Life is about choices. These choices can have an impact on all you do. Author, life coach, and professional speaker Ron James sits down with Rob and talks about the choices he made that set him on a dangerous, destructive path… until he decided to make other choices. Those choices led him to a whole new life, book, movies, and a commitment to give back to others.
Originally Published: May 16, 2022
Episode Notes
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
- Some of the initial choices Ron James made that led him to prison as a 25-year repeat offender.
- His choice to create a different life – one that led to a writing a book that helped him to analyze his life.
- His foundation that allows him to give back to others and work with tens of thousands of others.
- His dreams of the future, one that is dedicated to helping others with the choices they make.
To learn more about this guest:
GUEST EMAIL ronljameschoices@gmail.com
WEBSITE: www.ronljames.com
Rob Jolles (00:00):
Each and every day we’re faced with choices and these choices can dramatically shape our lives. That’s because choices come with ramifications. Let’s have ourselves a pockets size pep talk and hear from a man who will teach you more about the choices you make than you could possibly imagine.
Intro (00:19):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:32):
Today is a special day because I get to interview one of my heroes for more than 25 years. Today’s guest, Ron James, was in and out of prison because of the choices that he made While in prison, he decided to make different choices, one of which was to write his life story released from prison. In 2012, Ron published his book, aptly Named Choices and pursued his dream of becoming a professional speaker, delivering over 5,000 presentations, inspiring over a quarter of a million people to make their next choice their best choice. Welcome to the show, Ron.
Ron James (01:09):
Hey, Rob, I really appreciate you having me and it’s an honor anything to do to promote choices also and to do something with you.
Rob Jolles (01:21):
Well, that’s because folks, Ron and I do have a little bit of a history. We know each other and we’ve got a couple of projects that we kind of keep an eye on. And Ron watches me, I learn a little bit from him. He learns a little bit from me, but today we’re going to focus on Ron. So pleasure to have you. I don’t want to waste even one more minute. So let’s get to work and let my audience hear your message. Let’s start with the Ron James story. Who is Ron James?
Ron James (01:48):
Well, first of all, Ron James is a person that has made many poor choices. From early on I got in trouble and probably most children, you get corrected by your parents and you tell your shared or you’re told not to do this or not to do that. And I was one of the child children that if you told me to do something, I couldn’t give the opposite. So I don’t know if anybody else is like that, but that was me. And I found myself getting in more and more, more and more trouble. I started to make poor choice after poor choice, and it culminated and started to catch up with me when I got into elementary school. And when I got into school, I found that some of the students in my elementary school were different than me. You see, I was from Philadelphia Pennsylvania, and I moved to the suburbs from the city of brother Love.
(02:57)
And when I ended up in suburbs, I ended up in a school where I was the only black male in my school. The only black person in my school was my younger sister. So I already felt like out of sorts and couldn’t figure out how to fit in. And most children, you’re always trying to fit into a situation. So I got some friends and got, I adjusted very well until one day when I was in the time I got to the fourth grade, some children innocently enough as I looked back at it, but at the time I didn’t receive it that way, started to laugh at me when I read a book in front of class. And as I read this book I felt myself warming up. What I mean is my body temperature, because I got nervous, my hands started to sweat, my foot had beat up and I to sweat off my head, but I still plugged through.
(03:54)
And as I continued to read, I got to some of those bigger words, Rob, that were pronunciation issues. And I started to stutter and stand her. And the next thing I knew, the kids started bursting out laughing. And when they did that, I said something to myself, I said to myself, I don’t like the laughter, but I said something that I heard and that was, I hate reading. Now the truth of the matter was you did not hate reading. I just didn’t want to be laughed at. And it goes back to my original statement of fitting in. So I wanted to teach those children are lesson, and that was I’ll never read again in front of anybody because nobody’s going to laugh at me. So that started me in my course of making poor choices instead of asking for help or saying, Hey guys, you hurt my feeling, my feelings. Please don’t laugh at me. I turned it into something that was detrimental to myself and that was, I said I wasn’t going to read. So that started the process.
