Bad decisions make good stories. Most people believe that’s true based on experience, but I know it’s accurate because I’ve been a member of a prison Toastmaster club. I’ve made some bad decisions, but none that ended with incarceration.After sharing a prison Toastmaster story with my local Toastmaster club, my evaluator, the person who is assigned to give me feedback, asked, “Jodie, when did you become head cheerleader for criminals?” I laughed and wholeheartedly agreed until I realized that was not correct. I don’t cheer for criminals. I cheer for our returning citizens. And, not surprisingly, they cheer for me.One inmate put it this way, “Being in Mrs. Randisi’s class is like winning the Super Bowl. You want to do it again!”I don’t’ know about you, but I don’t get such high praise often. I also don’t want to miss any divine appointments. For me, there’s nothing more rewarding than being in a situation that could possibly lead to a transformational moment, which happens often in our WhyTry for Corrections class. The icing on the cake, however, has been that I’ve collected lots of entertaining stories stemming from bad decisions.For example, while cleaning up from a WhyTry for Corrections graduation celebration that involved a meal, I was looking around the classroom for any leftover extra plastic forks. Plastic silverware can be reshaped into a stabbing implement; therefore, I didn’t want to leave any behind. I approached Mr. A. and asked, “Any extra forks over here?” To which he replied, “I’m not a thief, Mrs. Randisi. I’m a murderer!”People with lives so different from our own make us lean in with curiosity. This is why true crime stories are so popular. Incarceration is packed with interesting stories because prison is a whole other world, and I seem to fit in with the forgotten people. I’ve stumbled upon a world where I’m free to focus on and cultivate the hidden potential of underdogs. Prisons are filled with human beings who weren’t nurtured into their gifts and talents, so I go there to unearth those hidden gems.