Kevin was selected to be graduation speaker for the inaugural class of UC Irvine’s LIFTED Bachelor's degree in sociology!

This is a big deal on so many levels.  First, Kevin has never spoken like this before and feels quite overwhelmed and honored to represent his cohort.  Second, no one in California has had access to a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated…until now.  Third, Kevin and his classmates are graduating from UC Irvine, no less!

Kevin has worked on writing his speech for weeks.  Now comes the time to practice its delivery.  And, with our history of organizing TEDx events and coaching its speakers, he asks for help.

This is where I love our circle.  There exists such love and care for its members that everyone is more than willing to put aside our day’s agenda (and some really cool activities we had planned) to provide Kevin with the support all of us would want.

We build a podium with a dolly, a desk, folded blankets and a meditation cushion.  We turn our circle of chairs into rows.  After a few deep breaths, Kevin starts speaking.  And WOW.  For the first ever delivery of his speech to more than one person, his delivery is strong, clear and articulate.  As we told him, if he delivered it just like that on graduation day, it would blow everyone away.

Kevin remains hungry to learn how to take his speech to an even higher level.  Despite having minimal technical or experiential expertise in the matter, the team’s feedback is wildly accurate.  They leverage how Kevin is making them feel to highlight places to enhance his connection with the audience and the impact of his words.

Kevin grows exponentially between delivery #1 and delivery #2.  I cannot help but wonder how it’s going to be for his graduation day delivery, carried by the joy and celebration of his classmates, their families and IC Irvine faculty.  It will be more than worthy of the first ever graduation speech of UC Irvine’s LIFTED cohort #1.  More importantly, worthy of the man Kevin has given himself permission to become.

As we stepped into that day’s closing circle, I reflected on the beauty and rarity of what we had just collectively done.  It takes courage to put our agenda and desires to the side to focus an entire team’s and day’s resources on one person.

I mean, when’s the last time you went to a meeting with an agenda and said “Sure, let’s ignore our entire agenda for the entire meeting to support only one person on something completely unrelated to what we do here”?

Well, this is what our team said.  In other words, “You, Kevin, matter so much to us that we’ll put your personal needs above our collective desires.”

You have a choice: You have this same opportunity to show a person how much they matter.  Have the courage to place their humanity over the self-imposed agenda and deadlines.  You’ll likely be surprised by what it creates.  For us, it was undoubtedly one of the key underlying characteristics that led to the success of our TEDx events, recognized with the highest score ever given to a TEDx event.  What is it going to open up for you?

PS:  With their actions, our team told Kevin he mattered not once, but twice.  The following Tuesday, I was traveling, a rare Tuesday away from Donovan.  Instead of taking advantage of that Tuesday afternoon off to attend to their many other programmatic obligations, the team gathered in our usual room, at our usual time, for the usual three hours, without me or any other volunteer, to give Kevin the rare gift of a larger audience to continue practicing his speech.

This month, Will Jordan reflects on a powerful perspective shift that took place during his first visit to Donovan just a few weeks ago. Enjoy his journey to this insight.

When my roommate, Mark, arrived home from his time in Donovan, his physical and mental state said it all – he had undergone a profound experience. Listening to him share, Mark’s encounter was nothing short of a true culture shock. I had recently just returned from a six-month road trip in Central America, during which I had been searching for culture shock and, to some degree, I found it – but not to the extent that Mark seemingly had found it at Donovan. I craved that profound experience for myself.

Later, with my own clearance approved, I arrived at Donovan with Mark and Mariette. Despite knowing that an impactful experience awaited me, the imposing high-security measures overwhelmed my senses. Prison was no longer an abstract concept but a palpable reality. As the Corrections Officer nonchalantly opened the gate and ushered us onto A-yard, I couldn't help but feel a jolt of shock. I suddenly realized that we were expected to walk onto the yard unaccompanied. Questions raced through my mind as I tried to maintain a facade of composure as we came face-to-face with the inmates.

