The Jordan Harbinger Show - 189: Humble The Poet | 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Humble The Poet (@humblethepoet) -- aka Kanwer Singh -- is a rapper, spoken-word artist, poet, and author of Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life. "You want to see light at the end of the tunnel? Start digging!" -Humble The Poet What We Discuss with Humble The Poet: How your upbringing can prepare you for success (or failure) later in life. Why being satisfied with less is different from simply giving up on achieving more. How real growth and struggle differ from tacky, self-help fluff. Why, if you don't have a secure self-concept, the media (even if it's just social media) will build it for you. How to build a moat around your psyche so you don't let in mismatched influences. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/189 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! The Art of Manliness Podcast is a show that aims to help men become better men; host Brett McKay explores how to live a life of both contemplation and action while having some fun along the way. Do yourself a favor and check out The Art of Manliness Podcast here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DePhilippo. My friend Humble the Poet is a true hustler. He comes from a sick Indian immigrant community in Canada. He was artistic, became a rapper, a clothing designer, and a writer. Basically every immigrant family's worst nightmare. Today, we'll discuss how our upbringing can program us for success or failure later in life and how being satisfied with less is different than simply giving up on achieving more. We'll also set real growth and struggle apart from self-help fluff, which is so popular these days. This is a topic you know I love. We'll also explore the idea that if we don't have a secure self-concept, the media will be the one that builds it for you. And the media is probably the single worst place to get a sense of self.

But it is one that we find ourselves relying on more and more these days. We'll learn how we can start to build a moat around our psyche so that we don't let in these types of negative or mismatched influences. By the way, a lot of you wonder how I managed to book all these great guests and have such an amazing network. Well, I'm teaching you how to do this for free. Jordan Harbinger.com slash course is where we've got six-minute networking. This is having a great network is honestly the best insurance against life, work, and business mishaps, and money cannot buy it. So check out what we've got for you at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. In the meantime, here's Humble the Poet.

one of the primary foci of the show is to educate people and to help people learn critical thinking skills and mental models and things like that instead of just telling them that they should feel good or trying to inspire them for five minutes and then they go back to their old ways of thinking. So I love the idea like don't die dumb. Like look, being dumb, one can kill you, but two, you could just stay dumb your whole life. Yeah. It's really not that hard to stay dumb your whole life. A lot of people do it these days especially. Yeah. So I like this shirt that implores you like, no, like figure it out.

Learn something. Just pay attention. We're not, I'm not here to judge you where you're at. Yeah. If you're currently dumb, fine. Fine. But now where are you deciding to hit? And that was the idea.

Decide not to be dumb. Yeah. Exactly. Decide not to be. It's a choice. Being dumb is, now with all this information for free, shows like this, all the things online, Wikipedia, being dumb now is a choice. Completely optional. Yeah, completely optional, exactly.

What's the, what is that island or the... This is Punjab. Okay. So Punjab exists now in the north, northern part of India, the north, western part of India, and then a bigger chunk is in Pakistan. Right. So to be Punjab, he used to kind of be existing in both realms. Right.

So my mom's from the India side. And then my dad, I guess his grandfather, before Pakistan existed, was on that side. Oh, wow. Right. because I keep forgetting that Pakistan, people don't remember that Pakistan slash Bangladesh slash India slash everything. All of that was sort of crafted by the Brits in a way that... Everybody was one big dysfunctional family beforehand,

and then the Brits just made it much more dysfunctional. Right. They drew lines that are like, hey, fight over this for the next couple centuries. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and everybody drank the Kool-Aid. Yes, it's got to be tough. How many times per day, by the way, do people just assume that you're a Muslim? Oh, very regular.

Like every single day. Yeah. I remember recently I was at a basketball game and there was an actor. And his girlfriend was like Middle Eastern Muslim. And then he had made a comment, like where he didn't know the difference. You know? And he's dating a Muslim girl. Oh, man.

And it was just funny that I forgot what he was saying it. But there was something along the lines of like, oh, you know, now there's two Muslims here or something like that. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Just kidding. Still one. Yeah. But it's always impressive. There are people that do know the difference, and it's, you know, it is what it is, I guess. Yeah. I learned it in college because I remember going, oh, hey, man, to this guy who was also Sikh. Yeah. And I was like, oh, why do you have, he had like a knife on his necklace.

And I guess it's part of, well, actually, tell me, tell me what Sikhism is, because I don't think a lot of people have any idea. Yeah. So I pronounce a sick, but there's a lot of his history. that I'm learning now where like British and the 1700s were calling them Sikhs. Oh, okay. So I'm saying it wrong. Well, you know what? It's however people understand it. But so for me, it's sick.

And then sick he. So sick means student. So pretty much students of the truth, students of life. And the philosophy grew in like the 1500s. And India at the time was ruled by the Mughal Empire. So people that were like descendants of Genghis Khan. and then they happened to be Muslim but the majority of the people

on the land were Hindus so the Muslim minority ruled the Hindu majority and then Sikh philosophy kind of came out of there and it was very martial it kind of was like hey let's let people live how they want to live stand up for yourself you know the first guru

guru means dark room means light so the first guru the first teacher of the philosophy stood up to the king spent some time in jail for it. And then as the following grew, we kind of mobilized, organized, and then by the sixth guru, we had our own army because the guru started having political influence. So, you know, it's like a really interesting, you know, episode of Game of Thrones pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much the, the instillment of like non-passiveness was really instilled into us.

And then by the 10th guru, you know, we had land. We, we controlled different palisades. citizen, what have you. And then he kind of set up a system where he said, hey, everybody, everybody needs to be armed. Everybody needs to know how to protect themselves. Everybody, you know, should be able to be mobilized at a moment's notice. It's like Israel kind of in a way. Yeah. Everyone's got to be part of the reserves. Yeah. So that's why it's because the knife on the necklace used to be you have to carry a sword at all times. It's supposed to be, it's supposed to be carry your sword. And then, you know, me personally, I believe that should have evolved as well to, you know, carry whatever weapons necessary now. Yeah. But I mean,

I think the line tiad by tiad means always be prepared. So I think it's more along the lines of knowing how to defend yourself, self-reliance, being of service to other people too. So if you're in a position to defend yourself, you can also help defend other people who may need it. So, you know, we had a strong heritage of, you know, sword fighting and learning how to fight with the sword. And I think we were probably one of the great fighters on the tail end of that

before they kind of the gun and the cannon and everything else came in. So from that perspective, I know out here, you know, folks are, they're learning about guns and, you know, learning how to be responsible gun owners and how to be shooters. And, again, really kind of keeping this mindset of we've always been minorities. So like a Punjabi sick, Punjabi being the language we speak from the state of Punjab, you know, we represent 2% of India. So, you know, I'm a minority there. I'm a minority here. We're minorities everywhere. Right.

You know, we don't have a history of even understanding the idea of a safe space or anything like that. So we've always kind of thrived in chaos and being the other. So it's just kind of being prepared mentally and physically at all times, knowing your environment and having a respect for that. I heard that the one reason that y'all never cut your hair is because you can bun it up in the turban and it ends up being essentially like a helmet before they had like metal helmets. And it was good because it could blunt impacts. Is that true or is that just like some urban legend?

