I am a fan of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) and most of his projects especially for his ABC Legal Drama For Life. The TV series is one of the few Shows I follow religiously week in week out. I really love the show, the show is executive produced by 50 cent. I find the show to be very inspiring and entertaining.
The For Life TV Series is loosely based on the true story of Isaac Wright Jr., who was imprisoned for a crime that he did not commit. While incarcerated, he became a paralegal and helped to overturn the wrongful convictions of twenty of his fellow inmates, before finally proving his own innocence.
In his newly released book, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter, Rapper and Actor 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) shares the story of Isaac Wright Jr.:
One of my favorite examples of someone who was able to combine hard work and focus is a gentleman named Isaac Wright Jr. In the early 1990s, Isaac was wrongly imprisoned on a life sentence in New Jersey for being an alleged drug kingpin. In fact, he was one of the first people convicted under that statute in New Jersey. The one problem with that was he was actually innocent.
Isaac refused to accept his sentence and began looking for ways to get it overturned. Even though he didn’t have any legal training, he set about learning the law in the prison’s library. He became so skilled that he began working as a paralegal on other prisoners’ cases, helping several of them get their sentences overturned.
Eventually he was able to get his own life sentence overturned, but he still had several other convictions on the books that threatened to keep him behind bars for seventy years. Isaac still wouldn’t give up. He eventually managed to find a police officer who had testified against him who was willing to admit that he’d participated in misconduct and cover-ups. No one gets cops to snitch on themselves, except for Isaac. It was an incredible victory—unprecedented, really—and after nine years behind bars and the suicide of the prosecutor involved in his case, Isaac was finally set free. Today he’s a practicing attorney in New Jersey, the state that wrongly locked him up. Isaac’s story was so compelling to me, I developed a hit scripted project called For Life on ABC based on his story.
There are a lot of people—way too many—who’ve been wrongly locked up but never came close to fighting their injustice the way Isaac did. The only hope for most guys in that situation is finding a prisoner’s rights foundation or big law firm to take up their case pro bono. Isaac wasn’t willing to wait for someone else to decide if his life was worth fighting for. He took his fate into his own hands.
So what allowed Isaac to achieve what all those other inmates couldn’t? His combination of hard work and focus. When Isaac got locked up, he didn’t spend his time debating who were the best rappers with other inmates, or writing to old girlfriends in his cell, or bullshitting out in the yard. He spent every single free moment he had teaching himself the law. He refused to allow any distractions to get between him and his goal. There was no confusion in his mind about what he was doing with his time: if he wasn’t eating, sleeping, or on work duty, he had his head in those law books.
He ended up doing four years of law school in less than two years because he was so locked in (no pun intended). Once he had all that information at his disposal, he was able to set the process in motion that eventually led to his release.
None of that could have happened if Isaac had allowed himself to feel defeated. If at any point in the process he had become confused about what he was trying to do, he wouldn’t have been able to write his own ticket out of jail. It only happened because he was so determined to save himself.
Morale of the Story:
Keep in mind that Isaac wasn’t hustling for jewelry, cars, or houses. He was hustling for the most important goal: freedom. And thanks to his focus, he was able to achieve it in spite of a corrupt system aligned against him. Yes, Isaac was a hustler. A kingpin even. But not in the way the government had tried to paint him. He was hustling for freedom.
If you were able to apply only a small fraction of the focus Isaac was able to tap into, after even just one month you’d start to experience the same momentum and excitement Isaac did. That wave could pick you up and help carry you to whatever goal you’re aiming for.
No matter what situation you find yourself, if you think critically and take full responsibility for your life, you can figure almost anything out. You’ve Got This.
All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
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