Someday

Someday

 Many of my longstanding friends will remember the personalized license plate I had on my teal colored ’95 Mustang GT coupe. I displayed it with pride as I put about 13 K into the car to make it one of the fastest there was.  I knew that Someday I would have to meet the reality of my life and face the consequences as they fall and this plate symbolized my ultimate fate as I grew older. We all have a Someday and we all have to face the fact that we have to deal with the certainty of who you are, where you have been and what you have become. It sounds simple but it is quite a journey and exploration once you take the time to look at it carefully.

My conscience has always been my guide. Although that doesn’t mean I did the right things for the right reasons, it is what it is. I did what I did and mixed with emotion and regrets, I stand by my way of life. I could quote the lyrics of many songs that use the title “Someday” as it is as common as any other song but the reality and the force it impacts you or me or those around me is really different and complex to explain. We all have memories and Somedays can shape them and make it a dream come true. The problem was my mind was not always as clear as it should have been. Clouded with anger and frustration, it never came to a point where I was at peace with myself and world around me at the same time.

My early Someday evolve from the day I was born. It was about my childhood and dreams coming true as I wander through life looking for something that has my passion. Senseless dreams as a child were many. Day dreaming was a way of making it through class or that part time job after school. Not concerned about the practicality or the costs involved your dreams are just that, dreams. An unreal journey to say the least it was a way of coping at the time. It was here that I learned about procrastination and indecisiveness.

Then your Someday becomes a little bit of a force to drive your instincts to become a father or provider. Never meeting my calling as a responsible person in the beginning of my adolescent and young adult days it became a nightmare for me as I kept screwing good things up and focused on staying on the bad side of life. In this journey I lost precious things and more than that, I lost treasurable moments. I was losing my grip on my Someday and drifted into space and other darkness. Experiencing a mind altering event, I knew it would take decades to put be back on track. It was here where I learned about the darkness and the evilness in the world as I allowed it to enter mine.

Middle age brings me another opportunity to straighten the tracks of my tears and come out a little bit more focused on the priorities of life and those within it. Your Someday now becomes a global feeling and ambition that drives you to a specific goal and warmth inside. You are working hard to keep that feeling alive and although you may stumble more than once, how you get up measures the distance you will travel and survive. The sun begins to be noticed and the clouds appear to be lined with a little more silver than before as the storms subside and the light becomes brighter.it was here where I learned to be patient and allow the sunshine to enter when dark clouds were rumbling in the background and teasing my mind that there is more rain than sunshine in one’s life.

Today my Someday is almost here and I can see that although not a perfect life, I have redeemed myself slightly but not completely. There are still vital pieces of the puzzle missing and that will be up to God and my guardian angels to see if they will ever be found or connected to what I need to complete the journey. I can honestly say I did it the best I could and found my heart, my soul and my conscience along the way to keep it as straight as possible but it’s far from perfect.

Perhaps, another chance in another world or heaven will make my Someday come true and complete as I always dreamt it would be for I know I did my best and that is all I can do when you are mortal and subject or prone to making mistakes or errors in judgment that can be detrimental to life or love, regardless how you do it, you will fail one and satisfy the other. It’s just the way life is.  

Quiet Time

Sitting here daydreaming is nothing new for it happens every time I am alone. Ever since the day of remembrance of my birth, it has been a traditional moment to sit down and reflect my life and work on making it better. Some call me crazy for taking the time out of the day to just sit there and impulsively reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly things in my life. Others completely understand my motive as well as my reasons for doing this for they do it as well.

Quiet time is an escape from the stress and hustle of my lifestyle. It is a time of calmness and understanding as I look back where I have been and what I have done. Quiet time is not always about me or myself or I. It is also about the special people in my life that created the dynamics and flow pattern that got me where I am today. I need to remember where I was and where I am. I need to know how I got there and why I went here to begin with and although impulsive reflective thinking does not bring any specific motive or reason to the surface, it does bring peace.

