah. We still have some of those. Yeah. So my mom would put those in the bottom of my lunch bag. And this kid who's a taller kid who was like messing with me every day,

And when I would leave school, my mom would be there and I didn't want to do anything in front of her because like the kid's dad was always picking him up and he didn't really care that he was messing with me. Almost like thought it was funny type thing. So, um, I waited.

right. For a couple of weeks. And it's just kept going on. And like, you know, kids are like, if they let, they get away with it a couple of times, even, um, in adult life, like people that are preying on other people, that's just how they function. So, um, just continued and continued. And I remember the day that my dad was there to pick me up, um,

I walked outside the front of the school. The kid like was kicking my leg or something messing with me. And I made sure he was looking so he could like see the beginning of it. So it wasn't like it was all me. And I turned around and hit him with the, with the ice pack and smashed him and put the kid down. The dad was like trying to grab my shirt and, and, you know, like pull me off of him. And my dad like grabbed him and they got into it. And it was just cool to have him like have my back with it and teach me like defend yourself, that kind of thing.

And later in life, like that stayed with me and just, you know, I gravitated towards him just because like the male energy of him as a protector and a provider. I think it's just a natural thing. Not that I didn't love my mom. I think she's she's phenomenal. She's put a ton of time into us. But it's just I feel like a natural progression, you know? Yeah, it's amazing that you were had that mindset to think about.

about consequences and what could happen if you did something or didn't do something a certain way. Absolutely. I never thought about that as a kid. And that led to every single one of my problems. Now I'm way more calm and cooler and collected and think about it before I make a decision. And then the thing with your dad, like now that you're saying that, that makes me think too, because my dad, like I love my mom and she was the one that was raising us and my dad was working, but he was the one that took me

karate. He took me to the tournaments when we went to New Jersey to do grappling and wrestling and all this stuff. And he took me to the basketball games when I was on the basketball league. And he was always there for me showing up in that regard. And I remember he was the first, because I was bullied as a kid. I was the one called Twinkie and Fatso and every bad name, because kids are just fucking...

And he was the one that he said, Ian, you know, you just got to hit him in the nose. Like, that's what you do. Someone bothers you, just fucking whack them. And it took me a lot to build up to that to do it. And that's why I went to karate because I had a lot of like self-confidence issues and that. And I did it. And then when the bully finally hit me and I hit him back for that, like that first time, well, one, the bully never,

touched me again and two my dad i went right to my dad to dad i hit him he said good job even though i was getting suspended he said good job and he was always in my corner was bullying a big part of your childhood um not really i i kind of liked to fight so um

I think for the first few years of grade school, it was because I was a really small kid and I was like super awkward looking as I had, like my nose was still kind of big. Like then it's not as disfigured as it is now, but it was like, you know, I just, I had this like look to me where I'd get constantly like picked on for little stuff and it never really bothered me. But as I got older, I started to get into more fights just for whatever reason. I'd say like sixth, seventh and eighth grade. It was, uh,

a lot more consistent and I started to enjoy the physical part of, uh, of fighting. Um, eventually like started to train the same way, uh, like you're talking about. I didn't know that you did all the martial arts stuff. That's really cool. Do you still do some of that now? I actually just got into boxing. Um,

Again, when I got out of prison, I did some boxing and then COVID happened. And then I got back into it recently and it's just been like super therapeutic. But to me, like that's like my therapy and I'm training because I want to like go into that whole world of, you know, there's like celebrity boxing and this and that. Like, I just feel like that could be a good component. And I just like love that underdog story. Like I love training and working for something like building this podcast, starting at nothing and building it to what it is now. I feel like that with boxing, because I'm not...

I'm the first person to say I'm not the most athletic. I'm not the most flexible. I'm not the fastest. I'm not the strongest, but I've been just changing my body the last few months and just like going hard. I'm in the gym like twice a day now. And I love that. And that's like a big part of who I am. So it just, I don't know, like that whole, it's mindset really what it is, what the human body can endure, what you can go through and how you can progress and really change yourself. Like the idea of,

focusing on one thing and like committing yourself to that no matter what and just going for it is great did you ever see yourself becoming the bully like the other end of the spectrum because of your your love for starting to fight uh not really i i still kind of felt like i had to stand up for a lot of those kids like i guess it kind of depended on um the situation i'm not going to say that i never bullied anybody um but it was never like my mo i didn't like

go out seeking kids to like pick on or anything like that. Um, I've always had like this weird, like line in the sand kind of moral compass my entire life, even through like all the crazy years that I had, um, where like, for example, I, I never believed in stealing and everybody I was around was constantly like looking for people to rob or people, the houses to break into and all this, this, these things. And it just never sat well with me. So I don't know if that was upbringing or what it was, but I would have this, like this,

guilt even at a young age where I didn't want to pursue a lot of those things because I knew that I would feel bad afterwards or regret it or whatever. And I just didn't believe in that kind of like behavior. So, um, so yeah, I would say that it wouldn't, it didn't make me bully kids more or like, you know, more than anybody else.

But I definitely like participated in some of that. I mean, I can't say that it, you know, never happened. I think we're all like in one way or another, we get bullied and we can bully others. Like, you know,

you know, indirectly. We don't know our actions at the time. Like I've read some comments from people like when the HBO documentary came out and stuff, they're like, the kid's a bully. He was a bully in high school. And I'm thinking to myself, like I didn't intentionally mean to do that, but people can think that if like I didn't invite them to a party or I didn't do this or I didn't do that, it

it affects people because people react to certain things and they feel different emotions. And at that age, you're not self-aware and you're not, you're not, you're only focused on yourself. You're not keeping in mind other people's feelings. Absolutely. Now is high school, the part of Chicago that you're in, is the high school, like what we hear about on the news, like in Chicago, our kids like bring guns to school. Is there

There was crime and kids did bring weapons to school, but it wasn't like an inner city school. So I was far enough outside of Chicago to where it was. I mean, we still had 4,000 kids. So don't get me wrong. There's a ton of people at the high school I went to. But the crime was different. It was more drug related. And there's a lot of opiates and that kind of thing. It was very common prescriptions. Yeah.

stuff like that. I was in high school for a lot of the Oxycontin pandemic stuff, where like the 30 milligram Oxycontin were super common and popular. So those kind of flooded and like heroin's huge in that town. So that kind of stuff is very common. Weapons in school I did see, but it wasn't like an everyday thing. I don't have to worry about somebody shooting me after class type of thing. Did you do drugs or alcohol during high school? Yeah. So actually before high school, I think