As we entered the building where our group would take place, the sight of cages, clearly designed to restrain humans, sent a shiver down my spine. I couldn’t help but think: “I am surrounded by individuals that require cages. What am I doing here?” 

In our meeting room, I made sure to sit next to Mark. Within moments, the discussion was off without introductions. The group quickly delved into deep and personal matters. The topic centered around the absence of fathers and specifically on the strained relationship that Mitch, an inmate in the circle, had with his father. I sat there silent as the discussion developed around me. It was apparent that this group genuinely cared and was invested in supporting each other.  I was moved by this display of empathy and even resonated with many of the sentiments.

However, I felt a level of internal disconnect. As I listened to each inmate, I could not shake the nagging desire to know the reasons behind their incarceration, a question that dominated my thoughts during the session. I recognized that what was being shared was in many regards beautiful, but I did not let myself feel a part of it – rather, I remained distant.

Later, on our way home, I shared my consuming desire to know each inmate’s past actions. As Mariette so brilliantly does, she invited me into a reflective discussion. It was here that I realized that this “desire” to know what they had done was my subconscious way of intentionally welcoming disconnect within my relationship with the inmates. My subconscious desperately wanted to find stark differences between me and the inmates and, when the group discussion didn’t offer those differences, my subconscious created them.

This revelation shattered my lens of preconceived judgement.

With this new understanding of the barriers that I had created for myself, I revisited the conversations from earlier and found deeper connection and relatability to the prison residents. More importantly, I realized that, earlier that day, I had been sitting in a room surrounded by peers – individuals who were also on the journey of self-discovery.

I have gone back to Donovan three times in five weeks – excited to deepen my connection with my newfound peers. No longer concerned with the Donovan residents’ past deeds, I now embrace each individual for who they are in the present moment. Through Brilliance Inside, I've discovered a community that supports and guides me on my journey of self-discovery, bringing me closer to my own brilliance than ever before. I set out in search of a culture shock and, instead, I found a deeper connection to myself and the world around me.

Brilliance Inside helped me recognize how often we navigate new relationships guarded with preconceived judgements based on status, titles or prejudice and how these judgements create subconscious barriers that hinder genuine connection. It begs the question: which relationships in your life have not reached their full potential due to subconscious barriers?

You have a choice: As Will calls out, in many relationships including our dearest ones, we miss out on great gifts because we approach them with distance and caution, hidden behind walls and facades created by preconceived ideas. Stop missing out on these gifts and start claiming them! Who do you have to become to release these ideas, take down the walls so that you may connect with people more deeply and authentically?

We live in a society that celebrates “sound,” “rational” and “logical” decision-making.  So, which do you trust when your brilliance – your highest potential, whom you were always meant to be – calls you in the opposite direction?

Three weeks ago, a dear friend announced the death of his mother.

I instantly felt in my spirit that I was to be by their side - in France - for the week.

And, almost as instantly, I was pounded by 50ish rational reasons (on repeat) why it made absolutely no sense to go, like:

• “I’m being irresponsible”

• “It’s selfish and self-indulgent”

• “The flight is too expensive” (If you think plane tickets have gotten wildly expensive, try buying an unscheduled next-day flight to Europe.)

• “I have too many scheduled obligations with

• A week of client meetings

• A 4-day trip to Alabama that weekend

• “I’ll lose quite a bit of money from the reservations made in Alabama”

• “I didn’t fly to France for the funeral of my great-uncle last week; it makes no sense to head there for ‘just’ a friend and his mother”

And so was the hours-long tug-o-war between my unwavering spirit and the tornado of “rational, logical” thoughts.

Being the good little rational engineer, it is HARD to go against a lifetime of praise and recognition for “good, rational decision making” to allow my spirit to lead.  (And I recognize that resisting a trip to Paris can sound ridiculous to some.)

It is our rationality and logic that most often keeps us away from our brilliance.

We strive to do what we’ve constructed as “right” instead of trusting our alignment with our highest selves, which is always pulling us towards whom we were always meant to be.