I don't think it's an urban legend I think there's a lot of stories You know one of the stories was Turbans were considered royalty So they were actually outlawed for common people to wear So then in defiance it became like All right since we're not allowed to do it Let's do it

They definitely like the style I'm wearing Is definitely what the fighters wore And then they also get you know They wear metal rings around it Us well to protect themselves from swords So I think Zina Because I'm thinking how does hair protect against a sword This is not checking out.

Yeah, no, no, no. If you put metal in there. And then they also, some of the guys, they'll, like, they'll tie their hair in a bun, then they'll put an iron bowl on top, then they'll tie their turban. Oh, wow. So that's really. People still do that? Or that's ancient?

More decortively, like, I know guys that do it now. Because now there's different sex. So a lot of the, you know, there's the front line guys are called the hungs, and these guys, they dress up really colorful. And their belief was, you know, we're the front line. We're here to marry death. We're, you know, we're here to go first. And they got a whole, they got their whole, whole,

different things going on. That's pretty badass though. They're very badass and they have you know certain ancient arts of fighting and what have you and I've met a couple of guys in India but I've also met like now like British-born guys. Sure. They're you know by day they they work at pharmaceutical companies and by night they're training and fighting. It's super interesting now one's an art collector and he know he travels the world buying art from museums I don't know what they got and so it's become super interesting in that sense but I think the overarching idea of what it means to be a sick is to be a student, to be forever learning, a lifelong learner, to be non-passive. You know, if you got to stand up for yourself,

stand up for yourself, stand up for others, and focusing on service. So we have an idea called Seva, and then service can be anything from going to the temple and cleaning people's shoes to go in a skid row and handing out meals to everything in between. That's really interesting culture that people still retain it. And I think whenever a culture is really oppressed, which you guys of like been since the beginning of time, it tends to stick together a lot better, which makes sense that people still uphold a lot of this. Because you can always identify someone who's sick by pretty readily, unless you don't, unless you think they're Muslim, of course. You can always check it out. And the bracelet is a pretty good good way. Yeah, iron bracelets. Even the guys that

don't wear a turban or throw their beard out are like, all right, I can do the bracelet, mom, I can do the bracelet. What's the bracelet symbol? Same thing. I mean, depending on who you speak to. And I mean, I know there's a lot of, in the 70s, a lot of people in America, really adopted Siki and I feel like they were like hippies evolved. There's a lot of that. A lot of that here. And they talk about chakras and all that type of stuff. For me personally, I look at this more heritage.

I look at it, you know, functionally, again, they used to wear like a whole bunch of them. They used to wear a bunch, right? They used to wear a bunch to protect them. Then I also was told, you know, it's made out of iron. So the iron just continues to rub into your skin. So that's good for you. Then I've told, you know, as a kid, I was told, this is your handcuffed to the divine. And then I was told that, you know, it's eternal because it's a circle.

So there's a million. different reasons but I think now as an adult I look at it as like well you don't have to you know this is your heritage this is what people in your heritage look like and you know people wear silk ties that's like you know worm feces around their neck to to look professional hey I'm not judging yeah no no you're right that is weird you're like hey to look professional I got a tie piece of silk around my neck yeah yeah and tie it a certain way and now people think take me serious so I realize it's like hey it's not even about having these functional practical it's like hey this is what heritage is.

And I mean, even like the heritage of the tournament way before sick people and, you know, people in the Middle East were wearing it. It was like to keep you keep your head cool in the hot sun. So things, meanings evolve slowly over time. And I think that's where it is. But I think this became an identifier for sick folks. That makes sense. Yeah.

I want to make a dad joke because my wife's pregnant. It does contribute to your sick sense of style. There you go. Ding. There's a reason this isn't a comedy podcast. I don't have too many more of those. Don't worry. There are no more puns for the Punjabi.

I wouldn't. Oh. Dang, you meet me where I am. I like that about you. I think that the unique style that you have, which is largely as a result of your heritage and your own additions to it, because I don't think I've seen a purple turban, maybe.

Are they usually just, like, black? I just got a bunch of colors. Got it. And I work with dope stylists and everybody else. So now you have this outfit, can you find a purple turban to go with that? Can you have you? Oh, so you match it with the clothes that you're wearing?

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I used to just wear black and just, you know, just to be simple and keep everything going. And then just recently I got, I was gifted a gang of different colors. And the thing is, because it made out of cotton, it's like, it's like a baseball glove. You got to, like, work them in. Oh, really? Tie them five times before they'll even fit to your head.

You got to wash them a few times. So for me, it's always like, oh, somebody gives me a brand new one. It's like, ah, I got to, like, go through the motions to get this. So I was just like, oh, I got a whole bunch of black ones or I just steal one from my dad or whatever. And then just recently, I got gifted a bunch. And I went through the whole process of like soaking them, ringing them out, beating them up. Yeah. Do you think that since you had to grow your hair out, you had to have a beard, you had to wear a turban, you had to wear the bracelet.

I don't see a necklace. That's probably the only thing. So it's not supposed to be the dagger. I'm not wearing it, but you're supposed to wear the dagger. And then that transformed to the necklace because, like, no one's letting you on a plane like that. Yeah. It's letting you into any offices like that. Yeah.

That makes sense. Do you think some of your expressiveness comes from the fact your expressiveness and artistic expression in other? areas comes from the fact that a lot of your appearance is sort of prescribed by your culture. Yeah. Like there are certain things that you have to do in order to adhere to the culture. And if you break those, you break your tradition. So your expression comes out in other ways. It does make sense.

It's probably the exact opposite. I grew up as a mushroom cut kid. Like a bowl, like a bowl cut kid. And my, you know, my parents had no intention of having me wear a turban or anything. Really? Yeah. I was born and raised in Canada. And my father wore a turban.

But his brothers came here and they made me. cut their hair and there's a lot of assimilation, you know, everyone's just trying to blend in, mix in, not deal with the racism, or what have you. And what it actually was was my mom, and my parents weren't even into spirituality or sickie. So they, you know, they just did the bare basics. We probably just wore the cutter, which is what it's called. And, you know, the same way somebody wears a cross around their neck, you know, whether they go to church or not. And what happened was my mom worked at the Kellogg's factory. We had moved to a house and she lived around the corner from this factory. And it was like her dream job. She was like, I could walk to work in five minutes.

I was getting paid. Everything was great. My dad was a cab driver. And life was wonderful for two years. And then my mom injured her shoulder. And then she couldn't work anymore. And then she kind of fell into her own funk, you know, of not being able to be contributing to the family, being injured, not feeling good, feeling bad that she moved the whole family to a different part of the city just for this job. And she found, you know, one of the local temples in the area. And then I think that's when she adopted her relationship with it. So I was about eight, nine years old before I put a turban on my head. So for me, I remember life when I felt like everybody else and then I remember life where I stood out and I

everywhere I went people would stop and stare at me and even as I got older like I remember taking a vacation with my buddies going to Cuba you know you're 20 you go to Cuba with your buddies and yeah going to the local market if you're Canadian if you're American you fly through Canada but yeah and I remember just going to the local market and there was a festival and like everyone's stopping to stare at me and then realizing that I can never be a fly on the wall oh yeah so for the longest time I resented it. I didn't like it. And, you know, there's a lot of guys my age that got frustrated thought they couldn't get girls and they cut their hair. They do different things. And I think for me, early, I realized that all that resistance was building strength, you know,

probably after high school and finding different people, different cultures. At some point, people like, you know, clean-shaven is what makes a guy look handsome. And then you start meeting people from like North Africa. They're like, you know, you look like a child unless you have a beard. You start to realize there's different contexts for different people. And I think that helped me find myself. And then a friend of mine got really heavy into Rastafarianism. And then he started like showing me quotes from the Bible about, you know, Jesus and talking about keeping long hair and power being in the hair. I think a lot of that emboldened me. And then I think slowly, even just society-wise, all the racism I dealt with as a kid kind of looked like a down payment for

all the reverse racism I benefited from as an adult. Like when I became a teacher, they hired me because of the way I looked. They're like, okay, diversity. Diversity. This guy checks a lot of boxes. And I mean, even recently, I was at some mega private club here in L.A., like the club, for people who don't want to go to Soho House, the next level club. And the guy I was with trying to get his brother a membership.

