The Jordan Harbinger Show - 305: Shaka Senghor | Writing My Wrongs

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

Shaka Senghor (@ShakaSenghor) is a leading voice in criminal justice reform, the director of innovation and strategy at #Cut50, and the consulting producer for the OWN docuseries Released. He is also the author of Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison. What We Discuss with Shaka Senghor: How Shaka's childhood neighborhood in Detroit quickly went from idyllic to nightmarish when the crack epidemic struck in the '80s (and what he spent his money on when he became a dealer). The assorted sources of trauma faced by kids who wind up in the drug-dealing lifestyle and why such a lifestyle is initially appealing to them -- in spite of exposing them to very adult consequences. Why the current opioid crisis may actually be instrumental in helping heal societal class and racial divides widened during the crack epidemic. Why removing the stigma of mental health treatment is crucial to breaking the cycles of recidivism in which young people often get trapped. The series of events that landed Shaka in prison for 19 years, how he made use of his time there, and what he's doing to help fix a very broken system. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/305 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with producer Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant and interesting people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We want to help you see the matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave, and we want you to become a better thinker. If you're new to the show, we've got episodes with spies and CEOs, athletes and authors, thinkers and performers, as well as toolboxes for skills like negotiation, public speaking, body language, persuasion, and more.

So if you're smart and you like to learn and improve, then you'll be right at home here with us. Today on the show, Shaka Sanger, he was in the hole in prison for seven years, four point five of those consecutive. While there, he started to take action to improve his life. He did tons of reading to keep himself informed, keep his mind right, treated every day like it was a university, get up on time, spend an hour on each different subjects. And when he got out, they said he'd be back in prison in six months. But instead, he wrote a bestselling book, got interviewed by Oprah, gave a TED Talk, and hung out with the president.

Really amazing guy. Prison activist here for prison reform. I just thought he's a fascinating character, and I'm glad to have a good sit-down conversation here with Shaka Sanger. If you want to know how I managed to book all these amazing folks, well, it's all about my network. I'm teaching you how to network for free over at my course six-minute networking. That's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on the show, they subscribe with the course and the newsletter. So come join us and you'll be in great company.

Now, Shaka Sanger. What was it like growing up? I mean, I assumed we had vastly different childhoods given the neighborhoods we grew up in. Growing up in Detroit was really interesting. So I originally grew up on the east side of Detroit, like Harper and Chalmers area. It's a famous rock venue over there, Harpo's. Oh, yeah. Which I remember when I was a kid, I used to go over there and just like watch all the punk rockers.

And I was fascinated by like their hair. and all the different stuff that they were wear. But back in the day when I grew up, you know, this was pretty crack, you know. So it was still a wholesome community in terms of just like what it looked like. You know, it was still diners on the corner and, you know, your local kind of like store where you can go. Your mom can see you up there and they already kind of know what her routine is, what she wants. So early on, it was interesting since we were like the first black family on the block. Oh, wow.

And we had the most incredible neighbors that we had a very diverse group of neighbors like on. On one side is this Irish woman who was really super dope. So I used to pick pears from her tree and she would make like pear preserves. And then on the other side we had like an Italian family. And they were just really gracious because we shared kind of like a grapevine. It was like a lot of fruit trees over there back in the day. You know, just being able to share food and like cultural exchanges. Like that was always something that, you know, when I think back to my childhood, that's what I reflect on.

First before things kind of started changing with the introduction of craft. cocaine, you know, and I was around 14. What year was that? It's about 86. Okay. You know, we started seeing a dramatic shift in what the community was like. So, you know, I grew up on a type of block where every parent was your parent. It didn't really matter whether they were biologically your parent.

It was just like, you know, if you're out there and some mischief, they're going to be like, hey, get it together. You know, here's what you got to do. You got to come cut my grass knock as I caught you doing this. And I'm going to still tell your moms, you know. So those are like the more fonder memories. of growing up. But, you know, once crack cocaine entered the equation, it was just a dramatic shift.

You know, you saw those same parents now kind of walking around under the influence of crack cocaine. And we didn't really know or understand, like, the deep impact that drug was having at the time. So that was kind of like early 80s and culture. And, I mean, like, Detroit's street culture back then just got so bad, so fast. Like, I think a lot of people now, I mean, we're talking about decades later. and you hear about crack, it's not the drug thing, that's more about opioids now.

But crack was devastating. It was literally like a plague that just came and wiped out a whole neighborhood. You know, and it really shifted things. And so you had a bunch of young guys making more money than they've ever seen in their life than their parents ever seen in their life in a relatively short amount of time, you know.

And, you know, one of the things I always reflect on is like, you know, the household I grew up in, you know, it was like my mother was abusive and, you know, my father was complicit in that. And, you know, I eventually ran, out of way. But one of the things I always reflect on when it comes to, like, thinking about that time of my life is how much a kid I was in this very adult world. And I remember the first time I even made any significant amount of money, the first thing I wanted to do was I went in a grocery

store and I literally bought every type of cereal that I wanted, like, growing up that I couldn't have. You know, my mother had six kids. So it was like, we may get one good box of cereal, then the rest is like corn flakes and rice Krispies. But I literally went in the store. store and I bought every type of cereal I can think of, Captain Crunch and all these different cereals. And then I bought like strawberry milk and it's like the biggest kids that you can do, right? Was Captain Crunch your favorite? Yeah, I mean, I was sorting through all of them back then. Yeah. Honeycombs and let me just try all the things that I saw on TV. Yeah. But it was one of those things that I think to me really signals like the innocence of childhood being distorted by the

realities of this drug being introduced to the community. This is good juxtaposition, right? Because I can imagine you making, I don't know, how much money are we talking about, like a few hundred bucks a day? Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, literally. So, I mean, it can go from anywhere from a few hundred bucks a day to thousands of dollars a day. It was just like crazy, you know? How old are you?

Like, 14. Oh, my God. Yeah. So I'd never even seen probably more than $100 at a time by that age. Yeah, I remember, like, the first time I got paid from Southern drugs, I probably had like $350, $400 over the course of just like a few days. Wow. But it was like mostly in singles.

Oh, it looked like the most ridiculous stack of money. And at 14, it was just like, yo, this is like all the money in the world. Yeah. You know, you just don't realize like it's really not that much money. Back then it was probably considered a lot. It's literally for a kid. But when you think about the cost of potentially losing your life, losing your freedom, it's not even close to a comparison.

But you're not thinking about that. You're thinking about Captain Crunch and Nintendo or something. Yeah, or Atari, I guess. Yeah, Atari back then, Coler Vision and Television. Yeah. Like, you get a color TV and a Helico Vision or Atari, and your friends are just like, whoa. Yeah. And the thing back then was like a motor scooter, moped.

Oh, yeah. A moped. It was just like, you might as well have the biggest bins ever right through the neighborhood. Yeah. Wow. So, of course, the draw is there because you're not, no one thinks about dying when they're 14. No, not at all. You know, I had a moment early on when I thought that my life was going to end at 14.

