Oprah & Shaka Senghor on How to Escape Life’s Hidden Prisons

Speaker 1 Hey there, everybody.

Speaker 4 I am so glad to meet up with you here on the Oprah podcast.

Speaker 4 And it is always my great hope that the conversations that you see here or listen to here can serve to open or expand the aperture of your life.

Speaker 4 And on this episode, I really hope we do that because we're exploring this question:

Speaker 13 What does it mean

Speaker 15 to be truly free?

Speaker 17 What would that look like?

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 20 more importantly, what would it feel like inside yourself for you?

Speaker 8 And consider asking yourself, what is holding you back

Speaker 11 from pure freedom?

Speaker 4 I'm here with best-selling author Shaka Senkora.

Speaker 11 Welcome back to the tea house.

Speaker 23 I'm so excited to be here. And thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2 10 years.

Speaker 23 10 years, our 10-year anniversary. I think.

Speaker 23 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Let me tell everyone listening and watching that Shaka and I first met here 10 years ago.

Speaker 4 And as we were saying coming in, a lot of living has happened

Speaker 4 with both of us since then.

Speaker 26 When I first met Shaka Senkor, it had been about six years since he got out of prison after serving 19 years, many of them in solitary confinement, for killing a young man when Shaka himself was just 19.

Speaker 26 It is one of my most memorable interviews ever. We talked about his troubled life that led to that fateful day.

Speaker 24 You just had an aha there.

Speaker 18 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 26 What Shaka has achieved in this decade since that conversation is truly extraordinary. His book, Writing My Wrongs, became a New York Times bestseller.

Speaker 26 He landed and left a high-powered corporate job, started his own business, even collaborated with the rapper Nas on a hit song.

Speaker 26 His new book, How to Be Free, is a must-read for anybody looking to manifest their own vision of freedom.

Speaker 20 What's your advice to anyone who is stuck needing to forgive or be forgiven?

Speaker 26 With How to Be Free, Shaka has written a workbook filled with hard-earned life lessons and practical exercises that he uses, and you can too, to liberate both body and mind.

Speaker 10 Ooh, I love that.

Speaker 31 I fell in love with my mind.

Speaker 4 I love this question of being free.

Speaker 32 So I want to dive right into it because

Speaker 4 it's your newest book, How to Be Free.

Speaker 9 How to Be Free, A Proven Guide to Escaping Life's Hidden Prisons.

Speaker 35 I saw this title and I thought, whoa, how to be free.

Speaker 17 Isn't that one of the core things that we all are striving for?

Speaker 5 And what made you write this?

Speaker 4 Because 10 years ago, you wrote a book called Writing My Wrongs, which I just love that title.

Speaker 37 And how how to be free.

Speaker 24 You've been free now

Speaker 23 for how many years? Coming up on 15 years.

Speaker 23 So it's really amazing to even think about that part of my journey after spending 19 years to now be 15 years this side of freedom.

Speaker 23 And to be able to live this experience is really what inspired the book.

Speaker 11 And you were inspired because you have conversations with other people and you realize there are many people who are

Speaker 11 not like you. They hadn't been to a real prison, hadn't been incarcerated behind bars, but are incarcerated in their own self-imposed bars.
Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah. Yes.
You know, it's been one of the most incredible parts of my journey is to think about what does it even mean to be free.

Speaker 23 And obviously I had the kind of very real experience of being physically incarcerated. But what came up for me was that I was free before I ever got out of prison.

Speaker 23 I was actually free before I even knew I was getting out of prison.

Speaker 23 But I was also incarcerated before I went in because I had bought into a narrative that my life could only have very limited outcomes. And so when I got out and I started...

Speaker 4 Okay, so let's start with that.

Speaker 11 You were incarcerated before you went into prison.

Speaker 40 Absolutely.

Speaker 10 Tell us what that means.

Speaker 23 Yeah, so the mindset that I embraced, this narrative that my life can only have two outcomes, I would be dead or in jail before I was 21.

Speaker 23 And so I lived within this very limited belief about what was its own incarceration. That was my own prison, the own hidden prison.

Speaker 23 and so I began to live my life through that lens and it produced that outcome I ended up being that environment and then when I had this awakening you know I was doing this journaling and just really trying to answer this question of like how did I end up here and what's next for me and this was how many years into your into your imprisonment into your incarceration this was roughly about eight or nine years in I was in solitary confinement and really coming to terms with like what my life had become and I started journaling and just asking these hard questions: how did I end up here?

Speaker 23 And what I discovered was that all these things had happened early in my childhood: the trauma, the abuse, the violence, and most importantly, was the narrative that I embraced.

Speaker 4 And also, the choices that you made as a result of that narrative.

Speaker 23 Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 23 And that was one of the most powerful things: that if I can choose based on this negative narrative and create these negative outcomes, what would happen if I chose positive narrative and started to live my life with those outcomes in mind.

Speaker 21 Because you could really physically see that for yourself when you're journaling and solitary confinement.

Speaker 25 You have a lot of time.

Speaker 14 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And you were able to absolutely go through the patterns that had put you exactly where you were.

Speaker 23 Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. And it was steps.
And it was steps like any other thing that you want to build out. There are steps you have to take.
And I took steps that led me to prison.

Speaker 23 So I was like, what are the steps necessary to lead me out of it and lead me up into the greatest sense of what it means to be free.

Speaker 23 And that journaling really opened up all the possibilities because I fell in love with my mind.

Speaker 14 Ooh, I love that.

Speaker 41 I fell in love with my mind.

Speaker 5 And so long before you were actually

Speaker 42 let

Speaker 9 out of the walls of the prison, you felt that you had liberated yourself within the walls of the prison.

Speaker 2 Tell us about that.

Speaker 23 Yeah,

Speaker 23 what I discovered in that space was that I can go wherever I wanted to to go in my mind and they could take me to places far beyond the prisons.

Speaker 23 But more importantly, what it did is it showed me that there's still possibility. You still have a life left.
And if you can dream, you can actually achieve it.

Speaker 23 Like it was really like, even though it's one of those things we hear all the time, you know, conceive it, dream it, believe it, and it'll happen.

Speaker 23 It really became a mantra for me. And I just started writing down, here's what I want to happen in my life.
And I realized that writing it down was just part of it.

Speaker 23 And I encourage people to journal, but it's also active journaling. What are the steps that I'm going to take to make this become reality?

Speaker 4 So active journaling. So give us an example.

Speaker 5 You would write down.

Speaker 23 So I wrote down that I wanted to finish something because what I learned during my journaling is that I had never completed anything. I never graduated high school.

