Angie:
Hi, and welcome to this episode of Resilience Reborn. I’m one of your hosts, Angie.
Trey:
And I’m Trey.
Angie:
We are really excited to be here today with a fabulous lady, named Brenda Ringwood. She is coming to us from Kansas City. Right?
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yes.
Angie:
And she is the founder of Becoming the Better You, and she has just a really fascinating story. So hi, Brenda. Welcome. We are super excited to have you here today. Yes.
Trey:
Thank you so much.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Thank you for having me. You just never know where connections are gonna lead you.
Angie:
Oh, I know. And this has been a really awesome one. And, and like I said, we’re super excited to have you here. If you could, you know, you started this kind of movement and this type of work. I would love to know, and let our audience know what brought you to this point in your life.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Oh, I made a mistake that landed me in prison for 4 years, and I usually just kinda lead with that because I would still be doing my old life had that not happened.
Angie:
That’s pretty powerful. So what exactly was the life that you were living that was not good?
Brenda Ring Wood:
Well, you know, from the outside looking in, you would have thought my life was perfect. You know, I had a worth of 1,000,000 dollars. I had multiple $1,000,000 companies. I had staff in some of those companies of over 300 employees, full time plus benefits. You know, I had it going on. Right? I had the house, the cars, the family. I had it all. And
Trey:
Sounds like it.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yeah. I yeah. Like I said, from the outside looking in. Great marriage, great kids. That wasn’t even an issue. I just wasn’t happy. I wasn’t living my life to its fullest potential, and I wasn’t living my life in a way that was fulfilling me. And that’s that’s hard.
Brenda Ring Wood:
It’s really hard.
Angie:
What about that life wasn’t fulfilling you? Where were you, you know, I know just in talking to you before, you had said that you were a people pleaser and you were trying to please everyone else, but not you. So kinda walk us through that a little bit.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Man, I did. So it kinda starts back to my childhood, which I had a fantastic childhood. I’m an only child, but my dad was military. And he was very strict. I was the only kid, so I was the boy, I was the girl, you know, I had to mow the yard, I had to do all these things. And I never felt that I could never measure up to him because in the military, especially back then, we’re talking, you know, 30 plus years ago. We’re talking 40 years ago, actually, plus. And it was strategically done, and you did things a certain way.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And the military’s changed a lot. So for those of you in the service now, I don’t think it’s like it was when my dad was in. You belonged to them. They owned you. And so that mentality came down even though I did belong to my dad. He did own me because I was a minor. That feeling of I don’t wanna be owned. Right? So I would rebel.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Right. And I didn’t do things as a kid the way that I should have done them. You know? I shortcutted mowed the yard. I threw the stuff under the bed and in the closets to clean the room. And my dad would always come back at me, and he would just drill in that you gotta do it right the first time. And I thought he was coming down hard on me. I’m so thankful for that today because it made me become a hard worker. It made me want to do things right.
Brenda Ring Wood:
The downside of that is I felt like I was always gonna have to please him. Nothing I ever did was gonna be good enough. So I took that into my marriage. I took that into my business. I took that into church. I took that into my children, and I was living a life for everybody else and not for myself. And I’m not saying you have to be about yourself. And I’m not all about this whole me too and, me time and all of that because if you’re all about me time, then when are you gonna get the work time done? When are you gonna have the family time? When are you gonna work on the rest of your life? Right? So but for me, I did things for other people, and it led me down a path that was actually a distraction for a while.
Trey:
I mean, personally, I feel like I’ve dealt with that too. That was one of the things when I went in to get help. They said that you’re too worried about everybody else and you don’t care enough about yourself.
Angie:
Mhmm. Yeah. I always questioned, he did everything under the sun for me and, you know, and never really worried about himself. And so when later on down with his recovery, I finally understood the reasoning why, you know, that, you know, that’s the way that he was.
