Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Diplo - Grammy Award Winning DJ: “Don't Be Afraid of Failing”
Episode Date: April 9, 2025How do you stay ahead in an industry that never stops evolving?Today, we are diving into the mind of one of the most prolific, boundary-pushing, and curious creators of our time—Diplo.Perha...ps you know him for his music career—with Grammy award winning hits and game-changing collaborations, or for headlining some of the biggest festivals in the world (including a concert in Cuba where 500,000 people showed up). Diplo has built an entire creative empire as a DJ, producer, entrepreneur, risk-taker, and cultural pioneer. The success has catapulted him into the spotlight, and that too has had its consequences.In this conversation, we explore how Diplo stays ahead of the curve in an industry that’s constantly evolving. He shares why curiosity is at the center of his creativity, how he’s learned to separate external validation from success, and why he believes mastery isn’t a destination: it is a path. __________________This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Get an exclusive deal for the Finding Mastery community at: https://nordvpn.com/findingmasterySubscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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I've always found the freedom
to just take a huge turn
and never be afraid of it.
And I think that's what always kept me
interested in music.
But that's me just being an artist.
I can go anywhere and I'm not afraid to fail.
Some projects might work,
some projects might not.
But if you believe in your vision,
you can make anything happen with music.
How do you stay ahead in an industry
that never stops evolving?
Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.
I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais.
By trade and training, a high-performance psychologist.
And today, we're diving into the mind
of one of the most prolific, boundary-pushing,
curious creators of our time, Diplo.
Perhaps you know him from his music career, with chart-topping hits and game-changing
collaborations, or for headlining some of the biggest festivals in the world.
And just to make that point, he did a concert in Cuba where 500,000 people showed up.
He built an entire creative empire as a DJ, a producer, an entrepreneur, a risk taker, and a cultural
pioneer. Obviously you're running marathons, right? I ran one full marathon. Could you imagine
running one like dosing? I did that. That's what I did. But it made me run really fast.
Are you hard on yourself? I expect more in myself, but I think that's one part of the process of
being quote unquote successful is you aim for higher than you can reach.
The success has catapulted him into the spotlight and that too has had its consequences.
When you're a musician at a high level and you're a father too at a high level and then also like a boyfriend or a husband, those three things you can't be successful at the same time.
I'm lucky to have my children because I find love with them.
Like that's pure love.
I will die for them, you know? In this conversation, we explore how Diplo stays ahead of the curve in an industry that is
constantly evolving. I was always okay with falling back and starting over again. That was
the key for me because that gives you the freedom to not have the pressure of like success, but
eventually I got it. Even today, take everything from me. I feel like I had the motivation to start
over again and build something. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Diplo.
All right. I am stoked to sit down with you. Do you want me to call you Diplo or Wes?
Oh, you can call me Wes.
Wes? Yeah. I know you as Diplo. Okay. So we're getting a little more intimate now.
Yeah. Okay, good. You know what I
want to talk to you about? I want to talk to you about three things. I want to talk about the early
experiences in your life that shaped you, that were materially important for who you are today.
I want to explore like your creative process, which I think is a really tricky thing to talk
about. And I also want to understand like, what do you hope the impact of your, your work and your music is, but to start with, help me understand your process to work
from the inside out. Like whether that's therapy or sitting down with somebody or doing that
internal work, however you might do that. I never really had therapy, but I have a lot of great
people in my life that accept me and give me, tell me what i what i'm doing and how i'm
doing and so you have truth tellers around you yeah i have a lot of people that are very critical
in a good way in a bad way so i really appreciate them yeah are you a truth teller to yourself i
think so i think i do keep a lot of lies to myself and i kind of i always do i think i'm better than
i was but i you know i have a lot of coping mechanisms that i always i'm at least i'm
absurd about them i'm not a drinker.
I don't really do that many drugs besides psychedelics.
And I don't ever find an excuse for my behavior.
I always feel like I take responsibility as much as I can for what I do and how I do it.
And then as a father, you just always feel a little bit more like you have to be
fully responsible for yourself because you have
to you have to show your kids that you're a good a good man that's kind of like my yeah okay so
let's hit with psychedelics and your dad you know those are kind of two obviously different but
maybe related i don't know but like why psychedelics as a choice for you um i think it does the least
amount of damage to my body actually you know i really try to take care of my body the way I eat.
I exercise a lot.
I go out and try to hike as much as I can.
And I think I got into psychedelics just because I want to expand the way I think a little bit.
I don't do psychedelics often.
I don't do hero doses of mushrooms or acid, but I take acid probably three or four times a week, a little microdose.
And when I go out and DJ, I take it because it helps me talk to people and be myself around
audience and fans. So you're noticing at the level of dosing that you're taking,
there is an effect? I don't even notice it anymore. You don't notice it? No. So the research
around, let's call it microdosing as a placeholder for a lot of different things, but microdosing is that what we found is microdosing plus talk therapy is this really interesting combination.
Because what's happening is that the microdose, it's not a high, there's not a trip, but it opens the aperture up just a little bit more than normally.
And then it allows you to share things
or explore things that you normally wouldn't yeah it sounds like you're doing it with you know
friends but the idea from a therapeutic standpoint is okay i haven't really talked about this but
you know i feel just a little kind of different so let's explore it yeah and then therein lies
this compounding effect which is pretty cool i found myself meeting you know i work in vegas a
lot that's one of my like most consistent jobs i travel over the world a dj but i do vegas 30 to
40 times a year and i walk through the casino i go to dinner and i go to my shows and i always
find myself running into like fans that's kind of how you you have to go through that for your shows
and i became sort of an introvert which is not my personality at all but i started to really shy away from them and like, oh, you know, I'm talking, I'm having dinner.
Like I was doing these kind of things to avoid people when they wanted to confront me.
And I think I went to one, I did do one kind of psychedelic breath work with a guy
and he really told me you need, he could tell that I was doing this kind of introvert situation.
This was about four years ago.
And after I did this thing with him where i breathe and you kind
of like spine you know your spine kind of struggles when you have like a little bit of a psychedelic
reaction from holding your breath in and i went out with this euphoric feeling and then i i started
to see myself just give a little bit of light to my fan like immediately just give them like open
my eyes to them and i just they were they took it and quickly that's all
they wanted a little bit and what i was giving them before was like oh yeah like i'm your i'm
like above you i'm like a you know i'm a celebrity or whatever and i just felt like that's not the
person that i am so i started just give everybody you know we didn't i'm like having dinner my kids
like yeah whatever you want you know it's annoying but if you need to like talk to me for a second
i'm totally whatever you need you know everybody that meets me, I started becoming more open to people.
We give what we have.
If we're anxious, frustrated, intolerant, that's what we give.
If we are open and clear and we've just got a kind of a set of abundance inside of us.
Yeah.
And when someone comes into our space, we can give that, you know, as well.
So it sounds like maybe that was a bit of a hinge experience for you. Yeah, it was. I mean, do you feel that you as well? I mean, people probably always want
to ask you information as well. Do you feel like you're always open to help somebody? That's like
your job too, I guess. That's why you decided to be this person. Yeah. Yeah. That's a cool question.