Speaker 23 I never followed up going to the military. I always started things, but never finished anything.
So one of the first things for me was you have to complete something.

Speaker 23 And that something was writing a book. And I gave myself a very defined timeline to do it.
30 days, you have to write a book. And that was the action step.

Speaker 23 And what I said to myself when I wrote that down, if I finish this book in 30 days, my life can be anything that I imagine it to be. And I did it.

Speaker 22 And that's how writing my wrongs came.

Speaker 23 That was the beginning of my writing journey, which led to writing my wrongs eventually.

Speaker 14 Yes, yes.

Speaker 39 And so I want to say that I think that this book, How to Be Free, A Proven Guide to Escaping Life's Hidden Prisons, is

Speaker 10 a guide

Speaker 17 for anybody looking to tear down their own self-imposed barriers to getting free.

Speaker 38 And you write on page four, How to Be Free, that prison, you say, prison is designed to break you.

Speaker 13 The walls, you say, the rules, the routine, it's all meant to just strip you down until you forget who you are.

Speaker 4 And what you discovered is that the most powerful prisons aren't the ones made of concrete and steel, but they are the ones that we carry with us that are built from our anger and our shame and our trauma and our self-doubt.

Speaker 4 So is that why you wanted to write this book?

Speaker 23 Absolutely. You know, on my journey, when I put right in my wrongs, people would come up to share stuff with me that they said they had never shared before.

Speaker 23 A child who committed suicide, a dysfunctional marriage, a failure at job. And they would say something about having a conversation really opened them up and liberated them.

Speaker 23 And so I started just kind of interrogating this idea of like, what keeps people locked in place? And these things just kept coming back, grief, shame, anger. And one of the more

Speaker 23 forgiveness, the inability to forgive.

Speaker 23 And the more I kept coming back to that, I started to see it in people from all walks of life, which was the thing that was mind-blowing to me.

Speaker 23 Because, you know, we come with these narratives where we think we got people's, other people's lives figured out. Oh, they're successful, so they can't have problems.

Speaker 23 They're wealthy, they can't have problems. They're this, they're that.
And then you start to talk to people, and you realize we all have it. You know, we all have things that we're working through.

Speaker 23 And sometimes we're not even aware that, you know, we're working through them.

Speaker 4 And that everybody is just here doing the best they know how at any given moment.

Speaker 16 So I know that forgiveness for you has become like a healing agent in your life.

Speaker 19 And you received it from, you write this in Writing Am I Wrongs, the godmother of the young man that you had shot and killed, and that's what landed you in prison.

Speaker 11 You also gave forgiveness to the man who killed your younger brother, Sherrod.

Speaker 14 What's your advice to anyone who is stuck needing to forgive or be forgiven?

Speaker 23 That part of my journey has been so profound because, you know, when you receive forgiveness, You forget that sometime in life, you may have to forgive someone.

Speaker 23 And it can be so complex. It's not, it's not an easy thing.
You know, my brother was murdered in 2021.

Speaker 23 And it was heartbreaking because my gut reaction was all the negative things that come with losing a loved one. And then I thought about this person's soul, like what led him down that path.

Speaker 23 And it was really having empathy and compassion for his journey.

Speaker 23 Because I had my own experience. So it was carrying the duality of guilt while trying to grieve and then reconciling that through

Speaker 23 what have I been teaching in the world? What have I been saying to people all along? And now it comes front and center in my own life.

Speaker 23 And I think that's the power of what this book is really about is that true freedom doesn't come without the work. You're always going to be confronted with the work.

Speaker 23 You're always going to have a thing to challenge you to think broader about what it is that you're sharing in the world.

Speaker 2 And I think people always miss the point of forgiveness because you really do it for yourself.

Speaker 15 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 You do it to free yourself so that you're not carrying around this

Speaker 9 ball of anger, this grudge, this need to revenge. You release it.

Speaker 24 So it doesn't mean you now want to go sit and have a meal

Speaker 41 with the man who shot your brother.

Speaker 43 It means you're able to find some peace in it.

Speaker 40 Absolutely.

Speaker 23 Yeah, because I mean, that was the gut reaction, was the anger. You know, the gut reaction to my family, which is natural, to be upset, to be heartbreaking.
We want to get your heart.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 23 And so now it's like, okay, do I want to carry that for the next 20, 30 years? Do I want to show that as, you know, as I move through life? You know, I have a young son. I have mentees.

Speaker 23 I have people who look up to me.

Speaker 23 How do I navigate that? You know, for me, and, you know, it's a heavy weight to carry to have that level of anger just hanging over your head.

Speaker 27 Thank you for joining me here on the Oprah podcast. When we come back, Shaka receives a letter 32 years later from a man who shot him when he was 17 years old.

Speaker 27 We'll learn how that letter actually helped Shaka heal his relationship with his mother.

Speaker 30 This episode of the Oprah podcast is brought to you by Booking.com. Listing your vacation rental and Booking.com opens the door to more guests.

Speaker 30 Booking.com is one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world.

Speaker 30 That makes it the place to list your vacation rentals if you want to earn more with consistent bookings, reach new markets, and turn hosting into a steady income.

Speaker 30 Over the past 25 years, they've helped more than 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find places to stay. So why not help them find yours?

Speaker 30 You can manage your bookings and have control over your property's calendar and finances. It's hosting on your terms.
The best part? Getting started is super easy.

Speaker 30 In less than 15 minutes, you can register your property and nearly half of partners get their first booking within a week.

Speaker 30 If you've already listed on another site, Booking.com makes it easy to import your property info and get going right away.

Speaker 30 Whether you're looking to earn that extra income or fill those vacant weekends, head over to Booking.com to see how you can get started today.

Speaker 30 The reach is global, the bookings are consistent, and the control is yours. For the bookings you've dreamed of, list your property on booking.com.

Speaker 27 Welcome back to the Oprah podcast. My guest is Shaka Sankor, who's written a liberating new book called How to Be Free.

Speaker 27 Shaka has hard-earned life advice for anyone looking to manifest freedom in your own life.

Speaker 32 So, when you were 17, you were shot by a man named Terrence.

Speaker 41 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And I think this is so remarkable.

Speaker 23 You write about receiving a letter from Terrence 32 years later what does it say about the weight or the burden that he reached out all those decades later it's it is one of the most powerful and complex experiences i've ever had in my life when i first got the letter there was a full range of emotions that went through my mind because i've never really saw this guy's face that shooting was our only encounter which was about 30 seconds.

