TED Talks Daily - TED Talks Daily Book Club: How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons | Shaka Senghor

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

Note: this talk contains mature content.Shaka Senghor is a resilience expert and New York Times best-selling author, who spent 19 years in prison–including 7 in solitary confinement–for a crime committed when he was young, before finding his path to freedom. In this TED Talks Daily Book Club interview, Elise Hu speaks with Shaka about newest book, How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons. Elise and Shaka discuss the lessons he learned while incarcerated, and why he believes that these can offer a blueprint to anyone struggling to break free from the hidden prisons in their life. They discuss the important mentors in his life, as well as the crucial role that reading and writing played in helping him “get free.” He also talks about his work with people incarcerated and recently released from prison, and shares why his work and mission always emphasizes the importance of vulnerability and forgiveness, and what it really means to yield to joy.Support Shaka's message! Donate copies of HOW TO BE FREE to young people, incarcerated individuals, and others who need Shaka's message but lack access. Click here!Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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It's possible in Calgary, the Blue Sky City. For the full economic forecast, visit calgary economic development.com. This episode is sponsored by Airbnb. On one of my first visits to Vancouver, I spent the morning biking around Stanley Park. Just me, the trees, the seawall, and the quiet. I grabbed lunch by the harbor and thought, next time I want to come back here with my people. When you're traveling with family or friends, you want more than just a place to sleep. You want a kitchen for big pancake breakfasts, a living room where everyone can pile in and play games and laugh about the day.

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to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Today, we're bringing you a new installment of our book club series, where we check out new books from TED speakers. Shaka Sengor is an entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestselling books, writing my wrongs and letters to the sons of society. He's also a resilience expert and recognized Soul Igniter in Oprah's inaugural Super Soul 100. Shaka's insight and wisdom is the result of his extraordinary journey from incarceration to transformation. Born and raised in Detroit, his life took a sharp turn at an early age due to economic hardship and abuse.

He spent 19 years in prison, including seven in solitary confinement, before finding his own path to freedom. Today, his mission is to show that everyone can achieve freedom and create a life full of possibility, purpose, and joy. Shaka and I sat down for this month's book club to talk about his new book, How to Be Free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons. Through sharing the profound lessons he learned in and out of prison, he flips the script on traditional definitions of freedom.

We discussed the practices he developed to embody a mindset of joy, why he feels it's important to share his story, and why he believes that reinvention isn't just possible but within everyone's reach. Because for Shaka, most of our hidden prisons have doors. We just need to learn how to open them. Here's our conversation. Shaka, welcome to Ted Talks Daily. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm really excited to be here today. Well, you are no stranger to Ted. You've given multiple Ted and Ted X talks. But would you introduce yourself briefly for those who don't know your story? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I grew up in the city of Detroit and a working class family and, you know, on the outside looking at it was just this incredible model for what it means to be a working class family in America. You know, I was an honor roll scholarship kid with dreams of being a doctor and my life completely changed due to the circumstance that was happening in our household. Unfortunately, we were navigating the very tough circumstances.

And as a kid, I decided to run away when I was proud about 13, 14 years old. I found myself seduced into the drug trade. And within the first six months, I dealt with every horror that comes with that culture. My childhood friend was murdered. I was robbed at gunpoint. I was beat nearly to death. And despite that, you know, as a kid, just trying to find his way and fit in, I found myself still immersed in that culture.

And when I was about 17 years old, I was shot multiple times, standing on a quarter of my block. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's one of the things that, you know, as a kid, you're navigating this high level of trauma and with no tools and no support. And so I went to the hospital, they extracted two of the bullets, they left one of the bullets in. And when I came back to my neighborhood, what I didn't realize back then, obviously I know now is that I came back with like PTSD, which is very common in the inner city where there's high levels of gun violence. And within my family alone, I mean, there's been, at a minimum 10 of us who have been victims of gun violence. So what happened was that I created a narrative that said, if I found myself in conflict, I would shoot first. And tragically and unfortunately about, you know, 14. 16 months later, I shot and caused the man's death and was sentenced to 17 to 40 years

