Why You Need to Do Hard Things to Build Self-Respect | Humble the Poet on Conversations with Tom

[Music] so what gave me the idea for the show I wanted to create something that was far more intimate so when we're up on stage I find a lot of times that the guest the level of anxiety is raised we've got like 20 people milling around I've got a camera on a crane it's you know zooming in and out and it just it creates a super different vibe and I love that show and we're gonna keep doing it and it's really extraordinary but I think that there's something that I really wanted to experiment with what would it look like if it was just me and a guest we were alone doing our thing there's no one around what would that bring out where would it go less formal and so I thought that that would be really really interesting and so here we sit man so your background is super fascinating I see we're wearing a shirt is this child of an immigrant yeah give us like a super quick thumbnail like what's the background super quick my parents are from Punjab which is the north part of India and they came in the 70s to Toronto Canada my dad had a master's degree in economics but immediately in Toronto he had to find labour jobs because he couldn't afford to go to school and didn't have the time either was a new fact I need why Toronto um I have no idea why they make the choices they make but I feel like at that point they thought that's where the opportunities were in the early 70s and even though he had education he came and he worked in a furniture factory for a bit and then he became a cab driver and he drove cab for about 30 years until he retired and my mother worked at the Kellogg's Factory and for about two years and she hurt his shoulder and then after that she had to be stay at home and but that started her journey into spirituality she spent more time learning about Sikh heritage and Sikh history and going to the temples and kind of sharing all the cool stories there were very martial people so we have a lot of stories about cool battles and people getting their heads cut off and everything so me being a little kid loved hearing all the stories and that kind of got us into Sikh heritage and there's always a stress on education so when I finished University it was about I didn't know I know go to school get employed so I was like alright I'm gonna do my MBA one of my family friends did that got a cool job at Nike thought that's how you do it fell in love with the idea of potentially doing something else that'd be more interesting my sister recommended I get into teaching we're watching Boston Public that TV show has a really good teacher I've helped out a lot of kids camps like you're good with kids pretty much forged a year worth of volunteer experience from a teacher friend applied within like three weeks they had no idea how competitive it was in Canada to get the Teachers College mmm ended up in Teachers College my first degree was IT so I was coding and doing math and started working at the elementary school teacher you were teaching coding and math no I was my first degree my undergrad was an information technology IC JavaScript and all that fun stuff I just posted something I think last night that was a quote from Elon Musk and it said you're paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of the problems you solve and there was huge thread from teachers going what about us were paid fuck-all and it was really interesting what's your take I'm like where like do you think teachers are underpaid overpaid it's an impossible job like that you want to talk about an area I would never go into like that seems like the world's a most thankless job and be just overwhelming in fact because I did teach for a while but I was teaching adults which was a lot easier but it was it was an inhuman amount of work it's definitely a thankless job I think from an economic standpoint I don't agree when teachers complain about how much they make I think I mean Warren Buffett said a long time ago he said you know somebody who could swing a bat very well is always going to get paid more than somebody who teaches your children and you know a can that says coca-cola or 7up so it's gonna be worth more than 35 cent it's always gonna get purchased more than a 35 cent no-name brand Cola because there's a certain reputation or something attached to it I start to I personally believe that people are going to get paid more when they can do what other people can't you know if everybody can mop the floor the mopping the floor is not gonna pay very well if you can if you can swing a bat you know from a 90 90 mile an hour pitch and you can hit it out of the park they're gonna pay you a lot more if you can step into the Octagon and take elbows to the head and back you'll probably get paid a lot more if you can do brain surgery you'll get paid a lot more if you and figure out a way to tell jokes and make people laugh and people actually want to show up to your shows to probably end up getting paid more so I think what do you think about that that like when you say that you don't agree when people complain about it like I go to the very notion of complaining like the notion of complaining to me is a problem like I get it yeah and so I taught for I don't know off and on maybe for a year and a half two years and it was so much [ __ ] work like I would work all day I would come home and I would have to do my I would have to basically learn at night to go back and have enough to teach people and I thought what the [ __ ] and then my sister-in-law was a teacher and and she was like working around the clock but my thing is if that's what the market is willing to pay like you're asking society to change their values and my thing is I am so glad some people approach it that way and I'm actually really curious to know like how much of a political stance you take on things like as somebody who raps like do you come at that angle but like that's never gonna be me I just don't find that interesting I always turn inward so when I think about alright this pisses me off that things are this way like teachers not getting enough money maybe this makes me a selfish prick but my answer is well then I'm gonna go learn to do the thing like you're saying that people are willing to pay for if money is something that's interesting to me and I'm gonna go solve that problem it just doesn't make sense to me to spend my time pissed at a system yeah oh I can agree I don't think there's a lot of value in complaining you know I mean even venting for some for some folks and I think especially with that especially when it comes to things like teaching is like you you came in the template you did the education you went through the process and now everything you're given a salary and it's kind of presented in front of you there's no surprises when it comes to that and it does become supply and demand and especially in Canada teachers are paid much better than they are paid here but a lot of students from Toronto are going to these American colleges in Buffalo and they're paying you know 30 40 grand to get their teachers degrees and that overflows you know the supply in comparison to the demand so now you know the school boards and everybody have way more qualified teachers than they need in terms of you know the population of the kids the families and the neighborhoods and none of these people want to teach in these rural neighborhoods where they have they need teachers they everyone wants to teach in the city so then you know just straight simple supply and demand coming to hand you know come into factor and I always the more thing about that it's like okay it really is how much value you can bring to the world and whether you're thinking about it consciously or not the more value you bring to the world the more resources are given to you to continue bringing value and we don't get to decide what the world deems valuable that's the crazy thing and that was the thing in and it's funny that Warren Buffett used the exact same example maybe this is why somebody used it my Instagram feed they said like what the [ __ ] you know a baseball player is getting paid 120 million dollars or whatever for hitting a round ball and I just thought yes but there are economics there like that the people are willing to pay for that and so now it becomes a question of what do you do when the world is way the [ __ ] out of step with you and to me it's really interesting to watch how people respond to that because I'm not saying that like there aren't deep and troubling flaws with the way that the world has played out I'm just saying every one of us has to ask like what do we do when we're faced with that yeah do we because there are people who really try to change the system just not interesting to me man like in Dallas or Ralph Nader yeah right so to me like that kind of thing well I guess the the great irony of my life is as I was going to answer the question the though when I really look at changing value system and the irony of the fact that I didn't think of this when I was first answering it is not lost on me but my whole thing with impact theory is that it's a generational play so there's no way that I can have the kind of impact on one person like one generation that I want to have like the only way that you're gonna have that kind of impact is if you burrow into somebody's mind and then they pass it on to their kids and then they pass it on to their kids and the way that culture stacks which is so [ __ ] interesting to me and it's something that I think people don't think enough about like in fact this is interesting for you as somebody who's in hip-hop it's like when you look at the simplicity of the rhymes from the 80s and now just where we are it's not that those people weren't capable of doing what they do now is that they didn't have somebody before them to show them like the complex rhythms that you can use so we build upon each other yeah yeah that that's super interest going from like the nursery rhymes to like then rock him and just blew people's minds that he was doing multi-syllable rhymes and then you had someone like biggie doing Rakim was doing but then also adding in humor and then all of a sudden you had ja rule coming in and he was just singing and rapping and now you see the evolution and in Kanye West drops a toe weights and heartbreaks and then that just spawns off you Travis Scott you're Drake's and all these new artists that come in and then you know t-pain comes in with the auto-tune and cemented into the culture and you see that and I mean definitely that's the case that was actually I got I was lucky enough to go with Lily to the all-star game and you know sitting courtside you get to meet a lot of these rappers and I got to meet 2 Chainz and I was telling him I said you know as a South Asian I'm I feel like we in artistic world and even in the entrepreneurial world are about 30 years behind african-american folks in terms of what messaging we're trying to get out we don't have that Kendrick Lamar nor do we have that jay-z we don't have this leadership yet to set it up and I'm really not totally go I'm taking notes from how you guys are doing it and how you guys are working together when okay meek Millz in jail jay-z's you know funding that his Legal Defense Fund now you know Nipsey Hussle just Pat just passed away you know jay-z went helped set up a trust fund for his children like 15 million dollar trust oh yeah Wow solid and but there's a history like when Nipsey Hussle like he first came to prominence cuz he sold a mixtape for $100 each he printed up a thousand CDs sold for $100 each cuz he studied the scarcity principle and jay-z found that so you know fascinating they took this risk that he went and he bought a hundred copies so there's always this you know support of the entrepreneur and saying hey if each one teach one I see what you're doing it took me ten years to get here let me see if I can get you to do it in five right you know so when artists like me you know went to school once University did the job that everything his immigrant parents asked him to do then he had his existential crisis and then you know let it all go and became the artist I was supposed to be now the question is what so walk me through that so you have the existential crisis meaning I'm not having fun teaching and I like this I'm not fulfilled I think my dialogue for the longest time was how do people how to artists make a living and you know I was doing spoken word poetry and making music on YouTube for fun and you know way to meet girls and just have literally just finally what you do after work I don't have homework what do I do I have to work and what I did was I took a second job tutoring kids and I started making a really good secondary income off that and I was like all right I got some money let's go downtown on the weekends and have some fun I went to a spoken-word concert once saw the guy on stage and he just spit some beautiful bars and I was just like I can do this and this is probably a great way to meet girls and that was literally it was just supposed to be something fun and then put some stuff on YouTube a friend invited me with him to be his plus-one at some party felt like I was crashing everybody knew who I was because they saw me on YouTube and you know that fed to ego a little bit more so for me it was like all right this is feeding my ego this is an icebreaker I don't know how to introduce myself to people because most people know who I am at least in my little pocket in the motor community and then take it serious and then I'd go to events with other artists and these guys are like filling out grant applications working odd jobs here there and this is like before uber and just other types of