So when I was 14, 15, I had a lot of, um, like trauma deaths in the family and things like that, that really affected me negatively. Back then I didn't know how to process those things or how to talk to people or, um, really how to deal with any of that. So, um, I saw my dad as this like stoic figure, right? So I didn't want to go to him and,

feel like a bitch for, you know, for having these like emotions or whatever. My mom is an Italian and she's got like, she's like a very emotional person as it is. So I didn't want to bring things to her unless it was like absolutely necessary. So I internalize a lot of things like really young. Uh,

Um, so I think that development went like, I was an honor roll student up until seventh, eighth grade. And then, um, I had an uncle pass and a grandmother and stuff. And there was like a lot of that that happened in a short period of time. And then that turned me into more of like, uh, like I need to find an escape somehow. Right. So I started this with smoking weed and taking pills and whatever. Um,

Um, and that progressed eventually to heroin and other things. So I definitely participated in a lot of that. And I sold drugs for many years as well, uh, at first for money. And then it kind of turned into like a habit. So, um, so yeah, I think it's, I think it was all related to like trauma stuff that I'm digging through now, like all these years later. Uh, but I never would have thought of that then. Like then it was just like, I, I felt kind of trapped.

So rather than try to talk to my parents or somebody that I felt like could help me with it, I didn't understand it fully. So I would just do drugs with the other kids and start to hang out with people that may have been like undesirable for that type of progression. But it also gravitated me towards people that were without either without a family member, without a parent, people that were already involved in criminal activity because I was like thinking of

Like this person has the same struggle as me and it, we have like this weird bond where we can talk to each other and it makes sense. Right. But I can't go home and talk to anybody the same way. So I think that that's like a lot of what pushed me towards like that kind of activity was, I mean, those guys ended up like brothers to me because we spent every day together and all our time together, but we were doing things that obviously were not.

for anybody. Looking back on it now, what do you think was the most traumatic experience as a child? Um,

To be honest, I think it was just a combination. I mean, I had family Christmases and stuff like that that were big, elaborate, had everybody there, a lot of stuff that was warming the heart growing up and was good for the soul type thing. And then years later, age 14 or 15, I had lost three or four immediate-ish family members, so grandparents, uncles, stuff like that. And it just kind of ruined that

that part of my life. So we no longer had these like big family get togethers and things like that. And I think that's an important component of anybody's life is like having family that you rely on or whatever. So it's hard to say exactly what it was. I do remember when my mother's brother passed, we like went together to tell my grandma and I was 13, I think. And my brother was eight and

Uh, and I just remember like them bringing us with and like her finding out through us and just that like screaming and like, you know, that the hurt that it caused her, I just remember all that being like really, really vivid. Um, so I would say a lot of, a lot of that would be probably a, I mean, none of the like violence, like physical violence and stuff like that ever really stuck with me until later on. Um, but yeah,

As far as like true emotional trauma, it was mostly all loss, stuff like that.

And when you associate it with like the family gatherings where your peace as a child and then you lose that peace, I think in any situation when you lose your peace, it kind of derails you. That's like when a job loss, if your job's your peace or relationship loss and that relationship was your peace, you lose it. It could spiral you. So in your sense, that kind of spiraled you to drugs. Absolutely. What was that first drug you tried? I

We won't count weed. I mean, that's like, it's a recreational thing. Every kid goes through it. What's like the first hardcore drug you tried? Hardcore?

It's probably heroin, but I don't know if you consider like Vicodin and stuff like that hardcore. I would definitely, you know, that's a, it's a, it was, it wasn't prescribed to you, right? No, no. So, uh, Norcos were like everywhere. And I remember taking those first and then just random prescriptions like Xanax and stuff at school. I mean, freshman, sophomore year of high school, every kid had different things that they'd bring to school and try to sell or trade for other things. So I would just take,

whatever I could find at that point. So, but yeah, I think Vicodin was the first. Was that because of the environment that kids were doing that or was the school not preventing it? What do you think it was? It was both. I mean, there's so many kids, like 4,000 people is a lot of people that like manage on a daily basis and a vast majority, I feel like of kids that were my age were involved in that kind of stuff.

Whether it was for like social reasons, like they thought it looked cool if they sold drugs or whatever their reasoning was. It was like so common that you didn't have to look far. It was everywhere. So it was really, really common. I mean, actually, Will County, I was looking at statistics yesterday, is one of the worst in Illinois for drug

just overdose deaths and like thinking back on how many friends I've lost over the years, like because of how that progressed, because once all the Oxycontin went away, uh,

When the DEA had this like big crackdown, I don't remember what year exactly it was, but it just we replaced it with heroin. So now everybody's doing heroin. And then it's as the fentanyl thing has gotten worse. It's just constant funerals, deaths, people that are that are dying over the stuff. So it's just crazy to see how it's progressed over the years from this like little pill that you take. It was no big deal, you know, and now it's everybody's.

in the ground you know i'm sure that really makes you think too like just thinking about how you got past that and you survived that yeah absolutely not everyone makes it along the way

And that's why like these stories, they're heartbreaking when you hear about it, because some individuals, especially the ones that come on the show, they've been through so much and they've really pushed their limits with drugs. And there's so many people that are dying every day from drug use every day. And when you see those statistics and when you look at it and you're like, holy shit, like it gives your life away.

you know, more meaning. And I think it gives people the urge to tell their story so they can inspire people to not be another statistic. Yeah. Two of my best friends passed from, from overdoses that I had spent my entire, you know, adolescent life with, uh,

Um, and it's, it's rough, like just thinking about you ask so many questions afterwards, like this, it's not the same as like a suicide, but it's, there's a lot of pain that they leave behind with the people that cared about them. Right. Where you're just constantly wondering, like, could I have gotten to this person sooner or is there something I could have done? Right. And those kinds of things stick with you for a long time. So how do you transition from using to selling? Um,

So I was selling before I was using anything harder than weed. So my first couple of years of drug use were just weed. It took a while to start to progress to other things. I think I was 16 when I took the first Vicodin, so it was a little bit of time. But I saw...

how lucrative like the weed business was back then. Cause we're talking 2006, like it wasn't legal anywhere yet. So, um, everything was a lot more expensive. I had a lot of different routes to go and get things, um, through friends and things. So, um, I just came up with different plans of like how I was going to sell it. And then I sold weed for a couple of years and made decent money doing it. Um, and, uh, just went from there.