And his brother is a very popular person in the industry. And the owner of the club said, hey, it's, you know, the time for straight white men over 35 is up. And then he pointed to me, he goes, if you want to, on a membership, you can have one. Wow. And it's really ironic. Oh, I can see like, you know, the wave is changing in a certain way. So I think I've been noticing that. But also, on a regular basis, now I don't notice it. I don't even realize sometimes like, oh, you're wearing a purple turban and you stand out. And in LA, everybody stands out. Sure. Yeah, it's hard to stand out. Yeah, I can wear a rainbow turban and 10 inch high heels, walk down in Melrose and people aren't

going to look at me because there's somebody else louder than me across the street. That is for sure, true. Yeah, so I think for that, I mean, in terms of face tattoos and all that type of stuff, probably just I'm a little bit older, so I haven't done any of that. But there was a lot of resistance when I first started within the community. People were like, oh, you rap, you make music, and you're swearing, you've got girls. You know, you're representing us and you're showing us in a negative light. And then I slowly realized that they were just projecting their insecurities on me, realizing that, hey, I'm becoming a public figure.

I might be the only person of sick heritage that somebody's ever exposed to. Yeah. So they're afraid of what message I'm putting across. So then I quickly realized that, hey, I don't have to adhere to culture or heritage. I'm actually writing it now. Yeah. You know, I'm reappropriating it for what it needs to be today. And if I do it with pride, I don't need to really worry about the people who are clinging on to the past of what it should be.

And as I said, we were talking about weapons. I said, you know, they held a dagger, but, you know, that should have evolved. You know, it's just like that last scene and the last samurai. Yeah. They're running with their swords and the guy just pulls up the machine. Yeah. Just waste everybody. So I think from that side, the only parts of my heritage is that I really feel are the most

important to continue moving forward is that lifelong learning and service. And I think above and beyond that, if you want to wear a turban on your head, cool. If you don't, you don't have to live your life accordingly. But just be self-aware, learn as much as you can and focus on being of service to others, whether that's through the form of running a business or whether that's spending your Saturdays at the soup kitchen. We'll be back before you know it with our guest Humble the Poet here. on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

And thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all of the latest episodes in your podcast player as they're released so you don't miss a single thing from the show.

Now back to our show with Humble the Poet. Man, when you started pursuing art and rap and style. That's like immigrant parents' worst nightmare. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You're cab driver dad. Your mom worked at the Kellogg's factory. And they're like, he's going to be doctor, lawyer, engineer. That's one job. That's one, oh, doctor, lawyer engineer? Yeah. Yeah. It's one occupation. Yeah. Whichever one you do doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, how did

you get through that? They must have just been like, are you kidding me? We came here and now you're going to be a freaking YouTube influencer? Well, yeah. I mean, the My house. I mean, shout-outs to the old-school patriarchy that is, you know, South Asian culture. So I had two sisters, and I think, like, they stuck to the script much more. You know, they went to university. They got jobs that I still don't know what they do for corporations that I still don't understand and got married, had the kids. They stuck to the script.

So I think from my father was like, okay, my girls are taking care of, not really worried about what this boy does. and I think they also kind of figured out that he, you know, I'm not going to be really listening to many people. So I stuck to the script myself. I went to university. I got two degrees. Started working as a teacher. They were already not happy with me being a teacher. Really?

Yeah, because the school teacher is like they don't make too much money. It's like be of service, but just be of service where you make a bunch of money. Oh, no. My parents, the immigrants, the immigrant and my parents was just, hey, make sure you have a safe and secure job. Yeah. So like, well, at least it's a government job. At least that's cool. And I think for a good two, three years, I was teaching,

full-time. I was also tutoring high school kids for extra cash. And then I was doing my art and humble the poet and all of the stuff that I loved on top of that. So the really only thing I was sacrificing was sleep at that time. And they saw all of that. So when I said to them, I'm going to make this move and be a full-time artist, they already knew that I was going to work at it because they saw the work I was putting in. Right. They were worried about it. My mother probably, and rightfully so, you know, for the first four years were very, very hard. You know, I went into dead. I went into debt. I didn't have money. I was struggling. That's, you know, pretty much where the book came out of. But, uh, my mother just continually said to me, anytime anything good happened to you,

she would be like, but are you making any money? You know, maybe you've had your fun. Maybe you should go back to your job. It's such a good job. You have a pension. You know, she's concerned. And then when I started making money, I started like showing my checks. Yeah, you have to. Yeah. But then her story just immediately changed. She's like, well, what's money going to do for you if you don't have kids in a family? Wow. Moving the goal post. They just move the goalpost. whatever. And I've become aware of that. My father was cool from the beginning. He was, he just pretty much said, look, do whatever is going to keep you healthy up here, you know. And he said to me, he believes that artists go nuts. So he was like, I'd prefer you stay a teacher

because all artists I know go nuts. Yeah. I said I go nuts if I don't become an artist. I think that's part of it for sure. Yeah. Or they're already nuts. Yeah. That's where the art comes from. Yeah. The art drives you crazy. Exactly. And the thing is, a lot of people say to me, like, who did you get it from in your family? And I don't know. Like, none of my, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents ever had the luxury to explore creative. It's not that they didn't have the talent. They just never went down that road. Yeah. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't even know from that. So I think, so I'm the first, I'm one of the first entrepreneurs in my family. I'm definitely the first artist to be doing it. And in terms of South Asian culture, in terms of

Punjabi culture, you know, there's less than five humans on this planet who are a full-time artists. Yeah. Especially in North America. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think of other people that I know that are sick, that are artists, Punjabi MC, and that's my whole list, right? Yeah, and I mean, like, I mean, like, I'll hear me, Lily Singh and then Ruby Corps. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's probably, there's probably the three that I know. And we're all from, like, the same city. Yeah.

And we all just, we all try to figure it out together. That's funny. Yeah, all from the same area. But it makes sense, right? You come to a country where you don't have to worry about getting blown up or stabbed or something. Yes. You now can focus on something that is higher on the Maslow's hierarchy of,

needs, right? You're not worried about where you're going to get your food from, et cetera. And you need a level of stability and I can go as far as saying luxury to explore art. Yeah. And you're right. Like the northern part of India, that's been the gateway of, you know, invaders since Alexander the Great. So we haven't had a lot of stability there, even now. So, and yeah, the moment we crossed the pond, the first generation picked up the art and ran with it. Yeah, good. Yeah. I think it's ironic that your mom had to take a cab to the hospital when your dad as a cab driver. Yeah. Because he was working.

