From Prison to Stoicism – Craig Stanland’s Journey

In this episode, Craig Stanland shares his story of how he landed in jail from living a luxurious life. I, Kevin investigate how Craig made himself grow back again and become a ray of hope for many others.

Some of the major points discussed in this episode are laid out as follows:

Learning to love: That’s been an evolutionary practice for Craig.
Once we realize that fear is an illusion, we can navigate much better.
A gratitude practice can be unbelievably transformative when done consistently. It rewires the brain from scarcity to abundance.
My previous life was based upon materialism: Craig.
Everything is temporary.
We grow up believing in lies. One of the biggest lies in the story of humanity is the ‘lie of our imperfection’ or in other words ‘not being enough’.
Sometimes just being okay is good enough.
Losing my identity was really the crux of my journey: Craig.
When you do keep your commitment to yourself, celebrate yourself.

Quotes from the episode:

Gratitude was one of the foundational practices that I began in prison that I still do to this day. I cannot express there’s so much out there about gratitude and I feel like it’s almost lip service at this point, with some of the content that is out there, but I have to reiterate how unbelievably transformative a gratitude practice can be when done consistently it rewires the brain from scarcity to abundance.

When we’re operating from a place of abundance, we can operate from a place of courage, we can face those fears, we can really start changing our lives and we don’t look, it’s so easy to spend so much time looking at what is missing, what is lacking, as opposed to spending time looking at what really is there and what we actually do have and that’s what gratitude.

…our brain is actually wired for our success. So when you make and keep commitments and then you congratulate yourself for that, giving yourself a little bit of a shot of dopamine. So now the brain goes ooh that felt nice, I’d like a little bit more of that.