While it’s too soon to measure the impact of this recent trip to Paris, I see the gifts that unfolded after I followed that insane voice that nudged me, while I was comfortable in my corporate job, to “go to prison” almost nine years ago, or that then seeded the idea of organizing a TEDx event inside Donovan prison.  My life has been immeasurably transformed by those two completely irrational decisions.

You have a choice: Alignment with our brilliance – our highest potential – can feel rationally wrong.  Have the courage to take that leap of faith to follow that intuition to go left when all your thoughts are screaming for you to go right.  What you deem as “right” is a constructed concept; mold it to what actually serves you and have the impact you’ve always ached to have.

We have all experienced it.  The uneasy feeling that creeps up when we don’t feel fully safe.  Maybe it’s due to an abrasive comment from someone, or anger from a spouse, or being a dark alley, or finding our way in a new country.

Our senses are heightened, our bodies tenser, ready to pounce or defend ourselves at any possible danger.  These sensations signal us to steer clear.  But do they always signal danger?

How about those moments when the fear experienced is a fear of what is best for us, a fear of what we want most, a fear and resistance to our greatest desires, a fear of our highest potential?

This month, we learn again from Mitch and Jordi, in two separate moments that highlight this possibility.



One day, Mitch shared that, every time he arrives in our circle, he feels his chest constrict.  That was a surprise.  People associate our space with ease, openness, nonjudgment, freedom, peace, joy…  And chest constriction is a sign of misalignment, of an activated defense mechanism, that Mitch feels unsafe in some way and his fight or flight response is triggered.

We gently got curious: “What’s causing the constriction?” (Fully expecting some negative reason)

After a minute or so of contemplation, Mitch said “This circle is so safe, and I’ve never experienced a safe space before this one.”

He continued “Though I want this safety, it’s not normal for me and I don’t know how to act.”

How ironic.  It was the safety of our space that was triggering Mitch.

A couple weeks ago, Jordi was transferred from the higher-security yard to the lower one. Moving to a lower-security yard is a big deal.  First, it recognizes the positive change in the resident’s lifestyle.  Second, freedom increases significantly with each step down in security.

Five days after his transfer, I saw Jordi on the new yard.  This usually self-assured, driven, competent, adaptable man looked lost and confused.  He expressed fear to even come out of his cell.

“I’m freaked out by the level of freedom here,” Jordi told us.

In prison, freedom is the holy grail.  And now, Jordi had significantly greater liberties, and he was balking!

He told us stories of waiting – for entire minutes, mind you – at various doors, expecting staff to unlock them, not even realizing that the doors were unlocked.  Having come from a yard where there is no freedom of movement without correctional staff, he was disoriented by his ability to move freely all day without needing permission.  

Similarly to Mitch, Jordi freaked out as he achieved the next milestone of his greatest desire.

Both of these stories provide gentle reminders that

• Anything new is, by definition, unknown

• Our inner mechanisms treat the unknown as unsafe

• What’s unsafe can quickly be interpreted as scary

• We tend to shy away from and avoid what we’ve interpreted as scary

And yet, sometimes, the unknown is actually an invitation to lean in.  It leads us into what we most crave, what we’ve been dreaming of for years, what lifts us up into our highest potential.

Where have you avoided your highest potential – your brilliance – because you’ve been held back by the fear of this unknown?

You have a choice:  Take a moment to recognize and discern the times your fear protects you from harm and the times it’s actually keeping you small, away from your greatest heart’s desires.  Choose to step into the unknown in the face of this fear; that is the definition of courage.

The third question in a conversation last Tuesday at Donovan was "Which is more true for you: that fighting serves you or that it doesn’t serve you?"

Andy answered, “I want to say that it doesn’t serve me.  But I can see how it still does.”

This response makes complete sense.  Think about all the times you’ve berated yourself for doing a behavior you can’t seem to be able to change: biting your nails, filling your calendar with boundless activity, accommodating another person’s needs when it doesn’t suit you, having one too many drinks… The list is almost endless.

 The answer to this dynamic is simple – and transformational when implemented.

I give you the punch line upfront: To successfully change a behavior, do not change the behavior.

