The Rich Roll Podcast - Mike Posner On Making Art, Embracing Growth & Walking Across America

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

An accomplished singer, songwriter, poet & producer, Mike Posner knows what it's like to be rich and famous. He also knows what it's like to be forgotten. To grieve. To grow. To embrace that which is most important. And ultimately express his truth through art. This is the story of a remarkable talent's attempt to live an artist's life — the struggles faced and lessons learned along his most mercurial path. In 2010, while still an undergraduate at Duke, the Detroit native's career exploded with the release of his debut song Cooler Than Me. The irresistible pop song topped charts worldwide, selling more than two million copies and launching him into the stratosphere almost overnight. But fame is fleeting. Unable to immediately top his debut, Mike's solo career soon faltered. Turning to writing, Mike spent the next several years behind the curtain churning out hit songs for everyone from Justin Bieber (‘Boyfriend') and Maroon 5 (‘Sugar') to Pharrell, Snoop Dogg, Nick Jonas and Avicii. Then, in 2016, his career as a solo artist once again blossomed. A remix of his song ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza' unexpectedly surfaced as an international smash on the electronic dance scene, landing him a Grammy nomination for Best Song that year. Not long after, Mike was hit with a trifecta of heartache. He weathered a break up with his girlfriend. His father passed after a bout with brain cancer. And his friend and frequent collaborator Avicii took his own life. It was a dark time for the young musician. But the life of an artist is one of persistence. No matter what, Mike continued to show up for music. The result, and his best work to date, is the recently released album, A Real Good Kid — a mature, vulnerable and infectious pop meditation on grief, celebrity, ego, loss, art and personal growth. Without a doubt, Mike is an incredibly talented musician. But what inspired this conversation has little to do with music and everything to do with character. What draws me to this human is his spirit. An old soul with an expansive perspective on art, life and meaning that belies his age, Mike overflows with emotional wisdom forged from experience. And his unbridled, authentic enthusiasm for life and personal expression is as infectious as it is instructive. This is the story of unpredictable highs. Low lows. Love and loss. What it means to move on. And finding solace while stuck in the middle. I first saw Mike perform before an IN-Q spoken word event several years ago and ever since have appreciated him from afar. But I fell in love with him during our conversation. I'm fairly certain you will too. For those visually inclined, you can watch our conversation on YouTube at: bit.ly/mikeposner431 or listen in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich

So I'm playing concerts much more often for many more people. I'm making more money. I'm sort of parading around the world, taking my shirt off at shows. And it's such a gift to sort of fall into this kind of, quote, success at the age I was at, which was like 23. What I realized, the ways it didn't change my life was it didn't make me any happier. It didn't make me any more comfortable in my own skin.

And it didn't clear up any of the insecurities I had with myself. And what was especially disillusioning about that was I thought it would. That's Mike Posner, this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. What's up, people? How you guys doing? Welcome to the podcast. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host.

And today I have musician Mike Posner on the show. Vocalist, songwriter, incredibly prolific producer. And I got to say up front, this guy is just such a gift. Not only is he an amazing talent, he's just a real sweetheart. And I can almost guarantee that you are familiar with his music, perhaps his song Cooler Than Me, which came out in 2010, or his more recent, mostly acoustic song, I Took a Pill in Ibiza, or Ibiza, depending upon how you pronounce it, from his 2016 sophomore LP. And that song was a massive hit. It was nominated for a Grammy Song of the Year. And along the way, Mike has written all manner

of chart-busting songs for seemingly everyone. You know that Justin Bieber song, Boyfriend? Well, that was Mike. He wrote Sugar for Maroon 5, as well as songs for everybody from Pharrell to Talib Kweli, 2 Chainz, Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, Nick Jonas, Avicii, who we talk a lot about today, and so many others. So this is essentially going to be a conversation not only about Mike's story, but also about creativity and self-expression with an incredibly prolific artist. Like I said, Mike is a beautiful soul. His energy is just infectious. And yet at the same time, he's amazingly grounded, centered, calm, all traits that he directly credits, as you will

soon hear, to a consistent meditation practice, something he is incredibly dedicated to. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud

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And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud

to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey.

When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, so Mike Posner. Yes, he's an incredible musician, but that's not really what motivated me to talk to him. It was more his spirit, his perspective that really drew me in. He is a magnetic, beautiful, large personality. He's overflowing with positivity. He's got this unbridled, honest enthusiasm for life, which I really respect and admire, but it comes not without challenges that he's faced and obstacles that he's

had to confront and overcome. In fact, his journey has really been quite the roller coaster. So this is a story that begins with a precocious kid in Detroit, a kid with big dreams who launched his storied musical career while still a student at Duke, Duke University. It's a story of unpredictable highs and many low lows with a lot of reflection and grieving and growth, both emotional and spiritual along the way. I'm not gonna spoil any more of it other than to say I have appreciated Mike from afar for quite a long time before this conversation, but I just fell in love with him during this exchange.

And I think you guys are going to as well. So let's kick it off. We're gonna start with a beautiful acoustic version of Mike's aptly titled song, In the Middle. Perfume on my shirt Puts me in the past Too tough to be without her But too afraid to ask

Yeah But too afraid to ask Yeah Here I am again Stuck in the middle Here I am again Stuck in the middle Too young to settle down Too old to be in bars It's hard to take it easy

It's easy to be hard Yeah Here I am again again stuck in the middle here I am, stuck in the middle Here I am again, stuck in the middle Oh, forgive me, I am building my ship as it sells How do I become who I want to be while still remaining myself? People love the old me I don't know where he's gone Too tired to be famous Too vain to be unknown Yeah

Here I am again Stuck in the middle Here I am again Stuck in the middle Here I am again Stuck in the middle Here I am again Stuck in the middle

Yeah! Yeah! Here I am again, stuck in the middle. Yeah. That is insane, man. Thank you. So beautiful. Thank you for that. I love it. Thanks for listening. It's so poignantly honest and vulnerable and raw,

and I think that's really a touchdown of your work. You know, my favorite line is, too tired to be famous, too vain to be unknown. You know? Yeah. It's like the courage to, you know, admit that. Right? Yeah.

It almost takes... It's easier to just admit it. Yeah. It takes a lot of energy to sort of decide, okay, I'm going to share these things with people, and this list of things about myself I'm not. That takes a lot of energy to sort of constantly be navigating and a lot of bandwidth. I found it's just a little simpler to just be honest and truthful.

Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting in the context of the evolution of your career as somebody who kind of started out in the rap world, doing rap battles back in high school, where it's all about fronting and ego, to this arc to come to this place of just raw emotional vulnerability. I mean, I think of you, it's interesting looking back at the origins

of how you began with influences coming directly from traditional rap into this guy who kind of, to me, feels a lot more like Cat Stevens meets NQ with this poetry and this kind of folk sensibility wrapped up in pop with its roots in hip-hop and rap it's the genre thing is a trip for me because um i love a lot of different music it's today is january what ninth night and the last week or so i have made like four hip-hop songs in a row just straight rap songs you know

so it's like yeah I get in the cabs people are confused yeah I get in the cab in a different city hey how's it going what do you do I'm a recording artist what kind of music do you make how do you answer that I don't ever know what to say I say I jump around every album

and I think I'm really good at a bunch of you're very good at it I don't know it's it's tough it's I don't I don't feel like I fit in one of those boxes yeah I feel like I fit in all of them so how do you follow that muse I'm sure there's pressure you know on you oh you need to be in this lane you know this is what works this is what people want i mean i know when you played um the lions game on thanksgiving day like people hadn't seen you with the beard yeah and they were freaking out because they're used to seeing you in a certain light that was so uh tough at the time but so helpful of you know with a few months of hindsight. So first of all, to answer your original question,

is you really try not to pay attention as much as you can to the reaction to the art. For me, the reward is in the making of the thing in the first place. And if something becomes really popular, which has happened a few times in my career, you know, I made thousands of songs, but I've had like five that have gotten like absurdly popular. I don't know why or how, but it happens every once in a while. But I try just to kind of ignore that. It's almost part of my job to ignore that. that. It's almost part of my job to ignore that. Because the tendency, if you pay too much attention, is to replicate or emulate something you already did that was quote unquote

successful. So you just sort of leave that behind and then listen to whatever. For me, I have to have some sort of practice to be quiet. Meditation really helps. And listen to what comes up in me and just follow that. The things just pop in my head. And my job is to get them recorded and produced the way they sound in my head. And that's it. Do you feel like your job is really to open that channel, that it's less about you, that it's coming from some other place? Sure. I mean, look, we all have a ton you, that it's coming from some other place? Sure. I mean, look, we all have a ton of thoughts

that come in our head each day. And do you really get credit for the thoughts that pop in your head? I don't know. I like to take credit sometimes. Yeah, well, we all do. I do too. You know, it's like, but the honest answer is like,

this song just popped in my head, and I wrote it down. Do I get credit for that? I mean, I guess in our society the way it's set up, yeah, I do. I get paid for it and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, I think, yeah, it's more about listening. I'm always scared. I'm superstitious. I'll be laying in bed at night, and a melody pops in my head or something like that.

And I'm like, man, I'm tired. I'm going to get up and put this down. But I'm always worried that, and maybe it sounds silly, but I'm worried. I will forget, but I'm worried that if I don't put it down, whatever is sending them to me will stop. Because you're not honoring it. Yeah, I'll give them to someone else. Like, oh, you're not going to pay attention I'm going to send this idea to somebody else that's very similar to do you know Elizabeth Gilbert

I know of her I just was recommended she wrote this book called Big Magic and one of the ideas it's a great book but one of the ideas in that book is that the ideas all of these ideas are kind of floating around in the clouds. And as an artist, your job is to finally attune that radar, that antenna, so that you can pull it down and nurture that idea.

