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Charge Forward Podcast
The Charge Forward Podcast: Dedicated to those who choose to Charge Forward into the Storm when hit with challenges. This is what makes them different and has lead to their success. When in doubt.... Charge Forward!
Charge Forward Podcast
"25 Years for a Crime He Didn't Commit: Dr. William Arnold’s Fight for Justice"
Sentenced to 25 Years for a Crime He Didn’t Commit – This Is What He Did Next
What happens when the justice system gets it catastrophically wrong?
In this unforgettable episode of The Charge Forward Podcast, Dr. William Arnold, shares the harrowing story of being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes he didn’t commit. Over 2,498 days, he found strength in faith, and became a powerful advocate for fellow inmates — all while fighting to prove his innocence.
Joined by host Jim Cripps, Dr. Arnold reveals how prosecutorial misconduct, bias, and broken systems led to his conviction—and how his unanimous exoneration during the pandemic became the start of a much greater mission.
Now leading Tennessee’s pioneering Office of Reentry, Dr. Arnold helps justice-involved individuals rebuild their lives, find employment, and restore hope. He tackles the real barriers to reentry—housing, transportation, and stigma—with clarity, urgency, and compassion.
This is a story of injustice, but also of redemption, faith, and purpose.
It’s about what happens when a man loses everything… and then finds a way to give back more than ever.
“We've all had a second chance — whether we know it or not.”
🎧 Listen now to discover:
- The moment everything changed in court
- What prison taught him about survival and humanity
- How faith and scripture carried him through
- Why reentry programs are failing—and what needs to change
- How he's turning pain into purpose every single day
🎧 Don’t wait until it’s too late—your future self will thank you.
📲 Watch or listen now on YouTube and all major podcast platforms!
🔗 Learn more about Dr. Arnold’s work at TN Office of Reentry
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drwilliamarnold/
Email: info@iamwilliamarnold.com
Website: https://www.iamwilliamarnold.com/
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It wasn't about getting my affairs in order. I was instantly taken into custody and then sentenced to 25 years in prison at 100% no chance of parole. She allowed the jury to dislike me for being an educated, articulate black man. I was instantly handcuffed, taken into custody.
Speaker 2:Hey team, jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward podcast coming to you from HitLab Studios here in Nashville, tennessee. Now I have a fantastic treat for you today a long-term friend of mine, dr William Arnold he goes by the Second Chance Doctor.
Speaker 1:William, welcome to the show. Hey, good to be here. Thanks for having me. I was going to say good to have you. I'm thinking it's my show. Maybe I'll have one one day.
Speaker 2:This one is your show, absolutely Well, you know we've met. I mean, it's crazy to think it's almost 15 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is now when you think about it. Yeah, yeah, it's been about that long.
Speaker 2:And we met under some interesting circumstances, very, very interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, part-time job I was. I was working at Sprint at the time and what was nuts is that I actually had a career working in higher education, so took the job at Sprint to pay legal bills, which was crazy. Yeah, crazy, crazy, absolutely crazy. I got accused of some stuff I didn't do. I was paying legal bills out the wazoo, fighting a case a criminal case and a civil case and I just totally turned my life upside down and that's how we met.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right. And I remember, um, the day that the unthinkable happened, um, you got convicted, yeah, and we all knew there was no way. There was no way. And, like to put it in perspective, like when my parents came in, you're the one that I wanted them to deal with Like, thank you, there was, there was no chance. Like we all knew there was no chance that you did what you were accused of, and it was just the disbelief. And I mean, I know what the disbelief was from my side, but I can't even imagine that process and that just the feeling yeah, yeah, man, july 12th 2013.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget it. I just had a five day trial. I was a Friday. I started out, you know, I went to the YMCA that morning, downtown, where I worked out, just just knew I was going home that evening Trying it about four o'clock and the jury deliberated for about seven and a half hours, um, and then, about 1130 that night, they came back with guilty on four or six charges. Um, I was instantly uh, handcuffed, uh, taken into custody. So my car was still sitting there with my sweaty clothes in it, my, my, my desk at work was the same home, so it wasn't, it wasn't about my sweaty clothes in it. My, my, my desk at work was the same home, so it wasn't, it wasn't about getting my affairs in order. I was instantly taken into custody and then sentenced to 25 years in prison, at a hundred percent, no chance of parole.
Speaker 2:That's insanity, yeah, and you know the the good part of the story is you know we fast forward and you're. You're sitting here with me in the studio, but there's a lot of ugly that happened in between, and some of the ugly doesn't even seem possible like. If you think about it. Most people, and I'm sure even yourself, prior to that moment thought there's no way in hell that I'm going to jail for something I didn't do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think they call it proving a negative, proving something that never happened, and I still just sometimes think about you know how in the hell did this happen?
Speaker 1:So, 2013, I had the trial sentenced to 25 years in prison and I spent six years, nine months, 2,498 days, two hours and 11 minutes in a place I was never supposed to be. Um, and then, in 2020, uh, february 2020, the case was unanimously overturned, sentenced, vacated charges, dismissed. I came home, uh, april, you were the first folks I saw that's right. Uh, I looked a hell of a lot different then yeah, you did well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when I say this, yeah, um, I'm just gonna give you the raw. So you were as polished as a person gets when we work together. Like, really, you didn't fit the mold for people that worked at sprint. You were, you were too polished, but I get it, you were, you were, you were trying to pay for your legal fees and then when, when you got out, I didn't really have words for how you looked. Now, don't get me wrong. I was glad to see you, I was glad to see you out, and but you also came into a crazy world because we were neck deep in COVID. Neck deep in COVID, yeah. But I remember calling Leanne and Wesley, because you know we all work together and Leanne and Wesley were like literally, like you have to call us and tell us know how he is, how is he? And, uh, again, I'm I don't know of another word to say this. I was like he was a thug, but you had to become that in order to survive, right?
