February 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Mike opens up about his incredible journey through life, starting with his love for adventure and the great outdoors. He shares the transformative experience of walking across America and dives into how it shaped his understanding of pain tolerance and spirituality. Mike also reflects on the powerful process of finding your purpose, and opens up about the realities of experiencing fame for the first time. He offers valuable advice on setting boundaries and saying no, and talks about his iconic hit I Took A Pill In Ibiza. Later, Mike explores his role in producing songs for others, discusses his upcoming album, and highlights the importance of community in his life.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What is up? Runner Gang, Welcome back to Post Run High.
I just completed a five mile run and full sit
down conversation with Mike Posner. You guys might know Mike
from his hit songs like Cooler than Me and I
Took a Pill in Ibiza.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I took a Pill in Ibiza.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
To show a vichiya I was cool and that song
We're Gonna find Out is based on a true story
and it's a pretty interesting one.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
But Mike is so much.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
More than just a hit artist that can write incredible
pop songs. Mike walked across America solo, Mike summited Mount Everest,
and he's also gearing up for an adventure that he's
not yet disclosing this summer.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Mike is truly such an inspiration.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Some of the things that he's accomplished so many of
us can only dream of doing, and sitting down with
him today was a true testament to that.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
As you guys know, movement.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Is the core of all of my shows, from my
running Interview show to Post Run High. We are on
a mission to get the world moving and that translates
in different ways, whether it's physically, mentally, or emotionally, and
our conversation with Mike really taps all of those things.
So I'm really excited for you guys to listen to
(01:21):
this conversation. Before we get into the interview, I just
want to flag that if you guys are loving post
Run High, please make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel.
This is where you can find all the video versions
of our sit down interviews and our running interviews. My
YouTube channel is at kate max and also follow me
across socials at kate max. I'd love for you guys
(01:43):
to stay up to date and all the stuff that
we have going on and see who we have coming
on the show next. Without further ado, let's get into
our conversation with Mike. We just ran about five miles.
I did not expect to run five miles today.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But you are a serious runner.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Thank you. Yeah, you are too.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm so impressed. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm so curious what your adventure is that you're preparing
for this song.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I can't tell you soon soon.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So everybody that knows Mike and is a fan of
Mike knows that he is not only an incredible artist
and songwriter and producer, but you also have this real
like adventurous side of you and the spiritual side of you.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah. I just I love life,
you know. And it's so easy to put yourself in
a box or allow others to put put you in
a box. But I like my calendar to reflect my heart.
And one of the things I love is being outside
in epic places. And I love mountains and I love
(02:47):
being outside a natural park. So I do that and
most artists don't do that. Isn't maybe a big part
of their life, and that's fine, But I like both
those things. So my life reflects growing up.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Were you always somebody that loved sports and being outside
as a kid.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
My mom, God bless her heart. They put a lot
of effort into exposing me to the outdoors. And I
grew up in Detroit and a lot of my friends
never went on planes and never went to the mountains
and stuff, but my parents always they would drive us
to places like Colorado and stuff. Can't imagine two kids
in a mini van like four days, you know, at
(03:25):
three four days driving us And so it is really
I have my parents to thank for my mom my
dad for giving me that export because they're both of
my parents are city people, but they gave us that exposure,
my sister and I, and I think maybe they kind
of regretted it when I started, you know, climbing Everest
and stuff like that, but I took it a little far.
(03:48):
But yeah, that's that's how the seed was planted.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
My favorite things to do as a kid was when
my parents would take us like hiking. And I grew
up in New Jersey, so there aren't like that many
places to hikes.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
New Jersey's beautiful. Yeah, I walked across New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You started your walk across America in Asbury Park, right.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I remember just seeing this state is beautiful. So it's
the Garden State. I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You know, Jersey gets a bad rep, but I'm like, seriously,
there are parts of Jersey that are.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So for people that are wondering what I just referenced,
Mike walked across America. So before he hyped Mount Everest,
he accomplished another serious feat. And you started in Asbury Park.
Was there a significance to starting in Asbury Park for you?
I mean, besides Bruce Springsteen, that was it.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think I read Bruce's book A couple of years, no,
I think that year. And also I had played the
Stone Pony before, so I had done a concert there
and we were just looking on the map of places
that could start. Originally I was going to try to
go to Detroit on my walk. I decided not to
do that because it was like an extra two hundred
(04:51):
mile loop, and by the time I got to Ohio,
I was like, this is hard enough. So it was
roughly in the right place. And so it's just a
SMA scattering of cities on the eastern Seaboard. I hadn't
heard of any of them except that one. And it
was also a place was really important. I wanted to
start in the water, so there was there's a public
(05:12):
beach there, so I wanted to go from ocean to ocean,
and so it checked all those boxes.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Did you have a ton of people that came out
to kind of walk with you at your start?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It was about thirty people there at the beginning, and
at the beginning before I ended up getting bit by
rattlesnake two thirds of the way, but before that I
would say, you know, if you find me, you can
walk with me. And so people came from all over
the US to walk with me, and we talked a
(05:43):
little bit about this on our run. But I would
always ask why did you come here? And sometimes they
just wanted to picture. Sometimes they just wanted to see
if they could find me, like it was a weird
scavenger hunt. But sometimes they came because they had no
one else to talk to. So it was a really
deep experience. And often the troubles or problems or challenges
(06:06):
that the people would tell me about that they were
going through reminded me of my own or helped me
see my own challenges in a new way.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
What do you think besides getting bit by a rattle
steak was the hardest part about your journey?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I can think of a few arts.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Like, let's do like physically, mentally, and emotionally, because I
feel like they're all kind of separate.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, that's fair, the physical and mental one around the
same times in Missouri getting into Kansas, where at the
beginning the pain, the physical pain was somewhere in the
realm of physical pain I had experienced before being a
(06:45):
runner growing up. Oh, this is like I can compare
this to running cross country in high school or now.
It's worse than high school, but it's still in the
same ballpark, and after a thousand miles, it wasn't in
the same world anymore. And so wake up every day
(07:06):
and it makes me a little emotional, but you can.
