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Catherine Hoke

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137

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2018-01-21

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2018-01-21

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1

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1. “To being the land of second chances that we claim to be. So Tim, thank you for the opportunity to share our mission and my story. And I see it as a big responsibility and a huge privilege to be a voice on behalf of people who are incarcerated who become voiceless and often written off and voteless. And so it's my honor to get to share some of our story with all of you. Thank you.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

2. “Here's what I will say to anyone who's listening, I'm in prison all the time, so please keep it really short and sweetened to the point. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but if you want to get involved with Defy, first of all, you can go to defyventures.org, but if you want to email me, my email address is cat at defyventress.org C-A-T at defyventures.org and tell me if you would like to come to prison or if you'd like to have us come speak at your organization or how you would like to get involved if you want to provide a scholarship to one of our EITs we would be really grateful if you would become even more of an advocate of second chances and share this message with other people because I always say who would our country be? Who would we all be if we lived up?”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

3. “Tim getting to speak with you is one of the greatest honors that I've had. I was really excited about this because I know how influential your audience is and am I allowed to share my email address, Tim?”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

4. “To my own life. Yeah, I guess I live in a sort of morbid thing, morbid sense, but like time is limited for all of us. And I want to have the greatest impact and the shortest amount of time. So how do I use the gifts that I have been given? This is my generous hustle. This is my ability to share something with the world that only I can create.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

5. “Morbid. Yeah, I don't care how morbid it sounds. At Defy, we have our EITs write their eulogies. And I've done that. And in fact, we have them write two eulogies. And this is a pretty good exercise that other people could try too. One of them is your current trajectory eulogy. Like if you died now doing your same old, same old and you didn't make major changes in your life, what would your eulogy say? And how do you feel about it? Most people wouldn't be super satisfied with it. And then we have them right their ideal but realistic eulogy. Like if you lived your best life that is realistic for you also, what would that look like? And then the most important part is write out the ten changes that you need to make to get from A to B and then prioritize them and pick your top three things that you can start doing today to live a better life. And so I apply all these little DeFi exercises.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

6. “I've been working within some pretty intense gang cultures at some reconciliation efforts. And for some reason, this white girl here is trusted enough by these people to talk about some big transformation efforts. So that's what I'm focusing on. I'm working very hard and swiftly to get other things off of my plate. So I don't have responsibility for them. It's scary to me to lose control over them too. But I have such amazing staff at Defy Now nationally that I'm glad to give away that responsibility so I can focus on my top 5%. Like, if I died in a year, what would I spend my time doing? I ask myself that all the time, and I know that that might sound like a little bit.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

7. “What is my gift that I bring into this world is something I ask myself nearly every day. And I've really been honing in on this lately. I just hired a president for Defyventers, and his name is Roger Gordon, and I'm so excited to partner with this guy. He will run the day-to-day operations of DeFi because that's not me. It's not what I like to do. I don't love managing people. I don't pretend that I'm the best in the world at it. But I do know that I'm highly innovative and I can see problems and come up with solutions. I know that I'm a strong external representative for Defy. So doing more speaking engagements. Although I don't love raising money, I'm good at it. So I'm going to keep doing that. But I also know that I have the ability to earn the trust of the people that we work with.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

8. “Yes, so when I was going through my resignation, I've had a lot of opportunity to study what leads to people bombing out and failing. I read a book called Leading On Empty by Wayne Cordero. It has sort of like a Christian spin to it as a disclaimer for your audience. But I mean, a lot of us leaders or people who have big goals will lead on empty or drive ourselves to empty. And this book, similar to essentialism or a lot of other good business books, asked a question like, what is the 5% that only I can do that no one else can do? And why am I spending all this time doing other things that so many other people can do, even if I can maybe do them better in my own arrogance, right? So asking myself, what's my 5%? Like what's my secret sock?”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

9. “People of color in particular, and the harshness and the disparities of sentencing is something that I really want to be able to use my voice and not just my voice or opinions, but defies results and defies amazing community of supporters. I want to fix it.”

