0:00
You can have a beautiful house in the hills and after a year it's home is home. Yes.
Search this video
0:04
It'll feel the same and you'll be looking at some other lavish house wanting more.
0:07
And I think that gave me that perspective of hey, you can keep climbing this mountain. There is no peak. Totally. So just have fun.
0:14
You know, there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
0:18
The rainbow is the reward.
0:18
So have as much fun as you can. Yes.
0:22
Stop taking things so seriously.
0:24
Our time is limited here, so enjoy it while we're here.
0:28
Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us again.
0:29
Today's guest is someone who is truly truly insightful.
0:32
I can't wait for you to hear his profound thoughts.
0:37
He's a comedian born rapper, spoken word artist, international best seller of his book. He's an author too.
0:46
And he's also a really really dear friend, someone who I've had so many incredible conversations with.
0:49
We have what we call roof talk.
0:52
We literally sit on a roof for a couple of hours and catch up about life, philosophy, experiences.
0:59
They've been truly meaningful to me and I wanted to share that meaning with each and every one of you.
1:05
And he's also launching a new book and the book's called Unlearn, 101 simple truths for a better life.
1:10
So if you enjoyed today's conversation, you can grab a copy of the book as well.
1:13
So Humble, thank you for being here, man.
1:17
Thank you for having me, man. Excited to be here.
1:19
Humble the Poet, it is great to have you here because we've had a couple of conversations.
1:23
We're always talking online messaging.
1:26
And I've always found them so insightful.
1:28
I always learn something every time we speak.
1:30
I feel like I need a notebook just hanging out with you. You have to take notes.
1:33
to have a notebook taking all these notes.
1:35
So get your notebooks out, guys, because I feel the same way about Humble.
1:38
I think he's someone who really really unpacks and thinks about life and I love people like that because I truly believe that it's so easy in a world we live in where everyone sees quotes, everyone Instagram, you see motivational sayings absolutely everywhere.
1:53
Everyone captions their picture with the latest inspirational quote that if you don't think it through you can think you're deep without being deep. Oh, completely.
2:02
It's like this whole faux woke idea.
2:04
And it's faux woke, I like that.
2:06
Yeah, and it's like because a lot of the stuff is you read an inspiring quote and it feels good in the short firm and and you don't take a deep dive to be like, well, is this a sustainable idea that's going to make me feel better past this 5 minutes and a little dopamine draft. So Yeah.
2:22
definitely I think for me my whole journey came from me looking and searching for meaning, some level of fulfillment, and not accepting the fluff.
2:32
I usually call it the Tumblr quotes and I think now it's just become that faux woke stuff that you see all over social media where it's just like you know things that you you hear that again that it'll make you feel great for about 5 minutes and then when you really kind of unpack it and try to live it you're like this is not pragmatic at all. Interesting.
2:49
Yeah, whenever Humble comments on one of my quotes on Instagram like yeah, this is a good one. Like that's how I feel. But you still so good.
2:55
I want to make sure I don't like just send you a fire emoji.
2:57
I want to make sure that there's some value to what I got to say.
3:00
You know, hands up fire emoji.
3:04
No, yeah, or like the 100. Like the 100%.
3:07
Or my favorite yeah, my favorite is so true. So true. Or so deep. Yeah, so deep.
3:11
Those are my favorite comments.
3:12
No, I I I do I do believe that you genuinely live that.
3:15
And obviously you used to be an elementary school teacher.
3:18
Elementary teach the third grade in Toronto in a neighborhood called Rexdale and it was heavy immigrant area, you know, a lot of kids whose parents were overly educated, you know, they back home they were doctors, lawyers, engineers and they came to Canada and then their education wasn't converted so
3:36
now they're working in donut stores and and gas stations and factories and they had a really strong priority for education but they may not have had the means and it was such a really interesting dynamic and just trying my best to communicate with these kids cuz I really kind of felt like they were me. You know, my father had a
3:52
You know, my father had a master's degree in economics, came to Canada, had no opportunity to to use the education.
3:59
So, instead, he became a cab driver, drove cab until he retired in 2015.
4:05
And he always stressed education because he never got the opportunity to kind of realize his own. Mhm. Yeah.
4:09
What did you learn about how humans learn by being a teacher?
4:14
I think the first thing that I learned and I even mentioned it in the introduction for the for the book is the fact that we all are almost completely empty vessels when we start.
4:24
And then I tell the story about telling a child to, you know, put on your boots and put on your snow pants.
4:29
And the kid will put on his boots and then struggle to get the pants on because they will take what you say literally and say it the way you did.
4:37
And it really made me become very self-aware of how many gaps I fill in every day with my own biases and my own context when somebody speaks to me.
4:45
And these children are empty vessels, so when you start to see them and you communicate to them, there's so much opportunity to kind of mold and shape them to to think a certain way.
4:54
And that can go either way.
4:56
That can be a great thing or that can be a negative thing.
5:00
And I was really trying to, instead of teaching them a specific thing, really try to get them to fall in love with the idea of learning, the idea of exploring and kind of taking things to where they needed to take it for their own natural journey. Mhm.
5:13
Now, this book, Unlearn, Yeah.
5:15
I love the title because it's so funny.
5:18
Around the time we met, I was giving a lot of talks and I kept using the word unlearn as well.
5:25
And I and I got fascinated with that word because everyone's talking about like in this age you've got to be a continuous learner.
5:29
And you've got to consistently learn and to stay up to trends and all that kind of stuff.
5:33
It's all about learning, learning, learning.
5:36
And here you are going counterintuitive and saying, "No, no, no, guys.
5:40
I've got 101 simple truths to unlearn." Yeah. Tell tell me about that.
5:45
I think what happened was again, I was an elementary school teacher, which is a very safe government job.
5:48
All my colleagues are on my team.
5:50
There's no competition, you know, and it was and I came from being in the school system to working in the school system.
5:56
And, you know, I had a creative itch and when I got into the entertainment industry, you know, I just got torn apart.
6:02
You know, I got ripped to shreds.
6:04
The first people to recognize my talents were there to exploit me.
6:08
You know, I lost a lot of money.
6:10
I got ripped off a few times, betrayed by people I cared about.
6:13
And what I realized was I didn't have to learn new things to navigate in this world.
6:18
I had to let go of a lot of ideas and biases and idealisms that I carried that, you know, I could afford to carry in my previous life that were now weighing me down kind of in this.
6:29
So, you know, living in the structure I kind of look at it as leaving the zoo and going into the jungle.
6:34
You know, and now you're definitely a lot more free, but, you know, no one's bringing you your food.
6:41
No one's there to keep you safe.
6:43
And, um, I realized that like I had a lot of biases and I had a lot of, uh, expectations for how I thought the world was going to treat me and I had a lot of entitlements and I had to kind of shed those.
6:55
And it was kind of the idea of, you know, letting go to gain more.
6:58
Tell me about one of those powerful biases that you had and tell me about a moment when you saw it not serving you and then when you had to switch it, when you unlearned it.
7:09
Um, I think definitely ignoring words and paying attention to actions, you know, and I think what I was doing was the opposite.
7:16
I really wanted to believe something, so I would ignore actions.
7:20
I would I would ignore patterns and I would really cling on to words.
7:24
I was like, "Well, what they said they said they would do this for me."
7:26
Or they said they meant it.
7:28
They said I mattered, even though their actions completely contradicted that.
7:31
And, you know, when things blew up in my face and you sit there, you know, they always say hindsight is 20/20.
7:37
Um, that's that was the moment I wanted to take ownership, and I was like, "Okay, wait.
7:44
I should have seen this coming because now playing it back, here are all the pieces that this person revealed to me through their actions."
7:51
So, I think at that point I said, you know, "Actions scream where is whisper."
7:54
So, now, you know, I'm always paying attention now for patterns in behavior, even for myself.
8:00
So, I might say, you know, a a lot of things, but if my actions contradict that, my actions are what matters.
8:06
And you know, that that's a very important idea whether it comes to our relationships with other people, but also for ourselves.
8:11
You know, instead of us telling people what's important to us, we could just simply show them our schedule because our schedule will show our priorities on a subconscious level.
8:21
And that's the deeper stuff that actually really represents who we are.
8:25
That's such a practical thing everyone can start doing today.
8:27
And I think that that goes back to I needed the practical stuff.
8:30
I didn't need the motivational stuff.
8:32
I didn't need the fluffy stuff.
8:32
I needed the stuff to make me feel better now.
8:35
I also needed the stuff to help me turn my life around now because I was in a I was in a very difficult situation.
8:40
I had left my my job as a teacher to become an artist.
8:46
And I wasn't in the best financial situation as a teacher because I was a young kid making money and not knowing how to spend it.
8:52
And uh when I became an artist, I had no idea how my creativity was going to pay any of the bills.
8:58
And I needed to figure I needed to get my mind in the right place to kind of figure this out. Mhm.
