The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Locked Up Abroad: How a Teaching Job Became a Jail Cell
What happens when life takes an unexpected detour through a Chinese prison cell? Chancellor K. Jackson never imagined his post-college journey would include 14 days in a Beijing penitentiary, but this harrowing experience became the foundation for his remarkable transformation from athlete to bestselling author.
In this raw and inspiring conversation, Chancellor shares the complete arc of his journey – from his days as a college football player at Stetson University to teaching English in China, where his life changed dramatically after a sudden arrest in his apartment. With vivid detail, he recounts the isolation of being detained without explanation, navigating a system where few spoke his language, and maintaining his faith through profound uncertainty.
The real magic of Chancellor's story emerges after his deportation back to the United States. Rather than allowing trauma to define him, he channeled his experience into writing "14 Days in Beijing," which quickly became a bestseller. This unexpected success revealed his gift for storytelling and launched a new chapter as a publishing coach, helping others transform their stories into books.
Throughout our discussion, Chancellor offers powerful insights about identity, resilience, and reinvention. He explores how football prepared him for life's challenges, why embracing technology like AI enhances creativity rather than diminishes it, and how his faith sustained him during his darkest moments. His practical advice for aspiring authors – "write it like you're sending a text message" – cuts through the perfectionism that prevents so many from sharing their stories.
Whether you're facing adversity, considering a creative pursuit, or simply seeking inspiration, Chancellor's journey demonstrates how our most challenging experiences can become our greatest gifts to others. As he powerfully states, "Adversity introduces a man to himself, and none of us know who we are until we fail."
It isn't real until you're actually in that situation and it's a whole different type of discomfort, to say the least. So as you're reading the book, it's like I wrote it in the perspective that said you're walking through my eyes, you're feeling all the anxiety, all the emotions.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to another edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast. I am Dr B, I'm your host, just excited, and, as I always am, about just having conversations with folks and finding out what people are doing and how they're not being stuck. And you know, one of the things that how important family is and how important it is in our lives and the things that we're doing I just earlier today I don't know, chesley, have you ever heard of a guy named Myron Goldman? But he is a business strategist and helps people become multimillionaires, and so I was able to interview him on the podcast today and he kind of just talked about some of the things that we do as individuals that stop us from being able to become the person we need to be in order to do what God put us on the search to do. So it was really cool to have him on the show and kind of talk about how he helps people, you know, turn into the folks they want to do. But it's just, you know, you just go wow, there's so many people that are doing the thing right, making things happen, making things work, and it's just so neat to be able to interact with them and talk with them and find out what people are doing, because so many of us, especially in our culture, are just searching. We're saying, you know, these are the circumstances that we've been dealt. This is you don't get to pick your parents, you don't get to pick your where you grow up, you don't get to pick the neighborhood you grow up in, and then sometimes those outside circumstances kind of hinder us a little bit into meeting that purpose in life. And so I'm glad that you're on today, glad that you're able to spend some time with us and be able to talk about what it is that you're doing, that's making a difference in other people's life.
Speaker 2:And so I'm, like I do with all of our guests, I'm asking Chancellor to go ahead and, um, you know, share his story, share his life. Then we'll chop it up after that with all the different things that you might be able to identify with or things that you might be able to do in order to make your life come to where it needs to be. And so thank you for being on the show, thank you for taking this time. I know you're out of your normal environment and spending time with your family, and which is always so cool, but then sometimes you worry about stuff like well, is the internet going to work or is the, you know, is the lighting going to be the right lighting? And so just want you to know you look good. I know you're a mom's house and you know I don't know who's going to walk back and forth, but it doesn't matter, cause we got you here today, and so go ahead and tell us your story and we'll just go from there.
Speaker 1:All right, man, I appreciate you for having me on. Chancellor K Jackson is the name. Born and raised in Atlanta, georgia. I played football for a portion of my life, so it's my identity At least it is part of my identity. I played throughout high school, got the opportunity to play in college, played all four years at Stetson University down in Florida. After I graduated from Stetson I landed my first job teaching English to kids in China. So I moved to China fresh out of college and was out there for about six months.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to do year um and certain situations happened and things went left um and cut my time in half um, so I ended up being arrested in china what, oh god china, served 14 days there and one of their penitentiaries, um, and then, once I was released, I was immediately deported from the country, came back to America, lost everything, just back to square one trying to figure out what I'm going to do next and started writing the book 14 Days in Beijing, which is my best seller and pretty much it's just a story of me telling everything that happened within those 14 days. I was incarcerated and it had great success, and that led me to write more books and started my publishing company and coaching people through the writing and publishing process. Now I also coach high school football. Currently I'm still working education. So yeah, man, it's been a journey, to say the least.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. And so I'm sure you weren't expecting to go to Beijing, and obviously all the circumstances that happened around, and I definitely want to talk about that. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about identity, because you brought it up and it's something that I spent a lot of time with my guests talking about and you kind of said you identified as a football player or an athlete. You know, was that? You know, were you expecting to go play in the league? I mean, were you expecting to go all the way through? And you know, and then all of a sudden that you know your college career is over and now you're trying to figure out what I'm going to do, or what did that look like as you as an individual, as a person that is just trying to make life work.
Speaker 1:So I didn't start playing football until eighth grade.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:For me to be from Georgia. That's, that's not really common. You know, I'm saying Most people have been playing football since they was four or five years old. Yeah, yeah, a lot of catching up to do as far as just learning the game within itself. But I always knew that I wanted to play college football, division I college. That was definitely an aspiration. Of course, everybody has the end goals to make it to the league one day, hopefully. But most importantly, I wanted to play college ball. So that was really my goal all throughout high school. That's what I worked towards and I was able to accomplish that just through my own sure, where I wasn't highly recruited and had scouts hit me up or contact me constantly. Now in my school I played for high school. We was trash back in the day, so we definitely wasn't.