It's hard to stand up, and the pain is just
unfurls like a branch of evil tree, from the heels,
up the legs into the hips, and you're just thinking, like,
I'm not sure if the damage I'm doing now is
(07:26):
recoverable because I have no reference point. This is this
permanent to be in a place in your life to
know that as bad as this hurts physically, to quit
and go back to the life I left behind is worse.
And so now I do a really good job taking
(07:50):
care of this body. But to be in a journey
where your body is speaking to you very clearly every day,
saying one sentence, a one word sentence, stop stop stop stop,
you're hurting me stop, and your spirit is saying something
(08:14):
just as clearly, two words sentence, keep going, keep going,
keep going, keep going, and deciding every single day I'm
going to listen to spirit.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I have so many follow ups from that, Let's start here.
Do you feel like your pain thresholds went up after
that experience?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Like did it change you?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, changed me from the core you know. Actually, a
more accurate way to say it is is it helped
me see who I really was, so didn't Who I am?
Who you are is there in every moment, and we
can lose sight of it. We can put mental concepts
or judgments or things in the mental clutter can be
(09:04):
like a screen in front of reality, or it can
cover over the soul, but it's not there, so you're
never never changing your soul, You're just undaling it. More So,
I think your question was in regards to pain. Yeah,
as I as I. If we made a graph of
my experience of pain as the journey went on, it
(09:25):
was linear. It just went more and more and more
and more and more and more and more. We could
also do a graph of the space of my consciousness
that was like a parabolic curve. So as the pain
was getting more, the space of who I was got bigger,
(09:47):
meaning I was experiencing more intense pain. But the pain
was like a cloud in a big sky instead of
if you zoom in on just a cloud, it looks
like your whole reality.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I'm really passionate about the topic of purpose. I think
a lot of people talk about finding their purpose and
figuring out who they are, and I think it's actually
one of the hardest things that you can do, but
also one of the most important things to figure out.
What is your calling? What is the impact that you
want to have? And why are you on this earth.
I'm not kidding when I say I think about it
all the time, and I really, especially as I've gotten older,
(10:25):
have kind of double clicked into it even more and
said to myself, what is the impact that I want
to leave on the people that choose to watch my
content that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Are in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So I'm curious, like, based on what you said and
what you learned about yourself, what is your purpose?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Beautiful that you asked the question is more important that
it seems like you've come up with an answer. And
when you have that answer, that's like a north star.
It's like a direction north You don't get to it
a goal you can achieve and be done. Your purpose
is a direction. But when you have that clarity, you
can start to work downstream you like you do, meaning,
(11:04):
then what are my yearly goals? What do I want
accomplish this year that's in line with this purpose which
you have, And then what are my weekly goals? And
then what are my daily goals? And not only the accomplishments,
but what is the intention behind the show? What do
I want? What is the impact I want to have? Also?
Purpose can change, and I think it should. One of
(11:26):
my favorite books is Victor frankel Man Search for Meaning.
I'm not sure if he says it this way, maybe
I minced his words, but I like to think about
it like this. Most people look at life and question,
why is life not meeting my expectations? I think we're
(11:49):
supposed to do the opposite, meaning, why am I not
meeting life's expectations of me? So this is a backdoor
way to get to purpose. What does life expect of me?
Or a nicer way to frame it, what is life
calling forth from me? And that could change in a moment,
(12:10):
in a season. So if you asked me two years ago,
I would have said, I, Mike Posner, see here, feel
and know. My purpose is to be a kind artist
who creates transcendence for myself and others. One year ago
I changed my purpose is to be a leader who
unlocks the magic potential in myself and others. This year
(12:33):
it changed again. I realized there's still a little bit
ego in that, Like it's my job. It's not my
job twenty four to seven to unlock the magic potential
and myself. Right, some people don't need their magic potential unlocked. Right,
some people just want to like sell you a coffee.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You know, it's like I'm in the seven eleven, I'm
unlock the magic potent, right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, I like that though. It's cool.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It's cool, but it's part of my life. If I
go into my family, right, I'll tell you what it
is now, but just speak a little more and why
that's a flaw in that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
If I go to my mom, I'm not unlock the mat.
But she doesn't need to be coached by me. Twenty
four to seven. My girlfriend, she needs to be coached
by me. So there needs me to be loved by me. Right.
So so my purpose now, then you asked me on
this day, I'm Mike Posner. I see, I hear, I feel.
I know. My purpose is to do God's will. That's
(13:28):
it simple, and that changes moment to moment to moment.
The more I do that I let go to control
of my life, the better it flows. So that's my purpose. Now,
given a lot of thought to this, you know purpose,
and like you're you're an entrepreneur or a hustler, it's
very clear, like you've built this incredible thing out of
(13:50):
it like that that coincides with your passions and it's amazing.
And so people like us we always have a We
always have a vision. You have a vision, and joy
comes from a beautiful vision mixed with presents. So presence
plus beautiful vision equals joy. So the pitfall for myself
(14:14):
sometimes you get if you overweight one of those too much.
Like I have this vision, I'm working towards it, but
it can start to feel too heavy. You know, at
the end of the day, we're here just in Earth school. Right,
you have a vision, like you're crying something beautiful, you
have goals for it, I'm sure like they're probably mapped out,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I mean I have goals for myself.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
But while I think it's important to have goals, I
think it's really important to let life happen and be
really present because if you're not present, you're missing so
many opportunities that might come your way.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Right, You've got to have both because just the presence without.
I've tried that before, like spent a lot of time
sitting with my legs crossed like this, like at the
retreat center, at the monastery. You have to have both
and have them balance.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm sure this has taken a lot of work to
get where you are today. We can like roll back
the tape and go back to when you were kind
of just experiencing fame.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
For the first time. What was that like for you?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It was overwhelming. I wasn't used to getting that much attention.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Did you like the attention?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Well, part of me loved it and craved it and
worshiped it before I had it, because I thought that
if I got it, my internal state would would change,
would be better. I thought it would result in me
feeling more respect for myself. And I got it, and
(15:41):
I didn't. I felt exactly the same as so my
mind creep saying, oh, maybe you just need to get
more of it, right, you know. So it's a tale
as all as time. Right, it's such a cliche story.
