Hi, I'm Mayan Beallik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to part two of our conversation with Shaka Sanghor. He's a globally recognized resilience expert, bestselling author, and a transformative thought leader. His journey took him from incarceration for 19 years, including seven years in solitary confinement, to a career where he empowers executives, entrepreneurs, athletes, and audiences around the world. We're discussing his book, How To Be Free, A Proven Guide to Escaping Life's Hidden Prisons. In part one of our conversation, we talked about the journey that he took for the first 19 years of his life and how that ended him up in prison with an almost 40-year sentence. In part two, we get to his personal transformation and what we all can learn about transforming the limits of our own lives. If you've ever imagined yourself trying to accomplish something other than what you're doing right now, he provides the hope, the inspiration, and the way forward. We're also going to focus on forgiveness, anger, and the PTSD symptoms that have not left him since he got out of prison. Really, really important. Part two of our conversation, we can't wait for you to hear it. Here is part two of our conversation with Shaka Senghor. Break it down. Once you got out, you were able to begin a career as a writer, which ended up being, I mean, I think better than your wildest dreams. This is your third book. So can you talk a little bit about how it all came to be that Oprah eventually read your book? It's the wildest story. So my journey as a writer has been the craziest whining role. You know, so I published this first book from prison and you know the first thing I did when I walked out of prison, they took me to the parole office, and as soon as I got done talking about parole office, I saw my first book out the trunk in the parole office parking lot. And that was just like the greatest affirming thing of like, because I was telling this guy who was coming home, you know, you come home and they give you whatever cash you have in your account, they give it to you in cash.

And this guy probably had like $35 and I was like, I told him I was like, you know, I get out of them selling books, blah, blah. And it's funny because like every, every year, you know, it pops up on Facebook and man have a little set of breaks because it's a photo of it. just a photo of me selling him the book.

And he just gave me pretty much more than half

of what he had to buy a book.

And I was like, I don't have any change.

And he was like, pretty much more than half

of what he had to buy a book.

And I was like, I don't have any change. And he was like, keep the 20, you know? And so I sold that book. And I got out and I was just like, I'm gonna go and sell books everywhere. And I literally went everywhere. Anywhere people were parks, strip clubs. I was like, I ain't had no money to make it rain,

but I got these books.

Like, you want to buy a book?

Trade a book for a lap dance?

I don't know, but I sold them, I mean I went to churches, I went to parks. I would like to take a backpack and just like, I got 10 books, I'm not coming back in until those books are sold. And slowly but surely, people started getting kind of momentum. And, you know, and then I also had posted on like Facebook that, I'm gonna post on Facebook like three days after I'm home. I'm just like, if you got music that I can review, like just send it to me. And because I was just trying to get caught up on music, like in prison, they had stopped us from getting CDs and tapes had winning stings. there was a gap of probably about eight years where I didn't have access to new music. And a local newspaper saw the post and was like, Hey, can you review music for our newspaper? So I'm like, okay. So I started doing these reviews. And then one day they was like, can you like cover this story one of our writers are down I'm like I told the editor. I'm like I've never I'm not a journalist But I can try and I'll go and I write this I go to do this view movie the movie wasn't that great But it was it was a movie about like this guy And God it was like some type of gospel movie was it was movie, but it wasn't, it wasn't the most amazing, but the actor in it, he had an incredible story. And so I wrote about his life. He was like addicted to drugs and then he found theater and movies and so I ended up writing and the newspaper gets like more responses than it's ever got from like any story. And so they started asking me to just like cover like local stories and I would go and talk to business owners and people and you know actors and comedians and I would just like write these stories that became a big part of the newspaper. And simultaneously I'm just hustling these books and then I started I would put together like these book signers like you know 10 people would come out for people would buy a book And I started realizing when would put together like these books, I had people who were by a book. And I started realizing when I would go volunteer speak at schools, I would sell more books. And I started getting people just book me to come speak. And my only agreement would be, can I bring like 100 books? And I would like sell all of them if I got done talking. And so that, what happened started to happen was that people would say to me, you don't seem like someone who's been in prison. Like the way that you speak, you don't talk like someone who's been in prison, they meant it in the most loving way, but I'm like, I just love the greatest philosophers, the greatest legal minds, the greatest thinkers and strategists, and we were having profound conversations and these men are incredibly articulated. They are amazing and you know all the things and that's when I decided to write my memoir called writing my wrongs. And so I write this book and now I'm going from like I put my first book signing together around that book and I remember I remember going to

the lady I did at the museum in this Charles H. Wright museum in Detroit and I remember going to talk to the lady about doing it then she was like what are you talking about? He's like this is like you're gonna you're about to spend money to rent this place out. And she's like people not gonna come out like that for like books. And I'm like, this is just a great thing

about being naive.

As I think when you're naive about something, you're willing to try harder. And you know, and I was like, yeah, that doesn't sound like a lot of people to you, but I think I'm gonna get a lot of people to come out. And so I just got out in the streets, it was passing on flyers, yeah, I got this book sign come in, come to the book signing by a blah,

and like 400 people show up.

And I like to literally sell 400 books the first time

I do this book signing coming, come to the book signing by a fly, and like 400 people show up. And I regularly sell 400 books the first time I do a book signing at this place. And I'm like in this self-publish. And so I started getting more and more, I was booking myself, I was like my own speaking agent. And then one time I get invited to speak, I became a fellow at MIT Media Lab. And one of the advisors of the fellowship was like, hey, we want you to come speak at this event and you talk. And so I'm like, I'll come do it, whatever, right? So this is the craziest thing. So they invite me and then they send me this little booklet. And the booklet has who's going to be at the event. So I'm going through it. I don't know none of these people, except for two people. One was Mellie Hobson, and I knew who Mellie Hobson was because I was reading Black Enterprise when I was in prison and she used to write a column on finance. And she was just so intriguing to me because she was this little sweet Black lady who was managing all this money. I had never heard of such a thing. And then other person was George Lucas. I don't know who George Lucas is. So I'm like, okay, if those two people in the room is supposed to be an incredible room, I go to the organizer and I say, hey, can I send you books to put in their swag bags? And she was like, sure, I didn't have any money at the time. I probably had about maybe $300 in my business account. And I'm sending 100 books, which was like 25 dollars a piece. It's like $2500 worth of books. And so I sent it and I go and do this talk. And I just remember like a moment in the talk and melody was like sitting right her and drugs sitting right in front I remember this moment like during the talk where melody was just like tears and I was just like man I'm like I felt like I was doing my thing right So they had a hospitality suite. I'm in a hospitality suite. This guy comes up to me, he's a pseudo-on-clean-cut guy.

He was like us, black guy, and he's like,

I got a bone to pick with you.

And I'm like, oh, man, you know, I'm like, here we go.

I'm thinking he's about to be like, you know, I'm trying to hear, and he's hood stories, and blah, blah, why didn't you go to college? He is like, man, he's like,

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