The School of Greatness - Hozier Opens Up: “I Was At War With Myself” - How to Begin to HEAL & UNBLOCK Your Creativity

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Today, we're joined by the incredibly talented musician, Hozier. At just 24 years old, Andrew Hozier-Byrne captured the world's attention with his hit song 'Take Me To Church.' We'll explore how he navigated the immense success and pressure that followed, and whether he experienced imposter syndrome amidst the praise. Andrew will also share his insights on balancing the desire to serve his audience while staying true to his art, and how he learned to prioritize his passion for music over chasing chart rankings. Now, let’s dive into today’s powerful episode with Hozier!Listen to his new album, Unreal, Unearth - OUT NOW!In this episode you will learnStrategies for navigating the pressures success and maintaining authenticity in your life.The importance of self-reflection and personal growth in overcoming challenges and evolving over time.Techniques for sustaining energy and enthusiasm in demanding careers and long-term projects.The role of spirituality and emotional connection and how to connect with large audiences on a deeper level.Insights into the creative process and the mindset required for successfully releasing and promoting new work.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1596For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Rick Rubin – https://link.chtbl.com/1536-podZane Lowe – https://link.chtbl.com/1452-pod

At just 24 years old, Andrew Hosier Byrne captured the world's attention with his hit song, Take Me to Church. Today, we'll explore how he navigated the immense success and pressure that followed, and whether he experienced imposter syndrome amidst the praise. Andrew will also share his insights on balancing the desire to serve his audience while staying true to his art, and how he learned to prioritize his passion for music over chasing chart rankings. I'm Lewis Howes and this is the School of Greatness. Now let's dive into today's episode with Hosier. I honestly felt I was never going to write another song. Really? Yeah sometimes during the pandemic and I hit this kind of wall where I couldn't move forward and I felt I'd

written my very last song. Your first made noise with this breakout single we were all obsessed with, Take Me to Church, earning a rare diamond certification and since then it has become one of the top 30 most streamed songs ever on Spotify. Please welcome singer-songwriter Hozier. So I was absolutely at war with myself constantly. Yeah, yeah. How did that look like on a daily basis? What would that be? It's like I couldn't have a thought without an opposing thought, you know? So it's like my brain was kind of split in two. I'd have a thought and then a thought to combat with that. The artist's

question of, okay, like it's knowing that art has such potential to heal. It's easier to just, once you make the conversation with yourself, well, what am I trying to make sense of within myself? It's quite paralyzing to be confronted with and the great great question of will this heal somebody? Will this fix this thing? Maybe music is special enough. You can discover a song at any time. You know you can discover an artist from the 80s or 70s 50s but you gain what you create in that moment as you discover it is something that's spontaneous and it's happening. What is the biggest thing you still struggle with today? Really great question, but like very challenging one.

But yeah, I kind of want to phone a friend. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring, iconic Andrew Hosier Byrne in the house. My man. Hey, thank you so much for having me. So glad that you're here. I remember about 10, 11 years ago

when Take Me to Church came out and it was kind of the anthem for the world, I feel like. It was on repeat, on my playlist, on everyone's playlist. And it really catapulted you into another level of success, stardom, financial gain, and opportunities. One of the most downloaded or one of the most streamed songs of all time on Spotify, 13 times platinum, diamond certified, Grammy nominated. I mean, every type of award you could get, you received or were nominated for at a very young age, 22, I believe, right?

A little bit older. I think it was 24. 24. Okay. So 24. I'm curious if I would have had that much fame, success, money at 24, I think I would have, my ego would have got the best of me. I would have probably, I don't know, done things that I would have been ashamed of later in life. I probably would have like, I don't know, just not been the best person with that much. Everyone tell me you're incredible. You're a gift to the world. You're successful. How did you navigate success that early and the pressure to live up to some potential at 24 when the world was watching and listening to you?

Yeah. I think, thank you. I think, first of all, give yourself some credit. I think you navigated very gracefully. And when you're in that situation, there's something of your makeup or your ingredients just steers you, hopefully, in the right way. What I will say is that I had really good friends around me. I had a grounded sense around me.

I had a very grounded upbringing. And some of this is maybe cultural and some of this is personal. The cultural side of it, being Irish, I was naturally suspicious of kind words being said about me or to me, you know, at a time when, especially coming to a city like this or at a time when, yeah, the song was making the rounds and it was a hit, you get a lot of attention. And I think my natural response

to that oftentimes was not suspicion necessarily, but a kind of a guarded skepticism, you know. So you didn't buy into your own hype. Yeah, that was it. That's a good way of putting it, you know, and you didn't buy into your own hype. Yeah, that was it. That's a good way of putting it, you know. And some of that's personal as well too.

I'm not great at receiving praise. Working on that as time goes on, as life moves on. So I never internalized it, you know. I never internalized the noise the the success of the song as something that i would graft onto my person you know and that's something that i think hopefully stood to me i could maybe have done with pat myself on the back one once did you not give yourself the credit were you just kind of like well it's still not good enough or i should be better or i need to do it again yeah it was more that i felt maybe i had i felt like i hadn't because it was the first song i'd ever released gosh that's crazy man yeah yeah so it felt like

and it's a song i just like i threw together in my in my attic. I had moved back to, I'd moved back home from living in Dublin. And I realized I did not have, you know, it was like that point where I was like, okay, long-term, I can't keep paying this rent. I'm going to move back. I'm going to be a musician. I was staying with my parents for a brief time.

And yeah, I just threw the song together in my attic. In like, what, a day, a couple hours, a few days? To be fair, I was writing that song for like lyrically for over a year. Okay. So I had been sitting on this egg, this like lyrical thing. But it came together musically rather fast. But maybe there was some part of me that felt like, have I earned this?

