The School of Greatness - 682 How to Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur and Artist with Humble The Poet

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

“YOU CAN RIDE A WAVE OR YOU CAN START A WAVE.” If you don’t know Humble, he’s a Canadian spoken word artist and music video creator. His poetry is so powerful, even Apple used it on their commercials. He opened up with me on this episode about how being from a Sikh background, and the racism he’s faced, has both hurt and helped him in life. He also discusses some of the problems artists today face and how they they can overcome them. I really have to say that this is a powerful episode. You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate it. His knowledge and insights are important to anyone who is on the road to greatness, and anyone who wants to be a leader. So get ready to learn all about the power of words, on Episode 682. Some Questions I Ask: What’s your original name? (6:43) Why is it a lot of people hope something will solve the problem for us? (13:21) You can’t see positivity? (25:46) Why did being a minority help you as a teacher? (31:37) Do you think artists can be truly happy? (37:45) What’s your favorite line of a poem you wrote? (44:30) In This Episode You Will Learn: How long it took Humble to transition from being a school teacher to a full time artist (10:45) The biggest mistakes artists make (20:37) The struggles he faced with racism (28:57) Why today belongs to the weirdos (34:51) How often he writes poetry (42:36) A poem Humble wrote for his father (47:04)

This is episode number 682, Poetry, Art, Music, and a Thriving Life with Humble the Poet. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. A couple of quotes I wanted to share with you. One is by Robert Frost, who said,

poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Another one from Lawrence Ferlinghetti who said, Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone. I'm curious, what is the message you're sharing with other people that is written in the heart of them? What are you saying? What are you sharing?

What are you creating? How are you living your life? And how are you contributing to What are you sharing? What are you creating? How are you living your life? And how are you contributing to the hearts of others? Powerful episode today with my friend Humble the Poet, former elementary school teacher turned MC spoken word artist who has created some amazing work, done a commercial with Apple, come out with multiple books, self-published that's now traditionally published and created inspiring videos that has reached millions of people. And he went from being a struggling, starving artist to figuring out his way and how to make a full-time living and abundance of income through poetry, art, music, and ideas. Shaping ideas into reality.

And I think you're going to get a lot out of this one. Whether you're a freelancer, an entrepreneur, a business owner, an employee, you're unemployed. If you're an artist, an actor, you're going to find so much wisdom in the words of Humble the Poet. If you enjoy it, make sure you share it with a friend, lewishouse.com slash 68. As I know, there'll be many moments for you where you might gasp, take a breath, and reflect on your life on how you can take it to another level to make sure that you write pure, powerful words on the hearts of everyone. And without further ado, let's dive into this one with Humble the Poet. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. My friend, Humble the Poet is in the

house. Good to see you, man. Yes. Glad you're here. Thank you for having me man. Of course. You are a former elementary school teacher with a different name. What's your original name? My name is Kanwar Singh. Kanwar Singh. Yes. And then you changed it to Humble the Poet in 2010?

Yeah, about 2009. I was flirting with different art names because back then I was way too scared to show my face and share my work. With your real name? Yeah. So I was like, hey, I'll put it out. And then I was in a studio with a bunch of guys. And I was thinking, hey, what if I use the name Humble the Poet? And everyone was like, that name is horrible.

Really? That name is too long. It's not going to work on social media. It's just a bad name. Nobody in the room had anything nice to say. And my attitude towards that was like, all right, cool. You guys don't like it. Let me show you what I can do with it. I've always had that problem growing up. Proving people wrong. Yeah. I'm trying to grow out of that now.

Yeah. You know that it's funny you say that because that was my entire upbringing was to prove people wrong about what I was capable or not capable of doing. And that fire is the second most powerful fuel in the world. Proving other people wrong, proving your parents wrong or whatever it may be. But for some reason, about four years ago, I learned to shift that energy into like, let me prove people right or lift others up. Exactly. And do it from a place of love and inspiration. It's way more sustainable. Way more sustainable because I was getting burnt out from that mentality. It took me to a certain place. Yeah. And I'm sure it drove you. It's way more sustainable. Way more sustainable because I was getting burnt out from that mentality. It took me to a certain place.

Yeah. And I'm sure it drove you. It does drive you but then at the same time you start to realize many of these people who you're trying to prove wrong, they don't even exist.

They don't matter. They don't matter. Or it's 20 years ago or something. Yeah, they grew up. They're not that same person no more. And it's that voice that stuck with you connected with something

that you believed in your own head. And you're like, okay, well, you know, nobody can make you feel ugly unless you feel it yourself in the first place so their words hold hands with something that you say inside yourself and i realized that where i was like it's not sustainable to you know prove many of these people wrong when many of these people you know they they weren't even that bad when they said certain things so even when these guys were saying my name, there was still some constructive criticism there. They're still like, hey, this might be too difficult to work with. But yeah, throughout my journey, people have given me couches to sleep on, people that put money in my pocket. And I feel like people have let me stay in their homes, you know, just like Lily.

And I was like, proving these people right will always keep my flame alive. And I think it's a healthier energy and it's way more sustainable. Yeah. How have you transitioned from being a school teacher to a full-time artist? Let's say because you do music, you do poetry, you do what else do you do? I design clothes. You design clothes, create love, don't find it. Yeah.

