How Mike Posner built a music empire from his dorm room

your life is already a three act story did you have the rise to meteor fame mike post mike pose breakthrough otter of the year award then you have the crash my career at plummeted i had a hit and my career plummeted and then you the rebirth one of spotify top ten most extreme songs of all time mike ko enjoying sweet success at the time it was scary to fame the ado of money really the fame really get the money stuff was nice that the the fan was the fame and so what i'm supposed to do is ask you to walk me through that but i already know that story so i said what am i actually curious about and it's why you would climb everest why you would walk across america what's the philosophy that drives somebody to do those things i've never been asked that before okay well let me let me try to tell the truth i feel like i could rude world i know i could be what i want to from at all in in like a days off on a roll i ask you about some things back when we were read duke so for people were listening who don't know this me mike actually wear at duke at the same time same year freshman class i remember hearing stories that there's a white boy rapper in the dorm next door and we were like who is he trying to make it whatever didn't really think too much of it and then i suddenly started to see a couple of interesting things the first interesting thing i saw was that at some point i opened up my laptop and i went to itunes and i saw you at the top of itunes but it wasn't the top of itunes it's just the top of itunes you and itunes u was like this little part of itunes that was like four lectures in silicon we can valley we call this a growth hack sometimes you gotta be clever and you gotta use your turned your disadvantage to advantage can you teach me about this because i've always known half the story i didn't know the full story yeah absolutely so a giant hip hop fan so start wrapping when i was eight got the duke you know twelve years later and i started to sing but really i was seeing almost from a hip hop perspective i'd use these complex rhyme schemes poly rhyme schemes even in my first hit song cooler than me it's got a complex ryan's so you got designer or shades just to hide your face so it's not just the lasso syllable the that ryan shades in face but also designer rhymes with hydra this is a rapper thing right and so i was combining hip hop with melody in a way that i thought was dope right i thought it was cool and i didn't heard anyone do it before really and so i started to share my music and i was getting a little bit of traction on these hip hop blogs which were important in hip hop at the time blogs like two dope boys not right even kanye blog which is a really big deal at the time and this is a era of pi so everyone you probably remember when we were at duke we did not pay from music do you know so you'd go on a bit bit torrance yeah that that whole thing and so i knew noah was gonna pay for my music because we weren't paying for kanye music we weren't paying for jay z the artist we love the most we were stealing their music so no one's gonna pay for my music because no one knows why i am so i understood that and i understood it was important i was on these hip hop blocks but then i was gonna have a shy kid and i was really into my music so i always stay in and then my friends would come back they'd stumble in my room drunk up my song and pushed him out and this whole thing in one day i go to this kids room down the hall named xander he was a really cool kid you know and seemed to have a more robust social life then than i did and it only cool sanders and never not cool sander yeah exactly did so and so he said to me hey pos at the party last night they played your song and all the so girls knew the words i said what really yeah that's my job at making music twelve years now that's never happened he goes yeah and dude they played it twice they played it twice in a row and everyone's saying the words so then i said wow okay the next day my mom calls and she says in passing by the way i really like that song you made cooler than me i don't know how she heard it her you know friends sent her i was my myspace at the time so i said okay that's kind of peculiar it's on the hip hop logs the so girls like it and my mom likes it the next day my friend big sean call so i came up with in detroit and he had got a record deal with kanye he's a rapper from detroit and dear friend of mine he said i love cool me i he was i think that could be a hit song i said hold on if sean mom and the so girls all like the same song something's going on here that never happened before because i've been making music twelve years and nobody seemed to particularly give a fuck besides me including my mom right always supportive and loving she you know pay for music lessons supportive but never told me she liked one of my songs i'm i'm twenty years old so i realized the way these hip hop blogs work was you'd go on the site there'd be a blog entry with your song and then you kinda had to do some some kind of a right clicking and there was always these weird links that with throw you off into some sketchy websites and you had to click the right thing and then save you know file ads and then that's how you download the song but it was really convoluted and hidden behind advertisements and i just realized that these so girls were never going to do that they were never gonna hey they're never gonna go to these hip hop logs and if you know snowball chance and hell they would they wouldn't ever be able a down in the song so i realized you know itunes was just starting to come out and it was the safe place you could get music and so i knew i need to get my music there but then i had this other rub that i alluded to earlier which is no one's gonna pay for it so i need it to be free like it is on the blogs but i need to be on itunes and then i saw itunes you so itunes view was this section of itunes that was set up for professors to post their lectures and if you weren't there you went to a different school you could you could listen to this professors lecture and this was be purely educational and the cost was free for everything on itunes you there was no charge was a educational arm of itunes so i i gotta get my music there now this is where life capital l comes in i'm from south field michigan it's a suburb detroit i was born detroit i moved to south field when i was two years old i grew up there live there till eighteen i go to duke university i do some searching and i find out who's in charge of itunes you for duke so if you're a duke professor and you wanna put your lecture how to get up there i find out was a man named todd's stab i called email type remember you could type in any name in the director you could get the email so i get todd's email i called email him and we'd do a phone call gives me his number and his number is the same area code as mine hey mia two two four eight eric he was yeah he goes i'm from south field michigan where are you from i saw come on come on else i get the goosebumps still to this day i said look this is what i'm trying to do i'm a student artist and i'm gonna share my album you know and i wanna put itunes you he goes oh yeah man from south field you're a student we could put itunes you no problem life set that up for me man so i got my music onto to itunes and you just search on itunes like any other thing but when you went into my own came up the price was free any other music out cost the one one dollar yeah nine i said whatever was mine was free and so then i got busy on facebook i created a facebook event and there was a link to that album and i activated all my communities so i was from michigan and a lot of my friends went to different colleges across the country including michigan michigan state