because Mike Posner throws his hands in the air, I act like I'm surprised even though I've set this whole moment up to get noticed. And he produces a bag, your plastic bag of pills and says You won't want to do these. And I didn't even ask them what it was. And I woke up that that next morning, and I was just alone. Everyone else has a visa with their friends. Say Vegas, you know, you're going to Vegas alone. I was I was because I just woke up feeling about as sad and dreadful as man can
feel. That sounds about Oh, no.
I sad so sad. So
you're listening to part two of my incredible interview with Mike Posner. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Without further ado, here's part two with the awesome Mike Posner. We talked about a few seminal moments your career we're talking about a few more as we go through the show. Big Sean is one. You have a thing for airplanes. So you album, Songs with the word delta and
flight numbers. But one of the seminal moments in your career was after a flight attendant serve you a meal talk about that. And how does a meal change your entire perspective? way? I don't know a ton. You gotta remind me know my story better than me. There was there's a flight attendant. Yeah, do a meal. Yeah. And you said you had this epiphany that you're going to for every meal that for every album. So for every album sold, yeah, you are going to give a meal to someone who needed it
focus on New York and Detroit. I get it. And I know why I forgot it now is is Yeah, I had album coming out called pages and yeah, idea, which was part of marketing idea. But also part of really good thing, which was for every album that I sold, I wanted to show that all the ideas to buy them now we stream for every album I saw I wanted to serve a meal.
But the album never came out. My career went cold, and I got shelved. The album still isn't out to this day. So
you got to put it out ever get there's
a lot of politics that go into that because my old label owns it that I'm not a partner with anymore. And we're working on it. We're working on it. We'll come out, for sure. Okay,
we got to move on to come on what is truly one of my favorite songs of all time. This is ironic because Matt, my producer, wherever I shoot studios, it's sort of like the football players basketball players, Hey, get off the bus. They got their music on headphones on and they're just jamming to motivate you. So I fire up my podcast by playing your song. Which one I took a pill.
Hey, take a pill and Bs.
I love it. I was going to ask you to sing a few verses later. But let's, let's go back to 2012 You're with a vici. And you took a pill to impress him. You guys were you guys were friends. He was your buddy. You felt like he wasn't judging you if you had a hit
song or not. That's 2015 you're with him and Ibiza and use spring break and you're looking around and you wrote this song acoustically first and then it was next by seep in our region producer of a thing just fucking exploded today is one of the I think the greatest songs ever written. Thank
you. Wow, thank you.
Tell us about the song.
Well, I wrote the song a couple years after the night, you know, and I had achieved a lot of success. And then it all disappeared. So I came out the gate with cooler than me and we talked about that and I enjoyed the success and you know then we talked about moving in the van but really my career, like completely went cold, completely went cold. And my career was considered over. If you spoke to someone in the music industry in 2014 They say Mike Posner, they'd say, Oh,
he's a great songwriter. But his arts career is over one hit wonder he's a one hit wonder. And I would go online and I'd go on my Twitter, at CPR, just call me a one hit wonder and Ouch. Yeah, hurt, it hurt. And the real thing I was looking for was something that no one else could give me was a sense of security.
Security doesn't come from other people, it doesn't come from your bank account, it doesn't come from your relationship with your spouse, it doesn't come from relationship with your parents, it comes from your connection with God. Or, if that word rubs you the wrong way with life in the capital with a capital L. I didn't have that. So I was looking for it in all
these different ways. And one of the ways I was looking for it was I ended up at my friend of each concert, and I'm in the VIP, is when I still drink some, I'm drunk. And I'm looking at him on the stage. And I'm thinking used to be me, used to be me. And I told a VGA manager who are standing next to you, I said, I'm gonna go try to get a better view of the stage and leave the VIP. But the real reason that I walked from behind that velvet rope was not to get
a better view of the stage. It was, I was hoping, praying that somebody in the crowd was going to recognize Mike Posner was gonna remind me that I exist. Wow, that I matter. And my prayers were answered a guy with no shirt on. Because Mike Posner, he throws his hands in the air. And act like I'm surprised even though I've set this whole moment up to get noticed. And he produces a bag of plastic bag of pills and says, You won't want to do these. And I even asked him what
it was, like, fuck it. And I took the took the drugs. And like the song says, you know, when I woke up the next day, I felt 10 years older. When I finally got sober, I felt 10 years older. And I woke up that next morning, and I was just alone. Everyone else has a visa with their friends. It's like Vegas, you know, you don't go to Vegas alone. I was I was in I was alone. I just woke up feeling about as sad and dreadful as a man can feel. That's that's all it's about.
And I don't know why the vibration of my sadness, harmonized so perfectly and powerfully with the vibration of what the public wanted to hear at that time, or maybe what the public was starved for. Which was honesty. But those two vibrations made a beautiful chord. And that song became very popular as you as you mentioned, and it thrust me into the next chapter in my career, my life.
Beats amazing. The lyrics are amazing. And when I hear the song, yeah, I mean, it's clearly somebody who's made mistakes. But they're honest with the reflection, they look in the mirror. And for me, it's a story about redemption. And when I hear that I'm an underdog. You are to some extent, as well, this kid in Detroit, making music, you know, it's impossible till it becomes possible, but it's a story about how fucked up. Yeah, I acknowledge it. And now, my future is ahead of me.
