On a crisp November morning, I walked through the gates of Solano Prison in Northern California.

What happened next shook something loose in me, and I want to share it with you in this three-part Prison Diaries series.

In partnership with my friend Jason Bryant’s organization, CROP, two of my Mentora colleagues and I were at Solano to meet a group of 18 incarcerated men. Our aim: to teach them the same Inner Mastery, Outer Impact principles we teach everywhere we go—from Columbia’s Executive MBA program to corporate boardrooms to communities of faith leaders. My aspiration has long been to ground our work in universal truths—principles that apply to any human being, regardless of their station in life. And for years, I have felt a quiet ache over our collective blindness to the struggles of our incarcerated population—millions of human beings who exist just beyond the edges of our awareness.

This cohort of 18 men was our pilot. Today was simply a pre-launch visit—a chance to look them in the eye and see if they’d be willing to take the journey with us.

Into the Unknown

Solano holds around 3,000 prisoners under varying levels of security. One group is still actively involved in gang culture. A few days before we arrived, some of them had stabbed and killed a fellow inmate. Another group lives in the shadow of the first, doing what the gangs tell them to do, too afraid to defy them.

But there is a third group—men who have walked away from their criminal past, engaged in deep soul-searching and meaningful acts of contrition, and painstakingly mended the direction of their lives. My friend Jason, who spent 20 years in prison before being released a few years ago, is a shining example. He shared his remarkable journey during an Intersections podcast with me.

As we prepared to enter Solano, Jason pulled me aside.

“Hitendra, you’ll have to be careful. These men will see you as very different from them. They’ll be thinking, ‘What do you know about us? What could you possibly have in common with us?’“

He reminded me about something we had spoken about in the past—that members of his team, formerly incarcerated themselves, would ultimately be better positioned to deliver this teaching once we were ready with it.

It was wise counsel. But something in me resisted, out of a conviction I wasn’t ready to surrender: that we are all the same across humanity, and that every one of us can reach any one of us, if we only try.

So I issued myself a quiet challenge that morning: Find the bridge.

I had no script for how, as I walked into Solano that day.

The Room

After clearing security, we entered a recreation room where the 18 men sat waiting.

What I felt next caught me totally off guard.

The energy was remarkable—unfiltered warmth, open faces, an almost startling gratitude at our being there. One man, broad-shouldered with graying temples, stood up and clasped my hand in both of his. Another, younger, simply said, “We’ve been looking forward to this.” A third sat quietly in the back corner, arms folded—watchful, reserving judgment. I respected that.

Something within me said, “All will be well.”

A part of me felt as though I had known these men for a long time.

The Breakthrough

“Brothers,” I asked, a few minutes into our conversation, “are you in touch with the world outside? Do you know what is going on out there?”

They assured me they did. They followed the news. They were in touch with their families.

“You know about how polarized people have become?”

Yes, they knew.

“And about the levels of depression? The drugs? The addiction to smartphones? The consumption-oriented lifestyles? The stress and burnout? The sleep deprivation? The loneliness epidemic?”

They knew.

I paused. Let the silence do its work.

“So, you see? We are all in prison.”

Confused looks.

“We are all caught in the grip of our desires, our attachments, addictions, and ambitions, our self-defeating beliefs, our reactive patterns. This is the inner prison everyone is living in—whether you’re in Solano or out in the world.

“True freedom is an inner condition. It comes when we unshackle ourselves from these limiting ways of thinking and doing—when we start to operate from the soul-wisdom within. We freely choose what brings us lasting happiness, health, harmony in relationships, and high performance in all we do.”

I looked around the room.

“Very few of us are truly free. In this sense.”

Something shifted. I could feel it. The invisible walls between us—far more formidable than concrete and steel—began to dissolve.

The Statue Within

“This morning,” I continued, “I listened to some of you talk about your vision for a dream future—the family you’d like to build, the small business you’d want to run, the social impact you’d wish to have when you walk out of here. That was deeply inspiring—such beautiful ideals.

“But there is another vision I want to invite you to hold—an inner vision. Not for what you want to do on the outside, but for who you want to become on the inside.”

I asked if they knew about Michelangelo. He once described sculpting as hewing away the “rough walls” that were imprisoning the beautiful statue that lay within the stone—to “reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”

“Within each of you—and within me—lies that statue. Your ideal self. Your soul. Life is inviting us to hew away at everything that imprisons it.”

