Thanksgiving On the other side of the fence - how prison taught me to appreciate the holiday

#TBT for real #StartedFromTheBottomNowImHere

November 26th, 1998 was Thanksgiving. It also was my first full day of a 25 month sentence in prison. I was 25 years old and it felt as though my life was over. 
Here I am, 21 years later and I have a entire different perspective on what Thanksgiving is all about. In prison, Thanksgiving is one of the inmates favorite holidays because of the special meals that were served. Little things like that meant so much to us. The three Thanksgiving holidays that I spent behind bars showed me just how very much I had to be grateful for, most of all opportunities. 
Opportunities to spend time with loved ones. Opportunities to make a difference in the world. Opportunities to make others grateful. 
When I first got out, when people asked me how I was I would respond "On this side of the fence and dirt." which meant I had the opportunity and capability to doing something with my life. 
In today's society it's so easy to overlook all that we have to be grateful for. We tend to play the role of victims in order to get attention. I've made it my mission to be an example of how much hope you can generate for the world and those who are lost and hurting by demonstrating just how powerful the habit of gratitude is when deliberately practiced. 
The picture you see above is the proof of how much you can turn your life around with specific, well thought out goals and a perspective of gratitude. Those two things literally attract abundance of what you desire into your life. 

What are you most grateful for this Thanksgiving and why? 

Learn more about how I set goals that saved and changed my life here!