And was the money the motivating factor? At first, yeah. So it was for a lot of years. I would say until I was 19 or 20, like money was the main factor for why I did anything. Just because I enjoyed like that feeling of like having a lot of cash in my pocket or being able to buy what I wanted to when I wanted to. But yeah,

Yeah. I mean, it, it turned into like funding a drug habit, like way later down the line when I started to do harder drugs and I realized like, man, these are expensive. So I better sell more of this to get some of this, you know, Did that need for wanting money come from not having a lot when you were a kid? I don't know. I don't think so. I think it was more just the people I was around. So, um,

And like just to backtrack, when I was in seventh grade, I was 12 or 13. I remember I was sitting in like the cafeteria and hanging out with like some of these kids that I was, that were like academic type kids. And I remember seeing a guy come running into the cafeteria with like a blue bandana on his face, a flat brim on and just,

crushing this kid with a book and beating a living shit out of him in front of everybody. And I was like, man, that was badass. Like, who is that? I find out who it is. His name is Cody ended up being a good friend of mine, like years later. And that I remember that moment changing my mindset to thinking like, I want to start to have that same like fear. Like I want people to see me as like a bigger person than I am because physically I'm so small.

So a year or so later, I introduced myself to this kid because I was in gym class with him or whatever. And we got to like being good friends, like over time, he had like a similar, similar situation, lost his father, not too many years prior. Um, we had, uh,

Yeah, I mean, it's a people that were around that...

can affect literally yeah that affect our decisions I remember in middle school I was trying to fit in and I was around guys that were like selling pot and you know skateboarding and stuff and I started doing that even you know I would get free weed from one of my close friends who would steal it from his dad and we were selling weed out of like the little film capsules right and I was carrying around a skateboard and I changed my appearance even though I couldn't skate for shit and I changed my appearance like I grew my hair out and

And I had highlights. I looked like a fucking chipmunk or a squirrel. And I had the backward hat. I was wearing DC shoes, DC hat, the clothes from Zoomies and PacSun. And I was just trying to be someone I wasn't because I wanted to fit in. But that was the people I was around that like had this effect on me. And I didn't realize it at the time until way later.

it's crazy when you really like dive in and you think about it. Yeah, that's the same style we had too. So that's funny. Do you graduate high school? Yeah. So you make it through high school, no major problems or anything like that? I almost didn't walk in graduation, but that was just from doing like stupid shit at school, you know, like blowing air horns and throwing shit. I got banned from high school graduation. Did you really? Yeah. And then I had to go to summer school for two weeks, but they said, we'll let you go to summer school, but you can't.

walk at graduation. But looking back, I don't really give a shit. It was probably for the better. I probably would have done something ridiculous back then. Pretty much, yeah. So you make it through no major problems. Do you go to college? Yeah, so I got into Northern Illinois University and that's, I think, where a lot of the future stuff started because I barely squeaked in like my last couple years of high school. I definitely wasn't trying anymore or applying myself academically. Yeah.

And then I got accepted there. A girl that I was dating at the time was also going there. So I was kind of following the girl, which is really stupid. But definitely don't do that if you're thinking about it because it's like follow your own path. It always results with a girl. Yeah, it does. Yeah. So I did go there. And yeah, I didn't finish. I went for a year, failed out the second semester and stayed there for a second year just to party and

Sell drugs. Did you have a major at all? Yeah. So I went for engineering technology. And you were passionate about that or it was just whatever? Yeah. I mean, it was cool. Like I was into like, cause it's a lot of working with your hands and using CAD to like make cool stuff. But I, my head wasn't there. I just didn't care. Um, I think school was like the last thing on my mind. I just went because it like pleased my mom, you know, she, you know, like parents are, you're probably close to my age. Um,

They think they have this like mindset of you have to go to college. You have to finish school in order to get a good job. That obviously isn't entirely true, but we're like programmed to believe that at such a young age. So when I got out of high school, it was basically join the military or go to school. So I was planning on the military and took the ASVAB and scored high enough to where even the recruiter was like, go to school, dude, like you get a brain. I'm like, all right, yeah, I'll try that.

just join the military I hate that stigma the whole you have to fucking go to a good college to be successful and then people are like oh there's only like 1% of people that are actually successful without college but like

it's fucking ridiculous. It's bullshit. Like you do not need college to be successful on any level. What you need is mindset and you need determination and you need the will to go out there and want to carve your own path and try to figure something out because school's not for everyone. No, not at all. It wasn't for you. It wasn't for me. Like I'm not the type of kid that'll sit there and open up a chemistry book and try to figure it out. It's just, it's not me. It's never going to be me. Right. And I got friends that are like, why don't you go to college now? And I'm like,

I'm not passionate about it. I'm not interested. You have to do the things in life that you're passionate about and interested in. Anything else is irrelevant and life's too short on that basis. Yeah. Just to give you an example, when I started in the automotive business, I was a porter, like moving cars. And the first promotion I got, I started writing service.

And that started me at like 55 a year. And I remember kids getting out of college, like a couple of years later telling me that they were making 40 to 42 or something like that in average. And I'm like, well, why, why, why would I go to school? And then I ended up getting that to like a hundred K over like three or four years and

Um, and like now it's like, I have no use for going back to do it whatsoever unless I wanted to go start an entry level job somewhere and start the whole process over. It just makes no sense. Exactly. So yeah. But the passion thing is definitely where it's at. So many people I know from high school got a degree, some bullshit degree in marketing, business, whatever, you know, and they come out and then they go and they get a job that's not even in

In their degree and it's making way less below market value. I was at Whole Foods. I would have made over $100,000 last year. No college degree, felony record, all from hard work, determination and moving through the ranks. And people are like, oh, I don't want to work at a grocery store, this and that. The point is opportunity is out there if you apply yourself. Absolutely.

