The School of Greatness - Josh Groban Gets Vulnerable: "I felt like a talentless piece of SH*T!" How He Battled Inner Demons & Found Happiness

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

My life-changing annual event, The Summit of Greatness, is happening September 12 & 13, 2025. Get your ticket today!Josh Groban wasn't supposed to cry on his therapist's phone call. But there he was, the multi-platinum artist who'd sold 35 million albums worldwide, breaking down over something that stunned him: he was finally, truly grateful for the small moments. The quiet dinner with his nephew. The easy laughter with his girlfriend. The simple peace of not chasing the next milestone. For someone who achieved global fame at 17 after a chance encounter with Celine Dion, this discovery of presence came as a revelation. The young man who spent decades in "deep concern at all times," constantly proving himself worthy of the spotlight, had finally learned to bottle joy instead of just achievements. You'll walk away understanding how to find peace in your own success, no matter what level you've reached.Buy Josh’s newest album GEMSSupport Find Your Light FoundationJosh on InstagramJosh on FacebookJosh on TikTokIn this episode you will:Transform your relationship with success from external validation to internal satisfactionBreak through the confidence trap of only focusing on what isn't workingDiscover the power of simplicity when performing under intense pressureLearn why chasing feelings creates more fulfillment than chasing outcomesUnderstand how serving others can heal your own creative blocksFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1818For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:The Jonas Brothers  – greatness.lnk.to/1794SCHozier  – greatness.lnk.to/1596SCRachel Platten – greatness.lnk.to/1663SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

We just confirmed that Andrew Huberman is coming to the Summit of Greatness, along with some other amazing speakers. We've got Dr. Teres Sward, Brenda Bershard, Gabby Bernstein, Amy Purdy, and some huge entertainers and performers. Make sure to get your tickets right now. Summ of Greatness is happening September 12th and 13th here in Hollywood. I can't wait to see you there. Welcome back, my friend, to the School of Greatness.

We have a inspiration. human being on today. His name is Josh Grobin. And he opens up on how he stopped chasing success and found real happiness after global fame as a young man. And Josh opens up about the pressures of early fame, the midlife identity crisis he's faced and how therapy, gratitude, and starting to slow down helped him reconnect with what truly matters. He has sold out arenas from around the world and opens up about this process of always needing to be perfect and live up to expectations and the pressures that other people put on him in his teens and his 20s and how that helped him in some ways, but also how it hurt him in other ways and how he's trying to reconnect

to his true authentic heart and himself, why the pursuit of the next big thing can leave you feeling empty if you're not being present. For me, I reflect on this as well. life because I'm going after big dreams and goals. And in moments, I could get obsessed about what's happening in the future and miss out on the moments today. And so these are great reminders for me as well as an interviewer. Being around someone like Josh and other top performers like Josh, it's just important for us to continue to listen and hear these stories and be reminded so we can hopefully use these lessons in our life. We talk about why true peace often comes when you stop chasing and start appreciating life and so much more.

And if you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with a friend or two. Just text them or post them in a WhatsApp group chat. And also make sure to subscribe over on Apple podcast or Spotify, wherever you're listening to your show. And without further ado, let's go ahead and dive to this episode with the one and only, the inspiring Josh Grobet. What is the biggest lesson you learned from being so successful at a young age to where you are now, which it seems like a very peaceful human being.

Yeah. I mean, you're catching me caffeinated. So I'm, I've got a real good flow going right now. But your energy seems very calm. I've, and you know, when you're chasing success, I'm speaking up for all of us. Yeah, sure. Like you're driven like, what's the next thing? Right.

Yeah. Exactly. And it looks like you're in a now place. Well, you know, I've always been, you know, admittedly really kind of, um, not skeptical, I know how important and truthful it is, but I've always been a little bit of like, I'm not sure that's for me, though, about like the power of now and about like, you know, thinking about, you know, stopping in the president. I've read all about, you know, capturing the moments that you have, but there's always

been that nagging thing in me to say, yeah, but there's that thing I got to chase or there's that, there's that success I have to go for. What's the next tour? What's the next thing? I've never been, it's like the satisfied song in Hamilton, you know, it's like there's always been that other thing. And yet what I was saying to my to my therapist that really kind of got me emotional was that like at the end of the day and you realize that what is life but to but to capture and bottle the good moments when you can get them and to really stop and to really

enjoy those moments because regret is a powerful thing. And if you if you move so quickly and the greatest thing, I mean truly the gifts that have been given to me by starting at a young doing what I love, to be able to travel the world, make music that I love to meet people from all over the world and all walks of life. But the thing that it took for me was a little bit of the slowness of the growth. And it was hyper speed. And it was always thinking about what hasn't happened yet or dwelling on what is already dead.

And there was very little time to think about what's here and very little time to bottle the goodness of what's right here. And I always knew it was important kind of peripherally, but it wasn't until this last year or two when everything started to click to me about what, how important and how powerful it is. And the crazy little secret about that is that once that started to happen, the clarity of where I wanted to go creatively and what I wanted to do for my next steps. Because I had done, I had a major creative block right after I left Broadway about a year and a half ago. Really? Yeah, because you had the structure. I had a year. year of doing my dream show and all of a sudden you don't have a place to go you don't have a sport of saying you don't have an audience in front of you you don't have a routine

and so I needed to kind of have the time out of absolutely being completely scared not knowing what I wanted to do not knowing where I was going in order to kind of finally evaluate and realize the power of that but yeah I I had a bit of an emotional moment just thinking about you know I was with my brother. I was with my new nephew. My baby nephew was just the most precious, most amazing and beautiful baby. And my brother's wife, and I was there with my girlfriend, who's my love. And, you know, I just spent time with my parents as well, you know, and we, it was just like this week of, oh, this is my, this is everything that I want. I can bottle this. This is what I want to bottle every day that I have going forward. There's going to be good days. There's going to be

tragic days there's going to be everything in between but this this week of of connectivity i want to bottle this forever and um i just want to keep bottling i just want to keep finding those that's that's my goal in my life and it can be creative too but um but it's it's important that's beautiful man when you were so young and in reaching the heights of success in this music world did you feel like you were happy when you were accomplishing all these big goals and breaking records and you know. I was, I was, I was, I was happy that others were happy. I think that I, I, I, when I look back at it, I kind of define my happiness at the time as being, um, I guess satisfied that I had, I had knocked the duck down, that I had done what it was that was asked of me. And I had achieved, I had broken through the pressure of what was expected of me. And it was like I had two gears. It was either like, like, Normal. Good. I did the job. Everybody's happy. I can go home with a smile on my face. I did the job. Or I didn't do what I was supposed to do. And I'm going to take that to a very dark place. But I was never able to break through the ceiling to joy. Really? No, not really. I mean, you had Tony, Emmy, five-time Grammy nominated, you know, 35 million albums sold worldwide. Sure. More now. All these things, Broadway, film, television. I mean, you've done all the awards. For sure. And that's not to say that there wasn't an enormous amount of, like, of gratitude, but the, the, because I was, this, this all came from a lack of confidence, not a, this is not a big deal. It was because I was so nervous about failure every step of the way. It was because every step of the way. And I'm talking primarily, like, the first 10 years of my career. Because you got started kind of when you got started, when were you in teens, right? Like, yeah, I was 17.