jobs that you know maybe creatives would benefit from taking while they're on there come up and I was like I don't want to live like these guys I like my my current life of making this much as a teacher we are the same dude so in filmmaking you see a lot of people do the starving artists saying yeah I was like absolutely not like I'm not working my way up on set and that's what you know so many people graduated film school and that was like their stick they're gonna start as a PA and then they're gonna work their way up and then hopefully one day they're writing and directing and I was like [ __ ] that like I it for me it's either I'm doing something else or I'm directing but I'm not doing like the schlepping cables for ten years and the hopes that I get my break that just seemed crazy to me and so I was like you know I'm gonna make a play to try to write to try to get something done and the like the way that my life played out has always been an echo of that like the thing that I want to do has to be like in and of itself has got to be interesting and so and quite frankly just like total control freaky like I I did not want to be a starving artist I did not want other people to have control over my art like I I went to extraordinary lengths to retain control and and what that also forces you to do is not be on the template because that's how you told the hey you want to be an actor or an actress so you want to be a director you got a you news here's the template you want to be a doctor here's the template here's the path I wish I'd been that smart I was too dumb to follow the template and I actually mean that sincerely I had no sense of like what the other than to go be a PA and work my way up but I wish I had been doing it because I was so clever that I was gonna buck the system I think I was too lazy to carry cables that's like the God's honest truth but I mean even Bill Gates aside hire lazy people yeah a way to solve fraud and I mean again you didn't follow the template I mean think you're doing all right it worked out okay the funny thing is so I always tell people like when people hear my story in Reverse like you you see the punchline that I end up being successful but at the time all I had was shame I had shame I had self-doubt I had confusion I felt lost for almost two years I slept on an air mattress that had a [ __ ] leak it would have only cost me $20 to replace it and I was so like broke I didn't want to spend the money so I would blow it up every night no matter how [ __ ] tired I was I would blow this air mattress up by the morning I used to put clothes under the bed because by the morning would be completely flat and so I and and this is [ __ ] true my bed was half in a closet and half out because I had to share a room so there was the track for the closet door yeah so when I would wake up on the floor I was on the track so I put clothes all over the place so that I wouldn't wake up and feel the metal in my side but that's like that's where this shit's I think it's so ironic that you're wearing that Batman hat because I was just thinking in my head I'm like this guy's Bruce Wayne he's probably probably sleep on the floor now in your house here's the thing so Bruce Wayne like really means something to me and I wish like I do a lot of things to try to emulate Bruce Wayne but if you're really deep in the lore of like how badass that [ __ ] is learning to read lips in Russian is my favorite Bruce Wayne story but no I'm not that hardcore but I do [ __ ] with cold showers do that okay so you're one of those guys who's like hey I'm going to actively make myself uncomfortable 1,000 and do all of these things you know and you just trying to find it is 100 percent I don't want to do it like the the thing about self-worth and self-respect like the first time I ever hear of a read the book love yourself like your life depends on it it's actually I so want it to be true and the guy that wrote it it it seemed to really have changed his life and so for people that it works for I'm so stoked but that would not have worked for me and I think for a lot of people it won't and the punchline is basically you have to start just by telling yourself that you love yourself telling yourself you love yourself over and over and over look in the mirror and say you love yourself and my thing is a it's better than the alternative if that's crowding out a negative voice that's rad it's a nice step but the reality is if you really want to have self-worth if you want to have self-respect if you want to value yourself you have to earn it you have to do something that you value you have to do something that makes you feel like you have [ __ ] Worth and one of the things instantaneously dude instantaneously if you can get yourself to follow through on something that you value but is hard you will instantly feel that sense of like whoa so every day I start with basically three things that I do not want to do and just in doing them they make me feel good about myself number one I get out of bed in ten minutes or less for some people that's not hard for me that's [ __ ] hard and the deepest shame in my life was all around I didn't want to get out of bed for hours and hours and hours on end and yeah anyway that's a very dark period in my life I've talked about it before so that's number one I give my I have a rule I'm out of bed in ten minutes or less number two I work out I do not enjoy working out in any way shape or form but I do it and the number three I take a [ __ ] cold shower the cold shower by far is the one that messes with me the most and it's actually the one it's number two in my consistency I'm deadly consistent on ten minutes or less I'm probably 95% consistent on the cold shower and then working out is actually the one I'm least consistent but doing those things like actually gives me self-worth and nothing it's it's not the success it's not the money those things can't [ __ ] touch self-worth man it's that Jordan Peterson idea of fixed you know tackle the pile of paper on your desk thousand percent you know just doing something that you've been dreading to do the more you do that that will probably you know give you more fulfillment than even chasing a passion you know that's kind of the idea yeah so let me ask you this if you start to acclimate and now cold showers is your norm I have a buddy who went you know to get through after you got through with some three years of a diction with drinking he lives in Berlin he went to a farm in Portugal and he and he worked with the farmhands and then he went and taught in Palestine for a couple of months and he skin of the chills sorry that just gave me the chills that's so smart and I never would have thought yeah but yeah I don't and I don't think he read it out of a book I think he literally just wanted to do it and he left him did it and then when I went to go visit him I'm in his apartment and I was like is your heat broken and he's like oh no I just don't turn it on I just got used to it like this and I was just like I'm like you're like a real-life magical monk right now you don't you've just gotten to this point like it's kind of like you know if you stop it's hard to not eat sugar but if you go months without eating sugar you'll acclimate to it so if you get to the point where like cold showers is your norm you know for me you know I drink black coffee or and I try to have like no carbs in the morning and now I'm used to it I can enjoy my breakfast I enjoy the black coffee and and I'm not create it's not discipline for me anymore for that I got used to it I do have a list of like well what's the next thing gonna be that I'm going to do I guess it's confession time so there's one thing that haunts me I'm not committed to it I talk about it though because it weighs on my mind okay open-water terrifies me more than anything in this world and I got invited to speak at this open water thing and I promised my team open water you just me like a lady open [ __ ] ocean like the ocean yeah so this guy was a free diver meaning no scuba gear you just hold your breath and you [ __ ] dive as deep as you can and these guys die all the time because they if once you're halfway dude if you misjudge and you go a little too far there's no making it back it's already too late like you're already dead once you turn around if you've waited too long so anyway that [ __ ] freaks me out the movie open water is my greatest nightmare have you seen that movie holy [ __ ] and it's based on a true story okay and it's this couple they get on a boat to go scuba diving they go out every day do the head count they go down you always go with a partner they go with each other the guy missed counts when they come back up they think they have everybody but they don't so they've resurfaced the boat is [ __ ] gone and they don't realize that they've left people out there until God knows how long three hours later or something then they get back in the boat and they try to find them but the currents have taken them so far they never find them and the movie is is literally just these two people bobbing up and down in the [ __ ] water and like how terrifying it is to not be able to see what's beneath you and oh my god dude the real-life story that it's based on they end up there like dive board I guess you have like a white board essentially with them and it shows up and I think I may be misremembering this part it shows up and it says something if I remember right it says sharks and so it's like oh god like that that freaks me out so much so to your point like that's the one thing like in the back of my mind I'm always like at some point in my life I'm gonna need to do that so anyway I get this speaking gig I tell my team I within my code of ethics I'll do anything to make this business successful cuz I so believe in the [ __ ] mission so I get offered this thing it is my greatest fear so I say yes so within my code of ethics right so thank God it got canceled and I was like thank you like whoever is watching the baby fit to say yes yeah I said yes thank you and I was very proud of myself but when I say I was relieved to the core of my being when I got canceled I was relieved but so that that's the thing that hangs in the back of my mind cold exposure in particular it's really really interesting cuz you actually develop what they call brown fat so your your normal adipose tissue which is white fat it's not thermogenic it doesn't generate a lot of heat I mean it's probably got insulation properties but it doesn't generate heat but Brown fat actually generates heat it is it has I think it's happening like it has an increased metabolic rate or something anybody that knows about this right now is rolling over because I'm sure I'm [ __ ] this up but it's basically from you - yeah exactly come on man what the [ __ ] so but it becomes thermogenic and there was this woman who did exactly what your man in porch okay so she did all this cold exposure slept in Alaska with the window open in winter only took cold cold showers also she could drumroll please swim the [ __ ] Bering Strait the space between Russia and Alaska oh that's crazy but that's how much the human body can adapt yeah we're a lot more resilient than we realize that is getting real softer here now that I you know we have no predators and we have not a lot of dangers so now all of our fears that were you know fear used to be here to protect us from real physical danger now it's all just like well what are people gonna think what happens if I do something different oh no what if I you know recycle that outfit what if my Instagram picture don't get enough likes in context of what you did so you talk about this breaking of the template thing which I should find really interesting so you've bucked it pretty hard yeah you try booked it involuntarily I was like you but things didn't go my way so I said I don't want to be a starving artist I never want to be a starving artist and then somebody that may be making music would say hey I got us a deal we're gonna write music for all these kids and you know they can't write music but they got they got rich daddies and we know they're gonna pay for us to write all this music for them they're gonna put it out and we'll get like 10 grand a song will be good and I was like oh that's more than I make as a teacher you're gonna pay me 120 grand for this one album that's way more than I make it a teacher let's do it so you know no due diligence no asking any questions just seeing a PDF you know contract I signed and I told my job I got to go and I left at the end of 2010 and then all 2011 was living the beautiful artists life thinking at any moment this 120 grand was coming so I'm just wiping credit cards living off a line of credit the five years that I had taught I'd purchased a property that I'd rented out as an investment kicked my tenant out now I'm living in there and it's completely just you know no furnitures sitting on lawn chairs making music just being like but the money's coming and being a purist artists because I feel like I'm financially taken care of took about a year of denial to realize the money wasn't coming oh yeah so all 2011 it just accrued about $80,000 with oh god yeah and the guy who had the deal or brought the deal to my table the second I caught him in a big lie he just literally disappeared and he was living with me so he disappeared with whatever was on his back like he left everything in his room and never came back because he realized that way he had crossed a big line and I'm for this day I don't know what his main motivation was I think you're trying to do some sort of a borrow money from this guy and borrow money from this case I think he did kind of believe in my talents and he thought he could manipulate this long