651: Shaka Senghor - From Prison to Purpose: Breaking Mental Barriers, Working with Mentors, and Leading Through Vulnerability (How To Be Free)

Jim Collins told me on episode number 216 that the single greatest determining factor in my long-term success or failure would be my who. Who I chose to surround myself with and that conversation has had a huge impact on how I've designed my business and one of the most important elements or services that I provide is my learning leader circle and I open up applications one time per year and that time is now at learningleaderscircle.com is where you can apply. Now this is the most inefficient element of my business because I personally read every application and I personally choose who will go on to the next round and then who will ultimately be one of the 12 people to be in my next learning leader circle and I only do it one time per year and that time is now. If you are intentional about surrounding yourself with others who will push you, challenge you, make you think differently, if you're willing to self-reflect and do some work this could be for you and you can apply at learningleaderscircle.com. We meet once per month on Zoom and then we meet one time per year in person for our leadership retreat for members of my learning leader circle. So if you'd like to apply go to learningleaderscircle.com. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show! I am your host Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Shaka Sengur spent 19 years in prison for killing a man. He since transformed his life through not making excuses and taking full ownership of his decisions. Now he's a New York Times best-selling author who has been called a quote soul igniter by Oprah. His latest book is called How to Be Free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons. During our conversation we discussed what happened on that night many years ago when he decided to shoot a man which ultimately led to his death, why he did it and what he's learned from it. Then Shaka takes us inside what it was like in prison including seven years in solitary confinement. Then he shares the importance of the mentors in his life both the ones he met in prison and outside of it. This is a raw and honest look at the life of a guy who has made mistakes, learned from them and is helping people in a big way. Ladies and gentlemen please enjoy my conversation with Shaka Sengur. Let's go to your story man because it's super inspiring and there's a lot to get to. So growing up you're an honor roll student, you have dreams of becoming a doctor one day, scholarships, all this stuff and then you are 17 years old and you get shot three times standing on the corner of your block in Detroit. And then 14 months later you made a choice that changed your life forever. What did you choose to do that day? Yeah when I think of that night that pivotal night 1991 two in the morning I got into a conflict and I had created this narrative after I got shot when I was 17 that said if I found myself in a conflict I would shoot first and 14 months later I got into a conflict and fired what turned out to be four shots that tragically caused the man's death for which I was subsequently arrested charged with open murder in sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder. What happened that night what made you choose to shoot first? You know when I reflect back on that night I think there were a combination of things and one I always just want to start with this it is one of the most regrettable horrendous decisions that I could have ever made that night and because I think it's important for people to understand that decision was filtered through high levels of gun trauma child abuse etc and it's not an excuse as an explanation because I think it's really important for people to understand how a human being with so much potential can arrive in that moment and for me what it came down to is simply being afraid. I was afraid that something was going to happen to me and I reacted out of that fear in the most extreme of ways and tragically caused the man's death something that I live with to this day no matter how much forgiveness I've received or how far away from that incident you know the reality is that that's one of those things that is permanent it's one of the things I try to teach to young people about understanding the permanence of a 32nd decision. You go on to serve 19 years in jail seven of those years in solitary confinement which blows my mind I want to dig into some of the things that happened over the course of those 19 years. One of the things you talked about and you've written about is the importance of mentors even mentors in prison can you go deeper on some of the people you met including the ones who were there for life but some of the ones that you met that changed your life while you were in prison. Yeah you know when I served the total of 19 years and you know I describe it as you know a tale of two worlds basically it was the best of times and truly the worst of times and in a midst of that horrendous environment I discovered some of the most incredible human beings imaginable these are men who are serving life sentences and they just came equipped with so much wisdom about what's on the other side of a prison sentence as you can imagine when I went in I was 19 and I was facing nearly two decades so I didn't think anything was on the other side of that prison sentence other than dying in prison because at 19 you just can't imagine two decades in the future that you'll ever be out of prison and so those mentors they guided me to books and those books completely shattered all of the old narratives and really opened me up to the possibilities that there could be a life after this environment but I had to be willing to do the work. What were some of the books that you read initially that opened your eyes to the power of books? This is always one of my favorite questions I've read sons of books a lot of philosophy, Plato, Meditations and Machiavelli and you know I read all of these incredible philosophy books but I really started with books that were not considered