The Suicide Prevention Movement with Ms Jackie & Rocky Singh Kandola
We're about to go into a place that many people have never contemplated. Thank goodness, because we're going to go behind bars and into what really creates prisoners. Let’s start with what’s the definition of a prisoner? What's the definition of a jail? What if not all jails have bars?
Jackie:
Welcome to the suicide prevention show, where we are waking up the world. And we're about to go into a place that many people have never contemplated. Thank goodness, because we're going to go into what creates prisoners and what is the definition of a prisoner. And as it says, what's the definition of a jail. And to take us on that journey, I'd like you to help me welcome to the studio. Rocky, Rocky, join us. Turn on your camera. Let's go for this.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
All of us, Jackie. Good morning.
Jackie:
Yay. I like your flowers. Do what you love.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Yes. Yes. All right.
Jackie:
So what do you love right now before we get into anything heavy and deep dive in, what do you love?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
I'm thinking about it right now. I love my morning routine. I wake up early at the meditation. I relax. I sit down, I go to the gym, I clean up. I kind of just focus on what I'm about to do for the day and slowly get into my work a little bit interested in emails and I love it. I love having my early mornings and they, you know, get me started on the right foot every day.
Jackie:
Cool, cool, cool. Cool. All right, we're going to talk about jail. We're gonna talk about prison. We're going to talk about all of these things because you have a very unique perspective. So why don't you give some story, introduce people to who you are and how you came to be talking about this?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Definitely. So my name is Rocky Singh Kandola. I'm 35 years old. I currently live in Los Angeles. I was born in New York City. My parents were first-generation directly from India. So jumping right in the way. You're speaking about ‘’jail’’ and prisons and institutions for me started at a very young age. Starting from 11 years old, I started going to institutions and boot camps or gulags schools. They call them all across the world from Mexico to Canada. Places that are now shut down from, you know, child abuse, rape, torture and all kinds of stuff like that that are still in operation. So from the young age of 11 to about 17/18, that was my life. A lot of it was in survival mode, fight or flight mode.
Jackie:
Wait a minute, hold it. You got to slow this down a little bit, a Gulag school?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
That's like a name for them. Like what they kind of call them. If you don't the actual name for the ones I went to were called the Worldwide association of speciality programs where basically, yeah.
Jackie:
It was pretty, you know, positive the worldwide association of speciality programs.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Exactly. And they worked very hard to make them sound and look, you know, pretty positive. And you know, a lot of them have been uncovered recently with Paris Hilton doing a big documentary called this is Paris you know, where she went to one of those schools as well in us. And you know, there, there anything could be further from the truth. You know, there are very abusive and very manipulative both to the parents that are looking to just, you know, help their child out and not sure where to turn and feeling overwhelmed and as well as the children who go through them.
Jackie:
So I'm going to ask a couple of questions about this Rocky, if you don't mind, because what would prompt a parent to go looking for a speciality school?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
You know, from a personal stance, my father was just starting a practice, you know, in Mississippi new to the country as well. And you know, from what they're used to in India, they're used to very mindful kids because listen and study and go home and respect their elders. And I was a bit of a louder child. I was very outspoken, very talkative, very, very hyper I was wanting to be out and about. And they just didn't know how to deal with me. And then my two twin brothers and sisters and you know, I was kind of the black sheep that they didn't, they couldn't control couldn't handle. So I think it was kind of an innocent thing. He just started looking in the back of newspaper ads and finally saw one that said, Hey, do you want to reclaim your child and bring love back into your family? And him being in a high functioning that doctors wanted to handle the issue quickly, he just kinda called I'm not sure how much research he did, but he, he just went from there and they're not overwhelmed and signed me up and off. I went.