I think early in my career, it was probably something about the way I was holding myself or just like the way I was experiencing my life is people would say, yeah, man, like,
are you analyzing me?
I'm like, no, like that's a lot of work.
No, I'm not analyzing anything.
But I do get a lot of questions about like, hey, what do you think about, you know, how
do you become more calm or how do, what are the unlocks to me to live a great life?
I get that type of stuff.
And I enjoy the conversation,
but sometimes I get to a place where I'm like,
wait, that, I just need to turn off
and not constantly be in that slipstream.
But it is, imagine if like we're sitting with,
I don't know, Gandhi.
We're probably gonna talk about like-violence and we're probably
going to talk about like equality like that's what matters most to him so people that are around you
they want to talk about things that like you same with me yeah and so that part is i think part of
being fully committed to it yeah it must be crazy to feel like you're always if it's because of the
work you do you it's not you're judging you know people probably feel like- Yeah, and that's the last thing I'm doing.
Yeah, that feels like a,
I do think when you're younger,
you have this attitude of judging.
When you're a kid, you always compare yourself
to other people, at least now I see this generation,
it's all they do is look at the other kids online,
they see what they could become, what they couldn't be.
When we were younger, we only had magazines
and little ways to understand ourselves.
And it was much
easier to become a fully functioning person without comparing yourself all the time to people because
now kids aren't able to just be front or face their mirror and be themselves because there's
too many distractions so i really feel like i'm probably from the last generation where we had
an ability to become ourselves with in ourselves and now it's i don't think i'd be able to do it
anymore and i'm trying to navigate that for my son's lives.
Like how do I make them feel like they're always enough?
14, 10, and 4.
And you're trying to, I stepped on the insight,
you're trying to help them finish it.
Feel like they're enough by themselves.
You know, like I want them to always feel that they're adequate.
Like there's nothing that they need to do more to be somebody else or to find something else
because I didn't have that for my father.
My father was a great guy.
He was the sweetest guy ever,
but he showed me more love now
than he ever did when I was younger.
I travel so much, but I see my children
more than my dad in a way
because my dad had a full-time job
and he would come home, drink a natural light,
watch TV, go to bed.
It was like that.
And the weekends I did my thing. And now when I when I'm home I try to spend as much afternoons
my son even though they have an hour away from me and my son had a concert at
whiskey a go-go this Friday played like a kid's rock and roll band and I went
there before I went to some Oscar parties and um I text him afterwards I
was there by my son his mother it wasn't there just there watching the band I
text him you know you're awesome you myself. His mother was now just there watching the band. I text him, you know, you're awesome.
I love you so much.
And, you know, keep this band together.
It's hard work, but keep this band together.
And he just like hearted the conversation.
Like, I felt like so like trying to, but I, you know, the next day I'm like, you know,
I still love you.
You can give me more than a heart or whatever, but it feels crazy.
I'm trying, I am trying to work to make him, you know, feel like I'm there for you, whatever
you need and feel loved.
But then it's still a teenager. You know, you, you hit on something really important,
which is that idea that I don't need to do more to be more. I don't need to do the extraordinary
to be extraordinary. I need to flip that model. And I've heard this over and over again from
world's best is like, no, I thought I needed to do more to be something special. And then once I got all this recognition for being special, I realized that I had the model
wrong.
I need to be more.
I need to be more present, more creative, more loving, more kind, more whatever.
And then let the doing flow from that place.
And then there's this new unlock.
But the kids, to your point, and i think most people see success like the wild success
you've had like man i need to do more and i'm not saying you don't work that we us all of us don't
need to like really drop our hips and and like get into the mud of the work like that's a requirement
um it's a cool insight that you know know, true masters, they, they understand the value of
practice and that it's so invisible and it's so like not seen overtly that folks that are
not on that path go, Oh, it must be genetics or luck.
And there's always some luck in there, I think, but.
It took me a while, but it's the getting in the mud that makes me feel good.
Like the work, the process makes me feel complete in a way.
You know, it's not the accolades, the success, but actually getting out there.
Like last night, I'm a little tired because I was working in my house until probably 2 a.m.
And I had to go this morning to one of my son's, something I say, school.
And I slept in the car.
I just woke up, like had a little burrito before I got in here.
So I was just like sleeping in the back.
We just laid down in the bed.
I slept on my surfboard in the back of the SUV because because i was a little early we're trying to do this early but really
it's the grind that makes me feel complete in a way or it's not even just sludging away but i am
very lucky because i love my job and it's i i can i create my own path as a musician which is a
creator and an artist so i'm like very lucky in that aspect a lot of people have to do nine to
fives.
And if they don't love it,
I always tell them,
you just got to find something you love about it
or quit or make your own path
because you're never going to be,
it's not the success,
like the accolades of the success.
It's like, it's hopefully you're feeling
the life you're living and feeling and doing it
should be the journey
and should be the happiness you find.
You know, what's cool is
I've listened in preparation for meeting you here.
I've listened to how you speak and like the way you carry yourself. There's something a little
different than I'm feeling in this conversation that I didn't pick up in others. And if people
don't get underneath the hood for like who you are, I think they look at you and they're like,
oh, he's ripping and running. He's a wild man on stage, you know, having all this electricity in his life, which you are that like your life is pretty fast paced,
but you're pointing to like loving your kids, helping them understand how to have a good
psychology basically, and loving the work. But then I hear you say, you tell people you need
to love what you do, which I think, I think it's a little bit of a trap
because like my father-in-law, for example, and my dad, for example, they didn't love what they did,
you know, like, but they did it for a purpose. And so I, I think I'd love you to square up on this.
I think part of my job is to bring passion into every room I go to or every place I'm in
and not look for the thing that brings me passion like I love to play the guitar let's say I love
to surf and then my life is only complete when I get to do those two things and that's the good
life I don't think so I think I got to flip that on its head too when people probably ask you this
all the time but when it comes to the question of you know how can i be happier i'm sure you get this kind of question all the time from people you talk to that's right
and is it do you think that is a trap because is it the work to be happy doesn't really make
sense it's like almost something else you have to find is that what you're trying to say because i
think that it is a lot of people work so hard like oh if i get enough money for my job whatever it is
then it's good but then i don't have any children at home i don't have a girlfriend or what's my passion really you know
because you're right it isn't that way i i guess i'm a little lucky because i i found something
that i can do every day that i wake up and i'm like okay my accomplishments are are something
that i created i own so it's a lot easier for me to say that than if i worked at subway which is
my first job,
and I was working to make them more money
or whatever my typical job would be.