Rob Jolles (05:12):
Wow. It’s interesting, seven books later. It looks like you learned how to read pretty well and write pretty well. So I would love to get that fourth grade class on the line and say, oh, what do you think of our buddy now? Although I will say this, I’ve seen you speak, you still sweat a lot. You still sweat a lot. Yeah. When you speak, I think it works for you as professional speakers. I always tell my wife I like when I sweat, I said, I want that audience to see to as I walk by, to go, Ooh, that guy’s working hard today. So let’s fast forward a little bit. Now you’re out of school and you’ve got some other choices to make and some of these choices are getting you into trouble. Talk to us about that a little bit.
Ron James (05:59):
Absolutely. So what happened was, I did graduate from high school and your listeners made me thinking, who did you graduate from high school? And you didn’t even read because I literally stopped reading. So I had carried a fourth grade reading level education throughout my whole life well into my dove. So actually I didn’t pick up a book way, way, way down the road. So anyway, I ended up speaking through elementary school, cheating through middle school, high school. And I went on to college, and it was in college where there was this professor and she was this bubbly professor that was like, oh, welcome to English Comp 1 0 1. And she invited everybody in and she gave out these little blue, I’m going to date myself because I’m sure they don’t do it this way in college now, but they gave out these little blue essay books.
(06:52)
And the first thing I did was open up the books because I was looking for pictures. There were no pacers. So she started to write on the board and she put some questions and she said, when everybody’s done, you can leave. Well, this is my debut in college. And I look at the question on the board and I can’t read it, but I put it together. I see everybody else writing. I write some stuff in it. And I, long story short was it wasn’t adequate enough when I turned it in and I left the room, I left the classroom. And when I came back to class a couple days later, she said, you need to speak with you. So I spoke with her and in the process of speaking with her, she said, you get this far. And she was adamant and was like, oh, she was irate.
(07:39)
And she was like, you don’t even know how to put together a paragraph. You don’t even know how to construct a sentence and you can’t spell. Well, the first two things she said, Rob, were true, but I could spell. And I said, I could spell. So I jumped up out of my seat and she said, Mr. James, will you spell the word Frank and Rob? I couldn’t spell that word. I spelled it F R E I N D. And certainly for our listeners, we know that that’s incorrect. So I made a choice at that point, and that choice was to quit college again. I said something to myself, I heard what I said, and my actions followed, and I’m on campus and I’m making the poor choices because now I’m hanging around the other individuals who are dropping out of school and making poor choices.
(08:29)
So I start to smoke weed and drinking alcohol, and I’m doing prescription medication that I’m not prescribed to. And I starting to get on a slippery slope that took me down a path that I had no idea was going to turn out the way that it did. So my choices started to land me in areas that I didn’t like and the consequences, I didn’t like them. And I started to find out the campus police were chasing me around campus. And then I’m kicked off a college campus. And Robert got so bad that I started trying and experimenting different drugs. And I ended up living homeless in the streets of Philadelphia. I mean homeless. I mean, I had nowhere to go because I chose to live in the streets and embarrassment to my family. I wasn’t bathing go 4, 5, 6 days without washing my body, literally that my clothes would stick to me. And I’m not proud of any of this stuff, but this is the real Ron James.
Rob Jolles (09:45):
This is the Ron James story.
Ron James (09:48):
Yeah, I, I’d wake up in my own vomit sometimes I defecate on myself and went and clean myself. But the long and short was my choices started to progress to get worse and worse. Now I’m stealing and I’m lying and I’m manipulating. And I find myself as you opened up the message of the podcast, you shared with the audience that I did 25 years incarceration. Well, that is correct. And I didn’t do it the easy way. Now you may be saying, what’s the easy way to do 25 years, Ron James, that is straight. I did it in and out. I would get out for 30 days and I get locked back up for several years and then I get out for 60 days and get locked up for three. And so it was this process and the last time I was incarcerated, I ended up doing seven years. So seven years straight. And so I have a total of 25 years behind bars. I spent some time in a very short time in a mental institution. I experimented with all kinds of prescription medications and or just alcohol became alcoholic. And it was a downward spiral and I was a mess.
