How Carlos Vasquez turned trauma into transformation and now empowers others to lead with integrity.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Carlos Vasquez, Founder & CEO of How To Battle, about his extraordinary journey from incarceration to entrepreneurship. Carlos shares how faith, education, and mentorship helped him overcome a 17-year prison sentence—and how he now uses those experiences to train leaders, coach youth, and inspire lasting transformation.
About Carlos Vasquez
He is an American motivational speaker, best-selling author, podcast host, and the founder and CEO of How To Battle. Overcoming homelessness, addiction, and a 17-year prison sentence, Carlos transformed his life through faith, education, and personal development. Today, he specializes in corporate leadership training, coaching, and youth mentorship. Through his signature PRICE philosophy, nonprofit initiatives, and online presence, Carlos inspires individuals and organizations to embrace hope, take action, and achieve lasting transformation and success.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Alright. Our next guest is Carlos Vasquez. Carlos Vasquez is a motivational speaker, bestselling author, and CEO of how to battle a platform dedicated to personal transformation having overcome homelessness, addiction, and a 17 year prison sentence. He turned his life around through faith, education and personal development.
Now he specializes in corporate leadership, training, coaching, and youth mentorship. I. Through his price philosophy, nonprofit work, and digital presence, he empowers individuals and organizations to embrace change, take action, and achieve lasting success. Let’s welcome Carlos to the stage.
Thank you. Alright, Carlos, man, looking forward to this. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Alright, Carlos, so I want, I wanna start in the early years, like give, give us some of the backstory. Like what, what fueled that initial drive that led you to today? Like, talk about some of those early experiences.
Yeah, the backstory. So I, I grew up in a really good neighborhood. Both my parents were in the medical field. My dad was a doctor, mother was a nurse, played baseball, went to Catholic school. The whole nine, the white ticket fence, right? Uh, everything changed in my life when I was about 12 years old and my father one day decided not to come home.
So my mother sat my sister and I down at the kitchen table and said, you know, your father’s not coming home anymore. But she didn’t offer us an explanation as to why my mother started to deal with a lot of mental health issues, um, and created this wall and division, as I call it, that I used to feel when I was a kid and.
What it did was it caused me to believe that the reason my father left was because of me. And so at 13 years old, I ran away. I ran into way to the streets. My first night that I ran away, I slept in a park bench. Uh, ultimately I ended up getting involved with the wrong crowd of people. I got introduced to drugs at 14, got addicted to them at 14, became a gang member at 14, and entered my first institution by 15.
Hm. And gave my life to a completely different world. Um, a world that was foreign to me, but attracted to me because one thing that I found was the commonality in the environment, and that was that me and the rest of the men in this community didn’t have our fathers. So I went down this path of getting into trouble and destruction, and there was a pivotal moment in my life that kind of took me from this kid who was trouble to now, like a kid who was committing violent crimes like armed robberies.
And that was, uh, witnessing my best friend and a person that I consider like a brother who commit suicide in front of me when I was 16 years old. And so I say all that to say that like my life, most of my teenage years was just based in built on trauma because I ended up getting arrested and getting a 20 year prison sentence when I was 19 years old.
So I go into prison with a 20 year sentence. My first decade in prison made me worse than when I originally went in. Hm. Because of the nature of the environment, as you can imagine, it’s one that you have to become something that you truly never wanted to become for survival. So I did that for 10 years, and because of that, I got into a lot of trouble and I ended up in solitary confinement and, uh, for three years.
So it was in that three year stint in solitary confinement is where I transformed my life. And I started the transformation because a man entered my life who was a chaplain, who became like my mentor. And he believed in me and he saw something in me before I could. And he introduced me to the book that helped to transform my life, which was the Bible.
And that book, I found hope and I found answers to the questions that would keep me up at night. And then after I started to read the book, a correction of God would come by every night. And at some point he stopped and he talked to me about the word ’cause he was a believer, and he told me, I’m a reader as well.