So within a few weeks of sudden drugs, like everything bad that can happen begin to happen. I was robbed at gunpoint, and I was in the building on the east side of Detroit, on East traumas in Jefferson. And I remember, you know, again, the innocence, the naivete, right? I got lowered out of the house where I was selling drugs at into another house. And once they were unable to pay, I was like, okay, it's time for me. me to leave. And they was like, yeah, of course we'll escort you out. And they had watched where I took the gun. They watched where I talked the drug. Oh, yeah. And basically, like, two grown men, one of them choked me up, grabbed me from the back, and the other one

grabbed the gun and put it to my head and was like, give us the money and the drugs. And, you know, I just remember, like, being on a stairwell and looking down into this, like, cavernous basement and thinking, like, damn, he was going to shoot me and kick me down the stairs. And this is where to end at. And when they didn't do that, they kind of just pushed me out the house and was like, you know, get your ass out. And I went to a conny island, this is, you know, a little restaurant on the corner. I remember just walking in there and just like people looking at me like, you know, and in my mind, I'm like, I just got robbed so maybe they can understand that. But in reality, I'm like, I'm a kid that should

be in school right now. And here I am dressed in all of the drug dealers attire. I'm probably not even five feet tall. But in my mind, I feel like this big guy, but reality, I'm a kid. And they're just looking like, what the fuck are you doing out of school, right? Yeah. And I just remember, like, that moment of really just wanting somebody to say, hey, you know, this knife is not for you. You need to, like, go home and figure things out. Yeah. You know, so I went on by my way and just got right back into the culture.

Man. Yeah, I can imagine getting robbed at that age. It doesn't really seem real, but then you're just, like, shaking, right? You have that, like, shaking, adrenaline response. Yeah, I mean, it's the thing that I think about the interpretation of drug culture and America or gangster culture. right and you know we see all the glorified parts of it where it's like oh this guy you know hard scrubbed background he made it made some shit happen and those things are true and I think is one of the reasons that it emerges in hip hop culture so much because it is kind of like the aspirational

aspect of figuring out how to live the American dream and it's the dream that was kind of born in the hood it was a way out it was a way you know way out for a lot of people and you know we often hear the criticism around but how are they glorifying this yeah when you think about it you know you're 14, 15 years old, and you're able to help your mother pay rent. You're able to help your mother get out of the ghetto. You're able to get transportation feed and provide. Like, there is a hero-like element to that. But what often isn't talked about is like the trauma that you experience and the nightmare that that culture is for kids, you know, for anybody in general, but for kids specifically, you know, and I've reflected a lot back, you know, especially now as a mentor where I'm talking to 16, 17-year-olds.

And I always had these moments of just like thinking to myself, like, at their age, there was an adult giving me drugs. Yeah. And there was an adult son of me guns. And there was adult women who were performing oral sex and, you know, having sex with me at their age. And I'm just like, yo, like, you have to be really fucked up in your own head to even think that that's okay, you know, to expose a child to that. And so the things that people don't talk about is the fear and the paranoia and the trauma that. that we end up experienced as a result of that lifestyle. Yeah, you don't think about it because you think, okay, these kids are in this lifestyle.

They think it's cool that'll wear off at some point. But you don't think there's grown pedophiles taking advantage of you guys that are corrupted. I'm trying to think, what was I doing at age 14? And I don't even remember, but I certainly wasn't having sex with a 30-year-old or 28-year-old woman who was trying to get crack from me. Like, that I know was not doing that. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, like, even that subject, because I've written about

extensively just, you know, it's navigating life as a man, you know, and having gone through those experiences and thinking about, like, we don't talk about what happens to young boys. And I think one of the things that I'm seeing with the opioid epidemic now is that people are really saying, yo, this is really happening to kids. Whereas when it was cracked and it was affecting primarily black and brown kids, nobody was really thinking of it through that lens. But it's one of the things that inspired me to write, right, right, my wrongs because I really wanted people to understand how you go from the innocence of childhood to being caught up in this very addictive culture, this very destructive culture, you know, and how that changes and transforms who you are

as a human being. Like when I got into the culture, you know, I was a smart, nerdy kid, you know, who just happened to grow up in the hood, which wasn't even really the hood then. It wasn't the hood until crack came, you know. But having gone through that and being able to go back and look at how I changed from the sweet, innocent kid, the dreams of being a doctor. to now I'm a hardened guy in the streets, but I was hardened because of the shit that happened to me

when I was in that culture, you know? Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how the opioid crisis, which is happening all over, not just to black and brown people. Absolutely. There's a lot of older, I would assume, older white guys who are like, oh, well, it's because it's a defective culture. They live in this, like, dumpy neighborhood. Of course, it's going to happen there.

Now, though, it's happening in everywhere. So you can't really say, like, oh, well, they had bad parents and so this defective culture. And if so, of course, it happened. It's a failure of society. It's like, no, this is happening to your cousin who got a back injury at a wrestling match and got into Oxycontin. And your grandma and your wife and, you know, your sons and all these things.

And I mean, I think those things were true for crack as well, but in a different way, where it was kind of like people would come from the suburbs into the inner city and you and just kind of slink back into the burbs. Whereas now with opioids and it's such a different drug. You know, it's almost paralyzing, you know, when you think about the effect that it has on people physically and where they're just like falling asleep in random places and, you know, nodding off. You know, I always think of these things through like, what does the moment mean for us as a country? And how can we like not, because we can't go back and rewrite what happened in the crack cocaine area. We can go back and change the laws and policies, which opioids is actually helping us do.

So it's kind of like that thing to me is like, what is the best possible story that comes? out of this for us as a whole. And if you can get people to recognize that this has been happening in other communities and we can have that conversation, I think there's an opportunity to heal some of the racial divides, some of the class divide and things like that. But it just takes honest conversation. That is interesting. I hadn't really thought about that, but you're right. I think it's harder to look at one culture or one ethnic group as less than or more defective than when you can see the same shit happening to your own shade of people in your own neighborhood. Yeah. Because when I worked in Detroit, I worked right down by, we were talking before the show,

I worked right down on Jefferson and Van Dyke, which you said is a bad area. It was bad then. It's bad now, I think. I don't even know. And it was really eye-opening for me in all the cliche ways you could imagine going down there and being like, oh, there are people my age that live in their own apartment that are afraid to go out at night, that have to carry a gun to like make sure they're not going to get robbed or killed. And even then, obviously, no guarantee. Absolutely. They got a minimum wage job and they're 16 and this is their life now. Whereas I'm like, this is some stuff I do on the weekends.

I'm going to go to University of Michigan. I'm going to go to college and I'm probably never going to like come back here again. But then talking with them and realizing they were really like pretty much the same as me. They just had a lot more responsibility and a lot less opportunity. It scared me a little because it's easier to think of people as not doing something right or like having screwed up their life rather than just like not having won the lottery, which you eventually. realize that you've done as a white kid growing up in Troy, Michigan. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that we just, you know, in a country, I feel like sometimes we're comfortable being dishonest than we are just to say, hey, yo, I really get this now. Like, it's not a threat to privilege. Like, it's just a reality of the world we live in, right? Like, even now, you know, I think about this. I'm raising my son.

