Wes Watson is an American fitness coach, motivational speaker and former prisoner who served ten years in the California penitentiary system. Raised in San Diego, he founded the coaching company Watson Fit after his release and is known for his YouTube channel and podcast, GP Penitentiary Life, where he tells stories from inside. His book, Non-Negotiable, came out in 2022.
Brian Rose interviewed him once on London Real, in New York City in March 2020, shortly after he finished his parole. They talked about how California prisons work, his time in the SHU, the near life sentence he faced inside, karmic debt, anger as a vice, and the daily routine that he says changed his life.
The most-watched London Real interview with Wes Watson is 10 Years In Prison: How Jail Taught Me Appreciation, Gratitude & Discipline.
10 Years In Prison: How Jail Taught Me Appreciation, Gratitude & Discipline (March 2020). His only London Real interview: nearly two hours on life inside California prisons, karmic debt and the routine that changed him.
Watson argues that the man who takes more pride in the daily steps than in the result itself cannot be stopped. Speaking in 2020, he said he had got up at 2:45am every day for 13 years.
He believes harmful acts are paid for in time: after an argument or an act of violence you lose hours stuck in your head, while helping people gives that time back. He told Brian Rose it took him about five years in prison to understand this.
His routine starts with small wins: get up early, read something that moves you, then train hard. He says this builds the self-worth that drugs and other vices cannot, and it is how he tried to turn fellow prisoners from liabilities into assets.
Watson rejects the idea that prison makes anyone tough. He says real toughness is doing what is hard for you, such as early starts, clean eating and dropping bad habits, and he names his own anger as the weakness he is still working on.
Wes Watson is an American fitness coach, motivational speaker and former prisoner from San Diego, California. After ten years in the California penitentiary system he founded the coaching company Watson Fit and built a large following with his YouTube channel and podcast, GP Penitentiary Life. He is the author of Non-Negotiable (2022).
In his London Real interview, Brian Rose explains that dealing marijuana began a downward spiral that led to Wes Watson’s ten-year term. The London Real episode page states that the sentence was for assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious bodily injury, robbery and burglary, following a violent dispute over an unpaid debt.
Wes Watson served ten years in the California penitentiary system, including 17 months straight in the SHU, the security housing unit. When he spoke to Brian Rose in March 2020 he had been out for about two years and had just finished his parole.
Watson Fit is the coaching company Wes Watson created after his release from prison. On London Real it was described as designed to free people from their mental prisons and help them reach their fitness goals, built around early starts, daily training and personal discipline.
GP Penitentiary Life is Wes Watson’s YouTube channel and podcast. GP stands for general population, the main housing in a California prison. He uses it to tell stories from his time inside and to talk about discipline, fitness and personal growth.
In March 2020 he told Brian Rose how California prisons are organised, about his time in the SHU, his relapse inside and the near life sentence he faced, and the routine that changed him. He also explained his idea of karmic debt, why he sees anger as a vice, and why he takes more pride in the process than in the result.
Once. Brian Rose interviewed Wes Watson in New York City, and the episode was published in March 2020.
Yes. His book Non-Negotiable: Ten Years Incarcerated, Creating the Unbreakable Mindset was published in 2022. It sets out the daily habits and mindset he says he used to get through prison.
Join 6 million+ followers & subscribers. Full-length interviews with world-class guests, straight to your inbox every week.
We take your privacy seriously. We will never sell your information.
Chat
