Greg Lindberg’s Fellow Inmates Discuss Prison in Newly Released Videos

Reformed lives begin in the mind

Shortly before starting a prison sentence in 2020, business entrepreneur Greg Lindberg published his first book, Failing Early & Failing Often: How to Turn Your Adversity Into Advantage. The book’s description says: “Greg has paid an enormous tuition to the ‘School of Hard Knocks,’ and that knowledge so painfully gained is laid out here for you to benefit from.”

What type of pain? Well, while in college, he took a $5000 gift from his parents and started a newsletter business that, by the time he was facing a prison term, he had turned into a billion-dollar global business. It was anything but a smooth ascent to the top, however. There were years of tough times and months of little sleep, and he survived a brain tumor and a tough divorce along the way.

Lindberg’s wrongful conviction was unanimously overturned on appeal, but it took almost two years to happen. While in prison at Federal Prison Camp Motgomery in Alabama, Lindberg applied the principles in his first book to his harsh new situation. He shared copies of his book with anyone who would listen, and as he explains in a new video, he became grateful for the prison experience. Without it, he says, he never would have had the opportunity to transform “his entire life.”

“It was all part of a necessary life plan for me,” he reflects. “If someone had designed my life plan, they would have said, you know, Greg... you need a few lessons…. Before going to prison, I was working very hard on my first book. I released that the day I checked in, and it was the best thing I ever did. I gave out hundreds of copies of that book to my fellow inmates.”

Since he didn’t get to have any kind of book tour or interact with readers before beginning his sentence, his first feedback came from fellow prisoners like Willie Colon, who was doing time for distributing cocaine. It was the first book Colon had ever read.

“It was just inspiring because I never read a book in my life until I got to prison,” Colon remembers. “Never. In school, I never read a book ever because like I was never into reading. That was just never my thing. And he was like, here, read this book. And it was a cool experience.”

Richard McDonald, convicted of wire fraud, is now out of prison like Lindberg and Colon. He not only read Failing Early & Failing Often, he read it seven times because, he says, “It is a book that just helps remind me that it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to fail, because that's how we learn. It makes me reflect on areas where I failed, where I can get better. And so, it keeps me grounded.”

The day of his release from FPC Montgomery, the warden thanked Lindberg for his model prisoner behavior that included classes where Lindberg taught entrepreneurship, stress management, and career planning to around 100 inmates.

Listening to Willie Colon’s life story, Lindberg saw an inventive mind in this former drug dealer. Colon had grown up largely unsupervised in a bad environment and post-prison he wanted to get into a legitimate business. Greg Lindberg told him how.

Uncertain over whether his conviction would be vacated on appeal, Lindberg was determined to follow the rules at FPC Montgomery. His main job for a long time was cleaning toilets, and fellow inmates were initially baffled by how hard he worked at it. Lindberg told them that his orientation in life was to do the best job he could every day in every way, no matter what job he was assigned.

That type of attitude eventually inspired people like Colon and McDonald, and they remain determined to live better lives, inspired by Greg Lindberg’s words and actions.

Upon release from prison, Lindberg set about writing a new book which is now on the market. Titled 633 Days Inside: Lessons on Life & Leadership, it shares his experiences learning about prison life and the travails of fellow inmates. He discovered that all too many of them took plea deals when faced with their families being destroyed if they tried to fight the system.

Now, Lindberg not only wants to share a startling personal transformation while “inside” – he is determined to do everything possible to reform the bad aspects of the American justice system. This effort has become his personal crusade, and he is speaking out in the new videos.

Hear Lindberg, Colon, and McDonald here:

Watch the new video “Philosophy on Failure.”

The ebook of 633 Days Inside can be found on Amazon, GooglePlay, Apple Books and many other major outlets. The paperback is available at Barnes & Noble and, via IngramSpark, around the world. Through his website www.greglindberg.com he will make digital copies available to any currently incarcerated inmate or their family member. His company, Global Growth, has a stated policy of not turning away potential employees because of a criminal conviction.