You want me to share the books that I read with you? And some of these books are the books that we all talk about today. Rich Dad, poor Dad, the Power of Now Mad Search for Me. These books I read in solitary confinement and they transformed my whole way of thinking. I started to believe that there was another option for me.
So I got outta solitary after three years, went back to general population and started to put everything that I learned in those three years of solitary into practice with others. That’s why I first started my coaching. Business pretty much was in prison with lifers trying to get their life together and get out of that old way of thinking.
So after four years, I get out from general population. I got out early, got out three year, about three and a half years ago, and I walked out of prison with $200 in my pocket after doing 17 years in prison. And the $200 is what they give you at the gate when you walk out and they say, good luck. Don’t come back.
I didn’t know how to use social media. I didn’t know how to use technology. I didn’t even know how to set up an email. Let alone get a job. I have an ex-convict tattoos, no work history, but one thing that I always knew is I had like this entrepreneurial spirit. Like I always felt like there was no excuses if I really wanted to get something done, that I could do it.
So, uh, I was blessed with the opportunity to be educated through the Drucker School Management. In the process, I started how to battle my company, started education, educating, uh, kids in underserved communities. Helping them transform their mindset, teaching ’em about leadership, teach ’em about all these different things that I know they’re gonna need to be successful.
Met some people in the corporate world and now, um, doing similar work in companies like Google, um, or other companies and like Blue Collar, very specific company, um, one of the biggest, uh, manufacturers in the world for like plastics and renewing of plastics. And you say you, I may ask like, how does a person go from being incarcerated?
Right with a past like that to now doing the work we do through my company. And um, as Jim said, a part of it is passion, but a big part of it for myself as well was like, was mindset. Right? The belief that you can, and the belief that you can overcome those obstacles and challenges and all that started in solitary when I started to transform my life.
And me being able to transform my life has gave me the confidence and the commitment. And the discipline to now help companies and organizations and individuals transform what they think is their limitations and overcome those perceived limitations. So that’s kind of my story in a nutshell, man. So I wanna, I wanna stick in the early days, just a little bit longer here.
So one, one of my goals and mine and she rock’s goals with mission matters is to also to educate and to have these intersections of culture and different, even socioeconomic, um, areas to, to educate across all of those. So I don’t wanna assume that the people either watching this at home or sitting in this room understand maybe some of that early, that culture from the earlier days and why that could be so.
Enticing and or like just the predatory nature of it. Can you just talk a little bit and educate us on that? Yeah, absolutely. I, I feel like us as people, we just want to belong to something. We want to be a part of something, uh, by nature, right? It’s within us. And if you, growing up in an environment where everything that’s surrounding you is negative, if it’s drugs, if it’s, you know, destruction within the environment, even in your own home like.
By default, you’re gonna become that, right? And they always ask the question, well, what’s the difference between the person who is raised in the same household as their brother, but they decide to go to college and do something good, but the other one goes to prison? It always circles back to that person had to have had a mentor.
And so like when you’re growing up in an environment like that, or when you’re in a community where you feel like you’re limited, you have to seek out mentorship, you have to find other people to help you to change your mindset. And then eventually you’ll be able to have the ability to get out of that environment.
And that’s the same in that community when I ended up in prison, get to get outta that environment and then getting out. When I got outta prison and I realized that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to just surround myself with people who were gonna be able to mentor and teach me, right? So it’s putting yourself in those positions and knowing that that’s your way out so that environment could, could pull you in if you don’t know that it’s gonna require mentorship to help you get out.
So I’m a big fan of the books that you read. A lot of ’em that you mentioned, you read. For most people watching this at home, they probably didn’t read it from solitary confinement. Like that’s just not their case, right? Pretty sure they do. That’s what I’m saying, like that’s not their case. But the amount of, you know, you were introduced to it, but the strength it took to you had to be kind of cult counterculture one, and not saying you weren’t necessarily positive in your own way, but you know, one minute you go from having conversations that are one of one complexion.