Trey:
But to your point, I mean, it takes you down a rough road. If you don’t, it does. You don’t care for yourself, you don’t love yourself. And
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yeah. And so I had an opinion, and everybody else, you know, it would tell me, hey. Hey, Brynn. You’re a hard worker. You’re you’re this or that. If anybody can do it, you could do it. I did not view myself the way that other people viewed me. So I viewed myself as for 1, we had a janitorial company.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So I viewed myself as just being the janitor and all the stigma and stuff that came with that. So just because of the job that I had and we had a very successful company. It paid for a lot of things. We had a really good life because of cleaning toilets. Right? But that stigma still stayed with me. So I always hated the question, well, what do you do for a living? Now and then as time got on, I would say I was just the dumb janitor and because it got me out of a lot of things because of the stigma, but I had to get to that point. But there’s nothing wrong with being a janitor, let me tell you. There’s nothing wrong with any job that you have.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And as long as you are happy and you are doing it to the best of your ability and your life is status quo, it’s where you want it, then you know what? Do that. Everybody says, oh, I guess I could go be a greeter at Walmart. There’s something to be said for that because a lot of those folks have already lived their life. They don’t want the stress. They don’t want the drama. They don’t want anything that goes with that. So it’s just something that they do. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have the skills or the assets to do something else.
Angie:
Right. Okay. So you ended up in prison. Mhmm. Tell us about that. Like, this, I think, is where you kind of had an awakening of sorts. Right? I did. So kinda tell us about that.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So I was a Christian before prison. So my actions were unbecoming of anybody that was following Christ. So to go in being a Christian, I felt that my testimony was ruined. But the reality is that my testimony that people were looking in from the outside was not even the truth, nor was there even really a testimony because of the way I was living my life. So now I’m angry, and I’m mad, and I’m blaming, and how dare this happen to me. Because let me tell you, the law doesn’t discriminate. People discriminate. The law doesn’t discriminate.
Brenda Ring Wood:
They don’t care how much money you make. They don’t care what kind of car you drive. They don’t care. It’s black and white. There is no gray. Where the gray comes in is where the people try to play games. And then when the people come into the law, now things change. And that’s a whole different show.
Brenda Ring Wood:
But, anyways, I’m I’m angry, and
Trey:
it
Brenda Ring Wood:
took me a year. It took me a year to get on my knees and repent. It took me a year to realize that I have to take responsibility for my own actions. It took me a year to come to terms with the person that I had become, and that was tough. I had to realize you are in a place right now that you need to change. You need to change your mindset, and you need to change your actions. Otherwise, you’re gonna be right back in here. You’re gonna be right back doing things.
Brenda Ring Wood:
You’re gonna end up divorced. And when you first go in, I don’t know if I was gonna end up divorced or not. I was looking at 30 years. I was 30 looking at a 30 year sentence. I was 46 years old. I would have been 76. You see where my mindset was at right?
Trey:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Thought my life was at.
Angie:
Right. Okay. So you said you had to take back your life. You had to, you know, put some things into action. What did you do?
Brenda Ring Wood:
So I started getting back into the word of God. I started listening to Christian radio, songs, and then there was a talk radio station called bot radio. It’s here in Kansas. There’s an app you can come in front of too. And I could hear the preaching because I literally had a cell, headphones to a radio, and then TVs that you could share. It was only 3 out in the pod, and you had to have headphones to be able to listen to it. You didn’t usually, what was on the television was not something I was interested in. So I spent a lot of time reflecting.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I spent a lot of time on my bible. I spent a lot of time listening to the preaching and then to the songs. And I realized that a lot of the songs I was hearing were also scripture. The hymns I was hearing were scripture. And being a believer for over 20 years before that had happened and studying the word of God, it would trigger me to get right with God. It would trigger some things that, oh, you need to do this. Oh, man. That is so good.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Why didn’t I see that before? And when I truly repented and took responsibility for my actions that I had sinned against God, I had sinned against myself for being the person that I was. I had sent against my family, my friends, my clients, anybody that touched me. I was a disaster. I was fired. I was destroyed. And that’s actually what the name Brenda means. It means fiery sword. And I was going to battle against myself.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Mhmm. So when I came to terms with who I needed to be and who God called me to be, I was at peace. I was at peace in a jail cell for the next 3 years. And when I tell people that, they think I’m crazy, but it’s the truth. I was at peace in a jail cell for 3 years after that. Now I’m still looking at 30 years, but the sentences started coming down. So, eventually, I was looking at 72 months, and I kept saying no. I just don’t think so.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I prayed, and I would fast, and I repented, and I would just get right with God, and I was teaching classes and doing things. And I wasn’t this goody 2 shoes in prison. Trust me. We all had our vices. Right? But I had this calmness about me that whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen. And my family, when they would come to see me, could see the change. On the phone, they could hear the change, and it was real, and it was peaceful. And here’s the thing, my middle name means peace.