philosophical they were books with titles like Pimp by Iceberg Slim, Dope Theme by Donald Gones, Black Gangster by Donald Gones but what those books did is they became my gateway and they became my gateway to just understanding that the written word held treasures that I can unwrap anytime that I was willing to venture into a book and so I began to read everything Stephen King, Sydney Sheldon the most transformative book would I would say would be Malcolm X's autobiography because I saw myself in that story but I probably read over 1500 books throughout my incarceration and I was a voracious reader as I am now but I knew that that was going to give me an opportunity to imagine a new life for myself. Wow isn't it cool what I didn't grow up like a super curious kid I'd read like sports books like little ones not like a lot but then remember getting my professional life and somebody gave me good to great book about like going from good to great from a business and I remember finishing it thinking this is insane like how much I've learned just from reading a book and what I think the cool thing about that books can do is one then leads to the next and the next because you didn't even realize like the power of just the written word I'd love to hear more about you 1500 that's crazy I'd imagine you know I haven't been in jail but it sounds like that's what you were spending the bulk of your time doing either talking to mentors or reading books. Absolutely so when I was a kid when I was about eight years old I learned how to speed read and it was one of the things that I loved and my love for reading started with me getting put on punishment so whenever my parents would put me on punishment you know there was no TV no radio there was only encyclopedias and so I know a bunch of random things like I probably know some of the most random facts my son is always amazed when we're watching Jeopardy and he's like how you know that dad I'm like probably from a punishment when I was about your age but what books did for me was they allowed me to escape in the most literal sense of getting out of the world that I was in and so whenever I was in my cell which was a lot that spent most of my time in higher security levels I just read you know I would read anything and then I would break it up to where I would go to the library and I would get five fiction books and two nonfiction it gave me a great balance and people underestimate the power of fiction to really speak the truth and so I'm still a big fan of fiction I don't read it as much as I used to because I'm busy reading other nonfiction things but I looked at books as a portal into other worlds and I really understood early on that that portal into other worlds was one it was a blessing because the average reading grade level in prison is third grade so I was fortunate just to be literate in an environment where literacy is not the norm and it's something that I will never take for granted it's why I'm still you know read as much as I do now because it truly is a privilege. One of the other things it can lead to especially in your case is becoming an excellent writer. I know if I get any sort of writer's block it's usually because I haven't read enough or I haven't been reading enough and so you obviously read a ton of books and then started writing and now you're a New York Times best-selling author I was just rereading your most recent one leading up to today struggling to stop you know what I mean like that's when you know a book is good when you're really struggling to put the thing down or struggling to I like to read on the elliptical it's kind of weird but like on my iPad and I'm just going forever which is kind of good right because I'm working my body and my mind at the same time but but I think that's the mark of a really good book when you really struggle to stop so what was it about reading that led to you becoming such a good writer? I love the craft and to be a practitioner of the craft you have to do it every day so for me what reading that it would inspire me like just learning new words and you know reading some of the greatest writers ever I was always fascinated with their minds right like you know I think about Stephen King and like how incredibly curious his mind had to be for him to be that brilliant of a writer and so for me I just fell in love with words you know I fell in love with the ability for people to transport me into other spaces I love autobiographical writings because I just love really exploring a person's inner world and how do they think about adversity how do they think about happiness and joy and it just allowed me to feel those things and I knew as a writer I wanted to be one who captured the senses that people experience I wanted to be able to really transport you into that world and keep you there as long as possible so that you can really get the depth of what it is that I wanted to share and so I'm happy to hear the new book is resonating in such a way that you were able to burn a few new calories so that's that's always a great sign. What also has this journal like feel almost like you're letting me read your diary and yeah I don't know we kind of like that idea and it's also the really scary some of the people you've written about especially in your childhood where the potential abuse and your parents having regrets over maybe not protecting you like that's it's hard to read but also again maybe the wrong word like fascinating to read about your story and how you're willing to kind of put it out there that takes some guts I'm curious about your willingness to be vulnerable and to have the guts to share just the raw truth of your pain of you having to be resilient of you fighting through of the difficult conversations you've had with your parents right I love just to hear how you approach that and your willingness to publicly share it. You know it's one of the things that I had to reconcile very early on as a writer and I think the reason I'm able to be so vulnerable is because I discovered that I can actually write a whole book through journaling so about 25 years ago when I first started this the deep