in prison where I ended up serving a total of 19 years with seven of those years being a solitary confinement. And it was in that dark environment that I began to really start to reimagine life. We are here today to talk about your new book, How to Be Free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons. It came out. just last week. Congratulations on the release. Thank you. Thank you. But you're pretty prolific. You already have two previous books out, writing my wrongs, life, death, and redemption in an American prison, and letters to the sons of society, a father's invitation to love, honesty, and freedom. How do you see this latest book as different from your first two? And why did you

decide to structure it as a blueprint? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I mean, it's mind-blowing just hearing you read back that was titled. and to think, like, you know, there's three major titles in 10 years, which is, I'm still taking that in right now. I know how hard it is to write a book, and I don't think I'm going to do another one because the first one was so hard. It is no joke. For you to write three inside of 10 years is pretty impressive.

But, yes, how would you distinguish this one? Yeah, I mean, I think with the first two, the first one was really about helping people understand who's actually in prison. You know, I would get people to say, oh, my God. you sound like so intelligent you don't sound like you've ever been in prison and I was just I knew they meant it as a compliment but I felt like they don't know these incredible men I left behind and so I wanted to tell that story of how you know a kid who doesn't fit the narrative that America has had for those who end up in our systems how they can come to be in those systems

and so that's what that was about the second book was like you know I have all these experiences as a mentor, working with young men across the country globally, and I just decided to write these very intimate letters to just the society of young men, but really recognizing that my sons embodied all of these young men that I've met on my encounter. And so it was just a book full of fatherly wisdom from a very unique perspective. This book right here is the culmination of life wisdom as lived experience and really being able to share the things that I've learned throughout the course of my time incarcerated, but also what I've learned post-incarceration. You know, I can't tell you how many people have come up to me over the years and said,

just listening to your story has helped me break free of this anger, of this inability to forgive, of self-doubt. It's giving me confidence. And these are people who, on the, outside, look, and then appear as confident as any human being could be and as accomplished. And what I realize is that we all have our hidden prisons, but every prison has a door. And because I have this wisdom of experience of actually having walked through a real prison, there were life lessons that I could share to a general audience and a broader audience. And so I am so excited to just get this book out into the world. And just the immediate feedback has been unbelievable and mind-blowing.

You start the book with a specific idea for the type of journey that it takes to find your inner self to kind of look inward and connect with a story of your brother, Sharad, and his murder. Can you tell us why you start off the book this way? Yeah. You know, when I really was thinking about my own life, you know, it was in relation to my brother's end of life. experience and him being murdered by a friend. And what I realized through my own process was two things was happening. One, I was trying to grieve my brother. And two, I was navigating the guilt of my own experience

because I made somebody's family feel like my family was. And it was devastating to reconcile those two things. And what I realized is that grief is one of the toughest hidden prisons to get out of. prisons to get out of. There are people who I've talked to who have been grieving for decades. And so it's a very tough prison to get out of. And so I wanted to start the book with the toughest prison. I can't say to another human being, hey, you've grieved long enough and tell them to just stop. That would be cruel. That would be mean. And so sometimes people but don't realize how enduring grief can really prevent them from living a life that they are

deserving of. And I was no different. I was very, I was very angry. I was depressed. I was all the things. I beat up on myself, like, what could I have done to make my brother's life outcomes different? And through that process, I landed on the one true key that I believe is the greatest opportunity to open those doors of grief. And that was gratitude. You know, I began to be really thankful for all the moments that I got a chance to spend with my brother. And that's how I've been able to navigate the grief and the guilt. How old were you and how old was he when he lost his life? So that was 2021.

He was about 40. I think he was like 41. So you had 41 years with your brother until he was tragically killed. Yeah. Do you consider yourself somebody who has healed from that? Or is it just this open wound that you'll always feel? I mean, grief is not linear as we understand it. Yeah, and I actually read about how grief is very, you know,

sometimes it kind of snuggles up to you unexpectedly. Sometimes it sneaks up to you. And then sometimes it's just like a sledgehammer that comes and just knocks a hole and drywall in your life. And for me, it's knowing that I have, that I go back to, you know, which is the gratitude. You know, the idea that one arrives at being healed is something that I think we've kind of bought into as a society because we want some type of end result to a thing.