It's like, why didn't she just call the cab company where he worked? And they would have been like, hey, go home. Your wife is having a baby. Yeah. He was in a car. I think he probably got that call and had to go to the hospital. And I think it was like a Sunday. Apparently it was a Sunday night.

Apparently they had to like wake the doctor up as well too. It was a challenging time. You were not well off growing up. No. And you compared yourself to the less fortunate a lot, but then realized that wasn't sustainable. Yeah. So do you find yourself doing this now?

On YouTube, it seems really easy to compare yourself to other people because there's literally a number next to every single video that you create that shows kind of where you are compared to your friend who's doing it. Like, Lily Singh, I looked at her channel and I know that she's like your BFF. She's maybe doing so many different things and your friends so you don't do it as much. But like, what if someone's got 10,000 more subs than you or 100,000 more? It's really easy to go like, dang, I should be there. I should be doing that. Yeah. It's almost like, it's too easy to see how quote unquote valuable you are compared to everyone else. And it would drive me crazy to do that.

No, you're absolutely right. And I think it was Jay Shetty that helped me kind of put in perspective. He's like, we'll always identify the gaps in our lives in relation to whoever, like, is standing in front of us. And it's not just YouTube view. They could be seeing somebody with lower body fat, seeing somebody with a healthier family dynamic or anything. You see somebody like, oh, that's helping me remember that I don't have that in my life. my life. Oh, 1,000 percent. I've had that for a long time.

And I think a lot of it had to do with when you don't know yourself, you can only try to figure out yourself in relation to other people. So you're like, oh, you know, I'm living with this superstar who's, you know, making videos. She gets more views in a day than my entire channel will get in a year. And I'm sitting there like, okay, I got to be like her. Right. Yeah.

But at the same time, we have conversations all the time. She's like, look, you're making rap music. I make comedy. you know, everybody likes to laugh. Yeah. It's going to be a niche market of who likes to make rap music. But you have to be authentic to yourself because the challenge is you can focus on what's going to work, but if what works doesn't feed you or bring you any type of fulfillment,

now you're just trapping yourself in a situation where it's pretty much any other job that people don't like to have. You're like, this gets me paid, but it doesn't make me happy. Right. The problem comes when we optimize our lives for, like you said, what works. So the numbers. I sort of rail against cheesy self-help or like feel-good inspirational content on the show because I feel like it snaps people out of their real issues for like a minute because they're like, oh, I saw this picture of this guy standing on a beach that says you can do it. So I feel good for a second. And then it's like, then they go, oh, but I can't do it and I'm not doing it.

I'm even worse off now. So they're kind of addicted to that stuff, but it doesn't actually help them. And then they go, in a business situation, it'd be really easy for you and how to optimize. for the numbers. You could go, well, I really love rap and I really love music, but, you know, I'm going to switch to prank videos where I dump paste on someone's head because that gets more views. And then suddenly you just hate yourself because everything that you create that is artistic is just like in your opinion garbage. In your audience is all 12 year old kids laughing at it. And then someone else comes along and is doing the same thing because you're just diving in that

pool of whatever else is doing. So now you're competing with even more folks. And doing the same thing and hating it. You see these guys on Instagram often doing this. There was a documentary, and I can't remember, I think it's called American meme. Have you seen this? No. It has like Paris Hilton and all these mean people. But one of the guys, his name is Kirill.

You know who this guy is? He goes and he pour champagne on girls at clubs and he takes pictures of it. And it's ridiculously popular. But they get down to his life and he just hates himself. Because he's like, I have to go drink again. for the 150th night in a row in like Boise, Idaho, because I'm getting paid to do that. And he just hates every minute of it.

But it worked, and he went and optimized for that, and now he kind of can't do anything else. And that's the thing. And that's where I found, you know, I have a lot of gratitude towards Lilly because what ended up happening was her success created an environment for me to take my time. So we started together in Toronto.

and, you know, her movement grew much quicker. But because we started together, you know, we were coming out here and we'd be splitting Airbnbs and she'd be doing her thing, I'd be doing my thing. And until things went well for her, where she bought a place. And then she's like, hey, I got a room for you. Anytime you want to come here, do it. And then it came like, hey, stop worrying about trying to win, worry about what you're trying to do.

Everything else is taking care of. Just focus on that. And she created this environment for me to really take my time, really focus on being the artist that I wanted to be. And I learned very quickly because I was hanging out with a lot of these folks. Yeah.

Meeting guys that were like making $100 grand a month, but they were miserable. Yeah. And being like, why these guys said, oh, they got popular doing something

that that was cute when they were 21. Now they're 27. They hate it, but they can't get out of that rut. Yeah. Imagine where they're going to be in 10 years.

Exactly. And I think, and it's hard, I'll hold it against anybody. You can't, you know, not nobody has that website. It's an accident.

It's an accident. Yeah. And a lot of these people, especially on YouTube, that generation, they got popular doing what they loved. They did something they loved. They put it on camera and, you know, all of a sudden it blew up. And they, you know, they were being very reactive to it.

And now they're trying to find their space and figure out. And some of them have found it. Some of them haven't. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, outside of all of this, a little switch in the algorithm happens and then everything changes. All of a sudden you can't get discovered anymore. You know, I know guys who lost 80% of their income off of, you know, changes in the

algorithm. On YouTube? On YouTube. Especially after, you know, you know, people started finding, you know, bad content on YouTube. So YouTube got, they started cracking down and like even now, like YouTube talking about cracking down on comments. So like, you know, comments. So like, you know, there are situations where a family is just posting a video of the family at a picnic and with their kids and everyone, just a very calm, regular video. But now all of a sudden people are leaving comments that sound like pedophiles, you know. Oh, weird. But now YouTube's like the only way we can stop that is we're going to stop monetizing the video and we're going to stop the discoverability of the video. And you're saying like the creator did nothing wrong.

Right. Oh, that's really scary because it's basically allowing the worst elements of the audience to decide what people are allowed to see through their actions. And it's hard to. And then you're kind of being like, well, you know, I guess they're trying to figure it out. But you're talking about hours and hours, you know, hundreds of hours every second being dropped on this platform. So I think it's a really interesting thing from that perspective. And I think for me, I definitely went through those struggles for future releases. I've written about those struggles a lot.

Because sometimes, you know, I'm trying to write stuff that I consider extremely important. But at the same time, I'm also a character on a very popular, you know, YouTubers vlogs and her videos. And for me, I'm doing it for fun. But now all of a sudden, more people know me as that silly, goofy guy with the beard than this author. And for a while, I took a big hit on my ego until I really woke up and was like, hey, you have an opportunity to connect with people. you also never wanted people to take you too seriously to begin with.

You know, like I don't want people to read my book and think I'm Oshow. Yeah, especially not Oshow. Yeah, especially not. I'm a regular guy who can put words together very well. And when he learns a lesson, and just as you said, you know, self-help gets really fluffy and hollow and you can hear something and feel good for five minutes or five days and then it wears off. Right. And I wrote this book because I was sick of that.

