TED Talks Daily TED Talks Daily Book Club: How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons | Shaka Senghor
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Sep 28, 2025 
Shaka Senghor, a resilience expert and New York Times bestselling author, shares his profound journey after spending 19 years in prison. He discusses the importance of forgiveness as a form of self-love and the healing power of journaling and reading. Shaka emphasizes the significance of vulnerability, especially for young men, and the mutual benefits of mentorship. He believes in breaking cycles of trauma and highlights how gratitude can lead to joy. His mission now focuses on helping others find freedom from their own hidden prisons.
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From Detroit Streets To Long Incarceration
- Shaka describes growing up in Detroit and being drawn into the drug trade after running away from home as a teen.
- He recounts being shot, developing PTSD, and later serving 19 years in prison including seven years in solitary confinement.
Hidden Prisons Have Doors
- Shaka frames hidden prisons as internal barriers that everyone carries and says each prison has a door.
- He argues his lived prison experience yields practical life lessons applicable to a broad audience.
Grief, Guilt, And The Power Of Gratitude
- He opens the book with his brother Sherat's murder to show grief as a primal, enduring hidden prison.
- Shaka says gratitude became the key practice that helped him navigate grief and guilt.
