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for 27% off site wide. That's helixleap.com slash breakdown for 27% off site wide. helixleap.com slash breakdown. I was certain that I was gonna die in prison. Now, I was 17 years old. I got shot multiple times. I wasn't safe unless I had a gun. I found myself in conflict and I fired up for disaster. Caused a man's death or sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison. Shakaengor, best-selling author and globally recognized resilience expert, shares how we can free ourselves from the invisible prisons we find ourselves in. When I was 13 years old, I ran away and I found myself seduced and to draw a culture, crack cocaine. I spent the total of seven years in solitary confinement. I fell into depression. I wouldn't have survived that without being illiterate.

I was reading all of these philosophy books, started journaling and asking these hard questions like, how do my life end up here? I taught myself how to publish a book from prison. If I can get through the pain of the moment, I can come on on the other side of anything. I'm gonna get out of here. Society has got us into a space where we're like, I can't talk about my shame.

No, that's your hidden prison.

You deserve to get out of that, too.

We're all deserving of the best of what it means to be human. Hi, I'm Miami-Ellic. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. What are the prisons that we are entrapped in? You might not be thinking of a literal prison, but the prisons of anger, of shame, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of hope, a lack of joy. We're going to be speaking to someone today whose transformation from solitary confinement to the sea suite is absolutely inspirational. We're talking with Shaka Sengor. talking about his book, How to Be Free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons, and he's a globally recognized resilience expert. He's inspired leaders at global organizations. He's written three books, and we're going to be talking about How to Be Free. I don't know that I can communicate the, the journey that Chaka has been on, what he did to get into prison, what it was like to be there for 19 years, including seven years in solitary confinement, and what inspired him to not only free himself, but teach others and guide others on how to free ourselves from the prisons that we keep ourselves in sometimes without even knowing it. This is an unbelievable conversation. And for anyone who wants to imagine a life different than they're living right now, this is an episode that you can't miss. We are so excited to welcome in person to the breakdown, Shaka Sengor, Shaka Welcome. Break it down. Hey, I'm so excited to be here. It's really an honor. And thank you all for having me. It's so dope. We're very eager to talk to you. Obviously, how to be free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons has so many incredible nuggets of goodness, which we will get to. You talk a bit about the framework of your story in this book, although this isn't your first book, for people who may not know who you are, I'm going to give you the opportunity to kind of lay it out for people so they understand the framework with which we're going to be talking about. Yeah, no, that's a great question. Who is Shaka Sengor? So I grew up in the city of Detroit in a household that on the outside looking in, literally was like the model for like working class America, black, you know, middle class America, tree line streets, you know, beautiful brick bungalows and, you know, a real community, before things changed, but on the inside of our household, there was just like a lot of physical abuse and a lot of emotional abuse. And when I was about 13 years old, I ran away and I thought that someone would see this little handsome, smart little kid and like take me in and just wrap me in a warmth that I believe all children are deserving of. And sadly, and unfortunately, that didn't happen. And many young kids I found myself seduced into the draw culture. And specifically, like crack cocaine, this is when crack first invaded the Midwest. We didn't even know what, clearly I did not know. I was like a naive kid, but I don't think anybody in our community knew what lay ahead of us and the devastation that would happen within that culture. But first six months in, I experienced like all the horrors of the culture. I was robbed at gunpoint. I was beaten at the death of my childhood friend was murdered and then I became addicted to crack cocaine. And that was one of the things when I look back on my life because I talk a lot about resilience. I was able to quit that addiction just cold turkey and largely because it was very, it was a very kid oriented decision. I was like, I need to make money because I like cool sneakers and I can't do that if I'm like smoking crack. So, but I stayed in that culture and then when I was 17 years old, I got shot multiple times. And when I get, when I got shot, you know, I'll never forget what that experience was like. I was like waiting on an ambulance that never came and my friend happened to take me to the hospital and then going into the hospital and just being treated like a car in a factory. They extracted two bullets, left one bullet in, patched me up and like Lily would end a couple of days. I was like back in my neighborhood. And at that time I didn't have language for all the things that was happening inside of me, but I remember this moment, you know, very vividly a couple of days after I'm back in the neighborhood.

I'm on crutches and still hanging out with my friends and we were just like on a corner.

And when I got shot, the shooter was driving a car.

And so I'm on hanging out on this corner and the car's coming up to block.

And I just remember my body just like shaking like and I'm like and I can't tell my friends

They're like now, you know when I see cars. I don't think of like somebody just driving through the neighborhood like I feel

All this anxiety, you know, we didn't have language for anxiety back then, but or PTSD or PTSD

And you know the worst thing that happened as a result of that is the story

I started to tell myself That I wasn't safe unless I had a gun and if I found myself in conflict I would shoot first as opposed to risking being shot and 16 months later I got into a conflict about two in the morning So July 1991 and the conflict escalated and there's a moment where I turned to walk away and I didn't and I turned and fire turned out to be foresighted tragically. Caused a man's death. I was subsequently arrested. I was charged with open murder and I was sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison. I was one month, it's my 19th birthday when I got arrested. And I remember just being in a courtroom and thinking like, my life is over. I got 19, you can't even see two weeks down the line. I don't know, like two decades. And so in that moment, I just was like, I gotta serve time. And within the serving of time, I'm just angry, I'm bitter, I'm just getting some of the trouble. And that's the little homo journey in prison started. When you were shot, was there ever a thought of, this is the time to try and pivot? Or were there no options at that point for you to try and even turn away? That's a great question. You know, I talked to a lot of young men who are in environments where gun violence is like extremely high. And myself, I was the third of my mother's children to get shot. And I remember my older brother got shot like we had it felt like a family crisis in that moment and I think that was the last stage where I ever felt like gun violence felt like a crisis and then it became normal. So like so many of my friends have been shot, have been murdered. And so in that moment, you know, there was a couple of things that happened when I was in the hospital. Like I remember the officers coming in and being like, who shot you? And I was like, I don't know. I genuinely didn't know if I knew I probably, I'm definitely not have said anything like I was living a very particular lifestyle. But they're reacting to that like stuck with me. Like this just kind of anger and this kind of blame the victim. You know, it's like, you're the reason why this has happened.

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