gosh friends at northwestern friends at you know mar friend you know just wherever they went and then my friend i was in f and there were these we had pledges so these the older guys who do mean things these pledges make them like do you know thousand push ups whatever i said look you guys are gonna do something for me you're gonna solve the push ups you're gonna send the invitation to this facebook event to everyone in your facebook network every single person and there's a way i i had a protocol at five steps and you could send it out and all of you're gonna change your profile picture to my album cover and all my friends they all change their profile picture my album cover and my friends did the same thing my attorney brothers they all did the same thing so all their friends that were at different schools they send it out and then here's that the last thing is the music was good right so if the music wasn't good none of this shit matters right but and my music wasn't always good like i said i'm twenty i started was eight so twelve years making songs a lot of songs to get to that one song where my mom likes it right and sean likes it so this itunes you think yeah was a thing that was pivotal for me pivotal and so from there every pretty much every college in the us was listening to mike pos that year and it started off smaller there'd be you know fifty people and i get a show at dayton in ohio where i go to dayton in ohio i'd be booked to play at some bar you know at colleges there's always a a hu guy that throws the parties and you know so those guys will book me they'd say pose come play friday night at and are you even getting paid to do these at the time or at the start five hundred bucks so i'd go my boy pat client became my manager later he booked me at dayton know how and i got i go there and there's twenty five to fifty people i'd do my set and they know every word to my saw a month later he booked me to come back and be three hundred people there word to my song and so i just started to expand like that and yeah the itunes you was a was a really great hack i really never heard that that story that's a that's amazing story so because because what you did then you kinda stack these right so you did that then you started doing the shows which normally correct if i'm wrong normally you kinda you did it backwards right like it seems like normally you'd have a label they would get you set up with tours you were kind of underground so you if i remember correctly because you already had tours and fans then when record labels are interested you're like y i'm der risked like i'm more der risked than than the average artist because look at this like i've already already playing shows with real fans all around the country mh and i remember being at duke and we would hear like do dis dude flies out every weekend it just doesn't show at a different college of flies back and like takes his stats like yeah that's what you were doing we're doing two or three man i got crazy yeah i'll do two or three and set that senior year had set up so i heck all my classes tuesday wednesday thursday i leave thursday night ripped thursday night friday night saturday night i get three checks come back have a bunch of cash go to the bank put in the bank come back in my house just dirty filthy house you know like go to class again it was insane doing homework on the planes like it was insane insane it seems like one of the unique things about use like you you may not be the best rapper or the best thing or the best kind of beats producer guy but because you're good enough to be dangerous on all three you were able to be like a one man machine that was able to to to get a bunch of practice reps in and get you know keep keep trial and error where you weren't dependent on somebody else's time or somebody else's interest or tastes or whatever is that fair no i don't think so how would you say it i would say yeah i'm probably yeah i'm definitely not the best singer you know you know i can't dance answer anything or do any cool runs but i'm a damn good writer writer okay that's like your a plus skill you know people connect to me i think because of because of the writing you know yeah i i can't if i did american idol loose you know and right you know i can sing but not one of the things that inspired me when was doing the research was that at some point in the middle of your careers not like before he made it but like actually after you had the initial burst of success it seemed like yeah i read something that you went back and almost like took music lessons and singing lessons and enrolled in a college and you said something like you know i'm mean this class and i'm not the best singer in the class i'm supposed to be this you know i was supposed to be this guy who's the star they've all wanna be artists i actually even have the the credentials but i thought that was kind of an amazing humbling move to to just of course why i wouldn't i dedicate myself to the craft can you talk a little bit about that i there was something in that that resonated with me because i think that's unusual yeah it is two two things in that one i think it speaks the plan just may where there were these people i my at that time of my career i had i was in a cold spot so i hey lee use this time to get better at my skills and if i'm being honest yeah i don't know how to plate like i had to hit song i know how to play guitar i didn't know how to really saying i was a rapper who had started seeing i didn't know how to play piano so why don't i learned some of those things and i remember i was at a at a i was kinda like a campfire fire kind of situation and that guy sigh was there you're him yeah open gong yeah and tory kelly was there and they were passing the guitar on the fire and tory kelly sing this song it was so beautiful and then i had just written a song that day i wanted to sing it and i was at i said could you play the guitar these cor the thing and she's trying to do it for me because i couldn't play the guitar and i really wanna to sing my song but i couldn't do it and it didn't really work and i remember leave i that that's stupid that i can't do that that's never gonna happen again i'm gonna learn a play a guitar and he'd be able to sing a song at a campfire you know so that's one part of it you know it's just less than go hey you being a artist is about is is similar to being a human it's about growing so being a better artist than you were a year ago and you can always your relation to music deepens or the r any arc form deepens your whole life art is not like the nba you know so like you peak at thirty and you know you're you can't jump as high anymore i see no this is a lifelong thing oh you can always get deeper so that's part a but then part b was yeah i realized kinda to the point right before this point was i'm in a singing class i took berkeley school music online these great singers in there and yeah i was you i was like you know on the bottom of quartile of that class but i was a successful recording artist and those people all wanted my job and i realized i had something that most people don't which is my writing but i have a way of connecting the music i make whether it doesn't matter music is not about hitting the behind us like life about hitting the perfect note or doing the run it's about does it does this part of my humanity speak to that part of your humanity i'm raising my hand i'm taking my clothes off out here and this boner won't going this is what it's like for me to be a human anyone else and if i do a good job someone else hears it and and like i'm so glad you said it because that's how i've been feeling for years and i didn't know how to articulate and now i don't feel as alone that's that's what the artist does and so i realized that singing class i already know how to do that i