The Joe Rogan Experience - #1724 - Jewel

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Jewel is a Grammy award-nominated singer-songwriter, author, actress, and philanthropist.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. All right, we're up and running. Oh, you're a real professional. You're a one-ear open, one-ear on type of person. That's funny. I did that accidentally. You did you?

I'm sure it's habit. Yeah, I bet it is. Yeah. A lot of radio professionals will do that. Really? They almost want a little bit of ambient. Yeah, I like to hear the sound of the room still. The real noise. Who does that? Jim Norton does that.

It's odd. I get it. I do it in the vocal booth. Oh, that makes sense. You want to hear the actual sound, not like the digitally enhanced and coming through speakers. Yeah, everybody hears sound differently and pitch particularly. I hear pitch as it sounds like waves to me.

So like if I'm tuning my guitar, I hear wah, wah, wah, wah, or wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. It's like a little vibrato sort of. So when you push sound through air, it's pushing air and it'll make those little waves. But if you have just this on, it takes all the air out of it. And so I don't hear pitches well when I'm singing. And so I'll always have one earphone off so I can hear those little waves. Because if I can match my wave to the wave I'm hearing, I know I'm in tune. That makes the most sense for singers, right? As opposed to any other kind of musician,

because you're, you're modulating air. That's part of what you're doing. Yeah. It's all breath control. Singing is just about, it's cause it's basically like a garden hose. So all you have is like constriction, dilation, and then tone comes through where you're pushing your air, like where you're going to put that. If you're going to put it on your face mask, white on your cheekbones or narrow it to here. And that's how you sing.

I would imagine the way you hear things is different too. Like, I don't, I'm not a, I love wine, but I can't tell you what it is. You know, but a Somalian can drink wine and sift it around and yeah they have this educated palate i would imagine like sound to you is like you have like a different depth of understanding of sound particularly like vocal sound right do you feel that yeah definitely like you definitely cultivate your ear. But what I love about music is uneducated people can tell whether you're being sincere or authentic or not. Like it's kind of fascinating. But something does get communicated in a voice that tells you a lot about their heart and how they're feeling.

And so much information gets communicated beyond pure tone that I've always found that so interesting about music. Yeah, in regular conversation, that's true as well right it's with everything really and some folks don't see that and they're the ones who send money to tell evangelists yeah or those guys are probably great at you know tricking a lie detector test to like they're just good at presenting a really specific thing that a lot of people can't see through. There's a place that I was going to buy out here for a comedy club. And I was in the middle of this process and it wound up falling apart because there was, like, some environmental issue. But the place, it turned out, was owned at one point in time by a cult.

And there's a documentary about the cult and it's called holy hell and it's on amazon prime and i watched it but i didn't watch it until i was in contract with the building i was like holy shit holy hell yeah holy hell it was so sad it was so sad there's this crazy guy who built this theater that I was going to buy just so he can dance in front of his followers. And these poor people, they started with him in West Hollywood and then they made it out here to Austin. And they built this structure specifically so that he could perform in front of his followers.

And this was a place I was going to buy and convert to a comedy club. And I hadn't watched the doc. I should have watched documentary first. Did you buy it? No, it wound up falling apart because there was an issue that I don't think I'm allowed to talk about. I think I have an NDA, but it wasn't good. There wasn't an issue that needed to be resolved.

It's resolvable, but it wasn't resolved. Right. But the documentary, like you see these people who are not good at seeing sincerity and they don't know what's real and what's not real. And they wanted this alternative path of life that was just, you know, they had a community together. They grew their own food and it was all about love and but ultimately it was run by this crazy guy who uh fucked all of his followers and the men followers the women followers i mean i think he's fucking everybody and he was seems like the reason to have a cult it's like some people learn to play lead guitar to do that and other people have to become cult leaders or they do both like david koresh

the waco guy didn't he do both both. He had a little bit of music. Manson, both. Yeah. There's a great Manson book. I don't know if you ever heard of it. It's called Chaos by a guy named Tom O'Neill, who's been on the podcast before. He explained it. He worked on this.

It's a crazy story. And unfortunately for people that have heard this before, I'm going to just give Jewel a little quick breakdown. This guy was writing an article and he was my very good friend, Greg Fitzsimmons. He was his neighbor for 20 years. And this guy got an article, got a consignment to write this article. And in the process of writing this article about the Manson murders, he starts uncovering all this crazy shit about the real root of what had happened. And it turned out 20 years later, what it was really all about was the CIA. And the CIA had been doing these mind control experiments with hippies and LSD. And they did a lot of it in prison and had gone to prison to visit Charles Manson,

had given him an acid in prison as a part of these studies. Prior to. Yes. Prior to his release. And then during his whole rampage, like the whole Manson family, supplying them with acid, getting him out of jail every time. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Getting him out of jail every time he was arrested. And they ran a clinic in San Francisco, the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, which my wife's mom went, my wife's mom was a hippie in Haight-Ashbury in the 70s, went there in the 60s, went there for treatment. Like she lived there and went there and it was a front for the CIA. They were doing drug experiments on people. They also did a thing called Operation Climax, Midnight Climax. Operation Midnight Climax, they would take over brothels, and they would have two-way mirrors, and they would give the prostitutes drugs to give to the Johns.

So these guys would come in to try to have sex, and they would give them a drink, and they would take a drink, and they would get LSD. And so then they would study them. So they would inadvertently trip when they went to these places and then they'd be studied by the CIA. And they ran these for years. Holy shit. Yeah.

Oh, that makes me sad. There's this great book called Traumatic Narcissism that talks about the psychology that often leads to co-eaters. Coal Eaters. It's a clinical book, but I found it really, really fascinating about the type of person that has that need, that drive to cause other people to submit, to help support their own image of themselves. Well, the crazy thing is how prevalent it is throughout history, right? Because we're looking at it in terms of non-sanctioned versions of this, like the Holy Hell guy or Manson, but the Catholic Church or many different churches. You're dealing with the same exact scenario. You're just doing it in a sanctioned form where you have cardinals and bishops and the pope and it's all going down. parish, unless they are as true to the word of Jesus as is humanly possible, to the point where they're selfless and they really dedicate themselves to...

I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine today about that, where he was telling me about this guy who works with the homeless in Austin that literally bought this chunk of land, built housing on it, has people come out there. He and his wife live with these people and works to rehabilitate them. Like the guy literally does like the work of the Lord. Like he's trying to like help these people's lives. But he's really doing it. Like he's the real deal.

Like how many of those are there? It just takes so much personal self-reflection and work. And that saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's really true. And not many people, you know, where you start separating people from God and saying, no, you can't talk to God. I can talk to God for you. Like, you just set yourself up in obviously a really powerful position that's going to put everybody else at a disadvantage. And you have to be so morally intact to be able to handle that kind of power.

And I don't know why you would want it anyway. Yeah, you wouldn't want it if you're that morally intact. Yeah. But it's like that's the idea about presidents, right? Anybody who would want to be president shouldn't be president. It's true. It's so sad. It is sad.

It just doesn't pay good enough. You're not going to get somebody to do the job. Have you ever listened to a hardcore history? The podcast there's a guy named Dan Carlin, who's amazing. And he's he says he's not a historian because, you know, he's not like technically accredited as a historian, but he really is a historian. He's just more of an amateur historian, but he's incredible at breaking down historical events. And he did this one about Martin Luther and about how Martin Luther was the beginning of Lutheranism. How do you say it? Lutheranism? Sure.

Sure? Sounds right. In the, I guess the 1400s or 15. Yeah, I know. priests. Instead, they were able to read it themselves. And they were also, he did another thing that made him a heretic where he said, you should be able to interpret the Bible into your own thoughts. Like you should be able to interpret God's word. You shouldn't allow anybody else to interpret it for you. This is what century? we're talking 1400s i think it was i think it was the 16th century i think it was the 1500s or maybe it was the 1400s but it was uh yeah i hadn't heard of them it's pretty

interesting because they tried to kill that motherfucker i don't doubt it i bet they got it done i mean is anybody i don't know but they're like hey man you're fucking up our gig yeah exactly because he came along and made the bible accessible what what year was um 1500s yeah wow what a trip 1507 yeah i think what people don't realize and not that i mean i don't know if you know much of what happened with my mom and i but like something I don't think people realize is like that lobster in the pot thing of- What happened with your mom and you? Oh God, it's like a whole thing. It took me a whole book to figure out

even how to describe what happened with my mom. But to give you like a starting point, when I was, so my mom left when I was eight. My dad took over raising us and we lived on a homestead in Alaska. I found out about that through watching that show. That's my dad. I know.

That's crazy. Alaska, The Last Frontier. When I watched that show, I was like, wow, these people are cool. And then someone goes, you know, that's where Jewel came from. I was like, shut the fuck up. No way. And then I looked at everybody there. I'm like, oh, my God, they look like her.

It's true. The big nose, the cheekbones. They have nicer teeth, but what are you going to do? Yeah, it's funny. On that show, my little brother texted me. He's like, I'm about to sign a TV contract and he doesn't have a TV. So I thought he was like an electronic store trying to buy a TV and that they're making him sign a contract or something. And I was like, why are you signing a contract by a television? He's like, no, like a reality TV show contract. And I was like, don't sign it. Who are you talking to? What do you mean?

You know, I was trying to get the details through this text. And he's like, I don't really know who's doing it. It might be Discovery. I'm like, Discovery Network? Like, you're about to sign a contract. I was like, please have them call me. Nobody calls me. I'm like, trying to figure out what's going on. So I had CAA cold call Discovery and just say, hey, if you're looking to sign a contract i was like please have them call me nobody calls me i'm like trying to figure out what's going on so i had caa cold call discovery and just say hey if you're looking at the kilcher family we represent them and then they call the discovery calls the producers

and like how do a bunch of hillbillies in alaska have caa calling us like in two hours they had no idea it was my family like it was completely just discovered them on their own wow yeah pretty funny it's a great show yeah i enjoyed it i'd love the idea of living like that when i was when i came up and when i first got discovered the press had no idea they were like jewel grew up on a hippie commune i was like i did not grow up on a hippie commune like that's not how it's not what a homestead is or jewel was raised on a ranch and i, that's not how, that's not what a homestead is. Or Jewel was raised on a ranch. And I'm like, that's closer, but it's not what a homestead is. But they just couldn't understand and would, of course, really make fun of, like, I was raised with an outhouse and I grew up only eating what we killed or canned or harvested.

But it was such a foreign thing that it's been nice having the show out. Homestead. Homesteading is basically when the government gave you free land to settle a wild territory. So my grandmother and grandfather were born in Switzerland, living in Germany. My grandfather was going to university, I think in Geneva, maybe. And he came up with this theory because he was taking a history class on the fall of civilizations. And he had this theory that if a population hits a certain critical mass, that it collapses. And so he started looking at the population of Europe, and he felt like Europe was going to collapse. This was in the late 20s, early 30s.

And so he convinced all these people, philosophers, painters, just a big random group of people that Europe was going to fail. That sounds like what I'm trying to do about America. You would have liked my granddad. I think he was right. He was just off by 100 years. No, I think he was right because World War II happened.

Yeah, right. Anyway, he was sent ahead as a scout to go to Alaska because they were giving away free land. It was still a territory. It wasn't a state yet. It took him two years. It's like a crazy story,

hiking over Harding glacial ice field with a ladder on his back and he'd lay the ladder across crevices in the ice and then walk across the ladder you know i have old like footage of him um on a raft of logs he made himself standing up paddling with huge chunks of icebergs all around like gnarly shit like my granddad was really gnarly and he didn't grow up doing that no it was like raised in switzerland you know people were just so hardcore yeah and my granddad was like he was just hard not hard guy so anyway the war starts to break out like hitler starts to become an actual problem and now nobody can get visas in this group

except my grandmother whose father had come to America during World War I and went back to Switzerland. So anyway, she can get a visa. Nobody else can. So she decides to leave everybody, her boyfriend, her family, everybody, because she didn't want to be in Europe while this war started gearing up. So she got on the very last civilian ship that left right before the war. She shows up in Alaska. My granddad's like, where is everyone? She's like, nobody could come. It's just me. And he's like, where's your boyfriend? And she's like, I broke up with him. And he's like, do you want to get married? And her mother was a seamstress, really poor, but had given my grandmother all of her

cash and just said, this is so you don't ever have to rely on a man, which is to me so sweet. So my grandmother had this huge wad of cash in her pocket, probably more than anybody in that area had. And she felt it in her pocket. And then she looked at my granddad, but she really believed in his vision. And she was like, sure, why not? They got married. And then they walked 200 miles across the wilderness to get to Homer. They walked?

How long did that take? There was no roads. There was no like horse and wagon trails. There wasn't shit. You're just talking about wild land. And then once they got. No, this is like, when did the war break out? We're talking.

No, 36? I'm terrible. Anyway, 30s. So it was right around then. So they got to Homer. They knew they liked Homer, which is on this place called Kachemak Bay. And then they walked up and down there trying to find a place. They found a place.

And then they just carved a living out of, like, legit raw wilderness. No grocery stores. No nothing, you know. Wow. And it was just that. My dad's childhood photos look like the 1800s. It's a horse and wagon with wooden wheels. And when the tides were out, they could take the wagon down to the beach and then they could go into where there was a town and they could get some basic supplies like flour, you know.

But that's all they bought was like maybe flour, salt and sugar. And that's how my dad was raised. Like my dad's childhood was gangster. How did he know how to do everything? So everybody in the group decided to learn a skill before they came. And so my grandfather learned how to build cabins. You know, other people were supposed to learn different things, but nobody came. And so they just figured it out.

Nobody came? No, it was just my granddad and my grandma. So all the plans that all these other people had. They couldn't come because of the war. Nobody could get visas. It was Dunsville. So it was just my granddad and my grandmother. And couldn't come because of the war. Nobody could get visas. Wow. It was Dunsville. So it was just my granddad and my grandmother. And they had eight kids in the wilderness.

Whoa. Yeah. I mean, you need some workforce, you know. I know. But then those kids, it's like, how do they find people? How do they find people to hang out with? My dad's childhood is, it was amazing. But Homer turned into a city.

You know, it turned into a little town. So there was a school eventually. They were originally homeschooled. But Homer turned into a city. You know, it turned into a little town. So there was a school eventually. They were originally homeschooled, but eventually there was a town. I mean, just amazing stories. Like, stories from my dad's childhood were just gangster. I'll tell you one story. This sounds really bad. I hope my dad won't mind that story.

Now, mind you, my dad never told me this story for years and years. So the story didn't really register as an interesting story to my dad. But I found it really fascinating. So getting cheese was really, really hard up there. And so somehow my grandma got a huge block of cheese. And there was no electricity, obviously. So it's out in an icebox, you know, in the back of the house in the shade. My grandfather was gone a lot. He was often exploring. He also became a senator. And so he was kind of into politics and was gone a lot. So my grandmother was running that ranch with eight kids by herself with nothing. So she goes out in the back to go get the cheese and the door is open. The cheese is gone. And she looks on the ground and there's a cat that's very fat at this

point with little crumbs of cheese everywhere. And so my grandmother takes the cat, chops its head off, cuts it open, grabs the cheese out, cooks the cat and serves it with the cheese sauce. And it wasn't she wasn't I mean, she's probably pissed at the cat, but that was just food. You know what I mean? It was just like, holy shit. That's yeah, it was a gangster childhood. Holy shit. She ate the cat with cheese sauce the kids did everybody did like it was just there wasn't a lot of food out there you know they'd have one chicken for 10 people like it's just wow people don't realize what it's like to really live off the land like you you don't waste a thing you know what i mean you just don't like i grew up we

butcher cattle like we had a few cattle. We only hunted. Like we only had what we raised, vegetables and stuff. But we ate everything, you know. We gathered the blood and we made blood sausage and we ate everything. It's just how it was. Well, that's what you do when you need to actually make use of a full resource because it's finite. Yeah.

We're accustomed to just being able to go to a store and people are so disconnected from the idea where food comes from. Yeah. It was one of the things that happened during the pandemic when things started getting weird and food started missing from shelves. I had a buddy of mine who sent me a photo of his, he was in North Carolina at the time.

He sent me a photo of his store and that there was nothing on the shelf in the meat section. And he just sends me a text dude i gotta learn how to hunt yeah and that thought process went through a lot of people's minds like i'm just assuming that this supply chain is always going to be in place and they're always going to be delivering chickens and all this stuff it's going to be there for me to buy but if it's, it rewires our perception of what food is. It rewires our perception of what, what it means to survive.

Like what, when you have to cook the cat. Yeah. What the fuck does a cat taste like? That's, you know, well, enough cheese sauce.

You know, you can only value what you have a relationship with, right? If you don't have a relationship with something, you can't value it. Right. And so I think that as we moved out of villages where we relied on nature, we had a strong relationship with nature. We valued it. We valued our food. It was sacred.

It wasn't just hunting hoo-ha-ha. It was like, holy shit, I need this animal. And it's a relationship. Yeah. And relationships change you, right? So if you're in a relationship, you are required, you will as a byproduct evolve as a human, right? If you're in relationship with a wife, you're going to evolve because of that relationship. When you quit evolving, you quit having a relationship, you quit growing

together. So I feel like when we went from a village and started to urbanize, we stopped having a relationship. In a lot of ways. I think it kind of caused us to be schizophrenic as a humanity. We went from this cohesive environment where there was a healer and food and everything was in this really cohesive environment that we had a personal relationship with. And then all of a sudden, we no longer had a relationship with our food. Somebody else would bring it. Somebody else would bring the milk and someone would bring the vegetables. And it started being parceled in. And then you look at like health

care turned into this building over there and they took care of our bodies. And then mental health care didn't even come up till really recently. But we kind of caused ourselves to be schizophrenic and out of relationship, out of harmony with what makes us human, actually. And so people don't know. I mean, the reason the planet to me is in the shape it's in is we just don't have a relationship with it. We have no idea where our food comes from. We have no idea the value of water. People don't even know how heavy water is when you're carrying it. I grew up carrying it, you know, and I grew up watering the garden with buckets that you bring up from the stream. And it's like, boy, you didn't waste a

drop. And I was in a relationship with it. I value it. And that to me is one of the saddest things is when you're saying people don't know where their food comes. You're saying they don't have a relationship with it anymore. But they do have the – there's like an advantage to be able to go to a doctor who can fix a broken leg. There's an advantage to someone running an MRI on you and finding out exactly what's wrong and not having any guesswork so that there are advantages to modern medicine there's advantages to technology you know you can share ideas instantaneously because the internet like there's good and bad but I think what's happened is it's happened so quickly and we've adapted to it so quickly that our our bodies are not designed for this they didn't evolve in this sort of a

world. They didn't evolve for fluorescent lighting and cubicles and traffic and all the things, the woes of modern society, credit, debt, stress, all the things that we take for granted that are just a normal part of life. One of the reasons why we're so fucked up is because we're literally a square peg that's been forced into a round hole. So our edges get sheared off. We get stuffed into this thing. We have all this open space because we don't totally fit in. And now we're trying to navigate this world that we've created ourselves with no forethought. It's just happened, right? The society that we've created, it's not like it was like, this will be the best for people.

And when we take into account people's psychology and the needs and our human reward systems and all the different things that are in play because of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, this is probably the best way to make it smooth. No, that's not what happened. It just happened. And one of the things that is so weird about our society is that it's so technologically dependent. And that's the thing that evolves and changes the quickest out of all the things around us. So we become dependent on it. We become attached to it. It evolves so quickly that it's constantly rapidly changing and forming and our biology has no chance to keep up with it. And then you have all this crazy anxiety and all this weirdness and these dopamine rushes that people get from staring at screens all day and they can't help themselves and screen addiction and all this weirdness that's a part of modern life in 2021.

It's really just because we've invented some really cool shit that has some purposes. Particularly, but it's like we are the most advanced civilization in the history of humankind, but we're the unhappiest. You know, suicide rates between 2006 and 2018 went up 70 percent across almost every demographic. Those were pre-COVID numbers. That's because of Facebook. I blame that Zuckerberg character. I think it's all of it. You know, I think it's like distraction. And I was raised around a lot of American natives.

