Good Life Project - Axel Mansoor | Turning Self-Loathing Into Self-Love

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

How does someone who despised himself for most of his life go from loving himself and his life, and creating music that makes millions smile? That’s the journey my guest, Axel Mansoor has been on. A singer/songwriter and self-described Third Culture Kid, he’s become known for leveraging technology to build community and intimacy with his music. His songs have taken him from a Daytime Emmy nomination to collaborations with the biggest brands in the world, Spotify’s Viral 50 Chart, to your television screen as he pitched a song to H.E.R. on NBC's Songland. Axel’s debut EP, I hadn’t ever Loved Myself, just dropped and is quickly climbing the charts.And, until a few days ago, his image was the icon for the massively viral Clubhouse social audio app, appearing on the screens of tens of millions of phones. He is also the creator of the app's popular Lullaby Club: a nightly musical experience where your favorite artists sing you, and the rest of the world, to sleep. But, there’s also a deceptively beautiful and creative ulterior motive, helping artists get discovered, build careers and expand their communities.In this conversation, we explore the idea of being a third culture kid, a phrase I’ve heard more and more, and how literally living with a foot in three worlds led to this seemingly contradictory ability to fit it and make people like him, while also being brutally bullied and deepening into a place of self-hatred that tore apart his sense of self, belonging, and expression. And we talk about how music, along with a powerful inciting incident, turned his world upside-down and became a source of joy, expression and, to his surprise, even self-love. You can find Axel at:Website : http://www.axelmansoor.com/Lullaby Club : https://lullaby.club/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/axelmansoor/If you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with extraordinary singer, Lisa Fischer who, in addition to her own breakout hits, spent years touring and recording with everyone from Luther Vandross to the Rolling Stones : https://tinyurl.com/GLPFischer-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay, so how does someone who despised himself for most of his life go from that to absolutely loving himself and his life and creating music that makes millions of people smile? That's the journey my guest Axel Mansour has been on. A singer-songwriter and self-described third culture kid, he's been known for leveraging technology to build community and intimacy with his music. And his songs have taken him from a daytime Emmy nomination to collaborations with some of the biggest brands in the world, Spotify's Viral 50 chart, and even to your television screen as he pitched a song to her on NBC's Songland. And Axel's debut EP, I Hadn't Ever Loved Myself,

actually just dropped and is quickly climbing the charts. And interestingly, until a few days ago, his image was the icon for the massively viral Clubhouse social audio app, appearing on the screens of tens of millions of phones. And he's also the creator of the app's popular Lullaby Club, which is this nightly musical experience where your favorite artists sing you and the rest of the world to sleep. But there's also this deceptively beautiful and creative ulterior motive, which is to help artists get discovered, build careers, expand their communities, and even disrupt the entire industry model. In this conversation, we explore the idea of being a third culture kid, a phrase that I have heard more and more, and how literally living

with a foot in three worlds led to this seemingly contradictory ability to fit in and make people like him while also being brutally bullied and deepening into a place of self-hatred that really tore apart his sense of self and belonging and expression. And we talk about how music, along with a series of powerful inciting incidents, turned his world upside down and became a source of joy and joyful expression and creativity, and to his surprise, eventually, even profound self-love. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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I've heard you describe yourself using this word a number of different times, or two words actually, or three words actually, third culture kid. And it's funny because that actually, yeah, that first popped onto my radar not too long ago. We had Connie Lim, whose artist name is Milk, on the show a little while back. And she used that same phrase. Her parents were first generation in the US. She grew up in LA and she described herself as a third culture kid where it was sort of like

she had to constantly navigate the culture of her parents, the culture of LA, and she felt like she was not really part of either. And I'm curious when you use that word, what does it mean to you? I mean, you basically just described it. It's straddling identities. And identity is, you can attach it to geography, you can attach it to culture,

you can attach it to a bunch of different things. But for me, it really brings up this visceral scene of whenever I meet somebody and they go, where are you from? And the real answer that I have is, well, how long do you have? You know, like, how much time do you got? Because we can really go into that. Like, what does that mean? Do you want to know the places that I grew up in? Do you want to know the culture that I relate to? Do you want to know why I look like a brown person and sound like a white person? What do you really want to know when you ask that question, where are you from? And it brings that, like third culture kid as a phrase brings up, yeah, just a lot of this idea of straddling and everything that comes with that. It's a very loaded word in a way because it reminds me a lot of my childhood, obviously. And I had a tough childhood. I didn't have an easy childhood. But as I've grown older, it's also as I've been able to look back on it and understand what it did for me as an adult, the sort of like superpowers that it gave me. I'm also really grateful for it.

So I have this kind of love-hate relationship with being a third culture kid. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about those early years that shaped you, you know, because, you know, for you, it's sort of like the straddling, it's on a number of different levels. You know, it's, you have lived in so many different places because your dad, when you were younger, especially like economists for the World Bank. So sort of like you have these tours, you know, it's like every two to three years, it's like, okay, next country, next country, next country, which on the one hand, you know, you might look at it and say, well, what a stunning experience to be able to like drop into all these different cultures and learn them. But on the other hand, you know, it can also be just massively disorienting because every, I mean, on so many levels, and I'm curious whether you felt like you were sort of like dancing between both of those all the time. Well, I feel like we, we look at that as adults, right? But when you think about it from the perspective of a kid, like you can't appreciate cultures. Like you're just trying, like you're trying to get a sense of what is life?

Like, what am I, what, what is all of this? You know, and it's only when you start to have a stable sense of things that switching them up actually gives you a deeper appreciation of them, at least for me. Whereas when you're a kid, it's not just moving countries. It's not just moving cultures. It's basically ending a life and beginning a new life. And everything that comes with all that, you know, when I say ending a life, you know, it's like there's grief and there's loss and there's pain. And then there's this rebirth, right?