Brenda Ring Wood:
It’s Irene. So I used to hate my name. So now I can say my fire brings my peace because fire can also can. It can, you know, out in the forest when fire happens, all that fire cleans the underbrush, right, so that new growth can occur. Mhmm. And now I tell people my fire brings my peace. My fire cleaned up that destruction, cleaned up that mess and all that destruction, and now I’m at peace. So when I got out, I said, now what? You’ve ruined your testimony.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I had to realize that my testimony was what I was doing right now. My testimony was who I was becoming. And I thought, you know, other people are probably in prison too, but they don’t have to be behind bars. They’re probably imprisoned in their minds.
Trey:
Oh, absolutely.
Brenda Ring Wood:
We let doubt, fear, insecurities, and all these other things stop us from becoming the person that we wanna be, stop us from owning the businesses that we want to do. We let fear inhibit what we want out of our life. And I thought, what if we could create something that allowed people to move to the next level, to break those chains, break those bars? So we started becoming better. And I say we because there is a team of us that has seen the vision. It was supposed to be a one off. And let me tell you, I was still kinda stuck in my own way when I first got out. I was, I was the fattest I’d ever been. I had multiple surgeries.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I had 5 major surgeries within a year of getting out to include both my knees being replaced. So I was feeling I I was having my my health reinvented, so to speak, through the surgeries that I needed and, just getting accustomed to being back out because 4 years is a lot when you come out of
Angie:
the chain.
Trey:
It
Brenda Ring Wood:
is. You know? Especially without even my phone. Oh my goodness. The phones had changed
Angie:
Right.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Just in that short time. And I couldn’t even look at a computer. I couldn’t type. I got nauseous. So I had to teach myself how to be able to even use a computer again. It was just part of the illness that I had. Once that all cleared, I said, well, let’s get back into speaking. And my son is the one who actually said, mom, go back to speaking.
Brenda Ring Wood:
You’re really good at it. That’s what you should do. And I had been doing it for decades, but not as a paid public speaker. I did it. I got asked to speak. I did things. I did women’s retreats, spoke at conferences on real estate and things that I did. So I had the experience in it, but never to help other people.
Trey:
It was always
Brenda Ring Wood:
about subject matter, if that makes any sense. So when I do that it makes no sense. So when I learned that I should go back to doing that, I thought I was having trouble getting hired because of my past. So, again, I was in my own way. Again, I was put back in prison because I thought I wasn’t good enough because of this past. So I said, I’m gonna do my own events. Screw all these people. I’m gonna do my own event.
Trey:
So that was a good thought you had was did you
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yeah.
Trey:
Was that a factor? What, like, did people say anything? Like, no. Do you have this past, or is it that it was more made up in your head as a fear?
Brenda Ring Wood:
It was more made up in my head as a fear. Now there’s some people that, yes, that was a factor. And to be honest with you, it’s still a factor to this day. It’s still a factor. It always will be to some type of people, and that’s okay. But those same types of people, it would have been a hindrance to them anyway because there would have been something that I had in my past that they didn’t like. Right?
