sorority girl that do my mother. And Big Sean, all of the same thing I made, I think I might be honest, cooler than me was a song I wrote. Basically, it's about feeling left out. That's how I felt my whole life and never felt like I belonged. And I put it online was MySpace at
the time. I didn't think that much of it and he said, Mike, we were at a party last night I was not at because when other kids would go out to the parties, the dorms were quiet and I could record so I was not at these parties and we're at the party last night and they played your song and everyone knew the word had chills by the way is you're telling me this story. Now depression is not some mysterious disease. It was a habit and I changed the fucking
habit. This is not a peer reviewed published study during medical school. Yeah, this is this is the Mike Posner School of trying to make my frickin life better. Depression has a hard time surviving under 40 degrees with my dreams where I go to college and we get a job
and make money. Compare that to my real life walked across a continent climb the tallest mountain on Earth and six platinum songs nominated for Grammy and beyond all that happy I'm a unicorn like I've failed, but I haven't filmed it
Welcome to In Search of Excellence where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is the incredible Mike Posner. Mike is a singer songwriter, record
producer and poet. He's released four albums and is best known for his hit songs cooler than me, which he wrote as a sophomore in college and is also known for smash hit. I took a pill in Ibiza, which is one of my favorite songs of all times, and which has of today has 1.9 billion streams on Spotify. He's written songs for Justin Bieber, Maroon Five, Nick Jonas, Snoop, and many others, and has been nominated for Grammy and various
MTV Video Music Awards. And as the author of the poetry Brooke, teardrops and balloons, he's also the only Grammy Award nominated musician to walk across the United States on foot. Mike is a true pleasure to have you on my show. Thanks so much for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence to meet you. Thank you. So you're born in the great city of Detroit, your dad, John was a well respected criminal defense lawyer mom was a pharmacist. Yeah. Tell us what influence
they had on your life. And what was the single biggest lesson they taught you when you're a young kid? Well, the number one thing that comes to mind from from dad is is now you know, it comes like this because it's the mission of our company. Now he used to always say to me, Mike, there's there's two H's in life, health, and happiness. So our mission and everything we do at AT T Mike Posner is to help people be healthier, happier, and that's it.
And my mom, this and my mom, I can't boil her, her influence on me down to a soundbite, but she instilled in me a real fire. My mom is a fighter. She's a Detroit Hard Rock. She, she worked for everything she had in her life. And to this day, she inspires me. And so that's where my fire comes from. And there's a lot of it. So, yeah, my mom is my heart to stay. When you're eight years old, you started making music when you were 10 years old. You
started rapping? I had Rodney Jerkins on my show, one of the biggest producers. Yeah, no, Rodney, you don't have to tell me who Rodney is. So Well, for those people who don't know Rodney Jerkins, one of the biggest record, movie genius producers of all time. So he was in Indiana with his aunt at a shopping mall when he heard Michael Jackson come on the radio. He said to himself, I make music for that guy one day, and by the age of 21. He was producing Michael Jackson's
records. Yeah. So what was the inspiration for you when you were eight years old or 10 year old that said, Hey, I'm Mike Posner. I'm going to start making music. I can remember hanging with my buddies, Aaron Webster and Ronnie Posey. Yeah, Ronnie, Ronnie is no longer with us. So Ronnie, rest in peace. And we're eight or nine years old and we're in we're in the basement on a you know, just, that's where our parents are in Michigan. This basement. Yeah, where are you from?
Michigan. We're gonna get into Okay, no, there's
basically no basements in California. Right. But Michigan basements right. So our parents throw us down there. You know we're in His musty basement so we don't drive them crazy and and Ronnie rescue saw he always had had like a scheme to get into. And that night it was hip hop. And so he said, we're gonna try freestyle on tonight. And we put on these, we found CDs of music, just music that had no words on it. And we
just try and wrap into it. And as I spit and stumble over, you know, cliches and words that I was trying to rhyme with Mike, you know, some something just clicked in my brain, my synapses start to fire. And then that night, I knew I was never gonna stop doing that. And I haven't since when I was when you were 10 years old? Yeah, roughly. I don't know. Exactly. Eight 910. And I think I'd written a few raps before that or something. But that was the night where I knew this is I'm always gonna do
this the rest of my life. I didn't know it could be my job. But I knew I was gonna do it the rest of my life. Right.
So various points in our lives, especially when we're younger. We do things they were not supposed to do. You know, maybe take your dad's car or mom's car off for a spin. We used to go in Maple road. Yeah. Oh, can we just do don't sound stupid, silly kids. Tell us about going to your mom's computer and stealing songs on the net and kind of how that also helped you in your career? Yeah, so you had this old computer and Apple TV was old now it was new then. Mac was an apple. Now how far
back gateway? Gateway? 2000. Yeah, we
had a gateway. And I mean, I do a lot of things in that computer. One of the things I did like you said it was installed Napster and you could type in x, y, z song, but put instrumental after and so you get back these, these tracks without the words and I would try to rap and write my own songs to them. So that was one of the things I was up to on that computer. The other thing surprisingly, wasn't porn. You know, dial up was, was too small
for my 13 year old. But I would, I would write actual, like, raps on Microsoft Word. And then I was definitely afraid of my parents, finding them. So I made a folder as they like math, second semester, you know, language arts, like it was one of my classes, and I would save all these documents in there, my, my raps, my hip hop, and they were really, there was a reason I didn't want you to see him. They were really honest, you know, and I tried to steal right from that point to this day.