He's being raised very different than I was raised, right? But there's a certain level of privilege that he has that other kids who don't have a father who's doing what I do have, right? And those are just the facts, you know, so their outcomes are possibly going to be different unless there's some type of intervention to set them up in a way where they can actually succeed and thrive. And I think the more we can be honest about that conversation, and whether it's about, you know, class, whether it's about economics, whether it's about race or gender. I think we'll always just have those kind of political tropes where people are like,

hey, let us come rescue you or, you know, or you need to fix it and you need to figure it out. And it's way more complex than that. So your family was pretty stable until it wasn't, right? That's what it's sounds like in the book. Yeah, I mean, you know, my parents, and I think about this often now, like even with things that I remember from my childhood when my parents were in a healthy space in their relationship. And just what I think kids rely on is normalcy in the sense of, there's a sense of safety and routine. And I always think about, you know, there was a point when my room was in the front. And like, I can hear my father's car coming around the corner at exactly

the same time every night. And when they first separate, I was around the way. And when they first separated, I was around 11 years old, and I remember nights of that not being the norman hearing different sounds that just didn't mirror that normalcy of my father's routine of parking in front of the house, getting the keys out and opening the front door, coming in, checking, you know, stopping in the dining room, maybe looking at homework, because we used to leave our homework on the table, going in the kitchen, grabbing a bite to eat or whatever the case may be. And so when they first separated, it disrupted that sense of like normalcy and safety that, you know, I think now as a father, I can see that my son is used to.

And things changed dramatically. We went from, you know, being in a household together to them being separated. So it was like two dual households. And I think they did the best that they could in terms of like trying to be supportive co-parents. But I think there was a lot of animus between them. And so it wasn't always like that fluidity of being able to go from household to household and know that it's still kind of some sense of perspective. And, you know, they parent.

very different. You know, my father, when he and my mother decided to separate, my father's a lot more easygoing, pretty chill, whereas my mother was more structured, more strict. And like, that was confusing at times. And it kind of was like, oh, I really want to just be over here with dad because it's easy, breezy. But then there's some things about the structure that my mother had that I now think back on that was really helpful. You know, it made me very independent, very skilled at taking care of myself and learn how to manage a household because those were like the requirements. But, you know, the thing that I think probably impacted me the most was when they separated the second time. And my mother, she was like, you got to go live with your father. And even though,

like, I love like living with my father, like more, it was something about feeling rejected that really, you know, impact me. Because I'm like, well, why do I have to go live with him and my sisters are still staying here? And like, this is my childhood home forever, you know, at this point, but that created a wedge between her and I, you know, and our relationship was never the same in a sense of like mother's son dynamic, you know, even when they got back together, like I was emotionally, like, I was emotionally disconnected from her in that way, you know, but I still yearned that validation that comes with, you know, having the love of a mother, you know, and unfortunately that just never happened. And I mean, we're good, we're in a good

space now, but it's different. My needs are different now. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, now you're 47, not 11 years old or 12 years old. Yeah. I mean, you were on the on the on rule. I think it's important to remember that this is like you were a good student. You weren't like getting in trouble all the time or anything like that, right? It was just like you went from model kid to selling drugs on the street within a span of just like, was it like three or four years? Yeah, relatively short amount of time. You know, it's one of the things I always think back to like whether it was with the abuse in the household or just, you know, so I think it was like, you know, the physical abuse and the verbal abuse, you know, that changes children's like

the way that they, you know, interact with the world. And one of the things always reflect back is like, you know, teachers not recognizing the shift, you know, and not recognizing like, you know, me coming to school and no longer being interested in work. Whereas, you know, I started off as like the kid who was excited and, you know, I couldn't wait to turn in the paper and get that A because I'm like, I was a high performer. You know, early read, I started reading when I was probably four years old, you know, just strikes me now, you know, looking back as like the teacher's not noticing.

like that lack of interest, you know, where I was at one point, I'm a high performer, super diligent in class. I'm the guy who's, like, running all the errands because I'm getting down with my work so fast. But I think that that's, you know, a real indicator where children's lives begin to derail is when the adults stop paying attention to the changes. There was a, you know, major shift, you know, and it wasn't like I was at a different school system. So to go from, like, honor rolls students to barely even showing up in class, you know, like, that was a very, you key indicator that something was wrong. And unfortunately, our school is just trying to equip to always deal with that, you know, whether it's class, size or whether it's just lack of, like,

resources when it comes to therapists or social workers or whatever the case may be. But it was a dramatic shift going over time. Yeah, it's sad to think, and it sounds like you're going through this in your head looking back. Like, they had a baseline. They knew you were a smart kid. They knew you were really nice. And then over a short period of time, all that went down the drain. And somebody must have noticed and just been like, I don't have the time to deal with this. Yeah. Which sucks. Yeah.

Or the time or the resources. Yeah. And it's like even if you think about like athletics, right, so you got a player who's performing at this level all this time and then all of a sudden there is just like this mark drop off. Like some coach is going to say, okay, what's going on? Sure. Is it like on drugs?

Is it, you know, your dating life in shambles? Like, what's really going on? Because it's an easy way to measure like where a person is in life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is super unfortunate. I mean, you are still a kid, even when you ended up going to prison.

We'll get to that in a second. But it sounds like moving from your mom's house and then moving in with your dad, that's when you started to maybe build a little bit of a wall. Like, all right, if my own parents are going to hurt me, then I'm just going to shut down a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I think the wall began to build a little bit earlier than that. Like, actually in childhood, just with some of the things that was happening, but I think it was kind of solidified as I got into that space. So, like, they're just back and forth, back and forth.

And, you know, I'm kind of navigating life on my own at this point and trying to figure it out. And even, like, when I was living with my dad, like, I was basically on my own because he works. So our schedule was kind of like, I get up and go to school. Sometimes he would get up and, like, eat breakfast with me to here, go back to bed. And then by the time I'm coming from school, he's going to work, by the time he's coming from work, I'm going to bed. But he worked at night. Yeah, well, he worked in the afternoon, the shift. So it's, like, 3 to, like, 1130.

So once I'm out of school, I'm just like me, you know what? running the streets and figuring it out. And even then I still was like an innocent kid. I just felt like a kid who just had a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility, you know, like I'll learn how to cook through that process of him just saying, hey, you got to take care of this, you know. And I mean, it's a tough circumstance. Like when I think back on it now, he was in essence a single dad, you know, raising a child with a full-time job and just trying to figure that out. And I'm a single dad now, so I understand like the level of responsibility of trying to,

navigate all the things, right? So it's like I still have to work. I got to get my son to school, got to get him, pick him up from school, make sure he's a tenant to and still try to run a business. And it's, you know, there's no easy undertaking. Now. And I mean, the difference between he and I is that I'm actually an entrepreneur and I have my own thing going, whereas he had to go punch a clock, you know, day in and day out. And I just don't even think in general, there's a lot of support for single fathers because it's just not a conversation that we have regularly, like, you know, what are the support structures needed to support fathers who are parenting or co-parenting, you know, so, yeah.

You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Shaka Sanger. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. And to learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard from our amazing sponsors, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways from Shaka Sanger. That link is in the show.

it's at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to jordanharbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all of the latest episodes downloaded automatically to your podcast player so you don't miss a single thing. And now back to our show with Shaka Sanger. We think a lot about single bombs.

Not enough, in my opinion. But nobody's really thinking about single dads almost. It's almost like, what are you complaining about? Yeah, yeah, yes. It's the wildest thing, you know, because I... Even in, like, dating has been, like, really difficult to date women that understand that I'm a father first. Like, and that there are nights I just can't go out to dinner because I'm, like, home with my son. And even understand the relationship dynamic with his mother and I, which, you know, we have a great co-parenting relationship.