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My first job was at a gas station pumping gas. And I want to go to the subway thing and i'll use my mapping of
like pumping gas because when you were at subway what like what was your psychology there um i
worked at subway on orange avenue in orlando and um you're 16 15 17 probably just getting out of
high school going to college i had other jobs before that was like my first job where i was
in i was in school i before that worked at shoney's and i worked at like a coffee shop
in fazoli's just for feet at the rivergate mall um every kind of shitty job you could have were
you a mall rat yeah no the ball the mall used to be a happening place yeah right i don't know
that culture is gone but it was a great experience back then it was the internet for us we went to
the mall and saw your friends what you were wearing whatever the arcade the arcade was great but just repeat was a great place the shoe store it had a
basketball court so people came there trying shoes and they were able to like play ball and i would
play ball but they had this playlist that was on eight songs in a loop and i was always asking can
you guys change this this is before like spotify and like you had radio and you could buy your
music for a store and it was these disco hits like shake your boo thing and like funky it was like these 10 songs
that i asked the manager once like why are these songs always playing they're like this is a cd
that we got because it's supposed to make everybody who comes in here happy these are like the eight
songs that are like the happiest most euphoric like it was like this kind of bad disco and i
was the first kind of me thinking like oh i guess this music actually the marketing and all this
kind of makes sense i'll tie it in together but i remember that from just for feet but you weren't
switched on to music before that i always wanted to make music but i never was good at guitar i
never was like passionate for drums and i didn't really have the discipline to learn an instrument
well until i was older till i after probably 23 24 is like my real moment where i've decided
it's all or nothing you know but before that it was sort of a hobby and then after college I was doing little odd jobs and making things and then I started to understand
what how I could be successful in music okay so you said I didn't have the discipline is that code
for like I had some ADD or like my life was so unstructured or I didn't find something that was
compelling or interesting because obviously you've got a big motor. Look at what you've done. I think I just didn't find what I loved or what I was,
I couldn't find my passion yet. And my father was a very, like you said, your, your, your father
worked a lot, but never was happy. My father did end up finding like love and work. He, he's 76
and he went back to a hospital, have a job right now just cause he needs something to do and he just i was like why are you doing that dad you don't need to do this
and he's like i just i love going to work in the morning in the you know leaving if he's not there
he's outside in the lawn like he goes up and he wakes up and mows the lawn he has to have purpose
you know so my father is a vietnam vet he went to college the only person to go to college to
my mother my father whole family my mother's to a mother, my father, whole family.
My mother's from a family of eight.
My father's from a family of four.
And he's the only person to go to college because he used the GI Bill after leaving Vietnam.
And he went to college in his mid-20s.
So he was like, this is an opportunity.
I'm going to take advantage of what I got out of going to the war.
And then he went to college, left, worked at hospitals.
And I didn't realize this until I was older,
but he was a very disciplinary
father like and I was a chaotic kid I was just absolutely terrible but one of the gifts he gave
me and I don't think he knows it is that because of his job he moved every two years so I went
to a middle school in Fort Lauderdale then I went to a high school there then we moved to Virginia
for a year then we went to Nashville for two years and I went back to college it was high
school for my last year at a whole other school.
Then I went to the University of Central Florida, then Temple, then here.
But every year I changed high schools and I never fell into a social scene.
So I became very independent minded to the point where I could just be dropped anywhere.
And I think that was a gift that I, you can't teach that to somebody.
You know, I love that because I've never talked about this publicly, but my parents moved a bunch as well during middle school and high school.
So much so that they moved me the kind of the middle of my freshman year.
That's not a good strategy, right?
It's kind of what happened to my kids in COVID.
They had to just leave school when they were just turning to become a person.
Three days in, my parents were like, well, so how is it? I got in a fight each day that I was there.
And I was like, yeah, it's good. Like, I didn't know how to like explain, like,
you guys like, this is a hard one.
This is in California.
Yeah, in LA. And so the point though, is like, it taught me there's some resilience in there.
There's some social IQ that's's in there like it's sink or
swim you've got to figure some things out when you don't know people i think an emotional iq too
yeah because you have to deal with people and we used to go to school early in fort lauderdale to
fight we would go there like an hour before school started to get the fights out of the way so we
didn't have to fight during school it taught me a lot and surfing we both grew up surfing
it teaches you a lot as well what What did you learn from adventure sports?
I loved basketball when I was growing up, but I never was.
I practiced a lot.
I tried to play a lot, but I never was excelling.
I never had the genetics for that.
But skateboarding and surfing, it didn't matter if you're good or not
because it's really a personal achievement thing.
And that's the best kind of sport.
You can just do it on your own.
It's about your style and your movement. and surfing is a lot more forgiving because you land
in the water skateboarding i try to do it again when i was like a little older it's just the worst
skin on the asphalt crazy what the kids do that yeah but surfing it was just about you it's not
really competitive and i'm such a competitive person so it's probably the one thing that you
did where you're competing with yourself. Not in a negative way,
but just in like, I want to get better at this.
I want to be able to do a bottom turn.
I want to be able to go places and surf better
and be faster and run down the line.
So do you bring that competitiveness into,
so you didn't use it in surfing or other places,
or maybe you didn't know how to harness the competitiveness,
but is that part of the fuel for how you've created so much?
Oh my God, if you take me to yoga class, I'm trying to defeat everybody like barry's boot camp that's
exactly what yoga's for yeah i'm the only competitive yoga person and i'm looking at
every guy in there i'm like you're not doing and i'm sweating more than i'm like really
i invited these two girls to yoga class i'm like i'm gonna win
one on sunday and i was like they're like they're dancers i'm like well i could probably do a split
like you guys and it was yeah for me every i like to go to the classes instead of working on a home
because i do love the energy of you're not supposed to compete but i do and do you compete
in music as well a hundred percent so and so are you competing to be your best or the best now it's
i think it's to be my best because i'm doing something so unique but before you're in the
rat race no matter what you are yeah when you're coming up you just like look around and you're you're more influenced because it's still it's it's art it's not a real
pure competitive thing because everybody is really has their own ingenuity and their own in their own
aura and their own independence but i do see the people around me i'm like oh i saw how he did that
i can do that and do this add this to it you know like probably you know lebron watching jordan and
saying like oh i think you're watching bird you take some pieces and are you competing for
eyeballs downloads attention you you want to hit you need to compete for that but that's where you
break down that's not a pleasant or encouraging way to compete for the views and the algorithm
that you're never gonna win that that is where you i did get caught up in that over the last
i was wondering if i was gonna walk you down a trap but no it's no
100 i do feel that way and you know i can see your social status kind of depends when you're
a musician or actor whatever people think it depends on your your viewership and your how
much engagement you get and that is not a good way to think about it because you can go away for a
while like now i'm like kind of dipping down some working i'm not touring as much i took off this year to really work on music and
have a year where i can have a better product for people are you a creator or you like creator
artist or are you competitor i would damn i have to i mix it up i feel like i have to because that's
what motivates me i do so you can switch mindsets yeah i do you do
okay there's a couple there's i mean i work in so many types of genres from like proper dance
hall in jamaica to the edm and dance scene to country music i've had success in all those and
then independently with something like you know making lsd was a project with sia and labyrinth
like that's a more of a pop album so i've done you know worked on beyonce's worked on big pop records and i've always found um
the freedom to just take a huge turn and never be afraid of it and i think that's what always kept
me interested in music and kept me inspirational and motivated but that can that's me just being
an artist like i can go anywhere and I'm not afraid to fail
you know because my film projects might work some projects might might not but the ones that
are really unique do end up working and people don't believe in them but if you believe in your
vision see it through you can make anything happen with music I mean you can totally take a left turn
but you have to like really do your due diligence understand what you're doing and put forth like the work for that and
understand it in 2025 i would say half 80 of music is being an anr in your brain or being
thinking about marketing thinking about how to reach people because if you don't reach people
you don't actually get the music heard because we're in a place where you know 98 of all the
music on spotify has like less than 100 plays
you don't realize i always see the today's top hits no songs but there's just so much music and
when we were younger the path to be a musician was so complicated and such a a hill to climb
that it really weeded out the people that didn't belong there that weren't that weren't that didn't
take it seriously to what now anybody can do it and you just get your 15 minutes of a moment and
you don't,
you kind of go away.
