By Any Means: How the Habits I Built in Prison Set Me Free

I served over 23 years in the Louisiana prison system, including Angola - the most dangerous penitentiary in Louisiana's history.By Any Means isn't a redemption story wrapped in a bow. It's the blueprint I built with a dictionary, a concrete floor, and no other option but to change. I could read, but I couldn't understand what I was reading - so I taught myself, word by word, until I could. I argued my own case - and won. I built a 130-pound body into six-pack abs of muscle with nothing but time and discipline. I turned rage into something useful.This book hands you the exact habits that did it. Not theory. Not motivation posters. The real mechanics of how a man rebuilds himself from nothing, one decision at a time, in the worst conditions imaginable.Bad habits build a prison around you slowly enough that you never see the walls going up. Good habits tear them down. It doesn't matter where you're standing right now - you can start there.This is for the men and women coming home from incarceration. For the people who love them and don't know how to help. For anyone standing in a prison of their own making - debt, addiction, anger, grief - wondering if there's a way out.There is. By any means. Let's work.About the AuthorCalvin Cao served over 23 years in the Louisiana prison system - including Angola. He could read but couldn't fully understand what he was reading - until he taught himself, one word at a time, and became an inmate lawyer who argued and won a landmark legal case. Rolling Stone quoted him. The Advocate told his story. Today he's a certified personal trainer, a boxing coach, and a speaker who tells the truth whether it's comfortable or not. He lives in Texas with his wife, Betty.