Rob Jolles (11:25):
And okay, so we’re at the bottom right now. So get ready folks at the bottom. Cause now get ready to be inspired because we got a man who’s just opened up to us not holding back. I haven’t even heard parts of these stories, but okay, 25 years in and out the hard way at the bottom, and then you make a different choice. Tell us about that.
Ron James (11:52):
Yeah, so I’m incarcerated and I’ll find myself one day going up towards the English department. They had the school room area and there was this woman there and I started, she’d seen her, she had some books and stuff that she was trying to bring into a classroom. So I quickly ran up to her and I helped her and take stuff in. And she says, oh, that was very kind. She says, can you help me get the rest of this stuff? So I did that and she says, do you want a job? Now I need to share something with you, Rob, at this particular time in the state of Pennsylvania, if you’re working, you’re not working in prison, you get 19 cents an hour for four hours a day, and that money is money that you can use to buy your snacks, your deodorants, your cosmetics and things that you might need.
(12:45)
And to get a job in prison, you might get 20 cents. So it’s like way to go. So here I am. And so I’m like, yeah, I’ll take a job. And she gives me a job and little did I know, she was already putting some things in place to help me to better understand reading. So she did some testing with me. She saw where I was at, and then she started to help me to read. And then when I learned the things that she, now I’m looking for her, I’m helping out handing out papers, doing, and she hired me as a tutor. Now I was very good in math, I was good with my numbers, so I was able to excel there and help the other inmates with that part of the process. But what happened was she started to help and encourage me to read.
(13:36)
And then she would say, Hey, what you just did, can you show that other, show that other guy over there that, and then go over and show him. So she was helping me to submit this or get this deep in me so that I was able to understand it myself. So I did this for a while and things went very well, and I stayed in that capacity of a tutor and then all of a sudden I started to go to the library and it was at the library that I ran into this board. Now, I’m not supposed to you know, already said I’m put ’em out there. Rod doesn’t want me to talk about him, but you ain’t going to have the rhymes story without the Rods story is not going to happen. So like Nick and real quick, but Rod had published a book and he had published several books, but there was one of his books about seminars that was Rob, what was the title of the book and me right now, how to Run Seminars and Workshops.
(14:45)
How to Run Seminars and Workshops, exactly. So I picked up this book and I started to read it and something inside of me wanted to be able to help other people. I was already doing it as a tutor. And some of the other inmates were like, you got really good stories, you should be a speaker. So I was like, wow, I want to do this. So I took Al, I looked in the back and there was an address. So I said, okay. So I wrote a letter and I sent it off to him. Now, later on, Rob can share with you, here’s part of that story. But they sent the letter to him and he wrote me back. Now you hate to understand the chances of him writing me back were astronomical. But he wrote me back and in the process he said, Hey, if you’re serious about what you’re saying in your letter, what I mean to him, he said, then you need to write your book.
(15:44)
And I first was taken back, who’s this guy telling me what to do? I want to write a book, I want to speak, I want to do presentations, I’m want to talk to people. But remember, part of my fear was reading and all that stuff. So I started to reread the letter and then I said, you know what, I’m going to take him as at his challenge. And in his letter he said something that was profound to me, and it was, writing is not thinking about writing. Writing is not researching about writing. Writing is not finding about writing is reading, and that’s putting a pen to the paper. If you’re serious, put this letter down and start writing. And that’s what was said to me. Did that. So as the process, I wrote him back and told him I started writing and then there was some encouragements and stuff by Rob, but that’s what got me on the process of writing my first book. And I wrote that book in recent in prison and it wasn’t edits, it was just 1,825 pages.