enough to blur eventually to pay itself off but he got caught in a lie and he just disappeared like completely disappeared that's crazy yes oh I just felt completely betrayed heartbroken I never had my heart broken from a guy I considered him a brother and I was and I was over girls at this point I didn't my heart broken too many times by them so I was like hey you know let me have this brotherly love I don't have any brothers in real life so I was heartbroken and I was blaming everybody like you know how come you guys didn't tell me he was shady how come you nobody warned me and what am I supposed to do at the same time I was very ashamed as you know as you've experienced as well didn't want to tell my family so now I'm in isolation not telling anybody what's happening my public profile is still growing people are learning who humble the poet is and you know I'm getting a gig in like Fresno California I'm getting flown out to India to do a gig breaking even on the shows you know India will pay you how are you doing hip-hop are you doing spoken-word hip-hop this is a straight hip hop in India they don't have a massive english-speaking population and they dig it they considered me punk rock out there I was just making high-level hip hop energy and jazz it's going wild on stage but I wasn't earning I was my public profile was growing but I was I wasn't earning nor did I know how to earn I didn't know what to do so by the end of 2011 is when I finally came to that realization that [ __ ] that check isn't coming you need to figure something out and then it was about two weeks of just sitting and sitting in bed lying in bed avoiding all phone calls my debt wasn't just to the banks my debt was to friends people I really cared about I'm drinking nyquil every day taking muscle relaxers and just literally hoping for the Calvary to come just someone to come save me from all this nobody came spoiler alert and at one point I did that music playing it was a Jay Cole at a dollar in a dream and he has one line in there he goes are you gonna let this are you gonna allow this to turn you bitter and cold are you gonna flip that last [ __ ] dollar and turn it to a dreaming I think a combination of that line I don't want to make it sound too romantic I think the combination of that line and the two weeks in Beck's I was probably healing from my pain I got up and I just said in my head [ __ ] this sink or swim [ __ ] all those tumblr quotes [ __ ] all these ideas that Oh there's you know God closes a door and opens the window God has a plan for you or great things that just lying beneath or beyond the horizon and all just fluffy [ __ ] was like no it's sink or swim you you you want to have a vacation now go back to your day job you know you don't take any shots you're not gonna score any goals just do it you know you can you're either making progress are you making excuses and I was very very harsh on myself but at that point that's what I needed I took all these things and I pasted them all over my wall and I just looked at them and I just got to work and I was like what do I need to do and I remember maybe four years prior I had at a restaurant I had met some real-estate mogul who had owned you know he owned a lot of property in Canada and he was a old Italian immigrant he's like you don't make money by buying a lot of stuff you make money by saving it because I got rich by saving my money so instead of me being like how do I make money I was like we're gonna cut my expenses I sold the place I sold all my recording equipment I sold everything that I could I sold clothes I sold all his stuff I sold everything that I could and I moved back home with mom and dad and I was you know 30 and super ashamed thinking I'd never get laid again you know you know this is the worst and the the strength that I found was facing fears and the big fear was and meeting I [ __ ] up knowing that most people when you admit like hey how you doing we always like say I'm fine right this time I was like no I'm not good like I'm I have a lot of debt I don't know how I'm gonna make any money I messed up that deal didn't go well I trusted the wrong people and they weren't master manipulators they just told me what I wanted to hear and you know I had the rosy colored glasses on and I fell for that [ __ ] and being open and saying that to people nobody expects to hear that and most people were supportive somewhere somewhere like I told you so all along and I had to own that and I'm like no don't feel sorry for yourself own it and I think the the the big shift for me and going back to our original concept of complaining was power only exists when you take responsibility [ __ ] yeah if I blame Tom for all my problems and Tom has all the power if I take ownership for my problems now I have the power to fix it right and sometimes the only power I have is to adjust my expectations or adjust my attitude or increase my effort but that's better than nothing that's better than feeling like the victim and you know talking about this earlier with somebody else it's we we all need to feel connected so self-pity is a great way to feel connected you know connected with ourselves nobody knows what it feels like to be betrayed by somebody except for me and I caught myself doing that and I said no I don't take responsibility for this I had to call everybody I owed money to said look you know I owe you ten grand I don't have the ten grand but I don't want to avoid you but I promise you you'll also you're not gonna see me spending money right you're not gonna see me anywhere you're not gonna see me at you know that guy's bachelor party in Cancun you're not gonna see me anywhere until you get your money I don't have it I'm going to figure it out but I need you to know that I'm not gonna be that guy who avoids you I'm not gonna run away from this and it took me four years and I clawed and scraped myself and again I don't want to gloss over that part and that involved selling all my stuff that involved getting you know applying for different grants gigs were coming money was slowly coming in making $1,000 a show this is that adding it all up everything went to owing the people in my life paying them all off the banks could [ __ ] off and wait and eventually I paid all the humans that I cared about once I paid them off I did was a big sense of pride there that I was able to face this like an adult face everyone looked him in the eye and do that and it took another two years to get to a zero bank account I think was the end of 2014 that had a zero bank account and that was just my moment of like wow and I mean and I've seen you speak about you know the moment you got your big check and how long that lasted and it was the same thing I think for years waiting for that moment the hit zero and how happy I was gonna be and I was like yeah that lasts about 18 minutes and now I'm like what's next but the gift from that as well was a I had to learn how to be I was an involuntary minimalist and you know when money started coming in I didn't adjust my lifestyle accordingly I just I stayed the nice simpleton that was also if you figure out how to go from negative eighty to zero you know how to go from zero to 80 and go for so every year since then has you know gratefully been I've been doing very well and every single year's been going better and better from the principles I learned about getting out of debt so now I'm grateful for all of it for happening I was gonna ask you about that because I think a lot of people when they go through something like that they're won most people don't take the risk which by the way you leaving your job to go do that without like doing a [ __ ] ton of due diligence you have my applause I when people aren't willing to take a risk because you can always back out of it right you can always go back like you didn't even have to go back you found another way to not only get from zero to something but klas off the [ __ ] out of a Chris but I want to be honest at one point I almost did I went back to the principle of maybe two years I was like hey and again with my pride hey you know having a lot of fun doing this art in music but you know I missed the kids alright I really missed the kids you know can you you know can you guys get me back in and and God bless her she said you know I think this was a September I came to in July they can I come back in September she said listen I have a place for you but it would be so much easier for me because you'd be making me give somebody bad news in September and if you came in January I can shuffle around the staff can you come back in January like yeah no problem walked out of our office is like you need to figure this [ __ ] out before January because we're not going back you're not going back you don't get to quit cuz the problem now is you're still a local celebrity so everyday you leave your house so I'm gonna be like hey boy you want to quit that and hear that for the rest and leave for the next ten years until you blow your brains out or do you want to do it and I just said forget it this is who I'm going to be and if it means I'll die in the next two years doing it then let's listen if everything must goes and go you know and and that and that became my my thing is Lauryn Hill out these boxes that song and she goes everything let's goes and go that's how I choose to live and I'm just like this is it I'm doing this and tell the dirt whether the dirt is gonna happen in two years whether that dirts gonna be in a hundred years this is all I'm going to do there is nothing else I'm all-in and it came slowly and there was fear that were relapses you know a lot of people do say how did you pull the trigger you know you took the risk they know I I fell for a scheme you know I fell for a dream but I'm grateful that happened because otherwise I was like I'm not leaving until I get something that's worth more than my salary and and it took it took somebody you know to lie and betray me to get me to live my real authentic life that's really interesting so I went when I was teaching I had an offer to leave that which ultimately ends up in me working with the guys who will become my partners and quest and all of that so of course it plays out very well but at the time people were like dude what are you doing like you've got a great job like you're teaching film you know it's like close to what you wanted to why would you take this risk and go with these guys and I was like what like it to me it that didn't even make sense like here were these two guys that were really successful they were gonna teach me how to do business they were gonna help me get control of my own life like to me it just there was no real risk in that so I was like I can always go back to teaching but even now like one thing when you say yeah I was afraid and I thought about going back even now in my life there are moments where I'm afraid there are moments where I'm like [ __ ] am i doing the right thing like this is this really how I want to spend my life like the last six weeks of my life have been the busiest six weeks of my life bar none I have never worked this hard I've been this busy and that makes you go what the [ __ ] am I doing this for like I've already been successful like this is not about the money for sure so why am I willing to work this hard and that voice that question that never goes away right you're always gonna have fear you're always gonna have doubts there's always gonna be times you have to realign your life where you start to go askew and you've got to bring yourself back so people living in fear of that like my thing is be afraid of not taking a risk be afraid of not trying be afraid of never getting to develop your potential of never having that moment where you're like I am doing what I was meant to do I'm in a flow state like I'm I feel alive and that's always been my obsession like what makes me feel alive I want to go do more of that [ __ ] and so few people like ever allow themselves to get to that point because it's hard it's [ __ ] scary and by the way you're probably gonna suck balls at it and so you're gonna have to face that you're gonna have to face your insecurities of oh I suck at this and I've got to now put in the energy to get good at this and so that to me is like super interesting like do you as somebody who's trying I mean [ __ ] man like in terms of where you're at from a South Asian hip-hop perspective like is that ever something that weighs on you were you like Jesus am i the right person to be the ambassador for this or is it just like you're so in love with it you're gonna do in a matter what the hip-hop definitely not I am the ambassador for this and I'm just hoping I have enough time on this earth for everyone else to realize that there's death without question I mean and that's that's the the prerequisite for hip hop hip hop is not an open door hey welcome welcome to culture hip hop is stand your ground let everybody know that you're here challenge everyone to try to push you off your pedestal and if you fall off get back on it's not a it is not a welcoming you know type of environment and it shouldn't be it is completely competitive in what way is it not welcoming like what's actually happened I think it I think it's thrives off his competitive nature it's it's probably it's just a sport you know like do you get called out for like rap battles like what are we talking I have I mean in you know in the early years definitely it's the second I got a platform you know other artists would reach out for favors or what-have-you and if you don't give them the favor they want her you know most recently probably a year ago an artist who I had nothing but positive interactions with not even remotely a negative interaction ever ever released a