The School of Greatness - 3 KEYS to Your DREAM LIFE (UNLOCK Success, Health, & Connection!) | Steve Aoki

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Today we dive deep into the extraordinary world of Steve Aoki, a true visionary in the realm of music and beyond. With nearly 3 billion music streams and a Guinness World Record for being the "Most Traveled Musician in a Single Calendar Year," Aoki's journey is nothing short of awe-inspiring. In this captivating conversation, you'll discover the profound impact of collaboration on creativity and how it has been a driving force behind Steve's remarkable music career. If you're eager to explore more of Steve's wisdom, consider picking up his book, "Blue: The Color of Noise." It's a journey you won't want to miss!Counting nearly 3 billion music streams to his name, Steve Aoki is a true visionary. Billboard described the 2x-GRAMMY-nominated music producer, artist, fashion designer, entrepreneur, NFT futurist and Dim Mak Records founder as “one of the most in-demand entertainers in the world.” A Guinness World Record holder for the “Most Traveled Musician in a Single Calendar Year,” Aoki has performed at nearly every top festival around the world, including Coachella, Ultra Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Fuji Rock Festival, Tomorrowland and Electric Daisy Carnival. In 2022, Aoki also graced recent covers of Entrepreneur Magazine, Electronic Musician, and Adweek as their “Visionary of the Year.”If you're eager to explore more of Steve's wisdom, consider picking up his book, "Blue: The Color of Noise." It's a journey you won't want to miss!In this episode you will learnThe profound impact of collaboration on creativity and how it has played a pivotal role in shaping Steve’s incredibly successful music career.What being a 'futurist' means to Steve and how this futuristic mindset influences his decision-making and creative process, offering valuable insights for your own endeavors.The remarkable experiences and projects where artists and scientists joined forces, unveiling the transformative potential that emerges at the intersection of these two worlds.How artists and musicians can bridge the gap between science fiction and science fact, inspiring innovation and fostering a deeper connection between imagination and reality.Insights into the defining moments and challenges faced by Steve on his journey to global success, and how these experiences have contributed to shaping his character and resilience.Buy Steve’s book - Blue: The Color of NoiseFor more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1523For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]Want more episodes like this one?How Your Beliefs Are Keeping You From Being A Millionaire w/ Alex Hormozihttps://link.chtbl.com/1324-podEmbrace Your Artistic Passion & Turn It Into A Full-Time Living w/ Harry Mack https://link.chtbl.com/1321-pod

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it and finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward.

This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life. 10 years ago, at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. The power of collaboration to get the best output for what you're doing is really about giving more. And also learning and becoming more of a student and listening.

learning and becoming more of a student and listening. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, everyone, to School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest.

We have the inspiring Steve Aoki. In the house. My man. Good to have you back. Good to have you back, man. The thing that I really appreciate about you is the way you think about your life, your career, your business through the lens of art and collaboration. Something I've really admired about you.

You know, I've, I've seen your stuff a decade ago. I've watched documentaries and seen things evolve. And, and a lot of it seems to be, have this artistic expression along with collaboration and obviously drive and hustle is moving all these things forward. You're like one of the most booked DJs in the world, right? And I'm curious, did you always think that collaboration was going to be a big part of your success and learning how to build great art with other people

and lifting others up as well. Did you feel like that would always support you in this career, in this endeavor? Yeah, I think when I think collaboration, I think of your contribution. And so this brings me back to day one for me. So when I found music as like, okay, this is going to be my life my lifestyle my culture everything but when I was like 15 years old that's when I understood this this this term collaboration but more this this idea of like how much can I contribute to something I love to this community and then it's a collaboration because you have to come to the table with something, right?

So if you're gonna collaborate, if we're gonna collaborate, it's not like, oh yeah, I'm just gonna be just chilling and you're gonna do all the work and it's a collaboration. Like the best collaborations is like the, like premium contributions from everyone in that group. And then you get a one plus one equals 100. Right.

But if everyone's too passive, then you're gonna get a one plus one equals 100 right but if everyone's pat too passive then you're gonna get one plus one equals two you know so it's like i learned luckily i learned this this idea of contribution how important that is to my community when i was so young really because because in the punk hardcore scene which is what the music genre i got involved in it was so small that everyone's everyone had an impact and we felt the impact you know how did everyone have an impact because you all had to like bring like two friends and you had to create the experience and the whole thing right like so you think about like this like the way religion works way like you know sports work whatever communities are there that have like you know strong sense of

like oh i i you know i want to be part of it this kind of feeling of bonding it's all based on like how do you spread the message how did you get people to understand what you believe in is so strong like i i believe in this so strongly i'm going to knock on every door and tell everyone about the word of jesus christ or whatever it might be so very similar to that with this scene our scene's so small there's only like a few kids i remember there's like five kids in my high school that listen to this music and no one get gets it because it's screaming music and scratching guitars yeah but like once you feel you're like oh this is like this is changing my life i just want to like figure out how do you get the message out you have to write a zine you have to interview bands you have to put

on shows in like abandoned warehouses you have to um start a band because you can because there's no one else like else doing it you have to learn music you have like it's all these things it's like you're not you're no longer a passive participant and this is like the main differential i think is when i listened to music before then i was i was a passive participant like listening oh this is cool i'm like i love these lyrics i'm gonna sing the songs i'm you know i like this band or this group to like being a creator in the space because you now have an impact like when i make a zine at kinko's and i'm like putting my stuff together and my poetry and putting this in and i give it to someone it actually people are going to care about it because there's not many people

