Joe Loya- The Best of 2014: Confessions of a Bank Robber

The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Srinivas Rao

Society & Culture

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2014

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we continue our best of 2014 series. Joe Loya’s life trajectory of rising up and moving forward took a radically different turn after losing his mother at an an early age, and stabbing his father in the neck at the age of 16. This was beginning of of a life of crime, and 14 month bank robbing spree in which he robbed 30 banks. In this amazing chat about his life, we discuss the amazing power of innovating with your story.

Higlights

The loss of a parent at a very young age
Growing up with an abusive father
How stabbing his father unleashed Joe’s anger
The power of a story that continually changed
How being robbed caused Joe to ratchet up his game
The murder of an ex cellmate that changed Joe’s life
Achieving balance without acting against your consciousness
How writing starts to reveal the patterns of our lives
Why you must start to own your story
How Joe became a talking head for crime
The pain of victims that led Joe to working with female writers
Why your story is a fluid thing that you can own
How we deal with grief and why it’s a part of life
Why holding onto grief can be insidious
How being trained to look for meaning helped Joe transform
A look at what happens in the mind when you rob a bank
Why your story is a fluid thing that can change
Learning to laugh at the things you take seriously
Our cultural misperceptions of the people who are prison

Joe Loya is an essayist and playwright, as well as a contributing editor with the Pacific News Service. His essays have appeared in several national newspapers and magazines, including the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, and El Andar magazine.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	But most people for the most, when they confront fear, they back off, especially your fear that is so radical that it makes you afraid that if you die, if you keep going forward, you might be extinct.
0:09.3	And that's your possibility, you walk out and there's a bunch of cops and they shoot you
0:12.8	dead. Your body understands this. So once you go down and get a headache, my jaw clenching,
0:18.0	sweaty, my hands are just can't, you know, jumping off the steering wheel I want a wave of fatigue goes over me so I
0:26.9	could almost pass on this road pretty intense very intense experience what I
0:32.0	needed to do is I need to get angry. I needed to
0:33.8	summon my rage by thinking of things that have humiliated me in the past, you
0:37.9	know, from bullies from childhood all the way to my dad and, you know, the stabbing. And
0:41.3	then this monster would rise up in me and a level of peace, you know, struck me, you know, came over me that was was trans and dental man it was spiritual practically I was no
0:56.8	longer afraid in fact I felt like it was endorphine hire something it was something I just felt like I could handle anything. I had a giant.
1:06.4	I felt a job like a giant. And I would go and direct that rage with great efficiency
1:12.1	and make it through those banks I just marshaled my my
1:16.0	intensity took it into those places and and just with my words I can march into the
1:20.8	fault I could just make them give me money I can make a couple of dollars do.
1:24.8	Once I was so just satisfied with the little money that this little bank gave me,
1:29.5	that even though the cops are on the way, on the way out, I just walked in the bank next door and robbed it too.
1:34.0	I was that, that's how fearless I was and crazy which is partly what that
1:39.1	fearlessness is. But that's what it was like. You had to push through the fear. And I did.
1:45.0	I'm Sreeney Rao and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built driving businesses, written best selling books and created insanely interesting art.
2:03.1	For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakable Creative.com. May I have your attention please you can now book your train tickets on Uber and get
2:21.0	10% back in credits to spend on your next Uber ride so you don't have to walk home in the rain again
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	...

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