When I- Is this the Celine moment? Yeah, it was 17. I got discovered by David Foster singing with Celine at a Grammy rehearsal. That video is amazing. And it's, oh, my God, I look at it, I'm just like, first of all, the hair, the turtle neck. The whole thing was like- No, but the moment was so powerful to have that captured.

My dad had a video camera in the audience and like, you know, Renee, Celine's husband who passed away, he was so, so kind to me, said, oh, no, he can, security was all over my dad, because, you know, you can't just, you can't just film. and said, you know, no, no, that's his son. Let him, let him film. So we were able to capture it. And, you know, I thought it would be a cool thing to show my friends. You know, like, hey, look, that's Celine Dion.

I look back at it now and I think, wow, that was a moment where I was terrified. I got through it. But, you know, even after that, I walked back to the car. And I think it's just in my nature. I was just like, did I do okay? Like, did I, was David happy? Was Celine happy? Like, okay.

And I had never been on a stage that large in my entire life. there was something about my psyche that was saying, like, oh, good, did I get the job done? I got the job done. All right. Well, back to history class, you know, I just was, I don't know what was wrong with me. But even when David asked me to do it, he was like, hey, I'm at the Grammys, Andrea Bocelli can't show up? You were great at this thing.

I heard you out. Would you mind singing with Celine? Even then, I was like, can I do the job? And I said, okay, Andrea's a tenor. I'm a baritone. I'm not sure this is my range, David. I think you might be better off getting a different singer. I mean.

She almost turned it. down. I did turn it down. And he called me back and said, and said, I don't think you've heard me because he'd never been, I don't think rejected. Rejected. Yeah. He's rejected. Um, rightfully so. And, uh, and he said, you know, I'll see. I'll see you at three, I'll see at three o'clock and you're, you're doing this. Uh, and, you know, thank God he called back because I wouldn't be sitting here. But, um, but, but there is, was something in my nature very early on that was very much about like, can I, can I, can I satisfy the need. And if not, I don't want to be, I don't want to just do it to do it. And it honestly,

that that served me well, just like a pro athlete, like it that served me well to to eliminate some of the noise and eliminate the hot, the extreme highs that can get you into trouble. I saw a lot of artists that their egos and their confidence just went to a whole other level and there can be a certain complacency that happens when you, when you, you think it don't stink. But, um, but I, I, I always kept my nose down and always thought about like, okay, well, if I did the job, I can be satisfied. I can go to sleep happy tonight. But if I didn't do the job, then I would self-criticize for weeks. And that was the thing I needed to start to get better at. Where do you think you'd be if you didn't say yes to David Foster and Staline Dion for that

practice session? Where do you think your life would be your career or you think you would have finally broken through or was that a big catalyst? I just think that success would have been a different animal for me and a I think just as meaningful an animal for me. I think that theater was always in my blood. I was accepted into a very prestigious theater program at Carnegie Mellon University, really top of the heap as far as like great musical theater programs. And so I was I was so excited to be part of that. And I my freshman class there was like just bananas talented. I had, we had, you know, Josh Gad, royal. O'Malley, Leslie Odom Jr., who got the Tony for Hamilton.

Leslie was in there too. Leslie was in there. I've had him on this show. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's such an inspiring. All those were in the same class. We were in the same class. Katie Mixon, who's an amazing actress, you know, and all of a sudden, and I've told the

story, but it's like, we were all the hot at our high schools, right? We were all the lead. We were all teviya. And like, all of a sudden, you're doing freshmen sing for the, for this, you know, we were the Avengers of like high school theater lead leads. And all of a sudden, we're in the same class together and doing our freshmen sing for each other and we're all just kind of going, oh, wow. Oh, got it. Got it.

It's another level. This is, I now this is what I have to reach. And you came from L.A. also. And I came from L.A. and I also started my freshman year after that Celine moment with David had happened. So I was juggling from like a confidence perspective. Honestly, my soul really wanted to be where my college experience wanted to put me, which was that you have to humble yourself. You are a beginner. You are learning.

It is time for you to build sets for the. the seniors, it is time for you to grind and feel like you have a long way to go. That is where I wanted to be. You got, you're going to fail a ton. And you know what? By the time you graduate, you're going to be a leading actor, but not yet. But what happened? And then on the other side, I got David calling me saying, hey, we got to, you're going to have you at this billionaire's event and you're going to be singing with this person. This galah. Ray Charles is going to go on before you and all of a sudden, I'm getting from this side of it, you got to walk the walk you got to talk to talk you know you you got to act like a star dude and on this side it's you're

here to learn and you're this big until we tell you and you know and so that was a very confusing time because you know I think a lot of people maybe would have like said oh but I've got this guy over here and I really want to be there my soul was telling me I wanted to be a student I really wanted to get into the mud and and have the permission to be bad to have the permission to try something stupid and pick myself back up. And also being kind of an introvert, I was excited to like have the college friend experience. I was happy to be in a dorm building with all kinds of artistic kids and like having that being over in this corner was actually really isolating. A lot of pressure. Yeah, a lot of like very shiny things. But a lot of pressure

and a lot of isolation along with this enormous door that had been swung open for me. At the end of the day, my parents and I talked about it and I was in school. for performing arts. You've got an opportunity. The school was kind enough to give me a leave of absence. They didn't just kick me out. And so I said, okay, I'll come back in a year. The kind of roles that I was going out for, I didn't need to be young and high kicking. I wanted to be like Sweeney Todd. So I thought if I miss a year, it's not the end of the world. And then, you know, that path, that path happened. But, uh, wow. But Broadway, Broadway came calling. And some of the most satisfying artistic moments I've ever had, have been on the Broadway stage

because it represented for me where I wanted to be when I when I started that other that other path. Gosh, this is fascinating, man. So how did you, when did you feel like you gained confidence? Well, you know, because you had the door like wide open for you. Yeah. From one working hard as a child to getting the talent. It's not like someone just gave it to you because they liked to you. It's like a number of things happened. You also busted your butt. You were extremely talented. You put in the reps and you had an opportunity. and you took advantage of it and you kept delivering on results. It's not like you, you know, and so more opportunities come when you keep delivering results.

Sure. But when did the confidence come? When I look back at it as a whole, I'm really able to high five of that kid and say, man, you got fastball after fastball and you kept hitting home runs. And, but in the moment, I was only thinking about the strikeouts. I was only thinking about like all the times where I felt like, Like I wasn't quite enough or I wasn't quite hitting the note the way David wanted or I wasn't quite my stage presence wasn't where it needed to be or, you know, or when I wasn't getting recognition, if somebody gave me a bad review or I wasn't nominated when I wanted to be or something, I was, I was hyper focused on all of the ways in which there might be a hint that it could be all over or that I wasn't good enough. Really?

I was, it was like it was like I was a lawyer in my own head defending the demons. Like you see, you see, uh-huh. One critic over here. Your Honor, I'd like to present Exhibit A, uh, talentless piece of, uh, here you are. Yes, uh, I arrest my case. I wasn't focused on all of the ways in which I was crushing it. I was focused on all of the ways in which I wasn't. Meanwhile, there was a whole lot of success happening as well. So confidence was a, was a funny thing that crept in through experience.