Speaker 23 And I didn't realize that that inability to see this guy's face had haunted me all these years.

Speaker 23 And how he came about even knowing who I was.

Speaker 42 But that guy

Speaker 4 shooting you is what sent you on another path because that's when you went and got your own gun.

Speaker 22 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 23 It was the cycle. Yeah.
You know, and when I, when I got that letter,

Speaker 23 you know, I bristled up. My body just tensed up with all the...
Where were you?

Speaker 35 What was going on in your life?

Speaker 23 I was actually home. I was at home in L.A.
And, you know, I was outside and it's beautiful, sunny.

Speaker 23 And, you know, I opened the letter and I was just like, whoa.

Speaker 23 Like, and all the things that moment came flashing back. And then I was like, I got to see this guy's face.
So I got on the computer and I looked him up because he's still in prison.

Speaker 23 And just seeing his face, like, it felt like the weight of the world came off my shoulders. Really? Because I was able to humanize this guy.

Speaker 23 And he was no longer this boogeyman that just kind of hid in the shadows of my book.

Speaker 4 So how did he find you and why did he write you?

Speaker 23 So he found me because another guy was reading my book in prison and passed it on to him. He started reading it.
And he was like, oh my God, this is the guy I shot.

Speaker 23 And here's what the outcomes of his life was as a result of that moment. And he took so much responsibility for that moment.

Speaker 23 And I still have complete agency over that decision, but I understand how he would arrive at how one incident can spiral somebody into, you know, an incident that changed their life. That's right.

Speaker 39 Because that incident caused you to start carrying a weapon yourself and everything that resulted from that.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 32 So is it true that you've not written him back yet?

Speaker 23 So I started writing it and then I didn't finish it. And then I put it up and I was like, you know, I don't owe him a letter.

Speaker 23 You know, and I think that's one of the things about forgiveness. You know, it's not about him.
It was really about me.

Speaker 23 And what I realized was like, what matters in my life today? Who are the people around me today that matter that I can forgive? and build deeper relationships with. And he wasn't one of them.

Speaker 23 And I'm okay with that. You know, I've forgiven him And, you know, I hope for the best life outcomes for him.
But I didn't feel it was necessary for me to follow through with writing that letter.

Speaker 17 But you had started to write a letter.

Speaker 23 I did start to write it.

Speaker 34 And what did you want to say at that time?

Speaker 23 Well, I wanted to say thank you for finally revealing your face. I thought that was really, really an important part of my journey and that I appreciate it.

Speaker 41 You didn't even realize how haunted you were by not knowing. Yeah.

Speaker 13 Because he really is then the boogeyman.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it's literally a ghost. He's just like a phantom.

Speaker 23 And just to having the courage to say, I'm sorry, I imagine in an environment that he's in, because I've been there, it's not the easiest environment to be apologetic or to say you was wrong about something.

Speaker 23 And, you know, 32 years later.

Speaker 14 You can't admit anything. Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah. Because it's not even encouraged in that environment.
And so I thought that was brave of him, you know, and that's what I would have said. I thought that was a brave step to take.

Speaker 23 And knowing that, you know, he's very vulnerable. to even reach out because I still have a lot of influence in that environment.
And he didn't know how healed I am or where I'm I'm at in my journey.

Speaker 23 So just the courage to say, you know, I'm going to say, I'm going to apologize to this guy who can potentially do me harm. You know, I thought that was courageous.

Speaker 4 But you haven't responded to his letter, but you do say that that letter helped you in the healing process with your own mother.

Speaker 22 How? Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah. I actually wrote my mother a letter.
And it.

Speaker 18 So he wrote you a letter and then you thought you wrote your mother.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I wrote my mother a letter. And, you know, my mother and I had a very complex relationship, you know, going back to all the things that I had written about before.

Speaker 23 And what I learned most about forgiveness is.

Speaker 4 Yes, I just want to share with this audience.

Speaker 41 I'm going to bring it up because it is in the book. It's certainly in

Speaker 35 Writing My Wrongs, that

Speaker 19 that seminal moment for me was when you walked into the kitchen as a nine-year-old boy with your report card and your mom throws a pot of whatever she was cooking at you.

Speaker 4 And in that moment, everything changed for you, you know.

Speaker 23 One time I was coming home from school. I was like the smart kid in the family.
And so my grades was like the thing that I was most proud of. And so came home super excited to.

Speaker 14 How old are you? I'm probably in the fourth grade. So I'm assuming like eight, nine, I'm not sure yet.
Right.

Speaker 23 And I came in and she was at the kitchen sink washing this. And I was like, you know, ma, I got this score on my test.

Speaker 23 And she rolled around and threw a pot with like such force that it broke the towels on the wall.

Speaker 41 That's a life-shattering moment when you think about it.

Speaker 14 Devastating.

Speaker 41 That's a life-shattering moment when you think about being an eight-year-old or nine-year-old coming home and saying, mom, look at my grades.

Speaker 4 So you've had a volatile relationship with your mom over the years.

Speaker 6 It took her 17 years to come to visit you when you were incarcerated.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 35 after you get the letter from Terrence, who shot you and sent you on a spiraling path downward, you then are moved to free yourself to write your mother.

Speaker 23 Yeah. And so when I sat down to write the letter, I thought I had forgiven my mother.
You know, my mother came to see me on that visit. I was like, you know what, Ma, I forgive you.

Speaker 14 I've moved on.

Speaker 23 But what I realized is that I was holding on to this idea that my forgiveness would somehow change her, which would in turn change our relationships.

Speaker 23 And so that little boy part of me that just wanted to be nurtured by my mother, I thought I can change that. And it wasn't until I was- This is such a good point that you're making.

Speaker 22 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That if you're going to forgive with conditions in play.

Speaker 23 It's really not forgiveness.

Speaker 19 It's really not forgiveness.

Speaker 23 Yeah. And I learned it through a conversation with my older brother.
We were talking, and he just said to me, you know, I forgave mama and then she did this again and I forgave her.

Speaker 23 And it just struck me. And I was like, whoa, I've done the same thing.
I've put all these conditions around it without even interrogating how she even got to become the woman that she was.

Speaker 23 And so I was like, you know, if I'm going to get to this deep sense of forgiveness, I just got to know her story. And if she's willing to go on that journey with me, the possibilities are infinite.

Speaker 23 And so we went on that journey and we spent time together. We talked deeply.
And my mother shared things with me that was

Speaker 23 heartbreaking.

Speaker 23 Yeah, just to think about what her young life was. And I don't think we do enough of that when it comes to our parents, right?