And I mean, you think about it, even in our work life, you know, someone passes, you get to a bereavement leave, which is probably about two weeks on average. And then it's like, all right, back to work. Back to Zoom calls, back to meetings. And all grief isn't equal. But yet, you know, in our professional life, we treat it as such. And the way that I think of it is, like, we're on a healing journey, you know, and so we get a chance to kind of go in and out of these moments. And that's the power and beauty of being present in your life, is you can recognize, like, hey, you know, today was a tougher day than yesterday, but I'm still thankful.

And that allows me to kind of move forward. And so, you know, for me, it's really like offering these keys for people to be able to kind of move in and out of these moments. recognizing that we're constantly in a state of healing, and especially with grief, because it's the one, it's the one hidden prison that will be a recurrent theme in your life if you live long enough. You know, you're going to lose loved ones. You're going to lose opportunities. You're going to lose relationships. And some of them, you just outgrow. And then some of them are fractured and all the things. And so just having those tools that you can kind of go back to is something I wanted to really provide in an evergreen way.

This is a great opportunity to shift to talking about forgiveness, because that's another major step in the work to embrace freedom, as you write about. It's a word that's often directly associated with harm, and yet you call forgiveness a real act of self-love, an act of grace versus justice. Can you expand on this? Yeah, you know, I think that oftentimes we're going through life and we're holding on and we're harboring resentment and anger and bitterness towards somebody who's done us. you know, an egregious harm. Sometimes it's, you know, it's childhood trauma. You know, sometimes it's superficial. But the idea that this is somehow hurting the other person or somehow creating justice in a situation that may not have a resolve, we hold on to it with such determination. And so for me, what I realize is that forgiveness is what you do for

yourself. You know, grace you extend to others, but the power and beauty of forgiving is really that you're freeing yourself up to live your best life possible. And the way that it showed up in my life is I was shot in March of 1990. It was literally 17 years old. And several decades later, I got a letter from the man who shot me. And he apologized. And I was just like, it was so mind-blowing to get this letter, you know, and it brought up old feelings. Like, I was, you know, the anger came back. And I immediately thought about what have I preached in the world, you know, this idea that redemption is real. Second chances really do matter.

And so the universe, you know, creator, God, whatever you want to call it, was like, oh, so you believe in forgiveness and second chances. We're here, let me give you your real test. And this is going to be a test unlike anything that you've ever. imagined. And so he put this man right front and center in my life. And I was, the opportunity was there. You know, I could be anger. I can go back to that little boy who was hurt. And I can hold on to all of that. Or I could say, you know what, I forgive this person. And so I sat down and started to write him a letter back. And then I just stopped. And I was like, you know, forgiveness doesn't require me to like extend my life to this person. Like he's already caused harm in a way

that's, you know, you can't repair that harm. But I can forgive him and I can let that energy go and I can move on and I can think about who do I really want to write a letter to. And that's when I wrote this letter to my mother because her and I have been on our own healing journey. And what I really wrote about in a letter was this time that her and I got a chance to spend together and how I got a chance to learn the experiences that shaped her life as a young mother. And that's what allowed me to really get to a deep space of forgiveness for my mother who, you know, for years I had forgiven her with conditions. I had wrapped it kind of in this idea that, you know, yeah, I forgive her if she's now

the mother that I need her to be and without consideration for her past experiences. And so when I wrote that letter, it was based on some time that I had spent with her and her sharing these deep, authentic stories of what her upbringing was. And, like, that's how the healing journey really settled for us around forgiveness. And that's the power and beauty of it. It's like, you know, forgiving my mother was really about me, like, letting go of the things that were holding me back as a parent, as a husband, as a friend. And I just didn't want to be, you know, trapped in that type of energy or anger.