can i can add colors and refinements and make things more sophisticated by you know adding to my skills but at the end of the day even if you got no skills and you can do that you're a great artist you're a great artist i love your music videos for this reason like now that you say it when i think about when i became a super fan of yours like you sorry by the way that's where you're great artist we talk about the beginning you always say i'm a little lowercase ours it's now you're making the thing and it obviously connects with other people you're obviously following your own curiosity and going hey i'm making a thing some million podcasts in the freaking world dude right but you're doing something in a way that connects with other humans and you're not doing it because you're trying to you're doing it by trying to connect it yourself and connect your own creativity and curiosity to the the art you're making or the the you know the pieces that you're making wherever you call them and so yeah and by the i i used to approach it very differently he used to approach it very analytical logically duke kid right like you know there's a certain set of skills that get you into duke and those skills were i was trying to sort of map the market out and the opportunity where's the white space and my my coach my trainer i've i've mentioned before it he he's like the white space is you bro he's like the he's like the product is you pushed out that's it take take yourself turn yourself inside up whoever resonates with what you are that's your target customer you don't need a market study right that who are the people who are my customers the people that love what i do and he he just flipped it on it head and i was like dude you're speaking a different language to me different i've never seen this at a book but i started at put some faith in that and that's when i did the podcast i was what's the podcast was me he started off as only interviews and then we would just get on the podcast sometimes just shoot the shit about dude did you see this app that did this it was just me pushed out is that's what i'm actually interested in so i just start talking about it yeah and then all of a sudden it was getting a different result because there was only one of those because only wanna meet right so that that was a a big lesson to learn yeah the sounds kind of obvious and and almost like a fortune cookie but but it takes courage you gotta go do it that's courage yeah and you have to stumble upon it yeah you had to you had to do the other things so yeah it it it has to be stumbled pie this lying on my song that said i got i'm in the yoga class headband now people say i'm off brand how i am the brand therefore anything i do is on brand now i'm on brand now y it's like i look at my heroes and that's what i am now people got attached to a version of me because it hears when they see a person who's free and i'm so grateful for all these lessons twice as much money half the possessions no drugs now the vision clear all my gold jewelry just disappeared that's the universe telling me to start switching gears the deeper the human the deeper the songs i saw all of this three years ago it's almost like it was me reading my poem yeah so yeah try yeah i like that how'd do you get on the radio because that's a black box like how'd do you even figure out how to get on radio oh the thing i was gonna say to you before it was you know the music industry has completely moved that way so these these days of a record label ours but hey could you got talent we're gonna develop you for six years like that doesn't happen and now it's even more so you only get a record deal if you already have an audience so that that no longer is you know the responsibility of the label has and not responsibility the artist and there's so much data now right so labels can be really prudent hey that that or that or right okay you asked about getting on the radio so i graduate and i signed a record deal and i'm making his new album trying to work with bigger producers i'm working with benny blanc and making these songs and thinking you know when i do my first real album not an itunes ui album is gonna be big and i i'm sorry to making all this new music and the original cooler than me used to have this lying in it you go you to at the end of the verse and say you're so vain you probably think that the song is about you don't you if i correct you a song to make you or you i don't know if you remember remember that yeah yeah is that that's still the song that's no that's one i remember it's not most people don't know it that way because we went to then go clear it because that's a carly simon song you're so vain product so this was this two lines in the verse we got to go clear it we say hey you know i used this party of your song in my song wanna give you credit for it can we work out a deal sheet yes her representing no problem we'll just take eighty percent a seven or something like dude he like two lines in the verse so i had to change that right first area goes behind jamaica nobody knows who you really are who do you think you are you know so we had changed that out and then i'm thinking that i'm gonna make this new hit song benny blanc like brand big thing because i'm i a record deal now and when i play the new version of cooler than me without the carly simon my record label thinks they say it's not as good it's not as good anymore so i think we should use one of the new songs to be your first real single cooler than he's now been out for two years to us college kids i'm in new york city i'm about to go to some meeting or studio or something hang out with the friend and my my manager says we gotta do a meeting with this radio promoter his name is e and c we need to do a meeting with this guy his job obviously get songs on the radio with without you and usually the label supposed to do that but we need to pay him to do it ourselves i said i don't wanna go to that meeting i wanna go to studio i'm an artist you go to the meeting he goes this is more important i go no it's not he says yes it is i said why well who the means your first single the label doesn't know it but i know it this is my manager daniel weiss i said ko me is old it's two years old it's been out two years and everybody has already heard it on the sidewalk in new york city he looks me he goes nobody has heard it i'll go to the meeting we go to the meeting we hire e and c i think we paid them or was it five grand ten grand and he's gonna get this song in a few radio stations no guarantee how much they're gonna play it because i can get on a few stations so he gets on a few stations and this thing starts catching on people are calling the station we like this song you know it's before am really but they have some way they test it it's the tests are going crazy and these few stations patty moreno in sacramento in short they start playing this song fifty times a week it's a lot and then dj reflex in la power one zero six he he plays this song does well here starts catching on here now the label calls they go we told you cooler to me is your first single dude what are great ideas right and that's what labels are great at not so great starting fires but if you could start a fire they out hell of a lot of gasoline so they they then they go in hyper mode do their things start getting on all the other stations and that was how i got on the radio and at that time the radio drove matter yeah it still matters but it you win spotify and get on the radio or you win youtube and you get on the radio and it then it was the opposite i told you i get more out of the research for these than i do the interview sometimes and at first i got discouraged by that because i was like oh my man kinda anti all all the phone was in the the four play not the real thing we're gonna change that