Latest / INSPIRE STORY / FAMOUS Musician Explains How SUCCESS _ FAME Almost RUINED HIS LIFE

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FAMOUS Musician Explains How SUCCESS _ FAME Almost RUINED HIS LIFE · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Because Yeah, usually when we're listening, we're actually talking in
• 0:04
  our head about what the other person is saying, and
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  we're listening to our voice that commentary as opposed to
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  their voice. So when you can really listen in that
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  deep way, it's a real gift to give to someone else.
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  Speaker 2: I believe the world needs a new set of real models,
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  people who live with deep intentions behind their actions, and
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  this is the podcast where you get to meet them,
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  hear from them, and hear me ask them questions about life,
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  the universe. Then you work and everything in between. Today
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  I'm super excited to have with me Mike Posner, an
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  American Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, poet, producer, and podcaster. Mike,
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  it's great to have you here. Thanks for having me, man,
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  Thanks for being here. And I'm really grateful. I want
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  you to know that I really am grateful that we
• 0:55
  connected recently and I really appreciate you being here.
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  Speaker 1: Man, you got it. I'm grateful we connected. Also, Yeah,
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  it seems your videos before just the guy.
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  Speaker 2: Man, I was listening to a music for a long
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  time before too.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, Man, that's cool, and it.
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  Speaker 2: Was nice because I remember Tom who connected us. He
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  was He was like, you guys are both you both
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  have three billion views. You should connect And I was
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  just like, I think there's a lot of other reasons
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  we should connect to, but yeah, yeah, man. I wanted
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  to start off by just saying you've been a longtime
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  fan of your work and your music. So the fact
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  that you let me listen to your album before this,
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  I really appreciate it, and so thank you so much
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  for doing that. But I want to start off by
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  we were on a call I think about two three
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  weeks ago, and you were in a bookstore. Which books
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  did you end up buying? Are any of them any good?
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  Speaker 1: I ended up buying A Gentleman in Moscow? Okay, I
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  just finished that. Yeah, it was really good.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, what was that about.
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  Speaker 1: It's a novel about It is fiction about a guy
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  and the USSR in like the twenties and thirties, and
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  he basically is sentenced to live the rest of his
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  life in this one hotel and it's a nice hotel,
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  but he's not allowed to leave it ever again, and
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  he gets into all these different things and nooks, and
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  you know, the story takes turns and people come and leave,
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  and it was really fun it was really really good.
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  But and then I bought The Stranger by Camu that
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  I started yesterday because I just finished The Gentleman in
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  Moscow and I haven't been like, I'm not all the
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  way in yet, okay, but we'll see, okay. So I
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  just started that, and then I bought Brian Wilson and
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  Beach Boys. He has a autobiography. I bought that, and
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  then I think I bought some That's how I bought
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  bought three.
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  Speaker 2: You read it a lot?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been this year this year. This is
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  probably the most I ever maybe read like twenty books
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  this year. Wow, the most for me.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, reading that's a lot. And yeah, yeah, what's
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  been the best one? What's been the highlights? Standout?
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  Speaker 3: One?
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  Speaker 1: Honestly, I read that The Power Now by Eckhart Tolin,
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  which was a book I avoided for a long time
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  because it's popular. You know, everyone Oprah to Eckart The
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  Power Now. And I thought, if it's popular, it's not cool.
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  That's why, you know. Foolishly, I always wanted to be
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  like find some like secret exactly, So I never read
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  it for the years and years and years, and I
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  finally read it. I was like Oh, it's popular for
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  a reason. It's good. I read that book like four
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  or five times this year.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And we were just looking through my shelf and
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  you said you'd read The bug with Gita. Yes, when
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  did you read that? What do you think of it?
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  Speaker 1: I read that actually when I was visiting India for
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  the first time, the only time so far. That was
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  a year and a half ago. I remember just getting
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  like high reading that book, you know, was like a
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  physical experience. It was really something else. Yeah, what was
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  it the first time you read it?
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  Speaker 2: The first time I read it, I was sixteen years old,
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  so I read it that time, and at that time
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  it was very philosophical for me, really powerful for getting
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  through some things I got through at sixteen. Then I
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  read it again at eighteen, Then I read it again
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  at twenty one, and then when I became a monk,
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  I studied and taught that book for three years full time.
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  So it became a huge part of my life. And
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  even now when I'm working on writing my own book,
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  I'm taking a lot of principles from the Bugle Guitar
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  and making them relevant and accessible. Actually, the power of
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  Now has so many roots in chapter fourteen of the
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  Bugle Gitar, which chapter fourteen. Chapter fourteen is all about
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  the modes of material nature, a mode that makes you
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  focus on the past, a mode that makes you focus
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  on the future, in a mode that brings you in
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  the present. And so chapter fourteen of the Bugle Eat
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  it really goes deeply into the different modes that we
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  operate in.
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  Speaker 1: Ay, we do two hours just on the Gita. Man,
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  tell me stuff like.
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  Speaker 2: That, We're good. That's what we're gonna say for our time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever have this experience like I remember
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  being I don't what city I was going to. I
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  was in India on a plane. I was reading I
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  I was just feel like the veil had been lifted,
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  like us weight came off and I was a goofy
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  smile and I felt like I took drugs just from
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  this book. Man, did you ever have something like Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: For sure, for sure that spiritual knowledge can be intoxicating
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  in a good way. In a good way, it's almost
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  like detoxifying. But in the process of that, it feels
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  like you getting toxiced first and then it's stripped away. Right, Yeah,
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  spiritual knowledge does. Spiritual knowledge is described to feeling like
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  a consciousness shower like bathing, the consciousness cleansing and healing
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  and letting go of all of the other things, all
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  the toxins, the negative beliefs, all of the things that
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  we've been holding onto for so long, all the false
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  identities are stripped away. We almost get to see ourselves
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  face to face after such a long time, when we
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  strip away and let go of all our false designations
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  and roles that we've been playing.
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  Speaker 1: And what do you do? Like, wait, who's podcast? I know,
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  I know it's a question for you. I got a
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  question for you. It's like, I don't know if it's
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  like this for you, But for me, I will have
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  the like that was one of them on the plane.
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  I'll have these like flashes of very high moments. High
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  is like the best wagon explain where it feels like
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  I've heard the word story is you know this where
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  is like a flash of enlightenment? And what do you
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  do with that after?
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  Speaker 4: Is like?
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  Speaker 1: Is that? Am I supposed to always feel like that?
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  Because it's almost like it ends right? Is they had
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  that moment on the plane, But at some point that
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  moment ended and I went back to a more normal
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  default state, and then you kind of like like the
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  default state less because he experiences the other thing.
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  Speaker 2: That's beautifully explained. Man, Yeah, it's true. It's true. So
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  what it's explained as in the Vedic literatures is shadow experiences.
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  So a good example is when you're touring, Let's say
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  I came with you, I would get to experience everything
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  like I was Mike. I'd get to be in your
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  VIP space. If you took me as a friend, I'd
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  get to be in your zone. I'd get to see
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  things from your perspective. But I'm not Mike. I'm just
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  experiencing the shadow of experiencing it through you. And in
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  spiritual traditions, whether we're with an incredible teacher or a
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  guru or with a book, that energy kind of is
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  infectious and spills over onto us and we get that high,
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  and then what we need to do is unpack it
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  so that we can live that high continuously every single day.
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  And what often happens with the epiphanies or these moments
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  is that we don't unpack them. We just let them
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  be one off experiences. But you can feel like that
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  every single day if we choose to unpack and learn
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  through that process of almost reverse engineering, like what was
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  that moment? Trying to teach me? What did I really
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  gain from it? Like why did that happen at that state?
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  What was I doing right? And then you can feel
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  that way again. But it's also.
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  Speaker 1: Scary, though, go on this. This is the reason it's
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  scariest because if you're right, this is a what you
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  should spend your life doing. But if you're wrong, if
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  you can't feel that every day, if that's not possible,
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  this is a good way to waste your life. And
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  not only that, you'd like could very easily slip into
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  hating normalcy because you've experienced this flash and you think
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  something's wrong with not being there all the time. And
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  this is I struggle with this because I go, oh, yeah, well,
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  let me unpack it and do this work to get there,
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  and I can feel like that every day, But then
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  prime me is like what if there? What if you
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  can't really feel like that? Or what if this is
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  what it's supposed to be like now you know? Or
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  just make peace with this?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Well yeah, And I think it's both. I think
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  it is both. I think having that flash, the fact
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  that you've had that experience is proof to you that
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  there is more. Yes, it's proof to you that there
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  is a greater purpose beyond our existence. There is greater meaning,
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  there is greater fulfillment, And right now, you're totally right.
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  Our current state is this. So if we don't make
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  peace with this, if we don't accept this, if we
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  don't learn to navigate this and constantly live in the
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  chasing mindset, then yeah, we're gonna we're gonna feel depressed
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  every single day. So that's what I was just saying earlier,
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  that the process and the destination are the same. It
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  shouldn't be seen as separate. We see the epiphany as
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  the destination or a milestone, when actually the process on
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  a daily basis itself can be rewarding. You know, it's
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  like the creation of the song and the song. You
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  can't really strip them away.
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  Speaker 1: From each other, right, correct? Correct? We went right for it. Huh. Yeah,
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  we're like five minutes in.
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  Speaker 2: I know, I love it. It's great. It's great, man, This
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  is what makes this hit the ground line.
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  Speaker 1: It's so beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. You start interviewing me though you're
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  the other one with all the insights.
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  Speaker 1: This is a yeah, this is a because I struggle
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  with this yes, this up and down, you know, and
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  you know, I'll go and retreat or something or spend
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  some time like, let's this summer. I spent some time
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  in solitude at the monastery for like twelve days and
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  it got really high. And you come back in life
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  and I get tripped up, you know, fight with my
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  sister or something, you know, and and it's like party
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  wants to go back to the monastery where you can
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  like control everything. But this is in life, you know, always.