Yeah. In your book, you start the chapter on forgiveness with a quote from Oprah, which really struck us. She said, quote, forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different. What does it mean to you to have hope for the past in the first place? And why do we have to let it go? I think the story of your mom and your healing journey with your mom is really related to this. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I was in that space of hurt, I kept going back to that little boy. You know, the little boy who yearned for the softness of a mother's love, the little boy who didn't want to be hit for things that, you know, he should not have been hit for.

And, you know, just to retelling of that story, well, maybe what if she wouldn't have done this or what if she wouldn't have done that? And the reality is those things had already happened. I couldn't go back and undo them. And so basically, the inability to forgive and to get stuck in that narrative was almost like torturing oneself with something that no longer exist. And that, to me, was like, you know what, it couldn't have been any different because she couldn't have been any different. You know, the things that happened to her shaped who she was as a young mother. And once I was able to reconcile that, you know, it was one of the most powerful experiences. Recognizing that what had happened and transpired in our childhood really did shape. the way that we showed up in the world.

And now you're showing up for other people through your words and through your speaking. And even after all of this forgiveness of yourself, of others, of being forgiven, you write about this tension that you have to hold between gratitude and guilt, between embracing joy and feeling guilty. Could you expand on that a little bit? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, there's always this kind of tension that undergirds, you know, life, and I think in most people's lives, and in mind, this can be a little bit more contrasted

by the sharp differences between where I'm at this stage of my life and where I come from. And within that, there's this part of survivor's kind of remorse and survivor's guilt. And I remember really trying to unpack this, this kind of big idea around, why was it hard for me to embrace joy and happiness and success in my life? And it was partially because I was still holding on to the guilt from my teenage, you know, decision that I made when I was a young, hurt teenager. And that was really hard. And what I landed on is that me having joy does not remove joy from others.

You know, me, me experiencing success at this point does not deprive anyone else from that experience. And ultimately, you know, my past is my past. presence is what matters as being fully, you know, in this moment that I'm in, like even right now in this conversation, just bringing my whole self to it. And so what I, what I offer in a book is these kind of practices and these ways of like showing up, you know, journaling as one. It's probably the one that I turn to the most. One, because I'm a writer, so I love the written word. But I see it as meditation on paper. And I see it as an opportunity for you to go back and revisit and see the evolution of self. And that's how I've got to the space where I can

experience these things. Stick around. We'll be right back after a short break. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecues lit, but there's nothing to grill, when the in-laws decide that actually they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Too many students are packed into overcrowded classrooms in Ontario schools, and it's hurting their ability to learn. But instead of helping our kids,

the Ford government is playing politics, taking over school boards and silencing local voices. It shouldn't be this way. Tell the Ford government. government to get serious about tackling over-crowded classrooms because smaller classes would make a big difference for our kids. Go to Building Better Schools.ca.a, a message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your relationship with reading and writing, specifically journaling, and how that was such a big part of helping you break free, at least, you know, emotionally and spiritually when you were in prison. I'm so happy you ask that question. It's one of my favorite things to talk

about. And, you know, it's also a tough thing to talk about. You know, I think of it like this. You know, we hear the narratives that some people are born lucky, right? You're lucky to be born into a family of wealth or social status. You're lucky, you know, if you're 6-8 and end up being 240 pounds, and then you become LeBron. You know, so there's this luck that we talk about. And for me, my luck, given the circumstances, was that I was actually literate in an environment where the average literacy rates are third grade.

And I know that the reason that I'm here now is because of my ability to read. and I was fortunate I met some most incredible mentors in the world these men who guided me to books and they were so smart they were so strategic I was an angry young kid and they saw something redeemable in me

and they knew that the way to reach me they had to give me something that appealed to where I was at in life and so they gave me like a lot of these gangster books books about the underbellies of the streets books by Iceberg Slim with titles like Pimp

and Donald Gawin's Black Gangers gangster and all of these books, and then those books ran out. And that's when they was like, ah, here you should read this Malcolm X. Um, you know, and when I read Malcolm X, what I fell in love with wasn't just his love for trying to, you know, help black people find their way, but the thing that struck me was his intellectual curiosity and his intellectual discipline, like him reading a dictionary from A to Z made me want to read a dictionary from A to Z. And him reading philosophy made me want to read philosophy, and so I got super curious, and I began to read everything I can get my hands on. Like, I mean, pop fiction. I was reading like Jackie Collins,