But if you don't, somebody else is going to grab it. Yeah, it's possible. And it's timing. A lot of it is timing, right? Yeah. So I like that idea like, oh, if I don't write this down and get it down right now, like that muse is going to travel elsewhere. I don't know if it's true, but it might be. Yeah.

Do you have like a formal writing process? Like what does that look like for you? I do not. So I'm 30 years old. I'll be 31 february 12th and i started writing my first raps when i was eight so i'm like 22 years into this thing and i have written songs every which way um from i've written them at night written them in the morning i've written them to beats that are already done. I've written them on the guitar, started with melody, started every way.

So there isn't one thing like, oh, I get the hook or the lyric and build it. I tried to figure this out. I'll tell you what I did a few years ago. I made a spreadsheet with what I thought were my best songs. It was like 10 songs on there. My best songs to me, not the biggest ones. 10 songs on there. My best songs to me, not the biggest ones. And then I tried to... I made all these columns where I wrote down everything I could remember. The season, the time of day I wrote it, the mood I was in, what I ate that day, how much I slurred, everything

I could remember to see if there was some sort of pattern. Because if all 10 of them came at 7 p.m., I was going to stop trying to write at 10 a.m. So I found no pattern other than I think more than half of them were second attempts at an idea or used an idea that had some failed idea was being reworked in a lot of these things. That was the only pattern I found. But as far as like, yeah, specific process or time and date,

there was no pattern. Like having an idea but not executing on it right away and letting it marinate. Even trying to execute on it and failing. Or sometimes you write a song that's a bad song, but has one great line in it. So then later, you might be writing a great song, and you steal that line from that bad song.

You just throw that bad song away. Right, right, right. Yeah. On that idea of trying to find quietude, tuning out all the signals that are coming at us it's getting harder and harder to do that with our phones and with the internet it's so easy to distract ourselves with these addictive devices that i would imagine as an artist you have to be very disciplined about making sure that you carve out that special time to create outside of that kind

of influence that's always you know kind of bearing down upon us correct you know for me i have a i have a meditation practice which is i meditate a minimum of of 20 minutes twice per day. So that really helps. Like Vipassana or what is the? I usually am doing TM. I've done a Vipassana retreat. That was no joke, man. Have you done one of those? No, but it's on my to-do list for this year.

That was no joke. Man. 10 days? 10 days. Which center did you go to? I went to one in Texas just because that's the way the dates worked out. And I was coming off 12 days at a monastery where I was in solitude. For how long?

I was there 12 days. And that one, I was completely alone. And so there was no program or whatever. And so my confidence was pretty high. I got this. Yeah, I was like, I got this. I got there. That whole I was like, I got this. I got there. That whole thing was no joke, man.

The sheer physicality of it, because you're on a mat, on the floor, sitting cross-legged for 10 hours a day for 10 days. I'd say my back was lit up, man. It was no joke. And you're waking up at 4 a.m. and you're basically just meditating until 10 p.m. or something like that. I've talked to a lot of people that have done those retreats, and my sense is that you get to your breaking point at, I don't know,

day seven or something like that. That's when a lot of people bolt, but you've got to just stay. Yeah, man, that was cool because at the Vipassana ones, seven or something like that that's when a lot of people bolt but you got to just stay yeah man that was cool because at the vipassana ones you don't um there's no talking and beyond that there's no like they're not supposed to be any communication you're not supposed to be like gesturing or even eye contact but and there's assigned mats if you So there's like, the people next to you are the same every sit. And you sort of make things up about, your brain at least starts to make things up. Like, you know, I would, I'd come in and like, I felt like they were my battalion, you know?

I'm like, all right, let's do this guy. And then like the dude next to me, he like, the third didn't come back i'm like man he's gone i was like and the guy next to me i just really liked there's something about him i i liked him i was like man in my head i was going please do not quit man i need you man i need you right and everyone sort on the last day they like let you start talking to you start talking sort of have a transition period back to getting in the real world and everyone is kind of doing that to each other like man you help me so much

and the guy's like really? Yeah that connection, that intimacy that can be created without any language or real interaction I'm sure you felt like you really knew those people at the end of that period. Yeah, I did.

And then sometimes I would talk to them on the last day and sometimes they were exactly who I thought they were and sometimes they were like the opposite. It's fascinating. I'll tell you a story from my third day there. There was a guy sitting in front of me, and he was overweight. He didn't look very healthy. He looked like a worn man.

And I'm not proud to say I felt of like repulsed by this guy. And every time we'd sit, and it's dead quiet in there, and you're supposed to not really move. And this guy would be fidgeting. He couldn't change his leg, whatever. And I was getting so annoyed. We get to the third day and I'm having a real tough time. It hurts, man, your back, you know, and I'm thinking, why did I pick to do this?

This is ridiculous, man. And all the sort of background negativity that's running it you kind of got to deal with yeah when you're when you're there and I hope so in this particular set day three I'm fidgeting a lot and we're 45 50 minutes into this hour-long sit-at-night, I'm just out of it. I open my eyes, which I'm not supposed to do, and there's this guy. He's sitting like the gosh-darn Buddha. Perfect. Showing you what's what.

I started crying because I thought, you're such an asshole. I mean, here's this man who, he's showing up to this thing, man. It's got to be harder for him than you to sit like this, and he's showing up. And you're over here judging him about how he looks or he's fidgeting. He's such an asshole, man. And the thing that made me cry that I felt so ashamed was because I know I'm doing that all the time. Judging people and judging myself. And that was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

myself and that was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I wish I could say I don't do it at all anymore, but it takes time to sort of unlearn to... Yeah, just put it right up in your grill. Yeah. But meanwhile, you're not really supposed to be thinking about anything. Correct. You're supposed to be focusing on that breath. Equanimous. Well, what got you... Equanimity. Equanimity, manity that's the goal what got you into meditation I grew up an atheist

I grew up sort of what's real is real sort of like midwest is real and was sort of a like Midwestern Jewish pessimism about the world. And when I was 24, I saw a friend of mine who a lot of your listeners will probably know, watchers, maybe viewers. His name is Big Sean. And Sean and I have known each other since we were 18.

He used to come to my house and make music. He calls my mom, Mom, this kind of thing. And so when I'm 24, both of our careers have sort of started. when I'm 24, both of our careers have sort of started. And his career is like exploding at the time for the first time. He's having his first sort of wave. And we're both in L.A. He says, come to the studio. So I go to the studio and meet up with him.

And I'm sure you and everyone hearing this has had a moment where someone just lights you up. There, for whatever reason, being around them makes you feel good. You might even be around them and they leave and you still feel good. And that's what happened that day. He was just like, he was just in a good place, and it was reverberating out to not just me, everyone around him. So I went home, and the next day I came back to the studio. I go, what's up with you, man? What's going on here?

Because he's doing, I mean, his career, he was shelved for six years. I mean, he signed to Kanye for years and years and years and years, and nothing happened. And then all of a sudden, bang, it was just all happening, and he was in such a good spot with it. So I'm like, what's going on? He goes, you got to read these two books, two books. One was The Alchemist, and the other was a book called

Asking It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. The channel. Yeah, and I go, seems to be working for him, man. So I get the books, man. That sort of opened my whole world up. Ignited your whole spiritual path. And that was the beginning. And the foreword to Asking is Given was written by a guy named Wayne Dyer, Dr. Wayne Dyer, who's from Detroit.

I didn't know he was from Detroit. He actually was my mom's high school counselor. Really? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. High school counselor. Really?

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Wow. And so his foreword really resonated with me. And I remember one of the quotes said, I don't think he made it up, but it said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. That was just so foreign to me.

Blew your mind. Blew my mind. And so I started YouTubing him, and he had some guided meditations. Those were the first meditations I ever did. And then I went into TM. Ever since, man. That's interesting. I would have suspected that the path that you're on was born more out of some of the painful moments in your life.

But it really sounds like it came from a pure aspiration to just inhabit a different level of consciousness. Because you saw your friend who was doing well and seemed happier. And I think there was some like it's probably some jealousy mixed in too like man suddenly he's winning too right i want to do that as so i'm not proud of that but i'm sure that was mixed in there as well well let's track it back to to uh to detroit man to the beginning okay Okay. So you started writing raps when you were eight in Detroit. Yeah. So is this like eight mile Detroit?

No, no. I was born in Detroit proper, and I grew up in a place called Southfield. Sure. Southfield borders Detroit. So everyone knows the movie Eight Mile. South of Eight Mile is Detroit, and the other side, south of Detroit is Eight Mile. On the other side. South of eight mile is Detroit on the other side. South of Detroit is eight mile. On the other side is Southfield. It's kind of confusing, kind of a mouthful. But I lived in Southfield, which is where I lived at least, was a middle class.

Demographically, ethnically, it's very similar to Detroit. So it's not like Bloomfield Hills. It's not Bloomfield Hills. I'm from Grosse Pointe. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I was born there. I didn't know that. We moved when I was young, when I was like seven. So I can't really say I grew up there.

But my parents are from Detroit. That's great. You know where they went to high school? Grosse Pointe. Yeah. Is it east? I don't know. Grosse Pointe, yeah where they went to high school? Gross Point. Yeah. Is it east? I don't know. Gross Point.

Yeah. I think it's at Gross Point North too. Yeah. I think it was east or south. One of those. I think east. Yeah. Yeah.