9:02
And that really meant, you know, shedding my entitlements, shedding many of my expectations, uh not being so idealistic, and really trying to find the source of where did all this stuff come from?
9:15
Why do I believe these things?
9:16
And is it okay to let go of these beliefs without losing who I am?
9:21
And I think that was kind of the premise of this journey of unlearning.
9:23
And I realized that, you know, to be a lifelong learner is also be a lifelong unlearner. Mhm. Absolutely. Absolutely.
9:31
There was I can't remember who said it now. You might even know.
9:35
They they said the illiterate of the 21st century Modern literacy, I think it's Bertrand Russell. Was it Bertrand Russell?
9:40
learning, unlearning, and relearning.
9:40
It was Yeah, that was Yeah. it's Bertrand Russell.
9:44
illiterate will be the ones who can't learn, unlearn, and relearn.
9:48
Yeah, for the 21st century. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
9:50
Yeah, and I I love that statement.
9:52
I think it's so powerful because it's so strange how And And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
9:57
Why does it feel harder to let go than it does to add?
10:05
I feel like we as human beings will always gravitate towards the familiar.
10:12
Familiarity is more important to us subconsciously than happiness or anything else.
10:16
So, I think Where does that come from?
10:17
From your opinion, not your perspective.
10:19
I think it's a survival tactic.
10:20
I think going back from when we were, you know, nomad nomadic.
10:25
Um I think uh we our brains were designed to really notice things that stuck out.
10:32
So, we would really be in a familiar, safe situation.
10:35
And then, you know, if you walk into somebody's home, you can smell things that they can't smell cuz their brain's been trained to shut off that smell cuz they need to notice things that are out of place.
10:44
I feel like that's the reason we always know notice what's going wrong and not what's going right because we're trained to figure out what's out of place.
10:51
And I feel like it's the same thing with when it comes to familiarity.
10:55
It's we, you know, if if we grew up in a household and we saw a certain dynamic between our parents, you know, that's our first experience of an observation of love.
11:06
We're going to naturally subconsciously kind of lean towards that in our own relationships if we don't have that self-awareness to kind of want to break that cycle, even if it's an unhealthy situation.
11:16
So, I think the familiarity of it is what kind of trumps everything.
11:20
And I know even on a positive note, I for me to improve my quality of life, I really lean back to nostalgia.
11:25
I really try to, you know, I wake up in in and go for a walk and I enjoy the walk not just because it's exercise, but it reminds me of being in the fourth grade walking to the bus stop and the a little bit of the chilly air in Toronto and you know, that when the sun's out at that angle, just the feeling and the vibes.
11:42
And I think a lot of us always we feel happiest when we feel like we're children again. Mhm.
11:49
Yeah, that that I totally agree with. Yeah.
11:51
I've been playing a lot more lately recently.
11:52
You've been playing a lot?
11:54
I'm trying to engage play into my life. Yeah. The the feeling of play. Completely.
11:58
And so whether that's playing a sport, which without the pressure of competition or winning, but still playing a sport without the feeling like, oh yeah, we've got to win.
12:07
Obviously, I'm still playing to win, but but not with that pressure. Completely.
12:11
Or or even if it's playing more video games again or whatever it is, like just feeling like a child again without doing things with rigid structure, force. Completely.
12:21
I don't think we we we should never lose that.
12:22
I think we we should never lose that childhood curiosity and the excitement.
12:26
And I think what ends up happening is when we don't actively seek it, then I think subconsciously we just stick to the familiar and that's where the danger is because we start to mistake our beliefs and our values for ourselves.
12:40
And now we're like, well, if I abandon that belief, I don't know who I am anymore.
12:46
And I think that's where we get in a lot of trouble because now we're some of those beliefs and values are stale and outdated or um they're not practical for the new lives that we live.
12:55
And I think, you know, if you were in a a difficult childhood and you had to put on a brave face or you had to have a certain level of emotion to deal with that, and now you're an adult and you're in a safer environment, you don't need to carry those same strategies over.
13:07
Now, what helped you then could be hurting you now.
13:11
And we need to be constantly reevaluating ourselves, being aware of it and trying to figure that out.
13:15
it and trying to figure that out. And I mean, I'm I'm picking it up on every way, shape, or form from the way my mother used to punk me off for not clearing out the lint in the in the dryer and realizing that I say that to other
13:27
people to, you know, picking out my flaws, you know, based off what people told me when I was a kid to, uh, you know, I think recently when I was a when I was in high school, I didn't feel like I was, uh, you know, good-looking enough to get girls or what have you. And then when I
13:41
And then when I became a public figure, I started leaning towards modeling.
13:44
And it wasn't because I cared about modeling.
13:46
It It was because I wanted the validation.
13:49
Like, "Oh, look at me now.
13:49
I wasn't cool enough in high school."
13:51
And then you realize you're like, "Hey, I'm trying to I'm speaking to an invisible audience."
13:56
A bunch of people who don't exist, you know?
13:58
And whoever has said those mean things to me when they were 15, they probably grew up.
14:02
And they're probably nice people now, too.
14:06
And, uh, I actually had an experience with that.
14:08
I was, uh, when I was about 10 years old, there was this there was this boy who would always He was younger than me, and he would always just try to start trouble with me.
14:14
He'd say a lot of racist things to me, and it really I was always on edge around him.
14:20
And then, you know, I thought he moved away.
14:22
And then I I ran into him at a party in university.
14:28
And I don't know if he recognized me or not, but he was the kindest, sweetest, most accommodating person at the party.
14:35
He was like, "Hey, welcome.
14:35
Can I get you something to drink? What's going on?"
14:38
And you realize you're like, it was He wasn't a He was a 10-year-old kid being a jerk cuz that's what we all do.
14:44
And now he's an adult, and he grew out of it as well.
14:46
And really being able to let go of that and realizing how often that situation created tension for me moving forward.
14:55
You know, uh, specifically he was a ginger.
14:59
So, I remember like not being aware that anytime I was around other gingers, there would be a a little little bit of tension.
15:06
And, um, I think that's what my journey's been now is being like, "Okay, well, why do I feel the way I feel now?
15:12
And what do I think the root of it is?" And it's exploration.
15:14
It's just kind of looking inside this universe within us to try to better understand ourselves.
15:20
And when we do that, we can better understand the world around us. I love that, man.
15:24
We're speaking to an invisible audience.
15:25
There really is an invisible audience. powerful.
15:28
That is so powerful, man. I love that.
15:31
Because what you're saying is we're basically creating a reality based on something that's subjective and almost unreal to a certain degree. Very unreal.
15:40
I think, you know, I had another friend, um, she went to some psychotherapy for a friend experience she had and what they realized the root of the issue that she went through was when she was like 7 years old, her mother left her at her aunt's house to go run an errand. And she felt abandoned.
15:58
Cuz a 7-year-old mind to process that, it felt like abandonment.
16:01
And she had as an adult, the exercise required her to go and speak to her 7-year-old self.
16:06
And as an adult, she was like, "Listen, Mom left us not because she doesn't love us.
16:11
She left us because she trusts us that we could be by ourselves with our aunt.
16:16
It was a It was a sign that that you're that she trusted you and that you could be responsible."
16:20
Because with from the adult lens, we can see it from different context.
16:24
And she's like, "Immediately I felt my shoulders drop.
16:28
Immediately I felt lighter moving forward."
16:29
And we don't realize how much of the stuff we carry throughout our lives until, you know, we face it. Yes.
16:37
And then the moment we face it, it usually hits us on a physical level where you're like, "Oh, I addressed it and my shoulders drop. I feel lighter.
16:43
That weight on my chest isn't there as much."
16:45
And I think I've become put myself on a journey to find out how much of that I can do.
16:50
And as I learned it for myself and I began sharing it on social media, the top comment kept being, "You're telling my story.
16:57
How are you living in my head?"
16:59
And it made me realize that we're all in the same boat.
17:03
We're all dealing with the exact same things.
17:05
And me as a writer and somebody who can put words together, I think it's it's it's it's my my job now, but it's my pleasure to help people figure out their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and and simplifying it.
17:18
I taught grade three for a long time.
17:19
I know how to take ideas and simplify them and make it digestible. Yeah, absolutely, man. No, you do it so well.
17:24
When I was reading through the book yesterday, I was just like everything's so well articulated. Yeah.
17:31
And I loved what you talked about.
17:31
Even if you repeat yourself twice, you're still presenting it through a different angle. Completely.
17:36
And and you know, like you said, if if anything's uh worth saying, it's worth repeating, and I love that because but even when you're repeating it, because you are a writer and a wordsmith, it doesn't sound the same. Mhm.
17:47
I I'm you're unpacking it a layer deeper. Yeah.
17:49
And and that's what I love about what you're talking about right now, that this unconscious bias that we all experienced.
17:55
Mine big one last year was all around wealth and money. Mhm.
18:00
So, I grew up in a household where we always believed we had enough.