doing it right so it was like at that point i was lucky to have this kind of onboarding into contributing. And then that essentially that's collaboration. So like the more you contribute, that's actually a quality service or quality thing that's like actually impacting your liberal culture. You once you feel it resonates with you, then you want to do it again in a different means. You know, like I first started doing Xena and I see a band i'm like oh i could do that too i want to like pick up guitar and and with my friends that don't know how to play and we're gonna we're gonna thrash around and all of a sudden like we get good by the by the nature of just doing it you know and then that same philosophy has transcended in every single industry and every single evolution of my

my identity wow like everywhere it doesn't matter what it is it's like i have this ability to just as long as i have this passion to contribute whatever i know like my toolbox i can bring to the table and then also when you go into a collaboration when you contribute you can't be like running the show and trying to try to be like the the big man but it seems like a lot of people just want it to be easy they want someone to collaborate with them and them to do all the work the other person as opposed to also contributing. Have you always had that mindset of, I want to add maximum value to this collaboration or partnership, or where did that come about? Whenever you add the maximum value,

your output is going to be greater than what you think. So that's like, it's just, this is the kind of thing you learn early on. So once you put in all the time, then, you know, at least for yourself, you know, there's obviously like records that i've spent like a lot of time way more time than records that just like naturally flowed in is a very quick process and they blew up and they and these ones don't happen you know you spend more time on stuff it doesn't blow up yeah yeah exactly other things it's like one day and it's like the biggest thing ever. So like to manage that, okay, this is like, I'm going to digress a bit.

To manage that, once I started seeing that and it like kind of hurts your ego a bit, right? You're like, I spent so much time on this and it just didn't pop off or make the impact you expect it to make. You just have to, you have to like level the whole field

of your expectations of, I mean, back then it wasn't streams but you know download yeah whatever yeah whatever it might be how you indicate a success of a song i have to i just like at this point i don't even think about i mean we have this managerial conversations which like that's what the managers do is like how do you how do you make this record get more visibility or you know listenership yeah um but for me it's like i just need to know like in my heart like genuinely i'm i'm happy with it whether it gets like you know whatever a billion streams or a hundred streams exactly yeah and then you gotta love it yeah like. Like that's the core of it for sure. And then like in the, then I look retrospectively.

Okay. Then I could be strategic. But like in the moment, I don't want to affect my creative process. Yes. But retrospectively, I'm like, okay, this didn't work. And now I have to learn to pivot. And I have to learn to try things and that's the nature of being a uh i i guess an entrepreneur in many ways or an innovator is that you need

to learn how to pivot and and with culture being so unforgiving and so fast-paced constantly changing yeah and how how fast how fast the attention spans are going and and how and how fast the attention spans are going and how, you know, you have to be ahead. You have to constantly reinvent yourself and pivot fast. So, and it's why it's never, it's a very tiring, it can be very tiring as a creator

because you can't just like rest on your laurels or you can't do the same wheel that you've already created. You have to, I mean, you have like this general wheel of how you do things already created you have to i mean you have like this general like general wheel of how you do things but you have to constantly like change change the parts this is fascinating stuff man i want to continue on this conversation about collaboration because i feel like there's a lot of people and i grew up in the sports world playing sports and it was a

lot about competition it was like you need to win in order to succeed. There's a winner and there's a loser. Sure, you need to collaborate with your teammates, but you're always trying to beat someone. And I took that into my kind of entrepreneurial journey after sports in my mid to late 20s, where I was very competitive, win, lose. And I realized that that got me success success but it left me feeling very unfulfilled and about 10 years ago i realized that's not how i want to be anymore so everything became about collaboration right became about how can i interview someone else and make it about them not make it about me how can i elevate other people and collaborate but it seems to be like a lot of people in business in music in the arts are still there's still a competitive mindset in the world for a lot of people in business in music and the arts are still there's still a competitive

mindset in the world for a lot of people not everyone yeah um why do you think so many people are still in a competitive mindset in different industries as opposed to in this collaborative mindset like you've been so i before we get to that i I do like this thing you're saying like how you would like to elevate who you're interviewing it's like this collaboration is more about elevating someone else so that really is the magical sauce in the studio so when I'm in the studio with with an artist that comes you know now they end up coming to my house or because my studio is in my house um and i have a studio here in la actually i did i did some legendary sessions here in la um and it's still here so i have a studio here and i have studio in vegas but in any case the i think the magical dust in this whole

thing is is like to elevate them you know it's not about me like they they're already coming to me that's already enough they already know that like that that they were like i want to work with that steve aoki like power production whatever it is that they come for so i like i don't need to i don't need to flex or do anything i'm i'm gonna do it anyways right you're gonna have your moment i'm gonna do it i'm like i don't need to show it it's about about like empowering them and giving them center stage and giving them this feeling of what you're talking about. This, this, this, like, like, this is about you letting them shine. Yeah. I want to let you shine. And then we could decide how we want to take it. What direction, what emotion, what, like, you know, are we going to go more in your lane? Are we going to go more in my lane? Are we going to take a whole new different lane? You know, and that's, that you find out later on. Once the creative process is going, like, oh, actually, we're going to go more this direction.