Trey:
True.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So right now, I would say it was prison, but it could have been anything. It could have been just because I was a janitor. I wasn’t good enough. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm. But I decided no more. So COVID started coming into play. So I started doing these shows just to educate people about prison.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I would have people who had been to prison, families of prison members who were currently serving, police officers, anything about prison, and it didn’t really have a name. I was just trying to educate the public about prison. And I look back at some of those shows and I’m like, man, that really sucked. You got you were horrible. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was okay. We all gotta start somewhere. And then COVID happened, but it was the best thing for me because virtual reality blew up. So now I could continue to do these virtual prison shows.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I started it with a company called the Kansas Collision for Prince Prison and Sentence Reform. I was a spokesperson for them. So I would do these episodes, and she would put my episodes on her stuff. Then that turned into fabulous, which is now a TV show that we have and a movement that we have on that. But I was still kinda hiding even doing that. I wanted to hear everybody else’s stories, but when they asked me questions, I was like, oh, please don’t ask me that, or can I edit that out later? You know, I was still kinda hiding. So I went with becoming the better you because everybody can always become better. I don’t care who you are.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Well, COVID happened, and we couldn’t do the first event, and so we decided we were gonna do a virtual event. It was a 3 day virtual. We had over 4,000 people viewing that. It was needed.
Angie:
Oh, man.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Of course, this was during COVID, so, you know, people didn’t need something to do. Mhmm. And we thought, this is something really special. And I say we because I had a really good team of people who knew my story, who I was on their platforms, shows like yours, who they would hear that that little prison show somewhere, and they’d say, would you come be on my show? And then I met doctor Reuben West, who introduced me to Terrence Leftridge and a bunch of his community. And I’m sitting there talking with Reuben at an event. This is in 2019. This is before COVID. And he says, the person I see before me now is not the person who did all of these things.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And they put me on his stage that night. It was only for 5 minutes.
Angie:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
But he was showing me that I was the only one limiting myself. Yeah. And I almost didn’t go to the whole story behind that. So he still speaks with us today. He is my biggest mentor. I value him for his friendship. I value him as a coach. I’ve all these things.
Brenda Ring Wood:
He’s really helped my mindset. The other thing that he did for me was I realized that your circle matters. So his community really helped to influence who I was becoming. And I met Terrence Leftridge. So me and Terrence started talking about how we were gonna do the show and I was gonna not show our next event. And I was gonna hire him as my emcee, and I did. But then we did the virtual, so he emcee’d that. And I had been on a couple other virtuals.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I knew Jeff Markkanette junior through Ruben, and he had a show. And so he started doing a virtual with this guy named Anthony Russo, who is a guy. He was, with Fox Sports Noon kickoff. He was on the cowboy channel, and we just started doing these virtuals together. Next thing I know, we’re doing my virtual. Anthony and Terrence are my MCs on this big virtual. We had no idea that this 3 day virtual was gonna turn into this many views. Then we use it as a precursor for our event.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So that happened in November of 2021. Our first event was in February of 2022. We only had 85 people there, of which 20 of them were speakers. Coming right out of COVID, it was actually not a bad crowd. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely.
Angie:
So,
Brenda Ring Wood:
it just turned into what it’s turned into. The event was fantastic. We live streamed it. We started growing a community. There’s some Facebook groups out there. We ended up having a second event a year later, and it just skyrocketed from there. And we realized we had something special because all of these people who had been helping me along the way and I say helping me. It wasn’t financial.
Brenda Ring Wood:
It wasn’t anything other than support. They saw the person I was becoming and didn’t see the old me.
Trey:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And they put me on their platforms. I put them on my platforms, and we started just building something. And it was something that everybody needed because everybody is broken in some way. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how much money you make. We’ve all been broken in some way. And that’s kinda where we started becoming the better you. Now we have classes and online communities.
Brenda Ring Wood:
We’re getting ready to do some memberships. We’ve held several events virtually, masterminds, in person. I think we were on our 4th event just in person in the last 2 years. We’ve had 4 really nice events. Our virtuals and our masterminds are all year round. We’ve and I’ve been on stages clear to Africa. Oh, so you’re pretty international now. Right? Yes.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Mhmm. And I just got my honorary doctorate, and it’s in the work that I’m doing.
Angie:
Yes. That’s really awesome. Oh, wow. Okay. So clearly, you have so much to offer because you have been through so many different points in your life. I wanna can you talk maybe just a little bit about going into a little bit about your family and how like, when this happened with you and you had to go to prison and how was that just like to keep those relationships and, you know, did it come out stronger? Maybe just give us a little background with that.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So, you know, looking in, I woulda had this perfect relationship. And I had a great relationship with my kids, my husband, my parents, all of these things. But I would say they’re different now, and they maybe are still a little broken on trust, but they’re better. Does that make sense?