The next minute you’re talking about these books, right? Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, it, it had to be different. Yeah. For me, books have been transformative. Um, I’ve always been a reader and writer my whole life since I was a kid. I used to escape through my reading and writing my, when I was going through my worst states of life.
Prison, reading and writing helped me to escape that and grow. So when I was reading these books, there’s a saying that I heard a long time ago, and when I was reading these books, it was like I was reading these books as if. Uh, the author was on trial for his or her life. Wow. Meaning that, like, I dissected these books.
Yeah. Like I, I reflected on these books. You know, I, I identify these books and, and put ’em into my life and say, how can I take this knowledge that I got and be able to grow as an individual and eventually reach where I’m trying to reach? So, and inspired me to write both of my books that I wrote today.
And I’m on my third book. It’s because I know the power of word. I know the power of the, the chaplain when he came and spoke to me and became my mentor, the words that he told me helped me to overcome the thoughts of suicide and get my life together. The books that I was reading, like Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Franco when he was talking about his situation, but still maintaining the power and control regardless of that situation, how bad it was because that’s how he maintained the power.
That book inspired me to get up every day in a place where you’re locked up for 24 hours and work on myself. Hmm. And so the power of books has been like transformative for me. So reading those books, I approach them with a willingness and want to learn and grow. And if you do that, you will and you’ll gain something from it that’ll take you through your life’s journey.
Even if you don’t think about it in the moment, eventually in time it’ll circle back and you’ll remember something. And that’s been my life even up to this point. And I still use those books to help me to this day grow my my business. Yeah, that’s a great one. Highly recommend that one when he’s talking about, for anybody that doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Um, Vitor Frankl is talking about, um, he’s a highly educated doctor and he’s going through the Holocaust. He’s talking about his experience and it’s, it’s almost a case study. So he’s, he brings out things like, you know, if you couldn’t sleep before. Now you can sleep. Like the moment you get to put your head down, it doesn’t matter.
They’re basically piled next to each other. But you can sleep. Somebody’s snoring in your ear, you can sleep like, so he goes through all of these different things. Great book. Highly recommend that one. Yeah, absolutely. Now as a content creator, shifting focus here slightly. So as a content creator, I guess that’s the term we use, right?
Author, content creator, lots of things you do on social media. You at some point were making this transition. You mentioned getting out of prison and you’re thinking you have $200 in your pocket and you’re thinking about, you know, what’s next. Um, how did you start approaching that concept of creating content and getting out there?
Yeah, that’s a good question because like by nature I’m like, I’m an introvert. Although I’m a motivational speaker and do content and podcasts, I’m an introvert. Um, I was at this place when I first got out. The only job that I had before I started my business and just went full in on that was a job at a nonprofit organization getting paid minimum wage because that’s all they can afford to pay me.
And, you know, just trying to like get my life and figure it out, getting my life in order to figure it out. And I ran into a man who came in there and his name was Peter. And he’s one of my good friends to this day and he was already, he came in there and started filming and talking about like, you know, I want to tell me about your story.
And I got on camera for the first time. And so I looked at his channel and I was just like inspired by his journey and he did prison time and now he’s really successful. And like seeing that and meeting him like gave me the belief that I could do it. And then I just started to realize like if I really, truly want to make an impact in this world.
If I truly wanna fulfill my mission, right, I had to get outta my comfort zone, and I had to go out there and do some things that I really didn’t want to do because I know that’s what’s gonna help me realize the mission. And so I did, and I started to record myself at first just talking, giving advice, sharing my experiences, and then getting other people on there and talking about their experiences, what I do with my podcast.
And during the process, I realized that. As uncomfortable was in the beginning and still to this day, like I’m growing through that like I’m developing every time I get outta my comfort zone. And you all have probably heard that before, but it’s so true. Like you have to really like challenge yourself to do the things that you know you need to do to be successful, to get there, regardless of how hard it is in the beginning.