Yup.  To successfully change a behavior, change the thoughts, beliefs and emotions that underlie that behavior.  And then, those undesired behaviors dissolve.

Let’s go back to Andy to understand.

First, know that, as a child, Andy saw her parents resolve misunderstandings with fights.  Her parents told Andy to handle problems with classmates with fists.  Fighting was the normalized response during Andy’s entire childhood.

First question:  How does fighting serve you?

You see, if we act in a certain way, it means two things:

1. When we started this behavior, it was an intelligent response to the circumstances

2. Somehow this behavior still serves us in some way today

For Andy, fighting provided protection and gave her a semblance of control.  These are intelligent reasons to fight.  (Yes, I know, there are other ways to achieve these results but, remember, Little Andy was never exposed to those.) And, unsurprisingly, these are also the reasons Andy expressed continuing to fight today.

Why does the fighting response continue?  First, with decades of practice, it’s automated and habitual.

Also, it still answers to a need.  Andy fights to feel protected.  

Until Andy uncovers and develops other ways to feel protected, fighting will still be the default response.

And that was Andy’s “homework” over this past week (and, as you read this newsletter, I’m back inside Donovan learning how she’s moved through it): to explore and identify other ways she can feel protected.

Over the next few weeks – if she follows a similar path as many folks in our spaces – Andy will learn to feel protected in other ways, start using these new tools and, without even trying to not fight, she will no longer fight.  Because fighting will no longer serve her.  She will feel protected through those other means.

You have a choice: So often, we address the problem from the wrong end and tackle the behavior directly.  To successfully change a behavior, do not change the behavior.  Instead, use this series of questions and actions:

1. How does this behavior serve you?

2. How does this behavior not serve you?

3. Which is more true for you right now, that this behavior serves or doesn’t serve you? (Be careful to recognize the honest and truthful answer, not the “right” and “acceptable” answer.)

4. If it honestly and truthfully doesn’t serve, then stand in the reasons you identified in question 2 and allow those beliefs to change the behavior

5. If it honestly and truthfully serves, then accept this and the behavior with it

6. If you want it to no longer serve but still see all the ways it does, like Andy, recognize that this behavior is an intelligent response to a need.  Find other ways to answer to that need and the behavior will dissolve

Last month, I had written the newsletter, selected the photo and added the gratitude piece.  I’d laid it all out in the system and had scheduled it for Tuesday morning – it was done and ready to go. I had even crossed it out on my to-do list.

And Monday evening, I felt the nudge: “Rewrite it.”  It wasn’t about changing the topic or that anything was wrong with it.  Simply, “rewrite it.”

Argh!  Why would I start over something that was done and good as it was?  It felt like a waste of time.  I wanted to keep it where it was, behind me.  I was supposed to be preparing dinner.  I’d already put a lot of time in the newsletter.  And my heart had poured into it.

And yet… “rewrite it.”

Knowing that this little voice deep inside was speaking my greater truth, I took a deep breath, pressed “mute” on all the parts of me wanting to move on, opened a blank Word document and started writing…again.

Yes, listening to and acting upon that little voice deep inside is simpler to write than to do.  It takes courage.  To start over something that is done, to go left when we believe we’re heading right.  It takes trust that it’s always guiding us towards our brighter light.  Even before these, it takes discernment to hear that little nudge amidst the commotion of our daily lives. 

In the whole scheme of things, rewriting a newsletter doesn’t feel like a big deal.  But how about when that little voice is throwing a wild curve ball to your life?  Like – and all of these are real people’s journeys – quit your 20+-year-long job out of the blue with nothing lined up.  Like, take the job at the antithesis of the criteria defined with your spouse.  Like, leave your spouse of three decades and the mother of your three kids.  Like, go to prison when you’re in a comfortable corporate job (yup, this one is mine).  Like, stay with someone who many people see as incompatible.

Are you willing to listen and take action then?  When everything in you is screaming to go the other way?

If you are – and you choose to walk through the door of the unknown – you will discover a version of yourself brighter than you ever knew possible.

