How Mike Posner built a music empire from his dorm room

34:46Because I knew he was kind of thinking about what's next. And I know that whenever Tim Ferriss is trying to do something, he's methodical. He doesn't just do it. He's got like a way he's going to do it. That's right. And I was like, I kind of just hop to the next thing. Like, how do you do, figure out the next thing? And he goes, well, I create a menu. options. And he's like, and on that menu, I make sure I have, I leave room for the weirdest option. I go, the weirdest option? Why are you going to do it? He's like, I'm not necessarily going to do it. He goes, but he goes, I treat like the weirdest idea of what I could do next.

35:18This is not what I normally do. This is not what I'm known for. So if you're still around, you must have, I actually need to overweight you as a, as an option for me, for you, when you try to figure out what's next, like whether it's the next song or the next project, like writing a book, how do you decide where to apply your talents? Well, it's hard now is choosing what not to do. That's the hardest part is killing things. And on paper, I may be doing too many things right now. I'm writing my book intensively every day. A lot of time alone, my computer. I'm putting an album out we're expanding our business in a lot of different ways so on paper if I was making the menu I go cross two of them out but your question was how do you decide the same internal compass that I use in the micro when I'm creating I'm writing a sentence in my book and I go that word is not quite right no not that and then boom that one it's an internal knowing it's a feeling so that that's it mark twain said the difference between the almost right word and the right word is there is between lightning bug and the lightning bolt right and is that the truth right has it happened in your songs oh yeah is there a song today that we all know that almost was took a pill in sacramento Didn't have the same ring to it.

36:54He just kept trying to make it work. It doesn't hit. No,

37:01but just on the song, same way. A lot of times in the production, gosh, that's not the right snare drum sample. We'll work for an hour, go through every... The alto sounds, and that's the one. You just know. There's a quote that Rick Rubin has that I love. He says, the best way to serve your audience is to ignore them. meaning to not try to reverse engineer what they might want or what they might like, or what they might just make what you want or what you like. That is the best way to serve them. You know, when you hear something, you're like, oh, that's probably the truth. I think I just heard the truth.

37:36Okay, now the rest of my life is coming to grips with that truth. I don't need to search for the answer. I got the answer. It's just a question of how long I'm going to deny myself, you know, how many roundabout ways I'm going to avoid facing the answer. Now I know the answer. uh has that been it been easy for you kind of back to that first question about like making what you want if music is pretty easy now and honestly um taking care of my finances has been a big part of that what do you mean by that i'm financially secure i don't need to make another dollar from my music again so logically i was able to just talk to at some point in the past talk to that part of that voice in my head and go hey dude like you never need to make a song that you don't want to make ever again you never need to be in the studio with a person you're not a fan of ever again ever and that made me a much better artist and i live in silicon valley there's people with more money than than god out there and they don't feel like they have enough i know a lot of people who have enough, who have made the last dollar they will ever spend many times over, but they still do things to chase more.

38:52And they don't like to say they're doing it, but if you watch people's actions, people's actions will sort of speak where they're devoting their talents to. What was useful to you to coming to peace with having enough? Was it as simple as I wrote down how much I needed and how much I had and the logic part of my brain solve that or was it a different part of you that that got peace with with the money side of of your life both twofold so i had you know the analysis to where they do a monte carlo or whatever it's like you spend this much or this many more years you'll be okay so that was like a money manager did that for you or yes that was part of it right just knowing hey i'm okay you got to shift at some point right because when you're coming up you you say yes to everything You know, opportunity is going to work.

39:39And then when you get successful, you have too many opportunities. You got to learn to say no.

39:46There's paradigm shifts along the journey. And so that was one of them. That's the logical part. And then the illogical part or the spiritual part is realizing what true wealth or abundance or success is. to me it's my definition true success or wealth is health it's the ability to have joy in a present moment that's if you can do that you're a wealthy person and if you're grateful if you're grateful what you have you're wealthy there's a perception in the business world which is that the chip on on your shoulder serves you i know investors that will invest specifically and people they know are kind of like sort of damaged, semi-screwed up, but they know that that gives them this sort of psychopathic drive.