So Southfield is like, it's not the hood at all, at least in my part of it. Ethnically, it's about, I think, 75% African American. The younger people, like the kids, tend to be even more African American and sort of the older population is more white. But I had a bunch of boys on my street. We played basketball every day. We rode bikes all around. You had your crew.

It was a magical place to grow up, man. My mom still lives there, and I go back all the time. I love it there. I love Southfield. I love Detroit. So that's where it all begins. So where does the music pop in? I first started playing drums.

so where does the music pop in? I first started playing drums I was like in 5th grade and I had a few older cousins that rapped I thought they're cool man and a lot of my buddies they listen to hip hop so the first hip hop I heard was like

was on TV it was like DMX and Mystical and I thought and then I later sort of got into more like underground. I called it underground now, like Talib Kweli and Outkast and Most Deaf and these kind of things. And I remember- The heady ones. Yeah, a couple of my buddies were having- The intellectuals.

Yeah, they were having a sleepover. Aaron Webster and Ronnie Posey, still my buddies. And for whatever reason, we decided we're going to freestyle tonight at this sleepover at Ronnie's house. And so we all sort of found CDs that had music without words on it. I remember I brought a Moby CD because there was a track on the end of the CD that didn't have any top line. And so I put

this on and we all tried freestyling. And I remember they sort of felt like, oh, that was fun. And I remember thinking, I'm never going to stop that. I'm never, I'm going to get really good. That's like a moment. I'm going to get really good at it.

Did you have like a conscious awareness that that was kind of of a flick the switch it wasn't even a decision I just knew I'm gonna get good at that and I did so now I would practice freestyling and um at first I my mom had a computer with like a terrible microphone on the top and I figured like on some of the old windows there was like a voice recorder so if I played you know music through the computer speakers and rapped at the same time sort of make a recording yeah there's like one of my buddies has these like terrible things where my voice hasn't dropped yet and I'm like you know so I started doing that and my mom bought me a keyboard from Best Buy eventually

that she let me hook up to her computer. I started figuring out how to make beats. And I was stealing a lot of software off the internet. And yeah, man, I just kept going. And like you mentioned earlier, in high school, I used to battle, which for me, I was small in high school. So basketball was everything, man was everything like i the thing i wanted more than anything was to be good at basketball yeah i was tiny and i tried real hard i played good defense but like it's not gonna

happen it wasn't gonna happen you know and so here in this this rap battle area my weakness actually sort of became my strength because i was so unassuming i was so small i was so white that when i would say a line that like i get a bigger reaction right because it was not expecting it surprising surprising so so that make you like were you a popular kid in high school then for being able to do that i wouldn't say i was popular but i was friends with everyone yeah it's sort of like my relationship with genres now was the same way i was with clicks at school i'm cool with everyone do i really belong to any of them not really i'm a floater kind of. Yeah.

Well, the guy who can throw down like you is going to be able to ingratiate himself with the athletes and with the stoners and with pretty much every crew, right? Yeah. And that was really when music did begin to deepen me as a human too. What do you mean by that? to deepen me as a human too. What do you mean by that? I was doing beats and I was selling beats to rappers in addition to recording my own stuff.

And the rappers all lived in the hood. So I would end up in these neighborhoods that I wouldn't have otherwise been in. And I just learned a lot. I had more of an awareness for the privilege that I have and that I grew up with. And when I finished high school, I was a good student. And I went to Duke University after. And I met a lot of kids who didn't have that awareness. And I actually felt really bad for them. That's definitely a big cultural change.

Yeah, I mean these sort of like trust fund babies and a lot of people might actually feel jealous of them. I never felt jealous of them. I felt sort of sad for them because they only lived in this one little bubble of life. And since music has taken me or taken me here today, it's been a magical way to navigate the world. It's taken me all over the world. Well, you seem like you're like a good kid, right? I mean, your mom, I mean, education must have been important for you to get into Duke

and be a kid who's doing the rap thing but also getting good grades at the same time. Yeah. Those two things don't usually coexist. No. I mean, usually just artists in general hate school. And I actually didn't like school, but I loved getting A's. I don't know what it was because there was no sort of like, there was no reward in my house. Some of my friends, they get an A and their mom would give them money or something like that.

And there was no punishment either if I got a bad grade. I just, I don't know. I always was like, if I was in a class, I just expected to ace everything. And I studied, you know, I worked hard at it. So you're at Duke and you were in like a frat, right? Yeah. So you did like the full Duke thing, but you're like making beats in your dorm room at the same time.

Yeah. Like I'm trying to just visualize. Yeah. beats in your dorm room at the same time yeah i'm trying to just visualize yeah so i i met um i the summer before duke i interned at the radio station in detroit uh-huh so you yeah you were collaborating with big sean in high school right he was right that summer right before we meet and i gave him a couple beats and this kind of thing. Then I leave to go to Duke. Sean, mind you, had a scholarship to Michigan State, but Kanye signed him and he said, don't go to Michigan State. Why?

Because you're going to be a rapper, dude. Don't go to college. So I go to Duke. Sean stays in Detroit. And I got my little setup in my dorm room. I'm making beats. I'm sending them. I'm sending every beat I make back to Duke. Sean stays in Detroit. And I got my little setup in my dorm room. I'm making beats. I'm sending them. I'm sending every beat I make back to Sean.

He's the only guy I know. Right. You know, that's like got a record deal. Right. But he's working with Kanye. I mean, that's your in. He's working with Kanye. Exactly.

And he's working with some of our other buddies from Detroit. I remember I was at Duke and I had a math test. And I was used to being like one of the smartest kids. At Duke, I was like the dumbest kid. I remember studying for this math test really hard. And I got it back and I failed it. It wasn't like I had slacked off. I had worked on it and, and I failed it. It wasn't like I had slacked off. I had worked on it and studied, and I failed it. And a day later, I got this news from Sean that the producers,

our other buddies in Detroit, Kanye was going to sign them too. And I go, man, did I mess up. That should have been me. I should have stayed in Detroit I'm over here feeling math tests and these guys getting signed by Kanye with a bunch of frat boys yeah oh anyway like a year passes and I just keep making beats keep sending them to Sean and I'll make like a hundred beats in a year send them all to him. He might use like two of them. And then I had this sort of weird idea to start singing my raps.

Where did that come from? Because prior to that, you weren't singing at all. No. Which is crazy because you have this elegiac voice. Thank you. I can't imagine a time in which you weren't singing. Thank you. A lot of practice later.

But Jack Johnson was blowing up at the time. I sort of had this like harebrained scheme to make like a hip hop Jack Johnson band. Right. would imagine jack johnson was huge at duke yeah you know he's huge everywhere at the time at least yeah and so it seemed and uh so i had this idea of like having acoustic guitars j dilla drums i would rap and um and rap and like sort of sing and there was another guy at our school, Eric Holges. He would sing. He was like a real singer. And then, so I started this band, Mike Posner and the Brain Trust. And we started putting stuff out.

And really what happened was the two guys in the band quit. Eric was the real singer. And I love Eric to this day. He has another band called Delta Ray that he started after, and they're very wildly successful now. And Jeff O, he can bring his guitar back. And so I was like, man, I got to start singing this stuff. And what was interesting to me was I was such a big hip hop fan. And I had never heard a rapper, I'd never heard a singer sing the way I really wanted to hear a singer sing as a hip hop fan. So an example is like my first popular song is this song, Cooler Than Me. And it has complex rhymes in it, multi-syllabic rhymes, i never heard singers use so i'll show you what i mean i i said you got designer shades just to hide your

face so not only do shades and face rhyme but designer and hide your rhyme also and that to me was just freaking cool like i never heard a singer do that yeah well when you sing it you don't immediately think hip-hop but when you deconstruct it you can see it yeah but like a hip-hop fan we hear that right you know so you're like you're you're bending the genre I mean it's really bending bending the genre from the beginning is what cracks it open for you it was a weird sort of like it took 12 years so at this point I I'm 20. I made music all this time. It wasn't until I was 20 that I stumbled on this thing that was influenced by others, but was unmistakably mine. And I knew right away.

Everyone's reaction was different. People were singing the song all over Duke campus. Right, so you make these demos, right? And they're getting played at the parties. They play at the parties. And I didn't go to the parties because I was recording in my dorm. And the only time, it's loud in dorms. The only time you can really record is when everyone else goes out,

11 p.m. to 2.15 a.m. So that was- Your vocals went down? That's when my vocals went down. My buddies would come back and be like, man, they played Cooler Than Me at the party and everyone knew it, which that never happened to me. Then my mom calls me. She goes, I like this song Cooler Than Me.

Really? I love my mom to death. She's an honest woman. She never told me she liked any of my stuff before always supported me bought me instruments paid for lessons she never said I like this personally she said she liked cool to me

then Big Sean called me he goes cool to me is like a hit song man I go what are you talking about man I'm just both your mom and Big Sean like it like the crossover potential exactly man that's what i was thinking and so then it just sort of started from there man yeah and what's what's unique and cool and kind of of the moment of that time

is the fact that you end up releasing this song on it U, right? Because there was no Spotify. You couldn't, as a consumer, just upload your music onto the internet to distribute it, right? But you kind of found this loophole. Correct. And this was at a time when music was being pirated at a very high rate. And the music industry was really in trouble. And I knew better than anyone I had the duke internet we were stealing everything you know and so was this like full napster era or a little bit it was a few years after losing bit torrence the kind of thing and uh lime wire

yeah all that kind of stuff and so typically if if you made what they call mixtapes, which was like a free album, a lot of times rappers, before they make their album, they make a mixtape, okay? Which would include some original stuff and would also include them rapping over other people's beats. rapping over other people's beats. Now, I made a mixtape, and my mixtape was hosted by Don Cannon, who did all the biggest mixtapes. I had this very legitimate cosign from Don Cannon. Typically, you'd put this thing out on a website called datpiff.com, and there was a Zshare link. You'd the z share i'm already lost yeah it's like it was this really confusing thing there were ads all over it trying to trick

you to click other and then like you had to navigate your way to a place where you'd actually right click and hit like save target ads and it would. And I knew I could get my stuff in those places on that website and stuff. But I also remember my friends telling me these white girls at Duke know the words to this song. So I'm thinking I got to get in a place where they can get it too. Because I know they're not on Zshare. They're not on DatPiff. So I have them on Zshare. They're not on DatPiff. So I have them on Zshare. I have them on DatPiff.