So your parents didn't know that you were making these rap songs. And you were just doing it? Were you writing them or singing them? Or you made the beats? Did you record any of these? At first, I
was just writing raps over other people's beats. And like the ones I the instrumentals I'd find and then, and I was recording them, then I figured out the really archaic software, I could record on this bad mic that came with the computer. And then eventually, I started making beats out that came a little later at age 13. I, I allocated some bar mitzvah money to to get a little cheap keyboard from from Best Buy and, and is off to the races. That's
awesome. I took $500 on my Bar Mitzvah money. And I made T shirts in college. I was really my first year
like another Jewish guy from from Michigan now like, what what's going on here,
a Jewish guy from you know, I took I took I always had, I always wanted to have my own business. I was wanting to sell something. And I was gonna create something but I took $500 of my Bar Mitzvah money. There was no Google or no net. And so you couldn't go on and just say, Hey, give me 100 t shirts, you had to go through the the Yellow Pages and you know, call up, hey, I need some T shirts. What do they cost? Are
they cotton? You know, you want the 100% cotton polyester, and I bought these T shirts for five bucks each. And I would sell the short sleeve for 12. And of course I copied the Nike logo on the font. Just do it. And when Michigan ran to the Final Four, and I know you're a Duke guy. I like Michigan to the Yeah, my dad went yeah, so it said rode to the Final Four. So I would go to every dorm admission. I think
there were 14 dorms. I went to every hallway, I sold these T shirts door to door I got kicked out of every hallway. But I learned the art of cold calling. And it was really really cool for me. Because I think 100% of what we do in business and even in our personal life is selling ourselves. Yeah, you got to sell a t shirt. You got to face rejection. We're going to talk about all the challenges that you've been through in your life but a lot of it's about rejection and just powering
through. through challenges that we
all have absolutely wonderful story, so you want to grow statue limitations upon copying?
Exactly, you know, to all the people at Nike like 1990 I graduates I made these shirts in 1986 I think we're well past the statue limitations. But but thank you Nike for the genius of the JUST DO IT slogan, which is one of the best slogans of all time. For sure. So I went to Country Day. You want to grow? Yeah, I ran across country, your best time. Your best time was 1801 for the 5k I know this stuff. My pre my best time.
My best time those 18 No, no, it was like 2022 point something and the only reason I ran cross country because this girl named Marcy Thompson if you're listening, Marcia Hello. And if you're not, I'm gonna send you I'm gonna send you the show. But I thought, gosh, you know, when I went to country today, I went to Covington Yeah, in eighth grade. And then I said, you know, I want something different as a Jewish kid. There are only three Jews in my class. And people were not really Jewish
friendly. And I was a good student so I asked my parents to go to Country Day and I went to country to and the corporate load the the corporate. The school saying was men samancor Prasanna sound mind and sound body and they made you play two sports. So I ran cross country thing. All right, I want to hang out with Marcy a little bit. When I got to school. I was cool for about two weeks. And I wasn't cool. But I took Marcy to the freshman dance. She was a
prettiest girl and in class. And then I never had another date with her again, in high school. And we you know, 10 year reunion was a different thing. Randall, I
just want to congratulate you for the only guy ever to get a girl by doing cross country. That way, by the way.
I didn't get her a little while Oh, my God, one day. We gotta take.
It took 10 years because our 10 year high school reunion, we reunited and and we had a nice time together and we became good friends. So 10 years ago. So you're, you're in high school, I want you to talk to us about your basketball coach and playing basketball. And then you said you were not very happy, depressed, hated school, hated your teachers hated yourself. When did that start? And when did you really save yourself? undepressed?
Yeah, high school, high school. I can't pry sophomore year, I remember, we were assigned Catcher in the Rye. That book and I was reading this book sophomore year, and I can remember being afraid to turn the next page. Because I felt like I was reading my own thoughts. This was exactly how I felt it to the point where it was creepy. And so I think I realized, you know, then like, it has gotten his booking so happy in. And this is me, as me. You mentioned Basketball, basketball, as social capital,
where I grew up. So if you were good at basketball, you were cool. So I desperately wanted to be cool. And that meant I desperately wanted to be basketball. And there's only one problem with that. One is maybe a couple problems. One I was short Jewish, white, and I wasn't very good at basketball.
The problem few roadblocks, despite
despite practicing really hard, and I made the JV team and I remember, I built up all this courage. And I asked the coach, at some point in a meeting between just him and I. I said, Coach, why? Why don't you play me in the games. And he just really honestly said, because you're not good enough. And that was like all I needed to hear. You know, that lit a
fire in my butt. That didn't manifest in basketball as we know, because my story turned out but in in music, and I just, I just sort of live my life for the next 15 years. Gon show you I'm good enough. And that allowed me to accomplish a lot but it was also an Achilles heel at times in my life. There's some situations where showing other people you're better than them is not is not the best attitude and frame to have. Well,
we'll talk about that a little Amrish I've I've been there A couple of times, you think it's great that you've done great, and then there's downside to your success. And I'm looking forward to talking about mental health was not really a thing back then. You know, today it's at the forefront people talk about mental health all the time you hear about the suicides on a regular basis of highly functioning people who you would
never suspect to be depressed. A Stanford goalie soccer player, just as one generic description of someone you think did not have mental health problems, never told people about our mental health problems before. Did you tell your parents at that point? Hey, Mom, Dad, I am depressed. And did you see a therapist and give you medication? Or were you kind of in the closet with it in closet
fully? It was like this big secret. I don't know how well I hid the secret. And then I made an album about it. So it was like that I sold on the trunk of my car, right? But entrepreneurial, slinging of CDs, senior year, so pretty much that whole was about that. But I was I'll try to hide it as much as I could. And for anyone that's felt that way. It's exhausting. Yeah. Because you're, you're, you're putting all this energy into playing the part of being a happy version of
yourself, which you're not. That being said, you know, like, I always sort of tense up when I hear like, mental health, mental wellness, all these kind of buzzwords nowadays, because what I don't believe is that in most cases, I don't think depression is like this disease that you magically end up with, and you're you're stuck with for life. I believe. In my case, at least, it was a habit. And I use
that word, intentionally. It was a habit, it was a certain pattern of thoughts that I chose to think over and over again, that resulted in a certain set of emotional states that I chose to dwell in, over and over again, it was a way I held my body, slouch, it was a way I breathe. And the confluence of these factors, the thought patterns, the emotional states, the posture, the breathing, that's depression. It's not, it's not like, in my DNA, you
know, is is a habit. And when I took ownership of that, and you know, this is something I'm doing to myself, then I then I was able to say, hey, I can choose to do something else. So you'll notice me even, you may have noticed already, I'm constantly going that, as I sit here, on my shoulders, I'm constantly breathing. And every morning I wake up if you go on my Instagram, people laugh at me, but it is work better than any pill. I run or I getting
cold water. And I remind myself who I actually am I say I am Joy, I am faith, I am love. I am Grace, I am gratitude. And I'm running up a hill or I'm in a 35 degree, not 30 for 39 degree ice bath when I am Joy, I have faith. And these are the new this is the new thought pattern. And this creates a new emotional pattern in my body. And with these new habit, I'm a different person. And so I don't in my case at least depression is not some some mysterious disease. It was a habit. And I changed the
fucking habit. Right so and I going back.