whole song attacking me whoa and I had no idea why not even in like an inkling like sitting there like I talked to your best friend a month ago and that was a boring comment like I texted him saying hey do you know what studio in this neighborhood he's like nah man sorry I don't all right cool like a boring conversation no indication that there was an issue and I think maybe six months later some was like yeah he had released the song and you didn't share it and I'm sitting there like I didn't even know he released the song I didn't he didn't ask me to do anything and realizing that you know he's telling his story not mine you know the same way these guys are like aren't you afraid you'll even a good job they're telling you their story right they're projecting their insecurities on you and some of that stuff internalizes with us so for me I think I thrive off that level of competition and for me I find it fun it's no different than if we started playing some people don't like playing with me cuz I talk a lot of [ __ ] you know if I win a big hand and I didn't have good cars everyone's gonna see it I'm gonna cheese people for it I'm gonna make nicknames I enjoy this [ __ ] talk I grew up in a neighborhood like that so I enjoy that type of competition I did start out with Rap Battles humble the poet itself I originally started with the name humble and then in a rap battle I said you know rappers are simple MCS are more complicated I'm better than all y'all I'm the poet and then I ended up winning this big tournament and then I changed my name to humble the poet to rub it in so the irony of calling yourself humble but it actually being a very cocky name that was inspired by a lot of spite so for me I loved it for that I mean I've become a multi-discipline artist I mean going through that process in my struggling years you know at the same time I didn't even know how people in music made money I used to like ask artists well how are you making money and a couple guys in the UK are like well you know when they play your music on the radio you get like 50 cents a spin that's how I make my money and I was like that doesn't sound like much then my studio engineer got in a fight with his girlfriend stop picking up the calls the guy who shot my videos got in a fight with his wife stopped picking up the calls and then I was like I don't know how to record my own music I don't know how to shoot a video I don't know how to do anything and you know luckily I had this new friend you know there's this young lady by the name of Lilly Singh who it just started YouTube and we had just you know hung out for the first time we're meeting Thai food and in her neighborhood and she's like well I set up a tripod and I make my own videos and I edit them and I learned how to edit by myself she goes I suggest you do something that you can do by yourself and you won't have to wait on anybody because I don't have to wait on anybody and I can work whenever I work and if the work doesn't gets done it's my fault and there's another pound in my head personal responsibility take ownership so like well what can I do cuz my equal was still like you know you if you're gonna produce need to produce like these world-class producers that you work with if you need to record you need to be an engineer because your buddy went to the New York School of Engineering and you know you don't not do any of this you even know to use GarageBand so I wrote I just started writing and I was writing on Facebook and I was just like find a picture that I thought was inspiring off of like Reddit or something and I would just post a picture and like one picture was a monkey feeding baby tiger with a bottle and and I just write about love and him it was it prose or was it poetry prose okay yeah cuz the thing was I only wrote in poetry and I only wrote in rhyme and now the idea was put why don't you just write in prose which is much simpler in comparison to what I was doing before and I was like okay so it kind of felt like just vomiting out ideas and I just I had read an article up from some bloggers who said he blogged every day for a year and number one question was like didn't you run out of ideas right about and he's like just try it you won't run out of ideas so I just took that as the challenge and every single day I wrote and I just found a picture and and they had a folder of just pictures during my procrastination and I just wrote and in the meantime I was trying to figure out how to make some money doing you know everything and anything at that point and about six months into it you know I had a fan base from about maybe 50,000 60,000 people on Facebook to like you should write a book and I'm like I don't know how to write a book and I don't know how I don't have the money to write a book I don't know any of this I don't know anybody who has written a book and then somebody sent me a link to Amazon CreateSpace and like these guys do print to order books you don't even have to keep the books in your house and then somebody else is like hey have you heard of Adobe InDesign you know I'll show you how to use it and then a friend in Toronto who was making signs for like you know he yet clients like Home Depot he'd make their sale signs he's like I can show you how to use InDesign and then he taught me how to how to build my book through InDesign didn't you turn your book into an international bestseller yes you do that while it was being self-published or did you have a publisher help you oh no so what happened was so I wish the book in 2013 on indiegogo so i crowdfunded mmm and I said hey I don't know how to write this book I don't know how to build a book and I don't even know if it's gonna cost it's a compelling pitch it's a compelling pitch but I said hey if you guys you know my relationship with you is all that matters if we do this and I don't have to be a sucker and sign too you know and I was doing it for music as well I don't have to sign to a record deal I don't send a record label I don't assign to a publisher because I don't want to get exploited and I don't have any leverage moving in and you guys matter and I want to keep this you know why should you raise I raise $26,000 Wow 305 people Wow $26,000 my biggest contribution was $1,500 from a professor at Harvard who I had never met Wow and he just simply said I was very happy to see an artist take business in their own hands I went to go visit him in his name is Karim Lakhani I think either tenured professor now at Harvard and he had already he had done his tenure in crowdsourcing so he was the guy when NASA would be like hey we have these hard problems can you help solve it and he was the guy who went into like the nerd communities is like hey I have 25 grand who can ever solve this equation somebody would solve it in a matter of minutes they get the 25 grand he helps NASA oh and like that he was already doing that so he was like you took crowdfunding not a lot of artists are taking crowdfunding to this level that you're trying to do it and I was inspired by an Amanda Palmer watching her story do it and it was I was I was afraid to ask for help so me the for me the biggest accomplishment was overcoming the fear of asking for help and saying I need help to do this yeah so raise the 26 grand and it was simply saying hey if you give me $1 I'll send you a folder of all the music I've ever made if you give me $5 I'll send you a PDF of the book if you send me $30 I'll send you a signed copy of the book send me a hundred bucks I'll sign I'll send you a signed copy of the book a t-shirt and we'll have a Skype date $250 I'll send you a hardcover I'm printing only 100 of them I'm gonna sign them and you have a hardcover and actually even in the so and I'll get to that part but so that was independent I raised the 26 grand which was a big accomplishment for me too like oh I'm struggling a lot less now now I can I can explore maybe doing something I like right not just simply trying to make money but what ended up happening was this self-publishing was so convenient because if I got a show in London I could just go on Amazon order the books now and and my cost was about four dollars and fifty cents a copy and I just shipped the box to London to a friend's house and then I'd do the show and I sell the books for 20 pounds each and a book retains its value much better than like a cheesy t-shirt right at that time so it was a great way for me and I was learning the business of its I started throwing my own shows that's another way I started earning money I'd pick a city and that crowdfunded I'd be like hey Edmonton I want to come I want to perform so you know it's February I want to come and May and perform but we have to pre sell 50 tickets is this all IndieGoGo all IndieGoGo because kick-started with all or nothing and you go gave you like the freedom right at your goals you could they take a bigger percentage but we can still make it happen and so you're covering the cost of the venue you're the venue in the travel like I was trying to cover the venue in the travel and then slowly so I found more creative ways to kind of earn a little bit more so one thing I did was I'd say first we need to send yes I figure out the bare basic cost the venue most of the venues I kind of made a deal with them I said you keep the alcohol money I'll just take the ticket money and you know they were pretty much happy without putting bodies in the door right I would do shows on you know non busy nights so it's just it was a bonus for them and I'll be like hey you know if this is gonna cost me 1500 bucks to get out to Edmonton and have a place to stay and throw the show hey and I'm selling the tickets for 15 bucks each and I need to pre sell 100 tickets mmm I need to pre sell them and I tell him Edmonton if we don't sell the hundred tickets I'm not coming right don't don't leave comments and I was and at that point it wasn't about a hundred tickets I had to sold about 40 tickets 50 tickets and I did this in New York sold 250 tickets Wow I did this in like Sacramento sold like 80 tickets I did this in London sold about 300 tickets there are a lot of artists doing this I've literally never heard of this no a lot of artists are waiting to get discovered and somebody else to do it that's so [ __ ] interesting I love that it's a dig I like on top of all of this I said hey I'm gonna make a poster and I'm gonna sign the poster anybody gets a poster but what I'll also do is if you want to sponsor my event then it's $500 so now it'll be like quest bars present humbled right live in London and then you guys give me $500 so then it got to the point where I was making the money before and then I'd be like hey so it's $15 for a ticket $40 for a ticket and a signed book mmm and then very slowly my audience changed from young guys who love hip-hop to girls bringing the book waiting for me to read from it interesting not knowing that I made music the book impacted way quicker way harder than the music did really I no idea that's really interesting yeah and it was in Vancouver for the first time because literally the only guy that the show were my friends who are doing security or doubt and they appreciated it did you still do the hip-hop shows 100% just rap because for me rap is like a big chip on my shoulders just this is I'm really good at it I need the world to know even now all the money I made from you know it's the same way with you in the comics it's the money you've made in the business world you're investing it into this thing that you're going to do no matter what and so for me that's what music is and I had figured this out and then as Lily grew she in 2015 she went on a world tour and she took me on her world tour and then I got I got paid well to be on the world tour with her and perform we had done some music together and yeah we're also doing a documentary and then the film the the the film team and the producers of the documentary hired me because I was the only guy who could get away was like putting a camera in Lily's face and not being told to like lead the room right this is for someone for a more intimate stressed-out moments that they wanted to capture I had kind of that carte blanche to like be in the room just press record and write and everybody was okay with that so I got some money off of that so 20 funny and of 2015 I've made a promise to myself that you will no longer do anything for money so it in 2016 I was saying no or tripling what I would normally quote people for an appearance for a performance and I ended up earning more from this this abundance mindset I'm already taken care of because at this point I had like $45,000 in the bank I had accumulated from the previous year because I said I live simple right when I when I was at zero when I had negative eighty I was saving every penny so now I was still able to save money and at 45 like that's enough for me to live for a year so I'm still living with my parents that's right and at that point I was all in for music and then other really good opportunities came and then end of 2016 was a was a very good year for me 2017 I got an apple reach though an ad agency saying hey you know we're doing our first Apple commercial in Canada for the iPhone and we want you to be our poet were you in an Apple ad yeah I'm gonna iPhone that's awesome man did you feel that did that pop off your business and is it your song you doing a song I did a spoken-word so that's the things I had not hadn't done spoken word in years but it was just serendipitous somebody in LA said you need to meet this guy named Saul guy in Toronto and he's doing he runs an artist house and he's supporting artists and all of this stuff and I'm and I met with him he gave me a tour of his place the next day the guy from the ad agency went to go see