Hollywood Wives, and, you know, Westerns, and Stephen King, who I think is just like one of the most fascinating writers ever. And, you know, those books also led me to reading philosophy. And then when I was in solitary, I just structured my days as if I was at a university. And so I would study a subject every hour, you know, world history, African history, language. I tried to learn Spanish. I wasn't great. I can read some of it to understand, but I wasn't great at speaking it. But I was just like, I'm going to not let this environment, you know, destroy my sense of humanity.

And in order to do that, I had to take some agency in that agency was struck from those days. And then I would write into the evening. And then my writing started with journaling. And when I started journaling, you know, I was at this place in my life where I was like, you know, I got this letter from my son. He told me his mom told him while I was in prison. And I was reading philosophy at the time. Socrates said the unexamined life isn't worth living. And I remember just sitting with that, like, what does it mean to examine one's life?

And that's when I began to journal. And I would journal when I was angry, when I was excited about it. something like I just sat down and I call it my rights or die moment and it was like right as a W-R-I-T-E yeah yeah yeah and it was like if I don't write and get to the truth I would definitely die in prison like there was no there was no in between for me and so when I sat down to journal I sat down with this understanding that I would only write at the point in which I was willing to be completely honest, uncensored, and just as raw as possible with myself. And that's what I did.

You know, I would write those journals, and it would be painful. You know, the painful to see the vulnerable boy, painful to see the harms that I've caused, the harms that had been caused to me. But what was powerful about it was that I was able to reassign responsibility. I had internalized a lot of things that had happened to me as if something. was wrong with me. And being able to give that responsibility back was so powerful and beautiful.

But it also allowed me to take responsibility for the harms that I had caused. And even in that, it was liberation because I was like, okay, I can separate the act and the action from who I am as a human being. And I know who I want to be moving forward. And so to me, it's like active journaling, not just kind of a set-it-and-forget-it idea,

but like, no, you got to examine it. And then the other part of it is that journaling for me just empowered me to see myself clearly. You know, one of the chapters I talk a bit about shame. And one of the things about shame is that erases all your wins. You know, you can be having the most magical day. You could have got 10 things right. And you get one thing wrong and it triggers that sense of shame. And it erases all those other 10 things you got right.

What journaling does is it keeps the scorecard. correctly. Oh, I like that. Yeah. You know, as a person, I was, I mean, I had done so much good that I hadn't given myself credit for it because I just couldn't feel it. You know, I couldn't feel it in my being. I'm so glad you brought up shame and the difference between guilt and shame. We talked earlier about guilt, you know, like feeling bad about doing a thing. And then shame being like feeling bad about yourself, like you are bad versus that thing that you do. did, that action that you took was bad. You put it on the page, but now you speak very openly and honestly, too.

Why was vulnerability such an important place to start for you? Yeah, you know, vulnerability was like getting to the truth, you know, and knowing that, you know, as a father, how do I want to show up in the world? How do I want to lead, you know, as a mentor, as an entrepreneur, you know, how do I want to create, you know, great relationships with the people I work with. And for me, it was like getting real, you know, it was getting down to that truth and opening up. And I was struck by this whole idea that shame was really thinking something was wrong with you. And like that, it just, it just like all of a sudden kind of came together in a way that was extremely

vulnerable. I mean, I was talking about something that had held me back for a significant part of my life, a memory from childhood that had created not just shame but anger. You know, I had internalized an experience when a neighbor attempted to molest me. And in response to that, I burglarized his house out of anger. And then I got in trouble with my parents. And so what happened was that I internalized that. Well, it must be me. There must be something wrong with me. And that, that willingness to go into that story was the most freeing thing, you know, possible for me because I realized, like, I was just a kid. You know, I was a kid that had grew up with parents who didn't create space for me to tell them the story that would help them protect me. And I was a kid who was preyed upon by somebody that my family trusted.