   2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

10. “You haven't been given due process, and your bail is $500 and you're sitting in jail and you can't prove your innocence because you don't have an attorney, you're going to sit there maybe for six months until they wear you out and then they convince you to plead guilty to a charge. And if you don't have economic resources to get a good attorney, you're probably going to plead guilty. And they'll tell you, oh, if you plead guilty to this lesser felony or this misdemeanor, it won't be a big deal. In six months, maybe your girlfriend has left you, your employer has dropped you, like the world has changed. Oh, by the way, now you have a criminal history too. Good luck getting a job, and you're super down on yourself because you've just spent six months waiting in a cell, getting dehumanized every single day. That's the kind of stuff. The way that”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

11. “Because of the color of their skin or their economic status, how beat above a car they drive. And a lot of studies show that white people and black people use and sell drugs at same rates. But in some states, if you're a person of color, you'll be sentenced at 20x the amount that a white person might be sentenced. Or like the Brock Turner case, the cute little Stanford swimmer boy who raped a girl and got six months for that. I mean, if he were not so cute or so white or such a fast swimmer, he would have gotten life in prison. And so I look forward to working on sentencing reform efforts and bail and bond reform efforts because right now, if you're picked up by the police,”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

12. “Five years in prison is a turning point for many people after they've served five years. That's long enough to take ownership and then to not recidivate. And there are other countries that are far more progressive about rehabilitation efforts and about not just making it about punishment, but about being correction. So I am looking forward to the day when 76.6% of people in prison don't recidivate. But beyond preventing recidivism and also preventing generational incarcerations and 70% of the children of incarcerated people go to prison, the other piece of this that I want to tackle is the way that we sentence people, the way that we even arrest people. So in our country, some people look more arrestable than others.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

13. “So America has 5% of the world's population and 22% of the world's prison population. We love to lock people up and throw away the key. We are the only country in the world that routinely sentences children to life in prison. So we have a 14-year-old who makes a bad decision and then they're going to die in prison. And according to everything I've seen,”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

14. “My vision, I would love to put Defy out of business by ending mass incarceration. I know that there will always be incarceration in the world. There doesn't always need to be mass incarceration the way Do that in America.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

15. “Okay, well, so For defy, my vision is that I would like Defy to be able to serve in every major prison in America, defined as having more than 500 incarcerated people there, and every major city. Within my lifetime. So I started modeling kind of back of the envelope, well, a little Excel involved on a reasonable growth rate for what we can accomplish. And according to my projections, if we keep going, right now Defy, as of 2017, we're in. And so by the time we were 53, I think we can serve in every major prison and have corresponding post release, employment, and mentoring and incubator. So if I miss a mark and I'm 58, that's fine. But right now, I actually believe that we'll make it by the time I'm 53”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

16. “So I'm terrible at recalling names of the books that I love like just randomly like this. I will say that the book Essentialism really had a big”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

17. “Yeah, sometimes I go away in an ideal world and I say ideally because I haven't executed perfectly on this, but sometimes every quarter I'll take a three day business monk day. And sometimes I've even gone away for a one week business monk day, meaning no scheduled appointments. And what I have found to be most effective for me, this might sound silly, but like when I get out of the country, so I go to Mexico and I sit my like a cool resort. I go by myself. And for some reason, when I'm out of the country, I'm not going to schedule phone calls or other appointments with people. So then I just work. And like at Defy, we have, we're working currently on 2,400 pages of new curriculum. So it's a time for me to get away, but it's a dedicated work time. Away from the daily scramble.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

18. “So I have a personal monk day once a month, and I've done this for like, I don't know, 12 years or 15 years or something, a long time in my life. It's been a longstanding habit. And then I separately have business monk days. So personal monk day is no email, no phone. Business monk day is, I can have email and I can work on work stuff with some of my closest colleagues, but I have no scheduled appointments, which is freedom for me because my calendar is usually scheduled too insanely. But on a business monk day, it's like time for me to just work and get work done with staff. Answer emails too.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

19. “Sometimes their songs are not all the most relaxing, like they play a lot of pop songs in vitamin form, but sometimes I listen to that while I'm cooking. I like to sew a lot too. So when I'm sewing and stuff, I jam out to vitamins drink quartet.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

20. “World and thinking about what I want in my voice and impact to be for the next 40 years. And I didn't make really turbo plans for like my 80th birthday or anything, but I have it. I have a pretty strong plan until I'm 53. And that's far enough for me. But I felt like so good about taking that time out to evaluate and to say, what do I really want? And then reading a lot of books that help to guide me in that direction. So I like to have a good plan because I'm like a freight train. And if I have the right direction, I hit it in that direction. And then I bounce my plans after my month day off of mentors and people who look out for me to make sure that I'm making good plans.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