Speaker 1:I just wasn't putting in the effort to market us either. Oh my gosh, my freshman year I was just seeing class after class. Nobody's really going anywhere, especially for football. So I was like, well, I got to do a little bit more due diligence. You know what I'm saying. This is something I really want to do.
Speaker 1:I know, I got to put in a little bit more work and, outside of just playing on the field, I got to market my own self. That was my approach Emailing school coaches, dming coaches on Facebook, twitter the whole nine for months, for months, applying to schools. The coaches that I got accepted into. I got for months, for months and I'm applying to schools here. The coaches that I was. I got accepted into and I got accepted into Stetson. I went to their camp over the summer, so the coaches remember me, sat down with them and next thing I knew I was on the roster.
Speaker 1:So I made that of my own. Sure will. So I was. It was cool Cause I'm like, yes, I'm like, I like I'm here now. It's like I just got to show out. Now, you just show up and show out, um. But I realized around sophomore year that the league probably wasn't going to be. It wasn't going to. You know what's going to happen, um, but I was like there's something. This is the main goal I really wanted to do. So I'm just gonna ride this out and then, once this comes to the end, I'll figure it out once I get there and once again, what was this?
Speaker 2:did you play?
Speaker 2:db okay, so you defensive back the uh, my, I had a roommate in college who, uh, was a track guy. I was a track track athlete. Okay, so he's my roommate because he was a discus thrower, and after he that, after he was from Nigeria and after his country decided that he even qualified for the Olympics in LA in 84, and they wouldn't let him throw because they said his tribe wasn't one of the premier tribes or whatever. He probably wasn't going to get a medal, and so we tried football. After his junior year in college is when we tried football. Then he ended up going to the league and then he was, like, I think, his uh, rookie of the year, and his next year he led the league in in russia. But he was just like you know, he did play football, but two years before he's at the league and I don't think he loved it. Be like that, though.
Speaker 2:Um, so so your identity is kind of wrapped up, you know. But you know, hey, this is probably the four years it's helped me pay for school, it's helped me do it. It sounded like you got pretty good grades and were able to write. So what did you major in? What was your?
Speaker 1:uh communication and media studies.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're doing media studies, which is Then part of the identity says, okay, I got to figure out something. Then somebody recruits you to say hey, how about teaching English in China, you go. Oh great idea. What was the impetus for wanting to go to China?
Speaker 1:to teach English. It's similar to me trying to find a college to play ball at. Okay, I don't really have a whole lot of experience as far as my field of communication, but I know I'm a work ethic, fast learner man. You show me the ropes, I take off and run with it. So I'm like I just need somebody just willing to bet on me. And I was applying.
Speaker 1:I started applying for jobs as soon as the season, like last game of my senior year. I started applying for jobs immediately afterwards and I was having success landing interviews. I'm talking about I'm getting flown out to places put up in hotels the whole nine, but I'm getting about I'm getting flown out places put up hotels the whole nine but and getting told no. And these are all corporate positions I was applying for. But every interview, like you, if I really wanted it, I couldn't get it just because my I lacked experience. It's the excuse they kept giving me. Uh, but it's like y'all knew I lacked experience when y'all saw my resume before we said all this. So it's like you know what I'm saying. It wasn't that shifted, but I was just like man, we've been here before. We got told no by hundreds and hundreds of schools before we actually got a yes. So we just got to keep going. If we give up, we really ain't going to accomplish anything.
Speaker 1:Let's re-approach this job searching thing. You've been trying to do the corporate thing. Clearly that might not be for you. Let's see what else is out there. What are you good at? Working with people, talking with people? I'm like, okay, that sounds like social work. Just me going down this rabbit hole to just social work. I think I was on LinkedIn when I was job searching and I saw a tab to like search internationally. So, with me doing that, because I'm like why am I just solely focused on America? Like I'm pretty sure there's far more opportunities around the globe. So I was like like, let me see what they got out there. And that's when I seen, oh, teaching just kids in china. I'm like that sounds interesting, it sounds cool. So I applied um, did the interview, did second interview and then, uh, it was the first job to tell me yes after eight months of being told no. You know. Since, uh, it was the first job to tell me yes after eight months of being told no, you know out of the world.
Speaker 2:So I was like, okay, they really know if fans are bust about it. That's what we finna do, and then boom. So so it lands the job and they're gonna fly you out there. Before we jump into that, I want to just kind of so. Now you, I'm jumping ahead, you're coming back, you can't wait to get out of there, they can't wait to have you out of there. And then you go okay, here's my experience. I have nothing, and then I'm going to try to write a book. What kind of identity did you have to change from who you were then? That said, maybe I should write a book about this?
Speaker 2:Or was it just a story that you knew people would love and tell? Or did you already feel like, hey, I'm a communication major, I already know how to write, because you don't just jump into being an author that can write a book, you know just because you graduated from college. So what kind of went on in your brain and said hey, I can probably write a book?
Speaker 1:so it's interesting because, even though, yeah, my degree is communication, I wrote a book, but growing up, writing was never a strong suit of mine or anything that I enjoyed doing. It was always something school related, and even in high school I don't even remember writing that many essays. So when I got to college, it was a rude awakening. I'm like hold on. I had to do this in high school. I got to write how many pages is doing. And this paper number one of the semester, it's due. When, and this paper number one of the semester, I said, boy, this is gonna be.