I was sick of the Tumblr quotes. I was sick of the promises. I was sick of the, you know, just have faith, things will work out. Right. It's like, no. Sometimes they won't, though, but I'm not putting that in that. Sometimes they won't, though, and finding the overall message being self-responsibility. Like, take ownership for this.

Like, you want to see light at the end of the tunnel? Start digging. And then you'll have light at the end of the tunnel. That's a good Tumblr quote right there. There you go. We're going to redefine Tumblr quotes. That's right. That's right.

You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Humble the Poet. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening. and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget that worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. And if you're listening to us on the overcast player for iOS, please click that little star next to the episode. It really helps us out. And now for the conclusion of our show with Humble the Poet. I like the, you brought up on another show. Jay Z says you can't heal what you don't reveal. And that's what I think is a big problem with a lot of the influencer niche or any sort of creator is we put things out there that make us look good. And in fact, creator or not, people are doing this because we want to paint a rosy picture,

especially in social media makes this a million times worse, of course. But it causes us to try to hide things in the public eye, which makes it, you can't really expose things well in your private life and examine them if you're spending all this time trying to look polished for everyone else. It's sort of, it's rowing. two separate directions. But do we want it to go the other way either? Like, do you want to be going through your feet and have people, you know, like, hey,

today, you know, a bird took a shit on my head. Or like, hey, my girlfriend broke up with me or, hey, you know. It depends. It's got to be a balance, I think. But I also understand that for guys like you and I, it's a branding thing. But for the average person, they should put on there whatever the hell they want, I think. Yeah. You know?

Well, I'm learning about this idea now of a fintrist. Have you heard of this? Sorry, not Pinterest. Sorry, Finstagram. A Finsta? So, like, public persona that was hanging out with a couple of popular people yesterday. They have second Instagram accounts, which are just as basic and crazy and as ratchet as they want. And they only have, like, eight followers, it's just their friends.

That's where they leave their mean comments. That's where they troll people. So, like, I have a friend. She's a popular model on Instagram, and she's doing really well. And then she has a second account that has, like, eight followers. And that's where all the outtakes of her pictures are. That's where her bad posture, food on her face. And she said that's helping her, like, you know, really kind of maintain her sanity.

And I'm just like, that sounds like double the work. Yeah. But I guess one is not curated, so it's not really that much work. I learned this early. I learned this before social media. I learned this in a class I had where a professor said, you know, every picture you take is a manufactured moment. You know, unless they're capturing it and you don't know, posing for a picture. And he's talking about, like, even at a birthday party.

Sure. He's like, he goes, you're creating a moment that didn't. exist. You're creating a smile that that didn't exist. And he goes, now you're trying to capture that and pretend that was the moment that happened at that birthday party. And that always kind of stuck it in my head. So I think what ended up happening now is in the beginning with social media, whether it was like high five or Facebook or MySpace. It was like, yo, I want my 25 friends to know what's up with me. Yeah. I want them to see, you know, a picture of my new shoes. Now it's like, oh, maybe I have a couple of hundred and these people don't know me. How do I want them to know me as? And I think it's, I'm

lucky because I just post a lot of my writing and I figure I can write until, you know, the end of my days and people will be okay with that. I don't really have to manufacture anything there. And if I have a cool picture, I'll post a cool picture once in a while. But that idea of like branding, everyone has a brand now. Everyone's trying to project whether they, whether the audience is invisible or lurking or not, it takes such a big toll on people. And I learned that from Jack Gleason, the actor that played King Joffrey on Game of Thrones. Oh, yeah. He explained why after Game of Thrones he quit acting. Really? Oh, because people treated him poorly because he was a bad character? No, he said I got into acting because I enjoyed, he'd been acting since he was five. He said, I got into acting because I enjoyed pretending to be somebody else for, you know, half a day. It was fun.

And he goes, now the level of celebrity that has come to me. He goes, people don't realize the pressure that puts on you, you know. That's interesting. And he went in deep, and it's actually in Oxford talk. And he's talking about our natural, need as humans to look towards a leader or worship and look for something, but he goes, we don't realize what consequences that has on the object of worship. I'm interested in this because I know that you got recognized.

Oh, your mom even got recognized. And she didn't like that so much. Yeah. Because she's from a generation that doesn't care about any of this stuff. Yeah, she got recognized at the mall. And I think she actually got a, she went to the optometrist. She got a discount for getting recognized. And she still didn't like it.

Oh, even then? Oh, I thought maybe that's like, all right, it's cool. if I'm getting discount on my... Oh, no, not my mom. My mom was just like, I don't like any of this. Because I think she was just worried, like, these people are going to judge me.

I don't think she took the discount as well. Like, she... I don't want people to think that I can't afford my own glasses. Wow, that is totally your generation. Is this after the video of you in the car with her playing your music and being like, what do you think? It was after that,

and I made a second one for the book. And I had a reading chapters from the book. So I think at that point, and it was in my neighborhood. So I was like, you know, I'm a hometown hero. So, like, I understand why people are going to recognize you, but yeah, she wasn't a fan of that.

Wow. So what do you think about that pressure? I mean, obviously you knew that was part of the deal because you're already visible. Now you're a media personality. You're hanging out with other people who are really well-known, and you're from this probably kind of a small-ish community of people. There's not a whole lot, like you said,

of sick folks that are blowing up on Instagram, YouTube, and everywhere else. Yeah. I think I've been slowly over the years making the adjustments. to make it healthier and better. You know, and it's just about learning yourself. It's like, all right, stop taking pictures of yourself in a business class seat. Stop, you know, stop tagging what city you're in, you know, because they got to the point where if I mentioned I'm in Los Angeles

and the amount of even just friends that are hitting you up, because I'm here to work. If I'm here for seven days, I probably have nine days worth of work to get done. Yeah. And they were like, hey, let's go out, let's do this, what have you. And if they see me at, you know, at the All-Star game, if they see me somewhere cool, they think that I'm just living this high life. but like, hey, half of that is counts as work as well.

Right. You know, we're there doing social media obligations or whatever we're doing. So I think I learned just to kind of be reactive and pay attention to it. And I think for me, it was, all right, what is the relationship I can have with the general public that I'm okay with? Like, what is that contract? And I think for me, it was, okay, my ideas and my thoughts. And I don't feel the pressure to like, oh, I have to write something. You know, I've written a lot.

And, you know, I've organized myself where it's like, all right, I can, if I want to disappear, for a month, I can still make sure stuff is going up and, you know, our relationship is still getting strengthened and all the stuff that I write is something near and dear to me. And now I'm at that space where I'm understanding my job as a creative is to keep digging deeper into myself, telling my story, which empowers others to tell theirs. Again, that's not the case for everybody else. Also, you know, there are benefits to being a guy. I don't have to spend so much time makeup, face tuning and all that type of stuff. That's not the main reason people are following me right now so I mean there's a lot less pressure in that context I've had popular

people you know post pictures with me in them and they were the least flattering pictures pictures of me whether you know it was a bad angle and the tummy was showing whatever it was and I survived like it wasn't the end of the world so that stuff doesn't worry me anymore you know and beyond that I live a pretty simple life so it's not I'm not really worried about too much in that but I do think people have to be very mindful of them you know living for display purposes you know what matters and all of that And I think just at the point where I've reached, I was like, hey, and especially with some of the circles that I'm traveling in now, it's not classy to do that anyways to pull out your phone.