How is the relationship with your parents going on when you drop out? And do they know you're selling drugs? What's like the dynamic? It's not good because that's when I started going to jail too. So I had my first two arrests, I think my sophomore year of college or first semester of that year. And then actually, I think I had three arrests that year. So I had three ongoing cases in that county.

uh, at one time and they were definitely not in a good place with me in general because they, I think they started feeling like there was nothing they could do. Um, which is unfortunate to see the people that raised you like feeling that way, obviously, but,

But yeah, I mean, I just started, I'd get arrested. They'd tell me, if you get arrested again, you're going to go to prison. I'd get arrested again. You know, same thing would repeat over and over again. And a lot of why I thought your story was so shocking was like the number of times that I've been to jail in different counties with ongoing cases and probation in different areas and never did prison time is just insane. And like hearing your story, I was like, this is, this is nuts. Like the way that they, they, they,

just threw the book at you, dude. Like it's crazy. What are you getting arrested for? Um, the first time, so I was selling weed out of my, um, well not out of my dorm my freshman year, but I had, uh, like houses set up around the campus. I knew older kids that also went there that either went to the same high school or somebody I met through friends or whatever. Um, so I would pay people to keep safe, set like their houses so I could go place to place and I'd never had anything in my living area. You know what I mean? Um,

So I did that for a while and the police, I think were, I don't know if they were catching people that I was dealing with or what was happening, but I know that they were like kind of onto what I was doing. And eventually they like came and raided my dorm, which is basically just four cops. Like come and rip your dorm apart and throw shit all over and didn't find anything. And I could just tell it like, they definitely like knew what was happening. I don't know how, but

probably somebody, you know, got caught with something small and said my name or whatever, but they were definitely keeping traffic track of me for like a while. Um, so my sophomore year, as soon as I got there, I think it was like the first or second weekend of everybody being back at school. They found, they came to my apartment, like seven or eight cops knocked on the door. I thought it was a friend opened it and they saw a pipe on the table and that's their probable cause. I mean, I, I mean, I didn't even think to look, you know, it's like the first week in a school. I just moved in and shit.

And they ransacked the place. I got, I think, a paraphernalia charge and a possession charge there, which was pretty small. Class A misdemeanors, I think. And then a few, I'd say three to four weeks later, I was super hammered at a party. Somebody hands me like a solo cup of vodka, full to the top of vodka, and I slam it. I'm 18, 19, just thinking I'm a party animal. Yeah.

And then I can handle it. I can black out like immediately, um, fall, crack my head open on this like pavement. Right. And this kid that I'm with is like, yo, we should probably call somebody like you're fucked up. I'm like, ah, yeah, it'll be fine. You know?

Um, but I was bleeding so bad that like eventually they called. So they call the ambulance and police show up instead of course. And right away they're like cuffing people for drinking underage. And I said something like, um, like you guys weren't the ones that we called. We called for an ambulance. The fuck are you doing here? Arresting people. Um, and you know, the cops are giving me a bunch of shit. So I spit in a cop's face.

and they arrested me for felony assault on a police officer that time i had a half ounce of weed like in my pants they found like when they fucked me up and like went through my shit um i found that so i got charged with that and then um a little while after that i like blew out somebody's back door with like a lawn brick i was like fighting a kid in like the living room it's so stupid dude like so thinking back on some of this shit like

We fought because I didn't like the song the kid was playing on the TV at this party. So I said something, this fucking shit's garbage, you know?

and he's what'd you say you know stupid fucking shit we start fighting i beat his ass some kid that lived there saw this happening and grabbed me while i was on top of the guy and held me there while he fucked me up and uh threw me outside i'm like all right so i picked up this lawn brick and blew out their back door and they came running back out we got to fighting again in the backyard i got arrested that time for like criminal damage to property and

A few other things, yeah. You're telling this whole story right now and I'm just thinking about super bad. Yeah, pretty much. With the cold, spitting at the cop and this and that. That's just wild. Yeah, yeah. So that was a few of them, yeah. But this is all ongoing. So my parents got a call that night, right? At three in the morning when I spit on the cop and they basically told him, like, hey,

your son's arrested for a felony assault on a police officer. And it's no joke. Like that's Terry carries like real time. Um, so they panic and they start calling all these attorneys. Well, the cop that I spit on ended up beating the shit out of me so bad that like I had a torn rotator, rotator cuff could move my arm. Like I was bruised, covered in bruises, like face, arms, legs, um,

And they ended up dropping the charge. So they said that it was, they dropped it to a battery charge. I basically said that I spit on a paramedic instead of a cop. I think probably because all the paperwork and all the stuff that was involved, because I, it was bad. Like I had to go to a hospital and get checked and all this shit. I was beat up. So the cops are just like attacking you. Dude, they had me cuffed. I was like sitting on a stairwell, had me cuffed and the cop, like I said something like, you know, what are you guys doing here? We didn't call you. He tells me to shut the fuck up. Fuck you, this and that, get into it.

and he gets real close to me and he grabbed my shirt like he was going to hit me and I spit on him when he pulled me into him, you know? And as soon as I did it, he turned me over and just started stomping me into the stairs, dude. Do you think your actions warranted that or no? Fuck no. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to say. Like, I expected it. Like, it was stupid. I shouldn't have done it. But like, it was pretty rough. Not to get your ass beat. No, dude. So they...

took my blood after this happened, right? And I had, my blood alcohol was like a 0.38. It was like fatal level. Like it's like 30% of your blood is fucking vodka, dude. It's insane, you know? So like just knowing that I was that hammered, it's like, I don't know if I would have done that to a kid. Like you're kind of being an asshole. Oh man, yeah. Especially a kid, you're not dealing with a grown man and you're handcuffed. I mean, like we had Steve, the CEO on the show and he's like, you know, when you have someone in handcuffs,

it's over like there's no beef like you can't what are you gonna do you're you're playing that hierarchy card and the bad guy tough guy thing when the other person's handcuffed or locked in the cell yeah so that's kind of like that and this absolutely and it's interesting to hear that that does go on i mean we hear about it in the news and stuff like with with cops and stuff oh yeah the fact that they literally beat the shit out of an 18 year old kid

Yeah, more than once. Like that's happened to me a few times. Your parents are probably getting like devastated and frustrated with you at this point. Oh yeah, absolutely. I still remember like the call that I got from them the day after where they thought that I was going to be looking at prison time, you know, and it just took a while for them to understand like, Hey, it got dropped. Like it'll be fine. I, for some reason I didn't care when it came to myself. Like the whole time there's all these people telling me these prosecutors, there's my lawyer, all these people telling me you're going to go to prison. Like for,

For an extended period of time, if you keep getting in trouble, well, I didn't care. It was like nothing slowed me down. I would just keep doing stupid shit almost as if like I had no purpose, right? Like no, there was no direction in like my path, right? So it took a while to like start to get to the point where I actually had life purpose in general because basically

I knew that all these actions like were going to come with real consequences. They knew what I was doing. And when I started to graduate from the weed to the Coke to the ecstasy and all these other things that I was still selling in decent quantity, like it was even more dangerous. You're playing with fire the entire time with priors. And, um, yeah,

I don't know. I just... I never really gave a shit. What do you think you needed looking back on it now, back then? Like, to deal with stuff from when I was a kid. You know? I still think... That's why I do a lot of the coaching stuff that I do now. So, I have a coaching business that I run both in sports and for, like, individual coaching because it's...

