Bryan Kelley is the chief empowerment officer of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, or PEP. But to think of this as just another prison ministry would be a grave injustice. PEP doesn’t want to simply change inmates, instead they want to transform the 150,000 men incarcerated in Texas from the inside out. Teaching practical entrepreneurial skills helps release fathers and husbands from generational bondage. Bryan joins us on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast to share the story of how PEP is doing just that. And he illustrates just what they are doing to set men up for meaningful and lasting success after they are released from prison. 

Episode Transcript

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Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, I'm here in our virtual office suite with Rusty Rueff Rusty.

Bryan Kelley: Greetings. Good morning, Henry. How are you today?

Henry Kaestner: I'm awesome. Thank you. How about that Purdue football team?

Rusty Rueff: You know, if your number two in the country, watch out for us, if you're anybody else, does it matter?

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, but that was one big game. And you know what? You're going to be talking about that game for the next 10 years if you're a Purdue fan.

Rusty Rueff: That's right. And we're going to talk about that's all we got. It's all we got.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. And we're going to talk about Purdue football a little bit because otherwise we're talking about college football. William would be on it. It just it. Just join us out with all this Alabama talk. And so we're just going to pretend it's all about Carolina football and Purdue football on this. I am just back from Africa. I think over the course of the next couple of podcast episodes, I might share different things about it. But Rusty, I'll tell you one thing that's interesting about the trip was that I show up to the airport and you know me well enough to know that I'm lousy on email. A shock to the airport early, and I'm looking at my email and I never shut the airport early. It's definitely not something I do. But I thought, You know, I'm here early. Maybe I'll go back and I'll look and catch up on some of my email. One of those email that had been sent 10 days prior was important things before going to Africa. It's like, OK, I'll open that one. And Nicole, who runs our office, said, You need to have a yellow fever test. You need to have a PCR test, you need to have your visa for Kenya. And as I said at the

Rusty Rueff: airport, how many of those did you have? Let me get

Henry Kaestner: zero. I had none of them and none of them. And so I had to cancel. The flight from San Jose to L.A. was can take me to Doha because I wouldn't have enough time to get a PCR test. I scramble rebooked through San Francisco, which leads at the same time, gives me an hour and a half to get the PCR testing, get the PCR test. I arrive at the ticket booth to get my boarding pass. We can't give you a boarding pass because you don't have a visa. You can't get on the plane. So I had to go ahead, cancel that ticket, get another ticket to South Africa, which will allow me to get to Qatar, hoping that I get approved for the visa while is in the air, which ended up happening. And I'm like, I just I'm not going to do anything with yellow fever. I'm just going to take my chances. The woman at Qatar Airways didn't ask for it. I get to Doha. Indeed, my visa has now been approved and then cancel the flight I'd had to Cape Town. I then rebooked to Nairobi, and then I like, you know, you need a QR code in order to get in the country. The health department website in Kenya was down and is going through and they're like, You know, if you don't board your plane within 20 minutes, we can't cancel you and I'm going to go twenty three, twenty two. I guess somebody in our Nairobi office to go ahead gear that out for me. I get it. I sprint through the airport. If you're old enough, you know about O.J. Simpson, you went through. That was me. And if I didn't run Rusty in both runners, if I hadn't been running like five days a week for the last couple of years, I would have missed the flight. I get the flight when we're going from south that we're going from Nairobi to South Africa. Later on in the trip, Justin's there. They asked for yellow fever. I grabbed no I. I grabbed my passport and my boarding pass, and I just run to the gate. I'm like, I've got to get to South Africa because we've got this Faith Driven Investor conference with Traeger and I got to get home. And so in in working out, I didn't need any of the three.

Rusty Rueff: But, you know, I wasn't going to say anything because our listeners actually can't see you. But I thought it was just the light. But I do. I see a little tinge of yellow. I mean, there's yellow fever show up.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's the kind of delayed, you know, you know, six seven days after you get back is I now have. Well, we'll share with our listeners more about this epic trip that Justin and I and so many of the rest of our team had to find out what God was doing with Faith driven entrepreneurs and Faith Driven Investor is in Nairobi and Cape Town. We'll do that later. But we've got a really special guest on today and I don't want to keep on holding any longer than he has. Brian Kelly, thank you very, very much for joining us today for talking to us about prison entrepreneur program Pepe. And as we try to do, of course, with all guests, we like to set the stage and love to hear your story. You've got it very, very interesting one. It's different than most. And while we want to talk about the incredible work that you guys are doing, we want to hear about your personal story first. So welcome to the program. Who are you? And how did you get here?

