If You Can't Ditch Social Media Entirely, Try This Instead | Steve Aoki on Impact Theory

when i started djing i remember when like five people would be like yeah and there's like everyone else just doesn't give a i'm like those are my five people i focus on them and after the show i like hung out with all of them and one of the guys let us stay in their in their house because we were sleeping in our van the whole time we're making 20 to 40 a show and it's like you know you have to start in that mindset that's the problem with social media right now is that you're comparing yourself to people that have like this large success and you're like i want to play there but you first have to go with what you have in front of you and make that meaningful and that's why i always say like when i'm performing i'm trying to be as present as i can and i don't want to think about anyone outside these four walls these people are here for me and i'm here for them and that's all that matters [Music] hey everyone welcome to impact theory today's guest is a grammy nominated producer and internationally famous performer who routinely tops the list of the world's highest grossing djs he holds three guinness world records including ones for the most traveled musician in a single year and the longest crowd cheer he performs hundreds of shows annually and will often perform in multiple countries in a single day he founded his own record label at just 19 years old and despite having a wealthy father he had to do it all on his own couchsurfing throwing shows in a tiny ass apartment and promoting his artist by any means necessary proving to have legendary grit and tenacity not only did he get his record label off the ground he has since personally worked with some of the biggest names in the industry from will i am afro jack and kid cudi to lincoln park lewis tomlinson of one direction and the global phenomenon that is bts he's produced hits with all of them and in the process turned himself into a superstar in his own right he has millions of social followers has graced the cover of magazines people get his name and his record label logo tattooed on them and he's even had a netflix documentary made about his life aptly titled i'll sleep when i'm dead he's also a restaurateur the co-creator of impact theory's first comic book neon future and the founder of the aoki foundation which is committed to funding advancements in brain science so please help me in welcoming the author of the new memoir blue the color of noise the legendary musician and entrepreneurial force of nature the one and i assure you only steve aoki was the craziest is always fun to write about you and the things you've done and now having gotten to know you and been with you as you do some of your traveling the pace at which you work and move is crazy it's also super infectious i want to use that interest again that was crazy that was really cool dude that's it your life is literally like this whirlwind of activity from the different restaurants and things you've got going from the projects that you're working on to the music the touring and all of that and you you've talked pretty powerfully about you know being 40 now and still having the same level of hunger that you've always had what what is it that keeps you going what is it that drives you forward i mean there's so many different ways to answer that question because like my my life when i really think about my main drive it's it's always music-based it's and since i live 200 plus days on the road 250 shows like average and it's been consistently like that for the the past you know 12 years um i i first go into that place and that questions answered very quickly because when i play these shows it's it's like what we talked about before in our first interview it's that connection i have with the fans so you know if i was to like play the opposite if i was playing if i was a dj and i was in the back corner uh you know of the room and not many people were like cared about what i was doing and they were just like cocktail bar and i'm just you know playing i probably would quit and do something else you know there's no appreciation there but at the end of the day i'm i make this music so i can connect with people and then share that feeling with them and and the deeper the feeling is the deeper uh it gives me that value and it creates that passion drive and at the end of the day that connection and that ability to share and connect with people is really like why i even got involved in starting a label being in a band doing neon future with you and connecting with all these people in the comic book world it's like it's all about creating something that has an impact you know and and being able to you know obviously you want to inspire people but being able to like participate and see that inspiration happening and and seeing how we are helping other people in some aspect or you know doing something that has meaning and purpose it you know that's what it really boils down to my my like i've said this many times but my natural way to to express myself is through my music so that's always been my first my first approach but then as i've you know my my platform's been higher raised higher and higher it's allowed me to go well now i can get to meet some of these other people that that uh are foreign to me but i want to learn about these different worlds and and learn about them essentially to share them share the ideas with other people because we learn to share right we don't it's like when you pick up a book and you read a book it's like if you want to retain the information to be able to share it with people right so um once again it goes back to the idea of sharing and that connectivity and um and it doesn't matter if i'm 19 or from 41 or if i'm 60 if i still have the ability to to share things that i love that that make me feel a certain way that give me a an emotional high that that i want to be able to create more positivity with other people with then i'm always going to find that drive that's really an interesting answer to me that is super resonant in the book and one thing that i found that i loved in blue is the way one you're really raw you're super open vulnerable in the book which i loved and i was going to ask you like why be so raw and open you certainly