Jackie:
So you went into a program to that from your dad's point of view, was to help reclaim you into the family with love exactly what happened.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So I went to the same program twice. The first time I was 11 or 12, the second time I was about 17. The second time I was actually like, basically kidnapped out of my bed with my ankles, because of my hands' cuff and escorted by these two guys that were so tall and had to turn off my fan in the bedroom for them to stand over me. The first time I was told that I was going to be going to a nice summer camp, we'll spend some time there and they were going to help me. And there was like just these and pools and this and that. And my mother flew with me to San Diego and dropped me off there. And we drove down and Sonata. And as soon as we got, there were these big four walls, a red building and you get in and everything seems okay enough. But as soon as you get to the point where you leave your mother and you go to the next door everything changes, the hallways, get dirty, the lights get dark, they start screaming at you and pushing you, ripping your clothes off, cutting your hair pursing at you and telling you, we don't know how long they're going to be here, written over here for a very long time. You know, so get used to it and it just gets the second you walk past those doors, you're like, you're in shock. You sleep in the hallway for 10 days. You've woken up in the middle of the night at 2:00 AM to do ahead in the rain. There's no communication with the outside world nor with your peers inside. Everything's very strict and regimented and kind of built around a brainwashing type of mentality. As well as, you know, physically, sexually and mentally abusive staff.
Jackie:
Wow. How long were you in that environment being cut off from your parents?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
The first time I was there for seven months and the second time at 17, I was there for roughly the same time.
Jackie:
So for seven months, your parents had no contact with you?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Exactly. We were allowed to write letters once a week and receive letters from our parents only however, they were severely redacted. If we said anything negative or manipulative, as they seemed, you know, about the program, what was happening, they would give it back to us and tell us to rewrite it. You know, phone calls could be heard and at a certain time on stage and I never got to that level. Because you know, it's a business, a for-profit business. If, if the children are getting out too fast they're not going to make any money. So the only way to get out was either to be graduated, the program, which they don't tell you how long it takes to be pulled out by our parents or to wait until you're 18. And then at 18, you get put on the border of the US Mexico with $50 and a bus ticket. We were taught that since day one. And that's the program.
Jackie:
Okay. So the good news is you said these, those were shut down.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Well, no. There's many of them still in existence that the program, in particular, I went to WWASP has the ownership. A lot of them still work in the industry but they've changed names and reopened different areas. I had the chance to visit the one that I went to as a kid in Mexico and paid a guard to walk through. I made a YouTube video about walking through so many of the brothers and sisters. I went there with like, wow, thank you. Like my nightmare is so much worse. I'm so glad it's closed. However, as we're talking I've learned that there's another one open about an hour and a half away from that school. So they're continuously popping up again and again.
Jackie:
So this is a case of parents be aware, watch out for the promises and anything that prevents you from having contact with your kids. So, oh my God. When you came out of that program what happened next for you?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So I was about 12 or 13 and when I came out of the school I was in before you know, all my friends, you know, from, you know, grade school, growing up, I was sent automatically to a quote-unquote like high-class private school about 30 minutes away from my home that my father bought a home there for us to hold our, this private school. And, you know, me, just coming out of this situation, I was in most of the kids there, you know, had issues with drugs and gangs and violence. And we're quite a bit older than me. I was one of the youngest ones there. So to be from that, put into like this type of school, all of a sudden, and then these people already knew my story because they heard me on the, on the roll call for six months while I show up, because I was in this school, they were like, oh, Rocky's that kid that stole his parents' car and got sent to Mexico. And now he's in school with us. So I already had this kind of build-up there. And that time there, I was taken out of that school, maybe six months later after a kid, you know, said something means to me and I kind of threatened him back. And you know, that was kind of my reaction at that time. If someone tries to bother me or hurt me, I felt like I would have to lash back very quickly. Otherwise, I'll be seen as someone that could be hurt and taken advantage of. So getting kicked out of there just kind of spiralled into me going from there to military school and then to another facility and then back to Catholic boarding school and public school. And then when I was in the public school, back in my hometown, where I started I quickly kind of fell into the crowd of like partying and drinking you know, at 17 years old. And on the way back from spring break, one year I got pulled over by the police. I wasn't driving, but we had alcohol in the car and got charged with minors in possession of alcohol and a week or so later I came home late one night. I saw my father on the couch and I already knew that like what could happen to be, to me to get sent to these schools, he was already upset with me. So I closed my door. I put my desk in front of my door, my dog and my room kept like a hammer and knife under my bed. And I was scared to sleep. But somehow they opened the door without me hearing it, called my dog out and woke me up with my hands and my feet cuffs. And I was headed back to the same facility or different facility by the same program with actually the same owners who kind of like when I was there at the first time, he like, basically beat me up, kicked me down the hallway and tied my hands and feet behind my back for 1, 2, 3, 4 days. It was. But I laid on the ground and had nothing but orange juice and rice twice a day. And I was heading back there and I was on the border of Canada, New York and Ogdensburg.