With the new place where you can build a new identity. You can be somebody totally different. No one knows you anymore. You know, you can be whoever you want to be. And being sort of thrust into that as a kid. And also just having the, you know, when, when you, whatever you grow up with, you assume is just normal, right. Until you realize that it's not. I, again, like as a kid, I don't,

I don't think it's, you'd have to be, I would be kind of worried about a kid that really was able to appreciate all the cultures that they grew up in. Cause it'd be like, that's, I mean, that's, that'd be incredible, but it also be like, how, how, you know, you don't even have like a standard. Yeah. I mean, when you're, when you move, when you kind of live that way for so many years, especially when you're younger, you know, you described this process of, you know, there's grief, there's loss. It's essentially, it's like, there's a death and then a rebirth. And then two to three years later, another death and then a rebirth. And on part, I would imagine it's an identity level, but it's also a circumstance level because you're during that window, that two to

three year window. I mean, as a young kid, especially all you want to do is kind of like fit in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think what it does on a psychological level is it teaches you that you are at the whim of the world. You know, at least that's what it taught me. It's like, you know, there's this idea of like your low side of control, right? Like how much control do you happen to life or does life happen to you? And I think because of the way that I grew up, it was very much like, oh, like I'm just at the whim of the winds of change. You know, I don't really have any control over where my life goes or who or what is in my life and for how long it is. So I just have to learn how to be incredibly adaptable and just sort of take the path of least resistance. Because I know that things are, I know that nothing is permanent. You know, there's this, you grow up with this sense of impermanence, which again, in some ways, like if you look at the long tail of that, you know, as an adult, it's kind of

beautiful because you're like, yeah, that is the way of the world, you know, as an adult, it's kind of beautiful because you're like, yeah, that is the way of the world, you know, but you're also thrust into that as a kid, you know, you don't have the emotional resources. You don't have the emotional support to like come to that realization in a sort of, I don't know, I guess a gentler way. And maybe there is no gentle way, but like, that's a pretty brutal realization to have at like eight years old, right? And then again at 11, and then again at 13, and then again at 15. Like, it's a lot to go through. And it ages you really, really fast.

That's one thing that I have noticed amongst third culture kids in general. It's like, even if you meet a third culture kid who's 16, 17, they'll probably have the maturity of, you know, a 28 to 30 year old, at least your average 28 to 30 year old, who's like lived in one place their whole life. Because it, again, with that death and rebirth, like you learn things that most people either don't have the opportunity to learn from moving or, you know, it takes them a while before they get to where enough changes in their life drastically that they have to go through that themselves. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. You know, it occurs to me also that, you know, you could probably have one of two responses. One is to say, okay, so I'm not even

going to invest in relationships because I know the stronger my relationships are, the more I'm going to suffer when we have to go through that process. Or the exact opposite, which is I'm just going to go all in because I don't have time to do the dance of slowly finding friends. We need to just drop in and stay as deep as we can because I know this is going to end. I'm curious where you sort of like fell in that spectrum. I absolutely landed on the, on the latter side of that for sure. And I think in a way, you know,

again, like I say, when you look at the long tail, I do deeply appreciate it because I'd say that's one of my superpowers is the ability to meet somebody and instantly, you know, kind of be able to make them feel like I've known them forever or that we've always been friends. You know, I know how to meet people. I know how to talk to people and I know how to break into social circles because I had to. That was my way of coping.

That was my coping mechanism. That was my survival mechanism. But there are, I have met third culture kids who have gone the other way, you know, who just retreat within into themselves and become very introverted. You know, I'm sure it has to do with temperament and, you know, nature nurture stuff, right? It's both. I do also find though, that a lot of third culture kids tend to have qualities of both. Like, even if they're an introvert, they're the most social introvert you'll ever meet. And even if they are extroverted, they will have, like for me, I'm pretty extroverted.

I get energy from being around people. But even so, there are these moments where I will just need to withdraw and need to go into my little shell, like my little hermit crab thing. So it's very weird. It's both, honestly. And that's part of that flexibility. That's part of that adaptability that just comes with dancing across these lines constantly. Yeah. There's like a social agility that builds over time. But you used some really interesting language. You said, I have learned how to essentially make anyone feel like we've known each other for our whole lives in a matter of minutes. You didn't say, I have the ability to know someone else and have

them know me. You said, I have the ability to make them feel like that, which also suggests that there's a shield that kind of goes up immediately. It's like, okay, so there's a certain, like you step into a new thing and is it about dropping deep into the relationship or is it about creating a sense of ease so you can navigate it like as quickly as possible, even though that might not be the real you showing up? Oh, that's, that's the real shit, man. I love that you pointed that out.

Um, the reality is, yeah, I, I've had to develop a different understanding of what vulnerability is for me because of that. You know, for most people, sharing the details of your life is this really vulnerable act. And for me, whether it's because I'm an artist and a public figure or whatnot, that doesn't feel very vulnerable for me. Connecting with somebody deeply doesn't feel very vulnerable for me. It is this sort of practice thing that I'm good at it. And I enjoy it. It's not that it comes from an ingenuine place, but it doesn't take the same level of vulnerability that it might take somebody else because I'm so practiced at it. That's sort of the difference between when you sort of recite a story or even recite music, you know, when you're just playing notes on a page versus when you're really in the emotion

of the story. You're really re-experiencing the story as you tell it. And very often, when I'm sharing vulnerable details about my life to connect with somebody, it's more just me recounting because I've done it so many times. It's more rare for me to enter a situation of true vulnerability when I'm meeting somebody just because they tend not to ask the right questions. You know, like the question you just asked right now, that's like a way more vulnerable question than I've answered in most interviews, which is why I really like it. But maybe I'm just an intimacy addict. Maybe that's my thing. But I mean, I brought it up in part because part of what you're describing is code switching,

right? Is this, you know, you gain the ability to sort of like drop into a new environment. You're like, okay, let me read the room. Let me read the dynamic and let me step into a certain identity way of conversation. And I know that, you know, like the process of making people feel like comfortable, which then makes me feel comfortable is mutual progressive vulnerability. That's how it works. It's like a, it's like a math formula. But like you said, you know, my curiosity is when you've had so much more practice at that from a young age and not always

in a comfortable way, you know, like it's, there's come a lot of pain and a lot of angst, a lot of suffering along the way, but like, like, do you get to that point where it's sort of like, okay, you have the act of progressive vulnerability, which I know will get me like, I, if I do X, it will get me Y like we all feel better about it. Yeah. But underneath it the whole time, you know, you kind of know, like there's a deeper self that nobody here really knows. And I really wish they did, but I'm not willing to go there because that's where it gets scary. That's where the vulnerability lies, which you're helping me remember. You're helping me realize again. And again, for me, true vulnerability comes not from code switching, but from actually

resolving to not code switch, from digging into who I am. And instead of conforming to whatever I think the situation is, and I think I am very intuitive and that I can read a room very quickly and just see what's going on and know how to sort of shift myself into that, the more work I've done to learn to love myself, the more I'm able to kind of just be consistently myself, no matter what the situation is. And I'd say that's probably been the biggest shift. And that is also, those are the most vulnerable moments. Like when I walk into a room where I meet somebody and I'm