How do you make money as an artist and as a poet? It's an interesting thing that you ask because it's not every art will make you money. I think one of my favorite quotes is some arts will feed your kids, some art will feed your soul. So make sure you know the difference and rarely are they going to be the same thing. So for me, I think in the beginning. And if it can be the same thing, that's beautiful, right? Oh, fantastic. Then you've hit it. Then you've hit it, but you still have to be mindful that we don't live in this happily ever after world. So if you find that balance, balance isn't one time achieved, then you're good. It's always going to be a constant thing that we've got to focus on.

So if you are passionate and enthusiastic about something and then you find a way to earn money doing it, that's great. But at some point, it may still turn into a job. At some point, you may start focusing more on the process instead of the content. And I think we've seen that in history quite a few times. I'm trying to be very cognizant of that as well. For me specifically, in terms of making money, it was a hand-to-fist journey for me. In the beginning, I quit my job thinking I had a record deal. So I was working as a teacher. I was making good money as a government job. In Canada, they pay them pretty well. I told myself art was just a hobby.

Art was a way to impress girls. Art was a good thing to do after work. And somebody came to me with a writing deal that would have been worth twice what I was making as a teacher. I was like, this is perfect. Quit the job immediately. Didn't know anything about lawyers, paperwork, nothing. Quit the job immediately. Didn't know anything about lawyers, paperwork, nothing. Left my job. Moved into a condo that I had as a rental property. So I was a responsible adult before all of this.

I moved into that. Started working on this music. And then a year later, everything fell through. No money came. Nothing happened. A lot of it was my wishful thinking. Me having my blinders on. Not seeing the warning signs. Not realizing how shady the people I was working with actually were.

And then that's when I hit the point where I was like, okay, it's been a year. You are, you know, $80,000 in debt. You don't have any money. You don't know how to make any money. All your credit cards, line of credit, everything's maxed out. You're going to go back to work? What are you going to do? And then at that point is when my real journey began what year is this this was the end of 2011 and so that's when it began the journey of what i guess my relationship with reality so no longer was i

insulated i think being a student and going straight into a school i was working and living in a very safe environment as a school teacher. All your colleagues are on your team. There's no competition. You know, you're not being paid in comparison to anybody else. You're on a pay grade for your years and experience. Everybody had my back because the priority were the kids. So if I showed up late after lunch or something, somebody would be watching my students. So it felt very safe. You felt like everybody had your back. And then you jump into entertainment and the first people to recognize your talents are the people who? Were like how can I benefit off his talent?

So I had never been exploited up until then I was a little bit sheltered in terms of mindset in terms of trusting people So after I got that first burn it was kind of this I felt like I was suffocating on fresh air for the first time. Like my bubble burst and I didn't know what to do. And there was a lot of self pity for a couple of months. There was a lot of, you know, I turned to, my best friends were NyQuil and muscle relaxers

and I literally thought sleeping it off would, it would all fix itself. Really? When we have problems, we pretty much have three ways to address it i think we can most realistically humble ourselves take a step back and figure out the problem b ignore it deal with the consequences or c we pray for a miracle whether that's winning the lottery whether that's i think in terms of our environment that's hoping science fixes it all up so i think for me I was hoping for the miracle to come.

And what was really happening was I was doing nothing and I was digging myself deeper in a hole. Why is it that a lot of people hope that something or someone will solve the problems for us? I think it's what we grew up seeing on TV. I think everything was neatly wrapped up in a boa after 22 minutes. Everything always had a happy ending or was resolved. This is my challenge, and I don't know if I'm going to piss anyone off by saying this, but I see people saying this sometimes, using either religion or God as a scapegoat, saying, I'm going to pray that God is going to solve all my problems.

And I'm all for prayer, and I'm all for connecting to God or gods or whatever you believe in. But you also have to take action. You also have to do the work. You can't just say, well, God's going to give me the lottery ticket or God's going to place the right person in front of me. God might or the universe might, but if you don't get off the couch and if you don't start working towards something, then probably nothing's going to unfold you am i right yeah it's it's a popular notion where it's like give god the credit when things go well but then take the responsibility when things don't and i think that seems to be the popular notation and i recently tweeted i said hey you know for those

who believe what if you believe that you've been given the tools you've been given the gifts now you've got to use them maybe you you've got the hammer in your hand. Praying isn't going to get you to use it. The treasure is already right in front of us or it's within us, right? Paulo Coelho would say that in The Alchemist. Like all the things we have is right here. And we just have to learn how to cultivate it and use it. That's the challenge, though.

I feel like so many people are waiting for their parents or God or whatever to put something in their lap. And I think it has a lot to do with, you know, having these entitlements and these comforts. And I think that one quote about, you know, you don't know how strong, you're like a teabag. You don't know how strong you are until you're in hot water. And I think for me, I had to hit that rock bottom. And I know that one of the changing points for me was I used to sleep with music playing. And then I heard while the music was playing, and then in the morning, one morning, J. Cole's Dollar and a Dream Part 3 came on. And he says, he goes, what are you going to do? Are you going to grow bitter or grow cold? Are you going to rise out of this?

And that immediately got me out of bed. And I remember printing all these messages on paper and sticking them all over my walls. And none of them were like fluffy tumblr quotes they were all like sink or swim you don't make any of the shots you don't take you want a vacation go back to your day job you can do this show me what you're made of and it really was for me i talked to myself to like suck it up no one's going to solve your problems even if you didn't put yourself in this situation it's still your responsibility to address it. And I think that's the big one people need to understand is our problems may not be our fault, but they are our responsibility.