40:38And when somebody's really happy, I know people who don't want to invest in somebody who's super at peace because the returns might not be there. I don't know if I believe that. Do you think that the best art comes from people who are in a happy place or the people who have that pain? Do you think that the best success comes from the people who have that big chip on their shoulder or not? What's your take on that? I can't answer in terms of where to invest your money. I don't really know that much about that stuff. But what I can speak to is architecting a more beautiful life. I don't have a perfect life, but it's a hell of a lot more perfect than it was five years ago.

41:18So what I can say is I don't want a life that is hyper successful in the vertical of work and finance. and a desert wasteland in the areas of passionate intimacy, faith, spiritual growth, friendships, fun, physical health, giving back. So I believe the way I look at my life, and I do measure this, is work and mission is but one vertical. And the thing I screwed up in my 20s is I thought if I crushed it so hard in this vertical, meaning I got all the fame, all the money that I thought the points would carry over. I thought, yeah, I can not show up to Thanksgiving and not return my mother's phone call because she knows I'm busy.

42:12I'm pop star Mike Posner, right? I cannot see my friends or ghost them for months on end. They understand. I'm pop star Mike Posner, Grammy nominated Mike Posner, international superstar. I can never go on dates and just have one night stands after my shows for years on end and never develop emotional intimacy or the capacity to communicate on an intimate level or vulnerable level with another human being because I'm international superstar. Grammy nominated Mike Posner. I can never give back with my time or not so much with my money either because I'm international. And what you get is just a life that isn't that good.

42:53Winning the game of life is played on all these different verticals. and some of them require different skill sets that you won't find in the work vertical. It's not going to help you be a good husband. It's not going to help you be a good father. I have a mission, right? So it's not saying abandon this for the other thing. It's how do you do it all in balance? How do you have everything? That's what I'm interested in. That's what I'm building in my life. I'm doing the best job I've ever done. Am I perfect? No. But boy, am I proud of myself.

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44:32There's a great clip on YouTube of Jim Carrey when he gets some award and he goes up on stage and he gave almost the same speech you gave. He's like, you know, I'm he's like, I this is my second Emmy. You know, I used to be. Oh, yeah. The Golden Globes. Golden Globes. Yeah. One time. Subtly plagiarizing that. It reminds me of it. It's great. I was one-time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey, and tonight I'm two-time. And he's like, and when I go to bed at night, I will dream about being three-time. And he has that great quote, which is, I wish the whole world could be rich and famous so they would know that that's not the answer, right?

45:11You know, you got to taste that. And you found out yourself that's not the answer for you and doesn't seem like it's the answer for most. I have this goofy analogy that I want to ask you about. So do you ever watch the show Survivor? when I was a kid, I watched it. I guess I'm one of the doofuses that are still watching it in season 47. What's going on with you, man? Okay, so we all have a thing. I got my thing. Some people got weird things. This is mine. I want to go on Survivor someday. That's part of my angle here. But there's this thing that they do on Survivor, which is, I think, a good analogy for life.

45:43So in Survivor, the best thing every player wants is the immunity idol. It's this one thing that if you had it, you're safe. You can finally relax. You've got the one thing that everybody wants. and that's been the case for many years. Recently, they made a twist. They call it the beware idol, which is basically you pick it up and it says, beware, this comes with some disadvantages. And the player has opportunity. They can just put it down. They don't have to take any of the disadvantages. So far, 100 % of players, not a single player has ever put it down. Even though it says on the label, beware, this thing has disadvantages that come with it that will hurt you in this game and every player can't resist.

46:21They take it. and I was thinking about, I was watching Survivor, I was prepping for this podcast and I was like, I think fame is the beware advantage of life. It's the thing that - Yeah, well said. We all think we want the money, the fame, the love of others and it could say it on the label, beware. People who become pop stars when they're young, those aren't the happiest people but we would all take it over again, right? And so there's something to that and I actually was curious like, for you, if you could go back, if there was the next Mike Poser, He's 21 years old. You get 15 minutes in a room with him just like this, and you could tell him anything.

46:57I'm curious, what would you tell him? And do you think he would listen? Yeah. My smiles don't result from good things. They result in good things. You have sovereignty over your own emotions and the way you respond to and interpret every event of your life. And life, like Naval Ravikant says, life is a one-player game, right? And you need to exercise and practice that sovereignty. You need to develop rituals that give you the best chance of enjoying your life to the fullest and being the joy in life, not waiting for something good to happen so you can feel happy, being happy so something good will happen, not waiting for someone to do something nice for you so you can feel good, doing something nice for someone else to make them feel good, and then you feel good by default.