Only a few people stick around.
And I feel like lucky to be one of those people because I kind of always
change it up.
And like I utilize both what you said,
being competitive and also being artists,
being creative,
competing to be your best,
but it was a time to be the best.
Yeah.
The artist part is the creative mindset that you have.
And what does that rest
on for you because a lot of times artists will say look i don't know i'm really just i'm really
scratchy inside like i've just got an irritation and agitation and like i just got to get it out
you know like that traumatized artist narrative it doesn't that doesn't fit you it doesn't there
must be a little bit of inside of
me but almost everybody i work with has that you know like whether it's yeah the skrillex or the
sierra or the labyrinth or a lot of djs don't because we kind of came up out of we want to
just be famous and be out there we're not a singer songwriter but i do treat my life as i want to be
known as a creator a real artist a real producer a real musician that writes
the lyrics and the music but a lot of djs don't they just want to be famous immediately they want
to go sell a lot of tickets and happy on stage there's not a lot of art to dj um whoa 100
there's no it's not that it's not that hard there's a few guys that say like oh they're the
real artists the ones that really change the game like whether it's grandmaster flash or cool herk
or you know black coffee or solomon guys who are older that really like maneuvered their way in
in in change the way the the scene moves that's ones who really pushed the needle there's not
that many of us but i like to be in the mix of both like i like to work with artists new artists
young people and finally know whether it was like little peep or xxx temptation before they passed
away i was one of their mentors when they first started.
Or like a young producer that I find.
And I'm like, wow, you really are special.
Like you can do more than just this.
You don't have to work towards being a DJ.
You can do something bigger.
What makes someone, we can start with you,
or someone that we can do one degree of separation. Like when you see something special,
because I want to understand, you got a spark about you.
You got a huge motor.
I'm starting to understand kind of how you're working.
But when you see special, what does that mean for you?
I think the bottom line is just there's people who just have ideas that you're like, oh, wow, where'd that come from?
Because we're on this sort of AI plane now where everything's kind of a rehash even in our own
brains we have just so much information antiquated and then we put it out but it's almost like
you know eventually ai is going to keep eating itself although information it always it always
puts out it's hard to find someone that just comes with an idea like wow i never heard of that but
some people do present that whether it's music or their plan what they want to do or their ideas that's one side of
it the other side of it is when they have this personality that's just so big and that's the
most powerful thing that's really hard to find now because you have to have both you have to have a
big personality and then you have to have the attitude and you have to have the perseverance
because it's really tough to have all the cameras on you all the opinions on you have to be tough
because i can get rid of people.
That takes out like 90% of the people.
They can't handle that.
It's cool that you said that because we kind of introduced a concept
called FOPO, fear of people's opinions,
as being the greatest constrictor to potential.
As soon as you're trying to manage what everyone around you
is thinking about you, you're no longer even close to the signal of creativity.
You're in the ocean of the noise.
And so I appreciate that you said that.
You really have to find out what opinions matter.
Because some of them do.
For me right now, it was a lot more, you know, I've done it in the beginning.
I just did it.
I was such a renegade.
And, you know, I was one of the first guys on Twitter.
And I was just talking all this shit. And I was just like didn't care i love the fact that
i had a platform and then of course that always people don't understand sarcasm sometimes you
know it can go the wrong way but these days then i had a period where i was like okay i gotta beat
everybody else in an engagement and i gotta have more streams i need to have more music
and then i if it doesn't hit then you you're depressed, you're sad, you know?
So that's not the way to do it either. At this age, I'm like, okay, I find my success in little
pockets, but I do want to really make people think I'm doing great. Whether it's my children,
my son's mothers, my close friends, my management, I do trust them. And those are the opinions that
matter. The rest of them, I do try to drown them out. You know, sometimes I sometimes i listen but you need to be aware but you need to know what matters and what doesn't
and most like 90 of it doesn't matter at all wait what did you just say like i want them to
think or to know that i'm doing okay this is cool if you can go there what do you really
really want from your people i think that they give me a guide that helps me know i went this way or you know i
drop an idea or like i don't know if you do that right or doing this wrong or there are opinions
that matter to me and that's like i said my children's opinions like i want them to be like
okay dad's awesome you know or like he's i'm proud of him and i'm like you know i don't want them to ever feel
like i had a misstep or like you know i or if but you do i do 100 yeah and i they don't even know
they're not even on the internet which is lucky my son's 14 he got his first phone now yeah and so
i feel like that was a gift that his mother really i was trying to get him on a phone earlier i was
like look at this cool stuff and this and i'm, so happy that he never did that until he was 14.
My other sons don't have phones at all.
Like they just are like analog.
I think that was key to their,
their growth.
Their brain of chance.
Wait,
wait.
Okay.
So what do you really,
really want in your life?
I want to,
I guess,
leave a legacy.
That's that creates something that wasn't there before,
you know, and a legacy is for other creates something that wasn't there before you know and
a legacy is for other people to see you i think so but i also feel great when i create something
and i'm like i left that behind because but you didn't say that but i think that's what legacy is
that's so it's not just about what what wikipedia page says i want it to be okay but that's different
so legacy is like i want to leave something that endures yeah i want
to leave my signature in this time that i spent here and the reason that you leave the signature
so other people bounce off of it they see it they recognize maybe it's you or the art which is cool
no no issues but for but you didn't say what i really really want want. I want to know that I'm okay. What do you really, really want?
I just want to get to my magic or I want to express these feelings and ideas that I have
through notes and words or whatever. You didn't go that way, and there's no critique or judgment,
but maybe there's a way that as I give a little bit more range, you circle back.
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at FelixGray.com for 20% off. This might seem more egotistical, but I do, when I started to create,
I wanted to be a writer first
i wanted to write i was really obsessed with william faulkner i was obsessed with southern
writers because that was my my last year of high school i was like i was like at a fourth high
school i went to like probably at 90 black high school in daytona because it was the only one
with computers and i wanted to drive an hour to get there because it was the one that i wanted
to learn about computers it was the one that had you know icq chats and like we're able to use photoshop early on this is 1997. but
really in that county there's only one school that had computers so i went there and i went to a
creative writing class that i just added and the teacher was just so awesome and really showed me
that even being from the south being from from Florida, you know, Mississippi,
Alabama, the places I lived, there was great writers from there. And I was, I started getting
to Zora Neale Hurston and William Faulkner and Southern writers that I learned were like,
took it seriously. Like they won Nobel prizes. And I didn't feel, I always felt like we're not,
we didn't do enough in Florida. We didn't, we didn't have this thing. So that gave me this, I was like, I want to be a writer like this.
I want to leave something behind about where I'm from.
