A Decade in Prison and Not a Day Wasted: Wes Watson’s Story

This month, we talked with fitness and mindset coach Wes Watson about the connection between self-development and routine and attracting success. Wes is the international bestselling author behind “Non-Negotiable: Ten Years Incarcerated—Creating the Unbreakable Mindset.” His YouTube channel, GP- Penitentiary Life Wes Watson, has over 75 million views.

Dennis Postema: What does the phrase “hardest worker in the room” mean to you?

Wes Watson: Whenever I hear someone say that phrase, I always say, “That’s crazy. You’re calling this work?” That’s the difference. For some it’s work, but some of us just need it. Love it. It’s our air. It’s our essence.

In the last 15 years, I haven’t taken any days off. Not one workout missed. This is the cornerstone of how confidence is built. You build confidence through consistent implementation. What I don’t get is how everybody wants to be good at stuff, but they don’t do it every day. If you want to be a good speaker, speak every day. If you want to be a good writer, write every day.

Dennis: Tell me about your book, “NonNegotiable: Ten Years Incarcerated—Creating the Unbreakable Mindset.”

Wes: I went through a phase in prison where I felt a calling from above to meet a certain physical standard. It was a vision that would not leave my mind. Once I achieved that and I made that daily habit of building the body nonnegotiable, then I had this calling to read everything I could. Like, all the quotes, all the wisdom of the ages, everything coming from everyone.

That’s when I discovered something really special. As I read, I found that everybody, from all corners of the world, was saying the same thing. Everyone from Einstein to Franklin to Confucius, they all said the same thing in different words. That’s when infinite intelligence, otherwise known as God, exposed itself to me. Once I saw that so many people since the beginning of time had been saying the same things, I realized this centralized intelligence— the universe, God, our creators—are speaking to us.

Then I came across Napoleon Hill’s book, “Outweighing the Devil.” In it, he says gratitude kicks open the door to infinite intelligence. Now I knew my system: I had to wake up with gratitude.

But first, I had to strengthen my writing ability, so I read books and then rewrote them in my own words to increase my ability to put stuff in my own words and really feel the message and learn the message—let it saturate. I did the same with quotes. I had these huge unabridged quote books and would rewrite the ones that really stuck out to me. Little did I know, all this was being pushed into my mind and my heart and my soul to put me on this path today to guide people that are just like me: a person who’s suffering, someone who needs healing, someone who’s trying to create the man they always needed. It all became so clear when I found my purpose, which I’ve written down as all of our purpose, which was to create the man we admire and give that man to the world.

Dennis: How big a role does gratitude play in your work?

Wes: Like I say, gratitude is action. Some people wake up in the morning and they’re like, “I’m grateful for my wife, my daughter, my job, my health.” But to me, gratitude is action. And furthermore, gratitude is results. Your level of gratefulness can be measured by how much you change your life. Your

gratitude is what pushes you to intentionally create this vision of what your life could be—your highest self, your most grand life, your most grand existence. This vision extends all the way down to your demeanor, your energy, the way people sense and feel you. You have to intentionally create that to express your gratitude.

Dennis: How intentional are you about realizing your inner vision of your life?

Wes: I’m one of those people who is an observer. I don’t really absorb the world, I observe the world. I observe my own thoughts and emotions and I pick those that benefit me most. I’ve always been that way, but I never knew how beneficial it was when you’re actually in pursuit of difficult goals or facing massive adversity.

I was intentional during my 10 years in the penitentiary, but I was also intentional on a recent trip to Disneyland. To me, Disneyland is adversity, because I’m not used to all that pleasure-chasing that people are doing. I don’t really understand it. I only understand a purposedriven life because I’ve lived in a purpose-overpleasure manner for the last 15 years. But I want to understand the pursuit of pleasure. I want to be normal.

So I try my best and avoid making the day harder on myself. I don’t consume any carbs and eat only protein. I structure my internal state to be stronger and to not negotiate with weakness or these bitch-ass patterns of behavior that make us get all emotional about shit and be reactive. So I’m always in a state of like constructing my inner engineering. It’s habitual construction because I’m creating a man I admire. Strong minds suffer without complaining and weak minds complain without suffering.

Dennis: How did you keep a positive, grateful attitude in the penitentiary?

Wes: There’s only two states that a human operates from: fear and love. Action is the vessel that gets you from fear to love and gratitude. You’re not going to think your way into this state. You have to act your way into positive thoughts.

