When you have an end in mind, the vision of it guides your next steps forward. However, if you have no ultimate goal in your business or personal life, you are likely just wandering. In a sense, you are not going anywhere, even though you may always be moving and always staying busy. You are not aware of your “promised land.”  

As a young man, before I joined the cartel, I looked at gangsters as the ultimate man. They had power, people feared them, lived a luxurious life, and it seemed that they had all the women. As an up and coming young executive with the Federal Reserve Bank, with immense potential, I also was fascinated by these people, and deep down inside I wanted to be like them, without the criminal element. So, I found myself rooting for the bad guy even though I knew they were horrible human beings that had caused a lot of pain to many people.

The Narco Mindset is based on 12 foundational principles that can be applied to one’s personal, professional, and family life, and its a mindset that transcends gender, age, culture, vocation, and philosophy.

With these principles, the readers of this journal will too have the ultimate mindset to not only survive but to thrive in any arena of life and achieve any goal or definition of success that they put their minds to.

It is extremely sad how the false assumption that material possessions will fill the emptiness within us drives millions of honest people to make horrific choices. We lie to ourselves and others, and we work so hard to amass things that society has convinced us that, once we have them, we will finally be happy. We lose focus on what really matters and what truly fills the emptiness within us. We sacrifice our health and abandon our loved ones only to spend all the wealth we have to either recoup our health or save our loved ones from addictions they endure due to our abandonment.

If we desire an honest debate, we can not blame all white people for the horrors occurring in our communities of color. Yes, we have been oppressed; yes, we have been given a horrific card, and yes there are many things we can say the system has done to people of color, but NO we can not say the system pulls the trigger when blacks kill blacks and when Hispanics kill Hispanics. I can say this because I am not politically correct nor do I fear anyone but God.  

        After being released from prison, twenty-five years ago, I began to speak to African American and Latino gangs across America. I saw the hatred among these young people, not only for those of the opposite color but also for many of their own. I began to hear their stories, and the one common denominator that most of them shared was being born in the wrong place to parents who were out of control, in jail, or addicted to drugs and no opportunity for an education. Their only form of schooling and ""parenting"" was provided by the gangs themselves. For many of these young men and women, positive role models were not there, but the gang became their security, their parent, their schoolteacher, and their pastor-like leader.  

"There is a special trap for every holder of power, whether the director of a company, the head of a state or the ruler of a dictatorship. His favor is so desirable to his subordinates that they will sue for it by every means possible. Servility becomes endemic among the entourage, who compete among themselves in their show of devotion. This in turn exercises a sway upon the ruler, who becomes corrupted in his turn.  The key to the quality of the man in power is how he reacts to this situation. I have observed a number of industrialist and military men who knew how to fend off this danger. Hitler himself put up no visible resistance to the evolution of a court."

When Rakontur Studios first approached Dr. Valdés in 2016, Dr. Valdés turned them down.  He was not ready to tell his story so he was not interested.  Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman did not give up so, in early March of 2020, they once again met with Dr. Valdés and presented a new and very compelling proposal. After days of consulting with his staff, Dr. Valdés agreed to join Rakontur Studios and collaborate on some significant collaborations.