Shaka Senghor People in Common Transcript Updated as of May 11, 2026 Jama Adams (00:00) My guest is Shaka Senghor, whose new bestseller, How to Be Free, is about hidden prisons. Not just for people who've been incarcerated, but the grief, anger, shame, trauma, self-doubt that we all carry. Shaka spent 19 years in prison, including seven and a half in solitary confinement. And then after his second parole denial, he chose hope over despair and discovered practices that have transformed his life. And he shares them here. Jama Adams (00:31) Welcome to People in Common. I'm Jama Adams. This is a podcast where we talk to leaders about connecting their personal stories to what's happening in this moment. What are we supposed to do? How do we translate values into action? How can we be Jama Adams (00:56) Shaka Senghor, welcome. Shaka Senghor (00:58) Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Jama Adams (01:01) So excited. So excited. I have to start with, yeah, grateful for our mutual friend, Margaret, who thinks very highly of you. ⁓ and she told me all about your book, went out and grabbed it. So ⁓ I told the people a little bit about you, but I wanted to start with your, so your new book, How to Be Free. And I wanted to start with what? What was the reason for writing this book? And what are the hidden prisons that we should really get into and fix up? Shaka Senghor (01:37) Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the motivation for writing How to Be Free really stem from my experience as a writer with my other bodies of work where I, you know, I wrote two different books. One is Writing My Wrong, which is a memoir about my journey from the streets of Detroit to incarceration, where I spent 19 years. Seven of those years were in solitary confinement. to my follow-up book, was Letters to the Signs of Society. And what happened is during my writer's journey, I would go and do these talks and people would really come up and share just all type of stuff about their own lives. Jama Adams (02:22) Bet. You're opening the floodgates, right? Let's talk about shame and guilt and, you know, all of it. Shaka Senghor (02:29) Yeah, and I mean, it was so mind blowing to see people so candidly opening up about things they said that they hadn't talked about before. know, suicidal ideation, divorces, children navigating addiction, you name it. And what it told me was that one people just craved vulnerability, they crave authentic connection. ⁓ Jama Adams (02:51) Stop there because like that scene, we've built this world that is the literal polar opposite of that, right? Like we all, know, social media, we all show, you know, but how, how is that possible that we've built this world one way and actually what we're craving is the vulnerability? how, how does that work? Shaka Senghor (03:14) Yeah, I think it's a matter of separating our day-to-day lives from like the, you know, expression of what people think our lives have to be, right? So if you think about the 24-hour news cycle, you think about, you know, the ideas around your work, like, versus like, how do you actually interact in your day-to-day life, right? There's kind of like the water-cooled conversations. Jama Adams (03:40) Yeah, how you talk to your kids, like how you talk to your neighbors or your own. It's kind of what this book is all about, right? And how do you interrupt the nasty ways that I mean, I everybody can identify with that. Yeah. Shaka Senghor (03:44) I'll you a cup of yourself. It's a real big one, Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, we're, we're the conversations we have with ourselves, with ourselves are always going to be the most important conversations. Yeah. And the thing is that oftentimes we don't take those conversations outward. And so you may have this deep desire to connect and you may even be saying to you, you know, inside, like, man, I just wish I had a deeper connection with my friends. But then you won't say to your friends, Hey, how do we connect deeper? ⁓ Jama Adams (04:23) Said no one ever even to their best friends, right? Shaka Senghor (04:27) But meanwhile, when it happens, they were like, my God, that was the greatest experience ever. And how do I get more of that? And so a lot of what the book is about is like helping us get to the life that we know on the deepest levels, we really deserve to live the type of connections that we really want to have with ourselves and with others. And how do we, you know, heal from the things that are holding us back? I saw it a lot during the pandemic where There are so many people reaching out to me. mean, these are people who highly accomplish, you know, some of the most successful people in their particular field, whether it was entrepreneurship, investing, athletics, and they were like, Shaka, what do I do? I feel so isolated right now. I'm really afraid. ⁓ I don't know how to, you know, navigate this time. And it was just really interesting. Jama Adams (05:20) Maybe especially for those kinds of folks who are used to, know, who are in the public eye, who are interacting with people and leading people and sort of being leading culture and doing, right? Like maybe that's the biggest gap, right? For those of us lowly folks, right? Like going inward was not that it was easy for anybody, but for those of those, you know, for folks who are out there, like it's even more jarring maybe. Shaka Senghor (05:50) Yeah, I I think I found it interesting enough. I mean, it was even people who just live the most pedestrian of lives. They were like, what do I do with this isolation? Because ultimately isolation is isolation. And, know, whether it's your, your miniature apartment in New York, or whether it's your mansion in California, when you started to drill down into what it means to be human, which is really rooted in connection. That's when you started to see it just show up in people's lives. And I was like, Jama Adams (05:59) Yeah. Shaka Senghor (06:20) Well, I have some anecdotal things that I learned navigating like solitary confinement and that if you employ these tools, you can get through these moments with your humanity intact. that's ultimately what you want to help people do is like maintain the integrity of their humanity. Jama Adams (06:38) Wow. Wow. And people, people reached out to you. Do you think of solitary confinement in prison for seven and a half years? Mic drop. That is, do you also, having experienced that, do you consider that sort of the end of the spectrum? The pandemic was hard, but man, that's not even