him he's like I'm looking for a poet and this guy's like a guy named humble the poet was here yesterday and I had been on some radio shows and some TV shows in Canada related to books we have we have a show called Canada Reads which is the greatest show ever imagine Survivor but for books what so they get five public figures so I'm gonna solid c-list celebrity in Canada at this point so they call me like hey we'll pay you ten grand to read five books whoa and debate them with four other people debate the merits of the book yeah so everybody so everyone picks a book so you know my book was called 15 dogs they send me a bunch of books and I picked a book I like and I had to defend this book and there's four other contestants one was like an opera singer one was an actor one was an Army sniper who lost both of his legs so there's just public figures in the country of Canada and I didn't realize how popular this show was this the show with this super popular on the radio and on television so I go on to this show and we're just debating books and even if your book is voted out you're still on the show so it's very Canadian and friendly and so for me it was like hey this is awesome and meeting new people and I ended up my book wins the show your argument for the book I miss my argument for the book wins the show and and and I picked and I had picked up a book that I just thought was cool it's called $15 I think you guys check it out Andriy Alexis it's about 15 dogs who are given human intelligence and you watch their journeys to see if any of them can die happy that's the question the intelligence make us happy and it's following 15 dogs to see if any of them can die happy with the newfound intelligence I ended up winning the debate between not being the last person on the show and I win that caught the attention of the publishing community in Canada and then they found out that hey he had self-published a book and also self published a second book at that point and they were offering me book deals and not very lucrative deals out in Canada right they don't have the biggest market and at that point while that happened the Apple commercial happened and then that gave me a very big paycheck and I was like wow like this is like surreal for me you know and this is a high five figure paycheck not even six figures below me is you gave me 40 grand I can live for any say that's that's a lot of dosh going back to $15 have you either I don't know if they turn it into a movie I could be making that up but flowers for algernon I'm not so [ __ ] interesting so it's the story about this guy and he is ultra low like you and this woman is doing an experiment and she basically ends up giving him intelligence and I actually I can't remember if I'm totally miss remembering this and she gives oh god there's the rat figures and all this anyway this person with this really like you let them into Turtles know this person with a super low IQ gets this drug and they end up becoming really smart but it ultimately ends up wearing off and it's about like the [ __ ] heartbreak of knowing that you were smart and now being able to be aware that you used to be really dumb and now you're sliding back towards that and like the loss of humanity as you lose your intelligence so [ __ ] interesting I remember I read that as a kid that really stuck with me there's a episode about that I did it's such a famous story Homer Simpson they found out he had a crayon in his nose Oh what his nose a crayon okay so when Homer was a child he put a crayon up his nose and then the doctor pulls it out then he has super high intelligence but now he's no longer able to connect with his family right including Lisa he's just his his empathy and his warmth has disappeared so at the end he puts that he puts the crayon back up his nose that's it's so interesting to me that the Simpsons is able to touch on something so interesting like forever my you know magic Genie shows up and what do you wish for I always wish for super intelligence and my wife is always horrified because she's like but then we would lose connection and it was interesting because as soon as she said it I was like yeah [ __ ] you're right like if if you were really processing like at that level where you just could not relate to other well that's really interesting to me but here's the question would you do it no I would I would and that always makes my wife very traumatized but the reality is man I would like that is so [ __ ] interesting to me another one would you live forever if you could yes see me too but what about all the people you're gonna lose I am too this was so weird so I'm I was on Joe Rogan and he was talking about God an apocalypse or something and I was saying like oh yeah like it would be so fascinating to survive an apocalypse and what that would look like and he was like wait you want to live and I was like you don't like that was so weird it was really eye-opening to me I never realized the guy that could probably have the practical skills to do very true yeah but it never dawned on me that somebody would want to be in the part of humanity that dies in the apocalypse like as hard as it would be as difficult as trying like it would be so [ __ ] interesting to me yeah so yeah the first few season of The Walking Dead when it was good yes that's what you had a lot of people that just they hung themselves saying I'm sorry I give up I can't do this anymore yeah and yeah that's that that's one I think the intelligence one for me is I think even the gap between having a 3-digit IQ and seeing what like mass population and the collective IQ is and the thing that disconnect from there sometimes makes it you know sometimes I envy people who don't overthink and envy people who just act I will give you a look I don't think intelligence is a one-way ticket to happiness that is for sure but I don't think that intelligence necessarily precludes happiness so there was a really interesting expose that in full disclosure I've only ever heard about if not seen so if I get some of the details wrong forgive me but directionally this will be correct the smartest guy in the u.s. or alive today I don't remember which of the two has I think a like a 200 to 225 IQ Einstein if I'm not mistaken was either 160 or 180 so it gives you an idea it was way smarter than I think the guy was a [ __ ] bouncer in a bar and he could not get his life together like he just didn't have the drive he didn't have the interpersonal skills he wasn't able to like go and manifest the things in his life that he wanted and from the retelling anyway this guy like there was just a sadness about you and I thought that's really really interesting and when I think about the things that have worked out in my life it is certainly not because I've been smart if anything that's always been my struggle as I always feel like I've been around people who've been a lot smarter than me but being able to relate to people having Drive like that if you were gonna say Tom what's the thing it's it is grit determination that's Mother 3,000% like right just being able to persevere to push through to not give up - you were saying something earlier and it made me think of this really awesome quote from Walt Disney he said it won't feel like it it at the time but sometimes the kick in the teeth is exactly what you need and I thought [ __ ] that is so true like in the moment it never feels right in the moment it is definitely not the thing that you want you would wish it away if you could but the reality is having to face the betrayal having to face having made an idiotic decision having to face your inadequacies all that stuff one if you're willing to face it and you're willing to take that ownership suddenly you can improve and then also it gives you that chip on your shoulder which is another thing I'm gonna ask you about so the chip on the shoulder to me it's a dark energy yeah but it's [ __ ] powerful very very powerful I overall my overall you know environment and Drive is still primarily based off of proving people right there's those guys around this country around this planet who have given me couches to sleep on put money in my hand put me in front of people I mean you know even even us connecting you know if somebody's being kind enough to say hey let me send an email put myself on the line to connect Tom with you and because if this was a bad experience for you that that would look bad on there sure you know and that's been my story forever people going out of their way Lily creating an environment for me to be like hey don't worry about earning worrying about figuring out yourself out you got a place to stay here and you also have the fact that people know that you're my friends so not too many people are gonna mess with you I've had a lot of people do that and these are people that don't genuinely need me to pay them back so I try to pay it forward and proving right is I want that to be my main energy but there is a chip on my shoulder in many ways you know my father when he was a cab driver I was four years old my earliest memory is him getting he got beat up and seeing his face all mangled and never a you don't think you don't think that concept of dad getting beat up be you've never seen what somebody looks like getting beat up and you know after that him having a big thick shield in his cab in between the drivers and again us kids we thought it was the funniest thing ever you slide the window open you can put the money through we're just pretending not really how realizing how serious of a thing it was and then getting a little bit older and feeling that anxiety like he he drives 12 hour shifts and sometimes it's 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. sometimes a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and you don't know what's gonna happen and what he's gonna see and then you know that is that chip on my shoulder bailing I wish I could make a lot of money and I can smash that cab I don't want him to work in that cab ever again and you know I never got to hit that he's retired before I got to my financial independence but you know then also realizing you have to update the voices in your head and be like hey he his story was his story he had to do what he had to do and even if I was able to make a boatload of money and retire him what would you know I still would have had something else to prove someone else does these these inner voices in our head and sometimes we just have to confront them or even have conversations with the people that originally planted them because they're they're flawed human beings nobody even the guy who gave me the the bad record deal like at the end of the day now looking back at it I'm grateful that happened I also see fear I don't see conniving I don't see evil in him I see a person I got himself in a bad situation did it have the tools to be like yo I messed up let's let's sit down and talk about this and figure it out that's exactly what I thought when you were telling us all right that [ __ ] actually my heart breaks a little bit for him the fact that he had to flee because he wasn't willing to tell you that oh [ __ ] either I lied or stretched the truth or it fell through or I'm barest or whatever but that absconded in the middle of the night with the clothes on his back was the solution like that's that's not a good place and he lost I mean and he lost his friends tooling every friend that like when we connected and he had a circle there all my friends know like as adults I met with these guys and they all saw that that this wasn't cool yeah and I'm sure they went deeper into his situation he probably grew up in where the stuff might have been normal or what have you and I think you know going back to you know this concept of having a chip it's it's not sustainable to prove people wrong but I see I see I see it here too a lot of people are you know it's here being America here in LA you know there's a lot of most people that are here not from here they came from other places and sometimes there's a lot of friction that happen at home and now they're here like hey if I become successful it'll make it all worth it right a lot of us have the power to accurately visualize what we want and we can even manifest and I think especially in LA you know not everyone you don't have to be smart to be successful you just have to have that grit and you can if you put your mind to anything you can make it happen that doesn't mean people are putting their mind to the right things and we're visualizing and manifesting but we're not accurately I don't know this is a word but emotionalizing what's going to happen so we're like oh all I need to do is create a company and have a successful exit and then all will be there right if you've never done it how do you know what it's going to feel like and then you do it and it doesn't it become it almost feels like an empty promise and then some people have to self-awareness to be like okay I need to stop break this cycle of trying to prove something to everybody else or I'm gonna get trapped in the cycle forever yeah my thing is like look it's super powerful it's the 80/20 principle so 80% of your time should be spent on the beautiful things you want to do in life it should be spending the things you're grateful for but 20% of the time that's not gonna get you through you're gonna be bone tired you're gonna be weary in a way that like only happens you know hopefully a few times a year where you're just [ __ ] at your wits end you couldn't possibly go another moment except for that chip on your shoulder and they did a really fascinating study where they had people submerge their arm in a bucket of ice and they said leave it in as long as you can so they leave their arm and the bucket of