Speaker 23 There are heroes.

Speaker 7 Yeah, we just say, we say this term, hurt people, hurt people.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 20 But you don't realize what the hurt was like for those people.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 23 And so with my mother, she was willing to open up. And she just shared all these things that she had went through, the abuses, the assaults on her body.

Speaker 23 And she was willing to really share that with me. And I thought it was one of the most powerful.
things that she could ever do.

Speaker 23 And so I wrote her the letter just letting her know how much I appreciated her opening up in that way. And it just allowed allowed me to see her.

Speaker 23 And it kind of reversed the kind of dynamics in our relationship where I feel more parental. I feel more like I want to protect that little girl that didn't get protected,

Speaker 23 who became that woman that hurt her own kids. And so,

Speaker 23 you know,

Speaker 23 that's the power of like what real forgiveness is. And when you remove all the expectations that someone will become different or that somehow it's for them.

Speaker 3 That's true freedom.

Speaker 23 That's true freedom. And it's like, I have so much grace for her.
I have so much joy whenever we're together and when we're not.

Speaker 23 I have grace and joy when it's going good and when it's not, and it's fine. You know?

Speaker 19 So that's really the meaning of unconditional.

Speaker 14 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Meaning, I'm going to forgive you.

Speaker 14 I'm going to love you regardless of what you do.

Speaker 18 And you have to just. That's hard, though.

Speaker 20 That's hard, Chaka.

Speaker 23 But you know why it's hard is because the hidden part of it is we still have these conditions, right?

Speaker 18 And the conditions are, I'm going to do this, but what I want is for you to change.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 23 And if you don't change, just don't hurt me again. The reality is that the people that you forgive can possibly hurt you again.

Speaker 23 And then you have to decide, okay, do I want to go back into that door again? You know, and that's the complex things with, especially with parental relationships. Yes.

Speaker 23 Because it's just your parents, you know, or your children. And that means that old things can be brought up over and over.
They can be triggering.

Speaker 23 But once I release the things, the things that used to trigger me, I'm just like, that's her. That ain't got nothing to do with me.

Speaker 5 Well, don't you think, too, when you can't forgive without conditions being placed upon the forgiveness, that it's really challenging to experience true joy?

Speaker 14 Absolutely.

Speaker 23 Absolutely. Isn't it? Yeah.
And I mean, joy is one of the great markers of freedom. That's like how do you really show up in your life?

Speaker 23 And, you know, what are the things that feel pleasant in your spirit and in your being and you can't have that if you're holding on to anger and you're holding on to shame for things that don't even no longer exist like i think that's a great line joy is one of the great markers of freedom absolutely and i also know that you believe and you talk about this in how to be free that resilience is a spiritual principle explain that yeah i mean you think about how we got here like we were born through a resilient effort um the biological makeup of how a sperm reaches an egg like like there's a fight there.

Speaker 23 Yeah, people get into this kind of comparative Olympics where they're like, well, I didn't have it as hard as you. And so I'm not as resilient as you.

Speaker 23 And I'm like, I didn't go into prison knowing I was resilient. You know, I was faced with adversity that forced me to make a decision of how do I want to live my life?

Speaker 23 Do I want to forge ahead or do I want to just quit? And what I knew was embedded in my DNA was resistance and struggle and to overcome adversity. And we all have that.
We're born with it.

Speaker 23 We, you know, sometimes we give it up. We give up agency over how we're going to take a stance on something we believe or care about.
But it's so spiritual. And it's the thing about life.

Speaker 23 You know, as I just mentioned, like you don't get to the other side of these things without having to work for it. Forgiveness, I had to work for that.

Speaker 23 You know, that idea that people are redeemable, the creator said, you know what? Let's see how much you really believe that. I'm going to put the person who shot you right back in your face.

Speaker 23 I'm going to put the person who shot your brother right back in your face. What do you really believe? And that's the spiritual nature of like really working through something that's very tough.

Speaker 23 And the opposite of that is I could have went right back into the anger. I could have shrunk right back into the space that didn't allow me to be happy and joyful.

Speaker 23 And that's the hidden part of the prisons.

Speaker 39 I know you believe in mentors because you are one

Speaker 39 to so many people.

Speaker 6 And one of the great mentors in your life is Ben Horowitz, who is a very well-known venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and one of the founders of the legendary firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Speaker 34 And you write about his

Speaker 5 instrumental guidance in your life.

Speaker 6 Now, some of you may know Ben is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are.

Speaker 5 Ben is joining us via Zoom.

Speaker 32 Welcome.

Speaker 46 Hi, Ben.

Speaker 44 Hey, Over. How are you? Good to see you.
Good to see you, Shaka.

Speaker 18 Hey, bro.

Speaker 33 So, Ben, I'm going to ask you to tell the story of how you and Shaka first met.

Speaker 34 I think I have something to do with that, actually.

Speaker 44 You did. You did.
So you were screening Belief. Yeah.
And you screened it in Silicon Valley.

Speaker 32 Yeah, I'd done a series on religions all over the world, and I was screening it.

Speaker 6 And you had been gracious enough to interview me in Silicon Valley.

Speaker 44 Yeah.

Speaker 44 So because I had interviewed you, I was terrified just because you're really good at interviewing. And so I thought, okay, this is, I hope she doesn't judge me.

Speaker 18 And then I got the idea of like,

Speaker 44 you know, maybe I could ask you a few questions about interviewing beforehand and that would help me. And

Speaker 44 you said something that was really insightful. You said, you know, I always ask people before I interview them what their intention is

Speaker 44 and then that they have to trust me to get that intention. She says, I'll give you an example.

Speaker 44 And the example was, you know, you said, I just had this guy on my show, Super Soul Sunday. He had tattoos, dreadlocks, big muscles.

Speaker 14 He's a real scary guy.

Speaker 44 Just got out of prison. And I asked him before the interview, I said, you know, I'll help you get your intention, but you have to tell me what it is.

Speaker 44 And he said, well, my intention is that, you know, people won't be judged by the very worst thing that happens in their life.

Speaker 44 That people can be redeemed. And so then you proceeded to tell about the interview.
And it was a story that you just mentioned.

Speaker 4 That still makes me want to tear up.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 44 And I told my wife, Felicia, who you know, and she got very excited. So she reached out to your team, got the galley for his book.
And so we read the book.

Speaker 44 And then the next thing I know, she says, oh, you know, I Facebook messaged Shaka, and, you know, he's going to come over to dinner tomorrow night. And I was like, are you crazy?