You know, have I been doing this for 10 years? You know, and I've been sitting, I've been obviously stewing over writing music. I've been writing songs for years at that point. I wasn't sharing them with the world, but I've been writing them to myself and for myself. And I had been for a couple of years doing sort of open mic stuff, working on other people's projects, but it felt very quick and very early. there was a a an imposter syndrome thing really sure yeah of course yeah big time so that's probably another thing that that's i was like okay yeah it's it's you know maybe i felt i had more to do you know like

you haven't proved yourself enough and done the reps enough or maybe yeah but you were doing the open mic for a couple of years you said i think you're i saw you were on a you know a choir for a while an orchestra choir for a while as well so you'd been in music i think i said i learned that you picked up a guitar at 15 so i get that time about nine years at least of guitar singing songwriting open mics yeah so it wasn't that you just started the year before true true no i i and i as time goes on i'm able to sort of look back and go oh no you know what i i you know and part of that is is that's a personal journey of going no like it it happened because i did like i worked like a

like a dog you know and to to to bring that song to to where it where it got to at the time i i wasn't i wasn't present in that you know really and i don't think so so in this first i guess six months after the song is released and you start to see this meteoric rise on the song's success where you're getting invited to all the awards ceremonies you're performing on stages with other big names now, and everyone wants to talk to you or interview you. What is going through your mind? Are you thinking, I'm not deserving of this, or I'm not worthy of this,

or are you thinking I'm an imposter? I don't know. I think there's some switch in your brain as soon as somebody says, like, you know, I love your song, or I love your, you know, great work on that or whatever there's some switch in your brain that just like a like this little psychic wall goes up and the the compliment the the whatever the noise the glitter and the roar of that moment just hits

against that wall and falls falls away really i think so yeah i think um so it's it's a did that if you had that you know that wall did you feel like it helped you in managing the pressure then because you weren't believing all of it quickly maybe so maybe so it's there might be a coping mechanism to it and that it's the the flip side of that is is that okay you can shrug off then the pressure to be this thing rather than internalize this this being whatever that everyone else is experiencing around you as your as yourself that you don't necessarily experience and yeah you don't have to deal with the weight of that or the pressure of that or the the the duality of that maybe you're just like i don't know what you're all what that's you're you're just like, I don't know what you're all talking about.

I don't know what the hype is. And maybe that makes it easier. So there might be a coping element to it. Yeah. I feel like there must be such a pressure for artists on that type of a platform and stage to create meaning around life for humanity, to have the answers to society's problems, to help people heal with their pain and their problems. Do you ever felt like you were put in a position to try to answer the world's problems through your art too quickly before you actually lived life enough?

It's such a broad, it's such a deep it's such a deep broad question about like about art or it's not necessarily its purpose you know or or it's it's potential maybe you know and and the artist's question of okay like like it's knowing that art has such potential to heal and to comfort and to offer a reflection or offer a new perspective or a new window into meaning, especially around suffering. And there's plenty of that in the world. that can be a challenge maybe for any artist to, even before they step into the creation of a work, and I've definitely felt this,

is that you are confronted with the potential of that work. And that is very difficult. And I think it's easier to just, once you make the conversation with yourself as to, okay, well, what am I trying to make sense of within myself? What is coming up? What, you know, if I pull on this rope, what comes up from the well? You know, what's in that bucket? And then, okay, to try and feel that, get a sense of that. You know, I think that's maybe

that's the the starting place i think it's near it's quite paralyzing to be confronted with and the the great great question of will this heal somebody will this fix this thing that's impossible and there is some part of you at some point. And I think, I don't know if you're in any way a sort of a somebody who's tends to, you know, care deeply for people and or is in any way a people pleaser or is trying to fix people's problems around you. There is this, you're like, oh, no, this must be all things to all people. And part of the challenge is letting go of that. is letting go of that. So when you write that, you know, I'm assuming you'd written many songs before taking me to church,

you know, growing up, you were writing songs, but that was the first one that you kind of released into the world, I guess, right? Were you thinking ever

how is this going to impact others when you write a song and put it out in the world? Are you thinking more, this is how this impacts me and I just want to share that with others?

It was a little bit of both. I think there was two things. One thing I wanted, I wanted the song to speak to the legacy of that institution, of the institutionalized Roman Catholic Church, specifically in Ireland. I didn't think that that song was going to have an international audience. I didn't even think that that song was going to have a broad Irish audience. I wrote this song as an unsigned, unknown artist who was just... I suppose there was an anger behind it. It was this is the knowing and even did not know the extent of the legacy of that institution. You know, we had like a few years after its release, we're still, if you're familiar with,

with essentially a grave site that they found in a town called Toom in Galway, where you'd been. I won't go into it now, but like all sorts of stuff with that legacy. I won't go into it now, but like all sorts of stuff with that legacy. So what I was just trying to process was the kind of personal questions of the personal and the intimate and the romantic and the sexual and trying to take back what is divine in those things, take back what can be what we might consider sacred in those things, wrestling them back from an institution whose legacy is so harmful. So it was more that, you know, but there was never a... There was a thought as I was writing it that there will be a very, very few people who will see what I'm doing here in this song

and will appreciate it. But I thought it was like, I thought it would be great. Low polls in Ireland or something. In a small audience. Pump crowd who's like, you're going to go sing an open mic for and sing this song. Yeah, it would be, I was proud of the song, but I, beyond that, it was more, it was more in conversation with me. And it was a lot of those lyrics I had in a notebook that I kept with me for a year at that point. Right, right. I had interviewed many bestselling authors, a handful who sold five, 10 million copies of their book.

I had Liz Gilbert on one time. She wrote the book Eat, Pray, Love. And she did a famous TED talk about how to grapple with her best work or her most known work potentially being behind her. Because she sold 10 million copies. It was this global movie. It was like this phenomenon that took off in the world when she wrote it. And how to navigate life after potentially what could be the biggest success you could ever have. She was like, I probably won't write a book again that does another 10 million copies. It's very rare to do that. Have you ever thought about that of like just how to navigate a long career with such a big hit early on

and not let needing to chase downloads or streams or charts be the driver for you, like your first single. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's a, it's a tricky one. And, and, and if it doesn't do that well, like, am I a failure or is there something wrong? You know, do you ever think about that? Yeah. You know what? It's something that you gain. It's like a relationship thing as time goes on. I'm kind of laughing to myself. A member of my label team who's been with me since the very beginning, Betsy is next door. So she's going to hear me talk now about it. Yeah, I don't care about strength. No, no, no. Of course, you would love that the work is seen or heard by as many ears as possible if they connect with it. I think there is and there is one part of you maybe that would love that.

I think that as time goes on and even then, even 10 years ago, I recognize that this and this is maybe what's most important to me is, is that the music that I want to make and the music that I feel moved to make, um, does not necessarily, necessarily belong in the spaces of the top 10 music that is geared towards Music that is geared towards social spaces and hearty atmospheres. Music that is like oftentimes points towards like an aspirational sort of whatever it is. A lot of the time it's club life or it's music that celebrates or engages in like a kind of a conspicuous consuming of of life and it's and it's and it's pleasures etc you know but one that isn't but he i can't it would be a bit silly of me to um to be all what was me and want to want to write songs about you know whatever uh the roman catholic church or songs that that that you know um the legacy of colonialism or or or occupation or something like that and go why why why isn't this in why is this hitting the world in the clubs like yeah um so but so it's not it's not it's it's just that i don't necessarily feel aligned you know

and i'm okay with that and um what i, but this is why I feel like so lucky. So I'm very much at peace with it not being, those are as well, those are oftentimes those are external, that's just external validation. Again, it's that thing of like, when I was in that, I also wasn't fulfilled in any sort of like by that external validation in a very, in a personal way. Yes, there's all of these, you know, it's great and there's wonderful opportunities, but I wasn't getting from that external validation. I wasn't getting a voice in my head saying, oh yeah, now I've arrived and now I feel good about myself. This would be the same for anybody. I'm sure you're probably the very same. So reminding myself of that, you know, helps.

