The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Mike Posner - On Discovering Your Life Purpose, Artistry, & The Importance Of Solitude

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

#702: Today we're sitting down with Mike Posner. Mike Posner's expansive, multi-platinum discography has earned him global recognition, and in 2019, Posner walked nearly 3,000 miles across North America in an effort to inspire people to challenge themselves, surviving a rattlesnake bite along the way. He then made it to the peak of Mount Everest in 2021, raising more than $250,000 for the Detroit Justice Center for his endeavor. Today, we discuss his career, how he got a record deal from Jay Z, and the thought behind his hit song, "I Took A Pill In Ibiza." He also discusses his journey with his mental health, finding solitude, walking across the USA, and climbing Mt. Everest. To connect with Mike Posner click HERE To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Airsculpt Get $1000 off an Airsculpt procedure when you complete a consultation. Visit airsculpt.com/skinny to find out more. This episode is brought to you by Betterhelp BetterHelp is online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat-only therapy sessions. So you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy & you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/skinny. This episode is brought to you by ServPro SERVPRO is the #1 choice in cleanup and restoration. Visit SERVPRO.com or call 1-800-SERVPRO today. This episode is brought to you by Just Thrive These days, stress seems to hit us from every possible angle in any environment at any time, day after day. Enter Just Calm - the breakthrough new stress and mood support formula from Just Thrive. Get 20% off a 90-day bottle of Just Thrive probiotic + Just Calm supplement at justthrivehealth.com with code SKINNY at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Go to squarespace.com/skinny for a free trial & use code SKINNY for 10% off your first purchase of a website domain. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin Get 15% Off OneSkin products by using code SKINNY at oneskin.co Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her. I wasn't silly enough to think that just the adoration of others would fill me up or make me feel whole.

But I was silly enough to think that that external success would change how I felt about myself. I thought I would feel more secure. I thought my chest would be out if I accomplished these things. And of course, nothing changed. You know, my moment to moment experience of life was largely the same. You know, these things were really exciting and fun. And my career and the success I had were all blessings. So it's not like I was sad because of them.

I was sad already. And I thought, you know, if I went down that path, it would solve these things. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, we have an incredible guest, which many of you I'm sure are familiar with, or at least with his music. That is Mike Posner. Mike Posner's expansive multi-platinum music has earned him global recognition. And in 2019, Posner walked nearly 3,000 miles across North America in an effort to inspire people to challenge themselves, surviving a rattlesnake bite along the way. He then made it to the peak of Mount Everest in 2021, which we discussed. It's a wild story.

I'm sure many of you, like I said earlier, are familiar with his music. He got a record deal from Jay-Z. Yes, Jay-Z. And then he had a hit song called I Took a Pill and a Beats, which I'm sure many of you have heard. And along the way, really went into this journey of mental health, finding solitude, meditation, really all of the things that make us better people. And his story is incredible. So we talk all about his music career, which I'm sure many of you are interested in, but mostly what it looked like after he had success in the music industry.

He kind of reached the peak there and then went to discover himself even further. So this conversation has a lot in there. Like I said, we talk about his childhood and his career. We talk about meeting Kanye and Jay-Z, the purpose of an artist, the thought behind his latest hit songs, internal versus external validation, why he got sober, the importance Jay-Z, The Purpose of an Artist, The Thought Behind His Latest Hit Songs, Internal vs. External Validation, Why He Got Sober, The Importance of Solitude. This is one of those podcasts that absolutely shocked Lauren and I when we were in it. It goes all over the place, and it's really just an incredible story. It almost felt like a long song that he was walking us through.

With that, Mike Posner, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. I get pumped to talk to people that have lived a lot of life in condensed periods of time. I feel you're one of those people, right? Some of the experiences you've had in a short window, those get crammed over very long but you crammed a lot early to start i know many people are already aware of who you are and what you do but childhood like what background where did you grow up how did you grow up were you called to music always or was this something you kind of fell into grew up i was born in det, Michigan. Both my parents were born in Detroit. I grew up in a city called

Southfield, which borders Detroit. Mostly black, middle-class city. I had a great childhood, man. I had a little crew of boys. They're all my age on my street, ride bikes, play basketball, play video games, and eventually started rapping. That's how I grew up. I love where I grew up. So just normal. I mean, it's my normal. But like happy childhood. It was nothing externally that was wrong.

But yeah, when I was a teenager, I was very unhappy. Very unhappy. Why do you think that is? I think partly genetic, ancestral. I think that's in my lineage for sure. Parents, grandparents, partly the environment. Michigan, I don't know if you ever spent time in Detroit, but in the winter, it's pretty darn gray and the days are very short. And the way our school was set up, I'd go to school in the dark and I'd leave in the dark. So I would go

months without seeing the sun. You know, I think that didn't help. You couldn't do that one. There's no way. People don't talk about how, I mean, you are right now, but people don't talk about how hard that is to live somewhere where it's dark a lot. Yeah. And then when it was late, I was inside.

I mean, I look back on my things you know now as an adult, the things I was eating. I would eat six bowls of cereal a day. And I'm lactose intolerant, so I was just eating sugar and milk. And I would go to bed late every night and get up for school. So it really wasn't like setting myself up for success with things I know now that are kind of foundational and baseline for-

What was your cereal? I would eat crackling oat bran. Okay. I remember that one. That was a good one. Granola. Yeah. With or without raisins. Okay.

That was the main one. Now I have a- No Lucky Charms? No, that was like when I was really little, I would eat that. I would eat that. But all those cereals, they're like just so much, it's just all sugar.

It's basically like a full on dessert. Yeah. We still go to our kids. You mentioned that you started rapping and you said it was your normal, but to me,

how does one just start rapping? I don't understand that. I had this great friend named Ronnie. He's since passed away. So rest in peace, Ronnie. But he always had a, he always had a scheme. so rest in peace Ronnie but he always had a he always had a scheme like we would hang out and he always had something we were gonna do like hey

tonight we're gonna do this and sometimes they'd be like legal things and sometimes not but one night he was like hey man like we're we're gonna freestyle tonight and so we we like went in our parents cd collections and we found albums that had tracks on them with no words and we just brought them together and we started rapping and i remember in the basement and i just knew right when i started doing it i'm never gonna stop doing this so it's like a prodigy yeah Yeah, I just, and I haven't, you know, so I just knew that was my, my thing. I didn't know that it was going to be my vocation, like that I could get paid for it, but I knew I would do it the rest of my life. So at what point do you start the momentum of your career? How does that start?