Bryan Kelley: Well, Henry Rusty, thank you so much for having me on. It's an honor to be here. I'm Brian Kelly, CEO of The Amazing Prison Entrepreneurship Program. We're a nonprofit in Texas that raises the banner of entrepreneurship to foster transformation in Texas inmates. We've done that 17 years, and I've got a staff of about 30 people, volunteers that number in the low thousands to three thousand three thousand graduates. And my gosh, every day is just an amazing adventure. I could see transformation stories happen all around me, but I'm not only the CEO of the program, I am also a graduate of the program. I went through the program in prison about seven years ago, seven eight years ago, got out in 2014, having done nearly twenty two years in prison.

Henry Kaestner: Oh my goodness.

Bryan Kelley: And so I'm not only helping to foster change, but that change is happening in me as well. You know, long, storied history. There is the I grew up in a small town in Kansas. My dad took off when I was a little boy. I've never really known him, never had a solid male influence in my life. My mother, bless her heart, did the best she could to kind of, you know, keep dinner on the table and a roof over our head and, you know, just basically high school diploma and no other real marketable skills. And so we struggled and I tried to figure out what being a man was by looking at my environment around me. What I garner from TV and what I realize is the things that I pulled together were a perverse caricature of manhood. I thought a man, you know, drank hard costarred, worked hard, treated his women hard. You know, that's what I thought being a man was. And so that's what I grew up into and became. I moved to Dallas after a short stint at a Division Two school. I actually went to college on a track scholarship, but I majored in partying and didn't get it and didn't go to track practice. And who knew they expected you to do that? So I ended up in Dallas working construction for a few years that it was really all about, you know, partying on the weekends and I got caught up in the nightlife and the nightclubs. I was going to clubs with a lot of the Dallas Cowboys like, you know, Tony Tony Dorsett to tell Jones. And I remark and smothers arrived. And that's, you know, I dove into that and there was a really strong cocaine ceiling going on at that time. And, you know, I jumped in with both feet. And now, you know, has some things going on in my life. By that time, somebody introduced me to smoking cocaine. Hmm. And my life fell apart. In the course of about three or four months, I had lost everything. I own a cocktail. I was about to lose my apartment. I was driving a terrible car in in a in a loss desperate state. I killed a man and a dope deal that went horribly wrong on a criminal justice system would apprehend me. Take me to trial on that, and I was given a life sentence for murder in 1992, was remanded to the prison system. Everything I had come to really count on for life, my selfish life, my refocused life was stripped away and I was sent to just a bizarre environment or bizarre culture of men that I found out were just like me. They were also perverse caricatures of men who demanded respect through violence and threats and things like that. And so, you know, the path that I chose in life I was given and a fulsome way in prison.

Henry Kaestner: Wow. Tell us more about the time in prison because we've come to understand a bit of the man you are today, which looked very, very, very, very different from the man that we might make a bunch of assumptions about, from watching the nightly news or something like that back in 1992. So there is a transition. There is a transformation. What was 22 years like behind bars? What happened?