And I think once I owned that responsibility and said, look, here are your options. And a lot of the options, none of them were groundbreaking thoughts. It was, you need to sell this place. You need to get out of debt. You're going to have to move back home with mommy and daddy for a bit. You're going to have to lick your wounds and figure this out and build yourself back up. And the journey of 2012 to about 2015, 2016, that's what that journey was of figuring it all out. And I'm so glad I went through that. It taught

me what was really important for myself. It taught me how to live much more minimally. I realized most of the stuff I didn't need. Even now, things are going really well. I still live my struggling artist budget. Lifestyle, yeah. Yeah, you live that because you're like, oh, I really don't need half of those things. And then things start to find you anyways.

You start to get free clothes. You start to get free things as an influencer. Trips, whatever, yeah. Yeah, trips and everything as well. And then you start to realize like, wow, you know, I don't need a full closet full of clothes. I don't need 18 pairs of shoes. Me specifically.

A lot of people enjoy it by all means. But it taught me a lot about what was important. And I think the big thing what it taught me was the value of my time. How I spend my time is more important than anything else in the world. I think that's the most important. Because you can't make time back. We can always make our money back. And from that point, it was, you know, it was sucking it up, you know, lacing up my

bootstraps or whatever the sayings are. And I pretty much first identified the problems, which was I had a lot of bills that I couldn't afford to pay. I didn't even have the option of going deeper in debt. Everything was maxed out. I needed to liquidate. So I went on Craigslist and sold everything that I could. At that point, once I liquidated all that,

then I sold my place. I paid back all my personal loans first. There were a lot of people that, you know, they believed in me. Gave you a few hundred here, a couple thousand there. Yeah, exactly. And my big thing was I didn't want to be that guy who borrowed money from people and avoided them. So once I realized the situation, I called everybody and said, listen, I don't have your money right now, but I will get you your money.

I am not going to avoid you. I am letting you know this is my situation. And I owned up to it. That's the hardest thing to do for people. It is. It's to confront the people that loan them money when they've passed the due date of paying it back, it back right yeah it's like uh i don't want to talk to this person because i can't because it gets it gets a little bit awkward and i but the thing the truth was i didn't have any options it wasn't that i could have done anything i had to still figure it out i'm proud to say i

did pay everybody back and then eventually the bank got their money too you know they were last and i think i got out of debt end of 2014. So it took about three, four years to get out. And then I had fueled myself for those three, four years. Oh, it's going to feel so good when you have that zero bank account. It's going to feel so good. And then what? It felt good for like three days.

Yeah. And then you're like, all right, what's next? Now I got to make money. Yeah, I got to make money. Now I'm at zero. I'm at zero, yeah. Now what do I do? Now what do I do? But I think the good thing was whatever I did to get to zero, I got to make money. Now I'm at zero. I'm at zero. Yeah. Now what do I do? Now

what do I do? But I think the good thing was whatever I did to get to zero, I kind of maintained that. I mean, I didn't start spending money and buying jewelry and stuff like that. I maintained that lifestyle. And to be honest, by the end of 2015, I had a pretty juicy bank account from just, you know, small pieces of work. But what I also realized is all these years I've been planting seeds. I had written my first book independently. I crowdfunded it and I put it out to my followers. I had about 60,000 followers on Facebook back then. But back then when you had 60,000 followers, they all saw it. They all saw it. It's not like Facebook now where you can have a million followers and only eight people see what you post. But they all saw it. And I raised about 25 grand off of doing the first

book. And that really taught me a lot about putting myself out there, making myself vulnerable, asking for help, connecting with people. And I think that was the pivotal moment where things started to spiral upwards. From there, different opportunities came, meeting different people. And you start to realize that, hey, we don't need everything immediately. Like immediately like you know people may know we've been friends for a while this is my first time on the show but we've been hanging out and I think that's the important thing where I started focusing a lot more on the rainbow and not thinking about the pot of gold and really thinking that hey we need I need to enjoy this journey now while I'm on it and go back to what made me excited about it since I was a kid, spending hours in front of my computer editing videos with no audience,

with no idea if even I was going to share it with the world, and really just trying to reconnect with that person because that keeps things as authentic as they need to be. What are the biggest mistakes you see that poets or artists and creatives in general do? I think the number one thing is I think we have to be a lot more honest with ourselves. We can't start acting a little bit high and mighty and be like, hey, this is all about helping other people. Sometimes it is about us. It's about getting attention. You know, there is a business involved in this. You know, we're trying to get our followers. We're in an

attention economy. And there are different tricks and tools that you can do to get attention. And I think I'm not here to judge people for what they do to get attention, but I think it's important that they understand why they're making the decisions that they're making. So if I got a cool poem, but I'm still putting some girl's cleavage in my thumbnail to get people to watch it, I have to at least be honest with myself about that. Because I'm in LA, I understand. You got to do what you have to do to get attention. And I think often people reach out to me. They're like, well, I need to make a difference. I need to change people. I need you to help me reach a larger audience. And I think to myself, if you really want to make a change,

you can join somebody's movement. The fact that you want to lead a movement makes it about something more. And Tony Robbins talks about all of us have that need for significance. So I have compassion towards them for wanting that significance. all want it there's just healthier ways of getting it because i feel that if you're chasing fame just like when i was chasing being debt free i wasn't simply visualizing it i was emotionalizing it i was promising myself a certain feeling when i hit it and i can promise you and i know you've experienced this too we rarely accurately can predict the emotions we're going to feel when we hit a certain milestone and how long it's going to last. So getting out of debt felt great for a couple of days. Then I was back to the next thing, you know, hitting certain