Because that flow is more reminiscent of this. And now we want it to resonate with people here. Right. So it's, I think that's like um the power of collaboration to get the the best output for what you're doing is really is really about giving more and also learning and be becoming more of a student and listening so yeah i mean it is a power of contribution what you're contributing but when you've already kind of made it you don't need to show that because you're going to contribute anyways yes so by the track record you're like this this particular person you could tell they contributed plenty

they you know that their pattern is to contribute contribute at the maximum level right you want to work with those people yes because you've already seen the track record yeah so like i want to work with those people. Yes. Because you've already seen the track record. Yeah. So like I want to work with them. And then when you're in the studio, then the human to human connection starts. Right. And if you're like overpowering, you're going to take away their creative

space. Like I'm here to like let you shine. And the more and more they feel that and the more environment I give them to be in that zone as it's them. That's beautiful. Then, then the magic will happen. But you have like, it takes time to get there sometimes. Yes.

Sometimes it takes a whole like two sections. Right. Sometimes it's like immediate, you know, it's just, you just don't know because everyone's different. Different process for everyone. You just don't know because everyone's different. Different process for everyone. Do you feel like if you had more of a competitive mindset for the last, you know, since you started in this industry, if you were more like, I'm going to hoard my secrets

and my talents and my skills, and I'm going to make it all about me, and I'm going to try to, you know, build this thing about me and only me, and kind of, you know, work with some people here and there, but really working with people to build my platform more as opposed to shared collaboration. Do you feel like you'd be more successful financially or have more of an audience if

you made it more about you this? I don't think so. I think, yeah, I think if you hoard too much, I mean, the world loves like this transparency, you know, it's like, and like now the way, the way the world is, it's like, like they want to see all of it, you know? So if you're hoarding and you're like, I mean, there's like, there's no real secrets though. You know, of course, like, yeah, yeah. Like, you know know it's a secret sauce to pizza and like the sauces and the secret you know like yeah of course it tastes a little different but like the ingredients are all the same yeah you know music's music as it can be made differently you

know so at the end of the day it's you know it's like i i don't care to hide any of that because it's there's nothing to really hide There's no like secret in the cakes. You know, there is, there is a six page cake writer that goes, it's sent to like promoters so they have to follow because I need that cake to explode all over someone's face. Sure, sure. And there's no secrets in my production. And honestly, my music, I want it to evolve and change.

So the secret or whatever, the ingredients of my production's always gonna innovate and change so the secret or whatever the the ingredients of of my production is always going to innovate and change anyways and the more people i work with it's going to change even faster and you'll pick up ideas you'll learn something yeah right and i and i want and i and i bring in not just like singers to the studio or the producers i bring in instrument like instrumentalists like musicians i'm like i want to hear a sax player this time. I want to hear someone else. I play guitar riff.

I'm like, I need to get that played better and different. But here's the base of what I want. And I'll bring in a guitarist that's going to take that to the next level. Wow. Because at the end of the day, I have to remember I'm the producer. So as a producer, you're listening for what is the best of all the takes. And so the best of all takes,

you can't be selfish and be like, they're all my cakes. You know, there's going to be a better singer. I've, I've seen, I sing a line. I'm like,

I need someone else to sing it better, you know, or I have like a bunch of different people come into my house we do writing camps and take different rooms and and we build like the kind of like the mood board of what we're going for over the day but with freedom to kind of expand and then you know just allow everyone to be free and then as the producer and the A&R and the ear, which I trust that, then I kind of pick my favorite parts and then go, we're going to Frankenstein or Kampenstein all these together.

Kampenstein's cool. And comp these like ideas into one thing, you know, and then I go, oh, this fits these five different artists I'd like to hit up, you know? And then I do some outreach. Right. And then, you know, it's like most of the time, it's like you can't, if you hit up like, hey, manager,

can you hit up their manager? And like, yeah, they can, but like that usually falls on deaf ears. Like you got, it's usually artist to artist that starts the conversation because they have to really want it too and then they'll go all right team you guys do the work that that we started this yeah yeah moving forward it's like with me and podcasting it's you know probably 95 percent of the bookings are through me having a relationship sending someone a message a dm

yeah commenting on it say, I'd love to have you on. And then figuring out the timing with our teams of when this is going to happen. You know, most of the time that's the way it goes down. So what I'm hearing you say is that if you were more in a competitive mindset this whole time and hoarding your talents and information, you wouldn't be as successful as if you were been collaborating this entire time. and information you wouldn't be as successful as if you were been collaborating this entire time so i'm absolutely competitive right absolutely competitive i i like everything is a competition not necessarily with other people though right okay so that's like i think that's a major difference interesting so and i i compete with myself with everything you know and this is not

just like for music this is like my health i know biomarkers sleep scores everything everything yeah like you know i got my i got like all kinds of data like data is everything right so i love data in this regard because that's how you truly can better yourself compete with your previous self and you know i do my my my blood draws and just check all my levels and go okay i need a little bit more here a little bit less of this how do i tool this i that's a fun game to gamify how you compete with yourself is actually fun and it engages you more and and i'm a big I'm really big into gamifying like I

like gamify everything I do because it makes it more interesting and then of course you know you do something consistently over time it's no longer a chore right so I already know understand that you do that's your lifestyle yeah in the beginning like you don't gamify it makes it more difficult

whether it's like stop eating certain carbs to working out a certain amount of time to doing something that you need to do consistently that's that takes a lot of time or doesn't like meditation whatever it might be or reading a book or something like that or you could easily disregard it and carry on through your life and feel satisfied. But you could always be more enriched. Right. So I gamify competition with myself on all levels. But you collaborate with others.