transformative journey it started through journaling and through that journaling I was just able to get so real with myself and so honest and it was the most healing experience I've ever had was to be able to speak to my truth speak to the pain points you know the things that I'm talking about in this book I think are invaluable for society especially for you know people navigating their own hidden prisons things that they haven't been able to talk about and I wanted to be a guide in that way because I've really lived through some tough things things that are unimaginable for most people and most people will never live through a lot of these things but there are some things that we all grapple with shame, anger, guilt, you know grief no one's going to get through this life without going through grief and I felt like the work that I've done over the years to kind of fortify my spirit really equips me with all the things I need to share in such a vulnerable way and give other people permission to do so as well which is how I really arrived here. You wrote that prison it's designed to break you what you discovered is that the most powerful prisons aren't the ones made of concrete and steel they're the ones we carry with us as you said built from grief, anger, shame, trauma and self-doubt here's what I've learned prisons have doors and those doors can be opened how do you help others maybe people who haven't gone to prison but maybe they have prisons within their own mind how do you help people open up the prisons within their own mind one of the ways that I help people open up is is helping them recognize that they have a community of people who have broken free what I discovered on my journey was that I was in prison before I was stepped foot in the cell and I was free before they ever let me out and I discovered that when I realized that I had bought into a narrative that was handed down to me early on that said your life can only end up in prison or dead and when I looked around my community at the gun violence I looked at how many of my friends had been murdered or ended up in prison I bought into that narrative and once I discovered that I can change that narrative internally I knew that one I had to create community of other people's who desired that and so that started in prison with doing study groups and things of that nature and since I've been out I've been able to share in such an open and honest way that I get people from every walk of life you can imagine from ultra successful vcs to just the everyday person trying to unlock a thing that they felt has held them in place and being in community has really created space for one us to share it's one of our the most natural things we crave as human beings is to really connect with other human beings what has happened in society is that we started to shame people for being vulnerable specifically men were taught very early on that we can't cry we can't be soft we can't show any care and what I'm saying is that I am dispelling that myth because I've already lived through the toughest things imaginable so I don't have to prove toughness and what I've been able to do is articulate the power of vulnerability the power of being present in your own life and really taking a risk and a chance to be in community with others who seek the same thing and I think that's one of the greatest unlocks that we all have access to it's a really powerful part of your book your most recent one and you quote bernay brown and I think she's been a champion with this stuff too over the past few years what has happened in leadership shock I think is there are some people though who use it as a tool to manipulate other people I don't like that element of vulnerability right they overshare or or they share some sort of trauma that maybe isn't even true because it they use it as a tool to hopefully get people to like them or to feel bad for them how do we get this right how do we make sure that we share in a raw true honest way but not overshare or not overdo it to where it starts getting to be like cringy to some people because they feel like people are using it in the wrong way I think that human beings we as a species we have this innate ability to really suss out the truth right and so authenticity in vulnerability is the super unlock and being true to your center right like I knew going into corporate that you know I couldn't be as candid about my experiences I could maybe be in a nonprofit setting right where kind of sharing trauma is a healing way that you get things done but in corporate what I found is true to what you said like there is the ability to exploit and you know we always have to be aware of that but I think when you have great leadership who leads with vulnerability and say hey here's the direction the company is really going in I'm not going to sell you on the idea that everything is okay and so that professional vulnerability is important for leadership now a leader coming in and saying you know me and my wife got into a dust-up last night and I think she was really wrong that that is like very manipulative and very you know dishonest in terms of like what it means to be a vulnerable leader because now you're just dumping your problems on your whole team and wanting us to solve for it but I think that honesty in terms of saying hey here's how you're performing you really ace this or hey I think you can step it up a little bit and do it in a way that's not weaponized is one of the most empowering things you can do and I've had that experience and I had a great CEO at our company and we would have these very candid kind of sometimes knock down drag out conversations but I knew that he wanted me to be my best because that's what we built the foundation on is that hey we're going to agree to challenge each other to push each other to grow together and we're going to be in this thing together we're going to not agree all the time but if we are always honest we'll get to a desired outcome and to me that's great leadership great leadership sign of a really healthy culture too where you can disagree you can commit you get going but you're not afraid