to that we're gonna change that i'd say but i got i was like oh wait that means when i'm doing the research look for look for the goal because there's was usually like one thing that i'm like wow that alone made this worth it this whole trip worth it and so for me that was this one which was about i guess making art or making songs you it was you know do you try to make a hit do you try to think about what the audience wants and the quote was i just do what's cool to me and sometimes the whole whole world agrees i like that can you talk about that a little bit like where that mindset comes from that's a good question because i could talk about that mindset really easily but you asked me something different which is where does come from come from and that i've i've never been asked that before so we're off to a good third that's an answer i give other people when artists are struggling i tell you know your job is to make the thing that you think is beautiful period that's it don't do what i think is beautiful for you or your manager or your fans that's it so that's an answer i give to others and now you're asking me a question about my answer the root so okay well let me let me try tell the truth or fine what's true for me in part it comes from messing it up undoubtedly i experienced a lost of success in my early twenties and i addicted to it the fame the ado iteration the money really the fame really the fame you the money other stuff was nice that the the fame was the fame one of those are had a higher high than moral left freaking fame dude is oh and so i can remember trying to replicate the success i had from my first hit song which is song cooler to me if i write you with song to make you all in love that's all and i i i just wanted that feeling i wanted to be that guy that everyone was looking at and so i can remember going in the studio and going try to make a make a hit make a hit make some everyone else likes and whenever i tried to create from that vantage point the only thing i succeeded making was something i hated and and sometimes i think well even if i don't like it maybe everyone else will it kinda checks all the boxes it's the right bp vpn it's kinda catchy melody and it cool lyric it doesn't really meet my standards of from my aesthetics what i think is beautiful but who cares what i think like it may yeah this is about me being famous right and of course if you don't like nobody right it's like you went from a guaranteed audience of one to zero to start driving yeah and so and i think life or god i believe in god sometimes i just call it life so i'll use those interchangeably this interview life with a capital ill you know i think god that it never gave me success with one of those because it wanted me to learn that very lesson right that could teach to others but gosh could you imagine if one of those things i didn't really like got really popular who i would've have been even worse right mh it trapped on that path had still be taught i'd still be doing interviews about that song now so still be singing that song at my shows now right the original plan for this episode was your life is already a three act story so from a podcast point of view oh this is easy you have the to come up mh did you have the the rise to to meteor fame everything that everybody wants your pop star your on stage shirts off everybody's crazy about you you're the man then you have the crash and then you have the rebirth right so your story already like that and so what i'm supposed to do is ask you to walk me through that mh but then i have to do what's honest for me too which is i already know that story and i like that story i don't really want to talk i'll ask you some questions about it but i kind of already know that so it i wouldn't be honest for me to ask that because i wouldn't be curious cool i've already know it great man so i said what am i actually curious about and i was like i wanted to know that like hey you said something that resonated with me which is my job is not to make a hit it's to make something that's cool to me and sometimes the world agrees right so that was the first place i wanna start the second one is you know i'm not a musician but i'd like to i'm maybe like a lowercase a artist i i write i have a podcast to do things like you're an artist capital capital thank you some exist now out of that used to just be an idea in your head you're an artist you heard it here first mike those are things i'm an artist here we go absolutely the thing that's been always helpful for me when i write is exactly that so if somebody asked me do write something great had write something that goes viral and the best thing i ever read was sit down and write one true sentence one true sentence and that just became like a calling card from was like oh i know where to start now let me sit down and try to write one honest sentence and that's surprisingly hard because the honest sentence is usually something vulnerable and if i look at your hit songs so if you look at you know it took a pill in ibiza the one truth sentence is right at the beginning is know i took a pill in ibiza to you know show of v i was cool or in your new song it's something like there's a part of me underneath the part that i let people see that part is the good part exactly got you and i love that underneath the part that i alerted to people see that is the good part and i was like man he's really good at the one true sentence is that is that a technique he used at all like on honesty to write the song or or to to bake the the core of the song yeah you know there's all adage and studios get thrown around and more so in nashville in la they say don't don't try to write a good song write a true song and then it'll be good automatically my music listen i was thirteen i was a i was a rapper i started rap i was eight but i was around thirteen i was started to consider creating a stage name and and i'd go months i i remember i had this rapper name is acr and then i had this other name six months like i threw it out and i go my name further if here on out is mc m mp right the world will know m mc m mp i about thirteen and a half yeah like a name screen name status yeah exactly exactly and and go and i had this thoughts to myself i said my my music isn't in an act the stuff i write even then was just what was happening in my life it was real to me so my i shouldn't have a stage name i shut have my name and i i said i'm gonna go by mike pos that's my name and that's who i am and who i am in life is who i am in my music this came back one other time i was almost twenty years later it was right when i wrote i took a pill of ibiza because my career had plummeted i had a hit and i my career plummeted and i i was known as you know for doing kind of f songs and party songs i had this you know up the upbeat dance success song quoted me and then i wrote it took compelling ibiza and as the sad singer song song in the guitar which most people don't know yeah the original was this and i thought dude like whatever is left of my career will be destroyed but and what it is funny now at the time it was it was h it was scary it will be destroyed by me making such a drastic change in my music like no none of my fans i liked what i did before was like this it's so different and i start constantly contemplating again maybe i should change my name for this project and i remember thinking oh i'll do maybe i'll change my name to the truth it's like no the truth is your name is mike cousin and so i i i quickly got my head out of my ass on that one again and went hey you know like this is my story and and the three x story you talk about you know i've i've owned it for better for worse or tried to yeah do you look for that moment where you're like i'm almost so scared to put this out i i gotta change my act name it's so mh it