47:47So I didn't have a handle on any of that stuff when I was 21. I saw a great example of that from you, which was, I think either you missed a flight or you were delayed on a flight or something like that. And I love this example because it's so relatable. Everybody's been in this moment where it's travel stressful and then travel often feels out of your control, whether it's a flight delay or you miss your connection or whatever it is. And there's the common cliche reaction to that. And we actually all kind of have that reaction, but it's not always the response. Can you tell that story? Because I think that example stood out to me.

48:24Not everybody's going to relate to being a pop star or making great music, but this was something everybody can relate to. So I'd love if you could share this one. I've been told in recording studios so many times, the lyric that I'm trying to write isn't relatable. Hey, Mike, you can't put that in a song because no one will relate to it. Yeah. Nobody else took a pill in Ibiza to show Avicii they were cool. That was just me. But everybody's done something that wasn't true to themselves to try to gain the attention of someone else. And so while the lyric on the surface is unrelatable, the emotion underneath the lyric is universal.

49:06And the same thing with all these stories. My life is my life. i'm probably i'm the only guy i know that got nominated for the grammy walked across a continent and climbed everest and i did that by design right because i wanted i want to be the only guy i wanted to have a life that was cool to me and unique to me and and yeah and part of it was ego that like hey i want to be unique and but also i wanted my life to be inspiring to me but every element every one of the stories we share today whether it's a story from you or a story from me or survivor or what have you, has human emotions underneath that are universal.

49:47So the story you're talking about is, yeah, I did a post. I never talked about this. This is a podcast world premiere.

50:01I had this horrible travel day, man. The day before wasn't good and I didn't sleep. and I woke up early and we had to drive three hours to the airport. We were in Colorado and there was an accident on I-70 and we just got in this traffic jam and we were in the car seven hours, missed the flight. And it was just, you know, I was feeling sorry for myself. It was just a bad, stuff was bothering me in other parts of my life. It was a bad day, man. I didn't feel good physically, emotionally. Everything was off. And I remembered that I was on a Zoom call in a Tony Robbins conference about time and scheduling efficiency.

50:51And in one of the breakout sessions, one of the other participants said, when you're having a bad day, ask yourself, what could I do to make this a great day? and it just it flashed back in my head while i was in that car i said well this is okay this is bad day check we got the first part right i said what can i do to make this a great day and i said okay if i could use the fact that i'm having a bad day to do something nice for others that would be a really cool thing that would make me proud of myself and so i called my assistant I said yeah this is all messed up and I was missing family time I get only so many days in my family every year my mom, my sister and I was missing one of them I was just bummed out so we get to spend the night in Denver can you find me a place where I can just go volunteer not with money, actually show up go serve and Stacy, she's amazing she found me I forgot the name of the establishment but it was set up for people that were getting off of drugs and they could live there and they could have a house, you know, a roof over their head and some meals while they find a job and they get some training.

52:18And I just show up to, you know, like serve food. And when I showed up there, I was still tired. I physically had a headache, still all the same things, But I was just proud. I said, hey, I used my suffering, my having a bad day as an excuse not to go to bed, not to complain, not to take it out on somebody else. But I used that as an excuse to do something good for someone else. So I did alchemy today. I turned my suffering into service. I turned my suffering into connection. And that pride I felt in myself because I would usually not do that. I would usually have a pity party in the hotel and look at my phone.

53:06It just gave me all this pride. And I say this when I speak a lot. True happiness comes from growth. True happiness comes from growth. It doesn't come from getting everyone to like you. It doesn't come from getting the most followers. It doesn't come from a million dollars. It doesn't come from things going the right way for you, the right way for you. it comes from playing a part in the evolution of your own soul so it's saying hey i usually do things this way what if i did something this way and that day i can truly say was one of the best days of my year without a doubt i went to bed proud and by the way so much energy yeah there's certain things that uh take energy that that seem like they take energy but actually give it's like going to the gym anybody's you're tired you don't really want to go to the gym but you go to the gym suddenly you have energy it's like wait how'd that math work it was supposed to take energy to go work out but i have more than i had when i started it doesn't make any sense but it does it to anybody who's ever done it makes perfect sense it makes sense because if i would have stayed in the hotel room played on my phone i would have got more and more tired because i was engaging in an activity that I knew I don't care about.