I'm almost like as it tant to tell it, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
But.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
That was my experience, and so part of me craved
it and then part of me hated it, and then
pardon me, wanted to get attention for it being so hard,
and and you know the whole thing. It was just
a vicious cycle and spiral into to nothing. But at
this point I can see how it happened for me.
(16:17):
I couldn't teach what I teach now. If I didn't
have these experiences, I couldn't. I couldn't tell people, Hey,
this is this is what life is really about. Presence
plus plus compelling vision of the future was joy. Had
I not gone through this, I would have no perspective
on it. If people say, well, what did you ever accomplish, Well,
(16:38):
I've accomplished a lot now, so I can actually speak
to it right, not from theory, not from a book,
but because I did feel despair. I did go to
number one on the pop charts, and I did still
feel despair. I did walk across America, I did climb everest,
I did contemplate suicide in my life, and I did
get to a point now where my life is incredible,
(17:01):
not without challenges or like big challenges, most of them internal.
Often a few days ago, I'm like, what am I did? Right?
But I know how to meet these challenges, and I
have a track record of meeting every challenge, and that's
a self respect that I earned and myself all these
these challenges that came up in my life, I can
(17:22):
look back and truly be grateful for them, because without
any of them, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't
be able to connect on a deep level with other
people that are in pain. Humans are funny, right, We
have all different lives, we're all so unique, but the
emotions we feel, I believe, are kind of the same.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I really like what you said about how could you
speak to something if you hadn't experienced it, because that
is so true and it's so cool, Like the perspective
that you have on situations. I mean, it's not every
day you get to meet somebody that has had the
level of the success that you've had and also had
the level of self reflection. What is your advice to
(18:03):
kind of younger people that might have been in your
shoes or going through.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Those same kind of emotions, even if it isn't fame.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, there's some kind of success, right. Yeah, I wish
I had like a big brother at the time. You've
experienced some version of this, like you said, to have
success and then a lot of opportunities come a ton
of them, more than you can physically do, and a
lot of them are opportunities you would have killed for
a year ago, and now all of a sudden, there's
(18:30):
too many of them, like too many good ones. So
I would say learning how to say no is a
big one. I have scripts in my phone that I
call them elegant nos. It's it's like a no basically
a decline of invitation that I've sat down and written
(18:51):
is a beautiful, elegant no, And I'll use as a
template to respond to invitations that are that are good,
but they're but they're not aligned with the purpose.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Learning how to say no is such a skill that
people need to learn, and I feel like it's a
really hard skill to learn, especially when you're young. And
I'm sure you had a lot of experiences with this
where it's like you were twenty two twenty one with
hit songs, and all of a sudden you've got everybody
being like, I want to interview him, I want to
have him on my show, you know, I want to
help him produce a music video. So learning how to
(19:28):
say no is a real challenge.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, that's the big one. I wish I knew them. Yeah,
and that is okay to say.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I was really scared to disappoint people.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
On the topic of fame and highs and lows.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I didn't realize that your song I Took a Pill
in Ibiza was about what it was about until I
was doing some research on you recently. Yeah, can you
walk us through that journey of what you were going
through when you wrote that hit song I Took a
Pill in Ibisa.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I was in the studio with my friend Jake Owen,
he's a country the artists. We were basically doing what's
called passing the guitar, so I play a song from
the guitar. Then I passed to him. He played one,
and you pass it back and I play him with
a song, and Jake said, what is what's that song about?
I said this about this girl I had a thing
(20:17):
with in New York, and and then some of it
I just made up. And he looked at me and
he's like, well, why don't you just tell the truth?
I thought, Well, the people I work with in LA
don't really aren't really concerned with telling the truth and songs.
(20:38):
They're just concerned with writing hits like I thought for
the trail. Yeah, I think you know, if you go
into the recording studios, like the the underlying sometimes unspoken
messages like we're trying to write a hit, and it's
gotten a lot worse in the last few years when
people are like, hey, this line is tiktokable. Not all
the music, but much of the music is made in
(20:59):
kind of like this factory mindset, meaning it's not like
the focus isn't to make something beautiful, it's to make
something popular. So I had kind of gone through that
wash cycle and was coming out the other side of it.
And that night I was on the plane with his
question why don't you just tell the truth bouncing off
the walls of my head, and I just opened up
(21:20):
my notebook and wrote that song.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It's amazing, And you actually had an experience right when
you were in Ibs at an Avici concert.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I was jealous. My career had peaked and then troughed,
and now in Sweden, I'm alone, I'm drunk. That's when
I just still drink and I'm in the VIP section
and I wander out of the VIP section desperate, hoping
someone is going to recognize old Mike posner and give
(21:51):
me a hit of significance, and my prayers are answered.
Someone shows up and the last bag of pills and like,
you want one of these? I'm like yeah, And so
I just take an unknown drug from an unknown person,
mixing it with alcohol, and I'm looking at my friend
(22:13):
on the stage and I want to be where he
is and I'm not. And I used to be up there.
And so that night I felt just about as lonely
as a man can feel. I wrote this song not
that night, you know. I think people think, oh, I
wrote that now. I wrote it like two or three
years later because I had needed time to contextualize it
(22:34):
in the context or in the framework of my life.
So I wasn't maybe in that exact emotional state as
I wrote it, but I could remember it. I can
remember it now, you know, And it makes it more
special that my life is what it is now. I mean,
my life was a symbol for hedonism. I still meet
(22:55):
people to this day like, oh, man, I thought you're
gonna be an asshole. I thought you're gonna be I
thought you were a DJ. I thought you're a douchebag.
That's what my life stood for. When my career started
was drinking, partying, I go with girls, smoking, and now
to have my life be a symbol for something else,
it's nothing but pride. So I'm almost in a sick
(23:17):
way proud of my flaws where I came from, because
I know what I had to do to become n Now.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's just gonna be so cool to see where you
continue to grow. I actually wrote down one of the
lyrics from your song because I thought it was so
ironic of I took a pill of ipisa, okay, but
I loved the lyric that was I'm just a singer
who already blew a shot because the irony of that.