But in addition, I found this loophole with iTunes U, which was set up for professors to post their lectures. If you're a professor at Duke, you can do a lecture on a topic, and anyone from all over the country can get it. And the cool thing about iTunes U at that time was it was free. Yeah, you could download lectures from all of these colleges. Correct. Does it still exist?

I think so. It was sort of transformed in some ways. And so the loophole was I found the guy who ran iTunes U for Duke. And I called him up, and we still text every once in a while. And I find out he's from Southfield, Michigan. Oh, man. It's like divinely inspired. Yeah, so he goes, I'll put your album on there.

He goes, I've done that before. And it's true. I wasn't the first guy to do it. So he put my album on there, and now my stuff is on itunes but it's free now that's important because we weren't buying kanye's albums we weren't buying lupe's we weren't buying jay-z we were stealing all those yeah so i knew no one's gonna pay for my album because they don't know who the heck i am so it's important it's free but it's also in the safe spot, iTunes. And so I started a Facebook group. I got all my buddies to invite all their friends,

all my high school friends at different colleges. And before I knew it, I was being asked to come to every college, man, come play, come play this fraternity, this thing. And I'd get there and everyone knew my stuff. Yeah. So it's this interesting combination of artistry and entrepreneurship like you had to you know learning how to like market your own your own deal you know like diy yeah yeah that's cool so so is that how it got like how did it get to because the next

phase is super interesting like how did it get to you know all these record labels and jay-z yeah there's people at record labels that are looking for this sort of thing they're looking for artists that while they're doing a show and everyone knows the words to their stuff and they're not signed right so um a few you know some people spotted me some some A&Rs and some managers reaching out. It's a small industry. If one label is talking about something and two labels, then you can go to a third one and be like, hey, they're going to offer me a deal. Do you want to have a meeting type of thing? So, yeah, my stuff started to catch on, and I was taking these meetings. I'm in my junior year at Duke. I'm flying to New York.

I'm meeting with Craig and Julie at Atlantic. I'm meeting with Barry Weiss at RCA. And I'm going back to Duke, and I'm in finals week. And I'm writing this paper, and my manager calls me, and he says, you got to go back to New York. I go, I can't go back to New York. What I need to do is finish this paper, man, because I'm behind the eight ball a little bit here, man.

And he goes you gotta go back to New York Jay-Z wants to meet you I go Jay-Z didn't want to meet me man don't mess with me he goes Jay-Z wants to meet you

I go okay book the flight and I didn't believe I didn't believe I thought I was gonna go and they would say hey we're sorry

he's busy today. You're going to meet with someone. So that's what I actually thought. Because that happens all the time. Like if you've been around entertainment, it goes that way more often than not. Yeah. That's what I expected, man. So I didn't tell any friends.

And I get on the plane. I go to New York. Do you think, sorry to interrupt you, but do you think that impetus, like I have to go, even though I have a final, was in part informed by this sense that you had made this mistake in going to Duke while Big Sean and those other guys were getting signed?

Like you didn't want to miss another opportunity? Yeah, I had a deal with myself in those years, which was if there's any scent on the trail, you got to go. So there were times where, you know, like the first time I was supposed to meet with Cannon, who did my mixtapeape I drove to Atlanta and something got messed up like the guy connecting us and he was busy and I went there for no reason but I had to deal with myself there was scent on the trail you got to go and what's the ambition level look like at this point then or now then uh hi well I'll tell you what changed it for me was knowing Sean.

Because I met Sean, and then Sean really got his deal done with Kanye. And he was going in the studio with Pharrell. He was going in the studio with The Dream. He was meeting Madonna. And this was a guy that I used to freestyle with. We'd go back and forth. and it's hip-hop. I always thought I was better than him. Not just him.

I thought I was better than everyone. And so this thing that seemed so far-fetched before was just, I knew it was going to happen now. I go, Sean did it. I'm next. It's happening. I just knew. But I tell him all the time, man.

He really changed my life twice. Once by just living his life in that way, showing me what was really possible. And then again, when he told me to read those books. Those books, right. Yeah. and then again when you told me to read those books and you know by living it in the studio that day and

so you go to New York to see Jay-Z and Sean he opened up so many a year before the Jay-Z meeting we're in Detroit and Kanye's playing Go In The Dark Tour and Sean gets like guest listed We're in Detroit, and Kanye's playing Go In The Dark Tour, okay? And Sean gets, like, guest-listed 20 tickets.

So it's like all of our buddies are there, man. Sean brings all of us backstage. And we meet Kanye. And then, like, three three months later Sean calls me up and he goes Kanye's playing MSG tonight you wanna come

Jay Z's supposed to be there I say I do but I'm in Michigan right phone is silent MSG Madison Square Garden yeah phone is silent for like 10 seconds.

I go, I should probably book a flight. He goes, yeah, you should. So we go there. I go to pick up the tickets at Will Call. I'm going to get back to the next meme, Jay-Z. Yeah, I got it. I go to MSG. I go to Will Call. I say, hey, I'm Mike, I got it. I go to MSG. I go to Will Call.

I say, hey, I'm Mike Posner. Tickets supposed to be here. And they go, we have no tickets for you. I go, dang, are you sure? Maybe Michael? No tickets for you. I call Sean. I go, man, there's no tickets here for me.

He goes, okay, just meet me at the studio then. I'm at the studio at Kanye. I go, upgrade? Thank God there were no tickets. So we go to the studio. It gives me the address. He meets us downstairs. And always in these nicer studios, there's a lounge,

which is like room for the managers to wait while the artists meet. So he goes, just wait in the lounge. So he goes in the studio, and you can hear the music they're playing. And I hear one of the songs I did with Sean playing. Whoa. And I know Kanye West is listening to this track, Who Knows, that I produced. I sang the chorus on, and Sean rapped on. that I produced, I sang the chorus on and Sean rapped on.

I'm freaking out because I know if he likes this thing, this could change my life for real. So the song ends. I see a bunch of people walk by the lounge towards the elevator. I go, I guess we're leaving now. So I walk, I follow him out. And Sean's there. Kanye's there. Sean goes, Kanye, this is Mike Posner.

He made the song that I just played you. Kanye goes, oh, cool. He gives me a fist bump. And then there's another silence, five seconds, 10 seconds. silence. Five seconds, ten seconds. And very courageously I ask, did you like it? And Kanye goes,

no. He goes, maybe it could be for Lupe. It's not right for Sean. And then he said one of the coolest analogies or he goes I'm sorry Sean bumped it you said it I had to spike it meaning like he played it you asked me I had to tell you the truth I'm like and then I'm thinking like how did he think of that that quickly you appreciate the honesty like

on one level it didn't feel i want to be very clear it did not feel rude at all uh-huh because you meet too many people and they go oh man that's so great smoke up yeah yeah it was just honest have you have you have you and it helped me it helped me um because i knew in my heart I had better stuff in me. And so we got in this elevator, and all I wanted to do was make music. I didn't want to quit. I wanted to make more. And that six months passed. I keep doing my thing.

I keep plugging. The stuff starts to catch on. Now I'm in the office with Jay-Z. Right. All right. Well, before you get into that, two things. First, have you run into Kanye since? To talk about this?

I'll get to that. We'll hit that later. Secondly, I think it goes to that thing you were talking about about showing up. What if he had liked it? That could have changed your life.

And the fact that he didn't and he told you still held tremendous value in pushing you to do and be better. For sure, for sure. But that wouldn't have happened had you not bought a ticket and gotten on the plane thinking you're going to a concert, but being led into this other situation that you could have never predicted. I was sent on the plane thinking you're going to a concert, but being led into this other situation

that you could have never predicted. It was sent on the trail. And so now I'm in finals week, six months later, I don't remember, eight months later, and I'm in Jay-Z's office. I got my laptop, I'm fumbling with the aux cable, I get that thing in there. I'm nervous. I play it cooler than me.

And Jay-Z goes like this. He just like- Squinch his face and shaking his head. Just- Like in a way that you're not sure if he likes it? No. You know he's into it. I knew he loved it. I knew he loved it.

And we had this incredible meeting. I felt like he really understood me. I was there like two hours, which in hindsight, I'm like, that was ridiculous. And I'm about to leave, and I just had this inkling. I go, can I play you one more song? He says, yeah. So I plug my laptop back in. I play him, who knows, same song.

And he went nuts. He goes, I can't believe you almost left without playing this for me. You know, don't ever forget to play that song. So I go back. This is the same one Kanye didn't like, same song. I go back to Duke. I'm back in the library trying to finish this paper. In a moment of procrastination, I open up my email.