close to anywhere close on the spectrum to seven and a half years of solitary confinement. Is that how you think about it too? Shaka Senghor (07:14) I don't really think of solitary confinement in terms of spectrums relative to the inner isolation that people feel. Jama Adams (07:25) It's not a comparison game. Shaka Senghor (07:28) Yeah. And the reality is that you can take a person who's suffering and you can put them in the most socially rich environment imaginable. And if they're isolated in their own mind, it's as damaging as being stuck in a prison cell. And the reason I know that is that I was incarcerated before I ever was arrested and I was free long before they let me out of prison. Freedom really is an inside job. Jama Adams (08:00) That's a great quote. And it's good news for those of us who, you know, are slowly following it under a non-free society here. Wow. Say that again. Yeah. Keep going. Shaka Senghor (08:14) Yeah. mean, freedom, freedom really is an inside job. And so the way that I think of it is more like, where are you at as a person in your own journey? And you know, that in the inside journey is so powerful that even, even the most restrictive of environments, you can find liberation if you're liberated in mind and spirit. And so I don't, I don't compare it because I think it's just unfair to people. Like, like not many people will have. the expanse of my experience, the extremes of my experience. ⁓ Even people who are incarcerated don't have the same experience that I have. You know, I went into prison with a luck, with some luck. ⁓ And what I mean by that is that I was actually literate in an environment where literacy rates hover around third grade. So I was having a different prison experience because I can actually read, which is, Jama Adams (09:07) And you said books saved you. Absolutely. I can't wait to get into that. What do you mean when you say that? What did that difference mean for your prison experience? Shaka Senghor (09:23) Think a couple of things, you know, when I think about my relationship to literature, it had a, you know, a multi-layer component to it, right? ⁓ One, just pure escapism like this, nothing like getting away in a pure book, right? Jama Adams (09:37) It's almost even better than, you know, music or movie. It's like you just, you're automatically in the world. Nothing has Shaka Senghor (09:44) And you get a chance to add your own details, right? You know, I remember reading like Sidney Sheldon's Master of the Game and just going on this wild adventure and it was like, you know, Stephen King's The Stand or, you know, even something as crazy as like, you know, Jackie Collins, Hollywood Wives, like those were like wild, right? So there was just the pure escapism that, you know, Jama Adams (09:47) That's right. Yeah. Shaka Senghor (10:12) it added, but then it was like curiosity, you know, I started reading, you know, Malcolm X autobiographies just opened my mind to like, you know, the endless possibilities, you know, from intellectual curiosity. And that led to me reading philosophy and it led to me reading, you know, historical literature and, and, you know, all these things. And then I got into like, you know, these philosophical books. And so Those things allow me to challenge my mind in a way that the environment wasn't necessarily challenging me. Because now I can sit with ideas and I can ponder, ⁓ you know, what does, what the Storks were talking about or the Sophists or, you know, you name it, I was able to explore those worlds and examine them in a way that, you know, prior to reading a lot of diverse things, you know, no one could ever told me that reading philosophy was cool. ⁓ then I thought, ⁓ like this language is really, it's really interesting. And it's really has this real world application. And so that's what I mean by saving my life. One, it gave me an ability to escape whenever I wanted to. ⁓ but it, enhanced my curiosity about the world. And then it challenged me intellectually to kind of evolve the way that I thought about my life and the life of others. Jama Adams (11:21) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And brought you on that journey. I think I thought a lot. I, ⁓ you talk about autobiographies and how specifically, you know, that those are among your favorites because, you know, and I'm with you 100%. I brought my Angelo's Heart of a Woman, which is my all time favorite. ⁓ For you, what is, what about the autobiography? Because it sounds like you kind of, if you will, you that is that's where you started or that's really drew you in, which of course, right, like you're you're in that person's, you know, perspective. What what else about that really kind of grabbed you? Shaka Senghor (12:16) Yeah, I mean, you know, think, you know, autobiographies allow you to ground yourself in the essence of what it means to be human. You know, you really put yourself in someone else's shoes. Jama Adams (12:30) of actual living their experience. Shaka Senghor (12:32) Yeah, you start to realize that we're more alike and we are different. You get a chance to this full range of emotions that comes with the telling of one story, right? And not all autobiographies are created equal. Some of them are well taught. mean, you're talking about Maya. She's one of the greatest writers in history. So her turn of a phrase, right? Like she can make, you know, she can make, you know, getting up and making toast. Jama Adams (12:59) any Shaka Senghor (13:01) And does! Jama Adams (13:04) And that empathy and that shared, I mean, this is what you talk about with hidden prisons, that commonality, I mean, that's why people in common exists at all, right? Because it's not about what, know, othering and making sure, you know, like keeping us in our boxes. Like, if we're going to do this thing, we got to figure out what bonds us, what we have in common, how we can talk about the things that really matter. Shaka Senghor (13:33) Absolutely. And I think that's the magic of what it means to be human is when you can lean into someone else's experience. And I think I got that the most from reading autobiographies and memoirs and like, know, people navigating really, really tough, tough things. And it's one of those kind of, you know, things one as a writer, you know, I just have a deep appreciation for the telling of one story. Yeah. What it takes to go into those not so pleasant spaces. And so I'm always thankful when I think about Jama Adams (13:55) Do it, yeah! Shaka Senghor (14:04) those who bore the cross for