Bryan Kelley: You know, the first prison that I was sent to was the largest prison in Texas. Of nearly 4000 inmates, the demographics was eighteen to twenty one. At 26, I was referred to as old school at that time. And, you know, kind of young angst filled too much energy. We were fighting over everything they would fight over. You know what TV shows to watch, who could sit on a bench, who could say who? It was just bizarre. There was just way too much testosterone going on. So I just I jumped into that. It was in a riot on the regular and I didn't know what started it. And it's just a bizarre, violent environment. And I kept thinking to myself, this is what my choices have led to. And about a year into my incarceration, just thinking my life is over. A friend of mine invited me to a prison ministry called TIROS, which you probably know was a Greek term for God's special time regard as a point of time unheard of. But I said, What's Kairos? And he said, Well, for you, what it means is four days of home cooked meals. And I said, Well, sign me up because the food here is terrible. And so I went to that the prison ministry and the model that is free to Christian Man come in to have a four day retreat with 42 hand-selected inmates. And we have talks and small group discussions and prayer and discussions about forgiveness and choices and things like that. And you know, quite frankly, I'd never been around like that before. I love the encouraged. They listened. It was. It was so refreshing, but I didn't think there were real. I was poking and prodding and asking questions and saying, You were a men like you come from. I was intrigued but skeptical. And I bonded with a Lutheran preacher who'd went to Kansas University near where I grew up, and he won my trust. Just talk to about hometown stuff. To that point, I had never admitted to anybody that I was guilty of my crimes. I'd lied to everybody. I lied at trial, lied to my family. I lied to my fellow inmates. And I just couldn't carry that darkness anymore. Being around those men of the light. So I told Keith, I said, I need to tell you something. So we went off to the side and I just, you know, I put it all out and I told him everything about my crime, the details. And, you know, I was just a blubbering mess and he let me finish and he looked at me, said, Brian. I'm so incredibly honored that you would share that story with me first. That is huge. And I want to tell you something. I forgive you. I fell apart. I mean, I was a snotty hitch mess, and he let me pull it together and he said, You know, Brian, although I forgive you. And that's true. You need to ask God to forgive you, you know? I promise you he will. And I said, You know, Keith, I get that, but I can't. And he said, Well, understand why not? And I said, Well, I don't deserve that. I don't deserve his forgiveness. I deserve this. Or worse, I get it. I'll take my medicine. And he looked at me, actually laughed, and he said, Wow, I didn't realize when I came here this weekend, I was going to meet somebody who was smarter than God. And I said, Well, hold on, Keith, I didn't say that. He said, Oh, sure you do. You said you admitted God would forgive you if you ask him. But you know how to handle this better than he does. How has that played out in your life? And all of a sudden, I just realized that my very best thinking had led to a life sentence for murder of May Never Get Out. What do I know about a living? I'm a mess. I'm a part of the problem. I want to be a part of the solution. How do I do that? So I just hand it over to God that day. I say, God, here is the broken pieces of my life. I'm sorry that it's such a mess, but do with it what you will. And on that day, May 28, 1994, there was a change that was made and it didn't get me out of the consequences my crown. But it certainly changed the trajectory of my future.

Rusty Rueff: I'm almost at a loss for words. I mean, the story is just so amazing and I and and thank you so much for sharing it so authentically and openly with us and our listeners because, you know, transformation is a hallmark of the Christian journey and so many times we see that or we think we see it. But you know, what you're explaining to us is a profound transformation. And so thank you for sharing it. I'm going to transition into the prison entrepreneurship program. So when and where did you get involved in that?

Bryan Kelley: Sure. So shortly after my transformation, my conversion, I dove into the school, I would earn a degree bachelor's degree in psychology. I dove into recovery to learn, to understand, you know, what were my triggers? What led me to be so dependent upon drugs and alcohol and chemical substances? I dove into church and the Bible. A man stepped up and went disciple me for 10 years straight. We lived together and we worked together. And every day we would talk about the fundamentals of Christianity coming out of the Bible and how we were applying that in our lives or failing to apply that in our lives. But there was authenticity. We just work that stuff out. He disciple me, and as I was disciple, I started to disciple others. So I was leading group, small groups, prayer groups, Bible study groups just getting involved and started pouring out everything that was being poured into me. As I was doing that, more and more opportunities popped up, and there came a time when I was invited to be a peer educator, a leader, a shepherd inside a prison for the prison entrepreneurship program. And I actually transferred units to go do that, and it was amazing. I was pouring in to man 50, 60 70 at the time, helping them work on their character, work on their business plan. Think through different options or visions for their life. And I absolutely loved it. It was the perfect way for me to use my experience, my passions to really make a difference, even if I never got out of prison. At that point, I didn't know if I would or not. And so I dearly loved it. And it's interesting that at the graduation of the very first class that I invested in, I was sitting over there among the staff among difference makers in this world, and I was crying. And it's an emotional moment anyway. But the reason I was weeping was because I had never been aligned with such incredible people making a difference for the kingdom. And I remember, you know, crying out for God's sake, I don't ever want to leave a company or people making a difference like this. Thank you for inviting me into this. Please continue to surround me with people making a difference. I want to be a part of that. No. That very night I got shipped back to my old unit because we were about to switch units where we're going to host the program, and I couldn't go because I had too much time. And so everything I just landed in my hand, this jewel of peace was stripped away and oh, I was upset. I wrestled with God over quite some time. And I just asked myself, Why would you let me taste that? Strip it away? I don't understand. That's cruel. And you know, he must be looking at me, you know, outside of the bounds of time, looking at where I'm at now, seeing my sanity was just weight on my timing. Everything's going to be okay in the fullness of time. You know, I I actually swung a deal with parole, my 13th time up for parole. I had just cleared the 20 year mark. I'd been denied 12 times and the parole commissioner was basically telling me I've made parole. And he he asked me at the end, he said, Son, do you have any questions? I said, Yes, sir, I've got one. Will you give me parole next year? Oh my goodness. He said. He's here for you. Are you asking me to stay in prison for another year? I said, Yes, sir. And he said, Why? Why would you do that? And I said, Well, I would like to go through the prison entrepreneurship program. But the only way I can do it is if you give me a hard release date for next year. Otherwise I have too much time to go with Adrian. And you just looked at me for the longest time. And finally, he said, let me look into this. Basically, he gave me exactly what I asked for. I bargained for an extra year in prison to go through the prison entrepreneurship program because I knew the value that I was going to get out of this. It was an investment in my future.