Knowing what you were going through when you wrote that
lyric and that song, I would have had no idea.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I wrote this song, and it is years later that
it became popular, right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it started out as an acoustic version, right, And
then when did it become kind of the pop song
that people loved to sell?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
These guys did a remix to it named seb these
two guys in Norway, and so it was like years later,
I remember playing that song in the park for people,
you know, just on my guitar, and then yeah, I
wass see it like I blew up in Norway and
then Sweden. I'm like, whoa started to get popular the.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Remix of it when it did kind of make its
resurgence where you like Whoa.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, it's just like this is crazy. It's like a
song about not being famous and it's making me famous.
It's like so yeah, it's like life is life is beautiful,
and life is humorous.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And life can be so many things. You think you're
one thing, and then very quickly you become another. Right,
because you went from producing hit songs to then starting
to write music for other people. And I remember you
wrote Justin Bieber's Boyfriend, like you wrote so many songs,
songs from a room five like, I mean, it's incredible.
So did you quickly say to yourself, Okay, I'm gonna
(24:58):
pivot from producing my own music to writing for other people.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
No, I actually, my career just was going horribly, so
my my record label wasn't really putting my songs out.
So I was like, I guess I'll just they were
all songs for me, those songs I'd written for my album,
and I was like, well, I'd rather have them come
out somebody else sing them than just not come out.
So that was it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And it's crazy to say, like you're like, my career
was going horribly, but you were so young, Like there
were so many years you know, so like if you
could go back and like give advice to your younger
self that was like going through that low, what would
it be.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
In that context? That's the job, But you don't know
that at that point because there's a big high in
your music career and then there's a big low. And
you know, to be frank, a lot of people, first off,
a lot most people never get to that high, right
for most people that want to get in the music industry,
beute artists fail. And then there's a lot of people, right,
(25:57):
there's so many people that go through the experience. I'm
about to say that there's a name for it, one
hit wonder. So there's no way for me to know
when I'm in that low that I'm going to come
back up again and my career is going to come
back up again. So knowing what I know now, I
(26:18):
would say, hey, man, that's the job. When you're artists
like you, you surf these waves of fame and popularity,
but your job is to make beautiful art, so I would.
I would say that to that young man. You can't
control the popularity. People sometimes ask me when you put
out your next hit song. I'm like, dude, if I
could control when they were hits, I would do it today.
You know. I just write, I make art, and then
(26:42):
sometimes they get popular. I don't know why or which ones.
It's always ran, you know, and so in some respects,
as an artist, your job is to ignore that tension.
You can't enjoy it. But it's a byproduct, not the direction,
not the purpose.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I know you've got a new album coming out, which
I'm so excited to listen to it. Thank you, so, like,
what can we expect in this new album and what
about it do you feel like is different than the
music you've written in the past.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
That's a good question. The album is titled The Beginning,
and for me, it was the Beginning starts at the end.
You know, it's funny you turn a phrase like you
start at the end. This music is music I made
as the soundtrack to my own transformation. It's a gift
to be able to create that for yourself and then
share it and know that, hey, you know, this is
(27:32):
gonna go out into the universe and hopefully it's gonna
be a conduit to other people getting closer to their
own soul, their own truth, or helping them through a
tough time. And that's that's it. Maya Andrews said, your
legacy lies in the hearts of those that you touch.
Doing what you do or I do. We don't get
(27:54):
to meet all the people's hearts that we touch, so
you just you just do work and share it. So
thanks for letting me share it with your and your audience.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, Mike, I'm so excited for your new album to
come out. What's the best way for people to follow
your journey stay up to date on all the things
you have going on.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, a couple of different ways for the music. Follow
me on Spotify. The core of my work exists. I
have a community and we do a call every Thursday
at three pm. And then there's a community that the
people are connected with all week and it's just a
beautiful group of human beings that are up leveling their
(28:40):
lives like you.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know, wait, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, so we we We're on Zoom every Thursday, three
pm Pacific or six PM Eastern. We're in New York,
and on those calls we dance. We usually do some
kind of breath work of meditation, and then I work
with people. I usually ask like, who's really fucked up,
(29:05):
Who's who's really going some going through something, and I
just work with them and if I have a distinction
that can help, I'll give it to them. If not,
we just all pray for them and and that's what
we do every week. So it's one hundred percent free,
totally free. And if you join that community, there's another
(29:27):
album in our community that only exists there. It' it's
not on Spotify nor it's just for the community, and
it's also totally free. So that's the main thing I'm
working on. So if you or your viewers or your
husband want to join, that's you do. Yes, it's my
favorite thing in my week. You see, I'm light up
(29:49):
when I talk about I.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Know, do they share their stories with the group?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yes, deep, it's deep, like you know some people being
there like I'm I'm I'm drinking every day. You know,
people going through like it's real. It's real, it's not
softball questions like you know, how.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Do you respond to like an addiction question like that.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
For me, it's it's always first listening deeply. We talked
about that a few times. It's like I have to
really listen and understand where this person is, why, what
are they really saying behind even their words, and feel that.
(30:33):
And then if I'm doing a good job, I'm surrendering
and I'm sort of letting my purpose do God's will.
I'm letting spirit guide me. And I, like you said,
I got this big bag of tricks and hacks and
tools and all stuff, but if I'm not in the
place of listening or grace, they won't hear me. So
(30:58):
that's the biggest thing. States or moods are infectious, but
good states are infectious too, which is why you love
interviewing people on the run like you talked about, so
I could just remember, like I can't give someone like
someone I don't have, so gain into a state letting
letting grace be there and go from there. And then
I got all these tools and stuff, but it has
(31:20):
to start with the with the state.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, And I feel like it's an amazing practice also
to actively listen to people, especially that are going through
hard times, because like you live this really exciting life.
I feel like sometimes when you've got so much going on,
it's hard to give people your one on one, undivided,
like present attention. So I feel like that act in
itself of you speaking to somebody that might be struggling
(31:43):
with addiction or going through a loss or grieving something,
it is spiritual in itself. And I also think like
one of the things that we kind of talked about
on the run that I've definitely learned and had to
learn is that when you're listening to somebody, it's okay
to not totally understand what they're going through or not
be able to relate to it.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, I think as well said, even even understanding that
you can't understand the nuance, just the gift of hearing
someone is a is a real gift that you that
we all can give each other, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So I agree, all right, Well, I love you.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
This was so fun, Pee Sah
What is up? Runner Gang, Welcome back to Post Run High.