Jackie:
Toledo. Your parents had no clue about what was going on in school?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
They didn't. I remember when I first got out, I tried to tell them a little bit and I told them like you know, what happened? And you know that the sexual stuff, the physical stuff. And they were kind of like a little bit sceptical of it. You know, at this point, the schools had told them that your kids are going to manipulate you. They're going to lie to you. So don't believe anything they say.
Jackie:
Wow, okay. So this is a professional brainwashing program. They didn't only brainwash you, they brainwash your parents.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Exactly. Exactly.
Jackie:
So this is like, holy crap, Rocky. I had no idea that when we were talking about prison and jails, you weren't kidding. You didn't even have to be in jail. I mean, you were a kid, you weren't in jail, you were sent to school for parents trying to reclaim you into the family with the loan. Holy crap. All right. So now you're out of this program, you've graduated. You turned 18?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
17. My parents pulled me out when I was 17 after I had graduated high school from there with a fake diploma because the school wasn't accredited even take it out on Diplomas. So I had a fake diploma.
Jackie:
All right. So you're, you're almost a high school graduate and you're back home. What happened next?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So I got accepted into the local university of south Alabama and started college right away. And you know, when I got out, I kind of, had a pretty big chip on my shoulder. I was, I was an adult now and you couldn't tell me anything, authority, nothing at all. I dove headfirst into a lifestyle of partying, doing drugs, selling drugs, women violence, you know, towards me and towards others. Just a crazy, crazy lifestyle that, you know, only lasted for a short couple of years until I was finally arrested for, you know, big changes. And in between there, I got arrested multiple times for possession of drugs and drinking and being out and things of that nature. Until finally I was arrested for the distribution of controlled substances with a hundred COVID sting operation by the federal government and the state government, the local government working together. And that started my time into actual real, they call it big boy jail or prison.
Jackie:
Oh boy. You know, a whole language that most of us don't know anything about big boy jail. Yeah. So what you've got going on in your life now is so dramatically different from this story. What turned it around for you?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So after I got out of prison I was still really kind of in the same mindset a lot. I, I dove right back into the whole lifestyle. I'm not the type of person that you can like scare or punish or hit anymore to make me change. It has to come from within. And that finally came one day in the form of definitely a higher power, definitely higher energy. But also my father asking me, you know, Hey Rocky. And I was assaulted and had all my teeth taken out my jaw crushed. And I finally got my teeth back at this point. And I also, I was done my probation, my after prison care or after prison, I wouldn't say care, whatever you want to call it probation. But he said, Hey, you know, you're not home anymore. You're not living here. We don't know what you're doing, but how about, you know, maybe going somewhere else, getting away from all this, and he'll pay a few to leave the country. You know, you can go wherever you want to go. And then again, you know, I had thought I was smarter. I was ahead of the circle of different people, where I was selling things in. I was, you know, doing, I was addicted to opiates at the time. And I had girlfriends and cars and a bit of money, and I decided I want something different and I want something else. And I don't know what I'm going to do or how it's going to look, but I'm letting go of all this. So I like all of it and left the country.
Jackie:
So your dad gave you a question. How about if you walk away from them?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
And he wasn't even sure. I don't think at that time, what he was asking me, he was just, I guess he had an intuition and that's what I say. It's a higher power that was acting through him and acting for both of us. And it allowed me to make that decision. That was November 4th, 2013, when I finally decided that.
Jackie:
Wow, so November 4th, 2014, where did you go?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
I went to India. I went to India and I live with a family friend on a farm and just started looking at clean life. Just helping him out on his farm, working out daily. I didn't have, you know, marijuana cigarettes. I couldn't communicate with any of my friends much anymore because there was no not much service there and stigma there. And I sold, let go of just all these identities and attachments I had you know, built up if, you know, a party animal, dope boy, Playboy, this and that. And that kind of just slowly came. And me as that time in India, kind of progressed and progressed.
Jackie:
How long did you live on the farm in India?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Life has a pattern of like six or seven months at a time. Everywhere I go. I was here for like six or seven months before I found my now ex-wife who, you know, actually greatly helped me, like in my mindset and my heart kind of move on to a different place in my life. Met her and then that's a whole story that starts from there as well. But I left, we left together and came back to the US and I moved to New Jersey where I didn't know anybody hardly and got married there and I started working teaching tennis and eventually, you know, started the business there as well.
