The 5 am club

within
every single one of us
. And that does mean you.
The tour guide, who also happened to be a former political prisoner, was a
large man with a gruff voice. As he led his guests toward the cell where
Nelson Mandela was forced to live for so many long and harsh years, he
answered each of the questions they asked.
“Did you know Nelson Mandela?” queried The Spellbinder thoughtfully.
“Yes, I served with him for eight years here on Robben Island.”
“What was he like as a person?” asked the artist, appearing overwhelmed
by the emotions that he was feeling as they walked down the main corridor of
the jail that had been home to so many atrocities during the apartheid era.
“Oh,” said the guide gently with a gracious and even wise smile across his
face, “that man was a humble servant.”
“And what was Nelson Mandela like as a leader?” pressed the
entrepreneur.
“Tremendous. Dignified. Inspirational by the way he handled himself and
all he went through. Every time he met one of his fellow leaders, often it was
here in this courtyard,” commented the guide as he stepped into the area
where the political prisoners would walk, talk, plan and stand, “he would ask,
‘Are you learning?’ He’d also often say, ‘Each one, teach one,’ in this way
mentoring his associates on the importance of sharing their daily learning to
increase the leadership capability of all those around them. Mr. Mandela
understood that education is the ultimate highway into freedom.
“That man was treated so poorly. All those hours of back-breaking work
in the limestone quarry. All the degradation and humiliation. A few years after
he came here, he was ordered to dig a grave in the prison yard—and then to
lie in it,” the tour guide added.
“He must have thought that was the end,” reflected the billionaire, softly.
“Probably,” replied the guide. “Instead, the guards unzipped their pants.
And urinated over him.”
The Spellbinder, the billionaire, the entrepreneur and the artist all looked
down.
“We all have our own Robben Islands that can keep us imprisoned, I
guess,” the billionaire mused.
“As we go through life we endure our own trials and injustices. Nothing

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as severe as what went on here, of course. I read that Nelson Mandela said his
greatest regret was not being allowed out of this prison to attend the funeral of
his eldest son after he was killed in a car accident,” expressed the billionaire.
He looked up to the sky. “I guess we all have our regrets. And no one gets out
without their own ordeals and tragedies.”
The tour guide pointed to the fourth window, to the right of the entrance
into the courtyard. “There,” he stated. “That’s Nelson Mandela’s cell. Let’s go
in.”
The cell was incredibly small. No bed. A small wooden table that the
prisoner would kneel at to write in his journal as there was no chair, a
concrete floor and a brown woolen blanket, with green and red flecks in it.
“For the first year of his imprisonment, Nelson Mandela wasn’t even
permitted to wear long pants, though it was freezing over the South African
winter. He was given only a thin shirt and flimsy shorts. When he showered,
the guards stood and watched this elderly man standing naked, an attempt to
humiliate—and break—him. When it was time to eat, he was given food unfit
for an animal. When letters would arrive from his wife and children, often
they wouldn’t be delivered. Or if they were, they would be significantly
censored. All this was carefully done to crush Mr. Mandela’s spirit,” the guide
explained.
“It seems to me all that he endured in this shoebox of a jail cell, on this
desolate island encircled by a raging ocean, developed him, strengthened him