And I became obsessed with, you know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who also wrote a lot of books
that was influenced by William Faulkner.
I was into magical realism.
And I remember that was the beginning of me thinking, this is something I can do that's
unique because I'm from here and I have these stories.
I grew up in the swamps and I grew up in these places that are unique and then i took that and i was like
i'm special because i have this story to tell and then i went through all my life small things
having jobs at subway whatever and still trying to think about that but learning more like music
is interesting too how can i do something in this format and then i became like a dj but more like a
scratch dj that was like my art and then i moved on to philadelphia and it was like a tougher city a tougher life
hard to get away people were on drugs my friends were it was more of like a real raw place and
that's where i really started to grind and feel like okay what can i do but i didn't it was i
still wasn't convinced i was good enough to be a creator it doesn't my family didn't come from that we my
if i told my dad i was wanting to be an artist he would have been like okay well you're going
to be an accountant anyway whatever do whatever you want to do but it's not real life um and then
how'd you break through that i think you just didn't say it you didn't bring it forward no he
also kind of let me i was such a problem child younger he was like just happy that I was starting to like get get along with my life
Like I wasn't always make a problem that school and fighting and stealing and things like this. So I finally
He he helped me a little bit in Philadelphia and then I ran out of money
I couldn't really figure out what to do
I went back to Florida at like 23 and I worked for my dad at his bait shop
He was like a bait shop and a fishing kind of camp
where you park your boat.
He owned it or he worked?
He owned it.
He switched from the hospital to,
he bought like an old bait shop
and he was a shrimp, he had a shrimp boat
and he would catch shrimp every night
when it was a full moon
and I started working the boat.
So I wake up at three in the morning,
I caught shrimp.
I did this for like four months,
lived in the back house of my dad's.
And I think right then it was like,
I was like, this is the other life that I was gonna live and do I want to be creator?
Cuz then now I know what I have to do to do this, right? And so I went from Florida
Back to Philly and I gave it another chance and I really persevered
That was my my motivation from a young person to figure out how to like break through and I was like no matter what I
Got this tattoo mom. I was like this was like 19 i got this and i was like you know what this
is this logo i made this is this creator i made this is the diplo logo and i remember seeing
myself stegosaurus it's a diplodocus it's like another dinosaur but i got this tattoo it was
like 15 bucks somewhere in philly and then i remember thinking to myself if i don't make it
i have to look at this every day and be like what what i do wrong so this like i think this is a mark i gave myself that said this
is like what i want to do this is what i want to believe in and i worked so hard and i started to
do all the things that weren't just being a creator weren't just being artists like the
business side learning how to handle like you know distribution so all these things i learned from
living in philadelphia and then i applied it and that's what i started to be successful so what does the mark signify it
signifies like this is this is my dream you know so when you look at it it's a trigger at a cue
like stay true to the dream exactly and the dream is to i want to i want to be a creator okay and so
yeah like i was wondering okay so we'll circle back to legacy as part of your framework here.
But I was wondering, like, if your dad was like, yeah, you're going to be an accountant kid, like, fine, but have something to fall back on that's reasonable.
Sounds like a practical, you know, approach.
But you did bring that forward.
You did say that out loud yet the risk
of somebody or him or others saying, come on, or did you keep it private? And it was more like,
look, I got to figure this thing out. I kept it private until I actually made money.
You know? Yeah. So it was a little safer to bring it forward. I always had some evidence.
At some point in my life, i always felt that if all my records
everything burned down my computer exploded whatever i used to create if all my tools were
gone i could go back to sparrow's pizzeria at the mall and start over again maybe i'll be a
chair maker or a pizza maker i was always like you know what i am i could do whatever you know
i always felt this wait wait wait wait that okay You're right at the center of the whole thing.
Let's say it in my terms is that you had a running script that no matter how this thing
goes, I'm going to figure it out.
Yeah.
Right.
And then how did you say it?
That's how I said it.
But how did you uniquely say it?
I was always okay with falling back and starting over again.
And that was the key for me because
that gives you the freedom to not have the pressure of like success but eventually i i got it you know
but i always felt like no matter what you take everything from me even today you know i have my
children now so it's different but if you took everything and just like okay i'm starting a tent
city or whatever here i would i would i feel like i had the motivation to start over again and build something. Is that because you feel powerful?
Not like I dominate, but is it like, no, I've got a resilience, a scrappiness.
I can assess and I can apply myself and I'll figure out the next step.
Is there an internal sense of power?
If the power is problem solving, yeah, maybe that is it.
Because I think that's unique. I was always able maybe that is it yeah because i think that's
unique i was always able to figure out if this is a that's b damn this is a straight line but
yeah i gotta go around i gotta figure it out like i can't make that line i can't get there it's not
that that jump's not so easy but i was able to find out how to move my way to get to the goals
and is that is does that rest on a curiosity?
I think so.
Like, how do is it a curious mindset? Like, OK, I see A and B.
How am I going to figure this thing out?
What are the pieces I need?
Or is it more like something else?
I think at the end of the day, the goal might not even be reachable, you know, but I think
the journey was what I was really into as well
so that was what at the end of the day you know when you first read on the road by jack kerouac
which is another book that i loved as a young person i was like obsessed with his life you
know being a hobo and then going to like working in the farm whatever he did he just lived a life
that was built maybe another not legacy in the sense of like what you've accomplished but a legacy in
what you've experienced and so from a young age i started traveling and doing things that were
super crazy and super chaotic because that gave me the power to feel like i'm invincible in a way
there's there's a pioneer spirit in you somewhere so it does that rest on curiosity
go back to that word again or does that rest on something else that rests on curiosity? Go back to that word again. Or does that rest on something else? That rests on curiosity, for sure.
And what are you curious about?
Well, my first major was anthropology at Temple University in Philadelphia.
So I was obsessed with what is culture when you break it down?
Because as a musician, going back to my first inspiration to be a writer,
to be into these Southern writers,
I had to break down, who am I?
What is my culture?
Where did I come from?
What does it matter to my parents, to my father?
And I was always like, okay, this is who I am.
And I want to know why are there cargo cults in Papua New Guinea?
Whatever the hell it is, I had learned about what creates culture.
Why are there different religions?
Why do people believe different ways? When you go to school for anthropology,
you really break down what it means to be a human
So I applied that as like I want to explore I want to see more I want to see what people do what people are and I got it
I got into different faiths like I was a Baha'i guy for a while, you know was like
Homeless basically going to temple to temple getting free food and being like, all right, this is cool
But it's a bit weird and I was in the rainbow gatherings
That was like a basically Burning Man for criminals and homeless people and i was doing that
and then i was like riding on trains and i was doing graffiti and i was like just finding
anything just just kind of like being kind of like an outlaw just kind of like running around
and how does curiosity impact the way that you create in music because it's completely elevates me as i'm always inspired
you know every day i find something new and i find something so new in the bottom of the internet now
where people think it's just just it's all trash and given to us but i find so much beauty in the
in the random things you know like the small things that you would the people don't don't
explore anymore you know i think there is creation and inspiration everywhere.
In AI and the weird things that people are creating,
I'm always like, okay, we're pushing it forward.