If I didn't have the hours and hours and hours and hours. There are enough things that happen where you feel like you don't, you aren't quite on your game and it affects you. Oh, I was so nervous. Oh, God, really got to my voice. Oh, why did I crack there? Why did it? Eventually, you get through enough things where there's a, your demons are having a party and you still made it through and did great that you go, ooh, I'm going to put that in the tool, the tool belt. I know, now I know what that demon feels like. And I now have, I now have the, the machete for that one. Okay. And eventually, you've been through enough hair-raising, nervous, not-confident moments on stage and gotten through it anyway, that all of a sudden, like, by proxy, you take a side door to confidence. For me, confidence is having enough tools on that belt to know that, you know, I'm not ever going to kill the doubt. But what I can do is say, all right, here's the one, here's the tool I need to get through this bad moment because I've been through. it before. That's where confidence has come in for me. What is the best psychological or emotional tool that you've used when you experience the most fear or self-doubt? What do you use to at least get through it? Yeah. As an overthinker and as somebody who feels like I need to overcomplicate

things as a baseline in order for it to feel like meaningful, the greatest lesson that I've had to learn is the power of simplicity and the power of back to basics because I never thought that I was just enough. So I had to stack things on top of me in order to feel like I was lifting enough to be impressive to somebody because just me, just my singing,

just was like why. And so for me, getting through stage fright, getting through nerves, being thrown on stage, which can still happen after thousands of performances, you can have an audience that you think is going to be amazing and all of a sudden they're just weird or drunk or somebody's yelling something in the front. Things can still throw you no matter how many times you've been out there. Or all of a sudden, you thought you

were sounding great in the dressing room and then out of nowhere, like, you're like, oh, I got a frog in my throat. What's this about? Um, you know, the the ability inside yourself without anybody else knowing you're doing this to take it back to basics, to a simple checklist that involves like, as an example, I might be thinking about, I'm at Madison Square Garden, and I got 18, 20 songs to sing. And it's sold out. And this is the, and I've got all my friends here and my labels here. And there's like, there's the 32,000 foot view that when you're really coasting out there, you can allow yourself to take it to the complexity of like all that. I'm going to be at a 10 and I'm going to be singing the high note. And I also know that this person I'm a fan of is in the audience. I'm going to find them.

Where are they? There you are. And you're just like you're allowing yourself to get large with it. If I'm not feeling good, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about telling the story of that next lyric, and that's it. That is it. And, you know, and I am not thinking about impressing the greatest venue in the world. I'm not thinking about who's out there. I'm not thinking about the next song or even the next line. I am just thinking about singing and telling the story of the word and the line that's in front of me right this second as beautifully and as honestly as I can. And then the next line and then the next line and it's then you say, okay, I'm now, I'm at a one and on the outside, it's not any different. I'm still enough. I'm still doing everything I need to do. But inside, I'm telling the demons to take a backseat. And, uh, and so learning that simplicity and slowing my complex thinking mechanism down to take to be, because it takes a lot of bravery. Yes. To sit at a one in a venue. you that's an 11 or an event or something that holds that much meaning. It takes a lot of experience to be able to set yourself into a very simple zone when there's so much chaos around you. And that's just experience. That just comes from, I couldn't have done that at 20. That's so interesting because I used to be terrified of speaking on stage. But for the last, I don't know, 17 years I've been speaking on stages. And even after whatever, 10 years and getting you paid a lot of money

to speak in front of thousands of people, I would still get nervous right before going on. And I was like, why am I nervous? Like, I've done this so many times. I've done training and public speaking class and been on stage and get paid a ton of money. Like, why am I still nervous? Because all those things you've already done. The one that's in front of you is not done yet. And it's control. No matter how many times I've done it, the one, the stage that I'm about to walk up the stairs to isn't in my control yet. When I'm on when I'm backstage, I've realized is that nerves are the fact that I don't have the reins yet. The nerves are unknown.

I'm completely out of control to the unknown. I think it'll go great. I've done great in the past. There's no reason to think that I'll do poorly out there. But I don't really know. And I think those nerves creep up when you care. Because when you stop being nervous, it kind of means that you're on autopilot. And then it's time to find something else that scares you.

Yeah. But I've started to harness the nerves. in a way that makes finally getting on stage fun because now I can control. Now I can control the evening. I can control. I've done public speaking too, which is way scarier for me than singing, by the way. So kudos. But like I will talk very, as you can probably tell, talk very fast when I'm public speaking.

And I've got a speech to do at something. And where I can take control is like, oh, I'm going to like relish in this line. I'm going to really slow it down. I'm going to find my pace. Singing is the same same way. Now I've got a chance to really dictate how I feel about this next thing I'm going to say or sing. And having that control is, I think, can be a really fun thing. If you transition your nerves to like, oh, I just want to make the night what I want to make it.

Yeah, that's cool. A friend of mine said, it's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service. And when I go out on stage, I have a number of tools myself, but that's something I think about before I step on stage instead of thinking how can I look good and perform well right and entertain yeah it's more like who needs to hear a message that I can serve today yeah and maybe that's something you do in your own way of like how can I just give my best and then you know that's the simplicity of just just just tell the story sing the lyric sing truth just take it down to the simplicity of accessing and and and giving out a message that you want to give that's cool and then that's and then that's

it. And then the rest of it, before you know what you're saying, good night, Cleveland, you know? I'm curious. When has been a moment in your career where it was like the biggest success was happening, but you felt like you were at your lowest place, mentally, emotionally, physically. Did you ever have those feelings or moments where it's like, man, I'm crushing it like to the world. But internally, I feel like I'm really struggling. You know, I'm sure I could pinpoint a couple of those. But honestly, that, That has happened more times that I could actually kind of say that there have been moments where I have been going through my own mental health journey on stage that is so polar

opposite from the experience that the audience is getting. Really? Do they know you're going through it? Are you expressing it? No. So you're just in your mind going through it. I can tell you now that I have distance from those evenings that I was crushing it, that the shows were great.

And in those moments, there have been times where I can't even like talk to anybody for like an hour after the show because I'm just, I'm in this like shame spiral of self-criticism that is can go so deep that has nothing to do with the reality. And I think, you know, I talk to a lot of performers and people that are that have high pressure performance jobs, whether it's in the art. arts or sports or whatever. And there is a certain place that is like an adrenaline place or whatever it is that your fight or flight that your brain has to access so often when you do that many shows that sometimes the nights where you're crushing it the most are actually the ones where you're kind of on the fringe a little bit and your your vulnerability is kind of taking a hit and you're you're feeling a little too wide open. And there's a lot of stuff that's coming in and there's a lot and that means that there's some darkness that comes into and so there

have been shows where um i have had to get out of my own way to enjoy what i've what i've just done but i also have a tendency sometimes to when i step off of a stage and it's like there's like two different people when i'm on stage there is something i can tap into that really knows how to ride the wave and ride the energy that's happening up there and work the stage and then I've just, for better for worse, I've never been one of those people that can take the party back off stage with me. I, I have so much jealousy for those artists that there is an after party and it's like, let's keep celebrating what this whole thing was, man. Yeah, let's have drinks and let's talk about how great the night was and let's talk about how, you know, and I've just

never been, I've just never been that person. What happens for you typically after a performance? Kind of like a battery overload and like shutdown mode. It like, like, it's drained you. I go into a low power mode. Interesting. And I, and I, it is, has trained me a little bit. I think that there's not a small part of it that has to do with, um, protecting from disappointment. Or maybe it wasn't quite the way I thought it was out there. Or maybe I read a few, you know, too many negative things when I was younger. And it just taught me like, I don't get, don't get too high after a show. Right. Stay, stay right here, you know. Interesting. But for whatever reason, I've just always, I've always let out everything that I possibly have to give out there. And then afterwards, I just don't

let myself celebrate it too much. Wow. And, um, you know, that's, that's still something I, I need to work on. What are three pieces of advice that you wish you could share to your younger self the day you did the audition or the, the guest spot with Celine? If you could go back to that day, that morning of. Yeah. And you could sit down in front of yourself. 16. Is that old you were there? Yeah, I was 16 there. Imagine you're there. That's what, I don't know, 30 years ago, 20 something years ago. Yeah.