54:23But when I engage in an activity that I know is going to do something to make my soul grow, there's unlimited energy. So sometimes doing more is easier than doing less. Sometimes a hard goal is easier than an easy goal. Right. My trainer, he told me this story once that I love. It's very similar to your story just now uh he came to the to our workout in the morning and he's beaming and he's always a happy guy but i could tell a little extra pep in the step what's up hey man what's going on dude i thought i was looking like more fit or something i didn't know what the reason was i was hoping secretly hoping it was me but then he was like he goes well for the last nine months i've been driving around with like an expired license and he's like um i didn't want to go to the dmv so I avoided that pain.

55:13But then every time I drove, I was paranoid all the time that I was going to get pulled over. And if I got pulled over, it was going to become this mess. And so he's like, it's always a little anxiety. It was eating at me. So today I woke up, I just decided I'm doing it differently. So his thing is always just do it differently. So do it differently than you used to do it in the past. That simple thing. So instead of trying to do things perfectly, just do it differently. And you do that often enough, you end up getting pretty damn close to perfect. And so he goes I did it differently what'd you do differently and so he he's like all right where's the local DMV he googles it and you know Google it shows you the star ratings and like imagine a DMV's star ratings right like there's no DMV on earth with a five-star review right so it's like one experience was stellar yeah exactly so it's like a one and a half star experience he's like oh man he's like the reason I haven't been going I've been dreading the DMV and I love this because like everybody dreads a DMV.

56:06So I love this. He looks at that one and a half star and he goes, okay, but I'm a sovereign being. I don't have to have a one and a half star experience. That's the average experience. I'm going to have a five-star experience. How do you have a five-star experience? It's not by going in there and them giving you five stars, just by you walking in a five-star customer. So he gets in his car, he drives to the DMV, no appointment, walks in proud, happy, excited, opens the door for some lady, you know, it helps this, it helps these people. Hey, why don't you guys go ahead of me? Instead of everybody in the DMV rushing into line, you guys go ahead.

56:40Yeah, have fun. And then he's the lady he was joking around with while he was walking from the parking lot in turns out she works at the DMV. She sees him on the inside. She's like, what are we here for? Anyways? He's like, I've been driving out this expired license. I've been so stressed out about it. But I said, today's the day. She goes, you're right. Today's today. Come over here. Cuts the whole line, gives him the thing. He doesn't have to take the test, gives him the license. He walks out of there like, you know, under 30 minutes with a five-star DMV experience. And so he took that and he was like, yo, I just like, this is like watching somebody part the seas.

57:13It's like, you have seen an act. If you didn't believe in manifestation before, if you didn't believe that you control your experience before, like, well, look what I just did with the DMV. I love that story. So I always held that one as like, yeah, you get to choose. You get to choose your experience. And like, I also like that message of like, don't expect the world to be giving you this five-star hospitality. Five-star, like you'll be a five-star customer and watch how the universe sort of responds to you. I love that. So I thought you would like that one. Yeah, thanks for that story, dude.

57:42I want to remember that one. That's good. I want to ask you about some things. You mentioned Benny Blanco. I got to ask you, because I'm really fascinated by these people who are the influencers of the influencers. They're the people who unlock creatives in some way or they just have this really high hit rate. What's going on? What are they doing differently? And we don't know the answer. He was telling me, he's like, oh, I read some shit. He tries to create a safe space. He kicks people out of the room. He lights candles. I was like, okay, I got to ask Mike about this. What's Benny Blanco's superpower?

58:12What does he do well that has enabled him to work with guys like you and get kind of great results? From my perspective, it's what you did, but it's the intangibles. It's not the type of candle. it's he really has a gift for making artists who are a fickle bunch right can easily get scared kind of like exotic birds you know get scared are like you know we're sensitive in a good way we pick up on things that other people don't and then we can write about and help other people to see that you know we see divine in the mundanity but as a result you know we can we can feel someone's energy a lot of artists could go yo if that dude is weird like it's hard for us to write a song if there's a weird dude in the room or, you know?

58:56So he's a master at, yeah, creating the physical space, but him, he knows how to get the best out of the best people in the world. You have people like that in your life, I'm sure, whether it's family or friends that, gosh, you just feel comfortable around them. So he has a gift for that. And he also has great taste and his superpower, One of his superpowers is that. And he's also really fun to be around. I'm really driven, type A. When I first worked with Benny, he was the first person I did a real studio session with where I was in an actual recording studio. I'd written songs with Big Sean in my basement, but I'd never gone to a studio.