So content creation for me is just an ability for me to share my voice and message and my experiences and story and the story experiences of others. And the impact that we’re having in this world with hopes that that inspires others to do the same with hopes that that inspires somebody who’s struggling, who’s looking at that screen and saying like, I can’t be better than this, could look at my life and say that they can, or the people that I’m interviewing.
So for me, it’s bigger than just me. It’s, it’s a, it’s a bigger thing and that’s what having a mission is, is like it’s beyond you. It’s bigger than that. So part of that is the creating the content and doing the things that sometimes it’s, it’s tough. So now you have the content or you’re on your, let’s say the early days, you’re on your journey and you’re creating content, you’re expanding platforms, and you’re, you’re learning a long way, right?
’cause that wasn’t part social media. That wasn’t part of it. Your, your journey up to that point. So what does that look like in the beginning? Did you have traction immediately or did you have to overcome, like how did you stay persistent to be where you’re at today? Yeah, I mean, in the beginning when you’re developing content, it’s a slow process, right?
It’s like a, it is like a slow grind. But I tell people one of the most powerful things you can do is get comfortable with being consistent. Mm-hmm. So it’s like, even if you’re not seeing results, I didn’t make any money in my first year in my business and nothing. And a lot of people were like. You know, you, maybe you need to do something different.
Is this like a dream because you’ve been in prison and you, you just need to go through some stuff to learn and realize, like, no, you need to just go get a job at a warehouse and be happy, because that’s what most of the people that get outta prison do. But I just never thought that. I never believed that.
And so in the beginning stages, sometimes it’s just you being your oh, the only cheerleader you have, and being like, I believe in this so much. That I, no matter if anybody else doesn’t believe it, I’m gonna keep doing it. So developing content is like having that belief that at some point you will catch momentum and then the growth becomes exponential, right?
It’s like you won’t see it and you’ll get to a point where you’re like ready to give up and that’s where most people give up. But if you just keep going and don’t give up, I guarantee you you’re gonna be successful. Right. That’s the difference between those, right? That’s the difference between, yeah.
People who are successful and who are not. It’s like the people who are successful just never gave up. And so if you’re developing content, no matter how much you think it sucks in the beginning, like go keep doing it. ’cause you’re gonna learn and get better and you’ll improve and you’ll, and you’ll, you’ll it, you’ll make iterations and then bam, you’ll just find your lane and then you’ll just be off to the races.
And it doesn’t take long. It just takes consistency and persistence over time. How many episodes in, are you at your podcast? Yeah, that’s the funny thing is, so I’m only about 18 episodes into my podcast, but I got sponsored after 10. And people want to, you know, ask like, how did you do that? It goes back to mission because the people, the organ, the company, uh, that sponsored me believes so much in me and the mission that they’re willing to take a chance on me.
And so if you’re, but I was willing to take a chance on myself. So if you’re not willing to take a chance on yourself. Don’t expect others to take a chance on you. And so, although I don’t have any episodes, like my vision is so strong for what I’m doing here, that when I present it to somebody who potentially was gonna sponsor it, they just believe in it.
And that’s the thing is like, ’cause they know like people invest in people, right? They don’t just invest in, you know, people who have a great idea. It’s like they’re investing in you and they see something in you. So, although I’m not many episodes in, like the success is already there. Yeah. Yeah. What’s your vision for the show long term?
Yeah, so my vision for the show is to continue to interview people all over the world that have incredible battles, that they’ve overcome, incredible battles that they’re currently going through and be able to reach worldwide. So right now we’re on all the platforms. I mean, I’ve interviewed people who’ve overcome terrorists attacks to people who’ve overcome 30 years in prison to people who overcome the battles of building a company from the ground up.