What three things would you say to him, whether anything would change or not, but just pieces of advice that you have now from wisdom, from years of experience, from therapy, from healing, from growth, ups and downs. What would you share with him? What's interesting about when I look back at that video and I look back at that kid is that I actually have more to learn from that kid now than I have advice to give that kid. Interesting. I, you know, I actually can think of more things I'd like that kid to tell me at 44

than things I want to tell that kid as a 44-year-old. Okay, well, give me three things that your 16-year-old self will tell you now, and then three things that you could also say to him. What would he say to you first? I was because nobody was paying attention then. Nobody was looking for the next thing. Nobody knew who I was. I walked out on that stage, and I stood out there for, like,

20 minutes because nobody thought that I was the kid singing with Celine. So I'm standing on an X and I'm just kind of out there. Dootty-do. Yeah, hanging out and just kind of reading the Italian and trying to make, you know, and yeah, I'm nervous. Of course, I'm nervous just like I get nervous now. But I also knew that this was probably a once, you know, in a lifetime experience. And I was going to go back to theater school and after this and like tell a cool story. Yeah. And man, there was a purity of heart there that is. so important to go back to when all of a sudden there's a million things that people are expecting of you and know your name for. And so, you know, I would, I would ask that kid, I would tell

that kid, don't worry so much. And I would ask that kid to tell me, don't look at the next 50 things that are, that are in front of you. Hold that lyric in your hand and, and sing out for the moment that you have it. And don't think about the next thing you have to sing. Just be in that moment. Because I was in the zone. That kid was in the zone. You know, I was. Was that kid insecure or self-doubting or self-critical then? Yeah, for sure. I mean, but it was like a, it was in a, I was so self-doubting that I told David, no. You know, I don't, I honestly, genuinely didn't think that I was right for that, for that thing.

So I get there and if I, it was, there, there's a certain level of nervousness that doesn't hit you when you're that green. There's a certain level of, um, uh, no pressure. There's nothing on you right now. The ignorance is bliss thing that you're just like, oh, Oh, wow, we're here. And before you know what, you're on the stage, and the director's going, where's the stand-in for Celine? And I'm going, hi, you?

All right. Okay, stand here. Can we get a mic for the kid? Thanks. And I'm just like, okay, I guess I'm going to sing into this. I mean, I didn't know how to ask for the right monitor sound. I didn't know, like, oh, I need a little more treble in my ear. And so, yes, hi, a little hot teethroat coat, please.

Or I might not be able to sing the note. You know, there's all these trappings that come in that are, that are like these rituals that you start to feel like you need. And, you know, honestly, like, that kid would tell, you know, the guy who's now been selling albums for 25 years, get your head out of your ass and just, I didn't have, I probably hadn't had water in four hours when I sat, when I sang on that stage. I was in a hot car. I had a security guard who wasn't going to let me in because David didn't give us the pass. I had my dad with a rickety camera in the front row. I had nobody who cared that I was standing there. And I had this global superstar who was like, are you okay?

We're going to get through it together. And she took my hand and I'm just going, wow, she's lovely and nice. This is wonderful. This is so nice. Selina's so nice. But man, I was like, in my mind, I was so like, oh, okay. Well, let's give it a go. I'd love to do a good job.

And I'm very nervous. But, you know, there was so much ignorance that I feel is so useful. Wow. Now that, you know, to just, and I think maybe it goes back to that keep when I need to go back to simple, when I need to take it to one. I'm kind of taking it back to that. Just be, just be. And that's it. Because there was no expectation of me.

And so there was nothing in me that, you know, felt this pressure except that I just wanted to do a really good job for David. Yep. And then go back and, you know, watch South Park, whatever is I'm going to do. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I, I. It was more about having. fun it sounds like. How can I have fun and just enjoy this moment? There was a fun. There was a humility. There was a there was a, of course, a nervousness because it was crazy. But, but there was also a

like, this is, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I didn't have any of the stuff that gets in your way about expectation, about all the things you need. I didn't have a rider. I didn't have reverb. I didn't have. There weren't, I had no expectations. And I think that going back to that place is a really, um, can be really valuable sometime. How do you create that fun, playful, no expectation mindset, 25 years later with such a massive career that you had, how do you just say, okay, for the next, you know, decade, I'm going to go, no expectations, you know, the label has an expectation, my fans have expectations, my, my future self needs money coming in, like, how can you have the mindset of

but also still curate your personal brand and content the way that's needed to in an industry that's looking for hits and success. Right. Um, you know, I think that taking side quests in life is, is a really important and valuable thing. I like that. You have to, I never had hobbies, right? Like to me, my hobby, when I got into the thick of the success, my hobby was just, what am I going to write next? What am I going to sing next? What am I going to hit next? And I, And I would always just say, oh, yeah, my hobby is singing. My hobby is music. But honestly, like, having other things to excite you, you know, is important.

And also understanding that once you branch out and you have a certain amount of people that are with you, you have the ability to, if you choose to open more doors for yourself and to also open more doors for other people. And so a huge part of kind of getting out of my own way has been with philanthropy, has been in, in finding my younger self in countless other students and trying to give whatever it was that I had, the access that I had, the wisdom that I was given to whatever young people that I can and to kind of see it through their eyes as somebody who's old and stodgy and, you know, that expectation is, is always going to be a little bit of the rent due for, for success and for hitting hitting it the way you wanted to hit it. Yeah. When I don't have expectations of me, I know that there will be a problem as well. So I embrace the expectations. It just shows that I've reached a certain place where I want to be. But, you know, picking and choosing where you just kind of decide in the most loving way to your artistic self to not care. And it's not that you don't actually care. It's just that sometimes you have to create in order to get through the maze of caring so damn much, you have to. You have to. to have a little, that abandon and say, ah, just, yeah, my voice teacher, when I'm nervous, just throw it off the balcony. Who cares? Well, yeah, I do a lot. But the point is to just let it go. And so I'm always looking for creative things that allow me to feel like, well, this isn't for the label. This isn't for, you know, a certain core fan base. This is just for me. And I find that