other things in my bank account felt good. You know, I just signed a major publishing deal, felt great for a couple of days. You know, I was in Apple commercial, a whole bunch of things that happened. And you're like, oh my God, this this is gonna be the greatest thing ever and it only lasts for a short amount of time and i think that's really important for people to recognize if you put all your hopes and dreams into these big moments that last little little moments you know little bits of time then you're gonna be disappointed you're definitely you're gonna feel depressed you'd be like oh i thought this was the end all be all it's like the pot of gold but really as the saying goes it's all about enjoying the journey i think that's what i've

learned to appreciate over time is like i'm in the middle of a talk show that just came out yeah congratulations man that's really good thank you and it's been like a year and a half two years in the making you know so it's like you think when it launches it's going to be this like unbelievable feeling i did it like it happened and yes but also now's the time to work even harder yeah it's going to be this like unbelievable feeling i did it like it happened and yes but also now's the time to work even harder yeah it's out now there's a whole that's when it begins the journey the promotion the marketing the working to get it picked up all those things completely yeah and i think you also realize is your real reward in the game of entrepreneurship or in the game of living a life through your own terms, the real reward is

more opportunities. It's not a juicy check. It's not going to be a private jet. It's going to be more opportunities to do the things that excite you. Freedom, flexibility, all those things. Freedom, flexibility. And the real reward for me has been stories of people that are impacted by the work. And I'm sure you get that a lot too when you come out with a song or a book or a video and it resonates so deeply with someone's struggles or challenges and they feel either relief or they feel a sense of power moving forward or it helps them overcome something. For me, that's where I get the reward. Like that's more than the paycheck. It's interesting you brought that up because I think what you actually caused me to do is have a little bit of an existential crisis because after hanging out with you and realizing what happened, I remember once we were talking about metrics in terms of success and you said,

I want to see how many people I can impact. I think a lot of the content that I create around self-help actually came from me needing to figure it out for myself. So when I was in the dumps, came from me needing to figure it out for myself. So when I was in the dumps, I couldn't afford a fluffy Tumblr quote. I couldn't afford some empty affirmation. I can only afford to consume the realness and pragmatic advice. And as a student, as a lifelong learner, I loved sharing my notes with the world. And that's kind of where these books and my Instagram posts came from. They came from that space more so than a space of, I need to help certain people. I need to do certain things. And when you made that metrics, I was like, wow, Lewis, I need people to know Lewis really cares about you guys. He cares about you guys. You guys get them up in the morning. And I think for me,

I had to be honest with myself and say, I do care about people. I want to help people. me, I had to be honest with myself and say, I do care about people. I want to help people. But as I had to do, as you had to do, and most people that we know who are excelling at a higher level, this is only so much we can help. And people have to show them the door. They got to walk through it. And I think for me, I started to realize when I started getting these messages about, oh, you've helped me do so-and-so. It kind of, I'd already prepped myself as an artist to kind of have thicker skin for the negativity, and that thick skin keeps out the positivity as well. Interesting, really?

Yeah, you don't see the positivity? Well, I kind of look at the opinions of other people a little bit more as white noise, whether it's negative or positive. Because I grew up with racism. I grew up, you know, getting comments as, why is Osama rapping? What's happening?

And having thick skin in the neighborhood I grew up in as well. You need a little bit thicker skin. My friends, they're all jerks. We all tease each other a lot, what have you. So I think I always measure, even when hate came my way, I used to measure it through the wit. Like, is this a witty joke? Was I worthy of something funny for them to say?

So even when the positivity came, and I think when I was struggling, a lot of it had to do with reading a positive comment and knowing that I was struggling and being like, well, your love and affection and kind words aren't paying my bills right now. And really kind of being in that pragmatic space. Now that things are better, kind of realizing that a lot of it is a little bit more white noise than I want it to be. And I think specifically talking to you and Jay Shetty and seeing it in your eyes how much connecting with people has been fantastic and I was like wow there's so much more sincere and authentic in it

and that made me really question myself what I wanted to do and why I was doing it and I think it was healthy for me to be honest with myself about that and be like look I what keeps me going is the creativity of it the reason my content has this feel of self-help or self-improvement is because those are timeless ideas. The same way Bob Marley or Lauryn Hill or even the Beatles wrote certain types of content that it will stand the test of time because it's talking about the human condition. And when I first started, I was heavy into activism. And then you start digging deeper. You're like, okay, instead of talking about this greedy country or this greedy government, let's talk about greed. And then now let's talk about the greed inside of me. And I think I took

that journey a little bit more. And so I think, and I also kind of understood the idea that as an artist, once you put your work out there, it's no longer yours. So people interpret your work as they interpret it. It becomes theirs. It becomes theirs. And that has a lot to do with their context. And comedians have talked about it. If a comedian makes a joke about rape or murder, for example, if somebody in the audience has experienced that, they're not going to enjoy that conversation as much as other people. So you realize that I'm only half the conversation. Once I'm out there, once my words are out there, I can't take them back and I can't control it. So I think I've kind of had a little bit of a divorce

from my work and the audience in that context. And I was like, hey, you know what, let me continue to learn and continue to share, but I don't think, you know, the messages that I get, and I'm grateful for them, and I do, I just got a message yesterday saying, you know, I wanted to harm myself and your words stopped me from doing so. When I was younger, I wanted to harm myself too,

and it was somebody else's words that did it. So I guess I feel like I'm just part of a grander system, and I want to help people, but I think on a selfish level, it's really about the creativity, learning new things, the access to really cool people that this life affords me, and adding value, and I think adding value whether people see it today or not because for a long time nobody was seeing what I was doing and I had to keep going.