I was adopted by these uncles when I was like 15. I moved out at 15. And these uncles, like, boy, they taught me a lot. But it's really interesting because, like, my uncles taught me certain definitions of, like, power has a lot. But it's really interesting because like my uncle's taught me certain definitions of like power has a definition and active power is something that serves you and your community and it becomes a circular action. And so it has a momentum and becomes self-sustaining. Whereas, you know, in general, that was not, that's not in modern day standards considered an active power and active powers are something that's self-serving and you get as much as you can, but it becomes hierarchical, which caused it to implode. It just falls apart. It implodes in on itself because it's not circular. And I really think that we just threw out, we were so eager to call traditional wisdom, just calling Indian savages when they were actually healing complex things. And no, they didn't have a shot at chickenpox and all the crappy shit that we exposed them to.

things. And no, they didn't have a shot at chickenpox and all the crappy shit that we exposed them to. But there's so much wisdom in that tradition and in many indigenous traditions that when you look at like how our technology has outpaced our philosophy, we really, we're struggling as a humanity. We're depressed, we're distracted, and you can't keep yourself safe if you're not here. So the problem with distraction is it takes you, it's like trying to keep a house safe from burglars by leaving your house to go find burglars. Anxiety is like that. You know what I mean? Like the present moment means staying in your house and it's not comfortable. It might not feel good in your skin, but that's the only way you're actually going to figure out how to advocate and make good decisions. And then that's not even just to mention, like, are you going to make decisions strictly from your head or is your heart involved

at all? We just don't live in a society that values heartful decisions, but I don't see how you have anything sustainable. And I love capitalism. I love all of that, but you still have to make a decision from your heart if it's going to have sustainability, which to me is just, if you're selfish, that's a great idea. Yeah. No, it's great for everybody. But obviously you seem to have worked through it. Through it. Through you understand that there are these pitfalls and you avoid them and you recognize them and you can speak so eloquently about all the things that are wrong with our modern society and the way we view stuff. So it's not insurmountable.

And technology exists and that's how we found each other it's not insurmountable and technology exists. And that's how we found each other. We found each other through. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's how, I mean,

it does work that way. Yeah. Like there's, there's not necessarily, it's not necessarily all bad. It's like saying guns are bad. Guns aren't bad. Right.

It's just an inanimate object. You know, it's people with guns. It's the person can be bad. Bad people with guns are bad. Bad people with guns are bad. Bad people with guns are bad. And what we have, like if to me, like I like elegant solutions, so I love complex problems and I like going, why do we have pollution and Me Too and gun violence and opioid addiction and higher suicide rates? And is there a common denominator? To me, there

is a common denominator and it comes down to mental, for lack of a better word, but we're not doing well. And when we're ill, when we're emotionally ill, we'll leverage a vulnerable human, or we'll get addicted to porn, or we'll take painkillers, or I'll feel disconnected, and I'll just trash my environment. But it's all side effects of the same cause and bureaucracy, government, just society. We've lost in a matter of a few short generations. What do we do with pain? People don't know how to transmute pain. We're built for it.

You know, like we are built to handle adversity. We're built to be resilient. But monoculture is the opposite of resilience. Resilience means having multiple skill sets to handle something, right? So you have like 15 tools to try and get a job done depending on what the job is. We've lost resiliency because we've lost a lot of emotional intelligence. And to me, that's where I've focused all of my life energy. Because I knew when I moved out at 15 that I was really fucked. Like I knew that the odds were against me. And I didn't want to be a statistic. And I looked at nature versus nurture and I was like, if I received bad nurture, am I done? Am I ever going to get to know my real nature? And it was depressing at 15 to think your life's done, like you're pre-programmed. And so my life's purpose was to try and re-nurture myself to get out my real nature and see if that

was possible. Well, you're also, I mean, coming from a homestead, that's uniquely qualifies you to have this diversity of skills, right? Because like, that's how everybody got by. That's the only way, right? I mean, if you're going to build your own house and hunt your own food and grow your own vegetables and can them and like, there's a lot of things you have to learn how to do. You can't call someone to fix the plumbing. You can't call, you don't even have plumbing. Did you guys have a well? No we had streams. Just streams? You just went and gathered water? You didn't think of like hooking a pipe up to those things and bringing it to the house?

It was just everywhere. No we never did. But when we got older we had a hose that ran from a stream up through a hole in the sink. Nice. But then like the worms in the spring. Oh would get into this the hole. And so you'd like they'd take my i mean i was the only girl on an all guy like ranch and so i'd take my little pink pretty scarf and tie it around the hose to catch all the worms i was like there goes my cute scarf

and it was that did you guys ever get giardia or anything from the water no never that's uh what is that it's if there's gophers and stuff and things that get in. I think anything. But I think me and my family kind of grew an immunity. I do think you can kind of grow tolerance to what's in the water around you. Well, that's how folks like down in Mexico don't have the same problems with water. That, you know, when American tourists go down there and get Montezuma's revenge, how come they don't get it? Because they have a different gut biome. Yeah, exactly. But with I do think like with homesteading,

it gave me a tremendous amount of advantages as far as I was raised in an environment where it was like, figure it out. Like, I know you don't know what you're doing, but you're gonna be expected to figure it out. So that's really good. And then I wasn't raised with a male female system where the women do this job and the men do that job. I was raised where you just, everybody does everything. And so I was expected to do all the work. And I know I wasn't as strong, but I know I was as smart or as capable and I was still expected to find a way to do it. Not to mention like the eight kids that were originally born, my dad's siblings were six girls and two boys. So it was very female heavy and the women, you know, logged, fell their own trees, skinned their own trees,

built their own homes. Like that's just how I was raised, which was a huge advantage. And I think it's why I was willing to move out at 15 when my dad wasn't nice. I was like, I'll go on my own. When I was homeless, I was like, I'll be by myself. I don't have to be by the other homeless kids. So I think that independent spirit helped me. But the type of resilience I'm actually talking about is more of like an emotional toolkit, emotional resilience. And, you know, when I moved out at 15, I realized I had this genetic inheritance. But I also had an emotional one. And it was that emotional one that was causing systemic abuse.

And it was getting handed generation to generation. My grandfather beat his kids. He was also great, you know, like also a great person, but also beat his kids. And then my dad didn't want to be that way when he grew up. My dad's childhood was so traumatic that when he went to Vietnam, he was relaxed. It was like the first time his nervous system was like, like an exhale. Oh, my God. Yeah.

That's crazy. That's gnarly. And so then my dad, you know, leaves Vietnam, marries my mom, has three kids and my mom leaves. And all of a sudden he's just trauma triggering. Nobody knows what that we didn't know those words, you know. So he starts drinking to try and help that. And he ends up repeating the cycle much less than his dad, mind you, but started getting hit at that age. And so that's why when I moved out at 15, I just knew like,

statistically, I'm going to end up in an abusive relationship on drugs, drinking, some version of all of that. And I didn't want to be like, to me, like the only counterculture thing to do the only truly rebellious thing I could do is like, how do I get happy? And if happiness isn't taught in my home? Is it aable skill is it a teachable skill and that was the impetus for everything still to this day where do you think you had this this insight to to break this mold where do you think that how do you think you had the wisdom like where do you think it came from do you think it came like part of it might've come from what's required of you when you're living on a homestead that you had to develop this sort of, you had to overcome adversity. You had to develop character. You had

to do things that were very difficult to know that you're capable of doing those things. Like what was it that allowed you to have the kind of confidence that most 15 year olds are not, they're just going to tolerate whatever bullshit their environment throws at them because it also provides warmth and a roof over their head. I think part of it was, you know, that I was raised on a homestead and I was raised around really strong people, male and female that I was willing. But to me it was kind of logical too.

It's like I can either live in a cabin with a hole or I can just go live in a cabin. It was like that just seemed a lot nicer to me. I'd been working since I was young and I just I hate being unhappy. I know everybody does, but I really hate it. I really dislike it. And I hated being hit and I hated being held up. And so I was willing to pay the price and figure out how to pay rent and figure out how to get jobs so that I didn't have to be around that. Were you allowed to work at 15? I mean, it's a small town, so you find stuff to do. I was giving horse rides to tourists for a cowboy in town and I was cleaning buildings.

You know, I'd make money that way. But I think also like I was lucky I had a teacher that exposed me to like Greek philosophy. And that's how I knew the idea of nature versus nurture. And that idea got me thinking like, wait a minute, what is my nurture? And then I was like, wait a minute, it's horrible. bunny named Caramel. And Caramel was raised in the chicken coop because it was the only safe place because bunnies in Alaska don't do very well. And it thought it was a chicken, like it would peck at its food. And it kind of waddled funny. It didn't like do a normal hop, but it kind of waddled like a chicken and it would lay on the nests and hatch eggs for the hens. And it was so cute growing up until I moved out, because then I was like, what if I'm a bunny that thinks it's a chicken? And how will I ever know what I am if what I was raised around is what I think I am? And that fucked with me. Like that thought just, I had to, it really did my head in for a little while. And I was like, I have to find a way to know what my nature is, irrelative of the systems that I've been given around me. And so how do you start to distinguish between self and other? And that kind of stuff just turned me on. I thought that was really interesting. And I liked that kind of thing.

So did you get these ideas from specific books? Like, were you reading something? Did you have a mentor? Did you have people that you look to to have conversations about life? No, there was none of that around. It wasn't like that. Not to say reading the symposium or, you know, the allegory of the caves or something isn't mind altering, because it is, you know, and that kind of stuff, I think really helped me think in different terms. But I learned about, like, the dialectic, right? Socraterian, soccer, is that how you say it? Anyway, the dialectic. Two people have a conversation, a third thing gets known. That was really cool to me. It was empowering to me. And I think it

was an eighth grade or something. And then I realized if I asked myself a question, I could often hear an answer. So I could have a dialectic with myself. I could sit and get quiet and ask myself a question. And it's like, I kind of know an answer or I'd feel like I knew a direction. And then my think between that, which was starting to cultivate, cultivate like an inner awareness, I call it your greater sense of intelligence. You know, there's your brain, which can only know what you're programmed to know. But then there's like this other thing you can tap into. And I think a lot of artists, that's what we do. We're supposed to tap into something a little bit outside of our brain, a little outside of, you know, I call it, I don't know what else to call it, my greater sense of intelligence. And when I did that, I noticed patterns I didn't realize I noticed. So if I sat and wrote while I was doing that, I was kind of just going inward, I would see patterns and I could ask myself questions like, why does my dad hit me? And I would see an answer that I didn't know I knew before. And that was really interesting.

And I found it fascinating and it made me love it. And then the other thing was not watching nature. I really think nature taught me how to be a human. I was raised around such big, beautiful nature that, you know, if I'd sit on the bluff and watch the tide go in and out, I was really sad this one day. And the tide takes a long time to go out there and a long time to come back in. And for some reason, it just hit me like nothing's permanent, nothing. So I'm sitting here really depressed, thinking the rest of my life is going to be depressing. But I'm not so special that I'm the only thing in all of the universe that will not change. So all I had to do was sit it out. And that one thing changed my life. It kept me from killing myself multiple

times because I just knew all I had to do is wait for the tide to come back in. And I would just sit there and I'd rock because I was having panic attacks. Once I moved out by 16, I was having like bad panic attacks. And I would just sit there and be like, the tide's just out. But it has to change because nothing's permanent. And that helped me. So lots of things watching nature. I could name so many things that I learned from nature. It's so easy for us to get stuck in us and not take into account the grand scale of everything that's around us. And I think it's one of the reasons why people that live on beachfront areas are more relaxed because I think you look at the ocean and you go, I'm not shit. Like whatever my problems are, it's like in the face of the magnitude of water, in the

face of a mountain, in the face of nature, the face of the stars. There's nothing more humbling than looking up at the Milky Way and just trying to imagine that this goes on forever and that there's hundreds of billions of these same kind of galaxies that are out there. You can't imagine. But then you're worried about your electrical bill or whatever. Whatever it is, it's fucking with you. You worry about your relationship. But in the moment those things seem like everything they seem like the only thing yeah but over time they seem silly like relationships right like i remember my girlfriend broke up with me when i was 18 and i thought my life was over i

can't couldn't believe it how can i go on? This this kind of pain is unstoppable. Like this is unsustainable. You can't imagine living your life with this heartbreak. And then like a month later, I was like, who gives a fuck? Wow. Thank God I didn't like marry her or something or have children with her or something. But in the moment, it's so hard to see, so hard to see outside of it. And then it's probably, I mean, all of that is probably these human reward systems that are designed to keep us alive. You know, the ego and jealousy and all these different things that are in place, they probably serve some sort of evolutionary purpose at some point in time, but they're not serving us a purpose in our lives. Not without intention. You know, it's like when I was homeless, you know, I never drank, I never did drugs. So I was like, I have to avoid that if I'm going to figure my life out.

But when I was homeless, I was stealing a lot, like a lot. It started with food and then it just turned into anything. And so I got- So you're just doing it for a rush? I think it was like a coping mechanism. It made me feel in control. It also made me feel like I was taking care of myself. It was really nurturing.

And it was also just a great distraction. It's an intense thing to engage in that makes you not think about what you're scared about. And so I sat down and I was like, actually, I was trying to steal a dress. I was in this dressing room and I had this dress and I was shoving it down my pants and I saw my reflection in the mirror. I look like a statistic, you know, so like that noble thing I set out on three years earlier to not be a statistic. Scoring came screeching to a halt and I see my reflection in a mirror and I'm shoving this dress down my pants and I'm a homeless kid stealing and I'm gonna end up in jail or dead and it just hit me like a ton of bricks and I just remember thinking I thought a lot of things that was like one of the most like transformative moments in my life

the first thing I remembered was this quote that was attributed to Buddha that said happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have. It depends on what you think. And I didn't have anything left. And so I was just like I have to double down on figuring out this what am I thinking thing. But the other thing, I mean it just led to so many like insights. It was like I don't even know where to begin because it's like so many things start coming to my head. But I couldn't tell what I was thinking because I had so much anxiety and I was just disassociating a lot. I was getting agoraphobic at that time. And so I decided like your hands are the servants of your thought. If you want to know what you're thinking, watch what your hands

are doing because it's like thought cooled down into action because your hands are just obeying thoughts. Right. So I decided for two weeks I would just write down everything that my hands did and some dumb life plan. But I literally did it. And I couldn't stop stealing right away. So I'd write down when I stole, write down when I washed my hands, or if I wouldn't shake somebody's hand, whatever the hell it is, I wrote what my hands did for two weeks. I don't know what I was looking for. At the end of the two weeks, I look at my little journal and it looks like a bunch of weird shit. I'm like, well, I quit believing in myself. But the much more interesting thing is, is my panic attacks went away in that two weeks

and I didn't even realize it until I sat down. And what I stumbled on was presence, right? I stumbled on being so absorbed in the moment that I couldn't fixate on things that I was afraid of. And this idea of like fear is this thief that takes your past, it projects it into a future that hasn't happened, and it robs me of the only chance I have to be safe, which was my main

concern was safety, which was right now. And if I couldn't even show up right now to advocate for myself or to make a good decision, I was fucked. And no wonder I'm anxious. That should make you anxious. You know, that's a bad idea to leave your house to go look for burglars. And so that was sort of what started to really create, it was an incredibly like fertile period in my life of a lot of insights. And the reason I was going there was because when you talk about like the biological reason for like, why do we have jealousy? Why do we have these things? There must be some kind of evolutionary purpose. I was looking at that with addiction because addiction was huge in my family. I was now addicted to shoplifting. And I just sort of was like, there must be a reason our brains are capable of addiction. Right. I don't think like God's looking down going, ha ha mistake or whatever. So why can we get addicted? And maybe it's just that you can get addicted. It just can be to good things or bad things. And that really comes down to your intention and how purposeful you can be.

And a lot of us are so hurt and have so much pain that we're not conscious enough of that we can actually be intentional and get ourselves off sort of the merry-go-round of our programming and set ourselves on a new course. And that was my goal. I wanted to get off of my programming and into how do I take this car off of autopilot and how do I start taking this car where I want to go, my car being me. And so with addiction, I realized there was like, it looked like a triangle to me, but it was a before, a during, and an after. And I could tell that the before was clearly before I wanted to steal. The during was when I was stealing and the after was after. And so I started to get really curious about what's happening during each of those three phases, which takes a lot of awareness, right? I had to learn how to get pretty present to even notice those three things. So what I realized was like, I would get scared, I would react by stealing, and I felt a reward. I felt powerful, I felt calm, I felt in control, which was great when you feel scared and

out of control in your life. And so I realized I couldn't affect the first part. Being homeless was just really triggering and really scary, but I could control, I could affect the middle, right, where I was stealing and to replace it with a behavior. So I started to replace it with writing because I was writing a lot in my journal. And it felt awful. Like I just literally had to force myself. But again, it takes cultivation. Like sometimes I wouldn't even wake up till after I stole, you know, and then sometimes I'd kind of wake up while I was stealing, but I didn't want to quit and then sometimes I'd noticed the urge to steal but I really wanted to steal and I would anyway and then finally like after months I started to notice I'd want to steal and I'm gonna make myself right so you know anyway listening I just don't want to

think this was like overnight aha like it took months for me to get to this point and then writing just sucked it felt sucky it didn't feel exciting or fun I was miserable it made me realize It felt sucky. It didn't feel exciting or fun. I was miserable. It made me realize how miserable I was. Like it didn't feel really rewarding. And then that got me onto this really cool thing of noticing our body only has two states. Like we only have two basic states of being dilated and contracted. And that's it. And every single thought, feeling or action is going to lead you to one of those two states. it. And every single thought, feeling or action is going to lead you to one of those two states.

And so I started to keep track. Every time I noticed I was tight, you know, I'd notice from my body language, like I was sitting like this. I rock a lot when I get anxious. I kind of don't breathe as much. So if I could notice that, I'd write it down. I'd get out my little notebook and I'd go to my contracted section. And I had three sections in there, thinking, feeling, doing. And I would just write down, what was I thinking feeling or doing and I wouldn't I would just write it down and I'd go on with my day and this is all did you learn how to do this from anyone did you figure this out on your own how to write these things out and that like to develop these categories no it was just like my curiosity like I wanted out I didn't want to die homeless yeah I just wanted out I wanted to do better and so that to die homeless. Yeah. I just wanted out. I wanted to do better.

And so that was just my motivation. And I would just get really curious and go inside myself to try and go, what the hell is going on? Why am I doing this? Why is my behavior like this? And so when I was relaxed, I would notice and then I'd write down thinking, feeling, doing. And then I looked at it after like two months and it was a really easy pattern to see. The things that dilated me were joy, observation, gratitude, curiosity. The actions were helping other people like volunteering, reading, sleeping, exercising, being outside. On my contracted side, it was certain thought cycles definitely got me.

Like, I don't know what I'm doing. That thing could just, that one sentence for some reason would do my head in because I didn't know what I was doing. And it was so scary. I was so scared because I was in so many bad situations. But jealousy, greed, fear, worry, not sleeping, not connecting to humans, not exercising. So then one day, so my panic attacks were still really a big problem. And I started to get to where I could feel a panic attack coming on. And I was like, wait a minute. Your body can't be in two states at one time. Like it just can't.

You can only be in one at a time. And so I was like, I wonder if I could hack my way out of a contracted state by forcing myself to participate in something off of my list that dilated me. And so I looked at gratitude and I was like, I'm going to try that one. And so like my anxiety is building up. I'm doing my rocking thing where I'm about to head into my panic attack. And I'm like, what am I going to be grateful for? And I'm homeless and I'm feeling pretty sorry for myself that day. And I can't think of anything.

And so one of the best like hacks to get present is curiosity and observation. Because you can't like observe this and not be really present because you have to be present to observe it. So I used that to look around me and I saw the sunlight filtering through this palm tree and it made this like lacy pattern on me. And it reminded me of being a kid in Alaska laying in the meadows and watching the tree, you know, through the leaves. And I don't know why, but it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that like I was alive and I was here and I hadn't killed myself. And I was so grateful. And the gratitude of that, which was so unexpected, but it just erupted and moved me to tears that like, what an act of defiance to not have killed myself and to have been there and just trying to figure it out.

And I was suddenly grateful for myself, which was weird because, you know, I had a lot of self-loathing and all kinds of things at the time. And the next thing I knew, a half hour had passed and I didn't have a panic attack. You know, and that to me was like, Eureka! Like, I'm figuring it out. Like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to turn my life around, you know? Wow. was this just from the sheer pain of the anxiety and the depression and just the hating the

position that you're in in life that you just can't take it, you just want out? Yeah, that permanence. I guarantee you, whatever had me sitting on the bluff that day watching the tide saved my life. Because whenever the idea of this is too painful, life is too long to go on this way. It's just too painful to feel this way for 60 years. That thought will get you to kill yourself. But because I saw that tide, I was like, I just have to, I'd call it buckling myself in. I would just have to sit there and wait it out and breathe and wait it out. And then plans helped me like, you know, if you want

a different outcome, you have to do something different. So I was very action oriented because having a philosophy doesn't change your life. Actions change your life. And so that's why I was very into like, if I got an idea, I tried to figure out how to make it practicable, like an actionable step, a behavioral step. And then I could see a result. And if the result wasn't good, I would have to go back to the drawing board and do something different. But if you want tomorrow to be different, you have to do something different today. And then you have to take notes on it and you have to see if it works. And if it doesn't work, you have to try something different.

And then you just have to not give up and you have to keep doing it. But what's so impressive is that you develop this structure and you've figured these steps out on your own, like even the step of having communication with yourself to try to come up with a different result, to sit down and think about the different states that you're in and what are these acts or what are the different activities that lead you, the different thought processes that lead you to the good states, the bad states, like what is it? And that you were, you were looking at it like you're a scientist studying yourself. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. It's pretty incredible that you were a kid and you were that insightful, but I guess that's the thing about horrible situations. Like horrible situations will force a person to find some kind of a solution that they didn't think was available before. They'll find a way or not.