this this goes to a certain place where it's not safe have you now learned to look at that signal and do like maybe there's something here if i if i'm feeling that yeah absolutely and yeah huge huge barometer of something i should be writing is that oh i really don't wanna write this this moment was so painful like i don't wanna talk about it i don't wanna think about it so yeah that that it's it's not the only you know it's not to say the converse is not true which is the only thing should be written is something that caused you great pain that's not true but often that is a that is an entry point that that is worth examining absolutely we had tim ferris on the podcast and i asked him a question i said tim my my my one honest question i was like i'm so stoked asked you before a workweek week but i read it already i said the thing i wanna know is how do you decide what's next because i knew he was kinda thinking about what's next and i know that whenever tim ferris is trying to do something he's methodical he he doesn't just yeah you think he doesn't just do it he's got like a way he's gonna do it that's right and i was like i kinda just hop to the next thing like how do you do figure out the next thing and he goes well i create a menu of options and he's like 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 you gonna it he's like not necessarily gonna do it he goes but because i treat like the weirdest idea of what i could do next this is not what i normally do this not what i'm known for so if you're still around you must have i 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 what where to apply your talents well it's hard now is with choosing what not to do that's the hardest part you know killing things and on paper i'm maybe 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 right right but your question was how do you decide and the same internal compass that i use in the in the micro why 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 because that that's it mark twain said the difference between the almost right word and the right word is there between lightning bug and a lightning bolt right and is not the truth right yeah has it happened in your songs oh yeah is there a song today that we all know that almost was floor a pill sacramento i didn't have the same ring to it but just kept trying to make it work is it isn't doesn't hit no no wait just on the in the song same way a lot of times in the production gosh that's not the right snare drum sample will work for an hour go through every the alta sounds that's the one you just know there's a quote that rubin has that i love which he he says the best way to serve your audiences to ignore them meaning to to not try to reverse engineer what they might want or what they might like or what they might just make what you want and 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 okay 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 yeah it's just a question of how long i'm gonna deny myself you know how many roundabout ways i'm gonna avoid facing the answer now i know the answer has that been been easy for you to kinda back to that first question about like making what you want if music is pretty easy now and honestly 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 that part of that voice in my head and go hey dude like you never need to make a song that you don't wanna 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 and you they they don't like to say they're doing it but if you watch people's actions people's actions will sort to speak where they're dev voting their their talents to what's the what was useful to you to coming at coming to peace with you know having enough was it as simple as i wrote down how much i needed and how much i had and i my the logic part of my brain solved that or was it a different part of you that that got peace with with the money side of of your life both too full so i had you know analysis to do where they do a monte carlo or whatever so you've you spent this much or this me more years it'd be okay so that was like a money manager did that for you or yes so i was part of it right he's knowing hey i'm okay you gotta a shift at some point right because when you're coming up you you say yes to everything you no opportunity gonna work and then when you get successful you have too many opportunities you gotta learn to say no she there's there's paradigm shifts along the journey and so that that was one of them that's the logical part and then the 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 is 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 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 in people they know are kind of like sorta of damaged semi screwed up but they know that that gives them this sort of psychopathic you know drive and when somebody really happy i know people who don't wanna invest in somebody who's super at peace because the the returns might not be there i don't know if i believe that do you think that the best art comes from you know people who in a happy place or the people who who have that pain do you think that the best success comes from the people who have that big chip on their shoulder or or not what's your take on that i can't answer in terms of where to invest your money i ask i don't really know that much about that stuff but what i can speak to is a architect a or more beautiful life i don't have a perfect life but a hell of a lot more perfect than it was five years ago right so what i can say is i don't wanna 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 alright so i believe the way i look at my life and i i do measure this is work mission is butt one vertical and the thing i screwed up in my twenties is i thought if i crushed it so hard in this vertical meaning i got all the fame on money that i thought the points would carry over i thought yeah i can not show up you know to thanksgiving and not return my mother's phone call because she knows i'm busy i'm pop star my pos right i can i cannot you know see my friends or ghost them for months on end they understand i'm pop star mike pos grammy nominated mike pos international superstar i can never like go on dates and just have one night stands after my show is for years on end and and never develop emotional intimacy or the capacity communicate on an intimate level a vulnerable level with a another human being because i'm international superstar grammy nominated mike pos i can never give back with my time remit not so much with my money either because i'm international and what you get is just a life that isn't that good winning 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 gonna help you be a good husband it's gonna help you be a good father i have a mission right so it's not saying abandon this for the other is how do you do it all in balance how do you 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 my perfect no but boy my proud myself there's a great clip on 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 and he's like i've this my second emmy you know i used to be oh yeah the golden globe golden globe is like yeah one goalie pla patronizing that a rain of is great i've i was one time golden globe winner jim carrey and tonight i'm terrified tired and he's like and when i go to bed at night i will dream about being three tired and you know he has the great roach i i wish i i wish the whole world could be rich and famous so they would know that that's not the answer yeah right you know you got to taste that and you you found out yourself that's not the answer for you and and doesn't seem like answer for most i have this goofy analogy that i wanna ask you about so do you ever want the show survivor when i was a kid i watched it okay i'm one of the du that still watching it in season forty with you so we all have