Rob Jolles (16:51):
And I want to drop in on this story now and give you my angle. And yes, Ron, I told Ron let’s, I don’t want to really bring me into this too much here, but yeah okay, so you heard Ron’s angle. I, I’m busy at work. I opened up this letter who was, who’s writing letters anyway, and I get this paper letter, but written with such heart and such feeling and really made me think. And I have to tell you, believe me, I’m no saint. I thought, well, I, I’ll write this guy back and we’ll start, but I don’t think he’s going to stay with me and yet. And I get another letter and I get another letter and we begin to work. He said 1500, over 1500 pages. That was a very funny part of our relationship because when you’re writing a letter and you’re not speaking to somebody on the phone, you can miss some spots. So Ron, folks, you have to understand when we’re talking about 15 over 1500 pages, that’s not on a computer, that’s on a yellow pad, a yellow legal pad that he’s writing on page after page after page and we’re communicating. But I thought, well, that was page counts probably at 50 or 70. Finally this we’re here, 1500, over 1500. And Ron goes back, edited sta edits, edits the work back down. And where was the second number? We went from 1525 to what?
Ron James (18:22):
So I went to like 900 and then the writing back and forth with you again, you asked me could I put it in a half again? So then please. So I have to reread all this stuff, take out stuff, and I’m doing all that. And then I come back to 4 75 and then you had the nerve maybe, I guess is the right one.
Rob Jolles (18:46):
Audacity nerve. Yes. I might like, yes. What did I do next?
Ron James (18:51):
You said, and I’m thinking to myself in the world, but there was a process and I really thank you for that because as I started to, and I took it down to like 200 and some pages, which is the actual book when it came out to, but in that process I kept reliving and seeing myself and I realized that I didn’t like, and there was something that was magical there, something that took place in all of that that compelled me to say, I don’t like this guy, the guy that I’m writing about. I don’t want be him anymore. And there’s where choices were solidified because I said to myself, I don’t want to live like that anymore. Just like I said to myself, I’m not going to read, just like I said to myself, I’m a quick college and all the other choices that I made, I said to myself, I’m not going to be him anymore.
Rob Jolles (19:55):
And now you’re starting to. There’s a wave of better choices, good choices. But folks, I got to tell you, every letter almost said email. Every letter we wrote ended the same way. Remember how we ended it?
Ron James (20:08):
I most certainly did. I said, I will see you in the pit.
Rob Jolles (20:14):
That’s Right. That’s right. See you in the pit. And the pit in which we wrote about in the book is what trainers and professional speakers refer to as that area. Sometimes we’ll get inside a group that a U-shaped area or sometimes just on a stage, but that’s pit. That pit is where we operate. And every letter that we signed to each other, we ended the same way. And I’m going to accelerate a little bit because I want to get to where we are now and tell you that yes, Ron James finished that book. Yes, that book was published. Yes. Ron James not only was paroled in 2012, that’s 10 years ago now, congratulations. Thank you. But has a fully functioning professional speaking business that he, he’s much more active than I am as a speaker. Gets out there in a pit all the time, be continues to write books, continues to press forward.
(21:13)
And that’s why I go back and play any podcast you want. Count how many times I use the word hero. I don’t use it a whole lot. That’s an important word to me. You’re an inspiration and you are a hero to many. So let’s talk about some of the things where you’re up to, which you’re doing now. And one of them is that you touched on was I, I’m going to butcher up a quote, but it’s Robert Lewis Stevenson that I know. But the quote is something like this. Somebody will go ahead and Google it when we’re done. But something like most beautiful adventures are those that we do not go out to seek. In other words I believe what Stevenson was saying is what you experienced is that here you are writing a book and the book is going to be a trigger to a speaking business when you get out. But in that process, you’re learning about yourself and you’re, you’re studying yourself at an angle you couldn’t possibly study without actually taking that time and exploring those words. And that’s the exciting part with, because Ron and I are continuing to try and see if we can help others this way. So talk about some of the things that you’re working on now.