What's your advice to all the people listening today? Who have depression or untreated they're afraid to talk to their friends or family about it? I think
getting an ice bath,
Great Depression. Oh, yeah. You're you're you're 18 years old.
This is this is not a this is not a this is not a peer reviewed, published study. Right. But in Duke Medical School. Yeah, this is this is the Mike Posner School of school of trying to make my frickin life better. Depression has a hard time surviving under 40 degrees. Because it gets you out your frickin head depression lives up here. You know, and what are we thinking think about ourselves, right? It's obsessive, self centered thinking of how we're wronged or we're not understood or
something's wrong with me. We get in these spirals. It happens all the time. So I'm not saying like, I never have a bad mood or I never have a depressed thought or a depressed mood. But I would never put the word depressed after I am as an identity. I am Joy I have faith on love. So I would say Change your story, getting cold water, stand up straight, breathe deeply and start thinking some positive thoughts. And at first those thoughts will feel like jokes. You'll think posing stupid man
like this, this feels silly. But if you keep doing it and if you couple those things together, they start to get powerful. Right? If you couple a state change, a physical state change, like getting in cold water or exercising with saying these new thoughts out loud, I am Joy I am fade them or whatever your yes, the story you want to write, it becomes powerful. And that over time, not in a day, not in two days. But quicker than you might
think. Two weeks, three weeks, you start to believe yourself start to believe is different. What if, what if I enjoy and what a lot of us and you know, I'm not going to sit here and say My situation is the same as everybody else's. But for a lot of people because I was one of them. The other thing, depression is beyond being a habit isn't an excuse. It's a
catch all excuse. Because as long as I'm depressed, I got an excuse for not really honoring my responsibilities as a friend, as a son, as a human being as a member of my community. And for living up to who deep down, deep down. You know, you really are, you know, deep down, that you are a badass motherfucker, you're here to do great things, you're here to live a joyous life, you're making an impact on
other people. And the problem is with that, you have to actually move Jaeger to actually take a risk and actually put yourself in situations where it might not work out. And as long as I was depressed, I got an excuse to not do any of that. And so it's like, this isn't the path for the faint of heart. You know, this is the path like what I'm
saying is the path you go on. If you want to have an incredible life that you take out of the out of the teeth of this story of depression, and ends up in happiness and joy and magic and abundance and adventure in a life bigger than your dreams even worse. That's my real life now. So like, I don't say this as a judgement to others. I say this as an invitation. Because we're talking about when I'm 15 When I was 15 my dreams were to like go to college and and just like hopefully get a job and
make make money. My compare that to my real life would you talked a little bit about the intro, walked across a continent, climb the tallest mountain on Earth, written six platinum songs, nominated for Grammys, and beyond all that happy, I'm a unicorn, they I have fame. But I have fulfilment. So my real life is bigger than my dreams or is more magical. So I'm just trying to share, I'm here to share the, the tools I use to, to navigate that I made a lot of mistakes
along the way too. And I'm happy to share those as well. So people not to fall in the same pit pit holes. But these are these are some of the ways I've changed my life. And when I say changed my life like I got a I got a cool rap sheet, I get it. That's why we get to target to do cool interviews like this.
But the thing that's not on my Wikipedia is have transitioned from being this kid 15 years old, who was just exhausted every day from trying to pretend I was happy when I wasn't to this 36 year old man who is who loves his life and loves life.
I love all that. I want to go back a little bit or move forward when you were 1518 made your first record you sold out the back of your car you made $1,700 I
think it was like 700 700 Oh, maybe net gross. 1700 Gross.
So were you selling this in the gross parking lot. And then how good was it? Do you remember the first time someone actually bought your album? How good was that feeling?
I was selling it? Yeah, I was I had an 88 Volvo that my aunt gave passed down to me. safe car. Yeah, I was definitely selling it right out of the trunk of the car. Yeah groves are at groves. Yeah, and, and I don't remember the first sale ever made, but it felt good. I remember having that I remember having the $700 and gone this is this is cool man to be getting money. Like make it similar dogs lot for 18 year old kid a lot a lot, right? To get $700 from doing something that I
would do anyways. Right that I would probably even pay to do. Because I love to make music. It was that was frickin cool. That was freaking cool. And I've always made money doing music, you know, from from that point on. And there's something about there's a lesson in there somewhere about just declaring your own worth. There were five other rappers in my school.