Speaker 1:But just, I always been a student. You know, I'm saying student athlete first a student. So just going to the writing center and just taking the time to learn how to write properly, structure it, um, grammar, word use, readability, all of that. So just took it back to the fundamentals and just worked my way up, but it still wasn't never anything I thought I would ever do, until one day I was hanging out with a good friend of mine, which I grew up with. His name is DeMarco Reddins. He was a traditionally published author before we graduated high school in 2014.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, I was just kicking it with him and he was like hey bro, you think about writing a book about the experience? I was like boy, that's a good idea, cuz I knew I was. I knew I wanted to do something with story. I'm like this is crazy. Yeah, it is, and I made it out, but I just didn't know how I wanted to go about telling.
Speaker 2:So he put that book on, yeah in my ear I'm like okay, for sure.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea. I still don't even know where to start, but that's a good idea. But he took it even further. He took my phone, went to my notes section, left me a little outline and I just started filling in the outline and by me doing that I figured out how I wanted to go about telling the story. So it. So I moved my phone to google doc so I could finish typing it up, and took me about four months to write, and then the next six months after that was just getting ready for publishing.
Speaker 2:Did you, um, like you know, for the books that I wrote, because I, you know, I was told I was a special ed kid and you know could write and stuff, so I used like google talk and I talked and I spoke my whole book. I didn't, you know, all three spoke my whole book. Were you actually typing and trying to do all the grammar and having somebody look at it? What was your writing process to be able to get the stuff out of your head as quickly as you could to the pages?
Speaker 1:I'll be telling how I coach people to just get the story on paper at first. It depends on if you like to handwrite or if you like to type Me. I'm going to type it because it's going to end up on the computer anyway. That's just faster. Tell them to write it like you. Think about it, as if you were sending a text message to one of your closest friends or whatever. Write it like you're sending a long text message how you you would your natural tongue. Don't worry about no spelling anything correctly. Use all the expressions, emojis. Don't worry about no punctuation like. Write it literally like a long text message, just to get. You can always go back once it's all. Once you got it all down, then you can go back and fine tone it. You know what I'm saying, but just to hurry up and get it down, man write it like a text message because you try to focus on the grammar and the punctuation while you're going.
Speaker 1:That's going to slow you up and sometimes it might demotivate you because it's taking the process longer and longer. So it's like man, that's true.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point to make for folks. You know like that, so I don't. I don't type my text messages either, so it's easy for me just to talk it to.
Speaker 2:You know, my text messages exact same thing, hey. But how you doing, you know, just talking straight into it and let the, let the uh, ai or whatever it is, put it into the right. Uh, at least spell all the words right, and all that kind of stuff. So that's really cool. So then in your next six months then you are figuring out how to get it published. Now, did you just find a publisher to self-publish or were you searching for different publishers? What was kind of the process there?
Speaker 1:I honestly didn't know how I was going to go about publishing it. I was doing step-by-step. I got the book written and edited, all right. So now let's get the cover. All right, boom, got the cover. Title, book description.
Speaker 1:But in the process of doing all of this, I'm like, okay, I honestly don't know how I'm going to publish this thing, but I'm just like I feel like something is going to come to me you know what I'm saying when it's time. And I was telling him to have the same conversation with one of my other friends. He was working for Amazon at the time and one random day he sent me a link to Kindle's direct publishing through Amazon. So he sent me that link. He's like, bro, I don't know what this is, but I feel like it might be beneficial. And I'm looking through it and I'm like this is exactly how we're going to publish this book for sure. And it's like the ideal way. Honestly, it aligns with everything that I'm on right now Just independency, owning my own rights, my own product, just straight ownership. So I was like, ok, for sure, this is exactly how we're going to do it.
Speaker 2:So that's how I went about publishing. Yeah, I did. I agree, I think self-publishing is is the way to go. Uh, when you think about you know, unless you just haven't published, getting ready to drop a million dollars in your pocket or something like that to get it going, they're going to do a lot of work, uh, but there's just something about going through the whole process that you're doing, that you're uh making sure that you know you're you're crossing all your your t's and you're doing that. You're making sure that you're crossing all your T's and you're dotting all your I's.
Speaker 2:And there's help out there. There's books, there's people who've done it before us that can go out and kind of show you the pathway, and so that's why your identity is changing right, because now you're a guy. Wait, I'm a real author. I'm a real. You know this stuff is really going to happen. And then now give me a talk a little bit about your belief system. Now that you've written the book, you're going through the process of publishing it. Are you believing like everybody's going to want to hear, everybody's going to want to read this book, this book, are you going? I hope somebody, I will give it to my mom, I'm going to give it to my cousins and everybody else. I'm going to give it to my mom, I'm going to give it to my cousins and everybody else and hopefully they'll give it.
Speaker 1:What was your marketing thought process of? Now I'm an author who's going to actually buy my book and read it, I knew, I felt in my spirit. I'm like this is a good story.
Speaker 1:I don't know what type of impact it's going to have. But anytime I was hanging out with somebody, I was just sliding my laptop, you know, saying on page one or whatever, and I was like I just read a little bit of this tim, which then that's giving no context what it is like. Just read this little, read this, let me know what you think of it. Just a little bit, a few pages. Next thing, I know 15, 20 minutes to pass, they still ain't gave me the laptop back. So I'm like, okay, and I kept doing that with different people. You know I'm saying okay, I got something on my hand for sure. So I'm like it's going, it's going to make some noise. But, um, literally where I just like I said, I always identified as a student athlete, so that's how most people always saw me. So for me to jump now. Then I got a whole new identity.