59:40I was always, man, we got to work hard. And at that time, I'm paying by the hour for the studio. We got to make the song. Let's go. and he was the first guy goes dude it doesn't matter if we make a song today let's just be and the song will come out and if it doesn't it'll come next time you know so he taught me how to collaborate he he taught me a lot about and hopefully i do that for other artists now too you know other people when i collaborate but yeah he has a gift for that i'm obsessed with these videos that are like you know some guys love the roman empire or whatever of mine is like watching the making of these songs because there's so many of these on youtube you've got a bunch of them on youtube uh it's like you know this grainy footage and you hear you can hear them play the lick for the first time and they're like oh yeah i like that it's like that's the song and you almost want to reach the screen like that's it that's the song that we're all gonna love you just don't realize you just did it there's one of benny and ed sheeran i think in a tour bus where he's like writing uh love yourself or something like that and they're just messing around it was the same sort of vibe where he's like sitting there cross-legged barefoot he's like it didn't seem like there's a lot of stress around like what is the answer it was more just like that would be fun I like that you know and he was just playful with it which allowed them to play and be like you should go and fuck yourself although yeah that's great that's a great line and it's like wasn't the appropriate line but it was the like fun line and because it got there the song got there I'm pretty fascinated by those one of the things that I heard that Ed Sheeran said I thought was pretty interesting yeah there's some documentary about him on Apple TV Plus, but he goes, it's almost like a superstition.

1:01:17He said, I believe that rooms have songs. Rooms and instruments have songs because to write his album, he wouldn't just like go to a studio. He would rent a farmhouse or some like cool, inspiring space. And he would build a mobile studio there, which was 85 % as good as the best studio. But the house would get like double the inspiration for him or the comfort for him and the band. I thought that was very interesting. the trade-off between efficiency or picture-perfect audio versus creative inspiration. What do you do with your environment to get the most creative version of you? Very similar.

1:01:56First of all, I love to work in immersions like that. I have a studio in here, and I mostly record myself when I'm home. So my whole career, same as when I was in the dorm room. The mic's a little better now, but I have a laptop, nice mic, plugged in a nice pre, and I hit record on the laptop. I sing until I mess up. I hit stop. I engineer the thing myself. That way I can record whenever I want. I don't need another person. I have to wait for someone else to come over. But I love to work in immersion similar to what you just described with Ed, which is that's when the most stuff happens. Hey, we're going to take a bunch of talented people.

1:02:39We're going to go to a nice place that's divorced from our normal duties. And we're just going to live and breathe this art for a week or two weeks. Then we're going to basically work till we die. And then we take a couple of weeks off and we come back and do it again. I like to work like that. Is that where some of your songs have come out of? Like a setup like that? My songs have come from all over, you know, so that's my personal favorite way to do it. but it's not about what I like. It's, you know, the songs coming through. So I've written songs on airplanes. I've written songs here. I've written songs in the morning.

1:03:17I've written songs at night. Written songs starting with piano licks. Written songs starting with lyrics. Written songs starting with melody. So pretty much every different way. Hey, by the way, we having fun? I'm having fun. Where are we measuring up to your research, dude? It's higher because you gave me that iTunes Zoom. I'm better in real life. That iTunes story was amazing. That's like, you know, everybody's got their favorite dish. That's my favorite dish. It's a combination of like the serendipity of things working out for somebody 10 years in the making. Like, I love that. Everybody who's trying to do shit, you want to hear stories that, yeah, after 10 years, then it starts to work out.

1:03:57There's something we all need to hear those stories. But then also, you did engineer it in a way too. Like, you weren't a passive observer to some lucky circumstance. Like you took this, you took steps to like, hmm, observation. Let me double down on that. And you did things that there's no textbook to say, make your pledges, change their profile pictures and invite people. But it makes sense at the same time. So I love that story. Thank you. I want to ask you about the walk, but also the walk or Everest or the silent meditations. But I bucket them all under one philosophy, which is do hard things.