There is an offer for a record deal from Roc Nation. Now, I ended up signing with a different label. Why? Two reasons. One, the actual deal was better significantly. And secondly, Sean hadn't blown up yet. So I look at my buddy who was signed to an artist as opposed to being signed to a major record label. And I thought, man, I don't know, do the artists, do they do anything or do they only care about themselves i'll sort of hesitant now what i

learned was later if you're signed to an artist and you sort of get it's like this with any label you get the ball rolling yourself they can add a lot of kerosene to the fire you know if you're signed to jay-z and you start blowing up he might do a feature on your second single you know and then bang kabang but it's a little bit of wait and see. Yeah, but I hadn't, it's like that with any label, but I just hadn't seen it yet. All I knew was my buddy had been signed two, three years, and nothing had really happened yet. So I signed with a different label, and we re-released Cooler Than Me, a remix of Cooler

Than Me. Big Sean was on the original Cooler Than Me, a remix of Cooler Than Me. Big Sean was on the original Cooler Than Me. And this song sort of explodes. And I go to the European Music Awards in Madrid, Spain. And I see Don C, who's like Kanye's right-hand man. And he's the man. And I go, Don, what up? And he goes, have you seen Kanye?

I go, no. He probably doesn't remember me. And he goes, Don, what up? And he goes, have you seen Kanye? I go, no. He probably doesn't remember me. And he goes, oh, no, let me introduce you. So I go to Kanye. He introduced me. And he didn't remember me. I got to just kind of tell him the story I just told you. And one of the things he said, even before I said the story,

was, oh, Mike Posner. He goes, I really like your music. And I knew I had done my job. After I got out of that elevator, I went and I worked. And I continued to get better. And it felt really good. That's pretty cool. Full circle moment.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes the failure in the moment is not really a failure. It's a step on the path to success, right? Right. I mean, you gotta be able to hear that kind of constructive criticism without taking it personally or letting it deflate you. Yeah.

taking it personally or letting it deflate you. Yeah. I mean, you're somebody who I get the sense fully owned the fact that this was going to be your path, had a deep, profound knowing that somehow it was going to work out for you. So when you're that rooted and committed, I don't know if you were obsessed, but you were definitely full bore, 100% headed in that direction. Yeah. When you're in that place, you're in a better situation to hear that kind of feedback

without it getting you derailed. Correct. Correct. So this song blows up. And does that change your life? In some ways, yes. And others, no. And I'll tell you what I mean by that.

It changed the things I was doing. So I'm playing concerts much more often for many more people. I'm making more money. I'm sort of parading around the world, taking my shirt off at shows. And unfortunately, what I realized, and it's such a gift to sort of fall into this kind of, quote, success at the age I was at, which was like 23. The ways it didn't change my life was it didn't make me any happier. It didn't make me any of the insecurities I had with myself. And what was especially disillusioning about that was I thought it would.

I thought when I get these, accomplish these things, I'll feel content in myself to a point where I'll actually be nicer to other people, but I just wasn't. Well, that's a shared delusion. That's an epidemic in our culture, right? If I just get this, if I can get this status or this thing or this job or this relationship or this bank account, then that's going to solve my problems and I can relax. Correct. I'm okay with myself. And I don't know that you can just hear two guys talking about that and believe them, because I didn't. I had to learn that myself.

And that's why I say it was a blessing, a gift. was a blessing, a gift. I feel that my audience has gifted me the opportunity to explore what life's about when you stop chasing shiny things. Right. Well, the interesting thing is you had the awareness, the conscious awareness to understand that the chasing was not going to resolve the dilemma. Because I think most people who find themselves in this situation, which is a quality problem to have, let's be clear, then perpetuate the delusion by saying, all right, well, I just need one more hit. Correct.

I mean, one more hit. I need, well, I got this nice house, but if I just get the bigger house, like they'll chase that to the grave, right? So to get off the train is something that eludes most people and it's difficult to do. So why do you think you were able to do that? I think I'm doing it still to be clear you know there's a there's definitely some part of me percentage that still does that still wants everyone to like me and it's upset when they don't and wants to see you out of the year so you're not enlightened you're not an enlightened being

i mean look you're we're humans of course, but I think the – I know for sure. But the honesty of that is refreshing. The percentage of that is lower each year, I think. It used to be 100%. I didn't have any awareness of it. It just – it was me. There was no part of me that was looking at this looking at this you know objectively um now i'd say i'd hope it's like under 50 of like why i do what i do well you have this huge hit and it puts you on the map but then

you have kind of a fallow period where you're trying to make you know more hits thinking it's going to be easy because your first one was huge so you've had the ups and the downs you know what it's like to to be in both of those places. And it reminds me of that thing that Jim Carrey has said, which is something along the lines of like, I wish everyone could be famous so they could realize like it's not the solution to what ails us or what we're truly looking for.

That's a great line. Yeah, that's a great line. He's right, he's right. Plus the irony, the irony of of the song that makes you famous cooler than me is this about you not being cool correct then it makes you cool it happened again yeah and it happened again you know so on my second big hit that i sang was a was about the fall from fame, which I thought was pretty interesting. I took a pill on Ibiza.

Yes, I took a pill on Ibiza. It's about what happens, like you're a one-hit wonder, and then what happens? That story's not so well documented. There's a line in there that says, I'm just a singer who already blew a shot. I get along with old timers because my name's a reminder of a pop song people forgot. And the song I'm talking about is cooler than me. But then there's something about this song that ironically gives me another shot. Well, setting aside the melody and the lyricism and the kind of beautiful technical aspects of what makes that a great song, great pop song,

it's the honesty and the vulnerability that I think allows people to connect with your humanity. Thank you. Again, and that's what we were talking about at the outset. I mean, that's a theme that runs through your best work. Yeah. And to me, that's not a departure from hip-hop. Authenticity in hip-hop matters a lot.

When you listen, if you think about your favorite rappers, they tend to be people that you believe what they say. They're not making up a story. Whether it be Jay-Z. Jay-Z says he never lies in songs, and that's probably true. And it's cool because there's authenticity to it. Their stories don't resemble my story. But I've always tried to maintain that feeling that what I'm saying is true.

Now there's some pieces where they're like completely fiction and I think it's pretty obvious when it is, but that matters. Yeah, I mean, how do you square it? I mean, there's a lot of fronting in hip hop too, right? There's a lot of chest pounding. There is, but if you think about your favorite guys, I shouldn't say, but I think about my favorite guys. Which are who?

I mean, Jay-Z, Kanye West. Now we're in a top five list, man. It's dangerous. Andre 3000, J. Cole, Kendrick. These are guys that are authentic. And if they're saying they drive a certain car, they probably actually have that car. You know what those guys.

You know what I mean? Yeah. That's funny. Which isn't always the case. Right. And this song, how many years in between the two hits? 2010 and like five or six.

Five years, right? Yeah, five or six. So you get the first hit, you make it big. Suddenly you're touring, you're traveling, people know your name, all that stuff. You get the dope house and the dope car. Was there a little bit of like, now I am going to be cool. Like, I'm going to play this out.

Like, let's see what this experience is like. Yeah. I mean, I guess i was sort of doing what i thought i was supposed to do which which is sort of i'm sort of ashamed about now a lot of like um womanizing um this is like wasting money on like clothes and shoes and stuff. Like I had shoes I didn't even remember I had. And at a certain point, I just couldn't justify it anymore. You know, just like how do I have all this stuff?

And like how do I have 200 pairs of shoes or something ridiculous? And there's someone within a mile from here that has none you know so i just i don't know i i i knew that making more more attention from the opposite sex more fame i knew i wasn't going to change my experience of life. Did you have like a bottoming out moment with that? Or was it just sort of a slowly arising awareness that this wasn't going to work? Slowly arising.

Slowly arising. And I remember I bought a van on, I think we found it on Craigslist. And it had like sort of a bench sheets in the back that fold out to a bed and a little closet in it. I just put the stuff in that could fit in there. We donated the rest. I just drove away. From all your shit.

I drove away from my house. So, yeah, like I just left and i went to the i went to utah and i always wanted to see if i could be happy without all my shit and i found yeah i can so i should probably stop orienting myself orienting my life with with money fame notoriety attention from the opposite sex as my North Star. At the same time, you were still writing songs, but they just weren't connecting in the same way.

Yeah, I never stopped writing songs. There's sort of a gap in my career from 2010, my first album, to my second album, 2016. But I made two albums in that time. It was just that because my career had slowed up so much that my career was really considered over by record, by just sort of everyone in the industry. Like music industry. Yeah, I was considered a one-hit wonder. A good songwriter, hire him to come in if you want to hit single or something like that.

But him singing, that's sort of done. And so I was making these albums, but they weren't being released. And I hope to one day sort of figure out the legalities and get those out there yeah it it feels like it seems as if in that period after that hit when you're trying to you know replicate that or just you know in this presumption that you're going to be able to you know create more and more hits you're fighting this growing sense that you are a one hit wonder. And it's only when you make total peace with that

and then do it in a public way that everything then shifts again. Correct, correct. It's like, you can't have what's next until you're okay with what's here now. Yeah. And during that period of time, is this when the kind of spiritual growth

is starting to take root? Like, what are you doing? Correct, I started meditating. And this book, "'Asking It Is Given," it changed my life. It's about sort of a wacky thing that people have a lot of opinions about by believing the law of attraction,

which is you sort of get what you think about. So if I'm thinking about, you know, my success is coming, then my success is coming. If I'm thinking about it's not here yet, I'm going to get more of it's not here yet. So there's a subtle shift in the thinking. Acceptance and freeing yourself from expectations. Yeah, it's just sort of like re-brainwashing myself.

It really was like a brainwashing where I had to train my mind to think of my career and myself differently than everyone else did because everyone else thought my thing was done. Each day I would journal, I would sometimes write the same sentence over and over and over again. I just got myself to take walks where I'm repeating the same thing, almost like a mantra in my head, like I will accomplish this. And eventually, I started to really believe that. And maybe it's happenstance.