us. You know, I mean, some of the books you think about the stories where women are writing about the attacks on their body, you know, the attacks on, you know, their mental, you think about the books where, excuse me, you think about the books where we're race and the complexity of it. And people are talking about how devastating it is to be othered and to be shrunken down to some ignorant idea. And you know, it's powerful when somebody lays that beer on a page. And you know, I always had this, this, this fanciful idea that one day we will hold our writers, ⁓ up the way that we hold up our athletes or our entertainers and know, and, know, maybe, maybe one day somebody will read a passage at the Superbowl and inspire people to actually read more. Jama Adams (14:51) Yes. There we go. have a poet laureate, right? Who is pretty active these days and writing about Minneapolis for Alex Preddy. mean, you're absolutely, ⁓ and back to Maya, obviously she was one of the best poet laureates, but you're right. mean, how did the talk back to the vulnerability. Right now our culture does not reward vulnerability. Our culture rewards you know, invincible, the idea of invincibility. And I think great writers, the greats are the ones, you know, as you have done to lay it all bare and really investigate it and turn it around and look at it from all the different perspectives and then be really brutally honest. Shaka Senghor (15:50) Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, part of it is that we don't, we don't deal in nuance enough, It's like we want the, we either want people to be extremely vulnerable or... ⁓ good point. Right? Like, how do we find that balance, right? Like, you know, I get tons of, I have tons of conversations with women and they're like, my God, you know, what do you think about Toxic Max and Wayne? I'm like, well, that's a very broad, you know, title that we've kind of laid onto male experience, right? And like, there's things like, I can be gentle and kind, but also like to see people get kicked in the face watching UFC. ⁓ I like to watch, you know. football and I know that some people are gonna end up with CTE and it doesn't take away like my desire to see people run as fast as they can and tackle each other. you know, and simultaneously I also love to snuggle with my wife and my son. And so there's that duality that we just don't, we don't compensate for. And as a writer, what I try to do is just say, listen, this is, this is all I mean, like, you may not, it's probably that you, you probably shouldn't like it and it's fine. ⁓ it's probably to you, I may not like, is fine as well. And like, don't have to have this agreeable way of like, the only way that I can embrace you is if I love all of you, like, culture. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think there's, I think we can make space for curiosity. We can make space for respect. Like I can respect things that I don't necessarily like. Jama Adams (17:17) As if that's even a thing. Yeah. Shaka Senghor (17:33) or that I'm not interested in, right? For example, you know, this past, so interested in the past Super Bowl is like, all this dust up about Bad Bunny being the performer. And it's almost like you have to either hate the idea and then be considered a racist, or you have to be love the idea and be considered a romanticist. And the truth is me personally, I just don't like the music. I'm like, I want, I love hip hop. So I'm always like what hip hop act is performing, right? It doesn't mean that I don't like bad money. I don't know them, you know, but I should be able to say that, that look, I was not interested in that halftime show for any other reason other than I just don't actually like the music. And like, now we live in this culture where it's like we politicize everything. We make meaning out of people's choices that have nothing to do. with the person choosing, we don't listen to understand, we listen to demon- Yeah, you know, it's- Right. think if we can't even get the basics of like cultural things right. I mean, I argue with my friends all the time about music taste, what they like, what I dislike. And it never comes down to like, ⁓ you're racist or you're a- ⁓ you know, whatever other ways that we label people's looks like, yeah, your taste in music sucks and mine doesn't. ⁓ Jama Adams (19:09) Which is, you know, that's a reasonable opinion to hold. Shaka Senghor (19:11) That's all the reasons, just like our opinions, right? But now somehow, opinions have become so politicized that we're not even honest with ourselves publicly. I just live in that prison. I don't even talk to people that I don't feel like I can have a genuine conversation with, you know? And like, Jama Adams (19:15) We treat that with such I'll be fusion. ooo there you go And what is that line? Is it respect? when does somebody come outside the bounds of, I'm not, this is not worth my time. Shaka Senghor (19:46) think when I can sense that it's performative. You know, if you're performing some act of like who you think you have to be, like that conversation isn't interesting to me. You know, I would rather us be completely disagreeable and authentic. That's an interesting conversation. Because I want to understand why you think the way that you think and. Jama Adams (20:00) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shaka Senghor (20:12) You know, maybe just through our conversation, we can shift each other's perspective. I've had my perspective shift a lot, you know, because, you know, I have, I'm I'm a male navigating a very male driven society. So being in conversation with, you know, my friends who are women, my perspective is always shifting because I'm curious. ⁓ it doesn't mean we always agree, but there are so many things about my life that is better because I've been curious about what is her experience? What is something that happens in her world as she doesn't, you know? Jama Adams (20:49) that would never come into mind. Shaka Senghor (20:51) world but now I can consider that like ⁓ I never thought about that you know Jama Adams (20:57) face that and it's. Shaka Senghor (20:58) So I think that's how we get better as like humans is like, how do we become more curious? Jama Adams (21:05) Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, you are someone who has pretty recently sat down with Oprah and Joe Rogan. And I bet a bunch of other people. What is talk about everything? mean, I think a few, you know, we were, we, we give a lot of respect to a zero or a one or a black or a white