Or not. Yeah, you'll dig deeper. There's a lot of or nots. Or you'll fold up. Yeah. One of those two things are going to happen. But that's, I don't want to say this but i want to say it anyway like you don't get to make a you without that which is so fucked it's like

you're a really interesting person like how do you get to be a really interesting person you gotta have a fucked up life it's it's unfortunately true you know i don't know anybody that's interesting that had it easy yeah i mean i know know anybody that's interesting that had it easy. I mean, I know a lot of nice people that had it easy. They're lovely. They're wonderful. Yeah. But they're not, you know, like there's something about the emotional depth of your music and your lyrics that probably wouldn't be possible if you grew up in the suburbs with a happy mom and a happy dad. And I mean,

I don't want to say wouldn't be possible because everybody's got their own trials and tribulations in life and just the, just the existential angst of being a living finite organism, spinning around on a planet, hurling through infinity, all those things fuck with you. But I don't think they fuck with you as much as being a 15 year old homeless kid in Alaska. You know, I think that's with an abusive family. That's a, that's a whopper. That's a heavy load to carry. And either it breaks your back or you develop some fucking intense quads. It's true. I wasn't homeless in Homer, by the way, I had a cabin and I paid rent, you know, and I had jobs up there in San Diego. It was later. It was when I was 18. I wasn't homeless in Homer, by the way. I had a cabin and I paid rent, you know, and I had jobs up there. In San Diego.

Oh. It was later. It was when I was 18. I wouldn't have sex with a boss and he wouldn't give me my paycheck. Oh, boy. So I was like, fine. The story got worse. It's the story of my life.

Wait till we keep going. Oh, let's keep going. Why not? Look, here's the thing. The thing that is very valuable about these conversations is that most people have been in a moment of darkness and despair in their life. And when they see someone like you, who's loved and successful, and they you're relaying in this very honest way is fuel for people. It's so valuable. For someone right now that's in a bad place, and I guarantee you there's probably a lot of people listening to this right now, that this is resonating with them. And they get something out of this that's not available through any other source.

You can get things, you can get information from books, and you can get inspired by film and art, but to hear a person, an actual person that you know has actually made it through the fire and come out on the other end and has some wisdom and it's like hey here's a map of the territory yeah this is this is what i went through and you're you're traveling through the woods might be different than mine but i'm telling you if you can get there's a clearing outside of this you can get there yeah it's true like what i what I was so interested in

is like, you know, for a kid like me, there wasn't a safety net, right? I didn't have the family safety net. I didn't have money. I didn't have access to therapists. And I didn't want to think again that my life was over because I was in that situation. Like, does that mean there didn't get to be happiness for me? Cause I just wasn't born in the right situation. And that's what, you know, for me because I just wasn't born in the right situation. And that's what, you know, one of the things that really inspired me to keep going. And then once I, you know, got discovered, I wanted to see if this was teachable to other people, because I was very concerned about the people that, again, didn't have those safety nets, didn't have access to therapy. And God forbid, what if therapy doesn't work for you? You know,

like what if you go to your therapist and you just don't feel better and your life doesn't change? Those people often want to really kill themselves because they think it must be me. Like the expert can't fix me. I must be truly broken, which is not the right takeaway. It's just the wrong therapist. It's just the wrong thing or it's not practicable enough. And so I started taking these exercises and really thinking about them of like, all right, what exactly did I do? Like, how did I make these really practicable? And then can I teach them to other people?

And so I formed a youth foundation about 18 years ago with a friend. And we just give these types, we have these types of conversations with them. And, you know, you go, look, you have this pain, but this pain can get transmuted and transformed into rocket fuel for an incredible life. If you don't tank with anger and bitterness and go down that road, you have to transmute it.

And it is like it's medicine. It's poison. It's being bitten by the snake and having to transmute it and turn it into medicine and being able to teach kids how to do it without therapists. And I'm not anti-therapist at all. It's just that I think we should be taught skills to be able to do this for ourselves. It is in us, you know, and these kids are going to find their own unique ways to do it for themselves. And it works, like we take complex PTSD, self-harming, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, and these kids turn around in radical fashion and they're happy and you can see

what it looks like on the other side of suicide ideation you know what is the name of this organization it's called inspiring children and is there a website yeah inspiring children dot something dot org probably probably probably yeah so take me through this process so you're you're 15 you're living in alaska how do you get to San Diego? When I was cleaning buildings in Homer, Alaska for rent, a dance teacher came from out of state and he was doing a two-week dance workshop and I wanted to take it. And so I asked him if I cleaned his studio in exchange,

would he let me take a dance class? Turns out I was a really crappy dancer, but he found that I sang. I was gigging in town with my dad. And so he came to see me sing. And he was a teacher at a fine arts boarding school in Michigan called interlocking. And he was like, you're really talented, you should apply to this boarding schools like, so he helped me get an application and I filled it out. And I got a $5,000 scholarship, but I still needed to raise

raise 10 grand in very little time, like a month. And three women in Alaska, they were like, you can do this. Like you can do a fundraiser. I'm like, what's a fundraiser? And they're like, so they kind of, they're like, can you do anything to raise money? I was like, I can sing because I've been singing with my dad since I was five. And then in bars since I was eight, but I only sang backup. I sang harmony. I didn't sing my own songs, certainly. And so I loved Cole Porter. I loved Cole Porter because there was a gay man in me

dying to get out, apparently. And I loved the entire Cole Porter songbook. And so a local piano player learned the piano parts. And so I sang these Cole Porter songs. And the town, and my aunts taught me, you know, how to make flyers and how to pass them out and then how to go to businesses and ask for donations and then how to auction them off during the show. And so these three women just like

really hooked me up and I earned $10,000 that night. The whole town basically like came together to send me off, which was really neat. And so off I go to school. I'm a feral animal at this point. Like I'm not very house broke, you know, like I'm not a real cultivated. I was scrappy for sure. So I had enough money to get a plane ticket to Detroit, but I had to hitchhike from Detroit up to Traverse City, which is so dumb. But that's what I did. I had to hitchhike from Detroit up to Traverse City, which is so dumb. But that's what I did. I don't know how far it is, but Traverse City where the school is pretty far in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. So I show up and I am walking through like the main street of the campus and I'm looking around and people are like pointing at me. I don't know why they're pointing at me.

And then a teacher rushes out to get me and she goes, you need to go to the dean's office. And I'm like, what did I? I mean, I haven't even figured out what dorm I'm in or anything. And so I go into the dean's office. He goes, where are you from? And I was like, Homer, Alaska. He's like, why do you have a knife on your belt? like why do you have a knife on your belt I was like what and I looked down and like I had a really large skinning knife on my belt but that was really normal where I'm from it wasn't like an aggressive thing so I almost got expelled my very first day because I showed up with a you shouldn't have the skinning knife with you everywhere I didn't know that did you keep it with you for self-defense or did you keep it with you to skin things? Well, it was a habit. Like you always had a knife in Alaska. Always had a knife. I mean, it's just, I mean, if you guys carry knives, you just get used to having a knife on you.

It's handy. And then, yeah, hitchhiking. I hitchhiked a lot because like when I first moved out, I was hitchhiking into town. So it was good to have a knife on you. Yeah, for sure. So it was both. But I didn't think it was like some aggressive, horrible thing or that it would get me expelled my first second on campus. Did they understand when you said you were from Alaska?

Yeah. And I was in a, you know, like I had a, I mean, I clearly wasn't trying to be, I was an easy read. And so he was just like, give me your knife. He like shook his head. He was like, oh my God. He's like, where are your parents? I'm like, about that. Yeah. He was like, oh, my God. He's like, where are your parents? I'm like, about that. Yeah, I'm here on my own. And he goes, do you have money for books? I was like, what do you mean? I'm at school. Like, right. You give me the books. You give me the books. And he was like, he shook his head again. He was looking at me like, who is this kid? And he's like, do you have food? I was like, I'm at a boarding school. I thought they'd have food. But apparently you had to pay for it. And I just didn't know that. And so now I was like in this position where I didn't have money for books. I didn't have money for food. And I was like, do you have a job like that you could give me? And he goes, let me get back to you.

And so he gave me a job like as a model for the art class, fully clothed. You're like a leotard. But it wasn't my ideal job, like wearing a leotard. Like I didn't like my belly. I didn't like what was all happening down here. So I was like, I wasn't too thrilled with like standing in front of a class and like my little belly like made into sculptures. It was such a bummer.

That is what I did. Wow. And so you're 18 at this time. How old are you then? 16. 16. You're 16. Yeah.

So and then you go from there. First of all, before that, I want to back up. Your dad sang and he brought you with him to bars? Yes. So my mom and dad had a show at the Captain Cook in Anchorage, Alaska. They did shows for dinner tourists. And it was like an Alaskan show. There was like a lot of footage of my family that was homesteading.

And my dad wrote original songs. And me and my two brothers would get up and be part of the act. I yodeled. So I started yodeling with him since I was little. And then when my mom left, my dad and I became a duet. And it just turned into bars. So I was bar singing from a really young age. And like, you know, I would have guys put dimes in my hand and they would fold my fingers around the dime and they'd go, call me when you're 16.

You're going to be great to fuck when you're older. Oh, Jesus. And so you just, I just learned. You said that to me when you were eight? Yeah. Nine, nine, ten. Right in there. At least they waited till you were nine.

Yeah. It was nice. Right in there. At least they waited until you were nine. Yeah. That was nice. It was awful. You know, like I'd come out of a bathroom and I remember this guy like measuring my esophagus. It was really aggressive and a little scary. Like, I mean, he did it lightly, but it was a scary thing, right? And he looked at me and he measured his fingers, like the distance between his fingers. Have you been cheating on me?

I'm still not sure what that means. Maybe it's like a blowjob joke. Like I don't quite know, but I just knew it was sexual and it was aggressive and like it was scary. You know, it was just, so that's just what I was raised around. But I learned so much too. Like I learned everybody was in pain. Everybody was in pain. You learned this from bars? Yeah. That's the thing about being a child and being exposed to bars, right? You get to see adults in this like very exposed and vulnerable way. You do. You see them drunk.

Yep. Yeah. They can't hide it. Yeah. And so I just realized everybody's trying to deal with pain by like drugs or drinking or sex or rage you know you just so much raw life you're watching and so i was just like and i knew i was in pain because it's like right after the divorce and my dad just started drinking and i was like note to self like so your dad didn't drink at all before the divorce they were mormon i like i had an idyllic little mormon childhood pre eight years did the Mormons get to them?

Mormons are everywhere. That's the great thing about missionaries. Religious is like, it knows how to do it. I mean, there was every little religion there. It was like a little church. Homer was like, church bar, church bar, church bar. Wow. Yeah.

And so it seems like your dad has always had this sort of showbiz thing like if he wanted to if he was doing that show up there where he was doing like an alaska show for dinner theater and then moving to bars like he always had this desire for an exorbitant amount of attention right my grandmother had been an aspiring opera singer and poetess in europe that was like her dream but she gave up that dream to come to america and have kids in a free country but she taught all of her kids to sing and to draw and sculpt and my aunts and uncles and all of my cousins, I have a wildly talented family. They're all just very charismatic. They're great storytellers. And you didn't have a TV, right, up there. So they were just writing songs to entertain themselves. And it wasn't because

they thought they'd be famous. It was just, it was entertainment. They didn't have a radio. And so they would draw and they'd paint and they, my whole family is really talented. My dad definitely was the one that seemed like he would pick up where his mom left off and maybe carry on that torch. He definitely had dreams of going to Nashville and making records. He actually did when I was young, make a record in Nashville and he'd sell that at the shows in Anchorage. But then when my mom left, it was like he gave up those dreams of trying to be known on a bigger scale. And we just made a living bar singing. was the family living was that yeah and we did like five hour sets you know in bars and I was like I just had to promise myself that I would try to handle my

pain as it came like like that's when I promised I would never drink or do drugs it was just like I had to find a way to handle the pain that I was in. So I didn't end up on that road because it was like there was this kernel of pain and these people just kept burying it with like alcohol and drugs and whatever. And it turned into this mountain and they either would kill themselves or just die. But they never just all they had to do is deal with this first pain. You know what I mean? And so that just seemed illogical to me. And I know it's hard, like when your pain adds up, like whatever it is. But how many people figure it out? It's so small. The number is so tiny. Like if you looked at all the people that have various addictions and various like self-destructive patterns of behavior in their life how many of

them come out of it on the other end uh for the better it's probably 10 or something you know it's most people they go down unless they have some really good help or they figure it out because they hit rock bottom and they come to an epiphany most people don't know I mean I hate to be like the percentage guy I don't know what the I don't have 10% logical or fair but it's a number and I've met a lot of people that have addiction problems and very few of them ever come out on the other end it's fascinating because it is the ultimate puzzle for your life to solve like Like most people who, you know, if you're, if you're a healthy person and you're in a job, you, if long as things don't, don't go terribly wrong

with your health in terms of like your physical health, you move forward and you kind of progress and you eventually get to a better place. You go to school, you get a degree, you get a graduate degree and hopefully you get a job. But there's this progression that takes place that's tangible and it's trackable. But not when people have addictions. It's like that puzzle seems to be insurmountable because it's a puzzle that involves your emotions. involves whatever it means to whatever your identity is whatever it is that's keeping you in this this prison of your own control and that it's it's amazing how few people get out of that one yeah it might be our biggest problem as humans it is but to me again it comes down to somewhere along the line we forgot as a species what to do with pain.

We forgot how to transmute pain into something that's useful and becomes nourishing. And, you know, one of the things, it'll be in my next book, it's not in my last one, but this idea of like when you tolerate the intolerable, you become ill. You become emotionally ill. ill. You become emotionally ill. And so if you're raised in an abusive environment and you're tolerating something that's intolerable abuse, you start to become emotionally ill, right? You become neurotic or you become, maybe let's call it an eating disorder, or you start to become emotionally ill if you keep having to ingest poison. So I'll just call the intolerable a poison. It's an emotional poison. It's an experiential poison. And so then you have to figure out how to get a simple, and that was a lot of what I've had to do is like, how do I get it back to the most root, like the top domino?

Because if you keep treating the pain further down the domino line, it doesn't matter because you haven't gotten to this root of like, how do I stop tolerating the intolerable? You know, so for people that were raised in really abusive environments or whatever it is, whatever your pain is, it's, you have to start gaining skills for what do I do with pain without reverting to my bag or negative coping mechanisms. And then it's also like, how do I stop tolerating the intolerable so I stop getting ill? And those just aren't things people are helping us talk about or think about. Yeah, it's, it's not something that comes up very often. And it's, it's also, it's, it's not something that's taught to many people in terms of like, how do you cope? Like what, what, if you feel bad, what do you, what's a healthy thing to do?

Exercise, you know, meditate, have to do exercise you know meditate have conversations with people you love and trust if you don't have those people you know seek out help try to do something like this is not like standard knowledge that we give to kids it isn't and that sucks you know I really was angry about the fact that everything I needed to learn, like when I moved out, I knew I needed a new emotional language. I inherited this emotional language. It's like a five billion data points, right, for your brain. Our brains just pattern match. And so emotional, you know, I mean, just think of how many data points that is.

An emotional language is immense. And I learned one from my family. Right. emotional language is immense. And I learned one from my family. And I knew where to go to learn Spanish, but I didn't have anywhere to go to learn a new emotional language. And that was like, how am I going to solve for that? You know, I started by just looking at other people. And when they had a skill I liked, I would just sort of study them or I'd even interview them and just talk to them. But with time, like what I've learned to do is like you really do have to neurologically rewire yourself. You have to have these behaviors and you have to teach yourself this new emotional

language. And we've lost that. Like our culture has just lost it and we should be being taught it in school. I actually just took this toolkit that I developed and put it into a language arts program for public schools. So it's English class that meets all your core standards, but it also starts to put in a lot of these like little exercises I've talked to you about today because English class is a great place for it. Cause it's all writing assignments and reading assignments. But just trying to think of ways of like, how can I help infuse these human skills?

Like we're taught dental hygiene, but we're not taught. Are you wondering why one's long and one's short? Yeah. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, it's're not taught. Are you wondering why one's long and one's short? Yeah. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, it's okay. I just saw you clocking it. It is.

Yeah. That's okay. I just noticed it because you're moving your hands around. I'm like, hey, how crazy is she? This is my Coke hand. This is my. So you developed a toolkit. Yeah.

Because in the last 18 years, I've been like really just refining like how do I help these other kids that don't have traditional support systems? And then how could I like scale these skills that help us be happier through systems that already exist? So like through public school systems, you know, like English class. Can I figure out how to bake in these skills into an English curriculum so that every kid who comes through that English class gets exposed to these ideas? And then I'm also creating like a culture company. I did it with Tony Hsieh originally from Zappos, but he passed away. But now I'm doing it with the Hudson Bay Company, where I'm creating a culture program for companies, because I really believe if we can figure out how to invest in humans in a more meaningful way,

they're going to show up with more bandwidth at work. I think it'd be smart for employers to invest in their humans, understand what are your pain points that I can help you solve, whether it's relationship fitness or parenting fitness or anxiety and emotional health fitness, give them training and education

and that I think people are going to show up at work with a lot more bandwidth, creativity, resiliency, or anxiety and emotional health fitness, give them training and education in that. I think people are going to show up at work with a lot more bandwidth, creativity, resiliency, and all those things should pay off dividends. Oh, for sure. Because we need to be being taught these things. Yeah. I mean, some, you know, some corporations provide a fitness center at their gym. Yeah.

Make a gym for their employees so that they can have a place to exercise because it's better for them. You make healthier, more resilient employees. But to have something like that for mental health. Yeah. I mean, as important, if not more, because the mental health would actually facilitate you doing something about your physical health because you'd be healthier. You think about it better. You'd have a better perspective. Yeah. And so many, I mean, I forget, I have all the stats somewhere, but you know, billions of dollars are lost annually for employers because of mental health days, like employees taking sick days for mental health reasons. Like I do just think it's just going to be better for everybody if we can figure out, I call it like putting the village back into,

you know, the city. Like we got to find ways of helping humans where humans are feel better. And I think we kind of have an obligation to do that. And if we can scale it through preexisting systems, why not? I think part of the problem is work itself. You and I have different jobs, you know, and I mean, I mean, different from most people, you know, we both do what we actually want to do. That's very different than most people. I think there's a certain amount of pain that just comes from the grind of doing something you don't really want to do every day over and over again. And you're doing it for benefits and you're doing it for, you know, raises and futures and vacations and all the things that you're planning. And one day I'll have a retirement plan. I got a 401k and I got

this and I got to that, but it's not what people want. It's just not, it's not natural. It's not normal. It's not healthy. But what you do is creative and creative. You know, oftentimes a lot of people that are very creative and very powerful in their ability to express themselves. A lot of times it comes from this emotional instability or this comes from this sort of core of pain and or at least of sensitivity. right? There's like this bubbling inside of them. But at least you're doing something you love. There's a lot of people out there and I don't know what the number is, but I would imagine it's in the high 60. What's with me in percentage? It's a lot of people are not doing what they want to do. Yeah. You know? It's like that Thoreau quote that I always love this quote, that most men leave lives of quiet desperation. Yep. And I think the final part of that is, and they go to the grave with the song still in

them. That's beautiful. It's a great quote. Yeah. He had a lot of them. He did. But that is the reality of most people's existence. But that is the reality of most people's existence. And I think our modern day education system that funnels people into occupations and tells them that what you do or what I do is almost impossible.

It's almost impossible. I mean, they would tell you, like, good luck. Oh, you're going to be a singer. Get in line. You know, how many of them are out there? you're going to, Oh, you're going to be a singer.

Oh, get in line. You know how many of them are out there. But my thought when I was starting out as a comedian, when people say that to me, I'm like, but there are them. They're a real thing.

Like there's one. It's not Santa Claus. Right. Like, wait a minute. Can it be done? And they would say, you're never going to make it.

It's too hard to make it. I'm like, okay. But someone's making it. Like if I'm watching Richard Pryor on a movie and he's doing standup, if I'm watching live at the sunset strip, like clearly this took place. So this man is a real person that got to this point,

but people will tell you that that path is almost impossible. And how many people were discouraged off of that path that wanted to be a singer or wanted to be a comedian or wanted to be whatever, whatever it is that seems hard. That's an untraditional path or a path that's not, it's not as well lit as your standard, you know, I'm going to be a dentist, you know,

and then you're going to follow this groove and this is how you do it. And there's so many people out there that just, they got hoodwinked. Yeah. They got hoodwinked by the system and they never figured out how to develop the kind of horsepower that you need to pull yourself out of a ditch. Yep. And change is hard. You know, like people love to look at my life and, you know, it's hard.