Speaker 1:absolutely. It was a, a friend of mine uh calls him my avatar. Yeah, um, and I became this guy named doc, and doc was just like 240 pound dreadlock guy who was extremely assertive, borderline aggressive. I like to tell folks I had to make sure my yeses meant that yes, my no meant no, and sometimes hell no, and if not, f no, just because it was just set an environment. Um, you know, it wasn't like I came from from.
Speaker 1:I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I had a very middle-class adult life, not growing up, and so to all of a sudden be thrust into that environment and you just had to figure it out and that's what I had to spend time doing. So, coming out, I was a totally different person. I was 48 years old, thankfully by the time I or not by the time, but when I went to prison I was pretty much submitting who I was and what I was going to be. I was, I was William Arnold, right, but it changed me because I had to interact with people, other incarcerated people, guards, differently. I called everyone an insurgent because hell, I don't know what you want. Everyone an insurgent because hell, I don't know what you want. Um, so it was always what you know and I approached everything with this very uh uh, defensive, uh way of living man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to absolutely yeah, it's the only way you survive. Yeah, and I didn't know this until we were just talking a little bit ago. Uh, you were supposed to go to a different prison. Yeah, which would? We might not be sitting here if that had happened.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, I um so I guess I'll give you the background on that. So when I was in prison um, because I understood things like policies, practices and procedures it was important for me to still be able to serve and help people out Right, and so with that, it was helping other incarcerated people understand how to write grievances, how to beat the disciplinary board, how to understand their legal mail. So that was a. That was a way I was able to empower other people and also gave me a sense of for lack of a better term popularity as a man of the people.
Speaker 1:And I remember Gar telling me Arnold, if you file one more grievance, we're going to send you to somewhere you don't want to be. So and I wrote about this in an editorial and that Other prisons were weaponized against us and that staff understood that there were certain prisons where the environment was not good, staff were not as well trained and you were going to be in danger. And so I actually became tapped to go to one of those facilities and I missed the bus and thankfully I missed the bus, because a guy who caught that bus was later beaten to death. So yeah, who knows what that would have been like.
Speaker 2:That could have just as easily been you.
Speaker 1:Easily, and that prison, still today, is the worst prison in the state of Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and for those, obviously out of respect for you, I'm not going to say the name of it, but if you want to watch another episode, check out the episode with Tim Leaper where he talks about his son being killed in prison or dying while incarcerated. And this, this private prison, is to blame, and luckily it did not take your life, grace of God yeah, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2:I remember the day that you got out and I think I was. You know, aside from whoever you saw, whoever picked you up there at the prison, because it was up around Crossville, is that right?
Speaker 1:Yes, so it was in Bledsoe County Correctional Complex is where it was. Yeah, just south of Crossville.
Speaker 2:And so you got a ride to West End and came to see me Crazy, and you said something to the effect of that you were thankful about your time at Sprint because you learned how to work on phones. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that and I wasn't prepared for what you said next and you were like early on, the value that may have saved my life was the fact that I knew how to work on phones.
Speaker 1:Oh I so forgot about that. Yeah, so when I got to prison, smartphones had just become a thing. It was it was 2013. I think smartphones have been for real for real, maybe about three years. Yeah. So there were a lot of guys who were, of course, getting illegal phones in and they called them flips and flats. So a flip phone, obviously, but they didn't call them smartphones, they called them flat phones, and so I was able to to help people establish email addresses, show them how to work their phones. Just, oh man, I totally forgot all about that and yeah, and that was a, that was a again, a thing that made me pop. It's like, yeah, doc knows how to work those phones, he's good with those phones and yeah man, I totally forgot about that piece.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, you know, know. And so if you will walk us through um, you know we talked about the day but if you will kind of walk us through, like the other pieces of it and when I say the other pieces of it, it's whatever parts you want to tell because I think the most amazing thing about you is the fact that throughout this whole thing, one as dark as it got, as you never lost sight of who you were, and then you have come back really full force to who you were and still helping others. Yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:It was a journey and it still is, but it started, as I said, july 12th 2013, at least this part of the journey hours a day. I would come out for one hour a day and in that one hour I had an option. That option was I could use the telephone and talk to my family and friends for an hour, or I could take a shower and then, after getting out of the shower, they let me use the phone. But I started to realize that they would lock you in the shower. So I would spend 45, 50 minutes in the shower and by the time I get back to my cell, get changed. There's no time for phone.
Speaker 1:So I had to learn the importance of bird baths, bird baths, washing my clothes in the sink, because it was more important for me to have that sense of normalcy, of being able to talk to folks every day. So for the first four and a half months, I really had no human contact other than the telephone. So, from that from June, july 12th, december 5th 2013, I was in the cell by myself no human contact. And then, all of a sudden, I'm thrust into what's called classification. That's where it's. We'll think of it as intake, general intake, when you come into prison, they bring everybody from all the county jails all over the state and I was around people and I was shell-shocked because I hadn't been around people and I was around people who were deemed criminals, people who were going to prison, people. I was like, well, shit, I'm oh, and it's like that it's fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah shit, I wasn't supposed to be here, yeah, so, um, so it was that part um. But you know, let me go back to first night. So the first night when I was in, after I was found guilty, cold cell, they had me in the mental health unit, because that's what they did with folks who hadn't been, had never been incarcerated, and just a shock. And so two things happened and I ran across two books. One was the Bible and took me to Philippians. Four verses, sixty 68, be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the spirit of the Lord, which is beyond all understanding, will comfort your heart and mind. So don't worry about it, pray about it's going to be all right. And that's what I stood on during that time.
Speaker 1:Sure, the other book was by John Grisham, and I've been a big John Grisham fan back in the 90s, his nonfiction, legal books, and this was called An Innocent man, and it was the one piece of nonfiction that John Grisham had ever written and it was about a guy who went to prison for something he didn't do. And in that moment I committed a crime. I said I'm stealing this book, I'm going to keep it, and right now I have that book at home on my bookshelf, that exact copy, because I was like this is what are the odds of this happening? Right, so that was like that first night.