Yes. I mean, collaboration is part of this competition. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So to be more, at the end of the day, I think one of my goals is just one of my consistent goals. I don't, I don't say it out loud. It's like unconscious.

I care deeply about being a global artist because I love touring the world. I love playing in front of fans from all different like aspects and parts of the world. Right. So I love that. I love that. I've been consistently touring and playing in front of, you know, playing all over the place for, you know, for 15 plus years. I want to continue doing it. So with that intention, the collaborative process is a huge part of that. You know, you know, if I if I like go to Australia, I'm like booking myself in the studio, you know, whether it's not, you know, I remember I did that.

I work with Trippie Redd there, but't you know i didn't work with australian artists but like my intention is to work with artists in of that region to like to learn to collaborate to try to you know build bridges and make new kinds of music and new kinds of art what i'm curious about is health and relationships with you because i remember years ago watching the documentary you had talking about this new obsession of health. I think it was like five years ago or something. And you've really dialed in the data, the measuring and tracking things with your health

over the last, I guess, five years. You're deep in nutrition, sleep, sauna, ice baths, all these different things. You've set up your life to really optimize health. But with 250-plus tours a year, how do you maintain that with all the travel? For me, when I'm traveling, I'm like, man, it's hard on the body. It is true.

I'm a big guy. Even if you've got a private jet, it's still like, man, just being up in the air yeah feeling bloated or whatever it is how do you how do you stay healthy is the first part and then i want to talk about how do you keep healthy relationships in life while you're always on the go yeah so the health part i think it's about eliminating certain things so when as an artist you're pampered you're a spoiled little brat so you get whatever you want really i mean it's like you can just get whatever so like you could become a gluttonous human and just be like just feed me everything i want you know like you can get to this point so it's about not you know having discipline discipline is a really important key

aspect of of survival one and and figuring out what like you know what is healthy for you long term the long game because you know we all want to have that dopamine rush we all want to have that that you know luxury you know of of not, not being comfortable, whatever it is, because we have the means and we have the finances and we have the access to, to be comfortable. Right. And there's alcohol and desserts and food and you're throwing cakes at people and you have every type of sugary alcohol, gluttonous thing you could have at your fingertips every day. It's just, it's just easy to do to have it all and but it's just it's a disciplined game so like it's about like what's more important to you so i think that question yes you need to answer that question and have a firm understanding

of your answer early on and be very clear i think like a lot of these like self-affirmations and things like that are really important for any artist to be like, what is it that you really want? Do you just want to like live fast, die young, that kind of style and just like be gluttonous and just go through life. And then, and then, but you will be hurting later on.

I promise you that, or you're going to just be burnt out and not, not want to do this. Cause you're going to have that lifestyle early on. Right. Where it was like, I'm just going to go hard and I'll, you know,

just run it to the end and burn the candle on both ends wasn't that kind of like early on that that was early on yeah and then what was the switch for you to be like actually i want to live a long healthy life and not die young i think is um was after my father passed away in 2008 a lot of these questions about life and death and you know dealing with tragedy in a way where like death is as real as it gets and then seeing you know friends of mine pass away other djs pass away artists pass away it's like you could you could have it all and just die you know and then like that's it life's over you know or your career is gone you know like and

you're like how do these careers just disappear it might be of their own accord as well too you know you know what you know it could be for any reason but i love what i do and i don't want to see that end and i also don't want to die and i also want to make sure people around me have that same kind of knowledge base that i'm learning on how to play the long game. You know, how do you play the long game? Because you love what you do. For one, I love my life. I love the fact that I can do what I love to do. And so then it becomes an easier answer for me once I start putting those questions in front of me. And then because of, you know, where I am am i was lucky to get the access to like find out not just what everyone already has the access to because the internet is

open it's free to learn so much about health i mean a lot of what i learned about health is just like going on like huberman labs podcast or joe rogan or whatever these different like avenues are they're free and there's different people interviewing these experts you know you know giving tips on like oh this could help okay let me try that if it's like in my means you know i you know i was sitting with brian johnson who's like you know really studying his body on a daily, weekly, monthly basis on what works, what doesn't work. And it's interesting because he's like in his own space, like always, I'm not, I'm moving. So we had a really interesting conversation of, you know, how, what are the applications I could

take from what you're doing that, that like that, that for, for someone that's moving as much as possible. Right. He's in the same environment every day. You're in a different environment every day. So he's going to always have perfect air temperature, perfect water, perfect food, all these different things. Like, yeah. So his, his, like his biological age might be 20 or 21 or something. Mine's 33, which is pretty good being 45.

And I want to reduce that further by tooling and tooling and tooling and then keeping checkup on my metrics, on my analytics, on my blood, on my whole levels and everything. So that's where I really spend. And I gamify it and i have fun with it yeah and i spend a lot of time on getting the diagnostic checks i always tell my mom that she's 80 now like you have to have a really true sense of your diagnostics because that's the only way you know what was working what isn't working how to to like, you know, stop yourself. You know, you now with AI,

you can have these predictive models to, to, so that you don't get the cancer. You don't get certain things that, you know, will debilitate your energy levels or debilitate you and, and, and, and kill you. That's fascinating, man. I love this. Um, and I'm curious about relationships again, health is challenging enough being in one environment, but you've gamified it and you do the tracking and the measurements and then diagnostics, which is powerful, which helps you stay aware of where your health is at. What about relationships? How do you keep friendships, business partnerships going, intimate relationships going?

