Transcriber: Bob Prottas
Reviewer: Ariana Bleau Lugo Where you end up in life
is often the result of a number
of seemingly innocent choices, each appearing insignificant at the time, but all leading you in a single direction. By 18, I had chosen to use drugs
to cope with my life, and chosen to associate with people who didn't care about my well-being
or that of others. In doing so, I had chosen to put myself
into high-risk situations. (Sigh) When I was 18, my mother died. Three days later, I chose
to meet with a drug dealer. What I didn't know,
when I chose to meet with this guy, was that he had an interest
in adolescent boys and sex acts. What he didn't know,
when he chose to meet with me, was that I was someone
who was prepared to fight. What neither of us knew,
when we made our respective choices, is where they would lead us. Before the day was out, he would be dead, and I would be spending the first night, of what would be the next 10 years,
behind bars. By 20, I had graduated to New Zealand's
toughest maximum-security prison. It's here that I learned the theory
of how to hide from heat sensors and police helicopters, and the reality of how to make a weapon out of glad wrap and a toothbrush. What I didn't realize
before I was imprisoned, was that I was already living
in a prison of my own making. The prison in my mind. There are many beliefs that imprison us, and stop us experiencing
the fullness of life. My prison was my belief
that my potential was fixed. My prison was my belief
that the measure of a man was his capacity for violence, and that men shouldn't feel scared,
sad, vulnerable, or weak. It is ironic that I had to be
in an actual prison in order to break out of my mental prison. It is also ironic that it wasn't
until I was released that I realized how many other people are trapped in their own personal prisons. I was able to escape my mental prison through five progressive steps
to personal change. I call these "the five steps to freedom". The first step to freedom is to recognize that we are born free. As babies, we take
our first breaths with a clean slate. But then life kicks in, and in an attempt to cope
with our experiences and make sense of our worlds, we acquire self-defeating
and distorted beliefs. Over time, these beliefs imprison us. Yet this is not the life
we were born to live, the life where we are
truly authentic and free. It took a meeting with one of New Zealand's
most accomplished safe crackers to challenge my idea of my freedom. It was about 2 years into my sentence, and just after I'd finished
another period in solitary confinement. Now this guy was a MENSA member. He was smart, and we used to spend
a lot of time in the yard, discussing the intricacies of his trade. The yard is like an empty swimming pool, where every end's the deep end. I remember as I'd watch
a plane fly overhead, how I so would have given anything
to be in that plane, -- (Voice cracks) -- wherever it was going,
to be anywhere but here. One day the safecracker approached me with a tennis ball and a heavy ashtray. And asked me: if he was to drop these at the same time, which would hit the ground first? I couldn't believe
the stupidity of such a question. (Simultaneous thud) Watching those two objects
hit the ground at the same time, blew my mind. I had never questioned
my understanding of the world. I had always just assumed that the world
was the way it appeared to me. Yet this demonstration made me wonder what else I thought I knew that I could be wrong about. Prior to this, I'd always seen education
as something that you did to get a job. Now I started to see education as something that could make the world
a more interesting place, and something that could increase
the accuracy of my beliefs. And I had always been
one of those insufferable people who likes to think they're
right about everything, a tendency that had prompted
my Mum to put a note on the fridge suggesting that teenagers
should leave home while they still know everything! (Laughter) Recognizing that we are born free, and that the beliefs that imprison us can be challenged and replaced is the first step to freedom. The second step to freedom is choosing to break out of our prisons. Living in a prison is tough, but breaking out of prison is harder. The desire to break out is driven by how likely
we think we are to succeed. Many people choose not
to break out of their prisons, because they think
that change is impossible, and they see disappointment as inevitable. Breaking out also depends
on how much effort we think it will take, and how much value we place
on such change. It is much safer to be inside. We do not risk additional failure, and it requires less effort. Recidivism rates support this point. For many people,
it is easier to be in prison. You have so few adult responsibilities
on the inside. And as twisted as it sounds, many people find a sense of belonging, status and community within prison that they don't get
in the outside world. Everyone knows their place
in the prison hierarchy, and for some people, that place
provides their only sense of worth. Breaking out requires
real emotional commitment to change. And to get that commitment, you need to focus on why
you would want to change, not why others might think
you should change, but why you would want
to change for yourself. I had never considered myself
someone who could achieve academically. I'd even been held back a year at school. Yet I enrolled in those
first two psychology papers, because I knew that understanding
what makes people tick is a useful skill to have in prison. (Laughter) Anywhere from 50 to 80%
of people in prison suffer some form of mental health issue, and being attacked due to
the mental instability of others was a real concern. I completed my first assignment
in solitary confinement. I printed it all as one paragraph,
all in capital letters. I did this because I was ignorant
of writing conventions, and I thought capitals looked neater. (Laughter) I completed my exams
in a windowless room in a punishment block. Yet I still somehow managed
to pass my papers. I was so amazed to pass these exams. It made me wonder if maybe
I wasn't capable of more than I had previously thought possible. It made me dream. It made the think: "Imagine, imagine if I could
get out of here with a degree!" Going for a degree seemed like
such an audacious goal. And a major obstacle
to achieving this dream, was the amount of marijuana
I was smoking. (Laughing) Smoking weed allowed me
to enjoy the moment, and avoid the reality of my situation. I was young and locked up. I was frustrated,
I had no sense of direction. If I was going to start the process
of really changing my life, I needed to stop doing drugs. Passing those exams had reinforced
my desire to break out of my prison. But wanting change,
and turning that change into action, are two very different things. The third step to freedom
is to make the escape. Dreams without action remain dreams. In order to make the escape,
you need to start taking steps that reduce the distance between
where you are and where you desire to be. People that want to break out