18:02
Like that was our language.
18:04
So, I never had a lot of money growing up, but I wasn't broke. Yeah.
18:08
And so, we always grew up with the language of we always have enough.
18:09
Like enough to get by, enough to survive, enough for Christmas, enough for this.
18:16
And so, I had always grown up with that mentality I'm always going to have enough. Yeah.
18:20
And it was just so interesting to me how I'd programmed myself unconsciously to see money as negative, uh to see money as as an aspiration as negative, and not realizing that actually, yes, it didn't have to be my aspiration, but it could be a tool or a resource, or it could be a powerful element that could be used for a higher purpose, too. Completely.
18:41
And the feeling around enough, like that word enough was just so limiting and so debilitating. abstract. So abstract.
18:46
Like enough, what is enough?
18:50
Enough in London might end up being a very different definition than enough in New York, than enough in Hollywood.
18:56
You know, one day, you know, you're hanging out with your with your buddies, and uh you know, you have more than enough to go out to dinner at at the local pub, and but then you come out here and you start going to some of these bougie spots, and all of a sudden enough isn't enough anymore. Yeah.
19:09
And you start to realize how much of this is we create the definition and we have so much power to redefine these things depending on who we hang out with, what values we chose to to hold dear to us, and also how we view ourselves.
19:22
Cuz sometimes if we don't feel like we're enough, then now we're trying to consume all this external stuff to try to compensate for that, but it never works.
19:32
So, what's a good practical step for someone to take to first of all identify their biases, their their unconscious biases or the biases that you may How do you first identify them?
19:42
I think the first thing is there's got to be ownership.
19:45
Um I think in every single situation, no matter what it is, um there's always what somebody else may have done to us, what the universe or what our environment, uh what external factors, uh how they impacted us, but there's also a level of responsibility that we can take.
20:01
What decisions we made, um what expectations we had going in, um what what values and what things that we found are important.
20:10
I think when we start taking ownership for those things, when then we realize that's where our power is.
20:15
You know, uh if I have if I have a lunch date with you tomorrow and you just don't show up and you don't call, you don't do anything.
20:22
I can start to start put putting a lot of blame on you.
20:26
I'm like, "Well, Jay stood me up, you know, Jay's not a reliable person."
20:30
I can say all these things, but that is just putting all the power in your hands.
20:33
You know, when whoever we give the responsibility to, we give the power.
20:37
Or I can be like, "Hey, what are my responsibilities in this?
20:41
What what could I have done differently?"
20:42
And when we take ownership, I think we empower ourselves to make our situation better and then it's no longer win or lose, it becomes win or learn.
20:50
And I think when we start looking internally at every situation and I have a friend recently he went through a very challenging breakup and I can I can see now that he's kind of dug himself some light to the end of his tunnel and he's because what he's saying is you know, I don't talk about what she did to me anymore.
21:09
I talk about what she did for me. Mhm.
21:12
And I'm realizing he's taking a lot more ownership, he's doing a lot more self-actualizing and I think that's always the first step.
21:18
I think um I'm really big on no complaining.
21:20
Um I don't see a lot of value in it. Um Totally.
21:25
I don't see a lot of value in venting to to other people repeatedly.
21:26
I think you know, obviously get some stuff off your chest as an artist.
21:29
I'll I'll take my stuff off my chest through my art, but um I think we all need to feel connected.
21:35
We all need to to bond to something and and self-pity is a very easy fast food way of doing so. Mhm.
21:44
And I encourage people to kind of take that out of out of their diet and start taking a little bit more responsibility cuz when you take the responsibility, it's not simply about blaming yourself, it's about when you start taking responsibility, you have power now to start changing things and you can't obviously rewrite the past, but now you are better equipped to to start to write your future.
22:04
Self-pity is like fast food.
22:07
You need to take it out of your diet.
22:09
Yeah, it feels good in the short run.
22:09
It really feels good in the short run. It's I love that.
22:13
And I don't want to hold it against anybody who who for feeling it and and it took me a while to kind of pick up on it.
22:18
It's it's convenient, it's quick, and it's cheap. Mhm. Just like fast food.
22:22
Um and if you do too much of it, it's going to it's going to bite you in the ass just like fast food, you know?
22:27
So, just be mindful of it and I think just always with a lot of the people I'm speaking to and and and hearing that is always the one thing I try to encourage and people don't like to be told, oh I can't feel sorry for myself in this situation.
22:39
And there is a very, in my opinion, a very defined line between self-pity and self-compassion. What is that?
22:46
Yeah, I was going to ask that.
22:47
That was my next question.
22:48
Um I think self-compassion is kind of recognizing if you've been hurt that you require time for that injury to heal. Mhm.
22:55
Um you know, let's say you break your leg.
22:56
You have to understand that it might take you 6 weeks of not putting any pressure on it to to heal. Mhm.
23:00
Um That's self-compassion. That's self-compassion.
23:04
Knowing what's necessary, knowing the patience was necessary for you to get better.
23:08
I think self-pity is kind of picking at your cast and and and picking at the scabs and really wanting to define yourself through your injury and wanting other people to feel sorry for you because you you start to feel connected.
23:23
It makes you feel less alone. Mhm.
23:24
Um you also feel more connected with yourself when you're like, "Well, nobody understands me but me. Nobody else gets it."
23:30
And I think when you start to realize that, "Hey, I get it.
23:36
It's your first heartbreak.
23:37
But, you know, there are a million heartbreak songs.
23:42
Clearly, you're not the only person who's gone through this and that doesn't mean your heartbreak is any less intense.
23:47
It just means this is a common thing and you can actually learn from others who went through this as well.
23:52
And if we address this as as a community, it'll be a lot easier versus isolating yourself from other people and and kind of going through a negative downward spiral. Yeah, absolutely, man. No, I love that. That's super powerful.
24:06
Yeah, I read an article the other day that said it takes a village to deal with mental health. Yeah. Right?
24:10
And it was just that whole principle about community and the principle of that you've just raised now.
24:17
your relationships matter.
24:17
I think your relationship with yourself definitely is the most important and it sets the tone for the type of relationship we can have with other people.
24:24
Um but we definitely can improve the relationship with ourselves through our relationship with other people.
24:31
I had a friend recently just bring that up as well.
24:34
Um you know, they they work with a lot of people and they said they had the self-awareness to be like, "It's easier to stand up for other people than it is to stand up for myself. I avoid conflict.
24:45
Um I don't want to you know, I don't want to shake things up.
24:47
But if I see someone being disrespectful to somebody I care about, I no longer care.
24:53
I can I can I can get in there. I can be assertive. I can be aggressive.
24:55
But I can't do it for myself.
24:56
And um I think that's something worth exploring, too.
25:01
Sometimes we don't think we're worthy to of being stood up for or we're worthy of love, uh but everybody else is. Mhm.
25:05
And um the truth is we are worthy of it as well.
25:11
You know, we're all a work in progress.
25:13
We all have flaws, and obviously we're going to like other people more than we like ourselves because we know ourselves more. Yeah.
25:19
You know, obviously we we see them in smaller doses.
25:21
But we're all worthy of it, and the how you treat yourself will set the tone for how other people will treat you. Mhm. Absolutely, man. Yeah.
25:30
You're like dropping dropping them in this book. them.
25:33
I'm reading the book right here. You guys can't see it. It's off camera.
25:35
I'm just rereading the book. them out of book, guys.
25:36
He's just He's just reading them out of book. Don't watch the video. No, it's amazing, man. I love it.
25:42
I love it because it's You're You're not just You're not just quoting stuff.
25:46
It's when you're sharing it's real.
25:49
So that Okay, first step is ownership. And I love that. Ownership, yeah.
25:53
that's a great first step.
25:53
Second step, now that I've identified it, I've taken ownership, what do I do now?
25:57
I think recognizing that you were you know, you are not your identity is not your absolute choices.
26:04
So if you made a decision that you're no longer proud of, that's okay.
26:09
And I think, you know, we learn from that.
26:11
I think uh in the book I talk a lot about belief.
26:12
I think a lot of people identify themselves through their beliefs, um especially, you know, in today's age with the tribalism, you know, everybody's taking sides, whether you consider yourself left wing, right wing, what have you.
26:24
And when somebody challenges your side right now, it actually encourages people to dig even deeper on their side.
26:31
So now the gap is is expanding, and and the distance between people is getting farther.
26:37
So I think what has to happen is we have to let go of the idea that we are not simply our beliefs, and we have to question where did the beliefs come from?
26:45
And I think for me, the moment that I really saw this was when I was a teacher, um I I taught in a community where we had a very large Muslim population and we had we had kids from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, a lot of a lot of the other smaller Middle Eastern countries.
27:04
And so during Ramadan the the ongoing joke is everyone had to celebrate Ramadan because so many kids would would stay home that day.
27:12
It wouldn't be fair to teach.