opinion and not a lot of respect. mean, I think that's a great point. Not a lot of respect. to the human, right? We're listening just as long as we need to understand if you're on my side or not, right, or whatever. I guess, so talk about those specifics, but also talk about, because that's something I was dying to talk to you about. How did we get here? You know, if we're talking about this cultural moment, there is so much division, you know, the sort of worst. aspects of this are being played out on a national stage, on an international stage every day. So talk about your personal experience and then what you think, you know, how do you extrapolate these lessons that you're trying to get at in the book to our shared experience right now? Shaka Senghor (22:20) Yeah, that's a great question. know, I think about that. People ask me that all the time. It was like, you know, that's such an, that seems like such an extreme, right? To go from, from, from Joe to Oprah, Oprah to Joe. And, you know, Oprah and I, we've become friends over the years, which has been. Jama Adams (22:38) Jealous, super jealous. Shaka Senghor (22:41) It's such a magical relationship because the thing that makes Oprah, Oprah is that she is authentically herself. She lives in that spirit in the deepest, most beautiful, ⁓ even sweet way. There's a sweetness to like, ⁓ you know, the way that she explores life. like, mean, originally when she first got my book, she was like, she had judgments and she's super honest about that. Jama Adams (22:50) Yeah. She shared with you with, yeah, that's awesome. Shaka Senghor (23:11) Yeah, and like, I mean, if you really think about that, here's the most powerful woman in the world. Um, when it comes to the world of media, like there's no, no one, no one big. Right. Is she gets this book and she's like, why, why would I read this guy's book when he was in prison? He's a convicted murder and nobody can make her read that book. Her spiritual curiosity, the intention behind. her valuing books wouldn't allow her to throw that book away. Then she decides to open it and she comes into a world that she's never come into, right? And I'm sure there were moments, plenty of moments. mean, like she read the self-published one way more raw than... Jama Adams (23:46) Thank you. which is- Right, which you sold out of your trunk, right? Is this the one that- one you were right out that you rode in prison? Yes. Wow. Shaka Senghor (24:07) She got the wrong one in their stories and that one is not in the other book and she she she explored it with curiosity and like that's a I mean what better lesson for life than that right this extreme of like this beautiful powerful woman who rebels in good rebels and Nice and happiness and things and now she's in this world. That's the complete opposite of that, And I didn't pull any punches when I'm writing about where I was in that world. But she approached me with a sensitivity of spirit that led to us becoming friends, right? And then you have Joe, who everybody has an opinion about. You know, is he fostering whatever angst they have, or angst they have? And I go into this conversation, I go in there with the purity of spirit. Jama Adams (24:39) Yeah. Shaka Senghor (25:03) of like, we're just about to have a good conversation. And I'm just going to, only way it's not going to be good is if he prevent me from telling the truth. And he didn't do that. He was curious and we were able to laugh and like, you know, I was so that masculine part of me was able to just be free of like, I can just say the thing and like, I don't have to be sensitive to Joe's ears. Like he's seen some things. ⁓ and so, and it was just a real conversation and, And the power of that is that I don't know Joe's politics. I don't know Oprah's politics. can glean some things from what they say, but I also don't really care that much about politics. I care about what it means to be human because we existed before politics existed. And if we can go back to that fundamental principle of like, Hey, we, actually created these systems. ⁓ a lot of these parts of these systems are not real, you know, The media stoked fear. You know why it stoked fear? Because we love scaring the hell out of our shells. Jama Adams (26:07) That's right, and that, and well, and very clearly, like this. Shaka Senghor (26:10) It's a marketing. I mean, it's the greatest marketing play, right? Like we're the people who watch Jason saw Halloween. So we're like these gutters for, but I'm just saying like those things like our mass marketed, like Stephen King is like one of the best selling authors in the history of literature. Jama Adams (26:20) But yes. Forever. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Shaka Senghor (26:37) our innate human experience where we like to be proximate to things that we're afraid of. So what does the media do? It feeds us with exactly what it psychologically knows about us. Is that if we can make people fearful, they will lean in because they're trying to absolve themselves of the fear. And so here we go. Jama Adams (26:43) Yeah. inoculate like exposure therapy? You think that's why people like this stuff? Shaka Senghor (27:09) Yes, it's, mean, it's the craziness of like, huh, the new, like we will watch the same bit of news all day, every day for a week straight. There'd be the same stories. It doesn't change much. Like if you're Monday, you can catch up by Thursday and you'll have all the details that you missed because it's going to feed us because we're going to keep feeding ourselves that. And, know, and it's so, it's so wild because like, you know, I'll go into space, I'm speaking and people are like, my God. Jama Adams (27:21) Yeah. Humans trying to do things. for sure. Shaka Senghor (27:40) The world just feel like it's coming apart. And I'm like, doesn't feel like that to me. I'm actually amazed. I'm happy to be here. How's your day going? Right? Like we're about to have fun. We're about to talk. We're about to have meaningful conversations. That is my real life. That's more what my life is in day to day as it is with most people is like our day to day life. Oftentimes doesn't even brush up against the insanity that we're like so caught up in. Right? Now does these things impact our lives? Absolutely. The way we get taxed, you know, the potential to go into war, our environment is falling apart. Things are true. But it's also true that we are more humane in our day to day interactions than the news media would lead us to believe. So we're partially