But then also just to know that, and this is where I feel incredibly fortunate, I feel like I want for nothing, is that I can write. I write songs. I feel on my own terms with stuff that does, I do, you know, move me or I feel as I feel moved to write. It's not exactly subject material all the time that, that, that says, come on in, this is easy going, like listening, you know, and, and playing around with like literary influences like from centuries ago. And yes, I still see that I'm selling more tickets now than I was when Take Me to Church was a hit.

Yeah. Like I'm sending far more tickets for shows, right? Go, man. It's cool. Why do you think you're selling more a decade later after, you know, your first big hit? I think part of it is time. Part of it is there's a whole new generation of people now that are exploring the work who are maybe 10 years, 11 years old when my first songs came out and they were listening to

it then and they were listening to it and and and what's what's it's like it's like cool they were listening to it when they were 10 or 11 in the car as they were being driven to school what's nice to me is that they're buying tickets to come to the shows now that's amazing it's really it's yeah and i feel really fortunate I feel incredibly blessed at that. And I think part of it is that maybe it's just the nature of song is that it's hopefully that the work is lasting and people are, have, have had 10 years to gain a relationship with the music and it has been part of their lives for 10 years. And in, in, in that way, yeah, that way, yeah, it's, you know, and maybe music is special in that we can, you can discover a song at any time, you know,

you can discover an artist from the 80s or 70s, 50s, but you gain what you create in that moment as you discover it is something that's spontaneous and it's happening now. You create a memory, you create a relationship with that work, and that's of the moment. And if you could buy tickets to go and see that artist now, you would.

That's so true. Yeah. It's interesting. As you're saying this, I'm reflecting on my childhood. My parents would play, when we'd go on a trip or something, like driving through to go skiing or whatever or camping or something they would play the Beatles a lot you know a season of time where they'd play the Beatles and I was like oh I didn't know who the Beatles were until I did know who they were because

they started playing it and then I got to hear all these songs and I was like wow this is so fascinating yeah you know whatever 40 years later then these songs were hits. Yeah. I discover them. Totally. Totally. And probably have a relationship with those songs in the same way that somebody did in the 60s in some regards. Isn't that interesting? You know, yeah, I think, I found that when I was rediscovering a lot of music that my

dad would have played in the house that I was unaware of. When I first, when I was like in my teens listening to like 12 bar blueses i was i didn't i i had a feeling of like oh this is what home listening to this music like this feels like home to me but there was there was something that was nearly like i had been listening to um like classic rock and roll like blues blues music, 12 and 8 bar blues is, he was in a blues band. He was in like, he was covering blues music.

There was always tapes. He had like these tapes of the material that his band was working on and stuff, like from before I was born. But I did notice that the music that just was always playing in the house, I had no conscious awareness of it when it was being played. But then when I was a teenager...

It was just in the background. It was in the background, yeah. But I was able to... I forged this relationship with it that I just felt very comfortable with, at home with. I don't know, yeah. I think that can be powerful too. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think the relationship you form they say that you know when we evolved as as into the beings that we are that our auditory and senses evolved long before our visual so i think there's something about hearing things about listening to things that's there's something quite deep in it you know wow we hear our parents voices long before we see them, you know. And so in some regards, I mean, we hear music before we engage in any other type of artistic medium. We're listening to music.

Right. In the womb. Even before we understand it, we're hearing it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, in the last decade, what has been the biggest transformation you've seen within yourself through this journey of success and experience and making all this art? And what is the biggest thing you still struggle with today? Really great questions, but like very challenging ones.

So the biggest thing you've learned about yourself and the biggest challenge or struggle you have today, even with the success that you've created. It's a school of greatness, Andrew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, totally. And so, yeah, got to expect those great questions, you know. But, yeah, I kind of want to phone a friend. those great questions you know um but yeah i kind of want to phone a friend the i think um i think um stuff i've learned about myself is i mean i've done a lot of personal personal work i used to think that realizing that creating maybe this is one thing i can offer, that being creative and creating.

And my relationship with myself was also, you know, my relationship with the work is very often dependent on my relationship with myself. What do you mean by that? that it's a thing. It's like whether it's self-doubt or it's self-criticism, an internal monologue that is largely negative. Something I took for granted my whole life.

It didn't catch up with me until a couple of years ago when I realized I honestly felt I was never going to write another song. Really? Yeah, sometime during the pandemic. I hit this kind of wall where I couldn't move forward anymore. And I felt I'd written my very last song.

And I had to come round to, okay, no, this is just, it's the same voices, but they're just louder now because there's nothing to distract me, you know? So I think that was, you know, in the pandemic, that was part of it. You weren't able to tour, you weren't able to go out and distract yourself. Not that tour is a distraction, but you weren't able to, you had to sit still now. Yeah.

And hear everything coming in. Yeah. And in some ways tour is a magnificent distraction and it's a job in which you're constantly putting out fires, you know? And every day is another little crisis, you know, and, you know, I still get, I won't say, would you call it stage fright? But like, I'm still having to regulate my body constantly. I'm terrible. You know what I mean? Every day is like. Really? Oh, yeah. 10 minutes before stage. Yeah. I'm like, I can't do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. I can't do this yeah yeah come on yeah yeah there's an element of like nerves and and like I am not able I you know I'm not able to to do this it's so funny I was joking with some of the

band and this is maybe a magician thing we're two week we had a few weeks break I was a month into a couple of weeks after break and I was I was trying to think now this is maybe because a lot of playing is muscle memory you don't think about when it's automatic. But I was trying to think to myself, it's like, how do I play that song on guitar? I couldn't visualize. Or I couldn't visualize a fretboard. I couldn't visualize finger movement. So, but yeah, no, there is always this creeping voice that's,