Jackie:
Wow. All right. So even your marriage. Okay. So you said now ex-wife Okay and did your marriage last longer than seven months, I'm curious?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Barely about, about a year and a half, about 15 to 18 months. And then we split up and then we tried it again for about a year, year and a half. And then we split up that was about three years ago almost now that we split up for the last time.
Jackie:
Cool. And it sounds like it was not dramatic. It was not working out.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
It was quite dramatic actually.
Jackie:
There we go. That's why I check my assumption.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Yeah, it was quite dramatic. I was still just getting out of this lifestyle. I was just, I made a promise to myself like I'm not going back to selling drugs and I never did. I never have. However, I was still using quite a bit of marijuana pills here and there and drinking, you know, overly as well. Which added to the problems we had in our relationship. I think communication was a big thing. I have a lot of fear and trust issues myself from my childhood time. And that didn't help the relationship at all. But it had the day we just really were not as compatible as we originally thought we were in our honeymoon phase. And once again, like she's a bright person, she has her problems and issues just like we all do. And we've, you know, since then, you know, talking about most of them and apologize to each other on multiple levels. But you know, it was when we're going through these types of things we can't see the bigger picture. We can't see the end of the tunnel sometimes. So going through was very tough after all I've been through was still even like almost dying in surgeries and prisons and jails and kid through camps. This was one of the toughest things I've dealt with going through that time when we were separating and going through the proceedings and, and leading each other.
Jackie:
Wow! It's interesting. I keep coming back to this thought that yeah, you weren't in prison, but you were still in jail because I can see where trust would be a challenge when you had the experience that you have of your parents trusting an organization.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Exactly, exactly. And I mean, since you've said that to me about, you know, you don't have to be a prisoner to be in jail. It's, it's, it's actually helped me and played my mind so much because I realize that now, and when we become aware of things, I think that's when we can start to change it. That's so true because I remember sometimes in prison, sitting in prison that I felt freer than I did in some of the recent years of my life when I was going through different problems and we can create those in our mind. And when we're stuck in those mindsets and those patterns, we are in a huge sense of the word in jail, in prison. And we can stop ourselves and stop our lives from doing anything that we want to do or anything that we were meant to do while we're there. Yeah. When I first came up with the concept of invisible jails, it was about one of my clients who struggled with dramatic and traumatic PTSD. And they were hijacked is how they described it. I mean, it was standing on his front porch and all of a sudden with no external trigger whatsoever, he was transported back to a very traumatic memory when he was 11 years old, that's an age that's very pivotable, very pivotal for kids. And his was something that happens. I mean, it was a car accident, but his experience of it with his family and what, you know, the ambulance rides and all of the pain and the experience going forward in his life and in his family's life, when the injuries of that, all of a sudden could count for him. And he was just like, not present to the present world at all, and dealing with it all over again, which is my definition of PTSD is when you're reliving the emotional experience for you. You know, he, he was 50 years an invisible jail. That's how I ended up telling his story for you. You had time in a brick and mortar prison, and lots of little things. You also had the experience of being in that school, this physical environment, you know, those are prisons of a time, but then you had all of these experiences in between where you were in jail hijacked by your own. And so you're figuring out how to silence the alarm. It happens, welcome to live shows. So what did, what happened that you finally gave yourself or what happened you went? Because going to India itself was not enough to get you out of jail?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