responsible, right? It's not just a politician. The craziness and like, mean, I literally was in Iowa, right? The population of this town was like. Jama Adams (28:27) Yeah, sure. Yeah, gosh, yeah. Shaka Senghor (28:37) I think less than 2 % Jama Adams (28:40) It's Iowa. I like to do it the morning. Shaka Senghor (28:43) And not only did I fly out there when I landed, was like, it was an hour drive to the hotel. And so, you know, I could have been like, man, I'm not flying out there in the middle of Iowa. Where are these people? But I was like, ⁓ I'm actually going. And I had the loveliest time and met the most loving people and the caring people. Like that's what I found life to be, even in moments of, you know, being disagreeable. Cause people think they know what I. Jama Adams (29:05) Yeah. Shaka Senghor (29:12) think about politics, but most of the time they really don't. I think when you're black, you're just assigned a category that people just think that you can, you know, if you care, if you're black and you care about any social issues. Jama Adams (29:27) or people just generally. Shaka Senghor (29:29) not judgements on who they think you are or what they think you care about. And a lot of times I don't care about most of the things people would think so. Jama Adams (29:33) Yeah. Yeah. It's so fascinating. want to, there's a few threads in there that I really want to pull on. So one is, one is, just caveat, you were talking to somebody or I should say full disclosure, like you're talking to somebody who, you know, grew up talking about politics. It's part of my, you know, deeply part of my history. But I want to ask you because politics, so I think we can mean a lot of different things, but to me, politics is just how we decide what we're going to do together. And I would argue that that has always been part of any time you get two or more humans in a room, you know, any in any group, you're going to have politics, you know, like you have to decide what powers am I going to give up so that we can be safe, you know, just the very basics. What do you think about that? I mean, I know, I think we're I know what you were talking about, you know, in saying, you know, when we think of politics now, we think of just two sides screaming at each other on TV, which nobody loves. But does that ring true, especially given all of the history and the philosophy that you've studied and been part of? Shaka Senghor (30:50) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're always negotiating and deciding, right? And we're deciding what's best for the majority and we're figuring out how to negotiate things. So yeah, you're right. When I speak of politics, I’m speaking about the political conversation that is currently being had on a more national level, right? You know this never ending news cycle that, you know, gets us all foaming at the mouth and deciding where we land on one thing or another. And the reality is most of the time it is very nuanced. Jama Adams (31:24) Yeah, anything that matters is. Shaka Senghor (31:30) And like the areas where I have really leaned in, like I worked in criminal justice for a very long time. I've helped change a lot of laws and policy and I've been able to work with both parties. And you know, what I found with both parties is once you get into the real conversations, the humanity starts to show up. I cannot tell you how many towns that I've gone into that I can pretty much without, I would probably be a winning man if it was Vegas, I can guarantee you, can tell you whether I'm in a red town or a blue town. And when you start getting into these deeper layers of, you know, how do we save some of these kids who are dying from opioids and fentanyl? How do we make sure that, you know, our taxes are being allocated in a way that matters. And how are we making sure people are, you know, really being taken care of in our community. Those conversations without a doubt are always the same. We really want the same thing. Jama Adams (32:31) I couldn’t agree more. Shaka Senghor (32:32) We just don't know how to get there. Jama Adams (32:33) And we're being distracted by people who do have an interest, whether money or political power or influence or, you know, celebrity, people who have a very vested interest in us being divided and at each other's throats and glomming onto the, you know, the feud. There are differences, no question. But I couldn't agree more - that on any issue that matters, we all basically want the same things, especially when it comes to our kids. And by ‘our,’ I mean ALL of our kids. Shaka Senghor (33:02) If we're collectively honest, you can really look at both parties and you'll see a very consistent playbook. You’ll see that they run for their position, they put their stake in the ground, and when they're done in that space, they write a book, and then they go talk about it. Jama Adams (33:25) I mean, rich words, though, my friend, you know. Shaka Senghor (33:27) I'm not mad at it. But understand there's a real playbook there. And if you understand the playbook, you understand that there's a methodology that is always at work. And you have to decipher between what part is the gamesmanship of politics versus what part is really about the best interests of the people. Jama Adams (33:30) That’s right. And the game is designed… Shaka Senghor (33:56) And I just know from doing this work that both parties do have things about their core values that is really designed with the intention to be in the best interests of the people. Now, what they say about it and how we get there, that's always a problem. I, you know, I never forget that working on criminal justice. The right had a very, you know, particular perspective, which was, hey, we're spending way too much money incarcerating people. Shaka Senghor (34:27) And we're leaving a lot on the table when it comes to the labor force that these people could be filling some of these jobs, et cetera. And the left had a very particular perspective of like, listen, we want less harms done to our community and we have to figure out how to protect people as they reintegrate into society. You get down to it, it's all, you know, how we got there is it differs, right? Cause conversations change, time changes things. And so. You know, it's just a matter of like, how do you balance your day to day experience with, and how do you just protect yourself? like, I think it's wild to give up so much of our spiritual and emotional agency to people who we may and may not ever see in our lives. Jama Adams (35:19) I'm