And we have to talk often. This is a child we're raising. It's not just somebody that we're dropping off and picking up. Like, is she wants to be informed about his day. I want to be informed. and what are things that's happened in his world when he's not with me and when he's with her. And like, those things are important, you know, for parents to share. And it's one of the things that we chose to do because our parents didn't co-parent like that.

It was just like, okay, when you're with them, you're with them. But we try to keep some type of integrated parenting relationships so that there's consistency, you know, that he understands consistency of love, of routine, of shared responsibility. And it's a little complex and a little difficult at times. It must be hard to learn that without having had the example. I know when you ended up on the street, you wrote in the book, even the cops who arrested me asked me why I was wasting my life. They believed in me more than I believed in myself, which is crazy to think that somebody who is arresting you is like, hey, what are you doing?

You're not, what are you doing? This is not who you are and you're thinking like, what do you know about me? And the answer is more than you seem to know about yourself at that time and more than your parents seem to know because they're at work all the time, which is just crazy to me. Yeah, I mean, I've always reflect on those moments of, you know, having those type of interactions where people can see what seems to be so obvious. One of the areas I think that a lot of people missed a mark on is like internal belief and how much more dominant that is than external validation. And it's something that we don't really even talk about, especially like with young boys, like what are our internal beliefs? What do we believe about ourselves?

And I think it is specifically as, you know, a mentor to a lot of young black boys. And like a lot of my work is convincing them to shift their beliefs about themselves. Self-esteem issues, self-worthiness. And this runs across the spectrum. It doesn't matter, black, brown, white, there's a struggle in our country with young boys to figure out what their identity is. And to figure out how to say, you know, I don't feel my best self or I'm struggling with these things. It's one of the reasons suicide rates amongst young boys are growing. you know, in a day and age we live in where everything is on social media.

Yeah. You know, and we hear about the young ladies who grapple with body identity and what they should look like. But there's also the success factor or the tough factor or the athletic factor that a lot of young boys are struggling with and finding their place. You know, I talk to a lot of young boys who are nerds. They're just smart kids and they want to do nerdy stuff and nobody celebrates or honors that in society. And so they have these inner turmoil where they're like, oh, well, let me try to get very. validated through this aspect of like what it means to be a boy, you know. So I think it's a conversation that actually would be helpful. I mean, if you think about some of these young men who are, you know, doing mass shootings at schools, right? And you really started digging to their background and you'll see that these issues are there. And it's more than just, you know, they're watching a video game or some, because that's the easy stuff, right? It's easy to be like, oh, this person was just racist or this person was just watching video games or whatever. But there's really something happening. with young men in the country that we're just not talking about. And largely because there isn't

a lot of space for men to just talk in general about what it even means to be male in this world. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a boy? And what are our emotional needs? Because we're only taught to express our emotions through anger or frustration. Yeah. I mean, that's very familiar. My dad is a great guy, but he is a terrible communicator. It's like it comes out pretty binary if he's not happy, right? It's either, there's not even a couple. There's just mad and not mad. Right. Mad and happy.

And mad can be impatient, tired, hungry, frustrated, feeling bad about something. And it's like, I remember even when I would have something that happened to me, he would just get mad because he couldn't be like, oh, I feel bad for you. Here's some sympathy. He would just be like, I'm angry now. And my mom would be like, don't tell your father. He's just going to blow up. Right. He's going to be angry.

Yeah. Yeah. And I see that even in myself, it's almost like I have to work hard to just not get mad about. about random things because it's the wrong response. It's like not constructive, but it's the example that I have is, oh, is this happening in your life? Just get angry about it. And then my wife is like, what are you doing? You're just being your dad.

And I'm like, I know. And it's so hard to break the pattern. Yeah, and it really is. You know what I mean? The reality is there hasn't been any space to break the pattern. And if we don't have examples of what healthy emotional expressions look like outside of anger, how can you expect to react any other way, you know? And so, you know, those things are what I try to pay attention to as a father.

It's like, what am I communicating to my son when it comes to emotional wellness and emotional wholeness? So you're 14 years old. You get recruited by this older drug dealer. How did that even happen? Was you just like, hey, you want to make a lot of money? You want to get some Captain Crunch? Like, what's the sales pitch from this guy? I mean, the sales pitch is like, and even in the book, when I say older, I mean, he was like 19, 20, right?

At 14, that appears to be. like, you know, miles apart, you know. And the sales pitch was he had the car with the loud music. He had the pretty girls. He had a way of taking care of itself and providing. And it's that recognition that in a lot of these instances, it's the same way the young girls are recruited into human trafficking, right? It's the validation.

It's the, hey, I got your back. I'm going to support you. I'm going to help you live this magical life. I'm not going to tell you that you probably can get killed in the process or you might get robbed. But I'll give you the tools to set you up to hopefully prevent those things, but there's no guarantee. And so young men are recruited in that same way. And again, it's that emotional need to be validated.

You know, these guys are not like going into school where it's like kids with healthy, love and nurturing family saying, hey, I think you should come sign up for, you know, this lifestyle. They're looking for the transient homeless. They're looking for the runaways. They're looking for the kids who've been abused and who've been hurt and been broken because oftentimes they are those kids. And they know that just a hug from big homie and, you know, the cute girl in the car saying, hey, little man, see you out here making his money. Like all that validation, right? Like, those are the things that set it up to where a young person will compromise their freedom or their life just to have those things and have that level of acceptance.

I can definitely see that being really tempting. Even looking back in my teenage years, if somebody offered me a seemingly great opportunity like that, it would be so hard to turn it down. Because you don't think, oh, I'm going to get shot tomorrow. You just think, like, that's not going to happen to me. And if you have no checks and balances, like you're not going home and your mom's like, this is why this is the dumbest thing you've ever done, then you just get sucked into it. And the only competition is what, like math homework?

No thanks. Right. Right. So I totally understand that. So you're doing this for a few years, but then eventually reality sets in, right? You got robbed. And then how did you end up getting shot? So I got shot when I was 17.

And it was over a minor conflict. You know, me and this guy, we got into an argument over something meaningless. And I thought it would just be one of them kind of old-school fist fights. You know, I come from that culture where you've got a problem, you just fight it out and keep it moving. But during this time period, you know, with crack cocaine came, like, high levels of gun violence, you know, amongst young people. I think Detroit has always had issues with gun violence just in general. But there was something very different doing a crack cocaine area where you had young guys who had easy access to, you know, firearms, you know. And like I bought my first gun, like probably within a couple of weeks of Southern Crack, you know, because you have people who are addicted coming and bringing guns.

You know, it goes through this whole thing. First of the Southern TVs and microwaves and VCRs. I mean, clearly don't have VCRs anymore. Right. Back then that was the thing. And then it's like, oh, Southern firearms and usage of the car and things. things like that. So with the influx of crack cocaine also came in flux of firearms and the way that you know, guys started a subtle conflict, you know. So this guy in March of 1990, you know, we get

into this argument, he rolls up, we exchange some words, and I'm thinking he's going to get out the car and, you know, fight. And instead he pulls out a pistol and shoots me three times. Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah. And so, you know, what happened after that is one of the things that really shifted. I think the last semblance of childhood was definitely gone at that point. The last sense of innocence, you know, when I went to the hospital they were very robotic, very mechanical.