A lot later. So I started, you know know i'm like eight years old when i started writing raps and wow and writing songs and yeah they weren't very good you know because i was just starting and it took me really about 12 years of just making music to make something that anyone cared about and at the time in that space, in that era, how would one get discovered if you wanted to be discovered? That was an interesting question because at the time I was making,

well, condense a lot of life into a few sentences. So I started rapping at 18. I meet Big Sean. Okay, wow. And we're the same age. And Sean knows Kanye. I go to college at Duke University. Sean has a scholarship to Michigan State.

Kanye says, don't go to college. You're going to be a rapper. But I go to college. Sean doesn't. Sean then signs a record deal. And when Sean signs a record deal, something clicked in my brain. And I go, I can do that too.

Because my buddy did it and I knew I was like, my talent was comparable to his. So I started working and I'm in college at the time. And I was making music where I had begun putting melodies to my raps. I was essentially singing raps now, but singing in such a way that as a hip hop fan, I would like it. Like I was somebody who pretty much listened mostly to rap. I was like, this is how a rapper

would want a singer to sing and i was putting complex rhyme schemes polysyllabic rhyme schemes into the singing so like my first song that became popular song called cooler than me and it goes you got designer shades just to hide your face so shades and face don't rhyme, but designer and hide your also rhyme. So there's three syllables that rhyme. So this is like rapper stuff, but I'm putting melody to it.

When you explain it that way, it's more complex than people maybe would think. Correct. And most pop songs aren't written that way. Now some of them are, but not really. It's kind of like putting a little rap trick into a pop song.

So I was sort of like treading this line where I was both a hip-hop artist, kind of, but kind of like a pop artist. And I was at school. I was at Duke University. And I knew my stuff would react on like hip-hop blogs. Your question was how would you get your career started at that time? At that time, if you were a rapper, you would try to get on these series of blogs.

One was called Two Dope Boys, Nah Right. These were influential hip hop blogs if you were really into hip hop. And I knew I needed to get my stuff on there. But a funny thing happened while I was in the dorm room. I would always stay in from the parties because the dorms were always loud except for 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

when everyone else would go out and they'd go to a party and be dead quiet in the dorms. And that's when Mike Posner would record his songs because it was quiet. So I'm like all nights, my friends are going out. They're giving me a hard time. You're laying, you never go out. And I go down the hall one day into my friend Xander's room. And he goes, dude, you know, I just want to tell you yesterday we were at the party

and your song came on because I had MySpace. He goes, your song came on, all the girls knew the words. Whoa. And I said, well, that, you know, I've been doing it 12 years. I said, that never happened before. And he goes, and they played it twice in a row. Whoa. I go back down the hall to my room and my phone rings.

It's my mom. My mom is a Detroit hard rock. She tells the truth. She doesn't exaggerate. You don't have to imagine how she's feeling because she'll tell you. She doesn't placate. I answer that phone call and she goes, Michael, I heard that song, Cooler Than Me,

on your MySpace and I really like it. Michael, my jaw hits the floor because I've been making music 12 years. My mom always supported me, paid for studio time, got me music lessons, but she never told me she liked one of my songs. So I'm like, okay, that's weird. These white girls at Duke like my song.

My mom likes it. And then the next day, Sean calls me. He goes, yo, man. so I'm like okay that's weird these white girls at Duke like my song my mom likes and then the next day Sean calls me he goes yo man that cooler than me song he goes that's that's that sounds like a hit song to me and that's not even in my like in my realm of possibilities, a hit song. I'm just a college student. But now I'm hearing the white girls at Duke, my mom and Big Sean all love the same song. A wide range of... Correct. So now I'm going, okay, I need to get my music,

not only on these hip hop blogs, I need to get it in a place where people who aren't in hip hop and aren't going on these weird sites and pirating music can hear it and so at the time the safest place to get music still is the safe place was iTunes but the problem was is 20 2009 and so people my age we didn't we didn't buy music. We stole it. Yeah.

We stole it. Those were the days. Just ruin the family computer with whatever you were downloading. Correct. So I go, okay, like no one's buying Kanye's music or Jay-Z's music that I know. So they're damn sure not gonna buy my music

because they don't know who I am. So I found this loophole. It was a thing called iTunes U. And if this is boring, we can skip over it. No, no, I'm obsessed. Keep going. No, we love it. So there was a thing called iTunes U and it was made for professors

to put up their lectures for free. So they would put up- I never knew what that thing was for. I would see it all the time on their computers. It was just boring. You know, it was like some dude talking about, you know, it was like- It was literally a podium symbol, right? Yeah, it was like a film, you know, like footage of a classroom.

It was like a class. And so I found the guy who ran iTunes U for Duke. And this is where maybe fate comes in. His name was Todd Stabley. I get on the phone with Todd. I say, hey, Todd, my name's Mike Posner. And we start talking. I said, I really want to get my album on iTunes Todd. I say, hey, Todd, my name's Mike Posner. And we start talking.

I said, I really want to get my album on iTunes U. I'm a student. And so I'm hoping it can qualify to be educational and could go on there. And he goes, oh, we start talking. He goes, where are you from? I said, I'm from, born in Detroit. Like I just told you, I'm from Southfield, Michigan. He goes, I'm from, born in Detroit. Like I just told you, I'm from Southfield, Michigan. He goes, I'm from Southfield, Michigan.

I would gladly put your album on iTunes U. Do you still keep in touch with him? No, I haven't talked to him for years. Pretty cool though. Yeah, but he put it on there and then it like really expanded. And my buddies that I went to school with, they all sent the link to their friends that were at different colleges. We all changed our Facebook profile photos

to the album cover. And I would ask my friends that I went to high school with that were at different colleges to share with all their friends. And within a few months you know i get emails offers like hey can you like play this bar in dayton ohio or play this fraternity party and pay 500 bucks or 700 bucks and i'd go and it wouldn't be big shows they'd be like 50 people but everyone there knew all the words to my music to to that album, that mixtape.

That's going to be a trip. It was a trip. And then I was living a double life. So I'd go to school during the week and then I'd play Thursday, Friday, Saturday concerts at college, college, college. And I'd go back the second time, go back to Dayton and it'd be 300 people there. And I'd go back a third time, be 3,000.

So how fast does it really start going like from the time where that gets discovered to the time where thousands of people are showing up you know it's like it depends what demarcation lines you choose like 12 years or you know 12 months but from from me releasing that first, from me releasing Cooler Than Me to me getting a record deal was probably nine months, a year. It happened quick. You went to Duke. I did. Duke is not an easy school to get into.