Speaker 44 Did you read that book? I was like, that guy was in prison. He's a prison gang member.
And so I said, look, we reset it at a restaurant.

Speaker 14 You know, we'll go to a restaurant.

Speaker 35 Don't bring him to the house, Felicia.

Speaker 44 We could just go home. Don't invite him to the house.
So then she goes,

Speaker 44 okay, and we moved it to a restaurant. And then we meet.
And it was really,

Speaker 44 I'd say a little bit shocking for me because in talking to him, he actually sounded like, you know, I worked with CEOs all day. He sounded like a really, really advanced CEO.
Like he knew

Speaker 44 all about like psychology, motivations. systems, how they work together, how you get to the truth.
And I was like, wow, I could learn a lot from

Speaker 44 this guy about how he thinks about these things. And then actually the other thing that was very

Speaker 44 insightful to me or like shocking, which I really wanted to know the answer to was,

Speaker 44 you know, there's this thing about solitary confinement, which it's very bad. There's big movements against it because, you know, you go crazy after two weeks in there.
He was in it for seven years.

Speaker 44 And like,

Speaker 44 No question, he came out like better than when he went in. And I was so interested.

Speaker 18 I was like, how did that happen? Like, what happened?

Speaker 44 And it's actually the story of this book, which is

Speaker 44 it's when he rewrote his own narrative. It's when he finally had the time and space to do that.
And that was just so, because so much of achievement and building something great is

Speaker 44 being able to get to your own truth.

Speaker 44 and be comfortable with that. And his truth was so scary and dark.

Speaker 38 I know.

Speaker 5 And to be able to use solitary confinement, that confinement, to actually explore his inner world that way, and to be truthful with himself about the results is what's so fascinating.

Speaker 37 And what's so fascinating about the first book, Writing My Wrongs, and what's so fascinating now about how to be free, that you were able to really tap into what that looks and feels like even before he was let go.

Speaker 4 You say Ben taught you an important lesson about failure.

Speaker 1 What is that?

Speaker 23 Yeah. So, you know, Ben and I, we talk a lot about success.
And I remember asking him, what does success mean?

Speaker 23 And he said to me, it's a series of smart decisions and a step by step. And I ended up asking him that question again recently.
And he was like, it's the same thing with failure.

Speaker 23 It's a series of steps taken in the opposite direction. And I was like, whoa.

Speaker 23 Because, you know, it's like we can think about the steps toward. something positive and progressive, but we don't also always think about failure as it's a series of things that you also do.

Speaker 23 Failing to show up, failing to be curious, failing to follow through. All these things are steps that lead in one very clear direction, you're going to fail.

Speaker 23 And that was just, it was so mind-blowing to hear that, his perspective on it.

Speaker 34 I think what's so mind-blowing is that you had told Felicia, this guy's a real criminal.

Speaker 45 Don't invite him to the house.

Speaker 37 And now you guys are like best buddies.

Speaker 4 Well, thank you, Ben, for joining us.

Speaker 11 Thank you for being a part of it. Thank you.

Speaker 14 Thank you.

Speaker 27 I thank you for listening to the Oprah podcast. We need to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Speaker 30 This episode of the Oprah podcast is brought to you by Booking.com. Listing your vacation rental and booking.com opens the door to more guests.

Speaker 30 Booking.com is one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world.

Speaker 30 That makes it the place to list your vacation rentals if you want to earn more with consistent bookings, reach new markets, and turn hosting into a steady income.

Speaker 30 Over the past 25 years, they've helped more than 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find places to stay. So So why not help them find yours?

Speaker 30 You can manage your bookings and have control over your property's calendar and finances. It's hosting on your terms.
The best part? Getting started is super easy.

Speaker 30 In less than 15 minutes, you can register your property and nearly half of partners get their first booking within a week.

Speaker 30 If you've already listed on another site, Booking.com makes it easy to import your property info and get going right away.

Speaker 30 Whether you're looking to earn that extra income or fill those vacant weekends, head over to Booking.com to see how you can get started today.

Speaker 30 The reach is global, the bookings are consistent, and the control is yours. For the bookings you've dreamed of, list your property on booking.com.

Speaker 27 Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I'm with Shaka Sankor.
His new book, How to Be Free, is a beautifully crafted workbook filled with specific steps you can take to manifest more freedom in your life.

Speaker 46 We have listeners of our podcast who have questions for you, Shaka, because I know many people, when they hear your story and read your books, they want to know how you found freedom inside your mind.

Speaker 4 And Donnie is joining us now.

Speaker 35 Donnie, tell us what's happening down there in Atlanta.

Speaker 28 Oh, hi, I'm Donnie.

Speaker 49 So I grew up in a single-parent household.

Speaker 14 My dad was an alcoholic.

Speaker 49 My mom had her own business, so she was working a lot. So in many ways, I raised myself.
This allowed me to become strong, goal-driven, also a goal-getter.

Speaker 49 That drive motivated me to even teach myself how to code and transition into tech after I graduated with my master's degree.

Speaker 28 I love my job.

Speaker 14 I love climbing the corporate ladder and I love my team.

Speaker 49 However, I see myself shrinking whenever I'm around strong personalities.

Speaker 49 I've started to realize that a lot of the patterns that I noticed were from my childhood, where I would like treat myself small, I would tend to be more self-sufficient.

Speaker 49 where I would avoid conflict as well as overwhelming situations. And even though I'm in a supportive environment right now, I still feel those survival mechanisms rising up.

Speaker 49 So my question for you is, how do I get the freedom to be my authentic self regardless of who's in the room?

Speaker 23 That's such an incredible story. First of all, I mean, you're incredibly talented to, you know, and self-driven, which is.
very inspiring.

Speaker 23 So your sense of self-awareness is you already got like a foot in the door.

Speaker 23 Cause that's a big deal. A lot of people people navigate through life with imposter syndrome.
They're not even aware of how they're showing up.

Speaker 23 And I think there's power in recognizing that within yourself. And

Speaker 23 one of the things that I've learned on this journey is that there were two things that I attribute to like success in my life now, right?

Speaker 23 Resilience allowed me to survive, but being literate about life allows me to thrive.

Speaker 23 And what I mean about being literate about life is that you're in an environment where you're already winning by every metric imaginable.

Speaker 18 Just because you're there.

Speaker 23 Yeah, because you're there and you got yourself there. You already have it.
Yeah, you're, and I mean, you're in the tech.

Speaker 23 I worked in tech for three years and it's a tough, very competitive environment.