Which by the way, for those people who don't know, is really an upper middle class to wealthy school. I mean, I know you guys didn't have you know, there was a spectrum there. I mean, I went to Country Day down the street that was very privileged. Yeah, right.
And we would hang out a girls, especially for the girls, because my class was 93 Kids is basically you know, 4545 girls and girls had a much, much wider variety of people are the only one Yeah, we hang out the big boy on on Telegraph and all at foot.
So yeah, the school was great. It was it was it was pretty diverse. Actually, you're right there were there were some very wealthy families in my school, but there are some some very poor families in our school. There's a trailer park in our district. It was really diverse, so well racially and socioeconomically. So but the point is, there's five other rappers in my in my in my school, but I didn't look at myself as one of them. I looked at myself is spit like special.
I'm the one and I can remember it. You didn't remember using eight mile unit rap battles.
I mean, not only have I seen in the movies, but we did some dumb shit when I was a country day. Yeah. So we drive down to Detroit eight mile, and we'd go buy liquor down there. We buy some beer bottles and James which is no longer on it's kind of like a truly today. wine spritzer and we go down we buy colt 45 And Busch beer and Stroz, which at the time was yes, Detroit. breweries. I've been eight mile. I've seen the movie, obviously. I love it. I'm
from Detroit. Love the rap. I mean, I love the whole thing. Yeah. But yeah, I've seen the movie. And I've I've been eight mile more times than I would ever want my kids to go there.
Right. So there's a lesson here and declaring your value. So there is I guess there's five rappers in my school. We have rap battles. But there are some kids that I wouldn't even battle fighting think they're good enough to battle me. I always placed value on myself. When I got to Duke, where I went to college. The problem is when you start your music career, and you know from starting a business is you see yourself as a star. But everyone else sees you as the kid in the
dorm next door. So you have to do things to differentiate yourself. Like, there were certain gigs where I would get offered to be paid a couple $100 to play at a frat party or something like this. I say no. I play at Duke once a year. And I throw the show. Maybe twice a year. I create scarcity around myself. Right? I continue to my career, you know, in Detroit, when when my career started to take off. The radio stations, they all want you to do their show, right? And they play your
song on the radio. So they say Hey, this is the stations in Detroit say we got to our Christmas show or whatever. What should I say? No. I play in Detroit once, maybe twice a year as my hometown. Scarcity. I'm not I'm not. I'm not a college artists. I'm not a high school band. I'm me. I'm Mike Posner. And the first person to see Mike Posner is Mike Posner was Mike
Posner. And I mean, it's so you have to you see yourself as this of as what you're going to become, but you got to help other people to see you that way. And one of the ways I did that was just Just always declare my value. Yeah.
Excuse me, you're good. I think today people are questioning the value of college education. Yeah, every day, right? I mean, right, right. Let me my son today he's a sophomore in college and his dad, you know, what, why am I here? He's cost debt. Why the fuck am I here? These professors if they could get a job in the real world, the guy's got a professor from Google, who tells them right to make $800,000 a year, and he can teach and he does have a job in the real
world. And when we read the stats today, the average college graduate has $34,000. in student debt, it takes 21 years to pay that off. First year, plumber today makes $80,000 The Wall Street Journal just came out with a ranking of the schools that pay the best first year salaries. And we're talking about Harvard, Stanford to Michigan, and they're in the mid 40s. So what's your advice? To
everybody out there? Who has a talent you got to do went to Duke for part, and we're gonna talk about what happened there in a second. So I don't want to jump the gun. But what's what's your advice? To all the parents out there? And all the students out there really started with the students? Should we go to college if you have a passion to do something else? And what's the value of a college education today?
I think that first of all, there's no one blanket answer where every person should do it their life, I think you got to look at what lights you up. And this is, this is a really hard conversation for someone who's 7080 years old, they start going, what do I do want to? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? It's probably the wrong question. The right question might look something like what excites me right now? What am I interested in right now? And I think you go
down that that path. And listen, my buddy, Big Sean. We're both the same age, he had a full ride to Michigan State. And I was going to get ready to go to Duke he didn't go and he just focused on music. And it's worked out just fine for him. Yeah, you know, and I went to Duke. And it took me a year or two, I was there to, you know, I thought I was going to get a business degree or something. But while I'm in class, I'm writing songs in the margins of my notebook.
And it turned out the things I'm writing in the margins of the notebook, were actually the thing that became my career in the the notes in the, in the middle of the page, which I thought was gonna be my career turned out to be things I, I didn't so much use. So I would be really reticent to just offer as a prescription for any human being, I think you got to look at what lights you up what what you're passionate in, and tug on the you know, go down the rabbit hole of your own inspiration.
And for some people that might involve going to get a four year degree and for for a lot of people might not wear these. This is the thing. If you can become excellent. In whatever the thing is that you're right, it's Navy, your podcasts are excellent. Yeah, if you could become excellent. And whatever your passion is, you're getting at getting to have some, some career options, then the question is, can you become excellent in something you're not really interested in?
Probably not. So let's start with the thing you're interested in. And then I would just become as excellent as you can in that thing. Go learn from the best in the world at that thing. And and if that person is at a university that maybe you want to go there, if not, maybe you don't, you know? And so, that's it. That's it, I'll never be broke because I can pick up a guitar and I can make you feel something. You know, even if I have all my everything messed up, like, I know how to do that.
And so that would be my advice. I think for parents, I would say yes, about kids and parents. One one is like, okay, when you're a kid, the time to chase after your passion is now is now you know, I'd meet meet kids on the walk across America. They go I want I want to I've always wanted to do this, but I gotta get a good job first and make some money ago. Dude, what are you talking about? Like you're 18 this is the tie. This is the
time. So the time to like take a risk and fail is now out, you know is now for parents you got to be willing to allow your your kids to, to live in a world and thrive in a world be excellent in a world that looks different than the one you grew up in. And then being excellent might involve them taking a different path, you know, and so faith.
