Growing up in North London I was quite an energetic young man; always up for a laugh and sometimes getting caught up in mischief.
I was very tight with my family and spent a lot of time with them. I also liked hanging out with my friends and having fun with them out clubbing and getting our thrills from motorised vehicles of all kinds.
Some of the people I was meeting and going out with were drug dealers. We’d be out and they would say things like, “I made so much money today I don’t know what to do with it”, then break out a whole wad of cash right there.
The money was very attractive so I started dealing too.
As I got older and saw my friends going to jail for 6- or 7‑year sentences, it made me want to try and quit dealing.
I had my hands in a bunch of pies like youth work and bar work, but I didn’t really want to get out of the business altogether.
In the end it was my associations with the wrong kind of people that got me sent down.
In 2013 I was given a life sentence for joint-enterprise murder in a tit-for-tat feud.
But I can now see that my time here in prison is not dead time.
I know that thanks to the Hero’s Journey™ workshop.
It helped me see that I could use my time in prison to my advantage, so I am doing a psychology course, a barber course, and gaining from my time here rather than letting things get to me.
Before I was a bit like a headless chicken going through life and I didn’t focus on what was important, but this course and the coaching, makes you analyse your life and helped me to understand where my head needed to be – focused, determined and getting the most out of my time here.
I now feel a lot less anxious and stressed and the tools I learnt help me to steady myself and feel more controlled and balanced.
The course also showed me that in the cycle of life, things get harder before they get better. I am going through hardship so things will get better – it gave me hope.