like, I have this instinct of like, I know who I need to be to please this person. And then making the conscious choice to not do that. Like that is, that's where my vulnerability, I think, lies a lot of the time because it's like, oh, shit, this is I'm not just going to make this easy for you. It's like making it easy for them and making them feel comfortable is is always the like instinctive goal. But then pulling back from that and being like, nah, fuck that, I'm just going to do like whatever I want to do and say whatever I want to say and not worry about how they're going to feel and how they're going to perceive me. That's a lot more vulnerable for me because then I don't have control. also because you know part of what you're describing is this tension between the artist and the person who wants to to create ease you know and and on the one hand you know you you you have this ability you're you're you're typical artists you know like part of what tends to come along that package is a certain ability of sight that other people may not have, or they just haven't cultivated the practice or the skill of it, but also a certain amount of empathy. And on the one hand, that gives you the ability to turn that into fuel, to create things that

shift paradigms. You can make taste, you can change the way people see the world. You can speak to people beyond the shields and allow them to feel. But on the other hand, it pulls you out of that role of comfort maker because the role of an artist is effectively to not only do the creative act, but to see discomfort, right? Yeah. I mean, that is where a lot of, I mean, growth and discomfort are hand in hand, right? You can't really have growth without some level of discomfort. That is at least my philosophy. I haven't seen true growth without discomfort. I don't think there's a good example of it. Yeah. I think a lot of us wish there was, but it's kind of hard to come by.

Yeah. The other thing that is kind of interesting, the way you've described yourself, have you ever heard the phrase indigo kids? No, go on. There's this sort of like thing, a term called indigo kids that came about, I want to say in the seventies. And it describes a set of traits in kids, things like, you know, at the earliest of age, you, you feel some sort of spiritual sensibility. You might not cause it

faith. Like you kind of know, there's a reason that you're here. You have like a really strong sense of intuition. You tend to really question any rules, any constraints, any authority, tend to be hyper creativecreative and driven towards creating change and also can really drop into emotion and suffering and pain and feel lost. And there seems to be a lot of crossover in the people that I've met that raise their hand and say, I'm a third culture kid. I see so many of those same traits as what's described as an indigo kid in that. Wow.

I mean, that's really interesting for a few reasons. Number one being that I have this very strong affinity to indigo as a color. Very often when I visualize my own music, I don't know. It's not even like on purpose. And it's not that I have synesthesia, but a lot of my songs give me the color purple or like they give me like the, like an Indigo color. It's not quite, it's not purple, right? It's this kind of bluish purplish, um,

cue kind of thing, but it's, it's very present in a lot of, um, a lot of my music, even when I don't mean it to be like, there are some times where I'm like, I wish it was a different color. Like I'm not trying to make an Ind was a different color like I'm not trying to make an indigo song right now I'm not trying to do that and yet it ends up happening a lot so I've never heard that term so that's just very interesting for some weird reason the second being that as you were describing that I was like oh you're describing me like you're you're I I definitely identify strongly with that and the question it brings up for me is, is there some sort of through line in terms of cultures or the way that these indigo kids were brought up?

Is there a through line that connects them or is it sort of this idea of just these random individuals that identify with these traits? Yeah, I think it's been a fascination of mine. I first heard the term maybe five, six years ago. Somebody was describing themselves as that to me. And I was like, what is that? And I don't know a ton about it, but from what I understand, it's more about- It's taken everything in me to not just Google it right now. Yeah, right.

It's like, stop the recording. We must Google. It's something that's more sort of like, it's almost like a priority imprint, a priority imprint. It's kind of there and your upbringing may affect it. But it is really interesting because there are a whole certain set of traits that people tend to identify with Indigo Kids and then also experiences in the world and behaviors and outcomes, which often make for a really rough childhood because you're just massively other nonstop. But then it also often becomes the source of profound impact and creativity and expression in adult life.

Right, right. I mean, it tends to be that if you look at the biographies of great leaders in the world, most of them had pretty rough childhoods. Like you don't get a lot of like world leaders that like grew up in Beverly Hills. You get a lot of like upper management, you know, people that make like a great amount of money, but they're not necessarily making impact, right? Is there's a difference between being successful and making impact. And I feel like generally you have to go through shitty experiences that has to be a part of who you are because that will make you want to change the world to be a better place. Whereas if you grew up with the world being a pretty good place, like what is there to change? Yeah. I know for you, you know, beyond sort of

like the death and rebirth that we've talked about, like each place also leads to just a massive amount of othering that sometimes rises to the level of bullying, physical abuse. So by the time that you hit your mid-teens, you kind of hate yourself, which you've spoken about. Kind of, not kind of, very much. I very intentionally hate myself consciously, very loudly. Tell me more about that. I mean, at this point, I've spent more of my life hating myself than loving myself. So it doesn't feel very long ago. You know, the period of my life where I can say I love myself truly. And that's not just lip service and it's not aspirational. But is reality.

I'd say that's really probably only been a year and a half, maybe two years. You know, I'm 28. Say for 25, 26 years, I've hated myself. And I mean, it's quite literally, it was my way of life. It colors everything that you do. It is a defining part of your existence because it is the lens through which you experience life because it's your relationship with yourself. And life was toxic.

You know, there's this barrier. There's this void. There's that hole in your heart that you try to fill with all of these things. Sometimes it's drugs. Sometimes it's friendship. Sometimes it's drugs, sometimes it's friendship, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's achievement. You know, we all find these different things that we try to fill that void with. And it's a trope, but it's only a trope because it's real and because we all experience it. But, you know, the more you fill that void, the bigger it gets because you're not addressing the real problem. And it also, it's this like house of

cards like foundation upon which you build the rest of your life, depending on, you know, when that negative relationship, that negative feedback cycle, when it's implanted or when it really takes root. And, you know, that depends on life experiences for some people. But since it was so early for me, it was a part of everything. You know, it was a part of my relationship with music. It was a part of my relationship with my family. It was a part of my romantic relationships.

It was a part of my relationship with my family. It was a part of my romantic relationships. It was a part of my relationship with my job. Like everything that I did at the end of the day, I still had to deal with me. Right. And when you make one mistake or, you know, you make or you make an even bigger mistake. But when you make that one mistake and you berate yourself for hours and hours on end or you say something stupid in front of somebody and you can't go to sleep because you're just thinking about

how much that person probably hates you now and now you're never going to make it, whatever that means. It's like walking in a minefield. Your whole life is basically walking in this emotional minefield where like one misstep and like you're blown away. For me, I struggled a lot with anxiety. I struggled a lot with depression.

And those were, I mean, they were two huge forces in my life. And it was just this constant struggle. You know. We talk about tension and release, right? And I talk about tension and release a lot as the pieces of your being, you know, into your daily existence because you can't contain it all. You know, either you try to repress it, you try to push it down and pretend like it's not there, in which case it leaks out or you try to do something with it and it's overwhelming. And so it debilitates you because you don't know how to handle it. So it becomes this sort of lose-lose situation where no matter what you do, you feel like you're just doomed. And that feeling of doom, that feeling of hopelessness, what's the point, why even try? If there's a theme that my life had when I had this relationship with myself, it would be like, again, it would be like the 90, 95% like having% of just like that little light of hope that for some reason being like, there's got to be a better way.