Speaker 1:I'm coming out with a book that caught people from man out of left field and just peaked at that time to say everything went in the shutdown so it was like divine timing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody needs to read. Somebody needs to. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Fine timing, and it really was. I just like, I'm just gonna change my entire social, all my social media platforms, to the book. I'm gonna just like that and just promote it. You know what I'm saying? Post it on my page. Dm folks uh messaging people, uh telling about the book. Um running ads. Hitting up uh instagram influencers to do promos with the book, or people that have um a platform or a name for themselves, reviewing books. We talk to them too. You know how much you're charged for a review. When I was getting it every which way, every which way, no cap um podcast interviews started getting said I was heavily um so it's just once the book dropped, I was ranked number one in three different genres. Um, it was just crazy, crazy buzz. You couldn't tell me it was going to happen like that. I knew it was going to be a good story, I knew people were going to enjoy it, but I didn't think it was going to have that type of impact that passed that quickly.
Speaker 2:I think most people that write books borderline. They can truly be an author once they sell 500 copies because you know out of you know 90% of the books that are published. That's what most of them don't even sell a copy. How quickly did you get to 500? Was it like within your first five weeks? First two months, first day.
Speaker 1:I would say I'd probably say in the first month with, because I originally broke the entire book down into a series of short stories. So the original version, 14 Days in Beijing, is only like 37 pages. That's the one that went the craziest. Really Okay, the one that went the craziest Like. But like each and I dropped the other books, like part two, part three, part four, periodically throughout the rest of the year. Just, I'm like I already done chopped it down. This mom might as well continue to just spoon feed and this all was freestyle, by the way, like none of this was planned, we was just man putting it up as we was going. But yeah, I feel like, with me doing that and chopping the book up, it definitely helped with the momentum and yeah, man, it was just crazy. That's so cool.
Speaker 2:So I know I've been teasing you guys and I haven't let you hear the story yet. Everybody's just watching this going well what happened?
Speaker 2:What happened? What happened? So maybe you could just give us the you know the cliff note version. So they'll get the book, you read it. So look at the whole thing. So they'll get the book, you read it, but they'll get the whole thing. So you leave college, you get an English teaching job in Beijing, you head over to China how long before? Yeah, I'll just let you tell the story in your own words, the way that you've done it, because I know people are chopping it to bits. Why do you keep asking about it? I don't know about being an author.
Speaker 1:I want to know what happened. I entered China on October 10, 2018. I moved to the east side of Beijing once after my two weeks of training and I found my apartment. My school is literally like a cross street for me and it's 14 floor humongous mall called Joy City. I lived in the business district, so it's a nice little area, very vibrant, had a lot of lights. A lot of life Like China was probably China is still the best experience I've. A lot of life Like China was probably China is still the best experience I've ever had in my life. I was out there, like I said, I was supposed to do a full year. I was out there for six months, having the time of my life and enjoying teaching, exploring China, exploring the locals as well as the other foreigners that were out there.
Speaker 1:And on April 4th 2019, that's when things take a turn and I'm pretty much arrested inside of my apartment after I was drug tested right there on the spot. After the police showed up to my apartment at random drug test me right there on the spot, failed the drug test. Next thing I know the cuffs are on me. I don't know what's going on, what's going to happen next, and it's just a journey from precinct to precinct until we get to the active jail where I'm housed and I'm locked up for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Speaker 1:15 men to one cell, nine wooden beds, three soups a day and all I had was a plastic bowl and a plastic spoon. Nothing was explained to me as far as how this process works. I don't know how long I'm going to be in here. I made a cell with about 14 other Chinese men, so there's no formal communication whatsoever. 14 other Chinese men, so there's no formal communication whatsoever. But my faith is strong and my head is high and I'm embracing and ready for whatever is about to occur along this journey.
Speaker 2:And so you don't even know why they arrested you. You just know that they picked you up and took you into pretty much like yeah, I'm just not like.
Speaker 1:No form of communication is existing, so I don't know what's going on, but I'm just following directions and are they speaking in english at this point?
Speaker 2:it is pointing what are. What are they doing?
Speaker 1:It was an English speaker. It was only one cop that spoke English that was asking me about failing the drug test and questioning me about all of that. Once the cops are on me, I don't even know if he goes. He just disappears. The rest of the officers I'm with don't speak English at all, at least I don't know. They're not talking to me. I'm not talking to them, gotcha.
Speaker 2:And then the charges and everything did that. Finally, even when you left, you still don't.
Speaker 1:I don't know what my charges were. My documents that they made me sign the thumbprint are written in Mandarin, so I can't read them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're making you sign them and you're like I have no idea what I'm even signing what I'm doing, what's? Happening. So these 14 days, your faith, you're in this, you know, cell with other chinese men. They are they leaving in and out, or is it just the same 14, the whole time that you're there?
Speaker 1:everybody's rotating, rotating, like leaving, but I'm like, okay, I seem to be the only one that's still here. It's even funny, like on the third day, like 13, no, 12 people were released, so it's like three of us in the cell. We like I know they're not going to just leave it in the cell by ourselves, but then they came and got us and they moved us to a new cell. That's like a few doors down. In that new cell I'm immersed with three other foreigners, two of them that speak English.
Speaker 2:Now you can at least have conversations.
Speaker 1:Day four, I finally get to talk to somebody and learn about how the jail works and the rules, and learn about these folks backgrounds, where they from, and now I can communicate with the locals as well. So it's like you learn about all these different stories, all these different walks of life. But you know, I'm saying we all just go existing in this one space that we don't leave now, were you there for the next 10 days or did?
Speaker 1:okay, that was in that cell yeah, yeah, further, further, two days, and then all of a sudden, they come and say it's time to go.
Speaker 2:Is that?