1:04:30Is that the right description of your philosophy? why you would climb Everest, why you would walk across America. What's the philosophy that drives somebody to do those things? Yeah, they were large examples of the airport day gone wrong, going to volunteer, saying, my life is maybe too easy right now, and that's why it doesn't feel right. So I'm going to make a harder goal. I'm going to make my life harder, but then paradoxically my life feels easier when I'm doing the harder thing. So they've hit on a lot of themes that we touched on today. And I think that's true probably of walking across the U.S., climbing Everest, and doing some longer meditation retreats.

1:05:17Can you take me back to one of them? Where you were, life is easy but doesn't feel quite right. I don't have the same level of joy I should be having on paper. And then what the voice said that made you go do one of those, Can you walk me through that? Yeah, with the walk across America, I was at a friend's jewelry shop, and someone across the room said, my friend just walked across America. It was like a tractor beam. I went, I said, what did you just say? My friend walked. I go, you can do that? I guess. He did it. No one else cared about it. Like, what's up with you, man? And I said out loud in that jewelry shop, I'm going to do that one day.

1:06:07I actually don't think I said, I said, I want to do that one day. And the sentence lingered in the jewelry shop like a fart no one wanted to claim. And everyone just sort of went back to whatever they were talking about before I said it. And fast forward four years later, four or five years later, my father dies from brain cancer. And I think about six months after that, my assistant at the time, Nick, comes to pick me up, take me to a studio session that day. And he said, hey man, Avicii's dead. Avicii is a friend of mine that I worked with in the music studio. I worked with him a few weeks before.

1:06:53He said, Avicii's dead. I go, don't fuck with me, man. He said, I'm not fucking with you. Avicii's dead. I said, I can't believe this. And I get in his car. He drives in his studio. And I keep saying, I can't believe this. And while I'm saying I can't believe this out loud, there's one thought going through my head that I can't make stop. It's I have to walk across America. I have to walk across America. I have to walk across America. I have to walk across America. and it was this proximity of death saying, hey dude, you see that man that gave you your life? The one that you look just like? He's dead.

1:07:36That's what's going to happen to you. You see that other man who does the same job as you? You guys do the same. You do concerts. You're in the studio with him last week. He's dead. That's what's going to happen to you. Maybe not in the same way, but this is a return trip. Another couple weeks pass. I'm in this shitty little guest house that I'm renting in West Hollywood bouncing around studios trying to make my next hit. And my friend Willie calls me and he goes, hey Mike, I got bad news. One of our best friends that we grew up with his name is Ronnie. He goes, Ronnie's dead. Shit. and I just realized dude I'm gonna die before I die I want to live the life that I actually wanted to live and I wasn't doing it I was living the life that I thought my manager thought I should live truly I was living the life that I I was 30 years old living the life that 20 year old me had set up and it was it was pain i walked across america because i was in pain and i i wanted to figure out a different way when you were doing it did you like a lot of times the reason i do something isn't the thing i get out in a great way yeah right i go in for one reason and i come out with it's like going to chuck e cheese to play the games you get all these prizes at the end you didn't even realize that's that's how the tickets work um what were the prizes you got at the end of that found a part of myself that was that was so much stronger than i ever knew was even there not only found a part of myself unleashed a part of myself that i previously didn't know was there dude i got bit by a poisonous rattlesnake i spent three nights in the icu i got airlifted i got told by dispatch i might not live i got told by doctors it might take me eight months to heal i got you know told by other doctors i might lose my foot it's just like and i did a crazy thing dude i went back i kept going everyone expected me to quit because probably because the old me was such a bitch you know i was like my whole life was about me and everything me being comfortable and so like i'm gonna do the opposite i'm gonna be a five-star walker right but you're different i'm gonna do it different i'm not gonna use i'm not gonna use this injury as an excuse to do less i'm gonna use as excuse to do more and yeah i get to do podcasts and talk about it and this thing is on my Wikipedia page and the check, the real trophies that you ask is I became someone new.

1:10:40And that part of me is, it is so different having an inkling you're strong versus knowing you're strong because you, because you were strong and I was strong in a way I hadn't been before. That's amazing. I think that the there's this concept of Misogi have you heard of this uh-uh we've talked about on the pod before this guy Jesse Itzler came on I love Jesse Itzler he's a good friend man yeah so Jesse I'd do anything for Jesse Itzler I like that for real he's one of my like I don't ever use the word like mentors or heroes or anything but like I call them blueprints so I look for people who live interesting lives that I'm like ooh that could be i like the way that house is laid out maybe i could steal some of that blue he's that for me too and by the way a friend spent time with him off the off the record yeah he's that guy yeah that's actually something i always wonder because on the podcast you always see people's you know hopefully that guy 24 i've been with him i watch him with his kids he's that guy so he's got he has this idea of uh kevin's rule and he's got the misogi which is like misogi is like the one one grand challenge a year, one ambitious, hard thing you're going to do, whether it's super physical or it might be some other thing.