Like there has to be something better than this. And it being a very much like, you know, two steps forward, one step back process of learning how to love myself. For you, how does that happen? You know, is there a gradual evolution or like so many people, is there a moment and inciting incident experience, which kind of makes you say, Oh wait, like what got me here? Can't get me there because I don't want to keep feeling this way. It's both. It's really both. You know, it's like the idea of like the overnight success. It's like there's 10 years

of work that goes into being an overnight success. I had maybe two or three of the moments over seven or eight years. And then there was seven or eight years of like intense, like work, you know? So I would say the three big moments, one was when I was 19, I did acid for the first time. And I'm a big proponent of psychedelics. If we use them as, if we treat them as incredibly powerful tools, like a chainsaw, where it's like, you have to be proper, you should be afraid of a chainsaw where it's like you have to be proper you should be afraid of a chainsaw like but if you know how to use a chainsaw and you're properly trained and you're in the right environment it's an incredibly powerful tool that can that can create things and allow you to do things that you simply would not be able to do without it and i think psychedelics

are very similar they are similarly dangerous if you don't know what you're doing and you're not treating them with care and respect. And they're similarly incredibly beneficial, powerful tools that are, they're game changers. If we have the right approach, you know, if we treat them with respect and again, like some people, it doesn't work for because of your brain chemistry, because of a lot of factors and considerations that need to be had. But that is the case with any powerful tool. Right. So and despite being a big proponent of psychedelics, I've only done them a few times. You know, I think I've done acid since I was 19. I've probably done it six times and I'm 28 now. I've never had a trip on mushrooms and I've done ayahuasca once. So even though I'm a huge proponent, I would not say in terms of number of times that I'm like, you know, a shaman level, like anything. I think I'm still very much like a psychedelic baby, but I am highly sensitive. And when I had my first acid trip, it really blew off the sort of doors,

you know, really opened the doors of perception. And I realized just how fake I was and just how much of other people's like expectations and desires and wants I was carrying and how little of my own I even knew or what I wanted or what I was doing or why am I here? Like, what's the point? And on that same journey, that's when I came up with this theory of love. Like I call it the cycle of love,

which is our whole purpose for being here is to figure out how to best participate in the cycle of love, which is creating, receiving, and sharing love in all of its different forms. And I, on that trip, I was, I decided the best way I can do that is by being a musician. So that was a big moment because it was a, it was like a wake up call. You know, that was the, that was the, something is deeply wrong, you know, and, and who you thought you were is not who you are. And I think that's one of those moments where, where it was, okay, there, there's a different path, you know, there's a, there's a different path. There's potential. There's, there's something else.

Then the second moment, honestly, I don't remember exactly how old I was. I must have been 21 or 22. But I just had this incredibly depressive episode where I, it was like, I just had like this period of maybe three months where I just got increasingly dissociated from my body and Got to a point where like I was like Playing with knives and just tracing them over my skin and stuff because I just wanted to feel something. I never cut myself, but I got really weird and I Was just so depressed. I don't even remember why I was so depressed. All I remember is that this heavy sinking feeling, like there was absolutely no hope.

And it was in that place that I, and I was trying things. By that point, I'd already started meditating. I'd started journaling and I thought that those would be enough. And then it got so bad that I was like, okay, I guess I'll go to therapy, which now, you know, I think that a part of that is the issue with how we treat mental health in our society, the cultural stigma around it. Like how much better would it be to go to therapy when you're healthy than when you're at the end of your rope, right? When you can do it from a preventative mindset than a curative mindset. I'm sure the therapists would really love that too, like make their lives a whole lot easier.

But, you know, in my dark night of the soul, I said, okay, like I need help. I can't do this on my own. I need professional help. And I, you know, I'm still with the same therapist that I found from back then. And every now and then I'll just talk to her and I'll be like, do you remember what I was like when you, when you first took me on? And do you remember on our phone call, I explained everything that was happening and you asked me if I had any questions. And I said, please tell me honestly, like, is there any hope for me? And she said, yes. And I didn't believe her at the time.

You know, I really didn't. But I was out of options. You know, I didn't really have any other options. And so I went and of course, we're going to do a bit of a time jump here, but then 27, so either end of September or early October, I need to look at my calendar, but of 2019, that's when I did my ayahuasca journey, which was not, you know, it wasn't, I didn't go to Peru. I didn't do like the legit, you know, ayahuasca journey. I did it through a facilitated experience person with a bunch of other people who, you know, it was as at a house in Redondo Beach. It wasn't the most legit ayahuasca journey. And yet that I would say was the real sort of watershed moment where everything changed.

And the way that I look back on it, at least, is that all of the work that I had done, all the therapy, all the meditation, all the affirmations, all the books that I'd read about love and how to handle your emotions and all this kind of stuff, which was sort of like things that I knew but didn't really understand necessarily, or it wasn't instinctual for my mind to go to those places. It was still incredibly effortfully conscious. What the ayahuasca journey allowed me to do was it crystallized and internalized all that knowledge in a way that fundamentally altered

the way, like my relationship with myself. And I was able to heal like that deep, deep, deep trauma from childhood that I had from all the moving around, from being a third culture kid. And that's why I say it's both, you know, it's the overnight success story, literally in 12 hours that also took seven years to prepare for. Yeah. So, yeah, I know that was long, but. No, but I mean, it's really interesting to sort of like be able to identify those three moments, you know, and yes, there's a progression the whole time, but to just say like there were these three catalyzing moments in a really powerful way.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. You mentioned that the very first one when you're around 19 also was the thing that that led you to say, okay, so I'm going all in on music. Music is the way that I can bring the notion of the circle of love to the world. And also it's a thing that I guess up until that point, it had always been a part of your life, but it sounds like you saw it differently. And my curiosity is that for so many artists and certainly a lot in the world of music, music started as more of a coping mechanism than a form of expression. But over the years evolved into the balance with switch, like maybe in the beginning it's 80-20. And then over a period of years, it becomes more

80% expression and 20% coping. Or then maybe if a lot of musicians have dark years also where they're on substance and then maybe, you know, like when they drop that, it becomes more coping. But it's interesting to see how people sort of like very often rely on some form of artistic expression as both coping and expression. And for you, you know, it sounds like you kind of did that swing between the two. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think, I think that pendulum continues to swing. Here's the thing. A coping mechanism isn't necessarily good or bad, right? It's just a coping mechanism, but some coping mechanisms are helpful for where you are in your life and

they actually help you progress towards whatever your goals are or whatever values, you know, they're in line with your values. Let's say it that way, that your coping mechanisms are in line with your values. And sometimes your coping mechanisms are not in line with your values. And those are the dangerous ones, where you do something, even though it's not who you want to be, and then you get into the cycle of self-hatred again. I think for me, music has always been, well, except for the very first few months, you know, where I was just learning.