Speaker 1:So I got to prison, I got to Bledsoe and that's where I was throughout my entire incarceration and it was just me just trying to figure it out and I met a guy, an older guy who was actually from my hometown of Memphis, college educated guy, from my mom's neighborhood with my mom's high school Didn't know her who just took me under his wing. He was, he was serving a life sentence for murder. Ironically, two years into my incarceration, his case gets overturned. He kept telling me the details. You know, you hear folks, yeah, sure he gets out. I was like, wow, but it gave me hope. Yeah, it gave me hope. Um, so I just continued to fight my case through the courts and, uh, ultimately, um, you know, here I am. Yeah, I am.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a quick and dirty version, yeah, and so you know there were some dirty things and we'll talk about what you want to and what you don't want to, but I remember, like everybody that knew you was through the roof over, how the da treated you. In your case it's like she had a personal vendetta. To like prove she could send you to jail.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that's, uh, that's still one I'll never be able to understand, and I say that because she knew me. We knew some of the same people, we were in some of the same social circles. She allowed the jury to dislike me for being an educated, articulate black man. She flipped the script for lack of a better term in that she made the jury think how dare you come to court prepared with an attorney and you tell your story? Because it was not what people were used to seeing of a black man on trial on the 5 o'clock news and that was actually one of the reasons the case got overturned, because it was what we hear in layman's terms as prosecutorial misconduct. She got in a jury stand and she mocked me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I almost look at it, it's like this um media warfare that we see in politics today, and maybe that was our first introduction to it. Yeah, to see how weaponized it could be, absolutely um and and. Again, I'm not trying to step over the lines here, but there were things that in my opinion and not even my opinion, like there were things that they didn't allow to be admissible into court, that I think I would deserve to go to jail for wanting to do what I would want to do to someone if they didn't let that be heard.
Speaker 2:If that makes sense yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll sum it up like this the criminal justice system is a man made flawed system and I had to try and find hope or belief in this man made flawed system to right itself. So I had to tap into a higher power. I had to have the support of family and friends, because I I'd seen how the system had had, um, screwed me over, right. So so I believe I get what you're saying, because there were a lot of things that weren't allowed, things that the district attorneys knew, things that the judge knew, things, uh, but in this way it it played out. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think I think the uglier part is like you tried, it's almost like the nice guy and the good guy, like you tried to be the nice guy and really she almost painted you into that corner by by mocking the proud and like solid dude you were, as if it was a mask, yeah. And so then you're trying to play nice yeah, and you're not really playing hard offense, and nice didn't work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, not that day it didn't.
Speaker 2:It didn't, and then you went through multiple appeals.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, oh man, I counted them up the other day and I forgot. But just think of this Every appeal was at least $10,000. Right, and that's not to even think about the cost of a transcript. You know how much does it cost to make a copy Five, six cents. No, the course wanted $1.75 a page. I don't know what they were doing with the other $1.70, but yeah, so it's a system that continues to drain you financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Drain you financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Yeah. So over the course of that six years, nine months, I know, I went through about five or six appeals until finally we got relief.
Speaker 1:And another piece of the relief I got to give a shout out to District Attorney Glenn Funk. Glenn Funk, as a progressive DA, created this, created this thing called a conviction review unit, which is it was the first of its kind in Nashville, and it is actually housed within a district attorney's office where a person who is incarcerated can make an application and make their case for why their, their, their particular case, needs to be reviewed and possibly overturned. So, though my case was still going through the courts, the conviction review unit couldn't do anything for me, but they saw that they had no confidence in the conviction. So once the courts overturned my conviction, glenn Funk's office dismissed the charges. So when your conviction gets overturned, you essentially have another case I'm not another case, I'm sorry another trial. So instead of going through another trial, they said, hey, uh, we're, we're going to dismiss this. I was the first person in tennessee to get relief from the conviction review unit, and six then I think about 26 people have gotten relief and they've saved about 200 years in incarceration.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. So shout out to Glenn Funk and his folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I mean as, as somebody that's known William, and before, after, during all the things. Thank you, glenn Funk, for for creating that, for fostering that and and making it so that you know you could be number one.
Speaker 1:Second chance. That's what it's about. Getting a second chance, that's right.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit about the second chance doctor, that moniker and also just the second chance mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the second chance really just comes from April. We just finished April and April is National Second Chance Month and it's a time where America actually recognizes individuals who formerly incarcerated. It's about increasing awareness of their value to society, to the workforce, some touch point with the criminal justice system and, ironically, I was released April 15th 2020, right dead center the odds of April second chance month and since that time, I've had the opportunity to work in what's called re-entry, which is when people come out of incarceration and they reenter society, and a big part of that is getting people to understand that what happened to you is not continuing to happen and that you can grow from that. So it's about having a growth mindset, but also seeing opportunities and everything. And when we talked about just now the idea of those appeals when you're incarcerated, you lose- a lot, okay, you lose time.
Speaker 1:You lose appeals. You lose fights lot, okay, yeah, you lose time. You lose appeals. You lose fights internally and externally. You lose people. People die, yeah. People stop talking to you. And so when you get out, you have and I had this for a long time, jim, I'd internalize loss and you start to fit. You get used to losing and you don't expect to win, and so you have to find what is that mindset that's going to get me out of it? How am I going to grant myself a second chance? Because you don't. You don't feel a second chance in there. You carry that scarlet letter with you. You wonder all the time what are people? And you have to finally get to the point that you say you know what, screw it. If I don't give myself this opportunity, no one else will. Yeah, and that was something that I struggle with, um, actually for quite some time. First couple years out, it was. It was a challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a challenge and I and I know one of the hardest things that anybody does is forgive themselves, and I think that people could probably look at your situation and be like, well, there's nothing, he, he didn't have to forgive himself. But when I talk to you, I get the feeling that that was a big piece of you becoming the second chance doctor, becoming becoming who you are today, sitting here with me, is you had to figure out how to forgive yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I feel like I did a lot of. I made a lot of missteps. I didn't ask questions of my attorney that I should have asked. I perhaps didn't take it as serious as I should have because it was crap, right, and I was like this is, this is something, that's a formality. I'm going to go through this trial, I'll be home tonight, I'll be at a party, I'll be at a bar later tonight, and it happened that way, and so it was really sitting down and trying to make sense of that, trying to make sense of of wondering how could I have prepared better, what could I have done to to have kept this from happening? Because no one expects their life to go off the rails for seven years for something you didn't do. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I even think about it, even as small things Like I had a conversation with my son last week. Believe that part of my conversation with him in those two moments are related to what I've seen you go through and that you know he's 11, he's in middle school, and when I say this I'm overstating it, so I mean no offense when I say it. Um, the principal there runs it more like a prison and less like a school. Things that kids shouldn't be worried about, like you have to walk down the right side of the hall. You can't cross the hall. You have to walk down the right side of the hall. That seems trivial. But also your hands have to be visible at all times. You put your hands in your pockets. You go to detention.
