The Awesome Possibilities of Extended Isolation

How Greg Lindberg Turned Prison Time into a Mighty Cause

ISOLATION

After the Covid-19 years, that word can make people shutter. Still, just as every moment is largely what we make it, it’s interesting to examine what some people in history have done in periods of social isolation, whether forced or self-imposed.

One of the most famous people of all time, John Lennon, wrote a song about it. His son Sean did his own powerful take on “Isolation” and after Johnny Depp won an overly-publicized domestic court case, he wowed a crowd onstage with his version of the tune. Lennon wrote the song out of disillusionment about his worldwide fame and his need to understand where his life was going.

Persons of means, like those mentioned above, can express troubled emotions in public and speak to the hearts of others in a way that is reflective and comforting. No matter who you are, the words of Jiddu Krishamurti which John Lennon borrowed for his song “Beautiful Boy” about his son Sean, ring true in an eternal fashion — “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

In 1929, Krishnamurti famously said: “Truth is a pathless land.” That is, it is up to each of us to find truth by observation and examining the contents of our mind.

In 2020, businessman Greg Lindberg definitely had life happening to him despite other plans. He was forced into isolation from society at large due to a seven-year prison sentence for bribery. When he was first locked inside Federal Prison Camp Montgomery in Alabama, he reflected on all that he’d left behind: a worldwide company with thousands of employees, family and friends (including young children), constant communications of all kinds, and the freedom to roam and do as he pleased.

Lindberg accepted the idea that his sentence might not be overturned on appeal. It was, later and unanimously so by the Fourth Circuit, but that would take almost two years. So, Lindberg began to think about his life, his habits, his circumstances, and his future. Gone were the constant phone calls and emails about business. Lindberg had a strict schedule that he did not control. He was given a prisoner’s wage, 29¢ an hour, and a stipend of under $100 a month to spend in the prison commissary.

Rather than grow sad about his plight, Lindberg started writing his second book during times free of prison duties. He’d published his first one just before entry to FPC Montgomery.

One of the most influential American writers ever, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), was heavily influenced by a single night in jail. As described by The Walden Woods Project, an organization dedicated to his work: “As a social reformer whose words echo the principles on which the United States was founded — that it is a person’s duty to resist injustice where it is found — Thoreau’s writings influenced Gandhi’s work in India, Tolstoy’s philosophy in Russia, and [Martin Luther] King’s civil rights stand in the United States.”

Thoreau spent a night in jail in July 1846, over six years of delinquent poll taxes. He refused to pay the government because of his opposition to the existence of slavery and the Mexican-American War. Someone paid the taxes for him and he was freed, but it was against his wishes. The jailing had a major impact on his psyche, however. Subsequently, he gave lectures on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government."

 In 1854, Thoreau published his book Walden; or, Life in the Woods which some have called “a manual for self-reliance.” He spent two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He chose to isolate himself there beginning July 4, 1845 to sort out his life. Thoreau said:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

Greg Lindberg’s life was similarly reduced to lowest terms at FPC Montgomery. Early in his incarceration, he discovered the benefits of fasting and the process of hormesis, roughly what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. “The single most powerful lesson I learned in prison is the stunning power of hormesis,” he says in one of a series of videos about his experience.

Though never considering himself a social crusader, when facing the legal system for the first time in his life at trial in North Carolina, Greg Lindberg realized that people without his ample financial means would be horribly handicapped when fighting for justice. He donated one million dollars to the ACLU to help such people.

When his conviction was overturned and Lindberg became a free man in July of 2022, one of his first actions was to publish his new book. He included stories of fellow inmates who had taken business classes the prison asked him to teach, and some of them wrote testimonials that went in the back of the book. When Lindberg began appearing on YouTube talking about his writing and prison experience, some former inmates with compelling transformational stories appeared in the videos, too.

Now, Lindberg supports Interrogating Justice, a non-profit, non-partisan think tank which “aims to help more Americans understand how the justice system is falling short through legal analyses and investigative reporting by attorneys, advocates and allies.” With support like that, people don’t have to feel isolated and alone, thinking they can’t do anything about an adverse legal situation.

Extended isolation, even if not intended, can be turned into a blessing for one self and for others. It all depends on what we do with it. In this holiday season, when all too many people feel alone in life’s struggles, people who do something about making things better for us all deeply deserve our support.

Greg Lindberg’s ebook of 633 Days Inside: Lessons on Life & Leadership can be found on Amazon, GooglePlay, Apple Books and many other major outlets. The paperback is also available at Barnes & Noble and, via IngramSpark, around the world. Through his website www.greglindberg.com, he shares his stories of the fight for justice. Even more to the point, Lindberg’s company, Global Growth, has a stated policy of not turning away potential employees because of a criminal conviction.