It was just kind of like, you know, pull the bullets out, we'll lead this bullet in, you'll probably be better off. Patch me up and within days I was back in the neighborhood. Like there was no, hey, how do you feel? What are you thinking? You know, what's going on inside of you? It was just kind of like, oh, you're lucky you didn't shoot you in the back

or shoot you in the head or, you know, you'll survive. And basically get back out. You know, it's kind of like, you know, you just had got injured on the football field and it's like, all right, walk it off, walk it off, get back out there, you know. And when I got back to the neighborhood, I remember the first day of standing outside. Like, I thought, you know, the first few days I had to kind of hill up and I was on crutches and kind of hobbled, you know, so I didn't want to be out and about. But once I was able to kind of limp around the neighborhood, I remember the first time to stand on the

corner again and a car coming down the street and like the level of anxiety I felt, you know, level of vulnerability. And at that point, I was like, you know, I'm carrying a gun every day no matter what, you know, no matter what the circumstances. And if I get into a conflict, I'm shooting first. Like, I'm not even taking a chance of being shot again. And that became like my dominant thinking, like, every morning, you know. And I mean, I had been around like my friend who took me to the hospital, he had got shot the year before in an incident where his friend got killed. You know, several guys throughout our crew had been shot. And like even now, when I reflect on my family,

it's like eight of us have been shot. Jeez. You know, and I mean, like, this is real. Like, my brother, my oldest brother was the first one in the family to get shot. And this was like around 1985. He got shot in the neck by my other brother. They got into a car. By your other brother.

So my other brother shot him in the neck. He was paralyzed his, like, right arm and shoulder, you know. And I always thought to myself, like, what he thought about that, experience. Like, has he ever grapple with, like, the PTSD? Then the brother who shot him actually been shot twice. The first time was in the superficial conflict. And then the second time he got shot in his back and he's permanently paralyzed. And then I have, like, cousins and nephews who were shot multiple times in various degrees of severity. And when I came home, so I got out of prison June 2010. And September two of my nephews were shot. One of them was. One of them

shot in an incident where his friend was killed. And I remember going to see him at the hospital, and I was like, you know, you used to get therapy. And he was like, I don't need therapy. I'm good. Like this, you know, this happens in the hood all the time, you know. And the same thing with my other nephew. I was like, yo, you should get therapy. Both of them are in prison right now. You know, so it's a cycle of life. Yeah. And it's a cycle that just hasn't been disrupted in a lot of communities. So this is why you see the repetitive gun violence because it's, you know, there's no interruption happening. You know who Charlemagne the God is? Yeah. Yeah. So, I was talking with him and he was explaining, like, black people just don't really do therapy because it's looked on like, nah.

I mean, every way, first of all, rejects therapy. It takes a while. But especially for some reason, and he's got theories on this, but in black culture, it's like, oh, I don't need that. Like, I'm too tough for that or I don't want to deal with that. Plus, it's expensive. Plus, it's not necessarily easy to find. Like, there's enough obstacles already. Yeah.

I think that's part of it. I think the other thing is trust. I think culturally there's just a distrust of, like, the idea of what a theory. therapist is, right? If you really went into the hood and was like, yo, you should see a therapist. Most reaction to be like, man, I'm not going to talk to the white people about my problem. Right. So there's that perception that only therapists are all white, right? And then there's also this the reality that we don't deal with mental health in our community in a healthy way. Sardomaine and I've actually talked about this a couple of times. And, you know, one of the things that

I was expressing to them, you know, especially dealing with guys in prison. So I was in prison a a bunch of young guys, and there was a consistent pattern of adverse childhood experiences, high levels of gun violence, high levels of abuse, high levels of trauma, and no therapeutic treatment. And what I was explaining to him is like, you know, there's just this distrust in our community and rightfully so, like the history of what happens to black bodies and black minds in America hasn't been one that leads you to believe that you should be trustworthy people who come from outside of your community, right?

But what happens with that lack of trust is a high level of ignorance and the need for mental health care. And the other thing is like a lot of the mental health facilities have been taken out of communities. My father actually worked in mental health for a long time and I remember when they shut their clinic down, you know. And so you have families who have adjusted to just saying, oh, this person is having a bad day or they're just being disruptive or they're just tripping, you know. And even that's the extreme man, right? And just in general, people need to take care of themselves mentally, right? And whatever that looks like, whether it's meditation, therapy, reading, whatever you need to do for yourself.

But I think what I love that Charlemagne is doing is actually creating a space for the conversation that happened in real life. You know, and Big Sean as well. I'm not sure you know about the rep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So he and I did a mental health panel like in Detroit not too long ago. And it was powerful, like to see people be able to.

to connect to language that was familiar to them, right? So we were able to put it into the language that you can relate to, you know. Not some 60-year-old Jewish guy from Troy, Michigan. He's like, you need to come and tell me about all your problems. I listen to notorious B-I-G. Right, right. And then other part of it, too, is like a lot of times with the interpretation of therapy is, it's somebody's about to tell you everything is wrong with you,

and you probably already heard that enough. So I think breaking down at those stigmas, and I'm excited that, Alamane is doing a big sign is creating platforms. And I do it in my own way, but clearly they have these massive platforms, which is really important to remove a stigma. Yeah. It's a health treatment. Yeah.

You mentioned a lot of grown-ups, adults at the time, women selling their bodies, guys coming and selling their possessions to you in exchange for drugs. What does that do to your psyche as a kid, or just as a human, right? Because you must have, you start losing faith in humanity, I would imagine at some point, when it looks like everyone around you is like, yeah, I'm going to sleep with you. for this or I'm going to give you my grandmother's ring because I need a hit of crack. Like there's got to just be a chipping away at not really like your moral code, but just like your faith in what people are good for, right?

You know, I think a lot about this, especially in terms of hip hop, right? So early hip-hop, and I'm a big, big hip-hop fan. And, you know, having the privilege of growing up alongside hip-hip-hop, right? So, like, there's kids growing up now into a world of hip-hop. But I grew up in the world where hip-hop didn't exist until it was created. watching the music change from just like upbeat, uplifting, positive to like, yo, it's holes and bitches in the hood and things like that, right? I began to kind of track it through what happened with the crack epidemic, right?

And what happened with a lot of young boys growing up in that culture. And even if you weren't selling drugs, you were around that, like you had access to early childhood sexual experiences with adult women that oftentimes were degrading, demeaning, and not loving, caring, nurturing. And so a lot of the objectification comes through that lens. Like at 14, when we're in the house and it wasn't just the women who were addicted to drugs, it was also the women who were chasing the money. And so at that age, to have that type of the men over adult women was very unhealthy.

You know, and I see it play out with a lot of men growing up where they just had these very dysfunctional relationships with women, myself included as a young drug dealer. Like, I had no interest in, like, you know, love and men. marriage and whatever. It was just like, yo, you're the cutie for the day or for the week or whatever. You know, and I had a couple of girlfriends that I eventually developed some feelings, whatever capacity at that time. But a lot of it was through that lens of easy access, you know. And so when you have that type of access, it diminishes the experience. But it also diminishes the experience for you as a young man in terms of like being able to mostly develop and evolve. And it's one of

the things that I'm actually writing about now because I was able to talk to a one who I had sex with when I was about 15 and she was like in her 30s. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we had a very interesting exchange that I'm writing about in my new book because I think it's super important to really understand misogyny to really understand why there's a lot of emotional dysfunction in young males. I felt it was important to share that part of my journey.