I just completed a five mile run and full sit
down conversation with Mike Posner. You guys might know Mike
from his hit songs like Cooler than Me and I
Took a Pill in Ibiza.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I took a Pill in Ibiza.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
To show a vichiya I was cool and that song
We're Gonna find Out is based on a true story
and it's a pretty interesting one.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
But Mike is so much.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
More than just a hit artist that can write incredible
pop songs. Mike walked across America solo, Mike summited Mount Everest,
and he's also gearing up for an adventure that he's
not yet disclosing this summer.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Mike is truly such an inspiration.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Some of the things that he's accomplished so many of
us can only dream of doing, and sitting down with
him today was a true testament to that.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
As you guys know, movement.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Is the core of all of my shows, from my
running Interview show to Post Run High. We are on
a mission to get the world moving and that translates
in different ways, whether it's physically, mentally, or emotionally, and
our conversation with Mike really taps all of those things.
So I'm really excited for you guys to listen to
(01:21):
this conversation. Before we get into the interview, I just
want to flag that if you guys are loving post
Run High, please make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel.
This is where you can find all the video versions
of our sit down interviews and our running interviews. My
YouTube channel is at kate max and also follow me
across socials at kate max. I'd love for you guys
(01:43):
to stay up to date and all the stuff that
we have going on and see who we have coming
on the show next. Without further ado, let's get into
our conversation with Mike. We just ran about five miles.
I did not expect to run five miles today.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But you are a serious runner.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Thank you. Yeah, you are too.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I'm so impressed. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I'm so curious what your adventure is that you're preparing
for this song.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I can't tell you soon soon.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So everybody that knows Mike and is a fan of
Mike knows that he is not only an incredible artist
and songwriter and producer, but you also have this real
like adventurous side of you and the spiritual side of you.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah. I just I love life,
you know. And it's so easy to put yourself in
a box or allow others to put put you in
a box. But I like my calendar to reflect my heart.
And one of the things I love is being outside
in epic places. And I love mountains and I love
(02:47):
being outside a natural park. So I do that and
most artists don't do that. Isn't maybe a big part
of their life, and that's fine, But I like both
those things. So my life reflects growing up.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Were you always somebody that loved sports and being outside
as a kid.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
My mom, God bless her heart. They put a lot
of effort into exposing me to the outdoors. And I
grew up in Detroit and a lot of my friends
never went on planes and never went to the mountains
and stuff, but my parents always they would drive us
to places like Colorado and stuff. Can't imagine two kids
in a mini van like four days, you know, at
(03:25):
three four days driving us And so it is really
I have my parents to thank for my mom my
dad for giving me that export because they're both of
my parents are city people, but they gave us that exposure,
my sister and I, and I think maybe they kind
of regretted it when I started, you know, climbing Everest
and stuff like that, but I took it a little far.
(03:48):
But yeah, that's that's how the seed was planted.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
My favorite things to do as a kid was when
my parents would take us like hiking. And I grew
up in New Jersey, so there aren't like that many
places to hikes.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
New Jersey's beautiful. Yeah, I walked across New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
You started your walk across America in Asbury Park, right.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I remember just seeing this state is beautiful. So it's
the Garden State. I get it.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You know, Jersey gets a bad rep, but I'm like, seriously,
there are parts of Jersey that are.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So for people that are wondering what I just referenced,
Mike walked across America. So before he hyped Mount Everest,
he accomplished another serious feat. And you started in Asbury Park.
Was there a significance to starting in Asbury Park for you?
I mean, besides Bruce Springsteen, that was it.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think I read Bruce's book A couple of years, no,
I think that year. And also I had played the
Stone Pony before, so I had done a concert there
and we were just looking on the map of places
that could start. Originally I was going to try to
go to Detroit on my walk. I decided not to
do that because it was like an extra two hundred
(04:51):
mile loop, and by the time I got to Ohio,
I was like, this is hard enough. So it was
roughly in the right place. And so it's just a
SMA scattering of cities on the eastern Seaboard. I hadn't
heard of any of them except that one. And it
was also a place was really important. I wanted to
start in the water, so there was there's a public
(05:12):
beach there, so I wanted to go from ocean to ocean,
and so it checked all those boxes.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Did you have a ton of people that came out
to kind of walk with you at your start?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It was about thirty people there at the beginning, and
at the beginning before I ended up getting bit by
rattlesnake two thirds of the way, but before that I
would say, you know, if you find me, you can
walk with me. And so people came from all over
the US to walk with me, and we talked a
(05:43):
little bit about this on our run. But I would
always ask why did you come here? And sometimes they
just wanted to picture. Sometimes they just wanted to see
if they could find me, like it was a weird
scavenger hunt. But sometimes they came because they had no
one else to talk to. So it was a really
deep experience. And often the troubles or problems or challenges
(06:06):
that the people would tell me about that they were
going through reminded me of my own or helped me
see my own challenges in a new way.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
What do you think besides getting bit by a rattle
steak was the hardest part about your journey?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I can think of a few arts.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Like, let's do like physically, mentally, and emotionally, because I
feel like they're all kind of separate.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, that's fair, the physical and mental one around the
same times in Missouri getting into Kansas, where at the
beginning the pain, the physical pain was somewhere in the
realm of physical pain I had experienced before being a
(06:45):
runner growing up. Oh, this is like I can compare
this to running cross country in high school or now.
It's worse than high school, but it's still in the
same ballpark, and after a thousand miles, it wasn't in
the same world anymore. And so wake up every day
(07:06):
and it makes me a little emotional, but you can.
It's hard to stand up, and the pain is just
unfurls like a branch of evil tree, from the heels,
up the legs into the hips, and you're just thinking, like,
I'm not sure if the damage I'm doing now is
(07:26):
recoverable because I have no reference point. This is this
permanent to be in a place in your life to
know that as bad as this hurts physically, to quit
and go back to the life I left behind is worse.