Henry Kaestner: Wow, that's an awesome story on so many different levels. So with hundreds and hundreds, I think this podcast episode number 200 or something like that. Lots of entrepreneurial stories talking about seeing an opportunity in the marketplace, you know, problem is broken and being able to be just be out and be able to test market, find product market fit. What's the entrepreneurial process like if you're in prison? And you come up with an idea. But presumably you're somewhat limited in how you go about it, and yet I know enough about people to know that there have been quite a few successful entrepreneurial companies that have been birthed out of it. But what's that process like when you start off in prison?

Bryan Kelley: You know, Henry, you're right. We've had right at 600 businesses started by ex-felons after they've been released, and now several of those, many of those had revenues and sales over a million dollars last year. But, you know, it really starts and this goes back to our very genesis. We recognize that the man in prison and they can see themselves as an entrepreneur. They can't see themselves in corporate America because of the rigid policies written against, you know, felony convictions and things like that that they can see themselves as small business owners. And I'll tell you this, too. From their very survival on the street, the men in prison have natural business skills. They know about supply chains and risk management, profit margins, marketing, sales, reading, people recognizing opportunities. Now I think that we would all agree that they have taken a negative advantage of opportunities in the past, but we need to just restructure that and teach them how to recognize positive opportunities that are going to benefit not just them, but the community at large. I mean, isn't that what a definition of an entrepreneur is? Somebody who knows gaps or problems and sees them as an opportunity, an opportunity to make money or an opportunity to make a difference? So that's what we do, but we recognize that character is the most important part. That's the platform. That's the foundation that we're going to build upon. And if we don't have character, it doesn't matter what you know about entrepreneurship. I tell the guys all the time we can teach you how to run a million dollar business. But if you don't have the character sport, it doesn't matter. You're going to crash and burn. So we start with character development, and quite frankly, that's the lion's share of what we do on the inside. We start with that. We get a common language and we give them some practice of doing some things like that. And then we begin instilling business acumen knowledge, helping them form a business plan, thinking about what that's going to look like. We invite volunteers in to help shape what their plan is. Make sure that it's viable. That makes sense, that they're thinking through all those issues. And what we found is that guys are incredibly creative. They typically come up with delusional solutions. I think at times and so they need people who are clear eyed who have done this, who have started and led businesses to help them think through. It takes somebody with experience to teach someone. Look, this is just discipleship. You know, we are called to the workplace to be instruments of God. This is true discipleship without the Christian needs.

Rusty Rueff: It's fascinating to me because as you're talking about these entrepreneurs in prison, you know, I think sometimes about, you know, in the cyber technology world where you'll get Apple or Google or Facebook going out and paying people to hack their systems because they know that they think in a different way. And so there is entrepreneurial ism, you know, residing there. It just needs to be shaped in the right direction. And so, you know, hats off to what you're doing inside of this prison ministry. You've shared your story with us. Are there particular stories coming out of Prep that are on your heart to share to us today?

