A Brit who was in and out of prison revealed how he turned life around - and is now founder and CEO of a $25million business. Lewis Raymond Taylor, 32, said he had a poor relationship with both parents as a child - and ended up turned to crime for attention.
As a teen he began shoplifting and first got arrested at just 13 - and the years that followed saw him expelled from school and even get an ASBO for criminal damage. Lewis was behind bars for the first time aged 18 and spent his late teens and early twenties in and out of prison for violence and drug offences, he said.
His last stint saw him serve 18 months for GBH after a fight which left his victim in a coma - and he knew when he came out, he wanted to do things differently. After taking advantage of the rehabilitation services in and after he left prison, he began finding his experiences were inspiring to others who asked for his help.
After researching and qualifying as a life coach, he launched a business solo - and within a year he had made £100,000, he said. Six years on, Lewis is unrecognisable from himself ten years earlier - now married, he travels the world while running a $25million business.
Lewis, from Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, said: "As a kid, I picked the easiest way to get attention - crime. I kept being told I was a bad kid so in the end I thought I couldn't do anything about it - people thought I was bad anyway.
"Things spiralled out of control at 18. I was drinking and taking cocaine - I got addicted to the power and reputation I was getting as 'the crazy one'. I just went on to self-sabotage - the convictions were racking up but the damage I had done to my life didn't even enter my mind.
"My lowest point was a fight in a taxi queue aged 24 when the guy hit his head on the ground and had a brain haemorrhage. That time in prison I wanted to change - I was the problem, but I was also the solution, so I did a rehab course after leaving prison.
"I realised I had a lot to offer helping others by sharing my journey and what I learnt. I thought maybe I could do it professionally - and it grew from there."
Lewis said growing up, he was desperate for attention from his dad. Until the age of 11 he attended acting college, but when he started secondary school he quit - because acting "didn't fit the identity I wanted to create."
He began rebelling and this was where the criminality started - initially offences like shoplifting and smashing windows. At just 13 he was arrested for stealing some makeup from a nearby drugstore to impress girls - and this became the first of a long string of offenses.
By the age of 15, he had an ASBO for antisocial behaviour and had been expelled from school before achieving any qualifications. He said: "I would just walk around smashing bus windows, because it was the easiest way to get attention. I blamed myself because my dad didn't like me and I was a 'bad kid' and ended up doing things that made it worse."
Lewis was in a relationship where he was cheated on - and said things spiralled from there. An incident occurred where he took a knife to his own throat and ended up being sectioned under the mental health act at Albany Lodge psychiatric unit, St Albans. He said: "I smashed up the kitchen and grabbed a knife - before I knew what I had done I saw blood spurting from my neck."
Following that he began taking cocaine and drinking heavily and developed the reputation as "the crazy one" amongst friends - a title he liked. But Lewis said he entered "self-sabotage mode" after this - and began getting in fights which saw his jaw broken and teeth knocked out.
He would also regularly overdose on drugs and wake up in the morning with ECG stickers on his chest - not even remembering being in hospital the night before. Between the ages of 18 and 24 there was lots of violence and drug dealing - both of which landed him in prison several times.
His mental state was made worse by one day in 2011, aged 21, walking into his home and finding his father dead on the floor from pancreatic cancer as a result of years of alcohol abuse. But Lewis said his lowest moment was his final prison sentence - after getting in a fight at taxi rank.
He said: "I was in a taxi queue and I pushed to the front - a guy shouted at me and it triggered me. I punched him and he hit his head on the ground, had a brain haemorrhage and ended up in a coma. That was the last time I ever threw a punch."
After being sentenced to 18 months in prison for GBH in three different prisons in the South East, he realised he needed to change. He started in Bedford Prison before being moved to Peterborough Prison, before completing his sentence at The Mount, Hemel Hempstead.
Lewis said: "I realised I was the problem, but I was also the solution."
In a bid to change his path, he did maths and English classes and learnt functional skills with a tutor in prison. With no formal qualifications, he had to start education back at primary school age - but quickly caught up and began to gain self-confidence.
So after he was released from what would be his final stint in prison, the second he got out he spent six months in an intensive rehab in Portsmouth. He said: "They broke me down and built me back up. That was the major thing that changed my life."
After leaving prison he remained in Portsmouth and got housing benefits which allowed him to get a "dingy little flat" - but it helped him to start a new life. He attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous sessions to prevent him going back to his old ways - which he never did, despite feeling tempted at times.
It was at this point people began to ask him for advice because they saw how much he had changed from where he started. Lewis said: "I realised I had a lot to offer so I would meet up for coffee and help people every week.
"Not just former convicts - I helped someone split from a toxic partner, start a business, and even helped a woman get help to overcome anorexia. I had no idea what I was doing at first but just shared the lessons I had learnt over the past few years."
After looking into turning his casual advice into work and became a mindset coach - then started a business. Clients flocked for Lewis' services and within a year the business had generated £100,000.
He said: "It blew my mind. I came off benefits and moved out of supported housing as well as getting my broken teeth done. The more I worked the more I invested into myself completing more courses to train further.
"I realised I had a skill for digital marketing - I was able to connect with people and they related to me because everyone has had an experience where the feel lost and unlovable."
The business continued to boom as Lewis found partners for the company and created online courses which have now been bought over a thousand times. He said: "We created a course based on real life. We threw textbooks out the window and based in on our own experiences on how to transform your mindset."
Lewis even planned to take a break from the business about seven months in to go travelling around South East Asia. But after realising he could deliver the same coaching from anywhere in the world, he became a digital nomad - and hasn't settled since.
The business became less about coaching people and more about training people to become coaches - with the tagline "coach your way to freedom". Six years on, the business now has 80 remote working employees and has customers in 78 countries around the world paying up to $5,000 for their various training courses.
Lewis said: "We have a lot of people coming to us who just want to change their lives. We actually have a lot of police officers come to us for help - which is crazy given my past!"
Now the business, The Coaching Masters, trades $2.5million a year and CEO Lewis has continued working whilst travelling and giving TEDx talks. He even fell in love and married Dayana Taylor, 26, this month - and is worlds away from his former convict life.
Lewis said: "Ten years back I was self-sabotaging and didn't even care what damage I was doing to my life. Now I'm clean and happy and CEO of a $25m business."