Speaker 2:Wow, just stupid things that shouldn't be on the plates of 11 year olds. And um, so two weeks ago, maybe 10 days ago, um, a kid does something and he gets blamed for it, and he was nice about it. He didn't challenge the teacher. And I told him I was like buddy, I don't care what they think they can do to you. If you didn't do something, you say you didn't do it.
Speaker 1:Damn right.
Speaker 2:So today he gets accused of something that he didn't do and he goes. I didn't do it and she goes. You need to say yes, ma'am, and he goes. I didn't do it and she goes. You need to say yes, ma'am, and he goes. I didn't do it and she gave him detention. I was like buddy, I will go down there and I'll have all kinds of conversations, but if you didn't do something, you stand up and you say you didn't do it. Because here's the thing If you don't, it's as much as you lying, and I feel like maybe that was a little bit of you know there. None of us, none of us that knew you thought there was any way possible that this could end in conviction, and so I think, not just you, but I even think that our conversation around the office was like this sucks that you're having to pay the money to prove this. I don't think there was anybody that you know even considered that it could go the way that it did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was surprising.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, yeah, still, I mean, you know, uh, again, it's, it's not the same thing, because you're the one that actually went through it. But I mean, I can remember the entire office crying like just there was the disbelief of there's no way, there's no way that this is happening. Uh, not to somebody that I know, not to William, not to the guy that I work beside. You know, um, and then you know, as we followed you through the appeals and those types of things, and you know, your fiance stopped by periodically. Um, you could just see how it was wearing and and it's like you know, and I know you had to feel a certain way about that too and you know the, the people that you lose along the way. It's almost like you're forced to run this marathon all the while people are falling around you and then you're having to drag that guilt, that thought, that those things, oh yeah, not being able to say a proper goodbye.
Speaker 1:You know you miss weddings funerals birthdays, christmases, mother's day.
Speaker 1:You know things you'll never get back, um, and it hurts and it hurts.
Speaker 1:It still hurts now, yeah, now to not have been there for people that you love, right, but it showed me support, friendship, brotherhood on a different level, because it allowed me to see people really, as I like to say, lift me up and hold me down at the same time me up and hold me down at the same time. One of the hardest conversations I had to have was with my grandmother, because my family would do. My dad said I would do dinner at her house every Sunday. So if I'm in town, back home, I'm going to Granny's house and I remember having to tell her through glass because they had told me I was going to be there 25 years, that I'm never going to be at your dinner table again. I remember seeing me saying I just, I was just crying and she said baby, look, I got down on my knees in my bathroom and God told me that that boy going to be home before you die. And I came home in 2020 and, um, my grandmother passed, uh, january of last year oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was blessed to have uh right at four years. She was 92 years old and uh. We got to hang out and do lunch a few times and drink a little wine, so we got we got our time back. We got to reclaim our time.
Speaker 2:That's good. I love that. That's awesome. Her faith, Because not only did she think it, she also put that on you. Which is you put that on somebody? Yes, that's hope, but it's also heavy, Because then you had to carry her hope.
Speaker 1:Every day and you don.
Speaker 2:You had to carry her hope every day and you don't want to let her down. You know, gosh, that's crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:So I can say there's a lot, a lot of good things, a lot of challenging things, but it makes you figure out who you are, man, because you know, I mean how you have this superpower of being able to bowl backwards and to you it's nothing you like, that's what I do, and so for me it's like all I did was I always say I'm an ordinary guy who had something extraordinary happened to him and I just had to wake up every day and believe I can get through it. And that's just a part of just you know, in this life. Second chance wake up every day and believe you can get through it. Yeah, whatever it is, you can get through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you get out. Uh, obviously, we, we chatted that day. We uh we chatted a couple of times, even grabbed dinner a couple of times and, um, where did the idea of kind of heading up this re-entry that that you're doing right now and I mean, I mean this is great work, it's work that we need more of across the entire nation, but where did that idea come from?
Speaker 1:That was just God. I was in this space where I didn't know again, as I said, I was trying to figure out who was I, because seven years later and everybody's at a different point in life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do, what I could do, and this opportunity just came along. It was the first office of reentry, attached to a Department of Labor and Workforce Development. So the idea is successful reentry and the reduction of recidivism. Recidivism meaning the process of people going back and forth to jail. How do you keep that from from happening? So this office views that through what I like to call a labor focus lens.
Speaker 1:So the idea is, if you can get people on a pathway to a career, you can refocus their time, effort and energy. They're now making money. That's legal. They're gonna reunite with their family. We're gonna have stronger family, strong communities. They're not going back. That's legal. They're going to reunite with their family. We're going to have stronger families, stronger communities. They're not going back and forth to prison or jail. That's right, and so that's the concept.
Speaker 1:But it's also about removing barriers, because what a lot of people don't realize is folks who come out of incarceration have a lot of trauma, drama and a lot of things, and you have to address those things, whether it's the mental piece, the spiritual piece is, you have to approach it from a very holistic way and it took me a while to even realize that. You know, hey, I'm pretty messed up because it really affected me and and I often tell guys who, and women, anyone who's been in that situation if you're not talking to somebody, you're lying to yourself. I've been home now. It was five years, april 15th and I still see somebody every two weeks because I have to still try and process it and make certain that, as I said, that it happened but it's not happening and how I continue to move forward, so you got to have as much support as you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I liken it to. It's got to be PTSD, because you know, I've had some wonderful guests sit in that seat in this room and just last week my favorite doctor in the world, dr Mike Meehan, was here and sat in that seat, and what he does with special forces operators and first responders is and I'm going to mess up the name of it, but I think it's called the spirit ganglia therapy, and so think of a special operator, somebody that does you know behind enemy lines type work. Um, their problem, when they come home, is there. It's like they're on the volumes cranked to 11 and the knobs ripped off.