How do you manage to navigate that when you're always on the go? Yeah. Friendships is tough as far as like, you're always on the go yeah friendships is tough as far as like you know these long-term friendships like you know and and luckily i have a few that always keep tabs on me which like encourage myself to make sure that i am consistently building you know those long-term relationships and keeping finding time for for them um that's difficult that's like a very small piece of the pie chart as far as my time and then the majority of my my friendships are people i work with i think this like generally

just how you're around them all the time yeah i'm around them so the people i work with i have to make sure that they're great people but you like them yeah they're not just like great for what they do but they have to be great people because like that energy is going to sink into just me, whether it's my business or whatnot. It doesn't matter. It's just about me. You know, at the end of the day, we have to always work with people that are just healthy for you. And then intimate relationships. I'm single, which is probably the big deficit as far as my relationships go.

the the the big deficit as far as my relationships go i i've like somehow held on to some long-term relationships through my really intense schedule um but i'm like as you get older you you're you're you're kind of like what you're looking for becomes a little bit smaller and there's a certain it's the window is small so more and more selective yeah exactly so like it's like they have to fit in your world as much as you fit in their world which makes it even tighter for someone like me but i don't mind being single right now it's not i'm not like lonely and desperate to find someone i'm i'm very fulfilled in all these other categories that I think I'll let time eventually just right let it ride itself to to the right person unfold it yeah because you mentioned you know the the amount of love that you feel doing a massive show is overwhelming you know emotionally

overwhelming you feel it in your body you know you're emoting and expressing yourself in beautiful ways and you mentioned the only other thing that you get that from is love yeah potentially right it's like the only way i could feel that more on a consistent basis would be love or in a relationship yeah that loving feeling yeah do you feel like you're missing out if you're not having that love also with one person to celebrate all these things with it's true it's true like i do think about that but i i'm not rushing it yeah you know i think when i was if i was younger when i was younger if when i was younger for sure i was like i really need this have this person but then that becomes

more of this codependent thing that that i've learned to to you know i understand what the codependency looks like feels like and, and is. It's not healthy. Yeah. And like in a lot of my relationships, they were codependent. Yeah. And it felt so good, but I didn't understand what codependency meant until my last relationship where we got to go to couples counseling and really understand what makes our relationship healthy? How do we do we sustain through that? You know, and what codependency feels like, because I always ended up becoming that way. So, and once I realized that, then you just, you're, you have more self-love and you just, you don't need to fall or

rush for something that might be unhealthy for you. And luckily I have an immense love and relationship with my, my mom and my sister and my brothers and my, my, my, all my siblings. We have a great loving bonding relationship that I get fueled from that. And I see them consistently, like knowing that my mom is around the corner from me and from my house. I see her, we have lunch together, dinner, we, we, we hug, we talk and we just, and we feel the embrace like that. That's's already i'm so lucky to have that that's like a really big part of it's like really big core of my love bank so i'm i'm so fortunate to have that consistently that's beautiful man that's really beautiful this is

inspiring stuff man i'm excited about everything that you're working on and everything that you're doing i'm curious this is a question i've been asking some of my guests, because you've had a wild last 15 years. I mean, you've had so much success. We haven't even talked about the entrepreneurial mind that you have and the businesses that you built and the IP you're building and the fashion lines and all these other things that you're doing as an artist, not just in the music, but art and business and lots of other ways that you've done. But I'm curious if you could go into the future 15 years, you know, you've had a wild 15 years and incredible run, but if you can go 15 years in the future, you said you're 45 now, is that right? So 60, right? You've turned 60. And, and if you could just put yourself in that emotional mind space for a moment

and if your 60 year old self could give you three pieces of advice for today for everything you're about to experience over the next 15 years and again i've seen behind the scenes a lot of the things that you've done just in the last three years you know being in text threads with you and whatsapp groups and seeing all the things you've been doing the speed of your acceleration in the last three years has been astronomical you're also going planning to go to the moon at some point which i want to talk about that as well but i can only imagine what the next 15 years look like if you keep with this speed of acceleration if that is your vision i don't know what your vision is, but if you're 60 and you go through everything that you know, you're about to go through over

the next three, five, 10, 15 years, what would be three things that you would say to your current self to prepare you for what's to come so that you create the best experience possible? So you create the best experience possible. Okay. So the first one is, is, is, um,

you probably wouldn't expect, but this is what I'm going back to what I would say when I was 15, which is a big one for me. What's that? Wear earplugs. Like, and actually protect your hearing. Cause my hearing,

we talk about like biohacking and having like a slowing down the aging process and you know like my obsession with health hearing is a big one my hearing is like old as dirt like it's probably it's a 60 year old hearing at this point i have tinnitus i can hear ringing right now wow it. It's consistent and constant forever. So, and I've done neurofeedback and I understand like my markers and my brain. There's two areas of problems. One is hearing because it's like dominating my whole brain. It's so loud. Like all the time, 24-7. And it just gets louder.