Transporting my memes from past to future is never forgotten. Some are clear as day it happened while others are murky or cloudy needing a push from a picture or a voice to bring it back. It occurs to me that I do this often and at any instant, one after another, photographs and memories pop into my head. Sometimes I get dizzy and lightheaded for the memory might not be as pleasant as I wanted it to be but just before my tears begin to drop down my cheeks, I remember the good things as well. Dwelling on the bad can only make you sad.

Memes last an eternity. How you manage them is very important for your future and your relationship with life itself. It is often said that one insignificant speck of dust or particle of the past plays a significant part of your life. The universe is so vast, one must believe that everything has a purpose under the stars of heaven. Leaps of thoughts create a light show inside my head. I can see the stars, the moons and the planets as they lead me into a spell of mesmerizing moments and contemplate me doing this for an eternity till my dying day here on Earth.

Never forgotten those days of past long gone and never forgetting that the future holds tomorrow. One day may seem like a thousand years but the fact is you can’t escape one moment or one nanosecond of your life without realizing your presence and your purpose that should never be forgotten. Quiet time comes during the day or even the night. It has no reason for appearing other than making you aware of your reality and what your life is or was all about. Quiet time is a significant time. It is a powerful moment to gather your thoughts and reveal who you are and what you stand for.

Tick tock tick tock, the clock hums out loud in the background but quiet time has no clock. It is what makes you transcend into a momentary stage that belongs only to you. It is where history becomes a reality and transfers you into many different places at a time. A psychological time machine that only you can relate to and understand. Quiet time empowers your health and wellness. It gives you the answers from above and unequivocally puts you in a powerful position that only you can recognize.

 

 

 

Change leader, change thyself

Change leader, change thyself

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy

Using this idiom would be a great starting point for this article as it hits on the fact that a leader must change within themselves as an individual change before it can engage in on organizational change. Changing cultures or the way you do business takes self-understanding and then put the values into an organizational context.

Most of the time, we rarely see organizations change drastically but their people do. It is the right move to change performance strategies and inner structures to accomplish their revised goals with new policies and procedures.

Change takes time and in order to make successful change there must be sufficient time allotted for the process to work. One needs to assess when something fails, it must also address the mindsets and skill sets of those that executed the change. It is suggested that 50 percent of change fails because of senior staff failing to adjust their own behaviors to meet the organizational needs.

Many resort to a passive status quo that hampers or sabotages the attempts for change thus there must be change in people to make the change happen. It has been suggested that this will create a success rate four times more likely to succeed due to having the right people in the right places.

A common mistake, made even by companies that recognize the need for new learning, is to focus too much on developing skills. Training that only emphasizes new behavior rarely translates into profoundly different performance outside the sterile career developing seminars.

Individuals have their own inner lives, populated by their beliefs, priorities, aspirations, values, and fears. These interior elements vary from one person to the next, directing people to take different actions. This profile is a combination of his or her habits of thought, emotions, hopes, and behavior in various circumstances.

Profile awareness is therefore a recognition of these common tendencies or traits and the impact they have on others. Therefore, a careful selection of those that meet the criteria for change must be given a chance to become change leaders from the start of the project and endure the entire journey with consistency.

Organizational awareness involves the real-time perception of a wide range of inner experiences and their impact on your behavior. These include your current mind-set and beliefs, fears and hopes, desires and defenses, and impulses to take action.

This type of awareness is harder to master than profile awareness. While many senior executives recognize their tendency to exhibit negative behavior under pressure, they often don’t realize they’re exhibiting that behavior until well after they’ve started to do so. At that point, the damage is already done.

Therefore the message is to simply balance the change between people and the organizational awareness around them. Having the right people in the right places enhances success and instrumental in changing organizational cultures made up of mindsets, beliefs, fears and hopes as well as desires and naturally spent energies to take the right kind of action as the development of a new journey takes its course.