um in any sort of creative endeavor you're opening yourself up for criticism you're opening yourself up you're giving to people the exact way to hurt you by showing where you're insecure or what could um strike a chord with you but the notion of that being about connection that you get this emotional high out of that really makes the book make sense like that brings it all into perspective as to why you would do it there's a real lyrical quality to the book that i found super beautiful walk me through the desire to connect versus the need to connect like when i see how hard you work it's what i refer to in myself as the sickness right so i've been tremendously successful in my life i certainly never need to work again but i work harder now than i've ever worked in my life and to me there is an an and the notion of being a sickness comes from batman so like what drives this guy that has everything you know this this need to um solve these problems that he sees connected with the loss in his own family so how much of this is a a desire to connect and how much of this is a need to connect well so when you say like that it's like that i'm definitely thinking i'm talking to a therapist i have to really think about this and go back into my past like is it my dad you know is it me not fitting in because then you really you know when you boil it down a lot of it comes to your your upbringing or like how how things have changed or affected you when you're really young and i mean there's no doubt especially and i talk about this a lot in in the book and also in the documentary this like unconscious feeling that i need to prove to my dad that i'm gonna make it because that's like what i grew up with i grew up with this like i need to make it because he kind of he implanted those subliminal messages towards me you know like when i was a kid growing up throughout my life um so that's definitely one of them another thing is just growing up in newport beach um not being able to fit in and trying to find a voice so then that way i can share something that's valuable to people because i couldn't share something that was valuable to people by doing traditional things so like i couldn't play sports because i just i'm just like a little kid so i just like sucked at sports i was scoring on the wrong basketball hoop i was kicking the soccer ball in the wrong in my my own home team like soccer ball net like i was just the worst i mean i loved playing sports trust me but like when growing up i just couldn't contribute and have any value so music was my way to be able to be like i can contribute and people will actually listen even five people so maybe it's that you know that has a lot to do with it and that's that's something that's unconscious that i don't think about now you know um and and that spark to when you when you are trying to contribute and people aren't listening in a traditional way but you try something else and they listen that spark when that happens is such a powerful feeling and and coming from you know when i was a kid i was very very shy um i had like a lot of uh energy i want to share with world i'm always combusting with energy but i was very very insecure you know i was lost and i didn't know how to be able to express myself and i thought i was going to be like that for the rest of my life i thought i literally was just gonna be you know in the traditional sense of being japanese just stay in line and be quiet and like kind of move through life and not not be counted not not stick your head up too high because if you do if you live in a community of where it's 96 white and you do you're gonna get you're gonna get smashed and then you won't have a community that can support you to make you feel like it's okay to stick your head up because culturally my mom is japanese so she's like don't rock the boat and whenever like if i did it's like smash bring you down you know until i found this other route where music the subculture community gave me that the the tools to be like you could say something now and you can now talk about your frustrations your you know anger whatever it might be resentment whatever it is that you're living with because they're the whole subculture that's what they were talking about so i finally found that community so digressing here left and right but um you know when i really think about the desire i i like it just i think it's just now which is part of who i am because it's been integral in every single thing i've done whether it's a company or you know whenever i think about business i don't think about it as like how much money i'm gonna make i think about it like you know how we are with neon future you know i have the neon future tattoo i believe in a neon future there's no doubt about it like i've i'm signed up to freeze the body as an insurance policy cryo you know like deep kelvin degree temperatures of my stop my body stops degenerating uh for the insurance policy that we don't you know that i die just in case you know uh people find a cure for the disease called aging so do you see it as a positive force in your life or a negative force neutral force like how do you think of that that sort of overwhelming compulsion to to connect to be great to you know play at such a big level uh yeah that's that's another good question because i guess like when you're when you're too into something it's like you have to ask that question is it is it like unhealthy or toxic or those kinds of things does it drive you too much where it like stops some more important things in your life and uh i i feel like it's good you know what i mean i feel like i feel like you know you know like it's different because you have to look at it like if society says it's okay then here it's okay but that's not necessarily true like i i do have to answer these questions as i go at 150 miles an hour because it feels it feels right because i have a flow because like nothing worse than than being out of that that that flow when you have things going and you have your passion there and you have your drive there um because when you get off that flow it's really hard to get back on you know for any you ask any creative person about writer's block it doesn't matter if you're a writer you're a painter you're a musician you're you know whatever you do so for me i care so deeply about what i do and the contribution of of the whole all the work i've been doing and all you know the mo the you know the drive everything that i've been doing that if i get off that train to relax it's like i could lose that moment and it's very possible as fast as we live in this day and age how people's attention spans are like i want to push myself on every level whether it's like having fun jumping off a cliff into the water or like you know you know like doing this comic with you and like building this out into this this incredible world where we can see it into tv and film those are those are like incredible goals that i that i want to attain and they're like dreams you know but we're getting there what's crazy though we're actually the dreams i have as a kid they're actually happening which is bizarre and wild and i think with blue it i really want to showcase to all the young people that the shy kids that the kids are like yeah i i will not be successful like that i will have to like sit in a cubicle and do you know the boring stuff which is actually what my dad told me to do it's like that's real life you have other ways to look at your scenario and you know it's it's like i'm trying to speak to to to that to that demo to those kids to those people to the young people out there like that even to the older people they're like maybe i need to stop my job and like pursue something else or maybe i need to reevaluate what i'm what i want to do with my life it's interesting that you say that's not where i thought you were going to go with that so in the book you talk a lot about the story that we tell ourselves and i think that as people get older they begin to tell themselves a narrative that quite frankly is handed to them a and b is usually self-defeating it isn't one of reinvention you talk about that in the book you talk about people who are able to stay relevant by successfully reinventing themselves you talk about michael jackson you talk about kanye west like having this ability to morph and change i've certainly seen that and you jesus when you look at your own career starting as you know the straight edge religious hardcore kid goes into diy starts getting into promoting and managing and then like into being a dj producer and then even just the the way that you've morphed and changed that over the years is really pretty astonishing but when i think about all right we have these narratives that we're going to tell ourselves they're going to have a tremendous impact on the way that we live our lives and then the question is going to arise which is is this insane drive that i have is this the right answer or the wrong answer and to me i i don't think there is a real answer there's no objective answer as to whether or not the way that you're doing it is the right way or the wrong way it simply is the way that you're doing it and now it becomes a question of what narrative are you telling yourself about what you're doing in the book you i wrote the line down because i was so hit by it and experientially it isn't what it's like to hang out with you and you said i have these stories you were talking about the shooting in vegas and you said somebody woke you up and what they were saying cut through everything it even cut through the story that you tell yourself to keep the world out i thought that's interesting the story you tell yourself to keep the world out what is the narrative that you're telling yourself that allows you to find so much joy in this connection to serve the people that you serve around the globe to to push you this hard and to put off a family what is that narrative narrative of that you tell yourself about yourself about why you're doing what you're doing well i'm gonna go back to what you're talking about first is um i think the narrative that this my story is all about is agility and being able to be flexible and i mean i it's like the five-year 10-year plan that most ceos ask you know like that's the question most most people want to know about a ceo or someone successful or what is your five year 10-year plan that's when you what you want to ask a young startup right um to invest into their company or something my my plan has always been kind of unhinged it's just it's just like i go where my passion leads me and and i feel free to do that you know and um how did you create that space though because in growing up in a japanese culture that certainly isn't encouraged and if your own dad who was a huge risk taker is telling you no no get get a a real job how did you break out of that mold yeah it's like that's that's a really crazy thing because i looked at my dad as like this flamboyant you know i mean he was like he he once he stepped foot in america he became an american you know he like almost pushed away his japanese values and was like i need to show what i can do i want to show everyone he was a showman but then when he was a father he's like don't be me don't be a showman like did he say why because he wanted stability for his kids he wanted to make sure that we weren't because if you the to be this to be the showman is such a small percentage of success everyone wants every everyone wants to be a showman do they i mean that's from my father's perspective because i had this well i mean i'm my father's son so i'm like yeah i'll be cool to drive really expensive cars and like do whatever you know like that's what you see right and and i'm living in a humble you know house with my mom you know that's not that you know so i'm like it's aspirational so i think for him i think as a father he's just like don't be me you need to figure out your life in the most reasonable pragmatic way which is what everyone has to do you have to go through these steps and it's boring but you're just gonna do it like that's why he didn't support me in like my endeavors music because he didn't see it as a financial trajectory for him i remember when i invested my first restaurant when i finally made a little bit of money he was like why you're gonna lose all your money and i did on the first first one you know i did i mean i was only 30 grand it was like my first investment it's a korean barbecue in l.a great one that was really good but you know he was correct have you ever put yourself into your dad's shoes and and thought what would i say like for instance if you have a kid and they decide they want to get into music what would your advice be to them i think i i wouldn't go as deep as my dad but i i really value his tough love and i don't think it was disciplined for him to to not give me like financial support i just didn't want to it wasn't like like you know like you when you love someone you want to help them out like when you see them struggling you're like i want to pick you up like you know but it's better off you just let them figure out on your own even they're like crying on their way up you know that's one thing i learned from him is that he well he wasn't around right so he didn't have to see me like struggling and trying to like get by i'm not gonna and i wasn't the kind of kid to like cry to my dad be like i'm not fitting in like i can't make friends like i got made fun of for this or like just the daily toils of being a kid and uh we didn't have that kind of relationship so heating it to see that i had to like talk to my mom about it and she's just like just don't make any trouble you know and uh and then you know i had to figure that out on my own in the book one of the most interesting things that you talked about was family and asking yourself aloud in the book if you know am i making the right choice pursuing the career putting off my family i thought i would have a family by now my dad had six kids by the time he was my age you know and and i always thought that i would have some at least by now and i haven't and um what do you think about that like where is and this is a question that i have have thought about just hundreds of hours spent thinking about you know what's the right move for me um will i regret it is it right now but maybe wrong later is it wrong now and wrong later is it right forever you know what i mean like really processing through that um how do you think about it now if you were the startup what's your five to ten year family plan there is no plan there's no like it must be like this but yeah i i i'm definitely gonna be i'm gonna say differently i'm pretty sure it's gonna happen next five years also like i i owe a lot to my mom too my mom's like everybody every time she sees a baby she's like looking at me like like i'm not a kid from my wall like yeah i love my mom so much it's like i feel like you know and of course you can't have a kid for your friend you have to like you know just like you said you have to take care of the situation you can't do it for other people or anything else you know no question yeah it's uh yeah man family the way that people play that part of their life is really really telling in terms of what their priorities are and what matters to them and what they get the biggest chemical rush out of and all that stuff but i think the the most interesting thing that you represent is you've become so extraordinary because you had these balancing forces of a very nurturing mother um and then the father who was a sort of rock star type um aspirational figure to use your words but not necessarily a day-to-day dad and then so you had to figure things out on your own which i find really really interesting talking about figuring things out and reinventing yourself how do you approach that musically i've watched you go from genre to genre to genre always just far enough ahead to really nail things what is your process for keeping your ear to the ground like how do you do that how do you stay fresh all the time well that's day to day you know like that's uh that's ultimately the same going back to the past that's the same drive that i've had like since i was starting the label so i was being in a band i mean it's it's digging for record as a dj digging for records for the new you know back in the day when you actually would buy physical vinyl and stuff like that but give me the actual process are you sitting down in your studio at home and you go on spotify and you start listening to everything are you going to clubs are you asking around like how do you it's a it's a it's a bit of everything spotify is like it's like watching the stock market when you things go up you're a bit late already so like you know hitting up an artist that's already blown up it's already blown up but because i have a platform i can talk to a bigger artist i like to go as early as i possibly can if possible just like with any business you want to you know like work with the people that that are the innovators that are like pushing do people just send you a ton of music now is that how you find it no i it's a lot of it's like friends networks of like i i trust friends and advice from friends that's probably been my my go-to for signing the right artists on denmark to like working and collabing with different artists and plus i get to travel the world that helps me a lot and i'm also putting myself out there so when i go to a country you know i'm i'm like putting out the feelers like can you tell like the the artists in this country i'm in brazil whatever i am i want to hear like who's shaking up the noise and the thing is is that sometimes the biggest artist in that country is like unknown in my country which happens a lot because they're singing entirely in portuguese or italian or whatnot and that's what i did actually just recently i was in um i was in italy and uh my uh day-to-day dougie who's in this room right now he he's he's like he's also one of the guys that's like yo you should check this out you should check this out so doug is like hey you know svera basta is this italian artist should check him out so i checked him out i was like oh this is dopey singing entirely and rapping entirely in italian and uh and i went to his instagram my way to communicate with artists instagram and twitter and i was gonna dm him he already dm me he was like oh this is match made in heaven so like i accepted because you know it's in the direct friend request whatever and i'm like yo i'm gonna be in uh terrine in like tomorrow he's like i'm i'm i'll meet you boom we were there we hit it off and we made a song and um and then i was like we we have a smash global record with spanish italian and english this is going to be like one of those azukita moments that's something to do with yankee you know like i love making global music that fits you know because essentially for me i spend 60 of my time outside the country as well so i really think about the entire world as my playground and that's what i've been doing you know working with bts working with daddy yankee working with you know um like homegrown american acts to you know i really want to sample and and like work with artists from every single part of the world you know if like i was going through my set when i was like playing my music and i i started off with you know an edm record then i go into record with my mom speaking in japanese and i go into an italian ballad from you know 50 years ago then i go into uh a brazilian sample then i go into um you know bts and monsta x from korea then then then i go into latin because i have you know songs with nikki jam and and and i just made a new one with voluma and you know and i like i realized how global my set is and it makes me really proud because that is me going around the world being able to connect and want to work with everyone like i'm just it's it's actually limitless that's what's so exciting it's limitless to the point where i'm like what other things can i jump into and that's why like neon future was a great on the musical side not less on the comic book side but first of all the musical side it made me think i can now work with scientists on songs with ray kurzweil with jj abrams with aubry de gray with you know bill nye like anyone could be on a song you and i could do a song it doesn't matter if you have any musical experience because i just need you in the room and you just be you and then i'll record tom bilyeu you know like we can make something together so you know it's just like now i'm like pushing and pushing out to the internet in the universe that i want to work with elon musk which you know i think he's i think he's already flat out said no but sometimes you know sometimes you just can't give up so i'm gonna keep asking until he's like finally like all right fine i'll do it with this guy but anything can happen now i really believe like there's things that were complete dream scenarios like dj in space i really think that could possibly happen like there's situations like that that you think would never happen and they possibly can happen you know so i don't think you should limit yourself in the end you know like it's not going to happen right away it might not happen but you know that certainly won't happen if you don't go for it yeah exactly yeah i was talking to matt your manager about um [Music] what makes you great and he told me a story and i thought god that's so true and he said that when you did the song with bts people were going crazy reaching out to him and saying hey can you hook us up and he was like i don't think you guys understand like i didn't make that happen for steve steve spent years building bridges with those guys immersing himself in the culture and the music and so he actually knew what was hot and where they were going and before they popped off he had been there sort of you know really building a relationship with them not just trying to make a quick buck but you know establishing that and he said he did the same thing in the latin market and that's how that all panned out and he was like his ability to put his ear to the ground to listen and build relationships are how he's able to do what he's able to do and i find that so interesting and to me it goes back and tell me if i'm wrong it goes back to that same thing that made you pop in the beginning which was just having a love for it pursuing the love you talk really eloquently in the book about if you're going for the buck people will smell it but if you chase your authenticity you've got a shot that something really beautiful could pop out of that how does that notion play itself out in your life yeah i mean i think that's like with anything we do you know i mean it's clear with neon future or comic if we didn't dive in headfirst loving our comic loving the comic world and being part of that you know anime we our history with anime and our love for uh the whole culture we wouldn't have succeeded you know we don't we're not doing for the buck you know we're doing it to like share this vision this story work with people that really get us and and so that we can lay it out for the world and build a story that's really exciting so i think it's it's like it goes with everything you know i mean it's like you have to really tell that story and live that story and if it doesn't make money it doesn't make money like you have to accept that you know luckily when you have things that are successful for me now i'm in a position where i can take those risks because i because i want to and my business managers are like a lot you're like your vision's lopsided as far as your safety uh on on your pyramid of how you should invest because i'm investing things i love that don't necessarily make money you know let me ask you that's why i'm not like sometimes i'm not the right businessman sometimes i am i don't know i was gonna say you're financially doing phenomenally well and even sitting here in this conversation and at this point we spent a lot of time together but i will say one thing that that strikes me often and is really hitting me now i said in the first interview you're very excitable which i find super contagious but maybe more importantly you're not cynical which how the are you not cynical like the number of years that you've put in in this industry in the music industry i'm sure the number of times that you know has happened backstabbing whatever do you consciously cultivate the the sort of boyish enthusiasm is it just come naturally okay i think one of the most important things talking about that that i've learned in this whole game is managing my expectations because i go into it thinking i well i go into it knowing that 70 of the things i want to do aren't going to happen even at my level and it's going to continue to be like that but i'm going to always aim high and i'm going to know that like well it doesn't happen i can keep going so i have to go into it that approach i think that's one of the major lessons i've learned in in all of this is to to manage my you know aim high but manage my expectations of of success the people see the 30 percent they don't see the 70 of not making it or not getting what you want do you think that 70 is part of what keeps you humble yeah i think uh it's definitely grounding it's definitely um keeps my my feet on the ground and it makes me first of all grateful of the 30 you know because that's life you know i think life for most people is like five percent you know like you get you get higher i think your percentage goes higher as as you build your track record of respect and and uh and you know respecting your community then people will work with you more you know because at the end of the day since i was a kid the respect in your community is more valuable than how much money you make or like you know what how flashy you are you know because that's why people would want to work with you is because you're trustworthy or respectful to work with that you can build with you say what you're going to do and do what you're going to say so what advice do you give people who are they're about to embark on their career they're going to get kicked in the face a thousand times or maybe even worse they're already starting to get jaded because they're at the five percent they're not making things happen the way they want to happen they're not even dreaming big anymore like what do you say to people like that to break them out of their rut because they really could do something but they're getting in their own way i think you just have to toughen up plain and simple i think that's like you know like you have to you have to like first of all you have to tell yourself it's like it's hard in the beginning and you have to just fight through it because what else are you going to do like if you keep crying or not i don't want to say i don't that sounds like mean but if you keep yeah if you keep complaining about things not happening to you then you're not using that time to actually make the small things happen because everything starts off small there's no like a to c you have to go to b first everything starts small i mean that's what i talk about in the book is that my like my first shows i was playing from five people like a quarter of the people in the room some of them didn't want to be there honestly but i was pretending like it was like like like you know like a big deal you know i didn't really pretend i was like this is a big deal you know so it's like i you have to think about like that when i started djing i was playing i remember when like five people would be like yeah and there's like everyone else just doesn't give a i'm like those are my five people i focus on them and after i talk to them hang out with them i used to do that at every show when i was in a band we would tour across the united states and we would drive like 10 hours and we would show up i remember in like albuquerque or something and there was 12 people that showed up and after the show i like hung out with all of them and one of the guys let us stay in their in their house because we were sleeping in our van the whole time you know there's no way we're staying in a hotel we're making 20 to 40 a show um we had to put in the gas and share whatever we could for food but man i was excited after the whole tour i was like when are we going to go back again and it's like you know you have to start in that mindset it's like you can't that's the problem with social media right now is that you're comparing yourself to people that have like this large success and you're like i want to play there well you first have to go with what you have in front of you and make that meaningful and that's why i always say like when i'm performing i'm trying to be as present as i can and i don't want to think about anyone outside these four walls i really want to think about everyone here and whether it's like a smaller show a bigger show like these people are here for me and i'm here for them and that's all that matters and you do that enough times it's it's like in the end you it will grow without you even realizing it and if it doesn't if if you're just happy with those people then then it's okay you know like that's all that's like the purpose like at the end of the day you know it's like it's meaningful to you it doesn't matter how many more people there yeah no i get that for sure as somebody who self claims to fail you know roughly 70 of the time how is it that you think about failure and what when you say everything's gonna be okay what do you mean um you i mean okay so it's like you have to be grateful for what what you can get plain and simple like be grateful for what you have because that's like we're lucky to even be here i think it's that feeling to be just lucky to be on the stage playing in front of people lucky to be sitting with you and talking about this my book i have a book out it's crazy like still it's crazy you know like i have an official book out with a great publisher that you know is going out there i've you know all these things it's like being grateful and being present right so that's another great book the power of now that i turn into a song is is like the the power of of being present you know and that that helps you with this idea of this notion of you know the the one percent let alone the 30 the one percent that you can get is is the feeling that that that that's that's the most important feeling because you're gonna get one percent but you have to attempt to get that one percent you have to go for it you know i mean hopefully you get more than that but i think if you keep trying you're going to get something and and you want to keep growing that so i think that's like it's the power of being present and and and like really really being beholden to that the gratitude of what you have i love that so where can people get the book uh i have no idea i'm gonna guess amazon and we're all uh any good books or something exactly yeah it's a such a great publisher it's it's like you know it's like having a great label it's like that's their job you get the book out there so well it came together really well man yeah it is a really great read that takes uh it fills in the emotional gaps from the documentary which was already exceptional like i said the book has a beautiful lyrical quality that draws you into your world and why you create and the sort of raw questions that you ask yourself it's really a cool exclamation point to the journey of a man whose desire is to connect and i think that people will really see that from start to finish um tell these guys where they can find you uh you can find me well it's very difficult to find me in person because i move very quickly but uh actually i post everything online so but by the time i post i'm gone so um but you could find me in the inner world internet uh on steve aoki at stevie okay pretty much everything all the different things out there all right man what is the impact that you want to have on the world the oh yeah what's impact theory so i guess we have a close with that one uh that's right sorry because i can't just like go in there what is what is the impact what's your impact for me it is very simple i want to see how many people i can pull out of the matrix by giving them an empowering mindset i think our mindset and i'll use your language the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves is everything and one of the cool things in [Music] in blue is you talk about the different stories that you've told yourself at different times and it was so interesting man that sense of like the curtain being lifted and what makes you so interesting to me and the reason i like hanging out with you and the reason that i love having you on the show is things weren't handed to you you had every opportunity to whine to complain to take um a lesser way out to accept that the world didn't want you to be you that they wanted you to conform and that you didn't fit in but you didn't do that you could have just said well i'm shy and that's my nature and and that would have been that um you could have said my label is gonna be small forever and that would have been that you could have been the guy that you know fell so in love with playing to five people that he never played to you know five hundred 000 or you know however big the tomorrowland crowd is just gigantic so but you didn't do any of that but yet you loved it and you gave it meaning and i loved it when you said that earlier like you have to you have to be grateful for it you have to assign gratitude to that thing it's not like nature just hands it to you and so when i get around people like you and i see like oh there were a thousand exit ramps that would have been easier that would have taken you to the path more traveled but there was one sort of terrifyingly weird windy road that had all kinds of failures and pain points and all that and you just kept going partly because you have a narrative about yourself that tells you you're resilient that you can do it that like skateboarding you can get better like the diy scene it's about contribution like you learned in the pickle patch that you could connect and that connecting is ultimately what matters but you're actually telling yourself this stuff and that's why the you know the acid trip that you go into in the book and everything it's hearing you assign meaning to things that to me is the juice so i've just become obsessed with this can i help people assign more useful meaning to their life because if i can help them assign new meaning that will take them on a new path that will lead them to actually do different things and that's really my obsession is the doing but you don't get to the doing until you tell yourself a story about what skill sets mean until you tell yourself a story about how you're willing to get that skill set and it goes back and back and back until you get to the framework of their mindset and so that's the impact i want to have that's beautiful by the way thank you man very very beautiful um can i just say that i want to do something you can yeah i mean it's clear that we have so many synergies which is why we got together to do neon futures together this is why we always find our way back together um you know it's uh it's always great to talk to you and um you know when you say that i'm just like that's me you know because it's you know essentially you know we put stuff out there to whatever it might be to have a profound impact on people um where you're giving your your uh yourself to someone where they can take that and like feel good about what they're doing or find a different way to just like you said find that path to to their own greatness to make them feel something you know at the end of the day it's like i guess for me it is to make them feel something that's extraordinary that i'm able to offer if they choose to at my show or my experience or you know do something that i've put out there you know so um and that that's why i just don't stop what i'm doing because i'm obsessed with that and i'm always thinking about new ways to do more of that so um [Music] yeah that's pretty i mean you said it better than me i know that's pretty good that was pretty good all right guys this is this man is what happens when you take somebody that has obsession a ridiculous drive and all of it around connection and creating something beautiful in the world i know you guys all know his music but do yourself a favor read the book to memoir blue color of noise is revelatory in watching somebody go from a almost paralytically shy kid who has to struggle with being different and not fitting in becoming one of the biggest musical sensations on the planet it is a extraordinary journey of deadly simple steps and when you see that it's about the passion the connection the love the joy wanting to create something wanting to be good and being willing to face that you suck and the number of times that he says that in the book was awesome like oh i sucked at this point oh it's probably because i was bad oh they pointed out that i wasn't good at this but that he finds his niche and then really improves upon it and then obviously his career speaks for itself read the book if you have any desire to achieve the extraordinary in your life you can consider it an instruction manual all right guys if you haven't already be sure to subscribe until next time my friends be legendary take care steve my man thank you brother that was amazing whoever is the most popping wins whoever has the most likes on instagram wins and i think we have to change our definition of success for me success is doing what you love for a living it doesn't mean you're rich doesn't mean you're famous it doesn't mean you'll never struggle again it just means doing what you love for a living