Yeah, you know, my favorite part about that song. I took a pill in Ibiza is now I'm 10 years older than when I wrote it and Not one of the lyrics is true about my life anymore. My life has transformed to the point that every single line in that song is false. Or it just wouldn't apply to my life now. I took a pill in Ibiza to show of Ichi, I was cool. Like I would never take drugs from a stranger put my body in danger. Now because I love myself. You know, the course All I know is sad
songs. I'm happy now. I have struggles I have challenges in my life. For sure life keeps coming. But my life is a my life is a dream. I love my life. And life loves me back. You know. I'm just a singer who already blue is shot, I get along with old timers because my name is a reminder of a pop song people forgot. My name is not a reminder of a pops when people forgot anymore. My name now that walked across America climb on Everest. My name is a reminder
of what's possible. Money is a reminder that if you keep going, you could do anything. My name, I think is synonymous with inspiration, I hope. And so that's my favorite part about I took a pill in Ibiza now as I sing it. And it's a chat is about a chapter my life that I overcame. And I'm so proud of that. I'm so proud of that.
He should be I mean, you're an inspiration when when I met Doug Evans talking about I'm going a few minutes. Yeah, Doug, I'm partners and shout out to Doug for introducing me to my I'm grateful. You're inspiring. But just going back to the song when you wrote the song you never thought it'd really be a hit. If you look back. What's your favorite verse of the song if there is a favorite verse that was the most impactful to you? And would you mind just singing that verse on the show? I don't
know what my favorite is. But there's a third verse, right? So you mentioned the original version of I took a pill in Ibiza is a acoustic version of the song. And there's three verses and in the remix, which is the version that got really popular. There's two, the third one is cut out. So the third verse says,
Would you say I took a plane to my hometown. I brought my pride in my guitar. And I say, Well, my friends are all gone. But there's manicured lawns and the people still think I'm a star. I walked around down Tahoe. I met some fans on Lafayette. They said Mike, tell us how to make it. We're getting real impatient. I looked him in the eyes and say you don't want to be high like me. Never really know why like me. You don't never want to step off that roller coaster and be all alone.
And you don't want to ride the bus like this. Never knowing who to trust like this. You don't want to be stuck up on that stage. stuck up on that stage staging. Oh, I know. A sad song. sad song. Darling. No. The I Know. A sad song. Sad. So
it's so fucking good, by the way. So thank you for doing that. Someone Someone had told me when I first was introduced that song and we listen that song 300 times at the office?
Yeah, he's not bullshitting me.
There's no, there's no bullshit at it. Yeah, maybe more. And it's on my workout playlist. It's on my wakesurfing list. So if someone had said hey, I'm gonna be here with Mike. And he's gonna be singing the song for me. Yeah, it's gonna be singing 10 words with him? I do like anything is possible. Hey,
you know I'm proud of you too, because you snapped on two and four. Which is the right, the right beats to snap on. And oftentimes, you'll find white people are unable to do so. So just congratulations. You've done the impossible once again. You met a girl you met the girl despite running cross country. You've snapped on the right beats. What else can you do?
So your love this story? It's weird. There's this thing where my brother had a drumset growing up and he was in a band I wasn't on just touched the drums right? It's never rush is my favorite band by the way? Drummer. So Neil Peart Jobs was what you played what you played first, but I would sneak on twice and I play
as drums. But I had drumsticks so when I saw you in your dorm room at Duke, I thought how I had my drumsticks and I would play them so hard that the wood on the desk would start splintering all in the air. Yeah, it was. It was super fun. And when I was 35 years old, I'm at Costco, and I see a $399 Ludwig drum set on the shelf. I brought that thing home. I taught myself to play the drums. Nice. Yeah. Now I have a DW eight piece drum set in my bedroom. There's literally next
to the bed. So it plays very good. Big double kick. Single kick. Yeah, thing. Okay, good. I'm self taught like, but
Neil had a double right.
We all had a double. I mean, I've seen Russian concert 12 times. And when I was younger, I had no money, right? It's I'd sit in the back. But I was I think it's a greatest three piece rock band in history. And certainly the best band has come out of Canada, in my opinion. But as I got older, and when I finally made money, man, I was in the front row. Yeah, dude, and did the and I would always yell to the roadies or to drummers and I typically get good tickets now.
And when I want to be in the front row, I'm in the front row. Yeah. And so I'll say stick sticks. And so when Neil was done, the roadie came over and gave me a sticks are in my office are hanging in my office. How cool is that? It's fucking cool.
How cool is that? It's fucking cool. There's a moment I had when I was 16. And there was this band I love called dilated people. So your hip hop trio, one DJ, and two MCs. And I love them. And I went to go see their their show at St. Andrew's Hall. And similar to you got there early with my two buddies, and we're in the front row, Front Row, front and center. And they were, they were opening up for another band. So most of the crowd was there for
the other band. And me and my buddies, you know, imagine he's like, 16 year old white kids, and there's just no all the words going crazy. And we're just all in, right. That's how I am when I go to a concert. I'm all in right to this day. You know, if I go to a concert, I don't want to be in the VIP. I want to be like, in the crowd dancing, going crazy. So the band notice is we're going crazy in the DJ DJ Baboo rolls up a joint, and he lights it. And he hands it to evidence on the
rappers. And he passes it to me. And just that moment, I mean, because the symbolism of that moment for me is it almost crystallized in my consciousness that there's this barrier between being an audience member, and it got the guy on the stage. And it's not as high as you think it is. Like you can make the transition from crowd to stage, you can do it. And that was such a special moment. And I'll never forget the poll I
took out of that joy. Not because of the joy itself, but because of what it meant a lot
to people I mean, I'm from Detroit. I'm a classic rock guy. I mean, I grew up with Bob Seger. I love Bob Seger. I've seen him a bunch of times. I'd be of a rock star fantasy. I have a rock star fantasy. So I taught myself to play the drums and I got
a new clean Black Rock Star fan.