going to just follow, just to follow blindly some political leader, for example. Shaka Senghor (35:25) Yeah. Or to just work myself up because somebody disagrees with me. Like that part is like, I mean, we're, we're like foaming at the mouth over these things and they're meanwhile, they're probably all drinking at a bar together. Jama Adams (35:39) Yeah. Laughing all the way to the bank! Shaka Senghor (35:54) Figure out how they're going to argue a thing together, you know, uh, or against each other. I mean, it's sad, you know, it's definitely, it's, I would say for me, the thing that I'm disheartened by is that we don't have a public space for just real intellectual discourse. You know, we just get into these emotional fights. Jama Adams (36:04) Yeah Jama Adams (36:10) Yes, over and over, the same thing. Shaka Senghor (36:15) Yes, we're like little kids on a playground. Jama Adams (36:19) I expect more Shaka Senghor (36:20) I'm like, more amazing would it be if we can like intellectually debate that we care about, you know, like in a real intellectual debate. Right. ⁓ Shaka Senghor (36:23) Yeah Because this stuff matters. There are real consequences, right? And I think, I firmly believe, I agree with you, everybody is, the hero of their own story, but also the hero of those around it. Like anybody, especially anybody who's involved in public service, they didn't get there because they wanted to be the Grinch. They got there because they believe that what they are doing is going to make the world better for our kids, right? Like that's how everybody is approaching this. This stuff is hard. I mean, this is my big lesson from the philosophers, and I mean all of them. It's hard. Humans are complicated. Why are we here? I'm not sure yet. Right? So of course it's going to be hard to make the right choice, whatever that means. And so why wouldn't we spend the actual, why wouldn't we be curious and have a real debate about it? I think part of what you're saying is the answer is because we're in our hidden prisons and if everybody's stuck, you know, this is where the individual becomes the collective, right? I'd love to hear you talk about, know, obviously the message of this book is, and it's a very practical guide, get free. And then I think what you're saying is, and free others. And that looks like having real debates and that looks like treating each other with respect and kindness and right? I mean, does that ring true? Shaka Senghor (37:57) Yeah, and that's the power of it. It's like the real power is that we get this opportunity to really lean into what it means to be human and the complexities of our humanity. you know, it's really interesting because like children, you know, and I love, I'm like, I'm a dad, so I love, you know, being a dad, I have cute little adorable neighbors. I got like some little cute three-year-old twin neighbors and they have an older brother who's like six. Jama Adams (38:09) Yeah Shaka Senghor (38:26) Julius, Emery, and Coyote is like my little guys. And children are adorable. Yeah. But children are also mean and selfish and violent. I'm like, I think- Jama Adams (38:09) Right, they have no prefrontal cortex. Jama Adams (38:10) Yes. And I think because we have this kind of like, we had this very romanticized, cuddly idea of children, even in those moments when they're being selfish by them, we find it funny. But the reality is that same energy plays out in adult bodies. Jama Adams (39:02) especially because they've been rewarded for it. Yeah, we're like, that's so cute. Shaka Senghor (39:06) Yeah. Yeah. so then you see it playing out with adults who are like arguing and all these dust-ups and it's like, oh, that's just the inner child is like not matured to the point where they're causing harm to each other and that selfishness kicks in and it's rooted in this fear, right? That if I don't fight for what I want for myself, someone else is going to take it away and never have take it from Yeah. And it's like, no, we all got to navigate this space together. Jama Adams (39:32) some. That's so interesting. And would you go as far to say that if you don't do your inner work, if you don't heal, if you don't come out of your hidden prisons, your shames, your trauma, your grief, your anger, if you don't work through that, you can't, like that inner, all you have is that inner child is so broken and not, then you're going to keep playing that stuff out basically on other people. that? Shaka Senghor (40:04) Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the way it shows up, Like the unhealed part of us is always causing harm. know, inability to solve problems together, our inability to forgive, inability to be vulnerable, even with those we say that we love. You know, when I think about some of the conversations I have with men about being fathers, and they talk about never being hugged by their dad. Never hearing I love you from their father or I'm proud of you and just how those simple words can change a child's outcome. ⁓ You know, that's where it really pains us that because it starts to hurt other people. And there's so many people who have parental wounds, ⁓ know, an emotionally unavailable mother who never was loved on a nurture herself. And so she doesn't know how to be that for her children. And then the cycle just goes on and on. So until people are courageous enough to say, I'm going to break the cycle, we just kind of get caught in that, in that, that childhood version of ourselves, ⁓ that's expressed in an adult body. And so, you know, it, causes so much harm, you know, to not work on your own healing. And I don't think anybody gets to like a finality of healed, right? Like, you know, healing. healing, no, I'm still on my healing journey, Probably far more advanced than a lot of people with it. Cause I've had, you know, time to really focus intentionally on it. ⁓ but even, you know, things come up and I'm like, ⁓ there's that thing, you know, I just happen to have the tools to deal with it. It doesn't mean that the thing doesn't come up, you know, and I get a chance to choose whether to use the tools or not use them. Jama Adams (41:59) Yeah. Shaka Senghor (42:00) And that's what the book really offers is these tools and this framework of like, if you use the tools, you can definitely free yourself. ⁓ Jama Adams (42:08) You're so confident. It's so inspiring. I mean, for me, right, I there's so many habits, right? And it's not that the habits don't the habits are there's deep grooves, deep grooves. But as I get older and wiser and do some