Ron James (22:31):
Absolutely. So after the books and all that they actually did there were two documentaries that were made of my life story, and then there was a motion picture movie titled Choices. And Rob also, he’s not going to only to say this, but I’m going to send
Rob Jolles (22:53):
No, I want you to say this one. This one I want, go ahead. <laugh>
Ron James (22:58):
Rob. Rob actually played himself in my movie title Choices,
Rob Jolles (23:06):
And I’m a little bitter about it because many of my lines were cut out of the final movie. So apparently I didn’t do quite the job. I thought I did, but I thought I could play me pretty well. Apparently I suffered some areas, but no, I had a wonderful time and it’s a terrific movie. Can you find that movie on Netflix? Where can somebody find the movie choices?
Ron James (23:32):
They can find the movie Choices on Your choice foundation.org or Vimeo and they could just Google Choices, the Choices by Ron l James, the Choices movie by Ron l James. If you Google it, you’ll be able to find that. Yes.
Rob Jolles (23:50):
Okay. So for no other reason, not that the Ron James story isn’t amazing, but if for no other reason, maybe to catch a few Rob Jolles sightings in the movie. Yeah you got to go find that movie. So let’s talk now. You have a foundation that supports your speaking efforts. Correct. Talk about that just for a moment.
Ron James (24:13):
Yeah it’s the Choice Foundation and the idea of the foundation or cause or mission or is to help any substance abuse before it starts. And by speaking to these students all over the country, I go actually last week I was in Arizona, yesterday I was in Connecticut. I go all over the country Minnesota, everywhere, California, Kansas, you name it. And in doing so, I get a chance to speak into just so many lives, but the idea is to help students make their next choice their best choice. Probably students Rob, and as you know this there are corporate events. I’ve speaking spoken ad and just being able to speak at colleges and tomorrow I’m going to Roanoke College. But just being able to speak into the lives of individuals to help them make better choices to foundation centers and circles and embraces that to help anybody. And now it’s expanded to the Choices Movie two, which is actually what we’re working on. And it’s about an individual, about me as coaching this individual. But the individual has a fun, it’s a story, and I, I’ll just share this with you.
(25:53)
The gentleman, his name is Jim Min. Okay. He ends up having some difficulties himself and ends in a wheelchair after being in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy. His wife, who was a nurse, gets sick and she goes in the hospital, she has to get her leg amputated, her leg gets amputated. There was some difficulties. And she ends up dying in the hospital of Covid. Well, that of itself seems to be a tra tragedy because now he’s saying to himself, who’s going to take care of me? So then his mother, the following day passes away of natural causes. So he then is lost his wife and his mother within two days. Three weeks later, his dad gets sick, goes in the hospital, he dies of Covid. So he leaves all these major family now he’s like he, he’s like there. And at Pass Cross I get a chance to help him.
(27:07)
And actually we spent a lot of time and what I did, what you did for me, Rob, I was able actually to do for him. And now he has published his own book and he is an author and he also is a life coach. So it’s like this whole thing is continuing to grow. So you asking what, so anyway, the foundation is behind all of that, but life is about serving other people is what I found out. And because I was self-centered early in life and very selfish to the point of almost narcissist, I didn’t see anything else except for me. But it was when I saw myself in that writing process and going through some things and wanting to do some things different and making new choices, I ended up getting new results. If you keep doing the same things you’re doing, you get the same results. It’s when you change and make better choices, you get better results.
Rob Jolles (28:15):
So well said. And as a father of three, I think your words really help me because sometimes when our children or our friends do something that we’re not pleased with it, it’s hard to focus the message, but actually usually the issue doesn’t focus on the outcome. It focuses on the choice they made. And to express disappointment in the choice as opposed to whatever happened to me became a much more powerful message to people. It really does center around our choices. Can we talk a little bit about, and we’ll wrap up soon, but I could talk to you all day and Lord knows I do occasionally, but can we talk a little bit about where you are right now in terms of this idea of helping others? So the way we’ve worked and we’ve helped this person about potentially going back into the prisons and trying to help others write their story and complete their journey and educate themselves through their words. Talk about that a little bit.
