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Book Summary: In 2010, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti, and almost all of the 4,000 prisoners at the National Penitentiary escaped. The author of this book was one of those men. In his story, he recounts the lifestyle and decisions that landed him in one of the worst prisons in the world. He delves into his spiritual journey and how this alignment brought him the miraculous freedom he has today, gifted with the opportunity to change the life of the youth that have fallen into similar lifestyle patterns as he once had. In his story, he shares the valuable life lessons he learned as he went from being trapped in a country far from home under a life sentence for smuggling drugs to where he is today, running a successful plumbing business and being a proud husband, father, and home-owner.
Genre: Self-Help
About The Author: active life coach specializing in spiritual guidance, with a focus on youth struggling with drug addiction.
HAITI
I looked down at my wrists as we drove over the pot-hole spotted roads of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The metallic clink of the handcuffs wrapped around my wrists was in synchronic harmony with the chains of the other fellow prisoners. They had packed us in the Jeep, like chickens in a cluster, roughly bumped and shoved toward the National Penitentiary of Haiti. I looked across from me to the other guys that got arrested with me. John was staring down at his feet while Samuel nibbled on his fingernails. Maria was in a different Jeep, but I was sure she also felt as terrified and uneasy as we all were. We had just gotten caught at the airport with 76 pounds of marijuana. I was brimming with regret. I could feel the beam of sweat slide down my nose and drop onto my dry palms and an itch on my forehead as a fly crawled across, taking full advantage of my inability to lift my hand to swat it away. I was trapped. For the first time in my life, I truly felt a loss of control. Suddenly I heard a loud bang at the front of the Jeep as the prison guard hit the back of his rifle on the bars separating us from the driver.
“We have 2 minutes to arrive,” he announced sharply. “You will have your belongings collected, and you will be placed in the holding area until we find you a place in the prison.” His eyes were bloodshot red as he looked right past us, his mouth chomping on chewing tobacco. As he spoke, I felt his spit land on my knees. I looked up at him quietly, unsure how to react. I was in utter and complete shock. It still felt like I was stuck in a nightmare, a limbo state, unable to wake up. The anxiety was setting in. I looked out of the window of the Jeep to help calm myself. I could see the sun was beginning to set on the horizon. Is this the last sunset I would ever see? I had no idea what to expect. At this exact time, I was supposed to be celebrating and partying till the sun rose under the skies of St. Martin. Today was supposed to be the day we made the money to get us to the world of riches. But instead, here I was. I remember being very scared and very angry. Mostly, I was angry. How could I be so foolish? If only I had said no. If only I had been smarter. If only, if only, if only.
When we arrived, the guard with the chewing tobacco flung open the Jeep door and ushered us out hastily. His eyes were empty like he had seen too much.
TEMPTATION
“C’mon, kid. Just try one puff. It’s nothing!” My uncle held out a marijuana joint to my face.
I looked up at my brother and my uncle sitting next to him. My uncle’s eyes were droopy and bloodshot, and he had a wide grin on his face. I heard my grandma’s voice in my mind: Pato, you must stay away from all that marijuana stuff. That’s the Devil’s lettuce right there. I looked back at the joint and scrunched my nose in disgust. It smelled awful. I shook my head. I didn’t want to try it. My brother shrugged and accepted it from him to try. He took a small puff and immediately started heaving and coughing loudly. I sat down and watched silently.
I was nine then, and while I never really experienced smoking properly until I was 17, I was exposed to it very early. As little boys, my brother and I would go into my uncle’s room to play wrestling because wrestling was very popular back in our childhood days. Sometimes, he would smoke. My grandmother never liked me going there, but we were kids and wanted to play wrestling. By the time I was in my late teens, smoking weed was normalized to me. Everyone did it. It was a matter of time before I would. It was just a part of the growing-up phase. Little did I know that fast forward almost ten years after that day with my cousins, I would be watching my best friend roll one up in that very same room. I recall my first smoking experience as one where I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a bit of a haze, but that was a pinnacle moment in my life because, after that day, I never stopped smoking for many years.