Your your famous musician on stage in front of 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium and you've
thought you might mean you're alone with the rock star in your bedroom. I kind of a rock star fan. That's
not my fantasy. I just wanted to clarify that's not my fantasy. That'd be a different kind of fantasy I definitely would not be with a rock star would be if he was somebody else pick
up pop diva.
But I go to Nashville on business. Sometimes we own a bunch of townhomes there. And I'll always go to Kid Rock event in Nashville before. So there's all these What do you call them? music halls? Well, the country guys. Yeah, whatever they call it and there's this gray band and Kid Rock. And I've never played. We have a vacation home and quarterly in Idaho. And we have bands come in. It's a residential community so years ago, I said alright, you know,
can I play a song? It was the first time I ever hit a drum. That was miked up. Oh my god as it's like, the electricity from that thing was awesome. I played a Garth Brooks song, which I had never heard what's his famous song, and it's weird with the bees because I can hear a song and play the song without ever hearing the software. It's like a weird is like a weird thing. But I go to Nashville now and I pay 100 bucks a song. And I'm up there, there's like, I don't know, 500 people there on two
levels. And the first thing they said is, can you actually play I mean, we're a real band. And I said, I'll get by, it's fine. But it's fun. It's my rockstar, fantasy. Good for
you, man. It's beautiful. So I shot
a video at Duke. We were in a Detroit, Tigers hat, gray hat jeans and your a sweatshirt said that you don't have to be high to be dope. And I think what's the message here to all the kids out there that are smoking? The musicians are in the wrong crowd? What are you gonna say to all those people? I mean, they gotta smoke to have fun.
Oh, dude, largely like, anything that's not making you a better version of yourself. You want to stay away from, you know, so one of my heroes is the the Zen monk who passed away tip net Han, he says retreat is about reentry. So if you're using some kind of drug, whatever it is, it's marijuana. For some people that might help, they're like, I don't you know, I don't know, I'm not here to like, whatever cash judgment. For me, when I smoke weed, I'd get paranoid weird. And I'd eat
unhealthy food. And I like and I wouldn't make better music. And it just I thought it was cool. Like, I thought I was cool doing it. Like it added a mystique to my persona. But it didn't help my life. And so I just had to stop and alcohol was the same way alcohol was, you know, I never was an alcoholic, thankfully. But I would drink in the next day, I just feel bad. And it would prevent me from being my best. And I couldn't show up in my life the way I
wanted to. And it just didn't it I couldn't justify it didn't serve serve me in my mission at all. And so I think we all have to audit everything in our lives, whether that's the substances we're using, and also what we're spending our time on. Like, not just drugs, but how about porn? You know, I stopped watching porn. I was 3435.
Porn is bad. For sure.
For sure. I mean, yes, I stopped like a year, year and a half ago. And as a man, you're you're putting your sexual energy and releasing your sexual energy while you're watching other people have sex. And so for me, I found like, I didn't have energy left over to then go date in real life. You know, and I found myself in this weird relationship with where I'm where I think I'm, like, satisfy my needs sexually with this with these videos of other people having sex, and I'm
alone. I'm actually alone. Like, I'm not going out on dates. I'm not like I'm doing I'm doing everything I can to avoid committing and having responsibility to another human in real life. And yeah, it was like, it wasn't serving me. This is like, there's what good thing came to my life for me watching porn. Like, you know, like, you could justify maybe how it's not like, destroying your life. But tell me what good thing you've like has happened in your life from you watching porn? Nothing.
It's not it's a waste of time. At best, it's a waste of time. At worst, it's destroying other parts of your life. So yeah, I think you know, this really wasn't the spirit of your question and spirit your question was like, you know, youngsters, how should they think about mind altering drugs? You definitely do not need drugs to be an amazing artist. Or to be cool. No, you're you're born cool. You're a child of God. You
know what I mean? There's 12 billion sperm in that in that a Jackie lit and the one that you know, made it to the egg is you, you know, you're not a mistake. You know, you're nature's greatest miracle. Like the human body, the human being you were given a gift this body that's worth more than Elon Musk can ever make. How do I know? Because if you had, how much money does he have $300 billion? Yeah, a lot. 100 billion dollars, whatever it is more if you had that 100 $50 billion.
And I said you have a disease, and you're going to die. And there's one cure for it, and it cost $150 billion, you would, you would pay the money instantaneously. Because your life is worth more than $150 billion, your body is worth more than $150 billion. You're rich already. And so y'all need to you need to do anything to be cool. Your your, your miracle, you're more than cool.
There are so many things in our lives that we think about doing for a long time, right? There's always reasons not to do them. We're busy kind of career. I work 70 hours a week, at least still today, I have five kids, I've got my show. I've gotten I'm writing a book called extreme preparation, I'm doing some paid corporate speaking, I'm doing Oh, you
extreme preparation, that God has asked me questions about my life that I can't even remember. That's on brand, my friend.
Well, that is the brand that I want to create. And we're going to talk say
that in the compliment, because it's clearly aligned to how you do everything like you've you've, you've clearly over prepare for this interview. And I appreciate that
there's no such thing as over preparing. And that's part of my Yeah, part of my teaching and part of my coaching. But going back to our goals and things that we always want to do, there's always reasons not to do them. Right. So I want you to talk about hearing about an idea in your friend Teenies jewelry shop, and then talk about how death the death of your father Vici suicide, Mac Miller's overdose, how that affected and led you to doing something in your life.
That was remarkable for you. And for every other person that's heard about it knows this story, which was one of the most incredible things I've ever heard in my life.
Thank you for saying that. Yes. So this story starts off with an unimportant moment. And that unimportant moment is I'm in my friend Teenies jewelry shop. And I hear her speaking to somebody else. I'm not even in the conversation. She says My friend just finished walking across America. And like a tractor beam. I was pulled into that conversation. I said, What did you say? She said, My friend just walked across America. So you can you can walk across America. She goes, alright, I
guess he just did it. And I said
I want to do that too.