Speaker 1:literally like just they call them out, like they like waving me to come here. I'm like what y'all, I'm confused, like what y'all want and now you just keep doing like this and one of the uh inmates like everybody telling you to go. It's time to go. Grab my bone, grab my spoon dab to everybody, walk straight at the door.
Speaker 2:At the door. They take you straight to the airport, or do you have to figure out how to get there yourself? Yeah, yeah, or what's the?
Speaker 1:They take me to my apartment to grab the rest of my things, and then straight to the airport.
Speaker 2:They put you on a plane, so you're not paying for a ticket. They was like you're out.
Speaker 1:I had to find somebody to buy a ticket for me.
Speaker 2:Oh really, Were they just going to leave you in the airport?
Speaker 1:or what. On day seven you brought all the foreigners down. They allowed us to contact people that we knew to see who could buy us a plane ticket if they could, and we had to give that contact. Knew to see who could buy us a plane ticket and if they could, then we'd have to get that contact information.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, so they'd fit that all up before you even left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you fly back home, get off the plane? Are there any issues in the US that they're saying I'm just back home? It doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:It doesn't happen If.
Speaker 2:I had written this, nobody would have known this happened to me, but you're not going back to China.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't just go out of there on a limb If opportunity presented itself. Yeah, most definitely. I feel everything full circle and I would definitely document it. Just more marketing for the book, so yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So, um, just just more marketing for the book. So, yeah, okay. So now the book. You put the book. What are some of the things in the book that you talk about that are intriguing folks to to want to get the book because they want to find out what happened, and it sounds like there wasn't. You know, like, is it what's going through your mind? Is it you know whether what's the premise of the book?
Speaker 1:yeah um I guess it's just like most people are always curious about traveling abroad somewhere and this unfortunate circumstance happens to you. You hear about it before it shows. Locked up abroad, it's always something that's you always know that could happen, but it actually does happen. It isn't real until you're actually in that situation and it's a whole different type of discomfort, to say the least. Um, so, as you're reading the book, it's like I wrote it in the perspective, as if you're walking through it through my eyes.
Speaker 1:Um, you feeling all the anxiety, all the emotions, the anticipation of what and the curiosity of, okay, what's going to happen next, like, how do we get out of this situation? And you just learn. You're using everything you can just within your confinement to try to piece all this stuff together the best you can, because you don't even know. But, ironically enough, everybody else in the cell knows how much time they have. Uh, who knows what their specific charges are? You know what I'm saying. Everybody know all their details to the to the fullest, how I get left out. You know what I'm saying. I'm the only one that don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:Um, so it's just, it's just a very interesting reason to see what's the process like of, you know, being in jail in Beijing. You know, I'm saying just that curiosity, and then you just learn a lot of this about the culture of China as well, and then, of course, about my culture and the different cultures, because the two of the foreigners one was a Chinese American from California, the other one was Brazilian from Brazil. So you get to learn about their cultures and their journeys along, uh, you know saying life, and what led them up all the way up until this point, uh, to where we're closest and in the cell, um, so yeah, it's a it's an interesting, interesting read, for sure did you think you were going to be there for the rest of your life?
Speaker 2:I mean, was there some point where you just, like I might, might be here for? Or you just or? You knew you were short term from the beginning?
Speaker 1:Uh, I didn't know how long I was going to be in that situation. Um, I knew I was going to be good, though I said, when it's all said and done, I'm going to be good. I just don't know how, how. But a one accountability. I made choices. I knew the repercussions from it, so this is something I had to take to the chin. So, with that being said, just trust the process. You know, saying no to say you and you, everything will be all right. Take note of every minor detail, because it's going to be a great story to say I want you to predict. I literally said that to yourself.
Speaker 2:You said that to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when I was at the first precinct I said that to myself it's going to be a great story, yeah.
Speaker 2:Was that the first time you'd ever been in anything like that? You're a black man in Atlanta, man.
Speaker 1:You never had no issues whatsoever.
Speaker 2:That was the very first time somebody showed up and then, and then how do you know how you got turned in or how they got your name around? That's never been in the mystery life.
Speaker 1:A lot of people just come up with their own conclusions, so that you have saying so, this is the book is? It's a mystery? At the same time, I didn't know what was going on. It was unfolding. I'm sure you still don't Exactly, so it's like it's still a mystery. It's still a mystery.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh so now you come back home. You've missed this ordeal. You spent 14 days and now you have to figure out life back at home in Atlanta. You said you came back like nothing ever happened. Well, if nothing ever happened, you still didn't have a job, you still didn't have an income, you still didn't have a way to support yourself. And I can't imagine there was any money left from what you were doing in Beijing and maybe a little bit, that you your last paycheck or something.
Speaker 2:So now what do you do? You've been through this experience. It's got to be traumatic, to say the least. Now you've got to get going again. You've got to pick yourself up. What does that look?
Speaker 1:like it was a process. It was a process. I was already in the hat. I got experience in education, teaching kids. Not only was I just teaching kids, I was teaching kids on the other side of the world. I feel like that's going to open up opportunities for me, so I'm like I can get in. I'm going to continue to explore that. But at that point in time it was closing in on the end of the school year, so I knew I was going to have to wait until the following school year for anything to any opportunities to be available. So within that time I was just taking time to just travel, explore, be with self, soul search and worked out a lot. I worked out a lot. I worked out a lot. You know what I'm saying? I had so much time on my hands and just trying to figure something out. And then once DeMarco was like, put the bug in my ear about writing the book, hey, that just took everything to a whole nother level.
Speaker 2:Now is there other things that you're doing? You said you're coaching football high school football and then is you just a writer now, or what Like? What is your days in your life look like now that you've had this experience? You've come back, you've been able to write a pretty successful book. What's that identity look like for you now that are in your future. You now that, or in your future what you want to happen.