And I think I'm trying to maintain that mindset. That's great. Do you face a lot of challenges and struggles with racism or based on the way you look or anything, your appearance for people? I mean overall I want to say yes but it's been such a double-edged sword. Growing up, it was a lot more difficult, but I think it definitely built character, and I'm glad it happened.

I think. And for those that aren't watching the YouTube video. Oh, I have a very juicy beard, and I wear a turban. And I know I am Punjabi, which is North Indian. And a lot of people think that I'm Middle Eastern or Muslim, which I'm not. So I'm part of Sikh heritage. Sikh means student. Sikh, right? It's Sikh. A lot of people say Sikh.

But it's spelled... S-I-K-H. S-I-K-H. Yeah. Sikh is how you... Sikh. Yeah. So Sikh in Punjabi means to learn. So a Sikh is a student. We represent 2% of India and we're a martial group of people. We have a philosophy of chasing the truth,

understanding yourself, understanding everybody as one and pretty much we're considered saint soldiers so we're not the most passive people. We have to learn martial arts. We're not the most passive aggressive individuals but it's been a cool journey. And so kind of realizing that, you know, coming out to L.A. and learning words like safe space, I grew up where we thrive in the opposite. You know, we've always been that. So I'm the minority in my home country where my parents, I was born in Canada, but I'm the minority in Toronto.

I'm a minority where my parents were born in Punjab. I'm a minority anywhere I go. So that's been my reality. I couldn't even imagine being in a world where I was part of the majority. And I think... How does it feel? How are you affected by it? I see the benefits of it. I think when your identity is challenged regularly, you actually have to own it. So I'm not who I am because somebody told me to be this way. I am who I am because I had to think about it. People challenge me. People are like, why are you looking like that? You're not going to get any girls if you look like that. You're

not going to get any opportunities if you look like that. And for me to be like, well, no, this is who I feel most comfortable being. This is my heritage. This is what masculinity, how I understand masculinity to be growing up. And Will Smith said it. He goes, you know, you give it power. You give racism power when you acknowledge it sometimes He goes, you know, you give racism power when you acknowledge it sometimes. So, you know, work through it, work around it, smash a hole in it, do whatever you have to do. And I think as well as the story played out long enough where I saw the benefits. As a teacher, being a visible minority really helped me out, especially as an elementary school teacher. Why is that?

They needed the numbers. Elementary schools don't have a lot of males, even less males of different ethnicities. So I definitely got preferential. So it was an advantage for you? It was an advantage. I think in the Trump world, it's an advantage. I think what a lot of people need to acknowledge is Trump encouraged a lot of underrepresented people to find a backbone and stand up for themselves. Now minorities have more voice than ever.

They've had to find that voice. Yeah. And I think that's an important thing that, you know, maybe we should send him a fruit basket for it because he created conditions where we had to find our voice and realize that, hey, no one else is going to take care of us. We have to do it on our own. Let's stand up.

Let's shout it out on social media. Let's form groups. Let's collectively come up with ideas on how we can combat this. Completely. And so for me, I think I've received opportunities because of that. You've got an Apple commercial. I started an Apple commercial. The first iPhone commercial in Canada that was shot just for Canada.

Celebrating the 150th birthday. Because I feel like more than ever, we're celebrating diversity and inclusion of diversity in general in our society, wouldn't you say? I think definitely. And I think being from Toronto, which is one of the most diverse places on the planet, even when I did the Apple commercial, it was really interesting. One of the things they said to me was, we have three restraints that we kind of want you to work around. We said, you know, you're celebrating Canada, so we don't want you to get super stereotypical. So no poutine, no Mounties.

We don't want you— Loonies and Toonies. Loonies and Toonies. Don't get stereotypical. Maple syrup. The second one was don't take a dump on the U.S. Many Canadians identify themselves as being not American. We don't want any of that in your work.

And the third one, which I thought was the most interesting, is don't lean on diversity. Don't lean on it. Yeah, don't lean on multiculturalism. We've had that. We are multicultural. We've had it for 20, 30 years now. We are multicultural. Yeah, we are. So don't lean on that. Now, write a poem and celebrate Canada. And I was like, damn, they took out all the good stuff. And I remember going to a party and I was at this party and I realized that the diversity extended beyond ethnicity so I saw an East Asian guy who looked like a punk rocker and then I saw another East Asian guy who looked like he was a you know a young professional and then you see another East Asian guy who was a hipster and you realize that once people are allowed to be how they were born their ethnicity now they also have the freedom to be what they want, the archetype.

And I think L.A. is a really good example of that. You walk down the street. Everyone. Everyone's a different character. I know my father, he gets always worried about me coming to the States because he thinks it's all Trump country and I'm going to get a hate crime. And I was like, listen, Dad, I can walk down the street in L.A. with a bright blue turban, wearing a bikini, and no one's looking at me. Because there's always seven other people who are much louder than me on these streets.

