IAM1135- Prison Reform Activist Helps Shift the Prison Paradigm

Dr. Karen Gedney is an Internal Medicine Specialist who was placed in a male prison to do a four-year payback for a scholarship she received and turned it into a calling that lasted 30 years. When she left that career she started her business, DRG Consulting, LLC, and became a speaker, prison reform activist, expert medical witness, and author of, '30 Years Behind Bars,' Trials of a Prison Doctor.

• CEO Hack: My mentor and getting her book out
• CEO Nugget: “Rewiring & Refiring” and remembering your why
• CEO Defined: You have this

Website: https://www.discoverdrg.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-gedney

Facebook: https:/www.facebook.com/KarenGedneyMD/

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Transcription

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00:15 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:42 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Karen Gedney of DRG Consulting. Dr. Karen, it's great to have you on the show.

00:53 – Dr. Karen Gedney

Thank you very much, Gresham.

00:55 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on, and the pleasure is all ours. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Dr. Karen so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Dr. Karen is an internal medicine specialist who was placed in a male prison to do a four-year payback for a scholarship she received and turned it into a calling that lasted 30 years. When she left that career, she started her business, DRG Consulting, LLC, and became a speaker, prison reform activist, expert medical witness, and the author of 30 years behind bars trials of a prison doctor. Dr. Karen, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:40 – Dr. Karen Gedney

Yes, I am. Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story. Well, I think the biggest thing is that if you spend 30 years as a paid salaried person, and then you retire, you are faced with, well, what do I exactly do next? And I have to admit, I ended up trying two things. I had a foot in both the correctional world and the medical world.

So I got a new degree in medicine, anti-aging, and regenerative medicine. And then I also became involved in speaking about my, let's say experiences and writing my book because I realized that there had never been a book written by a female prison doctor in the United States. And I had done 30 years and let's say was at the forefront of prison reform and HIV epidemics and everything before anybody really started talking about anything.

And I actually looked at both, and then I realized I would make the greatest impact where there was the least amount of voice. And that's really where I started and I realized, okay, Karen, this has to be a little bit more than a hobby. Right? If you're going to do it, you should really function like a business. Not that money is my criteria, But many people told me, hey, Karen, don't keep doing things for free. Be paid and then you can always funnel that money into things that you consider worthwhile. And that made more sense to me. That's how I sort of got into it.

03:17 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, of course, being able to write your book and do all the awesome things that you're able to do. But I think it makes so much sense. I really believe, like a lot of times we go through experiences and have different gifts and, you know, talents as well too. But we have to make sure that in order for us to sustain those talents, we have, the lights are kept on so to speak.

And it's so important that you're able to do that. And I think when you're able to do that, you're able to make an even bigger impact because you are able to also, you know, support those things that you care about and that you know that you want to support.

03:53 – Dr. Karen Gedney

Correct. And I also realized that I had to really rewire my brain. I mean, to go from a salaried person to someone who spent more than 30 years as a prison doctor where you have kept off computers for security reasons. So I had no social presence for 30 years. And then to enter that was, let's just say a dinosaur experiencing a car and going, what is that? And is this useful for me? So it was a tremendous shift.

04:31 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I imagine. As you said, I appreciate you mentioning that and sharing about the transition that you had and having to relearn a lot of different skills and understand how best to take your business and the book to another level. So I guess could you tell us a little bit more about that journey and also like what you came to like how you work with your clients and a little bit more about your book as well.

04:53 – Dr. Karen Gedney

Yeah, well, I let it let's say I started first with little speaking gigs at community service clubs, And then I had written the book, but I had no idea how to, like, should I self-publish, publish that sort of thing. And then I realized, well, I actually wanted to self-publish, mainly because I wanted it to be my story. And I realized that publishers, are shooting for, let's say, a different world than I am. And they would probably just, I don't know, promote the gruesome parts and leave out the good parts.

And I wanted it to be mine and plus I wasn't really oriented to make money. I wanted to actually expose society to a world and see it through the eyes of someone oriented to healing, not the captive side, the captor side, and what you tend to see in movies. I wanted to roll back the curtain, and that's why I kept it self-published. But I knew that I had to get help because I really had no idea about websites and social media and there was actually a company in my area that sort of did a bit of everything in-house.

Not that they were excellent at everything but it got me a foot in the front door, right? And so then it was like, okay, now I have the website. Now I've got my little Facebook thing going and my LinkedIn thing and the book is on Amazon. And then what do you do next, right? And that was actually the hardest step for me because I never was used to promoting myself. Everybody came to me in the prison, right?

I never promoted myself. And I have to admit that I ran into a mentor who was incredible for me. And that was Pat Lynch, who was the CEO of Women's Radio. And she interviewed me because I became a proponent of abolishing the death penalty. And then she said, hey, Karen, you could be the voice for prison reform in the United States. You have a unique voice. You could be this, you could be that. And it was almost sort of scary that here I have this woman who has been in the business a long time.