No, and I mean I guess something, they say, some people learn through like listening to experiences of others. And some people have to kind of learn it themselves. And at that point, when I had gone to India, I'd made some changes and gotten rid of distractions in my life and did what didn't serve me. I wasn't doing it as consciously and as, as like, as a way of awareness when she left the first time and we were in California together my ex-wife I was kind of left homeless. I was in California. I was living in a minivan because we were with her parents and I had nowhere to go. And I had already experienced what my business could do in California. And all my family and friends said, ''Rocky, come home, go home. Like, you know, you'll be safe at home, just comb back'' and something in me said, no. I have to try if I go back home, I kind of felt like I knew what I was done. Especially in that mindset. I would have gone right back to everything and I hadn't come as far as I live. I came far enough to realize that there is something different out there. So I just kept drawing and I stuck with it. And I went to a very low place in California. I didn't get back into selling drugs, but I was definitely drinking and ending up in Hollywood restrooms randomly in the middle of the night. You know, doing cocaine and different stuff like that until finally I just kind of stopped. I wasn't able to get a house. I will have no bank history and work history, not much of any credit and I'm a convicted felon, so no one gives me a place to live. And finally, just one place downtown LA that even look at, they said, okay, if you have X amount of dollars, we can let you live here. I moved into that place and I was working on business the whole time. But when I moved in, I finally said, ''you know what?' This is Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, I believe 20016/17. And I quit eating meat. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking for quite a bit of time. And I started getting into meditation and yoga and these kinds of practices. They kind of cleared my mind and the body, the soul. And it came in the form of one of my friends from childhood. They came to live with me for a while. He flew in from Korea and he didn't try to teach me anything or show me anything. He just simply came with me and lived that clean lifestyle next to me. And I saw it and I said, you know what? This is what I want. I want something like this. And that's when I started really, really like changing my life. And, and really like, I stopped listening to music. I stopped watching movies and television. I started consciously placing myself around people that were aligned with these things. And I started reading and watching YouTube videos, like, you know, like Ralph smart, Joe Dispenza, Tony Robbins Alan Watts, you know, all these amazing men on, on YouTube. They kind of share their knowledge for free and men that saved my life because I was so lost at that point in time. I didn't know what to do. I thought I had, you know, done better. And then I had this big blow condom me again. And it's adult that was, you know, nothing on the outside. Did it to me. No, no parents read me. No authority figures grabbed me. I kind of manifested that on my own. And I had to sit back and look into myself and figure out what went on and change these things because I wanted that. I didn't want to go back to anything. Okay.
Jackie:
So you said something in there. I just want to unpack a little bit. You said no, our externals is that something happened, but no external force did it. So what was that that woke you up? What was the wake up happening?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
It was, it was just that the divorce or the ex-wife of separation at that point in time as an adult, you know the things we get in our set ourselves into like we have to take responsibility for them. And for me at that point in time, like that feeling, like I said, well, like Rocky, like you're not perfect. The other person not perfect, but there are so many things that could have contributed that you could fix and you could not act like, and that kind of really woke me up at that point, said, I want something different. I want something better and I've already tasted it. And now it's time to actually, you know, got consciously, be aware, chase it and get to that point in that place.
Jackie:
So it's chasing the clean lifestyle. Not because somebody told you or took you into it, but because somebody showed you by living at themselves?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Exactly. One of my best friends, he just, he just, he's a beautiful person, man, good soul, like a light in my life. One of the few friends I still have left in my life. It's always kind of been that energetic, good person. And as he's growing older, he's travelling and fell more and more into this lifestyle, clean, eating, clean, living, good energy you know, gratitude love. And he came and shared that with me. Without even, I don't know if he meant to do so. It would just, it was, I think, intuitively for him, he knew like, Hey, my friend Rocky gov was friends with a child or haven't spent much time with, it sounds like he's, he needs someone strong to be there with him. And he came and we helped each other and I helped start a smoothie business. And he helped me just talking to me and living around and showing me this lifestyle. And that was, you know, there was a much of a journey in between there as well. I had definitely had my slips and my steps backwards as well. But you know, it came together to the point of where I'm sitting right now and having the morning routine that I discussed. And these are all small, small things. It still helped me every day. I still listen to the YouTube videos constantly when I'm just working out or walking or feeling down or low. I just put on a positive tape that allows me to just breathe and understand that I'm not alone in this, that there's plenty of help out there, whether I can find a mentor or a counsellor or coach or not, it's already out there. And all I have to do is be open to receiving it and listen to it a little bit.