Angie:
Yes. It makes
Brenda Ring Wood:
Better.
Angie:
That’s us.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I still
Trey:
have a little bit of the trust thing going on.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yes. And the trust is, okay, mom. You went to prison. You left us all hanging. You left because when I went in, everything halted for them. I mean, everything lost the house, lost the income because everybody worked for me. But now they’re seeing what I’ve been able to accomplish, and I say I set my eyes on that because it was my mindset that led me there. Then it was we that got me there.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Does that make sense?
Angie:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And, man, I’ve been married. I just celebrated the summer of 37 years.
Angie:
Oh, congrats. That’s awesome.
Brenda Ring Wood:
With me in prison, and I tell people, I always say, oh, you stayed. And I said, wait. Wait. Woah. Woah. Why is it okay for the woman to stand by the man when he goes to prison, but it’s not okay for the man to stand by the woman? Wait a minute. There’s a problem here. Marriage is supposed to be forever until death do
Trey:
you part. Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And if you’re not willing to go through the bad and only the good, then is that really love?
Trey:
Yeah.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So I have 4 children. Thank goodness all of my children were my youngest was about 18 at the time. So everybody was grown. Nobody I didn’t have, you know, my kids being farmed out to people. My family came to see me every week. Now I was in a federal holding facility, so I didn’t get to touch them. It was through the glass on a phone
Angie:
Oh, gosh. Okay.
Brenda Ring Wood:
For 4 years. But they came every week, and I only got to see them for the first two years for 30 minutes, and then I was able to see them for an hour after that. And only 3 people at a time. So they had to rotate coming. Okay. They had to rotate coming. Somebody was there every week. I always had them there.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I always had money on the phone to talk to them. They always sent me cards, notes, and I even tried to participate from prison. So for Christmas, I learned how to draw in prison. And I’m gonna grab this thing real quick so I can show you. I learned how to draw in prison just out of sheer boredom, and I created ink. This was in my cell. So this was in my cell. This picture right here oh.
Trey:
Oh, wow.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I drew all my family, and I sent that for their Christmas present. My mom went and had copies made of them for everybody, prints made. And I did it for all individual pictures that they sent in. And in that picture, they’re all cut out. I had to use a razor blade to cut them out because, yeah, it would erase so much that,
Angie:
you know, you’d wear out
Brenda Ring Wood:
the paper. So my mom would send her the loose little cutouts, and she because I had to get them in an envelope. Right? I didn’t want to bend them. So she arranged them and took them and had a print made for everybody. Oh, wow. Also in that, if you see this right here and this right here, this is because then I did cartoons. And he had these dogs, their wired hair pointing at griffins, and I did a comic strip about him and his dog. And his dog, his favorite dog’s name was Bubba Licious, and we called him Bubba.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So the comic strip, my boys call my husband Pops. So the comic strip is called Pops and Bubbalicious. Oh, wow. So after I had learned to draw, it took me a couple years. For our anniversary, I created this comic strip. And I did, like, 4 of them and mailed them to them. I think it was our 30th anniversary or something like that or 29th. I don’t know.
Brenda Ring Wood:
But then every week after that, I would send him a new strip. Oh, okay. For Christmas, I would draw something or or tell a story of what my favorite memory of them was for each child’s Christmas, and they would read that at Christmas time. So that’s especially to the parents. I put in there what was my favorite childhood Christmas story. So I really tried to stay involved in their lives even though I wasn’t there. Mhmm. I always wrote that I had one grandchild at the time, and I had one that was born while I was there.
Brenda Ring Wood:
You know, that was heartbreaking for me, but I was still with my first one when he was born, but I was actually there when she was born because I happened to call when she was being born. And my son-in-law put the phone on speaker. So I was still there when she was born.
Angie:
There. Yeah. Mhmm. Oh gosh. Yeah. Okay. So So
Brenda Ring Wood:
By the way, I skipped that.
Angie:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s really awesome.