ice and then I [ __ ] it's so painful and they have to take it out they came up with a baseline and then they had another group come in and they said put your arm in the bucket of ice now when you get to the point where you want to take it out instead of taking it out I want you to get angry and I want you to swear and then leave it in as long as you can and so oh man [ __ ] I want to take and they go into like total hookman they beast out and they swear and get angry they can leave it in 30% longer it's [ __ ] crazy man but it's like when you think about the emotions that we have to your point about emotionalizing which i don't think is a word but i like it when you are leveraging the power of your emotions which they all have a purpose even shame can be incredibly motivating I know that that one of the most powerful motivators at the beginning of my journey was shame anger frustration the chip on your shoulder the I'm never going to let that [ __ ] person be right so the person who doubts you and it's like man that that has gotten me through the really ugly moments the moments where it just wasn't enough that I wanted to help other people it just wasn't enough that I wanted to win it just wasn't enough that I wanted to build something beautiful yeah it was like [ __ ] this guy like [ __ ] this guy yeah and like I really want people to understand because one thing that that is so [ __ ] dangerous about the the sort of space that you and I occupy I read your book it is very uplifting it's very empowering there's a nuance to life that is hard to [ __ ] write down there is a nuance to like all this [ __ ] where it's like sometimes it's [ __ ] you like sometimes it's I love you 1,000% and you should be there so much more than your anywhere else but sometimes it's [ __ ] you sometimes it's like I'm I'm just not going to give up and you have to like push and Hulk out and get angry and be willing to like grit your teeth and keep pushing forward but people want to only say love yourself in fact that's probably the easiest place to talk about it they want to just say love yourself you're good enough everything's okay but your journey began with my journey began with that moment where I was hard of myself and when you started this in the beginning in fact I didn't want to interrupt so what you're saying was really powerful but the fact that you were like I had to be hard on myself yes I'm like that's where people fall down yeah it's like [ __ ] you've got to hold yourself to a standard man and like people that that really love this show the impact theory and they come and they want to work here right the first thing I tell them is what you see on screen is me trying to uplift and empower people you have to understand I hold [ __ ] to a standard so if you think all I'm gonna do is cut you like that is not real like that won't work it won't win and I'm always worried that people sort of selectively listen to what I say and they don't take the whole message and sometimes man as much as yes you need to love yourself yes you need to be kind to yourself yes you have to have grace and understanding for yourself and for other people at the same [ __ ] time like if you really want to achieve greatness which you have no moral obligation to do yeah but if you want to achieve greatness if that's really your stick let me tell you right now you're gonna have to hold yourself to a crazy [ __ ] high standard a crazy high standard and I think even going back to what you said you know love is love it can you know be can be a kiss on the cheek but it's also a kick in the teeth yeah you know and it's and from that perspective and you're right for me and probably having the challenges of you know after interacting with other people and being like you know for me it was suck it up for me it was you know what's the use of complaining so for me hearing people complain now is it's kind of like nails on the chalk dude nails on a [ __ ] job and here's the thing the reason is nails on a chalkboard for me is I actually want them to win so for whatever reason I'm wired I love seeing other people win it actually makes me happy when I was five or six one of my earliest memories is throwing an Easter egg hunt because I didn't care as much about winning as my sister did so I saw an egg and I didn't pick it up because I knew that she would find it so like that [ __ ] seeing other people who really are invested in that like I love it I love seeing people win but man like at the end of the day sometimes you just have to toughen the [ __ ] up you've got to stop complaining you've got to get [ __ ] done so when I see people who I want to win complaining not taking responsibility it's like I get it man I get it I really do have empathy for it but at the end of the day like if you want to achieve you've got to take total ownership I wrote an article I thought this would be like might one of my very first blog articles ever I thought this would be like the greatest gift in the world I wrote this thing with so much [ __ ] excitement you can imagine I was like oh my god people gonna read this they're gonna love it the most and it was alright imagine you go for a drive one day and you're in your car and you pull up between these two cars and then behind another car so you're basically trapped there in all sides and you look in your rear-view mirror and you see a car barreling on you from behind it lights red so there's nowhere for you to go you're totally boxed in and the guy driving is drunk you go to honk your horn you realize your car is [ __ ] dead the horn doesn't work you can't even make noise there's no time to get out of your car BAM he smashes into you whose fault is that now if you don't know me everybody says obviously it's the drunk drivers fault insurance company is even going to agree with you it's the drunk drivers fault and I said no here's the great news I was so excited it's your fault and people went [ __ ] crazy they were like your victim shaming like what are you doing like this is so crazy you [ __ ] like what the [ __ ] this is irresponsible Tom I I was so into you and then you say this and [ __ ] you and I was like what like I I was so caught off-guard by that reaction because I thought everybody who's gonna be like oh my god you're right I retained the power which is what you were saying earlier and if I give if I say that it's his fault then he takes all the power and there's nothing I could do and my whole thing was I'm not saying feel badly about yourself like don't waste time beating yourself up over the fact that you ended there and your car wouldn't work and you pulled into the kill box and you got in your car in the first place all I'm saying is always remember if you make a different choice you could get a different result that's it yeah exactly and it's and I think that's what it is you're trying to take people to where they need to be hmm and and and there's gonna be no shortage of you because no one's gonna come out of the box with that idea of taking personal responsibility and you're absolutely right I've recently you know celebrating a friend's accomplishment said something along the lines of you know I work as I walk I work half as hard as you but that still makes me work twice as hard as everybody else in the blowback well you know you don't know other people's stories you don't know why they're not able to work hard and I'm not and I didn't talk about a specific topic and you get the blowback because people really take it as an attack on their identity and they look at it as specifically just for them as if we're talking about that and projecting these insecurities I think it's super interesting because it holds us back and I think we're doing ourselves a disservice even as a society where we're it's and I'm Canadian so we have so many not to get too political but we have so many entitlements kind of embedded into our culture and years ago I got to perform at Lollapalooza and I met childish gambino and this is back before Toronto had his musical wave and I said we have so many talented people but we're not seeing any traction he goes because you have free health care and I was like what does it have to do with free health care he goes in this country when you hit 18 you're on your own and you got to figure it out he goes you guys probably have a government-funded record label too don't you do and I'm serious yeah we have we have we have a lot of grants and funds and some of that got me out of my hole so I'm gonna you know a lot of shout outs to them but we do have government-funded things and you know they kind of look at it like well a Canadian artist can't compete with an American artist because our market smaller so we're gonna invest in them and you know here's you know and if you're a big enough artist here's a $75,000 tour budget and you don't have to pay back because a lot of people go in the red going on tour and so there's this thing and it does build a level of entitlement because all of a sudden if the grant goes away people like oh what am I gonna do with my life that was my thing and I even noticed that with those England artists we told me about the radio spins for them to get those radio spins they had to know the DJ once the DJ left the station now all of a sudden it was a human rights issue for them and I think that's the big thing it goes back to that book I don't know I remember the author who moved my cheese never heard of it oh it's it'll take you 20 minutes to read the whole book the book is about four mice running in a maze and one day they go to where the cheese is at and it's not there and each Mouse represents an emotion hem haw scurry and if ever the last one is as to how they reacted the cheese not being there so one Mouse is pretty much like it's the end of the world how dare the cheese not be there to the to the other side of the spectrum where the mouse is like I was noticing that the cheese was slowly going away and I made preparations can under this stuff happens overnight none of these you know none of these these entitlements that we have and I'm a big fan of George Carlin and George Carlin always says stop mixing up your rights for your privileges most of the things you consider a right or a privilege and as a privilege they will slowly go away and I was being told just even as a teacher like hey you know all these things that we have a retirement that we're getting right now in 2008 you're not going to get that that will not be there when you're 50 be mindful of that now you know telling my father hey uber is coming in what do you think it's legal moral or right it's here and it's killing your taxi industry you need to retire dude I don't get people that fight back against change like that like at the end of the day the consumer is always going to win like what they want is gonna win you can try to legislate it like you will slow it down for sure but you're never gonna be able to stop it it is like this one-way street entitlement is another thing where it's like it really winds me up but it winds me up for people because here's the the reality about entitlement as a human being the only way to win the only way to achieve greatness which is my bias I always come at things from like human thriving to me is about actuating your potential I think that is innate I don't think that oh some people just happen to like that not everybody wants to play at a global scale I get that but I think that humans thrive when they're improving I think that that is one of the absolute foundational pillars of happiness that you will never have true and lasting fulfillment unless you're improving so that to me is like an in a thing so ok so if we know that human thriving requires you to be pushing yourself and getting better to actuate your potential the problem with failing to realize that and to feeling like people owe you something is one even if things are given to you that's never going to give you the fulfillment so take money money is so [ __ ] easy to like think your way through when you give people money in a lottery they are emotional messes because they did nothing to earn that money and when I tell people like when I got the money it was it didn't impact how I felt about myself why because the person I had to become in order to be capable of earning that money that transformed me it's like when people asked me about like who is my favorite interview I always say David Goggins why the funny thing is it wasn't the interview David Goggins changed me in the preparation in building up for that in researching him and learning about him and trying to get my mind around him so that I could do the interview that was what changed me it's the going through that journey yourself of becoming capable of something that's the thing that transforms you and so when people are like what the [ __ ] I'm owed this it's like whoa whoa whoa that will never serve you in the world at large one because of fulfillment you have to be pushing yourself in order to develop skills and then two if you want to get ahead in the world the only way to do that is to leave people in awe that's it like if you want to move up in the world like you've got to dazzle people you've got to make them go whoa what the [ __ ] you get your commercial not because somebody knew somebody that's how they became aware of you you get the commercial because then they see you and they go what the [ __ ] and the number of hours that you have to put into becoming that that's the juice right and then the end is like it's a cherry on top but it was the struggle it was being betrayed and fighting your way back and being $80,000 in debt and working your way up and having the money and being able to turn down jobs that weren't right because you never had to do anything for the money again