Bryan Kelley: Oh my gosh, there's so many it's hard to eliminate. But you know, a couple of years ago we recognized that, you know, we've got just an incredible transformation story, an incredible businessman to share with the world. So we hosted a showcase entrepreneur, Shark Tank, if you will, in Dallas, Texas, at the George Bush Center SMU campus. We highlighted three of our graduate entrepreneurs and they were fishing for about 250000 growth capital. All of them had established businesses. Well, take them. I wondered to start out with the guy, I think, who won the show that night, who won $100000 in gross capital, which is an amazing story. Rubin had went through be about eight or nine years previous when he got out. He had never had a job before, and he had no real marketable skills. But he had newfound character and he had some tools and a tool belt that he knew he could apply. So he got a job out in West Texas in the oil field, recognizing that he could earn some quick cash and get on his feet as quickly as possible. So he went to work out there and his boss dude to loved him because he had that character, the work ethic, he had that loyalty. He was dependable and trustworthy and showed up and work hard. One day they ran on a truck that was service on oil well and the truck broke down. So Ruben called up the shop, said, Hey, you know, you can fix my truck today. We're long, excuse me, five or six days. And so Ruben took the initiative we've got on YouTube, figured out how to fix it himself did so, and it wasn't, Oh my god, you've got mechanical skills that need to be developed. What if I get you some training is the pinnacle of that. So they gave us the training. They moved him out of the shop. He quickly moved up to shop foreman and then the entrepreneur came out and he started recognizing gaps in the service business in the oilfield. And he started his own business doing preventative maintenance to the trucks that go out to service the oil wells. First year, he did a million nine. Wow. Three hundred net. And that was without any marketing at all. Just great customer service and a trustworthiness of providing great service and being willing to go out at two o'clock in the morning and twenty degree weather and fix a truck. And so he was pitching to us. He wanted to build a shop at that time. This is just pre-COVID, just a few months before COVID hit. And he won that hundred grand. He was thinking about building the shop. COVID hit and he pivoted into fashion, and he said, Hey, there's an opportunity here to grow my business. And so he bought two other trucks instead and increase his fleet and is now. I think I heard just last week he's looking at doing four million this year. Wow.

Rusty Rueff: Great story. Great story. Yeah. It also reminds me of so many times in the entrepreneurial world. We talk about grit, right, that people have to have grit. And I think about, you know, someone who spent time in prison, you know, and then making the transition back to society. And I mean, it's about grit, right? I mean, you. So there's a place where, you know, we have that evidence, we have that evidence before I transition into an Segway to talking a little bit more about transformation. How are you finding capital? Are these entrepreneurs having an opportunity that investors are showing up?

Bryan Kelley: You know, that's a really great question, and it's been super difficult over our 17 year history for our would be entrepreneurs to find capital and especially startup capital. I mean, that's a that's a super risky asset class for banks anyway. But when you factor in that, they're ex-felons they probably have or or no banking history. It's almost crazy for a bank to even consider that we have discouraged in the past angel investors from our network of volunteers because I think we just need to have some safeguards in place. And so our approach has always been for them to bootstrap, to get out and get a job and prove their worth and save some money and save the necessary 10, 20, 30 thousand dollars to start their business. And we've done some crowdsource funding, but that has been spitting and sputtering at best. And so about a year and a half ago, we recognize we need to launch a lending arm and we're done so. It's called contract capital and it's a second chance friendly lending arm. We pull in some social impact investors who have created a pool. Of money. Well, they recognize that we're going to do a great job of vetting and underwriting these loans, making sure that they make sense, first of all, that what we're underwriting character finance, everything like that and we're pairing our guys with a business mentor to walk with him along the way. Today, we've had about 10 loans totaling about $300000. Every one of those loans is performing perfectly. And the stories of transformation that are coming out of that are just incredible. A quick story just to highlight that there's a guy right here in Houston who three or four years ago started a metal fencing business, everything from chain link fences to the wrought iron spear point. And he'd been doing about two hundred and fifty thousand a year, and he came to us and he said, I want to borrow some money to get a used forklift. I need to be able to move more metal. That's my bottleneck. We did a deep dove scrub of his business plan and his finances, and hey, this guy's stand up. There's some places that need a little polish, but we can help with that. We assigned a business advisor to him and they did a rough scrub on his business model, making sure that he understood where his biggest margins were, where he should be prioritizing his time and his efforts. Next year, he did about a million and a half six x increase. And I promise you, it was not because of that forklift. It was because he is now surrounded by somebody who is in his business, making sure that he's thinking about optimizing his business. And so that's exactly what Pep brings is a army of volunteers to help you think through your business and how to do that more Typekit.