Trey:
I have a question about because you said you had your faith, and I because Angie and I had been something kind of through, with the faith thing and and especially when for me in the beginning when after I lost my mom and things, I had a problem with that. But it sounds like you had it going even before you went to prison. Mhmm. So what about your life actually completely removed you from that? Because you said you kinda lost it. So was it just the feeling of being in fear because of the way you were living, or was there something specific that you can point to that kinda took you away from your religion?
Brenda Ring Wood:
So it’s not that I am, it’s not that I got taken away from my religion. I never not gave up my faith.
Trey:
Right.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I thought that I was damaged goods and that I wasn’t good enough anymore. And I had to come to terms with the fact that even though I was damaged goods, I still had a value. I still had a worth. And through Christ that he could fix all of that for me. And I had to really if you’re a Christian and you say you have all this faith, then show it. And I wasn’t showing it. So I had to have that faith of the mustard seed, and I told people, and they thought I was crazy. I’m a walk out of here.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I’m not gonna go. Even though the federal holding is a prison and its high security, I would’ve had more freedom in prison and would’ve been able to actually hug my family. I never had to leave Leavenworth, which means I got to see them every week. Mhmm. But I kept telling them I’m gonna walk out of here. I’m not gonna do that for 7 -72 months. And they would think I’m crazy. I said, god’s got something better for me in store.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Mhmm. And once they did that, well, they went once I did that and they saw my faith and then they started seeing things happening, they were like, I want what you got. And my doors were released not until that last person that god wanted me to meet with to reach was reached. And I walked out of a prison cell. I was supposed to do 72 months. I walked out in 44 months. I had a 50 month sentence, but because of good time and stuff, I got out 6 months early because my prosecutor listened to my attorney’s phone calls. And that was nothing but god.
Brenda Ring Wood:
That happened 2 months after I got there. So for those of you who say, god doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what’s gonna happen, He’d already set that stage. He already knew he was gonna release me. And my faith in a mustard seed moved those mountains. That faith of a mustard seed moved those mountains. And I knew I was gonna walk out. I didn’t know how. Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So it took 8 months from the time I had found out about it to the time that I was out, but it only took 2 days from the time I went to court to get out. And he violated my rights because that was a right, and the only remedy was to let me out. So the only way that he let me out was go ahead and sentence me. So they sentenced me and then b m b the BPO, the board of federal board of prisons had to calculate my time, so I had to go back for 2 days until they did that. I even called my husband. Now he’s sitting there in court hearing the judge say it’s probably gonna be 1 to 3 days. I’m calling him 2 days later and say, come pick me up, and he says, what? Now? Really? Already? He still wasn’t processing that I was getting ready to walk out that door. Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And we were on lockdown. Something had happened, and they had shut down the whole place. And I was able to walk out in the middle of that pod. So if you can imagine a big room with nothing but prison cells off of it. There’s 80 cells off of this room, 40 on each level. In that room are only showers, a microwave, a janitorial sink, and TVs. I was able to stand in the middle of that room and say goodbye to my people who I had been spending time with in there, and they got to see me walk out the door just like I said I was gonna do.
Trey:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Not only did that happen, one of my best friends was there at the time, they let her out to come down and tell me goodbye. So all these women got to witness this, and they got to see Christ. They got to see my testimony. They got to see that mustard seed of faith happening.
Angie:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And even after all of this, I share my story with my dad. My dad still, you know, he says hardcore retired lieutenant colonel. He’s still embarrassed. My church wanted me to talk about my story. He didn’t want me to do it because that affects him. It affects his, you know, what people are gonna view of him. I did it anyway. But I was sitting at the doctor’s office.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I don’t know why I was with my mom and dad, and I said, dad, I need you to just pull in here real quick so I can get a prescription filled. Then as I went in, Sheila had come walking up, and she’s a girl. She’s the last one that I had reached. She didn’t get saved while I was there, but when I went back a year later, she said I got saved. It was from those works that I had done with her prior to. She had also gotten out with everybody that I had met with, we all got out in 4 years. It was miraculous. You know, they had 8-12 year sentences.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Right? That just doesn’t happen in the feds. It just doesn’t happen. And I was walking out and I saw Sheila because she’d already met my mom, talking to my dad. And I didn’t know that I just hugged her. Good to see you. And I get back in the car. And my dad said, Sheila said you saved her life by introducing her to Christ. So it took an outsider to prove to my dad that my prison time was a waste of time.