I don't know. I can't say for sure. I don't have a double-blind study. But I know that I got my own internal dialogue to a point where just like the first time where I knew that was going to happen because Sean did it I knew I was coming back I knew everything was going to work out

Did you know Ibiza was going to be the one? No because I thought it wouldn't be the one because it has a drug reference in the title and the first line so I'm thinking

they're probably not going to play that on the radio No Yeah, but I didn't know. I knew it was a good song when I wrote it. I liked it right away. So this song, it gets remixed, right? And that was the one that goes bananas. Yeah. And this song has been played like a billion that's not an exaggeration like a billion times on Spotify it's something like one of the top couple most streamed songs in the history of the platform yeah at some point it was like six months ago it was number 10 all time it's probably been passed by a little bit

that is insane it's insane to me it's crazy. Like, how do you even process that? I don't know. I guess I don't really. Like, you started out at the beginning, trying not to really. Right.

You know, because my job isn't to make another Ibiza. It's just to make whatever pops up next. Yeah. Well, I feel like there's this interesting, I don't know if it's a trend, but this wave of artists, musical artists, who are kind of redefining what it means to be prolific and, for lack of a better word, like cool.

Like the old trope of rock and roll star parties, you know, ends up in the grave too soon. You know, the Janis Joplin kind of scenario is outdated. And now what's really interesting are people that are not only producing amazing art, but doing it from a place of elevated consciousness. Like I see you as somebody, are people that are not only producing amazing art, but doing it from a place of elevated consciousness. Like I see you as somebody,

you're like a spiritual warrior, you're on this spiritual journey. And the more you kind of raise your conscious awareness, the better your work is. And there's an infectious kind of spirit that emanates out from you, perhaps in the same way that you felt from Big Sean when you were making that.

And I see this with people like yourself, but like NQ is somebody who's very much like that, and I know he's your boy, but there's a lot of people now. And I think the public is embracing that and saying, this is cool. Like, look at these guys. Like they've gone through hard things

and they're not just checking out with drugs and alcohol and saying, this is cool. Like, look at these guys, like they've gone through hard things and they're not just checking out with drugs and alcohol and how many chicks they can sleep with or whatever. Like they're coming from it, from this higher plane. That's so nice of you to say that. Thank you. Because that's my aim. because that's my aim.

If I could be that for other people, if I give that gift that Sean gave to me that day, that's like my highest. Is that the mission? I know on your website you have like, you can click on the mission tab and it's like one sentence. Yeah, it's to enjoy my life and help others enjoy theirs. And in the meantime, be as kind to other people as possible that's pretty solid it's my mission yeah you know and i had this crazy moment with uh ramdas you know ramdas of course so a buddy of mine his mother was dying

and she had a relationship with ramdas they were friends they used to skype and they had a trip planned she died and my buddy says i still want to go will you go with me to hawaii to hawaii we go go to maui and we roll up on his house, and it is just beautiful. And they let us in. They start to sit in the living room. And he comes in on his electric chair. He's had a stroke. And he looked at us with these big old eyes that just said, I love you.

We could have been serial killers. And he said a bunch of words I'd heard him say before. But some of you, you felt it. Just the energy. You felt it. I don't know how to explain it other than it was a palpable physical feeling. And I left. I walked out of his house.

He talked to us for like 45 minutes, and he goes, okay, time for you to go. You got a healthy boundary. I just want to stress it. It wasn't anything he said. It was all stuff I'd heard him say before. It was almost like recycled speeches. It was him. And we walked out the door.

He closed the door, and I keeled over. He walked out the door. He closed the door. And I keeled over. He told us, you're walking around all day, and you're choosing and categorizing what to love and what not to love. I like this. I don't like this. All day you're doing that.

He goes, it's too much work. Just love everything. He goes, see, my much work. Just love everything. He goes, see, my friend told me, we need to love everything. And he sent me a dirty carpet. I framed it. There it is. I love that carpet. And he has a puja table, right? And he's got Gandhi and Maharaji and all these saints, right?

Gandhi and Maharaji and all these saints, right? And then it was a picture of George Bush. Now he keeps Donald Trump because he doesn't like George Bush and Donald Trump, but he loves him. And I just walk out the house like this is a whole different way to be in the world. Yeah, that's heavy the oneness like the just unconditional love for all and the interconnectedness of everything correct and i thought i didn't feel like i met some guy some like deity i felt like i met a guy who did the work this dude has been meditating and you know he's done the work for the last however many years 40 50 and i i just made a deal with

myself like that's that's what i want to be to other people what else do i have to do you know so what do you if i could light someone up like that, that's what I want to do. How do you practice that? How do you combat your own internal, you know, presets to override, you know, whatever judgments you have in order to kind of occupy that space? Well, we keep going back to meditation. That helps. You know, yoga helps. Exercise helps because they sort of like clear things out, right? You know, it's like, you know, because they sort of clear things out.

You finish some hard workouts, that's sort of like a reset, so you're back to zero. And then you can create your own story. So for me, that involves a lot of studying, whether it's listen to a lot of these guys' lectures like Ram Dass or Alan Watts or Abraham Hicks and Eckhart Tolle. I just try to brainwash myself with that stuff. I'm always trying to listen to that stuff. Recently, I just started this thing because I realized I'm always listening to someone's lecture or someone's affirmations when I'm going to bed on a clip. And I thought, I should make one for myself. And so I just recorded some for myself that are tailor-made for me.

And I know the things I need to work on. I still care too much about what other people think about me. And I know I can get petulant and frustrated and sort of petty at times. So I sort of made my own recordings. And I'm excited about sort of brainwashing myself with those. I like that. Yeah. That's cool.

What do they say? Can you tell me, or are they just for you? I think I'll probably release them at some point. Yeah, they just sort of work myself up into a frenzy. And I'm saying in first person. It's like I am right where I'm supposed to be. I had to live my whole life to get right here. The, the past is, is not a real thing that exists only in my head. And it, and it really has no bearing on me right now. What's moving my life

forward is my mood and my vibration in this moment. And that's it. And I'm here and I'm supposed to be here. And I'm a good person and I'm happy and I'm loving. These sort of things and it go. And sometimes I'm like yelling, I'm so excited. It's cool. It's beautiful. When I think of you and I kind of look at how you live your life and what you do, you're an artist whose work extends beyond just music.

I feel like your canvas or your template is your life and the performances, but the open way in which you share your life experience is like a larger, it's like expanding the aperture on what your artistic expression is with this canvas of your life and how you're living it. I just want to say thank you because these are things that matter to me, and I look at that the same way. I do feel like it's not just my music, it's my life. Like Gandhi said, you know the story? A guy went up to him on a train once, and he goes, can I have a quote? He was a writer, can I have a quote for my newspaper? Do you have a message? And he wrote down, I have a quote? He was a writer. Can I have a quote from my newspaper? Do you have a message?

And he wrote down, my life is my message. It's like all my decisions and this creation, my whole life, that is my big piece of art. And I'm adding a stroke or taking a stroke away every day. So I just want to thank you. It's cool for me to be seen the way I see myself. So I just want to thank you for that. You're welcome. I mean, you have such a charming, beautiful, like childlike nature to yourself. You know what I mean? It's like easy to be with you. And I can't help but compare that to the life of your friend, Avicii. I watched his documentary the other day and was very moved by it. And there's plenty of... Have you seen it? Have you watched the movie? I heard you didn't want to watch it.

I don't know if I can. Yeah. But I think what I took away from it is somebody who was extremely gifted and also just kind of an introverted, beautiful, giving dude who just had this facility for music that was unbelievable. It really was. Yeah, and I'm not steeped in DJ culture. I don't know that much about it. I don't think you really can know how good he was unless you worked with him like I did. Because the tendency, and I'm sure some of these guys do, they go up there and they hit play and whatever.

But his genius was in the studio he's writing these songs you know and he's making all the music on his computer right and his sense of melody i mean the swedes are known for their melody most of my friend made fun of me because i did a 23 and me and i have like 0.1% Scandinavian. That's what it is. They go, there's where your hits are from. But his melodies were just ridiculous. The melodies of his drops. And then he would write the melodies of the songs too.

And he was annoying in the studio because every little note had to be exactly right and he's always changing it. Complete perfectionist. And they have all these people like Wyclef Jean and Chris Martin and all these people are like, oh my God, you have no idea how talented this guy is. He's just like so supremely talented. It's all in his head.

He's got it perfect in his mind. And the process is just bringing that to life and trying to get other people to understand what he's trying to express. But in that journey, you know, his, his, like, his arc to superstardom was so rapid. And he was suddenly surrounded by this infrastructure of people that there was this whole machine behind what he does. And he was powerless to get it to stop. And throughout the movie, he's like, I have so much anxiety.

I got to stop. We got to can't, like, warning sign, warning sign, warning sign, warning sign. And still, it was so difficult for him to extricate himself from that. And I think most people would think of that scenario and say, well, he should have just had better people around him. Or why couldn't he just say no and take a break? And the truth is, it's more complicated than that. These weren't bad people that were surrounding him.

And nobody- They're doing their job. Yeah, they're doing their job. And they're not telling him, look, you can't cancel. They're just saying, well, if you do, this is gonna happen. It was a very realistic portrait of what it must be like to be caught in the middle in that situation.