And so the idea is to like create. Through Powder Battle Podcast is to create a place where people can go and freely be open, talking about their struggles, right? The adversity that comes with life. And through that, they’re educating and inspiring and empowering others that are going through that phase when they first started or when they were going through something to then emerge and be successful.
So to continue to grow that, um, to reach as many people as possible. Right. And looking back at your journey 18 episodes, what’s been one of your like favorite episodes? Favorite like moments? ’cause I want everybody in the audience to definitely look ’em up, give ’em a subscribe, and, uh, continue to follow this journey.
’cause there’s only so much we’re gonna get done on stage here, but this. What, in my opinion, one of the best things about podcasting is that you get to a connection, a direct connection with the host, what’s going on in their life, what’s going on in their mind, and also you get to witness their evolution.
Like, for example, our evolution. Those had been following this brand for a long time. The first show was called Money Matters. We weren’t, we weren’t Mission Matters. That was our first beginning of the journey, myself and Rag. And we thought this was gonna be a, a finance. Podcast or a finance show. And we’d only work in that niche, which we do.
But what we found, and I, I would say our blessing and what God showed us is that like there was just so much more and there was an opportunity to bring the community together. Yeah. So one of your favorite parts of just being up to this point, your, of your show, like a favorite moment, a favorite guest.
Yeah, uh, definitely. Um, my most recent post, or not most recent interview, ’cause I have a few I haven’t released yet, but my most recent one. Which is called, uh, it’s, it’s entitled The Power of Now, and it’s me and three of my friends and these men. Um, one of ’em sitting in the audience here today. We were all in prison together and two of ’em had life sentences.
The other one did, uh, 15 years. And when we were in prison on the prison yard, we used to get together in the law library and just, that was our innovation lab. Yeah. That was like our place where we would go and brainstorm our dreams and like what we were gonna do when we got out without even a guarantee to get out.
It was all just dreaming, but, but we believed in it, like we knew it, so we worked toward it. And one of the books that, uh, we shared amongst each other ’cause we would share wisdom with each other and knowledge was the power of now by ole. So that book helped to transform my life and their lives, especially in an environment where it’s hard to dwell on the past and it’s hard to think about the future because it’s not guaranteed in a place like that.
So you’re just focused on the now. It’s kind of how you get through it. So fast forward, we all we’re all out and everybody in that group that I was talking about is successful, their own right. And they all been doing amazing work. And we sat down and we talked about that book and how it impacted our life.
But the powerful thing is that just recently, probably like a couple months ago, I partnered with the Ed Cardi Foundation. Wow. And it’s just so, it just, it just me meeting somebody who knew him and them, and I told ’em my story and I told ’em how powerful that book was, made the introduction. I was like, you know what?
I’m gonna create some content just to show them like how much that they’ve impacted me. So I handed out a, a bunch of books to the youth that I mentor. We had like 200 kids in one place. I did this podcast. I’ve talked about it on my channels. They loved it. They reached back out and they like this partner.
So now we’re gonna be doing work within the prisons and within the community with kids. But this podcast episode was like the, the, the seal on this, this partnership. And allowed for these men who are great men who’ve transformed their life, right? Were completely involved in like criminality and gang life.
People would’ve said they could never be redeemed. But these men transformed their life with the help of this book. And to be able to talk about that on that podcast is extreme honor for me. Um, so that would be my favorite. Come on,
talk about full circle. Right? Right. That had to be surreal. It is. I say this to all of you because it’s true that everything that I’ve ever dreamed and envisioned in prison I have now, wow. And I’m continuing to manifest in my life. And it’s not luck because there’s too many like doors that open and present themselves to me.
But what it is, is like once you start to like really like figure out what it is that you ultimately want to accomplish here on this planet, and you like dedicate yourself to that, like with resilience and just knowing that like nothing is gonna stop you like. Like life has a way of providing people and opportunities and things to come to you, but you have to find that.