 

Rumors have it

In the Arizona Department of Corrections there are rumors of a racial apocalypse that is brewing to no end. Of course, logic would tell us this has nothing to do with the death of Nelson Mandela but when you look at the dynamics of what is happening, it is very much a recollection of those days precedent to his death. No doubt were there prophesiers that taught the destruction of a peaceful tranquil period coming to an end and unleash untold chaos and havoc among men of all colors.

Engrained is the hate amongst all of us. Mainstream thinking has always included thoughts of hate and racial strife. Denying this would only prolong the reality it does indeed exist. Maybe not among the majority or maybe not among the most of us but it exists.

The issue at hand is critical in nature and has the potential to spread quickly like a wild fire within the rings of an already heated hell. It wouldn’t take much to set it off whole scale disturbance as to date, minor skirmishes will turn quickly into major battles. The more the leaders procrastinate, the more hatred will grow as more fuel will be thrown on the fire.

I pray there are strategic plans in place; I pray they have elaborate evacuation plans for staff and non-participants in this war. I pray this problem has been thoroughly discussed and that the leadership will not be unprepared or surprised when it “jumps off” full scale warfare style.

The belief that the Blacks will fight the Whites is a s strong as the Mexicans fighting the Blacks. Regardless, there are no winners in a racial war, just victims and a body count. The media says nothing has happened yet. The administration is laying back and denying they have a problem on their hands.

When nothing happens, all is good but when the night turns dark and bodies are found during the night, it will confirm that these participants were definitely planning something and that was something that everybody missed.  It won’t happen overnight but it has been brewing strongly since January and so far, an apocalypse has been deferred.

The mass attacks will come. The tenacious and the violent will appear. The beliefs that Whites, Mexicans, Asians and Blacks will be slaughtered is exaggerated but nevertheless short of the total truth. Preparations are in order and unity and harmony is a desired quality as well as empathy and understanding of what is about to come.

This idea is not propagated by me or anyone else I know. It is written in the history books as sure as it was the truth. Someone important is buried, and then a revolution breaks out could be an explanation for what is being felt and experienced today.

 

Prisons – Hostile Territory in no man’s Land

Most people think of no man’s land as a vast waste area that is unoccupied and always hostile as it divides two or more territories between the good and the enemy. Rarely do we think of it as peaceful and take it for granted that the term serves a purpose for the good of society and the parting of men and women alike behind barbed wire or high razor sharp fences. Hostile territory that brings doubt and skepticism as this land is always under dispute, controversy or conflicts. Whether the conflict is political, financial or moral, the war has been waged for centuries why we have such conditions and what there is to be accomplished by having them situated like this where grown men and women fear to tread without some kind of protection.

Therein exists the fears of rape, murder, assaults and thievery that is beyond society’s understanding. It is almost criminal how we ignore this piece of land and pretend it doesn’t exist except for those caretakers and gatekeepers that work hard to keep it out of the headline news and safe to the public night and day.
It was the Army that first employed the term but it has been expanded to include penitentiaries and other detention facilities that hold convicted felons and devious minds. One must experience the culture and mindset in order to understand it completely but if you do enough research you might be able to envision what is really going on there beyond this no man’s land but seeing only the tip of the iceberg at best. No man’s land does more than separate the good from the bad. An invisible line to some and blurred lines to others, there are deep emotions attached to this term as it means so many different things to different people. To some it means incarceration for life or death; for some it means a lengthy separation from family and friends.  

There are too many people that work there it is a means of job security as it is very likely such a place will never disappear and dissipate into the fog or air. No man’s land is here to stay. No man’s land means doing time and doing time means profits to some. Regardless of what your thoughts are, for the past twenty years prisons and jails have grown and become a major industry in our country. America is the world’s leader in jailing and imprisoning people. Strangely, the United States incarcerates 25 per cent of the world’s prison population when in fact it only represents 5 per cent of the world population. It is no secret that the prison industrial complex has received much needed help from legislators enabled by many lobbyists that have paid a good price to see the industry grow exponentially in size and in costs.