to to see it and say it one of the people you write about in your acknowledgement section which I enjoyed reading is a guy that I feel like I've read has been talking about you for a while has been Horowitz you wrote thank you for being the dopest rawest and realest friend and brother what's that relationship like with Ben Horowitz and how do you guys get so close yeah Ben and I are like really like brothers it's one of my life experiences that when I look back on the likelihood of us becoming really best friends and great friends is something nobody could have written that script we were from vastly different experiences but the thing we have so much in common you know and it's really started with like a great conversation over music which stem from he met Oprah Oprah told him about my story he shared that with his wife Felicia Felicia looked me up and was like hey we would love to go out to dinner with you all and I talk about that in the books great great story but from that dinner Ben and I ended up hanging out one night till about three in the morning literally just talking history culture business you know music and that was kind of the bridge that really brought us together you know you think about someone like Ben Ben doesn't need new friends right if anything he has to protect himself from you know many people trying to become friends and the same with myself it's like I'm I'm very nice and kind but I'm not super like hey let's just like pal around like we got to really build trust and we got to build authenticity and so our relationship man is as real as it gets you know he's one of the people that I go to when I have an idea about something and and he gives me just you know honest feedback his thoughts and the same with him right he'll come to me with an idea and you know if it's an amazing dope idea I'm like yo I love this if not I'm like you know I would have had you thought about it this way right and so we get a chance to talk about life you know how do we impact the world I think I'm the leader that I am now at this stage of my life and my career because of you know our conversations and I'm just fortunate to have friends across many sectors of my life that we just get to the truth really really fast you know one of the commonalities I've seen shaka and people and leaders specifically who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time is that right there is that they surround themselves with high character highly competent people who are willing to tell them the truth and you're willing to tell them the truth and again hitting back on the mentors thing which we started on earlier with what you learned in prison from some of those wiser older people who got you on the books that kind of kitchen cabinet or that personal board of advisors your foxhole group of friends I feel like that is absolutely one of the things that separates the great most productive achievers in the world from those who are just average or good can you go deeper on creating your who of being very intentional about those people you choose to have in your life that actually goes back to my time spent in prison and we had a very distorted philosophy around how you built friendships and the criteria was when you look at this person are they willing to serve a life sentence for you or are they willing to die for you so it's the most extreme kind of social connecting points in the most extreme environments but fundamentally what it came back to is does this person really have your back and your best interest at heart and what we developed in there was accountability you know if you say you're going to be on the yard this day to be in a study group about a book we are reading then you have to show up and be accountable and if not you owe us push-ups you know you owe us laps on the track you owe us pull-ups to prove that hey I wasn't just dismissing my responsibility and I'm going to be accountable and so that accountability factor became really integral to how I think about friendships how do you show up as a father is really important to me how do you show up if you're married like those things are really important because those are the building blocks of your life right it's like how do you treat your family are you loyal to them if you can't be loyal to your family it's impossible for you to be loyal to me and I think the same show is true in work right where you have a trist and you have people who are just on board for the good parts of the business but what about when things go wrong are those people going to get into trenches with you and if you really understand their personal ecosystem you'll know what type of character you're dealing with that's the criteria you know of friendships for me is like can we get honest with each other really fast I mean I've had friendships that started in one conversation that's endured forever you know one of my best friends he's now free his name is Calvin I talk about him in the book he did 24 years for a crime he didn't commit and the way he showed up as a human being with joy and laughter to this day as much as I've gone through I'm never sure if I can get to where he's been but he's one of the people that I can just talk his ear off about here's what I'm dreaming about life and he's always there and now he's free and living his life and we keep each other accountable you know he's he's in Detroit I'm in LA we check in hey are you how's things going with what you're building how can I support if either of us are kind of like falling off we're pushing each other you know and so that to me sets up success in so many other areas of life fatherhood I wouldn't be the father I am without the friends that I have being a husband now like I wouldn't be able to navigate a relationship without having people who I trust who have done it far longer than I've done and so all those things kind of ladder up to business and life and entrepreneurship well having those people that have your back especially when it's tough whether you're in prison or not when you were in though how scary was it like violence physically all the stuff that you hear about was that real