And I love that, I love the archetype, I love when people get to decide how they're gonna be diverse. And I think that's where we need to be heading now. And I think the city of Toronto's like that right now. I think this is your quote where you said, "'Don't be realistic, don't play the popularity game, "'and don't chase trends.

"'Today belongs to the weirdos the creatives the introverts the beardos and everyone else who doesn't fit in that seems to be the opposite of most popular branding advice why do you believe this i think it's also kind of you know what we're talking a little bit earlier this you can you can ride a wave or you can start a wave and as an artist who is now working on slower you know slow cooked work that takes a lot longer. Deeper work. Deeper work. I'm not focused as much on my process.

I'm not trying to release something once a week. I'm not trying to release something on a schedule. I'm trying to get stuff to a point that I'm proud of and getting it done. And that's when, as an artist, I have the ability to bring something new to the world. I think one of the main challenges and the importance of artists

is we're here to create new ideas that the world hasn't experienced yet and those ideas influence the entire planet. You know you watch a movie from the 70s and 80s that depict the future, we pick up off of that. Whether it's video phones, whether it's architecture, whether it's the style of cars, you know I feel like Elon Musk. Flying cars. Yeah flying cars cars Elon Musk I feel is just like completely influenced by whatever movies he saw as a kid when he's designing these Tesla cars even their features or what have you and I think As artists is really important that we understand that we're here to contribute something not just to add to the noise So if there's a current trend and we're just riding these trends

We're not really contributing and our biggest resistance comes from people who value the past. These people are called fundamentalists, but fundamentalism isn't just religion. There's fundamentalists in sports, people arguing, should soccer have instant replays? Should hockey have a thicker blue line? You know, should basketball allow 17-year to play and people like hey it wasn't like that before don't change it people who value the past they are the biggest source of resistance to an artist who's trying to bring a new idea and i think that's why it's so important for us to have these guys like kanye west because he is the guinea pig for the ultimate artist he's like look this guy is saying anything he feels at any given moment in time. Nobody's saying he's always right, but everybody can say that he's free to say it and think it.

And he's kind of showing the world that, hey, look, I'm doing it. And what are the real consequences of me doing it? I still have a business. I still have my family. I may not be on everybody's Christmas list, but you're kind of signing up for that when you're an artist. Really? Yeah. When you plug yourself into society and you stick

to the template, your biggest challenge is going to be boredom. And I think, you know, consumerism gives us a lot of stuff to kind of occupy ourselves. When you unplug yourself and you take the entrepreneurship, you live life by your own terms, your biggest challenge is going to be isolation. Yeah. You're going to feel a little bit lonely. Do you think artists can be truly happy? I don't think happiness should be anybody's goal. I don't think there's any value that actually comes from happiness. What should be the goal?

Stimulation, experience, growth, contribution. We grow when we learn. And as Bill Gates said, success is a lousy teacher. So we learn from everything that is the opposite of happiness. And when we learn and we grow, that's when we're able to contribute and add back. And I think for me personally, I want to give this world more than I took from it before I leave. And I'm not going to get that being happy. And happiness isn't a sustainable idea.

Because you've got to be in some type of challenge or trying something that you fail at in order to grow because that's where you can give back exactly you got to rip the muscles for them to grow back stronger and i think that's the same with your artistic muscles that's the same with with you with your life so i think in the beginning a lot including your story my story is in the beginning it is we are living an uncomfortable situation that was not by choice and we slowly crawled

Doug and fought to find light at the end of the tunnel and then we made it up and I think the difference after that is Did we go and start searching for more uncomfortable situations to be in because we they may never find us anymore We got to find them ourselves. Some people get comfortable, take a lifelong vacation, and their story rides out. I think for folks like you and I, we're like, well, what's the new challenge?

It may not find us, we have to find it. How do I empty my bank account and put it into something and invest into something, invest into myself? How do I take risks? How do I get that feeling that I used to get on a roller coaster in life? how do I get that feeling that I used to get on a roller coaster in life how do I create that for myself and I think how do I find problems that I'm excited to solve because I think that's the other thing there's no such thing as a life without problems

we just got to find a life you're just playing it safe and not trying anything even then well problems come from that you know you know the atrophy we get we get our life can have atrophy so I feel like instead let's find problems that we want to solve and I think you know, atrophy. Our life can have atrophy. So I feel like instead, let's find problems that we want to solve. And I think, you know, most of our conversation, I recently hit you up about, you know, marketing and investing and stuff like that and learning, you know, where can I spend my money? How can I do these things? I could just leave it. You know, I was afraid of going broke for the longest time after I made money that I

had just a very simple savings account. You just saved it all. Put it all in one account. It's all in one account. Isn't that funny? The challenge is, okay, I'm in debt. I need to go to even. Then you get to that, you solve one problem. Then you're like, okay, now I don't want to be broke anymore. I need to make money. And then you get good at making money, but then it's just in a savings account. And you say, well, this is just sitting here not making me any money. So how do I invest it? And you have to learn a whole new game. And then it's like, okay, I'm making all this money. Now there's all these taxes. How do I save it from all that structure? So there's always a new challenge when you grow.