And she started nudging and pushing me into things that she goes, okay, now you have to become involved with women's organizations, and then you have to get publicity. And as you know, we met at the National Publicity Summit, right? And I realized, yeah, that's that makes sense to me to actually invest in myself So I can interact with media and publicity. I also, when I know you talk about CEOs, about their sort of hacks or like some other weird things they may do.

I realized, and this is a very bizarre hack, but in my area, one of the prisons, which is Nevada State Prison, is a territorial prison from 1862 and ran until 2012. And I have done work there as well and it's in my town basically. I have 3 prisons sort of on the outskirts of Carson City, Nevada and they turned it into a historical society and I thought well this is interesting. I love history and I can actually once in a while be a tour guide and promote my book, you know, in the historical prison. You see what I mean? I was starting to think of odd things to promote my book.

So that's very important, I think, for everyone who's working in that field, especially those who are just starting out. That's the thing. And coming from the mindset, it's one thing like you who probably started at a CEO, you know, that level of CEO. It's very different for people who are, let's say, in the retirement arena, who have been sort of brainwashed for a salary and doing this and I am very much also oriented to push anyone thinking about retirement into changing it to retirement and retirement, you see what I mean? And then, and because I have that medical piece in anti-aging, it sort of fits there too.

And I can use the concept of my why or my purpose is really in the prison reform arena and they have to find something where the why is big enough. And this is an absolute necessity for every CEO. If it's just to make money, That to me is, I think all CEOs need a vision and they have to have a really strong why. And then once they're there, then becomes the how and the what. And to me, I'm at the vision and the why, and I'm just starting to climb on the how and the what.

10:21 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that and definitely hearing about your journey and continuing to hear about your journey. And I love that kind of nugget because I often say, First of all, I love many things that you said, especially about the rewiring and the refiring piece. Because I think so many times, when you start a business, or for lack of a better term if you start anything, you have to kind of rewire yourself. We forget about that mindset piece and how you have to kind of relearn some of the things you've been learning for years.

But I appreciate you sharing that journey because I think so many times we can get so attached to the how of what we're doing and we forget about our why, we forget about our mission and we forget that to truly kind of innovate and do things, especially if there isn't a path that's created, you have to kind of understand why you're doing it and then let the how kind of manifest itself after that.

So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which I call the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. And as an activist and speaker and doing so many phenomenal things as an author, I wanted to ask you Dr. Karen, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:23 – Dr. Karen Gedney

A CEO to me means that I have to take my vision and actually make it in a way that I reach the greatest amount of people and that what returns I get from it, I can return to society. That's what a CEO means to me. And my investment in terms of my money and my time is that I do not want to go broke. Let's be clear about that one. But my investment is the enjoyment for me, it's actually the enjoyment I get from what I'm doing.

And I will share with Gresham that like in the prison what kept me also going all those years, you know, it's one thing to take care of medicine and heal people. Okay, that's a piece. But what kept me going was I created programs in the prison and when I taught and when I saw the light go on on their eyes and them shift, that actually was really what kept me going.

You know, to take someone with diabetes and then you help them but then they just go back and just, you know, eat junk constantly and come back to you. This is not fulfilling for me. But to see the light go on and then shift and then also to help others made all the difference. And that's one of the reasons I stayed.

13:02 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I truly appreciate that. And I say so often that we always forget about the human aspect of business and even of life on a deeper level. So to kind of see that impact and to have that vision and manifest itself in helping and making that impact in people's lives, which we often will forget about, is so huge. So truly appreciate that Dr. Karen. And so now I wanted to pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you want to let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best I can get a hold of you, get a copy of the book, and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

13:35 – Dr. Karen Gedney

Well, the best way to get the book is on Amazon. And I also did the audio. So if you don't like to read, but listen while you jog or something, I did the audio. And my website is discoverdrg.com. And that's the best way to get hold of me. And one thing, Gresham, I think my message for your audience is really the baby boomers who I know my generation, they were the idealistic ones. They do not wanna get old and they don't wanna become irrelevant.

And I think a lot of them are a bit spinning their wheels like what exactly am I going to do? I really think that the best thing is to take your knowledge base and use it in service and turn it into a business so you up your skills and your connections and make a difference and be mentors in whatever your area is. You know, my mentor is, my mentoring piece is actually, I mentor kids who have a parent in prison. That's what I like to do. And they become sort of like my godchildren. And they keep me young. And, you know, they make me go to Wild Island, which is like a water slide park and stuff like that. Right. So

15:01 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Well, Dr. Can truly appreciate that we will have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But I love that last message that you mentioned. I think so many times when you're kind of reinventing yourself and trying to figure out where to go. As you mentioned, like sometimes baby boomers might be going through that stage. Sometimes you might feel like you don't have anything or you don't know what to do or you're starting from, 0 or below 0 negatives, whatever.

But we have so many things that you can kind of lean on. So if you look into the things that you've been doing, the expertise that you have, sometimes we don't realize that you can build a business around that and realize that there are other people that can that need your expertise, that needs your experience, and that you can kind of teach and learn from. So appreciate you for mentioning that, of course, for doing that as well too. And I hope you have a great rest of the day.

15:48 – Outro