And I was literally just a kid. And like, so being able to get to that truth, allow me to really. get to a space where I can help other people, you know, where I can, where I can, I'm willing to go into these spaces that are tough, you know. Like, I've built, I built confidence over this. I built resilience because it really is, like what I said, it's my right or die. The truth has to live on those pages. Otherwise, it just kills me internally, and I just refuse to give it up in that way. It seems like it's quite a difficult time or a difficult political environment to be talking with young men and boys about vulnerability, shame, compassion, empathy,

because of all of this performative masculinity that is out there in the world today and being propagated on YouTube and on the podcasts and all those things. You work with boys and men, and you still talk with them about how important it is to be vulnerable, to be truly honest with ourselves. How well is that working in the environment that we're in right now? You know, I think the idea of like all masculinity as kind of box into this package of toxic. I just think it's the wrong narrative. I think what I've explained in my experience as a mentor is that young males actually are open to being vulnerable.

They just don't like to get hurt like any other human being. They don't want to be hurt. And so much of the focus on what creates and shapes the identity of young males is that you're only as good as your ability to provide and protect. That part is toxic, right? There's nothing about our culture that says young men should be protected. It tells us that the society be should be protected from us, but it never talks about how do we protect young males. And I can tell you, I have had more young men talk to me about being sexually assaulted as kids. And sadly, the way that it is shaped in the culture is that it's something to brag about.

So they don't oftentimes see it as assault. They see it as a rights of passage. Because we haven't created space to protect, you know, boys. You know, you think about gun violence in America. And you think about the narrative that everybody has to be protected from, you know, who's been depicted as the villain in America's narrative, which has been black males. Black males die at the, you know, as a result of gun by this higher race than anybody in the world, like black American males.

So the idea that when you walk out your door, you know, your physical being is up on the constant threat of being annihilated, it's kind of tough to think about being vulnerable, but the yearning is there, the desire is there. And so we just need more leadership that actually thinks about, you know, how are we raising men to literally, you know, be complete human beings. Because I think that's the extremes of it is that, okay, if you're not toxic masculine, you've got to be ultra feminine. And that's not, that doesn't work either, right? So it's a human experience. You know, it's not really, it's not as gendered as we would like we think it is. I knew it makes for great talking points, and it probably sells tons of content because it creates conflict.

But we're all on this human journey together, and getting to our truth is really what empowers us and really frees us to enjoy life and to show up in love and joy and happiness and fulfillment. And that's open to any and everybody. I'm glad that you brought up some of the mentors to you in your life. You are also mentoring a lot of folks. Your friends and your author friends have also served as mentors and teachers to you in your work. What have they taught you about what it means to be a good teacher and good ancestor yourself? I think sometimes with the roles of mentor, educator, I think oftentimes we like to kind of button it up into these kind of neat boxes, right? Like, you know, I'm a mentor, so I meet with my mentees once a month and rinse and repeat.

And it's a little bit more nuanced for that, like, in my life. You know, I think of the friends who I have that are really deep friends, and they come from all different walks of life. And what I've learned from them in these deep, deep philosophical exchanges, intimate relationship exchanges, I mean, it's immeasurable, you know. And what I've learned is that you just have to show up, you know, whether it's formal or informal mentoring, you just have to show up. You know, I have a niece named LaGena who was just, I met her when I came home from prison. She was graduating college and she's become such a brilliant leader in the world. And our philosophical exchange, I'm giving her books, she's giving me, you know, recommending it is the best thing. So I would say the thing that I've learned more than anything is it has to be a reception.

typical relationship. You know, sometimes mentors come in and they're like, you know, it's almost like they got a smoking jacket on in a pipe. I am here to impart wisdom. Yeah, let me share this wisdom. But I learn so much in turn from my mentees. You know, I've learned how to be a better dad, you know, just a better steward of my role in society, and just how to continue to show up with fun, you know, they bring that part out of me. And so, and then my mentors, you know, my, you I've learned to really be thoughtful and be a good steward of the responsibilities that I'm given. And, you know, it's just a great, great relationships to have. As you talk about hope and joy and love, say a little bit more about that.