No. You pull out your phone in some of these situations and you're not getting invited back. Yeah. So I've had some really amazing situations where it would have not been cool to pull out the phone. And I was like, okay, you know what? I can tell my friends, hey, I went to this party and I was roller skating with Beyonce. Yeah, yeah. They know I'm not lying.

Right. But I'm not, I'll never have that selfie with her. never have that picture and I'm not going to and that's okay because that also makes me ask the question why do I need to prove this to anybody as well yeah because it's that's some it's like kind of for you but kind of for people that you don't know yeah and I've got that zoo animal treatment too where you get people like I'm not sure who you are but I'm going to take a selfie with you and I'll figure it out later right yeah benefit from the social currency that's going to come from that yeah that that is incredibly uncomfortable there's a friend of mine who I can't remember exactly

where he was maybe at like an MMA oh right he was set a fight. It was like Connor McGregor versus Mayweather. And... Oh, the boxing foot. Yeah. And he took a photo of himself and Mike Tyson was behind him. And Mike Tyson's face is just like, I'm going to kill you if you take that picture. And he was taking a selfie, but of course, Mike Tyson rightfully assumed that he's just trying to take a picture with me in it. And he was pissed. It's a really funny picture because Mike Tyson looks like he's going to explode. And my friend is like this unassuming guy who is like, I'm in the front row. Oh, Mike Tyson's behind me, right?

It was really, really funny. You have to be, you have to get cognizant of that. So I learned that very quickly, and it was like, hey, if you, people are people. And even a lot of these big celebrities, they want to be in a space where they can just kind of let loose and they're not worried about cameras being pulled out. Yeah. And if you're that guy who does it, then you're not getting invited. Right.

And we've had that, we've had that ourselves, you know, Lily's hosted parties and small things, like small get-togethers and somebody gets a little too generous with their, with their filming. and you just say, all right, that person doesn't get invited back. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting sort of unwritten rule of culture now. That when you're with other people that have a public profile, it's like, this is a, you kind of almost have to be like, okay, we're at this event together, everyone's filming. Then when we go to the bar, we go to someone's house to hang out.

Your phone, you can text somebody, but you can't, no pictures, no videos, I don't need people doing shots with me that. And now I'm like in a video doing that. And even for small, I mean, recently I was playing one of my friends. He's a big YouTube. We're playing chess. And I just said it. I'm like,

do you mind if I document? You know? And this is just me. I'm going to take a little video of us playing chess and write something mean about how I'm going to beat them. Like, yeah.

And just saying that, like, is it cool if I document this? Because you don't know where people are at, how they're feeling. And some people, especially out here, they know they've signed up for it and they can be on camera all the time. But it takes a toll as well.

I think people got to realize, I saw something interesting about like, why there's so much violence on reality shows. And it's not simply to, get people's attention and get ratings. I assume that's what it was, just the negativity bias that sucks people in. And I'm sure that that plays a big part, but there's also

this idea that when the camera's on, you're on. And because you're on, the longer you're on, it starts to exhaust you. And when people are exhausted, they're more irritable. That's, I mean, that's true for me, 100%. And I've seen that, like, I go to, you know, you go to a wedding and everyone's dancing at the wedding, and then the camera kind of pans their way,

everyone's posture gets better. Right. They start looking a little bit better. Yeah. And I understand that idea. about being on. And now imagine being on a reality show where you're on eight, nine hours a day. Maybe at the end of the day, you're just exhausted and somebody crosses you the wrong way. And you're just like, forget it. Let's go for it. Yeah. Man. One of the things of the book

that you seem to be fond of saying is wanting less is better than getting more. And I don't have a good segue for it. So I'm just diving into that. But I love the idea because there's always more. Yeah. But when we are happy with less, we don't have to drive ourselves so crazy trying to achieve more. But how is being satisfied with less or being happy? happy with less, different than, say, giving up on achieving more? I think so for me it came from going broke. It didn't come from, it didn't come from, you know, it was involuntary minimalism. Involuntary minimalism, okay. Yeah. So you went broke. What happened? Like, you don't have to tell us exactly, but I'm curious, like, how did you end up with debt? The quick story is I was working

as a teacher, and then somebody presented me with a record deal. So I was making music and somebody came up to me and said, hey, we can write music for these. artists and you know you can make a boatload of money you know you'll get it's a six here's a six figure deal for about like 10 12 songs you can do this and you know and live out your dreams i'm like all right awesome so i quit my job and uh i had a had a real estate had a condo that i had purchased as a real estate investment that i had a tenant in so i immediately kicked my tenant out and i moved into this condo and i started working on the music and then it took me about uh six months before i realized that, hey, I haven't received any money from this deal.

Yeah. You know, I was doing other work as well and staying busy, but I was like, oh, it's coming. These things take time. They take time. You know, I knew that. And then it took about six months, a complete year before my denial completely went away and realized this isn't happening. And I had lived off credit cards, line of credit for that entire year.

Plus, when I was working as a teacher, I wasn't the most responsible spenders. So I had debt, but it was manageable because I had a salary coming. Had income, yeah. Now I had no income coming in. And when it up happening was. you know it was the end of 2011 I was about 80 grand in debt I had no I had no means to make an income I had no idea how creatives made money at that point and so my first thing I had to do was start selling everything including the

place I had to sell everything and move in with my parents and then all the things that I thought I was gonna miss you know like a year later I was like oh I didn't even think about those things anymore right it didn't matter if I had a burberry scarf anymore yeah you know or even even equipment you know there's certain equipment that I had to give up and sell that I needed for recording and I figured out ways to get stuff done without it. And I was like, oh, it wasn't so bad living life without these things. Because I was really afraid, I'm used to living a certain lifestyle. How can I ever go back? And I think it helped me realize what was really important and not. And now, you know, I'm

very grateful that things are significantly better. And I never jump back into that world of, all right, let me get back into the nice stuff. Like, I wear my own clothes and I just, you know, I live a pretty simple life. depression in some of your videos, it sounds like you have experience with that. Is that related to the debt issues? Actually, it's related probably before. When I was much younger, I had gone to the doctor and I just said, hey, I'm always tired. And my sister's like, you know, I was a vegetarian. My sister's like, oh, people who are vegetarian, I often have low iron. And you're probably tired because of that. And doctor ran some tests. And then he actually said,

hey, do you know if you have depression in your family? And I'm like, I'm not. I'm not. not sad. He goes, depression doesn't mean you're sad. And then that was the first time I got exposed to this idea. And then he put me on meds. That was an experience that happened way before any of this. I was probably just a first year teacher or what have you. And I think that's kind of made me realize, hey, there's a chemical element to this, does the hereditary element to this? I didn't do the meds for too long. I wasn't a fan of the antidepressants I was given. But it was never a mood issue for me. It was more of an energy issue for me. And I think it became more cognizant of that and try to do things accordingly.

When things that the family with me with this, it definitely brought me to the lowest I'd ever been. And I was definitely medicating, muscle relaxers, NyQuil, just doing everything to just completely feel numb. Until I had a moment where I just say, you got a sink or swim. It's a sink or swim. No one's coming to save the day.