it's so common for people to have these like, especially like young men to have feelings of like, uh, just that they can't express to people. Right. And sometimes that's all it takes is somebody to talk to. And I feel like I needed that the whole time. I just didn't know how to say it. Right. And I didn't understand it. I didn't know enough about myself and I was so fucked up half of the time, like either drunk or on drugs that like, how am I going to figure it out? You know? Um, so I, I, I think that it's,

a combination of things, but. Yeah, because the world's not fucking talking about it. Like a perfect example is I will meet women and they see that I'm more, I guess, emotionally intelligent in a lot of ways. And I'm open about my feelings and I'm open about my thoughts. And that took like a lot of therapy to get to that. And they're not used to that from past men. So you look at those men that who they were used to not being open, keeping their feelings in. Cause it's like the societal, you know,

point that it's like men don't go to therapy men don't talk about their feelings that's not masculine this and that that's what needs to change I mean all these men out here all that people are dealing with that they're not open like

that's what needs to be fixed. And maybe situations like yours, if that was an open conversation, because mental health and mental illness is real with men. It's not just women. It's a joint factor. Yeah, absolutely. How does this progress? How does it get worse from here? So,

Those three cases ended with, they gave me a deal basically that was three years, three or four years of probation. Just if you get arrested again, you're going to get the full extent of these charges. So you got a slap on the wrist. Pretty much, which is insane to me. But how I got the attorney I had to was just kind of insane. My parents were like panting.

panic dialing different attorneys at two in the morning, trying to figure out how to get me out of the situation I was in. And like some random attorney who's like a federal lawyer downtown answers the call. I'm in DeKalb, which is two hours away.

And he's used to doing murder cases and stuff that's way more high profile than mine. I guess felt sorry for them or something on the phone. Answers his cell phone at 2 a.m. and says, yeah, I'll take the case. And then starts coming to DeKalb, Illinois for all my court dates for months.

and took care of me like really well. So I think he was the reason that, that I got taken care of so well, um, or that my deal was so, uh, was so much better than I thought it was going to be. Um, but I had the option to go to trial through all of that and it was just not realistic because I mean, how are you going to prove that at the underage consumption is like one of those things are guilty. It's like, I'm 18. I, they fucking took my blood. I was like,

I'm like, fuck, you know? So I couldn't. So I took the deal, paid a bunch of money, did these classes, whatever. It was really, really easy as far as overall, like slap on the wrist. So I go home to my hometown. And within a month or two of being there, I'm driving like just randomly 10 o'clock at night. The cops there knew me and were way worse than any other area that I had ever been in. Like they knew that I was involved in the drug dealing and like sale of all these different things.

Um, so they would pull me over and fuck with me constantly. And like, if they smelled anything or if they wanted to search my car that day, they'd find a reason to search it. Uh, but they, half the time they wouldn't document these stops because they wanted to see what I was doing, fuck around, basically say, Hey, we know what you're doing. Um, and then let me go. So this day they pull me over and the cop comes to the window and he says, get the fuck out of the car. I said, for what?

He said, I'm not talking to you. Get the fuck out of the car. And I told him, fuck off. I rolled the window up. So he smashes it with a baton. Smashes your window with a baton? Immediately, dude. And they charged me with resisting a police officer. I didn't even know it was a charge. I knew resisting arrest was a thing, but I wasn't resisting arrest. I just was like...

was like you didn't tell me why you stopped me like i'm not fucking opening this fucking door you know so i closed it they smashed it pulled me out and fucking threw me on the pavement shit fucked me up threw me in the back of the car sergeant comes over and he says uh you know you want to apologize to the officer i said fuck you you know absolutely not they took me in and i got this uh random misdemeanor charge i'd never heard of for resisting police

So I talked to my attorney again and he said that that would violate what I had going on in the other County. Apparently they never talked. So I kept going to court, um, which was really weird. Like I was going to like drug court and shit and taking drops like in Will County for something that usually would just be like a really, you know, minuscule charge in comparison. Um, so I'm going to court in both counties at the same time. Um, and then I ended up moving, uh, to this like suburb closer to the city with another girl. Uh,

And I was working for Chevy at the time, which is like, I just got into the car business. I was selling a lot of Coke and a lot of ecstasy. I like found this system where I would go to concerts and I would bring just like a shit ton. I mean, I'm sure you're, you're very familiar with like this aspect, but I bring a shit ton of caps of just Molly and different shit, you know, and I'd bring them in, sell them all in the first 20, 30 minutes, make a ton of money and leave. And this was like a nightly thing because Chicago has so many concerts going on at all times.

So I was doing this for a pretty extensive amount of time and getting like black market drugs and shit. Like I had friends that were on the Silk Road that would order stuff, give it to me. I'd go, go to the concerts and do the lug work. So, um,

The Coke came after that because the after party started to get so nuts that I would go out, sell these capsules, make my couple thousand dollars or whatever at the show. I mean, I'm talking to just disgusting amounts of like of caps, like just in my jock walking into these places, how they never found these things. I have no idea. Security was way different back then. There wasn't mass shootings and this and that in these, you know, sports or that was a place of gathering. Right. It didn't really change until like the later in the 2000s.

in that aspect, like the early 2010s and later. Yep, that's for sure. So, but anyway, that was my income for a while, right, on the side. So I was still working the full-time job, writing service in cars because on paper it looks like I'm making a good living. Like, I think I was doing 70 to 80K at that range. And I was so young that that was great money, you know. Why would I ever go to school? All this type of shit. You know, that was immediately what I was thinking. Like, it's fucking stupid. So...

So I started to get into the Coke because I would go to these after parties with like friends and stuff that would help me with the selling stuff. It was like a big concert. I'd have three or four guys with me that would all give them whatever and we'd figure it out at the end. So we start going to these parties. I start bringing the Coke and that brings the popularity. Now everybody wants to be at the parties that I'm at because there's a lot of blow.

And it started to go sideways where I was like getting really sloppy with what I was doing. And I was in between houses. I can't remember what the reason was, but there was a guy that I worked with that lived in Indiana. And I think it was closer to work at the time. And I was like, I'm going to move in with him. So I go to transport everything early in the morning one day. And I was driving a company car. It was like a brand new Impala. I was late, you know, and I had everything in a duffel bag in the backseat.