Change is hard. I don't know if they look at your life after what you said today that bitch had it easy or they'll think who isn't a homeless suicidal 15 year old get the fuck out of here with this we haven't even got to mom yet oh let's get to mom

but change is hard and the reason a lot of people don't change is because it isn't a guarantee and so it's a lot of people don't change is because it isn't a guarantee. And so it's a lot safer to go to a path that is much more linear and safe with probably a known outcome. Yeah. Because taking the risk you took, taking the risk I took where there is no guarantee, it isn't handed to you and it isn't a promise it's going to happen. That's a risk. And a lot of people are just very risk adverse because you don't the fear of the unknown and we want to go back to the familiar it's why even if you're miserable you kind of just keep going back to familiar emotional habits

because it's familiar or even if you're on a good path a lot of times people will fall back into a bad path because it's more familiar yeah that happens to a lot of folks that lose weight. They lose weight, they get really healthy, and then some part of them sabotages this new journey. Or drinking. They go back to drinking or gambling. you had an emotional stimulus that caused you to drink. That's just a byproduct. The drinking is a byproduct of a root source. And if you're not getting at that root source, you're really in a bad pinch. Because you're just going to want to go back to something because that kind of pain is intolerable. You're just holding your breath. Eventually you're going to have to breathe again.

That's like my dad. He did not want to be abusive as a dad. He did not. My dad's a good guy. He did not want to be abusive as a dad. He did not. My dad's a good guy. He did not want to be abusive. But you can't exist in a vacuum. We have to have behavior. And that's why if a therapist or anybody you're working with isn't giving you a new tool, right?

Resiliency is just a new tool. You're going to keep hitting it with the hammer you have. And so my dad just didn't know. And he even went to psychology school. He was a social worker. He went my dad just didn't know. And he even went to psychology school. Like he was a social worker. He went to college and studied this stuff. And that wasn't even in depth enough to help him get to a point where he's triggered. He had a different thing to reach for. That stuff's hard. It's just not being taught. I don't know why it makes me crazy. Yeah. I don't think most

people have enough personal sovereignty to teach it. You have to really understand who you are to explain how another person can be themselves and how another person can be a better version of themselves. Because I'm not going to listen to most people. Most people, when they give you advice, you're like, but look at you. You're a fucking mess. Don't give me advice you're like you're a fucking mess don't give me advice totally it takes an incredible person yeah to say something you that really resonates like oh she knows the fuck she's talking about like for most most people like that's why the idea of therapy to me i mean it sounds it's great if you get a great therapist but therapists are

basically like every other type of person, every other occupation. There's people that are really good at it and there's people that are uninspired and they're shitty and they're arrogant and they don't really want to do what they're doing. Or maybe they don't like you or whatever it is. It's like, and then you're fucked. And that's such a difficult, painful job that, you know, the amount of therapists that are drinking and are addicts are pretty high. Actually, you'd be really surprised. I wouldn't be surprised because their self-care is really important. So if they're not practicing their own, what they're preaching,

they're going to just become incredibly compromised. And then they start phoning in and work. And again, like it has to, I'm just a big fan of like, it has to be behavioral. Like you need to see your life change. You need to see your life change. You need to see your life get better. And if it's not, you need to fire your therapist. You need to go find a different one. And you need to think about metrics. And like, well, how will I know if I am doing better?

What would that look like? What does doing better look like? And try and get a little more nitty gritty about it so that you can find a path to that. When I was younger and I was competing in martial arts, I studied psychology. And when I was trying to think about what my eventual path in life would be, I thought, because I was very fascinated by the way the human mind worked, I thought maybe I should be a psychologist. But the more I studied psychology and the more I started talking to people about it, the more I realized you're only going to be talking to fucked up people. Like that's not healthy. I mean, it's great if you have this calling in life

to help people get out of their, their rut. But I recognized as a 16 year old boy, I was looking at this going like this path is going to leave me to be like, if you work in a chemical factory, you're breathing in fumes, right? That shit ain't good for you. It's not good. If you work in a chemical factor you're breathing in fumes right that shit ain't good for you it's not good if you work with sick people all the time emotionally sick people you the energy that you're taking in on a regular basis is that of people that are destroyed people that are just depressed and sad and angry and confused and i don't think it's nourishing like for a human being. I mean, I think some people, they have a calling

and it's amazing that they help people in that way. But that wasn't me. Like I was like, I'm too fucked up for this already. I got to figure out, I got to figure out a way to be happy. And I can't be happy just dealing with other people. And I also realized

like I'm only interested in psychology because I'm trying to figure out why I'm so scared. I'm like, what can I do to empower my mindset so I can compete and not worry? That was what I was doing. But the idea of dealing with people and their suicidal tendencies and problems and angst and anger and all the other things we've already talked about. I'm just like, I just don't think i could do it yeah you have to have such a trust a strategy in place if you're going to do that type of right because it is like being exposed to chernobyl every day yeah it's gonna it's the intolerable it will make you ill for sure yeah it's probably a job you should do one

day a week yeah you know and then seven days a week, hand out flowers. Totally. Just do something to fucking get out of that. There's a therapeutic institute in Tennessee called Onsite. And I really like them because they fly therapists in from all over the world and they rotate them. So you're just not there all the time as a therapist. You get to come and go and have exposure to normal life and not just so much pathology. I thought that was pretty good. That is smart. That is smart. But as you were saying, I would imagine that those people that are exposed on a regular basis to other people's pain, it's like if you're exposed to

happy people all the time, like people imitate their atmosphere. You get nourished by the kind of environment that you surround yourself in. And if you're constantly around pain, it's got to be very hard to just be just happy. What you consume changes you, whether it's food, whether it's what you're listening to, whether it's your experience. That's why I got to stop watching Squid Game. I'm on episode four. I think I'm going to shut it off right now it's why i don't watch the news it's why like i have to be careful what i'm consuming and it's just sex a lot of us

are trained to consume toxicity poison yeah poison relationships you know i call it emotional dyslexia it's like what i was taught the word love meant was really poisonous yeah and so i just had this dyslexia of like, I thought icky experiences. That was as close. That was called love in my head. So retraining that type of emotional dyslexia is really hard. But you basically it just starts with saying, writing down on a piece of paper, what things nourish me? What am I consuming in my environment that I'm confusing for nourishment that isn't?

That one simple question, if people will answer those two little questions, can change your life. Those just those two things. But I also think some people are just shitty at love the same way some people are shitty at being a plumber. You know what I mean? Maybe. Their version of love is they really don't want you to die. You know, they really care, but they don't care about you enough to consider the way they're behaving to you. But I wouldn't say they're just I would say they are shitty at love. But again, I would say that's a symptom of, you know, poor nurture. Sure. They don't want to change.

And bad patterns. I mean, yeah, there's so much of that in abusive. so much of that in abusive like when you hear about people that come from physically abusive relationships like so many children of physically abusive people wind up being physically abusive to their own children or people that see their mom and dad beat the shit out of each other they wind up doing that to their own children yeah or to their own spouse or yeah that was that nature versus nurture thing of like that's an emotional language yeah that was a billion data points of interaction that those children have during the day and at night they're tucked in and they might be told i love you good night yeah you know they're taught that's what love is and that's that emotional language

and that's what retraining that nobody's really figured out how to create a system out of it but it's what i'm interested in i just think that's the most interesting thing it is interesting yeah the mind is so fascinating in the the amount of variability it varies so much like some people can encounter a situation and be like well that sucks and start laughing. And some people will fall to their knees and scream and lash out at people and run through red lights. And you're like two very different reactions to the same scenario. Yeah.

Like what causes someone to be so calm and so smooth? And I remember when I was a child and i would watch people who reacted well to things i'd always be like god i wish i was that guy i wish i was it was so nice yeah this person's so nice i wish i could be so nice yeah i wish i was like that yeah but that's that funny mixture of again that nature versus nurture like your nurture might always be a higher rev or sorry your nature might always be a higher rev nature, you know, or more tendency to be really creative. Worry is just a misuse of creative creativity. So usually creative people, if it's not properly channeled, they just worry really badly.

And that's going to be their thing to bear. You know, they're either going to have to learn how to discipline that into a healthy, creative thing instead of just worrying. And then the other part of it is that nurture, you know, and that's for everybody to figure out, like, are you happy? And if you're not, what are you willing to do about it? Can you, you know, Descartes said, I think therefore I am. I think it's I perceive what I think therefore I am. You know, you're not your thoughts. You're the observer of them. And so if you can observe you're sad you're something other than sad you're the observer of it that's really interesting because that means your your nature is in there you know your observer is your nature and so i just started to realize like this idea of self and other was like this little thing that i that would help me of like when i was anxious what i was thinking

probably wasn't my nature it It was probably an acquired thing. Or it was your nature at the time and you didn't like it and you wanted to improve. I mean, I think you are your thoughts and you also are your perceptions of your thoughts. You're a sea of possibilities. You're so many things. I think you're a sea of possibilities, but I don't think you are your thoughts

because if you can observe them, you're something other than them. Yeah, but it's you thinking it. I know, but it doesn't mean it's true. It just means it's a data point that came into your head. Oh, I'm not saying it's true. Yeah. But I'm saying those thoughts are real.

They are real, but everything's real. It's just do you want to consume it or not? No. And do you want to be changed by it or not? Right. And so then I personally think like something that radically helped my anxiety was when I realized I made it an ally instead of an enemy. I'm trying to think of how to explain it.

So if I eat bad fish and I get food poisoning and I throw up, something's not wrong with me. Something's right with me. I had an appropriate reaction to something that had food poisoning. So anxiety is the same way. It means I was consuming something in my environment that my body isn't agreeing with. And my body's only way of telling me that is anxiety. It's like having a car alarm. If someone tries to break into the car, the car alarm goes off. You shouldn't be mad at the car alarm. You should be, thank you, car alarm. Somebody was trying to break in. So I stopped looking at my anxiety as my enemy that I was trying to disassociate from and push

away and keep at bay. And I started treating my anxiety like a friend. And I would sit down and I would take deep breaths and I would get really calm. And I would ask my anxiety to come closer and I would have a conversation with it, which sounds really silly. But I was always consuming something that made me anxious. And I was like, oh, it's when I talked to Sally. And I don't, Sally's mean to me. And I get anxious every time I'm around Sally. Now, what am I willing to do about it? Will I stop talking to Sally? Or what was I just thinking? It goes back to that little exercise of what was I thinking, feeling or doing? My anxiety is a gift.

Your anxiety is a gift. Your body is trying to talk to you to say, hey, idiot, stop consuming that. But a lot of times we just don't wanna stop consuming it because it might be radical. You might have to quit your job. You might have to stop, get a divorce. It can be really radical, but that's also the gift

like are you willing to do it because your life will get better if you stop consuming the things that make you anxious you know this change is so hard for people yeah especially radical change like getting a divorce like quitting your job like moving out of state like doing whatever it takes to just shift and figure out what it is that's causing you so much pain and so much frustration and so much fear. Like, what is it? And yeah, you're right. It is most likely your body is sending you a message that the pattern that you're on right now, the pattern that you're following is not good. Yeah. It's not good and you better switch it up or you're going to have to just numb yourself every night. Yeah.

And that's what scares the shit out of me is that that solution of numbing yourself every night is the most common. Because people just aren't taught this type of like emotional courage. It takes emotional courage. It is a muscle you build. And the longer you avoid it, the bigger the problems get, right? It really could be you need a divorce. It really could be you have to quit your job and do drastic Hail Mary moves. But if we can teach people at younger and younger ages, you know, like with our kids,

that's one of the fun things is their age is like when they don't sleep, they feel like crap. And you see the result right away. They see the result right away. And also it's kind of like when I looked in the mirror that day when I was homeless, I was like, nobody's coming for me. Nobody owes me shit. I just need to give up on that whole thought. Because stealing was just a very entitled thing. You know, I was like, I deserve this.

And I was like, I don't, nobody owes me anything you know and i'm like i remember looking in the mirror like and being like i owe myself what am i willing to do you know i'm coming for me what am i willing to do and that's a very provocative question because sometimes the answer is like nothing but i wanted to try and i wanted to try and come for me i wanted to try and be my own hero i guess as, as dumb as that sounds. That doesn't sound dumb at all. It's that insight. It's so unusual that someone not only has that insight but then structures a sort of plan of attack to mitigate all these factors that are fucking your life up and try to strengthen your resolve to improve and get out of there.

It's crazy now. It must be crazy for you, but it's crazy for me to hear it. Imagine you as a little girl, as a 15-year-old girl, addressing this and trying to figure out what's the path out of that. And seeing it as like you being in a maze somewhere, stuck. And if you had an overhead view, you could see there is a way out. But when you're in that maze, like, fuck, left? Nope.

There's a wall. Okay, back up. Try it again. Start from scratch. Write down what went wrong. You wouldn't want to do it again, right? But aren't you glad you did it? I mean, it sucks that you went through that.

But look at who you are like i don't think you would have the same impact on people if you didn't have that fucked up life i just don't i think lived experiences is important and i really do feel like i was it's an honor to be able to help anyone not have pain you know it's just and i think that's my favorite thing. Like the brokest, most poor people. I know we're always the most generous. I was always amazed by how stingy rich people are. They have to be so stingy when it's like all my broke neighbors would be like, they're just cause they know what it means to need that five bucks or that 20 bucks or, you know, they just know how life changing it is. They're so helpful. And I think it's that way with pain. I think it makes you empathetic. Like it makes I want to serve people. I want to help people like that's always obsessed. My music, you know uh i don't think they maybe know the value of it i think rich people are often used to getting used to that's a certainly a big factor

um but they're not part of a community money buys you a type of fake autonomy and real autonomy too yeah but you don't feel part of a community you know and so i just i think it detaches you from your fellow person in a way because you can't relate or they can't relate to you like what is it i think it has to be complex right it has to be that you can't relate it's easy for you to judge other people go they're lazy like me being homeless i was shocked i ended up homeless i didn't see that on my programming list you know it was just one thing led to another like that boss wouldn't have i wouldn't have sex with him and he wouldn't give me my paycheck and then my landlord was like you can't stay like you've been late too often is that guy still alive

i saw him after my first record came out whoa Whoa. Yeah. I thanked him in my liner notes. Did you? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, because it ended up being active power, you know. You saw him? Like physically? He came into a show of mine at a coffee shop.

And he just was like, hey man, I'm really sorry about that. Wow. Did he give you the money? No. Well, he wasn't that fucking sorry. I'm sure it wasn't very much, a couple hundred bucks. Whatever, I should be interested on that shit. Right? But I think when you invest in your character, it's going to pay dividends you can't expect.

Like, let's just say I was, it would have been easy to say, oh my God, I knew I'd get kicked out. My landlord had said, I can't be late again. And my mom was sick at the time. I was living with my mom, I was taking care out my landlord had said I can't be late again and my mom was sick at the time I was living with my mom was taking care of my sick mom paying rent for her and that boss propositions me it would have been really easy and don't think I didn't think about it of like I could sleep with them I could probably maybe even get more money out of it I won't get kicked out like you you definitely run through like all the options because not doing it looked really bad. And I knew it,

but I didn't want to do it. Like I was like, I have to believe that doing the right thing will pay off for me. But then it just kept getting worse. It was like living in my car was fine. I grew up on a saddle barn in Alaska, like no problem living in my car. in my car was fine. I grew up in a saddle barn in Alaska. Like, no problem living in my car. Then my car got stolen.

Ugh. And that sucked. But then I was like, I wasn't in it. Like, that was pretty lucky. I could have been turned into sex trafficking very easily if I was just in that car at the wrong time. You know, and that's like a really real thing. And then I had bad kidneys and I didn't have medicine. You had bad kidneys? Yeah, I had bad kidneys. What had bad kidneys i would get kidney infections didn't know why but i didn't have insurance and

i couldn't afford a doctor and so i would try to heal my own kidneys by researching food as medicine didn't always work what did you try to do like what how do you heal your kidneys well supposedly like with like urinary tract infections and kidneys, there were things like watermelon was good, cranberry, buchu, an herb. So I would try those things. I'd shoplift them all. But, you know, it was like I was shoplifting healthy shit. And if you think stealing a watermelon is easy, you have another thing coming. How do you steal a watermelon?

I did it. Really? Yeah. I'd just be pregnant. It was all good. Is that what you did? a watermelon? I did it. It was pretty. Just be pregnant. It was all good. Is that what you did? Yeah. Oh, my God.

That's hilarious. But you had to kind of stuff around it so it didn't just look like, you know, you had to sell it. Well, anyway, I'm not proud of it, but I did it. But anyway, I ended up, this is when I'm 18, bad panic attacks, getting really agoraphobic and kidney problems. I let an infection go too long. I was really sick. I drove myself to the emergency room and they wouldn't see me because I didn't have insurance. And I was really sick. So it is all like a feverish weird memory. But I remember going in and getting in the passenger seat of my car, a little teeny like Datsun hatchback 510.

And I was too sick to go anywhere else. Like I was done. Like that was it. I was like losing my will at that point. And I was throwing up like all over myself. And I hear a little tap on the window and a doctor had seen me get turned away. And he came out to check on me in the parking lot. And I remember like he kind of opened my door

and it was not my finest moment. Like I was just covered in vomit. And I was clearly really sick. And he says, I'm going to give you some antibiotics and I want you to take them. And I want you to stay in this parking lot, you know, overnight. Oh my God. And so I did. And I took them and my fever cleared.

It turns out I had sepsis. Like I had blood poisoning. My kidneys were shutting down. So you were ready to die. I was ready to die. I was going to die that night. And that man saved my life. And he didn't ask,

he didn't leverage me. He didn't try and sleep with me. He didn't. And he saw me for free that whole year I was homeless. But like I said, this homeless thing just took on a life of its own. And people treat you like you're a dog.

So you developed a sort of working relationship with this guy like you would come to see him more than once. Yeah. And he would take care of you. He took care of me the whole time. Wow. Did you stay in touch with him? Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Bodenstab. Shout out. That's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. And so people are like, why don't homeless people get a job? You know, like going back to that rich person thing of like, it's hard, like surviving, getting food, water and safety was a big thing that took all my time. It took all my day to do that. And then I would try and go get a job at 7-Eleven. But you start to look homeless. It just was hard. It wore me down about a year. And I definitely could have gone back to Alaska, I'm sure. But I just, I don't know, I wanted to figure it out. And once I started like getting

a grip on my panic attacks and figuring out like that dilated and contracted things, it was like, I could feel a momentum. I was like, I'm going to get this. Like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to die or figure this out. And I'm figuring it out. And then by the end of that year, it got really exciting. You know, it got it turned into a really empowering time. But again, that goes back to like, you have an excuse all the time to do the wrong thing. You have an excuse all the time to go back to the familiar. You have an excuse all the time why to say the whole world is against you and be right. But so what? Now what? Now what are you going to do about it? How happy do you want to be? Your life will rise to the level you settle for.

And just to keep pushing. What did you do? How did you get out of it? Like, how did you what was the first job that you got? When I was homeless? Yeah. I started because I grew up singing. I was like, maybe I could get a gig somewhere and start singing because I made money singing, you know, like for my whole life since I was little, like 100 bucks, 200 bucks, but whatever. So I'd go around to coffee shops in the area. But San Diego started to be a hotbed for signing activity, you know, grunge. There was a kind of a grunge scene in San Diego. And so I'd go in there and they they charged you to sing there.

I was like, this is not ideal. Like they wanted me to you to sing there. I was like, this is not ideal. Like, they wanted me to pay them $200. Really? Yeah, I was like, this is the exact. For one gig? Yeah. And it was the idea that you would sell tickets? They thought it was, no, they thought it was like a signing.

You would get signed. Oh, God. You know what I mean? Because it became like, so many record labels, I guess, were coming down at the time. I remember this one lady like my friend let me sit in on his gig so I go sing with him I'm starting to write my own songs oh I forgot to tell you how I started writing songs back at school but I'll tell you later

I'll remember that so he started writing songs um and singing my own stuff I get on my friend's gig he's packed the place out I don't clearly clearly. But he has it crowded. There's like a door charge. So I go to settle out while he's taking his gear down. And this woman coffee shop owner was like, you guys don't get the door money. And I was like, what are you talking about? Like he brought all these people in. She's like, no. She goes, you get the tip jar. And I was like, oh, I was like, you know what, then why don't we get all your coffee and food money? You could just give us that instead. I was like, you know what then? Why don't we get all your coffee and food money? You could just give us that instead. And she was like, you don't get the food and beverage money. You get the tip jar. And I was so upset.

I needed the money so badly. Like I didn't have food. You know, like I was really wanting some money from that gig. And I remember I put my little finger in her face and I was like, I am cursing you. Whoa. You are. I know. It sounded so heavy.

I was like, you are stealing from the people that are giving you a living. You're stealing from this guy. And I was like, you are. You will go out of business. I was like, nobody can stay in business doing this to humans. I was so upset at her. And I. Did he have a understanding with her or was he just getting robbed?