So I feel like there's another aspect of this I need to dissect. So not only are you a super talented musician, you're also really smart. I feel like you have to have like gnarly grades and marks and all kinds of shit to get into Duke. Am I right about that? Yeah. Yeah, it's probably fair to say. It's not an easy school to get into. No.

I studied pretty hard in high school and in college. You're real smart too. Book smart. Smart in some ways. Other ways I'm not as gifted. You can tell you have a lot of retention. You want to know why I know that? Because we start asking you a question and then you go on a little story.

But you come back and you can repeat the question back to me. And I talk to a lot of people all the time. Not a lot of people can do that. That means that you're able to retain a lot of stuff and connect words quickly. Thank you. There's a lot of processing up there. Thank you. But I mean, that you're able to retain a lot of stuff and connect words quickly. Thank you. So there's a lot of processing up there. Thank you.

Yeah. But I mean, I don't think you could do, I always believe that people that can string those raps, those words together, like you have to be

processing at a certain speed, right? Like you can't, because in order to connect it and make it all sound right and make it rhyme and also make sure that the context

of the words make sense together, that requires a lot of quick thinking. Yeah, yeah. And you can develop it. You know, like I don't freestyle that much anymore, but when I do it, you know, you get better at it with time.

Who did you grow up with together? You mentioned Kanye. Who are the people that are in the same ether as you and are you guys collaborative are you competitive what's the energy kanye was already like an icon to us already yeah so i was like a generation under after him okay my generation was like me big sean wiz khalifa mac miller those are kind of like and there were a bunch of others but those was like me, Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller. Those were kind of like, and there were a bunch of others, but those were my class of artists that I was emerging with

in that first chapter of my career. And is there competition or is everyone supportive? There's pretty much all love between those guys, especially Sean and I. I always felt healthy competition with Sean. I wouldn't be here without Sean. He's changed my life twice in like immense ways. He's kind of like this guy that he'll float into my life

and like just change its direction and then float out. I'm like, whoa. So, and always for the better. So, yeah, with, with just all love. We inspired each other though.

You know, certainly like, you see this guy who was, you know, in your mom's basement with you and you're rapping and freestyle and then he gets a record deal.

You know, it changed my perception of what was possible for myself. And, as i'm sure you guys have touched on this podcast in your lives you know your life i believe is is the printout of your beliefs if you want to know what you really believe just look at your life so true and yeah right and so he was somebody who expanded my beliefs. And that internal expansion was just quickly followed by an external expansion.

When he got a record deal, I knew I could. And eight, nine months later, I was sitting across the table from Jay-Z in a meeting. He offered me a record deal. That's going to be weird. It is because of Sean. So when you're sitting across from Jay-Z and Jay-. He offered me a record deal. That's going to be weird. It is because of Sean. So when you're sitting across from Jay-Z and Jay-Z's offering you a record deal, what's going through your mind in that part? I was still a student at Duke.

It was the end of my junior year. And by then, my music was catching on such that major record labels were taking notice. And some of them were sending agents or A&Rs down to my concerts to meet with me and so I just had this double life going I'm a student but I'm like kind of becoming more popular and famous and I was taking meetings with different labels and then it was like finals week so I'm back at Duke I'm in the library and I and I'm not going to write my papers. And like you said, Duke's a tough school. And a lot of my classes were on a curve against just really smart students, man. And most of them weren't living a double life. They were there to study. People from other countries, their parents sent them there like, you're going to

study. And so anyways, I'm writing a paper and my manager calls hey you got to go back to New York I'm like dude nah man I don't think you get it like I gotta write this paper he's like no you gotta go back Jay-Z wants to meet you I said I said don't fuck with me you know he goes I'm not fucking with you yeah go back so i booked a flag obviously agreed to go back but i really didn't think it was actually going to happen i thought that i'd go up there and then they would say jay got busy you know meet with his number two or number three that's what i thought was gonna happen so i didn't tell a soul i didn't tell a friend i didn't tell anybody because i didn't i didn't want to what I thought was gonna happen. So I didn't tell a soul, I didn't tell a friend, I didn't tell anybody,

cause I didn't wanna say, hey, this is gonna happen. And then have to say, they say, how did it go? And have to go, oh, I didn't meet him. So I just like kept it to myself. And I flew to New York, just like a ninja man, like on a covert mission. No one knew I was going except my manager and we went and it was incredible and you know it's really a story i should tell you before i go

in the office which was maybe nine months or a year before i walk into jay-z's office um i was in new york with with sean and sean invited me to go to kan's Glow in the Dark concert at Madison Square Garden. I go to Will call. Sean says, there's two tickets there for you. I asked Will, I got two tickets, Mike Posner. They say, there's no tickets here under that name. So you sure? She picks up another clipboard, flips over the page. There's no ticket. I call Sean. I say, hey, buddy, there's no tickets here for me. He goes, Okay, don't worry about it. Just come meet me at the studio. I'm at the studio with Kanye. I'm thinking Oh, that's way better than just getting the tickets. So I show

up to the studio. And Sean meets me downstairs, we go up the elevator, we walk down a hallway, he deposits me into basically a waiting room next to the studio. And he goes in the studio, Kanye. And I can hear Kanye's album 808's Heartbreak Through the Wall. And that's what he's made, it's not out yet. That's what he's working on.

And then I hear my voice seep through the wall. Whoa. And it's a song that I made with Sean called Who Knows. And I'm thinking, dude, this is the moment. Kanye West is listening to my song that I made with Sean. And at that time, it's four people in the music industry that could change my life. It's Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Pharrell, and Kanye. And I'm like, this is my moment the music stops and i i see the doorway it's an open door and i see a

blur of bodies walk by including kanye's including sean's a bunch of other people and no nobody says anything to me and i realized they're leaving me and you know i was like the chutzpah of a 20 year old me i go like fuck that you know so i get up and i follow him to the elevator and i get out there and the down button is already illuminated they're waiting for the elevator and sean you know before i get suplexed by a bodyguard, introduces me to Kanye. He says, Kanye, this is Mike Posner. He made that song I just played you. Kanye gives me a fist bump.