So this is what I was telling you, like where this divine intervention came in, right? Where I'm driving to work at going 120 on the highway and I'm going through a construction zone and get pulled over. I'm like, fuck, you know, like if you go, I think it's like 15 over in a construction zone, they arrest you immediately. So it was like reckless driving or something along those lines. So cop pulls me over and I have nothing in the car. It's a brand new car. It's a dealer car.

nothing's in the car except for this duffel bag in the backseat. That's got a half ounce of blow. It's already bagged up. It's got a scale. It's got caps of Molly. I have no idea how many are in there, but they're already pre-capped. Like it's just, I'm fucked. You know what I mean? And I already have a record. I already have a record and those are still active. Like I still have the probation in the one County and I still have the other case that's ongoing. So all he has to do is open the bag. You're sweating bullets, dude. No, no,

Like I was fine. It was the weirdest thing out of all the arrests that I've had. There's so many times where I've been nervous, like, fuck, I'm, this is the time I'm gonna have to stay here. You know, this time I had there, it was, it was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. I was completely calm and it was like something telling me how to like react to the situation. Um, and so this cop comes up to my window, he's like a heavyset guy, Cook County cop.

And he says, you know, how fast you're going. Yeah. Too fast. All right. Well, you're going to jail. I mean, you're under arrest. As soon as you go over this limit, you know, we have to put you in cuffs. Fuck. All right. He already has a probable cause. There's no case. Right. He just has to open the car door and go through the shit.

So he puts me in the back seat and I'm sitting back there. I've just for a sidebar, I've never watched a college football game in my entire life ever. I've never paid for cable when I've lived on my own. I just don't watch TV. I'm just not into it.

For some reason, like some, like something came into my head and said, talk to this guy about football. It's a weirdest fucking thing. So he gets back in the car, he's running the plate. I asked him about college football, some random fucking team. How's USC doing this year? Oh, this guy just loves the shit. It's like his favorite topic. It's, I don't know how I thought to say it. I literally would never have said that to anybody, you know? And the guy rambles about it for 20 minutes while he's writing up the ticket and going through the shit. And he randomly stops and he says,

You know, you have a warrant, an arrest warrant in DeKalb County. No. For what? We missed court. Fuck, I didn't know that. He goes, okay. So now he's got to process me, send me to DeKalb, to their county jail, process me again there. I have to sit and wait until the judge is there. This is all a process. I'm really fucked.

But he doesn't do anything about the warrant. He sits there. He says, you know what? I'm just going to tow the car. There's nothing in there, right? You just got the duffel bag? I'm like, yeah, it's just my gym clothes. All right. Sits in the car with me, talks football. Runs his mouth the entire time. I didn't say a word. I sat there and listened. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. That's great. Yeah, great team this year. Sort of got it.

They fucking towed the car away. Didn't even call for backup. Weirdest thing I've ever seen. He was just sitting in the car with you while they towed it. Just sitting with me while he ran the plate, while he ran my info, all that. Drives me to the police station. They impound the car. Eye bonds me, so I didn't have to pay anything. Lets me leave and says, call your lawyer, take care of that warrant. Yes, sir. Walked out.

That day, I swear to God, it's something from outside of this world told me how to talk, how to handle myself because I was fucked. I'd still be in prison like today. I mean, we're talking. That would have been the rest of your life over. How old were you at that time? 20. 20.

You know, I think if this conversation was a few months ago, I would have been surprised by the cop not searching. But after talk, we had we interviewed an NYPD cop and he was saying they have the discretion to arrest you if they have an active warrant or not. They don't they can let you go. Oh, yeah. It's like something serious. But a promise to appear if they run that.

Some cops don't give a shit. They just... They don't want the paperwork. And that's fine, but he already arrested me because of the reckless driving. Like, that's a misdemeanor. It's already an immediate arrest. Like, I'm already under arrest when I'm in the car. You know what I mean? And, like, it's... I've never been arrested or even not arrested and had interaction with...

with interactions with police where they haven't run through every single part of my car. And it's like, the bag is the only thing there. He's staring at it. What's in there? Oh, gym clothes. Oh, all right. That's

That's the only conversation. I've never had that happen in my life, dude. Like I've never had him not call a second cop. It was the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen. It was like, he was so comfortable with me that he was just cool sitting and talking and bullshitting and taking me to wherever and letting me weren't being an asshole. Fuck. No, absolutely not. Which is the also probably a first. So what do you, what do you think this is? Is this fate? Is this destiny? What, what is this moment? So like now I think it's, I've studied a lot of energy and spirituality and stuff like that. I think,

it was like a spiritual experience, dude. I think something like gave me the words. I'm not a religious person. Like I don't believe in organized religion at all. But I don't know if you want to call it God or spirit or what. Something literally took over and allowed me to talk my way out of the situation. Otherwise I had to have had a bigger purpose than the path I was on, right? Because I'd still be in jail. There's no doubt about

Um, so that happens. Do you go take the duffel bag and start selling right away or does your life change? I mean, I ended up, yeah, for a little while longer. Yeah. I still participated in it, but it was like before I had no inkling of like stopping at all. It didn't even cross my mind when this happened, even if it would have happened in a different way. And I still didn't end up in prison. I don't think

I would have stopped. I think I would have stayed the same, like doing the same thing. I think it was just the way that all these things went down, like affected me so heavily that it was almost a daily basis where I think about it. Holy fuck, I got off like really, really lucky here. Like something weird told me to talk about that. I don't know shit about what I was talking about. It was just...

So like weird to me. I don't know the timing everything about it was just off the wall, dude You don't think you're a testing your luck by getting back out there. So yeah, absolutely Why do that? I think it was just programmed into me dude It was all I did like it there's so many years that I spent just with like the same people doing the same thing and it was like for me to just up and quit was was like a Far-fetched like thought right and

Um, I didn't even really like enjoy working. I only worked because I needed to show some kind of income on paper. Right. Um, so I,

You know, it was the very first time that I started to think about it. I'll say that. And it didn't take long after that for me to completely cut it off and maybe six months. So it's like you learned your lesson, but you didn't really learn it yet. You had to still keep, you know, you weren't all the way in. And I can relate to that in a lot of ways. And I'm sure a lot of people can, too. They have that aha moment, but they still need to keep their feet in the water a little bit before they officially pull it out. Yeah. I mean, I definitely was thinking like I'm done.

Now, do you contribute you eventually getting done to this moment, this like act of God, whatever you want to call it? Absolutely. When, when, what happened when you decide to do it? Like how did, how does your life change? So I would say, uh, like from a, from the drug perspective, it still was pretty bad from a using standpoint for a while after that, like for a couple of years.