for you did you have to deal with that how did you manage it if it was real I am curious about that yeah I mean you know the first person I went into was called the gladiator school is Michigan Reformatory and I only was called the gladiator school and it was like you know the extreme levels of violence you know you're dealing with 1500 or so young guys from between age of 15 to like 27 I mean my first day in prison a guy got stabbed in a corridor going to the chow hall and it set the tone for what I understood that environment to be it's going to be the most extremely violent you got to choice and whether you're going to be a lion or a lamb and you know you had to be willing to defend yourself now there's tons of ways to stay out of the mix of things right kind of stay to yourself don't gamble don't play basketball or football or get in a mix of everything you can kind of try to fly below the radar there's a tough environment it's very predatory it's very alpha male oriented and violence rules the kind of yard right like might as right in that environment and so you know I tell people like I wasn't a model prisoner by any stretch of the imagination the first part of my incarceration I mean I was in maximum security I accumulated about 35 misconducts that ranged from assault on staff, assault on inmate, dangerous contraband I was in it but I had also come from a violent street environment so really it was like another neighborhood and sadly and tragically that's the case for a lot of a lot of the men in there but fortunately you know we began to realize that we had the choice in the means to kind of change the narrative of that environment and so instead of a first reaction violence became kind of a last resort you know we learned to be diplomatic but the reality was diplomacy only worked as far as you were willing to go in terms of violence if necessary and you know it took years for me to kind of work that out of my system and recognize that my ability to articulate things from a diplomatic standpoint was master level in terms of skill set and it allowed me to really resolve problems in a non-violent way. How do you manage that now I mean it's different you're out in the world but there's still moments where people have to defend themselves or you know so anything happens you're a family man right you protect your family above all else do you ever experience any of that now or how do you use some of the skills that you developed while in prison of maybe not having to use violence or to be violent or even to defend yourself because if not you could be really hurt or killed what did you learn in there that you now use out here? What I learned in there is that violence especially reactionary violence is typically born out of fear being afraid and if you think about a prison environment so much about that existence is proven that you're unafraid even when you are afraid and what I've learned as a man in just growing up and navigating life is that fear is okay fear is actually a safety tool it's probably the thing that kept our ancestors from getting you know mauled by lions and tigers back back in the day just a healthy dose of fear and so what I've learned is that one try not to put myself in environments that even can escalate to a conflict whenever possible right and which isn't always doable right I've had dust-ups happen since I've been out in society where I was like okay I have a choice here and what I centered on is like I know who I am like I don't have anything to prove in this outcome so how can I help this person who I'm really looking at you know a child showing up in an adult body and once I was able to see the child in people it stops me from being over reactionary right and then there was another part of me that at one point I was afraid to actually become angry because the last time I become really angry almost led to me never getting out of prison and so it wasn't until I gave myself permission to be a full human being and to say you know what I'm actually really angry about this situation and I can think about something that's harmful to this person but I'm not going to react to that thought and that I'm going to develop other thoughts right and so I started to think about who this person is as a human being and now that takes a long time to get there right that's that's development repetition over time but I think if you just start to practice it where you can see the child in a person that's acting out what is this person afraid of why are they showing up so angry and something that doesn't even rise to the occasion to be angry about and if you can see that child in that person it really equips you to have more empathy and compassion and to be able to stand on whatever principles that you have without escalating to a thing that becomes a potentially violent conflict. What was the event that almost caused you to stay in jail? I got into a conflict with physical altercation with an officer which led to me being in solitary confinement for four and a half years and so this officer and I we got into this conflict and it escalated into a full on fight and I ended up being sentenced to an additional two years in prison and what turned out to be four and a half years in solitary confinement as a result and it's the thing about my prison experience that it took me years to reconcile that I didn't think that I was wrong in my reaction to the instigation but in hindsight there are steps that I could have took even when it was escalated to walk away from that situation and I just wasn't willing to back down you know it almost cost me the rest of my life in prison. One of the things you talked about in the resilience chapter, chapter six is every month while you're in solitary confinement you would fast for three days. Why would you do that? So one of the ways that whenever the officers were upset they could concoct a means by which to deprive you regular food and put you on food restriction which consisted of what we call food loaves so they would take all the food of the day mashed it up baked it into this brick and then serve you that for a meal and usually they took all the