27:14
You know, if I had a class of 28 kids, about maybe 11 would show up. Wow.
27:19
Because those were non-Muslims.
27:19
So we it'd be the ongoing joke that hey, everybody gets to celebrate Ramadan.
27:24
Whoever shows up that day we would we'd show movies and uh you know, um well for Eid for that.
27:29
But during the fasting I I witnessed, you know, one girl uh kind of uh making another girl feel bad for having a snack. Mhm.
27:38
You know, and you can kind of hear it in in the girl's tone of voice.
27:42
She's just regurgitating whatever her parents were telling her. Right.
27:46
Uh because they're too young to kind of be this judgmental.
27:48
And I think as we grow older, we don't realize that this stuff was taught to us.
27:53
Like we didn't come out the box believing in these things and um that forced me to continually challenge my beliefs and be like, well, where did I where did I pick up that belief?
28:02
Whether, you know, it is something on a spiritual level or whether it's my relationship with consumerism, the idea that buying stuff's going to make me happy, or whether it's the idea that we can live happily ever after, or whether it's the idea of soulmates, or anything.
28:15
Whatever we believe, yeah, I think the the number one question is where did it come from? Mhm. And Great question.
28:22
Yeah, and is that belief and and not to you know, if if if if my parents, you know, indoctrinated me with a bunch of ideas, that doesn't make them bad.
28:31
It doesn't mean I was brainwashed.
28:32
It was, you know, they had whatever tools they had and they were taught by others and we're passing it down.
28:36
But if we have that self-awareness and we're like, okay, well, that belief, you know, so for me a good example was um, when I was a teenager I believed homosexuality was a sin. I believed it was wrong.
28:51
Um, it took meeting a person who was homosexual and hearing their story and realizing that they're a human just like me looking for love.
28:59
And then going back and be like, well, where did I learn that?
29:01
And it wasn't from somebody saying homosexuality was wrong.
29:05
It was from the religious belief that pursuing lust is evil. Mhm.
29:07
And me taking that and reappropriating it, what have you.
29:12
And not holding against anybody who taught me that and realized that hey, everybody was taught what they taught, but now that I have this self-awareness, I can let go of this.
29:21
This is no longer serving me.
29:23
This is closing me off to a lot of amazing, beautiful people.
29:28
Um, so I'm going to let that go. This is not my identity.
29:29
And I think a lot of people they take their the the flag of their identity and they shove it into something to like that's me.
29:35
And now if you insult that idea, you're also insulting me.
29:39
You know, if you insult conservatism, you're insulting me.
29:42
If you're, you know, if you insult the the LA Lakers, you're insulting me.
29:47
You know, if you, you know, if you're if you insult Manchester United, you know, I you know, people they they get very they they find value in that.
29:55
And I think for me it meant that I had to start looking around and explain well, where did I plant my flag? What did I believe?
30:01
And um, that's an ongoing process. It's a lifelong thing.
30:06
You don't just pull your flag out and now you're free.
30:08
It's there's layers to it.
30:10
Once you you jump one fence, you know, you can run a couple meters, you hit another fence. Totally, man.
30:15
And it it's really about discontinuous journey and cycle of kind of shedding these old ideas, uh, adding new ones and then maybe having to shed those soon as well. Mhm. I love it, man.
30:26
Great advice, really practical.
30:27
Anyone who's listening or watching, make sure you're taking notes because yeah, super practical tips. I love it, man.
30:32
But when I listen to you and anytime I'm with you, I feel like you've really dug deep and done the work. Like genuinely.
30:39
Like when I talk to you, I feel like you're like I don't know how long you've been doing it, but you've really been like going inside Yeah.
30:46
and like breaking it down and figuring it out and reflecting.
30:48
I wonder who was supporting that journey for you.
30:52
Like who was helping you pave that way now that you're helping others through your writing, through your books, through your social media, through your video.
31:01
Was there not just specific people, but what was guiding that process for you?
31:05
Or was it really just self-reflection and introspection?
31:07
Um I think a lot of it was was art.
31:10
So I mean, I think, you know, remembering the first time I heard Outkast and, you know, hearing Andre 3000 say, "I came into this world high as a bird, secondhand cocaine powder.
31:21
I know it sounds absurd."
31:23
And being like, "Whoa, this guy just said he you know, this guy just explained that his mother was doing cocaine when she was pregnant with him."
31:30
And being like, "I've never heard that level of honesty in in a hip-hop song."
31:34
And uh hearing Lauryn Hill, you know, sing songs and, you know, she has that that Unplugged album and in the song Get Out.
31:40
And, you know, she's like, "If everything was golden gold, that's how I choose to live."
31:43
And just kind of thinking thinking that and being like, "Okay, how does this What does this mean to me?"
31:48
Cuz sometimes you hear this stuff before you're ready. Yeah.
31:52
And then 10 years later that those lyrics just pop into your head and you're like, "Whoa, this is this mattered to me."
31:58
Um I think I think there was a combination of that.
31:59
I think there was also a combination of, you know, my mother um she injured herself.
32:04
She she used to work at at a factory.
32:06
We had moved to to a neighborhood in Toronto that was around the corner from a factory, Kellogg's, Kellogg's cereal company. She worked for them.
32:14
So we had moved she we had moved there so she could walk to work in about 5 minutes.
32:18
And after about a year she got hurt.
32:21
And uh she could no longer work.
32:23
And um I think she kind of fell into a a a very uh dark place cuz she felt like she wasn't contributing to the family.
32:32
Um I I feel like, you know, my father didn't have the tools to to kind of help her go through it, and she she found Well, she she spent more time at the Gurdwara, you know, the the the the institutions for Sikhis, and she really took a deep dive and and started bringing that into the household.
32:53
Um Sikh means student, and so I think the the one good thing was that she would she'd send me to to various camps and youth camps.
32:59
In in the beginning, they were very superficial, but she started uh the deeper she went, she started taking me places where we started having deep discussions.
33:07
So, I remember being like 11 years old, prepubescent, girls still had cooties, but we were talking about lust and the downfalls of lust, and me not even understanding it at that point, but everything was there, and it was going to make sense eventually.
33:22
So, I think that the deep thinking was always there, and then I made a boatload of mistakes, just a boatload of mistakes, and I got to the point where I literally was uh taking muscle relaxers and drinking NyQuil every day and just lying in bed, literally waiting for someone to save the day.
33:43
And just being like, "Okay, I'm going to wake up and this stuff's going to figure itself out."
33:47
Cuz that's what happens on TV. Sure.
33:50
within 22 minutes, something's going to happen.
33:52
Some, you know, ex machina type situation where someone's the cavalry's going to come in.
33:56
And, you know, if you watch The Pursuit of Happyness with Will Smith, that's one of the things that, you know, that was said to him that that that that turned on that switch was the cavalry's not coming.
34:05
Nobody's coming to save the day.
34:07
And for me, that moment was listening to J.
34:10
Cole, Dollar and a Dream, um and hearing him say, "Listen, now you're going to, you know, things weren't working out for me.
34:16
Are you going to Are you going to grow bitter and cold, or are you going to flip this and and and make this your defining moment?"
34:22
And I think that that was kind of kick in the butt that I needed, and I think that was the point where I was I started rejecting everything that wasn't giving me uh real world um value.
34:36
You know, no longer was I going to listen to the fluffy stuff.
34:39
I I was rejecting the ideas of someone said, "Oh, God's got a plan. Just trust it."
34:42
I was like, "That doesn't help me become a better person."
34:48
I started rejecting, you know, anything that just kind of sounded nice.
34:49
And I was like, you know, so it became And for me, you know, I I was already kind of a little bit rough around the edges with my communication, so I was like, you know, I started posting up The quotes I would start posting up in my place at that time was like, "Sink or swim.
35:02
You want a vacation, go get a day job."
35:04
Um you know, you you miss the shots you don't take.
35:09
You know, and just very straightforward, you know, no nonsense, no sugarcoating, and and really helped me a lot.
35:15
And then when I started sharing that uh on my Facebook at the time, uh immediately people started gravitating towards it.
35:24
And that helped me realize that I wasn't alone in what I was going through, and that we were all going through this.
35:28
And my sharing my journey as I was figuring it out was adding value to other people, and it helped me create a community and connect with people, and I mean that's how we our our our energies found each other.
35:41
And then you realize that I always used to tell that to the people in the world of music, it's just good things happen when you put your stuff out. Totally, man. Yeah.
35:47
Yeah, when you when you're putting out the energy, naturally certain people get attracted and naturally certain people get repelled because you are who you are, and you're putting it out there, and that broadcast either brings people closer or tells people "I don't want to hang out with that person."
36:01
Yeah, and it's interesting cuz a lot of people say, "Oh, do you believe in fate and destiny?"
36:03
And I was like, "Well, I believe in people paying attention and making action."
36:06
So, if someone says, "Hey, I want to become a professional dancer."