I believe education is a greatest investment we can make in ourselves. And I do. And I do believe college is not for a lot of people. But even people like my son who's an entrepreneur, he was flipping shoes when he was younger, he got me into dogs. Now I'm a sneaker head of the highest order. It's a very expensive habit, but it's something I love. But he was saying, you know, for a while that I'm not going to college, I said, you're going to college said no, I'm not gonna be 18.
And you can't make me so it's a Charlie, where you're gonna live. And ultimately, he came to a conclusion that he should go to college, because and he came to this conclusion on his own for the social component. And moving away from home. And not all people who go to college will move away from home. Obviously, that's expensive. But I do think the social connections and the social maturity you gain from graduating high school and living apart from home, if you
can, is invaluable. It's the experiences the growth, it's the maturity and then it's the connections you make. Duke has alumni all over the world. Right? If you were to reach out to someone on LinkedIn, or call someone and say I graduated, do they have a propensity to talk to you at Michigan has the largest alumni body in the world greatest school on Earth? I don't know what was wrong with your judgment, not going to University of Michigan going to Duke. But I think it's very,
very important. And I think there's a lot of reasons not only to learn, but more of intangible reasons for the value of our education.
Yeah, I think I think you're right. There's a flip side to that, you know, at least in my case, I can remember just we were like heathens, man, the amount of we were drinking and the culture of womanizing. I mean, it was it was pretty out of control. In hindsight, you know, some of the culture there, so I made some incredible friends. But we were up to some pretty nasty behavior at the same time. So
you know, many of us were Yeah, it's,
it's, it's Shades of Grey, you know, it's not black and white. But yeah, yeah. So many tangible benefits to college. So
you're going to do great school must have been great test, test taker must have been a very good steward. Tell us, your parents don't want you hanging around. After you graduated. Tell us about the internship you got at the radio station in Detroit. What station was it, by the way, because in my research, I couldn't find the actual name of the station. And then tell us about this guy who was dressing like a millionaire. And how that friendship later changed your life.
Yes. So I got an internship at station was called hot 1027. I don't I don't think I think it's been rebranded or bought or something since then. It's not still station was a hip hop station. And yeah, my mom said, you know, you got a couple of months here this summer, before you're going to school, you're going to work, you know, you know. So, I got that internship. And I went, and through my coworker, I met a guy named Sean, who, as you said,
was just like a millionaire. And the word on the street was Sean knew Kanye West.
Well, what does that mean, by the way? I mean, just like a million I mean, he's 18. He's an intern. SAR is the
he was the money was in an intern. Yeah, I don't know. Man. He had
money for real change. I'm gonna do we're in fake fake drip there or what?
I don't know. I
just looked like a million.
I don't think it was fake. I don't know. What would he would he had done to procure the outfits that yeah, maybe maybe we get him on your podcast. Okay.
I love that big shot on my show. He'd
be a good guest actually. He's incredible guy. And he just he was this. He was like this lifeline out of Detroit. He had this connection to Kanye West, which was a new connection for him, but he was like a way to a different life. Everyone I knew was sort of stuck in the mediocrity of suburban molasses. And I thought I was doomed to that kind of existence. I was desperate for a way to add color to my life, add excitement and glory and to just get out. And he was that way
out. He had he had a connection that looked like a way out to me.
When he told you he had this thing with Kanye, did you believe him? Or was that come on man?
Yeah, I believe them. And they had like, you know, so funny like this back in the day before the iPhone. And really, I think I don't think the iPhone was out yet. So they had like, actual, like, pictures that they had developed, like, he was at like a party with Kanye and stuff. And some and, and he had met Kanye at the radio station where I worked. And so everyone knew the story, you know, of him meeting Kanye and I believe so. I believed
him. Yeah. And he didn't get a record deal from Kenny right away. I went to college at Duke, like I said, and then Kenny told Sean, don't go to college, you're gonna be a rapper. So Shawn didn't take his scholarship at Michigan State. And he just worked and it took about a year or two of courtship
between Kai and Sean. But I remember the day walking, I was on the phone, walking on West Campus, talking to Sean and he said, My deal came through I signed my record deal as thought man, I didn't know we could do that. And immediately, I started to believe if Shawn could get a record deal that I could do. And this is the funny thing about belief. A belief is a thought repeated over time. And I had a new belief the old belief was it's like impossible to be recording art like a famous
recording artist. The new belief was Shawn could do it. I could do it too. I'm gonna get a record deal also. Randall eight months after that phone call. I was getting offers for my own record deal. Alright, let's
let's freeze frame the story there. Okay. So there's another guy that was a quick trips that also got a record deal. And you thought hey, I'm better than that guy as well. And is there jealousy that goes into someone not as good as you getting in achieving something like a record deal? And then say, Hey, man, I mean, Big Sean, lots of talent. This other guy maybe not as much. Is jealousy also a great motivator to work harder when the other guy you're telling him isn't it? Right tracks?