Speaker 2:And so uh, shout out to, uh, to Zade Morgan, who sat in that seat just the other day and he was talking about how, when he came home, he found himself ignoring his family, meaning he'd put his headphones on because the words that were coming out of their mouth, or you know, if somebody dropped something or misstated something, whatever. He was used to be in an environment where a small mistake meant somebody died and he was like so I had to tune out the other things. And when he came home, like retired from the military, he realized I'm not connecting with my family, and so what? This, this therapy?
Speaker 2:it's kind of like it brings normal down a couple notches so that you're not constantly in, that somebody's going to die if this goes wrong.
Speaker 1:Fight or flight, yeah and he said.
Speaker 2:he said his son, you know, dropped a glass. You know this is, you know, two years ago dropped a glass, and it was two years ago Dropped a glass and it broke and he was like man. I turned around, I ripped his head off.
Speaker 2:Somebody's going to die if you do that again, because in battle that would be the case, because now you've just let everybody know where we're at and now they're shooting at us. And he said you know, the reason I knew that this therapy worked was because my son we just bought brand new china and my son drops a glass and breaks it and I'm like laughed at him, like turned around and laughed at him, was like, really, we just bought those he was working yeah, and he was like that's when I knew that this thing really worked, and so I wonder if that's something that should be considered for people who are reentering society from an incarceration standpoint.
Speaker 1:It makes sense. It makes sense because, though it's not that imminent feeling of death, there's always that possibility of violence at the drop of a hat, so I called it food. You're always in a space of fear, uncertainty and doubt because you don't know who this person is, you don't know what they want, you don't know what their motives are. All you know is I came here by myself and I plan to leave here by myself, right and so with that you're, you're always on alert, right on alert, right.
Speaker 1:You can't in prison, you're not allowed to run, so unless you're like out at recreation. So if you see running, you instantly know something's going on, because you have to walk in a straight line, much like you were talking about those rules with your son. So you get used to just controlled movement. So anything outside the norm means that something has happened and there are going to be circumstances. So it makes sense to have a therapy that can bring normal back, because you spend so much time when you get out trying to find normal, trying to make sense of normal, because what has been normal is not normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't realize it because again, I really was like damn, I'm institutionalized. And you think, no, I'm not going to let that happen. No, because you've been around it and that's just what you were used to.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to survive and you know you have to make sense of things, and you know, because you can't make sense of what got you here. Yeah, you know you can't make sense of what got you here, yeah, you know. So in this, so in this program and I remember us talking about this really kind of early on when you jumped into it, and one of the ugly things that really stood out to me is so let's just say, somebody is reentering society. So let's just say they've served all their time and now they're reentering society. Uh one, it's hard to get a job too. It's hard to find housing. A lot of times you know either their relatives have passed away or they're they're not in contact with them anymore All all types of scenarios there but housing being such a massive problem, housing being such a massive problem.
Speaker 2:So and correct me if I'm wrong here, but this happens far too often is you have these I don't want to call them halfway houses, but it's. It's where you do have some landlords that are willing to rent to previously incarcerated individuals, but it's almost as bad as jail from the standpoint of you're probably going to be in a let's just say let's, let's, let's say it's a 1400 square foot home. They're probably going to put 10 to 12 guys in that house and they're going to charge them 800 to a thousand dollars a piece. You're going to split a room with two or three people. You don't know their background, I mean it's. It's as if you're back in prison to some degree. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Worse, because at least in prison you know it's only going to be two people in a cell, because that's the rule, right, yeah. But what you just described happened to a guy that I know I was incarcerated with. He was, is and his PO, and his PO, his parole officer, probation officer, whoever it was, recommended the place he was living in a three bedroom, two bathroom home. There were 10 people living there, each paying $700. Right, so you got $7,000 a month and the lady who was the landlady didn't own it, she was renting it and she has seven more.
Speaker 1:So you talk about people who are vulnerable and how folks can do these predatory things. And again it goes back to we've all had a bad day, we've all done something wrong, but these people are continuing to pay the price and the cost simply because of what society has put on them as a result. And then it gets compounded because you have people who, I like to say, have special circumstances. They may be on the sex offender registry. 70% of Nashville is a no fly zone for people who have sex offenses. They can't live in 70% of the city, so you relegate it to the worst of the worst. Williamson County is a hundred percent. So you're talking about folks who've done something, made a mistake, but they're paying for it for the rest of their lives and with every dime that they make. So you can't get ahead, when that happens.
Speaker 2:And you wonder why people recidivate. And don't get me wrong when you say somebody that's on the sex registry. When I say the following, I'm not saying that the majority of those people did really bad things and should not be anywhere near a child or other right. But this actually happened to a friend of mine, her next door neighbor. So young man, grew up in Williamson County, goes to UT.
Speaker 1:Rocky Top.
Speaker 2:Rocky Top. He's there, it's rush week, first week of school, and he's, you know, at the fraternity parties, like everybody is, and he hooks up with this girl. It's mutually consensual. They're at college. Two weeks later there's a knock on the door. He's put in handcuffs for statutory rape.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this young woman is a, graduated early, was 17 years old. They're both at a college party, so he has no reason to think that she's underage. Yeah, and the reason I bring this up is because it's as dirty as some of the things that happened in your trial, because the judge did not make it permissible to it permissible to allow the statement or allow it to be known that this was the second young man now that was going to jail and was on trial for statutory rape with this girl. Second, second. So he gets convicted and for the rest of his days he's on that list. This young man should not. I mean not at all, but for the rest of his life he's going to be labeled as that. It's going to be hard to get a real job. You know all these things.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, scarlet Letter. Yeah, scarlet Letter. So yeah, that's why I say it's a broken, flawed, man-made system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's something that like, if you could fix one thing, what's one thing where you're like this would impact the most people, this would be like a game changer for society, like everybody would benefit if we could do this one thing.