36:09
And then somebody might say, "Hey, well, the place you got to go is LA."
36:12
So, then they move to LA.
36:12
It wasn't destiny that brought them there, it was them taking a risk and then paying attention.
36:17
And then somebody said, "Okay, now you're in LA, go to North Hollywood.
36:20
That's where the dancers are at."
36:21
And again, making that move.
36:21
And the person that continually pays attention and keeps making those actions and continually faces their own fears and and decides I'm going to leave my comfort zone, great things will happen for them.
36:32
Now, if you meet them 10 years later and they're a world-renowned choreographer, you might consider them lucky. Yeah. But they weren't. Yes.
36:41
their baby steps added up. Mhm.
36:41
And I and I and I kind of view it the same way.
36:45
You've just got to start making the baby steps. They add up.
36:46
Again, as a school teacher, I realized that hey, like there's a 12-13 year plan to get a child to read.
36:54
You know, we don't just take a 4-year-old and and and and throw Harry Potter in their hands.
36:57
It's first we show them the letters, then we start with the sounds.
37:01
It's very slow, structured, but it adds up.
37:03
And then, you know, it it creates, you know, the greatest literary artist in the world. The the system.
37:10
And if we implemented that to our self-improvement, if we implemented that to our our physical health, our diet, you know, the sky's the limit. Yeah, absolutely.
37:18
So, if someone's feeling like you were beaten down, trodden down, you know, lying in bed waiting for something to happen and they feel like they've been in that place multiple times.
37:31
I loved what you did practically.
37:31
Like you were putting up all these like harsh, straight-up Yeah.
37:35
straight-speaking quotes around you.
37:36
What would be your advice to them when someone kind of feels like they've been in that place for a while now?
37:39
So, I think the one of the the shifts for me was uh I stopped saying can I do this?
37:46
So, I stopped saying can I get out of this hole?
37:48
And I added one word, the word how.
37:52
So, instead of saying can I get out of this rut, I said how can I get out of this rut?
37:56
And I think the the the flame that really worked for me specifically was my goal became I want to be grateful that this is happening. Mhm.
38:07
What do I have to do to be grateful that that guy uh screwed me over on this deal?
38:13
What can I do to be grateful that that girl left me and broke my heart?
38:19
What do I What has to happen?
38:21
What does life have to look like? Mhm.
38:23
And you know, when you know, for example, when the business dealings went bad and you know, I was in you know, $80,000 debt and I had no idea how to earn any money as an artist.
38:32
You know, I I had visions of okay, well, if I have $80,000 positive in my bank account, that'll make me glad that I went through this.
38:42
You know, tough times make tough people. And working backwards.
38:44
You know, now if anybody's an athlete, that's exactly what you do.
38:49
If you want you want to learn how to take a jump shot, you work backwards.
38:52
You start with the footwork.
38:53
You start with the ball handling.
38:55
You do a whole bunch of stuff before you take the shot. Yes.
38:58
And then you take the shot, the exact same shot a million times. Mhm.
39:02
You know, Kobe Bryant still practices the exact same shot. Repetition, repetition.
39:05
So, I think for me again, it was very pragmatic where it was like, okay, how do I get out of this? Okay.
39:11
All right, I need to make money.
39:11
I don't know how to make money.
39:14
Um and then having this memory of meeting this this real estate mogul and him saying, "The way I got rich wasn't by making a lot of money, it was by not spending a lot of money."
39:24
Then looking around my my apartment and being like, okay, wait.
39:28
I got I got I got I got I got I got I got to get rid of all this stuff.
39:29
So, I sold everything on Craigslist. Then I sold the place.
39:32
Then I moved back with my mom and dad, knowing that I could have been doing that 6 months earlier, but the only thing that was preventing me from doing that was the fear of embarrassment.
39:40
Then becoming recognizing that I was afraid of being embarrassed.
39:44
I had For me and for a lot of a lot of a lot of people, you know, we have lovely families and being homeless and on the street wasn't going to ever be an option.
39:52
It was literally just being embarrassed. And then facing that.
39:54
And being open when people are like, "Hey, what's going on?
39:57
Oh, I just saw you do this great gig out here in India.
39:59
Oh, you must be living the life."
40:02
And be like, "No, I'm not. I'm broke.
40:03
You know, I'm figuring it out, but things aren't as fantastic as you may think.
40:07
Yeah, obviously, you know, I got to do a cool a cool thing and I took a picture and posted it online, but things are not amazing and I'm figuring it out and I will get there."
40:16
Um a lot of the other fears I had, I remember I borrowed money from a lot of people that required me to call them and say, "Listen, I owe you money. I don't have your money.
40:26
I'm going to figure it out.
40:26
I'm not going to avoid you, but you're also not going to see me buying expensive stuff right now.
40:31
I'm going to figure this all out."
40:33
And again, it took me 4 years to get my bank account to zero.
40:38
And then also having the self-awareness of every single day I told myself, "When you get that zero bank account, you're going to feel like a million bucks.
40:45
You're going to stand on top of a mountain.
40:46
You're going to cheer, and you're going to feel like, you know, my my pursuit of happiness moment."
40:49
That that lasted a month.
40:50
And then you know, it lasted a month, and you got some other problem, and then you're like, "Okay, I can't There is no happily ever after."
40:58
You know, my movie doesn't end.
41:00
There's the next day after that.
41:00
But then also realizing, "Hey, if I figured out how to go from negative 80 grand to zero, I can keep going."
41:05
You know, and that the the biggest gift that that gave me was teaching me the value of minimalism.
41:14
Because I didn't have much, and I was like, "Whoa, I didn't need any of the stuff that I used to have that I lost.
41:17
I don't miss any of the stuff that I lost.
41:21
I don't think anything I sold I rebought." Wow. Nothing.
41:25
I think, you know, nothing.
41:25
I think the one thing I didn't sell cuz it wasn't at my place at the time was a bicycle, and I kept it, and it was a it was a overly expensive bicycle.
41:33
So I promised myself I would ride it every day to make it worth it.
41:36
Then I fell in love with bike riding. Oh, wow.
41:40
But I mean, I I sold my car. I still don't own a car.
41:42
You know, I mean, we're at the point now where we're taking these ride share services is cheaper than owning a car.
41:46
Um you know, I didn't I sold a lot of equipment.
41:50
You know, now you know, I rent studios and stuff like that.
41:52
I I learned a lot that how much I actually needed to live, how much us as human beings get used to our conditions.
41:59
So you'll get used to very simple conditions, but you'll also get used to very lavish conditions.
42:04
You can have a beautiful house in the hills, and after a year, it's home is home. Yes.
42:10
It'll feel the same, and you'll be looking at some other lavish house wanting more.
42:12
And I think that gave me that perspective of hey, you can keep climbing this mountain. There is no peak. Totally.
42:19
So just have fun, you know, there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
42:23
The rainbow is the reward.
42:23
So have as much fun as you can. Yes.
42:27
Stop taking things so seriously.
42:29
Our time is limited here, so enjoy it while we're here. I love it. Humble the poet, man. Look you check that out.
42:35
We're not done yet, but that is just like wow, man.
42:37
I I The fascinating thing I find is when I sit down with you, we agree on so much. Yeah.
42:44
So I'm listening to you and I'm never trying to debate.
42:46
Anyone who knows me and listens to me knows that I'm not I'm never cynical. I don't debate people.
42:52
I My whole goal is to bring out the best out of someone and and serve someone by giving them a platform to share their light and share their truth. Mhm.
43:01
But what I want to do now is I want to dive into a few things I picked out the book because I I love some of the ones I picked out and you you right you already gone into some of them, but I'm going to pick these out. Yeah.
43:10
So I love this statement that you make and I think it's so important for people to realize this because I think it's a huge one.
43:15
And this book literally busts myths.
43:18
Like anyone who's listening right now, watching right now, this book busts myths, but in a big way.
43:24
And so if you read this book, it's not just a book of cool stories and quotes, it's going to help you bust myths in a big way that are so deeply ingrained in our mind.
43:34
And it's interesting you brought that up, especially with the idea of debate.
43:37
You said, you know, I don't I'm not here to debate.
43:39
And I think what I found was I ended up debating many people not because I wanted to hear my own voice or prove them right.
43:45
It was because I was desperate to to find the the the practicality in what they were saying. That's awesome. Yeah.
43:53
And I would always just be like, "But wait, how how you know?"
43:54
And I would start challenging them until we either figured it out debate then.
44:00
Oh yeah, completely positive debate.
44:00
And then it and it really came from a place of sincerity.
44:02
And I've had a couple conversations with people where they started to realize that.
44:05
They're like, "Hey, you're not just asking me questions, like you you really you know, you don't just want an answer. You want this to work." Yes.
44:11
And I think that's the reason why especially in this book, you know, it it busts myths because those myths weren't helping me. Yes.
44:19
And I and I only wanted to feel better.
44:21
I really wanted to feel better.