whenever I'm able to do kind of weird comedy stuff, Broadway, honestly, was one of those things where I felt like there was a, I wasn't expecting when I did my first Broadway show, which is a, which was a weird kind of started off off off Broadway. I was not expecting it to be the success there was. And it taught me that, you know, sometimes when you go towards the thing that is not for them, you're actually doing the exact right thing for everybody. Interesting. Because it's your, again, it's a lot of side doors in my life. You're side dooring yourself to, um, to finding, you know, know, passion to finding, you know, where, and not just, um, not just a goal, but, but that, but that, that thing that's lit under you. That's interesting because I like what you just said, when you decide to do something that's not for them, you do it for everyone. You can. Yeah. I've done stuff that, you know, comes for everyone, I guess, right? It's, it reaches more people sometimes and you could have ever expected. For me, being allowed back and, you know, back into a theater community that I left my freshman year that I didn't know if I'd ever have a

chance to to come back to that or that I'd ever be invited back to that. I did I went into theater for me. I said, you know what? It's been, it's time. That's cool. I want to do it. Or this or that. No, absolutely not. I want to do it for me. I love this work and I'm going to do it. I'm just going to take a time out from the day job and I'm just going to go into this because this is for my soul. And man, the domino effect of things that came from doing that first Broadway show taught me that, oh, that's, that's, that's where the light is. That's whatever, whatever it was that made me choose to do that, whatever I call the day job, I need to make that same choice in every song I sing and every

album that I make and every producer that I work with and all the things that I thought were more of a, of a machine that I needed to figure out, like, what's, what do I have to say next? What do I have to do next to hit it? It's, it's just go where the goosebumps are. That's it. Oh, go with a goosebumps are. That's powerful. And this is, listen, we're, you know, we're in L.A.

This is very, like, privileged conversation that we're having here because we get to do what we love and make money from it and impact people. Not everyone gets to, like, just do what gives them goosebumps all day long where they can make money and do these things. But I truly think everyone can have side quests, have hobbies and live a life where their soul is on fire. Yeah. Maybe you're not enjoying everything you're doing, but you can bring soul to everything you're a part of. And like you said, it's not, you're not always going to feel it, but the pursuit of that feeling. Yes. Rather than the pursuit of the end goal is, I think, where the secret sauce is.

This is so cool that you're talking about this. So for me, like what I challenge myself to do now day to day is to go towards a feeling rather than think about going towards what it is I want to get from it at the end of it. The result. I want to hit the next. Yeah. And that's, that's a tough, you know, that can be sometimes a tough thing. And you've interviewed a lot of people that have been so successful and have had a lot of pressure. And for me, having that pressure at the young age and having a lot of very type A people around me at a young age who also have made it very clear to me that if you're not singing into the golden microphone, it's going to be passed along to the next person. You know, it's a, you start to kind of develop

some patterns emotionally that you have to unlearn a little bit. And so, yeah, I'm chasing that feeling right now. And when I go back around to that, that cry I had on, you know, on the phone with my therapist. It was, you know, it's, it's when you get those, when you, when you're able to bottle a feeling, you know, in my creative life now, that's all I'm trying to do is I'm trying to chase where that, where that good stuff is. And it doesn't come without a whole lot of days where you hitting yourself over the head and you're digging a hole. It's just about, you know, you got to get out of it. What I'm hearing you say is in the last 25 years, not all of it, but a lot of it, you were in your head. You were analytically thinking, that I hit the note,

that I please this person. Was the audience happy? Was the label happy? Was the label happy? that I hit my numbers, did it sell out, whatever it is? Was it a record breaker thing? And you're in your head a lot, but it sounds like you're chasing what's in your heart now in a feeling of... There's so much you can't control. And yes. That stuff will happen or not happen based on so many factors that don't have anything to do

with whether you yourself are dwelling on it. And that's the thing. It's not that you lose ambition for success. It's just that you can't control. which you can't control. You can hold yourself and you can hold people around you accountable for the goals that you have for yourself in the most loving and, and motivating ways. But at the end of the day, the job that I have to do is a feelings job. It really is. And the rest of it, I just, I can't grasp it too tightly because it's not up to me. Every year, the business is

in a different place, you know, every tour, some tours, you know, crush it, some tours. You just woke up on the wrong side of the bed for whatever reason. It's like, all right, I'll move on to the next one, you know, but I'm still going to chase that feeling and I'm still going to go after that. And so, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a fun place to be. I've been doing this now 25 years and, you know, finding dreams for myself that represent what I've been doing and represent new uncharted territories is a, is a really fun place to be. I'm very, very grateful. What's the thing that gives you goosebumps now when you think about exploring the idea? Um, you know, there's a couple of things, one in the past and, and then one going forward, but when I, when I, and I so I say this sometimes on stage, but when I sing songs that were from like my first album now, and I mentioned that I was singing a lot of songs that had to do with the life that I hadn't lived yet. I was being given songs were very mature. And when I get to, when I get to, when I get to sing those songs now as somebody who's experienced love and loss and all the things that I'm now the age of who I was singing for when I was 17.

You know, I have a newfound appreciation for my older work because I now feel like I've lived the life that can fully tell the stories. Wow. That's cool. And, you know, as I go forward, the things that give me goosebumps, when I have, like, a great day, like with my nephew and my girlfriend and I've had a great day with my parents or something gets me up at two in the morning to just sit at the piano and just play and I just, there's just something pure about. the experiences that I get to have in my life and I'm not thinking about the other stuff you know that's the stuff that's good scary for me now is thinking about like setting roots down

and like moving on with the things that I may be put to the side you know during the other part of my of my life and um you know and I I and keep keep side questing I'm gonna learn magic let's go I just went to a magic show this weekend oh really in LA it was awesome man I just did magic tricks for my parents. It was pretty good. I said, I kind of crushed it. You got to do some card

tricks. You got a trick. I don't, I know, it's strange. I didn't bring a magic trick. Yeah. That's the next levels when you can just pull out of magic. Oh, yeah, there's some cards and yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I want to be that guy actually, but, but, but you never know, you never know, but it could always be a coin trick that you could have. I got a quarter, you know, let's do something. Yeah, I've been collecting baseball cards and selling. I have, I have an, I have an, I have an eBay account where I've been selling baseball. Come on. Yeah, nobody knows it's me. But, but, but can I tell you that the, the satisfaction that I get, You're like, I made 20 bucks.