In the space created by the job-quitter, she developed new relationships with her kids.  The journey of the antithesis job-taker led to the gifts he had hoped to enable for his wife, in the most unexpected way.  The divorcee uncovered a new drive and reconfigured his work, leading to a multiplication of revenue.  The “go-to-prison”-er created TEDx events that led to such transformational change on the yard that several new doors have opened to bring this work to new environments.  The incompatible couple found where they stand together and is wildly content and thriving.

You have a choice:  Listen to those nudges.  Act upon them.  Especially when they terrify you.  You’ll be mesmerized by what gets created in your life.  Even when it’s “only” deeply moving responses to a newly rewritten monthly newsletter.

PLUS: An update on Mitch

Last month, I wrote about Mitch freezing after saying only his name in communication class and the subsequent celebration of him having "reached a newfound public speaking ability."

As our team trickled in the following Tuesday (the one on which you received the newsletter), Jordi came into our room wildly excited.  “Mitch absolutely killed it yesterday in communication class.  He won the debate!  He worked hard on structuring his argument, looked confident and prepared, was able to anticipate a rebuttal and extinguished it before it happened, and blasted right through a conflict and tough spot.”  (I took notes to get this as verbatim as possible for you.)

Mitch had tapped into that “inner resourcefulness” part of him.  He said “I felt confident. It felt good to accomplish this. I enjoy growing in this positive way.”  I thought he had been beaming the previous week.  That second week, he achieved yet another level of beaming-ness.

Mitch is a wildly private man, fearful of expressing almost anything.  In our Donovan Tuesday Circle, he hides in his notebook in which he takes notes with his blue and red pens so that he doesn’t have to speak.

In his communication class last week, Mitch got up in front of the class to deliver a short, prepared speech.

He started: “Hi.  My name is Mitch.”

After that, nothing.  He froze.  He couldn’t speak another word; the structure given to him was gone; his mind was blank.

From here, I offer you two scenarios:

In the first, Jordi, feeling the pang of Mitch’s failure, swoops in and helps him.  Jordi goes on stage with Mitch, puts his arm around him and says “You’ve got this.  Now, present this next section of the structure.” With Jordi’s step-by-step guidance, Mitch completes the speech.

For the second, Mitch’s class members, including Jordi, silently hold space while Mitch tries to find his words.  In that space, Mitch recognizes that, by introducing himself in front of a crowd, he’s reached a newfound public speaking ability.

Which of these two scenarios depicts Mitch’s greatest success?

Most of us define Mitch completing his speech as success.  He delivered the assigned speech.  This outcome-focused definition of success is what drives us, like Jordi, to swoop in and save people who are struggling, hurting or failing.

And yet, the one failing is … us!  We fail to recognize that we labeled the observed inaction as failure and failure as bad and to be avoided.

We also fail to understand that, in the words of a client relating her own story, also last week: “It’s not at all about me helping them… it’s about me trying to alleviate my pain in watching this person.”

Plus, if Jordi had stepped in (because, in actuality, he didn’t, though he really wanted to), Mitch would have relied on Jordi instead of himself and been robbed of all the learnings, insights, confidence and gifts he actually gained.

In saying even only his name in front of his classmates, Mitch achieved something he had not been able to do before.  As he sat in the discomfort of the struggle, he learned to tap into his inner resourcefulness and speak in front of a crowd.  At the end of our conversation about this, Mitch beamed as he expressed the increased confidence he now has to engage with the next public speaking step.

This is unimaginable growth for a man who’s spent most of the last eight months in our Circle hiding inside his notebook. And this growth is his greatest success.

Invitation to bring this into your life: Next time you feel that someone is failing, take a deep breath, resist the urge to step in to save them and, instead, hold space for them to find their own inner resourcefulness; all they need is already within them.  Recognize what resisting the urge to help asks of you; yes, this is the invitation to your own growth.  Then, like Jordi, celebrate the person’s success in overcoming – whatever the outcome – as well as your own success in overcoming the urge.