Jackie:
That's such an incredible journey. Rocky, you have taken us on, what would you advise to somebody who is just starting out? They're just at that point that you were, that was I'm ready for something different.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Yeah. So, I mean, that is the first point. Once you're ready you have to trust and believe in the process because it will all unfold in front of you. It'll all be there. It's already within you once you, once you understand that and want that. I think the first step is getting rid of the distractions and the things that are no longer serving you and serving what you really want in your life and what you want to move forward with. For me, those things were friends even to some extent family and not because they were negative because, at that point in my life, it just wasn't serving me, to listen to that kind of criticism and speech. And then from there, the music I was listening to, the movies I was watching, it was kind of like a full clearing of myself and my body, and then truly believing within me that there is something else out there. I do have goals and dreams and desires of wanting a better life and an amazing life. And that is possible, no matter what situation I think I'm in no matter where I've done, no matter what has happened. I can do that. And it's a slow process, you know, as I say, healing, isn't linear. This journey is not an easy one or, or, you know, just a clear shot straight path by any means. But it is a beautiful journey and it, you do learn and grow so much on the way. And it's like, for me, I'm not even close to the end. I still feel like a child or a baby, like, you know, in this, in this life path and what I'm doing. And I'm constantly learning every day. But the difference is now instead of going to sleep to wake up to the next party the next night I go to sleep excited to know like I know tomorrow will bring problems. I know tomorrow will bring like amazing, beautiful situations as well. And I'm excited to face all of them.
Jackie:
So what are you doing now? You're, you're no longer partying. You're no longer dealing. You're no longer over there. What do you do now?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
To rewind when I was sitting in prison, I made a one-page business plan. That business plan when I was in India, I actually had the chance to put it in effect and it's a human hair extension company. So while there I started meeting people and vendors and manufacturers and working and learning and marketing on Facebook at the same time. So now 7, 8, 9 years later almost I live in Los Angeles on the west side where I always wanting to live, almost talked about coming to California and living near the water. The businesses are, you know, incredibly successful. We have a tight-knit, you know, really amazing team of people that had also known me some time since I was younger ages and seeing some of the things I went through from my jaw injury to my troubles and everything. And we work hard. We work amazingly and transparently for our clients and, and help other businesses all over the world you know, increase their business. And recently now I started writing my books about my past and bring that my journals from prison and compiling them into one of my first books. And having an opportunity and time now to speak about my story and share it because this story is something I was so ashamed to admit for the first years of my marriage, for the first years of my business and fears that it would bother my family and fears that I would lose clients and fears of people will look down on me. I spoke about it. And when I started, I realized that my fears were totally not true, that people found motivation and inspiration, and what's happened to me and it all came together to make sense.
Jackie:
So one more jail that you are no longer in the jail, I can't tell my story becomes. That's a really powerful jail Rocky that so many people keep themselves locked into because they're afraid and there's a lot of feeling of I'm ashamed of my story and your ability to permit yourself to come out of that jail. When was the first time that you told your story?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So I remember when I first was in downtown Los Angeles and opened my showroom that Yelp did a big promotion thing. And this big TV company came out to interview me, like for the business. And I, they asked me, had the business start and I had to lie and I don't like to lie, but I couldn't say that I was in prison. I wrote this business plan there, especially on TV with my parents sitting right behind the camera, on my ex, my ex-wife sitting right there. So I was like, oh, you know, it was in India and I just kind of meditated upon it. And I suppose, guru, and I remember how dirty I felt after that for a month or two. So I finally say, you know, what if I can't do this business and I can't be honest and clear about it, then this is not for me. So I started with one client, one group of girls and guys came in to speak with me and about a week or two later, and I said, so Rock, you know, how'd you start the visible. So I had to do all this and I took a breath and I was like, well, let me tell you the real story. And that was kind of the first time I actually gave like the real story right there. And when I, when I finished, it was only maybe a five or 10-minute talk. Like I kind of gave him the overviews of it. They were just like, what? Like, wow, like, thank you for sharing that that's so inspirational motivational. And from there I was like, you know what, that's all it, that's all the push I needed that. I'm not, I'm not saying anything else ever again about the stories I want to tell the truth, just like it was. And the people that, for some reason, don't want to look down on me that it's okay, everyone's allowed to have it on opinions. They don't have to work with me, but I'm going to tell my truth, I tell them my story now going to put it out there. And that was the first time.
Jackie:
So I'm just going to put the linear pieces of this business together for myself. And you tell me if I've got it right. Okay. You're in prison. Another kind of prison this time, official prison, your writing journals, you're all of a sudden you wrote a business plan?