No one's going to come bail you out of this. You're going to have to do this or die. And also realize that you want to give up on this humble the poet thing, by all means, give up. but people in the neighborhood will call you Humble the Poet for the next 10 years. So that'll probably drive you mad. So let's just decide to do this. And if we can only do this for two more years, before we go into the dirt, let's do it for two more years.

Or let's do it until we're 90. And definitely having to have those honest conversations with myself. Because I felt a certain way, and I would be reading the Tumblr quotes and they weren't helping. And I was reading a lot of other people's stories and seeing the gaps of, all right, how do they go from being in the Pips to, to being where they are now and they never really disgusted they don't they go oh well here's a meme or a quote to look at and it's like well wait a minute this self-help this sort of self-help fluff is no substitute for real work on on this did you go to therapy like what is so i didn't go to therapy uh what i did was i started writing until what i wrote actually

felt good on a practical level as i said i sold all my possessions and that took a little bit of chunk out of my debt, I moved back home. And then I started focusing on how do creatives make money. I met an artist out here, actually, who was a small time rapper, but he was like, hey, I make a lot of money at my shows because I sell T-shirts. I saw the tablecloth of my display at the end of the show. He goes, it's all about product. And then I was like, oh, man, I should make T-shirts. And then at the same time, I was still writing and people are like, you should write a book. And I was like, well, I'd feel a lot better if I pay 20 bucks for a book at a show than if I just bought a t-shirts. Yeah. And so I actually written the book to sell out the shows. Oh,

interesting. And that is what, you know, prompted, but that's what kind of prompted me to understand the economics of things. And at the same time, I was like, all right, where else can I find money? And I would make a list. I was like, all right, creative grants. I had a pretty good resume as an artist, so I started getting grants. And who gives grants to artists? That's a, I mean, I'm Canadian, so we're a little bit more privilege. Yeah. But I think there's some exist out here, too. But I mean, I'm talking about grants. I would take gigs. I would take gigs I didn't want to do anything for the money.

And I just, and spending a lot less, you know. And as I said, it took me, you know, end of 2011 is when I had my wake up. You need to get your stuff together moment. And I didn't get completely out of debt probably until early 2015. Wow. Well, thank you for saying this because I think a lot of these influencer people are like, they really do want to post a quote or a meme or like, here's a photo of me like looking cool somewhere, but it actually makes people's

problem worse later because it just it makes you feel good for a second. You're like, oh, that person's inspiring and cool. But then you just go, but I'm not that person. I'm this person. So in my opinion, it actually makes it worse for a lot of people. It does. And I think also avoiding any, you know, the idea of like always think

positive. No, it's no. Those, those, your negative thoughts, your negative memories, your physical pain, they all serve a purpose. These are all messages and there's all value to them. And, you know, For me, there was a lot of kicking myself. You know, the person that gave me this deal, I should have seen all the warning signs.

And some of the people in my circle were like, oh, I knew he was shady from the beginning. Thanks for telling me, dude. Yeah, thanks for telling me with your hindsight after the fact. And I really wanted to avoid the memory because it made me feel like garbage. Yeah. Not realizing at the time, like, no, the reason that memory is, quote, unquote, haunting you is because there's something to learn from it. The moment you learn from it, you won't make that same mistake again. And now that memory is not a bad thing.

That is a gift. And I think when I had that perspective shift, I was able to now move forward being like, hey, I'm about to step into something I don't understand. But even if I mess up, what I'm going to do is I'm going to learn from it and I'll move forward and I'll see the value in it. And being able to change my mindset from win or lose to win or learn, this wasn't something that was fluffy. It was like, look, either it's going to go the way I wanted to go or it's not and I'm definitely going to learn something. thing and the only thing in my control is my attitude, my effort, and my expectations. I always have control over those.

Nobody can control that for me. Let me focus on that. And I always reminded myself, blame and power go hand in hand. Take the blame so you have the power. So these mindset shifts made a difference. Again, in no way, shape, or form, you know, is my life sunshine and daisies and rainbows all day. I have low moments. Sometimes those low moments might just be being hangary.

Sometimes those low moments might be low iron. Sometimes it could be what I received from my family, you know, in my genes. And sometimes I'm in a situation where I'm like, look, you should be completely grateful for what you have, but you feel like trash. Now I'm like, hey, feel like trash. Write it out. You know, just type it out, sing it out, scream it out, dance it off. Do something, you know, just don't do nothing. You know, movement is medicine.

Make something happen. So I think for me it's always about the pragmatic side and has to be practical application. I don't want to sell fluff to anybody. I don't appreciate anybody selling fluff to me. It's a lot of work. And I think what I was able to do with this book is make it simple to understand, but remind people that it's going to be challenging to execute. Yeah, it's a lot of bite-sized stuff in the book,

probably because you were a school teacher and kids' attention span is like mine, which is like 10 minutes long. Every chapter is only two pages. You don't have to read the book in order. You can open it up anywhere. And as I said, I've been challenging people, just open up the book to any page, and you're going to find something you immediately connect with.

I like the idea that life doesn't actually get easier. We just get stronger as a result of our experiences, whether we like it or not. I mean, that's the only choice we really have. And I think that there's a lot to learn from all of the crap that I've been through. And, of course, everyone else, too. But it is hard to not just sit in it for a while. Like, that's the challenge, is not figuring out that there's something to learn. It's knowing when to go, all right, I should probably figure this out now instead of just feeling sorry for me.

myself. And as well as being, hey, maybe you've got to sit in it for a while, and that is self-compassion, but maybe set a time limit on that, you know, and no different than like, you know, I just got back from India after a long trip and, you know, saying, hey, tomorrow I'm not going to be productive. Tomorrow I'm just going to binge on Netflix and just kind of get my internal clock ready. It's the same thing. You go through a challenging time. You go through a heartbreak, you go through some loss, give yourself some time to heal. And I always equated to having a broken leg. There's not much you can do to speed the healing, but there's plenty you can do to mess it up and slow down the progress. So I think for me, even when I was, I stayed in bed for about a week and, you know,

self-medicating, making all the wrong decisions, looking back at it now, there was an element of self-compassion there. I was doing it thinking I was going to be doing it forever. Now looking at it, it was like, hey, maybe, you know, you got blindsided and you were still in shock and you were, you were hurt and you were hurt by somebody you really cared about, you needed that week to heal. Yeah. And because the moment I did get up, I haven't stopped. And I think that, and that didn't come from some inner strength.

I think that came from healing. I'm like, all right, you got your rest. Now get up and now let's see what we can make happen. You have this idea that if you don't have a secure self-concept, media will build one for you. I'd love to hear what you have to say about this because this is, I feel like this is a huge problem with people right now is they don't really know who they are. Many of us don't, in fact. But then back in the day, we used to go travel or learn something or study something or build something to learn that. Now we're just looking at like Instagram or watching YouTube videos and we're

like, oh, I guess I have to be that way. And it's dangerous. It's bad for us. It's extremely dangerous. And I mean, you know, if you went back to the 90s, they always talked about, you know, the models and the magazines. Yes. And all you have to do is not open a magazine. But now, so, Social media has inundated us so much and it's such a part of our lives where, again, we're filling in the gaps in relation to what's in front of us. Right. How do we build a moat around our psyche so we don't let those types of influences in? I feel like self-awareness is that only moat. Yeah.

