Carlos, welcome to Lockton, a fellow Connecticut resident, Bridgeport you came from today.

And you own a business in Connecticut, too, that I want to have you plug in the top of this episode.

Yes, so I am Freedom Braids, located in Shelton, Connecticut, at a suite called My Salon Suite.

Awesome. I think it's so cool that people, you know, get out of prison, have a story like yours, and start their own businesses and become successful. And you were just telling me about your friend who were going to try to get on the show that also is out of prison, has his own business. I mean, that's what it's all about. And I think it inspires others to go and do that because people are kind of stuck

and don't know if they want to start their own business work for someone else or what to do,

especially in the climate where, you know, some employers won't hire people getting out of prison too.

So it's really exciting that you have your own business. And we'll have, do you have like social

media and stuff? Yes, so Instagram freedom based by Carlos mainly. That's where all of my work is at, posted, and TikTok as well, Freedom Brates, but mostly Instagram. Cool. I'll have the links in the description of this episode for people to check it out. Awesome. So you live in Bridgeport now. Did you grow up in Bridgeport? I grew up in Bridgeport, yes. my parents are from Puerto Rico, and we grew up on the south end of Bridgeport, Marina Village, which was on projects and very, very tough in the early 80s and 90s. So, got exposed to a lot of violence early on in my life. Were you born in Bridgeport? Yes, in Bridgeport Hospital. Yeah, I was born in Bridgeport Hospital. Did you ever get to go to Puerto Rico to visit at all?

I went once.

I went once, but I was very young, and I really remember everything.

Do you ever, like, think about if you could have the opportunity to grow up in Puerto Rico

rather than here?

Maybe life would have turned out differently?

I do, but then again um my whole family ended up coming

to bridgeport to live with us because my uncle started selling drugs over there as well and he

ended up getting shot so there was some retaliation going on where my family didn't want to take the

chance and they all came over here so there's no no telling on whom, you know, what would have happened

that I'd gone over there too. Because it's everywhere. Wow. It's everywhere. Did you have siblings growing up? Yes. So it was eight of us. Wow. The second oldest and seven boys and one girl. I feel bad for the girl, a family of boys. It's a lot. And were you guys like all in the same household growing up?

In the same house a family of boys. It's a lot. And were you guys like all in the same

household growing up? In the same house, four bedroom apartment, two floors in the projects, yeah.

And what did your parents do for work? So they didn't work. They didn't work. We grew up on welfare,

mainly, always in the house really, whenever you were anywhere at all. So so yeah do you guys have a close relationship because

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