How do you sleep when it's always ringing? I'm used to to at this point so it's like i did i live with constant ringing in my ears forever so it's just no way to heal it there's no way to know there's no way to heal it like i'm maybe in the future i'm hoping but at this point like i accept it it'll be this way forever because this is how it is and i'm okay with it once you accept it yeah it's just like it's like being in covid like once you accept that you're stuck at home you're actually okay with it like i love being home so i'm i'm almost like you have to accept and like love it like hey ring in you're cool yeah for sure okay so it's actually hearing though yeah so i i here's another

thing with the neurofeedback that i learned. So the hearing is an issue. My memory is also an issue. And I did a spec scan of my brain as well with Dr. Amen. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. Your brain. Yeah. So my, my, what do you call it?

My temporal lobes, you know, they're actually right near my area like they're like they come down like a helmet you know that area that's like kind of messed up and like you can see in the video near the ears yeah so i think that has a lot to do with like the damage to the temporal lobes is the like loud music and the problem i have is when I'm playing shows, I need it loud. I want to feel it from the inside. Like,

like it's so important. I can't just be like, it's not like I'm playing like, you know, music, listening to home cooking or something, you know, whatever, you know,

I don't cook by the way, but you know what I mean? It's not like, can you play it loud to the audience, but also have headphones and still be loud enough, but not damaging. I'm like blasting my monitors so you can hear yeah and i have earplugs in so like my god there's i know there's some level

of damage that's happening but i need to feel it so i'm blasting and putting earplugs in so i'm like cutting out the highs and lows so that's like issue one but my memory is being affected i think i mean if i'm not mistaken memory a lot of your memory is in the temporal lobes possibly gotcha i think i think that's what he said so number one you'd say to yourself protect your hearing protect my hearing and that's 60 year old yep yeah number two protect my memory which because like those are two uh aspects of my brain that i have issues of aging too right yeah there's memory you you age more right or that part of it just for i mean your life is memories yeah it is your brain is an

artifact of memories your brain is an artifact of your all your experiences and memories yes and i'm like neurotic about this idea of losing my memory it's like you know a kind of unconscious reason why i started my foundation to focus entirely on brain health because i want to find cures for degenerative brain disease for alzheimer's also to do some really interesting like science fiction kind of stuff um because a lot of that stems with from one our imagination right true and two is a lot of it's like if we can understand how the brain works we're going to be able to do things that are extraordinary you know and we're doing it right now there's like certain things that are happening in you know in the labs and in real life that aren't really being discussed that are very science fiction based but regardless um i'd say like those two okay and the third protect my brain my memory

as much as possible by doing whatever i need to do that so at 60 i'm still i can remember everything 45 because memories are so important to life they are so important to life and like it's just like those movies you watch for like the science fiction movies like okay hey i'm gonna zap your memory of your wife and you could feel the dread you feel when like someone's gonna do that to someone as like a torture mechanism i remember seeing that i forgot what movie it was and he's like if you don't give me this information, I'm going to zap your memory of your wife or your daughter or something. And you're like, no, I'll give you everything.

You know, it's like such a big part of, you know, and then that could just naturally happen. Right. And you don't want that to happen. You don't want to lose memories of things that give you love and make you who you are. lose memories of things that that give you love and make you who you are so hearing memory are very important and i think the most important is quality time with the people you love because when i really break down what are the highlights of your life they're spending time with my mom my family my sister like and i

and i limit that because i'm touring so much you know so when i when i like i talk to my my sisters on the phone my brothers on the phone and we're all traveling doing things like some like a lot of things we say is like we have to spend more time together because life goes by so fast, you know? So I think like that is the number one is quality time with family because, because life is finite. It is. You know, in, in this understanding of what life is, it's finite until we, we reach this technological breakthrough point.

But as, as it is now, it's finite until we we reach this technological breakthrough point but as it as it is now it's finite and anyone any one of us can be gone and like we're like god the first thing you say is i wish i had more time so the quality time with the people that you love is the number one thing and then memory and then hearing wow that's good advice from 60 year old self because i think that i mean career, career, you're going to excel. You're going to succeed. You're going to fail. You're going to do all these things that you're going to do. But that's not really going to be like if I win a Grammy.

I was like, you know, that's like a career highlight, a goal of mine, get a Grammy. You know, it's not going to change anything emotionally for me that i'm like oh like i if i can say grammy or like having more more like amazing memories with the people i love i'm going to be like the grammy who gives a shit about this award you know like it's it's clear that you need like the the time you spend with the people you love is by far you know exponentially greater you've got some new uh music coming out pretty soon yeah can you share more about yeah yeah so here and you're touring as well and all these different things yeah exactly yeah so this is the second part of my um new ip called hero quest okay and And it's called Double Helix. And it's a full list of collaborators on there.

Like I said, Paris Hilton's on there. We're going to drop our single next month. I have a song with a country singer named Ernest who's incredible.