leftover food from the week and just mixed it up with oatmeal and jello compounded it into this brick and then they would serve it to you and so because I was in there for an assault on an officer and some of the officers didn't like me I had to prepare myself for them depriving me of food and that was the initial start of it and but what I discovered that it was one of the greatest lessons on resilience and discipline and healing and quieting the mind and the body and learning to trust myself you know trust myself in moments of extreme hunger that I would be all right and it's the thing that I you know I apply to this day you know not necessarily the physical fast but more of that mental toughness and resilience and knowing that whatever adversity that I'm going through I have the mental fortitude to navigate my way through it. I feel like voluntary hardship is a great way to prepare yourself for the inevitable adversity that you will face even though that's unknown so something like one of the phrases I like to use is just take the stairs so like when the stairs are right next to the elevator or like an escalator at an airport just choosing the one that's a little bit harder it's still not that hard just to walk up stairs but it's a little bit harder than just standing on an escalator and I feel like that's a much smaller version of you choosing to like prepare yourself that you might not get food and so you want to mentally and physically prepare yourself to do that how do you do that in other elements of life or how could that be helpful for other people to prepare themselves for the inevitable adversity that's going to strike for them. What I realized is that none of us get through life without suffering at some point none of us are going to get through life without adversity without hardship I mean it could be a sick parent it can be a loss at a job you name it we're going to go through it and I think that practice of challenging yourself right setting a goal for yourself I mean you know I do it as a writer you know you have to be disciplined to finish a book now I love chaos I love to write on planes trains automobiles when a lot is going on around me but with the inside that there's still the discipline right of showing up and making sure I'm pushing myself and so what I would say to your audience is that don't be afraid of challenging yourself pushing yourself setting a goal for yourself whatever it is you know whether you want to write whether you want to get in shape whether you want to get that job that you really desire just put in that extra work and see that work as the discipline see that as the fast right that extra hour a week you know can change your life's outcomes and if you're willing to do it and you'll be so proud of yourself as the other part you know I remember the first time I did that three-day fast the first time I tried it I didn't succeed I stopped there like day two but I was I was proud you know when I got to day three and I was even prouder when I got to it like the third or fourth time because at that point it was easy give me yourself something to be proud of is something I always encourage people to do you know writing in your journal meditating exercising whatever that thing is that you feel gives you a sense of accomplishment I say do it consistently uh and it's a game changer yeah when you choose it for yourself and then you do it and follow through one you like gain trust and I believe confidence because you do what you say you're going to do you followed through on something hard and I think confidence needs evidence and at that point you just regularly were creating evidence for yourself that you can do the hard thing whatever the hard thing is and I think that's portable to other parts of your life like I can do the three-day fast I've proven to myself I can do the hard thing I have this evidence so whatever the next hard thing is perhaps it's one that I do not choose I can do it I can do that thing and I think that's that's a big part of your story too a resilience of choosing to do that because it prepares you for whatever that hard thing is going to be and you'll be better suited to handle it and to get through it and to thrive through it by regularly practicing it for yourself absolutely and this is exactly what you say is that evidence right like you know I when I was writing a book my son was diagnosed with type one diabetes and when I tell you it was one of the hardest things to have to reconcile in real time you know as a dad you know I've done everything I can to protect my son from my experiences and what my life was and you know to have such an incredible kid have to grapple with a life changing event and to be a dad and have to sit with that and be present with him and be his strength when he's going through the most difficult time of his young life those prior lessons really equip me with how to be steady you know the vulnerability was there you know I had to be vulnerable with my son and say hey you know this is a tough journey and sometimes life gives challenges to warriors that you know you didn't ask for right but it was given to you and I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't had to go through and overcome those tough things especially the self-imposed ones because they allowed me to get over the ones that were not ideally chosen and so I encourage people to think about those moments in their life when they're going to be confronted with something tough and it's not to scare people like you know this is an inevitability of life right is that you're going to go through things and some of them aren't going to be extreme and what I tell people is you can't get into the trauma comparisons right because your your challenge doesn't have to be as tough as that but you're going to go through life challenges right and if you prepare yourself you're just better equipped to navigate those things and lead and come out on the other side with positive outcomes. You'll also become more composed you write about composure you say it's a lifelong practice it's the art of balancing ambition with patience of navigating the rip