The fact remains, America is under siege with many of their young men and women facing jail time or doing time in the penitentiary for breaking felony laws. Our country has waged an internal war against drugs, the border, Wall Street corruption and violence inside our communities and schools. Regardless of what we have done to make it safer, prisons remain full and alternatives are sparsely used in fear of letting out those that might harm or children or families thus release is guarded and deliberately stalled to control the numbers back on the streets.

The bottom line is we have to realize that this no man’s land is very expensive to maintain – although it may be unproductive and filled with human beings and sometimes void of any living vegetation, resources or structures, it has to be maintained at a top dollar price. The upkeep of such concepts are never ending. This unwanted land saps the financial coffers of local people, states and federal governments beyond their ability to replace the funds draining much more than it will ever give back. Little is realized just how much water and other natural resources are drained into the mouths of dungeons and obscurity.

The only way we can make the costs more bearable is to make it productive. Work on solutions to offer law breakers alternatives while reducing prison populaces and jails so that the costs are reduced and repaid by those who attend their punitive but reformative programs and pay society back.  We must instill personal responsibility and make them aware of all consequences but we need to find a better way to deal with their justice. We need to teach those incarcerated the right ways of society’s rules and consequences for breaking them.

Allowing behavioral and therapeutic treatment plans to work hand in hand with sound security to keep it safe and a better making it more empathetic amongst men and women that find the current existence of no man’s land acceptable although they have never set a foot on such desolate and wasted land.  We need to kill the apathy and bring back common sense and empathy so that we may re-structure what has become our no man’s land in hostile territory.

Are you Ready to be a Leader - A real leader - Are you ready?

Leadership video

Not everyone is a leader and not all persons have the abilities to be a leader. There are tangibles and intangibles you have to deal with internally and externally to prepare yourself for this kind of role. Leadership does not come without a price and sometimes it’s the price you pay that impacts your leadership style and consequences for such behaviors. Once you step up to be perceived and accepted as a leader you must conform to some expectations that may change your life.

The way you talk and use certain words, the words you speak and the body language you use could either contribute or take away your effectiveness as a leader. Leadership adds value to a cause, organization or expectations and vice versa it could also draw away those values set due to lack of credibility or attitudes displayed.

We have all experienced good and bad leadership. Some leaders become even stronger leaders because their values and ethics defined them and their personal brand inspired others. Conversely, I also saw who were in the right place at the right time who conformed in the right way politically right amount of risk (typically, all of it) that made making their leadership efforts appear divine.

Regardless, once you show up for work, leisure or pleasure there are certain expectations and it is important that you uphold such anticipations.

1. First Impressions and dressing the part. “Perception is reality.” People tend to assume what they see is what they get – this is where the pre-game hype is realistic and not overly exaggerated.

2. Play the role. The common perception of a leader is one that is extroverted, confident and speaks well in public. Be who you are and want to be but if you feel you lack some insight chose someone who epitomizes what looks good for you. Be yourself while imagining yourself as that person. .

3. Avoid political correctness - Shoot straight -- avoid the Bull Shit. People can detect BS a mile away, especially if they are skeptical already.

4. Never walk away from difficult questions. True leaders operate without boundaries when it comes to answering questions. They know that transparency and openness brings trust and innovation, and keep it in the right context when making decisions, a concerted effort to answer tough questions demonstrates a commitment to your people.

5. Don’t be too anxious to reply to a question, sometimes you just have to listen. Not everybody needs a solution. Sometimes, the best thing a leader can do is just listen to issues and challenges. Demonstrate your interest by actively taking notes and then follow up with an action plan.

6. Be yourself and try to be sincerely candid. How you present yourself on stage, in a meeting or in a hallway encounter should be consistent and authentic, because the second you appear fake it raises a red flag you are not who you appear to be.