of this work, I recognize it faster. I'm like, there's that same old story that I'm telling myself. And then I can and then I have a bunch of strategies and I'm like, Okay, which one are we gonna go to now? I wanna pick up on something you just said. I've had the time. I think one of the trickiest parts of the world we live in, I think I can speak for everyone listening, they don't feel that they have the time, right? And obviously, and I think even we know consciously that like, This is the best time well spent and of course I should take the time. even you, you you've said, look, even I who know better, so to speak, right? What do you say to that? I mean, obviously like you're like, there are some practical strategies in there, but like, how do you do it and what do you recommend? Shaka Senghor (43:23) That's a great, that's a great question, great call out. I say this is the intention dictates the time. The intention dictates the time. And what I mean by that is if you are intentional about the experience you want to have, you will make the time. And you will make that five minutes that it takes to journal, to do that breath work, to meditate. to reflect on a passage that lifts you up. ⁓ It doesn't require as much time as people probably assume in their mind. It's the intention of the time, right? And so what I did in prison where when I began to shift, I put the time into the things I was intentional about. I made sure that I was journaling. Sometimes it was for two minutes. Sometimes it could be for an hour, but the intention was always the same. I have to write to free myself from this old narrative. And that just required me saying, Hey, I don't want to suffer anymore. And I am tired of suffering. Therefore I'm going to do what is necessary for me to heal no matter how long it takes me. ⁓ and in some areas I was able to heal instantaneously and other areas require deeper work. And so the intention dictates the time. And once people really understand that, they'll make the time, you know, you just got to be committed to it. You have to have the, you know, the desire, like the desire to live a life free of suffering. I guess a courageous act to, you know, to say, I'm going to set out on this journey where I'm going to start rewarding my suffering with more suffering. that I'm going to challenge the moments that I'm suffering and figure out what can I intentionally do to change that? And so now I don't, there's things that come up and I'm like, if I go down this path, I'm gonna suffer. And so I am choosing all the time. And it doesn't mean that I get it right all the time. Like I'm no different than any other human. ⁓ But the awareness. gives me just a big, a big of a kind of leg up on my, on the old version of myself, you know? And that's what I want people to get to. And that's why I say, you know, even if you look at the interior design of the book, there's a doorway ⁓ where on a dig deeper part, And intention behind that was that none of us are without the potential of sliding back into an old way of being. Jama Adams (46:07) Yeah No, in fact, it's the deep grooves make it very... Shaka Senghor (46:21) Easy. So that's why the door is there is because sometimes you're to go in and out. ⁓ but the, the, the thing is that you now have the power to decide, you know, am I going to, am I going to go back into that old place that, you know, it's familiar. It is comfort. ⁓ your suffering can be comfortable. and so, yeah, Jama Adams (46:40) Yeah. know what you're getting. It's very Buddhist of you. Right? Shaka Senghor (46:51) Yeah, it's like so yeah, so we get a chance to like, you know, I don't want to suffer. I don't want to have a miserable day. So I just try to set my intentions on like, how do I want to experience it? Jama Adams (47:02) Yeah. And when it's like what you said at the beginning, nobody, you know, we don't actually say out loud, I want to have a great connection with my friend right now. How should I go about that? But after the fact, we're like, my God, that was the best. And it's, would you say it's the same here? It's like, I don't want to suffer. We don't say, I don't want to suffer anymore. Therefore I'm going to do things that will ensure that I no longer suffer. But afterwards we're like, dang, that feels so much better. I believe to ask you about the literary lounge. Shaka Senghor (47:32) building is one just a building itself is one of the most beautiful buildings in America. Jama Adams (47:42) I didn't know anything about the central market until you. Thank you. Shaka Senghor (47:47) So the buildings, old train station, uh, that had been out of business since like the eighties. And it was just monumental, just massive ice sword and Ford and 700 million into rehab in this building. Um, and people thought it would take them 20, 30 years to turn this thing around. And they did it in probably about six years. Wow. It is one of the most majestic buildings in the country. Um, it sits in this, this, this own world, basically. And you know, when you walk into the building, it's just like these massive ceilings and this beautiful marble. And then they actually kept some of the graffiti from when it was just in disarray, which is actually now looks really cool. And the boys and girls club sits on the fifth floor in the side of this building. Yes. It is walking into a space. Jama Adams (48:34) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shaka Senghor (48:44) looks nothing like any other boys and girls club in the world. Like it is, it is just a beautiful, beautiful building. And then you go in and you just go up to this floor that takes up a whole floor. it's just like, I mean, the technology in these spaces, ⁓ you know, there's Usher, the singer has the Spark Lab and it's like, the ⁓ big Sean has like a music studio in there and just, it's like, They're doing fashion and robotics and I mean, this is an unbelievable place. And then you got the stock sing or lounge, which is like this massive anchor at the end of the building where kids can just come and be, they just, they're able to just spend real time and, you know, and it's, and they took the coolest part is the designers took some of my writing from prison. on the walls, there's writing from my journals. as well as from like my first piece of fiction that's literally on the wall. Oh, wow. it's written on. This is my real, I don't know how they did this is incredible, but it's like Michigan Department of Corrections correspondence paper. And so you see this, these kids get a chance to look