Read an excerpt from Success! The Straight-A-Guide
Preface
Every day, millions of people in their teens and early 20s make decisions without considering where such choices will lead. Despite the wisdom that parents, teachers, and counselors provide, some find it difficult to make the connection between today’s choices and actions with tomorrow’s successes and failures. I learned such lessons the hard way.
In 1982 I graduated from high school with mediocre grades. Despite my diploma, I didn’t have a clear direction and the temptations of a fast life easily influenced me. Choices I made led to problems with the criminal justice system, and five years after high school a federal judge slammed me with a 45-year sentence.
I’ve been locked in prisons of various security levels since 1987, when I was 23. During that time I’ve learned a strategy that has enabled me to grow and lead a meaningful life. Had I understood that strategy during my reckless transition between adolescence and adulthood, I would have made better decisions, avoiding problems with the criminal justice system altogether.
As the months of imprisonment turned into years, and the years turned into decades, my commitment to emerge from prison successfully grew. I could see the pattern more clearly. Without direction, I would always live as a prisoner, susceptible to influences around me. But if I lived with deliberate purpose, watching every step and embracing a total commitment to conquering the difficulties around me, I could lead a life of relevance. Anyone could do it. All that was necessary was a commitment to what I have come to call The Straight-A Guide.
The Straight-A Guide isn’t a secret or strategy that any particular individual who is alive today can take credit for having discovered. Leaders have relied upon the strategy since the dawn of mankind. They may not have called it by the same name, but those who reached significant goals made the same types of values-based decisions described in the Straight-A Guide.
Those of us who rely upon the Straight-A Guide to succeed use it as a compass. It leads us out of the vicious cycle of failure that ruins so many lives. We begin with positive attitudes. We cling to aspirations with clear visions of success, as we define it. Then we take deliberate and decisive actions. We hold ourselves accountable, and we encourage others to do the same. We create an awareness to hone in on opportunities. That awareness leads to incremental achievements, and we celebrate them all. Finally, we express appreciation for the blessings that come our way.
In the pages that follow, three other prisoners and I describe our efforts to introduce these concepts to a group of at-risk adolescents and young offenders. The outreach program in which we participate represents a part of our commitment to reconcile with society for the bad decisions we made as younger men.
Michael G. Santos
January, 2011
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