And so a lot of times people say, well, how do I find that? And I say, the most important work you’ll ever do in your life is the work you do on you. So a lot of us go to work and work hard every day to build something like a company and organization or help another person build their company and organization.
But how many, how much time do you work on yourself, like really investing in yourself and your development? And that’s what I do with how to battle, and that’s what I did in three years of solitary confinement. Forcefully had to do that, and it transformed everything. So work on yourself, invest in yourself, number one before anything, and then you’ll, you’ll figure out what that is.
All right, this is my warning for last question, and then, uh, I’ll open up so that the audience can get involved as well. So, Carlos, if there was a, if I know there’s many between your books, between your podcast, if there was a central theme or a takeaway or a message that you hoped your body of work, people would walk away from that body of work with, what would that be?
It, it, it all boils down to what I truly stand firm and what I educate others on. And that’s leadership. I feel like. Like true leadership is the stuff that every single person in this room could do every day, which is doing the right thing, right? Helping the person that you see on the corner that needs help, right?
Keeping your word integrity, like that’s, that’s what leadership is about. That’s what modeling leadership is. And so for me, at one point in my life, I was a gang leader at one point in my life. I was a leader of, of negativity and destruction and I never wanted to be re be remembered for that. And so now that I’m like leading, um, on this positive path, leading by example, leading others to overcoming their perceived limitations, I hope that, you know, when I leave this earth that, that people, you know, remember me and, and, and, and what I’ve built as a great example of what it means to be a leader in today’s day and age.
And, and it’s changing. Like I work with youth all the time. That’s one of the things I do, aside from my, uh, my corporate work. And I, and I really get an opportunity to learn their mindset, right? What they believe in, what they want in the future. And so that knowledge and the stuff that I hear from them, it’s like it’s, it’s shifting my whole perspective on leadership.
So those are things that I teach to others that are older that have to embrace that younger generation. And it’s a lot different than what we may think, but it’s all about purpose and mission now, right? To what you guys are doing. It’s like. The mission is so important for people now. People need to have a reason to get up in the morning.
It’s bigger than just clocking in, clocking out. So leadership, uh, I think, um, is an important thing for me in my life and, and what I, what I aspire to be, um, the best I can. Thank you. Thank you. So up for some questions. Come on. First of all, thank you so much for sharing. Story. It’s such a meaningful and, uh, just impactful story I think to share.
Um, from my perspective, being a parent is a role that we really don’t prep people for at all. Um, and in your work with youth, what would you want parents to know in, you know, raising the next generation of, of humans? Yeah. Uh, when you know, we’re, the most important thing is to you support your kid no matter what.
I know a lot of people who will give up on their kids because they’re getting in a lot of trouble, or they’re doing things that go against what they think is right, but you can never give up on ’em because they’re going through different things that are far beyond we, we truly understand. I know as a kid, you know, had my, the positive people in my life not giving up on me, my life could have been different.
Um, but it wasn’t my destiny. This is my destiny. But as a parent, I feel that you just have to support your kid even through the hard times. Never give up on ’em. And if they’re, if, and, and know that the struggles that they’re going through it, don’t take it personal. It’s something that they’re dealing with inside and from, from the community around them.
But try to be there as a support, support system in guiding life to teach them the right way, but also as a parent, understanding that you don’t have all the answers. And so it’s important as a parent to realize that if you don’t have the answers, you need to find people to do. And so exposing your kids to great mentors, right?
Introducing them to like coaches or putting ’em around other people who are experts in their field to help them grow and evolve too, because a parent or even two parents, it’s just in this day and age with all this stuff going on in the world, it’s too hard for just two people to raise a life. It requires so much more.
Yeah, and if you don’t bring that to them, they’ll find it. And then you’re rolling the dice because you don’t know who they’re finding. So being willing to sometimes put your pride to the side, say, I don’t have all the answers. I need help. Amazing. Well, let’s give it up for Carlos, everyone.