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Kelly Paxton: What is the best money you have spent personally or professionally?

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Craig Stanland: That is actually an easy one for me toastmasters.

Craig Stanland: It was my first let me think my first payment that was included the extra 20 for the membership on processing, but I think all total it came out to about $80 for six months that hands down was the best investment, I have ever made.

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Kelly Paxton: So who is a famous crook or COP that you would like to go have happy hour lunch or tea with.

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Craig Stanland: Oh, that is an interesting question.

You know, honestly, I would like to have lunch with them, and unfortunately this is an impossibility, but the agent that arrested me.

He passed a couple of years ago, which was really sad. He had apparently cancer just a couple years older than myself. I'm 48.

And, and I feel terrible about that. I really think that would be an interesting person to go out with and just to get a little deeper perspective of his side of the case and what he saw you know, I think that would be fascinating.

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Kelly Paxton: Oh, my God that would be so incredibly fascinating cuz like I mean I was a federal agent and there's a couple people who I think probably wanted to see what you know.

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Craig Stanland: Let's go with what gets me up in the morning, and that would be writing. I love the act of writing. I love the art of writing.

It is one of the most joyous experiences of my life when a sentence just comes together.

There are just times and it sounds so simple and easy, but sometimes there's a sentence that just flows and I write it and it.

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Craig Stanland: But that's it I you know I just I lost it, but then in prison.

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Craig Stanland: plenty of time and writing really helps save my life, you know to reconnect with that it really genuinely helped save my life.

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Kelly Paxton: So why don't you tell the audience your sort of story as to how you got to prison and what you've done since then, because I haven't you know set it up teed it up for you quite so well.

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Craig Stanland: I'll do the 40,000 foot view for everybody, so what I like saying in September 30 2013 I had pretty much had it all. I owned multiple homes I drove all the nice cars.

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Craig Stanland: Had a beautiful and amazing wife, I had the career, you know I wore five figure watches and went to all the nicest restaurants in Greenwich Connecticut and Manhattan.

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Craig Stanland: And then on October 1 2013 I lost it all that's the day that I was arrested by the FBI.

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Craig Stanland: For just under a year I committed fraud against one of the largest technology companies in the world, I found an opportunity to exploit their warranty policy for my financial gain and it was.

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Craig Stanland: So couple of things there, thank you for picking up on choice, and I want to actually address that really quickly, so there was a there was a time period where I use the word mistake.

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Craig Stanland: Who I used the word mistake. There was a lot of finger pointing out other people there was again that word mistake and then one day I just had it was inside prison I had this Epiphany.

Where I realized all these things that I was complaining about you know the prosecutor did misstate my network at sentencing.

He misstated it by an excess of $400,000 and I thought that you know negatively impacted my sentence and all that and I, and I realized I go no.

I knocked the first domino down buck stops with me, I made a choice and i'll tell you inside prison, I felt freedom.

Craig was so great to interview.  His candor and hope for the future is inspiring. 

His Tedx talk was amazing and I hope to do one too eventually. I have a new idea brewing and I am hoping Craig will be a part of it. Stay tuned. Not sure about next week but I have some ideas that hopefully will work out.  Thank you.