you know, and it's, look, it's immaterial. You find your way around it. You find your step over it, you know, it's look it's immaterial you you you find your way around it you finally step over it you know and you and you ground yourself and stuff but um yeah but in in so but creatively i think when you are exactly as you describe there was no distractions like in during the pandemic so but tour is there's plenty there's always something to do whether it's press promo you know meetings i'm oftentimes releasing music at the same time so it's looking at artwork and video edits mix is mastering and i'm constantly i'll be honest like constantly a little bit over like just a little bit under overwhelmed you know and like

just the nose is like you know you're on the line it's a nostril you know i can barely breathe but um yeah yeah and part of me you know it's also realizing okay is this is this by design am i trying to keep myself up here interesting and because because you didn't want to face yourself maybe yeah you just yeah you operate operate well in that space or at least you function in that way but yeah it's not well but you're like you're operating yeah you're operating or you're you're yeah you're operating you're getting everything that needs to be done done and so pandemic hits and you that all stops and you have to face yourself i guess so yeah what was the biggest fear that came to you when you weren't able to go on tour you weren't seeing people and you had to turn around and face the parts of you that

maybe you weren't aware of yet i can't i can't recall exactly if it was a feeling of fear there was a there was a feeling of maybe sorrow that came with it and sort of it's just a lowness you know what i mean just sort of a very like a you know and i think i think anybody who's maybe prone to sort of depressive episodes or is you know and will be familiar with it but it's this kind of i just slowed down in all in all in all all forms and I just felt no root. I saw no ability to write. And any attempt to make it seemed impossible. I also fully believe, and this is a funny thing about when you're in that mindset, I fully believe that I could not, I did not know how to write a song despite all evidence against it i was like oh no i actually don't know how to do this and so how many songs have you written at this point oh like you know maybe probably you know over 100 or you know obviously

ones that don't get released right like like yeah but like like there's something i do all the time but there's something enters into the mind. And then I realized it's like, oh no, this has nothing to do with this. This is something else. So, again, it's about relationship itself, you know? And so that was something I learned. What was your relationship with yourself like? I think I didn't have much of one, you know? So, and it was more just realizing, okay, I'm going to have to cultivate a very positive relationship with myself, you know, and tending to actually, you know, by the time I was 30, actually like tending to, let's say, mental health and a relationship with self,

which I had just avoided doing, you know, because I could sort of, I felt maybe I could work my way around it or I could, you know know but once you can't run anymore you know it's i'd sometimes describe it as the hamster wheel had to stop spinning you know what i mean and so you then you're forced to sit in your little cage you know what i mean so and wow kind of look around and take it in and go okay made something not right about this what is the thing that you realized about your identity with yourself or your relationship to yourself when you no longer were chasing or on tour or distracted by facing yourself? I think it was, I'd say you could say it was defined by a large, I had a very large,

largely a combative relationship with myself. So I was absolutely at war with myself constantly. Yeah. Yeah. How did that look like on a daily basis? What would that be? It's like, I couldn't have a thought without an opposing thought, yeah. How did that look like on a daily basis? What would that be? It's like I couldn't have a thought without an opposing thought, you know? So it's like my brain

was kind of split in two that I'd have a thought and then a thought to combat with that. So... Like, no, that's not real. That's not true. This is the truth.

This is real. Yeah. Going back and forth. Yeah. Or it's... But when... At times and like i guess like your state you know you're not always sometimes you're a seven some days are three some days are nine some days are you know and creatively it's like that could really slow me down because it's

like i think this is a nice idea i think this is beautiful no it's it's not. So I couldn't hold with one thought at the same time, oftentimes. So it was challenging. I won't go into the nitty and the gritty of my whole experience, but that's probably for another. But no, it definitely put roadblocks up, you know? And so that was a big change when I started to address that. How did you navigate the process? And I'm assuming there wasn't, I mean, I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know if in Ireland growing up, there was a lot of talk around mental health and having a good relationship with yourself and a healthy identity. And, you know, I don't know if there was or not, but how did you learn to develop that then

during that time without having any of those skills or tools for the first 30 years of your life? There wasn't. There wasn't really, you know. And especially, it's not something even, I mean, more so my parents' generation would have had any sort of, not really, you know. Not in a kind of a, this is something we can talk about.

It's a day to day thing. Kind of like suck it up and let's not talk about it and keep moving forward and just everything's good. Very 1970s. Yeah, yeah. Very 70s. But I'm very grateful to have access to be more present in the day-to-day with my actual lived experiences,

as opposed to just, yeah, just having this kind of... Wow, man. Yeah. I mean, I'm really grateful you're talking about this because I wrote a whole book called The Mask of Masculinity. Okay. Seven years ago now, yeah. Where, because growing up, I felt like I had to be, you know, this strong man. I could never cry. I can never show my

emotions in school sports. Um, and it tormented me inside, you know, it tormented me emotionally feeling like I had to wear a mask to fit in and belong, but it wasn't my truest authentic self. And when I hit about 30, that's when I started to unwind and start to navigate the therapy myself and reflect and heal. And it was extremely challenging.

It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done is to let go of those masks and open myself up to myself turn around and look at all the parts of me that i was ashamed of or afraid of or scared of or insecure of and actually acknowledge them and look at them and start to heal the the little boy inside of me that still had a lot of guards up and fears and insecurities and doubts and shame and angers and resentments and all these different things that I was not proud of and started to integrate my current self with my younger self

and mend the wounds, the emotional or psychological wounds that were stored in the body and the nervous system. Yeah. To create alignment. Yeah. With the present and the now. And it was the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life. But it set me free.

And as I'm sure you're in right now, healing is a journey. And I'm 10 years deep in the healing work. And I've never felt more free also knowing that you can't just stop doing the work. Yeah. Yeah. Like I still go to therapy every month. I still show up and allow myself to talk about it and process things in a healthy, conscious way in a safe way. And I think it's really inspiring to hear you talking about this because I can only imagine the amount of pressures that artists feel to create art. And I think a lot of artists tend to create from pain or suffering, it seems like, rather than peace and joy. but it's probably challenging because you're sharing it with the world

but you also still need to deal with it yourself and just probably a messy process. Yeah. The whole sharing from or writing from, also let me just, I just want to address, it's like thank you for sharing that and it's beautiful. It's also very similar to what you describe. And I think 30 also took me 30 years of living in a way where I realized I can't do this anymore. I can't live like this anymore. And I've waited too long to feel like I can cope. You know what I mean?

It isn't interesting that no amount of success or money or fame will give you that piece of freedom that you're looking for. Yeah, 100%. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. But I think a lot of people, I don't think that's what you were doing. I don't think you were chasing that. You were being an artist and it took off. Yeah.