Angie:
Right. Yeah.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And that’s key. My time was not a waste of time. And I decided I wasn’t gonna let it be a waste of time when I was there. I wrote 4. I actually wrote 5 books while I was there. 3 of those 5 books are now published.
Angie:
Awesome. Oh my gosh.
Trey:
And I’d I’m assuming that you don’t you don’t regret the way that things went. You don’t have any kind
Brenda Ring Wood:
don’t. No. I’m not, I’m not sour about it. I tell people I don’t ever wanna go back, then I’m really glad I went because I would still be cleaning toilets.
Trey:
We had the same conversation when, after I got back out of rehab, and, she asked me I think you asked and you asked me if I regretted it?
Angie:
Mhmm.
Trey:
And I said absolutely not. I wouldn’t have I wouldn’t have gained everything that I have now
Brenda Ring Wood:
Mhmm.
Trey:
And be on the path that I am if it hadn’t been for that. I wouldn’t have found God. It would be like I did and felt the same peace that you felt when you were in prison, you know, those last couple years that you said you felt that peace. I felt that.
Angie:
Yeah. I think it’s, you know, super important for people to hear this because an outsider, like, never having to have gone through something like you did, Brenda, or even you, Trey, like, it’s really hard for for us to understand that and and to for you to just find find the beauty in that. You know, it’s kinda like I’ve now found the beauty in, you know, losing my husband when I was 25 years old. I think that it’s really phenomenal that you are here telling that story and that testimony. I just don’t know. It’s incredible to me. So incredible.
Brenda Ring Wood:
It’s incredible because it’s a good story. My story in itself is not incredible. The fact that God worked miracles through this whole situation is incredible. Mhmm. My my my thing is this. When you are god already knows what’s gonna happen. Right? So he set that scene in motion for me. I already knew scripture.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I already studied the Bible. I was already his daughter. I already knew what I was supposed to be doing. I just wasn’t doing it. So therefore, when the Bible says God will discipline us just like we discipline our children, he did that, which is why I had the prison cell. Once you have that prison cell, now it’s up to me to reflect on being able to change, which is why I call myself the professor of change. It was given to me, but it fits. Right? I knew I needed to change, and now I go and teach change, which is why I’m called the professor of change.
Brenda Ring Wood:
But God put that in place because he already knew that my heart was gonna change and that he was gonna let me out early. That prosecutor listened to those phone calls 2 months after I got there, but I wasn’t ready yet.
Angie:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
My heart was still hard for up to 8 to 10 months after that. Then when I did decide I needed to change, it took that process. It was a couple more months. And then he started using me on other people inside of that pod in prison. Mhmm. So I realized that I am a child of God. And because he loved me, he disciplined me. So now his work can be done through the cleansing process that I had to go through.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I had to go through that refining fire so that now I can do his work. And I could’ve been doing it all along, but I chose not to. I was a knucklehead.
Angie:
Yeah. I’m a knucklehead.
Trey:
You helped the people that you met in person that you just mentioned, but now you’ve kinda shifted your focus on the younger people who before they make these mistakes. Is that right? Is that accurate?
Brenda Ring Wood:
Yes. Yes. Mhmm.
Angie:
And so you tell us a little bit, you know, because we want to put, you know, becoming the better you out there and all this stuff. So give us a little bit about that and the people you help and things you do.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So I believe that everybody has value. Everybody has a worth. Everybody has skill sets. We all have a purpose. But sometimes we get so down on ourselves that we don’t believe in ourselves. We don’t believe that we all have gifts. We all have talent. You know, you might see that person, even that homeless person on the street, might have a beautiful mind and a wonderful talent, and they might actually like living on the streets.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I mean, who knows? Right? But we just tend to judge. Mhmm. We don’t know what circumstances put them there. But them being on the streets was no different than me going to prison.
Trey:
Right.