You know, the thing in me and Charlotte, one of the things of me and Charlotte, had was about that experience, right? Like he had some experience when he was like eight years. And he didn't make the connection until he and I was talking that it impact how he evolved in terms of how he dealt with women. And for me, it was just like talking to her. And initially, she was very defensive. Sure, because she was a pedophile, but you don't see it at that.

You don't see it from a grown female to a young boy as much as you. Like, I'm 39. If I was walking around with a 15-year-old girl, people would call the police immediately. Well, hopefully they would. And whereas with me it was like, oh, she's attractive. So this is a metal. Right, you're the man now. Right, yeah.

Man, right? And so I asked her about it, you know, especially, you know, because I mentor so many young boys and I see what's happening with them. So I asked her about it. And initially she was like, yeah, I'm going to talk to you about it. And then she went kind of like radio silence. And then she came back and, you know, she said a couple of things that weren't true. And so I was like, you know, where here's what I understood about it. And then she got super defensive and categorized.

historically denied, like doing this with other young guys. And then eventually she came around and she was like, you know, I was wrong. And I was ashamed and it was hard for me to talk about it. And yes, I did do this with other guys in the neighborhood. And you were just one of the many young guys. And, you know, she never quite got to what happened in her own life, which is, you know, that's her personal journey. But just having her come full circle from like, and I mean, she said like, wow, fucked up shit. You know, she was like, well, maybe you're just, something happened to you in prison.

And, you know, so it was just like blamed. Oh, like, you're hallucinating this, you mean? Well, no, she was like it was true, but she was like maybe I'm asked her these questions because something happened to me in prison or, you know, it was just like all the type of mean and shit you can say when you're defensive. And I remember even sharing this with, like, women in my life and getting their reaction. And their reaction was like, initially they laughed. And I was like, wow, this is deep. You know, they laughed like, oh, like, damn, that was kind of crazy what she said.

And what I ended up doing, I said, imagine this. Imagine that this is a 30-something-year-old man who's had sex with a 14, 15-year-old girl. And she comes around later on in life and say, hey, you know, I realized that wasn't okay. Why did you do it? And this was the reaction he had. And they were like, oh, shit. It's weird when it's flipped, right? Yeah, they were like, oh, shit, we get it now.

And I was like, if you're a mentor or you have a son, you should be thinking, or if you're in a relationship. But a man asked him, what is really? experience was not to glorify, you know, yeah, I had my virginity broke at 13 with a grown woman. Like, yeah, that wasn't healthy. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, and it shows up in different ways. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Shaka Sanger. We'll be right back after this.

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We really appreciate it. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Shaka Sanger. We don't think about it when it's flipped around. And you don't think about it when it's different cultures, too. Like, well, actually, I should speak for myself. When you think pedophile, you think white dude, young girl. Like, that's like the stereotype that I have in my head. But you don't think older African-American woman,

younger African-American guy in the city because then you're just like, oh, that's like some, there's some other things in there going on, I don't know. Yeah. But it's the same thing. Absolutely. It's abusive and it's being unaddressed. And like you said, you even talk with other people and they're like, oh, L-O-L and you're like, no.

No, not that. I was being abused by this woman and you're laughing about it because you don't know how to handle it. Like extrapolate that through the whole culture. Yeah. It's toxic. Yeah, absolutely. All right.

So you're selling drugs for a while. You end up getting shot. You start developing a habit of your own, right? Yeah. How did you end up going to prison? So 16 months after I got shot, we're actually within that 16 months, you know, I began to develop this very toxic narrative that, you know, if I found myself in conflict, I would shoot first.

And 16 months later, I found myself in that conflict. And even this part, and I'm not even sure if I wrote about this in the book. But prior to the conflict, I was at a party. I was actually DJ in a party. and a guy got shot in front of the party. And so when he got shot, party shuts down. We're all on high alert because initially we don't even know who it was. We just know somebody at the party and two people.

So we don't know who's who was happening, right? So we're all on edge. And then we walk back around to my place. And one time like a car pulled up, car full of guys, you know, we're all like guys ready to pull out pistols and figure it out. But they end up being some guys we knew. So when I get home, another guy who I knew who I was selling drugs, He pulls up with a car and it's like him and two other guys. And the two other guys, I don't know.

I have no clue these guys are. And so, you know, he was like trying to make this transaction. And it was a little different transaction. Like, I mean, he was considered like a pretty good spend or a guy who would come and spend $40, $50 regularly, like hourly, every couple hours, whatever. But he came, you know, they had a significant amount of money. And I just felt like something wasn't right in the situation. I didn't know these guys.

And it's like two in the morning, you know. And so he and I get into an argument because I wouldn't sell the drugs. And so the guy who was driving him in the passenger seat, David, he joined into the argument. And so it became kind of like a back and forth between us. And there was a moment where I turned and I was like, you know, I'm done with the conversation. Y'all should get off the block. And I turned, literally turned and walked in and I heard what I thought was a car door open. And I turned and fired several shots tragically causing his death, David's death.

I was arrested and charged with open murder and eventually convicted of second-degree murders sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison. And I was like one month to my 19th birthday when I got arrested. Wow. So you're like still a kid pretty much when you went to prison. Yeah. So when I got to prison, I went to Michigan Reformatory, which is Ionia, only of Michigan, probably about two and a half, three hours from Detroit.

And it's called a gladiator school. And this is a prison of pretty much young. It was about 1,500 guys there, maybe, you know, somewhere between 1,500 guys. And young guys, basically the prison was designed for guys from age 15 to like 21. And they were older guys sprinkled in, but it was mostly like young guys serving long prison sentences. I think the minimum prison sentence was like 15 years, with exception to guys who had screwed up at other joints and they come over with lesser senses. But basically, I was there with a bunch of young guys who were all serving, you know, any way. where for 15 to life synthesis in a very volatile environment.

But yeah, that's where I was at in 19. How did you feel when you shot that guy? Like, were you, what was it like in the moment? Were you scared at all? Were you surprised at what you were able to do? Or was it kind of exactly what you figured it would be? I had never figured what it would be. Because I don't think it was really about him.

It was about what was going on the side of me. And so in that moment, it was just kind of like a fight-or-flight thing. And like literally after the shoe and the car pulls off, you know, everybody's kind of scrambling. And my brother was down the street. And I remember just like running down the street to my older brother and talking to him. And it was just like this very childlike moment of like, you know, I don't know what the extent of the damage is, but this is what I did. And I know it's really terrible and, you know, something really bad has just happened. And needing that, you know, consoling from like somebody who I felt, you know, could not.

nurtured that part of who I was. So it was very childlike response. You know, I didn't want to like face it. You know, I wanted to run as far away from it as possible. And, you know, I ended of getting arrested like two days later, you know, and I just remember sitting in the police headquarters and being in that cell and, you know, listening to their interpretation of it and just being like, no, that wasn't what that was, you know. Because at that point at that they had got multiple different statements. It was like, even a guy who brought him initially brought him to that he initially lied about what happened, because I guess he was trying to, like, stick to the street code and not snitching or whatever or not getting implicated of being in any trouble because he was, these were, like, guys from the suburbs who had everything to lose, you know. And so his initial statement was false, and, you know, and so that kind of led to a lot of different interpretations of what happened, you know, it went from everything from carjacking to randomness.

but I just remember hearing it and not even connecting that I'm the person responsible for this man's death. And so when I went to prison, there was really no space going in to even unpack the trauma of that part of the experience. You know, it was like you talk to a therapist and I remember this lady, she basically very matter-of-factly asked me what happened.