And no one says anything. So I muster up all the courage I have inside my little skinny white body. And I say, did you like it? And he looked at me and he said, no. Oh God, that's devastating. He said, no. And it wasn't rude at all. It was just honest, which I appreciate

because it really lit a fire in me. I got in that elevator and I go. For some reason, that could have doused my dreams, but it ignited them. Do you think he knew that by saying that, that it would ignite them? I don't know. I think he has a commitment to telling the truth. I think he was telling the truth. And now you look back on that song, what do you think?

Well, that brings me back to Jay-Z's office a year later. I sit down with Jay-Z, and I'm nervous, and I go, I'm going to play you some music. So it's like I got my backpack now with my laptop in it. I take out my laptop and I'm, where can I plug it in? You know, there was no airplay yet.

He's like, I'm looking for his aux cord and it's like, you know, this is all weird. Finally, we get it plugged in and I play him cooler than me

and he starts nodding his head like this, you know, and I can tell he really likes it and we just have a great meeting it was it was like two hours i was in there talking for a long time and then what's the general conversation about like what are you guys chatting about in there for two hours vision like what you want my vision and the vision he saw for me he he was so

insightful such a student of music he knew my inspirations were by listening to my music Wow he said you know I I can hear this and this and and I think you could make an album like this but you gotta work hard for it and stumble upon it and the album he said was like my favorite album at the time it was the love below by Andre 3000. so he's just insightful and the man and he looked at John Mignoli his his right hand man he goes so what do we do John says I think we do a deal and I'm like trying to contain my excitement you know so we shake hands how old are you at this time? 20, 21 okay so you're young yeah compared to

how old I am now at the time I was the oldest I had ever been but still just the reason I ask it's like 21 it's hard to contain

your emotions at that age especially when you're with those kind of people yeah I never had a problem containing my emotions I had a problem expressing them

I go back to no before I go back I'm walking out of the room, shake his hand, I go, something inspires me. And I say, yo, can I play you one more song? He goes, yeah. So I plug my laptop back in. I played him, who knows, same song.

And song finishes, and he looks at me and he says, that's incredible. I can't believe you almost left without playing it. He goes, never forget to play that song. Whoa. I went on a plane back to Duke. I go back to the library, write in my paper, check my email.

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like I mentioned earlier. And so they just have a ton of solutions with a ton of different professionals and they're faster than almost anyone in the business. To check it out, visit servepro.com or call 1-800-SERVE-PRO today. Contact your local ServePro today by visiting servepro.com or call 1-800-SERVEPRO. It's so interesting that two people who are so successful had completely different perspectives. Yeah. But, and also not, right? It's like, they're so unique, you know, and, and artists are, are all unique. It's subjective. Yeah. That's what makes an artist an artist. They have a, I say, you know,

an artist by definition doesn't belong. I don't sing because I have an answer. I sing because I have a song. Right. So an artist, yeah, they're an artist because they see things differently. They see things differently than everyone else. And their job is to see beauty and divinity in the mundane and to help others see

that through their art what song is your favorite out of those two now looking back right now maybe uh who knows because cooler than me i still sing a lot who knows i don't you know it's like not on the set list is it hard i've listened to less times. Doing what you're doing at 21 and having the success. You said white girls at Duke are singing to your music. Is it hard to have all the temptation of drugs, alcohol, women, or were you just always really focused? I was tempted by all those things. And really what I was, was insecure. I I truly thought I never felt like I belonged and I truly thought that if I became popular and I got this record deal I didn't I wasn't silly enough to think that just the adoration of others would fill me up or make me feel whole,

but I was silly enough to think that that external success would change how I felt about myself. I thought I would feel more secure. I thought my chest would be out if I accomplished these things. And of course, nothing changed. My moment-to-moment experience of life was largely the same. These things were really exciting and fun,

and my career and the success I had were all blessings. So it's not like I was sad because of them. I was sad already. And I thought, you know, if I went down that path, it would solve these things. And it didn't. It's so, we hear this so much on the podcast. It's like Tony Robbins talks about the art of fulfillment

versus the science of achievement. And it's like you work, so many of us are so driven to think the money and the accolades and and all the achievements are going to make us happy and then when you get to that line and if you don't feel happy you have to look at yourself and you i think you have to focus on the art of fulfillment absolutely and it sounds like your journey has been a lot, a lot of that. Yeah. Well, it was a blessing. So I, you know, Tony's got another line I love. He says, achievement without fulfillment is the biggest failure. Yeah. You know, it's the biggest failure you can have. And I just love that, you know, I love that, know I love that that line that distinction and for me it was just such a blessing because I got this lesson in what doesn't work for me and what was it was ultimately

a dead end but it led me to ask okay if, then what? And the next chapter in my life became about finding things or places inside myself that did change the moment, my moment-to-moment experience of life. And if chapter one was doing what didn't work, chapter two is being a student, figuring out, okay, what does. Chapter three, which I'm entering into now, is sharing what I learned in chapter two. That's why I'm here. When you're at the peak of your success and you've achieved all these different things and you're signed by Jay-Z and you're surrounded by all these incredible, I'm sure there's girls girls there's anything you want was there an epiphany that that made that caused you to start looking for that fulfillment like do you remember something that happened or was it just

slow process it's slow process but it's process of pain you know at first like at first you're like oh man i'm getting the success and then i the same, so maybe I just need more of it. So you start chasing more of it. And then you get that, and still you feel the same. What up, though? And then really life took it away from me. I stopped being successful. My career really hit a very cold, cold patch. And I went from taking my shirt off at the shows and crowd surfing to just having an empty

calendar. And I had to figure out who I was when I wasn't famous, young Mike Posner. So that probably started the journey. And also we talk about Sean. He floated back into my life, and I ran into him in the studio. And I remember Michael, he was like glowing in the studio, and it just felt so good just to be around his energy, and also simultaneously his career was taking off. And I'm like, dude, what the heck are you doing?

What's going on with you? He's like, dude, what the heck are you doing? Like, what's going on with you? He's like, dude, you got to read these couple books, and they were spiritual books, and I never had a spiritual part of my life before that, and Sean gave me those books, and I read them with an open heart, and one of the first things I read was, you know, probably like a spiritual principle, like 101 it's so you probably sound basic to you guys but to me

at the time it wasn't basic it was profound it said when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change oh i didn't know that you know and that's when i started meditating and then i just went deep you I got to meet Ram Dass. And then I'm going on all these retreats, and I'm spending time in solitude and fasting and just exploring my consciousness and exploring what would change my moment-to-moment experience of life. That's what we're really talking about here.

When you say fulfillment, we're talking about a state of being now, not in the future, now. And as we all know, you can achieve massive amounts of accomplishments in the external world. But if while you do them, you're in a stressed and anxious state, well, guess what?

You have like a stressed and anxious life. And so the key is, well, one, you don't have to pick one or the other. So the key is like, okay, how do I achieve what I want to in the external world while being in beautiful state? And that's what my life is about. That's what I'm always working to master and what I'm hopefully helping others to master as well. You've obviously, I love the post you did

about your song, I Took a Pillow and a Pizza. There's been some press, obviously, about that. And I think, tell me if I'm wrong, one of been some press obviously about that and i think tell me if i'm wrong one of the things or maybe you wrote this or the press of that like a lot of the things that you wrote in that song are just not true at all they're completely counter to your life now yeah i wrote that you wrote that um then to now like what why so counter and and what has what's the the main fundamental change that you're trying to articulate to people? Well, I took a pill and a bee is a song about pain. It's a song about exactly what we're talking about crystallized into three minutes,

probably more articulately than I am now, expressing these thoughts of disillusionment, of making it to the mountaintop and not really making a difference in your life and then you know having to come down off the mountain i i really like wasn't famous anymore you know girls weren't excited to see me when i walked on stage anymore you know i wasn't getting offers to do so it was just a song about my pain and that song blew blew up massively yeah yeah it did it did it's not a but i mean and we could talk about why maybe that is maybe maybe the culture was starved for some authenticity. Vulnerability. Yeah, amidst like a time in 2010 where,

or 2016 where songs are more, I don't know. And yeah, when I look at my life then to now, it makes me so proud because every lyric in it, you know, I took a pill and a bee to show Avicii I was cool. When I finally got sober, felt 10 years older, but fuck it,

it was something to do. Like I would never do that now. I would never take a pill from a stranger because I love myself. I love my body. I would, and especially not to make somebody else think I'm cool. Like I, I know who I am now.

And so I go down the list of the lyrics in that song, and I'm so proud that they were all honest at the time, and none of them are true now. It would feel stressful to me to have a hit. And what I mean by that is, like, you have song and then you're like oh my god I have to do another hit that that overtops this hit is that how it feels it can it can that's certainly like you know it's just sort of like an inherent message coming from record labels and agents and your job as an artist you know is to tune out. And you want to have an internal pressure on yourself to write something better,

not necessarily something more popular, because you can't control popularity and reception. You can just do good work. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, and you can do work you're proud of. So internally, you always have pressure. I want to write songs that are better than the ones I was writing five years ago. I always want to be developing my craft.

And when you have a gift, you know, part is like you're born with a gift. I think you have a duty to take care of that gift and develop it and then share it. So you just shift that. You just tune that stuff out. You can play the game, be a businessman. But inside you're saying, yeah, but I'm evaluating my work on a different scale. I'm part of a lineage of great songwriters. I look back, Woody Guthrie goes to Dylan, goes to Springsteen, goes to Taylor Goldsmith, goes to Conor Oberst.

These are the writers that impressed me. Some of them never had hits. Some of them never had Grammy nominations. I think, would they think this is dope? But ultimately, screw that too. Do I think this is great work? And that's all. I would say the top five things that are the most important to me. Solitude is really high up there and I'm really trying to focus on that. And I think you're the perfect person to have on the podcast. You mentioned meditation. How has your journey with solitude evolved and how do you think it's made you better and more Zen? Solitude is sort of like a drug.

Yeah, I know. You know, it's my first foray into solitude. I went to a beautiful place in Colorado called the Tara Mandala Buddhist Retreat Center. I hesitate to say it because it's going to freaking fill up now. But there it is. How did you find out about it?

I just started Googling. You know, I wanted to do a retreat.'s going to freaking fill up now. But there it is. How did you find out about it? I just started Googling. I wanted to do a retreat. Everyone hears about silent retreats, different meditation. I wanted to do a retreat because I had an inkling. I had fooled around with fasting. And if you fasted before, there's a period where you really feel hungry and then you reach a threshold and you go into an altered state of consciousness that really isn't available when you're not fasting. hungry and then you reach a threshold and you go into an altered state of consciousness that

really isn't available when you're not fasting. So I suspected and I had an inkling solitude might be the same thing. Might follow the same pattern. I had at that time spent a day or two alone before and it felt bad actually. I never liked that, I felt dry. My life seemed like black and white, but I suspected if you went longer, there might be a threshold where you would tap into a state that I had never been in before. So I started Googling, I'm like looking for places

where you could just do a retreat in solitude. And there really like aren't many. There's a lot where if you join a like a serious buddhist sangha that you can do that but there's not many you can just do without being in that community except for this place i think it's one of the few in in the u.s maybe it's changed but at that time it was really like i think maybe the only one I could find and you I had to apply so I applied they won't make sure you're mentally stable enough to do it and and it was like exploratory in that way I just wanted to find out what would

happen so I did seven days the first time and I've done it four times total the longest I've done is 21 days no talking sometimes I find like I'm like we'll talk to my like I'll be on have some thought train going and I might like answer a question out loud or something will happen I'll say whoa and but my voice will sound really loud it's just not like talking is talking is really not a big deal to me you know as a singer so your voice gets tired of going vocal rest all the time it's really that being alone is like the defining thing was it's just nobody else there so you could talk if you want to but there's no one

there to hear you when you meditate do you try to clear your mind do you try to, but there's no one there to hear you. When you meditate, do you try to clear your mind? Do you try to observe your thoughts? Do you let them come in and out? Do you have a strategy or is it just whatever comes up? Yeah, I've practiced several different flavors of meditation. The base of my practice is TM, Transcendental Meditation, which is mantra based. So if you learn TM, you go to a teacher and they give you a mantra and you repeat this sound that doesn't mean anything internally. And then thoughts come in. And when you notice you're having thoughts, you just go back to the mantra. I practice a lot of different types of meditation,

Vipassana retreats and Vipassana meditation. I'm always exploring other ones. But really to go back to the solitude question is what I learned as I did more of the retreats, I got older. At the beginning, I was exploring, but I also found while I was on the retreats, I was practicing what I was going to say

about the retreat while I was on the retreat. I was basically like doing Instagram in my mind. And I'm like, okay, so I'm only here to show off. I'm only here to have experience that other people didn't have. Instead of getting gold chain, I'm doing a meditation retreat so I can feel special. So as I got a little older realized you know that's kind of that's really bullshit you know and on one of my retreats I read a quote by Titnet Han you know Titnet Han amazing human

being he transitioned out of his body a couple years ago. He was a Zen Buddhist monk, really responsible for us even knowing what Zen and mindfulness are in the West. This guy, Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. He's a serious, serious man, beautiful man. And he wrote one of these books that, imagine I'm in this cabin alone. I'm like eight days into retreat.

I haven't seen anybody for eight days. And I'm reading the thing and it says, "'Retreat is about re-entry.'" "'Retreat is about re-entry' he said. "'If you go on retreat and you don't come back "'a better version of you, show up a better member "'of your community, a better son, a better father, a better brother, you wasted your time.

It doesn't matter if God came down, touched you, you had some transcendent experience, you saw visions, you saw light. If you don't come back a better you, you wasted your time. That was really impactful for me because before that, I wanted to have a spiritual experience. I wanted to feel Kundalini energy go up my spine.

I wanted to have visions and I wanted to get higher. I wanted to become more divine. And instead of having a spiritual experience, I really think God wants us not to just have spiritual experiences. God wants us to have spiritual lives. And so while I was busy trying to become more divine, really I needed to become more human and that was an inflection point so you know the solitude is like training because when

you're alone you exactly you say you examine your thoughts you meditate and I noticed I would get upset or frustrated or pissed off, and no one's there. It's me. I'm making me upset, frustrated, pissed off. And so often in life, I'm going through when I'm not in solitude, and I feel those feelings, but I blame it on what happened or blame it on somebody else.

But on retreat, they're not there. No one else is there. Like if you're ever in any minor state of suffering, it's your fault. It's my fault. So you get very in tune to these sort of patterns like malware that you have running in the background. And then it becomes a lot easier to shift them in solitude.

Does that have to do, like not to, because it sounds like such an intense process but not to tell it down no but does that is is it almost like it's because you can get to a place where you can take extreme personal accountability is that is that like you're taking ownership over your thoughts as opposed to blaming the external yeah exactly exactly because there's no one to blame there i mean you can blame it but like really it's your fault you know if you're there and so it's it it's a lot easier to dwell in these states of presence there so it's kind of like it's like training wheels and then you go home and like ramdas said you know if you think're enlightened, go spend the weekend with your parents. Go spend the weekend with your in-laws. And that's the real test. You come out.

Retreat's about re-entry. We're addicted to the chaos of the inner dialogue narrative that we associate with or identify with. So if we like to create chaos, it's almost like part of your identity. And it sounds like you kind of tried to break that in solitude. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, most of us, I thought like the voice in my head was me. Then I sit there on the meditation cushion for a few hours and I just watch it. I'm like, this voice is insane. First of all, it keeps saying the same thing over and over again. What was it saying? I mean, it would go back to some dude that I got in a yelling match with 10 years ago

and just replay it over. And I'm like, dude, we just did this over and over and over. Or do these doomsday scenarios we're like hey man oh we we should like definitely do this thing if if not that might happen if not then that might happen if not then that might happen then like then that would really be bad and it's just spiraling and it's like this voice isn't me i don't believe any of the things this voice is saying and so it's a very deep process because then you're going, who am I? I'm the thing watching the voice. I'm the consciousness that's aware of my thoughts,

that's aware of my bodily sensations, that's aware of my senses, things start to get a little, a little trippy. When you were sitting in solitude, did you decide to, I don't even know if this is the right word, hike Mount Everest, like hike Mount Everest, climb Mount Everest? Yeah, when you say climb.

Climb, okay. Brisk hike. We're not taking a hike. Yeah. How does one decide? It ain't run-in. Yes, run-in. You're not getting an air. Yeah. How does one decide? It ain't Runyon. You're not getting an heroin smoothie.

How does one decide to do that? Like, how does it even come into your head? That came from first me doing the walk across America. So 2019, before I decided to climb Everest, I decided to walk across America. It might sound really random to your listeners. Like, why did you decide to do that? Starting from where? I started from Asbury Park, New Jersey.

But more accurately, I started in the Atlantic Ocean. It was important to me to actually start. You wanted to start end to end. Water to water. Ground to water. Yeah, there you go. I like it. Yeah. I walked across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. By yourself.

I posted on social that if you found me, you could walk with me. Oh, that's cool. And people came from all over the U.S. to walk for a day, sometimes longer, sometimes a few hours. It's really deep you know i would ask them always why did you come here and sometimes they were a fan of my music they wanted a picture sometimes they just one wanted to see see if they could find me like a strange scavenger hunt like waldo right yeah but sometimes they they came because they had no one else to talk to yeah you know they were they were high school seniors who didn't know what was next.

They were professionals who felt trapped under their own success. They were soldiers who had seen killing and who had killed. And so we would walk together, healing in our own ways. I walked across Missouri during a heat wave. I walked across Kansas. I walked into Colorado. I could just see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon. Went, ah.

Pain shot up my left leg. And I heard a sound I didn't want to hear. That was shh. Oh, shit. And I realized a poisonous rattlesnake just bit me. Oh. So long story short, man, I was in the hospital five days. My legs swelled to the size of an elephant trunk.

When that first happened, did you know what to do to stop the spread of that poison? Yeah, call 911. Yeah. Call 911. And so we did. And I asked dispatch because I felt the poison going through me. And I felt myself fading out oh that's scary so yeah it was scary for sure I asked dispatch am I gonna die and the voice on

the other end of the phone said I don't know sir I spent five days in the hospital and and then I couldn't go back you know I had to heal. My leg was jacked up. So I went home and I've tried a bunch of plant medicines before snake venom is the one that changed my life the most. I got really hurt, but eventually decided I'm gonna finish what I started when I healed healed everyone sort of expected me to just quit you know like good try you got bit by a freaking rattlesnake it wasn't meant to be but that i had hid behind that excuse too much in my life it wasn't meant to be you know you a lot of times when we're saying it wasn't meant to be we're just saying i'm giving up and i didn't want

to like it was a it was a serious moment in my life the only way for me to become the version of me i wanted to be to get to the next chapter i had to go finish the wall i had a thousand more miles there wasn't a podcast i could listen to there wasn't like a piece of advice a friend could give to me there wasn't a book i could listen to. There wasn't a piece of advice a friend could give to me. There wasn't a book I could read. I had to do it. So I went back, and you asked me about Everest. I started to walk, and I got to those Rocky Mountains.

I went up with him after the snake bite. I went down. I got to the other side, and I felt like I had a cape on my shoulders, I'm like, that fucking snake couldn't stop me, nothing could stop me, I can do anything, and I started to dream about Everest, and the more steps I took, the farther I went on my walk, the more that dream started to transform from a dream into a plan i say dream either grows into a plan or withers into regret and so by the time i i jumped in the pacific ocean and already had the kind of kind of a plan on what was next. And that was to climb the big one.

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Use code SKINNY. The whole time, if you disregard the snake bite, how long is the whole thing? If you disregard the snake bite, five months, five months and a week. Fuck. And I thought it was going to be much longer. Do you want to know how bad at geography I am, Mike? You thought it was going to be like four days? Ten days.

No, that's in a car. That's in a car you could do it in 10 days. Listen, he didn't marry me for geography. One time I took her to Atlanta. And she's like, we're in Atlantic in New Jersey. I'm like, no, wrong. I do other things. When you decide to make this decision,

goes into the preparation to not hike, climb Mount Everest? So I never unpacked. I finished the walk and I didn't go home. Two weeks later, my body was pretty jacked up. I let it rest a little bit. And then I started climbing and I eventually met the man that became my coach, Dr. John. And he said, I asked him the same question. How do I go from a guy who walks on flat surfaces, but has never held an ice axe, never climbed a mountain, never worn crampons to a guy that belongs on Mount Everest? Because I didn't just want to climb Mount Everest. I wanted to belong there.

Yeah. a guy that belongs on Mount Everest. I didn't just want to climb Mount Everest. I wanted to belong there. And he said, Mike, train for climbing mountains by climbing mountains. So that's what we did. A year and a half. Yeah, that's good advice for anything. Exactly. Three years.

Sorry, three times as long as my walk was, I climbed mountains. But John, we climbed 71 mountains. We climbed mountains in Colorado. We climbed mountains in Wyoming. We climbed mountains in Ecuador. We climbed mountains in Pakistan. We climbed mountains in Mexico.

Wherever we could go, because it was a pandemic. Selfishly, what do you think the most beautiful places are? It's hard to mess with Nepal. It's really hard to mess with Nepalal i mean the himalaya is i'm getting goosebumps thinking about it the himalaya is the himalaya man it's it's it's a spiritual portal what do you have when you're climbing all these mountains like i need snacks i need my ionic water bottle

yeah no i don't need hair and makeup but i need like sunscreen and my visor and like like what do you have how much can you bring in this are you wearing a jansport like how do you what do you do it depends on the mountain yeah so you know if you're doing something that's one day, you're going to have, you try to be fast and light because the longer you're out there is a dangerous, is a dangerous thing. So you're always balancing between having more gear, more rope, more food, more water, but then you're heavier. So you're slower and, and being slower is, is a risk factor in and of itself. So we will typically try to be fast and light. That's how we would, that was our style. You know, we would try to carry less. But yeah, it depends on the expedition. You know, if it's longer, you're going to have a sleeping bag.

You're going to have like, it depends how cold it is. So a bit, you know, i got really good at reading weather reports and and understanding you know what that meant i needed and what it meant i didn't need so i wasn't slow and are you hunting no no hunting no so you bring your own food yeah we're our goal is to climb mountain climb the mountain and then get off the mountain and get home safe and in your regular diet are you vegan are you like what are you carrying in your backpack you know it's not the healthiest diet because you you need food that's light and also you need food that doesn't freeze so when it's really cold can you still bite into it so there's like certain

types of bars that you know we learn like they freeze you can't eat them so and then a lot of dehydrated meals so you have like backpacking meals are these these food that come in a bag and the water is taken out of this dehydrate it's very light and then you have a little stove at on everest you know you'd melt snow melt Melt snow in the stove, boil it. You could add water to the dehydrated meal. It's not like the best diet for sure. What's the longest stretch of time to climb up and down? Maybe Everest was the longest or was there a different one that was longer?

Everest, okay, it's like an expedition. So it's a little different than the training hike. So you're not home for two months. But you set up what's called a base camp at the base of the mountain. At base camp, things are more comfortable. It's almost like you might be there for a few months. So bring a lot of stuff in there. You'd bring more creature comforts.

You wouldn't climb with them, them but you leave some stuff at base camp and at everest base camp you know they use yaks and they use helicopters to bring stuff so like basically i had a guitar i had like you know i had stuff i'm not climbing the mountain with the guitar but you should tell everyone you did no let's stay in integrity yeah i was just like playing my guitar climbing everest and so yeah it just depends so the actual expedition everest for us was two months wow but the summit push was more like a week you have a phone when you're doing this yeah i had a phone the phones freeze so we use gopros when i say freeze they don they don't turn to ice, but you take them out

and you go to these really low temperatures. You take your phone out to do a video and the battery will go. If you have it out for 30 seconds, you watch the battery go from 60% to 20% just in 60 seconds. And then how do you charge it?

You don't really need it, first of all. One thing people do if they want to use the phone a lot of people like i brought a can you want to like take a picture on the summit so if you have gopro or phone um you just keep it like you have a bunch of layers on right but you keep it like on the inside so like the closest to your actual body where it's where it's hot but then yeah when you take it out, you got to be quick. Charging it. I think I brought a charger to camp too. But then, yeah, you don't like every, you know, is it saying like ounces become pounds.

So every little thing you're carrying, you know, cost you time, cost you your life. You know what would go viral for you? Not that you already haven't gone crazy viral but you should do okay so i do this thing where i'm like what's in my bag and i'm like oh here's my lip gloss and here's my little wallet and this is my like my um i don't know eyeliner you should do a what's in my bag to hike mount everest yeah and you should literally walk us through and show us because to you maybe it's us through and show us because to you maybe it's a little bit more normal because you've been around it but I feel like

people would find it fascinating. I would find it fascinating. I think you're right. I think I should do the video and then the things I say that I brought should be all your things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ten things I need to know. First of all, my lip gloss. Number two, my eyeliner. Eyebrow brush eyebrow brush mouth tape a phone charger

sun visor i think that it'd be cool to see every little tiny weird thing that you brought yeah yeah you're probably right i'm sure there's a massive audience just for that kind of stuff that are like super into the gear to do that kind of stuff. Yeah, insecure men. That's the audience, dude. When you... It's kind of like we were talking about watches when you first came in. Insecure men, small penises,

trying to climb big mountains. When you first come in, penises aren't allowed on the podcast. No, we were joking earlier. When you first come in and you're like, a guy gets a watch

and he thinks all the girls are like, man, that's a sick watch. But it's mostly just dudes high-fiving. No, dude, yeah. Same thing with Jordans. It's so funny.

When a guy gets a new watch, this is how they drink at dinner. They go like this. And I'm like, we get it. And then they'll itch their ear and they're itching over here. Could you say the same thing about women with bags and rings?

This is my new bag. Whoops. No, when someone gets engaged they go like this I'm my parent absolutely okay I was FaceTiming

my girls in New York today I was FaceTiming I shared my screen I was showing her a watch and she was just like I do not give a shit she didn't say that

but I watched her eyes glaze over like she went oh I mean I think that's cool it is cool I think if she was shit. She didn't say that, but I watched her eyes glaze over. She went, oh. I think that's cool. It is cool. I think if she was massively into watches, it might be a little weird. I'm massively into watches because of him.

Really? You caught the bug. She got educated about it. It's a cool little subculture. Yeah. I appreciate him is more what I should say. I think it's a cool like what i think you know as you get deeper into it i think like certain it's just like collecting anything like it's kind of like well why'd you if you had the choice of all these things in this range like why was it that one over this one it says something

about you yeah yeah exactly yeah first of all just like a little side tangent. How is it to date you when you appreciate solitude so much and you appreciate hiking mountains? What is that like? Is your girlfriend, fiance, wife? Girlfriend. How is that for her? I want to interview her. Well, she wasn't my girlfriend at the time.

Okay. But yeah. She'd be a great interview. I bet it'd be interesting to hear her perspective on you. She's incredible. Does she give you space to be with your thoughts yeah yeah and i think she she needs that too so i try to give her the same gift and this is why i said earlier solitude's like a drug because i feel like

it's easier to be very peaceful when you're alone because no one's there so what you want to use it use it as a like retreat is's there. What you want to use it as a retreat is about reentry. You want to use it to come back in your life. But you want to need it to be happy. So for me, I think my next retreat that I do, spiritual retreat, probably wouldn't be a solitude. I'd probably go to a hostel and do the opposite, like where I have no space,

where I have like just people all over me. And, and cause I feel like I'm pretty good at being alone. I want to get better at being like being bothered, having people in my grill. It'd probably be a challenge. It'd be, I think it'd be good for your mental toughness.

It sounds like the end goal is to just be able to be in any environment. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That takes work. Yeah. At the end of the day, we're all about by the vicissitudes of our own emotions or what happens and just find ourselves wherever that takes us. No, we want to feel like, hey, I'm in control of my emotions.

I'm in control of my life. Not saying I'm perfect. Not saying I never feel sadness or pain. But for the most part, I live my life in a beautiful state no matter what happens externally. Yeah, that is the goal and that I believe that goal is attainable I've certainly changed my I'm not saying uh I'm perfect because I definitely am not but I've certainly moved my life more in that direction you know like yeah when I listen to a beezer so it, you know, it feels like I was a different person then. Before you go,

tell us what your goal was with making that TikTok. Did you know it was going to go that viral and affect so many people? Because I mean, people were sending me, I got like 10 different people texting me that video. Like it was impactful.

Did you know it was going to do that? Did you mean for it to do that? What's the aftermath of that? You're talking about the one where I was writing about Ibiza? Yeah, you showed the juxtaposition about how you did this and then how you've changed your life and evolved it. No, I didn't know. I was just really reflecting on it myself.

I was like, oh, this is interesting. I was celebrating my 36th birthday. I wrote that song around my 26th birthday and i said wow like life has really changed since then for the better and i want to i want to acknowledge that and so i just i just was writing you know it's always like this with me i don't know it's natural these these like i'm sort of jealous of these like songwriters they have like i knew it was gonna be a hit where that's never how it's worked for these like i'm sort of jealous so these like songwriters they have like i knew it was gonna be a hit where that's never how it's worked for me i just write from my heart and most of what i write is not very popular i've already written a thousand songs or in a book of

poetry i'm writing a book now and every once in a while these pieces that just like you know really connect with a lot of people and i never anytime i have tried to do that when i was younger i guess never worked and anytime i'm just i'm just creating from inspiration sometimes it does so it's more offering you know it's just like god or inspiration is putting this idea in my heart, my soul, and I'm going to get it out. I'm going to share it. And then the rest really is in my business. What I love about your whole career though, is like life is really reps, right? Like I love weightlifting and I'm obsessed with weightlifting right now because weightlifting is reps. You just put the reps in and what you've done and built with your career with the solitude with the with the climbing it's

all reps it's just putting the work in over and over and something sticks and I think people need to hear that because your experience of life, like spiritual growth in life, they take longer. So you start doing the right thing. You start thinking the right things, positive thoughts. You start having more faith in your life. Guess what? Your whole life doesn't change in two months you don't see that muscle grow as fast as you might if it was your bicep or your quadricep and so it you know to anyone listening to this you know just keep going keep going this is just the beginning you know it's very easy to think and evaluate life based on what's already happened. Like I said earlier, we're all

the oldest we've ever been. So we feel like we're old. No, this is just the beginning. You have no idea. I mean, six years ago, I was 30. I had no idea my life would be what it is now. No clue I would have walked across a continent. No clue I would have climbed the tallest mountain in the world. No clue I'd be sitting here talking to you guys about these experiences that hopefully are bringing inspiration and opening and transcendence to others. I hope, I pray. And so, you know, if you're in pain right now hearing this, just keep going. Because every moment of breakthrough in my life has been preceded by pain.

So your pain get excited, man. Something good is about to happen. And you might get bit by a rattlesnake along the way. You just have to get back up and get back up there. That's right. That's right. Where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out.

Tell us what you're doing, what you're working on, how we can follow you. All my stuff is just under my name, Mikener p-o-s-n like nancy e-r and uh what am i working on i'm writing a book right now about my walk and in some ways it's harder than the walk it's gonna take me longer than the walk tick and i have a new album coming this year right yeah i'll be one of those white girls listening to it, Dan. Yeah, you will. Yeah, you will. Thank you, Mike.

Mike, thank you for coming on. Hey, God bless you guys. I knew this was going to be a home run. Right when I told you. Courtney, Courtney, you got to shout out Courtney. Thank you for making this happen. Love you, Courtney. Love you, Courtney.

Thank you. Doing a giveaway we are giving away our literal one of our last bottles of caffeinated sunscreen all you have to do is head to my latest instagram at lauren bostick and tell us who you want to see next on the show i love collecting data from those comments and just really zoning in on what you guys want to see. Hope you guys love this episode with Mike as much as we did.