Speaker 23 And the fact that you taught yourself the code and now you're in that environment thriving, like life literacy is about really understanding where are you really winning at?

Speaker 23 And how are you telling yourself that story? And you got to just put the work in over and over. Like I still have my own mantras to this day.
Like I get up and I'm like, go get it.

Speaker 23 I got two versions of it. I got the soft, gentle kind of affirming conversations that I have myself.

Speaker 23 And then I have one that's more aggressive when I'm feeling like I'm slipping back into the self-doubt. Like those narratives, they don't disappear.
You just got to manage them.

Speaker 23 And I think figuring out what is the thing that you can do every day to affirm. your success and whatever it is.

Speaker 23 Because those small victories really do matter. And it's easy for us to overlook them.

Speaker 23 But part of part of being present, part of being mindful is like really leaning into what it's like happening in the moment.

Speaker 23 I mean, like right now, in this moment you're in, you know, everything that you've done led you here. And that's incredible.
And somebody's going to be watching this that's being inspired.

Speaker 23 They're like, wow, Donnie taught herself the code.

Speaker 14 I'm about to go cold.

Speaker 23 And so it's a constant, it's work. You know, it takes time.
But I'll say affirm yourself every day, no matter what.

Speaker 23 And in those conversations, recognize that you're not the only one that's navigating that interior conversation.

Speaker 23 Working in Silicon Valley for years, I found that a lot of people fake it till they make it because it is such a fast-paced, hard-driven culture.

Speaker 23 But the fact that you're there, that says a lot about who you are. And you just got to continue to say a lot about who you are to yourself every day.

Speaker 25 And also, I think, if I may add here, I think that one of the reasons why you play yourself small is because you don't realize how big you are already.

Speaker 11 So everybody knows I have a girls' school and I had that girls' school for 18 years now.

Speaker 4 And I recently had a study done this past year to find out where all the girls were in their lives.

Speaker 11 So I've had 830 girls graduate from my school, 600 graduate from college, 190 still in college.

Speaker 3 And so we, as a part of that survey,

Speaker 34 asked the girls, you know, what does success look like for them?

Speaker 4 And nobody, I guess, had asked them that question.

Speaker 4 And many of them said that when they first came to the school, they were comparing themselves to me because it's the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy.

Speaker 17 And so they thought that going to the leadership academy meant you had to be a leader like Oprah Winfrey or Nelson Mandela, who was there to help me open the school.

Speaker 3 But as a part of the interview, they were asked, what does success look like to you now?

Speaker 34 And two of the girls were actually out

Speaker 4 to dinner doing the survey and they looked at each other and said look at us we just came from the gym we both have our own car

Speaker 12 we are sitting at a restaurant that neither our grandfather nor our mothers nor our fathers would ever be able to sit at we are successful just because we are here in this moment even though we're not where we think we should be we certainly aren't where we could have been And so when you realize that you are there coding and taught yourself that you were able to do that in spite of an alcoholic father and a single mom, you know, Maya Angelou used to always say, I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

Speaker 21 And I will assure you, Donnie, as one who's lived longer than all of y'all,

Speaker 38 that every single thing that has happened to you, not one of those things is wasted.

Speaker 34 And every single thing that happened, just as Ishaka shows us in his book, How to Be Free and all of his other works, everything is happening to grow you to the next level for yourself.

Speaker 37 Absolutely.

Speaker 32 And you are here to meet that rising and you are capable of doing it because you've already done it.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 46 And you're here. You've already done it.

Speaker 32 You've already done it. So stop comparing yourself to anybody because nobody has your story.

Speaker 23 Thanks, Brad.

Speaker 7 Your story is yours to claim.

Speaker 34 Nobody has your story.

Speaker 5 So if you're looking around at what he did or she did or they did, they didn't come through what you came through.

Speaker 32 They didn't have to endure what you've endured.

Speaker 3 They didn't have the struggles you had or the sorrows or the joys or the triumphs, any of it.

Speaker 43 And so

Speaker 4 when you do what Shaka did, when you really do a true self-examination of how you got to be here,

Speaker 32 you will be walking around strutting.

Speaker 35 You will look like that emoji,

Speaker 17 that emoji with the red dress on.

Speaker 7 But look at what you've been through and you're still here and still rising.

Speaker 23 And you're hanging out with Oprah today.

Speaker 35 And still I rise.

Speaker 18 All right. And Shaka.

Speaker 18 I'm not bad to hang out with.

Speaker 33 Shaka is a great one, too.

Speaker 7 Thanks, Donnie.

Speaker 21 Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 Lisa's joining us now from Seattle.

Speaker 2 Lisa, hi.

Speaker 49 Hi, Shaka.

Speaker 10 Hi, Oprah.

Speaker 14 Hi.

Speaker 32 I hear you're at a big time crossroads in your life.

Speaker 4 And what's going on with you?

Speaker 49 Well, I am an only daughter of three older brothers. And

Speaker 49 I grew up knowing that my family just thoroughly loved me and adored me. And we had a lot of great advantages growing up.
And on one end, it looked wonderful on the outside.

Speaker 49 And on the inside, there were some real hardships. And I had two brothers that were drug addicts, and one of them had sexually abused me.
And

Speaker 49 I didn't feel like I could share what was going on. There was just my parents were mitigating a lot of the crises that

Speaker 49 come with having addicts in the home. So it was really just hard to understand

Speaker 49 how to feel safe and trust not only others, but trust myself and my decision making.

Speaker 49 And so by the time I was in my mid-20s, I had been married and divorced and had lost my dad and both of those brothers had died of drug overdoses.

Speaker 49 And so I went on a real healing path. And I always knew that I wanted to help people through the experiences that I had, especially young women.
Just didn't know what that looked like and what avenue.

Speaker 49 And when my mom passed a few years back, I went to a ranch in Colorado and experienced the wonderful benefits of equine therapy. And I just thought, this is it.
This is the avenue.

Speaker 49 And this is my purpose.

Speaker 49 And God has just laid the groundwork for me. I just a year ago, I was very fortunate to just have a horse drop into my life.

Speaker 49 And now I have the opportunity to move to Tennessee and get some land for horses and really pursue this.

Speaker 49 And yet, at the same time, I feel really guilty because I have my last remaining sibling here that doesn't marry and doesn't have children and really relies on me significantly. And

Speaker 49 so, this leads to my question for you, Shaka, is how did you learn to trust yourself

Speaker 49 and to follow the path that you're on?

Speaker 18 Before he answers that,

Speaker 34 you had a horse drop into your life?

Speaker 3 Horses don't drop into people's lives.