And I very matter-of-factly told her, I didn't tell her how I felt about it, what I thought about it, I just told her what happened. And she characterized me as being like a sociopath. Sure. You know, I was like, it wasn't until years later that I understood exactly what happened. Like she wasn't there to offer any help. She was just basically there to kind of label me and boxed me into some idea of who she thought I was, you know.

And the reality is that when you have people in that position of authority to define somebody else that don't come from the culture or the community, that's what you end up with. is like a young sociopath or doesn't have any remorse. And it's like, no, I'm traumatized as fuck. Like, I've literally taken somebody life. I've been shot. I've been through all these horrendous experiences. And this is just a culmination of all those things that I don't know what the hell to do with. Like, I don't know how to unpack this at the time.

I don't know how to navigate the emotions of this, you know, in a moment. And it's literally just like a very short amount of time where I'm still navigating it. And I just remember, like, for years trying to. trying to find the language to even just say, I feel horrible about this. Like, this is a terrible feeling to know that I've devastated this family, you know. And probably about five or six years in, I remember getting a letter from this woman named Nancy, who was responsible for raising David. At least that's the letter she sent to me and explained their relationship.

So basically the guy who shot his mom for lack of a better? I think she was like his godmother or Anna or something along those lines. A lot of stuff came out after I got. got out and had conversations with his wife. But when I got this letter from her, she explained herself as the woman who have raised him. And I just remember reading the letter and just like initially want to ball that letter up, you know, because it was just like, hey, you know, here's who David was to our

family. And she humanized him in such a way that I felt like a deep, deep sense of shame, you know? And it's like, in the moment that it happened, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. David might as well have been faceless and nameless because I couldn't even see in a car. And so when I got that letter, it was like, okay, this is who this person is. Yeah, it was a human being. Yeah, you know, and this is, you know, I've devastated this family. But this woman is just such an incredible angel in my life, at least, you know, in a sense that she was like, despite all this, I forgive you.

Oh, that's got to be. I don't even know how you, because you expect her to be so mad at you that you resist it. But instead she says she forgives you. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. No, I wasn't even mostly mature enough to even process that in a way that was just like, yo, this is real.

But I kept that letter and I would read that letter often. And I still have the letter, you know, and I would just read it over and over. Because I knew that I need to get to a point where I could accept her forgiveness in order to really fully forgive myself, but also to have the type of empathy that is necessary for healing. And so I just read that letter over and over, you know. And it really, back then when I first read, I didn't even know the profile and impact it was having on my life. It wasn't until years later that I realized, like, the way that I show up in the world now is largely connected to that letter. Wow.

Yeah, that is intense. That must have been so hard for her to write and so hard for you to read. Yeah. So this day, I'm just like, this lady is like just an incredible example of what it means to be human in the sense that the way that. The way that a lot of us engage in life is through a spiritual, religious lens. And the cornerstone of that is redemption and forgiveness and things like that. But it's rare for it to actually manifest into like our real life practice. And it's a hard place to get to.

Like life is tough. You know, things happen that are harmful and hurtful and it's not easy to arrive at a point where you're like, you know, I want to practice what I preach, you know, in a real way when it happens to me, you know. So, you know, it's tough. It's not easy the thing to do. And she had a tremendous amount of courage to be able to do that. I know you wrote in the book that prisoners are amazing entrepreneurs. And this was no surprise, but very interesting. Everything's so expensive in prison.

So everything has huge margins, too. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times when people think about who's in prison, it's kind of like this blanket idea of just a bad guy or a bad girl, whatever, right? There's never any real sense of, like, who these people are. who truly are. And a lot of the men and women inside are exceptional entrepreneurs, exceptional artists, exceptional musicians and all the things that make up the world that we live in, you can find in prison. Entrepreneurship, though, I think in particular, it's probably easier to find because,

you know, we come from hustling. You know, we come from a culture of, you know, hustling to survive. And so those are transferable skillsets. You know, I remember when I first started selling drugs, So we procured this new space to sell from. There's a house on the east side of Detroit. But it was like in a nice neighborhood that was still relatively nice. And I remember the first couple of days, we had lines of people outside the door. And I was like, this looks ridiculous, right? And it was just an instinct of like, how do you make this not so obvious?

And so originally we had the first layer of protection, which is our Armaguard door on the outside door. Like, those are those metal bar doors? Yeah, metal bar doors. Yeah. Okay. And so I was like, what if we move that door in between the kitchen and basement, allow the floor of people to come inside the basement? Then it prevents the neighbors from seeing what's going on. And that's an entrepreneurial instinct, right?

To figure out how do you, you know, sell things in a way that's not so obvious. Maximize customer experience. Exactly. Right, yeah. That sounds so right. Yeah. And so, I mean, but it was things like that. It was connecting with other guys and other neighborhoods.

It's networking, you know, figuring out how to profit share. You know, hey, if I couldn't do this in your neighborhood, here's the benefit to you, right? And so it's all these different things. Even, you know, a lot of what the drug trade was was, it was like you buy super low and you just sell high, right? And so when you think about all those skillsets, any Fortune 500 company can use those, you know. And they're all transferable, you know, the marketing, the promotion, you know, the coming up with ideas. And even innovation, which I think is a very important part of any business venture, right? You got to be able to innovate and kind of iterate on ideas and figure out how to

simplify processes, right? And in prison, we had to do that to survive. You know, you can't survive in prison without being able to iterate. You know, you can't get tattoos if you can't, you know, break down a tape player and guitar string and an ink pin and turn them into a tattoo gun. And even just a commerce in there, you know, it's like people don't have a ton of money, you know, so they have to depend on family to send them money. And, you know, they have to depend on their pay period.

once a month. And so that creates a black market store, you know, where if you can house enough merchandise, you know, so if you buy something for 50 cent, you owe me a dollar. You know, it's like a hundred percent markup, you know. And so people get into financial trouble relatively quickly in there because the markups are so crazy. So, I mean, I loan sharked in there. And it was a cycle. So it was two sale blocks in Michigan Performatory, I Block and Jay Block, and they received their money on offsetting weeks. So I was able to circulate cash. like consistently both weeks because when I about get his money, I loan that out to J Block, and then they had to pay me back.

And then I was set up these stores in each unit. And that's just how I took care of myself, you know. And then we hustled everything. And I worked in the recreation center. You wanted to come up and just get out of your cell. Like, there was a cost for that. You know, it was $3 a week. I can get you out and come be a referee, even though you may not know nothing about sports,

or you can come clean up the weight pit or whatever the case may be. You need to come up and do your laundry, cost you a dollar. So everything was like hustling. And all those skills that you just develop like they're really beneficial when you get out. I think entrepreneurship is probably the best path for people getting out of prison because it's hard to find employment. People don't want to hire you when you have a felony. You go through everything you can think of, constant rejections. People are just afraid.

You know, the stereotype around people getting out of prison is really negative. And people don't think that there are people who just really want to come home and live a drug-free, crime-free life and get an opportunity. and fortunately there's organizations that's helping with that now. I know that when you were in solitary, you decided to treat it like university. Absolutely. I mean, that makes sense, but must have been kind of hard to do, because it requires you thinking about, okay, I'm in here now, I can't resist it anymore. I've got to learn what to do and move forward.