Oh, right tracks. Well, they were good man. Right tracks was good. You did your research. God Lee. Right, right tracks, they were producers. And they were they were great. And they did, they did beats for Shawn. And they did most of Sean's beats every one. So I was sneak one in. But they had proximity to them. And they're in Detroit and I left North Carolina. And then I heard Kanye was going to sign them as producers. And I just like my heart saying like, man, that
should have been me. I shouldn't I shouldn't I should stay in Detroit. Stay by Shawn like put all my eggs in the Shawn basket. So I think there was some competitive you know, healthy competition and my relationship with Shawn and right tracks and then probably some unhealthy jealousy at times as well. But
a blessing and a curse at the same time. Yeah,
but man, I whatever it was, it was jealousy or healthy competition. I I used it to fuel me. And when I think of Shawn, though, mostly I just think of inspiration. I think of him somebody as somebody who changed my life twice. We've talked about the second one later, but that first way wasn't by some advice he gave or did though. It was just him living his life. At the highest capacity. No one told him he could get a record deal. He just went did it. He just went did
it. And that is fired the heck out of me. Or like, I can do it too. And I'm pretty sure that certainty in your own ability to achieve something is is a foundational agreement and you're actually doing that thing. And I didn't have that belief in myself until he showed me it was possible. And me Yeah, I wouldn't be here without him. Without him doing that.
How great is it? When you have a huge dream? You think it's impossible. And a friend of yours does something in makes the impossible possible? What a great motivation. Yeah, for everyone listening,
it's a blessing. But here's the thing Randall is, is not everyone has a big shot in their life. So they might be listening, go, Hey, that sounds nice. Where's my where's my like, really inspiring friend, right? God didn't give me one of those. Here's the good news. You can change your belief on your own. Like I said, a belief is just a thought repeated over
time. We talked earlier about incantation, your affirmation, you go out and you run, or you sitting that cold water, you walk every day, or you take out the journal and you practice that new belief. And you put a motion into it. And you write i comma, Mike Posner, whatever your name is, comma, we'll get a record deal by x date, I might, and you write that thing 15 times every day, and you envision it, you see it, and you feel stupid at first, but after a few days, you start to you
start to believe it. And you can change your you can change your own beliefs, you don't need a big shot to change your beliefs.
You change your own beliefs. And I do that in pretty much every area of my life, because because we all have limiting beliefs, where we're, whether that was something somebody else told us, and we believe them, or it's a mainstream belief in the culture that isn't even yours got passed down, you've through social media, through your parents or whatever, they're not even your beliefs, a lot of them, you inherit, we think our thoughts,
our thoughts, a lot. Most of us are not that original, you know, a lot of the things we believe about ourselves, our capabilities that we didn't even make up, and they're just kind of running like malware in the background. And you could change all these things. You know, like, I used to believe I was like a bad complicated boyfriend. I change that, but I'm like, the best lover I've ever been like, yeah. And so you don't need a big sign to change
your beliefs. All you need is persistence, dedication, discipline, and repetition. And you can you can tell a new story.
So you get to Duke, your writing music. And if for all those haven't seen, that's really cool. You can go online and watch a lot of Mike's videos at Duke and it really brings you back when you when you see someone famous or it's it's great song and figure, okay, you think of the big recording studios that we all see on TV. But there's some great videos of you sitting at your dorm room and your desk which brought me brought me back to my dorm room. That's really
great. So I want to take cooler than me and the mixtape separately. Okay, so you're right, this song, basically, to me girls. And the song was about not needing something to impress girls or meet girls. So tell us about cooler and me. cooler than me and the inspiration for that song if I got it, right. And then what what happened that you exploded on campus and everyone knew you?
Well, by the time Roku or the meet, you got to understand I've already been making music now. 12 years. Okay, so that's the first
thing amateur basis except for the set of the $700
Correct? Correct. I'm not a professional, you know, I'm not paying my bills, music, but I've been making music for 12 years. cooler than me was a song I wrote. Basically, it's about feeling left out. You know, it's about going on the cross country team, team trying to meet the girl and like, not, not working out. That's how I felt my whole life was like the odd guy out and never felt like I belonged. I had friends for sure. And I felt special but I didn't feel like I
belonged. And so this was a song that I wrote I'm with Eric Colgin Jeff Oh are in my band at the time and we were history row and I recorded in my dorm room. And I put it online on his MySpace at the time. And I didn't think that much of it. I guess I've been making music for a long time. Until one day I went to this kid named Zander's room who lived down the hall for me. Xander was a cool kid. And this was a Saturday afternoon. And I went to his room, which is kind of like hallowed ground
because he's so cool. And he said, Mike, we were at a party last night, which I was not at, you know, I was like, because when other kids would go out to the parties, the dorms were quiet, and I could record then. So I was not at these parties often. And he said, we're at the party last night, and they played your song. And everyone knew the words. And then they played it again. And everyone's saying it again,
had chills, by the way as you're telling me the story now. Yeah.
And I'm just like, what? Well, you know that I've been making music 12 years that never happened before. The only person that knew the words to my songs was me. And I went back from Zander's room and I walked back to my dorm room and and we're getting a call from my mom. Remember, I told you the beginning of the interview, my mom's a Detroit Hard Rock? She doesn't exaggerate. She doesn't sugarcoat you don't have to guess how she feels. She'll tell
you she said Michael. I really loved that song cooler than me.
