We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ronnie Harvey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ronnie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
This defining moment is marked by ten years of business and programming. The Apprentice of Peace youth org have provided before and after school programing for the last ten years and our programming has grown to incorporate the L.A.W.S of life, Leadership, Arts, Wellness and skill trades.
As the Co founder this story defines my life and my change to be my best self, in 2012 I got off Parole, I created this company 2013 as an example of how to be your best self through wellness and the Apprentice of Peace Philosophy. The impact we’ve had for the last ten years is a defining moment in AOP history and I would like to share our accomplishments and future plans with the community.
I also Am the author of the Apprentice of Peace, Uncommon Dialogue, the foundation of our growth and company, the totality of our work is continuing to grow, and we’d like to make the community aware of how they can get involved and participate in the work we do.
these 10 years of work have been a blessing and I’m humbled to be at the front of this new movement of Peace and look forward to continuing to be the example of the realization of my best self, for myself, the community and the world.
The defining moments of The Apprentice of Peace youth organization.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
my story starts with getting out of prison in 2012, since then I have not had a police contact and started the Apprentice of peace youth org as a way to give back and repair the damage I did as a youth by giving back to my community and being an example of my best self. The Apprentice of Peace was founded on the realization, committed effort and accepting principles of being your best self. While in was in prison, I practiced Yoga and qigong and from that practice the writing of the Apprentice of Peace uncommon dialogue was born. from a dream to reality the Apprentice of Peace is a title that encourages everybody to investigate their best self for the community and the world. The first key to this realization is understanding that wellness is connected to change and success and through a practice of wellness you can embrace your best self, the Apprentice of Peace philosophy encourages youth to slow down through the practice of Tai Chi so they can understand their own energy.
I have been practicing and teaching Tai Chi for the last ten years and the importance of wellness must be emphasized as a tool to change your life.
as we’ve grown these last ten years, we’ve went from teaching our flagship program Tai Chi for Peace before and after school programming to building a student youth council who championed a campaign, they created called the value of life campaign highlighting the importance of life and its value, we are also building student youth councils in the Aurora school district as well as Denver public schools,
So, youth can represent their voice and acknowledge things that need changing in their school.
we also have been building partners who offer career opportunities for employment for youth.
what sets The Apprentice of Peace apart from other youth org is we are actively in the process of turning the operation of the Apprentice of Peace into a youth driven operated organization giving the youth the opportunities to intern and learn how to operate the operation and administration of The Apprentice of peace youth org as a career pathway into the company.
I’m most proud of knowing that the example of my best self has affected people and have inspired them to be their best self, teachers, students and parents alike.
The Apprentice of Peace is the future and we put all our intention into providing safe and effective, educational space for youth to learn their best self through wellness and put that energy into the community and world to inspire and motivate others.
How do you believe in yourself when it doesn’t show in your actions?
this is the key to the realization of your best self and we hope to unlock that potential for all youth
the main thing I want people to know is that for 10 years there has been a black owned youth organization,
focused on challenging our youth to be their best selves through wellness and the Apprentice of Peace philosophy. We provide, many opportunities for youth to learn and grow through our partner programming that leads to knowledge in career pathway opportunities and more importantly understanding wellness as a tool for change and success.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
The story of the Apprentice of peace Illustrates my resilience as a youth I grow up with the typical African American existence, domestic violence,
drugs and gangs these environmental circumstances allowed me to embrace the worst of myself and try to be like everybody else who was losing themselves in the conditioning and oppression of the prison pipeline epidemic.
as I lost myself, I found myself wrapped in a world of chaos of my own choosing and I winded up in prison for selling drugs.
My change came only after I realized that I was the problem and my ability to listen and learn from my past mistakes wasn’t manifesting.
as the story goes, 2010 I found myself in the best place in life, I was on parole working and going to school enjoying the hard work I was putting into staying out of trouble, and my resilience comes from knowing that you can stay out of trouble by doing the right thing but also from knowing that it’s a discipline that comes along with doing right and a acceptance to do the right thing when the situation calls for it.
To sum this story of resilience up, after all the effort of going to school and working, I found myself back in prison for the choices I made but on this night The Apprentice of Peace was born.
A friend called me, asked if I wanted to go out, and I politely told him no, My first discipline. but he was adamant that we would have a good time and I felt like I deserved to go let my hair down for a while and have fun.
I had a wonderful night, I really enjoyed myself, but at the end of the night a fight broke out and I thought I’d be the voice of reason and try to break this fight up but for all my effort I was the one knocked out and assaulted and sent to the emergency room.
while in the hospital I learned the greatest discipline. I was discombobulated and disorientated from being knocked out that I did not recognize where I was and automatically started to panic when the nurse tried to restrain me from getting off the hospital bed, like a scene from the X files I didn’t know where I was and was trying to remember what happened to me and why I was in the hospital, the hospital staff filed assault changes on me for the lapse of judgement I had in trying to get off the hospital bed which turned into a wrestling match, had I realized where I was and what had happened to me, I would of been more Coopertive but that was just a piece of the biggest pill I would have to swallow as I set in front of the parole board and they sent me back to prison for the rest of my parole term which 2 years was remaining, for those two years I sat and soaked on what it meant to be my best self, focused on practicing yoga, dream journaling and writing down my inspirations to be my best self which found its way into my first published book to represent my change and effort to be my best self.
My resilience comes from this learning experience those last two years I spent in prison challenged me to figure out myself and put a plan in action that would secure me from ever coming back to prison, with the discipline I lacked then compared to the discipline I have now is the reason I chose to be an example of my best self to show and prove that there is success on the other side of living if we commit our effort to it and through wellness we can find our best self.
It’s been more then 10 years since I got off parole and life has changed because of the example we are creating as the Apprentice of Peace youth organization.
Peace is not popular, and the title Apprentice of Peace is a heavy burden for those wanting to be their best self but together we can support each other and pave a path to peace for those who realize it’s importance.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The lesson I had to unlearn was Letting go of anger because it was a big part of my survival. I grew up in a household of domestic violence and that experience tailored my life.
It’s definitely a traumatic experience to live through, to know that you had to physically protect your mother from your father.
and this is where I learned how anger worked, for so many years I used the energy of this trauma to inflict trauma on others and in many ways it’s the reason i got in all my trouble as a youth. Anger is something we all can relate to but what I didn’t understand was how not to be effected by it, and it took a while for me to figure it out, back in forth and years in prison helped me figure it out, committing to being my best self, helped me figure it out self-study and wellness practices like Tai Chi gave me the energy to confront this self-sabotage mentally and embracing what it means to be an apprentice of peace, my committed effort to being my best self.
Anger now is a distance reaction because I understand people are not perfect and we all should be allowed space to grow and learn without being judged and this is a lesson that comes from letting go of anger and looking to embrace the best of myself and accept the best of people where they are at in life and be an example of my change.
Contact Info:
- Website: Apprenticeofpeace.com – aopyo.org
- Instagram: The Apprentice_7
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ronnie.harvey.520 – https://www.facebook.com/ApprenticeOfPeace – https://www.facebook.com/theapprentice7
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@apprenticeofpeace3207