Livestream: Business wisdom, courtesy a stint behind bars

There is a reason why America is called the land of opportunity – almost everybody gets a shot at making the most of their lives. And Jeff Smith illustrates this concept in the very first second of his crisp Ted Talk.

Recounting his experience as a first-time prisoner, Smith talks about BJ, a fellow inmate who had king size dreams. BJ’s plan was simple – get clean, get out of prison and pump in about $10, 000 into a racy new website. The key was to merge what he referred to as ‘his two passions’ – fast, swanky, cars and a taste for the high life and glamour.

Smith quickly begins to learn that his cell-mates were no less intelligent or business savvy then the CEOs and head honchos of blue chip companies who had dined with him, prior to his stint in prison. These boys spoke in jargon too, just like someone pursuing his freshman year in B-school. On the outside, these drug dealers worked along the lines of principles such as promotional incentives, never charging a first-time user, territory expansion and more. However, contrary to popular belief in the US, not every expense under the penal system is borne by the tax payer. Smith explains that a parallel economy works behind bars where a mark-up of 30 to 50 per cent is levied on goods and services, and that prisoners learn to get by on the principle of hustling every day. He says, “You’ve got to pay for your soap, your deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, all of it. I unloaded trucks. That was my full-time job, unloading trucks at a food warehouse, for $5.25, not an hour, but per month.”

Living with limited means tends to bring out the ingenuity in the inmates, as Smith says, that they learn to prepare delicious meals from scraps stolen from the warehouse, hair sculpting using nail cutters or even building workout weights by suspending boulders from laundry bags and tying them up to tree limbs.

What Smith wants to do is make these inmates gainfully employable upon exiting jail and help them start their own enterprises – restaurants, barber shops, personal training businesses. He laments there are no finishing or orientation school to help them write out business plans and translate their skills into tangible legal enterprises. The first step is creating dialogue and public discourse. And that’s exactly what Sam manages to do with his talk – a must watch for the weekend.