Rusty Rueff: And how do you keep them spiritually grounded once graduated?

Bryan Kelley: You know, there's a spiritual component to it. Now we don't require a professional face. We're not what I would call faith based, but what we do is introduce what a successful, practical life of faith looks like. 70 to 80 percent of our volunteers are Christian. They go into prison. They invest in these man who can do really nothing for them. You know, it's because they have that heart to serve to disciple. And so we institute in our character formation part what being an honorable, godly man looks like. We pray in and out, but we do not require a profession of faith. We don't require them to have any particular faith that I encourage them to pursue and investigate faith because faith is not scared of any amount of investigation, right? So I encourage them to find that out. And what they see and practice in our volunteers really resonates with them. It becomes faith that's not necessarily tough. And so we follow through. We try to keep guys in community after they get out. We've got a continuing education program. We've got community events that we want to include in law, and we're really focused on building our vision now of a post-release second chance incubator and accelerator that will start in Houston, Texas, where we bring together our volunteers and our guys in a more impactful and intentional way. We're calling out the PDB collider because we want to foster more of those positive collisions, and when those two groups get together, it's amazing how God can work through that.

Rusty Rueff: That's great. And we'll make sure that on the website, we post everything about Pepe and Andre Capital. I mean, we have lots of listeners who are not only entrepreneurs but also faith driven investors. And you know, I find a lot of times we begin to seek for social capital and we look sometimes overseas for microloans and different kind of lending vehicles. And, you know, right here at home, you know, you've got an amazing ministry and an amazing program going on that I would imagine is picking the interest of our listeners right now. So thank you for that. I'm going to transition because I know you like to talk about going beyond change, and I had used the word before transformation, your own personal transformation. And this whole conversation is just really should remind all of us of the Apostle Paul's, you know, phenomenal transformation, you know, probably the most dramatic story in the Bible of transformation. You know, a guy who goes from being a persecutor to a guy who, you know, probably helped cause the death of Christ followers today in turning around and spreading the gospel around the world? You know, what I find and we all find fascinating is that Paul never stopped being a zealot. You know, even in the times that he was imprisoned. But the direction of his affection and his enthusiasm totally changed. Right. He went from being this prosecutor to being on the other side, a defender and a lifting up. Does this speak to the difference between surface change and deep transformation?

Bryan Kelley: You know, I think it absolutely does, and I think Paul is a great example, I think many of our guys are great examples of that. I share with him quite often, you know, allegiance to town. Also, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. Our call to the workplace, our call for our hands to get dirty is just as high of a calling as being called in the pulpit. You know, we are, we're called impact our families and our community around us, and we spend most of our time at work, so we need to be prepared to do that. But one of the things that I remind them is that word for workmanship is in the Greek poema, from which we get the word poem. We are God's poem written to the world. And you know, every great poem, every great work of literature has a catastrophe overcome that turns into a great story. And so these guys are an excellent example of how God tells a great turnaround story. However, we also render masterpiece, and I remind them that, you know, we come to this opportunity as broken pieces just like my life was broken pieces and God takes those broken pieces and turns them into a masterpiece, and that transformation goes on display for all to see. It's undeniable from our families, our community who knew this in the past when we are not the same man that we used to be. We go from being vessels of dishonor to vessels of honor and light and love and wives. We have that abundant life. It's undeniable, and everybody around us recognizes it and takes notice and wants to know, how do I get that? And so I just love it when those stories happen around me and just it just mushrooms at a Domino's. And that's exactly what the Kingdom of God is supposed to be like.

