My Cellmate, the Prison Chad

Lessons in Success from the Older Brother I Never Had

My prison cell in Alphen aan de Rijn where I spent about a week—bunk beds for two prisoners, a TV, a microwave (not shown) and a fridge (not shown) next to a shitter-shower combo.

As a firstborn, I never had the luxury of having an older brother to learn from. Firstborns tends to look to their parents for life’s lessons. It makes firstborns traditionalists, as they continue what has been done before. But in prison, I was able to learn a great deal from my older ‘prison brother’, my cellmate, namely that success in life is a set of behaviors.

Let’s call my cellmate “John”. John was successful both in the real world and within prison walls. Outside, he had amassed several millions of € worth of assets, including luxury homes all over the world, and sports cars. He also left behind several children with different women. His mistake was to leave a fingerprint trail in the illegal arms trade business.

In prison, John’s fridge was the one fully stocked—to the brim. His cell was cleanest, too. And by the third week at this particular location (he was transferred from another), he had one inmate cooking him dinners during the weekend’s recreational hours, another inmate doing his weekly laundry, and yet another trading him extra microwave dinners.

John beat the 59 other guys on our wing. How did he do it? John was successful in both worlds, one with and one without freedom—and by several standard deviations so, compared to the general (prison) population.

Now, I am the sort of observing type who figures this out. And I deduced the answer to be a set of solid behaviors:

• Have strong personal hygiene: John was keen on personal hygiene. He might shower up to four times a day, namely after getting out of bed, after labor duty, after fitness and sports, and before going to bed again. He had his hair cut regularly, and his clothes washed weekly. Furthermore, he made sure to get the weekly cleaned prison bedding & sheets and fresh new towels. Some other prisoners were severely lacking in this area.

• Have strong cleanliness habits: Despite being in prison, the first thing John did when he arrived to his new cell was to clean the entire room, including every cabinet and nook. He made use of the weekly vacuum cleaning and mopping to keep the cell tidy, and cleaned day-to-day as necessary. After showering, he would dry the floor with a towel for the next guest (me). And he taught his cellmate about the correct cleanliness procedures.

• Be a teacher: Without asking, John would immediately share his knowledge of the prison system, acting like a sort of big brother to help me out.

• Share all your food: As a new arrival to his cell, John immediately told me all the food in his fully stocked fridge (which he paid for) was now mine too. John always his food, including his cookies for tea, chocolate, and candy. Whenever John had something to eat, he would offer it his cellmates too.

• Eat a hi-octane diet: John would sometimes have five meals a day, namely a yogurt & fruit breakfast, sandwiches for labor duty, then a hot meal for lunch, more sandwiches after sports or exercise, and another hot meal for dinner. He ate meat regularly (but no carnivore diet), and he specifically added a lot of sweets to his food and drinks. I would say John had a sugar addiction, but perhaps it’s what helped fuel his extraverted behavior?

• Never feel too good to do work: John seized every opportunity to spend less time in his cell, including signing up for the labor duty. Though he had lived the life of a multimillionaire in the outside world, he didn’t feel too good to put together basic TV sets during prison labor, earning him about 1$ an hour (spendable only on the prison store’s fixed item list). At labor duty, he was able to contact other prisoners from different wings and so continue his hustles. (Many other inmates, especially the Muslims ones, refused to do the labor and, hence, had no money in their accounts either. This is how John beat the Muslims on our wing: he had money in his account, the others frequently had nothing left.)

• Be physically active: John seized the daily 1-hour of airtime to do his physical exercise: runs, dips, pull-ups, sit-ups, and so on. He made sure to fill the whole hour with exercise instead of wasting time on meaningless chitchat with the losers (the other inmates). John was the only one on our wing to consistently complete his training routines.

• Have good bedtime routines: John went to bed between 10pm-10:30pm, and got up around 6-6:30am, consistently, every day, so that he could be ready for labor duty (fed, cleaned, and clothed) which started around 7:30am.

• Go to church: John went to church each Sunday, and even had me promise we would go to war against Islam together. I promised I would.

• Amass surpluses to trade for other things later: John would collect whatever useful things he could keep in his cell, even if he had no personal use for the items. But he would often trade his surpluses later. For example, for extra food (which he then shared with his cellmate).

• Be extraverted but pursue your selfish interests: John was clearly an extreme extravert in the sense that he relentlessly pursued his personal interests, to have his needs met in terms of food or prison pastimes, and some privileges. He would leave no opportunities sitting idle.

• Socialize but don’t waste friendship on people who have nothing to offer in return for it: John thought most other inmates were losers, “dumb guys who boast a lot but have nothing to show for it”. He rarely spoke to them. He even avoided talking to them, despite being otherwise extraverted. He might play table tennis during recreational hours but would avoid needless chatting. Once he assessed people were useless to him, he cut loose and forgot about them. Instead, he focused almost all of his extraverted social energy on people who could help him get his needs met, such as the cleaners, the cooks, the jailers, etc.

• Know no fear of death: John loved the idea of having his prison sentence muted in exchange for being sent to war. He preferred death on the battlefield to staying in prison. He had a fascination for guns and gun-related violence. I asked other inmates how they felt about this, and many were even shocked at the idea of risking their lives in a war. Most preferred prison to the battlefield!

Summary

1. Have strong personal hygiene

2. Have strong cleanliness habits

3. Share all your food

4. Eat a hi-octane diet

5. Be a teacher

6. Be physically active

7. Never feel too good to do work

8. Have good bedtime routines

9. Go to church

10. Amass surpluses to trade for other things later

11. Be extraverted but pursue your selfish interests

12. Socialize but don’t waste friendship on people who have nothing to offer in return for it

13. Know no fear of death

Clearly, John had taken most of these habits from his upbringing. They were passed down to him as in a family tradition. I would not consider John high-IQ, and he was probably a sub-100. But John proves you don’t need to be smart if you have solid principles to live by.

In conclude that success has mostly to do with one’s persistence and consistency in relation to certain optimal behaviors.