Ron James (29:22):
Yeah, so the idea is certainly starts with giving back. And part of it is I know that how many men enter the correctional institutions and the prisons that they themselves haven’t had the opportunity or can’t or they’ve been shut down and reading. And then there are others who love reading and are very articulate and very skilled. So the idea is to go back and to speak into the lives of these individuals and recreate some kind of way to recreate what has taken place between you and I certainly be able to help them and inspire them to write their own material, write their own story. Now does that mean that their story is going to get published? Maybe not. Does that mean it’s going to get published and go to a movie? Maybe not. Maybe they’re going to be a bestseller, whoever we don’t know. But if we don’t take the time and give back, we will never know. So it’s better to at least attempt to give back into a group or an audience that is captive, that have a lot of time on their hands to be able to get the task done and in the process, think about what they’ve done to get to that point.
Rob Jolles (30:56):
And what’s interesting, Ron, I’m really learning a lot from this conversation. I kid you not, because I may have heard the story in elementary school, but I passed by it mentally. I was sort of focused on where you were and where you were going. But it seems like the core of your message where you first took a wrong turn centered around reading and just that moment in front of the class and what that did to you and how that shut you off, and where that choice in a sense began to lead you, things began to pile up on that particular choice. But that was the first deviation. It’s reading. That’s really one of the cores of your messages here. And I find that fascinating and it’s one of the reasons why I, I’ll, I’ll correct one thing you said and I want to remind you of this.
(31:57)
When you were writing your book, the one thing I told you was we don’t need to worry about publishing it because you get that book done and we’re going to pub we we’ll get that book published. That was before the publishing world changed a great deal. I’m telling you that if we go into those prisons, you and me, and we work with somebody, I’ll be happy to look ’em in the eye and tell ’em you got a lot of words to put together. We don’t need quite as many as Ron started with <laugh>, but we got a lot of words put together. But I really believe we’ve some venture capitalist support, some other support. We’ll figure out a way. I don’t ever want to look at a person and you won’t get it published. How many books you’ll sell? Don’t know. Will there be a movie made?
(32:44)
That one I’m pretty sure is a longer shot. But you write the book, experience that journey, achieve that amazing accomplishment. And for goodness sakes, I don’t have a problem looking somebody the eye and say, we’ll figure out a way to get it published. So anybody maybe be thinking about that right now. Just be happy to reach out to either one of us if you want to get behind an idea like this, because I think there’s just some tremendous value there. And these are some of the things you’ve taught me, Ron through that cookie letter that you sent me way back when.
Ron James (33:24):
They can get in touch with me through my website Ron l james.com. That’s my website or my emails, Ron@ronljames.com.
Rob Jolles (33:39):
Yeah, so that’s Ron l james.com is the website. Correct? Okay. That’s correct. Yeah. Okay.
Ron James (33:46):
Yeah.
Rob Jolles (33:47):
Wow. Folks, we’re just scratching the surface. This is supposed to, the show’s called Pocket Size, pep Talk, some pocket size pep talk. This was a massive pep talk but you could put this one in your pocket if you tried. And again, we’re scratching the surface, but I want to pull up here. I think I want to have you on again and talk about continue to explore the future. Now we understand how we got here. To me, that’s an amazing story. Not as good as the story that’s being built right now. That’s the cool part. That’s the inspiration to me personally. Ron, can’t thank you enough for being on this show. Grateful to know you and have you as a friend.
Ron James (34:32):
No, and Rob, I am honored for your friendship and your kindness and your love towards not only me, but my family, my wife, my daughter, and just everybody that is in touch with me. And I appreciate you and love you, brother.
Rob Jolles (34:50):
Love you too, Ron. Folks, we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (35:00):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcasts, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.