And I said it out loud. But it's almost as if I did it. Because no one responded. It lingered. That sentence lingered in the air of the shop like a fart nobody wanted to claim. And the reason that lingered is nobody cares about the thing you want to do one day not even you I left that jewelry shop and I did not walk across America. I read about walking across America. I watched videos about walking across America. I even met people that had walked across
America. I interviewed them I did everything except walking across America. My fantasy state of fantasy for not one year, not two years, not three years, not four years, five years. After five years of putting it off saying yeah, get around to it right now. I got an album to finish right now. I got a tour. I gotta go on right now. There's a wedding. I'm invited to that I don't want to go to but I feel like I have to go to I'll get around to it when the time's
right. After five years of doing that, you said it my dad died. My friend of Ichi killed himself. Mac Miller od my friend Ronnie had a heart attack and die. And I just realized that I'm going to die to and before that happens, I'm either going to walk across America or not. But it's going to happen this year. Are is never going to happen, because there's never going to be a frickin right time. No one's gonna rod a red carpet for me and say, Hey, this is this is it. In fact, the
opposite is going to happen. If I decide to do this, I say I'm going to do it, people are going to give me reasons why I should not. They're going to tell me I'm crazy. And that's what they did. They tell me I'm crazy, it's I'm gonna hurt my body permanently. So gonna ruin my career that I've worked so hard to build permanently, and told me, No one's gonna care and on the path to doing something great, there are 1000 reasons. Forget about to quit. There are 1000 reasons to not even start.
I broke my toe before I even month before us was to go, I broke my toes hanging off my foot sideways. I mean, there are 1000 reasons to not even start, forget about to quit. And if you want to do some great, you have to learn to not listen to every single one of them. And so five years after that unimportant moment, came an important moment. And that was April 15 2019, where I stood off the coast, New Jersey, and I was done making plans. I took a step. And step one is take one
step. That's what I did.
I want to go on in the five lessons you learned from that trip in a minute. I think they're all very, very important. And I think they're applicable to everyone who wants to do anything in their life. That's important. But I also want to talk about challenges. So I want to talk about your near death experience. And why is a baby rattlesnake, more dangerous than a Papa or a mama rattlesnake?
From what I understand, you know, the baby rattlesnakes have not learned resource allocation. So where where, where an adult rattlesnake if they bite you, they'll they'll hit you with a dose of venom. The My understanding is that a baby rattlesnake will dump all of their venom inside you because they they're yet to learn asset allocation.
Got to give them some financial lessons.
So that's why Yeah, so
what happened so your mile roughly 1800
Yeah, walk dumb. This man is long, crazy journey. But I walked across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Indiana did out or Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri during a heatwave and do like this hurt. I'm saying the state's fast right now. They weren't fast. 24 miles a day. Yeah. And walk in 12 hours a day and walk it through heatwaves and I'm walking through unthinkable physical pain. Like my body hurt to the point where I wasn't sure if I was hurting
myself permanently or not. I thought there's a good chance that this arthritic deathly pain feeling that I have, every time I stand up now is going to last the rest of my life is bad. It hurts. But I kept going I walked across Missouri, I walked across Kansas I walked into Colorado and I I could just see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. And yeah, I'd walked 1797 miles I
can't believe I'm off by three miles what's wrong with me? Yeah. And
and I put in 16 That day, like you said, typically I did 24 a day and is taking a break and just felt this pain shoot up my leg and then I heard heard the rattle of a baby rattlesnake and realized do OPT has been I've just been bitten by a poisonous snake. And you know, this is this is serious. I'm in middle of nowhere and then thankfully there were two fans that had shown up to walk with me that day and one of them got service to call 911 and I spoke to dispatch on the phone I said am
I going to die? And the voice on the other under the other end of the phone said I don't know sir. I ended up spending five nights in the hospital you know my legs swells the size of L CenturyLink and I went from walking 24 miles a day to I can't walk to the bathroom.
You were airlifted because I know you called an ambulance and who got there first.
i When the ambulance to the hunter hospital. I got the anti venom there. And basically they they gave me all the antivenin they had. At which point I got airlifted to a larger hospital in Pueblo. What was that hospital call? I can't remember. But yeah, so I took the ambulance first in the chopper second.
Scary what was the Looney Tunes moment? And how did the Near Death Experience affect the rest of your life?
The Looney Tunes moment was darkness started to just come in from the edges of my awareness. And similar to the end of Looney Tunes where the circles get smaller, and it says that's all folks that was that was what was happening. But it was just black. The near death or as near death as I was, it reminded me that fragility of life, how precious life is and also meant just that the gift that snake buy, I really think
that was medicine for me. You know, the snake is a symbol of rebirth, it sheds its skin every so often and leaves that chapter of his life behind. And that's exactly what I was doing on that walk, I was shedding a layer of skin to become the new me. So the snake, like this was an accident. I was supposed to get bit by that snake. And one of the gifts of the medicine of that venom was not quitting. You know, I had the best reason to quit my walk of all time, which was I almost lost my foot almost
lost my life. And it was such a good reason to quit that, you know, other people wouldn't even think I was a quitter. If I quit, it would just have been a cool story with a really cool ending. That Frankly, I'd probably still be getting interviewed on podcasts about. But this was about me, become the new me. And that's that skin that I was shedding it wasn't fully off yet. And so I knew I had to go back to the place that that snake bit me and I had to
keep walking. And when I did so, in when I went up and over those rocky mountains, that's when I got the gift of that snake bite medicine and that gift was I could do fucking anything. If that can take knock, I could do anything. And we all can do anything. We were so much more
powerful than we believe. But when I think about like the the guy, just six months before that was just bopping around depressed in studios that thought his whole life was writing songs to who I'd become then the dude I got bit by a rattlesnake and then kept going. It just gave me the juice that that I feel the rest of my life with.