1:11:59Like I have mine, which is, can I go 24 hours straight without a complaint in my head? That's my misogynist. It's harder for me than an Ironman or anything like that. That's dope, dude. I want to try that too. But that's a superpower. Not in your mouth, in your head, dude. Yeah, yeah. Anybody can not say it, but I'm saying it to myself. It's the conversation I'm having in my head is the big one all day. So good, man. And so I'm really working on that. And it's so funny. you see it, you're like, and actually you're a Tony Robbins guy. I'm a Tony Robbins guy too. He said a phrase which made me realize how important this was.

1:12:30He says he goes on some trip and he meets some guy in India or whatever. And the guy goes, asked him something about suffering. And he's like, yeah, I'm Tony Robbins. Like, I don't know if you know this, but suffering isn't what usually people describe me as like, you know, thriving, a powerful, successful, all these things. He's like, didn't say that to him, but that was the internal feeling was like, what do you mean suffering? And he's like, well, I just saw you kind of yelling at your guy over there. He's like, well, no, he wasn't doing his job. And so I had to immediately demand the performance.

1:13:03And the guy brought to his awareness, like, man, there are so many of these little moments every day where you're losing your state, this beautiful state that you're in. And then it goes away. And he said it like, he said, how cheap is your happiness? Like how little does it, how much, how little of inconvenience does it take? If I spill this water on this desk right now, do you lose that beautiful state or you stay in it? Because if you lose it, then that was cheap, man. That was so easy to knock you out of that. And I heard that. And that was like, ooh, that's a, it's a thing I want. And when I look at your story about like the things you wanted in your 20s, the success, the fame, the money, the love of everybody, like those are the things all of us want, at least in our 20s, is often their whole lives.

1:13:45And a big part of life seems to be just figuring out what are you supposed to actually want like you know i wanted this i achieved this oh shit worst case scenario i realized i didn't even want the right thing in the first place i played a game that was rigged for me to lose so you know some of your story reminds me of that philosophy that has served me well it's so well said and and i believe the person that tony was talking to was krishnaji yeah and and so krishnaji and his wife pritnaji are these amazing And they teach that there's only two kinds of states, beautiful states and suffering states.

1:14:22And there's all different types of suffering states and types of beautiful states, joy, laughter, calm, serenity, or pain, depression, self-pity, you name it, right? But there's really only two states. And so I think what all of us really want is to have more beautiful states, less suffering states. And so we're talking about tools to get there. What do you want? That's what you want, I think. Right. The problem is we convince ourselves that we want the middleman. We think the promotion gives us the beautiful state. Well, yeah. The achievement gives us the beautiful state. Anything you want, you want because you think it's going to give you a better state.

1:15:00Right. And maybe it will momentarily, but the trick of the game is, hey, you don't have to wait for the thing. Right. Feel it now. Feel it right now. And if you can win that game, you've won life. Right. Right? And so nobody's perfect. I don't know anybody. You know a lot of these guys too. We just met, so now you know. Right, right.

1:15:24But like you, we get to spend time with a lot of these teachers and gurus. So I haven't met one yet that's 100 % in a beautiful state. But we can work more towards there. And we need external goals. So that's a lot of my message. hey, set a goal that actually inspires you. That's Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. You need something in the future you're looking forward to. It's important. At the same time, you need to be winning this internal game of, hey, that's my goal, but how do I want to feel as I'm going after it? That's a different kind of goal that interweaves with your external goal.

1:16:05And most people forget to set that one. And they lose. They lose life. they might win on the vertical axis they might win on the horizontal axis but they lose in the depth the vertical axis so that's it man thank you for bringing that story that's a great reminder that's it, that's all we're trying to do any of these tips or tools or stories it's all to to win that game I appreciate you inviting me out to your house and appreciate you doing this it has been great Peace. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.

1:16:57Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter, they shape us. And as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s, You're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

1:17:27If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust members, FDIC.