21. “Yeah, I also have a walking treadmill desk and I absolutely love it because I feel like when I'm on it, I'm being kind to myself like I'm burning free calories and I like to be fit and work out. So sometimes first thing in the monk day, I'll get on my walking treadmill desk with a book that I love to read. And I just start reading it and I start taking notes. And I have these awesome headphones and I'm some like blaring yeah my little nerdy violin or piano music and it calms me and it takes me out of the world and then I start taking notes like right before I turn 40 I had a series of really amazing monk days and I spent the last six months of monk days before I turned 40 doing an in-depth like evaluation like a review of my first forty years and then thinking about my impact on”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

22. “Keep doing this. I don't eat it in the morning, but like an awesome medium rare steak is my favorite steak, oysters, red wine. I'm a happy camper. I don't eat that for breakfast usually I like eggs. I love poached eggs. But when I do something that's kind to myself, sometimes on a monk day I'll even go and get a massage, for example. Because it shows me out, and I'm super hyper normally. I wake up and I'm like a crazy honey badger first thing in the morning Or, like, if I take a bubble bath, that calms my spirit too, you know? And I play like sleet violin music. And I actually have like baby lullabies on my playlist. That probably sounds really creepy. I do think to quiet myself.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

23. “So, for me, monk day is just like working out. The process leading up to is really painful. It's because I know that for a full day, this sounds silly, but for a full day, I'm not going to be able to email or talk to people. So the day before, I'm like trying to squeeze in every last thing. And it's just like with a workout, I'm usually like. Go for a long walk or read this book or think about this issue. And so my email's off, my phone's off, my staff knows they can't reach me. And I usually do something that is really nice to me to start off the day. So eat my favorite food or”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

24. “No, it can be any day, but it's during the week. I don't do it during the weekend, and it's a time for me to reflect on my leadership, my priorities, new initiatives. It's when I get creative. And my whole life is so extroverted. I travel all the time. I'm speaking on a stage in prison. And my life is like a flurry. And so quiet, reflective time Is deeply important to me, and it's usually when I scheme up good, exciting ideas too, and get perspective.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

25. “Timeout when I get super overwhelmed, I'll actually take a timeout and cancel stuff and just I need to have some space. I take like a monthly monk day is what I call it, no phone, no email. It's one of the best things I do. I recommend it to everybody.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

26. “So, I recently read the book Essentialism, and I loved a whole framework for making decisions, and I shared that with some staff that helps me to control my calendar and opportunities and want to say yes to or no. And so if I get overwhelmed, I'll be like, all right, let's take a step back. I also have a one sheet with my priorities right in front of me. And I look at it every day. And it says, for example, my favorite place to be is in prison, but because I love the journey of transformation and the amazing, I feel like I see miracles every day. But my sheet says, if I really love REITs, my strict number one responsibility will be fundraising so that I can make sure that I'm creating more opportunities for people who are incarcerated who have been praying for a shot at a second chance. So I keep my priorities, not just top of mind, but physically in front of me. I like need to be able to see it. And then I'll ask other people for help.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

27. “I'll show them the list and be like, can you help me decide what is really important and what I can say no to? Because sometimes the more overwhelmed I get, the less good of a decision maker I also become and things can get cloudy.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

28. “Yeah, well, it depends on how overwhelmed I'm feeling. So if I'm feeling like sort of overwhelmed, then I'll make a list of my priorities and I will bounce them off of staff member that I really trust to help me to get my priorities straight because when I have like clear marching orders and priorities, it helps me to become less overwhelmed.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

29. “Well meaning religions, for example, can create this environment where we can say that yes, we've sinned in the past or we've made a mistake in the past, but now when we show up at church on Sunday, we're all wearing the perfect outfit. How's your wife blessed? How's your job? Great. How are you? Happy. And there's a culture of oppression. And then I believe that sin thrives in secrecy. And so if there's like an audience, especially I could say forgive yourself. You're just human too. It's especially an environments where people are forced to act more perfect than others. And that might be, for example, in the Deep South where there's religion. It might be a Stanford Business School where everyone has to be the A-plus student too and has to be the very best.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

30. “I would say forgive yourself. And I would. Maybe I would put it in Vegas, but I think a better place in Vegas would be I have a big heart. For people who live in a culture of Judgment and oppression, and sometimes”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

31. “Right. You have a choice. You can keep yourself locked up in your head. A past decision forever, or we can help you to get out of your own prison, your choice.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

32. “The idea is if people who have royally screwed up their lives and the lives of other people, if they can forgive themselves and gain forgiveness from other people, get back on their feet, start legal businesses, and build an incredibly successful new future, you can do it too. And many of us suffer from this shame of mine is worse than yours. Like, oh, if you really knew what I did, it's so much worse, or mine is not recoverable, and that's a message that plays inside our heads. I don't think it's true. Yours isn't worse. You're human and you can bounce back too.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

