Six Years a Hostage, A Lifetime of Wisdom with Stephen McGown

“What does it mean to lose yourself? And more importantly...what does it take to find your way back?”

These were the questions echoing in my mind long after sitting down with Stephen McGown, a South African whose story isn’t just remarkable, it’s transformational.

Stephen’s journey from banker to hostage to international speaker isn’t just a tale of survival. It’s a mirror. One that forces us to look at the lives we’re living and ask: Am I truly free?

Before his abduction by Al-Qaeda in Timbuktu, Stephen was already wrestling with that quiet dissatisfaction many of us carry. He had grown up on a farm, grounded in simplicity and grit, but had ended up in a high-rise banking career that never quite fit. So he did what many dream of but few dare...he took off on a motorcycle adventure across Africa, searching for meaning beyond spreadsheets and city traffic.

That journey ended abruptly in the Sahara Desert, where he was held hostage for nearly six years.

Six years.

No phone. No calendar. No distractions. Just silence, sand, and survival.

And yet, this is where Stephen found himself.

He spoke about learning to track time through the rhythm of nature, by moonlight, by the migrations of birds, by the soft bloom of desert flowers. He spoke of peeling away the noise of life, the endless comparisons, the busyness that so often numbs us. “When all that noise settles down,” he told me, “you start to get in contact with things.”

That line has stayed with me. Because isn’t that what many of us crave...contact? With something real. With ourselves.

What struck me most was how Stephen chose to frame his captivity. He didn’t just survive it, he transformed it. He called it a sabbatical. A chance to go back to his 18-year-old self and ask, “Who was I before the world told me who I should be?”

And that right there is where the heart of his story lies. Not in the extremity of what he endured, but in the quiet bravery of what he reclaimed.

His message is deceptively simple, and yet deeply profound: Be authentic.
Not the fastest. Not the smartest. Just you. Anything else, and you’ll lose yourself. You’ll live a life that looks fine on the outside but feels empty on the inside.

Stephen’s story isn’t just about him. It’s about all of us.

It’s about the invisible prisons we build  careers that drain us, relationships that shrink us, expectations that slowly erase us. And it’s about the courage it takes to break free, to look inward, to start again.

When he returned home, a friend told him: “Don’t compare yourself to us we’re more screwed up than you are.”

I laughed when he said that. But there’s truth in it.

Stephen walked through hell and came out whole. Not because he had a map but because he learned to listen to the compass inside him. The one we all have, even if it’s been buried under years of noise.

If his story teaches us anything, it’s this

Sometimes, you have to lose everything to find what truly matters.
And sometimes, the desert...real or metaphorical, is where your freedom begins