The Upside of Fear: How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty and Addiction »

Weldon Long knows firsthand that Maui is nicer than prison. After thirteen years of federal and state incarceration, he emerged a transformed man: a powerful speaker, driven motivator, and successful trainer/entrepreneur. Long holds a BS in law and an MBA in management, despite dropping out of high school in the ninth grade. He splits his time between the beaches of Maui and the mountains of Colorado with his wife, Janet, and son, Hunter.

From the brutality of violent street crime to the compassion of a loving father for his son, this powerful memoir will take you from desperation to inspiration.

The Upside of Fear exposes you to the harsh reality of a criminal life and creates a riveting portrait of true crime at its fundamental level from buying the duct tape for an armed robbery to saving the life of a prison guard. Author Weldon Wally Long recounts his harrowing journey of self-discovery and how he went from being a drunk in a jail cell to the CEO of a multimillion-dollar business.

Twenty years of drinking, drugging, robbing, and lying led him to more than a decade of time spent in prisons, jails, and halfway houses and a strained relationship with a son he barely knew. But through a revealing and profound transformation, Long learned to change fear into a positive motivating force and use his mind to strengthen his will, even in the bleakest of circumstances.

Long s story demonstrates that love can redeem even the most hopeless criminal, and that there can be no emotions stronger than the desire for redemption and the love of a father separated from his son by prison bars.

Acknowledgments v

Preface ix

1 A Night Out with Elliot: Spring 1987 1

2 Black Monday: October 19, 1987 13

3 Me: 1964 to 1987 23

4 I'm Going to Ca&ntidle;on City, Cañon City Here I Come ...: December 1987 to Spring 1990 29

5 Back on the Street Again: Spring 1990 to December 1, 1991 41

6 And Then There Were Two: December 1, 1991 to January 1993 57

7 Happy Birthday to Me: January 18, 1993 67

8 Back to the Can: January 1993 to Fall 1993 75

9 Back on the Street Again (Reprise): Fall 1993 to March 1995 83

10 Viva Las Vegas: March 1995 to March 1996 91

11 The Turning Point: March 1996 to August 1996 101

12 The Upside of Fear: September 1996 to August 1997 113

13 Reality Bites: December 1996 to July 1997 127

14 Not Out of the Woods Yet: August 1997 to May 1999 135

15 Finished with the Feds: May 14, 1999 to December 10, 1999 151

16 The Prodigal Son Returns to Cañon City: December 10, 1999 to October 2002 159

17 Back on the Streets Again (Final Reprise): October 2002 to April 2003 179

18 Epilogue: 2003 to Present 189