It's incredible story I want you to talk about you said you there are five major lessons you learn on this walk. We could talk about them for 12 hours, but can we just go through them one by one? What were the lessons because I think they're applicable to anything all of us do. Where we where we think about our dreams. Yeah,
I give you a bonus one two, that can fit in that TED talk.
I love it.
So number one was not all crazy ideas are great. But all great ideas are crazy. You know, so when you when you make the decision to do something great. People are going to tell you you lost your mind. And that's a good sign. That's a great sign. You know if people are saying Hey, dude, I don't know about this. Are you alright? Or are you sure but that's a good sign. That means you're you are leaving the rut.
The grooves that you have made with your life and you are you are really charting a new path now. That's number one. The second big lesson I got from the walk was I mentioned earlier step one is take one step before I started the walk there's all these doubts and negative thoughts circling in my head bouncing off the walls in my mind this like in my mind, am I hurting myself permanently? Am I
going to fail? You know, am I going to ruin my career all this stuff is just going in your head and but once I took the First step, the doubts about what might happen disappeared. Because I was doing it. I wasn't considering doing it anymore. I had started. So that's, that's number two. Step one is take one step. Now. The third one is the bonus. One is, as I walked across America on a daily basis, I was exposed to people are doing incredibly kind things. You got a picture of a man with
a ghastly beard, I stink. And people don't know who I am in these parts of the country. And they would, they would pull over the side of the road and say, Hey, I saw you walking out here. I bought you this Gatorade. They would they would find me in a park. And I say, Hey, who are you? What are you doing here? I tell them and it's a I spoke to my wife. We'd like to have your for dinner tonight. And if you want to sleep in our home, you're welcome to You know, I
think we're nice guys. But we don't go to parks and invite people back to the house. No, this was a daily thing. There was a kid named Rohan. And I tell us, I've told the story a lot. But it's, it's the best. I was on the wall of pi reservation. And this f 350 pulls over the side of the road. And I used to always ask people, two questions. One was, why'd you come here? And the second was, if I pray for you, what
should I pray for? And people mind you, they came from all over the country to talk to me and walk with me. So this this kidney, Rowan, gets on the side of the car. And we talked for a while and we kind of just had small talk, but there was this feeling like something more supposed to happen between us. So I hit the like, you know, was a break glass if necessary. My conversational version of that is if I pray for you, what should I pray for? That gets me
below small talk. So I said if I pray for you wish I prayed for and he said, Mike, five years ago, my dad died from drinking three months ago. So sorry, three, three years ago, my my only brother. My big brother died from drinking. And just three months ago my mom died from drinking. So if you pray for me pray for my sobriety. Because I'm the only one left and he reached back in his F 350. And he put a leather satchel in my hand. Sweet Grass
and sage. He said this will keep you safe while you walk on our land. I thought he got out of that F 350 Because he wanted something from me. He got out of that F 250 Because he had something to give me. So the third lesson is don't be afraid of strangers. We live in this culture we get exposed to the worst stories all the worst
stories. But I learned on my walk 99.999999% of strangers are nice people I wish anyone the least bit misanthropic or cynical about the state of humanity could walk across America, because this was the norm. Number four, we talked about the difference between reasons and excuses. Your reasons to quit something you care about are always excuses in disguise. And they're logical. They're convincing, and they have the voice of your own
thoughts. They know how to speak to you in a way that you want to be spoken to. But in order to do some great, you have to go beyond reasons you have to be unreasonable. Greatness requires you to be unreasonable. And so you got to look at those reasons for what they really are. Those reasons are excuses. Those reasons are your mind trying to convince you to not do something great. And you're stronger than
your mind. The fifth lesson I learned when I, when I made it to the other side, I dove in the Pacific Ocean after walk in six months, three days, 2851 miles. 5.7 million steps sound like that. That's true happiness comes from growth. It's not from getting where you think you want to be. It's not from those external circumstances Magically Changing is from knowing you're on the path towards where you
want to go. She a lot of people listening to this right now might be in a moment of pain, or suffering, in some in some part of their life, even if some part of your life is crushing it, there's might be another part where there's some pain there, if you're really honest, in the antidote to that pain is quite simple. It's moving it in the right direction, taking some sort of action, even if it's small, in the right direction. And when you find when you're on that path, there's great peace
from being on the path. So true happiness comes from growth. And the last lesson comes from realizing I've done the most incredible thing in my life, I changed my life. But I had waited so long to do it. That Ronnie didn't get to see me. Mack didn't get to see me. Of each he didn't get to see me do this. And my dad didn't get to see me do this. They're all dead. They're all dead. And they're not coming back. And so the six lessons, don't wait. There's never gonna be a right
time. We already talked about it. But don't wait.
Even on a more daily, regular basis. I was saying in the office, do it now. Don't let your team get back. I mean, you're talking about major goals. I have a personal business plan. I have long term girl goals, I believe in writing your goals down. But to be productive at work, I tell
everyone at work. your to do list should be taken care of that day for the things that need to be taken care of that day, email responses, one hour last one, you're in the office on the weekend and two hours or last because things just pile up and to be efficient and be productive. I think you have to do it now. I've run that way in my personal life, as well. I think it's important for relationships, I think it's important for for business. Let's talk about more
ingredients of success. And I want to talk about discipline. And in our path to excellence. How important is it never to hit that snooze button.