Rusty Rueff: It is that. And are you talk about the inside outside strategy? Is that what that is

Bryan Kelley: at the inside, outside and in a couple of different ways? You know, we start inside a prison and we follow up on the outside, but it starts inside and radiates outside individually as well. And so there's both fronts of that. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, going back to the macro, folks, there are a lot of prison programs out there that are just inside or they're just outside, and I really think it takes both. We plant seeds. We give them a tool belt on the inside that's going to prepare them for what they're going to encounter on the outside that you can follow through and continue to walk that path. You know, discipleship means walking along with somebody, and it takes some time until we get to the place where we're independent. We can do that on our own. We can become disciple makers. And so that's what we're trying to foster. We're taking men who had been vessels of dishonor, turning them into doting fathers, philanthropists, even investors and just job creators, difference makers in our community.

Rusty Rueff: I'm curious, Brian, is there institutional acceptance to this in our prison system?

Bryan Kelley: You know, there absolutely is. We've got a tremendous brand in Texas, former criminal justice. They've been partners of ours for our 17 year existence. We actually operate to a private prison. MTC has management training corporation, our great friends of ours. They have both institutions have bent over backwards to help foster change. I'll give you a great story. One of our guys got out about a year ago and he had been in prison for 10 years. About three months out, a friend of his invited him to a trip in Cabo. He said, I just got out of prison. Let me take you to Kabul and have some fun. And he went down there and met some folks and actually got a job while he was on vacation and didn't come back. He got a job running an art gallery. He had learned art while he was in prison. The guy recognized his character and his entrepreneurship gave him a job leading an art gallery down there. And he also sells some of his own art through that art gallery. Well, the president of the private prison that we operate in. Heard that story and just happened to be going down to Cabo, and he saw him out and found him, he said. His name's T.J. So T.J., I just wanted to come see this for myself. I've heard stories about your transformation and what you're doing. And I wanted to see it with my own eyes. And T.J. said, Yeah, it's true. And he said, Do you also sell your own art through here? And he goes, Yes, sir. And the president of MTC said, And I'd like to buy a piece from you. He said, That's crazy. I've just sold out. He said, Well, can I commission something for me? Well, what do you want? He said, I want a portrait. He goes, I'd love to do portraits, you know, portrait of who? And he said, I want a portrait of you. I want a picture of you to hang in my house and remind me that the men who are in my prisons all across this country can turn out to be just like you. Wow.

Rusty Rueff: Wow, that's an amazing story there. And yeah, we all should be having that portrait. Hanging in our houses here. You know, it's unique that we would have someone who has this kind of insight into the topic that we're talking about, so I'm going to take us a little bit of a different direction. You know, not all individuals who come through the prison system and become paroled or served their time become entrepreneurs, but they can become productive employees and workers. And I spend a lot of years in the human resource world. And, you know, I look back and I think about and I worked in manufacturing plants and sales organizations, and I think about the number of people who checked their application that they were a convicted felon or committed a crime. And that application was discarded, right? Because we couldn't look past that. We have entrepreneurs listening right now who have companies that are growing. Talk to us about giving the second chance to those who served their time and are coming back into society.

Bryan Kelley: When I got out of prison after almost 22 years, I had never Googled anything, ever sent an email and never use a debit card or a cell phone. I mean, the learning curve was straight up and I applied at a sign shop for my very first interview because I'd done some graphic layout and some stuff in prison for about 12 years. And so I walked into this franchise show up and they got my resume. And he looked at it briefly and he goes, You've got a lot of sign shop experience. And I said, Can I can be completely honest with you? And he said, Sure. And I said, I just got out of prison. And not only that for almost 22 years. And he sat down in his seat. He goes, Wow. Can I ask why? And I said, Sure, murder. And he pulls his glasses off and he looks at me and he said, Brian, I've never had an interview like this. Can I ask you how that happened? I said, yes, thank you for the opportunity. So I gave him a quick rundown of, you know what my life was like, what happened, what it's like now, how I can add value to his company. And he just he looked at me at the end and he said, I am so intrigued. This is the most captivating, intriguing interview I've ever been a part of. And I love seeing the transformation that's going on you, but I'm struggling with the idea of having you come to work here. Having been in prison for so long and for that reason. Can you talk to me about that? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. Here's the deal is, you know, at that time, I was 48 years old and I thought, I've got nothing. I said, I am going to be so focused on creating wealth for me to get ready for retirement. If I can do that, I'll work every hour. You throw my way, I promise you. You can't outwork me. Dare you to try. He kind of smirked and he said, OK, yeah, that's fair enough. I said, But you know, not only that, I'm a creature of routine for my twenty two years in prison, so I'm going to be where I'm supposed to be and I'm going to be at work. When I'm supposed to be here, I'm I go home and I'm, you know, not and I'm comfortable in that routine. And then I started talking about, you know, some of the things that I had learned in prison that were going to be beneficial for him, especially the things that he did. And as I went through that list, and I think number one of that is loyalty to the person who gives a guy a chance when he gets out and went through this whole list of things with this business owner, he looked at me and goes, You make me wonder why I haven't been hiring ex-cons all along Amen. And so I think there are many employers out there right now who are struggling obtaining the labor that they need, and there is an untapped labor pool coming out of prison. But not everybody coming out of prison is ready because we've worked on character because we've worked on some business acumen and skills. The men who are coming out of TPP are vastly different than General Joe coming out of prison, so I think we've got some opportunities for employers out there.

