How I Learned the Importance of Integrity
Before my incarceration in 2004, I was coordinating large shipments of marijuana to Minnesota from Canada or wherever. Back in the early 2000s, if you had an out-of-state cannabis connection and were willing to risk jail or even prison, you could easily make millions. Looking back on those events, I now realize that the cannabis economy put me in a position that it needed. I was young, poor, and, having already spent time in juvenile detention, I wasn’t afraid of going to jail. In fact, I had heard that adult prisons were much better than juvenile detention.
The money was pouring in. I was directing shipments to Minnesota and making well over $100,000 a month between myself and my business partner. I have to admit, my ego made me think I was the original smuggler. Travis Cullen—TC, so cool. I bought a $20,000 necklace and had all the flashy things of the time. Life was great. I was an arrogant drug dealer who thought I was the coolest, baddest 21-year-old on the planet. The money was flowing, I was fronting out tons of marijuana on the streets, and people would pay. To say the least, my ego was inflated by the fake power and money I had accumulated from smuggling cannabis.
Fast forward to November 2004. I found myself sitting in federal prison with an 11-year sentence, and I hadn’t yet lost my ego. I thought that because I had made so much money on the streets, I was a crime boss, or that Travis Cullen deserved respect because of the money, the chains, and the crews I knew.
The perception of who I was couldn’t have been further from the truth—or mattered less. The reality was, I was a 22-year-old, 150-pound white boy from the suburbs, surrounded by older, seasoned criminals in their 30s and beyond. All they heard were the stories I told of my supposed glory as the Kingpin I thought I was. To them, I was just “the white boy with money.”
As a result, I faced multiple extortion attempts and several fights. I got beaten up. Eventually, I figured out that the number one asset I had in prison was that I wasn’t a snitch. I had all my paperwork, and in federal prison, as a 21-year-old, 150-pound white boy, that was important. I thought back to my actions in federal court—how I didn’t implicate my friends to lessen my sentence. I decided to take all the prison time the government threw at me because I knew I had signed up for this life of marijuana dealing, and I wasn’t going to break, no matter how much time I got.
So, what was it that made Travis not be a RAT = Integrity.
Is I look back on some of the eerly friendships I made in prison I recall bragging about my past escapades and my friend looked at me and said “you are going to find out who you are inside these walls” That is exactly what happened I did I realized who Travis was and I followed the path I put forward for myself, and I became proud of how hard I worked out or how many laps around the track I ran anything to make myself feel like I was accomplishing something, I studied 2 hours of random books everyday.
I took it further and abandoned all the falsehoods I once thought were important—money, status, and objects. Well, the object part was easy since I was in federal prison, where there weren’t many objects to begin with.
The lesson I learned is this: They can put us in a cell, take our money, and strip us of everything, but they can never take away who I am. I know who I am. And I’m not saying I didn’t snitch because I’m tough—quite the opposite. Sometimes the tough ones, the ones not afraid to hurt people, do tell. No, I came to realize that my integrity was the one thing that could never be taken away and is to be protected at all costs
Travis Cullen
TRUTH TO POWER