Completely, yeah. And I think we need to look forward to those challenges. I think those challenges in themselves should be our markers for success. I personally am not trying to be goal-oriented anymore. I'm trying to be more habit-oriented. So what direction do I want to head? Well, I want to have a business that continues to earn. I don't care if I hit a million or 10 million. I just want to be earning. So if I'm making more this year than I made last year, then I'm on the right path. And let's maintain that as a sustainable model moving forward versus kind of propping up the idea like oh when i hit my first milli because i already did that with the debt you know oh when i get out of debt i'm gonna feel a certain way so hitting other markers are gonna

i know they're gonna feel a certain way i think there's actually a study that came out that said you know if you're making i think they said for a major city if you make over 75 000 your well-being and happiness is no different from 75 to like000 to like $5,000,000. Because at the end of the day, once your basic needs are met and you're out of the struggle phase, what's next? I challenge my followers.

I have a post coming up soon where I challenge them to say, hey, you won $10,000,000 in the bank. After you won the $10,000,000, a year has gone by. So now let's take out that. I'm going to buy my mom a house. I'm going to buy this car. I'm going to travel the world. Let's get that out of your system, a year has gone by. So now let's take out that. I'm going to buy my mom a house. I'm going to buy this car.

I'm going to travel the world. Let's get that out of your system. A year has gone by. What does your day look like? What does your life look like? How are you spending your time now? Now that you've gotten all that out of you, that's the life that you should be wanting to live.

And most of that doesn't really take a lot of money, you know, on a daily basis. What's your day-to-day going to look like? What are you going to be eating? How are you going to be spending your time? Who are you going to be spending your time with? And a lot of that, I don't feel it has a lot to do with money. It's going to have a lot to do with how we spend our time and what we think is really important.

Yeah. How often are you writing poems? Interesting enough. Or poetry in general? Poetry in general is not happening as much as I want it to happen. I'm working on a book right now. My deadline is the end of October. But it has made me realize that before I got into the literary world and I was just rapping

and writing spoken word poetry, that was my only mode of communication. So if something frustrated me in the world and I wanted to write about it, it had to be written in rhyme. It had to be. Really? Which is a lot more work than writing a pro. Once I got into writing books and finding success with it, I realized I'm doing less work but getting more success.

And that really almost kind of got me into this corner of being a little bit lazier. I've become more aware of that now, so now I've had to set it. So I have a daily goal right now of 1,000 words per day. And actually on my Instagram, I mark it down. I have a calendar, a little calendar printed off off the internet. And every day on my Instagram story, I put the X if I get it.

Oh, that's cool. And if I don't do it, I put a little sad face. So it's my accountability with the audience. A lot of people have hit me up saying they're doing it for healthy eating. They're doing it for the gym now. So my goal is once I hit the deadline and submit my manuscript, that's also when, you know, you publish the book. That's when the second payment comes in. So I'm like, all right, after that, I'm going to maintain it.

Just the same way I was saving to get out of debt, I didn't change my spending habits after I got out of debt. I have a lifestyle that's allowing me to write this book. Once I'm done the book, I'm going to convert that into 16 bars. I'm going to write poetry, write rhymes every day, because I think creating that from an artistic level is some of the most exciting stuff that I've done. What's your favorite line or paragraph of a poem that you've written? Most recently, the one that's been sticking with me is actually the one I wrote for Apple, which is, we see ourselves in the stories of others, but free ourselves writing our own. And I feel like storytelling is this thread that we can all have to connect with each other and also connect with ourselves.

And I think the second we have a healthier way of connecting with ourselves, we can have a better relationship with the rest of the world. Because once we start to see ourselves and be forgiving of some of the things that we may, the world has told us isn't cool. It's not cool if you're not productive. It's not cool if you didn't hustle hard today. If you give yourself a little bit of compassion for that, then it'll allow you to have compassion for the rest of the world the same way. And I think most recently learning the idea that all humans need to feel connection.

And the fast food potato chip version of connection is like social media, but also self-pity. Feeling sorry for ourselves is the easiest way we can feel connected. Because what I'll do is like nobody understands me. Nobody understands what I'm going through. Louis doesn't understand. She doesn't understand. I've isolated myself from you guys, but at the same time strengthened my connection with myself. But just like eating a lot of McDonald's, it's not sustainable.

And eventually, you know, there'll be negative impacts of having that. And kind of challenging people to say, look, it's, you know, and as you've said and it's stuck in my head, good things happen when we delay gratification. It's true. Self-pity is instant gratification for connection. Social media is instant gratification for connection. And if we say, hey, let me limit my social media, let me limit my self-pity and focus on more long-term ways to feel connection, connection with human beings, connection with people in the world, connection with strangers, connections with our families, which are a lot more work,

but are a lot more sustainable in the long run. Yeah, yeah. Do you have like a 30-second, one-minute poem you can share that you ever memorized? A 30-second, one-minute poem that I have memorized? Okay, yeah, I have one. So this one was written for my father. My father had a master's degree in economics and university in India.

But when he came to Canada in the 70s, he didn't have the option of using that education. So he became a cab driver. So I wrote a poem called Life of an Immigrant. They told him the grass was greener with an endless flood of possibilities. Katrina watched him drown in debt. Land confiscated by the local government. So he flies high in a jet plane. Plane clothes just exposed him

to the harsh winters of life. But his wife won't know about the sweat soaked in the bank notes. Sent home. Boy getting grown. He starts to groan. Stomach's rumbling. Hungry for a better life.