We keep pushing it forward.
Everybody has a culture as humans
and what can I do more to be part of the conversation?
How does your inner life shape itself to stay curious
or to be curious consistently?
When you listen to a music, a piece of music,
or when you see a bit of art,
or when you're listening to someone talk,
what's happening inside that is the experience of curiosity?
That's a good question.
I guess I have a spongy personality,
so I'm always wanting to absorb more things.
So when I do look at art or I do listen to music,
I go back to like, why is it like this?
Like back to the anthropology in my mind.
Or it could be more like a data analyst
because that's kind of what you do as musicians now.
We have to follow the algorithm in a way.
We don't want to, but we know that that's where
it pushes the audience and the people.
But as like just a student,
and I feel like I'm always a student, you know,
that's the main thing.
I'm never – when I first got invited to this podcast, they're like, it's about mastery.
I'm like, well, I'm never going to – that's the one thing I know I'll never reach, but that's the beauty of it.
So I was like, I don't have a lot to tell you about mastery because my process is always happening.
It's never finished.
I'm never going to be – at one point, Bob Dylan Dylan you're playing him earlier I was the bathroom was like I saw the movie
I was like one point Bob Dylan can't put his guitar away because he did change the
Whole way to the world. I'm never gonna feel that way because I'm always in a constant movement
I'm still part. I'm still learning and I've never
Felt like I had this
Accomplishments never were great enough for me yet, yet you know it's not like i'm hungry for
them all but they don't matter because i want to do more you know um how do you think about mastery
i mean i think the word just makes me think of like gandalf or something i don't know like i
don't know if i'm ever gonna be this wizard it's like something it's a higher echelon it's like
buddha it feels like that word is so it's the apex i don't know if there's two is it people reach
that do you know do you ever met anybody of your podcast it's like that's the real one master who
was the guy i'm gonna leave it off the conversation right yeah because it was out of like 600
conversations about like mastery um one person was like yeah i i i'm the one. Did you believe him? I believe that he believed it.
Maybe that's it.
Everybody else though has said, no, I'm on the path.
Like I'm trying to figure it out.
And so, you know, there's a different way you shape your life
when you're in pursuit of unlocking.
And I'm more interested in not like what it is,
but is it more about mastery of self or more
about mastery of craft and how do you organize your day to keep growing and it sounds like
curiosity or a curious mindset is part of the foundation for you well i definitely put in my
i think it was maybe malcolm gladwell was the one who said you need 10,000 hours is like when you've yeah that that rests on Dr. Eric Erickson's work and he pointed to more like 17,000 oh shit well I would
say I'm like 12 when it comes to maybe the DJing side of it really yeah I don't know I probably
had seven shit I've been doing it for 25 years it's got to be yeah it's got to be up there yeah
but I don't know if that's that cool like to master like the dj side of it but that's
just because that's where i've i found a niche where i was able to really excel you know people
know me as like the dj the producer i know in my head i do so much more but i know that that was
where i'm gonna make the money and get the capital to make my other dreams come true i was always
aware of that there's a funny you're djing on a regular basis now yeah i mean i'm not like i told you i took this year like i took it down from 200 to about 45 shows um to create more but i'm still
finding myself like i'm going tonight to a party here in orange county and um more more corporate
events more networking events than it was just like on the grind from tulum to to brazil for
carnival which is happening right now to ibizaiza for the summer, back to, you know, Japan for the, it's always a circuit to the apres skis.
Like if you really are in the grind, it's, you literally have every weekend is an event for a DJ.
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Now I'm going to switch to business just for a minute because you have a good business mind.
You got a great creative motor and it's built on curiosity. It sounds like there's a purpose
that's aligned for it. You're strong in your character values, like the way that you've
orientated and guide your life, your small decisions, big decisions. And I'm wondering
if you have figured out a way,
it's like a piggyback experience where you've got this core,
let's call it the hub.
And then you're adding these different spokes as you travel,
as you are exploring,
like have you organized your life that way to capitalize on or leverage the,
the true art, the thing that makes uh the whole thing run you need a team
okay so you need a team and i think one thing that was probably special about the way i came
up is that i didn't have any manager until i was about 29 years old which everybody kind of needs
a manager or someone to put a put i didn't pay taxes until i was like 29 it was just i was just
bootlegging my business model was crazy i was making mixtapes i was going to new jersey and printing them for
45 cents selling them seven dollars a piece and i made i was making money on my own music
bootlegging this is pre-spotify but post labels kind of deconstructing themselves
and i made so much money i was able to buy a house at like 28 years old. I bought like a building in Philadelphia
because I'm just doing bootleg.
I'm traveling.
I'm like not paying taxes.
I'm getting paid cash.
Yeah, so CDs out of your trunk.
Yeah, I was doing that.
That was the business model.
I was just like a hustler going like driving around
to New York, to New Jersey, to different record shops,
sending cases to Australia,
wherever they were buying these things
because I was using the internet in a very positive way too.
I was on message boards, sharing my music and people wanted the cd they wanted you could buy it at urban outfitters or whatever shop would just be like we want this
put in the front so i was selling mixtapes out the back and then i knew how i was doing it and this
guy became interested in what i was doing he came from uh the in i would say like the sub pop kind
of indie hardcore scene.
And he knew how these guys were making their own buttons and CDs.
And he's like, look to me as a DJ.
And he said, we're going to put you in these rock venues.
We're going to take you on a tour.
And, you know, I will do this for you for as long as you know that you can believe in me.
And he worked for free for about seven months.
His name was Kevin Kusatsu.
And he ended up starting another management
company and we don't work together anymore but he was a great pioneer visionary guy and he worked
with me for free and he made me pay my first taxes which sucked and put that thing together
and then eventually his company which some of the people you met today i worked for them um i've
been with them since the beginning but they they were able to move the way i move which is not just
like how many clubs can i
do it's like how can we do a running club how can we sell merch how can we sell shoes how can we
go to space like whatever the thing is they're able to help me with that so the team
i'll leave a lot of that for them now but from the beginning i knew how to operate that way
so when it came to them doing it i was like okay you guys got to do it this way so if you're a
young person and you want to be creator and you want to find that business side and you're just purely a creator you need to find someone in the background
to do handle the oversight whatever it is logistics because that is you mess that up it's just going
to be a you're going to waste three years four years and then start over again i mean it's really
hard to get that the business and the creative side it's really tough business yeah it is it's
100 is and if you don't understand that it's intertwined and 90 of it is business you're not going to be successful at all
and that's the part that sucks because that's like not what you that's not the dreamy part of
being a creator it's not having your knowing all the gallerists if you're an artist or knowing the
people at spotify or the people that it's not you don't think that's what it is but it is
it is those people those contacts and having a personality and being social.
One of those people to interact with you and bringing them to you and being comfortable in those situations.
Relationships run the show.
100%.
Yeah.
And when you think about how it is that you're able to be a great teammate, a great partner, What makes a great teammate in your mind? I find myself having leadership qualities because I'm like running me as a business and a brand.
But I think the teammate side of it comes from having a family for me.
Are you a good teammate?
I'm not that great a teammate, but I'm learning more now. You know, I feel like
even just for my partners, my son's mother is like
making sure they're always like i'm lucky that they're just great women and they're they're
always keeping me online but it's important for them to always feel comfort and secure even though
i'm not married or anything because having children is having a father like bringing this
back again is probably the the hardest thing i've ever done as far as like being you can't be
successful it's not like a goal oriented which i'm really used to you know you kind of have to just
be try to be the the best motivator and the best person without overstepping that the line where
you're just being kind of annoying and like i said the one thing i i've learned is i want my kids to
honestly feel like they're always enough like they're can do anything, that they have the capabilities.
I want them to understand that.
But as a father and a partner in that world, I'm learning every day.
Like I'm not a good boyfriend, never have been.
I could really learn how to do that.
It's probably my next goal.
Publicly, you've had some messy relations.
I have.
Yeah.
I think that when you're a musician at a high level and you're a father too at high level
and then also like a boyfriend or a husband it's like very those three things you can't be
successful at the same time i kind of like always just try to do the two of them whether it's like
my as a father and as like i excelling as a musician when it comes to relationships you
know i think i'm lucky to have my children because i find love with them like
that's pure love the kids i have i look at them and i'm like that's i will die for them you know
i've never felt that way with a woman yet or where i'm like i give them everything but my children i
would and i think that's what i need to find eventually maybe i'm too selfish to i'm living
my own life and i'm always moving forward that i can't. Also, my lifestyle doesn't really, it's not,
it doesn't make me available to be a partner.
This is an important part of you, this part of being a dad,
being great for your loved ones.
The animation of love or the spirit of love is important.
Do you create from that place or do you create from something more technical
more um cognitive i think i i do both and i say this this might sound silly to you but when i
first started being a musician this is anybody who wants to be a musician or athlete you're motivated
by women or like by by the attention of the we know the other person whether it's a man or you
always you it is attractive and it is it's it's addictive too to like have the attention of people and to be liked and that was by far the
first motivation 100 then as i got good at it i realized people were taking me seriously as
as like a creator which i never thought they would but then it helped to inspire a lot of
young people i've had some of the most amazing girlfriends and people that have changed my life
maybe that's why i could never have a girlfriend because i always i'm always chasing i'm curious I've had some of the most amazing girlfriends and people that have changed my life.
Maybe that's why I can never have a girlfriend because I always,
I'm always chasing.
I'm curious.
I'm always chasing experiences.
So one of your strengths is curiosity.
You do explore.
You wonder like,
how did that happen?
What,
what led to this?
That's interesting.
Tell me more,
show me more.
Yeah.
Okay.
So rounding kind of the last space here is how do you hope people are different from your music well a lot of times you're it takes a lot of time to realize the
influence you've had you know when you're in the middle of making it it doesn't you don't know
what's happening you know when you're a musician you want to be in the studio and you want to finish
a song and you want it to give you goosebumps you know that's like an experience i've only had like four or five times when i'm
like finishing something i'm like wow this is like special and above probably the 10 000 songs
i've made i've only released like a couple hundred of them um and have those hundred original songs
like things that you composed yeah yeah not the djing not the kind of yeah i would say like the
the house records you know i've
i've probably put out like 20 albums you know between like the different projects i've had
um and then different singles but i you know it's a couple hundred songs but i've made over
10 000 songs that never got released or never felt like they were complete or they're great and i
couldn't put the feature out whatever it is there's different like politics and music but um
sometimes you think things hit and you don't really realize it and then you come back and put the feature out whatever it is there's different like politics and music but um sometimes
you think things hit and you don't really realize it and then you come back and then like 10 years
later like paper planes is the record i do with mia and it became a huge record this last year
when we made that i do feel like wow we were like i was in love with her as well like there was magic
that happened between that making that song and um it's crazy to think that another generation got to hear it 15 years later.
So that is important.
I mean, it's not important, but it's very cool.
It makes me feel great.
That makes me feel happy.
Maybe it makes me feel more egotistical or whatever,
but that's kind of what I am chasing.
Is that a bad thing?
No.
It could go a lot of ways.
It could be just all for yourself, and it could be not that.
It could be like, no, I really like that idea that people have an experience of something that organically sprung from me. the skills, and then to widen the aperture so much that, you know, when this thing came forward,
that my skills were able to capture it in a way and share it, a la produce it. And it can be
selfish. You know, there's a, there's a probably a fine line in there for all of us to sort out.
I think if I did have a wife or something, I think back to this, something would die inside of me
that like, that is intricate into what i do as a creator
which sucks because i mean anybody any girl that watches this hope they don't like think that that's
i'm totally useless in that world but it's it is scary like one day i want to find like a person
to share like experiences with lives now i like share with a lot of different people i think like
at some point it might be just the next most important thing in your life is the idea to go
deep and to really have like a partner that completely knows you and your commitment is
to completely know them to your best ability and there's i mean we're born into this world
once we come out of the womb there's a there's an aleness to that, and we end in aloneness as well.
I don't think that anyone can fully know another person completely.
It's too mysterious.
It's too complicated.
But to make that commitment to really understand and embrace
in a bidirectional way, there's something really special about that.
Yeah. really special about that yeah well there's a really complex uh part of yourself that you have
to give away that not you know but i'm also don't know if i fully know myself still you know and i'm
sure you probably always think the same thing like you're constantly i'm becoming something
different every every year i feel like on purpose and also because I'm changing I'm learning but maybe I need to know myself to the fullest level before I can give it to somebody
else too I you know yes and I think there you you yeah there's probably that that'll probably keep
you staying on the surface like you you can you can give what you have you know there's a
vulnerability required to it and I do think I totally hear that thought that you're like, I'm afraid if I do that, uh, what's worked is not that
and it's working pretty damn good. So if I were to change it up and this is what we talk about with
elite athletes all the time, what got you here? What got you as an Olympian? What got you to the
gold medal podium? And you know, the gold medal around your neck is not going what got you to the gold medal podium? And the gold medal around your neck
is not going to get you to the next gold medal.
Like there's something to let go of
to grab that new quote unquote vine.
And that vulnerability, that risk taking
is really tricky to do.
There is a new way I think now,
that's something that I've tried to experience
is that I open my eyes in a way now
that I want to see things like a baby. You know, I kind of think I'm 46. I just there's a there's
a part of me that. Like I said, when I was introverted during my career, a lot people
didn't realize that, but I was because I was, you know, success kind of forces you into that a lot
of times. But now I want to find a way to open my eyes in a way that the world's different, too, to me.
Because I think that's something that you don't, people don't realize.
You get in a routine and things become, even in my life, traveling to Dubai or wherever it is, it becomes routine.
I've seen the whole world, but it becomes routine.
So there's another way to open your eyes and your heart. And I'm learning to do
too. That probably is that next logical step to having what you're saying.
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Like the Dalai Lama and Buddha, they've got this idea that the beginner's mind is the ultimate attainment of mind.
And the curiosity that you anchor from is exactly that.
But you're adding a little twist of innocence to it like the you know the that that infant baby kind of like magical wonderment is something that i hear you you're you're playing with i've got a set of
questions okay one word two word maybe three word answers it all comes down to oh that's a question
um damn can you can you stay inspired you know what does it take to always because that's man i guess
that gets me up in the morning is what else am i gonna learn today what else am i gonna feel that's
i didn't feel yesterday you know success is honestly it's unattainable in the way people
think about it if i could sit with a master i would sit with man they're so boring
but if i had to choose one this is dead or alive yeah probably jesus and the one question i would
ask would be well what is this what's going on like what's the what's the point man what are
we doing here what are we doing here yeah what's good what is the point bro could you imagine like
obviously you're running marathons right i ran what is the point bro could you imagine like obviously you're
running marathons right i ran i ran one full marathon could you imagine running one like
dosing i did that that's what i did i know but it made me run really fast it was a micro dose or
no that was i put it i had like a i have a dropper and it's like 10 hits is a full tab of acid and i would take like one every hour usually
when i'm like out in my job kind of atmosphere this one i put the whole dropper in the water
bottle i kind of forgot we were there so late and i just drank the whole water i'm like while we
were kind of running then it started i was like i forgot and then by like i'll just you know you
start a marathon fast anyway because you're pacing with people. No, you're not supposed to. But you have the most energetic part.
Yeah, right.
And then I never stopped that pace
until like 20 miles in,
and people are like,
I see people passed out.
There's like people with broken ankles.
I'm like, it's the trenches.
When you get to the end of the marathon.
And what's happening inside you?
I don't know exactly what it was,
but my brain was working overtime
because I was with this amazing runner
Alexi poppy who was like a poppets is like a she was running with me she helped me train a little
bit you guys are friends we're good friends yeah tell her I said what's up she was on the pod she's
so badass and I had these headphones I had a whole playlist like I'm gonna run on this playlist have
my headphones in and Alexi's next to me she's like what's where it's gonna run she's wearing
a tutu and like makeup and everything this is like light work for her and we're running
it starts talking to me ask me a question about my dad or whatever and my mom and who had just
passed away that that that summer and um we're talking i'm like okay cool i turned the music
off for a second and she kept asking questions and i'm like all right it's my headphones out
and i swear to god we talked for three hours we're running and we're talking and i'm like hi and i'm just like i don't even know what's going on i'm just running this
i'm like i'm a machine i'm like a robot there's not i'm not in myself i'm not physical i'm just
talking to alexi and we're talking we're running and i just get past everybody it was just did she
have any idea she i think she maybe didn't but she totally made me run that marathon without
any music and i ran it faster than any other, I guess,
celebrity or whatever,
but it was so easy to do with her talking.
And I was like,
I was in that breath,
but she'd like talk to me the entire marathon,
which is like crazy.
I would never do that again.
Not recommended.
Well,
thank you for like the openness,
the commitment to like really explore.
Would it be cool if I played back how I experienced
you? Yeah. Really open, open to ideas, open to experiences. You have like this balance between
introversion and extroversion. You're naturally introverted, but you extrovert in the way that
you think. And I think you're mostly a thinking extrovert, if you
will. The amount of neuroticism that you have is on the anxious side, but it's not overwhelming,
but it's part of your motor. Like you are working really hard. I think it stems though that
you just wanted to know that you mattered. And that's part of that big motor that you had,
but it's not as much of the broth, if you will, anymore.
It seems like you've got a degree of agreeableness
that makes you easy to talk to and likable,
but you've got your own set of ideas.
And I think probably privately like,
why did I say that?
Or I didn't, that's not exactly what I meant, but you get your thing in there. I think that that might be some of the
case there. I think you've got this radical ability to go broad and narrow with your attention so that
you can, you don't get caught in just like this narrow train of an idea. You're able to kind of
pull back and, and, and keep the aperture open. i think you're probably hard on yourself but you
didn't bring that forward calibrate that with me are you hard on yourself or did i did i get that
wrong no i am hard on myself i expect more out of myself yeah but i think that's one part of the
process of being quote-unquote successful is you like you over you you aim for higher than you can reach
yeah but it doesn't get in your way no because like i think i like i said to you before i'm not
afraid of failing because if that doesn't work i'll do something different something different
yeah yeah you've got this balance between internally driven and externally driven like
you've got that balance between the two that keeps the motor high um you're unapologetic about like, yeah, I like all of this stuff.
And then I also like the way it feels to create. And so you are of the ilk of the frontier forward
pushing pioneers, meaning that you've made some fundamental decisions in your life. You push,
you build capacity, push limits, build capacity, all the skills skills and tools you're able to kind of let it go
and let it fly and see how it goes there's a vulnerability and a high trust thing that
happens there and i think you're good at adjusting and pivoting you know based on the information
that comes back through and that's what all the pioneers do like that might be the most important
in my opinion for the people who have that have been pioneering you said you have to always adapt
and move yeah right yeah change is like so important and like i love change yeah that's cool most people are
afraid of it and i think you have to just go with it that's what's going to change you and make you
some some make you special i'm rooting for you at one point to go really deep in a relationship now
i i will yeah i've i've teased it i've had i've had solid relationships i just don't think
maybe i pivot too much because like i'm like i like you know if you're like playing for a
basketball team you get traded all the time you know how do you like your life to your partner
really depends on where you're going all the time it's like i want someone that's able to also live
a full life and be able to not need me yes that's the most attractive thing and i i've stuck a lot
of times without that they've got a radical life themselves and but and we can figure out the rhythm between the two of us
yeah that's that's key also i work in the in a field where not a lot of women are my age you
know they're younger yeah they're always younger that's just what it is i mean there's women that
are my age that are i mean i've had relationships with women that are older than me um it's you
don't meet them that often you know you mean them at the oscars parties or whatever but like
every my day-to-day life it's like i play for nightclubs and i play for the promoters or you
know the artists are younger and it's it's hard to have a relationship with the women's that are
like under 35 or whatever it's like very difficult um but you know i also feel like there's things i want to accomplish as a father and as a
person that that might make me feel more secure and giving away more too or i never might never
find those those goals might be unattainable as well they're there they are there for you
all right brother thank you for coming in thank you for sharing the way you share i'm rooting for
you i love what you create and this is a real treat for me.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it was awesome.
I also really like your haircut.
Thanks, man.
You didn't have it the last time I, like when I was watching the other ones.
I like it.
That's good.
Christina, that's for you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I appreciate you.
Thanks guys.
That is a conversation to remember.
What did you think, Emma?
Yeah, you guys covered a lot of ground.
So next up, we're actually back to the Modern Leadership series
as you sit down with the brilliant Rhonda Morris.
Ah, Rhonda Morris.
Here we go.
I mean, how much fun is Rhonda?
I actually love this one.
Rhonda is so insightful.
Okay, so as part of our series on Modern Leadership,
I had the opportunity to sit down with the wonderful Rhonda Morris, a trailblazing HR executive redefining leadership in the modern workplace.
People look to her.
We explore what it means to create cultures where people thrive, the power of human connection in business, and the unseen challenges of being a double only, both the only woman and the only person of color in leadership.
Rhonda's journey is one of truth telling.
And then she couples that with the pursuit of excellence.
And she is so much fun.
Make sure that you tune in for this great conversation.
All right.
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Again, a sincere thank you for listening.
Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.