Speaker 1:Gosh, well, I'll, because it happened to me. I was accused of something by doing volunteer work, and I believe it's important for organizations to protect their volunteers, because these people are giving their time, talent, treasure to help these organizations. Yeah, and when you're volunteering, you have to go through background checks, right? So organizations know what they're getting with you. So I believe it's important that they do background checks of the people that they put you with, so that way you have an understanding of what this person's background is. And if that could be a law that there has to be this, this, uh, uh, mutual background check for lack of a better term for all folks involved in any of these activities. That way, we, we, we know where we're, you know where, where we're all coming in, right?
Speaker 2:Um, that'd be the best thing I can do yeah, yeah and and you know I know I'm going to get some hate for this when I say this and I really don't care, because my number one thing is I got to look out for my family and I intentionally do not do volunteer work because of what happened to you, and I'm not trying to put that on you, but it's, it's, it's what that organization I mean really and truly, in my opinion, when, when this got brought up, they were like oh cool, you're on your own, and they distanced themselves from you as if, as if they almost gave you the first part of the conviction.
Speaker 1:It was different, it was real different.
Speaker 2:It was betrayal, real different. Um, and and I can tell you that the, the people that worked with you, the people that know you, it was betrayal as far as, as far as we're concerned. I know that you have to, uh, or you're, you're in a different space with it, but for, for everybody that knew you, I mean, um, and such a shame because there are so many volunteers that do so much great work with multiple organizations, and to see just how this was grossly mishandled because it makes me.
Speaker 1:You just ask the question how often does that happen?
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely. Um, so this re-entry program, now you're all over the state, right.
Speaker 1:And we've been around. Now, july 1st will be the beginning of our fourth year. We started in 2021. I'm happy to say that in that time, we've had five thousand eight hundred and ninety six self-identified justice involved. Individuals get jobs in Tennessee.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:So it's working, it's working?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what is the rate or how much does it decrease the chances of recidivism Recidivism For somebody to stay out to successfully reintegrate with society once they go through your program and get that help versus versus not.
Speaker 1:So let me, so it's not quite a program, as much as it is um, strategies and trainings, okay, um, and there's really no, no, no, um, no rate to say that of how much it decreases. But we know that 27% of the people who are just as involved are unemployed, right? So the unemployment rate for, and the underemployment rate for, this population is 27%, whereas in Tennessee for the average person is 3%. So a person who has a touch point with the criminal justice system is nine times as likely to not get a job as someone else. And that's dealing with what's called collateral consequences, which are just kind of the rules that folks make up. Well, we don't accept people with those types of charges or it has to be five years or more, seven years more. We just don't accept people who've been incarcerated or just the stigma attached to it.
Speaker 1:And I always ask people how many of you ever faced rejection? Raise your hand, everybody raise their their hand. How many have ever broken the law and didn't get caught? And everybody raises their hand. So the next question is think of how different your life would be had, whatever it is you did, had you gotten caught. Would you have been able to drive here today in the car you drove and live in the same neighborhood, so always think about it. We're all. We've all had a second chance, whether we know it or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah well, the crazy part is you're. You're the second person I've known that went to court thinking you know what a mess hate that. I gotta go through through this, but I'm to be back in my bed tonight. That didn't work out that way. Had a friend of mine just last year and six months got whatever 178 days or something. You know, whatever that number is.
Speaker 2:And I found out with a text message and so did their parents and all the things. And you know, um, not luckily, you know, both of you are now uh, now out in all those things, but it can happen to you. I, if you're watching this, please don't think that if you were accused that you need to be nice and not push back, this can absolutely happen to you. It can steal your hope. It can steal family members from you. It can steal relationships. It can steal family members from you. It can steal relationships. It can steal time. It can steal who you are. If you let it so, fight it with everything you have. Take it to a new level of seriousness. Um, your, your family, you depend on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, spare no expense. Yeah, get the best lawyer you can find, do whatever you have to do. I mean, I found out so much about the criminal justice system that 90% of the people who are in prison take deals because they're either scared to fight it or don't have the money to fight it. I met a guy in prison who said, doc, if I just had two thousand dollars to afford a lawyer, I wouldn't took this deal for eight years. Right, right, right. Two thousand, two thousand dollars if you could have had a lawyer to defend him. So he took a deal for eight years, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, even yours. I mean literally. You were confident that that was not going to happen, Right, but you got a second job, which is how we met, Exactly To pay for your legal expenses. There's a lot of people that wouldn't do that. A lot of people would be like oh well, you know I'll take whatever they sign me because I'm doing that or whatever. So you took it serious. You didn't take it that next level serious, but you took it serious enough to. Yeah, I don't really have words for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes I can't find words for it either, so don't feel bad, no, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2:Um, but you're doing big things these days, and so, whether we're talking about you being on stage, talking, inspiring people and, at the same time, exposing some of the things that are wrong, um, or you know, out here doing the work you are with reentry. What are you looking forward to? What's got you on fire right now?
Speaker 1:Just being able to help people, and when I say help people, not just people who were formerly incarcerated, but people who can take this story, take this journey and apply it to whatever they're dealing with in life. Because what I've come to realize is that we're all, as they say, either going through something currently or coming out of something, and those somethings are always happening. But you have to remember it happened, it happened. Now what? Now what? So helping people get to that, now what? It inspires me. I love that.
Speaker 2:You know, and there are some great programs out there. You know, a couple of years ago, actually right after you got out, so this would have been well, no, I guess it was the following year, so 2020, I met Catherine Hoke. She runs an organization called Hustle 2.0. In fact, maybe did I introduce you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did connect.