Being genuine, sincere and open speaks to who you are and anything less gives rise to skepticism and raised eyebrows. No matter where you go, make sure you show up with the right “leadership hat” on, because a leader’s work is never done.

 

Ryan’s Comeuppance

As the director of Arizona prison system, Charles L. Ryan has an uphill challenge on his hands as his prisons are exploding into blazing rings of fire due to hatred racial motives within, while under fire for the severe assaults and attacks on his own correctional officers and employees statewide. He is definitely under fire and as expected, will soon receive his comeuppance through a chain of events that will seal his fate.

There are multiple reasons for his personal demise and professional punishment to occur. He has been a pivotal political figure in Arizona prison strategies since 2009 and has not taken one speck or share for the poor accountability and responsibility how his administration has failed to protect Arizona citizens and its employees. His inactions to diminish violence inside the prisons towards staff and inmate on inmate attacks will draw opportunistic attacks from those candidates that disagree with his management style and will use the pulpit to express such a ruins.

Once a tough talking director that came on board with promises to reduce prison violence on staff and control inmate misconduct, he has pretty much thrown in the towel in succeeding in this mission and has been focusing heavily on making sure that expanding beds becomes a thriving business for the private prison contributors. His statistics indicating failures has grabbed the news headlines and summoned him to the Capitol more than once. It is clear the governor does not want the prison system to become one of her biggest political controversies and if it doesn’t come under control soon, it will be her worst nightmare since taking office.

Tampering with legislative approved rosters / charts and allocated full time employee staffing patterns he chopped these rosters down to the bare bones. Claiming and blaming the prior administration for such cuts worked for a while but then, he started his own butchery and now these facilities are running with skeleton crews on graveyard and severely shorted days and swing shifts with the inmates outnumbering them at two hundred and fifty to one on any given day of the week. This meddling was not just focused on staffing as he directed staff to alter or modify risk assessment policies and inmate classification systems to meet the needs of private prison beds and maximum custody beds in solitary confinement where he is currently planning to expand this custody level to another 500 beds in Lewis Complex.

I remember how he deliberately and methodically demolished the existing inmate employment system and what we called the capacity program under the previous director. Reducing educational programs, mental health treatment, and eliminating inmate jobs led to large unemployment conditions that allowed gang activities to enlarge and cultivate. Idleness, lack of staff and overcrowding are the three main ingredients for a riot and this man ignored each and every one of these elements.

Selected and nominated by private prison supporters to embrace and nurture the private prison growth in Arizona, he has now become the talk of the town amongst his own supporters and likely has become a liability in their eyes. In fact, some are pleased to see this man get a bit of southwestern comeuppance as his records begins to reflect failures rather than successes. Unfortunately there is no suitable replacement for this man that will keep the private beds growing as Charles L. Ryan has.

Some will not forgive him for his mistakes and others will call for his resignation in public even after the next catastrophe coming soon. Although I expect him to apologize profusely and announce that everything is under control, he has weathered a tough road beginning with the baking of a prostitute in the blistering Southwest desert when she was left in the scorching sun and 120 degree red-hot weather without any shade or supervision by staff and died there from a heat stroke.

 

Strangely even with the media pounding him on this horrific death and revision of policies concerning the use of outdoor recreation holding enclosures, there were several instances within the next few months that resulted in staff being disciplined for not following new policies regarding the length of stay inside such closures and the requirements for such placements.

Then the weakness and vulnerability of the Kingman prison illustrated poor judgment by the prison officials to send convicted murderers and high risk offenders to a facility that was designed to hold DUI offenders and not hard core criminals that have links to violence, drug dealing, gangs and murder. It was a nightmare that Kingman residents briefly endured because the escapees (all three of them plus their female accomplice) hijacked a semi-truck and left Arizona as soon as they could heading East to New Mexico where there was a double homicide committed to carjack their truck and camper. Even after the capture of all three escapees, it became evident that Kingman was an easy escape trick.