And then, like you said, paroled after 19 years, going into prison as a teenager and then coming out basically my age now, actually, what were some of the biggest changes in society? Everything. Everything, right? Everything. And the world had changed, man. Like, I came home. And granted, like, you know, I feel like I came home with an advantage that a lot of people coming home don't have.

Like, I'm highly literate. I'm super curious about life in the world. I'm well read. I love to read. I devoured magazines. So I was learning about all these things. But hadn't not interfaced with them. It was just, like, the most mind-blowing thing to come home and, like, get in the car and the car and the car, like, talks.

I mean, like, when I went to prison, the only car to talk was Kit from the night right. Yeah, that's right. So I remember just sit in the car and the car just said something. I was like, who else is in here with us? Like, what the hell is happening, right? You know, navigation systems. Like, you know, I remember, like, growing up and it's like, you want to get somewhere. You're like, look, make three lefts right here.

It's the third house from the house with the broken down fence, you know, and you're at the destination. So coming out of technology was just mine, but I mean, I think Skype was the thing when I first got out. Yeah. And I remember the first time people were like Skyping and I'm like, yo, this was on a jet. You know, and now it's such a part of life. So that was crazy. Relationships, you know? I was in a relationship with my son's mother before I got out of prison.

And when I came home, like, that relationship derailed so quick. And it was for a few reasons, right? Part of it was just, I'm like a bull in the tin shop at this point. You know, I'm free. I can kind of navigate the world. But the other part is I just had no relationship experience, you know. And that's something that we didn't really account for. It's like, you know, she was like kind of like in this one lane of like, my man is home.

So she kind of riding the highway of love, so to speak. And I'm like in six different lanes. You know, I'm trying to reconnect with family. I'm trying to establish a relationship. Reconnect with my children. Find employment. Run a business. Cheers.

Learn technology. Learn how to just be, you know. And like all those things were always at work in my mind. And so, you know, it's a lot to get out. You know, it's a lot to reacclimate yourself to life on the outside, being around. groups of people, you know. When you get out, everybody wants to drag you everywhere. Come over here and come meet this person and you miss these grandbabies when they

was going, you know, when you were away. And all that's wonderful and is necessary, but it has to be paced at a way that honors our experience. You know, my experience was real. Like in crowds of people, people got stabbed or blundering or hitting the head or strangled or whatever the case may be. So it wasn't easy just going and sitting somewhere around a bunch of people, making choices.

Like my first couple of years, I ate my. mostly like wing things and hamburgers because that was stuff that I was familiar with. I mean, I would look at a menu and get overwhelmed. Like, yo, there's too many things going on. What are these words mean? I mean, I still do that when I look at menu. Seriously, I'm like, yo, where the wings is that? Just running wings and fries and I'm cool because of how many choices it is to make, you know?

And just, like, coming home, I got excited by, like, being able to buy my own sneakers and, like, being able to have a choice. And what I work is I went so many years without a choice, you know? So it was just a lot, man. And I mean, I'm still unpacking. I'm coming up on 10 years. In June, I'll be celebrating my 10th year of freedom. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. And it's just like a lot has changed in my life out here. I'm still learning a lot about life and learning about what I really want in my life and still unpacking that experience, you know. So I'm in the process of like finding the right therapist for me to just really unpack a lot of things. And I mean, I've done like self-therapy for so long, you know, through writing, you know, writing the medium of storytelling and, you know, journaling and meditation has been, you know, super therapeutic.

But I also realize I'm at a point in my life where there's so many things I experienced in prison that most people that I didn't even talk about in the book because it was just like that horrendous. And I know that I have to unpack all that, you know, to be the full version of myself. Yeah, I know in the book you'd said prison reinforces everything negative that you know about yourself. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. You had to reboot that when you got out, right? Yeah, I mean, I had to reboot it before I got out. You know, it's a very volatile environment. And it's a hierarchy based on violence and hustling culture and things like that.

So it reinforces all the negative things that, you know, you grow up in the hood experiencing and recognizing it's having value. Right. So in the hood, you know, the hustler, the drug dealer, the shooter, like all those guys have like real value in the hood. And they're validated in the hood in ways that people don't oftentimes like to acknowledge. but there's a credibility to being like a hood celebrity and a hood star. And so that same thing translates in the prison. Like if you're the prison yard boss, all the things that come with that are celebrated in that environment.

And so for me, I had to kind of rewire my thinking. And it happened like, when I got this letter from my son and his mother had told him why I was in prison. And reading that letter from his eyes through his lens as a little boy who's going to grow up to look up to his father as a prison yard goon, a convicted murderer, that was devastating to read that and to think that's how my son was going to see me. And I knew at that point that I really had to change some things in my life.

And in order to do that, I had to really examine my life in an honest way. So I began journaling to actually figure out how did I go from wanting to be a doctor to serving out my most promising years in prison? And that process of journaling allowed me to unpack all the things and to really stand in my strength as a person, you know, as a leader. And so when I got out of solitary and I, you know, had turned my, life toward different productive outputs, being able to talk to men who respected me from my prior associations about where I was headed in life. And they encouraged it. They was like, man, it takes a lot of courage to like walk a different path, you know, but if anybody can do it,

you can. And like, to this day, those guys still write me from prison and tell me, like, how proud they are of who I am today and how true to my word I've been, you know, which is equally credible in street culture and prison culture is actually being a man of your word. And so out of all the accomplishments, I think that's really important to me as knowing that I stuck to what I said I was coming out here to do. Shaka, thank you so much, man. This is fascinating. Thank you so much for having me, man. It's been great. Big thank you to Shaka Sanger. Links to him and his work will be in the show notes. Of course, there's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at jordanharbinger.com

slash YouTube. Also in the show notes, there are worksheets for each episode so you can review what you've learned here from Shaka. We also have transcripts now for every episode, and those can be found in the show notes as well. A few folks have said they don't know how to get to the show notes. Those are on the website. You can also, if you want an abbreviated version of those, tap the album art on your phone screen should pop up a little summary, not the full notes, but a summary, better than nothing, right? I'm teaching you how to connect with great people like Shaka and manage relationships using systems and tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Don't do it later. Do it now.

You've got to dig the well before you get thirsty. If you want to procrastinate, go ahead, but you might stagnate when it comes to your personal and business relationships. Look, the drills take a few minutes per day. This is the stuff I wish I knew decades ago. It is not fluff. It is crucial. Find it all for free at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the on the show, they actually subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. In fact, why not reach out to Shaka and tell them you enjoyed this episode of the show? Show guests love hearing from you. You never know what might shake out of that. Speaking of building relationships, you can always reach out and or follow me on social. I'm at

Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. This show is created in association with Podcast One, and this episode was produced by Jen Harbinger and Jason DeFilippo, engineered by Jay Sanderson, show notes and worksheets by Robert Fogarty. Music by Evan Viola, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Our advice and opinions and those of our guests are their own. And yeah, I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. I'm sure as heck not a doctor or a therapist. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

And remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. I think for this one, it would be somebody who has either been in prison or has a little bit of a preconceived notion about the type of person that comes out or goes in. So please, share the show with those you love and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time.

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