Brenda Ring Wood:
It was my actions that got me there. I had a friend once tell me that she had a family member that was homeless. And this guy had been homeless for, I don’t know, 7, 8 years, and so she brought him into his home, her home, and he still wouldn’t sleep on the bed. He’d still sleep on the floor. That’s what he had gotten accustomed to. So he was in that mental prison. Even though she gave him a place to live, his mindset still said that he was homeless. Right? He was so used to sleeping on the floor that he slept on the floor even in a house that had a bed.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And that made me realize that we tend to go back to what we know. In order for me not to go back to what I know, I needed to increase my knowledge so that I could start becoming what I was going to know. And once I did that, my world started changing. I had better people in my life. And let me tell you, one of the things the hardest things for me, and god kept calling me to do it, I went back to everybody, either who I had wronged or thought I had wronged them. Even if I didn’t, I still went to them. Or people that I thought that I had wronged and I found out they didn’t even know anything. Right? But I still went to everybody.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Some people would talk to me. Some people wouldn’t. Some people we picked right back up where we left off. And that door is still open if I forget you. Please call me.
Trey:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
You know, I don’t. I don’t know what I can do other than talk through it with you and ask for your forgiveness. Mhmm. But outside of that, I’m still willing. And I thought you can’t be on a stage talking about becoming the best version of yourself if you’re not willing to go make it right with the people that you hurt in the past. Mhmm.
Trey:
That’s right.
Angie:
All you can
Trey:
do is clean your side of the street. Right?
Brenda Ring Wood:
Right. And and and even going back to them, the only thing I can do is offer my apology and ask for forgiveness. You know, I can’t give you any money. I can’t give you this. I can’t give you the things that you probably want. If you hate me because I can’t do that, you know, then then I’m sorry. But, you know, I guess we’re not gonna have a relationship. But I can at least try.
Angie:
Right. Yeah. I can
Brenda Ring Wood:
at least try.
Angie:
Yeah.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And forgiveness is really for yourself. And I had to realize that even though they still might have some animosities or hate hatred towards me, that I can’t control them. I can only control my actions towards them and how I speak about them. And I also realized that probably most of them shouldn’t have even been in my circle to begin with. They were never my friends. Right. That’s what happened. The other thing too is how they decide to perceive me going forward is really none of my business.
Trey:
Mhmm.
Brenda Ring Wood:
I can only live my life the way that I’m gonna live it. And the main thing, I thought the whole world was against me. The reality is it was just this very small group of people.
Angie:
Yeah. Gosh.
Brenda Ring Wood:
And I had to learn to put that down because if I didn’t, I was carrying that with me everywhere, and it gets really heavy.
Angie:
Mhmm. Yeah. Oh my gosh, Brenda. This has been absolutely amazing. So amazing. You’re just everything that you have to say is just so true, and I just know that it’s gonna help so many people. And so where can people find you and become the better you?
Brenda Ring Wood:
Everything is at Brenda Ringwood or just hashtag btbyorcomechangeyourlifedot com. But if any of those will get you anywhere you need to go.
Angie:
Okay. Okay. Is there anything that we hear, Trey and I in Resilience Reborn, can do for you?
Brenda Ring Wood:
You know, just just spread the word that change is possible. You know, regardless of what your past is or what your circumstances are, change is real. It’s possible. But there is a catch to it. There’s a caveat. You have to want it. Yeah. If you don’t want it, it’s not gonna happen for you.
Brenda Ring Wood:
So if you’re not willing to do the work, to do the change, to have the change happen, then that’s on you. Don’t be blaming others.
Angie:
That’s right. That’s right. Well, Brenda, thank you so much for being with us today. We are so grateful, and I know Trey feels the same way, but absolutely. Thank you
Trey:
so much.
Angie:
You, you know, in Nashville was just amazing, and we are so thankful for the relationship and that you took the time to join us on this episode.
Brenda Ring Wood:
Well, thanks for having me. I love spreading the word of God because, ultimately, the change through me is because of his word. And, I like helping others, you know, and I don’t do it for the money. Sometimes there might be a penny in my checkbook, and that’s okay.
Angie:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, thank you again. We are so happy that you were here with us today, and thank you all for watching this episode of Resilience Reborn.
