Roger Black’s Review of Your Next Chapter by Evelyn D. Watkins

October 24, 2018

I read this book through two times. I enjoyed it so well that I developed an eight-week curriculum from this book, and as the Vice President of the NAACP here at Madison Correctional Institution, am in the process of preparing a proposal to purchase enough copies of the book to host the program.

The author writes about:

♦ Owning your choices – stop blaming others, and take ownership of your decisions.

♦ Sifting through brokenness – what has caused you pain throughout life?

♦ Forced change – we all endure change throughout life – how do you deal with it?

♦ Defining your life mission – who are you, and where are you going?

♦ Preparing for your “big move” – what changes are you going to make in life, and how will you ensure these changes lead where you are going?

♦ Organization – self explanatory, eliminate the clutter.

♦ Funds – are you setting money aside and planning financially for possible hardships in life?

♦ Investing in your life – are you paying what it takes to get where you want to go?

♦ “Pruning your life” – what people, places, and things do you need to cut loose?

♦ Networking – who can teach you what they did to get where you are trying to, by sharing their experience?

♦ Becoming an expert – learn all you can about where you want or what you plan to accomplish in life.

♦ Just a season – everything in this world is temporary.

♦ Quiet time – slow down and relax.

♦ Removing negativity – need I say more?

♦ Creating a winning mind – are your thoughts positive or negative?

♦ Volunteer for what you want – put yourself in position to gain experience and connections for whatever it is you want to do

Addional topics:

♦ Changing your pictures, finding a mentor, standing out, embracing failure, commit to consistency, changing the conversation, making a milestone out of your molehill, your personal standup comedy shows the beauty of the wait, your mirror moment, journaling your experience.

If you have faced any kind of hard times in the past, I recommend this book.

I am incarcerated at Madison Correctional Institution, in London Ohio. I am serving 26 to life while fighting to prove my innocence. I am ready to get out so that I can reestablish relationships with family, and become the father to my beautiful three year old daughter that I dream of being. I am devoted to family and my community in a positive manner. Society will see with their own eyes that these accusations are not the man I am. I admit that I was not a model citizen, and had some personal issues that I needed to deal with, but nothing I did warranted 26 to life. Please help me prove my innocence.