And he did take breaks. And the movie kind of concludes with him on this island. And you think it's going to be all good because he finally finished all his shows. He says, I'm not going to tour anymore. And you think he's going to find the peace that he's looking for. And yet the depression or whatever, you know, kind of mental disposition that he was harboring, he still couldn't overcome. And I think it's informative for anybody, but especially someone like yourself, who's been in that situation, been out of it, is back in it. You know, what do you take away as somebody who was his friend and who collaborated with him and knew him quite well? What do you take away from how he lived his life

and how does that inform how you make decisions? The first thing I take away is actually not from his life, it's from his death. And I don't think it's particular to his death. But anytime someone close to us goes, the first thing it does is reminds us we're next. We're going to go too. And people don't like to think about that. It's one of the reasons it's painful.

And so his death reframed my life in that I know the time is now. We all got a list of things that we want to do when we're done doing what we have to do. You can't wait. It's like my dad is dead now. He can't do anymore. Tim is dead now. Now Mac is dead now too. I know one day I will be dead as well.

Before that day, I need to live my life. I can't wait till tomorrow or next week. This is it. And I have one of those infrastructures as well, you know, around me. And it's set up to maximize profits. So it's like you have a song. Okay, you need to tour as much as you can. Sell as many songs as we can.

And there's no one on the team. There's no like palliative member of the team going, let's do X amount of less shows to make sure Mike is good. That's my job. I think one of the reasons Jeff connected us was Tim's passing is one of the big reasons I'm walking across America this coming year. This was something I wanted to do. I'll do it one day. I got to... That's the first thing I thought, man, I got to do that fucking walk. I got to do that walk before it's too late.

What are you waiting for? This is your life. So now I got to have some hard conversations. I had to meet with my band. Say, hey, guys, we ain't touring this year. So you had a whole tour? Because you have an album coming out in like a week, right? Yeah, I'm coming out in a week.

So I'm supposed to do the tour. I'm supposed to do all the late night TVs. They're not booked already, but that's protocol. that's the way it goes yeah yeah and i have a hard talk with my manager hey man i'm actually gonna make zero dollars next year which means you're gonna make zero dollars how'd that go it's a tough conversation for him you know at first now i call him a day later i go go, where are we at with this, man? Because are you upset with me? He goes, look, man, I know you're making a life decision, not a career decision, and I support you. So he got my back at the end of the day.

But it's hard. It's hard because all these people are reminding you exactly like you said. But you could miss this opportunity. What if Coachella wants to book you? I don't know. I got to do this, man. This is it. I just wrote the other day, it's a lot to unpack. It's a lot to unpack. I can't put my life on one track. People say I'm giving up a year of my life to do the walk. I say I'm taking one back.

That's how I feel, man. It's my life. It's my life. I can't do what everyone else thinks I'm supposed to do, whatever. That's your life. If you're not going to take control of your life where you're at right now, then somebody else will. And like you said, you've got an infrastructure that would be more than happy to take the reins on that.

Correct. And so it's got to be even harder for you to put the brakes on and say, no, I'm going to do this other thing. So we should just say for people that are listening or watching, March 1st, you're going to walk across America. Yeah. It's going to take you like the better part of a year to do it.

Maybe a year. Who knows? Yeah. See how fast I go. Where does this, like why this? Like what is this about? Man, we all have that list. The same way a song pops in my head, I know I got to write it.

This popped in my head, I know I got to do it. You got to do it. It's instinctual. I know I want to do it. I don't know why I want to. I'm not making that call. I'm not deciding what's calling to me. I'm just listening.

I'm not deciding what's calling to me. I'm just listening. And is the idea to kind of create a community experience out of doing this, like sharing it, having people join you, playing music along the way? Yeah, it's like I know what's going to happen if I sit in the studio, make an album, and tour. I don't know what's going to happen when I'm walking across Arizona in 100-degree in 100 degree weather yeah but you're gonna have so many people coming out to walk with you yeah i can't wait i can't wait you know and i just got to a place where like i said tim passed and i was just sort of tired of listening to all these great podcasts

that you and and others do and um reading these books about all these great podcasts that you and others do and reading these books about all these great individuals and not doing those things myself. It's not like I'm marketing to myself. I want to be the person that I think is awesome. If I was not me and I heard my music, I would think it's awesome. Obviously I'm biased, but if I was not me and I was looking at Mike Posner and he was doing his career and then he said, you know what? I'll walk across America. Like me personally, I would think that guy is freaking amazing. I'm trying to make myself someone that I'll be proud of, you know? And then that target moves because I become that person, you know, next that I'll be proud of. And then that target moves because I become that person. Next year, I'll be that guy that I'm dreaming of.

So it's really cool. I have another line. I said, I don't know what I'll do when it's done. Hopefully, I touch a life. Maybe you could be one. I'm not walking to show people who I am. I'm walking to find out who I'll become. Yeah.

And as somebody whose life is your art, you have to live that life in order to have something to say and to express. It's like, there's no way I'm gonna do this thing and not learn. Oh, no way. Not learn a crazy amount. The best part is the unknown, like the absolute question mark of like

what's going to happen because stuff will happen yeah it's going to be this crazy adventure yeah i've just had some like emails with people who have done this and they go they'll say things like nothing will be the same after this or they'll say things like like at some point on this journey you will come face to face with the deepest depths of your soul. I don't know if it would be that dramatic. They go, but don't worry about that yet. So it's like, whether it's that or even 1% of that, I'm going to learn more. I'll have more on my palate than I do now, a year from now.

Of course. And I'm not retiring from music at all. It's like I'm even more committed to going out there, diving back into life, and bringing that back to my music. I feel the deeper the human, the deeper the songs. And on the surface, this may look like me attempting to drop out or escape from the world. It's actually the opposite.

I feel like when I'm sitting in a nice house and I get on the tour bus and everyone on the tour bus works for me, I feel like that's a departure from reality. That's not real life. I want to dive. I want to walk through all the smallest towns in Indiana and listen to people and listen in the meantime while I'm walking to all the greatest albums ever made that I haven't gotten to yet and come back and put all that into my music

well I know it's right because you just literally came alive talking about this man I'm excited and scared and the irony is that this is probably going to be the best marketing tool for the album. Like you said, you know, like, hey, you do Fallon, you do this, you go on this late night show, then you do, this is the tour that you do. You're doing something completely different. But I think that's interesting. And I think people are going to be interested in following that journey and i think it's just going to create a groundswell of of awareness

around what you do it could it could not and maybe not who cares but the point is like it doesn't matter exactly you know and i you know i want to be honest too there is some part of me that has thought about that and hopes that happens like yeah like this will be my biggest tour of all time and screw you label look i did it my way and now i'm a big star um what is the label telling you actually haven't got a harder conversation than your manager yeah i think he had to tell them so uh i haven't gotten any calls oh man yeah i haven't gotten any calls. Oh, man. Yeah, I haven't gotten any calls. So March 1, but you're starting on the East Coast, right? Do you have the route mapped out?

I will in the next few days. Because this won't go up for a little bit. Yeah, so right now I'm looking probably in New Jersey. I've been looking at, it's not decided. So if anyone wants to join or follow along, they can follow me on Instagram. That's really where I am. I don't really do Twitter.

But I'm looking at Asbury Park. I'm a Springsteen fan. So I think it'd be cool to go there. You got to start with your feet in the ocean. Yes, exactly. It's going to be freaking cold. I plan on putting my whole body in. I love that cold water, man.

You do cold water? Yeah, I love cold water. I get in there. I have a house in northern Michigan. It was up there. Where in northern Michigan? Well, I won't give you too many details because I like a little secret.

It's in a tiny town. I don't want it to blow up. People knocking on your door. But it's an hour away from Traverse City. And yeah, I was just up there in December and I got in the water. It was real cold, but I love it. It's like 20 coffees to me. Yeah, man.

So that'll be cool. And anyone is sort of invited to join with some caveats. I'm going to be walking like 20 miles a day as I ramp up into this thing. Are you going to do it with a backpack? No. How are you going to handle the logistics? I'm actually doing this probably in the most pretentious way in that I'll have an RV that goes ahead of me and one person with me.

That allows me to do a couple of things. One, allows me to go faster because I'm not carrying as much stuff. Two, I can bring more stuff like a guitar and a keyboard. Whereas if I'm pushing a cart, most people don't do a backpack. Some people start with the back because it's very romantic but most people end up pushing a cart because it's more practical um so yeah i'd just be able to take more stuff and play music and um have like my mom can come out for a day type of type of thing um i do plan on doing like at least two weeks of this thing with the cart like a long way up there so we'll see so impromptu i need to ask your oh yeah oh yeah yeah tons i need to ask your advice too about like foot care and blister prevention that's big man yeah because with things like this it's the tiny

things it's the details that can derail you. If you have the wrong pair of socks or, right. You know, your shoes get wet and then you get a big blister and then you can't walk. We can talk more about that. But yeah, you want to make sure you're taking care of that. But you know, if you have an RV full of stuff, you're going to be all right. You know, I think the thing is you're going to be excited in the beginning and you're going to want to walk a little bit further than you probably should each day. And so to err on the side of less is more until you acclimate and get used to it.

Yeah, great advice. Yeah, and then you'll build into it over time. But I'm excited for you, man. Me too. It's going to be cool. I can just see you like you're coming up on some little town and there's like a little theater that no one ever uses and you're like, hey man, can we use that tonight? And just shout out on Instagram and some people show up or whatever and you play and get to know some people.

We call those ninja shows. And that was invented by a woman named Amanda Palmer. Do you know Amanda? Of course. Unbelievable human and thinker and artist. Excuse me. Do you know Amanda? Of course. Unbelievable human and thinker and artist. And she made up this concept of the ninja show, which is when her shows would sell out, another good problem to have, she would feel bad for people that couldn't get tickets.