a thing i got my some people got weird things this is mine i wanna go on survivor someday that that's part of my my my angle here but there's this thing that they do on survivor which is i think a good analogy for life so in life in survivor the best thing every player wants is the immunity idle it's just one thing that if you had it you're safe you can finally relax you've got the one thing that everybody wants and the 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 one hundred percent of player not a single player has ever put it down even though it says on the label beware this thing has disadvantages that would come with it that will hurt you in this game and every player can't resist they take it and i was thinking about i was watching a survivor i was prepping for this podcast and i was like i think fame is the be beware advantage of life it's the thing that yeah well we all think we want the money the fame the love of of others and it's it it could say it on the label beware people become pop stars when they're young those aren't the happiest people but we would all take it over again right so there's something to that and and i actually was curious like for you if you could go but if there was a the the next mike pose he's he's twenty one years old you get fifteen minutes in a room with him just like this and you could tell him anything i'm curious what would you tell him and do you think he would listen hell 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 in life n navarro life is a one player game right and you need to exercise and practice that sovereignty needs to develop rituals that give you the best chance of of enjoying your life to the fullest and 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 you know by default so i yeah that i i didn't have a handle yeah that stuff when i was twenty one i saw a great example of that from you which was i think you'd either you missed a flight or you were delayed on a flight or something like that and i i love this example because so relatable everybody's been in this moment where yeah it's trap travel stressful and then travel often feels out of your control whether it's a flight delay or your you missed your connection or whatever it is and there's the common cliche reaction to that and we actually all kinda have that reaction but it's not always the response yeah can you tell that story because i think that example yeah absolutely this is stood out to me not everybody's gonna relate to being a pop star or making great music but this was something everybody to can relate to so i'd love if you could share this one i've been totally recording studio so many times the lyric that i'm trying to write isn't relatable hey mike don't you can't put that in a song because no it no one will relate to it yeah nobody else took a pill and a ibiza to show vic 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 wow yeah know the lyric on the surface is un unrelated the emotion underneath the lyric his universal and the same thing with all these stories you know my life is my life i'm probably i'm the only guy i know that got on for the grand walked across a continent and climbed everest and i did that by design right because i wanted i 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 wanna be unique and but also i wanted my life to be inspiring to me but every element every one of the stories we shared today whether it's a story from you or a story from me or survivor what have you has human emotions underneath that are universal so this story you're talking about his yeah i did a post i never talked about this is this is a podcast wool i had this this a horrible travel damon i that the day four wasn't good and i didn't sleep and woke cup early and we had to drive three hours to the airport in colorado and it was a accident i seventy and we just got this traffic jam and we're in the car seven hours missed a flight and it was just he i was feel sorry for myself and it was just a it wasn't 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 tony robbins conference about time and scheduling efficiency and 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 in that car said well this is okay this bad day check we the first part alright 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 some 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 you know i was supposed to i was and i was missing family time you know i get only so many days in my family every year my mom my sister and i was missing one of them just bummed out i go look so you're had to spend the night in denver a tonight can you find me a place where i can just go volunteer and now 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 can live there and they get a house you know roof over their head and some meals while they find a job and they get some training and ready just show up to you know like serve 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 i did a me today i turned my suffering into a service i turned my suffering into connection and that pride i felt myself because i would usually not do that i would usually have a pity party in the hotel and look at my phone it just gave me all was pride and i i says you know 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 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 was saying hey i usually do things this way where if i did something this way and that day i can truly say was one of the best days in my year without a doubt lot bed proud and by the way so much energy yeah there's certain things that take energy that that seem like they take energy but actually give it's like going into the gym anybody have you're tired you don't really wanna go to the gym but you go to the gym suddenly you have energy like how that math work i was supposed to take energy to go work out but i have more than i had when i started and it doesn't make any sense but it does it to anybody's ever done it makes perfect sense it makes sense because if i would've stayed in the hotel room and played on my phone i would've have got more and more tired because i was engaging in an activity that i knew i don't care about but when i engage in the activity that i know is a gonna do something to make my soul grow is unlimited energy so it's sometimes doing more is easier than doing less sometimes a hard goal is easier than an easy goal right my my trainer he told me the story wants but i love very similar to your your your story just now he came to the to our workout in the morning and he's beam it and he's always a happy guy but i could tell a little extra pep in the step what what's hey man what's going on i thought i was looking like more fit or so i didn't know what the reason was i was hoping secretly open 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 i didn't wanna go to the dmv so i avoided that pain but then every time i drove i was paranoid all the time but i was gonna get pulled over and if i got pulled over was gonna become this mess and so i said i was a little anxiety was eat at me so 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 then you used to do it in the past that simple thing so instead of trying to do things perfectly just do it differently mh and you do that often enough you end up getting pretty damn close to perfect and so it goes i did it differently i want you do differently and so he he's like alright where's the local dmv he googled and you know don't google it shows you the star ratings and like imagine a dmv star ratings right like there's no dmv on earth with a five star review right so he's like one experience was stellar yeah exactly it's like a one and a half star experience he's like oh man he's like love the reason i haven't been going i've been dread the dmv and i love this because it's like everybody dread a dmv so i love this he looks at that