Wes shares how prison strengthened him:

In prison, when the doors slam, you’re not coming out of that cell for a year. They make you shower on your toilet. You sit on the toilet, facing the sink, you fill up the sink and then you pour water on your head, soap yourself down, and pour water on your head again.

Most of it drains in the toilet and then you have to clean the whole floor. It’s called birdbathing. And that’s how you shower for a year straight. You don’t walk out of the cell. So when the cell doors shut, I felt everybody’s energy creep out of them. I sensed their disdain. And that’s when I went totally stoic. I accepted it and let it strengthen me. I was unmoved by it. It made me stronger. It was likened to David Goggin’s “Taking Souls”—when they got weak, I got stronger.

I knew I had to be a leader, and leaders lead from the front.

So I would get up super early and work the same program each day—read something real quick, then straight into a nasty amount of burpees. A fast 200, at minimum. I’m talking like beating all the pain out of myself, because the only cure for pain is more pain.

I would just walk straight into that pain and understand that it was alleviating my pain. I also knew that gratitude was action, and I was building someone I’m proud of. I really focused on the intentions behind the exercise, coupling it with how I felt. What everyone does wrong out here is they go to the gym just for the superficial aspect. Everyone goes to the gym and they’re like, I need the six-pack. I need to look better. That’s understandable. But once you get farther down the path, you don’t look any different year to year, so why show up every day? You show up for how you feel.

I’ve created an indestructible link in my mind that if I don’t go my hardest in my workout every morning, I won’t feel right, and more importantly, I won’t bring the correct energy to my people. So it becomes selfless. The intention is selfless. I’m an offering. I don’t care how people view me. I don’t give a fuck. Truly, the language of the universe is energy exchange, and if you know someone prepared really well for you because they care about you, you’ll receive them better.

Dennis: Can you walk us through your morning routine?

Wes: It starts the night before, when I’m already telling myself how amazing it is that I’m not going to break in the morning. People construct a negative narrative. There is so much cognitive dissonance—people have a negative perspective, or definition, of things that are actually good for them.

I define everything positively, because prison was a negative environment that I had to look at positively. There was nothing going my way in prison, except the way I viewed things. I like to say your frequency is what you frequently see, and wins raise your frequency. So when you stack an intentional win, the more difficult it is, the I start my day at 2:45 a.m. with the very first thing that happens in my mind: I see lights from the world shining up, and I’m intentionally talking to all these people in an underlying exchange to the collective whole, because we’re all connected. I’m waking up for them and telling them I’m up and I’m doing it for them.

I don’t have to wake up so early. My life is really structured and I’m fine. Waking up at a different time won’t unmake my life—unless my life is based on inspiring people and being an example they need. I wake up for them. I owe the world my best. This gives me infinite purpose. People can’t wake up in the morning because they don’t have a purpose. The only thing keeping people from living out their potential is their lack of purpose. They don’t see the point.

When someone is struggling in life, and they open Instagram and see that I’m up again, it helps them. People would be so fucking disappointed if I fell victim to the vices that plague society. If you don’t

believe you can affect people at that level, you’ll never affect people at that level. But if you believe you can, you will.

We all wanted that person who held their word to us, no matter how they felt. We all crave someone we can count on more than anything. I aspire to be that through social platforms, so I wake up at 2:45 and go straight into my supplements. I just take protein powder, some coffee, and some preworkout. Sometimes my wife joins me in my routine, because you raise people up with your frequency.

I get to the gym at about 3:30 in the morning. Most spiritual teachers say you’re most aligned with your purpose at 3:40 a.m. It links with the circadian rhythm. If you’re frequently waking up at that time, your calling is getting greater, so don’t waste time: Get up.

In prison, I wrote the most influential and deepest pieces from stream of consciousness at 3:40 a.m., and I didn’t know that was a prime time spiritually. At the gym, I do a mixture of calisthenics, bar work, burpees, and push-ups. I go into a hypertrophyspecific routine.

At home, when my frequency is peaking and my vibrations are through the roof, I film a YouTube video. I put all of my energy into the video to guide viewers. I want them to have the blueprint to make it through their day.

And the rest of the day is just business.

Dennis: How do you come up with your daily list?

Wes: If your real goal is to wake up and be your best and do your best, then you’re not going to fail the test coming your way, whatever your test may be. For me, it’s reacting negatively to other people. If you wake up grateful every morning, it’s easy to tap in and put out a positive message.

I know what worked for me, and it acts as a mirror: If something works for you, it works for them. Not everyone understands that. People try to make a system that works for Jane and then a different system that works for John, but the same system works for all of us, and adapting the system for multiple people is the problem. You’re saying they’re too weak to do it.