like, you know, I'm not just telling you a story that I didn't live, but you have evidence when you walk into the space, but it's like so beautifully designed and, and it's incredible. It's literally like, I'm like, Jama Adams (49:44) In your ⁓ Shaka Senghor (50:09) It's the most surreal. Just to have something named after you in a public space is crazy. Jama Adams (50:16) Yeah, yeah, well, you're live. Shaka Senghor (50:19) Yeah, when you see this building, it's like unbelievable, you know? And when they opened it back up, I mean, it was just a massive concert. They had like ⁓ and White Stripes and everybody can think of, like, was that, it's that big of a deal. ⁓ But it's, so it's, it's, still surreal to think that these kids are just going into this building every day and changing their lives one book at a time. Jama Adams (50:46) And one book at a time and a space to just read. mean, as a book nerd, ⁓ right? And the writing on the wall, I saw that piece too, but I didn't realize it was on Department of Corrections note paper in your handwriting. I mean, think that's, because it's easy to love books and you're like, look at this bound book that's perfect and everything, you know, and that's something different. But to look at your handwriting and to be like, ⁓ and this is that's your main, you know, that's your main ⁓ suggestion is that we all just need to write. bet, I mean, I'm sure you've already had kids, but I can't wait for all the kids who come in there and are our future poet laureates and philosophers and, you know, because they were inspired. They're like, ⁓ okay, I guess that's how books are written. Shaka Senghor (51:24) Yeah. Yeah, and that's one of the things that I'm excited about is like really building our programming. So I'm literally about to go out to all of my friends and just be like, listen, so, you know, Boys and Girls Club generally has their own operating budget. They have all those things, but I want to I really want to carve out like some intentional scholarships for writers, you know, starting as an independent writer. You know, I just think about I didn't have a typewriter and all those things. had to hustle up on those things in And so this scholarship that I'm putting together, the idea is that there'll be a pool of money specifically for the kids who come through there who want to be writers. And then we'll give them like these adventurous writing retreats. And I'll come and, you know, I'll instruct them on memoir writing and fiction and, you know, nonfiction writing. But then I'll have my writer friends come who are screenwriters and who write for television and who write music. And then they also got to go on an actual adventure to get to the retreat. Cause I don't want it to be bored. want their minds to be fired up with like imagination on their journey. So they may take a train or we may do it in some place that, you know, isn't a typical spot where people would think that a writer's retreat takes place. Jama Adams (53:03) Yeah, great idea. Like a spy novel opening to the writer's retreat, you know? And sneak in some, you know, yeah, journaling and meditation and the thing, you know, like the work of the inner life. I mean, okay, the last thing I have to ask you is I encourage everyone to read the dedication of this book. That is a bit surprising. And then you say, look, of course there's a million people I could dedicate this book to and I love them all. but this one is for me. And then you tell us to the little boy they call Pumpkin, to the broken teenager the streets renamed Jay, to the young man James White who walked into a prison cell at 19, and to the man Shaka Senghor who has carried them all into the light. Shaka Senghor (53:55) Yeah, this one was for me. it's so, it's so wild. Cause I was like, it was one of those moments where, you know, I've had these moments in my life where I know that there was ⁓ a higher energetic force, right? God, creator, universe, whatever people choose to call it. ⁓ that led me to that dedication and it came so organically, so pure, so beautiful. And I didn't resist it. You know, there was a moment where I hesitated them like I got a wife I got a kid and I'm like, you know could dedicate it to them. That's the noble thing to do and My spirit was like no this you need to do this, know, you've been through a lot of iterations of the self and this this verse of you Lily deserves to dedicate this body of work, which is I believe it's my most important body of work. And yeah, it just came like literally through this energy that was like, okay, that's what it is. And I just wrote it and I just didn't even second guess it. just let it. Jama Adams (55:08) Didn't edit it? Where were you sitting when that happened? Like, describe the scene. Shaka Senghor (55:13) Yeah, I was actually sitting in my office where I'm at now. outside. I live in LA now. So this is my outside office slash hangout space slash gathering space. Jama Adams (55:27) It's midwinter, but those of us in California get to enjoy. Shaka Senghor (55:31) Yeah, it's one of those moments where I'm like, I was going through the list of things that my publisher was like, okay, we need this by such and such date. And I was like, ⁓ the dedication, you know? And instantaneously, I was like, my wife and my son, and was like, that spirit just hit me. was like, it's for you. You know? And so I just trusted it. And it's so interesting because I can tell you in my other two books, no one's ever asked me about the dedication. But with this one, so many people have remarked about how profoundly impacted they were by that particular dedication. And that was just striking to me because I'm like, do people even read dedication? I didn't even know. Nobody's ever been like, who did you dedicate? Honestly, like, just, nobody's ever said anything about the other two. Jama Adams (56:28) But this one is for me, as you say, but this book is for all of us. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful that you spent the time to sit down and talk about it with me today. ⁓ Thank you, Chaka. Shaka Senghor (56:44) It's truly been an honor and I'm happy we get a chance to do this and I'm sure it won't be our last conversation so... Jama Adams (56:49) I not. I really appreciate you. Shaka Senghor (56:54) Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a joy. Jama Adams (56:57) Thank you. Outro (57:01) Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please subscribe at jamaadams.com. We’d love to hear from you on social media. Until next time, take care.