Rocky Singh Kandola:
So we had a cell phone that was sneak in and we'd have to sit underneath the bunk beds and hide with towels and have people watch out for the correctional officers. And we would call like my bunkmates up sisters and his cousins and ask them like, Hey, tell us about, you know, this, this business and tell us about the pricing and the market and what people want people don't want. And that's how I've made the business plan. I still have that piece of paper it's blowing them up potentially.
Jackie:
Yeah, no kidding. Okay. So I'm going to have a life when I get outta here and you had this need to do that. That's going to be a whole nother conversation for somebody else's show because I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but if you're in a place where on the surface where, you know, it's supposed to help you get prepared to reenter society, and yet, in reality, you were having to be very sneaky about getting ready to have a life outside of that environment.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Yeah. And once again, I mean, as we know, the recidivism rights in the US are above 80%. Like those places are not geared to, reenter anybody in society they're geared to bring you back actually. And I was, you know, blessed that I didn't fall back into it and go back.
Jackie:
Well, you know, as a business model, having repeat business is a good plan. However, for a prison system has, it's just like for an addiction system, having repeat business is an absolute failure of the organization. And I say that with all due respect for all of these programs that are doing their best because there are some out there that really are geared to not have them come back, but this was not one of those. So you snuck and got enough information that you could write a one-page business plan. And now you're living that business plan. That is such an incredible story. You know, I mean, I'm thinking about the book Robert Paul. Everything I needed to know. I learned in kindergarten and I'm like, okay, this is yours, Rocky, everything I needed to know about business, I learned in prison.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Jackie:
I knew the bunk beds stories could be great, oh my God, how many of us you did things through were snuck around and got information. But most of us were not putting really, almost our lives on the line to do it, which is what it feels like to be just listening to your story, that the reality of what would have happened to you if you had gotten caught
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Would have been a lot more, a lot more time. And I mean, Alabama state prisons are notorious for beating inmates close to death and actually killing them. So it was definitely living on a line situation, for sure. It was,
Jackie:
Yeah. This is just a little aside that we kind of got to, and I'm really glad that I asked and that you were willing to share that. I have a great deal of respect for people who are willing to stand up and tell their story. And you have been doing that for several years now. What, I'm just curious because there was a lot of trepidation around what will other people think and what will this do to my business? You know, I'll lose clients. Yeah. I heard you say that. And I'm like, all right, Rocky, what's happened to your business because you're willing to speak your truth.
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Literally 10 X from the time I told you about sitting in that showroom in downtown to where I'm sitting right now, actually 10 tenants financial wise team-wise, freedom wise just business and traffic-wise, everything. It all came together and people versus being scared of me or, you know, looking down upon me, disrespected the fact that I love the fact that here's an honest, transparent person, that's actually doing good business. And we trust him now to handle our money, to handle our business because that's just, that's just what I resonate with. And that's what I put out there and that I received that back as well.
Jackie:
Okay. So do you have two divisions of your business, one with the hair extensions and one with consulting other businesses? Well, I've
Rocky Singh Kandola:
Started a lot more since then. So I've started a hair class as well. And then with consulting, I do strategy calls. But my, my business is centred around helping people while we sell to them because if we sell to them and they don't know what to do with the product, they don't understand how to talk about it, then they're not going to do very well. And if they don't do well, if we don't continue. So like it's, it's in our best interest to make sure they have the knowledge and the information and the guidance, which is it. Then the day that guidance ends up being like me and my knowledge and me being there because I love being motivated. And I love, I think, I don't know who said it, but I think it was in Latin or something, to inspire others. You need to be inspired yourself. I love getting inspired, plumbing inspiration because then I'm able to help others and inspire them. But my team in the mornings, I try to send them every morning, a YouTube video that listened to that, touched my heart and say, you know, good morning, I'm grateful for this today. You computed it. And I love doing that. I do that with my business clients as well. And you know, since then I've started a vacation rental company and bought my first condo and do the same thing, my renters, when they come in, like I'm like, because the web we're on our condos, on my childhood favourite areas in Destin, Florida. So I get to tell them like, Hey, go here to eat, go there for the museum, go here for nightlife. You know, like I know exactly where to go. And I, I love doing that. And like, they love it because they're like, wow, like this is so much nicer than having like some robot on Airbnb. Like, send us a prerecorded, you know, text message. And I kind of like really put my hands along with them.