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  Speaker 2: And and and that's the beauty, Yeah, dealing with the
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  and that's the beauty of it that when you come
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  back into reality, you get an opportunity to learn how
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  to navigate it, taking that information, taking that insight, taking
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  those experiences from the monastery wherever you're taking them from,
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  and then getting them to play out in life. That's
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  part of the that's part of the experience. I know
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  that when I left being a monk, I actually feel
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  I've had more reflections in realization since leaving, because I've
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  had to put into practice everything I learned than when
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  I was a monk, Because when I was a monk,
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  it was protected, it.
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  Speaker 1: Was this was harder after I presume.
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  Speaker 2: It was harder. Initially it was harder. Initially, yes, it
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  was harder, but then it became more fulfilling because I
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  really had to dig deep, I really had to rethink,
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  and I had to approach everything with a new fresh
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  set of eyes and experiences. So it's actually become more meaningful.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah I could. I'm not there.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's a daily process. I'm not there either.
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  Speaker 1: This is like, so I was on the right to
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  tell you, I was on this retreat, spent like twelve
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  days alone, and I was all the way a loon
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  was in this little cabin on this monastery.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: They dropped the food off once a week in like
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  a box, you know, and you pick, so you don't
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  see anyone for a whole week.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like meditating five to seven hours a day. And
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  after like a week or so, I got to like,
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  I'll get to this point where I would my mind
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  got quiet, quiet, her, you know where you know, usually
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  I look at a flower, my brain go, so this
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  is a rose. This is the last time I saw
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  a rose. Da this one isn't quite as pretty. Talking, talking, talking,
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  And a few times on this retreat, I got to
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  a point where I would hear a bird song, like
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  quiet mind, and it's just like cripplingly beautiful, like I
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  would start crying, you know, or see the moon without
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  my mind saying anything, like it just came and explain
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  how beautiful it is. Then it's like okay, I want
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  to go home and like do that with people too.
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  It's like listen it, but I can't do it. And
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  like when I talk with some of my brain is
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  going all the time and time and time, so it's
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  like yes, it's like this integration.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and it's natural because that space is
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  carrying that energy because people for decades, I don't know
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  about the particular monastery you went through, but people for
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  decades have been practicing high levels of consciousness alternate levels
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  of consciousness in that space, so that's carried I always
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  say that location has energy and time has been memory,
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  so that location has energy and time has memory. So
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  that location is carrying that energy, and the time that
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  you spend there is carrying that memory with you. So
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  now what it's about is being able to recreate that
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  outside of that physical space, because if it is an
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  altered state of consciousness, you can carry it with you
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  and create that state in a new space because it's
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  not bound by physical boundaries.
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  Speaker 1: Correct so correct.
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  Speaker 2: So it takes time, and I'm practicing a daily too. Like,
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  don't get me wrong, I'm not coming it as a
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  point of being an expert at all. I'm coming from
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  a always trying to create the state I want to
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  be in, not accepting the state that is given to me.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a real gift if you can listen
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  to someone that way with a quiet mind, because yeah,
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  usually when we're listening, we're actually talking in our head
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  about what the other person is saying, and we're listening
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  to our voice that commentary, as opposed to their voice.
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  So when you can really listen in that deep way,
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  it's a real gift to give to someone else. It's
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  difficult to do. That's why it's such a gift because
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  it's rare. You know. I did it once with my mom.
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  I was like meditating and she walked in and I
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  was like, and it felt so good because I could
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  recognize the things that like usually would trip me up
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  and I would get upset or judge her about, and
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  I was just really listening to what she was trying
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  to say behind the words. Even you know, it's like
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  this beautiful moment.
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  Speaker 2: You know, did she feel different as well?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's so hard to tell. I've had
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  both these experiences where I've like been in one of
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  these like flashes, those ones in Hawaii. I was just
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  I was with a friend of mine and were it
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  was like it was one of those moments, you know,
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  we weren't even talking and just looking out over like
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  this cliff, It's beautiful. I remember, I like this, and
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  we gave each other a hug, and then later the
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  day he was like, man, some crazy happened when we
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  hugged right there. I felt this. He felt something, and
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  I thought, oh, when I feel something, maybe other people
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  are too. Another time I was with I was with
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  my h my girlfriend at the time, and I just
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  meditated one day and I'm like feeling like high. I'm
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  like loopy, you know, or riding in the car and
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  I was I was very quiet because I was like
• 16:34
  having this experience internally. And then later I talked to
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  her about like two days later, she was like, yeah,
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  I thought you were really mad at me, and I
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  was like she was in a different place. She wasn't
• 16:47
  high with me. So I never know exactly what other
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  people are feeling. I used to think I could. I
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  used to think, oh, they're feeling what I'm feeling always,
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  but I don't think.
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  Speaker 3: So.
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  Speaker 2: It's hard.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is hard.
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  Speaker 2: It is hard. And I think that's the challenge that
• 17:06
  we have that when we've had a moment and experience,
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  our mind forces us to want to relive that experience
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  rather than have a powerful new one. And the pain
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  actually comes from always going to go back to where
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  we were, tatch you forward to where we can yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely,
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  And that's that's actually where the pain comes from. The
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  pain comes from wanting to have the same experience, not
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  believing that there is one that can supersede that again
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  in the future.
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  Speaker 1: And also it's impossible to have an experience twice totally,
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  just you can't even do it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just the trick.
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  Speaker 1: Of the mind.
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  Speaker 2: It is the trick of the mind that's constantly trying
• 17:47
  to where yeah, whatever it is, not just spiritual experiences,
• 17:51
  any experience, even if it's a material experience, your mind's
• 17:54
  tricking you to want to recreate it again and again
• 17:56
  and again. So we keep coming up with new ways
• 17:58
  of having the same experience.
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  Speaker 1: So here here's a good question for you. I'm sorry,
• 18:04
  I'm just so curious. I know you're supposed to ask
• 18:06
  me questions.
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  Speaker 2: I've got so many good quess editor going this is fun.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: This seems to me to be like two kinds of
• 18:14
  teachers nowadays. When I think of like contemporary spiritual teachers.
• 18:19
  There's one school that says you can train your mind
• 18:25
  to think better thoughts, think more positively, get rid of
• 18:28
  like negative stories or limiting beliefs, et cetera. Can journal
• 18:33
  and meditate these things and cleanse the mind, make the
• 18:36
  mind more healthy. That's school one. And then there's another
• 18:41
  school I feel like that says, Nope, the mind is
• 18:46
  inherently dirty, and which need to do is recognize that
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  you're not your mind. And maybe it's both of those things.
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  I don't know together, but they seem to I have
• 18:58
  trouble because I feel like I have a toe here
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  and a toe there. You know what I mean. It's
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  tough because one day I'll be like, I'll notice myself
• 19:09
  thinking negative thoughts and I think, oh, I need to
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  stop doing that, or do I just need to recognize
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  that's what minds do. Yeah, I don't know.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: That's great that's an awesome question, man, I'm so glad.
• 19:21
  This is a brilliant question. So I look at it
• 19:24
  from the point of the Vaders or the bugle Geita
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  and that tradition, that school of thought, because that school
• 19:29
  of thought has given me and my research of stoicism
• 19:32
  and my research of all alternative ways of thinking, I
• 19:35
  found a lot of good answers there. So the principle
• 19:38
  is suggested as this that the mind, its function is
• 19:43
  to desire and want and will. Right, that's the function
• 19:49
  of the mind. What's often missed out in any of
• 19:52
  these schools of thought is the position of the intelligence.
• 19:55
  So the mind is compared to a child, and the
• 19:58
  intelligence is compared to an adult. And so we are
• 20:01
  not the mind, definitely, that's for sure. We are not
• 20:03
  the mind. We are consciousness beyond the mind. But there
• 20:06
  is an interaction with every thought between the mind and
• 20:09
  the intelligence. So, for example, our pain a paint a
• 20:13
  picture because it's easier. Let's say you've decided that you
• 20:16
  want to go on a diet. Right, Let's say you've
• 20:18
  decided you want to go on a diet. You want
• 20:19
  to eat healthy stuff. The mind sees a chocolate fridge cake,
• 20:24
  I'm picking that because I love chocolate fridgecakes. So the
• 20:26
  mind sees a chocolate fridge cake and the mind goes,
• 20:28
  I want that right now. I need to have that,
• 20:31
  like I need that chocolate fridge cake. And you think
• 20:33
  the chocolate fridge cake is looking at you saying eat
• 20:36
  me right like you think that, And so the mind's
• 20:38
  having this whole conversation. The mind thinks back that every
• 20:41
  time it's had chocolate fridge cake, and how happy it
• 20:43
  feels when it has that, and you're think, I need
• 20:45
  to have this fudgecake. I need it. Then it's the
• 20:48
  role of the intelligence. Based on how much you've strengthened
• 20:51
  your intelligence, your intelligence will say to the mind, no,
• 20:55
  we want to eat healthy, we want to be healthy.