Speaker 2:I think her last name is Jackson. Now I think she got married. But you know, their program really focuses on taking people who are incarcerated but are maybe, you know, a year or two from getting out and acknowledges that it's going to be hard for you to find a job, and so they really kind of foster that entrepreneurial spirit of you know, you can get out there, you can learn a trade, you can own your own business. And then, and really inspiring them to, okay, once, once you are successful, when somebody else gets out, you give them a hand up you know, not a handout, a hand up so that they can get their affairs back in order, and and so it's.
Speaker 2:It's that same thing I mean, especially in uh, and I mean no disrespect to women when I say this, but men, we have to feel accomplished in order to have a self worth, in order to keep pushing, in order to have hope and and a seat esteem and those types of things. And you know how many people go back to a criminal lifestyle because there's idle time or because they they feel like I don't have options, and I'm not excusing the activity. I am saying that as a society we should spend more focus on. How do we actually rehabilitate people, how do we actually reintroduce them? For all of society's sake, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that takes a concerted effort. There's no one stop shop that can do that, because the Department of Corrections in the business of correction, meaning what they're going to warehouse you and keep you there.
Speaker 2:Or worse, if it's privatized.
Speaker 1:You know, but but that, because that's their focus is, you know, safety and security. But then it has to be that that other side of how do we rehabilitate, how do we start having those conversations, how do we give people what they need to come out but there's no one place that can do it. So it takes a what I like to call a re-imagining of services, because, again, when folks come out of incarceration, they're dealing with mental health issues, they're dealing with health issues, they're dealing with education issues, work issues. So it takes all of these different systems to align and make it happen, so it's not just one place to get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, and it has to be a strategic and conservative effort. You know the and I liken it to. It's not the same thing, but you know, even our like, for an instance and this is somebody else I need to introduce you to is the guys over at at hustle recovery. You know they work with folks that are coming out of rehab and it I get it's not the same thing, but it's the same challenges as to where am I going to lay my head at night? Uh, how am I going to feel safe?
Speaker 2:Where I am laying my head at night? What? Where am I going to get a job? Who am I going to be around? That's a positive influence to me, not the same thing that got me where I was, was at before and I got to believe that reentry is the same way in that, you know, let's just say I do go into this thirteen hundred square foot house where I'm paying, you know, seven hundred to a thousand dollars a month, and I'm splitting the room with three other guys and there's there's two guys in the living room and there's two guys in the kitchen, like it's. It's not an environment that's fostering your ability to reenter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no because you can't find peace in it, and about 60% of the folks who've been incarcerated probably struggling with some sort of a drug or alcohol abuse. So the lines become real blurred. Right, yeah, but what you just said is that they're, they're all dealing with trying to make sense of normalcy, and that's hard when you haven't been a part of normalcy for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah For you. So you get out. It's the middle of COVID, Was that better?
Speaker 1:or worse. Um well, first of all, it's never a bad day to get out of prison, that's first, Let me let me say that. But, um, what it did for me was, if you've ever watched like a X-Men movie, I was like professor X and that he had this ability to freeze people and he was still moving around. So, by the world being on pause, it gave me an opportunity to catch up. I got out. My license was still valid. I drove back home to Memphis, the most peaceful drive I ever had. It was nobody on the roads, I could go in whatever was open and there weren't people there. So I didn't have to deal with crowds. I still don't do well with crowds, so that helped me get reacclimated to the world to some degree.
Speaker 1:So COVID didn't affect me like it affected everybody else, because people were sequestered and for me, I was able to move around. So being able to just go outside and walk wherever I wanted to walk, get in the car and go where I wanted to go was a sense of freedom. I had shoulder-length dreadlocks to open up the sunroof and let my hair blow in the wind, which I never thought I'd be able to do, but yeah, so it was good. It was a blessing for me in disguise, as I still have my internal struggles. It still allowed me the ability to move around. There were certain people I didn't want to see for different reasons, so COVID was a good excuse. Well, no, it's still COVID, we ain't got to see each other. Just call me, just call me. So yeah, it was cool.
Speaker 2:It's almost like the world gave you space Indeed. A lot of space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of space.
Speaker 2:yeah, who was that person throughout the whole thing?
Speaker 1:that just like you wouldn't have made it through without him. Oh gosh, it would definitely be Michelle Magruder. Michelle Magruder she was. I mean, you call her my fiance. She wasn't quite my fiance, but she was a young lady. I'd been dating at the time and she was a ride or die. She was a rat-a-die. She was a rat-a-die and I will always have to give her the utmost props because she was able to pull together a community of people, keep them informed, deal with me and my impatience and anxiety and sometimes not very niceness, but she did it with so much grace and just love and I will always appreciate her for that. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Michelle, thank you From all of us that know you and have known William. Thank you. We saw it too. She was good. Yeah, all right, so we're working on reentry. We're working on. She was good. Yeah, all right, so we're working on reentry. We're working on helping other people. Yeah, on a personal note, what's next for you?
Speaker 1:Man, that's a great question. I would love to be able to solve a lot of the issues, and I would say, solve with the two biggest challenges that folks have coming out of incarceration is housing and transportation. And if I could say that I could really help these folks and really find a good space in the world if I could solve the housing and transportation issue, because we're about getting people's job. Getting people jobs and I can get a person the best job in Tennessee, but if they don't have a way to work, they're not going. I give them the greatest job in the world, but if they don't have a place that's safe, that's warm and that's dry the night before, they're not coming to work. So being able to tap into resources that could effectively help people get these basic things so they can get to that next thing If I can figure out how to do that, that'll be the next thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I like it. I like it. That's good stuff. Now did I see, recently you took an exam, a big boy exam.
Speaker 1:Got some exciting news. So what's crazy about that? Yeah, exciting news. So what's crazy about that? Yeah, so I'm a licensed realtor, but I actually became a licensed realtor during COVID.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I just had never really announced it because, again, it was that whole idea of just trying to figure out who was I. So a friend of mine who's a realtor, he's like, hey, man, you should do this. So I took the test and I studied for it and got it done in a few months and I've been a realtor for a while but just kind of been dibbling and dabbling. So I figured let me let folks know. Okay, so if I can figure out how to use that space, I could perhaps solve this other problem I'm talking about. So that's where.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking that how can I solve that using this superpower? Okay, I like it. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:I like your superpower, All right. So one of the things that we ask everybody that comes on the show is we say and I can't take credit for it, I actually got this from the goat consulting podcast, so shout out to John and Colby over there. It's things we think but do not say, and so maybe it's a hard truth that somebody needs to hear and we're not trying to get anybody canceled or anything but at the same time, like what's something? You're just like God, people need to hear this.