I don't think you were chasing that. You were being an artist and it took off. But I think a lot of people in society and the world are looking to accelerate their career to have more status, to make more money, to have flashier things or success to fulfill a part of them that is insecure or afraid or doubting something. And the more I did that and the more others do that, it doesn't solve the problem. You still have to turn around and look at yourself at some point. Totally.

And I think it's largely unconscious and this driving, you know what I mean? But that sort of thing of drive, and I do think about this a lot, whether would I be driven to be you know because surely the work it's this question surely the work is enough like if i just if i just loved songs and and i just wanted to write them do i need everybody to hear them you know what's what's what's the part on tour why do this why do that yeah yeah you know why did i why did i need it

so there is i sometimes wonder you know um what So there is, I sometimes wonder, you know, what part of me needed to be witnessed, you know, or what, you know, and I think a lot of people who are driven towards work in the public view, and I'm not saying everybody, I'm just saying generally, I think you might be correct in that. There is a, all of might be correct in that there were there is a there all all of us are driven in some way from maybe some some unobserved place that that's in some

way that all of us think okay if i get this thing or i do this thing all my problems will be solved all my you know we all imagine this picture in our in our heads you know of of that arrival point that just never comes or you get get there. You'll see the picture and it'll align with the picture in your mind. But the feeling is not there. Or it's still not enough. You still want more. Yeah.

Are you still comparing to what your peer might be doing? Oh, they're getting this opportunity, right? Yeah, totally. And it's something you shared about that thing. It's kind of that self-parenting thing of getting a relationship with yourself as a child and a friend of mine once described described it quite quite beautifully i have to say of like getting to this point in that process of then looking out from some moment of their life and just reminding pausing to remind themselves to

invite their child to watch it with them cool and to to stand in space either whether through the the window of their of their home or at some event that they were at and to imagine in their mind's eye that their child was there to say hey look you know look where we are you did this you know and i I'm quite moved by that just to just to bring your child into that. Because there's some there's some sometimes there's a there's this sort of switch that happens where we think, no, I took I took myself away from these circumstances and I did all of this on my own. But to turn around to your kid and say, hey, you know, I want you to see this. Wow. How how great you did, you know, and how you you did this, you know, want you to see this wow how how great you did you know and how you you did this you know and we did this together isn't this cool and just to to let your kids sort of smile at that

that's beautiful and him yeah and i think it's that one i think that's a that is a life-changing relationship thing you know i think with yourself if you can do that and but again yeah i i mean i i had no language for this until i was after a few years ago yeah until a couple years ago so i'm still why my reluctance also to speak too much on it is because i'm so early in it you know yeah wow man this is beautiful i'm so happy you're talking about this though and don't feel and you know don't feel like you need to open up about things here or anywhere until you feel you've processed things enough. And you may never need to do that publicly either. It's just, I appreciate it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a, it's not a pressure here for that in any way. Um, but it sounds like you are in a journey of creating a healthy relationship with self. That's what I'm hearing you say. Yeah, I think, I think so. I think so. journey of creating a healthy relationship with self it's what i'm hearing you say yeah i think i think so i think so i'm also i'm realizing that it's it's also imperative for the work i want to make and it's also it's like it's an it's like to not do it i think whatever when you start on on

that by the time you're ready to sort of do your own little work on yourself you're ready to realize that not doing this isn't an option, you know, or not, you know, or it's an option, but you've done that, you know what I mean? Or, or for, for what, what's ahead of you and what it is that you want for your life. And you feel the, the experience of living that you would like to get to. It's like you realize, okay, I just kind of have to do this. It's like you realize, okay, I just kind of have to do this. What do you think, Andrew, is available for you emotionally, internally, and externally in the world as you continue to navigate this healing journey for yourself? What do you feel like is available for you or your mission?

I think this is maybe not just necessary for the work as well, too, for being creative. I just want to walk in step with myself in a way that feels aligned with myself and aligned with the work. Hell. And to, I guess, to feel at peace in whatever the work is that needs to be made. Have you ever been out of alignment with yourself in this last decade with anything you've created or opportunities you've said yes to where you fall afterwards? That's not really what I wanted to do or, but I did it for ego or because whatever reason. like, yeah, there's always this sort of one more stone to turn.

You know, it's like I always approached things with like, leave no stone unturned. It's like, you know, just do everything. Every opportunity. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. That can be draining and exhausting. It can be draining, yeah.

And learning to say no to stuff is something that I'm still cultivating a relationship with or a habit of. something that i'm still cultivating a relationship with yeah or a habit of i think um yeah or i'm i'm a real and i think this is an i'm proud of this trade in myself but that extra hour that i'll put in or that extra 30 minutes or that extra hour um i can i can focus hyper focus on something in those last few you know but but what happens is sometimes I'll agree to, to do something. I'll be fully in my mind of like, I do want to do this. It's like, will you do a little bit extra here and add more rather than take this break? Will I use this time to work? And it's like, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. And then in afterwards I realized, okay,

why am I, why am I feeling exhausted? You know I burnt out? And now I can't function, you know, I can't work as I want to work. So I do want to, I do want to address, you know, hopefully get better at that. This has been a powerful section. So I'm grateful we're talking about this, but I have a question about, like a bunch of things around your performance experience. I feel like, I hope they get to come watch you perform live sometime because I feel like it's a spiritual experience for the audience to watch what you do. I'm curious for you,

what has been the most spiritual experience you've had while performing on stage where you felt like something is different here? I'm feeling something different. There's an energy that is elevated at a different level than I've ever been to. Or maybe I'm seeing myself from a different place or I'm forgetting the words, but I'm singing the word. Like, was there ever a spiritual experience for you that was so big and awe-inspiring while performing there's definitely moving moving experiences i was gonna joke that i think this the spiritual uh experience is for to be in the crowd i've been in shows and i've and i've i've been in such elation i've been like so ecstatic and kind of lifted by being in crowd energy and all enjoying the same thing. And maybe I was going to make a joke. It's like it's the preacher is the least spiritual of all people.

You know, the person at the top, it's everyone else is engaging in a spiritual experience. The half preacher is I'm just kidding but like but i think when i'm on stage um there's a kind of a flow state you know that you hope to to come into and that's another thing where it's like calming my mind and this is all connected it's all connected with mental health it's all connected with like wellness but then also like and mindfulness as too. And mindfulness was a big change for me. It was realizing how many conversations were going on, how unpresent my mind was, you know, even sometimes when I was on stage and wanting to just...