currents of life without losing your sense of self it's about standing firm in your identity even when others try to impose their narratives on you. Composure is so key from a leadership perspective Shaka you know this and again your work can really help people develop this skill and I believe it is a skill to develop you feel like a very composed leader a very composed human what have you done to develop this really useful skill of being a composed person. When I think about what really led me here it was journaling because when I journal I would go back and read the times when I wasn't composed when I didn't have it together when I lost my way when I allow circumstances to drive my actions versus me really accessing them and knowing the cost of losing it right which was you know led to that fatal night of pulling that trigger and when you have something that is a reminder that serious and that deep and that life changing if you can tap into the conscious awareness that there's a different path you can take you can help other people find that within themselves. One of the things that I learned being at the company we you know had to navigate the pandemic as a travel and expense company when travel that completely came to a halt and I mean our CEO could have said you know what that's it for this company I'm going to build something else but his ability to see the future and to calm everybody in the company by pulling us together and saying here's our strengths you know let's look at all this stuff on paper here's what we've actually accomplished it's the same thing for me as journaling I was able to go back and say you know here's my weaknesses you know this anger this is what this anger has led me to what about the times I navigated life when I wasn't angry and what was the positive outcome that created so having that evidence right is why I just encourage people to journal throughout the book I keep coming back to the power of writing it down and seeing it because once you've kind of written it down you own it and when you own it you can control it and when you can control it you know it's easy to become composed right and not lose it in traffic when somebody cuts you off or you know some of one of your colleagues are not being earnest and honest and you're just like you want to lose it in that all hands meeting you can kind of sit with that and say you know what I'm going to lead with a positive outcome in mind and not derail this whole thing because I got caught up in a moment and I think that's some of the unlocks that I offer because we all had those hidden prisons that you know in the design of the book I put a door that literally is open because like sometimes you go back into these prisons right you don't always get out and stay out some of them can pull you back in grief being one of them right it's easy to get pulled back into that you can be triggered by a song go and experience or someone else dies or you lose another opportunity but if you have those tools in your toolbox you know what to do every time let's get practical for a second when it comes to journaling because I'm with you I think you don't fully know what you think or believe about something until you get the thoughts out of your head onto the page what is your journaling is it just blank page free right are there prompts is it a combination of those what's your journaling like actually look like when you do it so one of the one of the things for me I give myself permission to be completely in presence like just super present with myself and so it looks a lot of different ways right I have actually about 20 different journals and some I may choose one day because I like the texture of the paper my wife bought me this beautiful kind of tattered journal is one of my favorites to write in because the paper is kind of ruffled and just that feeling of writing on that paper really kind of moves my thoughts forward sometimes it's I'm in a shower and I'm just like I'm struck by a thought and I'm like you know what I hop out and I'll journal in my notes on my phone you know sometimes I'm reading a great book and I'm struck by something that triggers a whole train of thought so most of my books have like some of the best internal dialogue that I have with myself and so what I try to do is structure I think is really powerful and beautiful as our boundaries I think you can get super free in those but also kind of deconstruct some of those things because what's inside must come out and so I try to give myself permission to just get it out as whatever way you know I'm feeling and then there is also that very meditative intentional I got some cold train playing in the background candles lit lights are dim I'm in my office and I'm just in a zone of free flowing thoughts which I really love love that as well you write a lot from where you're at right now I do so I come out I come out here I write a lot on planes which is like one of my favorite plays the right you know whenever I'm traveling I get excited when I have like a long flight because I'm like oh I'm about to get a lot of writing done but yeah you know I'm I'm here in my office sometime late two three in the morning and then you know sometime I'm just sitting on the couch zoned out depending on you know what my wife or my son is doing and you know I just try to find different spaces you know I go and it's different phases too right so when I'm in that first kind of ideating phase I'm mostly in public spaces because I just I love observing people and behavior and you know I have my headphones on you know zoned out but then when I get down to that deep storytelling this is I'm kind of hunkered down in my office it's kind of interesting how everyone has their different way like I personally love love the early early morning hours it's dark I don't turn the lights on it's just the the light of my laptop my family's asleep it's just me you know like I don't have to answer to anybody for maybe an hour and a half or so and it's like let's go and get it all out and I feel like it's just an amazing that combined within a physical workout I don't know if there's a better for me a