Even as a kid, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I was raised being told that smoking weed is no good. But I didn’t know the name for the feeling that kept driving me back to smoking weed. As I grew older, this same unexplainable pull would make me want to do many things that I knew were not good for me or those around me. Yet, I couldn’t control it. You see, temptation is something that we are not taught to control. We are often raised being told off for doing something wrong, with some scolding and, if lucky, some explanation for why we shouldn’t do it. But we aren’t taught how to face the temptation beast and conquer it. To master handling temptation, we must first understand it. To understand it, we must be able to identify the Stages of Temptation.
EARTHQUAKE
12th of January, 2010. 4:30 PM. It was a Tuesday and also my mom’s birthday. I had just piled dumplings with red-bean peas sauce on my plate and was ready to dive into the meal. I sat crossed-legged on the floor with the rest of the prisoners, savoring this small moment where I ate my favorite prison food. After so long in prison, you become more appreciative of the little moments that make you feel good. For me, it was those giant dumplings that were so big that one of them was suitable for the day. I just got a new phone and was going through it as I munched on my dumpling. It was then that I began to hear a distant rumbling sound. For a split second, I thought I was hearing the roaring ocean waves on a rough stormy day. But then I remembered that I was far from the waters and trapped between thick prison walls. There was no ocean here. The men around me sank into a collective hushed murmur, looking around in confusion. The rumbling grew louder and louder as everything began to rattle.
The closer the rumble got, the more roughly the floors around us trembled. At this point, it was apparent. We were being swallowed up by a monster of an earthquake. The murmurs turned into yelling as men above me started falling out of their hammocks, and those running to the shelter could not take more than a couple of steps before tumbling to the floor. I scrambled to run underneath my bed for protection, but the ground shook so hard I couldn’t even walk the distance. With panic in the eyes of the prisoners around me, I, too, began to fear for my life. Stay calm. Stay focused. I tried my best not to panic. My mind was clouded with the thought of my son and the cold realization that I might not be able to share my story. Then, like a scene from a movie, the building began to lean to the far right, the slanting grounds pushing everyone to fall to the right side. This lasted very, very long, 7 seconds. The first wave had passed.
In the split silence, we heard the keyguard drop and run. We were being left like trapped mice in a cage, with no option but to fend for ourselves. Within seconds, the air tensed with panic. We all knew that we would be killed if we were to stay here for another wave. I could hear a commotion at the gate as dozens of men piled up and desperately pulled at the bars to force it open. I pushed myself between them and clasped the cold bars in my reach. We were going to survive this. Heave and shove, heave and shove. Every passing second felt like a lifetime, a reminder of how short life was. The more fearful we got, the harder we pulled at the gate. Finally, it began to inch open until there was enough gap for a man to squeeze through. And that is how almost 4,000 prisoners escaped Haiti National Penitentiary.
Book Summary: This book uses exclusive interview content with well-known names in the beauty industry in America on their “success stories” to inspire aspiring entrepreneurs. The author leverages her experience with changing tracks from a successful account career in 2005 to building an empire of her own, where she currently earns six figures out of her house only by working two and half days a week. Today she runs multiple salons, purchased an entire building for her beauty business, and has turned her focus on becoming a consultant for salons and spas around the United States. Each chapter features content from one of the interviewees and her commentary to provide the reader with powerful tools and resources.
Genre: Self-Help
About The Author: a well-renowned salon owner actively providing life coaching to entrepreneurs in the beauty industry.
CHAPTER 1: SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS
I’m broke. It’s pretty bad.
We’ve all been there. And no, I’m not talking about “can’t buy a pair of Louboutin heels for my birthday” broke, or even “won’t be able to squeeze in a second cup of Starbucks this evening” broke. I’m talking about the type of broke that gives you a belly-pit anxiety twist when you think about how you’re gonna manage to balance paying your rent next month and saving up to buy a new pair of sneakers for the gym. The problem isn’t that we aren’t willing to flaunt our squats at the neighborhood fitness center in a pair of worn-out Nikes and pull out a stringy earphone set while getting side-eye glances from the girl with the Airpods. No. The issue is that we do not have enough people focusing on the fact that money can be made by virtually any skill — if you know how to strategize it.