Yeah, it can happen. It can happen. And realizing I, you know, remaining grounded on stage, remaining present on stage. So you're not, um, so, so meditating before shows I find really, really helpful. And how would you get distracted on stage before? It can happen where, again, if I'm releasing music, um, there's a lot of emails that I haven't unanswered. I swear to God. Right before you're like, Oh, thinking about it. Yeah. But you could be on stage in the middle of a song

playing a chord and singing lyrics and in your mind, I'm not present in that. I'm thinking, it's happened where I'm like, I didn't email back. Come on.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. Oh no, you're doing laundry lists in your head while you're in the middle of like singing a song

and the crowd are doing their thing. How is that even possible? How do you stay, I mean, how can you create a performance while thinking about the email you had to send to Larry and management or something? It's not great. It's like, and I don't, I think the show, potentially my worry is that the show,

I think because it's muscle memory, that you just can do it. But it doesn't, you don't feel great about the about the show you don't because you weren't present in you know so it's been a while now since I would there's also that's kind of before that's one of my mind was totally just like haywire and so mindfulness you know meditation and stuff and super helpful that helps you keep keep you present now on stage

on stage yeah so as for spiritual experience definitely I mean I was in Mexico recently we just did a show in Mexico where which city

Mexico City so oh man I've been going back my fiance's Mexican so I've been going back and forth a lot yeah yes yeah

congratulations thanks man thanks it's I mean it, Mexico's beautiful. I love it man. Mexico City is incredible, right? Yes. Yeah, it really is beautiful.

And the people are just so wonderful, you know, and I have never, you know, no disrespect to any other audience, but there is something special about a Mexican audience like that. Now we have a tour and they're touring South America here that Central and South America are incredible I mean you know but then we have a we have a YouTube channel in Spanish yes over a million subscribers no Spanish that this will be dubbed in Spanish as well oh really okay Portuguese oh wow so the Spanish channel watching or listening right now I'm sure they're

like all typing in the chat this is incredible you know they're gonna love you saying like mexico's amazing delighted and it's absolutely true and i think i said it on on there's something special there's a like there is a passion there is a there is a an energy there is and but to be in a a city or a country that is not primarily English speaking and to hear your words, to be so far from home and hear your words sang back to you. My first gig in Mexico City was very, very same in that songs were being sang to me louder than had ever been sang in other primarily English speaking territories. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. And I was stunned by it i was absolutely that's not their first language and yeah yeah and so when i'm for when i my first gig in mexico i was like this is nuts this is i've never heard a crowd singing this song i can't remember which song it was but songs that just crowds some some songs crowds will sing it to some they're not you know some not so much um i was staggered by it and then so this time around it was just a few days ago like last week oh man i should have about a note i would have gone to oh my god not at all but performing a song called cherry wine

and um the crowd had like done something really sweet they'd handed out these red pieces of paper to put in front of their phone lights so songs called cherry wine so they had all these kind of cherry red kind of uh cards that they lit the auditorium with and and then with their phones and and just they were just singing the song back like louder than really i'd ever heard it and i just had one of those moments where i was absolutely present and i i sort of at the same time was just like this is nuts like i wrote this song i think i brought myself back to i was maybe 22 when i wrote that song and wow and i just kind of reminding myself it's like i wrote this once and i played it like to you know a little barn do i remember the first time playing this live like like i just was brought back to, you know,

I was present in two moments of, like, of the beginning of that song and writing it first and performing it first and just now. And I was just, I was really moved by it. I kind of had to, you know, I was quite touched by that support and that love. And so, yeah, there's's moments where i don't know

if i'd call it spiritual necessarily but um just overwhelmingly fulfilling you know overwhelmingly and good feeling beautiful that's that seems like a spiritual experience for me man you almost like leaped in time 14 years i guess thinking about when you were writing this in your parents' attic or wherever you were at the time, playing it at a pub for 17 people. Yeah. And now people screaming it across the world back at you. Yeah. I was grateful also after the fact that I still could be, that feeling was still fresh for me. You know, that, and was i could allow myself into

going you know what this is really sweet and i'm really enjoying this and how do you keep it fresh when you're you know doing 100 200 tour nights a year singing the same songs over and over for over a decade how do you stay present when it's not new for you even though it might be new for someone else yeah i think the the challenge is staying present and honestly if you can stay present this is it's like the same where your morning all of us have to get up out of bed all of us probably get up brush our teeth we'll make coffee, we'll whatever, get in the car and go to work. Whatever, you know what I mean?

Or go about our day. I don't commute necessarily, but we all have that little... We all have that thing where it's like those parts of the day which are so commonplace to us that we do them in auto mode. that we do them in auto in auto mode you know and if you can if you can steer the brain into presence and your experience of that drive to work wherever your appointment your errands is gonna be like so much more uh engaging it's going to be an experience in and of itself you'll actually experience the world around you this is so easy it's so much easier said than done you know and when you're talking about mindfulness but i think on stage if i can be present in a song doesn't matter if i and i'm

truly present in that moment and i'm letting the energy kind of off the crowd kind of come through to me and through me and um the energy of of the song whatever if i'm kind of allowing a flow of that um and i'm present in it it doesn't really matter if i've sang that you know a hundred times or a thousand times or whatever five times it's like i'm i'm just present in it and i think that's it's a challenge. Wow. We had Rick Rubin on recently who is a big producer. He's Rick Rubin, yeah. Wrote a big book on creativity.

I listened to the episode as well, by the way. Yeah, he's inspiring. I mean, Rick Rubin is. Have you met him? I have never met Rick Rubin. He's inspiring, man. He really is.

What a force. Yeah. He was mentioning something about, you know, an artist should really be thinking about writing art for themselves as if it was their own diary, their own journal, and not writing art or making art for an audience, but making it for themselves and being willing to reveal it to the audience without the insecurity or concern

of their own intimate thoughts and feelings around their piece of art, which is probably one of the hardest things to do, is putting out your soul that you're really making for you, but wanting others to experience it without being worried about criticism. How do you navigate putting art out there and being like, oh, I hope people like this and they don't give me negative feedback

versus people are going to like it or hate it or whatever. They're going to respond to it. How do you navigate you feeling good about it, no matter what happens to it in the world? I will say before releasing, it's not so much a fear, but there's this sort of, there's this, maybe I don't experience actually where the fear is coming from, but there's a terrible unease. And I think usually before releasing an album, there's this awful purge of like cortisol that happens. And like, you know, I've talked to a lot of artists about this where like you're in tears before the before it happens and you're exhausted and the catharsis that you'd hoped you would get from it never arrives you know and so and there is that i think there has to be maybe there's just there is some resource that you pull from that brings you to a place where you are in absolute commitment to the fact that the work needs to exist.