I still had like a heavy dependence on opiates, on like painkillers, stuff like that. Like all that was building while this is happening, right? I mean, it started out as like, okay, we're going to do coke all night and then the next day I'm going to take a couple of painkillers and then crash or whatever, right? Same with like Xanax, people use it the same way all the time. And so that developed into a dependence. So I was already like not heavily addicted to painkillers, but pretty close.

Um, so even after I stopped selling it, it just became like, okay, now I'm going to actually focus on my career. However, I'm still addicted to drugs. So I'm still going to start spending those bigger paychecks as I move up the ladder in my career on drugs.

So it was like a constant like push and pull, right? Like, okay, I'm going to remove myself from this group of people and like this lifestyle and then start to push more towards like work, right? Or finding things that I enjoy doing and trying to strive at those. But I had this like thing on my back that's just constantly there. That's like, well, you still have to get high, right? Because I'm so used to it at this point. Like I don't think I thought about this once before since I was 14. I don't think there was a day where

where I wasn't on some kind of substance, whether it was weed or some kind of pill or some kind of booze, whatever it was. I was constantly doing something. And I don't know if it was just... Even when I was doing heroin, I've known so many people that get addicted to heroin, and that's all they can think about. They lose their house, their fucking family, their friends, everything. Live under a bridge for fucking...

however long until they either end up in jail dead or find a way out. Right. I was never like that. I would do heroin and be addicted to it, but I would replace that with another substance. And that was fine with me. It was like, I just had to have something almost like there was an emptiness, right. That I had to fill with, with some kind of substance. So I think that stayed with me for a long time, like for a good, like two, three years after that, where I was still doing drugs.

And then I finally went and saw a doctor, got help with it and ended up on like a program and starting to like realize like, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with like Suboxone and that stuff. So what really made it click for me was I got to a Suboxone doctor, started seeing like the people coming in there on methadone and having like a lot of friends pass away from overdoses and things like that. This is all happening simultaneously. And I'm like, man, I don't want to fucking do this anymore. Right. So I start on Suboxone and I cut everything else out.

And then, uh, I, one day this guy was, uh, taking like four or five Norcos a day for like an issue he had in the military, like some injury or whatever. And he took a, like a little tiny piece of a strip that I had and it blasted him. He was fucked up. I'm like, dude, holy shit. This is what these things do to people that don't take them. Like, and every day I'm taking two of these things, right? You start to think like,

I don't even know what the fuck life is like. You know what I mean? Cause it's been so long since I've not been on a substance. Um, and yeah, you feel normal on Suboxone, but that's normal to me. But a regular person, if they were to take one of those strips would be fucking out of commission dude for two days. It's crazy. So, um, it just, all of these things like started to add up in my head and I just had more of like a understanding of,

This is not even even being on a maintenance program is not normal. I need to get off whatever it is that I'm using and get on the right path. So that's been kind of where I've been ever since. It's amazing how it just clicked that you needed to get help. But I mean, it's timing is such a big factor to like everything had to go a certain way and affect everything.

You and like going through that incident of, you know, almost landing in prison for a very long time and going through seeing your friends passing away. It all has to kind of like fit and flow together, which is unfortunate of all the incidents, but it had to work out the way it worked out for it to click in your head. Yeah.

And I mean, thankfully it didn't happen to you and you can make it through to the other side of that. Yeah. And to be honest, like that, my dad has told me this since I was a kid, the most common mindset that you're going to hear from people is that it's, it'll never happen to me. And it's so prevalent. Like,

Like in any, uh, especially like with illegal activity and stuff like that, it's like nobody ever thinks it's going to be them. Right. Um, but then like I had, I had a friend not too long ago, end up dead in an alleyway with his head crushed in and he was like going to be a professional fighter. Dude was an animal. Right. Right.

If that can happen to him, it can happen to anybody else, right? Or somebody could, I had a buddy get killed over a woman. Same thing. Just like banging a chick and the guy comes home, smokes him. It's like this kind of shit happens and you never think it's going to be you ever. And I was the same way. And it's like until you have one of those experiences where you're like, oh fuck, this is really close. You're going to keep thinking that way until it does. Have you been able to make peace with your parents like throughout everything? With the addiction, the crime, all that? Yeah. So I've been,

really open with them over the last few years just about

what's been going on you know and in in general I think they always had a feeling that I was like doing something as well as I can hide like my addictions right it's pretty hard to hide being fucked up on heroin like you're like you're basically like asleep talking to people so I think they knew something was happening and like at the same time my brother was like a whole 10 times worse than I was and he was on a whole different path that was just nuts like

Um, overdose died a couple and had to be revived type thing. Um, like he was, he was really, really bad. So I think for a long time they were so focused on him and I moved out at 18. So I never, you know, they never really saw me as much as, as him. So yeah, the last couple of years it's been a lot of getting back to explaining things to him and trying to talk through a lot of this stuff. Um,

because I think that was like the biggest thing. If I was as a kid, just thought about, maybe I should talk to them about how, how, you know, rough this is on me or whatever the situation was. Um, I think I would have been surprised at how much they had to say that was useful. I just think that I kept it all inside so often that it never came out to them. Right. So they know, they don't know. I mean, how are they going to, it's not their fault. So have you had moments where you were on the verge of relapse or going back to any of your old ways? No. Um, I was,

So I would say from like a fighting perspective, yeah, like I've been in a couple of fights the last couple of years even where it's just, I mean, it's pointless. I mean, dad's always telling me too that it's just, it solves nothing. Right. And that's a similar situation. Never. It'll never happen to me when somebody gets hit once and hits something when they fall down and kills them. Right. That kind of shit happens. So even like engaging in that kind of activity has been dumb, but,

But outside of that, no, I've been pretty good. I don't even think about the drug stuff on a daily basis typically. And I'm just cool. What do you end up getting into like for work after this whole thing? Because you lose like 15 years of your life through this whole drug addiction and crime and ins and outs and everything, all the shit you were doing. Right. How do you find stability? Yeah.