And so now I do a really good job taking
(07:50):
care of this body. But to be in a journey
where your body is speaking to you very clearly every day,
saying one sentence, a one word sentence, stop stop stop stop,
you're hurting me stop, and your spirit is saying something
(08:14):
just as clearly, two words sentence, keep going, keep going,
keep going, keep going, and deciding every single day I'm
going to listen to spirit.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I have so many follow ups from that, Let's start here.
Do you feel like your pain thresholds went up after
that experience?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Like did it change you?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, changed me from the core you know. Actually, a
more accurate way to say it is is it helped
me see who I really was, so didn't Who I am?
Who you are is there in every moment, and we
can lose sight of it. We can put mental concepts
or judgments or things in the mental clutter can be
(09:04):
like a screen in front of reality, or it can
cover over the soul, but it's not there, so you're
never never changing your soul, You're just undaling it. More So,
I think your question was in regards to pain. Yeah,
as I as I. If we made a graph of
my experience of pain as the journey went on, it
(09:25):
was linear. It just went more and more and more
and more and more and more and more. We could
also do a graph of the space of my consciousness
that was like a parabolic curve. So as the pain
was getting more, the space of who I was got bigger,
(09:47):
meaning I was experiencing more intense pain. But the pain
was like a cloud in a big sky instead of
if you zoom in on just a cloud, it looks
like your whole reality.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I'm really passionate about the topic of purpose. I think
a lot of people talk about finding their purpose and
figuring out who they are, and I think it's actually
one of the hardest things that you can do, but
also one of the most important things to figure out.
What is your calling? What is the impact that you
want to have? And why are you on this earth.
I'm not kidding when I say I think about it
all the time, and I really, especially as I've gotten older,
(10:25):
have kind of double clicked into it even more and
said to myself, what is the impact that I want
to leave on the people that choose to watch my
content that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Are in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So I'm curious, like, based on what you said and
what you learned about yourself, what is your purpose?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Beautiful that you asked the question is more important that
it seems like you've come up with an answer. And
when you have that answer, that's like a north star.
It's like a direction north You don't get to it
a goal you can achieve and be done. Your purpose
is a direction. But when you have that clarity, you
can start to work downstream you like you do, meaning,
(11:04):
then what are my yearly goals? What do I want
accomplish this year that's in line with this purpose which
you have, And then what are my weekly goals? And
then what are my daily goals? And not only the accomplishments,
but what is the intention behind the show? What do
I want? What is the impact I want to have? Also?
Purpose can change, and I think it should. One of
(11:26):
my favorite books is Victor frankel Man Search for Meaning.
I'm not sure if he says it this way, maybe
I minced his words, but I like to think about
it like this. Most people look at life and question,
why is life not meeting my expectations? I think we're
(11:49):
supposed to do the opposite, meaning, why am I not
meeting life's expectations of me? So this is a backdoor
way to get to purpose. What does life expect of me?
Or a nicer way to frame it, what is life
calling forth from me? And that could change in a moment,
(12:10):
in a season. So if you asked me two years ago,
I would have said, I, Mike Posner, see here, feel
and know. My purpose is to be a kind artist
who creates transcendence for myself and others. One year ago
I changed my purpose is to be a leader who
unlocks the magic potential in myself and others. This year
(12:33):
it changed again. I realized there's still a little bit
ego in that, Like it's my job. It's not my
job twenty four to seven to unlock the magic potential
and myself. Right, some people don't need their magic potential unlocked. Right,
some people just want to like sell you a coffee.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
You know, it's like I'm in the seven eleven, I'm
unlock the magic potent, right.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, I like that though. It's cool.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It's cool, but it's part of my life. If I
go into my family, right, I'll tell you what it
is now, but just speak a little more and why
that's a flaw in that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
If I go to my mom, I'm not unlock the mat.
But she doesn't need to be coached by me. Twenty
four to seven. My girlfriend, she needs to be coached
by me. So there needs me to be loved by me. Right.
So so my purpose now, then you asked me on
this day, I'm Mike Posner. I see, I hear, I feel.
I know. My purpose is to do God's will. That's
(13:28):
it simple, and that changes moment to moment to moment.
The more I do that I let go to control
of my life, the better it flows. So that's my purpose. Now,
given a lot of thought to this, you know purpose,
and like you're you're an entrepreneur or a hustler, it's
very clear, like you've built this incredible thing out of
(13:50):
it like that that coincides with your passions and it's amazing.
And so people like us we always have a We
always have a vision. You have a vision, and joy
comes from a beautiful vision mixed with presents. So presence
plus beautiful vision equals joy. So the pitfall for myself
(14:14):
sometimes you get if you overweight one of those too much.
Like I have this vision, I'm working towards it, but
it can start to feel too heavy. You know, at
the end of the day, we're here just in Earth school. Right,
you have a vision, like you're crying something beautiful, you
have goals for it, I'm sure like they're probably mapped out,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I mean I have goals for myself.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
But while I think it's important to have goals, I
think it's really important to let life happen and be
really present because if you're not present, you're missing so
many opportunities that might come your way.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Right, You've got to have both because just the presence without.
I've tried that before, like spent a lot of time
sitting with my legs crossed like this, like at the
retreat center, at the monastery. You have to have both
and have them balance.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'm sure this has taken a lot of work to
get where you are today. We can like roll back
the tape and go back to when you were kind
of just experiencing fame.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
For the first time. What was that like for you?
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It was overwhelming. I wasn't used to getting that much attention.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Did you like the attention?
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Well, part of me loved it and craved it and
worshiped it before I had it, because I thought that
if I got it, my internal state would would change,
would be better. I thought it would result in me
feeling more respect for myself. And I got it, and
(15:41):
I didn't. I felt exactly the same as so my
mind creep saying, oh, maybe you just need to get
more of it, right, you know. So it's a tale
as all as time. Right, it's such a cliche story.
I'm almost like as it tant to tell it, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
But.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
That was my experience, and so part of me craved
it and then part of me hated it, and then
pardon me, wanted to get attention for it being so hard,
and and you know the whole thing. It was just
a vicious cycle and spiral into to nothing. But at
this point I can see how it happened for me.