Oh, it's really important, you know, and I learned that from David Goggins, you hit the snooze button, then you're you're starting the day off with a loss. Right? So you want to start the day off with a win, you know, so my walk, unfortunately, is really hot. I'm walking through June, July, August, my I learned that there's between June and July, by the way, in August, I thought June, July. They're both summer.
July is a lot harder than June, is you learned that you learned less subtle differences in the seasons. And so I couldn't roll out of bed at eight or nine. You know, I needed to caulk miles before it got super hot. So yeah, man. There wasn't really any days where I wanted to wake up at four. But I wanted to walk across America. So there's a rub there. If you want to do walk across America, you need to wake
up at four every day. And so you just get really good at doing the little things you don't want to do. And that discipline like Jocko says discipline is freedom. That's true. Freedom isn't the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want. It's the ability and the freedom to choose a path, commit to it and follow through. See, because I have incredible discipline
I've developed over my life. I had the freedom to do things like climb the tallest mountain in the world, I have the freedom to do things like walk across America, I have the freedom to do things that require discipline. And, you know, most people never know what that's like, unfortunately, but anyone can know what it's like is some all of us can develop.
So you finish the walk, you're exhausted, can hardly walk you dive into the ocean. And then what was the feeling and then tell us about calling your boxing coach the next thing go and see him at 430 and what developed from that as
important you know is is you asked me what it felt like to dive in the water. It felt like the beginning. It didn't feel like it endings and beginnings always hide themselves in ends.
Why beginning and not end? I mean, it's six months, 24 miles because it
uncovered a new part of me. It's like, it's like you push the button on the garage and that I didn't know I owned, and there's a Ferrari in there. And it's mine. And it's like, Dude, I want to take this thing for a spin. I want to see what this thing can do. I had uncovered a warrior inside of
myself. A motherfucker that didn't recognize a dude that woke up at four dude that that went over mountain ranges after getting bit by snakes do that never quit a dude that showed up no matter what a dude that walked 24 miles and heatwaves, a dude that, like this was this. I didn't know this existed inside me. I uncovered it. And so when I finished the walk is like, wow, I don't recognize myself, I started this thing thinking, maybe there's a little more inside me, there's a lot more
inside me. And so let's see, let's see what else we can do. And that's why it felt like the beginning. And so it was important for me to cement that not only as a concept and a theory, but into my, my, my body, my mind, my spirit, and my actions. So that's why the day after calling, the day after diving in the ocean, I didn't want to sleep in I didn't want to go back to who I was before. I didn't want to forget that garage was there. I wanted to remind myself i i got a Ferrari
in here, you know. And so I wasn't going to like, go party. I was going to go wake up at for the next day. And I'm going to put AC DC on and I know I need to rest my body's jacked up is hurt is messed up, for sure. But I'm going to I'm gonna go work hard tomorrow morning. Because I need I need my body, my spirit my mind to know. We're not done. We're just getting started. So
here's another idea. Not not another small feat. Did it just come to you one morning and say I am going to climb Mount Everest? No do this. No
cane me when I when when? After the snake bit me and I went up and over the Rockies. You
knew you're gonna finish the walk. And you knew after that when you saw the mountain, say I want to climb the top. I
started dreaming about it. I started dreaming about it. And this dream either grows into a plan or it withers into regret one of the two. And so I knew that for me to go from never climbing a mountain to climb the tallest mountain in the world is number of Blood Sweat Tears in pain. Like this is going to be harder than walking across America. But I do hardship now.
Let's Yes, let's talk about this. We've talked about one of the ingredients of my success, which is called extreme preparation. I want to talk about the preparation that anyone has to do to climb Mount Everest, and Column A Brady was on my show text this morning. He said hello. So Colin,
tell us about part of my journey. Yeah, so
sure. Tell us how extreme your preparation has to be to climb Mount Everest. How long does it take?
Well, it doesn't have to be you could show up there right now someone will take your money right and die. Yeah, you got a lot of it. You don't have to prepare that wasn't that wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to show up to Mount Everest and I wanted to belong there and succeed. I want it to succeed and succeed to me let's be really clear was to make the summit and come back down safely. That was success. And and it was belonging there.
It was I didn't want to show up like some white dude who didn't know what he's doing. I wanted to be by the time I got there. I wanted to be a real mountaineer. So that was the game I wanted to play. I wasn't interested in just showing up even if you said my you just show up you can make the summit I didn't want I didn't want to do that. I wanted to go through the transformation of not knowing anything to becoming a guide. I belong there and that's what I did. So not
people don't do it that way. And some of them make the summit some of them die some of them you know, it's a different thing. For me. This was a spiritual journey that Colin was a part of and he introduced me to John to my coach Dr. John was a was a part of and I spent the next year and a half climbing mountains Dr. John Kedrosky he was my coach. He has a great line he says train for climbing mountains by climbing mountains. So that's what we did a year and
a half a climb 71 mountains. And some of those training climbs are is my life on MS was real. And I wish that we would do things that you know, they weren't. They were obviously weren't as tall as Everest and you weren't subject to the same lack of oxygen but we did moves that were way harder than anything I do on Everest. And look at Jonica Why the fuck we had to do? Like, this is fucking crazy, like fall you die kind of
shit. You know, I say to John, like, why do we have to do this, you don't have even have to do this kind of move on Everest. He said, because when you're on summit day, and you're on that ridge, you look to your right, and there's a 10,000 foot drop. You look to your left, and there's a 10,000 foot drop, but you're on a fixed line. You're not gonna be scared. He was right. When I got on summit day, to my right is 10,000 foot drop. That 10,000 foot drop. I wasn't
scared of the heights. Out scares mother things like my toes were getting cold and other stuff. But you know, he trained for climbing mountains by climbing mountains.