He didn't care. He just didn't care. I was so. Fucking hippies. Blown away. I was like. He just wanted to be easy going and didn't want to make her mad and wanted to get another gig there. And I was just so upset. And so I found this place. I liked this little, when I was living in my car, there was a little tree that was flowering tree and I like to park next to it.

So like that was my home. And I noticed there was this coffee shop right there that was going out of business. And it was really off the beaten path. And so I went in there and I talked to the lady who owned it. Her name was Nancy. And I was like, do you think you could stay open for two more months? And she's like, why? I'm like, if I bring people in, can I keep the door money? You can keep all the coffee and food.

And like, we'll try and make it together. And she said yes and so I started going down on like the beach front in San Diego and I'd sing like street sing and I'd tell people I'm singing at the interchange coffee shop on Thursday night at six o'clock and two people came like it was two surfers that thought I was hot I think and. And I did a five hour show because bar singing, you do five hour shows. And I just thought I had to do a five hour show. So I started writing a ton of material. Plus, I was using writing not to steal and I was a prolific thief. So I had to become a prolific writer. And so I did this five hour show to these two guys. I'm bleeding my heart

out because I was so lonely. And I realized I never tell the truth. Like nobody knows the truth. I'm scared to death. I'm not a great person. I'm stealing. And I'm lonely. And I was like, maybe if I tell the truth, I won't feel so lonely. So I made a promise that I would write really honest songs. So these poor two surfers were subjected to five hours of like bleeding out my vocal cords.

It was amazing. I made $10. And the next night, and I would go sing all throughout town. The street corner, I'd say, hey, Thursday night, they knew where to see me. And it just grew. It went from two people to four people to eight people to 40 to 80 to capacity to people standing outside watching me sing through the window and i got discovered wow yeah it was nuts wow yeah that's a great story wow what was that like what was it was the feeling like when it was at capacity and you

recognized that these people were that something was changing in your life these people were coming out to see you perform the coolest thing and why i'm smiling is because i was changing it moves me to tears right now even before the people came i felt a momentum shifting you know i just felt i was getting better. I was getting healthier. I was getting happier. My panic attacks, like I found out how not to have them. Like it just made me feel good. And then when these people came, I just bore my soul and I just didn't pull a punch. And they liked me.

And I know that sounds superficial, but it wasn't because it was so authentically me. I wasn't pretending to be better or more talented. It was so raw and people would cry and I would cry. And it was just such a real connection. Like for the first time in my life, I had a real meaningful human connection and it wasn't scary. It felt good good and they would give me books to read and they would give me food and I didn't think it would lead to a record deal it just felt like being fed for the first time in your life you know not hiding and not being fake and just being really authentic so it felt really good and then when more people came it just took on a momentum that was like holy shit how much time is passed from the two people to people standing outside you know i don't know but six months maybe ish something like

that that's a lot of change in six months yeah maybe a little more eight months but couldn't have been more than that because i don't think I was homeless more than a year what was that that change how to feel crazy it was wild it was cool and you know from like being on stage but like I wouldn't make a set list and I would just feel the audience and like I talked I did a lot of I tell a lot of stories and like kind of like stand-up I would just tell like just stories and jokes and just shoot shit with people in the audience and they were just these really live electric like kind of wild shows and make them dead quiet and I would just take little breaks so people could use the bathroom and and when people started standing outside and they couldn't hear but they were just watching me through the window and the look on their face like

to this day it like gives me chills like they looked at me with like a certain look and it was like holy shit like this is different and they would stand out in the rain like we put little speakers out there so they could hear and people would stand in the rain and just listen to me singing through the window with little speakers and it was just like it was very humbling like very very humbling wow yeah so then what happens how do you get discovered there was a radio dj a programmer excuse me he ran 91x which is a really big radio station in the country they might have been number two in the country at the time heavy alternative station uh somebody told him about this girl singing in a coffee shop and that he should come and he came and i could recognize new faces when they come in because it was,

this wasn't a big place, by the way. I mean, this might have been 70 people that could fit inside. That's a tiny coffee shop. So you had developed a crowd. Like you were accustomed to seeing familiar faces. Yeah, it was a loyal, diehard, diehard fan base. Like tiny, don't get me wrong. But I knew them, you know what I mean?

It was like a little family in a way. And so this guy came in. He had a goatee, a slanted shirt on. He looked kind of hard. And he was sitting in the back. And I remember singing the song A Thousand Miles Away. And he was just weeping, like, quietly. But just tears were streaming down his face.

And he came up to me afterwards. He's like, hey, I'm at the radio station. And like, why don't you come in? Like, sing a song one night or something. And I was like, okay. So I go in there. Still living in, oh, I got another car okay so I go in there still living in oh I got another car so I had a car to live in um I'd saved up enough door money to buy a car cheap car like

a hundred dollar car um so I get down to the radio station and I sing a song for him and we talk a little bit and um I guess he went ahead him and this guy named Lou Niles put it uh on the radio and it got requested by fans. That's back when you could still request songs and they'd listen to it. And it got somehow into the top 20, you know, of this station, which is a big deal. Like top 20 on that station was like, you know, labels pay a lot of money to promote their artists to try and get them into the top 20. And this was like an acoustic guitar demo in the middle of like all this grunge music and so record labels were like how that what is this song that's showing up on this playlist and they would call him and he's like it's this

chick down at this coffee shop and so all of a sudden there would be like these limousines pulling up and they would give sweet little nancy you know, that was just, she was having a banging business now, which felt so good. And they would be like, she'd be like, Jewel, Sony Records is here tonight. And I'd be like, all right. I was so passe about the whole thing. It was very funny. And then they'd take me out to tacos and talk to me about record deals. And then there was a bidding war. It was every label came down, every label. They'd flown from New York. They'd bring in bigger executives. Then they'd fly in. They'd come again.

They'd, you know, all these limousines showing up. And I would start to get flown around to talk to different record labels. And I thought I should. How long does this process take? I don't know. I'm kind of bad with time that way. I don't know, a couple months, something like that. And you don't have a manager.

You don't have anybody speaking for you. No, but I went to the library and I found this book called. How to Manage Yourself for Dummies. It was Don Passenheim, I think, called Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business. Oh, boy. And that sounded good. So I read it and I just learned about mechanicals and royalties and backends and advances. Oh, so you did your homework.

I did my homework. And there ended up being a huge bidding war over me. All the labels just started competing. By this time, I kind of found a de facto manager. I maybe got a lawyer here at some point, you know, and this might now have taken more time. But I realized because of reading that book that an advance is a loan. You don't get to keep the money. You pay it back through record sales. And so I did the math to see how many records I'd have to sell to pay back a million dollars. And it was a lot of records. And so it was like having a bounty on

my head as an artist. I almost didn't sign my record deal because I had just figured out how to be happy. Genuinely, I was really starting to figure it out. And I knew it like inside myself, I was doing so much better and god forbid you take somebody with my emotional background and they ever get famous I'm the recipe for every movie you've seen about every musician like right and again I didn't want to be a statistic and I fought so hard for my happiness up to this point that I was like I don't think I could trust myself to have a record deal and figure out how to do that career without self imploding. So I almost didn't sign it. I remember being on the beach one day and I was like, I wanted to do it, but I was

terrified of doing it. So I made myself a promise that my number one job would still be to figure out how to be happy. And my number two job would be to be a musician and then under the musician category that I wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to be famous and so knowing those was like having my north star and I felt like I could navigate and make decisions based on those things and so I went ahead and signed the record deal. I turned down the advance. I turned down a million dollar bonus. Holy shit. As a homeless kid. Oh my God. Oh my God.

That is so crazy. And I took the biggest. How did you do that? That's, I would have taken that money for sure. A hundred percent. I'd have been like, I'll figure it out in the future.

Taking this money. I'm getting a fucking fat apartment overlooking the water. It's not what I did. As a homeless kid, you passed on a million bucks. I did. Wow. But I took the biggest back end anybody had ever been awarded. And so if I sold records, I was going to make a shit ton.

So because under the artist category category I wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to be famous it meant I had to put myself in an environment and in a position to win as a singer songwriter and as a folk singer no less at the height of grunge the odds of that working I knew were really slim and I felt like the bidding war over me was just much more of like a dick contest between all the labels I didn't think think it necessarily had to do with my talent. I thought I was talented, but I thought the odds were still really, really against me. And I had to put myself in a position to be able to weather the fact that my first album may not be successful. But if you have a million dollar signing bonus, you have to have your first record

be successful or else you'll get dropped because you cost so much the label. And so I was just doing it to put myself in a position to make my art first and to not leverage my art unduly. You know, it's like saying you have to grow a pear, but you don't even have a tree yet. Like I had to grow a tree like the pear was a long way away. And so I just tried to look at it kind of agriculturally or in a natural system of like, I have to grow, I have to plant a seed. I have to like grow a tree, you know.

That's an amazing insight for a person who is trying to make it in show business because that is always like the dangling carrot is always like one day, I'm not going to have to starve. Right. Yeah. Because you're starving, starving, starving.

Then you're rich. Like this is the thing, the dangling carrot. You want to get rich right now? You're like, I want to be rich. Yeah. Most people take that fucking carrot. Yeah. For you to have the courage and the confidence and the ability to see the future,

like to see what's how this plays out if you do it the wrong way. That's fascinating. That's an amazing insight. And I wonder how much of that has to do with your ability to work your way through suicidal thoughts and depression and the anxiety and this way that you've sort of, it's almost like it's all was preparing you for it. Like you structured your mindset.

You structured the way you view reality in a way that could survive the ultimate test. That's the fucking ultimate test of an artist. Like you want to sell out? I don't know. How about for a million dollars? Like the record skips that's the scene in the movie where you know like wait you say a million dollars and you're a homeless kid playing in a fucking coffee shop and you're like nah player i read a book i went to the library and got schooled. Let's talk backhand.

What is this? Is this you at the coffee shop? Oh, shit. This is you. Wow. It hurts to me. It was just this feeling. I thought I had to get going. Got too scared.

Got too big. Sick girl. Got scared of you now I know how to get home What do I do? I'm a thousand miles away And I am next to you 1994. What does that feel like, watching that? How old were you in there?

Probably 18. Little child. Mm-hmm. Little baby. Singing on stage. Yeah. 1994. What is that like, watching that?

I make a lot of faces when my god am i having a seizure am i singing what's happening over there that's crazy i just yeah that was a but the fact that you had the insight to say no to a million dollars so like how are you going to make money you're just going to keep working at the coffee shop until you got gigs and until you started selling records? No, I did ask for, um, I forget how much it was a month, but it was like $2,000 a month. I asked for something to live on. Wow.

Then I got, you know, I paid rent and I moved my little brother in with me and my mom in with me and I got a used car, got a used Volvo and I bought her a used Volvo. How long was it before things started getting crazy? The best thing I did was turn that advance down, like for sure. Like looking back on my career, my records sold I think 2,000 records, which were all my little teeny coffee shop fans. And it probably only sold 2,000 records for over a year. And you've got to realize that that's

what I was doing at the height of Nirvana and Soundgarden you know it just was really hard it was the height of that movement it's funny saying that because you know we know what happened to those guys like they're insanely talented people and it went the wrong way yeah you know yeah yeah i felt like one of the reasons i felt like i could bet on myself well there's a lot of reasons but one was i had to live up to my thing right if you make a decision you have to make a plan for it so my goal was to be an artist and i had to put myself in a position to not leverage my art, to give my art a chance. So I bet on myself and created that record deal for that, right, to structure it that way so I wouldn't get dropped. But another reason I didn't mind betting on myself is, like,

I looked where culture was and, you know, the great thing about Nirvana is it just ripped the scab off of, like, culture that was like, we're a material world and we're material girls. Right. You know, Nirvana's like, we're not happy. We're not happy. And they just said it so plainly. And it was like this relief to an entire generation going, yeah, we feel fucked up.

We're not happy. We're a lot of angst and we're unhappy and we're angry and we're disillusioned. Which is so good for a generation to like say that out loud. But you can only be in pain so long until you kill yourself. So at some point, you have to decide, am I going to kill myself? Or now what? I just happened to be a little bit ahead of the trend on that entire thought system of, I don't want to kill myself. So now what? So what I was writing my songs about were the now what? What do I do with this? What do I do with pain? What do I do with feelings?

So even though culture like in all the radio gatekeepers were like, no grunges, everything from singing live for people. And I was opening for the Ramones, Catherine Wheel, belly punk bands by myself, getting shit thrown at me. But I saw in the audience that people responded to heart to a lot of heart and i had heart i know i knew i did and that i was i was now what and so if people could just hang on long enough to say i'm in pain all right now i've been in pain long enough now what my music would be like a medicine to that and it just. And I just had to stick around long enough to see if that whole thing could take off, get traction. But I was laughed at at radio stations.

They wouldn't even let me in radio stations. DJs would be like, Hey, welcome back to KYZYZ. You may have heard me describe my next guest as a large-breasted woman from Alaska, Jewel. How are you? And I'd be like, You must be that small-penised man I've heard so much about from South Carolina. Click, off air, they would escort me out of the building.

I got kicked out of so many radio stations. They'd be like, how do you give a blowjob with those? Because it was like Howard Stern was everything then. And so all these little wannabe Howard Sterns were trying to be shocking. So like, how do you give a blowjob with those because it was like howard stern was everything then and so all these little wannabe howard sterns were trying to be shocking so like how do you give a blow job with those teeth i'm like i'm could fix my teeth if i wanted but you're never gonna fix being stupid kicked out of another radio station i was kicked out of so many radio stations, my label was begging me, like, Jewel, just bite your tongue. And I was like, I did not survive my life, turn down the guy and end up homeless so I could take shit from this little prick on the microphone. Not happening.

So it just took a long time. So true what you're saying about the radio guys that were like mocking or mimicking Howard Stern. But they didn't have his intelligence or his talent. No. So they just tried to be mean, you know? God, I can't imagine that. That whole thing about truth that you were saying earlier, when you were saying that there's something about singing,

that there's an authenticity that comes through in music, in singing. And that authenticity was really what killed hair bands, right? When Nirvana came along, that was the death of hair bands because nobody could listen to that anymore. You heard Nirvana, you heard Nevermind, and you're like, oh, God. And then you go back to that other shit and you're like, listen, take your fucking makeup off.

I don't know what you're doing with your hair, but this is great. This is nonsense. It's true. And it was over. It was like literally over because of one band. Yeah. It was the comet that killed like all the dinosaurs. One foul song.

Like one song. Yep. A friend of mine was in a hair band and was on his way to Europe, was in the airport, saw Nevermind on MTV, called his manager and said, we're going to go home. No joke. It was real. He knew it. He saw the comment.

He was like, we're done. We're a bunch of pussies. Oh, my God. That is hilarious. But it was so real. Like when he's singing Rape Me, you you're like what the fuck is this song like and you're watching him and screaming and you're like oh my god yeah like this is and it wasn't a joke it wasn't an act it wasn't that was the feelings that he had inside of me ultimately led to his suicide, right? Yeah. But this authenticity, which was completely non-existent in the hairband world.

The hairband world was all about like wigs and just platform shoes and whatever the fuck they were wearing. And just like this frivolous rock and roll life. It was very marketing. Yeah. It was very surface. Well, a lot of it was marketed, right? A lot of it was like a modern day version of the Monkees. They found these people and put them together in a super band.

And they would play personas. The singers weren't even, they would play a persona. But what's funny is when grunge took off, of course, the system just wants to emulate and replicate it and they don't do it through authenticity because there's not many kurt cobain's right and so all of a sudden they were just signing like nirvana 0.2 you know and there's just all these bands that were okay but they were just trying to whatever jump on that bandwagon and then it's funny how the same thing like if britney spears is big they find all these little things in the category of, but they never see outliers. Our business is really bad at seeing

like outliers. And that was definitely like me at that time. Like I was just, they were like, I mean, I can't tell you how many like programs like, well, she's never going to make it. Like you guys got to get up up. And my own label, like it went on so long. I failed for so many, for so long. How long did you fail for over a year for sure they would have moved on absolutely if i was lucky a million bucks and they would have probably dropped me if i took the million bucks you know because it was just like cut the losses tell you what else i did i didn't have a tour bus i didn't have a tour manager i drove myself around in a rental car. I was so affordable. I was the bargain folk singer on the roster.

And, you know, there's 600 acts on the label all competing for money, right, for marketing resources. And then there's only so many employees at a label that can champion a band. And so I had to find a way of making sure I stayed a priority after a hot signing like that when I wasn't selling. And so I was like writing thank you letters to every secretary from the road to the different heads of different departments, how much it meant to me. It was sincere. It was like it really, I really, it meant a lot to me. And then I just made sure I was affordable so that when board meetings happened and they looked at the roster, like, acts were getting dropped. And I finally had, like, one champion in the label.

And I was like, eh, she cost $12 this month. Like, just let the poor thing stay out there. You know, like, and I was doing five shows a day. I was doing two cities a day, sometimes three cities a day. I was doing over 1, thousand shows a year very easily and you were traveling solo or solo me like i had my friend from san diego helping me drive and i was again opening for ramon and bow house and like these really hard acts why would they schedule you with the ramones that is like the ultimate ridiculous pairing i know right yeah rock rock rock rock rock and roll high school

like you yeah singing that and then yeah it doesn't fit yeah i remember that gig it was only once that i opened for them and it was like the shed and of course was on during daylight really early and so there were people out on the lawn but not up in the seats and so i was like i wanted everybody to come closer i was like come up forward and they're like we can't security guards won't let us I was like F them jump up over and so they all jumped the barrier and came rushing the stage and I did my show and it felt really good and the Ramones were like that was punk rock I felt pretty good about that. So when did things really catch on? did things really catch on um two things really come to mind one I did give up on my first album and I went back into the studio and started making a second record and I started writing stuff that sounded grungier I was like is that what I gotta do I can do that and Bob Dylan was

on tour in the east coast and wanted me to open for him and I really wanted to open for Bob Dylan was on tour on the East Coast and wanted me to open for him. And I really wanted to open for Bob Dylan. So I quit making that record. I just put a pause on it. Like, I'll be back in two weeks, guys. And I went on the road with Dylan. And, you know, his manager was like, nice to meet you. Bob does not.

Bob will not meet you. You know, he won't be seeing your shows. You're not going to hang out with him. And he's like, I just want you to know. I was like, I got it. I'm here to do my job. So I do my job, but I really hate people talking when I sing. It really, really bothers me. And so people were there and it was a theater, you know, but they still, it wasn't containing people. And so I was just like, Hey, if you guys aren't here

to see me, I get it. But if you want to go out in the lobby, you know, go out in the lobby, like whoever stays, please be quiet. And then it didn't, that didn't work. And so like I called the, I asked the spotlight guy to put a spotlight on somebody in the audience. And I was like, you talking, please talk outside. Like I'm alone up here. This is, this is all I got. And I kicked them out.

And I said, the security guard will hold your place for you. And I kicked them out of the show. And I guess Bob heard that I had done that. And for some reason, he really loved that I kicked somebody out of his own show. And so his manager was like, Mr. Dylan is requesting your presence in his dressing room. And I had had a dream when I was 16 that I got to open for Bob Dylan. Oh, 15, 16. I was not writing songs yet. And in my dream, he came on to me and it was really gross. And so here I am, like, I think I'm 20 or something now.

I'm opening for Bob Dylan. He wants to see me in his dressing room. I'm like, oh, my God, my whole dream is going to come true. Like, I'm freaking out. So I go down, like, in my turtleneck and I go to meet him. And he does not hit on me. He was just very, very nice. But he really, really believed in my turtleneck and I go to meet him and he does not hit on me he was just very very nice but he really really believed in my songs like every night after the show he would bring me to his

dressing room he'd go for my lyrics with me and be like hey what made you write that one what what what's that line mean is that uh so-called social security it's a hag line right and it was like I got that line from Earl Haggard, influenced by it. And he just really believed in me. He really thought he liked what I was doing. And he would give me books to read and music to listen to. And he was like, no, you just got to keep going. No, it's just you and your guitar. Keep it just you and your guitar. And it gave me the courage to keep going. So's why I stuck with that record and so I told the label I was like I'm not making the second album I'm going back out on the road and then Neil Young took me out and then that started to really shift things for me I was like okay this is I was playing for these really big crowds and

I was starting to like get them and then Conan O'Brien put me on TV and that was it like thing that was like a definite tide shift where like for some reason put me on TV and that was it like thing that was like a definite tide shift where like for some reason seeing me on TV really helped and then I mean it took time still like I remember doing interviews and people being like what's it like to be famous and I'm in a shit terrible you know hotel room going is this it is this fame did it happen um but somewhere around then it began to snowball and then it was i started selling a million albums every month for over a year holy shit it was crazy holy shit yeah holy shit that's back when people bought albums too like that's you you got in the last wave i did i was. You got in the last wave.