44:21
I didn't want to feel better for 5 minutes.
44:23
I wanted to feel better and and and and change the direction of my life.
44:26
And that and that was like the the origins and the purpose of of of these words. Amazing, man. I love it.
44:32
So, this was one that I picked out.
44:33
There aren't very many straight lines in nature.
44:35
I wanted to talk about that. Yes. I agree.
44:38
I don't like the belief I I grew up believing Well, actually, no.
44:43
I grew up believing just like all of us did like the straight line of get a work hard, study hard, get a good job, get married, buy a nice house, buy a nice car, and life will be perfect. And I kind of got to 18. Yeah.
44:53
And that's when I realized that that didn't work.
44:57
Not because I'd done the whole picture because I hadn't.
44:59
But I saw people who had different things.
45:01
So, I saw someone who had lots of money and they didn't seem satisfied. Mhm.
45:06
Then I saw someone who had lots of fame and I was analyzing their life and I was observing and I was like, "Oh, wait.
45:10
They don't have it either."
45:10
And then I was observing someone who was really good-looking or beautiful or whatever it is and they didn't have it either.
45:16
And so, I was looking at all of these people, not that they weren't good people, but they didn't have happiness or meaning or fulfillment.
45:21
And so, the straight line just didn't add up. Yeah.
45:25
So, let's break that down because I think that's such a powerful myth to bust. Yeah, completely.
45:29
I think I think what we all have to recognize is irrespective of your religious beliefs, irrespective of of your heritage.
45:35
Um, if you're listening to this interview in English, you probably grew up in a society that was kind of based off Western philosophy, whether that was Judaism, Islam, or Christianity.
45:45
And they and they kind of they set this tone of a straight line, you know, do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, and at the end there is a reward.
45:55
Um, you and I both grew up in Eastern philosophy, which is cycles.
45:59
Everything works in a cycle.
46:01
So, we're not we don't think in straight lines, we think in terms of cycles.
46:04
And when you start looking at life, you're like, well, this you know, maybe not in LA.
46:07
Well, where I come from in Toronto, we have four seasons and they continually go in a cycle, yeah.
46:13
London only has one season, too. London has miserable.
46:15
Well, yeah, miserable and then when I visit, I bring the sunshine.
46:19
So, and that's a cycle, too, cuz I will continually visit.
46:21
But, I think the realizing that things kind of work in a cycle, you know, everything has a beginning, middle, and end and then a rebirth and a death and what have you, it made me realize that, hey, nothing works in a straight line.
46:34
Um there's no straight path to success, there's no straight path to happiness.
46:38
Everything works in cycles and that's okay.
46:40
You know, I I I love the the TV show BoJack Horseman and there's a line in there where, you know, his agent says to him, "You thought winning this Oscar was going to make you happy, you forever, but it won't.
46:53
But, it will make you happy tonight, so enjoy it." Yes.
46:56
And you know, this whole idea that we we want this everlasting happiness, but there's a cycle.
47:01
The cycle is that fortunately and unfortunately, nothing will last forever.
47:05
You know, not our worst day, not our best day.
47:07
And that's okay, it's a cycle.
47:09
Summers don't last forever, winters don't last forever, friendships don't last forever, life doesn't last forever.
47:15
The the great moments won't last forever, the hardships won't last forever.
47:19
It's always going to be an an endless cycle.
47:23
We are part of an endless cycle of birth and death.
47:25
And um really to understand that, hey, our society was structured on this straight line and it's okay that we've all been kind of you know, when we don't know, we're always going to be dancing on the template that was kind of given to us until we decide, hey, this guy has to be something else.
47:43
And to be honest, I think the entire world right now is on that template and it probably would be very disruptive if we all left at the exact same time.
47:51
Um so, for me, it was really recognizing that, hey, it's there's going to be a lot of twists and turns.
47:58
There's going to be a lot of ups and downs.
48:01
And it's supposed to be that way.
48:01
And that's the only reason it's interesting.
48:05
If you take anybody you admire from human history and you want to read the story of their life, you don't it'll be a very boring book. Totally.
48:15
You know, it'll be a very boring movie. Yes.
48:17
Anything if it was just a straight line and everything worked out.
48:20
You know, uh I think Bill Gates said that success is a lousy teacher.
48:23
And from that perspective is is we have to embrace these challenges.
48:28
And recently I was I was hanging out with a with a new friend I met and I and I asked them, "What are you looking forward to?
48:34
What are you excited about?"
48:35
And they said such an interesting answer.
48:37
"I'm really excited about all the chaos in my life right now.
48:41
There's a lot of chaos and conflict in my life and I know it's here to teach me some stuff and I'm really looking forward to tackling it and learning from it."
48:49
And I'm like, "That's such a refreshing mindset."
48:50
Cuz most other people are like, "Oh, I'm stressed.
48:53
You know, nothing's working out. I just need a break."
48:57
And And I think for me I'm also realizing that hey, breaks don't work.
49:01
You can Everybody watching you've you you've had a big project you had to do, you had a big deadline, you had a big paper you had to get done.
49:06
And then you promised yourself 3 days of just relax and those 3 days happen and then Monday comes again and you're not rejuvenated. You're back to it.
49:14
And so what I realized is hey, you got to have those breaks every day.
49:18
You got to take those naps.
49:21
You got to have that me time.
49:22
You got to play the video games.
49:24
to You got to watch those silly movies.
49:26
You got to do that on your day-to-day basis.
49:28
And there are no straight lines in nature.
49:30
So let's stop trying to have a straight line in our own life.
49:32
And you know, when we flow the way everything else is flowing and when we respect the way everything else works, um I always say you don't you know, you can't speed up the snow melting.
49:43
You can't speed up that broken leg healing.
49:46
You got to respect the time these things take.
49:47
And when we apply that to our lives, I feel like it reduces a lot more of the tension that we feel, that we impose upon ourselves.
49:55
Cuz we want to get over that heartbreak yesterday.
49:57
We want to get out of debt yesterday.
49:59
We want things to happen now, now, now.
50:01
But it's those challenges that make life interesting.
50:05
It's those challenges that make that give us the character that we need to be the interesting people that we are.
50:11
Um and it's those that it's it's those challenges that teach us lessons that we can pass down to other people so they can start a little bit further ahead of us.
50:21
And now they can address new challenges, new cages, um new new new levels and depths of biases and context that we may have, that we may not have the time to explore on our own journeys.
50:32
And I think that's the cool thing about us as human beings is we can pass forward that teaching and and you know, the same way our parents started a certain level and we get to start a little bit ahead, you know?
50:43
And it makes me excited about what if I have children, where where where do they get to start?
50:48
And you know, generation from a generational level moving forward.
50:50
And and and it reminds me that listen, look, we're not the end-all be-all.
50:55
We are a drop in the ocean, but as Rumi says, we're also an ocean in the drop. You know?
51:00
So let's play our part in the grand scheme of things, but let's also realize that grand scheme exists all in us.
51:07
And and it's it's it's scary, overwhelming, but it's also extremely liberating.
51:10
And that's kind of how I look at it. Huge advice, man. Yeah, I love that.
51:13
And and there's been two ways that I've dealt with it and I loved yours.
51:18
My way has been every time something doesn't work out, I'm going through a period of chaos or uncertainty or I'm trying to get something that's not working out.
51:27
There's two things I've always said to myself.
51:28
One is don't judge the moment because I feel like we try and label and judge the moment as being bad.
51:35
And I had a lot of friends who were like, "It's a bad period for me right now."
51:40
Or it's a bad day for me right now.
51:42
It's a bad life for me right now.
51:44
And you're just stretching out that moment and you're judging that moment which we know could be the best moment of your life. Mhm.
51:50
And so my first thing is never judge the moment because my judgment could be so wrong and then I'll live to regret it later because I looked at it differently.
51:58
And the second thing I've always done is I've always always said to myself this only makes the story better. Right?
52:05
When I whenever I can look at a failure and be like, yeah, I got this failure so that when I tell this story one day to myself, it's going to feel better because I'm going to be like, yeah, like that what you just said.
52:14
Like there's no movie of someone's life or there's no book or history of someone's life that would be exciting if everything just worked out. Mhm. And and we forget that. We forget that.
52:26
And for me, one of the best ways I've processed it that was those are two questions that or two things I say to myself, but it's I've recognized that in life I feel we're always in five modes and it's the cycle that you're talking about.
52:38
Like we're in five steps of a cycle.
52:38
So we're either learning, we're either experimenting and testing, we're either performing, mhm, we're either struggling or we're thriving. That's beautiful. Right?
52:48
So that's the five modes of our cycle of life.
52:50
You're either learning something, you're experimenting and testing, you're performing, like you're just making it happen, you're struggling, or you're thriving.
52:57
The problem is we all always want to be thriving.
53:00
So everyone every year is like, why am I not winning the awards?
53:04
Why am I not making the most money? Why what you said.