Jackie:
All right. You said a lot. And then you talk pretty fast, slow this down just a little bit. You said you have to take care of your customers and help them because if you don't, they won't know what to do with the product. They won't be able to use it effectively. And if they don't Can use it effectively, then they won't be repeat clients. They won't be able to help them with their stuff. Okay. So, and I said staff, which means their business, I think is what you said. And so what you're doing is you are now teaching people how to do the business of hair extension if I understand them.
Rocky Kandola:
Exactly, exactly. And in the beginning, I'll penthouse more. Now I have so many clients that it had, like, I have like a rule when the people are willing and wanting information, I give it to them freely. You know, I think the person that calls me in the morning to text me in the evening to ask me questions on there to help them. But I can't do that for everybody because I don't have enough of me to go around for everybody, which is like, why like up and working on the class as well, because actually have a partner working on a class with me. After all that information, all that knowledge and kind of be put in one place and then people can go watch the videos and get the PDFs and look into it and learn from there.
Jackie:
Got it. All right. So this whole journey about getting out of jail, whatever jail someone is in, whether it's a jail that is a physical reality like you're at the schools you were in or the prison you were in, or whether it's a jail that is a mindset jail. It isn't created by belief systems. It's invisible to the outside. And even on the inside, what you've created to help people is nothing short of amazing. And I am so excited to be giving this as a gift to everyone from you. So thank you so very much. So Katie's going to put this in the chat. Tell me a little bit about this because the title is very intriguing and we're going to create a great subtitle for you because the title is Meditations of a Prisoner.
Rocky Kandola:
I can't wait to kind of dance and just kind of like, because like, as my journals, it's like when I was writing in prison. But I started reading them. I don't give myself enough credit sometimes. So I didn't think at that point in my life, I was an addicting kind of mental state that was, you know, looking for something better and stronger in life. When I read them, I was like, wow, like I did have a lot of this in me back then. I just wasn't aware of it and I didn't have to use it. So there's a lot of like craziness, a lot of like my old mentality in there, but there's also very like cool costs, like glimmers of hope. And I was like no strength in there. And that's why I really want people to see like, you know, DAS on first. My second book is the entire story, which I'm still writing too from childhood a lot of weekends in schools until you know where I am now. And I'm still 15 years old now books, not a lot of lighting, lots to do in that book. But meditations, but the prisoner is all, you know, it's a very real raw subject matter that, you know, I've got someone to transplant it readily from my handwritten journals into digital. And then I've had to go before an apprentice and I'm going to do like a natural, I mean, you'll kind of discussing, you know, the mindset what's moving into the next book of how someone goes from like 'like a convict to the CEO' or from that area of life and that identity, it's there to where I am now.
Jackie:
From convict to CEO. Yeah. and I would just go convict to CEO and, and that's like who you are. And it's very compelling Rocky because you have a very gentle way about you. And I so appreciate your being willing to come to the suicide prevention show and share your story. And the beauty of the sign over your shoulder is it is obvious that that's how you live, that you do what you love. It's a very different way to live. And yet, so incredibly simple, there is nothing conversation, you know, how did nothing complicated is what I'm going to say. There's nothing complicated about what you do every day. You just do what you want.
Rocky Kandola:
Exactly. Whatever's in front of me, whatever feels right. Give me not a business. Like I used to have like a regimen some way my time to do things every day. And now it's kind of like where it feels right to work on that day, whatever like the economy is right in front of me. I just do it and kind of bored with it. And I love where you put things as well. I gave it a title for this, but there's so many like the one that you drop like that, which are so amazing.
Jackie:
Yeah, I'm the queen of taglines is what, one, what advice guests on, on my podcast have said, Jackie, you are just the queen of taglines, but I'm like, oh, I can own that one. Yeah. The beauty Rocky of you being willing to share your story is that you gave me so much information that my gift, which is taking massive amounts of information and distilling them down could serve you. And I am so grateful that I was able to give you something back because you have given so much to my audience and the world and to everyone watching this to go into the meditations of a prisoner and allow them to inspire you to come out of the jails that you might be living in that you're not even aware of. I can't ask for anything more than that ranking. Thank you so much.
Rocky Kandola:
Thank you. I'm honoured. Thank you so so much.
Jackie:
And when your book is ready, I want you to come back.
Rocky Kandola:
A hundred per cent, a hundred per cent.