Speaker 1:I've been, of course, with the success of 14 Days. I got asked countless times about the writing and publishing process. It was surprising to me the amount of people that have aspirations to write and publish a book. This wasn't something I always wanted to do. It was just an idea I was given and I just took it and publish a book. This wasn't something I always wanted to do. It was just an idea I was given and I just took it and ran with it. But to see that there's a lot of people this is something that they truly, truly want to do but just don't know how to go about doing it. I've worked with countless people, countless people with just trying to encourage them and just work with them through the writing and publishing process. Only two people saw the whole process through One 30-year-old, 30-something-year-old dude.
Speaker 1:At the time his book went number one and the other one was at the time she was 15 years old, 15-year-old girl in high school and hers went crazy. She went crazy. Hers was number one for like nine straight days. Um, so I knew I was okay. They let me know right then, and there I said okay, I got a nice little formula how I go about doing it. Um, it works because I work for myself and I also work for these two other individuals. So it's like, okay, we can probably turn this into something. So just turn it to a service coaching people through the writing, the publishing process, um, so this sort of shifted into that, um, that aspect of the coaching side of it and the teaching, training, coaching side of.
Speaker 2:Why do you think of all the people that have aspirations, all the people who want to get something done, only a few? I mean, it's like this in everything but in the world that you're in. Why do you think it is that people don't want to push through? They have these intentions, but they don't push through Fear, fear, fear of what if it works, or fear of it's not going to work. That's talked to me and told me that I'm not going to be able to do it both.
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't have confidence in themselves or anything that they might create, so it's just something that they have to work with and overcome. Like to make things more complex than they actually are, like anything is impossible, but it's like, yeah, if you take the time out to learn, you put in the work. Yeah, you can, you can see it, you can accomplish the same thing. But a lot of people be in their own way.
Speaker 2:What do you think separated you? What made you be able to push through man?
Speaker 1:I'm just cut. I'm cut like this Thoroughbred for sure. Always been, Always been. I prove it to them time and time again.
Speaker 2:I'm loving having this conversation because there's something that separates the 20 percenters and then the two percenters and it's, you know, the folks that continue to always win, compared to the few that just talk about people who always win and then have reasons. And you know, I guess complaints or excuses, I guess, is the word I'm looking for as to why it's not working for them, and just trying to unpack and unlock that. And you said it's just, it's just who you are. You know what, when you see somebody because now you're coaching people and you see somebody who's not you know and you're trying to help them, whether it's football or whether it's you're writing you're trying to help them and you're just like you're frustrated because they can't get out of their own way.
Speaker 1:Man, everybody learns differently.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I take it back to when we all went to school. You know what I'm saying. We've been in class with the same amount of people for a whole semester. You know what I'm saying. So you've seen it and you've seen the different learning abilities amongst your peers. You see how everybody this man need to be hands-on with it. He can just hit it, he pick it up. This person got to see it. Uh, you know I'm saying everybody got their own learning style. Some people can pick things up a whole lot faster than others. Um, and same with coaching as well. Some players don't respond to the rah, rah, harsh criticism. You know what I'm saying. All down your throat type of coaching. They shut down. You know what I'm saying. So some of them, you just got to just pull them to the side and talk to them in a calm, cool, collected voice. You just got to cater your ability to teach based on the student so does your formula work for all these different learning styles?
Speaker 2:you just have to find which way to plug in that formula. Or is your formula specifically for, like, a certain type of?
Speaker 1:person. Uh, so far I work with people, all different walks of life, um, different abilities, um, like I had some. I had worked with a lady oh yeah, her book's gonna uh publish soon. It's gonna drop soon too. So, nurse, she worked her way from the cna all the way up to the rn and now she's teaching classes to get your uh certifications. So she wrote a book about that whole journey and when I was working with her, getting it down on paper, she did like you. Like once we discovered the text-to-speech oh man, that changed the game. Like that was slowing her up a lot just trying to type everything, like she had to have her daughter type it up. So, yeah, when she discovered the text-to-spe, discovered that text to speech oh man, what, she knocked that book out like that then. Um, so there's little aspects like that, just having to try different things, see what works for who. Um, but I'm very hands-on with everybody that I work with. Like, I'm right there by your side now if you start to slow up. I'm encouraging you to keep going forward.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I can't want it more than you want it, though, at the end of the day, it's huge, but I'm right there behind you, though. I'm right there behind you.
Speaker 2:AI is around now for publishers, writers, that kind of stuff. How are you utilizing it as a tool? Are you trying to tell people to stay away from it? What's your viewpoint as a author on how AI can help this process?
Speaker 1:It's a great tool. I feel like people that are trying to shy away from it. I mean, it's going to be inevitable eventually it's going to be inevitable. So get on with it now. Learn it now, because technology is going to continue to advance more and more. You don't want to get left behind, um. But yeah, I definitely utilize it, especially to create um promo videos and, uh, like, I put the concept of the book and and ai and asked it to generate a cover just based on the theme of the book, the book description. The image it came up with was so hard like I'm like this is fire like. So I just pretty much just took that little mock and I gave it to my book cover designer and asked her to recreate it and it was like phenomenal.
Speaker 1:So yeah, hey, I I feel like it's a good tool. I'm not against it, um, and it's even programs out there that can. Probably they can write a whole book for you, like 30,000-something words. You just give it a concept and what it is you want to talk about within a book. It'll write you a whole book based on what you feed it and all you have to pay for the copyrights or something like that for it. So it's crazy. Technology has changed the game.
Speaker 2:It has, it has. And you know you have the purist folks that say, well, you know, you're supposed to sit down at a typewriter and and write and you're like, okay, well, that's what you did back in 1970.