If someone thinks their

Wes discusses his routine:

My day has no room for error. There was a period when I had no extra time in the day. I was writing “Non-Negotiable: Ten Years Incarcerated— Creating the Unbreakable Mindset,” running my business and sticking to my workout routine. I’m more efficient as a result of my habits. I woke up at 2:00 a.m. every day to write for forty-five minutes. That’s how I knocked my book out. People would ask what time I went to bed, and I’d say, “That’s not the point.” Sometimes I slept for two hours and other times I didn’t go to bed at all, but I still went to the gym at the same time every morning. I always woke up at the same time. If you can’t alter what time you go to bed, then you miss the whole point. This is about self-mastery.

son isn’t good at baseball, they’ll say, “It’s OK, son, you’re not the best at sports,” but when they change their mindset about him, he levels up. I don’t placate my clients, and that’s why they do so well. I make them go as hard as I went.

People ask, “What if I’m a beginner?” Your exercise will fit you, but your diet is going to be tested, because that’s where everyone messes up: the pleasure-seeking, the overindulgence. Your diet should be intense. I don’t understand how someone can go on a twelve-day juice fast but claim three months of dieting with adequate protein, carbs and fat is so unhealthy.

People go into a calorie deficit and complain about being hungry. Why is hunger negative? Tell yourself, “This is what fat loss feels like. This is what I want.”

Reinforce the positives taking place. There are more positives taking place when you’re hungry than you realize. We’re hardwired to see the one negative—the feeling of hunger, in this case—rather than the 99 positives in a situation. When you’re hungry, you’re strengthening your discipline, you’re mastering yourself, and you’re not negotiating. That’s what fat loss feels like. There are many positive ways to look at it, so train your brain to do that.

Dennis: How do you repel negativity?

Wes: As soon as I notice that negativity, I go straight into positive action. I could be having a conversation with someone and I’ll say, “I’m going to do some pushups right now,” and I’ll start doing sets of pushups to failure or pyramid push-ups or burpees. They’ll be like, “What is that? Are you building muscle?” No. I understand that during peak physical performance, a negative internal state cannot coexist. Nobody’s in the middle of a marathon and suddenly thinking, “Whoa, this anxiety is really kicking in!” It’s never happened.

When you’re at mile nine and you can barely breathe, you’ve never started constructing imaginary evils. I only do cardio or burpees when my mental state is declining. When my internal state becomes negative, my self-talk and mental narratives twist into the negative and I start to believe them.

But people treat this like it’s a magic tool. I think they like the negative narratives and they’re comfortable in negativity. They make such an uncomfortable definition of physical exercise that they fall into cognitive dissonance.

Dennis: What do you think the difference is between you and other people in our space for personal training?

Wes: I document it, I live it. Intention develops perception, and my true intention is to live for others.

My ego died. People say, “Why do you have millions of dollars’ worth of cars, then?” That’s how they see it, but I don’t see it that way. I was forced to let go of “me” in prison. In the first few years, I wondered, “Why don’t they write to me? Why don’t they want to be part of my life? Why aren’t they visiting me? Why?” I finally saw how destructive the word “why” is in the wrong context, so I stopped caring why, and I loved them, anyway. I learned to release that which I wish to possess.

I use social media as a tool for the law of attraction. I want positivity in my life, I want to share with others, and I need reinforcement, too, so I do all of that, and I get it in return. I met all of the best people I know on social media platforms. There aren’t many people from my childhood who are still in my life. When you reach a certain level, it forces the people around you to look in the mirror, and if they refuse, it’s impossible to be around them.

Your success will never exceed your level of personal development. If I’m using social media as my résumé to the world, people will say, “He’s saying something massive every day that works for me. Get him on the show.” When you perform and fire on cue, you’ll solidify your spot. It works whether you’re a comedian, an artist, whatever.

Social media is unbiased. Everyone starts off without any followers. You have to fight to build a brand nowadays. You have to push through the critics and believe in yourself until nothing can stop you. When you’re telling your truth, people come to persecute you, because people who are living a lie are offended by the truth.

Keep your ego out of the way. If you don’t like how you look or sound, that’s incongruent to your efforts in helping people. Why are you worried about yourself so much? Focus on helping other people. If you have something powerful, and you’re withholding it from the world, you’re selfish and rude. Run more ads and push your system more if you believe in it and it works.

Getting someone to drop their vices, work out every day and control their macronutrients in a proper way is going to be life-changing. If you want to change your future, change your habits. To find out more about Wes’s coaching programs, videos and books, visit weswatson.com.