one and a half star he goes okay but i'm a sovereign being i don't have to have a one and a half star experience that that's the average experience i'm a have a five star experience how do you have a five star experience it's not by going there and then giving you five star by you walking in a five star customer so he gets in his car he drives 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 into the dmv rushing into the line you guys go ahead yeah 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 is the day she goes you're right today is the day come over here cuts the whole line gives them the thing he doesn't have to take the test gives him the license he walks out of there like you know under thirty minutes with a five star dmv experience in five and so he took that and he was like y i just like this is like watching somebody parked the seas it'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 we look what i just did with the dmv i love that sorry 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 watched start it's like you'll be a five star customer mh and watch how the universe sort of responds to you love that so i i thought you would like deploy for this thirty dear yeah i wanna remember that one that's good i wanna ask you about some things you mentioned benny blanc i gotta ask you because i'm really fascinated by these people who are the the influencers of the influencers they're the people who unlock creative in some way are they're they just have this like 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 my i some shitty like you know tries to create a safe space he kicks me a out of the room he lights candles i was like i gotta ask mike about this what's betty blanc super superpower what does he do well that that has enabled him to to work with guys like you can get get yeah kinda great results from my perspective it's it's what what you did but it's the intangible is not the type of candle it's he really has a gift for making artists who are a f bunch right can easily get scale 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 the other people don't and then we can write about and help other people to see that you know we see divine in the montana but as a result you know we could we can feel someone's at energy a lot of artists could go y 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 so he's a master at yeah creating the physical space but him he 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 well there's family or friends that gosh you just feel comfortable around him so he's he here's a gift for that and he also has great taste and his super power one of his superpower is is that and he's those are really fun to be around and like i'm really driven kinda type a and when i first worked to benny it he was the first part person i did a real studio session with where it was in an actual recording studio you know i'm written songs that big sean at my basement but i never going to studio and i was always man we gotta work hard and at that time i'm paying by the hour studio we gotta make the song to let's go and he the first guy goes dude it doesn't matter if we make us song me today i was just b and the song would 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 in i collaborate but yeah he he's has a gift for that i'm obsessed with these videos that are like you know some guys love the roman empire whatever 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 it's like you this grainy footage and you you hear you can hear them play the lick for the first time and they're like oh yeah i like that because it's like that's the song and you almost wanna reach the screen but like that's it that's the song that that the data all in love you just don't realize you just get it there's one of benny and ed sheeran and i think at a tour bus where he's like writing love yourself or something like that and they're messing around it was the same sort of vibe he's like sitting there cross leg of barefoot he's like yeah and stop like it didn't seem like he there's a lot of stress around like what is the answer it was more just like that'd be fun oh i like that you know and he was just playful with it which allowed them to play and be like you should go if fuck you oh 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 i got there the song got there i'm pretty fascinated by those one of the things that i i heard that entrance 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 he said i believe that rooms have songs he he 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 something like cool inspiring space and he would build a mobile studio there which was eighty five percent as good as the like the best studio but the house would get like double the inspiration for him or the the comfort for him and the band i thought that was very interesting the trade off between you know efficiency or you know picture perfect audio versus creative inspiration do you how what do you do with your environment to like get the most creative version of you very similar you know so first of all i'd love to work in immersion like that i have a studio here and you know i i mostly record myself when i'm home so my whole career the same as when i was in the dorm room the mic a little better now but i have a laptop nice mic plugging 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 on the another person i have to wait for someone else to come over but i love to work an immersion similar to what you just described with ed which is that's when the most stuff happens hey we're gonna take a bunch of talented people we're gonna go to a nice place that's divorced from our normal duties and we're just gonna live and breathe this art for a week or two weeks then we're gonna basically work till we die and then take a couple 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 the like a a setup like that my song come from all over you know some 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 i gotta get so i've written songs on airplanes are written songs here written songs in the morning written songs at night written songs starting with piano analytics 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 a fail where are we measuring up to your research dude it's higher because that's what i do you gave me that itunes you i'm better in real life bet itunes you 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 deputy of things working out for somebody ten years in the making like i love that everybody anybody who's trying to do shit you wanna hear stories that yeah after ten years then it starts to work out is something we all need to hear those stories but then also you did engineer it in a way too like they're you weren't in a passive observer to some lucky circumstance like you took this you took step to like 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 wanna ask you about the the walk but also the walk or everest or the the the silent meditations but i book at them all under one philosophy which just do hard things is that the right description of your philosophy why you would climb everest why you would walk across america what's the philosophy that got that drive somebody to do those things yeah they were a large large examples of the you know the airport date gone wrong i'm 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 go i'm gonna make my life harder but then paradox my life feels easier when when i'm doing the harder thing so they've they've hit on a lot of things that we touched on today and i think that's true probably of walking across the us climbing everest and doing some longer meditation retreats can you take me back to one of them where the where you were life is easy but doesn't feel quite right i don't have the same level of joy should be having on paper and then the decision what the voice