So a lot of that I contribute to my girlfriend currently. She has... Her name is Nikki. She has her own wellness business. It's called Modern Zen Collective. And she...

has taught me a lot about like how to learn more about myself and heal these wounds that are like internal, um, and learn about energy and learn about how to treat other people and always approach things with positivity. Um, without her, I don't know where I, I probably still be in a tough spot. You know, I've been with her over three years now. Um, so I think I was still in a good place when we met, but it's, it's just been getting better because I'm starting to understand myself more through that, that part of the relationship. Um,

And just watching her work with clients, I'm like, oh, wow, this is a lot of shit that I don't do. Right. So, I mean, it's simple stuff, too. Like she tells me all the time, just don't look at your phone in the morning for 30 minutes. I do it anyway. You know, it's like, why? Yeah. I mean, everyone always says, you know, you find yourself a good woman and you stay grounded in that. And I think it's especially true to individuals like us who have been through shit like crime, addiction, anything like that. Prison.

you know, a good woman could keep them grounded. I got an email from this guy the other day that listens and watches to the show. And he wrote me this very long email. And I read all my emails. I try to respond to as many comments as I can and the DMs because I think that's what separates me from other creators being very responsive and all that.

And at the end of it, the last paragraph, he says, he's like, because he was going through his own shit. He's faced addiction or gambling issues. And he related to my story. And he said, Ian, you know, my best advice for you is find a good woman that, you know, you could stay grounded in and that, you know, you can end up marrying because the woman he ended up marrying changed his life. So it sounds like

that's kind of, it's really helped you and kept you in a good head space in a lot of ways. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I really appreciate it. I appreciate the way you do your show as well. I think the whole coming in here, not scripted and having no direction of the conversation is so good for having like organic dialogue.

And you were so responsive and like good with like figuring this out and making sure it all happened. It's just, I really appreciate you and how you run all this too. So I think. Yeah, we appreciate you, man. Now on that topic, how does it feel to talk about it? Like to come out here, traveled all the way from Chicago, um,

what does it feel like a weight off your chest? Like, and, and why a stranger? Like we don't know each other. You just, you've seen my show. What is it like from an outsider that listens to the show? That's been through shit that attracts you to coming here to share your story. Cause there are a lot of people that have similar stuff that are afraid to talk about it or, you know, it might be hesitant to. Right. Well, it's that, right? Like I want to try to reach as many people as I can, especially the youth. Like,

If I had some kind of a mentor figure when I was younger, I feel like it would have changed a lot of my trajectory. And who knows what I would have accomplished by now if I had a straight head the entire time I was an adolescent, right? So I think it's a mixture of trying to reach younger men especially and just being out here and showing that I'm...

like talking about this publicly, I feel like is a huge weight just because of having to keep it in so long. Right. Like there's only a select couple of people that I've talked to any of this stuff about. Right. Um, and then that's a lot of weight to carry for so long. Um, and I think, uh, just the combination of your situation, the way that your platform is, um,

and how genuine you are as a person, I think coming here to talk to you and have actual dialogue and intellectual conversation felt a lot better as far as exposing a lot of this stuff publicly because we're having a more in-depth conversation than just talking about, like,

crazy violence and things you know not that people don't enjoy that i know that they do but the mindset stuff is so important just to understand from an individual standpoint and if we can get to one person that it helps it's it's like worthwhile to do all of it yeah i mean and people want to hear about like the arrests and the drugs and like they're gonna find entertainment and you spitting on a cop and then like those stories you know but it's balanced out

And this is where I think difference differentiates us between a lot of other creators. It doesn't just stop there. Like I will sit here for someone for an hour, two hours, three hours, and we'll hear about all the fucked up shit they did, the drugs they did, the people they fucked over, all the crimes they committed. But at the end of every episode and every story, that person has, you know, they found themselves. They've

you know, reform themselves. They've made it to the other side of it. So I think when you find that good balance, you have something there. Like it's special. Yeah, absolutely. In that regard. Now, if you could have a, if you could sit down or stand in a room with a group of kids that were in the position you were in, dabbling in drugs, you know, maybe against authority, getting into trouble, crime, whatever, what do you say to them? How do you persuade them

to not land themselves in prison, to not overdose or to not continue down the path because they're not going to be as lucky as you were. Right. I mean, it's tough. It's tough to talk to a group, I would say. A lot of what I do as a coach is...

Analyze an individual and listen to their specific needs and then make a plan for that person. Right. Um, as a group, obviously I'm going to, I'm going to tell them you're always going to think it's not going to happen to you. Right. And explain some of these things and give these stories, uh, where, where, where I can. Right. Um, but, but,

when it comes down to like how I can actually help an individual, it's all about that person's structure. I don't know if this person needs me to listen to them. I don't know if they want to bounce ideas off of me or whatever, but it's sometimes just having another person there that's been there and has seen a lot of these things and, and done a lot of crazy shit. Um,

that's all it takes to like get somebody to open up and start to change direction. It's not something that happens overnight. It doesn't matter who it is. Like once somebody is already starting, they're, they're getting their feet wet in that area. Um, it's really hard to, to pull them back. Right. Um,

I mean, Lord knows I tried with my kid brother, you know, for a long time. But it's a lot of commitment, dedication, and just being a person that's going to listen and not tell, right? Like that I'm going to listen to like,

everything that you're feeling and then start to give you what I think about it and not tell you, you should not do this or you can't do this because that's what fucks people up. Like, especially as a kid, every time somebody would tell me, Hey, you don't do this or do this thing or whatever, that pressure, I hated it like from kids, from whatever. And a lot of times I would be

why I'd fight. I don't tell me what the fuck I do, you know? Um, and that's the same with younger kids. Like if, if you're telling them constantly doing this as bad, you can't do this, they're going to fucking do it more. It's just how they're wired. Um, so I think a lot of it just comes down to listening.

Yeah. I think you're gonna be a great dad one day, Kyle. I know we were talking earlier and you said you didn't have kids, but it's a life experiences, man. It's going through shit. Like people that go through shit and make it to the other side, there is such a power and a difference in that. And, you know, like I can't wait when I have kids one day and I have a family and I can like,

put all of my life experiences, because I experienced a lot. I'm only 28 in such a short period of time. And I have so much more to experience. I feel like I'm in like my fifth act of life right now. And I'm just now figuring shit out. And, you know, I just can't wait to like put that energy into someone and do all those things. But Kyle, thank you so much for traveling here today. Thank you for sharing your story. And we wish you the best, man. And, you know, look forward to seeing everything you have to come and offer to the world.

and see a little mini Kyle running around one day. Cool. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. If you guys want to reach out to me, my email is coachkylehunter at protoml.com. Once again, I really appreciate the platform and everything that you do for the public. It's really good for people. Now, can people book a one-on-one coaching by reaching out to that email? Yeah. So, I...

Usually I'm priced relatively high as far as market. But if you want to reach out and tell me your story, I'll work with just about anybody if I can find a way to do it. So it doesn't really matter who it is. Awesome, man. Well, thank you. And we wish you the best. Yeah. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.