like that was the thing that gives you that emotional stand it's never-ending there is and this is the thing we out here everyone thinks in terms of a straight line a beginning middle and end that you know we watch TV everything wraps up in 30 and 30 22 minutes you know everything wraps up in a nice tidy bow and it resets after and that has such an impact on our psyche we're like I am working I'm working towards that pot of gold not realizing that there is no pot of gold you need to find the pot of gold on your rainbow you need to have fun on this and and even for me it's you know getting that commercial took me to one place but now you know the book becoming a best-seller in Canada and in doing super well in India and hitting all these different markets independently and then through bookstores and now here realizing they hate I have a lot of best-selling authors friends warned me hey you're working with publishers manage your expectations this is gonna be on you up and tell my only promise to myself well you know for the April 9th release was you have to be able to go to sleep on April 9th knowing that you squeezed out everything you could to make sure this would be a successful campaign that meant you know for me challenging my Canadian sensibilities my Canadian sensibilities are you send a text once and if they reply they replied they don't you leave them alone you know and and I and I appreciate how a sort of you know you American Cowboys are you guys are a lot more assertive and you guys welcome to your sort of Miss as well so you know you got a poke product people and that's what had to happen this time this I almost kind of felt like this was my baby and I'm trying to steal a loaf of bread for it and I was poking people everybody in anybody's thing from different angles like hey I need you to contact someone so hey I need you to hold I need you to reach out the zone so hey I need you to open the book if you need to open this book because at the moment you open it you're gonna connect with something that you read I and for me that was the victory now knowing that hey I was always afraid of quote-unquote burning bridges so I was always afraid of offending people or they were afraid of coming across as too crass or - or too pokey at them but then the other part of my me was like listen this is it you sign with a major publisher this is it there's not a level above this now right this is the final release for this book it had its independent release it had its Canadian release it did very well when you sold it independently but now this is it you're in the big leagues you're at the championship game you're not gonna hold anything back and for me to realize how much was inside of me that I was holding back right because there's levels to this fear and first you know yeah I fear to pull the trigger and leave your day job to do this but then there's fear of asking for help then there's fear of putting yourself out there and being vulnerable and being and being completely naked and authentic with the people around you and being like this is what it is and it has really shown me that I have probably a solid and I don't want to be absolute probably a 95% success rate of facing a fear and the worst-case scenario would not happen and you know and and that's everything that's asking that girl for her phone number that is telling your parenting and coming out of the closet that is telling somebody you're in a relationship with it this isn't doing it for you all of these things that you know fear manifests itself in so many ways and it creates so much resistance and we start to justify it on so many levels all of this is just going to hold you back and now all of a sudden you're gonna need fixes my friend in Berlin he wakes up at 5 in the morning works out at a jungle gym in cold Berlin Berlin I think Berlin did three hours of sunlight last winter it's it's just a cold cloudy place anywhere's winter clothing just pull-ups on this jungle gym and there's nobody watching he's not he doesn't have a blog he doesn't have social media to him he has none of this and he doesn't read books and this is why he fascinates me and I'm like why are you doing this he was I just I just do what feels good he's Jamaican and he says to me cuz I'm a young black man who doesn't need a fix anymore because this was his journey to get out of addiction and you know I felt like a bad influence on him too when I was like hey let's not let's not ride bikes today in the cold winter to go downtown you know I'll cover an uber or something and I'm like I don't want to make it almost I just I was about to give him sugar for the first time and it was a really interesting perspective and it it goes back to that like why was somebody with your success to take cold showers I think of Kevin Rose every time I look at his Instagram Sky's attaching himself to like a stretch machine doing something to be uncomfortable or intermittent fasting and it's just and it is that Bruce Wayne idea of sleeping on the floor and and and one of my favorite yet most inconvenient quotes that I always have to remind myself is true freedom only exists in discipline and to understand that if not once I get that big check and I can write out the rest of my days this is forever I overcame a lot of personal challenges and and faced a lot of fears releasing this book now what's next and and fear ends up being that compass fear is telling you which way we have to go and so often especially as resources come into our lives we have the luxury to avoid facing these things and looking them in the eyes because we can be like oh let me just you know let me go to this show or let me let me buy this toy now I can afford that or I can afford to be around people who will never say no to me or I can afford to be around people who will never tell me how it is and that's in itself a danger for sure in fact when you were talking about your friend who struggled with addiction and then he goes and works on a farm or whatever was I thought yes like that's I'd never put it together in my head until you said it and I thought that's actually really perfect like the putting the body to work not giving the mind time to be idle forcing yourself to be disciplined forcing yourself to do hard things like all of the sudden it's the things that would create the space for the addiction to pour in and and everybody bare with me some sort of came through this in real time but like all the things that would create that space that that sort of void and that openness and the sort of internal chatter would go away when you have those physical demands like when you get in a cold shower you're not thinking about anything other than get the [ __ ] out like your mind is screaming it so hard like every muscle in you tenses and you have to and this is why it's so powerful you have to learn to relax even win like part of your mind is screaming for something else that you know nope I'm in control I don't have to get out I'm not going to die and you can relax it and it's like once you're able to take control of your emotions like that or once you're able to like in his case put your body to work like there's just something that happens when either you have control of your mind I mean it's really both you have control of your mind which allows you to go do things that are hard to work on the farm to exhaust yourself and that's something that in I think modern society people don't know what it means to be [ __ ] exhausted like a lot of people don't they don't work out they're not pushing themselves they're not taxing the body and there's like a restlessness I mean people talk a lot about anxiety and depression one of the first things you should do is start working out like if somebody tells me that they have depression almost guaranteed not always everybody out there freaking out I get it not always but almost always they're not working out self diagnose depression yeah they're not working out their diet is [ __ ] like there's just a certain level of go push your body go get control of your mind do really hard [ __ ] especially when you don't want to do it yeah and it's not as convenient as pulling out your phone and scrolling and getting beginning these little dopamine shots it's not as convenient as masturbating it's not as convenient as a whole bunch of other things that might give you some a quick piece of gratification but it is more sustainable it's in fulfillment its fulfillment like happiness versus fulfillment like happiness is super transient a bowl of ice cream gives me [ __ ] happiness let me tell you right now you could put me in an fMRI machine that [ __ ] is tasty as [ __ ] and eating it brings me a lot of happiness but it doesn't bring me fulfillment right so nor is this sustainable right you ate it every day its ability to keep you happy yeah [ __ ] hedonic setpoints like that is surreal that like you want to talk about the human condition is just weird hedonic setpoints is one of them so for anybody that's never heard of a han hedonic setpoint it's like at first like you're saying the bowl of ice cream is so rad that it's all over my radar and then the next time it's like a little less rad and then a little less and then all of a sudden it's like not at all and I'm just doing it now it of out of compulsion and like just a hit sort of okay or you know the baseline like an alcoholic like at first you drink is it's fun and like in my case you feel like you're suppressing the urge to dance on the table and then all of a sudden you're just [ __ ] drinking to to not shake and vomit yeah and understanding that that's like just the sad sort of reality of the human condition is that [ __ ] will adjust so you have to give yourself those spaces like fasting I hate it but I do it and partly because dude that first meal when you break fast oh my god after five days of water only fasting that meal is exquisite no matter almost no matter what you eat it's like oh my god this is the best Ritz cracker I've ever had in my life you know like whatever you're going to have is just gonna be beyond extraordinary yeah and I mean I'm sure if you do have you had an ice cream you know ice cream once a month and you know you made an event out of it you would enjoy it like when when I see people eating ice cream that they clearly don't want to be eating it like we're we're now in a sad place that always bums me out because it's either don't eat it or eat it and [ __ ] love it like make a thing out of it like really do it as a conscious celebration then hey I'm all for it I'm so lucky that my happy food right now is a specific salad I don't know why well as sweet green the Hollywood Bowl with tofu I don't know why I love it so much you as part of its psychological because you know it's nourishing you or is it purely just as a great [ __ ] salad I feel like I don't even like thought I feel like just whatever they're putting into it the the the the chemistry of it is it's just hitting everything well part of it could be if you're drowning it in dressing which is where a lot of people go wrong with salads it's like they put sugar in dressings people dress should and dressings so I feel like it's a bit more sustainable than ice cream yeah that is for you and it makes me have and I mean I mean even now like when when I was on my way here and I got the call saying hey things moving a little bit late I literally just changed yeah I just went there and I hate to salad and it's made me super happy and maybe there is an element of it were just like hey you don't feel as guilty eating this because you don't have it's not like eating a you know eating a bunch of bread and feeling exhausted right after heating it but I mean I feel grateful for that because in terms of what I splurge on and I think it was all those years of my minimalism just you know that has really embedded itself into me where I don't have a lot of real interests that I want to you know spend my time and money on anymore that excite me and I'm super grateful for that I'm just like yeah I love even the salad and it's a treat and I could probably do it two times a day that's funny before I let you go I need to ask what's your most important tattoo so for people just listening the man has several tattoos and I'm always curious when people have tats like what what is the one that like this one is meaningful now period why is that important understanding that that's all I have you know I have nothing like in a neck art all a kind of way after you read the powernow so [ __ ] interesting it with that tattoo one the book will be sort of self-evident to you because you're obviously already bought into the netting that's what it is - I grew up you know I grew up and security I grew up with Eastern philosophy so I'm realizing a lot of times people come to me they hit me with this stuff that my mom was teaching me when I was a kid my philosophy cyclical being present you know understanding anxiety exists in the future and regrets exist in the past a lot of this but I think it was when I one of my moments where I was dealing with more superficial loss nothing you know that was impacting my ability to survive I was just I look at the end of the day you literally only have now the first quote in your book is from the daodejing right this is speaking of Eastern philosophy just because we have over here read it so there was a time in my life when I self-identified as a Taoist I went hard on the Taoism yeah so to attain knowledge add things every day to attain wisdom remove things every day I [ __ ] love that question and that pretty much sums up your which is called unlearn by the way yeah and that's what it wasn't that journey like pretty much I wrote and when whenever I said you should write the book and I put this book