The man with the graying temples looked down at his hands. The younger one who had greeted us leaned forward. Even the watchful one in the back had uncrossed his arms.

A Tale of Two Prisons

Later, one of them spoke candidly about how restrictive their lives were. Some had been there twenty years. Some thirty. Many were serving life sentences.

I couldn’t change those outer circumstances. I wasn’t in a position to pass judgment. But I could offer a different lens.

“Brothers, let me tell you about someone I know who is in prison.”

They leaned in.

“A good-hearted man. Deeply keen to do noble things. He came to me a few years ago and said, ‘Hitendra, I want to do work like yours—teaching people how to live and lead from their inner core. But I’m stuck in my current job. It’s dry, bereft of meaning, riddled with egos and politics. I’m yearning to get out.’

“Why not quit? I asked. You have real talent. This kind of work can pay you well enough.

“But my job pays me a certain salary. I can’t afford to let that go.

“He was still hesitating, so I asked him to lay out his financial picture.

I paused.

“He came back with a spreadsheet. Him and his wife—no children, just the two of them. Mortgage. Healthcare. Three vacations a year. Club memberships. Shopping. When you added it all up?”

Another pause.

“$950,000 a year. That was what he needed to maintain his life. I nudged gently. But he was politely firm—anything less would be unthinkable.”

I let that land.

“Do you see?”, I said after a pause, “It is he who is in prison—trapped in a way of life he believes he cannot escape, even as his soul is being stifled.”

Some of the men shook their heads and exchanged glances. One let out a low whistle. There was no mockery, but something close to compassion.

The Work of Prison

“Now,” I continued, “I look at all of you, and do you know whose lifestyle in the outside world comes closest to yours?”

“Who?” one asked.

“People I know well—people I have the highest admiration for. People living the monastic life of renunciation.”

A different quality of silence entered the room.

“Like you, they’ve pulled away from the world’s entanglements. Like you, they follow a structured daily schedule. Like you, they live in the same community, day after day, year after year. No one is going anywhere.

“In their case, they arrived there by making the right choice, for themselves. In your case, you’ve told me you’re here because of a wrong choice. So be it.

“But now—in this moment—why not take advantage of where you are?”

“How?” the man in the back corner spoke for the first time. His voice was quiet but carried weight.

“The rest of the world is consumed with busyness. Students are chasing résumés and internships. Professionals are climbing ladders and shuttling kids to Disneyland. Nobody simply has any time to work on their own character, to practice and build the skills needed to communicate deeply, resolve conflicts, inspire others, make wise choices.

“You, on the other hand—like the monks and nuns—you have time. You have community. You have stability. You have a mind less burdened by the daily demands of modern life.

“So why not use this to pursue the greatest adventure available to a human being—to discover the richness of your own soul and the true purpose of your existence? Why not commit to daily practice on the small actions that build character—the ones that sculpt the statue within?

“If we do that together for six months, I promise you—you will see that statue taking shape. That pure, beautiful form at the core of your being.

“And when you arrive there, you won’t only be serving yourself. You’ll be offering the world an example of what it means to be an extraordinary human being.

“Out there, people are rushing to feed one hunger after another, chase one desire after another, and rarely find time to return to their own soul. You will be the ones who can show them. You will be changemakers in this broken, beautiful world—showing us how to live and love and lead, every day, from a soul-awakened place.”

Juan, the man in the back corner was the first to nod. Then Martin, the one with the graying temples. Then, one by one, the rest.

There was a palpable, beautiful silence in the room.

The prison had just become a monastery.

For You

I drove back to my hotel from Solano that evening on a quiet highway, the last light fading over the hills, carrying something I hadn’t expected to receive.

Those men—with their openness, their hunger, their hard-won honesty—had shown me what becomes possible when the noise of the world is stripped away and a human being is left face to face with their own soul.

It made me wonder: Do the rest of us ever give ourselves that chance?

What inner prison of attachments, addictions, or ambitions might be holding you and me captive—even as we move freely through the world?

And is there a circumstance you feel trapped by—a project, a relationship, a struggle—that might secretly be your monastery? A place where, if you chose to, you could do the deepest work of your life?

The gates, it turns out, are unlocked from the inside.

In solidarity,
Hitendra

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