The American Dream to Prison to National Speaker - Walt Pavlo

Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is when you start winning at a game you know you shouldn’t be playing.

I just sat down with Walt Pavlo, and this conversation got to me. Here’s a guy who had everything going for him. Good family. Engineering degree. MBA in finance. Rising star at MCI handling more than a billion dollars in receivables by his early thirties. The American dream in action. Then he made a choice that changed everything.

The Kid Who Had No Excuses

Walt grew up the way most of us dream of growing up. Middle class family. Two brothers. Good neighborhoods. Coaches and teachers who cared. Parents who were present.

“Detention wasn’t something that was in our vocabulary,” Walt told me. “I was just lucky. Had two parents and a lot of family around. Good people and mentors.”

There was nothing in his childhood that would explain what came later. No trauma to point to. No broken home. And as Walt sees it now, that might have been part of the problem.

“Those are the things that didn’t prepare me for the way I would see the world later,” he said. “I had always had success in my life. Good people. Things went well. Then going into MCI was total… I was a loser.”

The Wild West of Telecom

When Walt joined MCI, he went from the highly regulated world of Goodyear to something completely different. This was telecom in the deregulation era. The rules were being written as they went.

“They hired people from everything,” Walt explained. “People who worked in funeral parlors, any business, whatever. Can you sell? Do you believe in this model that we’re creating?”

The money flowing through was staggering. Ten million here, three million there. Companies that owed millions would be out at dinners with MCI executives. The whole thing felt upside down.

The real excitement came from content services. Those 1-900 numbers. Prepaid calling cards. Fortune telling. Adult content. People were making massive margins charging five and six dollars per minute for services that cost pennies to deliver.

But these weren’t sophisticated business people. They were hustlers. And when the money started rolling in, they stopped paying their bills. Why give the telecom company a cut when you could buy cars and boats instead?

That became Walt’s problem. Collect the money. Bring it in. Except it was impossible.

The Moment Everything Changed

One day, someone approached Walt with a deal. “We can make a lot of money. Everybody cheats. Everybody does something to get ahead.”

Walt had been watching the cheaters win while he played by the book. The guys who owed millions were being wined and dined. He couldn’t keep up.

“Logic sort of goes out the door,” Walt told me. “You’re just saying, I’m pissed. I’m angry at the way the world is. And if I cheat, if I enter that world, I too will win. I could see it.”

And then he crossed the line.

“It’s one thing to think that you can cheat and win,” Walt said. “It’s another thing when you actually are cheating and winning.”

The Money Didn’t Feel Right

This is the part nobody warns you about. Walt started making money. Real money. And it felt terrible.

“When you earn it, it’s easier to enjoy,” he said. “I just wasn’t there. It didn’t provide the satisfaction I thought it was going to. Way too much pressure. Just thinking about how does this end? What does the end look like?”

He was living a double life. Couldn’t engage with his family. Short temper. In his own world of paranoia.

“Most people that I talk to, they run into the same issue. They don’t want their loved one to get in trouble. What position have you put them in? Now they know. It’s a burden you put on them.”

The Day of Reconciliation

Walt has an engineering degree and an MBA in finance. He knew the numbers. He knew there would be a day of reckoning. He just hoped it would never come.

Then his boss called him in. Something looked weird. Could he check it out?

“That’s just fear,” Walt said. “Your nightmare come true. I’ve been caught. I don’t know how to answer for this. I know what happens if I lie. I’m just living for another day to get caught.”

He pleaded guilty. 41 months. Federal prison.

What Prison Taught Him About Himself

Walt’s bunkmate was a drug dealer who dropped out in eighth grade. When Walt told him his story, the guy had one response.

“Damn, I should have gone to college.”

It put Walt in his place. He had no excuses. He shouldn’t have been there.

But he made the time count. Read books. Helped other inmates. Thought about health and his future.

“When you’re in there, you’re allowed to escape,” Walt said. “To reflect. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? It’s a safe place to do that. Because it’s not safe when you’re out.”

The FBI Comes Calling

Here’s where Walt’s story takes a turn nobody expects. While still incarcerated, the FBI reached out. They were building a Worldcom/Enron task force and needed someone who could explain how corporate fraud actually works.

They’d had success with Frank Abagnale from “Catch Me If You Can.” Now they wanted Walt.

“Other white collar criminals aren’t going to put a hit out on me,” Walt said. “So it makes it unique to embrace helping authorities deter crime.”

He became a living, breathing case study. Trained the FBI, IRS, postal inspectors. Spoke at business schools, law firms, the Big Four accounting firms. All of it saying the same thing: this is how it happens. This is how I was thinking. Don’t do it.

The Hardest Part: Forgiving Yourself

Getting out was harder than going in. Walt had no network left. No income. No way back to corporate America.

But the worst part was the shame.

“Asking for help is difficult when you don’t think you deserve it,” he said. “That’s where people coming out of prison struggle. They want a second chance. But it’s humiliating to ask.”

His case manager gave him advice that changed everything: “You got to forgive yourself. You’re wearing this on your shoulder. I can see it. And if I can see it, everybody else can see it. You have got to move on beyond this so you can help everybody around you.”

“It’s really difficult to forgive yourself,” Walt admitted. “But that’s what you have to do.”

Twenty Years Later

Walt turned his story into a career. His book “Stolen Without a Gun” became required reading at business schools. He spoke professionally for almost 20 years. Now he runs Prisonology, a consulting firm that helps defendants navigate the prison system, trains judges, probation officers, and prison administrators.

He still takes inventory. Still thinks about what happened. But he stopped running from his past.

“Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables,” Walt said. “This guy goes through life being chased by his past. Reinventing himself over and over. Only to have his past continually chase him. Until one day he turns around and says, I’m not running from you anymore. And his past sort of kills itself. The chase is over. He moves on with his life.”

That’s the lesson. You can’t outrun it. You have to turn around and face it.

“The best way to handle some of the most difficult stuff is to pick up the phone, rip the band-aid off, and take care of it,” Walt said. “Addressing it has really helped me.”

If you want to connect with Walt, reach out through Prisonology. And check out his book “Stolen Without a Gun” for the full story of how a good kid with no excuses became a case study in corporate fraud and came out the other side.