My initial reasoning for learning music was because I want, you know, my brother told me to. He said, you know, pick up a guitar. He gave me a guitar and was like, learn to play this. And I was like, why? He's like, do you want girls to like you? And I said, of course, of course I do. So, you know, it starts off in that kind of more shallow place, but very quickly it progressed into this place of expression just because I didn't know, you know, I never taken guitar lessons.

I still can't read music. It was very much this just expressive thing, this discovery, this curiosity. And it also started to very quickly become this place where when shitty things happened, very accidentally, I would end up kind of doing my own self-therapy with music. The rub comes from when you do that and then you try to make money from it. Like if I had just kept that and just done music just for myself, you know, just for fun, you know, sort of like journaling, journaling with music, basically, you know, I don't know exactly what would have happened. I don't know what my relationship with it would be like, what it would be like. But I know that once I made the

decision to be supporting myself with music, that introduced a whole other array of insecurities and complications and trying to use this thing that I use for self-therapy and for coping and for trying to just get through life and understand what's going on, it made it really twisted and really toxic. And it made it really, really difficult. And self-love was sort of my way of finding my way out of that, of allowing me to reintegrate my sort of original relationship with music while also trying to support myself while doing it. Yeah. I mean, that is, um, that's a journey that, um, you know, I think anybody who is identifies as a creator, an artist, a maker, you know, and where you're primarily,

you start out doing it because it's the expression of, of, of your essence. And then, you know, the minute you say, well, how do I get somebody to exchange value for this? That will allow me to sustain myself in the world. All of a sudden it can't just be that. And that's a brutally, it's a tension that exists in every, especially performer that I've ever known. Because on the one hand, the fact that people pay you for is one of the things that allows you to keep it front and center in your life and devote so much time to it. But it's also the very thing that affects the purity of what you want to come through you and to bring out into the world.

This is why I want to go back to bartering. This is why I want to go back to a bartering economy. Yeah. And the music industry also, like the industry itself certainly has gone through its waves and had some major issues. I'm curious with you also, because so much of your music was sort of related to pain for so many years. When you start to just personally come out of the darkness in a way that is more lasting and sustained and essential to who you are, like more identity level, do you get concerned at all that the source, like the source fuel for your music is no longer going to be there on a level that would make you happy with it and make it quote good? That is, you know, such a, it's such an important question.

And I also love that you, that you asked it because it's such BS. It's something that I think a lot... Yeah, I absolutely had that concern. Of course, of course. You're like, no, my pain is my superpower. I need to be miserable or I'm not going to be able to create. So I need my misery. This is the myth of the tortured artist.

And I would say that the single best cure for the myth of the tortured artist is reading and going through the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which I did post-ayahuasca. And it was incredibly helpful because first of all, pain is a part of life. You're never going to live a life that doesn't have pain in it. But why restrict yourself to creating only from the place

of pain? You can create from anywhere. Anything can be inspiration. And of course, pain is a, honestly, is a really beautiful thing. It teaches us so many things. And especially when we take that pain and turn it into something, that is, I think, one of the most beautiful things that we can do because we take something that hurt us and use it not only to help ourselves, but potentially other people around us. You know, that is like, it like, I call it emotional judo. It's beautiful.

But pain is not the only place that you can write from. And of course, I was scared of that. But, you know, through a lot of exercises, through understanding that being a writer and also being a professional is not, is so much more about the process and so much more about just showing up and allowing whatever is there with you that day and learning, like learning how to just communicate that and not being attached to where it comes from. I think the sort of most prolific writers and not just prolific, but healthy, you know, sustainably prolific, I'd call it. Those creators tend not to care about where their inspiration is coming from. They tend not to place too much value on, is this coming from

pain or is this coming from joy or is this coming from the place that has been pre-selected for quality? But instead, they just show up and they allow whatever is happening to really flow through them and also not be that attached to the outcome. That's the beautiful piece of being a creative is when you can, and I think not just a creative, but really anything that we do. I think the ultimate form of living in terms of being sustainably fulfilled, I'll say, not happy. Happiness is an emotion. Joy is an emotion. It comes and goes. I think the goal of being happy in life is sort of, it's a trap, you know? But I'll say fulfilled, where you don't have that empty feeling, is learning to love the

process and being able to stay curious about and continually falling in love with the process, actively staying in love with it. And if that's the case, you're not too worried about where everything is coming from or where it's going. You're able to be just present with whatever is. And again, it's these tropes, it's these cliches that we talk about all the time, but cliches are central to human experience because we all experience them. And so whether you call it loving the process or being in the moment or being in flow or, you know, there's all these terminologies for this. But I think when you learn that that is

the most important thing and you experience the freedom which being in that place brings, you realize that like, it's not about your pain. It's not about, it's not really, that's just like maybe a starting point, but it's sort of like the, you know, an idea, ideas are, you know, everywhere. You can, you can pull them from anywhere. It's, it's about the process of execution. That's what really matters.

Yeah, no, I love that. And I actually, and I completely agree with it. We had Julie Cameron on the podcast. No way. I got to give her a massive thank you. Can I tell you, she has had, I mean, when that episode aired, so many people were like, you don't know how much like that one book changed my life. And I need to go listen to that episode like immediately.

It was amazing. We were sitting down in her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. No way. And just kind of like going deep into her life. But it is stunning how her work has affected millions and millions and millions of people around the world on such a deep level through such a simple set of practices. And I completely agree. I think there is that trope about you've got to suffer. And I think, like you said, there's no way out of pain in life. There's no way out of suffering in life. It's going to happen along the way. And I think sometimes folks are like, but I need to create more of it. And they actually

intentionally go out and seek because they think there's a linear relationship between the amount of pain I suffer and the fuel that I have to create great art. And it's just not true, like you said. When you start to sort of emerge from this place and you have a certain amount of success, but the musical life is always hard. Although the industry is certainly changing and there are so many new ways to make inroads and to kind of like remove gatekeepers and go straight to the people who you would most affect and have them support you. You know, it's interesting because it kind of brings us up to speed to a certain extent. So you and I first met actually in this app Clubhouse, which still the vast majority of the world doesn't know about and is not on. It's sort of, I think the easiest way to describe it is it's an app that imagine it is the largest event in the history of events.

And it's going on 24 seven around the world. And there are thousands of rooms that you can just walk down the hallway and jump into and see whether it's interesting. That could be like live performances, panel discussions, presentations. And it's been interesting because this platform launches last year, a whole bunch of originally sort of like tech industry and influencers and insiders jump onto it. And then, you know, now there are like millions of people on it and, you know, you're kind of watching and seeing how people are using it. And then all of a sudden, you know, I, I'm, I was a little late to the party. You were there a lot earlier than me. You start this thing called Lullaby Club, you know, which is fascinating because a lot of rooms are out there and they're trying to like, like make a gajillion dollars and do this. And look, there's, there's a place for everybody. He like not judging anyone.

I am. But you end up sort of like saying, okay, so if everyone's zigging in that direction, how do I zag? And you create this room, which is a nightly room called Lullaby Club. And you can, you know, like anyone can show up. And the first time I show up, I'm like, oh, this is cool. And then as I start to show up more and more, I'm like, oh, there are levels going on here that I would imagine a lot of people in the room don't know about and don't care about. But there's something else going on here. You're serving multiple communities. You're being

massively intentional about it. And I can almost feel the gears in your head as the co-founder of this saying, okay, how to create something for people in the room. But as a musician, as an artist, as somebody who's been in the industry, as somebody who sees how hard it is for people to quote, break out and sustain themselves. I reached out to you originally because I was like, I need to know the different layers. I want to know what's really happening here. And so that's where I want to go now.

Like I want to, I want to know what's really happening under the hood. Totally. You know, it's so funny you, you asked that because it's the one time in my life where there was no machination. There was no gear turning. I'm prone to overthinking things. I'm prone to overanalyze. I'm prone to being like, I need to plan out my next move or it won't be successful. I rambled about being in the process, in the moment for a while earlier in this conversation. And I think what's so beautiful about Lullaby Club is it just really came from that place, you know. I was as surprised, I think, as everybody else was that it took off and, you know, it continues to take off and continues to grow in the way that it is.

And of course, once I recognized it, then I started to become really intentional and be like, okay, there's something really beautiful happening here. How do I respect that? How do I respect what's being built here? And also do it in a way that is supported by my values. And of course, now the conversation is very different than if you had talked to me about like, well, what is going on at Lullaby Club within the first month or so, where it was just me just getting on an app

where when I played music, people responded really well. That was it. It was just like, I play these soft songs at night for people. I take covers. I joke around with people. Maybe I speak more gently than the rest of the people on the app just because I wanted to be a kind of gentle vibe. But it was really just me following my instincts and just not even instincts, just doing what I thought would be fun. Just like really not giving a fuck.

And in that way, Lullaby Club, especially at its beginning, was just a very natural extension of myself. It's sort of like the essence of Axel Mansour and like who I want to be when I am sharing my music with people. It felt like that was able to be shared in such a pure way. And within the context of gently soothing somebody to sleep, who I am as a person and who I am as an artist, and those two things just clicked in a way that outside of the context of that, I don't think it really has clicked as well.

And it's sort of like, I've been making the music, but I didn't really have the context. And Clubhouse and, you know, even titling it Lullaby Club and all these little context clues, these context sensitive things that create it, plus the right kind of people being there, you know, the people that would support something like that, the people that want to be involved in something like that. All of these little pieces kind of work together. And that's why I say it worked together in such a crazy, beautiful way that I couldn't have planned it. You know, I, that like that kind of planning is maybe there are people who can do that, you know, master chess players and things

like that, but that is not who I am. I, I am unable to, to do that sophisticated of a level of planning. But at the same time, like in the beginning, I totally get that that's the way it was. I love that. I love the organic way that it started. But at the same time, something in you does recognize at a certain point like, oh, there's something much bigger. I mean, like thousands of people are showing up every night, like as regulars. There's a an identity. It's like the lullaby club, a handshake. It's a visual thing that says, I am a part of this thing, which is really cool. We are making shirts, by the way, with the, with the hat. Excellent. And you're also bringing in all these different artists, you know, like,

and now you have all these artists who are saying like, I want to perform and basically they're showing up and incredible artists from around the world contributing to this thing. And they're, they're all doing it, you know, to create this powerful moment together. So like, as, as it starts to evolve and you start to see like, what's really happening here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what does your brain start to think about what's possible? Well, I, you know, one of the big things, and this may, this may sound like overly businessy, especially for somebody who was just like, you know, it's just vibe, man. But that is really where it started.

But I think I did pretty quickly, once it was no longer me. So one of the things that I first realized was, wow, this has the potential to be huge, you know, because there are so many contexts in which this works both on and offline. There's really no limitation to the number of contexts that it's music, right? And it's like, of course, music works in so many different arenas. But I started to really quickly realize like, okay, if this is

going to grow, I can't be the bottleneck. Like this can't be the Axel Mansour club. It has to be an abstraction. It has to be bigger than me. It has to involve other people. It has to be this thing that other people who are connected to it can take it and run with it, you know, and, and it can feel like as it is as much theirs as it is mine. And so, you know, very intentionally taking steps to be like, this is not about me. Like, yes, I have my moments in it. Yes, I started, yes, I created it. Yes. Like it's my baby. But at the same time, I want everybody, I want everybody to feel like we're all raising this baby together. It is not my baby. And the second thing was just from a music industry standpoint is the understanding of like, wow, this has the ability to create or at least expose a market

that I think has been severely underserved and undervalued, which is this venue of music that is there to soothe people, that is there to help them fall asleep. And being a singer-songwriter, coming from that world, singer-songwriters in the world of streaming are incredibly devalued. Like, there are absolutely incredible singer-songwriters that get completely passed over in the streaming world because that kind of music seems to just not have as much, quote-unquote, demand. And yet, places like Lullaby Club are showing that there is that kind of demand. There is that fervor, but you just need to create the context for it. And I think that's the really beautiful thing that Lullaby Club is doing is it's showing, you know, I never thought something like this could work. You know, nobody seems to really care about this kind of music, but like now Lullaby Club is having, it's kind of, it's interesting, you know, it's like, oh, people really do want this.

But like, there's so many talented singer songwriters and even myself in terms of the music that I've released, you know, I tend to write on an acoustic guitar. I write these very gentle sort of songs, but then you go on line and you look at the top 40 and you see like, okay, well, I want to support myself. That means I got to make music with production. That means I got to make music with beats. You know, that means I have to make this kind of music that has this certain kind of dynamic because that is what is being served. That's what people seem to be asking for and the labels are giving to them and et cetera, et cetera. And so you're like, wow, I have to mold my music to fit this shape. And I know that this is not just for me, but it's for a lot of

the artists that are coming to Lullaby Club. The reason they feel so at home is because they're like, I don't have to change my music. I can do exactly what I wanted to do the whole time. And now I'm seeing that there are people who really want to support that in a visceral kind of way that makes it matter. And that, so like, I see it as both this sort of cultural phenomenon where people who want to fall asleep to amazing live musicians, the audience gets to win, right? Because they get to have this experience that helps them with their anxiety. It helps them with their depression.

It helps them with the sense of isolation, especially in COVID, right? That's a win for sure. But then you also get this win for the artists. Artists like myself, who for a long time were like, well, if I'm ever going to support myself and if I'm ever going to make money doing this, then I'm going to have to create a certain kind of music. And it's not going to be the kind of music that comes to me so naturally. And it's now creating a space for those artists where it's like, well, damn, like I can just do what I do naturally. And now there's, now we're, we're proving that there's

a market for that. We're proving that there's value there, not just to the artists, but to the industry. And that is really cool. You know, that's really cool. So I think as we grow my philosophy, and maybe this is because I'm an artist and I'm just being selfish, but my philosophy is like Lullaby Club has to be coming from a place of we put artists first in the same way that you started this conversation by being like, we go where we want to go and the audience will follow. I very much feel the same way where it's like, if we go where the artists want to go, if we are led by taking care of artists and giving them an amazing platform and really like making the artists that are in the community feel absolutely supported, then everything else will follow because people will go where the artists go. People will go where these tastemakers go. You know, like we said, artists have the power to shift and shape culture.

So if you take care of them, if you make sure that they're feeling good and that they're empowered, my belief is that everything else will fall into place. And that's what I want to create. And especially, I think it's important that I am an artist. I know the struggle. I know what that's like. And I don't want to lose sight of that as this thing grows. And I think the piece of me that like the tension and release that I'm finding right now is like my main goal with Lullaby Club for myself is freedom. You know, I don't need to make a lot of money. I just want to make enough money that I can support myself and continue to do projects that I want to be a part of and, you know, just have the freedom to do dope shit with dope people. Like that's that's that's my goal.

But especially since we're at the beginning and we're not making a lot of money. idea of like potentially taking advantage of artists or, you know, getting work for free or things like that is figuring out the balance between, okay, well, Lullaby Club needs money to be able to support itself. And how do we also make sure that we're supporting artists and figuring out what that means? You know, it's all shades of gray and figuring things out in shades of gray is hard. Yeah. I mean, and what's interesting also, I mean, about all of this is this is all taking place on a tech platform, an app that exists on your mobile device that is also only available to one type of device right now and is still in beta. You know, so you've got, I think the latest, while we're recording this, like five to 10 million people on the app. You know, it's entirely conceivable that a year from now, 18 months from now, that could

be hundreds of millions of people once it emerges out. Or at the same time, like so many apps that are like massive out of the gate, it can entirely go away. Oh, yeah. And it could just get swallowed up by the other big tech competitors, you know, like Facebook's doing their own, Spotify's doing their own. Obviously, Twitter Spaces is already in beta and out. I think social audio as a new type of social media platform is definitely here to stay.

Obviously, for my own reasons, I hope clubhouse continues. Yeah. But, but it's almost like, it's like no matter what happens like you, and I think we've talked about this, I believe social audio is here to stay too. I don't know what the platforms are going to look like in three years, let alone five years or let alone a year. But what's fascinating is that no matter what happens with the platform, nobody knows you've proven something. You've proven a concept. You have a proof of concept on this thing that gives you a certain amount of power to then, no matter what happens with the platform, decide. You can then go to different players, different platforms, different entities, or build your own in a way where you have a lot more confidence and then

other people who might get behind it would have a lot more confidence. So it's almost like there's a lot of uncertainty about the platforms. But what I think is so fascinating is that the proof of concept remains. Lullaby Club is certain. Yeah. You know, that's a very encouraging perspective, man. I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm going to hold on to that. That is a gift that I will accept gladly and humbly. Yeah. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs.

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The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You, um... I don't know if it'll still be by the time we air this but um when the average person looks at apps on their phone they have these little icons they tap the tap the icon and then magically the app opens clubhouse does this interesting thing where they choose people

who are members and they put their profiles as the icon. And for a hot minute now, your profile has been the icon and they tend to rotate them. So, you know, like a decent chance, even by the time we air this, that your, your face won't be on that icon anymore. You know, you are, as we speak, in the middle of Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, you know, you're. And maybe this becomes a launchpad for something that sustains and builds, but I got to imagine you're a thoughtful enough person and a realistic enough person to also be thinking this may go away. Or I have this window now, I have this 15 minutes now. Your face literally sits on millions of people's phones, if not hundreds of people's phones. I'm on John Mayer's phone. I'm on Elon Musk's phone, Justin Bieber's phone now.

So I got to imagine there's a part of you which says, this is so cool. There's a part of you which wants to take a screenshot of that and blow it up into a poster. At least maybe I would probably want to do that and send it to my mom. But there's probably also a part of you, which is saying, it's really important for me to understand not just the opportunity, but the sense of responsibility and is perpetually asking yourself, what do I do with this 15 minutes? That was the first question I asked myself. Like I went into it being, well, and also to that end of blowing it up on a poster, I'm actually... By the time this airs, I will have already dropped an NFT of my face. So that comes out actually in two days.

So that is a part of this idea of like, what do I, what do I want to do with this? Right. And, and there's a couple of goals, right. There's from the business side and especially my manager's side, you know, his main aim has been, and of course I'm with him on this, but his, his main aim has been like, yes, this is 15 minutes of fame. So how do we take what's happening and translate it into momentum? You know, so it's not like as soon as this is taken down, as soon as you're no longer the icon, like nobody gives a shit about you anymore. And that's where he's coming from. Right. And so we've been doing a lot to that effect on an emotional and personal perspective. I wanted to ask myself, how do I look back on this in 10, 15 years and think I didn't waste this? You know, and that was a very difficult question for me to answer at first because the inclination was, well, that means I just got to promote myself as much as possible and just go in and

work super, super, super hard and just make sure that as many people as possible know who I am. Right. And I did three days of that and I felt fucking miserable. And I was like, this is the worst. Like, I hate this. And then I was like, this is not working. I need to figure out some other way of approaching this. And then maybe, you know, five days from there, it hit me in the shower, as most of my ideas usually do, that I just had this thought, which is, what if instead of making it about me, I use this time to direct the spotlight onto other people, onto other causes and things that I care about and use this power, yeah, just to shine a light onto other people, onto other causes and things that I care about and use this power. Yeah. Just to, just to shine a light onto other people, you know, either people who I'm meeting,

who I think are doing cool things or my friends, you know, people who I care about. And as soon as I made that switch, that sense of, am I going to be proud of this when I look back on it was a much easier answer, you know? And then it became like, if I just do one good deed per day, you know, then I can feel good about this. And a good deed is just me making it not about me. If I can make this, if I can make me being icon not about me, then I can look back on this with pride. And I've done that. I know that I'm going to be able to look back on this and think, yeah, it definitely served me. But a part of the reason that I can look back on it and be fulfilled by the fact that it served me is because I was able to transfer that know, transfer that momentum, not just to

myself, but to, but to people who I care about. And there's been a couple of examples of me doing that, which I didn't, you know, it's funny because I was, I don't want to like list them out because then it seems like I did it for the recognition. So I'll just bring up one that was incredibly important to me. My manager, his name's Brian, Brian Mooney. And as of now, Brian's dad is still looking for a kidney because he has kidney disease and he's on dialysis and his prospects are pretty bad if he doesn't get a kidney. And Brian and his brother have been looking for about six months for a donor. No luck. They put up a website.

They even bought out a billboard, I think in Portland, which is where his dad is. KidneyforLarry.com, you know, just trying to get people nothing. And this was about two weeks ago. And I, you know, I thought that I was going to be icon for minimum two weeks, maximum two, four weeks, maximum four weeks. So I definitely thought it was going to be a sprint and I treated it like that. And it's been a marathon.

So that's been a learning lesson. But at the time I said, you know, Brian, I have no idea, obviously, how long this is going to last that I'm the icon. And of course, there's just people just do come to things that I do because of that. Why don't we just make a room called Brian's dad needs a kidney and just see what happens? You know, and Brian's kind of a private person. You know, he doesn't really put his private life out there. And so he was a little reluctant

and I kind of had to push him into it. And he's like, well, actually, this Friday is my dad's birthday. I'm like, this is perfect. Like, we got to do it. And so Friday comes around, set up the room and going into it, Brian's kind of like, are you really, yeah, maybe we shouldn't do this. And I'm like, dude, let's spend 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

Nobody comes. It's not a big deal. Like what's the worst thing that can happen though? Like, what do we, what do you have to lose? You know, what do we have to lose? Nothing, right? We'll set up the room, whatever. We set up the room and a whole bunch of really beautiful stuff happens, which, you know, talk about another time, I guess. But basically within 45 minutes, two people ended up offering Brian their kidneys. And the way that, so one of them ended up not working out because it turns out that his kidney, he like, he's not a viable, but one guy who is in LA, and this is the crazy story that I want to talk about just really quickly. This guy's name is Danny. I did a room like two days before, just because that, you know, everybody wants to talk to me. Everybody's saying, Oh, come talk in our room. Let's interview you,

et cetera, et cetera. And I went to this room and I kind of had a bad feeling about it. And then I did the room and I was like, oh, that was a waste of my time. Like, I just didn't really want to do it. It was just like, not my vibe. It was like the people who are, you know, not really my vibe. It was like that room. And I walked away from that room kind of being like, oh God, that was kind of a waste of time. But this guy, Danny, emails me afterwards, or he DMs me and then I give him my email and he emails me and Brian. And he's just like, hey, my name's Danny.

Like, I know all these crazy TikTokers. Like, let's collab in some sort of way. But the way that he wrote the email was like better than most. And so I was like, all right, you know, this guy seems nice. Let's talk about it. And then two days later, it's Friday and the same guy, Danny shows up in the room. And by this point, like some really beautiful things have happened. Like

kidney donors have spoken up. Kidney receivers have spoken up, like shared their story. There's been these really beautiful moments of connection and just gratitude and like, wow, what an amazing gift to both give and receive. And Danny comes up and I'm like, oh, it's that guy. It's that guy, Danny. And he chimes in and he's like, hey, you know, I don't want to bring down the vibe because I know things are really positive, but I actually lost my younger brother to kidney disease. And he didn't say when, but it was clear that it'd been pretty recent. I think it was probably in the last year or two. And Danny's a young dude. I think he's like 24 or 25. So his brother couldn't have been that old. Right. And he goes, you know, I know the fear of losing somebody in this situation.

And I know the pain of actually losing somebody in this situation. And so I want to give you my kidney. And everyone in the room is just blown away. Obviously, you know, like what an incredibly beautiful thing that happened within 45 minutes of us opening this room. And there's so many beautiful little synchronicities at play here, you know, from me being icon and just being like, let's just try this room out. Let's just see what happens to, because I'm icon, ending up in this random room that I didn't like.

And I was like, what a waste of my time. And then this guy finding me because of that room. And then him showing up in this other room and us having this conversation to him, literally offering something that to Brian's dad that could save his life. And that Brian and his brother have been searching for for like six months with nothing. And this all happened in 45 minutes. That's incredible.

Yeah, it's pretty breathtaking. It is. And what is also amazing is that he wasn't just talking. Literally the next day, he filled out the form to see if he's a match with Brian's dad. And now we're just waiting on the results, you know? And God, I hope it works out. That is amazing. You know, and to be in a position to, yeah, to be able to facilitate things like that. And then also just

like that, those multiple serendipities, you know, where you just sort of like, you never know, you just never know. And another kind of interesting serendipity, like beyond you sort of making the decision to say, well, let me use this time to shine the light on others, to help as many other people as humanly possible. One night, a couple of weeks ago in Lullaby Club, somebody shows up. You mentioned his, you invoked his name earlier, right? The musicians and the songwriter and stand in for Dead & Co for a couple of years now, John Mayer, legendary, legendary guy. Somebody who has had a massive impact on you, your life and music especially, and on so many different levels. And also probably a lot of

people don't know, in my mind, one of the best living blues guitarists of our generation. I mean, just a stunning musician. I log on to Lullaby Club, as I often do, you know, like kind of late at night. And I see your avatar in there. And then right next to you is John Mayer. And then I hear him talking. And then I hear him pick up his guitar.

And he's like serenading everybody in Lullaby Club. He was serenading me. Including you, right? He was like literally like in the virtual seat next to him this whole time, which is like quite a full circle moment. Oh, absolutely. I can die. I can pass away. There's enough people that love Lullaby Club. It'll continue without me. I don't really need to be here anymore. Yeah. No, it's a literal dream come true. I didn't think I would ever say that. Yeah. It was a beautiful moment. So it feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation. So hanging out here in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

To live in accordance with your values, to live in alignment with your values and to love unapologetically. Yeah. Thank you. extraordinary singer, Lisa Fisher, who in addition to her own breakout hits, spent years touring and recording with everyone from Luther Vandross to the Rolling Stones. You'll find a link to Lisa's episode in the show notes. And even if you don't listen now, be sure to click and download so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share the Good Life Project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold.

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