I did. I was lucky. That was literally the last wave. Yeah. Every month, another million. That is crazy. Yep.

That went on for a year? Over a year. Wow. It was crazy pants. Wow. Wow. That's bananas. What did that feel like?

How old were you? 20? Jesus Christ. 21 maybe? That is so crazy. Yeah. So I got discovered when I was 18 and then I think it finally hit when I was 21 maybe. 21 selling a million albums a month.

That's fucking bananas. It got big. It just took on like it was like you talk about momentum. It was like it was unreal. Thank God you weren't doing drugs. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Because that would have been the time you'd be like this is a little too heavy. Yeah. People don't get how traumatic that kind of fame is. It's hard. It's traumatic when you're 50. Yeah. It's when you're 20 and you don't even know who you are. And you also are recovering from just getting over being homeless.

Yeah. And you're still dealing. I mean, we're talking about a girl who was suicidal in Alaska five years ago. Like this is that's what's crazy. Yeah. To go from you watching the tide come in and out and realize you don't have to kill yourself to five years later selling a million albums a month. Holy fuck. Yeah.

Wow. Woo. So how'd you stay grounded? How'd you keep your shit together? Well, that promise I made myself on the beach of like, my first job is to figure out how to be a happy person. I had to create a whole plan around it.

You know, like it's funny. People make business plans that are really thoughtful. What resources will I allocate this new business? You know? Yeah. But we don't do it for our own happiness. And I, I tried to just, even though I didn't have a lot of skills, I tried to be

really practical. Like, Jewel, if you're saying happiness really is your number one job, you have to make a plan around it and be accountable to it. And so that was always like, I thought about it every day. Like my, my music was a side effect of that number one job. And that's why my music was a side effect of that number one job. That's why my music was always about like hands, about my music was about this process for me. And so it required different strategies at different times. But the exercises I kind of developed while I was homeless, I kept developing those types of things that helped me cope with fame, helped me cope with, you know, anxiety. Because plenty of stuff was coming up, you know, and it's hard and a difficult job for sure. And so I just kept coming up with plan strategies, seeing how I was doing, how am I behaving? Do I like how I'm behaving? Am I happy?

If I'm not, what am I going to do about it? While I was also trying to create a real plan around my career to be successful at it. And so I just treated it like a real job. After my second album, I quit, like just fully quit. I quit for two whole years because I was like, I can't keep doing this. Like this isn't psychologically healthy for me. I never thought I'd get to that level of fame. And so I quit until I could figure out like I was like, do I want to be a photographer? Would I rather do something else? Like, how do I do this? And then for me, I kind of realized it's funny. But what worked for me was being less famous. It just got too much. I think by that time, I was on the cover of Time magazine. And I was the type of famous where you can't go pee without people following you in and cross the street without people

following you. And so I realized during that two years where I didn't do anything at the height of my fame, like your profile really does go down. I got less famous and that felt really good. It felt good for the type of person I was because, you know, I'm not just a pop singer, I'm a writer. So to write, you have to ingest a tremendous amount of information if you're going to have any kind of output. But if you're touring all the time, you're not ingesting enough information. Right. And so I was like, my fix was get less famous between records, which made my label crazy. And you know, when Who Will Save Your Soul was my first hit, that was the very first

song I wrote. So it was like... Who Will Save Your Soul is the very first song you wrote? Yeah. Yeah, I wrote that when I was 16 at boarding school And I couldn't stay on campus for spring break. I had no idea you couldn't stay on campus for the break So I was like i'll just hunker down in my room while everyone goes away for christmas And so I hitchhiked across the country and then hitchhiked through mexico for For spring break because i'm super smart

and I started writing songs, street singing, to kind of earn my way across country and earn food money. And so that first song about just watching people, I'd improvise lyrics as people walked by, and I just would keep improvising lyrics, and that was Who'll Save Your Soul. It turned into Who'll Save Your Soul. Wow.

So that became my first hit. And it was weird because I didn't mean to write a hit. I did never really, you know, when I was writing these songs, never thought I'd be a famous musician. It was just like a head trip because then you're supposed to have more hits and write more hits, but I never meant to write a hit. And so if I didn't know how I did it, how would I do it again? And then I realized, hey, idiot, you have the biggest back end anybody's ever gotten you're loaded you don't ever have to have a hit again I never had to have a hit again ever I sold so many records I was like I won the lotto you didn't spend it you didn't go crazy it's got it had to be so hard to be that young and be that wealthy from

going from being homeless to five years later being rich as fuck i never cared i liked being happy it sounds so dumb but my metric was really different my metric got shifted so hard because i'd been so miserable and there's plenty of rich people that still kill themselves. So that can't be the answer. But having health insurance, having medicine, being able to get a plane ticket whenever I wanted, like you talk about money helps. It don't make you happy, but it helps. It was really nice having a home, you know what I mean? But I was just never a real money hungry person. It just wasn't the key to what turned me on personally other things turned me on more so but it's still amazing to have that kind of insight

while you're recovering from being homeless and then you get insanely wealthy really quickly that kind of money like making that kind of money selling a million records a month is fucking insane. Yeah. Yeah, to me, again, it goes back to that logical plan of like my North Star. Be a happy, figure out how to be happy. It's an active job. And then be an artist. That meant like I want to be one of the best singer songwriters of all time. That's ambitious. Doesn't mean I'll get it, but that is my goal.

And that means it's a 60 year plan. It's a long game. So you know fame's going to come and go. Nobody has this trajectory that goes upward infinitely. So that means the more money I had saved bought me creative freedom, right? Having wealth in the bank meant that if I had a flop or I took a risk, it didn't matter because I had the money to ride that wave out. a risk it didn't matter because I had the money to ride that wave out so to me it was just a really practical solution to my goal which was trying to be one of the best ever yeah well I mean having your eyes on the prize right like that is the must help certainly must help but still the

just the temptation and just the, also the chaos of reality. You like went through a membrane into an alternative dimension and you're dealing with the skills and the tools that you develop from growing up on a homestead to being homeless to, you know, being a kid in a coffee shop getting discovered. This is like the structure and the framework is so rickety. Like Jesus Christ to survive reentry to pop through to this other dimension of now being super famous and not losing your fucking mind. And to have the insight to just chill for a couple of years. It's pretty amazing.

Yeah, it was important. important like did you lay low like what did you do during those two years i think i met ty at the time my ex-husband and so i went on the ranch in texas stevenville texas and i just i don't know it was like a midlife crisis at 21 you know or 22 it was like It was like, all right, I achieved this thing I didn't ever think I could achieve. Now that I'm here, it doesn't feel really good. What bothered you the most about the fame thing that you realized that you needed to have some sort of a break? As a writer, I was a voyeur. I like watching people. I like reading. I like having quiet space and stillness around me because that's how I always related to myself. Like that internal dialectic means I kind of need to be alone and be still and be quiet.

And fame just shattered all that. It was a very noisy job, emotionally noisy. The fame, the eyes on you all the time, being stared at everywhere, not being able to go to eat without people. And I'm empathic, like I'm really sensitive. And so you feel like the waiter about to freak out or the, which is nice. You know, it's not that it's not nice. It's just that when it's 24 hours a day or whatever, unless you're sleeping, it didn't feel good.

It was like seeing myself through funhouse mirrors. My perception of myself was getting warped. And that seems really dangerous because my perception is my power. Like that's how I write. It's how I relate to myself. It's how I do my number one job of how am I doing. And if all you can see is funhouse mirrors, you're going to have a really fucked up perception. And I knew I was going to get off course. And that to me felt really dangerous. Like nothing, we can talk about this. We could sort of try to explain to people who have never experienced it what it's like. But it's an alien thing. It's not normal. No one is supposed to go places and everyone knows who you are. It's not the way human beings Evolved it's not the way we do you're supposed to know people who know you and that's it

You're not supposed to go places and everyone knows you so to experience that at a young age and For someone like Britney Spears who you know she went for she was on the Mickey Mouse Club right yeah so she'd had no moments of normalcy you know and I've talked to quite a few child stars and no one seems to get through it you know Demi Lovato Miley Cyrus there's this I know a few personally they don't get through it. It's like the way I've described it. It's like mixing concrete, but you don't add enough water.

Or you add some other stuff. And then you can't fix it once it's built. This is it. This is the concrete. Bitch, that's not concrete. You can't put a house on that. That's going to fall apart. This is crazy.

What did you do? I made concrete. That's not fucking concrete not like all the ingredients but what you had was like a different kind of concrete because being a fucking 15 year old homeless kid and being suicidal and leaving your family and all that like man that that is con like you did figure out a way to form, you figured out a way to form it so much that you recognized the pitfalls and you're like, I'm going to get out of this. Whereas no one else can. Like, everyone else is like, they chase it even after it's gone. They wind up doing reality shows. They try to find some way to

reignite the spark. And's sad it's sad to watch it's sad to see but when you see someone like britney spears you know and all this crazy shit that's going on with her i mean you don't watch the news but do you i'm totally aware of what's happening with her does it i mean kind of do you so does it feel awful for you I mean you obviously you're to me it's like when I watch a comic fall apart if I watch a stand-up who's like going crazy and losing his mind it's I it hurts yeah it hurts in a way that doesn't hurt if I'm watching a you know a painter or someone that's I don't have the same job as. Yeah. It is hard. You know, every, you know, the same way when I moved out and I knew I was in a really dangerous position, you know, statistically kids who move out at 15 that have been abused, it's a really predictable future. I knew that me getting signed at 18 was a really predictable future and that it was dangerous.

I know I was doing something really dangerous, but I would love singing. I love it so much. I really loved it. It was very compelling to me. And I felt lucky to do something I loved. But I also knew it was super, super dangerous. And so that plan, like my number one job is to be a happy person. That was my only way that I felt like I might be able to survive it. And so I just had to be really serious about it and be willing to walk away at any time if I thought I wasn't living up to my number one job. And that's where you have to create a lot of strategies like self-worth. Like I had a terrible sense of self-worth, you know, that when you're raised that way, it heals so slowly. And so you become performative, right?

It's an illness of perfection. It's an addiction to perfectionism. Everybody can relate to that. I don't feel lovable. I didn't get my needs met. And so if I'm really perfect, maybe I'll earn my way back into love, worth. So you become very perfectionist and very performative. And then if I perform well i get

praised it's the story of pretty much every you know entertainer when people clap for me i feel like a good person you get an internal dopamine rush it's like you're a little internal pharmacy like a little drug store you just got a hit and when that goes away you go back to feeling like a bad person so i knew that was a real real real for me. And so I knew I had to heal that one from the inside. I had to figure out why I was valuable in a way that nobody could take away, that it would be irrelevant of whether I had a hit or not. It would be irrelevant of whether, irrelevant, I think it's the right word, but I think also not relative relative to you know do my dad and i get a relationship again or will my mom ever love me or am i famous or not famous like i had to

figure out how to heal that thing from the inside otherwise i could be leveraged and manipulated really easily right yeah because i'd need that hit and i would even if it was a sucky hit i'd need that hit so bad i would just do it that a sucky hit, I'd need that hit so bad. I would just do it. That's a leveraged position. Like it's a really bad position to put yourself in. So for me, it was just trying to find really meaningful solutions to kind of complex problems and had to keep my promise to myself and you know I didn't end up quitting music like after that two-year hiatus I was like I like music I really love this I love being a writer so I have to find a way that it isn't toxic or it doesn't kill me and for me that meant doing again whatever I wanted I was like I won the lotto I don't have to have a hit I get to do whatever I want creatively and so I just started doing whatever I wanted if I wanted to write a pop song I wrote a pop song if I don't have to have a hit. I get to do whatever I want creatively. And so I just started doing whatever I wanted.

If I wanted to write a pop song, I wrote a pop song. If I wanted to make a country record, I made a country record. May not have been a good career decision. Didn't care. Because my goal was to figure out how to stay alive like over 60 years as an artist, which means, again, and Dylan really taught me this, was like you have, and Neil Young too, like you have to do what you think is right. Yeah.

Hell or high water. But when I look atittany you're just like i get it i mean that was a louisiana family with probably had a lot of not a lot of emotional skills which i really relate to and fame is a shit show and it's hard and there wasn't anybody there to protect her and help her stop and help her take breaks and check on her mental health. And the funny thing is everybody wants to be famous. But if you look at our numbers, we kill ourselves like flies. Like we're dropping like flies. You know what I mean? Like celebrities don't have a great success rate of happiness, certainly.

So it's funny. Everybody wants it, but it isn't actually very healthy. And it's something people like. They like when you fall apart. Yeah. They enjoy it when you fall apart. Yeah. They enjoy it when someone who's famous like completely goes mental. Yeah. They really do.

Yeah. Like more so than almost any other occupation. Yeah. And someone loses their mind. You can abandon all concerns about mental health just to take part in the mockery it was funny too like how taking years between records was perceived like i was supposed to feel really ashamed of it like the press would make it where it's like oh where's joel been she dropped off poor thing she dropped off yeah and i was like wow you guys are a-holes like i'm sticking up for my like literal survival over here

and you're making me feel like it's the worst decision it never even of course dawned on them that I was even doing it deliberately to make a lifestyle plan that worked for me but they shame you for it yeah you know they shame you like you talk about if you do struggle with self-worth the the media will pile on and make you feel like a terrible person because that last hit didn't quite go. You know? Well, it's a juicy narrative.

Yeah. You know, the juicy narrative is the one hit wonder. Yeah. Or the person who was on top of the world and then now they've fallen off. Yeah. People love that shit. They especially love that shit when they're not doing well because they would probably see you on the cover of Time Magazine and be like, and now they see, you know, you've taken two years off.

Yeah. Oh, I wonder if she's suicidal yet. Yeah. How's she doing? So we've been teasing about your mom, but you never really. Never got to it. Yeah. I mean, we're like three hours in.

Are we? Close. Oh. How much time we in, Jamie? two hours and 40 minutes yeah so my mom left and i really missed her my teddy bear's name was my mom's name nedra so that i could hug my mom at night i was very sad i have all all daughters. You're going to make me cry if you do this. And we moved to Homer. I remember it was the last night of the show at the Captain Cook. And we had our car packed.

My dad was taking us to Homer. We had a little bed made in the back of a station wagon. And I remember my mom being at the street corner and just like waving goodbye. And it was so surreal. You know, you're like, how can this happen? Where did she say she was going she was staying there we were leaving to homer didn't know why we went with my dad or not with my mom it just was what was happening you didn't have a conversation with her i was young you know i was eight um i do think they were i remember them asking like who would you guys rather live

with? And I was like, that is the dumbest, meanest question I've ever been asked in my life. Like, why would you ask me that? You know what I mean? I will not answer. I cannot answer. It was a horrible question. But it got decided and we're living with our dad. And I really missed her. And Anchorage is probably 250 miles from Homer. And so I would try and call her. We had a party line, you know, back then you couldn't always make calls and we couldn't really afford long distance calls. So it wasn't in great touch with her. But there's this thing in Homer called a ride line. And it's where you can get on the radio and say, looking for a ride to Anchorage, we'll split gas or things like that. And then people, you know,

you're like, leave a message at the radio station. And so you'd call the radio station, say, has anybody offered to give me a ride? And so I would do that to get up to see my mom. But I don't think I always told her about it. I think I just often showed up like on her doorstep. So I would like get a ride with a stranger, 250 miles to go see my mom. And you were a little kid. Yeah, I was a little kid. And my mom was amazing. She was like really spiritual, really calm.

Like my dad was volatile, drunk. My dad and I are really good friends now, by the way, which deserves saying. I can talk about him too. But she was just everything my dad was. And she was really creative she was an artist she was a visual artist um and just she was like heaven to me like it just felt like heaven it's your mom and so she would say things like you know your brain is really powerful like we barely use all of our brain in fact everything's related and we can affect things with our mind.

And if you look at that light bulb long enough and really focus, you can get it to dim. Why don't you try that? And I'll be back. So I think I was babysat. By a light bulb? By a light bulb by a light oh my god oh my god he returned a nine-year-old staring at a fire oh my god it actually was that you should be able to get it to go out and i felt like i failed when i didn't and she'd come back she said that's okay you know you just are learning to focus and you can try harder which is already starting to set up this narrative of like, it's my fault. So my mom was interesting. I don't even know how to keep explaining. I have a book called Never Broken where I really like it's like the life of my, it's my, I wrote my own biography, but it definitely,

like it took that long to really figure out how to explain my mom. But my mom was really, like I said, really spiritual. She's like, there's, there's stalkers and there's dreamers in the world. You know, there's people that dream up things to do and then there's the stalkers and they do it. And she goes, I'm a dreamer and you're you're a doer which again was starting to set up this narrative of like she dreams things up yeah and i execute them right it starts to be this like strange narrative that i didn't see at all during the time i just thought that was really cool and really philosophical so i move out I remember too like one time driving in the car and I was sad because dad had hit me and she was like you'll never break she goes you're unbreakable there's a steel rod in you

and it made me feel good and looking back I'm like who says that to a kid whose dad's hitting them like why not say I'll take you you'll never go back to him again right it's just so weird but instead I just felt so proud that she thought I had a metal rod in me and I wouldn't break I think between the ages of like 8 and 18 I lived in 22 different places like I was a very transient kid my dad was moving around we weren't always on the homestead. He'd go live with girlfriends. He had like, you know, what do you call it? Serial girlfriends, you know. And then I moved out. So my mom had heart problems and was sick quite a lot. And then when I graduated high school, she was in San Diego. And so she was having heart problems and I went to take care of her.

That's how I ended up in San Diego. And so she got this really big house that was like way too big to afford. It was like really nice. She liked nice things. And I was trying to work jobs to like pay rent. And she was too sick to work. And then I got kicked out of living. And she was like, why don't we live in our cars?

And I was like, that would be amazing because paying that rent was so stressful. And then she ended up bailing and going back to Alaska. I stayed in my car and all that happened.

Did she take care of her heart issue? I don't think there was ever a heart issue. Oh boy. Yeah. Anyway. So it was fake? So you went down there to take care of her, but there was nothing wrong with her? I don't want to be sued, but...

Your mom would sue you? I just don't want to be sued. That's all I'm saying. Okay. I don't know that to be a fact. Okay. Let's just leave it at that. Thank you. so she went

back to alaska i went through this crazy experience being homeless i got signed i called her one day from a pay phone i was like mom you're not gonna believe it like record labels are coming to see me and she was like i will be down to help you. Oh, boy. Yeah. That's the moment you wish you could take back in your life for sure. But I was really flattered. You know, I was really, I felt loved. You probably also missed her. Oh, my God.

I was so lovesick for her. You know, so lovesick. And she was just my hero. Like, she was just so cool and creative and spiritual and philosophical and like smart. And like she was neat, like super alternative. And when I was 16, backing up just a little bit, like so I was away at boarding school. She'd written me a letter and she said we were like having the same soul in two different bodies. Which felt like a huge compliment to me because it meant, I don't

know, I felt owned, you know, like she wanted me. It felt like being claimed, I guess. So she started advising me. I had my own manager, but then she started co-managing me. And then she ended up pushing the other manager out. And she came to me one day and was like hey your business manager stole five grand from you it's not a lot of money but why is someone else managing your money and I was like yeah fuck him why the hell is someone else managing my money she goes we can just hire accountants like and like why would we pay someone to do that I was like hell yeah why would we and so cue the accountants um long story short I woke up at 34 and realized all the money was gone and I was like three million in debt and it was really not good how much did she steal? My accountants think that it was probably somewhere at least north of $100 million, but I don't really know for sure.

Yeah. Your mom stole $100 million. Well, let's be careful with the word stole for lawsuits. No, I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it. It's gone. Let her say it. It's gone. Let her sue me. It's gone.

Well, what did she do with it? Never could find it. Don't know. Just gone. Did she have an explanation? Things, you know, started seeming weird. You know what's amazing is like that two-year like empowering break i took from the music industry to decide like do i really want to do this i was going broke during them because she was spending so much money and i had no idea and she never said

anything so she just had access to your money yeah through these other people but i didn't know that she did she'd always wanted 50 of my income as a salary and i would just never give it to her i was like no 50 percent yeah but i was always like no you're not having 50 so she just took it holy shit yeah there were shell companies. There was all kinds of things. Oh my God. Yeah. Is she still alive? Mm-hmm.

How? I don't know. Yeah. And so how much in debt were you at 34? I think about 3 million. Jesus Christ. So I suddenly had to like, yeah, I had to sell all my homes. Not all of them.

Poor baby. People hear that. I know. You had to sell all your homes. It wasn't all my homes. I had one home I lived in in Rancho Santa Fe that my mom lived with me. And then I had an office that I sold. And then my mom had bought a house on Lopez Island. And mind you, I'm driving a Jeep Cherokee. You know what I mean?