Speaker 18 I know.

Speaker 49 I had a very

Speaker 49 miracle of a situation.

Speaker 3 Okay, so I'm just telling you, I'm just saying a horse drops into your life.

Speaker 8 You got the horse pillow behind you.

Speaker 40 We see that horses are important to you.

Speaker 5 That is a sign.

Speaker 4 I'm a big believer in signs.

Speaker 18 And I'm a little.

Speaker 10 Let Shaka answer the question.

Speaker 23 Yeah, that's, I mean, it's true. That's similar to where I was going.
It's like, what is life showing you? And what is the divine, you know, part of your experience showing you?

Speaker 23 And it's all the signs are like there. You know, you, you, like, oversay the horse doesn't drop into your life.
For me, what it was, was that

Speaker 23 accomplishing the small things, just the one step, right, for you to even say what happened to you.

Speaker 23 That's such a thing to celebrate, that you have the courage to talk about the things that happened to you.

Speaker 23 And so for me, what it was, is that when I leaned into the things that made me feel afraid, and I just could say them out loud or I can write them out, I started to slowly turn that guilt into gratitude and be just thankful that I can even say it.

Speaker 23 Thankful that I can like write it down and say, hey, this happened to me, but it's not who I am.

Speaker 23 And then I just started to really care for the little boy inside. And what I would encourage you to do is think about There's that little girl inside that you now have the opportunity to protect.

Speaker 23 You now have the opportunity to nourish, which is like the most incredible part of the gift is that you get a chance to nourish this little girl by helping others.

Speaker 23 And, you know, to be on this journey, if you really kind of think about it from instead of like survivor's remorse and survivor's guilt, it's survivor's gratitude. Like you're here.

Speaker 23 I mean, think about where you're at, like right in this moment, like the presence, just bringing yourself to presence.

Speaker 23 You're sitting here having a conversation with Oprah Winfrey and I. That's a true testament to like where your path is leading you something that's far bigger than what your past was.

Speaker 44 Yes.

Speaker 35 And the horse got dropped into your life by some miracle.

Speaker 18 Thank you. And

Speaker 4 you now get to use the experience of the treatment that made you feel so liberated.

Speaker 34 You now get to offer that to somebody else.

Speaker 33 You now get to offer that to somebody else.

Speaker 12 You now get to gift what was gifted to you and you get to share that.

Speaker 3 You know, I always think it boils down to, obviously, when you read Shaka's story, he was born to do what he's doing right now.

Speaker 5 And that horse coming into your life means your life has been leading you on a path to where you are right now.

Speaker 4 Absolutely. And your ability to open up and do exactly what Shaka said, instead of saying, oh, I'm so guilty, say thank you.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 43 Thank you for showing me in such a vivid, profound, and pronounced way that that I'm headed in the right direction.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 5 I don't know if that resolves the guilt, but you will find a way to manage whatever other needs your other sibling has or whatever

Speaker 37 is required of you.

Speaker 29 But clearly, you're supposed to use the horse experience to share with others.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 47 Thank you. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 46 So I know there's a young man you want us to meet.

Speaker 4 Carter is a 21-year-old sophomore joining us from his dorm room at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Speaker 14 Carter, hey.

Speaker 44 Hey, hi, Miss Brady.

Speaker 8 Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 7 I hear Shaka's been mentoring you

Speaker 38 since you were itty-bitty high school.

Speaker 48 Yep. Yeah, I met him in middle school.
What's up, Uncle? Good to see you.

Speaker 18 Hey, hey, Matthew.

Speaker 46 Was he helping you to be free?

Speaker 13 Was he helping you to be free?

Speaker 48 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Big time. Big time.

Speaker 17 What has he said or done or shown you that's impacted your life that you think has helped you to grow in a better direction?

Speaker 48 I think really

Speaker 48 it's been just being

Speaker 48 an incredible mentor. I've come to him in times that have been really stressful or just problematic in my life.
My parents divorced my sophomore year of high school and I took it relatively rough.

Speaker 48 And I came to Shaka and he was incredibly helpful. His ability to hold space for what I need in those moments was just incredible.

Speaker 48 He's a proud black man, a wise and compassionate mentor, and the world needs more of that.

Speaker 8 That's great. What do you want to say about Carter?

Speaker 23 Carter is one of the wisest young mentees I have. You know, I remember one of my favorite moments of hanging out with him.
This was when we first met. He had to be around 12.

Speaker 23 And he was so curious about who I was and my life. And I asked his mother, I said, Michelle, is it okay for for me to tell him just the hardcore truth?

Speaker 23 And she was like, he can handle it, you know, and I got a chance to talk to him and share my past. And he just had so many profound insights.

Speaker 23 And now what I really love is when he comes to the house, he's kind of like a big brother for Sekou, a model, somebody he can model. And Sekou's mind, he's way cooler than his dad.

Speaker 18 So

Speaker 23 it's the sweetest thing, though, just to see how those kids look up. And now he's in his sophomore year in college, doing incredible.
And I'm just super proud.

Speaker 23 You know, this kid is going to do some amazing things in the world.

Speaker 23 And to be able to pour it into him and to have him receive that, because it's not always easy for young men specifically to take guidance from older men.

Speaker 23 They put us out the pastor kind of early these days, you know. So

Speaker 23 to have a young man that says, hey, you know, I'm in town. Can we grab a bite? I just got something I want to talk to you about.

Speaker 23 It really means a lot. And it just makes me feel really valued in a deep way.

Speaker 4 That's wonderful. Thanks for sharing with us today.

Speaker 27 Thanks again for sharing your valuable time here with me on the Oprah podcast. We'll be right back after this quick break.
Welcome back and thank you for joining the Oprah podcast.

Speaker 27 I'm in conversation with Shaka Senkor. His new book is called How to Be Free.

Speaker 2 So you've been out of prison now for 15 years, as we said at the beginning of this conversation.

Speaker 21 And almost as long as you were inside prison.

Speaker 32 And I hear you recently applied for a pardon.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 33 For the first time. What would a pardon mean for you?

Speaker 24 Now that you are already free and you're writing books about how to be free.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 14 what would a pardon mean?

Speaker 23 You know, when I first put in the pardon, I thought it would just be a symbolic gesture. Yeah.

Speaker 23 And what I realized recently, every time that the mail comes and I'm out looking for that letter, is that I've wanted it more than I had given myself permission to believe.

Speaker 23 And what it means for me is that I'm now back part of the tribe.

Speaker 23 When you have a felony on your record, you're exiled.