(16:17):
I couldn't teach what I teach now. If I didn't
have these experiences, I couldn't. I couldn't tell people, Hey,
this is this is what life is really about. Presence
plus plus compelling vision of the future was joy. Had
I not gone through this, I would have no perspective
on it. If people say, well, what did you ever accomplish, Well,
(16:38):
I've accomplished a lot now, so I can actually speak
to it right, not from theory, not from a book,
but because I did feel despair. I did go to
number one on the pop charts, and I did still
feel despair. I did walk across America, I did climb everest,
I did contemplate suicide in my life, and I did
get to a point now where my life is incredible,
(17:01):
not without challenges or like big challenges, most of them internal.
Often a few days ago, I'm like, what am I did? Right?
But I know how to meet these challenges, and I
have a track record of meeting every challenge, and that's
a self respect that I earned and myself all these
these challenges that came up in my life, I can
(17:22):
look back and truly be grateful for them, because without
any of them, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't
be able to connect on a deep level with other
people that are in pain. Humans are funny, right, We
have all different lives, we're all so unique, but the
emotions we feel, I believe, are kind of the same.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I really like what you said about how could you
speak to something if you hadn't experienced it, because that
is so true and it's so cool, Like the perspective
that you have on situations. I mean, it's not every
day you get to meet somebody that has had the
level of the success that you've had and also had
the level of self reflection. What is your advice to
(18:03):
kind of younger people that might have been in your
shoes or going through.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Those same kind of emotions, even if it isn't fame.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, there's some kind of success, right. Yeah, I wish
I had like a big brother at the time. You've
experienced some version of this, like you said, to have
success and then a lot of opportunities come a ton
of them, more than you can physically do, and a
lot of them are opportunities you would have killed for
a year ago, and now all of a sudden, there's
(18:30):
too many of them, like too many good ones. So
I would say learning how to say no is a
big one. I have scripts in my phone that I
call them elegant nos. It's it's like a no basically
a decline of invitation that I've sat down and written
(18:51):
is a beautiful, elegant no, And I'll use as a
template to respond to invitations that are that are good,
but they're but they're not aligned with the purpose.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Learning how to say no is such a skill that
people need to learn, and I feel like it's a
really hard skill to learn, especially when you're young. And
I'm sure you had a lot of experiences with this
where it's like you were twenty two twenty one with
hit songs, and all of a sudden you've got everybody
being like, I want to interview him, I want to
have him on my show, you know, I want to
help him produce a music video. So learning how to
(19:28):
say no is a real challenge.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Yeah, that's the big one. I wish I knew them. Yeah,
and that is okay to say.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I was really scared to disappoint people.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
On the topic of fame and highs and lows.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I didn't realize that your song I Took a Pill
in Ibiza was about what it was about until I
was doing some research on you recently. Yeah, can you
walk us through that journey of what you were going
through when you wrote that hit song I Took a
Pill in Ibisa.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
I was in the studio with my friend Jake Owen,
he's a country the artists. We were basically doing what's
called passing the guitar, so I play a song from
the guitar. Then I passed to him. He played one,
and you pass it back and I play him with
a song, and Jake said, what is what's that song about?
I said this about this girl I had a thing
(20:17):
with in New York, and and then some of it
I just made up. And he looked at me and
he's like, well, why don't you just tell the truth?
I thought, Well, the people I work with in LA
don't really aren't really concerned with telling the truth and songs.
(20:38):
They're just concerned with writing hits like I thought for
the trail. Yeah, I think you know, if you go
into the recording studios, like the the underlying sometimes unspoken
messages like we're trying to write a hit, and it's
gotten a lot worse in the last few years when
people are like, hey, this line is tiktokable. Not all
the music, but much of the music is made in
(20:59):
kind of like this factory mindset, meaning it's not like
the focus isn't to make something beautiful, it's to make
something popular. So I had kind of gone through that
wash cycle and was coming out the other side of it.
And that night I was on the plane with his
question why don't you just tell the truth bouncing off
the walls of my head, and I just opened up
(21:20):
my notebook and wrote that song.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It's amazing, And you actually had an experience right when
you were in Ibs at an Avici concert.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I was jealous. My career had peaked and then troughed,
and now in Sweden, I'm alone, I'm drunk. That's when
I just still drink and I'm in the VIP section
and I wander out of the VIP section desperate, hoping
someone is going to recognize old Mike posner and give
(21:51):
me a hit of significance, and my prayers are answered.
Someone shows up and the last bag of pills and like,
you want one of these? I'm like yeah, And so
I just take an unknown drug from an unknown person,
mixing it with alcohol, and I'm looking at my friend
(22:13):
on the stage and I want to be where he
is and I'm not. And I used to be up there.
And so that night I felt just about as lonely
as a man can feel. I wrote this song not
that night, you know. I think people think, oh, I
wrote that now. I wrote it like two or three
years later because I had needed time to contextualize it
(22:34):
in the context or in the framework of my life.
So I wasn't maybe in that exact emotional state as
I wrote it, but I could remember it. I can
remember it now, you know, And it makes it more
special that my life is what it is now. I mean,
my life was a symbol for hedonism. I still meet
(22:55):
people to this day like, oh, man, I thought you're
gonna be an asshole. I thought you're gonna be I
thought you were a DJ. I thought you're a douchebag.
That's what my life stood for. When my career started
was drinking, partying, I go with girls, smoking, and now
to have my life be a symbol for something else,
it's nothing but pride. So I'm almost in a sick
(23:17):
way proud of my flaws where I came from, because
I know what I had to do to become n Now.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's just gonna be so cool to see where you
continue to grow. I actually wrote down one of the
lyrics from your song because I thought it was so
ironic of I took a pill of ipisa, okay, but
I loved the lyric that was I'm just a singer
who already blew a shot because the irony of that.
Knowing what you were going through when you wrote that
lyric and that song, I would have had no idea.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I wrote this song, and it is years later that
it became popular, right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
And it started out as an acoustic version, right, And
then when did it become kind of the pop song
that people loved to sell?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
These guys did a remix to it named seb these
two guys in Norway, and so it was like years later,
I remember playing that song in the park for people,
you know, just on my guitar, and then yeah, I
wass see it like I blew up in Norway and
then Sweden. I'm like, whoa started to get popular the.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Remix of it when it did kind of make its
resurgence where you like Whoa.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, it's just like this is crazy. It's like a
song about not being famous and it's making me famous.