It's a really great song. Really excited to drop that. New song with Dana Paola from Mexico. We're dropping that on the 29th right before the canela fight very cool i think she's gonna be out there too so we're gonna be able to do some fun stuff around our single okay in vegas every album i do is just tons of different

collaborations latin i got gracie on on the album too she's a colombian artist um you know like i dropped a bunch of singles already um and it's a the continuation to the hero quest story so what's exciting to announce with this one is uh for the first album i dropped a cd which i mean no one does season right correct but i i put inside a hero quest card that you open in a pack people got so excited to get these packs that the CD sold 30,000 copies in five hours. Wow. Which is ridiculous because, you know,

like most CDs just don't sell. So people were obsessed with these HeroQuest cards. And then I dropped like a second series of cards around the remix album. And we sold 30,000 packs there. So like there's this real interest in collecting this ip and and you know cards of the ip right is this the same business that you launched recently yeah the card business yeah so i launched um this cup uh i founded co-founded this company

called metazoop and it's uh we create our own world based on cryptids so like you know like bigfoot loch ness monster chupacabra you know uh grizzly like uh smoky the bear you know like like things that are made up by human lore like we just make up because we see a ghost in the corner like oh that's the ghost of christmas past yeah yeah exactly that's that's a cryptid so we we made a whole world of all cryptids that's interesting it's all public domain that's so cool and and then we like you know people that are like obsessed with bigfoot now we have 20 million of of the people that are obsessed with bigfoot might capture like 5 million of them or 1 million of them and they'll collect those carts and we we started in february 2021

uh with a kickstarter box with kickstarter and by december 2022 we already grossed like 40 million dollars in selling carts it's incredible building community you know once again the community is this collaborative process of of of how you can you just need to enrich and grow and really believe in what you're doing that's incredible that's metazoo and then hero quest is its own ip that that i created which combines music culture like my music culture with with like collectible card culture and creating a whole new ip of characters and this new album i'm dropping a book i wrote with jim kruger which i'm still finishing up so like the album's gonna drop and then this you know what's becoming to be around 250 to 300 page book that me and Jim are writing right now.

And Jim, I work with, he's an Eisner Award winning writer for DC, Marvel. He wrote Neon Future for me and Tom Bilyeu. So we wrote this together, the story of HeroQuest. And it's also coming with cards and the CD and like all kinds of fun stuff. And, you know, that's going to be like the entree or the onboarding into the world of HeroQuest. Now, it was all like pre-IP, you know, what I was doing before. And now I can drop the story. That's incredible, man.

Because I want people to read the story of HeroQuest. You get the album, the musical story, the musical album, and how it ties to the story. And then you get the cards that people love to collect. So that's exciting to be able to finally do all that. This is amazing. Where can we get access to all this stuff? So obviously when the album drops,

you can just listen to it everywhere, you know, on streaming. But the book and the cards and all that and the cd that's gonna i mean we're gonna have links everywhere in stevieoke.com it's like you know stevie.com will have all this stuff yeah yeah it's basically once you know once you follow me i'll see it i'll be it's gonna be out there you're everywhere on social media i love your social media content stevieoke on instagram tick tock youtube all these places but stevieok.com for tour dates the album drop for everything that you're working on the cars the fashion i mean you got 30 businesses it feels like you're everywhere so but that's the main hub where they can find everything exactly

yeah get on the newsletter see everything yeah and how many how many tour dates are you doing the rest of this year or or nights are you doing um well like this year i'll probably do about over 250 shows so yeah it's like it's interesting like since covid i thought i was going to slow down because when does db okay slow down come on yeah i mean i was doing 300 at one point and then i it was just literally like no time off but two 200 to 250 is like my my sweet spot because then i have at least 100 75 to 100 days at home which i love being home so what i've realized it's a mindset thing it's a mindset shift so once i i put my mindset into treating the road as my home and my home as my vacation, then it all works.

That's cool. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. I'm excited for you, man. This is, this was various inspiring to hear about your creative process,

your collaborative mind, and just the way you think about these things as an artist. It's really beautiful, man. Thank you. Um, and hopefully I can get out to Vegas one of these days and just come, come watch a show as well.

Yeah. We do the cold plunge sauna. I'm in, let's do it. I'm in. I don't know if I can get out to Vegas one of these days and just come watch a show as well. Yeah, we can do the cold plunge sauna. I'm in, man. Let's do it. I'm in. I don't know if I can stay out until 3 a.m. I might have to take a nap and then come for a part of it. But make sure if you guys are in Vegas to go watch Steve.

I think you're there 50 nights a year, 50 shows a year right now. So if you go there, look up if he's doing a show there for sure and go support him. Follow him everywhere on social media i've got um two final questions for you before i ask them is there anything else we can do to be of support to you today no i mean i think you know it's just i guess check out my social media i guess i don't know yeah check it out the album all these different things um i want to i want to acknowledge you before I ask these final two questions.

I want to acknowledge you, Steve, for your consistency and your commitment. Because I think you mentioned this. There's a lot of artists or just people in different industries, whether it's business or writing or music. There's a lot of people that don't stay consistent over time. They might have big moments, but then they fall off. Or they treat people poorly and people don't want to work with them. But I really acknowledge you for 15 plus years of consistently

showing up and adding value to your communities, to other artists, to other business partners and saying, how can I provide value as opposed to only take? And I think in the world of, at least what it seems like in the world of social I think in the world of, you know, at least what it seems like in the world of social media and the world of celebrities or big artists who are on social media, you can't always tell if they have the best intentions in mind.

And I really appreciate how you show up for people. I know you're not a perfect human being, but I appreciate your consistency over 15 years and just constantly showing up saying, how can I collaborate? How can I add value? It's really cool, man. So I acknowledge you for that. This is a question I, uh, these last two questions, I asked you about your 60 year old self on the advice you would give your current self, but I have another hypothetical scenario. I love for you to imagine that you get to live as long as you want and accomplish everything you want to accomplish. But it's the last day on earth for you at some point.