That it doesn't matter what anybody has to say. The song wants to be written. The song has, in some ways, and I sometimes think of it like this when an idea comes through, the song is asking to be written. It feels ready to be worked on. And to deny that is kind of,

it's going against your nature, what you know you kind of have to do, what you have decided you're here to do. So there's something that is willing to be made. It's willing itself to be made through you.

And it's like you either do it or don't. But don't, sorry, excuse me, don't get annoyed when somebody else has the idea because there's a lot of parallel thinking in the world as well too. And someone else is going to put something similar out.

Exactly. Yeah. And that actually happens. I mean, artists talk about this. I've certainly experienced it. You have an idea for a song and six months later you hear it on the radio and somebody else's has played with the themes that you were thinking of. And it's, we're all living in the same, similar societies. So a lot of parallel thinking comes in because we all have very similar simulaces, whatever it is. But you have to, there has to, I don't know, there's a resource that you pull from that needs to be made. What was it like when you came out with your first song that was a mega hit? What was the feeling before that launched

versus you know the most recent unreal on earth you know is the feeling still the same you know 12 years later is there a different feeling at this season of life as an artist um you know before you launched the recent album and the feeling on the first song i was so like i was such an unknown and that i just was watching its its uptake slowly but surely there was these moments where okay it was reaching another audience so it's like oh my god it's like that the video has been seen by 10 000 people oh my god that was a huge deal for me at the time and i think it was like it got it was like on the first page of reddit or something me at the time. I think it was like it was like on the first page of Reddit or something which at the time was like

huge. It was huge you know and then it was starting to be played I think some of the earliest. I think one of the first radio stations that played it in the States was like Alabama Mountain Radio and like it was being shazammed and we were watching like somebody was telling me oh yeah it's just been shazammed in like

parts of the world, parts of the States that I, I'd never been to the States. I'd never thought that I would be where the music would be heard. At this point, people in Ireland didn't know that I was an Irish artist, you know? Oh, really? Yeah, honestly. I think the song had started to be played on Irish radio, but they assumed that I was, like, an American import, you know, that I wasn't, they didn't know that I was from Ireland because I, I hadn't been releasing music all that long. And then there was this kind of, this kind of dark sort of gospel rock sound,

you know, in that song, this kind of swampy sort of vibe. And then, yeah, so, so it's different, you know, I think that you, there's, there's sometimes you miss being the underdog a little bit, you know, there's some, there's a lot to be said for having that feeling, right? Yeah. Having nothing to lose. The naive, like, oh, this is really exciting. It just. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And feeling like every, every inch you gain is a, is a, is a, is a huge deal and is a big win and you've nothing to lose and you can prove everything, but also if nothing happens, it's like, it's okay. Go away, come back when you're ready. You know what I mean? So it's trying to maintain that. Maybe there's something to be, you can still maintain that sort of mindset a little bit of like, I think when you, and this is also maybe something that you can,

it's good to practice or to investigate or think about, is when the stakes seem higher, or you've like on your second or third release, you feel like if it doesn't do something for you, that it's somehow, you know, it could be a success by the metrics of what you would think beforehand or anyone else's but we have you create this idea of like i don't know you just you want more from it or you know so that's how do you navigate that like when you launch you know an album and

it doesn't do the numbers in your mind like well i hope it does this many downloads or streams in the first month or year yeah if it doesn't do that or if it does do that how do you navigate that expectation i think it's always just about i try to just bring myself right back to because you you do and you look you work with you partner up with business like labels and stuff like that and they wanted to win you know yeah and they're competitive by nature and and and it's great that you have a team that thinks like that, that wants to bring your work to a large audience. And there's a lot of different ways that different artists will think about this, independent artists maybe. And what I have settled on is that if I believe in the work, I want to give it every chance that it can reach as many years as possible and let those years decide. And I just try to bring it back to the work. Do I believe in it? If I believe in it and I love it enough that I feel it's worth releasing, it's worth being out in the world, I'm at peace with it, whether it's somebody listens to it or it doesn't. I'm at peace with it if nobody listens to it.

There's some songs that I'm quite proud of, such that if they were heard by a hundred people, I would say that song is still of the quality that I wanted it to be. The quality of the work doesn't change whether it's listened by a million people or a billion times, or it's listened by a million people or a billion billion times or it's listened by a thousand thousand people or a hundred people or ten people the quality of the

work doesn't change wow so i just try to bring it down to am i happy with the with its quality that's beautiful i think that's a good uh lesson for any artist yeah author or anyone it's like are you happy with the quality yes if you have a career or business around it sure you want to figure a way to make money and survive but I think you have to be proud of the quality of work no matter if it sells millions of copies or one copy totally totally does it represent you that's beautiful yeah man Andrew there's a lot I would love to talk more about was you will have to have you back on another time, but I want people to check out your new album,

Unreal on Earth. I want them to come to watch you live on tour, man, which I'm going to do one of these days. Please do. They can go to hosier.com for your tour dates and everything like that, is right? Yes. Yeah. Tour dates. Unfortunately, not many shows left. You get notified when you do do more.

Exactly. Exactly. But they can listen to the music. Uh, you're on, you're on YouTube, Instagram, social media,

everywhere. How's your everywhere? Um, how else can we be of service to you and support you today? Oh my goodness. Um, I think you've been a great, you've given me a huge amount to think about and, um, offered, offered wonderful space for reflection.

Um, but not, not at all. No, like you've just been, been your wonderful self. Thanks. Thank you for, yeah. Thank you for inviting me in. Of course. Leading always with a very, very open heart. Of course, man. We're doing it together, man. Um, I've got two final questions for you, but I want people to go to your website where where's the best place to listen to your music is it spotify is on your website is it um where do you recommend people listen i mean they can you can listen on spotify you listen on title and you know uh where's your preferred place um does it matter i mean it's i mean the sound quality on Tidal is better. I'm sorry, Spotify.