I almost dropped the phone because my mom was always supportive of my music giving me lessons and and drum lessons and drive me to studios pass eight mile to six mile and like we're in the hood, you know, and I'm in this like, super supportive but she never told me she liked anything I made before that that day the next day I get a call from Sean and he says Mike that cooler than me song is because it sounds like it's a hit song now that wasn't even in my realm of possibilities hit song but I
just triangulated I go sorority girls at Duke my mother and Big Sean all of the same thing I may I think I might be on to something here and so that was that was that was an important checkpoint on my on my path because I started to put a lot of time energy and energy and what are capital A little capital I had at the time into this project. And I thought I had a tiger by its tail and turns out I did
you also made a lot of songs that do want to do basketball thing but I that became sort of their anthem but I want to talk about where the inspiration where songs come from Taylor Swift talks about her love life a lot. Talk to us about taking a shower in your mom's bathroom and the Maybelline shampoo that was in her bathroom and inspired another one in college
Yeah, I wrote this song song doesn't make the cut for my shows anymore. Write a song called drug dealer girl. You start off well you may never be on a Maybelline commercial. But you always let me know when you guys are purple. And yeah so the shampoo bottle and Maybelline are thought of that. And it's just like the turn of phrase may never be on a
Maybelline is cool. Paul Simon Aeterna phrase and yes, it was inspiration come a lot of ways he come from something like that, or sometimes just comes out of thin air often when I'm asleep. I'll be in a dream where I'm singing a song and dream. And I'll wake up and go That song doesn't exist yet. You know, record that thing. You know, or, or sometimes they just come through sometimes be holding the guitar and it's song which comes out, boom, stream of consciousness, like in the
basement. So there's a lot of different ways songs can present themselves, but mostly, I don't think we deserve that much credit for them. We can deserve credit for keeping the channel clear to God or inspiration if that word turns you off and just call it inspiration. But when you think about who thinks your thoughts did you decide to pop the thought in your head? Or the the idea, right? Because I'm catching myself you can decide
to think a thought. But can you decide to have a new idea that I don't know, you can make the space for that occur in, you could keep a clear mind, you could keep a healthy body, you can meditate so that there's space for that to show up inside of. And I think I take credit for that. But as far as the thing actually coming in, you know, the great ones say and I think they're right, you know, I'm just the channel. I'm just a vehicle for something beautiful to manifest itself.
So you're in school. Big Sean gets a record deal with Kanye. You're toiling away. It's finals your sophomore year. You got to mix tape now that has really made its way all the way around. You got a 20 page sociology paper that's due. Yeah. And you get this crazy call from Big Sean that Jay Z wants to meet you tell us about that whole thing. What What were you thinking when you heard that? Like, this is fucking unbelievable.
So it was It wasn't Shawn that call me as my manager, Dan, he called and said, Mike, you gotta go back to New York. And I had just been in New York, taking some meetings with record labels and stuff. And I said, I can't go in New York minutes finals week, like, I go to Duke is hard. I'm gonna curve against really smart children, her natural, really smart, young, young adults. And he said, You gotta go Jay Z wants to meet you. I said, Don't mess with me, man. Don't tell me
that. He goes, No, real JSY must meet you. So I didn't tell a soul because I didn't think it would actually happen. I thought I would get there and you know, he get busy. I meet you know, with one of his associates or something. But I got on a plane to to New York and. And I sat and I met with with Jay Z for a few hours. And I played him cooler than me and started nodding his head like this. And we just had an amazing meeting. And it was inspiring. And I remember I felt really
understood by him. I've already seen by me, he understood the things that inspired me the the, the music I listened to and it was just a great meeting, I went back to Duke and I was in the library working on this paper. And I remember I checked my email. And there was a there was a record deal offer from from Jay Z. And not from him personally but from rock nation. And it was just incredible, man. Like it felt like a dream come true. It was
you walk into the office. You walk into the office. It's gorgeous. Right? It's huge. And when when you step foot in that door, that very second, you could see him on the other side of the room probably walking towards you right to shake your hand. What were you feeling at that exact moment and Jay Z nervous?
feeling nervous. But he was very disarming and charming. And within a few minutes I felt really comfortable in the room. And I we just had a great meeting. Great meeting.
He sends rock nation send you a record deal on a contract but you didn't sign with rock nation. Correct. RCA you signed with the interesting thing about that deals if you stayed in school with Ryan nation deal you're gonna get a bonus he wants you to stay in school and graduate
at It was just kind of a cute thing they put in the clause. You know, like if you if you complete your turn get a bonus. But me and my lawyer like, just give me the bonus now it's fine.
So So what was the money? How much? What was the first deal? And did you have it sounds like you had a lawyer and a manager. So where are they protecting you? So So many times we hear about your new you got a record deal, you do anything to get signed? And then you get taken advantage of with a five record deal. They keep all the copyrights. Did you know what you were doing? Did you have good advice? And what was the deal?
I remember all the ins and outs of the deal. But now knowing what I know now, obviously, I have more leverage now, you know, and I have my own money now. So yeah, the deal, like pretty much suck compared to any deal I would do now. But you're in a different place in life. And so you know, I can't cry over spilt milk. But yeah, if I, I think if I had educated myself more as a book, anyone who's getting in the music business, you recall that everything you need to know about the music business by
Donald Passman. Right. I think if I read that book, I'd have a few more shekels in my my bank account right now. Right? Yeah, talking
though. Are we talking about a $50,000? Deal? We're talking about 250,000? Which is either one. Yeah, there's a lot of Yeah, I
think I think it was a couple 100 grand, a couple 100 grand, and then did a publishing deal for for significantly more than that. But they're all kind of bad deals, because they bet against yourself. Right? You know, if you have, you're basically taking a giving up a lot of ownership of your intellectual property in return for these, these checks up front. So if you was if you're a dud, they're
great deals. But if you have a lot of success that they don't shake out, and so yeah, what I gave up for that couple 100k or, you know, that publishing deal is a lot, you know, it was worth, you know, like 10s of millions of dollars. So, yeah, it was, in hindsight, not a great, great deal, but it got me to where I am, to even be, even have the perspective, you know, what I'm saying to, to, to say, hey, is not not great deal, I do a different one now. So everything happens for a reason.
You know, you live and you learn and you're in a different position now.
So your mixtape goes viral. And I think a lot of our success today we think about marketing and creativity. So talk to us about iTunes University and the positive role.