Not even, not even. Like, wrapping, delicately wrapping an Ellie de la Cruz like base card in like an envelope in the padding and the in the team bag and, and like printing out the label and shipping, taping the label and dropping it off at the post office to send to, you know, Tallahassee or Peoria. It like there has been something about that's been so tangible and so fun. That's cool. do that. I really, really enjoyed doing that. Wow. Do you get them graded or do you just send them raw? I send them raw. Yeah, I haven't gotten into the PSA stuff yet. I mean, there's, because there's certain cards that I do want to get graded. But, but no, I'm just, I'm just putting

them out, putting them out raw. And there's some that are expensive, some that aren't, but it's been, it's been really, really fun. Are you breaking decks then? Are you buying them and trade and selling them? Or are you? I'll get into breaks sometimes. But, um, you're going to trade shows and you're buying them? Haven't gotten into the trade shows yet. But no, sometimes I'll go online and do some breaks online, which is, it's cool, but it's also, uh, uh, sometimes a real waste of money. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It is, you know, because, oh, man, you're wasting. Eight times out of ten. You lose it all. You're losing. You're losing. So I really enjoy, it's the thrill of it. I like, you know, as long as I'm going to spend some money on it,

because, you know, the old joke is like, if you want to make $500 selling baseball cards, you guys spell $5,000 to get them. Um, you know, it's, uh, is just kind of getting some, some basic boxes, hobby boxes. And I open them with my girlfriend. I opened them with my brother. Um, it's just fun to rip them open and just what you get. I bought it. I got into buying a little bit during COVID, I've kind of paused for a while. Yeah. Well, that would be the time to do it for sure. I was late to it. Right. But my friend Pat Flynn, he started the side quest of his own. Yeah. Two years ago, three years ago, doing Pokemon stuff. Oh, wow. Bringing back his childhood joy. Sure. To now he's a very successful

business entrepreneur, but now he has a TikTok that is called, should I open it or should I keep it sealed? It's a very, it's got like a theme song to it. Oh, wow. And it shows him like buying expensive decks of Pokemon like 20 years ago. Should I open this or keep it sealed and sell it? He always opens it and almost always fails. Man. Like never gets anything, but you're like hoping he gets that one card, you know?

This is being in your 40s post-COVID. Oh, yeah. Is just any slight grasped nostalgia. Of course. Give me that good, give me that good feeling. I've been eating like the cereal of my childhood lately. What is it? Lucky Charms?

Oh, my fruit lunch. Oh, okay. Yep, rice rice, rice, rice, rice, crispies. Yeah, cocoa puffs. Yeah, it's like there's something, what is that? I'm just, there's something about the nostalgia of it. But the baseball cards, I, by the way, I've also been buying like boxes of cards like from the junkwax era, but we're from my, my 80s, you know, back, back when I was

collecting, you know, Oral Hirschizer cards. Wow. That's been fun. Yeah, that's been fun. So I hear you saying you're chasing joy rather than chasing success. That's it. Trying to. Yeah.

Yeah. And the success sometimes, you know, um, whereas the, Whereas the joy would be the side door and the success was number one. I'm going to make joy number one. And if the success goes through the side door, then that's a bonus. This is the first time we've met. But I've seen your, you know, content and your, you know, your performances on stage for 25 years. I've seen you on TV and all these different things.

I've seen moments of you. And again, we don't know each other except for just now. But you seem like you're the most peaceful energetically. Like in your face seems calm and young. Whereas before, it's almost like people bouncing off the walls in here? This is, I mean, I'm just, by perceiving, by perceiving all your work, it almost seemed like you were always trying to perform older, like, be older and like put together and like this perfect image versus I'm going to be myself and you look younger than when you were probably. I was stressed. That's what I'm saying.

You had the energy of like more, you performed well. I had puppy paws that I hadn't grown into. And I was like, I was, yeah, I was, you know, you're, I. joke, but you're, you are so right that when I look back at videos of me doing interviews and stuff from those first 10 years, I was like, who is that old man inside? Energetically. I was energetically like, I was just like my baseline was just deep concern at all time. And that concern, I think, came across as a self-seriousness.

But it was, it was really just terror. It was just like, got to say the right thing, got to sing the right thing, got to be all the right things. I have to be the person that everybody wants. There's a billboard of me staring you down. I got to be that guy. And yeah, I was, I was, uh, I was just, I was scared to death for a good amount of time. And I was also, um, being rewarded for that fear with a lot of success. So it, it, it, it kind of taught me some toxic things that I needed to unlearn. Um, but, you know, I've been, I've been so lucky that I've, I've been able to break out of the, the things that are the norm, and I've done enough, you know, weird, fun for me things that

people have gone, oh, we like that too, that I thought, oh, I don't have to hold on so tightly. I can be, sometimes it takes a long time before you can say to yourself, oh, just who I am is okay. Like it's, you know, because you're, you're packaged early and it's, uh, it can take a long time. So to everybody who's allowed me to say, you know, I'm, I'm weird and it's all right. Uh, thank you.

Yeah, man. It's, it's cool. I mean, even on social media, you're very fun and playful at times and you, like, express yourself, which again, I just didn't see that, you know, in the era of you growing up from your success. It was like, I have to be the ultimate performer, you know, and perform in an interview, not in a negative way, but it's like energetically, you had to be, it was held tighter. The kid that wasn't on stage, the kid before I got signed was the biggest goofball. I mean, like, you know, I had and have the attention span of a fly. Like, I've, you know, just always been bouncing off, you know, different things and different hobbies.

And I've always been just kind of weird and I've always loved comedy and joined an improv troupe when I was in junior high school. And like, you know, and then the person that dove into the music industry, there was a very specific kind of lane that I needed to fill in order to be in. the big leagues and you couldn't be this goofy kid i it that didn't fit the lane that was set in front of me there was a part of me that was that lane so it wasn't like i was just going into something that wasn't me but the lane that was going to be uh here's where we need you here's the song that you're going to sing even the song that i sang with selene the prayer that fit a lane

and that lane was very very serious and that lane was about uh causing a lot more tears than laughter emotionally. And, um, and so I think that the fact that now with the internet and social media and you can be all things. And I actually think it's flipped now to the point where if you aren't more things, you're boring. So, uh, it's actually in a place now that I think, um, I almost wish some, some parts of me are so glad I didn't have social media when I was 17, 18, because I was already insecure. Um, but it would have been fun to have kind of tapped into that other stuff back. Of course, man. I'm excited for you. This is a quote from you that I saw you say on another interview

somewhere. We cannot fend off the battle inside by ourselves, even when we're always convincing ourselves we can and should. Who has been in your inner circle or your team that has supported you in overcoming yourself, limiting yourself, the criticizing yourself or the shame you maybe had or just uh um to there's been a couple of people but um you know my parents are both very artistic but real world they they did not go into the arts professionally to watch their kid want to be in the arts was probably sheer terror for them but also like you know they always brought me back down to earth and they always built me up um i had a couple of teachers that saw i mentioned the attention span thing but like having ADD and not knowing it and finding solace in

the arts saved my life. Having the teacher kind of go, hmm, I see like you're getting your butt kicked a bit in math class. Yeah. I'm going to open up the music room for you so that you can refill that part of your tank because I know you're feeling like crap in that with that tank. That saved my life. Um, you know, being with the right partner, you know, it's like, I was just talking to my girlfriend today about something I was, I forgot what it was, but it was like, you know, having somebody that allows you to be your weakest with, them so that you can be your strongest out the front door is, uh, is just the most vital and the most important thing.

Wow. How long have you guys been together? About three years now. But honestly, like to have a sounding board like that is, is incredible. What's the greatest lesson your girlfriend's taught you? Um, to not care so much what other people think. Really? Uh, I'd say that, you know, there is such a, there is such a, there is such a,

tendency for your focus when you're trying to become inspired by something to kind of be wide and to be, you know, you're hearing it from a lot of, a lot of corner offices are telling, are telling you a lot of things, not to mention all the anonymous things that you get from all over the internet. And, you know, it's impossible, even when you've accomplished a bunch and even though you, you are chasing all the right things and to kind of get thrown every now and then, to kind of say, oh, but she'll see that I'm really excited by something. And then I'll have a second thought that is based entirely on the insecurity of what somebody might say or, oh, maybe that won't be taken the right way or stuff that has nothing

to do with inspiration. And she'll sit me down and she'll say, like, absolutely not. I saw that, I saw how your eyes lit up. I saw that fire in you about this thing. You are so excited about this song or this collaborator. or this comedy thing or whatever it was. And I think that, you know, she's from Essex, England, and there's a certain amount of like, you know, toughness there

that I've needed in my life. And just to kind of keep me where the light, keeping me where the light is can sometimes mean that you don't, you don't care as much about the noise. And even now, sometimes I care too much about the noise in the chatter. Then what is, at this season of life, what does success look like for you? I want to be as I want to be as I want to be I want to have the the best platform I can to reach young people who are looking for a path in life and using the arts as a tool to do that for me an enormous part of success for me is paying it back paying it forward and diving headfirst into into philanthropy and into you know,

You know, I'm going to be going to the Debbie Allen School of Dance tomorrow and I'm going to be meeting with a bunch of kids and filming a bunch of stuff there. And it's like I, you know, I'm so excited to do that. Whenever I get to be in a room full of students and I get to instill whatever little wisdom I have from those moments and hopefully keep kids on the right side of the fence because I know what it feels like. And I came from support. There's a lot of kids out there who are not coming from the same support that I had. and staying on the right side and where that light is can be as simple as having that music room unlocked, you know, having that paintbrush on your hand or that dance program. And so putting whatever power and influence that I can put into raising awareness for those programs at a time when those programs are being obliterated at a rapid pace, that to me is finding a legacy for my foundation, Find Your Light, is a huge level of success for me as I go forward. Being the best uncle I can be to my new nephew is a huge level for that. And, you know, every artistic choice that I make, I want to be able to look at it and say, well, even if this doesn't do anything, I really, I love this. I really love this.

That's a scary thing sometimes, you know, and continuing to do that. If I can continue to expand, you know, and do what I love, that would be very lucky. That has been a great run. Tell me about Find Your Life Foundation. How long you've been doing this for? And what is the, you know, it's helping each child have the opportunity to experience quality arts and education, I'm assuming, right? How long have you been doing this? And how can we, the audience, get involved? Sure.

If they're inspired to. Well, it started, you know, my fans are amazing. They are never just in it for like, flash in the pan, like, you know, just cheering for the music. they want to know how to get involved too they've from day one they've said what are your passions outside of music and how can we help they presented me with um one of those jumbo like publishers clearinghouse checks i was playing the greek theater in like 2006 you know and uh and they came to the front of the of the audience they said you know hey we've uh we've raised this money for you was like something like 40 000 like that and they said uh we're this is our we know that you want to start a

a foundation one day, consider this from your fans the first check. That's cool. The coolest. And so, you know, it's, I didn't know why I wanted it to be arts education at that point. We just kind of raised money and we built, we gave a lot to medicine and, and disease research and hunger and things like that. And I testified to Congress about the importance of the arts in our, in our world, and the importance of art education and told my story.

And I'm next to Linda Ronstadt and Winton Marsalis. And I'm talking to very nervous, talking to congressmen and women. And I'm going, oh, I have a story here. I know, I know what I really know what I'm talking about here. And the fun part was, too, that with arts education, a little bit goes a long way. You can, you can buy a lot of paintbrushes, a lot of instruments. It doesn't take a lot to open that door and, you know, give a kid a drum set to sit at. And so I thought, oh, man, I think that I'm going to always give to other organizations.

I'm always going to lend my money and my time to other organizations. but the thing that I want to raise money for, I think has to do it the thing that saved my life and saved me. And so we are giving grants all over the country to make sure that in school and after school programs that enrich and give access to young people's potential through the arts continue to survive at a time when they're crashing and burning. We've seen it over and over and over again how the inclusion of a solid arts program in a young person's life changes.

their grades, gets them more invigorated in their academic work, changes their confidence level, gets their parents to come and see them in a show or see their art exhibit or whatever it is, gives them something to talk about. The graduation rate rises. We need an infusion of humanity right now. And, you know, with the divisiveness and with the attention seeming to be away from the things that bring us together, we need to instill in our young people. It's not about finding the talent that's going to be the next superstar. It's about really, instilling the things that the arts bring to what what the light of what makes us incredible together and also the beauty of all the differences we had so interesting

because as an athlete growing up I struggled in school but sports was kind of my art yeah is my expression for I think that the similarities between using the arts as a tool and athletics as a tool are so many similarities it saved my life in a lot of ways and it just helped me grow as an individual and develop me and character development team building communication all those things yeah like I I wish arts and sports and athletics were school. I wish that was the majority, not the after-sure thing. And the after-school thing was like, okay, learn, obviously, how to read and write,

but you need to learn how to work with people and set goals and deal with failure. Absolutely. Dealing with failure is a big one. Yes. Building yourself back up. And, you know, and expressing who you are through an art platform or sport, platform, getting that side of your soul out of your system opens up your tank for all the other things that you want to do or even just have to do.

Yes. It exercises so many demons in a young person's life. And it's overlooked because it's thought of an extracurricular and it's not, you know, as important as the rest of it. But I would argue that it's, it's just as if not more important because it teaches kids who they are. Yeah, that's cool. So f-y-l-f.org is the site.

Yep. Find Your Light Foundation. Can people go and donate there or how can I support? They can learn about the programs that we support. They can donate. And we're, you know, we're constantly doing, doing work to raise money and we're going to do another gala in October as well in New York at Jackson Lincoln Center, which is going to be awesome. So look out for that. But yeah, we've just been the amount that we've been able to raise, the millions we've been able to raise now from very grassroots to now being able to have these gals and have, you know, supporters like Renee Fleming and Sarah Borellis and

then Mell Miranda and, you know, our former surgeon general, Vipik Murthy, and, you know, and the most fun part of it for me is when we have people who aren't in the arts going up. We have neuroscientists. We have people that talk about what the arts is doing on a scientific level to these young brains. That's the part for me that takes it out of, you know, for anybody that's skeptical of the woo-woo of like, oh, it's just a drum circle. Yeah. Like, no, we are actually scientifically helping these brains. Yeah, that's cool.

That's the fun part for me. That's great, man. f-y-l-f.org. So there's a link for people to donate there too. There is. Oh, yeah, for sure. And every little bit, honestly, like, you know, $5 can go towards, you know, like I said, that paintbrush, you know, all of these programs, when they're asking for grants, they're not asking for $100,000. They're asking for $5, 2K, 3K. They're asking for just enough to keep these programs alive. And if someone donated $500 or $1,000 was watching, what would that do for them? Like, how would that impact people? What, you know, is that a school? Is that a, how many kids would that help?

Well, when we get grant applications for programs, they, they go through a rigorous process where they'll tell us exactly what they need, what the, what the money is going towards. So we have a group of volunteers and myself and my family and our board, we do it as well, that we really make sure we vet that the money that's given to the, to the foundation is going to programs, not just to be a bandaid, but to really make sure that that money is going to nourish an arts program to continue to nourish themselves going forward. And so that we can be a small part of, at a pivotal point in time when this organization needs an infusion so that they can stay open for a long, long time.

So it's mostly for high school programs or for like... Elementary through high school. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And right now we're just in the U.S., but we want to expand that globally as well, yeah. So, FYLF.org, we'll, uh, School of Greatness. We'll make a donation today for you there.

Oh, that's very kind. Thank you so much. We'll make a donation there. And I hope everyone else donates as well if you feel inspired. Thank you, sir. about the Find Your Light Foundation. I've got a couple final questions for you, but this has been really inspiring and eye-opening.

I'm glad you've been sharing so much. You've got a, besides your foundation, you've got a couple shows at the Hollywood Bowl coming up, September 5th and 6th, I believe. That'll give me the good chills. That's excited. That's a homecoming. That's going to be fun.

I remember my dad took me to see Elton John there when I was like 10 years old. We sat and I think we probably had the furthest seat in the back and it was still incredible. that's going to be a very, very special show with the two shows with the LA film. That's cool. And are you going on tour later as well?

Planning on it. Yeah, we've been working, nothing's been announced just yet, but we're honestly, we're looking at a bunch of both domestic and internationally. I want to get out and hit the road in 2026. So, yeah, so look out for that. Awesome. Yeah. You got a new album coming out as well called Skin and Gems.

Yeah, so we just released a kind of a best-of compilation called Gems, where we kind of took the songs that were favorites of mine, favorites of the fans and we put them in one collection. That's cool. And then we started seeing a lot of comments from people saying like, what about this song or that song? And there were songs that they were mentioning that honestly, like we either released for a very small amount of time or we're like a bonus bonus bonus addition of something or we honestly, I sang live and never released it. And so we're going to be releasing something we were calling hidden gems, which is all the songs that are not

quite yet available, stuff that we haven't put on Spotify yet, stuff that, you know, has been you know on an old you know um like a hallmark only album or like a target edition or something that that hasn't been the main songs that have still been songs that the fans have loved so yeah hidden gems will be coming plus it'll be one or two new songs in there as well okay very cool so it's coming uh it's coming soon the next month or two i think right or i think so absolutely i've slid it under the door so whenever they put it out it's up to them um i want people to follow you because you have a lot of cool stuff on social media. What is the best platform for you, Josh,

that you like to be on? Oh, man. I, uh, I like, I like Instagram. Everything is just at Josh Groban. My TikTok, tic-tac, tic-tac, baby, let's go. I show you how I'm dull blame on TikTok. Uh, my, my, uh, my TikTok is at Josh Groban and my Instagram and my ex and my Facebook are all just Josh Groban.

Okay. Um, and, you know, uh, my TikTok is probably going to be the weirdest stuff that I do, you know, um, but, uh, You know, it's been fun, especially I've got a new puppy and we've been posting lots pictures about me. So if you like dog content, there you go. You're in for a treat. Singing and dog content. They go hand in hand. Before I ask the final couple questions, Josh, I want to acknowledge you for just your vulnerability

and your realness today. I think it's been really cool that you've just been so open about reflecting 25 years ago, your 16-year-old self. And most people think about the advice they would give their younger self, but you actually gave advice from your younger self to your current self. Yeah. Which I think is fascinating to hear that perspective view of like saying, I wish I would get more into that frequently, that joy, that, you know, fearlessness, that not worrying as much about it, what's happening next but being in the now. So I love that about you. And I love that you're making your mission. Obviously, you want to be creating side quests and following your dreams, but you're also at a season where you're saying, how can I help that 12 year

16 year old, 18 year old, 21 year old who's in the arts, who's passionate about it, just keep the lights on. Yeah. Keep the door open, the possibility for them to pursue this. Even if they don't make this a career, but keeping it a part of their life as part and not shutting that off. Yeah. Because they didn't have the opportunity. Right. And I think arts, uh, for me, you know, I was in choir in high school. Nice. I actually pursued. I did the theater, my senior year, because I was so scared of it. yeah terrified yeah of like dancing singing on stage try to you but i was like uh i i don't want to

regret this yeah right yeah and i'm probably will never sing on stage you know but it's like i knew that i was like do i want to leave high school not going for this yeah i did like tap dance class and like the theater and it was terrifying but i learned so much about myself right that i'm so glad i had that season of life yeah you know and i appreciate arts and me i mean I was the biggest Glee fan, probably because I never could do it. But it was like, the show was incredible for me. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so the fact that you're doing this, I think is really cool because there's a lot of kids

that that stop being creative and artistic, whether it be drawing or singing or dancing or music, they stop when they feel like they need to get serious about life. Absolutely. And you constantly say, hey, keep going. Here's a paintbrush. Here's a drum set. Here's the door still open for you. encouraging it and mentoring and coaching, I think is really cool. Oh, it teaches me. And that's the thing about teaching is you teach yourself so much by teaching. Yes. I learn so much by giving whatever wisdom I, because you unlock things you didn't know that you knew. When you, when you were asked questions by young people and students about your life and things, you're, oh, you know, I'm now

preaching something that I really realized I needed to remember for myself too. So that's, that's the most fun part of that. That's cool, man. Um, this question I ask everyone towards the end, It's called the Three Truths question. Imagine hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want in this life, but it's the last day. Okay. Last day for you on this earth. Yeah.

And you get to create and accomplish and go on a thousand side quests and everything you want to do. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. So all of your songs, your albums, this conversation, for whatever reason it's not here anymore for people to experience. But you do get to leave behind three lessons to the world. I call it three truths. What would those three?

be for you. I think that at the end of the day, truly, you know, it's the old phrase, but the love you make is equal to the love you take, that honestly, the more that you put into the connectivity and kindness towards the people around you, the more that you get back. Um, that's, I know it's cliche, but honestly, like it's, um, there is so much cynicism sometimes around you and especially in high pressure environments or in the arts or certainly entertainment more than just the arts themselves. But there's so many ways to think about how to step over that, uh, taking, taking those beats every moment that you can to express kindness to other people, um, comes back, comes back at you. Um, stay scared. Stay a student. You know, the people that I've been lucky enough to meet that have been heroes of mine still have a vulnerability in their eyes to learn a new thing, even though that to the rest of us, they're gods on earth. They can't wait to learn the next thing. And a final thing, stay hungry for, you know, all of it, food included.

That's great, bad. Final question. What's your definition of great now? oh my definition of greatness um gosh i think that you know i think i think that greatness is sometimes i think one of those things that you can't necessarily control greatness i think is when is when you can be looked looked at by those around you that you've that you've touched um as being somebody that they aspire to be or look up to.

I think, you know, the people that have been exhibited greatness in my life, when I look at my folks and I look at the teachers that to this day, I will always call them by Mr. and Mrs. because, like, they are, they have that, that aura to me, you know, and they, I, I looked up to them and I, and I wanted to be like them because they, they did it for all the right reasons, even when nobody was looking. And I think being the kind of person that people feel that way about, I think is what greatness looks like. There's a whole lot of people who've done great things that I don't think have achieved greatness. And I think that that's the way to go about it. Josh, thanks for being. Hey, thank you. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Of course. That's powerful, man. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life. You want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier. You want to make it flow. You want to feel abundant. Then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me

personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. 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