You're just kind of like, hey, did I care about having abs yesterday? No, I only cared about having abs after seeing Aubrey Marcus' topless pick or something. Exactly, yeah. Thanks, Aubrey. Yeah, thanks, Aubrey. You have a source of all my problems when it comes to my time. Like, eat a popsicle, bro. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, had some carbs.

Yeah, and it matters. And again, even like just hanging out with people or just, you know, me coming and hearing me like, oh, look how, you know, this guy's got a three camera podcast. Got lights. Yeah. He's got lighting and he's got a person listening for sound, so we're not going to find out if this is messed up at the end of episode. And now me thinking, oh, man, I need to get a podcast going. And then being like, hey, you don't, this isn't a priority to you. It's only a priority to you today because you're in front of somebody that's doing it.

Yeah. And you have to figure out what's actually important to you. And I think knowing our priorities and even being open to the idea that our priorities and specifically our obsessions may not be something that we can choose. And I'm realizing this going back and being like, oh, I was writing stories and sharing and performing when I was like eight, nine years old in front of my class and loving it. And, you know, knowing other people that are like, oh, you've been doing this since you were a kid. Like this was almost coded into you and trying to be aware of that and being like, hey, pursue that. pursue the thing where when you encounter a challenge,

you get excited. And I always think about my accountant because this guy is such a dweeb. You know, when I was independently publishing this book, you know, I was getting checks from Europe and euros. I was getting UK pounds,

getting American dollars and Canadian dollars. And at the time, he was like, oh, I've never had a client who had so many different currencies. And he goes, I don't even know how to do this. And he's like, smiled. He's like, I'm excited to tackle this. Good CPA.

Yeah, I was like, you're such a nerd, but I love the fact that this type of stuff excites you. Yeah, that's the right guy to happen. And I think everybody in the world has that. We don't know what it is. It might, you know, for some people, it might be skateboarding, for some people it might be electrical engineering, for other people that might be making electric cars or, you know, coming up with a new way to make an eggless cake that doesn't taste bad.

It could be anything. There are a billion problems in the world that need to be solved, and there are people who are excited to solve them. When I think about my accounting, I want to curl up in a bar. and not deal with that. Oh, man. So you find somebody who's excited for that. And then, you know, you think about a guy like Eminem,

he's very excited to put words together and rhyme new things. And the more you challenge him, the better. And I think that's what we need is we all need to find that thing where the challenges don't feel bad. They're exciting. You know, the same way we get excited playing a video game or playing basketball or whatever it is. And that requires internal, you know, internal dialogue,

internal exploration. And that requires a little bit of time away from all the exercise. external stuff. Yeah, good point. I think it goes along with your idea that we don't overcome a fear to move forward. We move forward to overcome the fear. And through action, something that people, I don't know exactly why this resonated so well, but I said something, kind of a throwaway where I said action and suffering. Because when I was going through a serious hard time last year, it was like a blender with a top off. And everything was splattering out. And I was going crazy. And then I was like, wait a minute. If I work on rebuilding my business, rebuilding my show,

doing what I need to do to get everything back in order. Then it's like a laser. The energy is focused in one direction. I felt a million times better than I did where the energy was going everywhere. I wanted to just like ram my head through a wall. Yeah. And it seems like that's a lot of what you're saying as well. It's like, look, you need to find that thing, that challenge that excites you.

Otherwise, you're just, there's an element of, there's, it's like you're just not focused enough in the right way. Yeah. And it feels bad to the creator. It feels bad to you. It feels bad to the artist, feels bad to whoever it is. And it also reappropriates other elements of our lives.

So, for example, if you're like, look, my goal, you know, my obsession is painting pictures of apples. And I want the world to see how beautiful apples are just as I do. Now all of a sudden you're like, well, you know, working at that day job is no longer a burden to me. That is my source to pay for all my equipment to paint these apples. So that's a part of this. And now I can go in with enthusiasm.

every day because that is part of this process because there is no job in the world that doesn't have these unsexy elements. Oh, for sure. People go, I'd love that you're doing what you love with the show. And I was like, whoa, before you turn your hobby into a job, realize that the second you do that, it's going to be cool for like a month and then it's a job. So don't ruin your hobby unless you can, you just can't avoid it. Now you're not looking forward to it. Right. Yeah. And I think that and that was a big thing where I see a lot of people, it's like, people who didn't do that some of the guys I work with in music were like no

I don't want to be a full-time musician because that's going to suck the fun out of the music totally and I need this music to maintain my same this is my happy place yes and I can get through a long day of work knowing that I can go home and you know hit the drums or hit the boards hit the keyboard and I was like that makes a lot of sense because now I'm sitting there

trying to you know hit a deadline you know make a client happy yeah or do anything else it's a toothpaste jingle and you're like why the hell am I doing this be it's I don't care about this And so, and I understand that, right? It's like if my show, I have ads on my show, but I try to make them fun. I try to make them interesting.

I'm luckily in a position where I can turn down sponsors that I think are just lame or bad for people. Like, I don't have e-cigarettes. I don't have gambling on the show. Nothing like that because I'm like, this is really antithetical to the influence I'm trying to have on people. But I understand when you're first starting off, if someone, if someone was like, hey, man. We need a, we need a wrap, and it's got to be about organic tea. Organic tea is at least as you can. Something that is horrible, right?

Like gambling, online. I did three musketeers once. That's not even as horrible as like gambling, right? Or like online. Or trying to get kids to smoke. Yeah, trying to get kids to smoke. Bubble gum flavored E. Sig cartels. We need to rap about that.

And it's just like, what have I done where this is my job now? It's better to work at something you don't love and then keep the thing that you love separate. Yes, definitely. And if you're already in that position where you're a full-time artist, a full-time creative, and you've converted your passion into a job, find another art. Go color in a coloring book. Go to improv class and figure something else out,

which is just because the labor needs to be the reward. The rainbow is the pot of gold. And that's what we all need in our lives, and that can be anything. And whether you're building little tiny ships in a bottle or whether you're painting naked people or whether you're knitting, For me, an example was my mom made fun of me for having distressed jeans.

And then I showed her a YouTube video of how they actually get made. And it intrigued her. She used to sew a lot. And, you know, now she's making me buy her jeans so she can distress them because she has fun doing it. And she works on these long form projects. And I send her, I get her paint by numbers as well. And she's, you know, she's retired. She spends her time working on these projects and there's a beginning, middle, and end.

But she's enjoying the process. She's not just thinking about the final product. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to understand that we're going to be going through these challenges forever. So let's find challenges that are exciting. Humble, thank you so much, man. This has been really interesting. I appreciate him.

Yeah, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. Big thank you to Humble, the poet. The book title is Unlearn. And if you want to know how I managed to book great people and have such a network full of, well, people that are achieving great things and honestly have really super interesting stories. and, of course, have each other's back.

It's always really nice. Check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. I know you're busy. I know you want to do it later. You cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships. You have to dig the well before you're thirsty.

And I know that you're thinking, you've said that before, and I keep meaning to do that, just go to Jordanharbinger.com slash course and do it. It's just a few minutes per day. I really wish I knew this stuff years and years ago, Jordanharbinger.com slash course. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Humble the Poet.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, and there's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger. This show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jason Humble Pie DePhilippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets are by Robert Fogarty. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so the fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be. in every episode. So please share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great

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