Yeah, yeah. So I figured out really early right that I was first of all, I was really into hip hop and at the time, if you're new hip hop artists you would try to get your your music featured on a series of hip hop blogs that were that were prominent that people who are in hip hop read and the other thing you do is you'd give your music away for free because at that time the music industry you there was just a lot of pirating going on like me and my friends at Duke
we restore the music off of off of Napster bit torrents that kind of thing. So one thing you didn't do is like really sell sell music the way I was trying to and in high school. So I looked at the data points I had which were okay, this I can't sell my music because I'm stealing like Kanye and Jay Z's music, right. So no one's gonna pay for my music because no one
knows who I am. So as a and b is I'm looking at this, these data points, which is like Xander is telling me these rich white girls love my music as much as Big Sean does. And they these white girls are not going on in these hip hop blogs, you know, and like in going on a bit torrents and all this stuff. They're on iTunes. So I have to serve both of these audiences because they both like my music.
And what I found was this loophole, there was this thing on iTunes called iTunes you and it was set up for professors to post their lectures so students could view the lectures and everything on iTunes you was free. And everything I can do is supposed to be like an educational thing. And I thought, well, you know, I'm the This isn't my music is really educational, but I'm a student, so maybe I could get my music on there and I found the guy who
ran iTunes you for Duke. And this is like one of those God moments. This was a guy named Todd stably. And I found his number I call them and turns out, he was he's from Southfield, Michigan, just like me. And so he said, Yeah, man, I'll help you out. I'll put your album on. On iTunes, you no problem. So now I had my my music in a safe place called iTunes that these the rich girls could access and would access.
And it wasn't just about the rich girls at Duke, it was about the rich, it was about that whole demographic across the country. And we just use Guerilla Marketing after that. I had a I had friends from high school that were at different colleges, Michigan State Michigan market. Note Notre Dame I had a friend. Anyplace I had a friend, I had a Facebook group and I made it really easy for them. I said, look like there's a link here to the iTunes you
thing. And here's how you could send this to all your friends. And if you're open to it, would you change your profile picture to my album cover for the next two weeks, the mixtape cover? So I had this network of and then I asked my friends at Duke who all had their own set of friends at all these different colleges to do the same thing. And start getting people that I didn't even know were a couple of degrees of separation to share my my mixtape, my free album with all of their networks on on
Facebook. And this event, I think, went out to like, 30,000 people, which is a lot, you know, for somebody starting from zero. And it just worked, man, it worked. And I got to add one last thing, you know, it was like, it was good. So even people that weren't, you know, part of our networks, when they heard it, they shared it anyways, because it was good. And it took me a long while to make something that good, like I said, been going on 12 years
already, you know. And so the thing itself was, was worthy of being shared, you know, the wheels, you can do all your techniques, or what if it's just not a good product, then none of this stuff works. It just started to spread, and people liked it. And I got to the point where you're good. I would get booked to play concerts at other schools and I show up at other schools and everybody knew the words when I got there. So that was pretty cool.
Sign a record deal. Thought you'd be happy, weren't happy, still depressed, and started writing songs for all these amazing people. Bieber, Snoop of Ichi, who you had met in college, who attacks you in college. He had became good friends. We're gonna talk about him a little bit later in the show. Tell us why you weren't happy here. You've got this. You've got your dream. You don't think it was possible? Big Sean gives you a mind shift? Said he got one. I'm gonna get
one. You got one. You should have been on top of the world at that point.
Yeah, well, you know, Taylor's all this time, happiness is an inside job. And we talked about the habit of depression. And I gave some tools to gave you and your audience some tools as far as how I changed that habit. What wasn't on that list of ways to change the habit of depression was getting a bunch of money and getting famous. Because so often, Look, we all do this, we think we're unhappy. Because something isn't quite right in
our external world. So we make our life about changing our external circumstances in such a way that we think we will then be happy if the external circumstances are updated and upgraded and changed in some way based on our preferences. And we we make our whole life about making those changes. And it turns out it all was never worse, we make the change. And the whole time while we're working sometimes year, sometimes a lifetime to make the change, we're still in the same
habit. We're practicing being depressed while we do it. And so when we get there and the external thing changes, we're still breathing the same way, we're still holding our bodies the same way, we're still thinking the same thoughts, we're still in the same emotional states. And so you might get a momentary hit. Like it was exciting to get the record deals exciting to see, you know, be on stage. And people know that the words of the songs for sure you get a hit, you know, but it doesn't
last very long. So, you know, this tail is all this time, and it's cliche, but it's true. Then we go back to our baseline, and my baseline was depressed. So even though I had the record deal now, and I had some degree of fame, now, and I had some degree of monetary success, now, I was still thinking the same thoughts, I was still standing the same way, I was still breathing the same, I still spending my life in the same
emotional states. And until you change those, which is all they're all internal, until you change those, like, you're still gonna still feel the same way. That's it. It's as simple as simple as that man.
So you have something that you've called an ice cold period, you gotten a Dodge van and drove across the country. Was that just to get away? Or what was the mind? Thought Process at that point in time? And how did that help you get out of whatever you were in?
You were bouncing forward in the story, and that's totally fine. But I moved to LA after college and I bounced around West Hollywood for a long time writing songs for others, and I had success doing it. And LA has been great to me, you know, it actually worked out you know, like, I did become a success like
we're here this beautiful amazing home. Yeah, in LA did
become a success and things aren't turned out well. But I would sometimes feel like I was caught in caught in it. Like I was trapped underneath the weight of my own success. And I think I inherent deep down I inherently knew I am more than just an artist. I'm more than just like a pop singer. And me moving into my van and seeing Hey, can I live alone like in the mountains for a few months? was just the first step baby step and me exploring that. And obviously went on went a lot further.
Thanks for listening to part one of my incredible conversation with the awesome Mike Posner. Be sure to tune in next week for my incredible interview with Mike