It's like so yeah, it's like life is life is beautiful,
and life is humorous.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And life can be so many things. You think you're
one thing, and then very quickly you become another. Right,
because you went from producing hit songs to then starting
to write music for other people. And I remember you
wrote Justin Bieber's Boyfriend, like you wrote so many songs,
songs from a room five like, I mean, it's incredible.
So did you quickly say to yourself, Okay, I'm gonna
(24:58):
pivot from producing my own music to writing for other people.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
No, I actually, my career just was going horribly, so
my my record label wasn't really putting my songs out.
So I was like, I guess I'll just they were
all songs for me, those songs I'd written for my album,
and I was like, well, I'd rather have them come
out somebody else sing them than just not come out.
So that was it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And it's crazy to say, like you're like, my career
was going horribly, but you were so young, Like there
were so many years you know, so like if you
could go back and like give advice to your younger
self that was like going through that low, what would
it be.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
In that context? That's the job, But you don't know
that at that point because there's a big high in
your music career and then there's a big low. And
you know, to be frank, a lot of people, first off,
a lot most people never get to that high, right
for most people that want to get in the music industry,
beute artists fail. And then there's a lot of people, right,
(25:57):
there's so many people that go through the experience. I'm
about to say that there's a name for it, one
hit wonder. So there's no way for me to know
when I'm in that low that I'm going to come
back up again and my career is going to come
back up again. So knowing what I know now, I
(26:18):
would say, hey, man, that's the job. When you're artists
like you, you surf these waves of fame and popularity,
but your job is to make beautiful art, so I would.
I would say that to that young man. You can't
control the popularity. People sometimes ask me when you put
out your next hit song. I'm like, dude, if I
could control when they were hits, I would do it today.
You know. I just write, I make art, and then
(26:42):
sometimes they get popular. I don't know why or which ones.
It's always ran, you know, and so in some respects,
as an artist, your job is to ignore that tension.
You can't enjoy it. But it's a byproduct, not the direction,
not the purpose.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I know you've got a new album coming out, which
I'm so excited to listen to it. Thank you, so, like,
what can we expect in this new album and what
about it do you feel like is different than the
music you've written in the past.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
That's a good question. The album is titled The Beginning,
and for me, it was the Beginning starts at the end.
You know, it's funny you turn a phrase like you
start at the end. This music is music I made
as the soundtrack to my own transformation. It's a gift
to be able to create that for yourself and then
share it and know that, hey, you know, this is
(27:32):
gonna go out into the universe and hopefully it's gonna
be a conduit to other people getting closer to their
own soul, their own truth, or helping them through a
tough time. And that's that's it. Maya Andrews said, your
legacy lies in the hearts of those that you touch.
Doing what you do or I do. We don't get
(27:54):
to meet all the people's hearts that we touch, so
you just you just do work and share it. So
thanks for letting me share it with your and your audience.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, Mike, I'm so excited for your new album to
come out. What's the best way for people to follow
your journey stay up to date on all the things
you have going on.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, a couple of different ways for the music. Follow
me on Spotify. The core of my work exists. I
have a community and we do a call every Thursday
at three pm. And then there's a community that the
people are connected with all week and it's just a
beautiful group of human beings that are up leveling their
(28:40):
lives like you.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
You know, wait, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yeah, so we we We're on Zoom every Thursday, three
pm Pacific or six PM Eastern. We're in New York,
and on those calls we dance. We usually do some
kind of breath work of meditation, and then I work
with people. I usually ask like, who's really fucked up,
(29:05):
Who's who's really going some going through something, and I
just work with them and if I have a distinction
that can help, I'll give it to them. If not,
we just all pray for them and and that's what
we do every week. So it's one hundred percent free,
totally free. And if you join that community, there's another
(29:27):
album in our community that only exists there. It' it's
not on Spotify nor it's just for the community, and
it's also totally free. So that's the main thing I'm
working on. So if you or your viewers or your
husband want to join, that's you do. Yes, it's my
favorite thing in my week. You see, I'm light up
(29:49):
when I talk about I.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Know, do they share their stories with the group?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yes, deep, it's deep, like you know some people being
there like I'm I'm I'm drinking every day. You know,
people going through like it's real. It's real, it's not
softball questions like you know, how.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Do you respond to like an addiction question like that.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
For me, it's it's always first listening deeply. We talked
about that a few times. It's like I have to
really listen and understand where this person is, why, what
are they really saying behind even their words, and feel that.
(30:33):
And then if I'm doing a good job, I'm surrendering
and I'm sort of letting my purpose do God's will.
I'm letting spirit guide me. And I, like you said,
I got this big bag of tricks and hacks and
tools and all stuff, but if I'm not in the
place of listening or grace, they won't hear me. So
(30:58):
that's the biggest thing. States or moods are infectious, but
good states are infectious too, which is why you love
interviewing people on the run like you talked about, so
I could just remember, like I can't give someone like
someone I don't have, so gain into a state letting
letting grace be there and go from there. And then
I got all these tools and stuff, but it has
(31:20):
to start with the with the state.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, And I feel like it's an amazing practice also
to actively listen to people, especially that are going through
hard times, because like you live this really exciting life.
I feel like sometimes when you've got so much going on,
it's hard to give people your one on one, undivided,
like present attention. So I feel like that act in
itself of you speaking to somebody that might be struggling
(31:43):
with addiction or going through a loss or grieving something,
it is spiritual in itself. And I also think like
one of the things that we kind of talked about
on the run that I've definitely learned and had to
learn is that when you're listening to somebody, it's okay
to not totally understand what they're going through or not
be able to relate to it.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, I think as well said, even even understanding that
you can't understand the nuance, just the gift of hearing
someone is a is a real gift that you that
we all can give each other, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So I agree, all right, Well, I love you.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
This was so fun, Pee Sah
Host
Kate Mackz
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