So you never went crazy. I never went crazy. And I was saving this money for this really great strategy of being a 60 year artist. You know what I mean? Taking risks creatively. great strategy of being a 60 year artist you know what i mean right taking risks creatively and i didn't have the money to take the risks and she was such a cool character like apparently like i went broke several times she never broke a sweat she just waited for me to come back around and decide i wanted to sing again which i did amazingly you didn't have any access to your bank accounts you didn't look at any of that I did how do I do this without like being I just don't want to get sued you really think your mom would sue you after stealing a hundred million dollars from you it's really

possible it could be just I don't know there's people that can take care of that you know um I was seeing bank statements but but they weren't real. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, it gets worse. Oh, my God. Yeah. Holy shit. Oh, my God.

So she's just like a fucking crazy person. That's why I read that book, Traumatic Narcissism, because that was the closest thing I could ever figure out that explained. She had a very enigmatic, brilliant personality to where all these employees around her just worshipped her. Where is she now? I don't know. I haven't seen her since 2003.

But she's alive. She's balling somewhere. I don't know. I think, I her since 2003. But she's alive. She's balling somewhere. I don't know. I think, I mean, the IRS has called looking for her and I'm like, I'd love to tell you where she is. I just don't know. So we made a deal that, so she never claimed anything as income, right? She just took it all. And so she and you could get a sunset clause like so in a contract for anybody listening, it doesn't know what a sunset clause is like if a manager helps make you famous, they could have an argument even if you fire them as a manager for having a piece of your career forever. It's kind of a sunset clause. And so her and I didn't have a contract, but she definitely was wanting, you know, like an argument for a piece of my career forever. So in exchange for not having that, we worked out this deal where she would claim income as tax, you know, taxable. She'd have to pay taxes on that.

And then she wanted a half a million dollars. So I went to a manager named Irving Azoff and I borrowed money and I paid my mom off. And it was the last time I ever saw her. Wait a minute. She stole a hundred million dollars and then you gave her half a million dollars? Yeah. Just to go away, just to be done with it, just to help with the tax situation that got caused by the whole thing. It was a shit show.

But what did it feel like when you found out that all the money was gone and then you realized that your mom had ripped you off? It took so long to figure it out. So once I started pulling the thread to when I made the realization, it took quite a bit of time. How much time? At least a year, I think. Probably. What was her thought? Did she have an explanation?

No, she just was like, no. Nothing was ever clear. Nothing made sense. And, you know, I would try to bring in the other people and be like, what the hell? How did this happen? And then I brought in an outside auditor. And that's when I started figuring out, like, in this woman, like like I'll never forget. I was at a hotel in L.A. My mom was there

her two, you know, right hands were there. This accountant and she was like, you've gone broke several times in your career. I was like, come again? What? Like what started the first thread is my manager that got pushed out sued me for being pushed out I guess so she sued me for like I think it was maybe the sunset clause I can't remember very good and so we go through this whole lawsuit it's an intense lawsuit the judge finally brings me and this manager in an office and he's like just settle you two need to work this out this is forever just settle we agreed on a price I agreed to pay her. We go outside. I tell my mom, like, all right, I just agreed to pay her X dollars. My mom goes, we don't have it. And I went, come again? This was a number I should have. And so she told me in front of my lawyer and maybe her lawyer that there was no money.

And that's how I started to figure it out. That woman went through this whole lawsuit without ever telling me. Holy fuck. Your mom sounds insane. So she had your mom had staff. She's like, oh boy. Yeah. So she just took to that money like a duck to water. Yeah. She loved money. Yeah. I was not

as much my deal, but she really liked it. Oh my God. That is so insane. I'm thinking about it now. So if you were in your twenties when you hit and then you're 34 when you realized you were broke, 10 million bucks a year, like a crazy person can spend 10 million bucks a year pretty fucking easy yeah that's all she had to do and then you're gone 100 million dollars and you just trusted her yeah i did nobody else could have done it but her but i really really did trust her yeah oh my god the thing like and i put this in the book, but, like, she had this house on Lopez. I needed her to sell it, too, because I needed to sell every asset, you know, to try and pay back to get this $3 million out of debt. And she bought it with my money, you know what I mean?

So it's technically my home-ish, but it was in her name, and she had the title. And so she was like, yes, yes, of course, I'll give it to you. She never did. And so, was like, yes, yes, of course, I'll give it to you. She never did. And so, again, it was the same hotel. I was cutting a pop record, which, by the way, was like, you don't make pop records when you're a 90s credible singer-songwriter. It's not what you do. Like, that was a huge risk for me, and I knew it, but I wanted to do it. Then I was broke, taking a huge musical risk that I knew everybody would hate. I knew the press would hate me making a pop record like again. I have to tell you a story

about that. But I knew it was a risky thing. So now I'm like trying to make a record deal with the fact that my mom is not who I thought she was. Everything pretty much I've been told about my life from her was not what I thought it was. I'd have to go through my entire life emotionally and psychologically and figure out what was a truth and what was a lie from 35 years of my mom talking to me. It was an awful, awful, awful thing. The betrayal, the hurt, you can imagine the whole nine yards. But I still was trying to just handle the money thing, right? And make this record because I really need to make this record. And so she's in the hotel. I was like, you haven't sold this house. You have to sell this house. You have to give me this money. And it was like all the masks came off.

My mom has never spoken above a whisper. She'd always speak in this really calm voice. She'd never get angry. It's hard for me to describe like the look on her face. But it was like seeing a mask ripped off and she's like, I'll give you the fucking house. And I was like, I could end up dead. Like she could kill you. It worried me.

I was like, that hit a new level of like what I was dealing with. And I made sure I changed my will instantly. I made sure, like, I took care of all that level of stuff. Holy shit. So now you're thinking your mom might kill you. Whether it's justified or not, I was like, Jewel, this is how people end up on TV. Yeah. Dead.

One of those true crime shows. Holy fuck. Yeah. Oh. Oh, my God. I have such a hard time with this story. How do you ever trust anybody after that? How do you ever trust anybody after that? I think that my life has been defined in what I would call true rebellion.

Being truly rebellious when I moved out at 15 meant figuring out how to be happy. You know, being truly rebellious meant when I was signed, figuring out how to be famous and happy. And the only real fuck you I could think of for my mom was figuring out how to be happy. And it's funny, I could cry saying that, but I really mean it. It's so funny. I was not going to let her make me bitter or damaged or unable to live in the world and know love and tenderness. I wanted my life to make me more loving and more kind and more giving and more generous. And you don't just get to do that. You have to fight for it. Unless you're delusional and you just act like everything's fine and act like you're fine, but you can't fake that. You have to really heal.

You have to really figure out how to recover. And thankfully, my hit at the time became a hit. It was Intuition. Huge left turn musically, but thank God it was a hit. And then I was about to do a huge tour. It was going to make me a shit ton of money and I didn't do it. I called my manager and I said, I can't tour. I'm going to have a mental breakdown. Like I can't, I can't figure out how to walk in life right now with everything. Oh, sorry. I'm getting so emotional. I just didn't know how to do it. And so I just stopped and I just didn't worry about the money and I didn't worry about anything. And I just quit and I hit it on the ranch in Stephenville. And I was like, OK, this is like you're going to have to do the best figuring out you've ever done.

And I didn't want to go to a therapist because my brain had been so fucked with. I was so mind washed by my mom. And so I kind of went back to the drawing boards of self and other. What thoughts are mine? What thoughts aren't mine? What things make me anxious? What things don't? And something, I don't know why, really helped me was I went to the bathroom, I was washing my hands. I looked in the mirror in my home. And I remember this thing called, it was like an allegory of the golden statue. Have you ever heard that?

No. It might be actually a real historical story, but a warring village was coming to ambush a village. And they heard about it. And they had a really valuable statue made of solid gold. They covered it in mud to hide its value. The war happened. The war left. And people were so busy recovering, they never uncovered the statue.

And so much time passed, people actually forgot it was a gold statue. And then one day a huge flood came or rain came and it started to chip away the mud and it was revealed to have gold. So for some reason, I'm washing my hands, I'm looking in the mirror and I think of that story and I was like, what if I'm approaching this whole thing wrong? What if it's not that I'm broken and I have to fix myself because I felt very broken. And I was like, what if it's that like a soul or your nature whatever you want to call it isn't like a chair or a cup that can be broken what if it exists like perfectly at all times it's like it's a quantum thing you can't break it and so what if I just have to do like a really loving archaeological dig back to my true nature?

And so in a weird way, it was like this full circle to this nature versus nurture thing. And like fighting for my life, for my soul, for my happiness, by getting rid of just the years of abuse and neglect and mud and blood and spit and harm and everything and figure out how to wash that away, which is easier. It's easier to know I'm actually whole. I just have to get rid of what's not me. That started to be kind of like clear. It's a little more binary that way.

It's just simpler to deal with. But it just meant I had to be really, really, really diligent. And it had to be my number one thing. So I didn't make money. I didn't do anything but figure out how to heal. That was it. How long did you do that for? Quite a while.

Yeah, quite a while. It's sad. It's sad to feel like you bury a parent while they're still alive you know the grief of that and grieving that i never did have a mom so i had to grieve that and then i had to grieve the fact that i was tricked and the version of a mom i thought i had wasn't real either that was a double head trip your mom sounds like a total sociopath. I mean, imagining stealing from your child is, it's not, like, those, the idea isn't even, it's not even available. Like, I can't find it. Like, if I thought about myself stealing from one of my kids, like, I can't find that thought.

It's not there. Like, it's, like, I'd just as likely eat them. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's not there like it's it's like i just as likely eat them yeah you know what i mean it doesn't it's not possible it's not a real thought so stealing from your child is crazy but the fact that she steals and does it for all these years and then vanishes and then you pay her off like you have to give her money on top of it you have to give her a half a million dollars to tell her to fuck off and then she still keeps that house and doesn't sell it yeah dude that's so that's so insane the fact that you've come out of it like very friendly you're like really positive and happy it's like how the fuck did you do that like that is almost

more of an accomplishment or you know what it is it's relatively equal to the accomplishment of getting over being a suicidal 15 year old homeless kid or 18 year old homeless kid it's like it's relatively equal because the despair and the the pain and almost almost more so right because that now you've become famous and wealthy and you've you've overcome at least on paper to realize but you haven't because you're still fucked over by the thing that ruined you in the first place right how do you mean your mom you're like not having a mom there the thing that was fucking you up when you were a child fucks you

up as a 34 year old yeah like god damn it but you pull through you pull through like you pulled through then you pull through again it's fucking incredible it's incredible that you're not broken yeah But you pull through. You pull through like you pulled through then. You pull through again. It's fucking incredible. It's incredible that you're not broken. Yeah.

You know, like that metal rod. Maybe that bitch was right. As crazy as it sounds. Maybe she's like, this is your final test, young Skywalker. Padawan, you have made it. I know. It's I know it's like it's so crazy but that's like

everyone's ultimate terrifying fear right yeah that's the ultimate fear the ultimate fear is the one you love the most the one you

trust the most is the one that fucks you over yeah and the fact that you have this separation from her and you're you know as a child especially as an eight-year-old which is just the idea of you waving goodbye to her as

an eight-year-old is horrific just emotionally devastating and then to get her back you know 12 years later and to think everything's going to be okay now yeah i mean while your mom's just stealing all your money yeah wild and that she's still alive out there some people are just broken like there's something missing right that's what i think i definitely had thought about like would i persecute her at the time you know but I didn't for two reasons one is like just that logical thing of like what's the quickest way to healing it's not a lawsuit and if it's gone it's gone but it might not be gone I think it was gone yeah I think she'd live differently I think I would have heard of her

living differently but whatever to me the quickest way to healing was cut your losses and move forward and that's been my motto a lot like because i talked to myself in my head i'm like kilcher cut your losses move forward figure it out move forward you call yourself by your last name yeah kilcher i'm like my own little coach kilcher pick yes up move forward um and i think that for a mom to do that you have to must have been in a lot of pain. I don't know what happened to my mom, but I think she felt entitled to it. Not really. No.

She felt entitled to it. Well, there's a red flag when she's asking for 50%. Yeah. Yeah. And she would say things like, you're just the tip of the iceberg i'm everything underneath and it goes back to that dreamer versus doer thing you know like so there's tons of that like just lots of shaming and a lot there was just it was a shit show it was really really a shit show and it was a shit show to get out from under and recover from but I do feel like I have two talents I'm a very

good musician and I'm very good at understanding the mechanics of change I understand it I understand that and it's really interesting because as I look at where culture is and where do I intersect just like when I was like you know, culture was in pain and I'm like, now what? That's where I had an authentic, real intersection. It's that way again. The world's in more pain and over ever. And I have things that I know help people and that's worth it. You know, it's not like I'd wish my life again, but I've not just survived my life, but I've thrived in it. And I've figured out some really complicated, important things for myself. And it really helps, like, the kids in our foundation.

And it's important stuff to know. And so I'm happy to put that to use. You know, might as well. It's that making that poison into medicine, you know. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Like, it's not just important stuff to know, but it's a lot of people know some of the things that you're saying, but they haven't experienced some of the loss that you've experienced and some of the pain that you've experienced and then come through it. Like you have a working relationship with this. It's not it's not as simple as, you know, the concept you understand. Like when you hear like self-help people, you know, there's a lot of self-help people, right?

Particularly online now. But then you go, well, what the fuck have you ever done, man? You know, like what, what have you done? Like there's a lot of these self-help people that are just talking to you about going for it and trusting your instincts and really making a plan and then be like but all you do is tell people how to do things like what have you done and how do you if you're doing things how the fuck do you have so much time to tell people what to do you don't right so it doesn't work and blanket statements like trust your instincts so it's a nice thing to say but which instincts do you trust and how do you discern the difference between a fear and an instinct?

That takes a much more mechanical look at something that, you know, quick three minute videos on Instagram aren't going to help you with, you know? And it was really interesting. You know, I never thought what I did or how I did it was very interesting, but a neuroscientist came to me and was like,

what are these exercises? I explained to him and he was like, these actually do neurologically rewire your brain. And I was like, that's so interesting. It's very interesting. I'd never thought of it that way. And so I really, I mean, if you're going to get something out of all this, you might as well get something out of it. And for me, it was like, I could write songs and I am one of the only people. It's so weird to say I'm one of the only people in the mental health field that has actually created practicable things that rewire you. Everybody else just talking about a philosophy like that's really weird. My little dumb country ass is one of the only people that's actually figured out practicable steps. But you can't make a map of the territory unless you've actually navigated it.

Yeah. There's a lot of people that understand the concepts that are involved in reshaping your perspective and remapping the way you see reality but have they actually navigated it have they gone through the despair of they had their mother steal 100 million fucking dollars you know have they done all this have they i mean, there's a psychologist. He was like, I don't know how you know what you know. Like, I don't know how you know it. And I was like, I just didn't get it from a book. Like, I got it from my life. And because I wanted to survive, I didn't want to kill myself.

So now what? Yeah. Well, that's a powerful, motivating force, right? powerful motivating force right especially for a young person that sees so many examples of how to do things the wrong way around you all the time yeah and you realize i don't want to be like that for me when i was young i just watched a lot of people living their lives in a way that that wasn't fun they just hated it and they they were sick they were like sick with life like life made them sick but i never had to go through anything like you did no it's such an astute observation and like i mentioned you earlier but like i'm writing a book and one of the things i'm putting it is like these four illnesses and these four

addictions of when you tolerate the intolerable you get sick yeah you know and you have to stop consuming it you have to you don't have to but You don't have to, but you don't get to complain. If you choose not to change, you have to stop complaining. It's so hard for some people, too, because the very things that placate them are the things that keep them imprisoned. Right. Like nice things. Having a nice car. I hate my job, but I have a nice car.

I hate my job, but I have a nice apartment. And then you can't leave because you're trapped by these things that you have. And then God forbid, if you have a family, that's the ultimate anchor. Cause then like you have an obligation that's far greater than your own life. You have other people that are counting on you. And so now that you have, so now you have to plan with very little time with little time that you have to get out. And how do you do that? Yeah.

You know? I think that's why, like, I mean, it's kind of probably a Buddhist saying, right? Something about attachment to suffering or something. But, like, it's really hard to leverage somebody that's willing to walk away from things. Yes. You know, and that's why I always stayed away from, like, the million-dollar signing bonus or the whatever, because that made me leverageable.

But if you're willing to walk away, you can't negotiate with a person like that that puts you in a powerful position. But if you're so addicted to outside things, you're going to be leveraged, And that's not a good position. It's the worst position. The worst position is be leveraged. Like the saddest thing is to see someone who seemingly has it all, but yet is compromised by this fear of losing what they have. I felt that way. This will probably be really unpopular, but I kind of felt that way about

the Me Too movement of like, guys shouldn't be dicks in the workplace. They shouldn't be, especially raping you in those types of things, obviously. But being propositioned doesn't mean you have to do it. You know what I mean? Like, you can walk away. You can say, fine, I'm going to lose my job. And it's not fun. We shouldn't be in that position. I shouldn't have been in that position that that boss put me in to live in my car. But you also don't have to do it. And something better will work out if you invest in yourself that way. Like I really it's so hard for people to believe, but I've never seen it not work out. Every time I made the hard choice, it was like rainbow magical stuff happened that I never would have thought would have because I didn't

compromise my humanity. You can't compromise your humanity and expect good things are going to come out of it. It just isn't. But I think if you invest in your humanity, magic happens. I see it all the time. I think there was a darkness in the movie industry in particular that existed that was literally interwoven into the structure of the business. And Tarantino talked about it on here where he was talking about a famous director, I forget, from the past who had a bedroom set up in his office

where he would take all the young starlets into there. And they had to do it. If you wanted to star in a film, you had to do it. And so when you hear about someone like Harvey Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein is the, he's the poster boy for that movement. First of all, because he looks gross, right? He looks disgusting.

And then you hear about all these women and he would ruin their career if they didn't do it. And he realized he had this power to do this and that this is, but then you realize like, oh no, this is like how they did it forever. Like there was a woman, Maureen O'Hara, what was her name? Is that her name? The actress? Yeah. Is that her name? There was a famous actress.

I might have the wrong woman, but it's from the olden days. And she wrote something about this, this very thing about her career falling apart because she wasn't willing to sleep with the directors and she wasn't willing to sleep with the directors and she wasn't willing to sleep with the producers and That she realized that she was always going to have this limited availability this limited career and that this was

You know before the internet before do you know who it is? Does it? Yeah Before do you know who it is does it? Yeah, Maureen O'Hara was Maureen. Oh, she's calling out sexual harassment in Hollywood more than 70 years ago So this is just how that system worked but if you think about it that the the business is so different than anything any other business because It's not to discredit the the ability to act or the the craft of acting because it is a real thing. But it's also a thing that a lot of people can do. It is. It's make-believe. You're pretending. And then how many people are willing to pretend? A lot. How many people want to? A lot. And so you have people come into the office. Come in. Have a seat. Tell me why I should pick you. And then you have these

people that have this ultimate power that are choosing people you and then you have these people that have this ultimate power that are choosing people and then you have these people that are the reason why they want this insane amount of attention in the first place they usually have this hole in their soul they're trying to fill up right and so they're willing to do anything to make it and they see other people making it and that this seeing the audition process firsthand you know when I first came to Hollywood and I was doing auditions for TV shows and movies and stuff, I'm like, this is like the worst way for people that are already damaged psychologically and mentally. This is the worst way.

Soul crushing. For them to try to navigate through life. To go and hope people pick you, and then when they don't, you're like, why? And then you try again tomorrow. Why? And it's mostly rejection. So it's like 99% rejection.

And maybe 1%, if you're lucky, you get a gig. Like, holy shit. And then you realize this, that it's all these guys that are trying to fuck these women. That's why the Me Too movement was so important.

It was. Because this is not how it should be you know yeah you should definitely say no you know yeah you definitely shouldn't you pay a big price and it sucks and we shouldn't have to you shouldn't have to you know you definitely shouldn't have but like your boss in san diego that forced you to become homeless and those you know people that have that kind of power they've been using that forever yeah it's a weird it's a it's it it's a thing that only exists without exposure right like unless you can shine light on it yeah it's it's a natural thing where people when they don't have any when no one

knows yeah right and you're the boss and you have these people working under you or you're trying to get you know people are trying to get into films yeah there's no repercussion it all happens in the darkness yeah the film thing was the craziest one right because all the other folks knew about it that was yeah they all the little vampire helpers they all knew about it. That was, yeah. They all, the little vampire helpers, they all knew about it. They were all like feeding virgins to the demon. Yeah. You know? No, that kind of culture is crazy.

Yeah, and they all also needed it. They needed the demon to stay alive for their job, right? Because like if you're working for the Weinstein company and you're you're you know you're making millions of dollars we're making big films big God yeah you sacrifice the Virgin to your God and probably as the lack of accountability like takes place the the demon demands more right because now they're crazier yeah right? Just like rock and roll stars trashing hotel rooms.

Like you just want to be even more outrageous, more crazy. And the more you get away with it, you more realize, oh, I think I can get away with anything. Yeah. And the next thing you know. You get sicker.