Now he's stumbling over foreign phonetics and those verb tenses.'re laughing at his accent it's not an accident though that his masters in economics isn't honored most economic for a father to hop his ass in a cab and never bother getting out that car or his dreams memorize the route and collect the fare it isn't fair when they say you don't belong here with that long beard and that towel around your head Hear what was said so can the hate can you relate life of an immigrant? Mmm, I love it. Love it my man. Thank you

We got two final questions for you before we ask those where can we connect with you online? How can we get your books or can we follow you? So it's humble theet on all social media. Most active on Instagram, trying to add value to the world, make people smile. Everything I do is on my website, humblethepoet.com. So many cool projects working out. Your YouTube channel as well, right? YouTube channel. So I also am a filmmaker and I make music videos that take me a long time to make. They're my babies and that's where all the money I make, I kind of pour into them and I kind of create these. And the goal is, again, make new ideas and bring things to the space that haven't existed yet.

And I grew up on a lot of amazing rappers, but a lot of beautiful visuals. So if you remember all the Hype Williams stuff, so like every Missy Elliott video you've ever seen, every Busta Rhymes video you've ever seen, they're always larger than life, and I'm really trying to bring that back. So I've been self-funding my own music videos and really kind of shooting some cool stuff. It's great, man. And the next book comes out?

Oh, depending on where you are in the world. It's very different. So my book, Unlearned, has just become a bestseller in Canada, and I just got picked up by Harper here, and we're doing a redesign for that. So that's probably coming out in the spring. And the book I'm writing right now, which I don't have a title for, should be coming out at the end of next year. So that's going to be my major publication debut. But you can find my stuff right now on Amazon before I sign the contract

and they make me take it off. Right. Exactly. This is called the three truths question we ask everyone at the end. If this was the last day for you and you'd achieved

everything you wanted in your life, let's say it's 100 years from now, but you've got to go on. Your body's got to leave the earth. It's time to pass on. But it's a celebration. You've got everything you want.

You've done everything you wanted to do, but for whatever reason you've got to take all your work with you. So no one has access to the videos, the poetry, the books, it all goes with you. And you could share three final lessons with the world, and this is what they would have to remember you by. Three truths or lessons, what would you say are your truths? The first truth is, you know, everyone tells us to be ourselves, but we can't be ourselves if we don't know ourselves.

So really spend time, put it in your calendar, half an hour a day, just to figure out who you are. You know, and if you consider that sitting quietly in a room and meditating, by all means, if it's going for a long walk, do that. If it's going into the middle of the desert and taking some funny drug and figuring out that way. Whatever you consider self-exploration is, please do it. It'll help you understand yourself and be yourself and connect with the rest of the world. Never run away from discomfort. Never run away from discomfort. Discomfort is your friend. All good things happen outside your comfort zone.

So leave it slowly but surely but uh never run away from discomfort or uncomfortable situations and i think last is you know i think the quote is we we overestimate what we can do in a day and we underestimate what we can do in a year so i think it's focused on the baby steps focus on the rainbow don't even think about the pot of gold it's the rainbow that's really made out of diamonds enjoy it dance on it tomorrow isn't promised we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things that is not depressing that is liberating you get to live on your own terms and enjoy that and it'll feel good if you add value to other people's lives it's not it's

not simply a moral thing it's really you will feel good if you add value to other people's lives. It's not simply a moral thing. It's really you will feel good if you can contribute, and you will find that significance that you're searching for by contributing to other people. Those are good. I think that was about 50 truths, but I like it. The run-on. I acknowledge you, Humble, for finding yourself

and speaking your truth into the world because I think it's really hard for people to stand up and be who they want to be. And you're physically showing it. You're showing it emotionally. You're showing it verbally. You're constantly being true to what you want to do and the message you want to share with the world. So I acknowledge you for all the work you do, man. And for your constant progress, constant growth, constant learning.

You're being the example of what we should all be. Man, I'm learning from you. And I'm not saying that to gas you up. Again, we hang out a lot off camera. And you are that guy. And again, you are so that guy, you made me question who I was. I was like, wow, his energy, his enthusiasm, it's there. It's there all the time.

You don't even consume caffeine. So I was just like. I have coffee every now and then. Every now and then. But I don't drink alcohol. Yeah. So I'm a little bit more rough around the edges with my lifestyle decisions. So when I see you do these things, I was like, the only way he can do this on a sustainable level, as far as you've done it, is you have to actually care. And I think that's important. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. There's a lot of people selling dreams and pretending to have a great life in order to prey on people who are desperate to get out of their hole.

And I know this because I was in a hole and I was desperate. And there was a lot of people trying to take advantage of me. And I think the world is a better place for great guys like you that actually exist doing this for the right reasons. Thank you, brother. So thank you, brother. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is being in constant competition with yourself and focusing on getting better every single day. And one of

my favorite quotes is when you're good, you got to tell people when you're great, they tell you. Oh, I'm a little poet. Appreciate it, brother. Humble the Poet. Appreciate it, brother. I hope you enjoyed this one, my friends. If you did, shout it out on Twitter, on Instagram. Tag both Humble the Poet and at Lewis Howes. Make sure to follow Humble.

Check out all of his work and art and poetry and music, all the good stuff that he's up to. He's leading an inspiring life. And I want you to be inspired by all the stories we bring to you, by all the individuals, what they're creating, what they're up to, how they're making an impact in their own life. So you can apply this to your life. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone. What is the art you are putting out in the world? You may not think you're an artist, but you are. How are you impacting the hearts of everyone else?

What is landing on them? What is sticking to someone's heart because of what you say and who you're being and how you show up? That is what you should think about. What is the thing that people feel the most when they think about you or your message or your work. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.