Speaker 2:You pulled out a piece of paper, but that's not what Brian's doing, that's not what Chester's doing, cause, why would I not utilize a tool if I was able to take what's in my brain and help me formulate it? You know, as I think of the last book that I wrote is is I, you know I. I said, okay, what's the outline? I already had an idea. So I said take these concepts, put it in an outline. That would be something that other people would want to respond to. Right, because I'm not other people, I'm me.
Speaker 2:So, but if the AI knows what other people are responding to in this day and age, right. I say help me understand what a 30-year-old would like to read in the way that their brain's working. I'm 60, I'm not 30. So how would I know how a 30-year-old processes stuff? But the AI does. And so now and then I can say, okay. So in this chapter, these are the things that I'm trying to say. Put these in a way that makes sense, and then help me with the grammar. Polish up the grammar so that it reads well, boom, all right. So now.
Speaker 2:I have a chapter, but it's still my thought process.
Speaker 1:I didn't say book right.
Speaker 2:You know why would I not do that? Why would I try to do the stuff that I'm not already good at and then try to make it work and say, well, I'm selling you this book that doesn't make sense to you because I don't know how to write it.
Speaker 1:Technology has made everything a lot more achievable, a lot more faster. So it's like you can sit there and complain about everything, damn it. If that's the case and, like I said, man, you just don't want to get lost in the time. As technology continues to evolve, there's going to be more and more opportunities and more, more ways to make money, and so to invest into something that can be the next bitcoin, be the next whatever.
Speaker 2:So it's like, hey, man, you better get with it, because it's gonna leave you behind and it's moving fast and so, in your like, how is you're in your coaching business and you're finding people, how do people get to you to say, hey, I would love to you know, figure out this process of being a writer, cause you said lots of people contact you and you know, are you just saying, okay, here's my site, here's the, this is what I'm, how I'm going to work with you. Are you teaching, like workshops? Are you doing webinars that people can be a part of? How are people finding you in order to, you know, utilize you as a coach or as a as a?
Speaker 1:uh, through word of mouth um in podcast interviews that I do, um or uh podcast interviews that I do, or social media content that they find me and come across my service. I'm hands-on, literally I'm walking in and talking to you through the entire process. Once you get done, once we're all finished, you'll know exactly how to go about doing this and you'll have the whole blueprint, the whole sauce. It's yours for the taking, to do what you want with it. If you still need a second opinion, for sure I'm still going. That door's always open. I'm very hands-on with y'all, step by step, step by step.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I mean, it makes so much sense.
Speaker 2:I want you to help me with the podcasting side, because one of the things that I do is I help people as a podcasting coach, like I believe that everybody who has a business, everybody who wants to be a better communicator, everybody who wants to create leads and that kind of stuff in this day and age I can't remember the last flyer that I put out, right, but I think everybody can do a podcast and then teaching them how to go through that process.
Speaker 2:And you have utilized podcasts to help enhance your business. You know and I'm thinking when you hear a word that says did you monetize your podcast or is your podcast making you money? Maybe you can share ways that the podcast has helped you build your book business, your coaching business, build your mentoring business. Because you're on a podcast, because you've decided I'm going to go on podcast to be able to do it. I don't know if you're saying I want to have 10,000 listeners or 100,000 or a million listeners on my own podcast, but you're utilizing the format of a podcast to be able to enhance your business. How are you doing that? What are some things that you're doing?
Speaker 2:to allow podcasts to work.
Speaker 1:I've been able to reach a certain number of people through my social media content, my word of mouth, my social outings. That's good. That's only that amount of people. You know how many people there are in the world. I'm like man. I got a lot of work to do, so it's like man internet so it's like podcasts have. Since COVID, podcasts have taken off. The world of podcasting has grown tremendously. That's another piggybacking my point about not getting lost in times like so.
Speaker 1:Podcast is huge and somebody came across man some dude I can't remember where I came across from, but he was like have you ever thought about him saying be joint, being on podcast as a guest to promote your book? That's a great way to market your book. You know what I'm saying? All the different listeners I think he was trying to sell me a package I can get you on to like five. I got you and you know what I'm saying For a certain amount and I was like, ok, that sounds cool, but I really don't feel like spending that money just to do that school, but I really don't feel like spending that money just to do that um and just networking at just different events.
Speaker 1:I came across another lady that was an author and I was telling her about, um, yeah, I wanted to get into like podcast interviews or like being a guest as a uh podcast. And she was like oh yeah, you ever heard of this site called pot it? I was like pot it, nah, she's like okay, it's pretty much like a platform where you can uh network with podcast show hosts to be a guest on their show to promote whatever you have going on. So I looked into it, signed up, did a couple interviews and like a few days later they sent an email saying my day was being bought out and it's been a transition to pod match. So I was like, okay, we're just transitioning over. So, yeah, I've been doing this thing for a minute now. So I've been on well over 150 different podcast shows and that's just generating millions and millions of listeners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like, as long as people rather you, look into everything I got going on, as long as you hear my name, you hear 14 Days of Beijing, it registers to you as something, in fact, that's all marketing is. You see advertisements for Coca-Cola on TV all the time. That means you're going to go right there and there and go buy a Coke. No, but in the back of your mind that means you're going to go right there and there and go buy a Coke.
Speaker 2:No, but in the back of your mind hey, when you see a bottle and you go which one Coke's? The one that's in your mind, that's when you fall off the shelf right the.
Speaker 1:Coke project. What they do. You know what I'm saying is constantly put in your face, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. Politicians are a great example of that. A lot of people vote. A lot of people don't vote. You have your interests and folks you have your interests in, and you have your disinterests as well. But regardless of the fact who you're interested in, who you're disinterested in, you know who is running for what. Because why?