I think it's incredible. You did that. And I know. On the way up, you're also passing dead bodies, people who were just there a couple of weeks before you have the same dream that you have pretty sobering. When you saw a dead body, on your way up, you probably saw a bunch of dead bodies that scare you not
didn't scare me. At the time, this may sound callous, but this is the truth. They're just in my fucking way. There's one line, and these guys, God bless them. But they're already dead. And you know, I believe in God, I don't think they're in that in that sack of skin and bones anymore. So my job was to get around them as efficiently as possible, and make sure I didn't die. So it didn't scare me. It just in my way.
So you're talking about ingredients of success. We've talked about extreme preparation, discipline, not hitting the snooze button. How important is vulnerability in our success, both accomplishing things and as a leader. And tell us about the famous Werner Hertzog quote that you love talking about so much.
No, we're in a Hertzog quote is the poet must not avert his eyes. What does that mean? That means if you're a real poet, and I extrapolate that to mean artist, artists with a capital A, that means that you're honest about both the divine and the ghastly, you got to do both. When you're an artist, you got to be honest about the things that scare you, the things that are hideous about yourself and the world. And also honest about the things that are miraculous and
beautiful about the world. And you can avert your eyes from either one. What
are three other important elements of our success? And what's your advice to everyone out there when they think about those three elements?
Number one, your smiles don't result from good things. Good things result from your smile. So what does that mean? That's like, we wait for the external circumstances of our life, to give us an excuse to be happy. But my understanding of the way the universe and life works is if we can find a way to feel how we think we would were those external circumstances the way we want them to be. Now, when we create a space for those things
to actually happen. So you don't have to wait for something to happen outside of you to be joyous, you can be joyous now. And I would argue you making that decision will make those external events happen faster. That's number one. And if I'm wrong, which I don't think I am, at least your joyous. Number two is keep going. You know what I became my mantra on the wall came from my friend Don drill. Most of us just give up way too early. And we have this saying in our society, which is it
wasn't meant to be. And yeah, most of the most of the time when we're saying it wasn't meant to be, we're really saying, fucking quitting. And so when you when you're making the decision to do something really great, you're going to be gifted opportunities to quit many times over. And those are gifts. Because if you learn to not quit, when all reasons, point to you quitting, then you'll get
the gift of possibility. You'll get the gift of transformation, you'll get to gift the liberation, you'll get the gift of living an unreasonable life. Number three is love yourself. Have you had Kamal Raava Khan, Allah?
No,
you should. He's a Cree wrote an amazing book called Love yourself, like your life depends on it. A lot of us men were type a right, we're competitive, we make shit happen go forward, right? We hear those words love yourself. And we're kind of like, fuck that I might lose my edge. You know, if I stopped beating the shit out of myself mentally, maybe I'll stop achieving. It's not true. In
fact, you achieve more. And when you start to love yourself, you start being real, honest about what's not serving you, you start being real protective of your time, start being real protective of your mission of your loved ones, and you're able to love others more, which at the end of the day, fuck everything I said, and everything in the last three hours, and we've been talking or whatever, we're here to love.
That's what a human being like the highest expression of a human being is the human being in love. loving others serving others. And the way you can do that, in an effective way is to love yourself.
You're one of the most thoughtful people that I've ever met. And I learned that from you before even meeting you. You're very insightful. You're very deep in your answers your thought process. I know you're very big into meditation. And can you talk about the importance of meditation in your life, and then your singing ball and who Charlie is.
Oh, meditation is an incredible tool. You're not your mind is really simple. You're not your mind. I mean, if you spend some time, forget about even meditating, just close your eyes right now and start observing the thoughts going through your mind. Most of them are repetitive or negative. They're not you. They're not you, human beings so much more than the mind. Because the mind what is the mind, the mind is a device that was evolved not to make you happy to make you
survive. The mind is mostly a scanning device for what might hurt us what might go wrong. And so to try to use this thing, to find happiness is sort of a fool's errand. Meditation is a way that we can observe the mind and actually shift our identity from the mind to the awareness of the mind. You're so much more than I mean, your mind is one tiny part of you. And when we learn to dwell in that new identification, that's when
magic starts to happen. That's when miracles start to happen in our lives, that's when life becomes beautiful. As we like, we're still we're still showing up, we're still honoring our commitments, but there's a space there or go hey, I'm not control. I'm in love. And So meditation is you know, it's so funny like all the secrets of life are not secrets, like the you know, the the enlightened beings Jesus Buddha, they made
it really clear. And so, yeah, meditation, whether you do have a passion to retreat, which is free. You can sign up for a 10 day vipassana retreat, or you do TM, which is mostly what I recommend other people because people tend to the people that do TM tend to stick with it. Or I've been studying recently with Krishna Ji and Prenton aji. And why I think we have one One World Academy. There's so many reef resources and different kinds of meditation. But meditation is an incredible
tool. And it's not all theory rarely is. But a lot of peer reviewed studies on the real data, proven science, proven medical benefits of meditating any, any disease that has stress as a factor, you know, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, like these are our killer top killers in the US. You meditate, you decrease your chances of it, because you're less stressed. Just make sense. And anyone can do it. Anyone can do it.
So we're getting towards the end of the show. And I appreciate you being so generous with your time I want to talk about just something real now. Because you're living in LA. You've had this crazy life, you've had all these friends when you're famous. How do you make friends when you're famous today? Are you you live on a mountaintop basically this incredible pad? Are you going out? I mean, do you have a core group of buds are people approaching you when you go out
to the supermarket? Hey, Mike, you want to have a beer with me down at father's office?
