Hozier Opens Up: “I Was At War With Myself” - How To HEAL & UNBLOCK Your Creativity

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:11I had interviewed many best-selling authors, a handful who sold 5, 10 million copies of their book. I had Liz Gilbert on one time. She wrote the book Eat, Pray, Love. And she did a famous TED Talk about how to grapple with her best work or her most known work potentially being behind her. Because she sold 10 million copies. It was this global movie. It was like this phenomenon that took off in the world when she wrote it. And how to navigate life after potentially what could be the biggest success you could ever have. She was like, I probably won't write a book again that does another 10 million copies.

0:50It's very rare to do that. Have you ever thought about that? of like just how to navigate a long career with such a big hit early on and not let needing to chase downloads or streams or charts be the driver for you like your first single and if it doesn't do that well like am I a failure or is there something wrong you know do you ever think about that it's something that it's like a relationship thing as time goes on of course you love that the work is seen or heard by as many ears as possible if they connect with it. And there is one part of you maybe that would love that. I think that as time goes on and even 10 years ago, I recognize that, and this is maybe what's most important to me, is that the music that I want to make and the music that I feel moved to make does not necessarily belong in the spaces of the top 10.

1:49music that is geared towards social spaces and hearty atmospheres music that is like oftentimes points towards like an aspirational sort of whatever it is a lot of the time it's club life or it's music that celebrates or engages in like a kind of a conspicuous consuming of life and its pleasures etc but it would be a bit silly of me to to be all woe is me and want to want to write songs about you know whatever uh the roman catholic church or the legacy of colonialism or or or occupation or something like that and go why why is this in why is this hitting the world in the clubs like yeah it's it's just that i don't necessarily feel aligned you know and i'm okay with that but this is why i feel like so lucky so I'm very much at peace oftentimes those are external that's just external validation again it's that thing of like when I was in that I also wasn't fulfilled in any sort of like by that external validation in a very personal way yes there's all of these you know it's great and there's wonderful opportunities but from that external validation I wasn't getting a voice in my head saying oh yeah now I've arrived and now I feel good about myself this would be the same for anybody I'm sure you're probably the very same so reminding myself of that helps but then also just to know that and this is where I feel incredibly fortunate I feel like I want for nothing is that I can write I write songs I feel on my own terms with stuff that does I do you know move me or I feel moved to write it's not exactly subject material all the time that says come on in this is easy going like listening you know and playing around with like literary influences like from centuries ago and yes i still see that i'm selling more tickets now than i was when really was a hit yeah like i'm sending far more tickets for shows right go man it's cool why do you think you're selling more a decade later after you know your first big hit i think part of it is time part of it is there's a whole new generation of people now that are exploring the work who are maybe 10 years 11 years old when when my first songs came out and they were listening to it and and it's like cool they were listening to it when they were 10 or 11 in the car as they were being driven to school what's nuts to me is that they're buying tickets to come to the shows now that's amazing it's really it's yeah and i i feel really fortunate i feel incredibly blessed at that and i think part of it is that maybe it's just the nature of song is that it's hopefully that the work is lasting and people are had 10 years to gain a relationship with the music and it has been part of their lives for 10 years and and maybe music is is special in that we can you can discover a song at any time you know you can discover an artist from the 80s or 70s 50s but you gain what you create in that moment as you discover it is something that's spontaneous and is happening now you create a memory you create a relationship with that work and that's of the moment and if you could buy tickets to go and see that artist now, you would, you know, it doesn't need.

5:05That's so true.

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6:04Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.