And it goes back to that like, you tolerate the intolerable. Yeah. And you get ill and then you get more and more ill. Yeah. And then it's also this biochemical, you know, you get ill, and then you get more and more ill. And then it's also this biochemical, you know, you take a hit of heroin, it gets you perfectly high.

The next time you do it, it doesn't get you just as high. So you have to do a little bit more because your threshold starts going up. And that's how addiction works. It's the same thing with emotional addictions sexual addictions you know that's why people who start getting sexual addictions have to do weirder and weirder and kinkier and kinkier shit to get the same biochemical payoff right it's the same with that kind of sexual predatory behavior it starts here and then to get the same thrill it has to escalate to here and that's where it's just like how do you look at stuff like that how do you start healing and creating a space where there can be some kind of education or reform to help people that are sick you know what i mean yeah like you can't leverage your child when you are in your heart right you can't that's why you say i can't steal from my child

because it's like it instantly hits your heart i think our whole world has just migrated from making heart-led decisions to brain led decisions. And our brains just aren't that smart. Like the world doesn't need smarter people. We need people with more heart. There's lots of smart people out there. But when you don't live in your heart, when you can cut off your conscience entirely and do things that are strategic and smart, you're going to leverage vulnerable people. You have no fucking problem with it.

Same thing on the receiving end. Like if I wasn't really in my heart when that guy propositioned me, my brain would have talked me into sleeping with him. Trust me. Right. Because it made a lot of sense to do it. Right. It was my heart that couldn't let me. You know, so to me and like the businesses that I'm creating, it's all just like how can I figure out how to help people stop worshiping at the altar of like sheer mentalness

and get into their heart and realize it's a safe place to be because it's scary. It doesn't seem safe to be loved in this world. It doesn't seem safe to love, much less to live in our hearts. We've even kind of just forgot how to do it in general. But those Native American uncles I told you about earlier, like they would teach you to walk this, it was called the good red road. But the first step was hard. Very first step you would get taught as a kid. Isn't that funny that we just quit? That's no longer the very first step to being human is living in your heart. And we've suffered for it. Well, I think they had a smaller number of variables to take into consideration and a much greater library of knowledge

about the variables that did exist, right? What were the variables that existed? You had to have community. You had to have the customs of the tribe. You had to have the ability to provide. You had to have the ability to protect your loved ones from intruders. And you had to have the ability to provide you had had the ability to protect your loved ones from intruders and you had a respect for the land and for the animals and for what what provided you with life as

we've Expanded our variables. We've abandoned all these core ideas about the value of all these different things like love and community and friendship because we've thought that's important but you really want to make sure that you get a career you really want to make sure that you have your phd or you really want to make sure that you get ahead and you invest in the stock market and if you're not investing in crypto you're not investing in the future and and we want to like stat and then you're dealing with so many variables that the human mind which is designed for tribal life and you know small groups of 150 people trying to get through the world you're you're not set up for

this you're not set up for it and so like britney spears you're making shitty concrete you know like most of us most of us make concrete with shitty ingredients. And so the structure of what, what you are, it's not in very few people are going through like, like purposely going through difficult, uh, trials and tribulations on purpose to try to figure out who you are, forcing themselves, pushing themselves, digging into their consciousness, trying to figure out, okay, what's wrong with the way I think? How do I fix this?

How do I make it better? How do I reinforce all the good things? And how do I eliminate all the negative things? How do I look at it correctly? How do I look at myself? How do I do a real analysis of who I am and try to figure out what patterns that I feel like I should stop and what patterns I feel like I should enhance? Yeah.

And no one teaches you that. No one teaches you that. They're teaching you facts and numbers. Yeah. And how to sit down and stay. And if you, little Billy can't pay attention, so we're going to give him drugs, you know, and like little Billy's bored out of his fucking mind like little Billy's bill to move yeah he's built to be running around you tell

him to sit down for five hours a day and an hour in each different class he's like like something's wrong with a little Billy no something's wrong with you motherfucker yeah this class that you're teaching little Billy sucks you're bored you don't want to be here either. You've given up on your hopes and dreams. And then the people that have given up on their hopes and dreams are teaching the children to give up on their hopes and dreams. You're like, oh my God. And it's for a system that was built in the industrial age that doesn't even have to do with the fact that we're moving into a gig economy. And so creativity, the ability to pivot,

the ability to lean into the unknown are actually the skills our kids need. And that's not what we're training for kids right now. At all. With our foundation is a school, like an alternative school. So they do core like charter school curriculum for two days. And then they're with us the other days of the week. But all we teach them is like entrepreneurial skills, this type of mindfulness psychology. And then we teach them tennis because it's such a psychological game.

They can really start to see like how they're doing. Yeah. Interesting. Why tennis? Because it's so psychological. How's it psychological? Because it's so competitive, but you're really kind of competing against yourself. And it's such an intense game that when you're off, you see it right away.

You see it in your everything from your swing. Do you play? No, not really. I'm not good at it, but I know that about it. And so I just thought it'd be good. I kind of just picked it. But what's cool is like right now we're the number two tennis academy in the country and number one and number three recruit tennis players. And we just give ghetto kids rackets. recruit tennis players and we just give ghetto kids rackets. Really? Yeah. Wow.

It's really cool. And 99% of our kids earn their own college scholarships and 90% or 70% of them this year were Ivy League level. Wow. And nobody else is getting those results. It works. And we flipped the model because usually there's this paradoxical reflux. If you give somebody charity because it was on the receiving end, you feel bad about yourself. But you're grateful, but you feel shitty and you feel bitter.

And I hated that paradoxical kind of reflux. And so with the kids, we don't give them anything. We just teach them how to do things. All these internal things of like, I'm going to help you figure out how to dissolve your bad concrete. I'm going to help you build a new architecture of all your thoughts that you're going to make actions based on. And it works. And it works really, really good. It's fun.

That's amazing. That's an incredible result. Yeah. And that's the byproduct. So I think most foundations, they want to give a scholarship to somebody. That's like giving somebody the pear without giving them a tree. Like I'm trying to help kids grow. And then the byproduct is just magic. Like one of our girls, Cheryl, when I met her, she was 15. She had just tried her second suicide attempt. for quite a while. And I just started teaching her those little paper exercises. Like, what are the thoughts you're having? Are they true? Does it make you go tight or open? And just starting to work her through that. And I was like, I know it's hard to believe you're

gonna weep with joy one day. And she's like, it's impossible. I was like, I know it sounds impossible. But I promise you one day you're gonna come to me and be like, I wept with joy. And I remember the day she called me. She's like, I'm sitting here weeping with joy. I can't believe how happy I am. She applied to colleges, got turned down. She applied to 10 of them, got turned down by nine. She never faltered. She was like, I've been doing the right thing. That's all I can do. The rest is out of my control. I know something will work out. Maybe college isn't for me, but I know something will work out maybe college isn't for me but I know something will work out like she didn't tank which was kind of amazing and then she got her last acceptance letter and she just went to Stanford wow isn't that amazing that's amazing and she's going around campus handing out flyers that says

do you want a wellness buddy it's like she's the cutest so cute a wellness she has little flyers all over stanford campus saying like if you want a wellness buddy and so she's creating her own culture that's healthy around her it's so cool it's really fun that's amazing that you've helped her do that that you've given them this this motivation and this fuel to do that. You just need a little help. It's like being taught geometry or trigonometry. It's like we just need to be taught some of these skills. I think they're much more valuable at the end of the day because what's the point of being famous if you're not happy? Like what's the point?

It's just crazy that those are not the skills that schools are teaching. It's like we know this. If you say it, it's logical. Like everything you're saying is very logical. Yeah. This is not like we need cold fusion. Like, well, that would be nice, but we don't know how to do it yet. No, it's like this is all doable.

Yeah. This is all logical. There's a real cause and effect you you see how you've managed to rethink your life and it's turned out amazing and it's doable and there's so many people that are in this pit of despair and don't feel like there's a way out of it well people have done what you've done they've gotten out they've figured it out They've they've managed to navigate the territory and now they want to show you a map Yeah, and let's let's look at what are the most important things well one of the most important things is How do you think about things? Yeah, what meaning do you give things?

Do you give things this meaning do they have meaning or do you give the meaning because very often? things this meaning? Do they have meaning or do you give them meaning? Because very often things don't have a meaning. You assign them a meaning and you can assign them a positive meaning or a negative meaning. And you can decide that this is going to be a learning moment and that this is going to build adversity, is going to build character. You're going to get through this and you're going to come out on the other end a stronger person. Pressure builds diamonds. And to realize that and to have these incremental moments where you see success and then you build upon that and then you learn to trust the process, you'll come out on the other end. But they're not teaching you that shit in school. They're teaching you to memorize things.

They're teaching you facts and they're teaching you how to do calculus and they're teaching you how to apply for schools you know like we've literally lost this skill you know so it really needs to be taught again thoughtfully and intentionally taught that's actually why I worked with the state of Ohio it has the highest opioid death rate I think addiction rate and school shooting rate it's really sad sad. Ohio does? Really? Jamie, what's going on in Ohio? Yeah. I haven't been there in a long time. See if it's right.

Keep me honest. But anyway, I worked with the Montgomery County School Services there to create, like, how can I take this curriculum that I know works for me? I helped these kids for the last 18 years. And how can I get it into, like, an English class where it's not like you're going to the counselor's office for a separate thing or some other whatever outside school program or something. It's not layered on. Like how can I legit bake these into English class?

And so that's what we did. It's called SELA, like social emotional language arts. But it's where I start to like introduce these ideas of, you know, I perceive what I think therefore I am. How did you get this all put together? Like, how did you, how did, how did you go from being a person who has overcome some mental health issues and overcome depression and suicidal thoughts to getting together and, and putting, how do you have the time to put the structure together? How do you have the time to oversee it and look at it? And how do you have the time to put the structure together how do you have the time to oversee it and look at it and how do you have the time when I had divorced I knew I couldn't

just tour as a living as a single mom and so I wanted to create a job that had a lot of purpose and meaning to me that wasn't just touring and so I wanted to build a business outside of music but I didn't know how and so I tried to look at that little curve of intersection, the world's in pain, now what? And I realized, oh, my songs aren't actually just my living. Like what I know about pain is valuable and it's what I like to do. It's how I like to help. And so then I just was trying to figure out how do I scale wisdom? Basically, that's what I'm trying to do is how do I just scale wisdom? How do I scale information that's going to help people. And so I tried to do an offering in every category. So like I'm making a mindfulness cartoon. Mindfulness, by the way, just I hate that word

because it's everywhere, but it's like this weird word. Nobody knows what it means. So I just want to define it for me. So at least we know what I'm talking about. I define mindfulness as conscious presence. Just means you're consciously present. That's it. There's nothing more magical than I am consciously here presently right now. And what I said about leaving your house to go, you know, find burglars, that isn't being present. That's leaving the current moment to go keep yourself safe, which is really not a great idea. So meditation, there's two halves to mindfulness. Meditation is like a bicep curl for building presence.

And they've actually been able to show you can affect the shape of your brain and how your blood flow works, you know, just by meditating. And you can do as little as eight weeks, I think they showed. So that's the bicep curl of I can learn to be present for longer and longer periods of time. You know, I can, if you learn a mantra or you learn to count breaths, there's a million ways to meditate. You might only be able to be present for one second. That's okay. And then you might learn to be present for two seconds and then build it out. But it is like a bicep curl. It isn't comfortable, just like going to the gym. People always tell me they can't meditate because they sit there and they feel miserable. That

doesn't mean it's not working. It just means you're present and you don't feel good. It doesn't mean it's going to be unicorns and rainbows going off. You know what I mean? It just means you're going to be present for whatever's going on. And you have an actual neurological distraction addiction where you're neurologically used to being distracted. That's how your brain says, Yeah. You're going to feel like you're crawling in your skin, but not for long. You just have to gut it out for a couple whatever weeks or something. So that's building the muscle of being consciously present. So that's like taking your car off of autopilot and getting it neutral. That's really good, but it won't change your life. So just meditating won't change your life.

That's where now that you're present, what are you going to do? And that's where you need something to practice, like a new behavior, something you're really going to work on, whether it's a gratitude practice or like, I'm going to look at when I'm dilated or contracted and see what I'm thinking, feeling, and doing. And then you just start building one at a time on those skills. So I was able to sort of end with kind of these neuroscientists were like, yeah, these are legit. These really work. I started figuring out how could I teach these concepts like to a five-year-old, to public school children. For me, that was like creating this, you know, language arts program and then this culture company for adults. And I've just found really good partners where I'm

supplying the information that I know. And then like this, the great people in Ohio and then a salesperson are helping sale it. I haven't sold it yet, by the way. So don't look at me. I'm not like a huge success over here, but it's the right idea. I think we're about to maybe sell New York school district, which fingers crossed, because this is the right idea.

Like we have to start helping our kids with trauma in school where kids are without giving them an extra job. So and then the Culture Country Company, we just started with Saks Works. It'll be our first project where we're actually trying to tinker with humans in the workplace and see how it goes. And I think also just for kids, particularly kids with trauma, you can give them an understanding and a sense that you care about them as an individual. They can go, oh, I'm not just a part of the herd. I'm actually a person and there's tools that they can help me use and I can get out of this.

Whatever terrible feelings that I'm having right now, many other people have had terrible feelings and they've overcome this to become very happy, productive, loving people. Yeah. And it can be done. And our teachers are overwhelmed and they're trauma triggering too. Like we just have a fatigued system. They're also not paid well. They don't feel appreciated. And they're dealing with COVID and like, it's just, it's hard. It's hard for people. So like with the language arts program I did, it also is for teachers. Like they have their own program because they need help. Like we all need help. We all need emotional support.

Like if COVID taught us anything, it's that we need some help. Like the way the world is working isn't helping us feel as connected as we could be. That helps us feel more nourished. We're at three hours and 40 minutes. Damn. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Time flies. Time're at three hours and 40 minutes. Damn. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Time flies.

Time flies. When you're having a good conversation. Truth. You brought your guitar. Do you want to end with a song? I mean, I can. Do you want to? You don't have to.

No, I just don't want to make, I feel like we've been here forever. The poor people are like. No, they're not listening. They do whatever they want. Like some of them are listening. Some of them are done. Some tune out, some come back. Yeah, some of them are listening. Some of them are done. Some tune out.

Some come back. Yeah. Some of them are at the gym right now on their third session. You know, like people, the way they digest podcasts is beyond me. I don't understand it. I guess they just do it during commute times or exercise times or some people do it at work like some people have jobs where they you know have to perform tasks and they can listen to podcasts at work that makes sense what are you gonna play i don't know you want to play your first song since it's your first

hit we could do that it's the first song you ever wrote now that we know that's crazy it's your first hit? We could. Do that. It's the first song you ever wrote. Now that we know, that's crazy. It's crazy that that was the big hit and that was the first song you ever wrote. I have to tune. Here's another question. How come you didn't let the other fingernails grow long? My left hand

has to be short so that I can play and push on the strings. If I tried to push on these, I couldn't get to them. And then with the right hand has to pick. And my right hand can be long so I can pluck the strings. But Dolly Parton has long fingers on her left hand because she's a professional. And all the rest of us are just... Amateurs.

Amateurs, man. So she plays with long nails? She figures out how to? I've heard she even retunes her guitar so that she can kind of play strings flat like that. Oh, wow. She's genius. Is there a person more universally loved than Dolly Parton? No one has anything bad to say about Dolly.

Dolly's great. Right? Literally, no one has anything bad to say about Dolly Parton. Yeah, how could you? Yeah, it's great. Right? Literally, no one has anything bad to say about Dolly Parton. Yeah, how could you? Yeah, it's interesting. And it's unified across liberals and Democrats, which I love. Yeah, they don't even know what she is. No one knows.

No one knows her political ideas. Let's do Who'll Save Your Soul. Let's do it. So if I kind of put the mic in the middle here, does that work? Yeah. I added another one. I'll try to mix it a little bit. Oh, okay.

Should I, like, come to the middle where I can get both of them? You can do that, and then you could just move the microphone. That arm will swing towards you. Ah, we did it. We figured it out. We did it. Look at this. Jamie will move the camera.

Oh, yes. Yes. We're very versatile here. I feel, like, very high tech. You're the first person to sing in this studio. Really? Yeah. Yeah, for sure, right?

Yeah, no one has sung in this new studio. We used to have one over there. Did anybody sing in that one? I think you're the first person to sing in Austin in the show. Where were you before? L.A. How long have you been here? A year.

Nice. You liking it? I love it. Good. Yeah, I'm never going back. Yeah, I only lived in L.A. for just a minute. It was never my jam. Hunter S. Thompson said it's a graveyard from the future.

That's a great one. I think he was right. So yeah, this is my first little song I remember I uh I took a greyhound from Traverse City down to Detroit I slept that night in the Detroit Greyhound bus station which was very scary I had my knife back and then I had enough money to get on the train in Detroit and make it to Chicago. And I got off the train and was like, where's all the people? And they said, Michigan Avenue. And so I carried my guitar case. I didn't know how to play guitar yet. I learned these chords, actually, A minor, C, G, and D in that order. I just didn't know how to go out of order yet

because I just wasn't coordinated enough. And I couldn't learn anyone else's songs because I didn't know enough chords. And so growing up, my dad would improvise a lot just to entertain us because drunks don't listen to you. And so he'd make up stuff about the drunks not listening to us. And it was funny. And so my big plan was like just make up lyrics about people as they walk by, see if I could get their attention. And I would take my change to the Amtrak station and say, how far would this get me attention and I would take my change to the Amtrak station and say how far would this get me and they would give me a ticket to whatever the next city it took me probably two or three days to make it to San Diego and then I crossed the border there

and hitchhiked from Tijuana down to Cabo and then I and it, I don't know if, did you ever go to Mexico in those days? Like it was dirt roads. It was like not very civilized down there. It was like a lot of like bumpy, bumpy dirt roads. I'm getting water. And so then I, oh, thank you. So then I sang on the docks for tourists and I gave foot rubs to tourists trying to earn. It was so gross

I had a little sign that said reflexology because I thought that was like made me look legit so that I they'd choose me over the other foot rubbers there's a lot of foot rubbers that's the funny thing like what did I think I'd have Like, I literally thought there might be other foot rubbers and I needed the edge. So dumb. And so I got ferry money and went across the Sea of Cortez to the mainland side, then hopped trains through the Copper Canyons, back to Cabo, then hitchhiked back up to Tijuana. And I just kept singing. I'd sing in restaurants for burritos. And I just, the song would get longer and longer and longer.

singing. I'd sing in restaurants for burritos. And I just, the song would get longer and longer and longer. Got a ride in a semi from Cabo back up to Tijuana and it had been carrying pinto beans. And so there was just spilled pinto beans all through the back of this tractor bed trailer. And so the guys slept up at the front of the cab. They didn't speak English. I didn't speak Spanish. And I opened the back doors of the semi were open. I was sleeping in my sleeping bag on this bed of pinto beans, looking at the stars. And I remember like working on this song that night and I don't know, just, and then I made it back to school and had my first song and loved songwriting. I didn't think it'd be a job, but I just, it, it bit me for sure. I really loved doing it. That might be the greatest. What did you do on spring break story ever

people living their lives for you on tv they say they're better than you and your greed She says hold my calls from behind those cool brick walls Says come here boy, there ain't nothing for free Another burger, another hot dog, some fries You wishin' the well, hope your health don't go to hell Well, another doctor's's bill a lawyer's bill another cute cheap thrill you know you love him if you put him in your will but who will save your soul when it comes to the flowers Oh, you will save your soul After all those lies you told, boy

Who will save your soul If you won't save your own Oh, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la dollar, another war, another tower went up with the homeless had their homes. So we pray to as many different gods as there are flowers. But we call religion our friend. We are so worried about saving our souls. Afraid that God will take his, that we forget to begin by. Who will save your soul when it comes to the babies? Oh, he will save your soul after all those lies you told who will save

your soul if you won't save your own la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Now some are walking, some are talking Some are stalking their kill You got so-called social security

But that don't pay your bills Cause there's addictions to feed And there are mouths to pay So you bargain with the devil Say you're okay for today Say that you love him take their money and run say it's best well sweetheart but it would do one of those things those flings those strings those flings those strings those flings those strings those flings those strings those flings those strings

those things those things those things the things the things, the things, the things, the things, the things You gotta cut, stick it out, streak it right now and bust all your butts Who will save your soul When it comes to the memories And who you only aim to save your soul After all those lies you told, boy Who will save After all those lies you told, boy Who is safe? Safe Soon if you won't save your own Your own That's a great way to end a podcast.

Julie, you're awesome. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I really, really enjoyed it. That was one of the best podcasts ever. It was really good. That makes me very happy. It was intense. Thank you so much. Thanks. I good. That makes me very happy. It was intense.

Thank you so much. I'm glad we did it. We'll do it again. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye, everybody.