33. “Is buying and has donated 20,000 copies of the book back to Defy. He's so generous to us and I'm really inspired by his generosity in Cheryl Sandberg's generosity and the way that they have supported our second chance work. I hope that this book, yes, it will open the eyes of people about topics that we've been talking about for the incarcerated, but my other even greater purpose for our readers of this book, a second chance, is that you will decide to give yourself a second chance. I talk a lot about forgiveness like we've talked about, Tim, that you will choose to forgive or give a second chance to other people in your life. Or if you know other people who have been made big mistakes, who are down on themselves, that you'll use this book as a resource for them to achieve. Freedom as well”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

34. “Amazon And Seth Godin has been working as my pro bono publisher every dollar from the book goes directly to creating life-changing opportunities for people through scholarships for Defy. And so it's not going into a publisher's pocket. And speaking of gifting, like Seth”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

35. “I regularly gift books to other people. And up until recently, the book that I most regularly gifted is Cheryl Sandberg's book, Option B, because it's closely related to the work that I do. And Cheryl is the most inspiring. Woman that I know, and I really respect her. She's on my executive council. And so I love her book option B on healing and building a new future and Cheryl, I feel very spoiled about this. Cheryl wrote the foreword to my own book called A Second Chance. And so now the book that I'm gifting even more than option B is my own book, A Second Chance.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

36. “That are on parenting. And for example, how to answer tough questions when your kid asks you, Daddy, have you ever used drugs? What to say about that? So the parenting courses and the forming a new identity courses are really valuable. And then I also like to think that our employment series is pretty sweet. Like I teach a course called how to write a resume when you've done 19 years in prison and the creative things that you can come up with to put on resume, not lie about it.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

37. “Seth Godin has taught a course, multiple courses for us on ideation strategies. Jerry Colonna has taught a course on the fear of the entrepreneur and how to get to the other side of that. Union Square Ventures, venture capitalists, we've recorded live pitches of our released men and women pitching in their offices and then the feedback that they're giving to entrepreneurs. Tim Draper has taught a course for us. Kleiner Perkins, one of the partners from there, has recorded a course. So we have amazing courses in entrepreneurship that range from how to come up with a smart business idea to how to scale it. We have courses in how to market your business and hiring and firing and creating culture. The other 70% of our courses”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

38. “Volunteers having access to this amazing stuff too. For example, we have eight courses in etiquette training taught by an Emily Post instructor. And many of our volunteers have told me, is there any way that my husband can get access to those courses? Say, sure, if you'll make them watch them. So, yes, we'd be glad to share the resources.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

39. “But most of our courses actually don't have those kinds of restrictions on them. And so we're happy to make those available to people. But I would say my little hook is I want you doing something for a second chances in our country. So don't just come and take a course and become a contributor too. If you become a contributor to Defy, we would be glad to make our, we make our courses available on our online platform where you have to have the secret code, but we make our online courses available because I want”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

40. “So, we don't just make it available to anybody. So, for example, some of our courses that are taught by Henry Cloud, a top therapist, or the Harvard and Stanford MBA courses, Harvard and Stanford don't want us just like making that available to anybody. So it's available to people who are in our program. So I guess you have to go commit a felony first.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

41. “Yeah, our website defyventures. We're a nonprofit has a lot of information about DeFi. So we have 100 courses inside, 100 courses outside. And with our donors, we even share some of our online courses that are amazing. So in prison, people don't usually have online access. And so our courses are DVD-based. Outside, they're on an online platform. And so for our donors, we are even able to share them because I tell our volunteers, I don't want just our guys to forgive themselves and to be the CEOs of their new lives. I want you to live your fullest life too. So we're happy sharing is caring.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

42. “And I was like, yeah, that would suck. Okay, that would suck. But the worst thing that will probably happen is Say, if you stand up in front of the panel and you just go and you can't think of a single word, you still win, you graduate, you cross a stage, you make yourself proud, you make our country proud. Then they graduate and they deliver their pitches. An amazing way every time they surprise themselves at what they're able to do.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