• 20:58
  We're going to save that for cheap day. But if
• 21:00
  your intelligence is weak, your intelligences falls over and goes, okay,
• 21:03
  let's just have them, you know. And so that's actually
• 21:05
  the interaction that's happening daily in our minds. When we
• 21:08
  wake up in the morning, your mind sets I want
• 21:10
  to go to sleep, your intelligence says I want to
• 21:11
  wake up. Depending on how much whichever one you've been feeding,
• 21:15
  whichever one you've been strengthening. That's the one that wins
• 21:17
  inside of you every single day. So that's one other
• 21:20
  school of thought to add to.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: How would you? How would do you? One part of
• 21:25
  me goes well, is intelligence just another part of the mind.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's the more mature, adult functioning part.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But even that is not really us.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It's not it's our ability to be able to use
• 21:40
  it to steer our life in a certain way. So
• 21:43
  the analogy that's given is a driver in a car,
• 21:47
  like when you have a car accident. Sometimes we're like,
• 21:49
  oh that car hit me. The car didn't hit you,
• 21:51
  it hit the car. So the cars like the body,
• 21:54
  the intelligence is like the engine, and the system that
• 21:57
  you're using the steering wheel is like the intelligence. And
• 22:01
  then you the driver of the consciousness. So each part
• 22:05
  of it is separate, but you're using a different element
• 22:07
  of it to control the other part.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And and and how do you think of personality in this?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, personality is a mix of the mind and intelligence.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Do you think in like, who we are at our
• 22:18
  deepest level? Is our personality part of that? It's like
• 22:22
  the personality part of the cars.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think so too. Yeah, I
• 22:27
  think so too.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I think that and I don't know, but I think
• 22:31
  that when I die. Oh, obviously my body will expire,
• 22:40
  but I think my personality will expire, correct, but I
• 22:42
  will some essences.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: I'm with you, I'm with you.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But I remember saying to someone I was like, man,
• 22:49
  I feel pretty bummed, like if when I die, I'm
• 22:53
  still my personality, Like I don't want to be Mike
• 22:56
  Posner anymore, like with the saying the Row season this same,
• 23:00
  I want to leave.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, no, for sure, man, I
• 23:06
  get you.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: We went straight in all the way, we went all
• 23:09
  the way.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I'll let you ask a question now.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: If you're still listening, I hope you're not getting joking.
• 23:17
  It's great, awesome, so yeah anyway, yeah, I love this.
• 23:22
  This is great. We have to have this conversation offline too,
• 23:25
  So it's awesome. I love it, and we should do this. Mean,
• 23:28
  but I really wanted to talk about your new album.
• 23:30
  I genuinely did. I listened to it the other day
• 23:34
  and I have so many questions based on it, and
• 23:38
  they're great because they are all about life, death and
• 23:42
  the world that we live in, which I love, like
• 23:43
  that's my fascination and fixation too is figuring out our existence.
• 23:48
  And I feel like so many of your lyrics that
• 23:51
  I've picked out that I want to share with the
• 23:52
  audience listening and watching today, I want to share. So
• 23:55
  I'm going to pick out a few things here. So
• 23:58
  here I want to dive straight in. I picked up
• 24:00
  a few lyrics and I want to dissect them with you.
• 24:02
  So one of your lyrics says, my heroes all die young,
• 24:07
  they hung themselves with fame. Right, I want to know
• 24:10
  who are some of your heroes and how did they
• 24:13
  hang themselves with fame? What does that mean? This is like.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: My heroes have kind of changed, you know, as I've
• 24:20
  gotten older. But the heroes I'm talking about then, you know,
• 24:23
  it's like growing up like the Kurt Cobain, Tupac shicor
• 24:28
  you know, not really Jay Dilla, but he died young
• 24:33
  as well, not necessarily from being famous. But you know
• 24:38
  these kind of guys, you know that they're just incredible.
• 24:43
  They seem to burn really brightly for a short period
• 24:46
  of time. M hm. They don't fade out, they explode.
• 24:53
  Those are the kind of guys I was referring to.
• 24:55
  But as I've gotten older after, why am I idolized?
• 25:00
  And them I should probably idolize even if even if
• 25:07
  they're like myths or it's not real. It's like I thought,
• 25:11
  it'd probably be better to idolize like Jesus or like
• 25:14
  the Buddha, right, even if they're like stories are fake
• 25:18
  or or myths or not entirely factual, Like there's no
• 25:23
  like flaws there, Like that's a good better north star,
• 25:27
  you know what I mean than like, But there is
• 25:30
  something just very really intriguing about these kind of like
• 25:35
  like you know, genius talent that self destructs at times.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: When did you first start learning about like Jesus and
• 25:47
  Buddha and when did they stop becoming your role models?
• 25:50
  And why we're your heroes?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Later in my I mean the last like four three,
• 25:56
  four or five years?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why was that? Why did that ship? What's happened?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It actually was I met this teacher named ram Das,
• 26:05
  you know Das. I had a friend whose mom was
• 26:12
  sick and she was friends with Ramdas, and they were
• 26:17
  gonna go visit him in Hawaii, but she died. My friend,
• 26:23
  my friend's mom died and he called me and say, hey,
• 26:26
  look I still want to go on this trip. I
• 26:28
  want you to come with me though, So I said, Okay,
• 26:32
  I'm gonna come, and I went and uh we went
• 26:36
  to Ramdas's house and you know, he's had like a stroke,
• 26:41
  so he had like a motorized cherry. Came in the
• 26:43
  room and I had read some of his stuff and
• 26:47
  listened to some of his lectures, and he said a
• 26:50
  bunch of words i'd heard him say already, you know,
• 26:53
  like because I knew his stuff, and uh, well, he
• 27:00
  said one thing that stuck out. He said, you know,
• 27:02
  he said, all day long, you're you're you're categorizing. You
• 27:09
  say I love this and I hate this. You're doing
• 27:12
  that all day. He goes, it's much easier if you
• 27:15
  just love everything, you don't have to then you don't
• 27:18
  have to categorize anymore. It's just easier. It takes less energy.
• 27:24
  And he's sort of just like he held this space.
• 27:28
  It was less about what he's saying and more about
• 27:31
  like you would look at these big eyes and it
• 27:34
  felt like we could have been serial killers or whatever.
• 27:38
  He just would have loved us this way. And I
• 27:42
  remember we walked out of his house and this was
• 27:46
  one of those high moments and maybe one of the
• 27:48
  first ones I had where I was like almost like
• 27:54
  keeled over and start crying. I was just like looking around,
• 27:58
  I felt like I was in a new world, and
• 28:00
  I felt like I was in love with all the stuff,
• 28:02
  like the rusty gate and the dirt on the ground.
• 28:05
  I just loved it all. And it ended, you know,
• 28:09
  I felt like that the rest of the night. And
• 28:10
  it ended, and I didn't feel like, you know, I
• 28:14
  didn't feel like, oh, I'm should pray to Ramdas now. No,
• 28:18
  I felt like, Oh, this is a guy who's been
• 28:20
  doing the work for however many years he's been doing
• 28:23
  the work, and I thought, I want to be that
• 28:29
  for other people. This would be a good way to
• 28:32
  spend my life, as if I could hold that kind
• 28:35
  of space. So it was one of these moments where
• 28:38
  I thought, oh, that is possible, you know, to be
• 28:45
  in a space like that of mindset like that that
• 28:48
  people can feel like you could feel it, you know.
• 28:52
  And so after that I started listening more of his lectures,
• 28:56
  and I think he made a point like this in
• 28:58
  one of his lectures, which you know, if you read
• 29:02
  someone else's, like if you read my book on spirituality,
• 29:06
  you're gonna get all of the reasons that I am
• 29:08
  not enlightened. Does that make sense? But if you read
• 29:14
  something from and enlightened being like the Geeta or something
• 29:17
  like this, you just get that, you know. Switch. I
• 29:23
  You know, I don't I read everything, you know, but
• 29:27
  this is what he said, and it kind of makes
• 29:29
  sense to me, you know.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I remember that moment when I was eighteen and I
• 29:34
  met the first monk I ever met. I had a
• 29:37
  very similar experience where my role model switched. It was
• 29:41
  the first time where I'd always looked up to celebrities
• 29:44
  and entrepreneurs and CEOs and influences of any kind at
• 29:50
  that time when I was eighteen years old, and then
• 29:51
  when I met a monk, that really shifted my journey
• 29:55
  and shifted how I was aspiring to be and to
• 29:59
  do because similarly to what you said, it kind of
• 30:04
  opened me up to a whole old knative path that
• 30:06
  I didn't know existed. So I can identify with that.
• 30:09
  And then and then the end of that lyric, you
• 30:11
  say they hung themselves with fame. Tell me how you
• 30:15
  came to write that.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: This fame thing is funny. I'm sure you deal with
• 30:19
  it too, maybe better than me. But it's just so
• 30:24
  easy to get addicted to it, you know. I mean
• 30:28
  still like to this day. You know, I went to
• 30:32
  the monaster, I grew my beer whatever. But I like
• 30:35
  when people like me, you know, and you can just
• 30:40
  totally self destruct. It's like a real addiction, you know,
• 30:50
  you get it's like you people would do anything, especially
• 30:55
  when you get a taste of it. You do anything
• 30:58
  to get more of it, you know, and can kill
• 31:01
  yourself this way people do, you know. You know, the
• 31:05
  cause might be an overdose something like this, but it's
• 31:09
  it's that you know, it's you know, like my friend
• 31:12
  VICI died this year. You know this kind of things.
• 31:16
  It's it's a it's a weird vortext the same thing
• 31:20
  to be in, you know. And I'm not like really famous.
• 31:24
  I like some friends that are like super like like
• 31:28
  I can like I walked in here, you know, like
• 31:30
  no if someone recognized me, it's like one person, I
• 31:33
  can like talk to him for a second and like
• 31:35
  go on with my day.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I have friends, you know, like they can't go in public.
• 31:42
  They get like a mod soun like that for me,
• 31:44
  which I like, it's just weird. You get into a
• 31:50
  weird I feel it on tour, on tour because each
• 31:53
  night I'm playing the show, people are there for me,
• 31:58
  you know. So in that billing, I'm like super famous,
• 32:02
  you know. And then when I go back on the
• 32:07
  tour bus, everyone that I'm living with works for me,
• 32:13
  which is a weird. It's just weird. It's not real life.
• 32:18
  And then I get used to it, and I'll go
• 32:21
  out of that vortex and expect everyone to like be
• 32:25
  waiting on me and this kind of thing, and it's like, well, no, no,
• 32:29
  that's not reality.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You know. I want to dive into that thought that
• 32:34
  you were saying about liking being liked, Like we all
• 32:37
  like being liked?
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Is that a bad thing? Is it a good thing?
• 32:40
  How do you how and this whole process you're talking
• 32:42
  about of fame, how have you work through it? How
• 32:45
  have you seen your friends work through it successfully?
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: What have you found? What have you learned? I know
• 32:50
  there's no perfect antid Sure.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: The first thing that pops up is I think it's
• 32:56
  probably a survival thing, right, you know, if you're liked
• 33:02
  by the people around you, less likely to be killed
• 33:05
  by them, you know, Like it makes sense that we
• 33:08
  have that we liked being liked, if it indeed is
• 33:14
  a universal thing, which I think it pretty much is,
• 33:17
  and I'll tell you the wrong way that I've tried
• 33:22
  dealing with it. And I see other people doing this
• 33:26
  all the time, from afar and from close, which is
• 33:33
  I would try to prove my autonomy by doing the
• 33:37
  opposite of what I know you like. So there was
• 33:40
  a point in my career, like two three years ago,
• 33:43
  where I thought, everyone knows me it's one way, I'm
• 33:44
  gonna do the opposite. So I feel like I can.
• 33:47
  I'm still my own guy. I'm making my own decisions.
• 33:52
  I'm not pandering to other people. So I remember I stopped.
• 33:57
  I like, I was eating every other day, and I
• 34:01
  lost thirty pounds and I was already a healthy weight
• 34:05
  when I started, So I was really skinny, and I
• 34:07
  dyed my hair green. I had a green mullet. And
• 34:11
  I was doing photo shoots where I was wearing like
• 34:14
  makeup and women's clothes and there's nothing wrong with that. That
• 34:17
  actually look pretty cool, but it wasn't. The reason was
• 34:22
  messed up that I was doing, not the actual thing.
• 34:25
  Some of the photos are very beautiful, and this kind
• 34:28
  of thing. And the reason was I was doing the
• 34:36
  opposite to prove to myself, Hey, I'm not attached to
• 34:45
  your opinion, But if you really think about it, I'm
• 34:49
  still very much attached to your opinion. Your opinion is
• 34:52
  still dictating what I'm doing, even though it's the opposite
• 34:56
  of it, instead of just me just being me. I
• 35:00
  don't know if I explained that very well.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: But expend it really well.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I see that all the time with musicians, artists, and
• 35:07
  you know, just people in general, where they'll be going
• 35:09
  one way and they want to they don't like they
• 35:15
  feel that they feel themselves becoming attached to other people's approval,
• 35:22
  and so they flip one eighty to prove themselves that
• 35:26
  they're unattached. But this, this is actually still just another
• 35:29
  form of attachment.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The Gita says, attachment and a version are two
• 35:33
  sides of the same coin. So that's totally right. When
• 35:36
  you're trying to be averse, you're trying to be opposite
• 35:38
  all of a sudden, right, But it's still an attachment, correct.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: The Geeta says it in one line.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You explained to no, no, but you explained to you.
• 35:49
  It's a great it's a great point. I never even
• 35:51
  thought of it like that. I never realized that that's
• 35:54
  how a lot of people try and deal with it.
• 35:56
  That's an interesting observation. I didn't know that.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think I'm still figuring it out. One
• 36:08
  way I think that really helps is just the way
• 36:11
  spend my time in a day. Make sure i'm not
• 36:17
  you know, take time to meditate each day, exercise just
• 36:21
  like with a couple of friends, you know, play basketball,
• 36:25
  we go to the gym, and then you just get
• 36:28
  this time away where you're not even thinking about any
• 36:31
  of these things and you can kind of revisit them
• 36:34
  with a little more perspective. And you know, the other
• 36:41
  thing is I take it like tons of time off
• 36:43
  between albums. Yeah, where I'm where I you know, I'm writing,
• 36:51
  but I'm also like experimenting, exploring, going to the monastery
• 36:57
  or you know, like I did like a vipassionary treat
• 37:00
  this summer, just playing around with different modes of consciousness
• 37:06
  and trying to tap into these different things, reading different
• 37:10
  books and you know, hopefully give a little more perspective.
• 37:14
  I know that's not a super sexy answer. I don't
• 37:16
  know if there is.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Bro that was a great answer. Yeah, I just love
• 37:19
  your It's not for me. I'm not looking for when
• 37:24
  I'm doing these podcasts of everyone listening, I'm not looking
• 37:26
  for the right answer or a perfect answer or a
• 37:29
  sexy answer. I'm looking for original, unique you answers like
• 37:36
  observing answers, and your observations are valuable to me. Your
• 37:39
  observations of your fame the fame of others is interesting
• 37:43
  to me, and I think it's interesting to everyone listening
• 37:46
  because that's how we start learning about how different observations
• 37:50
  can help us, as opposed to you saying here's my
• 37:52
  three step formula for how to deal with fame, which
• 37:56
  you know some people have that that's cool, but I
• 37:58
  get more fascinated by observations. Yeah, so I love it. It
• 38:02
  was sexy to me. Thank you sexy to me. I'm
• 38:05
  going to move on to the next song that I
• 38:07
  put out a lyric on because I think there's just
• 38:08
  so many and I want to I have to say
• 38:11
  that the music on this album is you being the same.
• 38:16
  Like when I listened to it, it it made me
• 38:21
  want to focus and be curious and be an explorer
• 38:24
  of the music. It wasn't just enjoyable. I had to
• 38:28
  be more curious as a listener, and I enjoyed that
• 38:31
  process because it required more from me. And that's powerful.
• 38:36
  That's powerful when you feel like intrigued to listen more so,
• 38:40
  when I was doing that, I picked out this line
• 38:42
  another lyric I worked the last ten years. I'm a
• 38:46
  multi millionaire and it's supposed to all be good, and
• 38:49
  it's not all good. Right.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I think you took out an explots.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: I think I did. I think I did. I haven't
• 38:56
  sworn since I was sixteen years old.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Is that right?
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: It sounds beautiful.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: For a while, I had a rubber band on my
• 39:02
  wrist and I and it worked every time I curse,
• 39:07
  I snapped myself and then and I started cursing.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I took it off. I took it out.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: No, No, it's great, it's great.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: But here you say that. So the question I have
• 39:18
  here is where do you think that picture of success
• 39:20
  comes from? Because you're saying that you've you've achieved everything
• 39:24
  that the world would have deemed like if you were
• 39:25
  ten years old and someone told you you'd have all
• 39:29
  of this now that you're thirty, right, you'd think that
• 39:32
  that was Yeah, exactly right. We both for this. I'm
• 39:34
  done there, you're done, but it's not so where did
• 39:37
  that where? And I really want to talk about that.
• 39:39
  Where do we think the ideas come from? Like where
• 39:41
  was that put into our psychology?
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because I remember my parents saying things
• 39:48
  like money doesn't buy you happiness, you know, which is
• 39:52
  a cliche for a reason that most cliches are cliche
• 39:55
  because they're probably in some way true. And I remember
• 40:00
  hearing people tell me this, and I'm thinking nodding my head,
• 40:04
  and but in my head going, you just didn't make enough. Yeah,
• 40:08
  I'm gonna make more than you. I'm gonna be I'm
• 40:10
  gonna take it to another level. And it's just a
• 40:15
  never ending chase, you know. And and actually, when you
• 40:19
  achieve your goals can be in some ways can be
• 40:26
  more depressing than not achieving them, because you can achieve
• 40:30
  them and realize, hey, I thought this was actually gonna
• 40:33
  solve like all the problems in my life. I thought
• 40:36
  my insecurities would disappear. And and in my case, like
• 40:41
  you know, I got the record deal, like the sports
• 40:44
  car and the house in the Hollywood Hills and the
• 40:47
  whole thing. Yeah, the whole thing, you know. And so
• 40:53
  I'm sitting there and I realized that my experience of life,
• 40:58
  moment to moment is the same. I have all the
• 41:02
  same insecurities. I'm not like a different person. I'm not
• 41:06
  any happier. I'm not. Actually I don't think sadder either,
• 41:11
  But it's the same. And it's the disillusionment that came
• 41:17
  with thinking there was this magic bullet, finding the magic
• 41:22
  bullet and then it not working, and going oh shoot,
• 41:27
  now what? And now I think is what the next
• 41:33
  chapters of my life has been about?
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: That?
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Now what? You know? And there seemed to be some
• 41:39
  promising leads on this, yeah, you know, like we were
• 41:43
  talking about earlier.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of the reasons why I've
• 41:47
  loved missions more than goals for so long.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Explain difference to you.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the difference to me is goals are temporary milestones.
• 41:59
  A mission is a lifelong project. A mission is eternal.
• 42:03
  A goal is temporary. So a goal is I want
• 42:06
  to be a multi millionaire reached. Next goal, I want
• 42:09
  to be a billionaire reached. Now we have trillionaires, right,
• 42:13
  Jeff Bezos is going to be the first trillionaire, So trillionaire, right,
• 42:17
  whatever it is, Like, that's a goal, it's temporary, it moves,
• 42:21
  it's ephemeral. Whereas a mission is something you're committed to
• 42:25
  on a day to day. A goal is something you
• 42:28
  experience every so often as a milestone. A mission is
• 42:32
  something that you can experience every single day because it's
• 42:35
  a path, it's a lifestyle, it's a cause you're committed
• 42:38
  to something that you've you feel responsible for, something that
• 42:42
  you feel like you're trying to drive a change or
• 42:45
  a cultural shift, which takes longer.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: What's the example of a mission?
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: So let me I guess even if we take let's
• 42:56
  take Martin Luther King, right, So his mission of wanting
• 42:59
  every one to be treated by the content of the
• 43:02
  character and not the color of their skin, Like, that's
• 43:04
  a mission, Like you don't just solve that overnight. Like
• 43:07
  that's something that he wanted to implant into humanity and
• 43:10
  that can go beyond color, that can go beyond gender.
• 43:14
  It needs to that kind of thought process of loving
• 43:17
  and trusting and being compassionate and empathetic to all people
• 43:23
  is something that goes way beyond do we have independence
• 43:26
  or do we have a goal, or did we get
• 43:28
  the right policy in place, which is so temporary and
• 43:31
  doesn't necessarily push a shift even for myself. Like my
• 43:35
  mission that I've always stated very clearly is making wisdom
• 43:39
  go viral. It's like, how do I make wisdom that
• 43:43
  has been very hidden away or has only been accessible
• 43:46
  to people who have gone to monasteries, et cetera. How
• 43:48
  do I make that really accessible to everyone in the world.
• 43:51
  That's a mission. I've got to do that every day.
• 43:54
  There's no goal, there's no like, I'm never going to
• 43:56
  have a button that says, oh, eight billion people now
• 43:58
  have wisdom, Like it's not it's not a number. So anyway,
• 44:02
  that's how I see the difference. But I love what
• 44:04
  you're saying and I agree with you that that's why
• 44:07
  I'm I think shifting to a mission versus a goal.
• 44:10
  Life still keeps you motivated, still keeps you meaningful, and
• 44:14
  it moves away from numbers to emotions, you know. But anyway,
• 44:17
  that's just my thoughts. Yeah, good thoughts, thoughts, some of
• 44:22
  my thoughts. You asked the question in one of the
• 44:27
  songs do you ever get tired being perfect? Right? And
• 44:33
  my big question around this is what is perfection? Does
• 44:36
  it exist? And how do you define perfect Like, how
• 44:39
  do you see perfection? The meaning of perfection having changed
• 44:43
  in the world that we live in today, I think,
• 44:45
  what I what were you hinting at?
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: I think, and I don't always know what I'm hinting at. Sure,
• 44:51
  it's kind of like sometimes the thing pops in the
• 44:54
  head and just put it down almost like it's not me,
• 44:57
  you know.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Oh really that's how sometimes the song's come out.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like I'm possessed or anything. But it's like, look,
• 45:04
  you know, you have an inspired thought or a good thought.
• 45:07
  Do you really get credit for that, because it's not
• 45:11
  like you you design the thought. That's the whole point
• 45:14
  of inspirations, Like it came to you, it came. And
• 45:18
  so you know, when I write a song, it's like,
• 45:22
  I don't know if I really get credit for that.
• 45:24
  It just popped in my head and I basically repeated
• 45:27
  what I heard. You know, Well, if I write a
• 45:32
  crappy song, same thing, I don't. I don't have to.
• 45:35
  I don't get blamed for.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: It, you know.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's why. But so yeah, it's it's
• 45:43
  not always cerebral. But what I when I hear that
• 45:46
  back or you know, what I think is people that
• 45:53
  are trying to have the veil of perfection, which I
• 45:57
  you know, I've been one of those people and I
• 45:59
  am at time still you know. Yeah, it's it's do
• 46:03
  you ever get tired of doing that? Do you ever
• 46:06
  get tired of like trying to convince everyone that you
• 46:08
  have it all figured out? You know? That's what I meant. Yeah,
• 46:13
  I think, and.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I think we do get tired.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: It's exhausting, it's exhaust I had a friend, actually, we
• 46:19
  have a friend in common in Q. We're talking to
• 46:22
  you because we do him and I do this where
• 46:26
  we we go out in social situation and there's some
• 46:32
  there's a little bit of a persona I'll take on,
• 46:37
  you know, even if I'm just at a party or something,
• 46:39
  I'm doing something I'm like trying to be and it's
• 46:43
  very close to me, but it's not quite me, and
• 46:48
  it's not always detectable even to me at the time.
• 46:52
  But the difference is it's exhausting, and I'll leave a
• 46:57
  social interaction like oh yeah, whereas I believe if you're
• 47:02
  being authentic and you're there, like in the Rhamdasciner action
• 47:07
  like that that was rejuvenating as opposed to exhausting. Yeah, absolutely,
• 47:12
  do you ever felt that exhaustion?
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent? I compare it to I compare it
• 47:18
  to method acting. It's like being a method actor where
• 47:21
  you're so engrossed in a role that you're trying to
• 47:23
  play that you forget who you are and you're just
• 47:27
  playing that role the whole time, acting ex acting just actors. Yeah, no,
• 47:32
  absolutely no, I've done that before, tons and it's been
• 47:35
  the same for me. I think that's a great way
• 47:36
  you've put it. It's exhausting, that's number one. And the
• 47:39
  second thing is you start playing it so well that
• 47:42
  you forget who you are, so you think it's your reality.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Right, And this I think is compounded going back by
• 47:49
  fame because with fame, look, I think that's a pretty
• 47:54
  universal thing right where we just talked about. It gets
• 47:57
  compounded by fame because not only are you doing an
• 48:02
  act that you think is you, other people now have
• 48:06
  an expectation of an act and you don't want to
• 48:10
  disappoint them, so this pressure is exacerbate.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're spot on. It's compounded by the
• 48:20
  fact that all these people are expecting you to show
• 48:23
  up as that person, correct, and now you have to
• 48:26
  show up as that person even if you don't feel
• 48:28
  like that person today.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like having to put on a Halloween suit
• 48:33
  every days, like having to put on it.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: So it's so funny, Like I go through so many
• 48:39
  ebbs and flows every day. And I don't know if
• 48:42
  this is like normal other people, but like, look, every
• 48:45
  afternoon I get kind of depressed every single one, like you, like,
• 48:49
  I feel it already, Like I'll get a little tired,
• 48:52
  you know. It's like, you know, it's like in the morning,
• 48:57
  it's like when I first wake up, I'm like kind
• 48:59
  of sluggish. Then I'll like meditale exercise, then I'm up,
• 49:02
  you know, and I feel like kind of high and
• 49:04
  the more. And it's like this all the time, And
• 49:07
  there's all these colors and emotions and shades of colors
• 49:12
  of how I feel each day, and then I'll put them.
• 49:16
  I'll have like one song of the thousands of songs
• 49:18
  that rite that becomes super famous, that's a glimpse, you know,
• 49:23
  just like a snapshot of one of those moments, and
• 49:27
  then there's an expectation that that's you. You know, it's
• 49:30
  like eleven thirteen three years ago on a Tuesday, that's you.
• 49:36
  And it's like, no, that that's that's me. That at
• 49:40
  eleven thirteen, three years ago, that's who I was, right then, Well,
• 49:44
  but this is me, you know. Yeah.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I love that answer. Great, and I think you just
• 49:52
  repeating that and saying that it's putting that message more
• 49:55
  out into the world for everyone else who's listening to
• 49:58
  actually get that message too, that lets not be defined
• 50:01
  by just that one glimpse of our life, whether it's
• 50:04
  good or bad, even right, because we just let ourselves be.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, human being isn't impossibly, it's just it's impossibly complex
• 50:17
  and beautiful. At the Saint he was this moment this summer,
• 50:22
  I was thinking about how like the difference between what's
• 50:28
  real and what's not, you know, like the microphone here,
• 50:32
  this is real. I would say, for just our say
• 50:35
  good discussion, let's say this is real, like it exists
• 50:38
  in reality. I can touch it, it's there. And it was
• 50:41
  the only retreat. I was thinking. I have this map
• 50:45
  of in my head, like where what I've accomplished, what
• 50:49
  I want to accomplish, think a trajectory. But then I
• 50:53
  thought that map is not real because it doesn't exist anywhere,
• 50:59
  but in my thought, it's like I just made it
• 51:01
  up in the same way that that is not real
• 51:08
  who I think I am, which to me was like
• 51:13
  my facts of my personal history, my name, my occupation,
• 51:18
  my age, mixed with like memories of emotions that I have,
• 51:25
  like emotional reactions, mixed with like honestly archetypes characters from
• 51:31
  movies or books, all that mashed up. That's like, that's
• 51:35
  who I am, It's my personality, that's who I am
• 51:37
  in my head. I thought that's not real either. It
• 51:43
  literally does not exist. And other people have an idea
• 51:48
  of who I am, but it's not even the same
• 51:50
  one that I have in my head. And it's just
• 51:54
  like I was spending so much energy like curating this
• 51:57
  thing in my head and like making it look perfect,
• 52:01
  but a no one else sees it. B it's not there.
• 52:07
  It's not a real thing.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: It's just so silly. We do that like all day long,
• 52:14
  like I have to do this or accomplish this, or
• 52:17
  act in a certain way in order to keep this
• 52:23
  idea of myself, this picture of myself that I have
• 52:27
  looking beautiful or add some stroke to it. But it's
• 52:32
  not it's not there. I don't know.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's true that you reminded me of literally
• 52:40
  my favorite quote. I say this everywhere because it's it's
• 52:43
  such an inspiration for so much of my work. In
• 52:47
  nineteen oh two, a sociologist named Kooley so that today
• 52:50
  I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what
• 52:53
  you think I am. I am what I think you
• 52:56
  think I am. Right, So we live in a perception
• 53:00
  of a perception of ourselves. Meaning if I think Mike
• 53:04
  thinks I'm happy, then I feel happy. And if I
• 53:08
  think Mike thinks I'm weak, then I'll feel weak. So
• 53:12
  we're basing how we feel about ourselves on how we
• 53:15
  think others feel about us. And that's that picture you're
• 53:18
  constantly trying to mold in your mind, constantly what is
• 53:21
  this person think? Okay, what do they think? What do
• 53:23
  I think? What do I add to this? And then
• 53:25
  we get lost trying to build this And it wasn't
• 53:29
  even real in the first place, right, it was just
• 53:30
  a perception of a person.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, A funny flip on this is or addition, perhaps
• 53:35
  is what I believe is going on in your head
• 53:40
  is a function of what's going on in my head.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: This makes sense.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: So what I what I suspect you're thinking about, is
• 53:50
  really just the crap I think about, because that's all
• 53:53
  I have. I've never been in anyone else's head. I've
• 53:57
  only been in my head. I know my thoughts, so
• 53:59
  I assume you're having some these kind of thoughts. I
• 54:04
  use the example of weight because when I stopped eating,
• 54:09
  I had this thinking I would get hung up on weight.
• 54:12
  I was always looking at people's weight all the time,
• 54:15
  obsessing over it, and I thought, oh, people people think
• 54:20
  I look fatter this way. And I realized they're not thinking.
• 54:26
  That's what I think they're thinking. And what I think
• 54:29
  they're thinking is based on what I think. And so
• 54:33
  it's like, just to simplify it, it's like, in order
• 54:39
  to not feel judged, judge less, because then you know,
• 54:45
  if you're not walking around judging people, you'll assume you
• 54:48
  won't assume they're judging you. That makes sense.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: I love that. That's beautiful. In order to not feel
• 54:55
  judged judge less. Yeah, it's nice. That's great advice. That's
• 55:00
  great advice. That's yeah, that's a great flip. I like it.
• 55:04
  That's awesome, man, that's awesome. Now you I want to
• 55:10
  talk about this because I think it's important for the
• 55:12
  album that we're talking about right now. Like, you lost
• 55:14
  someone really important to you last year, your father's, you know,
• 55:19
  someone obviously extremely special to you. How's that affected built
• 55:23
  created this album? How's that? How have you been processing that.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of different ways? In some ways really explicit,
• 55:31
  in other ways very ambiguous, and I'm sure in some
• 55:34
  ways that I don't even see or understand yet. But look,
• 55:42
  you know, I had an amazing father for twenty nine years.
• 55:46
  So the first thing is like when you when you
• 55:49
  have lost, you had to have at first had in
• 55:56
  order to even feel lost, so very just like gently,
• 56:00
  and suddenly you can go from this like feeling of
• 56:05
  being cheated or something like this, to just having gratitude
• 56:09
  for the thing being there in the first place, and
• 56:13
  be you know, look, I'm sure you do, and I
• 56:16
  certainly do. You know, I have a lot of friends
• 56:19
  I grew up with in Detroit and Southfield that either
• 56:23
  never knew their dad or dad was in their life
• 56:27
  the way mine was. And it almost feels like silly
• 56:37
  to me to be too sad because I had this
• 56:46
  amazing gift, and how can I complain about having something
• 56:50
  awesome for twenty nine years and say, hey, I should
• 56:54
  have had it thirty or I should have added thirty one.
• 56:56
  Like nah, man, you don't get to decide that. You know,
• 57:00
  that's not for you to decide. So I deal with
• 57:05
  it in different ways. This is how I feel on
• 57:07
  this couch. There are other times where I'll be playing
• 57:10
  my guitar alone in the hotel and I'll start crying
• 57:14
  and I miss him and I'll go, dang, he's really going.
• 57:18
  And there are other times where I'll be meditating or
• 57:22
  I'll be performing and I feel like, I swear I
• 57:27
  can feel them around. It feels like an energy, Like
• 57:32
  an energy is such like a buzzword, but it feels
• 57:35
  like it's not like he's standing there in his body.
• 57:38
  It just feels like it's it's a weird thing to
• 57:41
  talk about it, no good way to talk about it,
• 57:44
  but yeah, I feel like I could I could feel
• 57:47
  around is an energy And uh yeah. The second part, like,
• 57:56
  there's another part of death, which is it's quite a
• 58:02
  beautiful reminder for you to get your life together, because
• 58:11
  the real thing about death that people get chipped up
• 58:14
  on is it reminds you you're gonna die. This can
• 58:17
  be a really good thing to get that reminder because
• 58:21
  it puts in perspective what really matters, and hey, am
• 58:25
  I doing? You know, a lot of us have a
• 58:28
  list of things that we we want to do when
• 58:31
  we're done doing what we think we have to do.
• 58:34
  And you know, my dad died. I was like, I'm next, Like,
• 58:40
  I look just like that guy. You know, when I
• 58:42
  look at a picture him, he's thirty, it's like it's me,
• 58:46
  you know, So the next guy, you know, it is me.
• 58:51
  And I started looking back at this list of stuff
• 58:56
  that I actually want to do and start doing it,
• 59:00
  start doing it. And obviously, you know, my album is
• 59:04
  a lot. He's on my album, you know, recordings of
• 59:06
  us talking. So he influenced my music this way, in
• 59:10
  a big way, this record. And so yeah, it's just
• 59:16
  a lot. It's a lot, you know, it's implicit and
• 59:18
  explicit ways. He's a He's a great guy, great man,
• 59:27
  you know, And the older I get, the more I
• 59:30
  understand how beautiful of a man he was. You know,
• 59:34
  when I think about or I see friends that like
• 59:38
  have families or kids and really seeing what that actually entails,
• 59:43
  it's a lot, you know, and I think about you know,
• 59:46
  when I was on the basketball team in high school,
• 59:51
  I never played. I was really short and I just
• 59:55
  sat on the bench. He would be at every single game.
• 59:58
  He'd be the first parent there. I remember one time
• 1:00:01
  he said, Mike, I'm really sorry. He was an attorney.
• 1:00:04
  He said, I have a case. I can't move it.
• 1:00:06
  I'm gonna miss the game. I remember thinking, like, all
• 1:00:10
  good man, I don't play anyways. I don't know if
• 1:00:13
  you know this, but I just sit there. And I
• 1:00:20
  remember it was an away games. Was like in Pontiac,
• 1:00:23
  which is you know, thirty four minutes, our bus pulled
• 1:00:26
  up and we got off the bus like we're there
• 1:00:29
  like an hour or two early to warm up, and
• 1:00:32
  there's one guy in the stands. It's my dad. He's like,
• 1:00:36
  I moved the case, you know I got. He was
• 1:00:39
  just always there. He always showed up. You know, one
• 1:00:42
  perfect man. No one is. But yeah, I love that.
• 1:00:48
  I love that guy man forever. He was funny too, man.
• 1:00:53
  He was a goof o man, silly guy and beautiful.
• 1:01:01
  I just this is loving, loving, you.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Know, that's beautiful man. Thank you so much for sharing
• 1:01:11
  so openly. And that's you know, if anyone who's ever
• 1:01:15
  lost anyone, I'm sure something that you've said here today
• 1:01:18
  is going to help them too.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. And another thing I've spoken there's a
• 1:01:24
  guy I know who's become a friend that he's a
• 1:01:27
  hospice chaplain, so he helps people die and helps families,
• 1:01:33
  and he says, the one thing you could count on
• 1:01:34
  grief to do is to surprise you. So often we
• 1:01:40
  feel something, you know, when we have these loss and
• 1:01:45
  and the next or the biggest questions like is this right?
• 1:01:48
  Should I be feeling this way? And the answer is
• 1:01:52
  there's no right. Grief is surprising. It can hit you
• 1:01:55
  when you're not suspecting it sometimes longer. You know, people expect,
• 1:02:00
  oh it's been a year, and you're good. You know,
• 1:02:04
  it's not how it works. It's not how it works.
• 1:02:06
  And for me, I actually wasn't even sad when my
• 1:02:09
  dad died. I thought, man, I have my dad. It
• 1:02:14
  was beautiful. He wasn't in pain. All my family's here,
• 1:02:17
  we have this beautiful funeral with celebrating in his life.
• 1:02:21
  I didn't cry with smiling. That's how it's not wrong,
• 1:02:25
  right or wrong. It's how I felt, you know. Later
• 1:02:28
  my mom was playing eight months later, she's playing like
• 1:02:31
  a checking her voicemail, you know, and she's going through
• 1:02:34
  the and once she gets to one of my dad
• 1:02:36
  when he's alive and he was sick, I lost it.
• 1:02:39
  I was weeping like a baby. I started weeping. It's
• 1:02:44
  not right or wrong, it's just we each have our
• 1:02:46
  own path with grief, you know.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's so it's so easy that with
• 1:02:53
  a physical scar, you like, watch it here, you can
• 1:02:56
  see it. You know that you're applying something on it,
• 1:02:59
  that skiletting it, heal, that's getting a scar on it, etc.
• 1:03:03
  You can see the wound getting covered and then it disappears.
• 1:03:05
  But emotionally it's almost like, oh, yeah, it's been a month,
• 1:03:09
  you must be better now. But it's you know, you
• 1:03:12
  can't see it, and so the only person who's experiencing
• 1:03:14
  it in different ways all the time is you yourself.
• 1:03:17
  And that healing process is totally unique, totally different for
• 1:03:20
  each person, and you can't put a time limit on
• 1:03:23
  it or you can't put a expectation on it. But
• 1:03:27
  because we can't see it, we kind of just pretend
• 1:03:29
  like it's not there.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, make up a schedule. Hey, it's many years
• 1:03:34
  I should be over this.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that, man,
• 1:03:40
  I really appreciate it. Your dad sounds amazing.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: He's a good guy, and I'm.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: So happy to hear you celebrate his incredibleness, you know,
• 1:03:48
  for the time that you had. It's so beautiful to
• 1:03:50
  hear that, man, so beautiful to hear that. Thank you,
• 1:03:54
  thank you. Yeah. And now you're at this place where
• 1:03:57
  you're thirty and you talk about being stuck in the
• 1:04:00
  middle on your album, So I feel and I feel
• 1:04:04
  like we've talked a lot about getting to thirty and
• 1:04:07
  what's happened before and the songs and the fame and
• 1:04:10
  the money and all of this. Like where when you're
• 1:04:13
  saying you're stuck in the middle, how is your perspective
• 1:04:16
  currently on the next not I'm not even gonna go
• 1:04:20
  too far, but on the next like twelve months, the
• 1:04:22
  next you know, how what is your perspective? What's changed?
• 1:04:24
  Where is that stuck in the middle?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Song? Inspired by It's a it's a you know, it
• 1:04:29
  was a funny thing. It's like a lot of time
• 1:04:31
  songs they'll come before I actually live them. The song
• 1:04:35
  come first, and then I live the live out the
• 1:04:38
  song after sometimes this is how it is was stuck
• 1:04:41
  in the middle. The last verse of this song is
• 1:04:46
  people love the old me. I don't know where he's
• 1:04:48
  gone to. Too tired to be famous, too vain to
• 1:04:53
  be unknown. This is how I feel like I have
• 1:04:56
  a toe in both, Like, like I know that I know,
• 1:05:00
  becoming more famous and more successful is not really gonna
• 1:05:03
  change my life. But there's part of me still that
• 1:05:07
  like I really want to like have more hit songs.
• 1:05:10
  This this kind of thing. It's like the grip has
• 1:05:14
  been loosened, but my hand's still on it. And then
• 1:05:19
  there's this other part of me that like doesn't care.
• 1:05:22
  It's like, you know, off at the monastery, where in
• 1:05:26
  like I can't you know what I mean. It's like
• 1:05:29
  it's the polar opposite. It's like pop star like monastery.
• 1:05:37
  Like one day I'm like at the grains, the other
• 1:05:39
  day I'm like there.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: It's like that's like in stuck in the middle. Yeah,
• 1:05:46
  but maybe my friend said to me, maybe you're not stuck,
• 1:05:49
  maybe just in the middle. Yeah, that's where you're supposed to.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Be, you know.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can relate to that. I love paradoxes. I
• 1:05:57
  myself feel like a paradox. I felt like a poweradox
• 1:06:00
  my whole life, and I'm right in the middle too.
• 1:06:03
  I lived as a monk and now I do media,
• 1:06:05
  and I feel so much. But what I do know
• 1:06:08
  is that in my own way, I'm refining my intentions
• 1:06:12
  on a daily basis, aspiring to use any platform I
• 1:06:17
  have for something higher than myself, because I know myself
• 1:06:20
  that after having been a monk for three years and
• 1:06:24
  lived in a monastery in an astronom for three years,
• 1:06:28
  I didn't feel like I was fulfilling my purpose either,
• 1:06:31
  because I wanted to really give what I learned and
• 1:06:33
  I had this desire to share it because I can't
• 1:06:36
  get away with who I am as a person. I've
• 1:06:38
  always been driven, I've always been motivated. I've always been
• 1:06:41
  someone who wants to share, et cetera. So I can't
• 1:06:43
  get away from that artificially, and if I do, I'll
• 1:06:46
  only end up feeling useless. And then at the other end,
• 1:06:49
  I also know that I have to be wary that
• 1:06:51
  I don't get too caught up in the world, because
• 1:06:54
  then I can lose that monk. And so for me,
• 1:06:58
  I couldn't agree with you more. I think being in
• 1:07:00
  the middle is such a beautiful place to be. It
• 1:07:03
  requires a ton more work, and that's our challenge. Like
• 1:07:07
  that's how I see it, Like you're reminding me of
• 1:07:09
  my own challenge to myself that when you want to
• 1:07:12
  operate at either end, ignorance is bliss or wisdom is bliss,
• 1:07:17
  and then when you're trying to be in both, you're
• 1:07:19
  like in the middle, you're having to you know, makes sense. Yeah,
• 1:07:22
  does that make any sense?
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, it does. Ignorance is bliss and you're like full
• 1:07:27
  in the world, like full hedonistic. Yeah, wisdom is bliss.
• 1:07:31
  You're full in the monastery, and like having both those
• 1:07:35
  in your life integrated is.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the real world task. Yeah, we're like setting
• 1:07:41
  ourselves up for the hardest thing. I'm gonna have to
• 1:07:44
  learn from you. I'm gonna no.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Bro, you learn from That's why I was trying to
• 1:07:48
  hijack your interview and asked you all the questions.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: To man you've given, Like what I'm listening to you
• 1:07:54
  like this, By the way, for everyone who's listening, when
• 1:07:56
  you listen to this album, which I really really recommend
• 1:07:59
  that you do, big is when I was listening to it,
• 1:08:01
  I was exploring, like, if you're fascinated by what Mike's
• 1:08:05
  saying on the podcast right now, if you're watching this,
• 1:08:07
  hearing this, when you listen to the album, you'll be
• 1:08:09
  able to see it mirror across. It's such a profound
• 1:08:13
  piece of work. It's profound, Like that's the right way
• 1:08:16
  to put it. And and yeah, if you're a fan
• 1:08:20
  of Mike or if you've I'm sure you've heard some
• 1:08:22
  of stuff. If you haven't, this is this is the
• 1:08:24
  stuff that you know, I want you to listen to.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you. But yeah, we spend a lot of time. Yeah,
• 1:08:30
  it's weird making these albums, like perhaps like a dying
• 1:08:37
  form of aren't the album because people as don't as
• 1:08:43
  much listen to them through. But I sort of don't
• 1:08:48
  care because I do listen albums through and I love
• 1:08:51
  the albums. And so we spend like months on transitions
• 1:08:57
  in song order and transitions. A lot of my songs connect,
• 1:09:00
  you know, the you'll see the marker go from the
• 1:09:05
  track for a track five, but the music doesn't. There's
• 1:09:08
  no change, you know, there's no like break. And so yeah,
• 1:09:12
  we spend like a lot of time on that. You know,
• 1:09:14
  It's like I don't know if anyone's gonna listen. Yeah
• 1:09:18
  we did.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I still remember the feeling of looking forward
• 1:09:22
  to an album coming out and like going to buy
• 1:09:26
  the CD and like opening up the pack and like
• 1:09:29
  I I still love listening to albums because there's songs
• 1:09:33
  that you hear on the radio are never anyone's best
• 1:09:35
  songs in my opinion, like that, they're a good starting point,
• 1:09:39
  but they're like the taster, right, you know, they're like
• 1:09:41
  the free free meal. But it's like you want, you
• 1:09:43
  want the you want the full experience, and with your
• 1:09:46
  process is different, right, like you don't you don't put
• 1:09:50
  a single out, put a single out, put a single
• 1:09:51
  out and test you kind of build the whole thing
• 1:09:54
  because you don't want to be affected by That's what
• 1:09:56
  I heard from your work when I was doing my research.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's wrong, and do it this.
• 1:10:01
  I have a friends, you know, they they will they'll
• 1:10:04
  make you know, half the album, and they'll put a
• 1:10:06
  single out and if they'll they'll see what people say
• 1:10:10
  about it, and then they'll finish the album get with
• 1:10:13
  that information. I don't like this way. I like to
• 1:10:17
  do the whole thing just and I don't let anyone
• 1:10:21
  hear it except for my friends that are working on it.
• 1:10:24
  But manager doesn't hear it. No one at the record
• 1:10:27
  label hears it. No one until I make this thing
• 1:10:32
  how I want, how I I think it's great, and
• 1:10:36
  then I'll play it for a few friends I trust,
• 1:10:39
  get feedback. I'll go from there. If the feedback hits
• 1:10:43
  me in that tender place where I know that it's right,
• 1:10:47
  I'll address it. And if it's not, if I think
• 1:10:49
  they're wrong in my heart, I don't address it. And
• 1:10:53
  then I go to a record label and say, here's
• 1:10:55
  my album. It's done. Yeah, And that's it. It's done.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: It's awesome. Man. I've got the five big questions for
• 1:11:06
  you that I always talk about. I want to hear
• 1:11:09
  you play as well. But these are five big questions.
• 1:11:11
  So the first big question is what's the best thing
• 1:11:14
  You've ever let.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Go of, best thing I've ever let go of.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: That you're happiest about letting go of? Mm, because you've
• 1:11:28
  really cleansed, you've healed your work, you're doing the work.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: So I would say there's been a few times where
• 1:11:37
  I I've moved into my van not because I I
• 1:11:44
  had fallen at hard times because I felt like my
• 1:11:46
  possessions were weighing me down. So like, yeah, I had this,
• 1:11:52
  I owned a house in the Hollywood Hills, and I
• 1:11:55
  had a Porsche sports car, and I had like more
• 1:11:59
  sneakers than I even knew I had. And don't think
• 1:12:03
  I'm just into my Vand I bought this like little
• 1:12:06
  conversion vand and I put this stuff like closing it
• 1:12:09
  that I needed in there in my guitar and it
• 1:12:15
  doesn't fit very much. And the rest I just donated.
• 1:12:19
  So I would say, all that stuff, well, let go
• 1:12:23
  of it, man, and I just felt lighter. You know.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: Question number two. I saw that on your website you
• 1:12:33
  have a hate mail section. Yeah, tell me how that
• 1:12:37
  came about and how you deal with critsism.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I copied this from my friend Amanda Palmer, who's an
• 1:12:43
  amazing artist and writer. For me, it's just a good
• 1:12:48
  way to like when I was on social media. Now
• 1:12:52
  I have someone posts for me. I'll write the post
• 1:12:56
  and then they do it because I try not to
• 1:12:58
  read the comments. But before I used to be on there,
• 1:13:02
  and I probably will have to go back to just
• 1:13:05
  because I like having dialogue with my listeners, but involved
• 1:13:11
  with that is reading some pretty negative things about yourself.
• 1:13:15
  And before they used to just really hurt my feelings.
• 1:13:18
  But then I started amassing them, and I made this
• 1:13:21
  section my website called hate mail, and I would repost
• 1:13:25
  and suddenly the same message that seemed really mean, hurtful,
• 1:13:30
  it became funny. Yeah, they were just became funny, and
• 1:13:35
  I'd like read them out loud with my mom and
• 1:13:37
  we'd both just be cracking up.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of the lost scene of eight Mile,
• 1:13:42
  when Eminem goes and shares all the bad stuff he
• 1:13:45
  already knows about himself.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, tell these people something they don't know
• 1:13:49
  about me, they don't already know about me, right, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: And it's like when you've done that, it's like no
• 1:13:55
  one else has got anything left to say.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly because you've already said it exactly.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: I love that, man. Okay, question number three, the worst act,
• 1:14:03
  you know, the best advice you've ever received. The first
• 1:14:09
  one that comes to mind.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Probably that rahmdas advice. I like to just love everything.
• 1:14:17
  It's way easier. It's way easier. Don't don't I'm repeating it,
• 1:14:24
  but you know, all day long, just say I like this.
• 1:14:29
  I don't like this. I love this. I hate that.
• 1:14:32
  Just love everything. It's easier, it's less exhausting.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love that too. Thanks for repeating it.
• 1:14:40
  What's the Where do you feel change in the world
• 1:14:45
  is going to come from? Individually? Collectively positive change? Where
• 1:14:48
  is it going to come from?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: There has to be I believe an in turn shift
• 1:15:00
  and everyone individually. I mean, look, all of us know
• 1:15:06
  like war is bad, and we know like we need
• 1:15:10
  to do more for the environment, and we know the
• 1:15:13
  planet's getting warmer, but that our action is not lined
• 1:15:20
  up with our knowledge.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing. It's like everyone knows how to
• 1:15:25
  lose weight. Everyone knows like they know, everyone knows what
• 1:15:29
  foods are unhealthy, exercise more, but still many people with
• 1:15:35
  that knowledge do not lose weight even though they want to.
• 1:15:38
  So people have there has to be a shift in
• 1:15:43
  the I think, like what we talk opened up about,
• 1:15:47
  you know that we are not our minds. You know
• 1:15:50
  we are more than our minds. And how to deal
• 1:15:52
  with how to deal with minds that have crazy thoughts
• 1:15:58
  and have thoughts that don't serve us and don't serve
• 1:16:05
  us as a species either, And there's to be a
• 1:16:11
  shift to where we actually see our species as a collective.
• 1:16:20
  We don't really, we don't really, you know. It's like,
• 1:16:24
  you know, I see the thing about someone starving in Africa,
• 1:16:28
  and it's like, I understand it's bad, but people don't.
• 1:16:33
  People don't stop what they're doing. It is still a
• 1:16:35
  degree of apathy there. So, and I think this is
• 1:16:40
  a movie in the right direction. I think we're getting there,
• 1:16:43
  but not yet.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: That's great answer man. Final question, would you like to
• 1:16:48
  play something? Yeah, have a request, have a special No,
• 1:16:53
  you know your inspiration. I always go with your inspiration.
• 1:16:56
  I don't want to think about what I think you're
• 1:16:58
  thinking about playing, So I'm gonna let you go with
• 1:17:01
  your inspiration. Your answers are inspirational. So I'm excited for this.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: I'm just stuck in the middle.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, mm hmm.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Perfume on my shirt puts me in the past.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: Too tough to be without her, but too afraid to
• 1:17:44
  un Here I am again stuck in the middle. Here,
• 1:17:59
  I am again stuck in the middle. Too young, too
• 1:18:06
  settled down, too old to be in bars. It's hard
• 1:18:15
  to take it easy, it's easy to be hard. Here
• 1:18:27
  I am again stuck in the middle. Here I am
• 1:18:36
  again stuck in the middle. Here, I am again stuck
• 1:18:47
  in the middle. Here, I am again stuck in the middle.
• 1:18:57
  Hole forgive me. I am building my ship as it sounds.
• 1:19:06
  How do I become who I want to be? I'll
• 1:19:09
  still remain in myself. People love the old me. I
• 1:19:18
  don't know where he's gone. Too tired to be famus,
• 1:19:27
  too vain to be unknown. Here I am again stuck
• 1:19:36
  in the middle. Here I am again stuck in the middle. Here,
• 1:19:53
  I am again stuck in the middle. Here, I am
• 1:20:02
  again stuck in the middle.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing, man. Think you're creating from such a
• 1:20:17
  deep place. Man, I'm being serious. I'm excited to It's
• 1:20:24
  fitting that I love that song, and it's fitting that
• 1:20:28
  I genuinely think that if you're able to use this
• 1:20:33
  incredible platform that you've already achieved, and you're able to
• 1:20:37
  grow it only for the sole purpose of wanting to
• 1:20:40
  learn more and share powerful messages with the world, You're
• 1:20:43
  gonna have an incredible impact on people's lives, man Like,
• 1:20:45
  at a scale that no one else can. It's gonna
• 1:20:48
  be insane because you're really doing the work, and I
• 1:20:52
  can I can feel it. I can see it, and
• 1:20:55
  I want people to experience that. And I feel like
• 1:20:58
  you've been given this incredible, unique talent. Not only have
• 1:21:02
  you got incredible voice, not only are you such a
• 1:21:05
  talented artist, but you've spent time doing the work. Thank you,
• 1:21:09
  and that's gonna transparent into people's lives if you just
• 1:21:12
  keep doing it. Man in the middle.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: That's just there in the middle, stuck, just in the pocket.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah in the middle.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go through.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: I'm loving this. That's beautiful. I want to hear another one, right, Yeah,
• 1:21:26
  let's do it.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: Somebody told me God is simply why we don't know.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I saw a butterfly. It was debut. It was gorgeous.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: Another robots just walking down the sidewalk. Kings are a
• 1:21:55
  little empires that they made.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: Open yeah open.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: Dusty got shot and then Noser got married. Stuie's still
• 1:22:32
  dead and commitment still scary. And they got a new woman,
• 1:22:39
  but a treated like my old one. If you keep
• 1:22:44
  the ship up, I know I'm gonna be with nord one.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: No open, Yeah, don't.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think anything matters. I don't really care
• 1:23:19
  at all. You want to start a revolution, but nobody
• 1:23:25
  cares and everyone's tired, work a little bit.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: Harder, and baby, so will I have had?
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: You want a revolution, but nobody cares. Everyone's tired, and
• 1:24:02
  the promenades filled with the gray cloud and stripping black
• 1:24:06
  all over the playground, and the museums off filled with
• 1:24:10
  the snapchat. Got the head of a dog in my backpack,
• 1:24:14
  and underneath on my clothes is a snake skin that
• 1:24:17
  I stole from the temple when it caved in, because
• 1:24:20
  they built the two close to the fault line. When
• 1:24:23
  the capital burned, we were all high on the beautiful
• 1:24:27
  mess we'd created. There's a thought in my mind, this
• 1:24:31
  sacred and the future, this will all be ancient. And
• 1:24:35
  the water in the sink has been tainted with the
• 1:24:38
  urine of the governor's first born. On a second birthday,
• 1:24:42
  got a surfboard, but he crashed it. Ever since, he's
• 1:24:45
  been dirt part so he picked up the guitars, trying
• 1:24:48
  to learn cards and time wrote a new constitution. A
• 1:24:53
  Jimmy wants to start a revolution, and the people want
• 1:24:57
  to start it all over because the poets just murdered
• 1:25:00
  all the soldiers, and the monks have God on their
• 1:25:03
  shoulders and the.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: World's just another day order. I said, time wrote a new.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: Constitution, but Jimmy wants to start a revolution.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: My week is wild, open open.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: We need to I wish there was like an audience here, man.
• 1:25:51
  I'm like, next time, Yeah, we're gonna have to. When
• 1:25:54
  I go to my work tour, I'm gonna be getting
• 1:25:56
  you this, try and get you to come and sing themselves.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: Man. That fun.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because oh that's beautiful.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Man, Thank you. It's sick.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: It's always more beautiful when the person singing and seeking
• 1:26:08
  at the same time. That's incredible. Man, Thank you. I
• 1:26:14
  feel so blessed being able to watch that life.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having amazing No.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: I hope we're going to continue our friendship.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: And we are, yeah, for sure.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: For hours and hours and hours.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: Is there anything that I always asked this because it's
• 1:26:27
  important to me because like I said to you before,
• 1:26:29
  that this podcast is an opportunity for me to serve you,
• 1:26:32
  and it's an opportunity for me to help highlight the
• 1:26:35
  incredible work you're doing. Is there anything that I haven't
• 1:26:38
  let you share, you haven't been able to share you
• 1:26:40
  think we've missed There's a message that intuitively in your
• 1:26:43
  veins right now that.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: I think we get it. I think we got it awesome, man.
• 1:26:48
  For now is obviously we could talk more.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to get together again.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: To questions for you.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: Man. Yeah, I'm excited man. Thank you, bro, Thank you
• 1:26:56
  so much. Mike. The album is out. We're not sharing
• 1:27:00
  a day that. If you're listening to this, the album's
• 1:27:02
  out right now, correct, So I want you to go
• 1:27:05
  and get it listen to it. I promise you. If
• 1:27:07
  you found this conversation exhilarating and it took you somewhere,
• 1:27:11
  then the album will do beyond that.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: So thank you.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: Please go check it out. Guys, thank you so much.
• 1:27:17
  Thanks Mike, thank you so much. Man, appreciate you.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: That was awesome.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 5: If you want even more videos just like this one,
• 1:27:24
  make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
• 1:27:28
  I'm also excited to let you know that you can
• 1:27:30
  now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikamnkbook
• 1:27:35
  dot com.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Check below in the description to make sure you order today.