of their prisons, but fail to do so,
often think about change as something that occurs
in some distant future. The problem with us
is that it doesn't prompt you to act, and change can start
to feel like it's beyond your reach. It's tomorrow, next month, next year. To make your escape, you must get specific
about what you want to change. Specific change is not wanting
to lose weight, but wanting to lose 5 kilos. Having the general idea
that you want to write a book, will not get you to put pen to paper. Having the specific goal to write 500 words
on Thursday just might. The research shows
that having vague goals makes it hard to start
and easy to give up. Specific goals mean that you
can't fool yourself into thinking you have done enough. Many people in prison talk about
what they will do when they are released, how they will take better
care of their kids, how they will lead better lives. But life and change,
are about what you do right now. Time is a different commodity when
you're serving a long period of imprisonment. To survive psychologically,
you need to forget about the outside world, accept this is your new life, and to focus on the present. Focusing on the present
was key for making my escape. I didn't worry about what I was, or wasn't going to do
in some uncertain future. I just focused on what I could do today. On what I could do right now. Research shows
that this ability to seize the moment makes you 3 times more likely
to achieve your goals. So, I stopped smoking weed, which allowed me to complete
my undergraduate degree. It also massively reduced the amount of time
I spent in solitary confinement. (Laughter) For me, the specific and related goals, were to become drug free,
and to complete my degree. The cost of making my escape
was sacrificing being emotionally numbed. But making my escape
didn't come without a struggle. The fourth step to freedom
is to fight for your freedom. Fighting for your freedom
requires grit and tenacity. To achieve your goals, you must
overcome any obstacles you encounter. Giving up drugs was not
a straightforward process, there were certainly relapses. And studying within prison
had its own set of obstacles, such as getting permission
to access course related materials. Yet overcoming such obstacles, is exactly what fighting
for your freedom is about. In fact, it is through
overcoming such obstacles, that we develop our capacity for change, and the will power required
to make it happen. Many people think that will power
and self-discipline are things that you either have
or you don't have. But the research shows
that these are characteristics developed through practice
and application. By the time I completed
my undergraduate degree, I had developed enough tenacity to fight for entry into
a postgraduate program in psychology. I then fought to have
my honors research project upgraded to a Master's Thesis. This left me with a number of papers
that needed to be completed and that required attending classes. I was still securely absent
from classes at this point. (Laughter) But I was able to complete these papers
because those teaching them allowed me to enroll
as a special distance student, in addition to their normal workloads. At various stages in my journey,
I encountered obstacles that required persistence
and commitment to overcome. Yet my dreams increased
in proportion to my successes. Once I had completed my Masters, a Doctorate seemed
like the next logical step. This time the barrier was even bigger. I was told it would be impossible
to start a Doctorate, without regular face-to-face meetings
with my supervisors. So, my supervisors traveled
hours out of their way to visit me in prison. Fighting for your freedom is crucial
to successful change and growth. Yet the fights best won
are those with allies. If I didn't have a father
who was prepared to visit me every weekend for 10 years, if I didn't have mentors,
such as John Barlow and Doctor Paul Englert
who were prepared to challenge me, and to encourage me to dream bigger, if I didn't have the support of
Massey University through which I studied, if I didn't have doctoral supervisors who were prepared to travel
for hours out of their way to visit me, if upon my release,
I hadn't been given the chance by OPRA Consulting Group to help other people grow and develop, I wouldn't be standing here today. I was the first person that entered
the New Zealand prison system as a High School dropout,
and to progress through undergraduate and Master's degrees. I was the first person
to then start a doctorate. Yet none of these things
would have been possible without the support of others
who were willing to fight beside me. The fifth and final step
to freedom concerns living free. Freedom is a journey, not an event. It is a condition that requires
effort to maintain. Self-help books and programs often fail because they do not acknowledge
the reality of living free, and the ongoing commitment it requires. Real, sustained, positive change and growth is not something that you achieve, cross off your list of things to do, and then walk away from. The price of freedom is ongoing effort. To live in freedom, we must be mindful of the architecture of our personal prisons. Recognize and avoid
seemingly innocent choices, and learn ways to respond
when obstacles are encountered. Here in New Zealand,
we're all familiar with the expression, "Keeping it real." Well, living in freedom is what keeping it real is all about. Living free requires us to acknowledge
that sometimes we are weak. We will not always progress towards
our goals in a straightforward manner. Sometimes we will slip back into old habits. Sometimes we will fall short of our ideals. Yet such failures are
the opportunities for us to grow. They provide us with a chance to reflect
and identify the chinks in our armor. We fall so that we can learn
to pick ourselves up again. We all have this capacity to come back
from bad choices and situations. At 18, I made choices that
have negatively impacted on many people, and that I will live with
for the rest of my life. I'd then spent over 10 years
in a negative environment where all the wrong values were espoused, and all the wrong behaviors were rewarded. Yet these choices and associated experiences
are not what define me today. The man I am today is defined
by how I choose to live my life now. By how I choose to behave today. And we all have this ability
to step away from our pasts, to embrace our aspirational selves, and to rewrite the narratives of our world. To live in such freedom,
we must recognize we were born free. We must choose
to break out of our prisons. We must make the escape. We must fight for our freedom, and we must keep it real
about what living in freedom means. I am now privileged to spend my time
helping other people break out of their personal prisons, identify their sense of purpose, and experience
greater motivation, satisfaction, success, and well-being. While my story reflects
my own journey of change, the five steps to freedom
reflect the journey of change for us all. So, what's your prison? (Applause)