Listen, I'm blessed, you know, maybe your podcast good changes for me. But you know, I'm famous enough where I have to get a new job, I guess, you know, it's like, but I, I'm not so famous that I can't go to the farmers market or I can't go I might get recognized there. But it's not such that I can't go. And I make friends the same way we all should make friends which is with my heart. You know, and I'm blessed. My friends are the best part. One of the best parts about me. I like if I never made
another friend. I would be abundant in that area of my life. And I've been abundant in that area of my life for a long time. And I have friends. I have my only thing. We're friends not having enough time to be with all of them as much as I'd like I got friends in Pakistan, I got friends in Nepal. I got friends in Ecuador. I got I mean, I got friends. And my core group is it's incredible. You want to have a family? Absolutely. I will have a family and
our uni. Where do you go to meet women? I have a few famous friends. Well, I'm in love. So
I got my girls house. And that's it.
So let's talk about Doug Evans who again, I want to we're gonna, well, we've we've got we got to talk about entrepreneurship and sprouts. So you and Doug have a company. It's a sprouting company and what he's experiencing man like, what, what are you talking about? So what are you guys up to? And what's all the hype
about sprouts? Well, this is browse some I fell in love with something
that you eat, by the way. Yeah, those are the kinds of sprouts we're talking about right now. Yes,
sprouting is something I fell in love with doing. And the process of it is just so spiritual. So what are we actually talking about, you can grow, and one of our kits or you can make your own kid if you have the time to do so, or the wherewithal in a glass jar on your kitchen countertop. You can grow your own superfood. And the process of doing so just changes your relationship to health food and and it's a spiritual thing
for me. So it's kind of cool to have like one square foot on your countertop and to be able to grow this thing like without sunshine. It doesn't need soil, it doesn't need fertilizer, just the seeds and water. And you rent them twice a day takes like 20 seconds total of work. And like Dude, I'm a busy guy I travel like, I don't have time to have a garden. If I have a garden, it's going to die.
Right. And so sprouting is a way that I can I take my health serious, like really serious and so When you read the Health Benefits of Broccoli sprouts is kind of like miraculous, you know, doctors have treated cancer, some forms of cancer with broccoli sprouts. And I typically when I'm not traveling, I eat, you know, two to four ounces of broccoli sprouts every day. And if I grow myself is even better because
they're alive. So just from falling in love with this process, Doug had already started a company that was creating basically a comprehensive kit, because before our company had to get the seeds from somewhere yet to buy a jar from somewhere, a tarp from someplace else. So we're just trying to make it easy for people to to be healthy. And it just dovetail with my mission, we talked about the very beginning of the show, which is to help people be healthier and
happier. So the sprouting company is one way we do that we just sell the kids to grow your sprouts and just like uplevel your health,
as I call them, where can they find it?
It's called the sprouting company saying goes Brian company.com and M and E sprouts is it's good. It's good. They're like a drug. No, they give you a little buzz.
I'm gonna try it. I before I met Doug, and he was telling me about this. I've never once thought about or heard about eating sprouts. I don't remember ever eating a sprout before. But yeah. Yeah. All over. And I'm going to come back to and yeah, how I feel about that. Yeah, yeah. So before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask some more open ended questions. I call this part of my podcasts, fill in the blank to excellent say ready to play. Yes. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life
is have fun. My number one professional goal is
right now is finished my book. What's the
name of the book? And when's it coming out?
I'll have all that yet. Okay. Yeah, I gotta gotta write the mother. First. We talked about release yet do you? Like is like I wrote the first song of the album and you like, what day is it coming out? So hey, I got some more work to do. My number one personal goal is I have family. My biggest healthy and beautiful family.
Someone told me this, my friend Rick Rivera, who had kids while before my friends had kids. And he said, you'll find out the meaning of life once your first child is born. And as the understatement of the century, I have five beautiful, thankfully, healthy kids. And I live for my kids. There's nothing I wouldn't do with them, for them and every second of my life with them. I cherish that's beautiful, especially as I get older, and they don't want to hang out with you anymore.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that I very much look forward to that. More than anything else. I got some pretty lofty career goals, a lot stuff. And none of them excite me more than that. So thank you for sharing that. You're
welcome. The biggest regret in my life is
when my dad was dying, I got in a big fight with my mom, like a screaming match. And we were supposed to be creating an environment that made it safe for him to go, which was basically to say in words, but also an actions like, hey, when you die, we're going to miss you. But we're going to be okay. And when we were in that screaming match, and he could hear us we were doing the exact opposite. Where you
harmonious before he died and he was more comfortable. That yeah,
my relation, my mom is the best ever now. I mean, we were just we were both grieving. We were both scared of losing data. And we were expressing it in all the wrong ways.
My biggest fear in life is
mediocrity.
My purpose in life is I see
hear feel no, my purpose is to be a leader who unlocks the magic potential in myself and many others.
When I'm 50 years old, I'm going to be
laughing
the craziest thing that's ever happened in my life is pneumonia. The one thing that I've thought about doing for a very long time, but haven't is man
I've done I'm proud to have done most of those. I think you know, and be repetitive but like, you know, having a family again
10 years from now I'm going to be doing meaningful work. What's the one question that you wish I had asked you but didn't ask you
Oh man, you asked me a lot of questions how good can life get? How good can life get really good? How good really good man, magical, magical. And like that's coming from somebody who has had extended periods of life where I was thinking like, Can it get any worse? And it you just gotta keep going. Keep going. You've had
this remarkable life and I'm so happy to meet you in person after being a fan for such a long time and you're very deep very real guy and you've shared a lot of things personal thing deep things that I think are gonna resonate with all the people listening and watching my show today some I'm really grateful and it's just another example that anything is possible no matter where yes or life anything is possible.
That is right could be do or have anything anything.
This is the best man appreciate you so much and appreciate super appreciate it. Absolutely.