Think about the type of TikTok videos with clumsy choreography strung together by teenagers on a lazy afternoon than go viral, mostly because of the catchy tunes and high levels of engagement in the comments. It’s bizarre that users with a certain amount of followers get paid just for their popularity on social media platforms, often more than those who spend a couple of expensive years in college trying to master a skill in a certain field of study. Now, we aren’t comparing skills. Quite the contrary. Any skill can be leveraged to generate an income, but it will always be how you go about marketing yourself that will make or break your bank account!
CHAPTER 6: THE TEAM CREATES THE DREAM
“Hold on. I have a really good joke. How many hairdressers does it take to teach someone how to do a haircut?” Winn quizzed me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Uh, how many?”
“One hundred. One to do the actual cut, and ninety-nine to stand there and say, ‘Oh, I could do THAT.’”
There is just this attitude that you just come against with professionals. Students are hungry. There is a culture for learning that just draws the experts in to want to lend a helping hand. The beautiful thing about beginners, maybe such as yourself, is that you don’t know what doesn’t work. So you want to try anything and everything to learn and grow and master your art. A sad but real issue that many recent graduates from cosmetology school face are spending thousands of dollars on their education only to fall short of the necessary skills found through hands-on experience. Winn Claybaugh took notice of this growing number of passionate students throwing themselves into entry-level positions in the industry but getting burnt out shortly after, mainly because they didn’t have the right guidance and mentorship. A recurring theme in this book is emphasizing that we don’t know what we don’t know, so having the right mentor along the way is a sure solution to this problem. Winn knew that to make a real change and break the cycle, he had to commit to helping young beauty enthusiasts, so that was the moment he decided: you know what? I’m going to open my beauty school. Many beauty schools claim to have a cutting-edge approach to teaching, only to be extremely overpriced and essentially just reinventing the wheel. Winn chose a different approach.
CHAPTER 7: REVERSE PLANNING – DESTINY IS CALLING
“If your son decides to get into cutting hair and all that stuff, just make sure that he gets into education. That’s where all the money is.”
Crazy as it might sound, these words were spoken by a beauty equipment supplier to Mathew Collins’ father way back when he was a kid. His dad had gone to get him a set of clippers because Mathew had been begging him to take him to get his hair cut every week. Little did this random guy know that Mathew would one day be the Global Styling Ambassador for Dyson and an International Artist with L’Oréal. Mathew’s work, advice, and tips have been featured in many online and print publications such as Vogue, GQ, People, Elle Canada, Elle Serbia, FASHION, Flare, The Kit, The Globe and Mail, InStyle, Ion, and Salon magazines. Mathew’s celebrity clients have included Gigi Hadid, Paris Jackson, Kristen Stewart, Dua Lipa, Hailey Baldwin, Priyanka Chopra, Bryce Dallas Howard, Charlotte Tilbury, Kristen Bell, Madison Beer, Hunter Schafer, Mandy Moore, Cynthia Nixon, Julia Fox, Emma Chamberlain, Lili Reinhart, Joe Keery, and Elizabeth Chambers. Matthew has also been the official Hair Expert on The Social, E! Network’s Celebrity Style Story, and ETalk Canada. Today, Mathew is the co-founder of The Good Ones- an advanced training academy for artists in the beauty and fashion industry.
Mathew didn’t even know that this random beauty supplier had unknowingly predicted his future until much later when his dad shared the story with him. Between the age of 12 and 17, Mathew was so engrossed in the idea of cutting hair that he would cut his hair every three days. At this time, he had realized that all his friends were getting terrible haircuts. That’s when he decided to offer to help them with their haircuts. With confidence in his talent, he promised them a $50 guarantee if he messed their hair up. Of course, Mathew never ended up having to pay anyone $50.