43. “of people who have made grave mistakes and who are getting back on their feet and who are trying again because you could have given up on yourselves, you could have given up on your future, you could give up on being a father going forward. So I'll tell you what, I care about your pitch because I care about you. I really don't care about your pitch, but because you want to win and you're competitive tough guys? All right, fine. I care about your pitch. So when you stand up tomorrow, there's going to be a panel of five to ten of these sharks. First of all, these sharks want you to win. They're coming here because they believe in second chances and underdogs. When you stand up in front of the panel and then we say, what's the worst thing that could happen? And they're pretty funny. They're like, oh, I pass out or I forget my words or I freeze up or I look stupid. And I'm like, what's worse than that? What's worse than that? One of them once said, I defecate myself.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

44. “And tomorrow if you fail in your pitch, you are not a failure. And more than that, I do not care about your pitch, and they all kind of like look at me. They feel offended when I say that. Don't care about your pitch. I care about you and I care about your future. And I have given so many pitches in my life. And sometimes I give a great one and sometimes I'm like, man, I bomb that. And your pitch doesn't matter. Your future, you and your future matters, and you are arriving to this moment of graduation and you crossing the stage and earning this MBA certificate and making your families proud and making yourself proud, you have defied the odds. How many of you have thought about quitting at some point? And every hand goes up. I'm like, see, you know, and sometimes you guys say that quitting is not an option. Well, guess what? Quitting is always an option. You just chose not to take that option. I am proud of you. I am proud of what we are accomplishing together. Our country needs to see more success stories.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

45. “Cap and gown. Half of them first time in a cap and gown. Raise your hand if your family is coming tomorrow to witness your proudest moment. Half of them, not all of our families can make it. And then I tell them so guess what? I know for the past year you have been working on your pitch, but only about twenty or thirty percent of Defy's program is around entrepreneurship in their pitch, like the other 70% is around employment readiness and shame reduction and forgiveness and technology skills and parenting courses and all that. So I tell them, although you've been working for the past year in your pitch and this pitch, you feel like your life is on the line, guess what? Your life is not on the line.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

46. “I believe in you. I know you can do this, and I know that for the past year takes about a year to complete inside and they take a hundred courses. And some of these courses are taught by Harvard and Stanford, MBA professors, and then they're taking a lot of like courses taught by therapists that are doing deep inner work. And it's this whole journey. And when they finish it, they earn our curriculum has been vetted by Baylor University's MBA program. So the next day, they're about to receive a Baylor University MBA program certificate. And our men and women and youth that we serve average in eighth grade education. So I tell them the day before, I'm like, you are about, for many of you, this is the biggest accomplishment of their lives. And in fact, I say, raise your hand if this represents the biggest accomplishment of your life. 90% of them raising their hand. Raise your hand if this is going to be your first time.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

47. “And at this particular prison, more than half of the guys had committed the crime of murder. So these are, you know, tough guys. And I walk in and I was like, what? You guys are crying and thinking about dropping out. Like, don't tell me you're a bunch of chickens now. Like when you rob that banker, when you did this or that, like, you know, you didn't let your fear stop you from doing what you wanted to do. And I'm playing with them. And they laugh. But then I tell them.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

48. “This is about what we're doing in our country. Other people wish that they could be you right now participating in Defy. We get stocks of jail mail at Defy from all over the country with people who are saying, please, all I want is a second chance. So they all want to win the competition and we have like quarterfinals and then semifinals and then we have finals and then the top five finalists get like these IOU checks from the stage that they get to cash out when they're admitted into our post-release incubator when they want to start their actual business if they want to. I don't care if they want to start their business. We get them into jobs when they get out of prison and that's why we have a 95% employment rate. But the night before when we're at a pitch practice and the guys are so nervous about the competition and some of them the first time we ever had a competition in prison for defy the warden called the night before and he's like can you come in here because these guys are like having anxiety tax and they're crying.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

49. “And so we make sure that we have the affirmation. So we tell, I know you can do it. And sometimes there are people who are lacking in confidence. And we certainly, we go a long way to reassure them and to tell them that they can do it. And we also tell them, you know, when you're competing tomorrow in our pitch competition, this is not just about you.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

50. “So, I'm a competitor, and I believe that competition done the right way can bring out the best in all of us. And so when we have 100 EITs in prison, and by the way, we run these competitions also outside of prison. So for real business ideas, like inside prison, it's an ideation competition and an outside prison. They're actually incorporated businesses that are competing for real capital. Inside prison, when we have 100 guys who are competing and the night before, we ask them, who's going to win? And all these guys raised their hands. So first of all, the people that we work with are very competitive. They're tough guys, and they like to win. And many of the people that we work with, if I tell them, bet you can't do it, they'll puff their chest out and they will do it and they'll defy a lot of odds.”

    2018-01-21 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #293: Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT