Speaker 1: I believe that what's supposed to be will be, and
Speaker 1: when I can get in that place of acceptance that
Speaker 1: regardless of what happens with Maniac or the next single
Speaker 1: or my album and how many first week sales it
Speaker 1: does on YouTube numbers, all of that is not happiness.
Speaker 1: It is completely Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
Speaker 1: the number one health podcast in the world. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming back every week to become happier, healthier,
Speaker 1: and more healed, something that I'm always working on for myself,
Speaker 1: and I am so excited to be talking to you today.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of
Speaker 1: Love is out and I cannot wait to share it
Speaker 1: with you. I am so so excited for you to
Speaker 1: read this book, for you to listen to this book.
Speaker 1: I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already,
Speaker 1: make sure you go to eight Rules of Love dot com.
Speaker 1: It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or
Speaker 1: go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating,
Speaker 1: broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab
Speaker 1: this book. And I'd love to invite you to come
Speaker 1: and see me for my global tour Love Rules Go
Speaker 1: to jasdytour dot com to learn more information about tickets,
Speaker 1: VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: this year. And one of the things I love about
Speaker 1: this community that we've built here is I love talking
Speaker 1: to people who are using their platforms for a greater purpose,
Speaker 1: who find artistic and creative ways to talk about the
Speaker 1: things we care about here, whether that's mental health, personal growth, addiction,
Speaker 1: personal challenges that we go through internally and externally. And
Speaker 1: today's guest is someone who has used their platform through
Speaker 1: and through to talk about really important, interesting, fascinating topics.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about multi platinum and Grammy Award winning artists
Speaker 1: Mac lamore, who's made history with a combination of commercial success,
Speaker 1: critical acclaim, and internet national appeal with a total of
Speaker 1: twelve point eight billion combined streams today and McLamore is
Speaker 1: one of the most successful independent artists of the twenty
Speaker 1: first century, and he's consistently used his art and platform
Speaker 1: to raise awareness around issues of addiction and recovery. And
Speaker 1: now the two new singles are out Chant and Maniac
Speaker 1: makes you go and stream and listen McLamore, Ben, you
Speaker 1: could tell me how how you want me to go. Ben,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for making the trip to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for this opportunity. Yeah, fantastic, amazing.
Speaker 1: Let one take Oh yeah, well we had to cut
Speaker 1: it down. I mean, there was so many achievements. I
Speaker 1: was like, I need to get that. You know, everyone
Speaker 1: knows who you are. I grew up listening to music
Speaker 1: when I was back in London and so for me
Speaker 1: to be sitting with you today is awesome. And you'll
Speaker 1: see that for a few of the questions I'll ask.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to pick out I love. There's a
Speaker 1: lyric here that I wanted to share with you. It's
Speaker 1: obviously one of yours, and I wanted to start with this,
Speaker 1: your new song. Chaunt says. They told me that I vanished.
Speaker 1: They told me that I had it. They told me
Speaker 1: that I'm gone. I told him, don't panic. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: when I was listening to that, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: what they're thinking about where you are right And my
Speaker 1: question was where do you feel you are today? Let's
Speaker 1: just get into it. I was here for you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a constant narrative when you're in the
Speaker 1: public eye, there's a constant narrative about who you are,
Speaker 1: and that ranges between people that love you, people that
Speaker 1: hate you, people that you know have maybe heard a
Speaker 1: song or two. And what I like to get back
Speaker 1: to is cutting out the noise of any sort of
Speaker 1: outside influence in terms of who I am as a person.
Speaker 1: That when you put yourself out there, when you put
Speaker 1: out art in any capacity, can I do it in
Speaker 1: a way we're regardless of its success or lack thereof,
Speaker 1: or critical acclaim or nothing at all. I know who
Speaker 1: I am and I think that that is the most
Speaker 1: important part about being an artist, because it's very easy
Speaker 1: to start looking. And I was, actually I was listening
Speaker 1: to something that you said, and you can correct me
Speaker 1: because I will be wrong, but about seeing yourself through
Speaker 1: how you think other people see you, and how how
Speaker 1: false that is. And we get this very precious life,
Speaker 1: this finite amount of time on this earth, and we
Speaker 1: waste it wondering what other people think of us, and
Speaker 1: also inheriting how we believe that they might be seeing.
Speaker 1: And it's a waste of time. And I got to
Speaker 1: a point years ago, and granted this is a daily
Speaker 1: process to like completely shed this, so I have by
Speaker 1: no means a rise, but I stopped reading what people
Speaker 1: were writing, I stopped reading reviews, and I make art
Speaker 1: because I love it. And when you do that and
Speaker 1: you come from a pure, genuine place, that is where
Speaker 1: happiness lies and fulfillment lies in the creative process. So
Speaker 1: that's what I'm getting to with those lyrics. The chant
Speaker 1: is just getting back to the core of who I
Speaker 1: am as a person and as an artist, regardless of
Speaker 1: the outside. Yeah, I love that, and I love what
Speaker 1: you're saying about how it's a daily practice. It's something
Speaker 1: we have to recommit to, that ritual of getting back
Speaker 1: there and blocking out the noise. I wonder when was
Speaker 1: the first time you felt you lost that. Did you
Speaker 1: feel you had that and then you started to lose
Speaker 1: that at a certain point, or was it something that
Speaker 1: you've always been able to like crosp On too, even
Speaker 1: when it's been tough. I think that at the height
Speaker 1: of our success, and I look back to coming off
Speaker 1: of you know, number one, thrift Shop was number one
Speaker 1: and hold Us was number one, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this music that you feel like it's yours becomes the
Speaker 1: world and it becomes open, you know, to public interpretation,
Speaker 1: and I think I lost it then I think that
Speaker 1: there was a point where it wasn't just a relapse anymore.
Speaker 1: I went back in the act of addiction. Around that
Speaker 1: time period, I didn't know how to maneuver the success.
Speaker 1: I had been an underground rapper forever and as long
Speaker 1: as like that, like you know, my entire careers just
Speaker 1: like this, And then all of a sudden there was
Speaker 1: this skyrocket moment. And when that skyrocket moment happened, and
Speaker 1: you're at the mercy of the critics and the think
Speaker 1: pieces and like the people that are out there just
Speaker 1: to right scathing reviews or whatever, I lost it and
Speaker 1: when and I compounded that by then turning to drugs
Speaker 1: to escape it. Right, Like, there's no escaping that. There's
Speaker 1: figuring out healthy ways to cope or even better to
Speaker 1: heal or to you know, tune it out. But I
Speaker 1: tried to put drugs on top of that to escape,
Speaker 1: which made it that much worse. And for me, you know,
Speaker 1: with my history of addiction, it is a progressive disease.
Speaker 1: So I'm putting drugs on top of it. And I
Speaker 1: turned to a place of fear. And I think that
Speaker 1: that fear really was a paralyzing force in that time
Speaker 1: period where I was scared. I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: deal with the outside world. Yeah, so around that time
Speaker 1: kind of and it's crazy because it happened at the
Speaker 1: height of the success, right, So I had on one
Speaker 1: side all these you know, awards and acclaim and millions
Speaker 1: of people in millions of dollars and all this money
Speaker 1: and all these things that in society's eyes, that's what
Speaker 1: you're working towards. And on the other side, I had
Speaker 1: completely lost track of who I was and the things
Speaker 1: that actually really added. And when did drugs first come
Speaker 1: into your life? Like when was your first connection with that?
Speaker 1: Because you talk about your history of addiction, but I'm
Speaker 1: intrigued by that. I feel like we always talk and
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about recovery, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it's really interesting watching like when we as young
Speaker 1: people or as adults, get involved with anything of this
Speaker 1: sort to then go back the other way. So when
Speaker 1: was your first kind of foray into that space. The
Speaker 1: first time that I ever drank alcohol, and I consider
Speaker 1: alcohol a drug, I was fourteen years old and my
Speaker 1: parents drank and I had a liquor cabinet at my
Speaker 1: house above the fridge, and I went into that liquor
Speaker 1: cabinet and I took one shot at vodka. I was
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, and I had on my undershirt, I
Speaker 1: had Tupac in the background. I poured one shot. I
Speaker 1: took the shot, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love the way that I feel right now, Like
Speaker 1: I finally am turning this off. I took two more.
Speaker 1: I wonder what three feels like? Another one, wonder what four?
Speaker 1: I ended up. I probably weighed one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: pounds and I took twelve shots of vodka in maybe
Speaker 1: a thirty minute time period, and you know, ended up stumbling.
Speaker 1: I got on the bus to go downtown Seattle. I
Speaker 1: ended up throwing up all over myself and then McDonald's
Speaker 1: the cops came. I had to run from the cops.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning of my drinking career, which turned
Speaker 1: out to be a very painful one in the moment
Speaker 1: and in hindsight. And yeah, you know, drugs came along
Speaker 1: with that marijuana, and you know, some pills and a
Speaker 1: bunch of other things. But you know, that was the
Speaker 1: beginning of a very unhealthy relationship from the very jump.
Speaker 1: And for different people it's different things like For some
Speaker 1: people it's confidence. For some people, it's sounds like numbing
Speaker 1: the noise, like switching this off. You said, was that
Speaker 1: the goal was that the intention? Like what where was
Speaker 1: that coming from? And where did it escalate to? Like
Speaker 1: what was the reasoning behind it? For you? The easiest
Speaker 1: way for me to describe it is that it was
Speaker 1: like an allergy. It was once I had a sip
Speaker 1: or a hit or a sniff or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: I wanted more and I couldn't turn that off and
Speaker 1: I never could. It was like from the very first
Speaker 1: time I didn't take two shots and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get busted by my parents, like
Speaker 1: I'm done. This is like I took one and went
Speaker 1: to twelve in a really short period of time. And
Speaker 1: the longer that I've been in recovery and examining my
Speaker 1: own life and maybe what led me to that point,
Speaker 1: because I mean, maybe, you know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the science is in terms of genetics are being predisposed.
Speaker 1: I had some things that happened at an early age
Speaker 1: that I think I wanted to turn off. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until relatively recently that I've kind of examined those
Speaker 1: and seeing other men in the recovery community open up
Speaker 1: about sexual trauma from an early age and be open
Speaker 1: and willing to talk about things that happened to them,
Speaker 1: things that like definitely growing up I never heard about,
Speaker 1: and up until relatively recently finding a community of men
Speaker 1: in recovery, I never heard people talk about openly and meetings.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, maybe that was the reason why I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly. Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's fair. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's always a collection of things rather than
Speaker 1: being one thing. But when you're talking about recovery now
Speaker 1: and you know, congratulations on just you know, an incredible
Speaker 1: journey to recovery, when when it was at its lowest point,
Speaker 1: which sounds like it was when you were at your
Speaker 1: highest point externally, you're at your lowest point internally. And
Speaker 1: it's it's actually not as surprising like that happens so often,
Speaker 1: Like you hear that so often, that people had their
Speaker 1: best moments externally and their worst moments internally. What was
Speaker 1: it that did give you reassurance or redirection to say
Speaker 1: I want to find a way out, because I can
Speaker 1: imagine that's so dark, and anyone who's listening and watching.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have a family member who's in that position,
Speaker 1: or maybe they have a loved one, or maybe they're
Speaker 1: in that position themselves and they're listening to us right
Speaker 1: now and feel like but it is so dark, it
Speaker 1: is so hard. It is such a strong addiction that
Speaker 1: it always looks easy on the other side from the outside,
Speaker 1: but the person who's been through it knows what it's taken.
Speaker 1: What was it at that low point, that dark point,
Speaker 1: that you said, no, I see another side to this
Speaker 1: life in death. What do I choose? It came down
Speaker 1: to that, and I knew the truth. I had been
Speaker 1: lucky enough that I had already been to rehab. I
Speaker 1: had already understood that this is disease of addiction. This
Speaker 1: is an uncurable disease. This is something that I don't
Speaker 1: graduate from. This is something that I don't go into
Speaker 1: remission like this will be with me forever and as
Speaker 1: a daily reprieve and a daily practice, what am I
Speaker 1: doing for my recovery? I went back to the origin,
Speaker 1: the roots of what wrote the music that ended up
Speaker 1: being the Heights that ended up getting all the awards
Speaker 1: and all the love and all of that. I went
Speaker 1: back to that place of okay, where were you when
Speaker 1: you felt fulfilled? And what did you have? And I
Speaker 1: had a home group where I went, and I had
Speaker 1: a service position, and I made coffee for a bunch
Speaker 1: of other alcoholics and addicts. And on Tuesdays, in order
Speaker 1: for the meeting to happen, I needed to show up
Speaker 1: an hour early and put out the shares in the meeting,
Speaker 1: and I needed to make the coffee. And the coffee
Speaker 1: was trash. It was horrible, but I needed to do it.
Speaker 1: And I had that accountability, I had that sense of community.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel alone. I felt something that I think
Speaker 1: all human beings want, which is to feel a part
Speaker 1: of And the disease of addiction leads you to isolation,
Speaker 1: at least for a lot of us. You know, right
Speaker 1: before I went to treatment, I would you know, the
Speaker 1: only person I would pick up the phone for a
Speaker 1: call was the drug dealer. The blinds were drawn. I
Speaker 1: was in a super dark place. Now, granted, after the
Speaker 1: height of everything, I couldn't hide. I couldn't hide from
Speaker 1: the world. I had a full calendar. I just wore
Speaker 1: sunglasses inside and kept going. But I remember my wife
Speaker 1: and I and it was after the Grammys and my
Speaker 1: wife and I we went to India, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was actually detoxing from drugs during the Grammys, Like
Speaker 1: I was, like, you know, maybe three or four days
Speaker 1: off of opiates and definitely was not out of my
Speaker 1: system whatsoever. So that place of fear was very still there.
Speaker 1: And I never talked about this before. And I remember
Speaker 1: winning the four Grammys and at the after party got
Speaker 1: a pill from somebody again at the after party, and
Speaker 1: that was the beginning of another attempt to escape everything
Speaker 1: that was happening. My wife and I went to India,
Speaker 1: and I really detoxed and realized that I needed to
Speaker 1: find my community again, that all of this other external
Speaker 1: pats on the back, all these strangers, all these people
Speaker 1: that are with you for the moment, but they don't
Speaker 1: really know me. I need to find the people that
Speaker 1: really know me, that really loved me, and the people
Speaker 1: that share this commonality of the disease of addiction, because
Speaker 1: those are the people that speak my same language, that
Speaker 1: make me feel again a part of and not distant
Speaker 1: and disconnected. And why India, what specifically about India, I'm fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite place on Earth. There's something about this
Speaker 1: spiritual undertone. There's something really undertone. You can just feel
Speaker 1: it energetically moving throughout India. You know, we we were
Speaker 1: traveling around from from Varanasi to Dharmasala to you know, Delhi,
Speaker 1: to all over, and no one knew who I was,
Speaker 1: no one cared. I was back to just being Ben
Speaker 1: And there was something so simple about that in that moment.
Speaker 1: And I think that you travel throughout India and you
Speaker 1: see extreme, extreme poverty and people that are still happy
Speaker 1: and fulfilled in that, and you realize that to actually
Speaker 1: be fulfilled and happy in this world, all what we
Speaker 1: have been taught in the Western world, that we need
Speaker 1: these benchmarks in terms of success and square footage of
Speaker 1: a house and what type of car, all of these
Speaker 1: things do not lead to happiness. And I was reminded
Speaker 1: of all of that, and I just I just love this.
Speaker 1: I just love India. That's amazing. Was that your first
Speaker 1: time there or you know I've been there before? You?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's incredible. You obviously, I've spent so much
Speaker 1: time in India, and that's being such a I feel
Speaker 1: the same way as you do about it in the
Speaker 1: sense of it's it's spiritual energy that's just emanating right constantly. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I find it's even easier to develop spiritual practices
Speaker 1: there and habits there and things like that. What have
Speaker 1: become some of the habits or practices or rituals that
Speaker 1: you feel you've formed that have aided this process of recovery.
Speaker 1: Community seems to be a big one of them. You
Speaker 1: keep referring to being around those people, reconnecting with who
Speaker 1: you were before. What are some other things that you've
Speaker 1: really worked on that you think of being pillars of
Speaker 1: supporting you at this time? I think service is a
Speaker 1: massive pillar in terms of getting outside of self. You know,
Speaker 1: it talks about in some of the literature that I
Speaker 1: that I work from, the disease of addiction is rooted
Speaker 1: in self centeredness. And in order to get outside of self,
Speaker 1: the quickest way to do that is to think about
Speaker 1: other people. It's like the thing that's under all of
Speaker 1: our noses. It's right there in plain sight, and yet
Speaker 1: we keep going on this journey of like what do
Speaker 1: I want right now? How can I serve myself? What
Speaker 1: are my needs? What are my immediate families needs? But
Speaker 1: to really actually, you know, to find like connection with
Speaker 1: other people, it is to serve, and that's something in
Speaker 1: the recovery community that is one of the pillars. That's
Speaker 1: a massive part of it. And it's looking inward, it's
Speaker 1: doing the step work. It is figuring out my character defects,
Speaker 1: really stripping down, figuring out who I am and how
Speaker 1: can I improve. And there's so much work to be done,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, and I'm at a very I've
Speaker 1: been in and out of the room's recovery for fourteen
Speaker 1: years now, and I relapsed at the beginning of COVID,
Speaker 1: so I have a couple of years. But I still
Speaker 1: feel like a newcomer. I still feel like this is
Speaker 1: brand new and I'm just on the precipice of figuring
Speaker 1: out something that's going to open a new door. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Service is such an underestimated habit and ritual, and hearing
Speaker 1: you speak about it in that way is so life
Speaker 1: giving because I think it's one of those things, as
Speaker 1: you said, we've just completely taken out of society. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really exist in our vocabulary, it doesn't really exist
Speaker 1: in our recommendation to people or as an antidote to anything.
Speaker 1: But as you're saying, in the recovery community, it seems
Speaker 1: to be a big pillar and a big part of that.
Speaker 1: Do you do you remember an opportunity where you got
Speaker 1: to serve or something where you tried to do something
Speaker 1: like that where you felt the benefits that you just described.
Speaker 1: Was there a particular examples? I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a particular one that sticks out, but I think,
Speaker 1: even to piggyback off what you were just saying in
Speaker 1: terms of society, even with this culture of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now we are working on our mental health. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: in therapy, now, I'm you know, eating healthy. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: working out, now, I'm doing bickram yoga like whatever. Like
Speaker 1: all of those things are fantastic, right, Like, those are
Speaker 1: all great things of the self care model that we
Speaker 1: have now, but they can still without the balance of service.
Speaker 1: You're still thinking about me, me, me, me me right?
Speaker 1: Like what do I need right now? How can I
Speaker 1: get my life? You know, I need to talk about
Speaker 1: my trauma and all of that, And that's again fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's still easy to be thinking about self in all
Speaker 1: of those practices, and can you actually have all of
Speaker 1: that and that still balance? Am I thinking and showing
Speaker 1: up for other people? And that can be as simple as,
Speaker 1: you know, picking up a phone call that you feel
Speaker 1: like you're too busy to take. That can be as
Speaker 1: easy as listening to a story of someone when you
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, you're running and gunning and you're
Speaker 1: trying to keep up with everything in life and just
Speaker 1: slowing down and showing up for others when you don't
Speaker 1: want to. That's the thing, is like, because services, in
Speaker 1: a way, there's still a selfish component of service, because
Speaker 1: you are still you know, this feels good, there's something
Speaker 1: that feels good about it, but you're actually you know,
Speaker 1: benefiting others at the same time. Yeah, And it's so counterintuitive, right,
Speaker 1: like we constantly feel like we have to focus on
Speaker 1: ourselves to solve things. But the studies actually back of
Speaker 1: what you're saying as well. There's so many studies on
Speaker 1: depression that show that even people are depressed who support
Speaker 1: other people who are going through depression are happier than
Speaker 1: those who are not supporting that community in search of
Speaker 1: even about supporting that same community makes such a huge difference.
Speaker 1: And I know that for sure in my own life.
Speaker 1: That was the insight that saved me too, was because
Speaker 1: for me, the change happened that I worked harder on
Speaker 1: myself in order to serve people better. So what you're
Speaker 1: saying by the balance, it was like the more I
Speaker 1: try to serve others, the more I realized that I
Speaker 1: needed to be purified. And so then I worked on
Speaker 1: my purification and cleansing so that I could try and
Speaker 1: give back better. And again, this is a daily process.
Speaker 1: I haven't arrived either, but that cycle became a really
Speaker 1: beautiful cycle. Reste, let me work on myself so I
Speaker 1: can give my best to others. Yes, now that I've
Speaker 1: given my best, I need to refuel and then that
Speaker 1: becomes this beautiful journey that you go on as a human.
Speaker 1: And I feel like for me, I'm there today too,
Speaker 1: where I'm trying to pour out into people and then
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pour in so that I have more
Speaker 1: purity to pour out. That's a really good observation and
Speaker 1: I think that, yeah, it is a cycle. It's a constant,
Speaker 1: you know, evolution of like, oh my god, I'm mean
Speaker 1: giving so much, Like now I need to refeel the tank,
Speaker 1: you know, the spiritual tank or whatever it is that
Speaker 1: that does get depleted, and that there is this balance
Speaker 1: that needs to be found. It's much easier said than done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course absolutely. How have your lyrics and music changed
Speaker 1: at that time, because I feel like, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of musicians feel they often write their best stuff
Speaker 1: in the worst times, in the darkest times, because it's raw,
Speaker 1: it's real, like you can connect to people's emotions, and
Speaker 1: people also feel that way, so they can see themselves
Speaker 1: in your music. Right. How have you felt as you
Speaker 1: observe your music evolving and with the two new singles
Speaker 1: like that, has that impacted the music or do you
Speaker 1: feel you're writing from a place of always working on
Speaker 1: yourself and that's what connects with people. I think that
Speaker 1: I'm always working on myself, you know. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: just in the coffee shop an hour, hour and a
Speaker 1: half ago, and I get the coffee and I go
Speaker 1: the bathroom and I'm like, you know, I just felt
Speaker 1: this wave of depression. And I'm like, huh, Like, where
Speaker 1: where is that coming from? I didn't find an answer.
Speaker 1: The darkness is always there. I don't have clinical depression
Speaker 1: by any means. I'm you know, someone that I would
Speaker 1: like to think is like relatively happy, but I do
Speaker 1: go through lows. I'm a human I'm going through this,
Speaker 1: this spiritual experience and this human form. But I felt
Speaker 1: this wave and I was like, I wonder if if
Speaker 1: Jay ever feels this wave of depression, which I do
Speaker 1: want to hear if you do. But like, but I
Speaker 1: also had this this thought of like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is what creates art. Right If we were always just
Speaker 1: like this, or if it was just kept going up
Speaker 1: and it just got better and better until we died
Speaker 1: and then we're out here, it wouldn't be interesting. Like
Speaker 1: I need to feel those, you know, moments of elation
Speaker 1: and translate that to music. I need to feel those
Speaker 1: moments of darkness. Uh. You know, sometimes it's self inflicted.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just that way that you don't know where
Speaker 1: it's coming from. But it's like this blanket of darkness
Speaker 1: over you and you're like, man, I gotta fight through
Speaker 1: this right now. But it all makes great music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it all makes great art if you channel it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but do you feel that? Yeah? I think I want
Speaker 1: to answer your question. There's some things I can relate
Speaker 1: to When I was in my teens and I first
Speaker 1: started hearing about depression, and that time, it wasn't the
Speaker 1: norm to talk about those things like today, as you said,
Speaker 1: we're trying to talk more about these things. But when
Speaker 1: I was in my teens and I first heard someone
Speaker 1: was depressed, in my head, I was like, how can
Speaker 1: you be depressed? You have everything? Like that was I
Speaker 1: was one of those people who looked at a friend
Speaker 1: who seemed like they had it all together and couldn't
Speaker 1: fathom or understand how they could be depressed. Right. It
Speaker 1: was like you make good money or you know you
Speaker 1: you you have a good situation. You know, you're a
Speaker 1: good looking dude, Like what what's what's your what's your?
Speaker 1: You get women like I had that very basically as
Speaker 1: a teenager, and then I felt it for the first
Speaker 1: time when I left the monastery. So I lived as
Speaker 1: a monk for three years, majority of it in India,
Speaker 1: and when I left, that's the first time I felt depressed.
Speaker 1: And I was around twenty five going on twenty six,
Speaker 1: and that was the first time it hit me in
Speaker 1: my entire life. And that was because I had a
Speaker 1: plan and I had a direction I was going in
Speaker 1: and it didn't work out, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even say a wave, I would say a
Speaker 1: very strong sense of depression and I didn't even let
Speaker 1: myself admit it to myself at the time because I
Speaker 1: was so scared about what would happen if I admitted it.
Speaker 1: And so if you asked me during that time, I
Speaker 1: would have said I'm fine. And it was only years
Speaker 1: later that I was able to locate and say, actually,
Speaker 1: I was depressed during that time. I just was scared
Speaker 1: to even say it out loud because I didn't know
Speaker 1: who to say it too. And it was then where
Speaker 1: my monk skills and tools that I'd learned actually came
Speaker 1: to help me and give me that direction. Now today,
Speaker 1: that was nearly ten years ago since I left, so
Speaker 1: it's been a long time, and i'd say today that
Speaker 1: I get sad thoughts, I get depressive thoughts. But it's
Speaker 1: two things. One is they don't last as long anymore
Speaker 1: because I've found a process in tools of what to
Speaker 1: do with them. And the second thing is I see
Speaker 1: them as useful, as you said, as insight into what
Speaker 1: can be changed, transformed, grown, what work needs to happen.
Speaker 1: So now they're not things I try and avoid or
Speaker 1: things I'm saying are bad or labeling them as negative.
Speaker 1: I accept that as a human you will always have thoughts,
Speaker 1: but it's your choice what you want to do with them.
Speaker 1: And I've now learned skills and tools that allow me
Speaker 1: to process them differently than I would have ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And so it's not that you will never I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anyone in the world who could never have
Speaker 1: a negative thought or a tough thought, or a difficult thought,
Speaker 1: because the world is put in such a way that
Speaker 1: there's constantly conflict, there's constantly uncertainty. So unless you're numb
Speaker 1: from it all, there's going to be something that gets
Speaker 1: beneath your skin or something that gets into you. But
Speaker 1: it's what you do with that. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: saying wishing for a day where it stops raining and
Speaker 1: stops being cold. It's like, that's never gonna happen. The
Speaker 1: weather's going to be the weather. It's gonna rain, it's
Speaker 1: gonna get cold, it's gonna snow, and you either have
Speaker 1: your umbrella and your snow boots ready to go, or
Speaker 1: you're going to be cold and wet. And so I
Speaker 1: think for me, it's like I'm focusing on what's my umbrella,
Speaker 1: what's my snow boots, what's my raincoat? You know, what
Speaker 1: are those tools and habits and practices that help me
Speaker 1: through that? Does that make sense? So? Yeah, I'd be
Speaker 1: lying if I said I don't have sad thoughts or
Speaker 1: and I think we have to get out of that
Speaker 1: because I think we all deep down believe that we
Speaker 1: will one day get to a place where you don't
Speaker 1: feel that way, and that kind of I feel stops
Speaker 1: us from getting there. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: sensed that. Yeah, you kind of think about getting over something.
Speaker 1: We both talked a lot about getting through stuff, yes,
Speaker 1: and with it. But I feel like in society we
Speaker 1: have this idea of you, you're an addict and now
Speaker 1: you've recovered, right, And you said I'm in recovery, and yes,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's language that lost yes completely. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting you said that because I the first time that
Speaker 1: I went to India, I was nineteen years old, and
Speaker 1: I did a three days silent meditation and on the
Speaker 1: third day, I remember like I couldn't meditate. I never
Speaker 1: had really meditated. I'm trying to calm the mind, follow
Speaker 1: the breadth. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is never gonna work for me. On the third day,
Speaker 1: I was like up in the hills, I was looking
Speaker 1: out over you know, a mountainous terrain, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm watching the trees and I'm closing my eyes and
Speaker 1: the trees are still, and you know, I'm seeing it
Speaker 1: through my eyelids, and the breeze came through, and I
Speaker 1: had this moment of meditation where I I didn't have
Speaker 1: any thoughts, you know, or whatever version that was. I
Speaker 1: thought that I was having this experience and and I
Speaker 1: felt this wave of just like this warm piece that sustained,
Speaker 1: whether it was three or ten seconds or whatever. And
Speaker 1: it was this contentment that I don't know that I'd
Speaker 1: ever really felt. And it was interrupted with the thought
Speaker 1: of but you're gonna lose this, but you're gonna go back.
Speaker 1: And I think that there was a part of that
Speaker 1: was like, but you're going to go back to drugs,
Speaker 1: but you're going to go back to depression. But you'll
Speaker 1: never be able to sustain this. And part of I
Speaker 1: think what the compulsion around using for me is is like,
Speaker 1: you know, you get that moment of ah, you know,
Speaker 1: like I've turned off the thoughts or like you know,
Speaker 1: the drink hits or the drug hits and now I'm
Speaker 1: you know, a quantumius in my in my you know, being,
Speaker 1: and you know, I feel I'm high. I like the
Speaker 1: effects of this drug. And then you go down and
Speaker 1: then you're trying to find that high again when really,
Speaker 1: for me, what I've experienced is the most sustained period
Speaker 1: of happiness that can be achieved is through a practice
Speaker 1: of clearing the mind. Now do I meditate presently? Not
Speaker 1: at all, Not at all. As I'm saying all of this,
Speaker 1: I'm like, bro, why why aren't you meditating? Man? You
Speaker 1: got to get back. But yeah, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling of peace and immediately being like,
Speaker 1: but you're not going to be able to hold on
Speaker 1: to this. It's a lack of a practice. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's that challenge, right, It's like constantly wanting to hold
Speaker 1: onto anything, yeah, and constantly want to go back to anything.
Speaker 1: Both of those thoughts, I think is what I'm referring to,
Speaker 1: And it seems like we're aligned. It's that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like those are the two thoughts that actually keep
Speaker 1: us the most trapped completely. So I want to hold
Speaker 1: on to this and I want to go back to that,
Speaker 1: and those two things keep you trapped forever and ever
Speaker 1: and ever, because now you can't experience, and you can't precept,
Speaker 1: and you can't be yep, and and it takes you everywhere.
Speaker 1: And you know, towards more of the beginning you were
Speaker 1: talking about, you're like, you know, life and death like
Speaker 1: that's you've had near death experiences. Yeah, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the most challenging emotions and obviously no one ever
Speaker 1: wants to go back to feeling that way. To talk
Speaker 1: us through that of having a near death experience and
Speaker 1: how that impacts you when you reflect on something like that,
Speaker 1: the near death experiences, they're not linear in terms of
Speaker 1: the um you know, I kept going down, down, down, down.
Speaker 1: It was rock bottom and then I almost died. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that necessarily, you know it, can you know, just
Speaker 1: be like, yes, I wasn't in a great place. I
Speaker 1: was in active addiction and I use this drug and
Speaker 1: that drug, and I ended up in the hospital and
Speaker 1: my heart was beating out of my chest that type
Speaker 1: of thing. But I think of this moment where I
Speaker 1: was withdrawing off of oxycotton. I was just crying. I
Speaker 1: was crying. I was in the middle of the street.
Speaker 1: It was summertime in Seattle, which is like the most
Speaker 1: beautiful place in the world. I'm biased, but it was
Speaker 1: most It's the most beautiful place in the world in
Speaker 1: the summertime. And I'm there and I can't stop crying,
Speaker 1: and I see no future for happiness. All my serotonin
Speaker 1: was completely depleted. I was reliant on this drug for
Speaker 1: any sort of crane to pull me out of a
Speaker 1: place of wanting to die. And I think that these
Speaker 1: near death experiences, yes, I have had actual like you know,
Speaker 1: you were close moments and you know, ended up in
Speaker 1: the hospital moments close to you know, death. But even
Speaker 1: more scary than those are those moments where you don't care.
Speaker 1: It can even go a step further than you don't care,
Speaker 1: it goes to a place that I don't want to
Speaker 1: be here. Those are super, super scary in hindsight. In
Speaker 1: the moment, it's like take me, well, yeah, take me.
Speaker 1: I'm not fighting anymore. I'm not fighting for life anymore.
Speaker 1: I've gone down the trail deep enough into the forest
Speaker 1: of this that I am fine to just leave this
Speaker 1: physical space. That's scary. Yeah, it definitely is. You're reminding
Speaker 1: me of I had a conversation with Dennis Rodman like
Speaker 1: three years ago now on the podcast, and I asked
Speaker 1: him what his purpose in life was and he said
Speaker 1: to survive another day, like to live another day. And
Speaker 1: to have someone say that in front of you, like
Speaker 1: in an interview, I was like, it really took me
Speaker 1: aback because you're not expecting that that much honesty, but
Speaker 1: but in that moment, that much. Yeah, you know, vulnerability
Speaker 1: as well. And I know he's surrounded by a good
Speaker 1: group of people who are supporting him and helping him,
Speaker 1: but it was scary even to experience. And you know,
Speaker 1: you've had your partner, your wife's who's been such a
Speaker 1: big part of your journey. You know, you've you've spoken
Speaker 1: about her music like she's been such a supporting figure.
Speaker 1: Obviously she loves you, that's that's without a doubt, and
Speaker 1: you love her. But what do you think has allowed
Speaker 1: her to be a supportive and helpful partner during this time?
Speaker 1: And how have you tried to help her help you?
Speaker 1: Sometimes you may have got it wrong sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: but tell me a bit about what she's done exceptionally well.
Speaker 1: And then when you've helped her help you in an
Speaker 1: exceptional way. But then sometimes when maybe you haven't helped
Speaker 1: the situation. Yeah, that's a good question. You know, my
Speaker 1: wife is a is amazing. She's a big fan of
Speaker 1: of you. She's super excited. She did today. She's she's
Speaker 1: not she's she's directing a music video actually, so she's
Speaker 1: in the midst of planning for that. Love. I definitely
Speaker 1: send a gift. We'll have to send something with you
Speaker 1: for Yeah, she's she's a massive fan. So, um, it's
Speaker 1: cool to talk about her. She's um. Yeah, she's my
Speaker 1: best friend. She's amazing. She um, I think first and foremost.
Speaker 1: You know, I was in I was in rehab in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, and I had been with her
Speaker 1: for you know, since two thousand and six. So we're,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years into a relationship, and
Speaker 1: she was supposed to come up and visit me in
Speaker 1: rehab and all the families show up, you know, the
Speaker 1: commencement of group therapy starts. My at the time girlfriend
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and she had ended up getting arrested on
Speaker 1: the way up. She was still drunk from the night before.
Speaker 1: After at she never went to treatment. She did some
Speaker 1: some twelve step work, but she has never used since
Speaker 1: and she was definitely, you know, one of us, like
Speaker 1: one of me, an addict and an alcoholic, and I
Speaker 1: never had that off switch. But the way that she
Speaker 1: has shown up for me is that she has stayed
Speaker 1: clean and for herself first and foremost foundational level. And
Speaker 1: we just celebrated last Friday her fourteen years of sobriety,
Speaker 1: and I got to watch her take her take her coin,
Speaker 1: go up to the front of the meeting in front
Speaker 1: of you know, one hundred people and take her coin,
Speaker 1: and she's all nervous, and you know, I have tears
Speaker 1: in my eyes, and I'm just like, this is my person.
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for her more than anything to be clean
Speaker 1: and to be healthy. And it's something and she has
Speaker 1: done something that I haven't been able to do, which
Speaker 1: is continuously stay clean. And it's a complex question, you know,
Speaker 1: like how do I help her or help me? The
Speaker 1: one thing about the disease of addiction is that it
Speaker 1: is insidious, and that when I am an active addiction,
Speaker 1: it starts before I actually pick up the first drink
Speaker 1: or drug. It starts slowly, and it creeps and it
Speaker 1: escalates and it starts telling me, you know what, no
Speaker 1: one's around no one's gonna know you can do that.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I'm in self will. I'm not
Speaker 1: in God's will anymore. I'm in self will. What do
Speaker 1: I want? And that selfishness rises and rises and rises,
Speaker 1: and it can start with simple things, you know, just
Speaker 1: like you deserve that, like go ahead, buy that omit
Speaker 1: that these little ways that it just starts creeping, creeping, creeping,
Speaker 1: getting louder, and for me, all of a sudden, it
Speaker 1: leads me to this place of none of that works,
Speaker 1: Like material possession to feel happy does not work for me,
Speaker 1: you know, like go ahead, get another watch, go ahead,
Speaker 1: get that jacket, get those shoes. Do that have that experience?
Speaker 1: You deserve it? It doesn't spiritually fulfill me. So now
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm on empty and the spiritual tank and
Speaker 1: I'm reaching for anything. Come on, more and more and more?
Speaker 1: How do I fulfill? How do I feel this void?
Speaker 1: This God's eyes hoolew? What do I do with this?
Speaker 1: And eventually I start to think a drink or a
Speaker 1: drug sounds like the best idea because I hate myself now,
Speaker 1: how can I help my wife? Help me? In those moments,
Speaker 1: It's counterintuitive because when I'm an active addiction in the
Speaker 1: disease is talking to me. I don't want to tell anybody.
Speaker 1: The disease is like, don't tell her, No, she doesn't care.
Speaker 1: You know, the lies, the lies that I'm telling to
Speaker 1: myself in order to act out, are getting increasingly loud.
Speaker 1: It's a very you know, I probably sound crazy right now,
Speaker 1: but it's um educated. That's how the disease works for me.
Speaker 1: And I think, unless you have the disease, and maybe
Speaker 1: it sounds crazy, that's actually the narrative that's slowly happening,
Speaker 1: whether I'm conscious or unconscious in my head, to get
Speaker 1: me to the point of hating myself enough that a
Speaker 1: drink or a drug sounds like the best solution. So
Speaker 1: I have to tell her. I have to be honest.
Speaker 1: And she has seen enough relapses at this point that
Speaker 1: she's like, dude, what are you doing. You're in self
Speaker 1: will right now? Where When was the last time that
Speaker 1: you call your sponsor? When have you got outside of self?
Speaker 1: When have you done something in your recovery community? Why
Speaker 1: don't you go to a meeting? She holds me accountable
Speaker 1: even when I don't want to be held accountable, and
Speaker 1: usually I can tell because she she'll say something, and
Speaker 1: if I'm naturally defensive, if I'm like, no, you don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing, you know, usually I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: she's got she's got a pulse, she knows me very well,
Speaker 1: and she's trying to help you, dude. Like you know,
Speaker 1: if she says sometimes she can mis misread the room,
Speaker 1: and I can come completely hold that space and listen
Speaker 1: to them and be like I understand that I could
Speaker 1: be doing better and these categories, but I'm actually feeling
Speaker 1: pretty good right now, and I welcome that from people
Speaker 1: in my life. Like I think part of addiction is
Speaker 1: that it's it has to be secret. You know, even
Speaker 1: you talk about ten years ago with like you know,
Speaker 1: this depression that you're like, I feel like I had
Speaker 1: to be okay, I had to be fine. I had
Speaker 1: to tell people I was fine. And there's this secrecy
Speaker 1: with addiction that we can't talk about it that when
Speaker 1: those thoughts come in or in recovery and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm a person in recovery, I have to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, holding up these pillars. And now I'm a
Speaker 1: public figure in recovery and I need to be It's
Speaker 1: like dude, I am still I am just like everyone else,
Speaker 1: completely fallible and so far from who I want to be.
Speaker 1: But the more people that I can talk about, that
Speaker 1: I can talk to where I'm not a secret, that
Speaker 1: is when I share my truth and it opens up
Speaker 1: a platform for other people too, or when they share
Speaker 1: their truth, all of a sudden, I feel comfortable in
Speaker 1: the space to tell mine the disease dissipates. And by
Speaker 1: the way, you don't in your words, don't sound crazy
Speaker 1: at all. Actually, I feel like you're educating us and
Speaker 1: enlightening us on what's going on inside. And so actually
Speaker 1: I'm learning a lot, and I appreciate it a lot,
Speaker 1: because I don't think we we only watch these if
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen to us. You only watch it from
Speaker 1: the outside, right, and you have no idea what the
Speaker 1: dialogue in someone's mind is. And so hearing what dialogue
Speaker 1: you've had in your mind is massively illuminating, because like
Speaker 1: you referred to mine, I agree with that on so
Speaker 1: many levels. And that's that wasn't even addiction. That was
Speaker 1: that was a form of depression that I was experiencing
Speaker 1: and couldn't vocalize it, what to speak of something when
Speaker 1: you going through addiction. And I couldn't agree with you
Speaker 1: more that whether it's something tiny or whether it's something huge,
Speaker 1: if we don't talk about it, you actually never learned,
Speaker 1: like I had a very non life threatening surgery recently,
Speaker 1: Like it's pretty routine, it's inconvenient, but it's not like
Speaker 1: you know, it's not I'm not gonna, you know, die
Speaker 1: from it, Like that's not what kind of surgery it is.
Speaker 1: And me even just telling some of my friends about that,
Speaker 1: I found out a quarter of my friends have had
Speaker 1: that surgery but never told me, Like no one ever
Speaker 1: talks about it, and I know it's not a big deal,
Speaker 1: But the point is that knowing that they'd had it,
Speaker 1: and knowing that they've been through the surgery and knowing
Speaker 1: that they'd recovered, or knowing where they'd had struggles was
Speaker 1: useful what to speak of addiction or something that's far
Speaker 1: more detrimental to your health and well being. You know,
Speaker 1: I can totally understand why being able to share that,
Speaker 1: And I really love the point you're making about and
Speaker 1: this is partly societal and ourselves, is you just explained
Speaker 1: a lot of roles like I'm a public figure in recovery.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a this in this, I'm a music
Speaker 1: artist who was addicted. So we create all these titles
Speaker 1: and roles and designation that are not the real us,
Speaker 1: and society forces us to play them, and we forced it.
Speaker 1: There was a lyric that I love. This is probably
Speaker 1: one of my favorite songs that you've done. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my I have a meditation program that I've
Speaker 1: created for Calm, and we were just there recording before this,
Speaker 1: and so we am recording for like four hours, just
Speaker 1: teaching meditations, and I was speaking to my producer I'm
Speaker 1: really good friends with. His name is Ben Too, saying
Speaker 1: that you were coming on the show. He loves Rap
Speaker 1: two and so I was showing that you were coming on.
Speaker 1: And we've then started talking about some of our favorite songs.
Speaker 1: So he was saying this one was his, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, me too. It's a light tunnels And
Speaker 1: there was this lyric that I thought it was really
Speaker 1: powerful for what we're talking about right now. You'd say
Speaker 1: they want the gossip, they want the drama. They want
Speaker 1: Britney Spears to make out with Madonna. They want Kanye
Speaker 1: to rant and go on longer, because that equates to
Speaker 1: more dollars. They want talking topics, they want trend topics,
Speaker 1: you know, etcetera, etcetera, And so you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: that idea that we're trying to create. Society is trying
Speaker 1: to create these identities for us, and then we kind
Speaker 1: of try and live up to those identities. How do
Speaker 1: you in this moment disconnect from that and go well, actually, yes,
Speaker 1: people may say I'm a public figure going through recovery,
Speaker 1: I'm a music artist doing this. How have you found
Speaker 1: a way over time to not subscribe to that identity
Speaker 1: and be like, no, I'm Ben, I'm you know, who
Speaker 1: who are you today? Like? How do you create that disconnect?
Speaker 1: Things that help my kids getting off of social media again,
Speaker 1: not to be redundant, but my community and recovery. I
Speaker 1: think we're all trying to get back to that place,
Speaker 1: whether you're in the public you know, space or not.
Speaker 1: It's it's the idea of who am I really at
Speaker 1: the core? And I've always used art as a medium
Speaker 1: to find out my own truth and to find out
Speaker 1: who I am as a person. But it's all the
Speaker 1: things that we're kind of discussing. It's like and that
Speaker 1: you were talking about in terms of service too, like
Speaker 1: you know, doing your own work and then putting it
Speaker 1: back and then going back and forth in this cycle.
Speaker 1: I think it's getting exercise. I think it's clearing the mind.
Speaker 1: I think that it's picking up the phone. I think
Speaker 1: that it's like I think it's these small little acts
Speaker 1: throughout the course of a day that you realize that
Speaker 1: all of this is so fleading and then that it's
Speaker 1: not real. It's not all of that world that's in
Speaker 1: light tunnels that we're speaking about. It's as real as
Speaker 1: we make it. And I think that it's really challenging
Speaker 1: to divorce yourself from media when you are a part
Speaker 1: of the media, when you are a part of a
Speaker 1: topic or you know, you can I could throw out
Speaker 1: ten celebrities names and like the first you know, you'll
Speaker 1: have thoughts and judgments right away when you hear someone's name.
Speaker 1: And we've put people, we've compartmentalized people, we put them
Speaker 1: into boxes. We don't really get to know who they are.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's why long form podcasts or
Speaker 1: you know, conversations are have helped to kind of reshape
Speaker 1: how we view certain people and are actually really beneficial
Speaker 1: to get to know individuals outside of a headline. Now
Speaker 1: the unfortunate part is and also for how short our
Speaker 1: attention spans are. And now you know we you know,
Speaker 1: five second increments, fifteen second increments were scrolling. We're moving on.
Speaker 1: We can't retain information, We're on to the next. It's
Speaker 1: really dope to see that. Like long form podcast, there's
Speaker 1: a lane for this where either it's super fast or
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna listen to Joe Rogan for three hours,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean and like And I think
Speaker 1: that that's because people are longing for something deeper. They
Speaker 1: want to hear conversation. They want to see the evolution
Speaker 1: of dialogue start here and go here, you know, like
Speaker 1: that is what actually is real. We are not We
Speaker 1: are not creatures that operate in in three to five
Speaker 1: second increments. There is a flow in an evolution, and
Speaker 1: I think that explaining who we really are. You know,
Speaker 1: our character defects, our flaws, are shortcomings to the things
Speaker 1: that make us brilliant and unique. To really examine those
Speaker 1: is what this life really is all about. And that
Speaker 1: the rest of it is something is a hurdle to
Speaker 1: get over. I love that analysis of it. I really do,
Speaker 1: because said earlier, you said where spiritual beings having this
Speaker 1: human experience? And I think a lot of people on
Speaker 1: their spiritual journeys or their inner journeys. At one point
Speaker 1: you get caught in the evolution of it where it's
Speaker 1: hard being a spiritual being having a human experience, Like
Speaker 1: you're like, how do I make music in this world?
Speaker 1: But then not feel of this world? Right? Like? That
Speaker 1: becomes a really tough thing. And I've worked on that personally.
Speaker 1: I work on it personally. I work with so many
Speaker 1: people on it personally, and I find that the natural
Speaker 1: human instinct is to retreat. Yes, it's like to remove ourselves.
Speaker 1: And when I became a monk, I think subconsciously that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I was doing. Where I wasn't escaping because
Speaker 1: I didn't have a bad experience with the material world.
Speaker 1: I could just see from other people's experiences that the
Speaker 1: material world wasn't satisfying to them. I could see people
Speaker 1: who are more successful than me, more wealthy than me,
Speaker 1: more you know, everything than me. I was twenty one
Speaker 1: years old, and I could see that they weren't happy,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, Okay, well, I need to
Speaker 1: figure out a different path, and I gained three years
Speaker 1: of getting time to figure out what my values were
Speaker 1: and who I was and why I wanted to do anything,
Speaker 1: and then coming back like I find that too today
Speaker 1: where it's like I'm not a monk anymore. I'm married,
Speaker 1: I have businesses, we have money, like you know, things
Speaker 1: like that, And it was like I had to make
Speaker 1: peace and sense of those ideas for what they meant
Speaker 1: to me and what their use was without them defining
Speaker 1: me or me trying to distance myself from them. So
Speaker 1: I think when we first we chase things and then
Speaker 1: we run away from them until we figure out how
Speaker 1: to use them properly. Yes, No, I was on your
Speaker 1: Instagram a day, and you know, a massive way that
Speaker 1: we size people up, or that we gauge success is
Speaker 1: by numbers, right, analytics and find our own value, right,
Speaker 1: like how did this TikTok do? Why did this one work?
Speaker 1: In this one? Didn't you know? I really liked what
Speaker 1: I said in this one and in no one really
Speaker 1: no one shared it. Why? I mean, that's part of
Speaker 1: your business. Yet your platform is based around like mental health,
Speaker 1: which in a way our society, and yet the way
Speaker 1: that you talk about this is via TikTok, via Instagram,
Speaker 1: via these social media things that have got our society
Speaker 1: stuck in this place of comparison, in this place of ego,
Speaker 1: in this place of I am lesser than I am
Speaker 1: not enough. Look at all of these other people's lives
Speaker 1: I am living, scrolling these death scrolls that we do.
Speaker 1: I feel horrible about myself. Culture that is really addictive.
Speaker 1: How do you balance the game that you have to
Speaker 1: play yet with the spiritual mental health side that you
Speaker 1: have to live. Yeah, definitely is such a great question,
Speaker 1: and I'd say that. So I started doing what i'd
Speaker 1: do today offline when I was eighteen years old. So
Speaker 1: after I met the monk for the first time, which
Speaker 1: I talk about in my book Think Like a Monk.
Speaker 1: I met my first monk teacher at eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: and I started spending time with him, and whatever he
Speaker 1: would teach me, I would share it because I was
Speaker 1: so blown away by it. So I started a club
Speaker 1: or a society as we called him in England, a
Speaker 1: society at university at college called Think Out Loud, And
Speaker 1: every single week I'd invite students over and we'd sit
Speaker 1: and we'd dissect a movie and talk about it philosophically, psychologically, spiritually,
Speaker 1: and I would facilitate these sessions. And when I first
Speaker 1: started them, like zero people showed up, because it's like
Speaker 1: people at eighteen want to get drunk and go to
Speaker 1: the club. They want to come to a society to
Speaker 1: think out loud. And so then I started handing out
Speaker 1: posters and flyers because I realized that I had to
Speaker 1: do a bit of marketing to make sure people were interested.
Speaker 1: And then people started coming, and so by the time
Speaker 1: I finished university, we had a hundred people coming. No
Speaker 1: one paid for it. It It was absolutely free. I did
Speaker 1: it because I loved it. I did it because I
Speaker 1: got the buzz of presenting what I was learning to
Speaker 1: people and helping them. And I built some of my
Speaker 1: best friendships that way, because I met all these people
Speaker 1: at university who were like, oh, yeah, we Jay helps
Speaker 1: us understand the stuff he's learning from the monks and
Speaker 1: the wisdom, the same stuff I do today. And then
Speaker 1: when I went to the monastery, obviously I actually spent
Speaker 1: time studying and deepening my meditation and actually deepening my skills.
Speaker 1: And since I've come back, I've done the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing this offline, when no one cared
Speaker 1: and no one viewed, and no one watched, and there
Speaker 1: were no followers and there was no money for ten
Speaker 1: years before I did it online. So up until six
Speaker 1: years ago, if you came to one of my events
Speaker 1: in London called Conscious Living, ten people showed up once
Speaker 1: a month to hear me talk about these same things
Speaker 1: that I talk about today, my underground rap career. Right, yeah, exact,
Speaker 1: that's basically what it is. It's like, and I did
Speaker 1: it for ten years, not thinking one day it would
Speaker 1: be big. I did it because I loved it. I
Speaker 1: loved this, so I went from it. Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 1: I did it for ten years with no money, no followers,
Speaker 1: nor nothing, and it was amazing. Even when ten people
Speaker 1: showed up, I was so grateful. So then when six
Speaker 1: years ago this kind of took off, and then the
Speaker 1: last couple of years it's really blown up. I live
Speaker 1: in gratitude every day. And yes, I am massively aware
Speaker 1: of what connects with people and what resonates with people,
Speaker 1: but my intentions different. My intention is how deeply can
Speaker 1: I speak what I'm learning and what I've learned so
Speaker 1: that it scales and gives access to everyone. So I'm
Speaker 1: not basing my self worth on how many people like it.
Speaker 1: I'm basing my ability to simplify ideas on that. And
Speaker 1: that's just one part of me. Right. My self worth
Speaker 1: is based on how I feel about myself, how my
Speaker 1: wife thinks about me because she knows me really well,
Speaker 1: how my monk teaches feel about what I do, and
Speaker 1: my best friends who've been my best friends for like
Speaker 1: nearly twenty years, Like those are the people whose opinion
Speaker 1: matters deeply to me. My community here matters to me.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, my self worth is not
Speaker 1: based on that. My ability to do my job well
Speaker 1: and the purpose I've chosen is based on that. And
Speaker 1: I think, like you're saying, that isn't a perfected formula.
Speaker 1: It's a daily commitment to can I improve my ability
Speaker 1: to communicate? But this isn't me improving who I am.
Speaker 1: This is me improving my ability to communicate seemingly complex
Speaker 1: ideas in a way that everyone can understand and digest them.
Speaker 1: But that's just one percent of who I am. That's
Speaker 1: not that's not me an entirety. If that makes sense,
Speaker 1: it does, Yeah, do you look at the numbers. Of course,
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, I think it's hard to do what
Speaker 1: I do without looking at the numbers. It's just that
Speaker 1: the numbers don't dictate, like I won't go to sleep
Speaker 1: upset at myself as a human being, as a soul
Speaker 1: because of a number going badly. I will just be like,
Speaker 1: there is a defect in my process of communicating or
Speaker 1: effectively transferring this message that I can work on. But
Speaker 1: if I think this is a problem with me, that's
Speaker 1: too heavy. And that's where I think the disconnect is.
Speaker 1: You can always blame the algorithm. Yeah, always. I don't
Speaker 1: like doing that. I'm one of those people that I
Speaker 1: will sit down when people have like the issue is never,
Speaker 1: very rarely is the issue actually the algorithm. From my
Speaker 1: six years of social media experence, the issue is your
Speaker 1: ability to understand what is going on. But again, that's
Speaker 1: not you and so, and I think that's what we've
Speaker 1: not learned how differentiate our album sales from our self
Speaker 1: worth or our social media following from our self worth
Speaker 1: and identity. So to me, there are two things this
Speaker 1: I need to improve professionally, But my professional failure is
Speaker 1: not a personal failure. And I think that I'm always
Speaker 1: grappling with that. Again, I have not arrived. This is
Speaker 1: a daily conversation in my hair, but I feel healthier
Speaker 1: that I want to figure out how to fix this
Speaker 1: for this, But fixing that is not fixing this. These
Speaker 1: are two separate Like I meditate for me, I don't
Speaker 1: meditate to improve my career, and I don't focus on
Speaker 1: my career to improve my feeling and me. There are
Speaker 1: two separate lanes, if that makes sense. I see success
Speaker 1: and happiness, and I want to come to this to
Speaker 1: ask you. I see success and happiness is two separate lanes.
Speaker 1: Happiness is what I do for myself and success is
Speaker 1: what my career brings and what it can achieve. But
Speaker 1: I don't cross the two because that's when I think
Speaker 1: it gets messy for me. And I wanted to ask that, like,
Speaker 1: as you've gone through so many highs and lows, successes
Speaker 1: and losses, how have you how do you define success
Speaker 1: and happiness for yourself right now? Like how do you
Speaker 1: look at those terms and what do they mean to
Speaker 1: you now compared to what they meant to you like
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years ago? Right? And I hope I'll to
Speaker 1: do a question. Yeah you did, Yeah beautifully honestly, it
Speaker 1: was just an honest hunt. Yeah. No, I think about
Speaker 1: success very different, and I get caught up in the
Speaker 1: matrix of everything, of course, But am I fulfilled? Happiness
Speaker 1: is fleeting? Right? The more we try to grab onto it,
Speaker 1: further it gets. Do I have sustained fulfillment? Do I
Speaker 1: have meaning? Do I have purpose? Do I have a
Speaker 1: life that is worth living? Do I feel excited to
Speaker 1: wake up most days? Am I engaged with my kids?
Speaker 1: All of those things that to me is what success
Speaker 1: feels like today. Now, I also have a business. I
Speaker 1: multiple businesses, and I like to win. I'm a competitive person.
Speaker 1: I do like to win. Now. Winning I think it
Speaker 1: is a tricky thing, right because oftentimes we don't know
Speaker 1: what We never know what's in store. I might drive
Speaker 1: away from here and you know, crash down the hill
Speaker 1: and that's it. You don't know. And I think about,
Speaker 1: you know, what I want. You know, the last two
Speaker 1: singles that you've mentioned, I thought that there are really
Speaker 1: great pieces of art thought that they were you know,
Speaker 1: had potential for like you know, chand it's like it's
Speaker 1: got this anthemic hook and you know, it's it's got
Speaker 1: a feature that people know and I'm rapping really well
Speaker 1: and the beat gets really big. Hasn't performed well commercially.
Speaker 1: Maniac sounds like something that could be on the radio,
Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of is, but it's bubbling slowly,
Speaker 1: but it's not really streaming well. All these things, I
Speaker 1: have a team of people that are trying to figure
Speaker 1: out that. We're trying to figure out why this worked,
Speaker 1: why this didn't work. And I realize that the universe
Speaker 1: has already it's already been written. I believe that what's
Speaker 1: supposed to be will be. And when I can get
Speaker 1: in that place of acceptance that regardless of what happens
Speaker 1: with Chance, regardless of what happens with Maniac or the
Speaker 1: next single or my album and how many first week
Speaker 1: sales it does on YouTube numbers, and if I grow
Speaker 1: my TikTok audience, all of that is not happiness. It
Speaker 1: is completely separate. And if I get too caught up
Speaker 1: in that, like you're saying, if I get too caught
Speaker 1: up in that world, then I cannot truly be fulfilled
Speaker 1: and have meaning in my spiritual life, which is where
Speaker 1: the true like, I'm just okay, I'm just okay with
Speaker 1: what is and I don't control it. And some of
Speaker 1: the most painful experiences where I was like, why is
Speaker 1: this happening to me? Like God, why would you do
Speaker 1: this to me? Were my greatest blessings were the things
Speaker 1: that opened up the door for something. And it sounds cliche,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, but you have to go through
Speaker 1: those moments of pain. You have to walk through that
Speaker 1: fire to get to that place of Oh, I had
Speaker 1: no idea why I was doing that, And now I
Speaker 1: am here and look at how beautiful this moment is.
Speaker 1: And I think that the trick is remembering in those
Speaker 1: moments of why why is this happening, that there is
Speaker 1: a deeper reasoning and that this will pass. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The way I was thinking about what you were saying,
Speaker 1: and well, I was sharing earlier, and it's that Imagine
Speaker 1: you just a brand new car. You love it, you
Speaker 1: think it's beautiful, it's great, and you go driving and
Speaker 1: you were saying, when you drive out here and you're
Speaker 1: driving your car and then someone knocks into it and
Speaker 1: it gets to den and it's a really bad then
Speaker 1: that means you can't drive. It needs to get fixed,
Speaker 1: it needs to get sorted out. Now, when I get
Speaker 1: out of that car, and I get into bed that night.
Speaker 1: If I'm thinking I'm dented, that's just inaccurate. The truth
Speaker 1: is something I have, something I care about, is dented
Speaker 1: and that needs to be fixed. But I'm not dented
Speaker 1: because my car's dented. I'm not damaged because my car's damaged.
Speaker 1: My car's damage that needs to go to the shop
Speaker 1: and needs to get fixed, but that doesn't damage me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that disconnect where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like when you're saying, like the album sales are not right,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's like, yeah, that needs to be fixed,
Speaker 1: that needs to be sorted out. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that I'm broken. That just means that there is a
Speaker 1: system mechanism with somehow how we're creating, how we're building
Speaker 1: that can be improved, right, and so to me, and
Speaker 1: I love the point that you're saying that. To me,
Speaker 1: it's also an alignment of how much we're creating and
Speaker 1: what we're creating. I find that when I make something
Speaker 1: out of alignment, it's more likely to fail. When I
Speaker 1: make something from a place of I'm making this because
Speaker 1: I really believe in it, I care about it. I've
Speaker 1: actually focused on getting good at it, and now I'm
Speaker 1: putting it out there, it has a better chance of
Speaker 1: doing well versus when I put something out because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can do this. I know I can do this
Speaker 1: because I have this. And so I think when people
Speaker 1: are like, oh, I have followers, so I can do this,
Speaker 1: but you don't really want to do that. You're just
Speaker 1: doing that because you have followers. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a study that shows how after someone sells a company
Speaker 1: in the next two years they make their worst investment decisions.
Speaker 1: Why because now they have money, So they make bad
Speaker 1: investment decisions. When you didn't have money, you made better
Speaker 1: investment decisions because you were so careful and so thoughtful
Speaker 1: about it. And so I find like sometimes abundance leads
Speaker 1: to stupidity because abundance needs to be treated with love
Speaker 1: and respect as opposed to with abandoned and wastage. But
Speaker 1: you brought up a good in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: the ten people that would come out in London, yeah,
Speaker 1: the top, and what your intention was. And I think
Speaker 1: that for all of us, but particularly being in the
Speaker 1: public eye, it's constantly moving that needle back to what
Speaker 1: is my intention here? Yes, what is my intention. Yes,
Speaker 1: And if you're in the studio and or you know
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio and I'm creating a record, if
Speaker 1: I'm going into it like this is the one that's
Speaker 1: going to be on the radio, that song sucks, that
Speaker 1: song is horrible. Yes, no one wants to hear that.
Speaker 1: And the public is smarter than we give the public
Speaker 1: credit for. They can tell when the artist doesn't know
Speaker 1: another artist and they just made a song because the
Speaker 1: labels were like, you know what, one plus one equals three. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Real art is felt authentic people. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's what's contagious, is when people can actually feel and
Speaker 1: hear that authenticity. You can't manufacture that. And again, but
Speaker 1: with all the noise, with all the white noise, it's
Speaker 1: it's in the periphery. If I'm not centered, if I'm
Speaker 1: not spiritually fit, I'm eventually going to feel like, guys,
Speaker 1: we need a TikTok song. We need something that like
Speaker 1: is going to be really catchy in a five second increment.
Speaker 1: If we don't have that, then I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be happy. Yeah, And it has been proven time and
Speaker 1: time again that that's not how art works. And I
Speaker 1: think that this fast food way of of of media
Speaker 1: right now in some ways can be great, but in
Speaker 1: other ways it's it has My fear is that it's
Speaker 1: killed the art. It's it's killed the overall arc of
Speaker 1: an album or the growth of an artist. You know,
Speaker 1: from track number one to song number fifteen. I've realized
Speaker 1: in this in this album cycle that I'm like in
Speaker 1: the beginning stages of putting out, we don't take in
Speaker 1: media like that anymore. Like the album is almost obsolete,
Speaker 1: and um, I don't ever want to get to a
Speaker 1: place of creating out of necessity to appease an algorithm
Speaker 1: or a structure that I don't believe in. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't believe in it. Now that's understand. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to play the game with what I've created, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to create and then go play the game.
Speaker 1: That's brilliant. I love that if the intention in the Vaders,
Speaker 1: which is the system that I studied as a monk,
Speaker 1: or the Vedic tradition, it said that there's four motivators
Speaker 1: or four intentions to my intention. So the lowest form
Speaker 1: of intention is fear or insecurity. We do something out
Speaker 1: of fear, So it's like I'm not relevant anymore. Right,
Speaker 1: let's make something that makes me feel relevant. Right. That's fear.
Speaker 1: That's not from a place of art. So you make
Speaker 1: something from a place of fear, it might do well,
Speaker 1: it might blow up, but you won't feel satisfied because
Speaker 1: you know that you're just scared, and now you're scared
Speaker 1: to do it again. So when you create a fear,
Speaker 1: it just creates more fears for new creativity because you
Speaker 1: don't know how you got there. Higher up from that
Speaker 1: is to have the intention of what you were saying.
Speaker 1: You have a target or a goal, but you just
Speaker 1: plucked it out the air. I want that number one.
Speaker 1: I want to build a billion dollar company. I want
Speaker 1: to And now it's just about this goal because the
Speaker 1: goal makes you feel good. You don't actually feel good
Speaker 1: about what you're making, but you like the idea of
Speaker 1: it might become a number one whatever billboard or whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. And so that's a goal or target.
Speaker 1: Higher than that intention is you're doing something because it
Speaker 1: feels true to you. And then higher than that is
Speaker 1: you're making something out of service or to improve people's
Speaker 1: lives or to impact people. So when you look at
Speaker 1: those four intentions. What I'm hearing is like, I want
Speaker 1: to try and make things in those top two intentions,
Speaker 1: and that way I'll be fulfilled. And like you said,
Speaker 1: we can play the game with those things too. We'll
Speaker 1: still figure out a way to make those things relevant
Speaker 1: and important, but we know that the art is sacred.
Speaker 1: The art wasn't sold out. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: I've vibe with too, Like I can totally behind that
Speaker 1: because I always connect back to why I started and
Speaker 1: what connected and I love the joy of making something
Speaker 1: sacred go viral. I get so much of a kick
Speaker 1: out of that, rather than making something sellout go viral,
Speaker 1: because it would go viral anyway. Yeah, that's great, dude, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're inspiring this well. I mean you think about whenever
Speaker 1: I'm in the studio, you're trying to get to those
Speaker 1: top two and it's almost an exercise when I'm in
Speaker 1: front of the page to work through those bottom two
Speaker 1: layers because they're there. They're not always there, but they
Speaker 1: can pop up. You know that, like can you do
Speaker 1: it again? And then you said it, like, Okay, now
Speaker 1: you did it, You're still not fulfilled. Can you hold
Speaker 1: on to it? And you watch people their entire careers
Speaker 1: trying to hold on to that relevancy, and it's just
Speaker 1: this game of like, come on, can we hold on
Speaker 1: to this thing that's like, you know, so we can
Speaker 1: be in this echelon and keep working and keep going
Speaker 1: and never take more than a you know, fourteen months
Speaker 1: off of an album cycle. We gotta keep going. What
Speaker 1: awards shore we showing. It's exhausting, It is exhausting, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't keep up with it. And I realize that
Speaker 1: a really you know, in the first couple months of
Speaker 1: being like really famous, that this was not sustainable for me,
Speaker 1: that I needed to recharges, that I needed to take
Speaker 1: take time off to work on myself. So when I
Speaker 1: go into the studio, I'm not operating out of that
Speaker 1: place of fear, of scarcity, of you know what if
Speaker 1: this doesn't happen. It's like, dude, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's easier said than done. When you had the success, right,
Speaker 1: when you're like, you know what, I'm gonna be good
Speaker 1: for life financially, I'm straight, just be honest, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be okay. But when you're you know, when you're really
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to feed my family, and I've
Speaker 1: been there too. You know, I'm trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that I don't overdraft, that I'm that I
Speaker 1: you know, can pay this month's rent with my sick
Speaker 1: people I'm living with, and you know, I need to
Speaker 1: get this show. So there's there's a privilege and being
Speaker 1: able to like be like okay, well like now I'm
Speaker 1: just working on the spiritual side of myself, and there's
Speaker 1: an actual real side of it, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of the physical world of I need to eat, I
Speaker 1: need to be able to pay for this roof over
Speaker 1: my head. Yeah, but still I'm almost writing in that
Speaker 1: space to to get out the cobwebs of those first
Speaker 1: two two layers and get to a place of you
Speaker 1: know what, bare minimum. This does nothing. At least we
Speaker 1: had a great time in the studio. At least I
Speaker 1: found out some truth about myself. At least this was
Speaker 1: an exercise where I got better at my craft and
Speaker 1: I enjoyed being creative, and I got together with community
Speaker 1: whoever was in the studio, and we made something that
Speaker 1: will be around forever, regardless of if it's viral or
Speaker 1: if it's a number one or top one hundred. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: We made something with pure intention and the people that
Speaker 1: hurt it were the people that were supposed to and
Speaker 1: everything else is outside of my control. And if you're
Speaker 1: a creative then you just keep going. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: keep going. And I was like, I was listening to
Speaker 1: some old music that I had written in like you know,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four or five or something, the other day,
Speaker 1: and there's this Dennis Hopper sample and he's talking about
Speaker 1: you know, if you're an artist, if you are really
Speaker 1: truly an artist, your art is like breathing. You have
Speaker 1: no choice but to create that that is the exercise.
Speaker 1: And I want to be that person. I am that person.
Speaker 1: I don't have to try to be that person. I
Speaker 1: just I am an artist. And for those of us
Speaker 1: that are, there is no choice. The success is a bonus.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, if I wasn't
Speaker 1: doing this for a living, sure I might have a
Speaker 1: different nine to five. But I can almost guarantee you
Speaker 1: that when I get home from work, I'd be going
Speaker 1: right back to writing wraps. Yeah, And that's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's that love, it's that dedication. And I love the
Speaker 1: clarity you gave though of when you're on the come
Speaker 1: up versus when you've created a platform, because I agree
Speaker 1: with you that sometimes fear and the goal of survival
Speaker 1: are actually what gets you started and gets you going
Speaker 1: and gets you your first breakthrough. It's just once you've
Speaker 1: had that, please upgrade, right, because if you don't upgrade
Speaker 1: at that point, you're still driving in gear two and
Speaker 1: it's like, but no, no, no, you were meant to
Speaker 1: get to gear five by now and you're still going
Speaker 1: at gear two and it's like, that's what takes you
Speaker 1: down the other way. And so I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think you're right there. I think it's such a
Speaker 1: great clarification. I'm so glad you brought that up that
Speaker 1: sometimes fear and the goal and the insecurity is what
Speaker 1: gets you moving, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's
Speaker 1: just that it gets you moving, it's just not going
Speaker 1: to keep momentum. And I've just seen too many people
Speaker 1: just stay on that gear too, and that's when you
Speaker 1: when it all breaks down. Right, So I think that's
Speaker 1: that's such a beautiful description. Where are you today as
Speaker 1: you look to the future, as you look to now,
Speaker 1: as you look to what you're building and creating for yourself,
Speaker 1: Like what are the values that govern your personal and
Speaker 1: professional life today? Like, what are some of the values
Speaker 1: that you're developing, working on and holding close to your
Speaker 1: heart right now? Honesty with myself, with my partner, with
Speaker 1: my kids, with my community. I want to be transparents
Speaker 1: in all facets of where I'm at. I think that vulnerability, honesty,
Speaker 1: telling the truth are constantly things that I come back
Speaker 1: to that just make my life more streamline. I don't
Speaker 1: want to hide anything. I don't want this person to
Speaker 1: know this part of me and this person like I
Speaker 1: want to be someone that can hold that space of
Speaker 1: this is who I am and and I'm honest about it.
Speaker 1: I want to have integrity in that sense. I want
Speaker 1: to keep delving into the layers of my own character, defects,
Speaker 1: of things that I need to work on, of studying
Speaker 1: my past traumas in order to figure out my next
Speaker 1: step in to figure out where I'm at. I want
Speaker 1: to I want to be a dad that listens, that
Speaker 1: ask questions, that is there for the beautiful moments, the
Speaker 1: difficult ones. That's super important to me. And I realize
Speaker 1: that with my lifestyle, there's a frequency in our house
Speaker 1: right Like my wife is working on a million things
Speaker 1: that have to do with all of our creative projects.
Speaker 1: I am there's people in and out of my house
Speaker 1: all the time, and I think that that frequency my kids.
Speaker 1: I know they can feel it. I know they can
Speaker 1: feel the insanity of this creative like you know home
Speaker 1: that we have that is beautiful, but it's also chaotic.
Speaker 1: And I want to make sure that I'm taking time
Speaker 1: for those small moments that is much of like this
Speaker 1: rat race that we're in to to do a media
Speaker 1: run and to you know, go from here to the
Speaker 1: next thing to this, and that I'm taking the time
Speaker 1: to really be present with my kids because it goes
Speaker 1: so quickly. You know, my daughter's already, you know, my
Speaker 1: eldest is seven and a half. And it's like, seems
Speaker 1: like it's so cliche. It seems like yesterday she was,
Speaker 1: you know, two months old. And I know that that's
Speaker 1: how life moves. And I just want to be someone
Speaker 1: that like when I look back at it all, through
Speaker 1: all the ups, the downs, the triumphs, the shortcomings, that
Speaker 1: I can look back on it all and be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I left something here on this earth.
Speaker 1: I was I made some art that impacted the world,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't need to be on a broad, big,
Speaker 1: broad brushstroke scale. That can just be with a couple
Speaker 1: individuals that I made some art that resonated, that changed
Speaker 1: some lives, and not in the grandiose way, but just
Speaker 1: like the mcs that came before me, underground rappers that
Speaker 1: changed the way I think about life, that you know
Speaker 1: I think about there's this there's this rapper that passed
Speaker 1: from from the group Black Alisious. His name's Gifted Gab
Speaker 1: and he passed last year and he had this this
Speaker 1: era of fantastic music and he and he passed away,
Speaker 1: didn't know he was sick, and he passed away um
Speaker 1: during COVID, and I remember just thinking like I never
Speaker 1: got to tell him what his music meant to me.
Speaker 1: And this spiritual um, the spirituality in his writing, and
Speaker 1: how that resonated with me when I was eighteen years
Speaker 1: old that led me to delve into myself via the pen,
Speaker 1: and that if it wasn't for him, I might not
Speaker 1: have ever written other side, I might not have ever
Speaker 1: written same love. That he actually gave me some tools
Speaker 1: that opened up this conduit that I was able to
Speaker 1: channel something bigger than myself in these moments that led
Speaker 1: to music that then impacted others, and that that music
Speaker 1: could go on to transfer in different ways to a
Speaker 1: next generation. That is what I'm seeking as a person
Speaker 1: and as an artist. And I think that that you know,
Speaker 1: when you've had that platform, you know, or you have
Speaker 1: a platform like I have, there's this tendency to think
Speaker 1: that it has to be on this massive scale, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about my life in this big,
Speaker 1: you know, open canvas of a world like I need to.
Speaker 1: You know, it needs to be millions and you know,
Speaker 1: a billion people that know who I am, and lose
Speaker 1: what's right in front of me, which is my seven
Speaker 1: year old, my four year old and my fourteen month old,
Speaker 1: or my wife and know that my family is there,
Speaker 1: and that's at the very forefront of what I care about,
Speaker 1: just as much as speaking to the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: I don't want to miss that, Ben, that's extremely powerful,
Speaker 1: and I love that reflection coming through you right now
Speaker 1: and channeling all those ideas with us. We end every
Speaker 1: episode with two segments. One's called the Final Five, which
Speaker 1: is every question has to be answered in one word
Speaker 1: to one sentence maximum, so you have a sentence one
Speaker 1: word too one sentence you get, you get that, and
Speaker 1: then we'll do the other one. So these are your
Speaker 1: final five Ben. The first question is what is the
Speaker 1: best advice you've ever received? Be present, see present, simple
Speaker 1: and easy. That's good advice. That's that's always great advice.
Speaker 1: What's some of the worst advice you've had received or
Speaker 1: seen repeated? Or advice you never want your kids to
Speaker 1: receive advice you never want them to hear. I never
Speaker 1: want my kids to believe that other people's opinion of
Speaker 1: them is any of their business. I agree, that's beautiful,
Speaker 1: all right. Question number three, what is your current purpose
Speaker 1: in life? Like? How do you define your purpose today
Speaker 1: in the work you do and who you are? My
Speaker 1: purpose is to create, to explore, and to show up
Speaker 1: for other people. Question number four, if you could, what's
Speaker 1: something you used to value that you don't value anymore.
Speaker 1: I used to value superficial momentary escapism. Fifth and final
Speaker 1: question we asked this to every guest on the show.
Speaker 1: If you could create one law that everyone in the
Speaker 1: world had to follow, what would it be that all
Speaker 1: people would have empathy for one another, need that and
Speaker 1: accept people for where they're at. Ben, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to have spend this time with you,
Speaker 1: to have had the opportunity to connect with you and me.
Speaker 1: We've been talking for like nearly two hours. It's been amazing,
Speaker 1: and thank you for being so open, so vulnerable, so
Speaker 1: so giving, and also just generating so many interesting directions
Speaker 1: for this. It felt like a real conversation and back
Speaker 1: and forth. So I appreciate that alone. Absolutely. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thank you, thank you. And everyone's been listening
Speaker 1: and watching, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're cooking,
Speaker 1: whether you're on your way to work, on your way
Speaker 1: back from work, or at work. I want you to
Speaker 1: share what you learned today, so please tag us both
Speaker 1: on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, on whatever platform you
Speaker 1: use Twitter, and just let us know what were the
Speaker 1: insights that stuck with you. Maybe there's a practice or
Speaker 1: an idea that you're going to share with a friend.
Speaker 1: I love knowing what's going to stay with you from
Speaker 1: this conversation, And of course we hope that Ben will
Speaker 1: come back on in the future and keep documenting this
Speaker 1: journey with us. You have an opening by Ben whenever
Speaker 1: you want to come back. So grateful for your time,
Speaker 1: Like thank you, If you love this episode, you'll really
Speaker 1: enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner
Speaker 1: critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion.