Why Success Isn’t the Answer | Mike Posner on Impact Theory

How much of the stuff you do, how many of your so-called goals, you know, are just there cuz you're scared of being alone in a room. You're just making them up to feel productive. The only wrong way to do a day is to believe there's a right way to do a day. You know, it's to waste your time worrying about if you're doing it right. Everybody Welcome to Impact Theory. You're here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless, but you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So, our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, poet, rapper, and music producer who has written hits for both himself and a star-studded cast of artists including Pharrell Williams, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Wiz Khalifa, Avicii, Nick Jonas, and countless others. His smash hit, I Took a Pill in Ibiza, dominated the global charts. It was streamed roughly 1 billion times on Spotify and roughly the same number of video views on YouTube and reached the top 10 in 27 countries. His songs, Please Don't Go and Cooler Than Me, have been certified platinum and double platinum, respectively, and the monster hit songs, Sugar, which he co-wrote for Maroon 5, and Boyfriend, which he co-wrote for Justin Bieber, together have been viewed over 3 billion times on YouTube alone. But what makes his story so interesting isn't just the insane level of success, it's that he gained it all, lost it, and then managed to gain it all back. After the explosive success of his freshman album, he struggled to make another hit. In fact, he recorded two sophomore albums, both of which his label refused to release, and he was was dropped from the record company and slid back into obscurity. Totally disillusioned with fame and the trappings of success, but convinced he had more to give, he embarked on an incredible journey of self-discovery that led him to transcendental meditation, solitude, India, the Landmark Forum, and a whole lot of truth. He gave away most of his possessions, bought a van, lived in it, and traveled around the country playing music for free. And not unsurprisingly, this period of introspection found its way into his music. And from that, the mega hit I Took a Pill in Ibiza was born. Now with a bigger platform than ever, he's not only making amazing music, he's sharing what he's learned along the way. So please, help me in welcoming the author of Teardrops and Balloons and the host of the podcast What Is This All Mean, multi-platinum artist MIKE POSNER. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING ON THE SHOW, MAN. I love the intro. Dude. like I can just leave now. Just mic drop and bone the [ __ ] out. Call it a day. No, man. That was honestly The The funny thing is and and I get that response frequently from people. And the truth is I'm literally just trying to find the the honest through line of you. It's It's powerful because when someone sees you in a way that you don't necessarily see yourself, um you can start to see yourself that way. So not speaking conceptually, like right then like 30 seconds ago, you said um a few things. One, like you added up the number of the songs I've written for other people and how many some like billion I had no idea. billion views. That's just YouTube. Yeah, I had no idea. And then secondly, you said with a with now with a larger platform than ever, which is true, but I never thought about that until right now. So you acknowledging me is is changed my concept of myself. It's uh it's actually really interesting and I know exactly what you mean. And what I found so interesting diving into your story was how you've really ridden the journey of self-discovery. And I what I love is when everything seemed to be falling apart, you doubled down on you and figuring you out rather than doubling down on just music. Which I thought was pretty interesting. Were you consciously aware of like, "I want to find myself?" Or was it just about peace? Like, what was driving that? No, I was I I feel like I don't deserve much credit in the matter. More felt like I had to. So, here here's what I mean. You know, I put out my first record and the first single I put out from that record was a song called Cooler Than Me and it like exploded. And I'm like 22 at the time-ish. And I thought, "Oh, great. This is what happens when I put out singles." Like, I it's just incredible cuz it was my first one. And uh my concept of myself, like who I actually was, for me was popular, young, successful, like yeah, successful artist, young young gun. And fast forward a year or two later, though like I couldn't deny that those words didn't describe me anymore. Like, every day I was becoming less popular. I was becoming less successful. And I feel like I was forced to ask the question if if that's not who I am, then who am I? You know, and it's really a privilege to ask that question. I I I try to try to remind myself of that and talk about it on my podcast a lot, which you know, typically, we you know, we all know the cliches, you erase believe like money or success or notoriety or attention from the opposite sex will like fill you up and solve all your problems. And people always told me my whole life that's not the case, you know, like I heard with my ears and my brain, but I didn't really believe with my heart and I didn't like really live a life that reflected me knowing those things. So, I had to find out for myself. So, what I do? Like all the people that told me money can't buy happiness, in my head I'd say, "You just haven't made enough money, you know?" Like I'm going to make more than you and then I'll be happier than you. And so, I had to find out for myself. And it's a privilege to at 22 make money, achieve get attention from the opposite sex, achieve notoriety, and realize, "Hey, I actually feel exactly the same." Mhm. I didn't really feel worse I didn't I don't think it really made my experience of life worse, but it didn't make it better, which was scary cuz I really thought it was going to. And so, now I have the privilege of asking, "If not that, then what?" Mhm. And I don't know the answer yet. But how do you even embark on that? Like that is such a big question. Like that's in some ways that's more daunting to me than if somebody said I needed to break into the music industry. That that at least seems more straightforward. Like okay, I'd start a YouTube channel, I'd learn music, obviously that'd be a good start for me. Uh but you play, you put it out there, you know what I mean? You hope you attract an audience, but answering the question of what does this all mean? Like where did you start? I was between like I was kind of during this period and I went to the studio with my my friend Big Sean. I don't like drop people's names on these shows. your thing. You're going to be dropping a lot of names today. So, just get crazy. since like you live in LA, like you meet people, but I want to distinguish Sean from like a usual name drop because Big Sean and I were friends um in Detroit like when we were both 18, the end of high school we met before either of us had any success. And he used to come to my mom's house, we'd make music in my mom's He called my mom mom. You know, like when he played his first like homecoming show in Detroit, my parents were in the front row. Wow, that's cool. Um so it's it's like a it's kind of different. Anyways, that was a long introduction to the actual story which was I'm in this I'm in this sort of down period and Sean invites me to the studio in LA. Now we both live in LA, so I go to the studio and this guy's just like glowing. You know, and his career after like years of stagnation um his career's taking off. He's got his first hit. And he's one of at this like when I saw him in the studio, he was one of those guys where you just felt good being around him. Um so I just asked like I went back to studio the next day with him. I go, "What's going on with you? What's up with you?" He's like, "You got to read these two books." First one was The Alchemist and the second one was Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Which is like kind of out there that book, but it's all about the law of attraction. And Sean, I don't know if he still does but he used to carry it with him everywhere. Wow. And his like the cover was all like worn and like it's a serious book and it's about um basically you get what you think about. And that I think that really set me off. So I started yeah, started like exploring different belief systems and I still am and And did you find that that was alleviating some of the cuz So I went through similar-ish things not not sort of the have and then lose but I'm in film school thought of myself as an artist very much thought I was going to break into the industry I created so you there's basically three big movements in film school and first of all getting into film school statistically at USC it's harder to get into USC film school than Harvard Law so getting in I was already like I'm the man and then I did very well in the first two movements and then there's a fourth thing that you do where only four people in the entire class get to direct which is called a 480 and so it's like really coveted everybody wants to do it and I'd done so well in the ones leading up I got selected as one of the four and so I just thought this is it man I'm going to direct this film I'm going to get the three picture deal when I graduate it's all going to be set like everything I've ever dreamed about is about to come true and then I completely [ __ ] up the film and it is just embarrassing it's so embarrassing in fact I steal the master so that it could never be seen again and then I'm lost I've graduated now and I've no idea where I'm going and so beginning to pursue self-development was really an act of self-preservation it was me I felt so like claustrophobic in that sense of like I failed I am a failure I'm not good enough I'm not smart enough and that this is forever it's like a death sentence is exactly how it felt Yeah. And I remember at the time at the period in my life I would just lay on the carpet in my apartment I was too poor to afford furniture and so I would just lay on the carpet and the thing that got me getting back up was finding things anything books songs everything that had some sort of sense of you can do something with your life, like you can change your circumstances, so alleviated that that sense of oppression that it got me going again. Is that what was starting to happen for you in that period? Yeah, I think I think also think it's just like kind of exciting. Um to look at life the way that those two books like presented. And it's still like it's it's another lens through which to look at like reality. It was more fun to think I'm the author of my life. And I can and I have a say by what I think about and what I do by what happen. I control what my outcomes and what happens to me. It was like more It was exciting to like try out. Um I found in my in it so far to really be true. Um And that you are the author of your own life. Yeah, and I think that I always believed I was going to have another like wave in the music industry during that time. I visualized like playing on Jimmy Fallon. You know? And then like a year two later I was on Jimmy Fallon playing. So if you can author your life and make it whatever you want, like what's the plan? What do you hope that it adds up to? Mm, that's a great question. And it changes daily, you know. Um definitely like a family. Children. Um That's something that I I wanted for a long time, but I would I pretended like I didn't. Cuz I thought I couldn't do like couldn't do my career and that at the same time. And then I realized I made that up. That I can't do those at the same time. Somewhere along the line. And um So I think that's like that's one of the things. Um I have a more gargantuan goal I'm working on now. It's sort of like so impossible it might be possible which is um to have the entire world observe International Peace Day. I find it very interesting and very relevant to what you've gone on that your obsession is sort of thinking about how we change our perspective on ourselves, on other people. Um one of the the things in researching you that I found really interesting was your time at Landmark. Mhm. And Tell Tell Tell us about that and then specifically the part where you were saying that you'd created this story about yourself as a kid. Yeah. So like we've talked about, I've been doing a lot of like work on myself. I'm you know, meditating every day. I'm reading like the Bhagavad Gita. I've gone to India and I've done all these things, you know, meditation retreat. I've met with Ram Dass. And I had a couple of friends that mentioned they'd done this thing called Landmark Forum and it and it they got a lot out of it. So like if I have three friends tell me something's like good, I'll try it out, you know. So I go to this like office building. There's like white woman leading with like kind of like a in-sync microphone on her thing and she's like, "All right, now we're going to This is going to change your life." I'm like, "No, it's not." And we're going through this. Three days long. And full day is like 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. You break to eat, but like otherwise you're in there. And she's saying all this stuff and I'm like, "I know this. I know this, I know this, I know this, I know that already. And by the end of it, I realized like I think this thing like really works somehow. Um, but the your question like there's a the first thing they would distinguish in there is there's a difference between what happened and your story about what happened. So, in my case like I was I was on the basketball team in high school. And I didn't play on the basketball team. I rode the bench. And three quarters of the way through the season, I built up all this courage. I had a meeting with the coach in his office. And I said, "Coach, why don't you ever play me?" And he looked at me and he goes, "I don't play you because you're not good enough." And in that moment I tried really hard not to, but I started crying. I was embarrassed I was crying and in my head I said, "He doesn't know how special I am and I'll show him." And so what happened was he said I wasn't good enough, which was true. I wasn't good enough to play. That's why I didn't play, you know? He didn't like have some like personal thing against me. That's what happened. My story about what happened was he doesn't understand me. He doesn't see how good I am and I'll show him. And not only that, no one understands me. That's how I was living my life. And it took this lady in a office building like to for me to see that. So, what are some of the the bricks that have been transformational for you? So, obviously going to the landmark realizing the story that you tell yourself about yourself is important and that you really need to take ownership of that. The very fact that you are the author of your own life, that seems like it was another big one. I know that you did this 7-day retreat of total isolation, which sounds so painful, and then makes me think, "God, do I have to do it because I'm so afraid of it?" Maybe. But, walk us through that. Your By the way, your podcast is phenomenal. For anybody that really wants to get into like self-transformation, exploring the self, it really really impressive. The episode around your time where you're reading your journals, really unfiltered. I thought it was super interesting, and you had a couple like what seemed like pretty big moments for you that I think you've carried with you moving forward. Walk us through like what the experience was like and what those moments were. You know, you might remember them more than me if you listened to it more recently. And that's one of the scary things, you know. Um It's some of I think this stuff you is is a practice. As much as I'd like it to be boom, I got it, and breakthrough moment, I have it forever now. I'm not sure it is so much. A lot of this stuff I I guess I shouldn't This was maybe another brick. I'm going to jump back. What was that? In January this year, my dad died. And I knew my dad was going to die. He was sick for a while. And one of the one of the Why it's a brick, one of the gifts I got from him him dying was that it reminded me I'm going to die, too. Which, of course, I knew in my head, but like really reminded me. And it made me look at this list of stuff that I was putting off that I was going to do when I when I'm when I'm done being popular. I was going to do this stuff. I was like, "No, I should probably do that now." So, like on that list was like Landmark. On that list is like starting a podcast. On that list was spending time in solitude. I'm just trying to like do that stuff cuz it's calling to me. So, I Google like where I can go for meditation retreat that are that's led and I think there's a lot of value to that. But, I was just curious like what happens when I'm totally alone. So, I found this place in Colorado. It's called the Tara Mandala Buddhist Monastery. They have these like cabins that are each one is set up for you to be like totally alone. So, I get to the monastery. This guy Pema, sweet dude. He's like, "Put your stuff in the back of the truck." Drives me up. He's like, "Here's the wooden stove. Here's like the axe. There's a radio like if you're dying, call us. But, if not, like do your thing." And he just left me. And there was no like guidance. Man, he was just like, "See you in a week." And there was a clock there, but I thought, "Well, since I'm here, I'll see what it's like without clocks, too." And I put that in the drawer. And I never took it out. And so, there's like a meditation cushion there and I sit on it. Close my eyes. And the first thing my mind does is starts to make up tasks for me to accomplish. So, I'm sitting there. It's like, "You know, there's some spices that whoever was here before you left, you should really like organize those and put them in like the right order. Maybe alphabetical." And it's like, "You know, you haven't exercised. You should probably like run up that hill three times, you know." How many of your so-called goals, you know, are just there cuz you're scared of being alone in a room. You just making them up to feel productive. There's a quote, I think it's uh Blaise Pascal, he says, I might have a word or two off, he says, "All of men's problems stem from the fact that he cannot sit quietly alone in a room." It turns out, man, it's like really hard to do that, you know. Um So, that was that was one lesson, you know, and and there were periods, I don't want to glorify them, and there were periods of like real Boredom is not strong enough, like despair, when I was there. If I remember right, you said at one point you actually for a few minutes considered suicide as a reasonable option. Oh, that is another lesson. So, like, it's one day, I'm going to get to it. So, I wake up one day, this is maybe the day two, and like I have my options. I'm going to wake up, I'm going to go to the bathroom in the outhouse. I'm going to meditate, I'm going to drink water, I'm going to go for a walk. And I can't decide what order to do those in. Like literally, that because no no one else is there to talk to, and no one So, I'm watching my mind. Like that's the show. And this is what my mind does all the time, but I'm really noticing like That's how I live my life normally, I can't decide what to do. Am I doing it right is the real underlying question, and that That implies that there's a right way to do life. And so, that was like lesson two was the only wrong way to do a day is to believe there's a right way to do a day. You know, it's to waste your time worrying about if you're doing it right. That's the only wrong way, you know. Um so then I then I decided tomorrow I'm going to just do what I want the whole time. So I wake up crack of dawn, sun's not up yet. And I'm not And I'm I'm look at everything around me is changing. Even the body like this body's different than it was a year ago, you know, like like these fingernails are longer than they were when I got here. I'm noticing everything's changing except for like the I Mhm. in me. And I've And I'm I've tried to change that, but it didn't work. And so you know, people throw around that word like present. Like I felt present. But then I realized I always will be present. So the rest of my life will just be exactly like this. Mhm. So then the next thought was like, well, why do you have to live the rest of the life then? You know what it's going to be like. And how do you get out of the present? I don't know if you can. So that's when I thought about, well, if there's a knife in the kitchen area. And I was like, nah, you should probably just like sleep this one off, dude. And uh So I wasn't like really I want to be clear. I wasn't like really close to killing myself. Sure. But I thought about I'm thinking about these things like the real heart of like existence, like what it means to be alive and um presence and what it means to actually be present like not in the future, not in the past. Have you read Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom? Dude, read it. You You will love the book of this I assure you, and he talks about solitary confinement and what it does, and he goes into this whole diatribe, which as I was listening to your podcast, I was just like, "Oh my god, the human mind cannot deal with boredom. Like, it is just wired to never allow itself to be bored." And that's why the ultimate punishment is to put somebody into solitary. A, oftentimes they start hallucinating. I was actually waiting for a story about you having some hallucinations, and maybe because you had nature and all that, um and you were journaling, that probably helped. But when people are really, really like locked down, isolated, yeah. They literally when there's no there's no transition from night to day, like, the human mind just is not wired for that. So, it's really interesting that that level of isolation had the which by the way, those were the I'll say the two sort of key breakthroughs that you talked about in the podcast. It's very, very interesting to see that forcing yourself through that really crystallizes the sense of the I, the version of me that's sort of reading the world and interpreting everything, that's ever-present, it's everywhere that I go, and so ultimately becomes the only thing that matters because it's the filter through which I'm going to experience everything in my life. And then you also said that, you know, walking away from that, I felt like, "Okay, it's easy to find peace in the mountains, but now that my career is taking off again, can I come back off the mountain, back down into Venice, and can I still have that kind of peace?" I'm super curious, like, what's that experience like? Are you still striving as hard as ever to make great music? Cuz at one point you were saying that you wanted to win song of the year and album of the year at the Grammys. Like, are these still things that you're striving towards? And if so, how do you balance the two of really finding that deep peace that I can totally feel you going for and have ambition? That's a great question. I'm starting to kind of just make peace with my ambition. Meaning not trying to get rid of it. Not trying to get rid of it. In fact, I think that would probably make it worse, you know? Um cuz there's part of me that's like embarrassed that I would care about like winning a Grammy. And part of me really doesn't care, you know? But part of me really does. So, what do you do with that, you know? Um And so, I think there's like kind of two schools of thought. There's one that like it's possible to like work on yourself to extricate yourself from desire. And I don't know how realistic that really is, you know, to not have desire. If I got rid of that desire, be something else, you know? Maybe it's not necessary to get rid of my ego, my my desires, my selfishness, which are all exist. Or make peace with them. I think it's kind of like going back to law of attraction things, like the more you focus on like I have this desire that I don't like, the more you're going to get that. Mhm. Um So, I still make music. I really like to make music. It's really fun. I'm not sure I could stop. My It's tricky when you do something you love for a living, and you and you're successful at it, you know, which I'm blessed to be. You are, too. Um Do you Are you after you get the success, are you doing this because you want more success or you still love it? Well, the answer's probably both. People People, myself included, it's nice to be liked, you know? Do I think like if everyone hated me, I could figure out how to be happy? Yeah, I'd like to think so. All right, so what I really want to know is how you express your drive. So, you learned to play guitar quite late in life, if I'm not mistaken. So, how did you go about that? Like, as somebody who's taking guitar lessons, that that's a big task, especially if you can already create music other ways. After the way my first sort of like wave of popularity had crashed, um you know, I went from like doing concerts all over the world, like taking my shirt off at shows, making more money than I deserved, to s- like overnight kind of having like a completely open schedule. And I was just like alone in my house. And so, I guess kind of similar to the I guess solitude moment in a different way years before, which was like um what do I want to do? You know? Do I even still want to do music? Cuz I don't have to. There's like nothing to do right now. Um it reminded me, I don't know if I had heard it at the time, but it it reminds me of there's like the Steve Jobs moment where he just gets fired from Apple, and he has this moment that hey, I actually really s- I even though I've been fired, I still really love what I do. And so, he starts another tech company I felt like that. Even though like I'm not as popular as I was, I still really love music. And so, I thought maybe I'll take this time to get better at music. I didn't know I didn't know how to play guitar at all. I didn't know how to play piano at all. So, I just thought like maybe I'll take like some piano lessons. And I found this like who became my mentor, his name was Norman Henry Maimi. And he became sort of like a father figure to me. And so, I just did exactly what he said. I just got really into it. And I went like that. Um And I will And I did the same thing with guitar. I'm a big believer in teachers. You know, big believer in teachers. Like I couldn't I couldn't get that good just like YouTube playing on my own. You have that guy, that relationship that I'm accountable to. Makes a big difference. Um How do you find a great teacher? Um The best way is if like you have someone else you trust who's good that recommends them. You know, so my guitar teacher I found through James Valentine who plays in Maroon 5. He's like, "This is my teacher and he's awesome." You know, that's that's how I learned. Just practicing. You know, prac- You got You just got to suck for a while, you know? But like, you'll get good. It's It's It's easy to get frustrated like after a day's work. Like, "Hey, I really worked hard on that." But like if you do that for a month it's like it's crazy what you can accomplish. Speaking of hard work, there's a great quote by Jay-Z, "You think I worked this hard to stay the same?" You've talked a lot about like in your change. Like when I think about even just the persona of you and like the boom chicka wow wow song to now, the the change is incredible. Yeah. You quoted Gandhi as saying, "I have no allegiance to consistency, only to truth." Yeah. There's a story Ram Dass used to tell. I don't know how true it is, but Ram Dass used to tell the story about Gandhi that he was This is where the quote comes from. He was leading a march. And there was like thousands of people following him. And there were some particular details like it was a holiday or something, maybe something with the police or something and he decided this march is actually going to do more harm than good. And everyone's going to like, you can't cancel a march now. Like you know, look. And he said, "My allegiance is not to consistency, it's to truth." And so he called off the march, you know. And I think that's important, you know, it's important and it's it's tough. So like you got to reassess. So now you have this additional layer, which is success. So for you to change could actually be really expensive like in a really real way. How do you not get trapped by that? obviously to write another song that's in the same vein as I took a pill in Ibiza, it's like I'm sure everybody wants you to do that. But then how do you stay true to where you are creatively? Like even Mansions, right? Like the way that you it you can line up your interviews and even if you block the hair and I couldn't see that you had green hair, which you did for pretty much every interview you give on Mansions. But even if I couldn't see that, I could tell literally from the first sentence this is a Mansions interview. Like the way you talked, like the the presence that you had, everything was just different. Yeah. And so you clearly have not been afraid to make pretty radical changes in the way that you present yourself. Like honestly today when I was doing the research, I'm like, I actually don't know who I'm going to get. I don't know if I'm going to get podcast Mike, if I'm going to get Mansions Mike, you know, if I'm going to get sort of mainstream pop Mike, like that you you're very capable of going in like these really and when you're in that lane you're crazy consistent. But then you'll be in the next interview and you'll be radically different and I'm like what the [ __ ] It's so it's so fascinating because as an artist what I've read about musicians especially is their big torment is my fans, my managers, everybody they want me to the hit was here and to just keep being that. And the irony is so this is full confession. So Spotify just recommends music to me all the time, right? So as I began the research there were like three songs that I have of you in my playlist. I didn't know it were you. I didn't know the Mansion stuff was you. I should have cuz your voice is so [ __ ] unique but it was so different than the other stuff that it didn't click. And so when I started looking I was like Jesus even musically you're like capable of not only writing for people all across the map but even when you do it yourself it's wildly different. And so while I'm I'm a huge believer in change, I love change but as an artist man [ __ ] Like if I rolled up one day and just did the interview style totally different people would be like the [ __ ] Like and I would be tense to do it because it's like I want a guest to know like there's consistency and you don't have to worry and you know what you're going to get. So it's amazing. I'm super inspired by it and I'm just wondered like how much of that is like a conscious like I'm feeling this and want to express it and how much is like just you don't even think about it. It's when I feel green I dye my hair green. I think in the past I felt that everyone wants me to stay the same so I would overcompensate. You see what I'm saying? Instead of like just doing what I want to do I might do the opposite of what everyone wants me to do just to prove I am still autonomous. Tactically, how have you dealt with people that like so you you've even said like my parents for instance at times didn't like when I was changing. So what do you do when it's somebody like that especially that you're so close to? But I got to do what I think is true to myself. And the reality is if you don't do what you want to do because of what someone else says or what you think someone else is going to say which a lot of times isn't what they're going to say you're going to resent that person. So it's going to mess the relationship up anyways. You might as well do what you think is true to yourself and real. And what I found is by by doing that, by expressing myself what I've gotten over the years of these these these amazing relationships where people accept that