Rusty Rueff: Absolutely. And we'll have to figure out a way to dig deeper into this topic because you're exactly right. We do have a labor shortage. That's labor shortage doesn't look like it's going to go away anytime soon. We have entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to bring their businesses off the ground struggling with that labor shortage. And we have a talent pool that we don't recognize or don't understand we should recognize. And so we all need some help in that. So we need to figure out a way to bring you back and dig deeper into that. And then we'll talk about that for sure. So we have to bring this episode to a close, unfortunately. And typically our other co-host here, William will ask this question. So I get the honor of asking it today since he's not with us, but we like to close every episode hearing about what God is teaching you right now, like in this moment, and also how we could be praying for you. So share with us, you know, he's got God to have a word on your heart or word from the scripture that's speaking to you right now.

Bryan Kelley: Oh my gosh, he's dealing with me right now with John 10:10. The Norvell came to steal, kill and destroy, but Christ came so that we might have life and have that more abundant. The reason I bring that up is I'm helping my church launch a Christ based 12-Step program called Regeneration. We actually launched last night. We had about 30 souls who were desperate for freedom from sin show up. And so we just said, Hey, you know, I recognize I'm not saying any of you, you're not Christians, you're probably Christians who are carrying around chains and baggage, and we've got some keys that will unlock that. We want you to have, like life more abundant. We want you to see authentic life like that. And some of us who have found some of that freedom. And we're going to do this together. It's always about cycles. It's always about community. And we should not be people as Christians who are going around in misery and depression and we are not home. We are filled with lies and lies more abundant and that should show Amen.

Rusty Rueff: And how can we be praying for you?

Bryan Kelley: You know, there's so many things, so many good things on my plate. I think I'm a victim sometimes of saying yes to too many things. And so. I would just ask for clarity of God's purpose and, you know, doing things of my church, doing things with our guys. Matter of fact, I'm taking 10 guys on a men's retreat this weekend. You know, I just pray that I continue to get filled so I can provide the overflow to all those around me.

Rusty Rueff: Amen Well, let's do that right now. Or we just thank you for this episode with Brian and the gift that he has given us today. And Lord, we just ask you to bless him and he and his family and this he has so many opportunities coming in front of him. I could feel it, even as he expresses this need to be able to have clarity and wisdom about what to do and what not to do and how to spend his time. We ask you to give him that. And Lord, we also lift up the PEP program. What an amazing gift you're giving to so many men and women inside of the prison system, and we just ask you to bless that ministry. Keep it strong and let those who are wanting to support it feel divinely appointed to come that way. We lift up all these things in your precious name, and we say that so Amen Brian Kelly, the man who decided he wanted to stay in prison for one extra year. And thank you for doing it because you know your ability to speak to us today and to lead an organization like Pep might have not happened had you not stayed in that extra year. So what a sacrifice that we're all benefited from. So thank you so much.

Bryan Kelley: Well, thank you for having me on today. And like I said earlier, it's amazing what God can do with broken pieces. He can turn it into a masterpiece, and I'm not just talking about why he does it everywhere.

Rusty Rueff: Thanks so much for joining us on today's show. We hope you enjoyed it.