Gang violence has been escalating and nothing has seemed to stop their blatant disregard for law and order. Although expected, there has been weak counteracting measures taken to stop their predatory behaviors. Now he is facing numerous staff attacks and a racial war that is so volatile a single spark will ignite the entire state within hours. The riots have been minimized by censoring the news but mostly by the inmates themselves as staff don’t have the numbers to quell any disturbance until all resources are gathered statewide to fight the containment and melee. So far, Arizona has been spared a race war but the flames are growing and the hate is mounting.

Since taking office he has not taken one step towards rehabilitation or increased programing to avoid idleness inside his prisons and make his front gates to the prisons accessible for drugs, cell phones and other contraband. In the course of neglecting gang activities he has empowered these thugs to run the yards with the acknowledgment of administrative officials impotent to stop their recruitment and fierceness. Since his appointment as the director, he has eliminated staffing at points of ingress and egress making the introduction of contraband easy for anyone allowed to enter the premises – staff, visitors or contract employees.

He has increased the role of community corrections but has failed to encourage the criminal justice system to use alternative programing for the severely mentally ill and those first time offenders found guilty of substance abuse and other controlled substances. His silence on offering alternatives to incarceration has cost the state’s prison budget to exceed one billion dollars and more expenditures are expected in the next legislative request for prison funds.

Charles L. Ryan has not been held accountable for these catastrophes. What he has done is shuffle his own personal circle of influence and friends around the state to put them at the helm sort of speak and made them wardens to suit his own personal needs and control. Closing these warden’s offices to the selected few ensured him a tight control on communications and disciplinary on staff and keep the prison run the way he has set up his personal agenda since taking office.

His modus operandi has been simple – punish those that fail him –promote those that show loyalty and get rid of those that oppose him. Needless to say, time will tell if this strategy is enough for him to survive or if this becomes part of his comeuppance. He has demonstrated a bully pattern. Through his ultimate wisdom he fought for new hires to come on board as at-will employees which gave him the ability to hire and fire at will if these individuals did not possess the qualities he sought to operate his prisons. He changed the disciplinary due process and created opportunities for staff to be disciplined and sanctions based on confidential information, innuendos and rumors.

Reflecting and citing his inability to control violence, gangs, drugs, homicides, suicides, accidental deaths and serious attacks [including a sexual assault or rape] inside a medium prison] the prison system is going to hell. These incidents are proof that once again the most dangerous place on the earth today is the Arizona prison system. Will these scandals affect his job? Will he be removed by the Governor before her term is over? How damaging is this to Governor Brewer and what will she do?

 I strongly suspect she will leave him alone until her term is expired at the end of this year. I strongly suspect that litigation will be overwhelming in the Parsons versus Ryan lawsuit and that the state will lose or settle that case to avoid further damage or costs. Eventually the truth will come out and illustrate how bad this director performed his job as a state appointed public official. I have no doubt about that.

His criticism will be overwhelming but nothing good can be said about those who kept their silence in check as they endorsed his dwindling performance. I suspect the federal government will launch an inquiry and see what was done to mirror violations of civil right laws within the prisons and healthcare. I strongly expect his critics and opponents in ideology and correctional practices to really dig at him as they are his real nemeses.

Regardless of the end, he will get his comeuppance as when it is all said and done – he owns this mess and fixing it will cost the state much more than what they have invested to tear it down like they have in the past five years. The reversal of the damage done will bring to the attention of the gross neglect that occurred under his watch and how many people, citizens, employees and inmates suffered needlessly because of inattention to his duties and sworn oath to keep Arizona safe and protect those that serve him and the state in the capacity of correctional officers or correctional employees who have always given their 110 percent to keep things going when the support from above was oblivious and non-coming when they needed it the most.