Why are embracing these things so fundamental to the work that you do? And how do you find and hold on to joy and love and convey that to others? Yeah, that's such a great question. It's the part of the book that I get the most. excited about is that, you know, on the other side of some of these tough things, there is this opportunity to build incredible relationships and great life experiences and to be fully present in your life. And what I found is that when I'm fully present, there's so much joy to be found. And I didn't always know how to lean into that organically. It was something I had to

like work toward. And I remember it hit me a couple of years ago. I was invited on this. I mean, this was like a dream trip that you could not even, you couldn't even like articulate how amazing this trip was. And my, and it was, it was a 13 day trip to Italy on a yacht, Capri, and you just get a chance to be up and down the Mediterranean. I mean, five-star chef. And the only thing I had to do is get myself to Rome. That was it. And they took it from there, right? And I remember my first reaction to that was like, yeah, I probably shouldn't go. And so it was one of those things. It was the hidden prison of being able to yield to a moment, to be present in it, to accept

that this too was my life, that it wasn't just the hard things. It wasn't just the painful things that I had to overcome, that joy, too, was a part of my life. And once I leaned into that, I went ahead, that trip, and it was, I mean, it still blows my mind a couple of years later. And I'm just like, I don't even know if I'll ever be at the top, that experience. But that's what it is, that in this world, especially now, you know, if you get caught up in a news cycle or doom scrolling, it feels like the world is coming to a part at the seams and that nothing is worth waking up excited about. But then if you actually walk out your door and just take a stroll to your backyard, a stroll to your neighborhood, and observe the beauty that is in abundance, you'll realize that life is magical.

And obviously, you know, I had an experience that took me away from that, right? Like I went, I went in 19 years without petting a dog or touching a flower or being able to, you know, stand by water. Like, it was, I think I hadn't, I didn't see the ocean until I was 40 years old. It's really about being mindful and being present and, you know, not taking things for granted. And so that's just how I try to show up in life. How do you protect yourself when you share so much of yourself and your stories? I ask this because you just mentioned that when you went to Italy or you were offered this trip to Italy, you were sort of like, do I deserve this? Society also can have that judgment on people who have been incarcerated, right?

You've done so many interviews over the years. You've shared yourself publicly. How do you navigate the judgment that can come from something? some corners of society that believes that those with violent past maybe don't, quote, unquote, deserve to be where they're at now. So one, there's the kind of social responsibility I have to really speak the truth to the experience of incarceration in America and beyond. Yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that I just remind people of is that 96% of people will get out of prison. And as a society, we have a choice and how those people come home. Do we want them to come home, healthy, whole, able to contribute to society in a meaningful way? Or do we want them to just come home broken beyond repair, which means that they'll, without a doubt and without a question, cause significant harm to the rest of the society? And so that's more of like my social responsibility. And on the personal level, I used to have the reaction that I think most humans would have when someone's attacking them. I used to get offensive and used to feel like I had to defend, like, my character and my personality.

And then I just got to a point in life where what I realized is that people who attack someone who they think of as being vulnerable or unworthy are usually just attacking themselves internally. And they're not happy with themselves. So they can't be happy for somebody else. They haven't created a deep enough human connection with their own experience where they can recognize. We come with all type of, you know, experiences that differ, even with given when we're brought up in the same circumstances. And so oftentimes when people are coming out and they're just, you know, being mean-spirited, which is most of the time that anything is published about me publicly, you know, I just think about where am I presently in the world because I can't get caught up in just other people's like, you know, misery and discontent. And there's a part of me that is also empathetic and compassionate toward understanding that there are people who have been victims of crime and that they are hurt and that, you know, when they see someone who's victimized other people that it can trigger and bring something up and I'm compassionate and thoughtful about that as well. And that's where, you know, standing up and being responsible and being accountable and not running from the decisions I made when I was a young man.