So before her show, she would tweet, hey, I'm going to be at this corner with my ukulele at 7 o'clock. Come, and I'm going to play. And she'd just go show up and play. And I read her book, man. I was like, I got to do that. That's cool. This is so cool.

So I've done probably 40 of those since then. I've played at the Grand Canyon where five people have shown up. And I've played at the school, like University of Dayton, where I tweeted, hey, I'm going to be here in like an hour. And like 2,000 people showed up. It's so cool. And it's really fun because most shows are set up to keep you as separate from the audience as possible.

you as separate from the audience as possible you think about the the stage itself puts you higher there's usually a barricade with security in between the stage in the barricade and even the word fan short for fanatic sort of like stay away from those people yeah sort of um yeah it um categorizes danger as dangerous yeah and that's how i thought about my audience until i did started doing ninja shows because i was i play my guitar and then i meet them after and it's just people like you and me like we both have artists that we love and we listen to. And like, for whatever reason, I'm that artist for them, which is so cool. And I know what that's like, because I have artists like that, you know? One of them is Kanye West. And music is about connection.

Correct. And yeah, I just stopped thinking about these. You know that saying, like, I'd never want to be in a club that I was allowed into? It's sort of like that, where there was earlier in my life more of an underlying sense of unworthiness. Like, there must be something wrong with you if you like me this much. But no, there's nothing wrong with me or them. It's just they connect with my music. So that was, it was really cool doing those shows, and I'm excited about doing tons more of them.

Are you going to do, you should document, you're going to have like a documentary crew with you? Because this idea of going across America and connecting with this country, I think it'd be a powerful narrative. I honestly have enough on my plate right now, logistically figuring out how me and one person with me are going to do this thing. So only one other person is going to be in the RV?

It will be with me, and it'll cycle. It won't be the same person the whole way. But my plan is sort of announce this thing, and if anyone wants to shoot me, they're welcome to. But I don't really want to be like executive producing that. I'm on the way, man. You know, I don't want to have a big crew. It would take you out of being present for the experience, which is the whole point of it. And I don't want to have a big crew. It would take you out of being present for the experience,

which is the whole point of it. And I don't want to be managing a lot of people. Yeah. I just want to walk. You're friends with Jed Jenkins probably, aren't you? No, but I want to be. Oh, really? Yeah.

I can't believe you don't know him. I would have thought you guys were tight. I know of him. Yeah. But his experience from that bike ride, you should definitely connect i haven't read his book either i heard it's incredible yeah it's great i heard his writing is he's a beautiful writer yeah he's a great writer yeah you should definitely read that book

um i'm amazed that you guys aren't connected i'm happy to connect you please do man yeah i'm sure he'll help me a lot. Cool. So let's wrap this up. If we could close it down with a few words of wisdom for somebody who's out there who aspires to give voice to their creative muse, perhaps somebody who's a little frustrated or stymied, doesn't know how to take that first step. Yeah. What is some inspiration or some tools that you've used that have been helpful in bringing truth to your expression? Being an artist is a really simple job.

And this goes for any medium, writer, painter, musician, your job is to create the art that you want to be in the world, the art that you want to exist. And how do you define art and artist? Anyone doing something creative, you know? I think. I don't know. But yeah, you're asking about someone who's looking for their muse. And what gets in the way of the muse is when we start worrying about what other people

will think. Even one extra person is too many. If I think about what Rich, will he like this song? It will mess my process up. All I can do is create the stuff that I want to be created, the stuff I want to exist. It's a beautiful job. You get to tailor make things for you, beautiful things that are that are made to your exact preferences and no one else can do it except you and so it's just it's very simple um that coming back to that has helped me every album you know um and i think i heard it i don't i didn't make that up. I heard it from Maria Popova from Brain Pickings. Brain Pickings, yeah.

Just make what you want to be made. That's it. So we could zoom out. Just do what you want to be done in your life. That's it. It's your life. It's your creation. Go get it.

No one else can do it for you. If you don't do that thing, it just won't happen. If you don't write that song, that song won't get written. No one else can do it for you. It sounds so simple. It is simple. It is simple. It's easy to lose track of that, but I think it is pretty simple to come back to that.

I've told big name artists that. They're in the throes of an album and they're confused and they have too many songs. It's like, what do you like? What are you trying to say? I just tell them that and they go, it's like they took a dip in the cold lake, man. Like, wow. And it's for myself too. Yeah.

dip in the cold lake right and like and it's for myself too yeah being honest with yourself about who you are what it is that you want to say i think it requires a level of like self-integration self-understanding that comes with the meditation and all these other practices that you've been doing they They don't hurt. Cool. Well, you're a beautiful man, Mike Posner. Thank you. Thank you. You are too, man. And I didn't even get to ask you any questions. No, it's not about me, man.

It's about you today. I love everything that you are and do. And I wish you only the best, most incredible experience on this walk. Thank you, man. I'm so excited for you. I'll wish you only the best, most incredible experience on this walk. Thank you, man. I'm so excited for you. I'll see you at the end. With all the, I don't know, man. I think I might have to come and join you first.

You are super invited. It sounds amazing. You are super invited. And you're a beautiful soul and I appreciate your art and your artistry and the spirit with which you share your gift. Thank you. Because you are a gifted man. Thank you.

And the way in which you're so free with this gift, with humanity, I think is something really special. So thanks for coming and sharing with me today. I appreciate that. What else do we have to do? I don't know. That's it, man. Life is short, brother.

Yeah. Cool. So if people want to connect with you, you're easy to find on the internet. It's all Mike Posner. P-O-S-N like Nancy E-R.

Spotify, Instagram, your website. MikePosner.com. You're going to have the map there, right? I'll have the map. I would say if people really want to join up, probably the best place is Instagram. I think I'll be most sort of active.

And perhaps my website will probably pull from there. And also, yeah, be ready if you really want to walk too. You know, like if you can't walk a mile, don't come try to walk with me, you know? This is for real. This is for real. This is for real. And there's some other things I have on my site, you know,

is that I'm not, this isn't like a catered event either. You know, it's like if you want to come for more than a day, you got to figure that out on your own. Right. You can't take that burden on other people. No, your food or whatever. And I'll say if you want to walk with me, no drugs or alcohol. We're rolling into, as guests, into tiny towns,

and I got no interest in sort of babysitting drunk people or high people clean living clean living that's right let's do this ritual reimagining the rock star life there you go bro um well you're gonna have to come back uh when the walk is done and tell me about it that would be so cool man cool maybe like the next day yeah it's straight here dude the today show is calling forget it what if i get here like on the way for sure man pass right pass right by here i think i'll be crying that's good man people have cried on this show i think i'll be good all right dude peace much love peace I love that guy. I told you, right?

I told you you would fall in love with him. Unbelievable. What a beautiful, fantastic soul overflowing with love and positivity. Do me a favor, hit Mike up on Instagram or Twitter at Mike Posner. Let him know what you thought of today's conversation. Keep an eye out for his impending upcoming walk

across America. Mike has had to postpone the start date of this walk a couple of times due to an injury in his foot. I emailed him the other day to see if there was an update on the specific date that he was gonna launch this thing. He basically said he's day-to-day awaiting the final approval of his physical therapist and his orthopedist.

So I think it's gonna start soon because he's itching to make it happen, but he has not officially announced the date. So just check in with him on Instagram. I think it's probably the best way to stay on top of that and to get updates if you wanna to join him along the way. If you are struggling with your diet, if you are truly desiring finally in 2019 mastering your plate, but you feel like, I don't really have that much skill in the kitchen. I don't have a lot of

time. I can't stress enough how much I know for a fact our Plant Power Meal Planner can help you. It truly is an extraordinary product. We work very hard to create, and it solves a very basic problem, making nutritious eating convenient, delicious, and affordable. When you sign up at meals.richroll.com, you'll get access to thousands of delicious and easy-to-prepare plant-based recipes.

Everything's totally customized based on your personal preferences with unlimited grocery lists, grocery delivery in most metropolitan areas, and a team of expert nutrition coaches at the ready to guide you seven days a week to answer all of your questions. It's all available for just $1.90 a week

when you sign up for a year, which is literally the price of a cup of coffee. And right now we have a special offer, a deal $20 off when you sign up for a year, which is literally the price of a cup of coffee. And right now we have a special offer, a deal $20 off when you sign up for a year, when you use the code POWER20 at checkout. So basically you're gonna get this entire thing for 80 bucks for a year of unlimited access. Again, go to meals.richroll.com

or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, just tell your friends about the show or your favorite episode. Take a screen grab on your phone and share it on your favorite social media platform. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, on Spotify, wherever you enjoy this content. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you can support the show as well on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I wanna thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering production, show notes, interstitial music.

This week, of course, the music was done by Mike, Mike Posner in the middle, live from the studio, which is awesome. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin, who video and edit the video for the podcast and create all those social media short clips. Jessica Miranda for graphics, DK, David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music by Analema. Thank you for the love, for your attention, for giving me a listen and my guests a listen. I really do appreciate it. I couldn't do what I do here

without you guys. And it's so heartwarming to know that the content that I work hard to put out every week and my team works hard to put out every week is affecting and impacting so many people. I read all your messages and I greatly appreciate it. I will see you back here next week with another amazing episode with the CEO, the cosmic engagement officer of Dr. Bronner's magic soaps. You know, Dr. Bronner's, right? They make that amazing natural soap. His name is David Bronner. He is extraordinary. He is one fascinating dude. You're not going to want to miss it. So until then, be well, do well. Peace, plants, namaste. Thank you.