Speaker 1:Things we think but do not say. We think a lot of people are assholes, but you just can't call a person an asshole.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing, and for me it was. I often think people are lying, and a lot of that came from that environment, because I was in a place where I couldn't trust what folks said, and so that's been a challenge for me in terms of being reprogrammed or possibly deprogrammed, and that believing in people has been a challenge, and so that's the thing of thinking like, yeah, he's an asshole, he's lying. So getting to that point of actually believing people has been a challenge for me.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good, that's good, All right. So this was a little bit of fun one. So you know I'm a bowler. Now have you been bowling since?
Speaker 1:Have I been? I have not been. Yes, I have the little toy bowling over in the arcade place downtown. Yeah yeah, the team went over there once.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. So if you were going to put on a celebrity charity event now, the people on your team, you got to pick four of them. They can be anybody that has ever lived okay but the whole point is to raise as much money for charity as possible, and we're gonna raise this money for re-entry. Who you going to have on that team in order to get all these eyes on this event?
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness Boy, you really got me with that one.
Speaker 1:It'll definitely be my hero, It'll be Martin Luther King. Have to be. I'm from Memphis, you know hey got him and you know everyone will see Dr King Bowie. He was a hell of a pool player, but I would love to see him bow Martin Luther King. Michael Jordan, Just because I think people want to come out and see him do that. So, four people in addition to me, right, Because I'm not the best bowler. So yeah, Fred Flintstone, Because we know Fred for being a bowler and on his tiptoes and I think folks will want to see Fred Flintstone. Oh, yeah, Gosh. And the final person, a bowler who would folks would pay to see.
Speaker 2:They don't have to be a bowler.
Speaker 1:It could just be that people want to come and see Barack Obama. Okay, I'm pretty sure people want to come see Barack Obama.
Speaker 2:Well, so Obama's been used a couple times.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, mlk and Jordan, those are both new. Fred's been mentioned before, fred, really. Yeah, okay knew fred's been mentioned before. Yeah, okay and uh. Now, probably the most risque one we've had so far was uh, due to some um justice involved situation going on currently is somebody said we'll have p diddy, come do the lanes because he's got all the oil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't stop, can't stop, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So we got one last question about that. Okay, all right, you got to choose a commentator, somebody that's going to MC this event, oh man, oh man, um, who? But we want to hear.
Speaker 1:Howard Cosell. Why not yeah?
Speaker 2:So Cosell has been mentioned a couple of times. That's good, it's good.
Speaker 1:I like.
Speaker 2:Howard Cosell. I always think of him as a kid. Howard Cosell, that's right. That's right. I love it All right. Last question it gets it gets a bit more serious on this one. So, um, have you put any thought into how you want to be remembered?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I have, um, as I say, uh, an ordinary guy who had something extraordinary happen in his life, but he used it to help people.
Speaker 2:then, yeah, that's, that's it, I love it, I love it. Um, I don't usually do this one, but uh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw it out there if you're, if you're cool with it. So your camera is the one sitting directly across from you and it could be that somebody out there somebody out there is currently justice involved and is innocent, and they're at the end of their rope, they're at the end of their hope and they need to hear something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what would you say to them?
Speaker 1:Um, don't ever give up. Um, like I said, be anxious for nothing, but in everything. Through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the spirit of the Lord, which is beyond all understanding, will comfort your heart and minds. Believe in your innocence, believe in the power of prayer, believe that God has the ability to turn anything around and don't ever, ever stop fighting. Don't ever stop fighting.
Speaker 2:I love it. William, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:And thank you for being a beacon of light for people out there that are that have either served their time or, have you know, were falsely accused. And I'm not saying when I you know we're we're talking a lot about those that are falsely accused because of your situation. Um, and you know we're talking a lot about those that are falsely accused because of your situation and you know our experience through you knowing that there was no way that that you should have been incarcerated, but at the same time, like, once somebody has served their time, then they need to be able to get on with their life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to put it this way, jim, you've had a car note, a house note, a credit card. If you paid it off, you paid it off. Why should I keep getting charged for something that I paid off? Yeah, yeah, don't pay the bill twice. Yeah, I got you All right.
Speaker 2:Well, william, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for sharing and team. You heard it here on the Charge Forward podcast. Again, we try to bring guests that bring something to the table that maybe you can take and make your life better. Maybe this inspires you to stand up when somebody says that you should lay down. Maybe this inspires you to teach your kids that when somebody says you did something that you sure you got the spine to say no, I didn't. Or maybe it inspires you that maybe you take something more seriously that you think there's no way that could happen to me, when in fact it could. Again, I hope none of these things ever happen to you, but the reason we bring amazing guests like Dr William Arnold on the show is so that you can take pieces from their story and make sure that either your story is stronger or that you don't have these things happen to you, or that you can help others. So, again, I hope this was the right message at the right time for you. Please continue to share this with your friends, your family, those that you think would find value, and we're going to keep bringing amazing guests every single week. Remember, new episodes drop every Thursday. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time.
Speaker 2:I'm Jim Cripps coming to you from HitLab Studios here in Nashville, tennessee. Take care Team is Jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward Podcast? I just want to tell you I love you. I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you for subscribing and sharing the Charge Forward Podcast with people you know and you love, because that's what we're here for. We are here to share the amazing stories, the things that people have been through, the ways that they were able to improve their life, so that you can take little nuggets from theirs and help improve your story and be better tomorrow than you are today. I hope that this is the tool you needed at the right time and that you find value in the amazing guests that we bring each and every week. Thanks so much and don't forget new episodes drop every Thursday.