I do that. And now I have the space to do that. And my fans now do I lose some along the way? Oh yeah, I'm sure, you know. Um but a lot of the ones that I have now know, they know for sure my next album is going to be different than my last one. Like that's what they're a fan of now. I had this moment this uh this summer I was on a kayaking trip with my friends and at the time I had this huge beard. And uh one of my friends was like, you got the beard man and he he was like, is that on brand? And I was like, dude, I'm the brand. Like whatever I do, that's the brand. So I think that's how I deal with this do like what I feel is true to me and in time like the people who really care like care to love me and and love is just accepting someone how they are right now. And how they aren't right now. That's what love is. So, the people that accept me how I am that love me they accept that I change. I get that for sure. All right, I'd be very remiss not to ask about your dad and what you went through. What were like what did you learn? What did you take away? How did that shift your perspective? Yeah, thanks for asking. It's one thing I'm learning. My dad died about 11 months ago. So, coming up on a year. One thing I'm learning is this this thing changes over time. My dad had brain cancer. So, he was sick about 10 months where we knew he was going to die to when he did die. And in that time period um I got to say goodbye. I got to tell him why his life was meaningful in my eyes. Like what what he did for me. The impact he had on me. And I got to tell him it was okay to go. I got and I got to tell him I'll be okay when you go. I'll miss you. But I'll be okay. So, it's wherever you have to go, wherever you have to do right now you have my blessing. When my father passed away I didn't really feel I didn't feel sad. I felt like I had a father. A lot of my friends don't have fathers, but I had a father 29 years. I'm not going to complain cuz I didn't have him 30 or 31. And I had an amazing father, you know? And so I remember I remember his funeral and then like we had all the the family over to celebrate and I just thought it was like the most beautiful day. That everyone we love was here honoring dad. And everyone I love is around me and I had a dad. It was a celebration. Um and the relationship I have with my mother now, um I wouldn't have If it wasn't for Landmark and my dad dying, I wouldn't have this relationship with my mom. All right, before I ask my last question, where can these guys find you? Oh man, it's all under my name, Mike Posner. I think I have Yeah, like all the social media ones It's just my name. Nice and simple. Mhm. All right, what's the impact that you want to have on the world? I'd like to start with that International Peace Day. You know, I think that if we could achieve that as humans, and I don't want it to be my if that ever were to happen, which I think it can, it wouldn't be like Mike did that, you know? It would have to be a lot of people working on it and hopefully like I Yeah, I'd just be a part of it. But yeah, I think if that happened, I would feel fulfilled like I made a made a difference. I I don't want to die feeling like I didn't do I didn't give everything I had. I got scared somewhere and I didn't try that idea. So, I want to start there and then if that happens, I'll think of something else. Sounds good. Yeah. Awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show. That was incredible. All right. See you. All right. Guys, here is the astonishing thing about his story. I love that the unimaginable heights of success that he has experienced have been born out of just an immeasurably deep self-experimentation process that is out there for everybody to watch. And the thing that I find so interesting about him, it's literally like he's experimenting with all of this stuff from doing the isolation to going to India to meeting with gurus, interviewing Deepak Chopra. like on and on and on, the number of things that he's done to self-experiment on himself and he's making it all available both in the songs when you start listening to the lyrics, you realize what he's up to. The poetry is unbelievable, by the way, and I'm normally super skeptical about people saying that they do poetry. Check out his book Teardrops and Balloons. It is incredible and he's about to launch an album where he's actually performing the poems in live concerts, which having heard him perform one of the poems, it's unbelievable. His performances are as amazing as the poetry is in and of itself. So, check it out. Go on this journey with him. Follow his podcast. It is incredible the way that he's inviting people into his world as he really does experience the self-transformation to reflect back on it, to share his journal entries. All of it is so raw. It's insane. So, if you've ever wondered about this stuff for yourself, there is somebody right now going through all of it for you, sharing it and sharing what's working, what's not working. It's absolutely incredible. All right, guys. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. What's up, Impactors? If you've ever failed your New Year's resolutions, we've created a free guide just for you, the Resolution Reality Checklist. It teaches you how to write smarter resolutions that you will actually crush this year. You can download it today at info.impacttheory.com/resolutions.