said that made you go do one of those can you can you walk me through that yeah with the the walk across america i was that a friend's jewelry shop and someone across the room said my friend has walked across america and i it was like a tractor beam i went i said what you just say she's my friend walked i go you can do that i guess you did it no one else cared about it like what's up with you man now and i i set out loud in the in that jewelry shop i'm gonna do that one day i actually don't think i said i said i wanna do that one day and the sentence linger 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 fast forward four years later four or five years later my father dies for brain cancer and think about six months after that my assistant at the time nick comes to pick me up take me the studio session that day and he said man avi vic dead avi vic is a friend mind that i worked with within the music student i worked with them a few weeks before he said vic dead i could don't fucking with me man he's i'm not fucking with you avi vic dead i can't i can't believe this and i get in his car he drives in the studio and i keep keeps 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 is 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 of saying hey dude you see that man that gave you your life the one that you look just like he's dead that's what's gonna happen to you you see the 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 gonna happen you maybe not on the same way but this is a return trip another couple weeks passed i'm in this shitty little guest house that i'm renting in west hollywood bouncing around studio was trying to make my next hit and my friend willie calls me and he goes hey mike i got bad news where our best friends i would grew up with his name was ronnie he goes ronnie dead shit and i just realized dude i 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 thirty years old living the life that twenty 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 i come out with it's like going to chuck 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 what were the prizes you got at the end of that found 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 do i got bit by a poisonous rattle snake i spent three nights in the icu i got air lifted 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 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 i'm gonna be a five star walker right but do different i'm gonna do a 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 us is i became someone new and that part of me is it is so different having an inkling you're strong versus right 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 this is concept of me who you heard of this we've talked about the pod before it's got jesse it's came on i love jesse he's a good friend man yeah so jesse anything for jesse it's i like that real he's one of my like i i don't ever use the word like bent mentors or heroes or anything but like i call them blueprint blueprints yeah i look for people who live interesting lives yeah but i'm like oh 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 friend spend time with him off the off the record yeah he's that guy yeah that's actually something oh i was wondering because on the podcast you see people's you know hopefully that guy he's twenty first i've been with him are watching with his kids he's that guy so he's got he he has this idea of kevin's rule he's got the miss which is like mis so he's like the one one grand challenger year one ambitious hard thing you're gonna do whether it's super physical or it might be some other things like i i have mine which is can i go twenty four hour straight without a complaint in my head that's my that's my mistake it's harder for me than a you an iron man or anything like that that dope damn wanna try it but i that's a super superpower because not in your mouth in your head dude you yeah yeah that's anybody could not say it but i'm saying it to myself it's the conference conversation i have in my head is the big one all good man and so i'm gonna go i'm really working on that and it's so funny you you see it you're like and actually you're tony robbins i'm tony robbins it he said a phrase which made me realize how important this was he says he's goes on some trip and he meets some guy in india or whatever and the guy goes ask him something about suffering it and he's like yeah i'm tony robbins like i don't know if you know this but suffering isn't at what usually people describe me as was like you know driving a powerful of successful all these things he's only he's i didn't say that to him but that was his internal feeling was like what you mean suffering and he's like well i just saw you kinda yelling at your guy over there he's well no he he wasn't doing his job and so i had to you know immediately you know demand performance and the guy brought to his awareness like man there are so many 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 i was cheap how was so easy to knock you out of that and i heard that and that was like oh that's a it's a thing i want and i when i look at your story about like the things you wanted in your twenties the success the fame the money the the love of everybody like those are the things all of us want want yeah at least in our twenties is often their whole lives and a big part of life seems to be just figuring out what are you supposed to actually want i 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 that has served me well it's so well said and and i believe the person that tony was talking to was krishna g yeah and and so krishna g and his wife pregnant g these amazing and they teach that there's only two kinds of states beautiful states and suffering states and there's all different types of suffering states and types of beautiful states joy laughter you know calms or pain depression you know 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 right i think right well the problem is we convince ourselves that that we want the middleman man and we think the middle the promotion gives us the beautiful story yeah achievement gives us a beautiful state anything you want you want because you think it's gonna give you a better state right and maybe it will momentarily but to get 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 if you can win that game you've won life right right and so nobody's perfect i don't know anybody and you you know a lot of these guys too but we just met so now you know right right but like you we get to spend time a lot of these teachers and guru yeah so i haven't met one yet that's right hundred percent in beautiful state but we can work more towards there and we need external goals so that's a lot of my message hey set cut a goal that acts actually inspires you that's viktor frank c man search for me you need something in the future looking forward to it's important at the same time he need be winning this internal gain of hey that's my goal but how do i wanna feel as i'm going after it no that's a different kind of goal that that inner weeds with your external goal and most people forget to set that one and they lose they lose life they might win on the the vertical axis these they might win on the horizontal but they lose on the depth the the vertical axis so that's it man it's such a so thank you for bringing that story a great reminder and that's it that's all we're trying to do man and so any of these like tips or tools or stories or you know it's it's all to put to to win that game right yeah well listen man i appreciate you inviting me out to your house and appreciate you doing this thank you that's doing great cricket has been great peace i feel like i could rule world to know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days off on a roll less travel never looking back