53:05
Like we want everything now now now now now. Completely.
53:08
And so we want to be in thriving when actually we're wasting all our energy pushing ourselves pretending to be in thriving. Yeah.
53:14
When you could just be learning. Completely.
53:16
And I've seen that happen in my life so many times.
53:17
And thriving to everyone who's listening, thriving is 1% Yeah. of all of it.
53:22
No matter how good your cycle is, thriving, like you said, that enjoy it for one night. Yeah. You know what?
53:28
That's where you spark this thought.
53:29
And I and I feel like back to even your point of judging is not only should we stop judging things as bad, we need to stop judging things as good.
53:36
We all have and and I know this without having to I can read your entire audience's mind.
53:42
We've all had situations where when it was presented to us, we're like, "This is great news."
53:47
Six weeks later, it was the worst thing that ever happened to Yeah.
53:48
You know, none of us own a crystal ball.
53:50
We don't know how things are going to play out.
53:53
And And what we're what we're best uh off doing is reserving our judgment for saying, "Oh, that's good news. That's bad news."
54:01
Cuz we don't know how that's going to play out.
54:03
And it could be anything.
54:04
I mean, you know, Kanye West lost his mother because she was getting plastic surgery. Yeah.
54:08
You know, he attributes that to him being successful.
54:12
If he never became an artist and successful, she would have never gotten plastic surgery and she would have never died. It can go either way. And we don't know.
54:19
And the smartest thing we can say is we don't know. Totally.
54:21
And so when you say reserve judgment, I think that's an amazing thing to do is let's stop evaluating what's happening to our lives because when we stop evaluating it, we can start to look for the opportunities and the good that comes from it.
54:35
And then thriving can be a mindset. Yes.
54:37
You know, and then it can be, you know, no matter what's happening, whether, you know, whether we're in the dirt or whether we're in the clouds, we can have our mindset is what maintains that. Yeah.
54:50
And I think that's the fantastic part about that. Absolutely, man.
54:51
Thank you for adding to that. No, no.
54:53
I mean, that's what that's what I That's what I do, man.
54:56
That's what I I want to You know what it is, too, is it's all I know I'm learning myself, you know, how do I how do I know I understand it?
55:04
It's by regurgitating it, whether you know, making it my own, trying my best to understand where you're coming from.
55:09
And then, you know, also recognizing that I'm extremely privileged to be in your presence.
55:15
There's a lot of people that are that are that are that are consuming your your amazing energy, but they don't have the opportunity to just simply be like, "Hey, what did you mean by that?
55:24
Hey, how do I apply that to my life?"
55:26
And I'm not lost on that.
55:27
I'm not lost on being in your company, how dope it is.
55:31
I'm not lost on some of the professional comedians I get to be around.
55:33
And just hearing these guys talk and cheer me up.
55:36
I'm not lost on the amazing singers whose voices I get to hear acoustically.
55:41
You know, I think as you said, one thing that I learned from you in our last hangout which what you said was gratitude needs to be specific.
55:48
You know, sometimes we're not specific with our gratitude.
55:52
We just need to be grateful.
55:54
Or we say, oh, I'm grateful for the oxygen in my lungs just because people tell us that we should be grateful for that.
55:59
But maybe that's not what we're grateful for.
56:01
Maybe we're grateful that it's cold outside today and we get to try on that new sweater that we never got a chance to wear.
56:06
Maybe we know, maybe we're grateful that that friend canceled dinner on us today cuz we really wanted to catch up on that Netflix documentary, you know?
56:13
Being specific and that that's something that stuck with me off our last conversation and uh I'm grateful that I get to have these conversations with dope guys like you, Lewis, and all these other people and knowing that even the other people that I don't know are a hop, skip, jump away through through my associates if I really needed to ask them a question, I could. For sure, man. No, me too.
56:31
And I feel grateful sitting here with you as well because I like being able to sit down with people where we can really go back and forth on ideas and build and build and build and build and build. It's like playing Lego. Yeah, completely.
56:45
playing Lego with a friend.
56:45
It's like you can keep building something but then that person sees that actually that tower could get higher if you do it this way.
56:51
You're just building, building, building together.
56:53
I feel like that and I feel like what you also do is like if I shine light on something, you literally just take my hand and you just adjust it like half a degree from a different angle and I'm just and I see a completely new picture. It's like, holy crap.
57:05
And I think that's what it is.
57:07
It's it's you're saying things that everybody listening to it right now, they agree with it and they hear it but they were unable to put it in those specific words.
57:15
And I feel like that's the that's the value in the service that I think we're both striving to do.
57:19
It's like we're trying to figure it out and then we're trying to make it digestible for people who are also trying to figure out.
57:26
And that's why they continually say it like, oh, you read my mind.
57:28
It's because, you know, that's what we do, you know?
57:31
and other people in the world are are painting it. Yes.
57:33
Other people in the world are are are putting it in music.
57:36
Other people in the world are doing different things and it's what makes this journey so much more fun. Yeah, absolutely, man.
57:42
It It definitely sharing it by far Yes.
57:46
makes it have more most fun for me.
57:48
Collaborating, connecting, working together on something.
57:51
It's something I wanted my whole life.
57:54
And every time I had make friends when I was growing up, one of the biggest challenges with me and friendships was that it always became a competition. Not from my side.
58:01
I've always wanted to be like on good terms with people and kind of collaborate and be effective.
58:06
That doesn't mean equal, Yeah.
58:08
but in the sense of like I see the good in you, you see the good in me.
58:11
Let's Let's figure this out.
58:12
And I always found that friends I had growing up, especially in my teens, turned it into competition. Mhm.
58:17
He's always like, oh well, how many girls can you get? Mhm.
58:19
Or like who's going to have the nicer car?
58:21
Or who's going to And I was just like, no, man, like, you know, like let Like why does it have to be that way? Yeah.
58:27
And And it's interesting because that's always been I've I've always been trying to grapple with that, but I find like as we mature and get older, Yeah.
58:34
people start recognizing we have different strengths, Yeah.
58:36
but we don't need to compare, right?
58:38
And you talk about that in the book, too. Yeah.
58:40
And I think the the irony of that all, too, is that a friend, uh, Machael Montano, who's a an amazing soca singer out of Trinidad, um, he he'll He said there's three levels to this.
58:49
There's It starts with competition.
58:52
You And then you graduate to cooperation, then you graduate to collaboration.
58:56
And that doesn't even always have to be a deep thought.
58:58
Let's talk about, for example, getting girls.
59:02
You know, you go to the club with your buddies and if you guys view each other as competition, you know, now you become you guys all isolate yourselves from each other, try to go talk to the women.
59:11
But if you guys worked with cooperation, for example, now a group of guys will do better speaking to a group of girls. Mhm.
59:20
And everybody helps each other and it works a little better.
59:22
Now, if you graduate to collaboration, where you say, "Listen, the goal is bigger than the sum of us individually."
59:28
And you're like, "All right, today we're going to help Jay meet the love of his life."
59:34
And now all of us are wingmen and we're focused just on you today.
59:36
And then next time the next time somebody else.
59:40
But, the success rate will be even higher. Yes.
59:43
And it's the same thing with art.
59:44
It's the same thing with what we do is we can view each other as as as competition and now instead of, you know, deep diving into your work, I'm trying to nitpick it.
59:51
And I was like, "Oh, look at this guy's spelling mistakes." Or what's that idea? Or that doesn't apply.
59:56
Or let me find the one time that his advice isn't going to work. Yes.
1:00:01
What, you know, what, you know, let's say for example you said something like, "You know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
1:00:06
And then I'm like, "Well, that doesn't apply if you're talking about cocaine."
1:00:09
You know, I can I can obviously do that.
1:00:11
But, and I feel like, you know, and and you're you're new to Hollywood as well and I've been coming out here for a couple of years.
1:00:16
Here there's a lot of cooperation.
1:00:18
A lot of people like, "Hey, we will both benefit if we work together."
1:00:21
And I I'm really trying to find those people and and I'm trying to with them move it to collaboration, which is what we're working on is bigger than all of us.
1:00:30
And we feel like and I think we all want that.
1:00:33
That's the reason we go to sporting games. Yeah.
1:00:35
We don't It's not about us now. Now it's about the team.
1:00:39
Now we're part of that moment. We're all cheering.
1:00:41
We're all chanting together.
1:00:43
We're a part of something bigger than us.
1:00:44
Now we are that drop in that ocean, that collective ocean again.
1:00:48
And I feel like when people recognize the beauty of that, more people will be more likely to collaborate. Yeah.
1:00:53
And say, "Hey, I'm a part of something bigger than me."
1:00:55
Cuz you can only be a part of something bigger than you when you work and collaborate with other people. Yeah.
1:00:59
And And again, that applies to picking them girls at the club.
1:01:02
That applies to working on a book.
1:01:04
That applies to, you know, being part of a podcast.