together base off the writings it was me realizing a you know the fluffy stuff is fluffy let's get more pragmatic but B it wasn't about acquiring something new and it's a special skill or a special mindset to move forward it was really letting go of stuff and like you know as you mentioned what shame it was there's a lot of shame and guilt and I'm finding the source of that is like oh that came from my upbringing because that's the common tool that's used in our culture is guilt and shame and having to be mindful of that like alright I need to let that go not only do I need to let it go in my internal dialogue I need to let it go of my tool belt I can't make anybody I made a promise don't ever make people feel guilty or ashamed and if somebody is already manifesting that for example you know let's say how this ran a little bit late if you felt guilty for it I it would be my responsibility to like no that's not me I'm not that guy I'll find something to do with the extra 30 minutes don't let that happen we need that we need to break that cycle because I do kind of feel like there is a level of unhealthiness I came to that and and this journey with this book is the reason I wanted to finish that story with the publishers and I love reaching out to me it's when they came to me with the deals I said hey I wrote a book and people really dig it and I feel it has legs and you guys would be a bigger trampoline to bounce it off of what do you guys think and they said traditionally we don't publish books that are already out and then I'm like alright cool I'm gonna go make music and I just I just said no I like this is I don't want to do it and I think I figured out ways to make money so I'm not I'm not gonna do it and then a bookstore by the name of indigo which is a big chain in Canada and they own all the bookstores they're like hey we're starting a publishing wing we love your first book can we just change the cover and republish it so I was like so what do I need what do you need from me to like can you just email PDF so they didn't even change the formatting or anything I just Wow and I have spelling misspelling mistakes in it ID grammar mistakes that everything in my original copy and then they took it and they just put it on the shelves and that's when it became a best-seller and I and and in complete honesty and authenticity you know the publishers are like well you sold well in Canada very back man however since this drop has been doing very well here and it's a and again but I think I'm not I'm not finding that fulfillment from seeing myself number one and you know in whatever is in each category they have me and on Amazon as a best seller I'm finding fulfillment knowing that hey you left it all in the ring right you you reached out to people you poked people you did it by yourself you you camped out of people's offices you knocked on doors you you had the uncomfortable conversations with your publishers you you called people out you ask for favors from people that you were afraid to ever ask anything from and that is where I got a lot of pride and I think I also think is important for the audience to know how even we met we had a really great conversation and not knowing who each other were and I think that's from a birthday party at the birthday for ya and to me at that point you you were somebody who was making comic books and you you give me a really fascinating story about how comic books also work as proof of concept for films and I was like this is really interesting I'm just like how'd you get into that and then you start telling your story and then realizing that hey cuz Lilly would always tell me something yeah just podcast with a guy named Tom and he owns quest bars and I was like oh I like the protein bars and so I was like yeah he asked me questions that I've never heard before he does the best interviews ever and everyone that was that was all it was and I was like wow he it was I really appreciated that we had that authentic moment and it wasn't somebody being like hey Tom and humble you have to connect bright it was something really cool like that and I'm glad to be you know the first guy to to do this I think you should definitely do a lot more of this know there's a lot of things conversations a lot to learn and meeting you because I'm actually really bad at meeting people okay and that that was like really some early attempts of mine to like get to know people and strike up conversations just like cold so it was there's a lot of fun to have something be so rewarding like your story is really really interesting and it was it's fun that night as it has been today I do have another question that came up during a conversation and I tried to pin it and then I forgot what are your thoughts on ambition and contentment wow that's an awesome question so I think that they coexist beautifully I think that you can be both wildly ambitious and at the same time be when you're looking at your life be like I'm totally content and if I never achieve another thing like I'm totally happy to me it is about you can flip a switch in your mind and people have got to learn to control their minds like they if you have one mission in this life it is to learn to use your mind to your advantage and not to let it run away with you so I know if I want to like if you said you Tom you can never do another thing like this is your life what you have now this is it you'll never be able to strive I'd be like okay well then I'm gonna focus all of my attention on gratitude I'm gonna live on a sort of emotional monk life I'm gonna flip a value in my mind and this is where people [ __ ] up they don't understand the power of values what do you value Y value ambition I value pursuit but I've chosen to value that now I could just as easily go you know what starting today I believe the following the Buddhists were right and all of life is suffering born of desire and once you let go of desire you let go of suffering and I would just decide I'm gonna [ __ ] value that I already think there's wisdom in it now I choose to actually ignore it and my life is all about pursuit and ambition but I'm very careful never to make it about success so I'm not tied to the outcome I'm tired entirely - did I sincerely pursue something that I believed in that I really cared about and if you said you just can't do that anymore for whatever reason I would set that aside as a value and I would bring a new value into my life and that new value would be contentedness so when I look at my life I'm like [ __ ] man I love my life I love my wife I love what I'm doing I believe in this like I'm cool I'm chill I'm good like this but at the same time then other times I'm like no no no like let's see how far we can really push this [ __ ] thing so then I have to leverage the discontent then I have to leverage the chip on my shoulder then I have to decide to spend some amount of my energy focused on what's wrong I have to spend some amount of energy in the hunger feeding that stoking those flames but always always always I have in my mind what I call the overwatch mechanism and the overwatch mechanism is watching for it's it's sort of the the always sober version of myself so whether the sobriety is sobriety from ambition whether the sobriety of sobriety from fear whether it's sobriety from actual alcohol like there's always a part of my mind that is watching what I do and it's very careful to make sure that what I do is in alignment with my beliefs and values and all that feel like a checks and balances yeah and I think that everybody has that but you have to focus on it you and that look that doesn't mean that I don't miss beak or say stupid [ __ ] or get off track so in no way shape or form am I saying that the [ __ ] overwatch mechanism is perfect it's not but it keeps me from staying derailed for too long it keeps me from not recognizing a mistake and then you know just making sure that I apologize and I move on so yeah being able to go back and forth earlier we were talking about that nuance like people like achieving at the highest level requires this crazy amount of nuance that is so [ __ ] hard to write which is why I've not written a book because it's [ __ ] hard and every time I go to capture it I'm like I can speak about it but like putting it into words it gets very difficult so it's when you have this grand ambition which is simply a choice I've chosen to value that then if you let that be all-consuming and you forget the power of now or you forget the power of like take a minute to enjoy what you have like don't run so hard that you forget you actually have something pretty [ __ ] extraordinary even if all you have is your health even if you don't have your health but you have the ability to try to win it back even if you don't have the ability to win it back but you know like [ __ ] Viktor Frankl who was in a concentration camp said at anytime if you know why you're struggling if you know why you're going through this thing no matter how horrific it is you can get through it and it's like the Nietzsche quote if you have the right why you can survive almost any how even the Albert Camus with with you know in the in the coldest of winter within me I found you know an eternal summer and if that you know in anything very silly like you know the the Sisyphus story you know imagine Sisyphus pushing the rock and it rolling back down but imagine him having fun doing it knowing what the outcomes gonna be each time and still being okay with it I always thought that was that was now something I've always been kind of tackling with this idea that ambition means where I'm at isn't enough and I have ambitions to go further contentment means all of this is flying how do we make them old hands and I think you hit it on the nose right there where you're like look there are compartments or there are pieces of me and I am embracing them all whether that's that dark side that chip on my shoulder those negative thoughts the you know the voices that that you know the voices of that kid who beat me up when I was 10 years old and now I got a channel that inner Hulk to make this all happen cool and then I need to take a break from that and now all of a sudden I need to to channel the love of my wife with the love of my family and think in terms of warmth and I think so many of us are thinking in absolutes as these are black or as either way we're either always positive or we're always negative and it's like no we we exist and I'm so grateful that all the people that I'm meeting in this space I feel like this generation of people who are trying to help people find their greatness their wellness and presenting the message are all saying look I'm flawed you know I'm messing up and I'm here to share my journey with you guys as I mess up and please don't think you guys can hold me to some holier-than-thou standard because we're not there in all of these land and I've had that too with the success of this book is obviously having a beard and looking and looking like Oh show people start testing this guy like has it all and you know and and and and speaking slowly or just not having too much color in my voice when I speak people think I'm calm and I meditate all the time and and I don't I don't do any of this I'm somebody who makes mistakes like everybody else I make irresponsible mistakes sometimes I say dumb [ __ ] on social media just like everybody else but I just take an extra five seconds to think about what I did and think a little bit deeper for it and then like an excited excited nerd I want to share that with people who care about that and I and I really appreciate you sharing this platform of your community with me as well so you know we can expand it and just continue this movement it's so exciting to to do this I'm excited to see what else you get on this couch and kind of geek out and just sit there as like a quiet third person drinking my tea watching you guys just riff and it'll be fun man thank you for sharing today it's rad thank you for the book which is a beautiful edition of the world I appreciate you again sharing the platform and absolutely man things have been things have been going really well with this and and no matter what happens with this book I'm proud of what I've been able to channel inside to kind of make to make this happen and I think for anybody out there writing again I saw a self-published this book five years ago and I moved on and I focused on my music this book didn't leave me alone it it does what it does by itself and it got me to this point and again I'm everything I make off this book is going back into the music and I wanna as I said have fun focus on those some of those chips on my shoulders and create and for my own specific community the South Asian community you know this is the first time we've had that we've had the space to be creators and you're seeing that with Lilly Singh you've seen that where rupee Cole are you seeing that now we had to cross the pond and find a safe place because back home just a lot of conflict and that opportunity didn't arise and it's been such a journey and this book was birthed out of me being fed up with the fluffy stuff you know it's all is I'm focusing on pragmatism probably when the camera ends I love some more you know constructive critique on the book and and has a you know continued writing to to connect with with more audiences and people who may have already heard these messages and need to move on to the next one awesome well brother thank you so much for being here every world will never happen 100% your way and I'm glad it is show because if it all happened your way where do I go I'm glad it's not happening your way little bit my way a little bit your way a little bit somebody else's way that's how the world should be