Look, it just is. And, you know, like vinyl is obviously going to be the best. I mean, honestly, I don't really mind, I think, anywhere that people want to listen to it. If they enjoy it, if they're vibing with it, I'm thrilled. Anywhere, yeah, yeah. Share with your friends, listen to it. Share with your your kids before i ask these final two questions andrew i want to acknowledge you because i know it's hard for you to receive compliments but i want to acknowledge

you for the journey you're on i think i think artists have a big opportunity to inspire and impact but i also think there's a lot of pressure for artists to be the perfect role model and say all the perfect things all the time, especially at younger ages. So I want to acknowledge you for your journey of being true to yourself and sharing your art with the world, having the courage to make art and put it out there, even if it's nervous for you, even if you get scared before you go on stage and you keep showing up for the little Andrew in you, the current Andrew in you, and for the audiences that love the art

that you've created for yourself. So I want to acknowledge you for your journey and being willing to reflect and look within over these last few years for yourself and allowing yourself to heal or navigate whatever emotions you're feeling so hopefully you can continue to serve in a bigger way to humanity and yourself and your friends for many years to come. So I acknowledge you for all of it, Andrew,

and just really, really great to meet you and pleasure to have you on. You too. You too. Of course. Okay. Two final questions. This is called the three truths. It's a hypothetical scenario. Imagine you get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on earth. Live as long as I want, but it's the last day on earth. Live as long as I want, but it's the last day on earth. So you're a hundred, you're 200, however old you want to be. Okay. We're going into the future and you get to create all your dreams.

They all come true. You make the art, you have the family, the lifestyle, whatever it is you want to have, you create it. But for whatever reason on this final day of life you have to take all of your work with you so all of your music we don't have access to it anymore this conversation gone hypothetical anything you create for whatever reason you got to take it with you to the next place when you pass on hypothetical scenario um but you get to leave behind on this final day, three lessons and three things you know to be true. And you feel is true for you that you would leave with the world. And this

is all we have to remember you by your content. If you can, like you went back in time when you're on stage, thinking of that song that you wrote 10, 12 years prior, and you felt that time playing it in the pub for the first time on stage, 12 years prior, and you felt that time playing it in the pub for the first time on stage 12 years later, when everyone's screaming it back to you, if you can jump forward 70, 80, a hundred years to the final day and think about all the lessons you'll have learned, what would be those three lessons or truths for you? I'm going to finish with an easy question so easy oh my god i was like um three lessons or three truths um i would say one is is to and this is difficult for a lot of people

I think in the kind of hyper real spaces or the spaces like social media and stuff like that you know is remembering that each human being that you are witnessing their lived experience is as is as is

as authentic and as and as deep and as real as your own you know and that they're suffering and they're not and their internal narrative whatever whether they're whether they've done their healing or they haven't done their healing yet, that they are experiencing a lived experience that is as deep, at times as dark and as frightening as your own. And the reality of that, just to remind yourself of the reality of that, Yeah, just to remind yourself of the reality of that. I would like to say that at the same time, and this is something I kind of borrow from,

there's Seamus Heaney's Nobel, when he won the Nobel Prize in his speech, it's a beautiful lecture, and it's called Crediting Poetry. And he references a massacre from Northern Ireland. And he's referencing a massacre that took place. And he talks about a poem and what the poem knows, essentially.

In the same way that the poem can credit, it bears witness to, in this one instance, it can bear witness to, it bears witness to and knows a massacre is going to happen in its telling of this story. It also must and can at the same time bear witness to and credit the gentleness in this instance of the comforting of one person, the squeeze

of a hand. And in this instance, I encourage anybody to read his crediting poetry lecture, this I will not abandon you and squeeze of the hand that happens between these two co-workers just before the massacre takes place. between these two co-workers just before the massacre takes place. And so he describes this beautifully. It's at the same time that the work can credit, and we often do, we credit and we bear witness to and we represent and we tell the story of the horror and the hatred and the massacre.

At the same time, we can, and maybe it's imperative that we credit that there is the squeeze of the hand. There is the tear that comes from a place of love and comes from a place of compassion and empathy. So it's, you know, I would say the actuality of love, the actuality of solidarity, the actuality of solidarity, not in any sort of wishy-washy

sort of airy-fairy type thing, is that there is, there is. We don't question the actuality of violence. We don't question the actuality of hatred. We don't really take seriously the actuality of solidarity that we we think of it in this sort of lofty political terms but it's like the love that you have for your neighbor or your or your spouse or your child or your best friend that's showing up for people that um i won't

abandon you in this you know so it's um and in the same way that a work can credit one, it can and must credit the other. And that's a beautiful thought that I would say that there's a truth in that. We're in a limited space, you know, we're on a limited rock here. You know, I think, I think, I often think that the ways that we go about and look at, we deal in business. We work with different people in business. And there is in this moment a kind of a perpetual... And look, I don't want to get too political, but we sometimes think in terms of this sort of secular trance of the perpetual growth model.

We're in a limited space here. There is a commons that we all share in the world that it is. And I think, I just think it's a, there is a huge amount still of investigation and really like investment into the thinking of viewing the world as a commons, as a shared space that we just have to, have to, that we can't just extract from, that we'll have to arrive at some point to some sustainability practice, be that sustainable economics, sustainable resource management,

et cetera. That's something that really, and again, it's in the abstract, increasingly not in the abstract, but I get so sad at the idea of, for what humanity is and how far, the chance of this earth becoming what it's become and like what us as human beings, us evolving into this to have awareness, to have meaning, to have a sense

and the fact that we could actually be at risk of, potentially, of the point where we consume ourselves into some dark age or into an extinction event. It's like really very sad. Overconsumption of everything, yeah. Yeah. It just makes me very, very sad that we could lose the progress of society as we know it. So yeah, I think that was one other thing. I probably had something far more nice, more artistic to say than that.

But yeah, that's that. It's all good. It's beautiful, man. Andrew, final question for you. What is your definition of greatness? I think, and again, it's, final question for you. What is your definition of greatness? it's a mode of being it's a it's a and it's a commitment to an alignment of of the heart and the mind and the spirit in in either the work that you make in the in the in the ways that you deal with people in the way that you engage with your community um and be you know and, and I think it's one that is, to me,

I have no sheer definition, but it's one that is marked with a mode of grace and good faith, you know. But if you, look, it's not always easy, but I think if you can bring that to the work that you're making or the engagements that you're having

in the day-to-day, good and good grace with with with people around you and yeah and in some form of alignment with with your your heart mind and body great i think that that is if you can maintain that mode of being i think i think um well i think we all know people who manage to do that. And there's people in our lives that we, that we witnessed sometimes. And we're like, you know what, that's a really great person. like that or some sort of like global or international sense of, you know, it's not that they're achieving some outrageous monetary or financial success, but there is in their being something that we just, we can't help but admire. And that they are either in their community or in their family, to their friends, in their place of work, that there is something undeniably great about that person and i think those to me are some of the markers of it there you go my man andrew thanks for being here much really appreciate it powerful man 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. 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. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you. And it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving

forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.