Speaker 23 And even when you're as successful as I've become over this last 15 years, there's still things that come up that's kind of like that slap on the hand reminder of this is who you were, and this is who we'll always think you are.

Speaker 23 And, you know, when I was filling out that paperwork, I had delayed it for a long time. I was like, oh, maybe I get a lawyer to do it, et cetera.
And I was like, you know what? You have to do it.

Speaker 23 And, you know, I've sat, I've carved out the time to do it.

Speaker 23 And so for me, it's like just getting granted that would mean I'm back a part of the tribe.

Speaker 8 This is a question I probably should have asked you at the beginning of this conversation because I think that

Speaker 5 for most people

Speaker 39 who

Speaker 1 think of someone who's been incarcerated and incarcerated for 19 years and incarcerated on,

Speaker 31 you know, been in solitary confinement, that the moment you are released from prison,

Speaker 36 you

Speaker 4 would experience freedom in a way that

Speaker 24 we can't even imagine.

Speaker 4 You know, I still think of people that I know who are on death row who haven't seen a moon

Speaker 11 and haven't seen the stars.

Speaker 12 And I would just think, wow, everything in life would just feel like freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom.

Speaker 4 And yet, when I read How to Be Free, I recognized that there's so many people who are released and are still imprisoned once they're released.

Speaker 23 Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yes. And, you know, for me,

Speaker 23 I still have that feeling as if I walked out the first day. Yes.
I marvel at life. I am so in love with life.
I'm in love with the details of life. I'm fascinated by so many things.

Speaker 23 I'm curious about so many things.

Speaker 19 Anthony Ray Hinton, who wrote The Sun Does Shine, said that when he came out, rain meant so much to him, just to be able to feel the rain.

Speaker 23 Yeah, all the details. I love it.

Speaker 23 And I think it's part of, you know, when I wrote this book, because I want people to go back into that feeling, because I think we get caught up in the mundane of life and we forget about the beauty of nature.

Speaker 23 We forget about the beauty of a casual walk with a friend. We forget about like really experiencing food, not just for nourishment, but as a real experience.

Speaker 23 We forget about like what joy is, you know, it's going back to Ben.

Speaker 23 Like we have these moments where we're just like, dude, let's grab this vinyl and this is listen to music and talk about the details of art that went into creating this piece of work.

Speaker 23 And so to me, it's like every day is a day of freedom.

Speaker 4 So for someone who's listening to us today, watching us today, and they want to begin the journey for themselves to be free, they should do what?

Speaker 23 They should start journaling. I would say that's my number one out of everything else.
Like meditation is incredible, practice and mindfulness, those things take a little bit of work.

Speaker 23 But journaling is something that we all have access to, even with technology.

Speaker 12 Like if Donnie just sat down and look at and asked the question, how did I get here?

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 39 It was the same question that you asked.

Speaker 10 You were in solitary confinement asking it.

Speaker 34 But asking the question, y'all, wherever you are in your life of how did I get here and being able to relate to your own story, like choice by choice by choice that put you here.

Speaker 14 I mean, allows you to see, look at all you've endured. Yeah.

Speaker 23 And even keeping that gratitude journal. You know, like, I believe in that.
What is the most magic thing that's happened to me today?

Speaker 23 and that that's something that keeps me so grounded and it helps me get through like those tough moments right so when i was going through everything with my brother i was like i was just writing you know i was writing letters to the perpetrator i was just writing out my thoughts like how do i really feel like what's living inside my being right now and then what am i thankful for you know what is the what is the thing that brought me a sense of joy today yeah you know what does that thing look like the payoff of that is so great you know especially when you come back days later because you move through life you can start forgetting about like how many things did i do this week that was amazing it's easy to just move through those things and forget about them but i try to take it all in oh i do too and i write down the god winks because you really forget the things that you know the things that other people call coincidences or serendipity or whatever where you just go like wow how did that thing happen yeah if you don't write it down you'll forget it yeah absolutely absolutely absolutely what is one of your favorite god winks like

Speaker 46 uh oh they're just like little things.

Speaker 4 Like once I was thinking about, it was like a rainy day and I was thinking, God, this would be a really good day for

Speaker 14 soup.

Speaker 5 Because when I grew up, there was Lassie.

Speaker 18 There was a show called Lassie. I knew that.

Speaker 23 The Collie, the dog.

Speaker 18 The Collie, the dog.

Speaker 4 It was sponsored by Campbell Soup.

Speaker 19 And at the end of it, there would be a little thing where Timmy's mother would bring him a bowl of soup.

Speaker 21 And they would say, soup and sandwich goes together like a soup and sandwich.

Speaker 20 So I always love this idea of soup and sandwich.

Speaker 5 I was just thinking, wouldn't it be great just to

Speaker 8 have soup and a sandwich?

Speaker 2 And I was walking through my house and my godmother was staying with us and she had made a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup.

Speaker 40 I love it.

Speaker 4 And I just thought, how did you, how did you know?

Speaker 18 How did that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 23 No, it's amazing that you lean into those moments because I think that's the magic of all of this is like, how present are you in your own experience?

Speaker 3 Do you think you're free?

Speaker 23 I think I'm definitely free. I feel like the most liberated.

Speaker 23 After writing this book, I feel the most liberated I've felt in my life. And I think I've had two iterations of it.

Speaker 23 When I was in solitary and I first really started kind of buying into this idea that my life could be different, and it was really just journaling about it, meditating, being very present.

Speaker 23 and really acknowledging it. And like that acknowledgement is the big piece of it.
It's like, hey, I thought I had this thing fully figured out, but I still have work to do.

Speaker 23 And that's the part of the journey part of it is like, you know, the more life you live, the more experiences you have, the more things you're going to encounter that's going to challenge the way that you think about and experience life.

Speaker 33 Reason I like the book is because How to Be Free.

Speaker 20 It actually step by step teaches you how to manifest.

Speaker 41 Yes. That's one of my favorite words.

Speaker 9 How to manifest freedom for yourself in your life and how that liberation allows you to rise to your greatest glory.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. Thank you for this book.

Speaker 23 Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Shaka.

Speaker 2 And thank you for being here today.

Speaker 21 Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Lisa, Donnie, and Carter, for zooming in with us.

Speaker 2 Shaka's book is How to Be Free, and it's available September 9th, wherever books are sold.

Speaker 33 To all of you listening and watching, I appreciate you sharing your valuable time with us here.

Speaker 20 And let's meet up again next week.

Speaker 18 Go well, everybody.

Speaker 45 You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week.
Thanks, everybody.