better way to start the day than to get all the thoughts out to get all the writing out there then physically punish my body like in the weight room or running or whatever it's like let's go that's just an amazing way I think everybody needs to find what their thing is like figure out their way I do think writing those should be a part of that for all leaders to get clear to understand themselves better to really figure out like what you believe about something you just got to do some of that hard work of getting those thoughts out and I feel like that's something that you're really really good at yeah no I agree with you know I started a day with meditation usually I just try to meditate and then I do like a gratitude offering of just finding small things that I'm thankful for I think it's so powerful now we have so much technology at our disposal journaling can look any kind of way you know sometimes it's a voice memo if you're super busy and you're like you know what I don't got the piano pad handy don't have voice memo because you you it's when you're in the moment of it all there is something so profound about being able to go back and see how you thought about a thing in the moment versus you've had time you know so you know those are great unlocks for leaders and I really hope people just take all of these kind of exercises these kind of tactical things and really apply them to life you know this this book was so fun to write and it was tough to write as well but the fun part of it is I know that it's going to help a lot of people unlock their full potential and like that just brings me so much joy to know that I'm additive in that way yeah one more thing from the book chapter 10 I just love this quote you use I'm probably going to use it at some point so you're right about success yeah and there's this Florence Nightingale quote that you have to start it that says quote I attribute my success to this I never gave or took any excuse what does that quote mean to you to me it means everything you know when I'm mentoring there's two things that I really challenge my mentees on one take every excuse off the table other one is master your thinking you can master your destiny and for me the excuse is really built into my experience of getting out of prison with a felony and having a felony on my record being convicted of a violent crime having spent two decades in prison I had every excuse in the book not to succeed and so for me even though other people thought those excuses should lead to me leading a mediocre life I chose to lead a great life and I chose to face those adversities head on face those obstacles head on find a way make a way create a way ask for a way and that's how I consistently have shown up in my life and it's led to one of the most magical lives ever the things that I get a chance to experience I talk about in the book is something that is beyond most human beings comprehension but the secret sauce to that is I removed every excuse I'm not going to allow my past to define me I'm going to choose a future of my own making and then I'm going to put the work in and it's going to be tough and it's going to be hard and doors are going to be slammed in my face and clothes and people are going to you know hold me hostage to the felony and I'm going to keep putting one foot forward every single day every minute of the day every second and if I continue to do that life will look different and I will be able to live and experience life in a beautiful magical way and that's what I've done and that's what I want to show other people how to do I never gave or took any excuse master your thinking master your destiny the book is called how to be free a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prison shocker extremely not surprising considering your Ted talk and all the other things you've written it's extremely well done and as I told you I'm just standing there like moving on the elliptical not stopping just swiping to the next page because it's really well done so thank you for writing it and thank you for being here man I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress man absolutely and thank you so much for having me I'm looking forward to sharing these stories with your listenership so truly honored to be here it is the end of the podcast club thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club if you are send me a note Ryan at learningleader.com let me know what you learned in this great conversation with Shaka Senghor a few takeaways from my notes quote I never gave or took any excuse leaders who sustained excellence over an extended period of time take full ownership of their lives and they do not make excuses no matter what Shaka has done that and it's made him better for it and when I look at all of the leaders over the course of a decade plus of this podcast the ones who make a dent in the world the ones like Shaka they never make excuses and they also don't allow their friends and people in their lives to make them either then master your thinking master your destiny Shaka shared the importance of thinking for yourself reading and getting your thoughts out of your head onto the page through journaling all leaders should do this if they want to impact others if you're listening to this podcast that is you master your thinking master your destiny and then we talked about resilience every month in prison he would fast for three days he wouldn't eat he'd prepare himself for not getting food he wanted to prove to himself that he could do it both mentally and physically we can't be afraid to push ourselves to challenge ourselves to purposely choose the harder path to take the stairs instead of the escalator we are preparing ourselves for the inevitable adversity that will strike once again I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two hey you should listen to this episode of the learning leader show with Shaka Senghor I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show and you're rated hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis and for that I will forever be grateful thank you so so much talking to you can't wait