Speaker 1:But you see signs, you see letters in the mail, they text your phone, they call your phone, but they are putting it in your face every which way, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. I was like OK, these politicians really beginning when it comes to these ads, like marketing what they got going on. You know who's running for what and for what position, who they are, all that OK for sure.
Speaker 2:So I just take that same approach the show, so I just take that same approach no, I love that.
Speaker 2:And the bottom line is, and like you were saying, if there's somebody you're like myself who's saying I can coach you how to get yourself on a podcast, get it monetized, do all these things, you can find all that information for free.
Speaker 2:You can find all that information looking and going through YouTube video after YouTube video of YouTube video. The difference with me is I'm collapsing timeframes, right, and the difference with you is you're collapsing timeframes Like you've done, the formula, you know what works and you're going to show them how to do it right away, instead of going through the trial and error. And I think that's like any business, that or anything that we're wanting to do or anything that we're wanting to put together. It's all about OK, how do I can do? I want to do this fast or slow? Do I want to do it with somebody who already knows what's doing or going around? Well, the last thing I would love for you to just kind of talk about it, and you mentioned it in your story about. You said I had faith to know that I would get through this. Maybe you can just talk a little bit about your faith and how that's helped you throughout your whole process.
Speaker 1:I always had faith in God and I always trusted the process and anything I did when it came to trying to find a school to play college ball at, and that manifested into wanting to find not a dream job fresh out of college, but like I wanted to do something lit like, something that ain't nobody doing and and that manifested, um, I knew 14 days was gonna have success. Uh, that manifested um, so, um, just trials and tribulations and everything I wanted to do. It was good and bad. It came with it, and football definitely it was a great tool for overcoming adversity. Adversity introduces a man to himself and none of us know who we are until we fail. So my resilience to just continue to push through until you keep your head up, chest out, um, and know that you're saying you're good, you ain't gonna, ain't gonna put you through anything you can't handle, um, so just trust the process, man yeah, I love it, love it what did?
Speaker 2:we talk about? I you know I'm selfish and I asked you all the questions I wanted to know. But what is it? You want to make sure people know how to get all that stuff that you would have, or any other closing thought that you'd want to make sure everybody gets as a result of being on the podcast with me today.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I just want to say shout out to everybody that tuned in for the whole episode. Hey man, you're a real one. Y'all can find me, just go. Hey man, you're a real one. Um, y'all can find me, just go to google. Google, chancellor k jackson. Everything you need will pop up from my website, social media accounts, other interviews.
Speaker 1:I've done my books um my coaching service. Y'all get at me um for uh, my spy authors, uh, just hit the link in my uh on my website, in my website. Visit my website. You can sign up for a consultation. Y'all can DM me on Instagram. I'm very active on there and I also got a new book dropping self-help book titled the Power of Becoming Seven Pillars on Growth and Empowerment. It's not your typical motivational read, right? It's more like a personal roadmap to wholeness centered around seven core themes love, discernment, success, happiness, adversity, healing and confidence. So I'm really excited to see how the book does on the market and really, just how do people respond to it. How do people respond to it um, so, yeah, I'll go get you copies of the power of becoming dropping april 11th um and aspiring authors man.
Speaker 2:Get at me. The power of becoming is the is the name of the book, and it just fits so much in becoming the person that you need to be, uh, in order to do the book that I'm just writing, it's called be do half right. So it's all about being um, because it is because when we think about who we are in our identity, our identity can get wrapped up in so many things and we spend all this time trying to have stuff, trying to do stuff, but if we haven't become that person yet, holy moly. So I can't wait to get your book, I can't wait to order it when it drops and be able to read it and go back in 14 days of Beijing. That I want to you know even more into what your thought process was, because when you see somebody who comes out the other side, when you see somebody you know because there's somebody who probably got arrested in Beijing before you, there's probably somebody got arrested in Beijing after you and there's somebody who's not doing as well as you're doing as a result of how they took on that experience and it shaped their life and what they do, and it would be great to just see some people that kind of experienced what you did and go well, okay, what made Chancellor so much different, you know, and how he handled it and the circumstances and the timing and all those things that are part of it.
Speaker 2:And so thank you for being on, thank you for, you know, maybe one of your 151 or 152, whatever about a podcast that you've been on, because it's just, it's been phenomenal. And so, if you're watching this and this is your first episode that you watched so many really good ones that folks that have taken adversity made their life different as a result of it and aren't stuck as a result of their circumstances and I think that's the key in all of this is how do we continue to move forward, how do we continue to grow and how do we, in your case, be coming in the book that's getting ready to come out? And so, you know, go ahead and hit the subscribe notifications. Whatever the things that you do on YouTube or wherever you're seeing this at, we'd love to have you on for more Again, chancellor, you have any closing thoughts? One last closing thought that you would love to tell everybody before we're out of here.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to leave you with a quote. You know what I'm saying. I love quotes. It's a quote by Nipsey Hussle. It goes long-winded, running through this life like it was mine, never settling but setting every goal high, 1,000 burpees on the path to my own self-destruction or success. But what is a mistake without the lesson? You see, the best teacher in life is your own experience, and none of us know who we are until we fail. They say every person is defined by their reaction to any given situation. Well, who would you want to define you? Someone else or yourself? Whatever you choose to do, homie, get your heart to it and stay strong. Love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 2:Don't forget your God's great gift. He your heart to it and stay strong, Love it, love it, love it. Don't forget your God's great gift. He loves you if you love him too, and we'll talk to you on the next one. Have a great day.