and accepting responsibility for that, you know. So that part has been also an integral part of my work, is really working with victims of violent crimes and helping them to reconcile whatever, you know, hurt they're holding on to. And at times it can be heavy, you know, but I've got to a place in my life where, you know, I'm really focused on helping people achieve the life outcomes that they desire and help them unlock themselves from, you know, those oftentimes. self-imposed prisons. In your book, you write that too often my own trauma had led me to traumatizing others, but this brutal cycle could only be broken by someone taking action that didn't involve

payback. Why do you think it takes so much courage to stop, to break that cycle? Yeah, I mean, it's the only way that we kind of bring things to a space where people can actually heal, you know, and I was thinking about my brother. brother, you know, part of the gun violence in her city is circular, you know, it's a retribution. And it takes people to step in and disrupt that, you know, and given that I had a lived experience, like I knew that I can speak to the young guys in my neighborhood who wanted to go and seek revenge and, like, understand their emotions, you know, and I think them hearing it

from me meant something different than them hearing it from somebody who didn't come from that environment. But I think it's the way that we heal. Besides for pushing for systemic criminal justice reform, can you tell us a little bit more about the work you're still doing in prisons, including the book club that you've run? Yeah, that's so exciting. So I launched the largest book club in prison history around one book. And I did that by giving the book away to over 1,300 prisons and upwards of a million people who are incarcerated. And one of the things that was really important to me

is making sure that they had access to this work because it's very difficult to get books into prison nowadays. Both of my earlier books are actually banned in prisons throughout the country. But I wanted to make sure that people inside had access and that they really, you know, got a chance to interact with this work. And just recently I went to Rikers Island in New York where I spent the day with the Breakfast Club host.

Charlemagne the God and former editor-in-chief of Viya Magazine, Daytona Thomas, we went and we spent a day with women and men who had actually already read the book because they got it before the rest of the world got it. And they had so many great insights and questions and liberating moments. It was one of the most beautiful and powerful experiences I've ever had. and I plan to do this even more. Like my dream, like my dream job in the world is like if I had just a freedom to do would be to visit every prison in America and impart this wisdom and this hope and share

because when I was in there, we just didn't have people like me come in and see us and I know how much that matters. Before we let you go, as you mentioned hope, two-part question. One, what's scaring you these days, what's scaring you right now? then, two, what gives you hope right now? Yeah, you know, honestly, I don't think I'm afraid of anything at this point in my life. I think I've faced some of the toughest circumstances from the time I was a child. And one of the things that journaling actually did for me was it really showed me how

courageous I had been in moments when I thought I was afraid. And what that courage looked like back then was that I kept fighting, you know, I kept advocating for myself. I'll never forget what it was like to be beaten nearly to death like, you know, when I was 14 years old by adult men and laying on that bathroom floor and telling myself, you know, you just got to get up and you'll be okay and you can make it through this moment. So I realized through journaling that I've had more courage than I had given myself credit for. And so at this day and age, I don't think there's anything that I fear because I realize is life is just life. There's events that are beyond our control, and I can only control what's

in my dominion. What gives me hope is just every moment I'm in. You know, every moment I'm in is the moment of hope. You know, the ability to be present with those around me, to be present with myself, to be fully in a sense of enjoyment, wonderment about life, and not losing sight of that. And so that's the work, right? It's like, I'm like, anybody else, I'm no different where I can drift off into what's happening, you know, three weeks from now or what happened. I just bring myself back to the moment. What are the moments you're in? What is joy for about this moment? What is magical and special about this moment? And that's what gives me hope, the ability to be present in any moment that I'm in. Shaka, what a delight it's been to spend this time with you.

and thank you for being so present with me and our listeners and congratulations again. Thank you so much. It's truly been an honor and I'm so happy we've got a chance to do this. That was Shaka Sengor in conversation with me, Elise Hugh, for the TED Talks Daily Book Club.

And that's it for today. Ted Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Lucy Little and edited by Alejandra Salazar. The TED Talks Daily team includes Martha Estefanoz, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, and Tanzika Sangmarneva. Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Bala Razeo. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

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