Live as long as you want. And for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you, all of your art, your music, this conversation, anything you create, it's got to go with you to the next place. So we don't have access to your content anymore. All your IP gone, but you get to leave behind three lessons to the whole world. Three things that you know to be true from all the life you've lived. And this is all we would have to remember you by are these three lessons. What would be those three truths? What would be those three truths for you? I love sci-fi. I was like thinking to myself in this this uh there's a whole new world of what where things would be um what would be those three there's three lessons

of truth that's all we have to i i well one is is to is going back to what i was saying uh the the most important thing is is you have to really really give the best quality time to the people that you love. When you give, it's so much more powerful than receiving. Because it's very selfish to give. Because it feels better. It feels incredible yes you know when you give something you could see someone's face light up with like like genuine joy and happiness it's the greatest feeling especially when you love them and you want to just continue this this like feeling

because at the end of the day that's like life you want to feel amazing in that in that regard because if you can go to sleep and wake up with that same feeling every day you're like what can be better yeah and that's free you know that that feeling of gift is it's a it's like it doesn't cost any money so anyone could do that you know just, just by just, you know, helping and being, being part of someone's life in a positive way that's fulfilling. So that's, that's, that's like one for sure. Um, I, I think, I think that's like, they're all, they're all there. It's like, one is that, and then two is going back to what we're talking about, the contribution,

like always give the most. Cause like at the end of the day, when you think about, um, you know, reputation, things like that, whenever I think about people that have great reputations, they're transparent. They always, they always like offer more. And, and, you know, like, you like you know like of course we all we get we get greedy we get selfish and we're like oh but if if i just take right now that i'll have more but if you keep doing that like you're you're gonna lose all like all your relationships right you know i i that's that's a hundred percent certainty if you think short term only for

yourself you will hundred percent have like no future in in with those people that's just that's just unless it's like a unconditional like mom it's like i have to like take care of my son it's like always just taking taking taking taking taking taking you know even the mom might get a little it's for you so i think you have to give maximum level of like you know give as much as you can on contribution so i think it's about maximum value of what you you put out whatever you do don't be passive don't give the bare minimum if you're gonna do it you have to give as much as possible yes and the more you do it you're always going to be someone that people want to work with you know someone that people will remember like like oh they're great to work with they're great that they they give

because they always do more and they don't want they don't want anything else in return so that that's actually a big uh thing to remember the people that give a lot and they don't want anything else in return so that that's actually a big uh thing to remember the people that give a lot and they don't want anything returned consistently they're like they don't they actually do it just to do it you know those people like you want to work with those people you want to be those people right that is like a powerful one is like giving as much as you possibly can if you are going to do it. You don't have to do it all. Like saying no is just as important too.

Like I can't give as much time, so I'm not going to do it. Right? So you have to make that decision. So I think how you contribute has to be the best that you can. So that's two. Yeah. And three, I think three would be on the idea of collaboration let's let's stay within the box here um three is having an open mind to try many different things and to learn and always be a great listener and

always be a great student to learn, you know, to receive, you know, and like really, truly be present in the, in the receiving side of things. Yeah.

And be grateful in that. This is where like gratitude will help you be a great listener. Cause the more grateful you are, you're, you're going to be more present. Because the second you're like, oh, I'm so honored to be here. I'm so grateful to be here. You are 100% going to be present. And you're going to receive everything coming to you. You know, the people that go to school and they have to pay for it are usually the ones sitting in the front of class right and they're like i paid so much money to be

here i have to listen i have to learn i i need to learn this and the people that like like their parents will pay for the education a lot of time they're they're like oh gosh be here oh my god you know so it's like if you you have to be grateful just to be in the room to receive and then you're going to be able to use that information to go to number two you know to contribute that absolutely to give the most maximum value those are those are powerful man i love this um final question steve what is your definition of greatness that's you is your definition of greatness that's you that's your whole thing right oh my god i'm winging it right now at this point i love it though man it's great yeah so i feel like stop and think because i didn't even like it's all good yeah what's the definition of greatness for you what

is it um god what's the definition of greatness like it's a good one this is a good one um i feel like i said it already you know but i know this is like you you need this one you need this one this is all you the definition of greatness it can be simple it can be short it doesn't have to be long yeah i know i'm trying to think because it's like it is like a important one you know i mean the definition of greatness is all also it's very similar to like the definition of success you know like what is success to me it's not it's not like up to someone else to define that success that's really important that's like you know i think it's like it's it's a little bit complicated because um i think what we think of what's great is always what other people think is what's great you know like success is always

what like society deems is what's successful what's great so i it's really about like how do i feel about myself do i feel great because i was able to accomplish these things? So it's more about how I feel. Like, did I do something where it made me feel great for myself? You know, whether it's finishing a song or it could be simply just having lunch with my mom. You know, like these are things that make me feel great today. Yeah. So I think it's all more subjective and, and, and it's always, it's always like, it's always a new challenge.

Yeah. I think that the, the, the idea of greatness is a challenge. It's always a challenge. It can never be within your comfort zone. It has to be not, it's got to be outside the comfort zone, but not impossible. So in this kind of like this area where it's,

you need to go beyond what's comfortable and into the zone of what's like attainable, but it's difficult. Yeah. There you have it, Steve Aoki. My man.

Thanks for being here, brother. Yeah, yeah. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad-free listening then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well.

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