1:01:06
That applies to all of that type of stuff. Yeah.
1:01:09
I love how practical you make it, man.
1:01:10
It has to be practical for you to Yeah.
1:01:12
dating and and picking up girls and everything practical. It has to.
1:01:15
Cuz that thing also is cuz sometimes and and I think, you know, the the people that were doing this a generation before us, they always had this whole holier-than-thou, you know, high and mighty.
1:01:26
They always They They always try to keep themselves living up to a certain lifestyle and a standard that um was bound to fail, you know?
1:01:33
They They would have to live secret lives to You know, they They weren't allowed to be human beings.
1:01:39
And I think with guys like us, it's like, "No, we're normal, flawed human beings who are trying to learn it."
1:01:44
And as I said, I put words together.
1:01:46
That's the reason I sound smart.
1:01:49
I'm taking other people's wisdom, I'm learning it, I'm absorbing it, and I'm putting it into simple words because I taught eight-year-olds.
1:01:55
I learned how to use that.
1:01:56
And I always try to remind people that.
1:01:58
That was one of the biggest things when this book first came out independently.
1:02:01
It was really trying to remind people that I'm not a guru.
1:02:04
You want to tell that story? About Yeah.
1:02:05
So, what ended up happening was this book is was such an organic process as in 2014, as I said, I was trying to figure out how to make money.
1:02:13
I'll be completely honest.
1:02:14
I was trying to figure out how to make money, and I started in the music world. I was I'm a rapper.
1:02:17
And and um what happened was I was, you know, when you rap and you make music, you're a recording artist.
1:02:24
I worked with a a studio engineer.
1:02:25
I worked with a couple producers who made my music, and I worked with a film team to make my videos.
1:02:30
And what happened was my studio engineer got in a fight with his girlfriend and stopped picking up the phone.
1:02:38
And I I didn't know how to record.
1:02:38
This is before GarageBand.
1:02:40
And uh I didn't know what to do.
1:02:43
And I had a new friend at the time who was the only other full-time creative I knew in her by the name of Lilly Singh.
1:02:49
And we had just started hanging out, and we were hanging out because we didn't know anybody else who was trying to do what we were trying to do.
1:02:56
And she goes, "Figure out what you can do by yourself.
1:03:00
What can you do by yourself so you don't have to call your video guy cuz if he's not available cuz he's shooting a wedding, or your producer cuz he's busy working his day job, or your engineer is fighting with his girlfriend, he went MIA?
1:03:10
What can you do by yourself you don't need anybody?"
1:03:12
And I I said, "I can write."
1:03:15
And she was like, "Write."
1:03:15
And I go, "I'm going to run out of things to write about and she's like, well you it already sounds like you're making excuses.
1:03:19
Just start writing and see if you run out.
1:03:23
Um and what I used to do is I had a folder on my computer of these really cool pictures and a lot of them were from ad agencies and just I I love the creativity of how they were putting messages across.
1:03:30
So I just took pictures, I'd post them on Facebook and I'd write about them.
1:03:34
And I was so afraid that people are going to be like, hey, we didn't sign up for this.
1:03:39
We want to hear your music.
1:03:40
And you know, at that point I was probably dropping a song one once every three months cuz it took me a long time to make it.
1:03:45
But with this writing I can do it every day.
1:03:47
And I was afraid that once I ran So first I was afraid that they wouldn't embrace it, which they did. They loved it.
1:03:52
And then I was afraid I'd run out of pictures and run out of ideas.
1:03:56
And I ran out of pictures, but I didn't run out of ideas.
1:04:01
And I just promised myself I would write every single day and post every single day and try it out for a year. Let's see what happens.
1:04:07
And again, the first the top comments were, you know, you're speaking my story, you're living in my head.
1:04:12
And then about after 3 months the top comment was, you should write a book.
1:04:17
I didn't know how to write a book.
1:04:17
But I had a friend who was making signs, brochures, and posters for companies on a for a local business.
1:04:24
He would make the the displays for like Home Depot or whatever.
1:04:29
And I said, hey, I want to make a book.
1:04:31
Do you know how to make a book?
1:04:32
He goes, yeah, you have to learn how to use Adobe InDesign.
1:04:33
So he sat there and he taught me how to use Adobe InDesign.
1:04:37
So it took me about a year to write the book and collect the writings and take the thoughts and ideas I believed in.
1:04:43
Took me a year and a half to build the original book.
1:04:44
Learning how to format, how to make pages, how to do margins and widths.
1:04:49
And that happened in 2014.
1:04:51
And what I did was I crowdfunded.
1:04:54
I used a site called Indiegogo, which is very similar to Kickstarter.
1:05:00
The only difference being in Kickstarter, you don't hit your goal, the whole thing is canceled.
1:05:02
Indiegogo, if you don't hit your goal, you can still work move forward. I made up a number.
1:05:09
The number was uh 10% of what I had to give up my my place for.
1:05:15
I sold my my my my home and moved back with my parents.
1:05:17
And I said, "Listen, if you guys help me get the first 10%, I'll figure out the other 90%."
1:05:23
And um I did a crowdfunding campaign for 6 weeks and I passed my goal.
1:05:28
Uh my biggest contributor was a Harvard professor who was doing crowdsourcing to you doing his uh his his dissertation and he was doing his tenureship in sourcing and he did it for like NASA.
1:05:42
And uh he was just excited at the idea of an artist taking his his career in his own hands.
1:05:46
And uh he gave me the largest contribution and we had never met. Wow.
1:05:51
I didn't even know who he was and that taught me that, "Hey, great things happen when you put yourself out there." Totally.
1:05:57
What And I went and asked for help and it was it was really interesting because a lot of people I knew didn't contribute.
1:06:02
A lot of people I barely knew did contribute.
1:06:04
Uh there was one gentleman who uh had a had a business and he used to let me work out of his office instead of me going to coffee shops.
1:06:12
He gave me a large contribution cuz he saw me working every day.
1:06:16
It was just a it was the scariest, most inspiring moment of my life asking for help, letting people know that I need help and everything's not all good and people responding and uh yeah, I used that money and I put the book together and uh from that process I wrote it was about 300 people gave me money and I raised about 26 grand. That's incredible.
1:06:39
Yeah, it was amazing and uh the my favorite piece of that was I wrote a thank you card to every single person.
1:06:45
And again, I told myself, you always talk yourself out of these things like, "You can't write a thank you card to 300 people.
1:06:49
You're going to end up writing the same things."
1:06:50
But it ended up being the most fun I ever had because writing somebody a thank you card is amazing.
1:06:56
Receiving a thank you card is amazing.
1:06:58
It was a win-win for everything and it actually got me to launch my own thank you cards. Yeah.
1:07:01
I have my own line of thank you cards because of that and um really again promoting practical gratitude.
1:07:08
Find an excuse to say thank you.
1:07:10
Whether you're saying it to your mailman, whether you're saying it to you the barista at Starbucks, just find an excuse to say thank you.
1:07:15
And that process taught me the importance of being vulnerable.
1:07:20
And not just being vulnerable for currency to connect with people, but being vulnerable so you can address those vulnerabilities and find your strength.
1:07:27
And not only find your strength, inspire other people to find their strengths.
1:07:30
Because sometimes they think the consequences of being vulnerable be the end of the world.
1:07:35
And when they say and I thought it was too.
1:07:39
And it did not end up being the end of the world.
1:07:41
So when this book came out, it came out independently and I was using it to sell at my shows.
1:07:44
Instead of selling t-shirts, I would I would do a performance in the city and I'd sell the book.
1:07:51
And you know, with with the print service I was using, I was able to ship the book to whatever city I was performing at and it was great.
1:07:56
After a couple of years, I was invited to be on a literary show in Canada called Canada Reads.
1:08:02
Think Survivor for books.
1:08:02
Just a bunch of personalities arguing about books, debating books.
1:08:08
And I wasn't debating my book.
1:08:10
I was just debating a book that I had I liked called 15 Dogs, which is an amazing book about dogs given human intelligence in the city of Toronto.
1:08:19
So I just like these are all my favorite things.
1:08:20
Intelligence, dogs and Toronto. Yeah.
1:08:22
And I debated the book and I won.
1:08:26
And because I won that, it was in the literary community and then people figured out that I I had written I had I had written a book.
1:08:34
And the biggest bookstore in Canada, pretty much the only bookstore in Canada, Indigo, they like we're starting a publishing wing and we would love to to republish your book.
1:08:43
And at that time, I was like, so you guys are going to give me money to email you a PDF?
1:08:49
I was like this, you know, this is a no-brainer.
1:08:50
But once they plugged it into their community of book lovers, it grew very quickly and it became a best-seller and was on the list for about 6 months. Congrats, man.
1:08:58
And yeah, and then and then from there, it you know, I signed with Harper Collins in America and you know, and and now we're releasing it.
1:09:06
And I'm really excited because it's kind of a testament to plant a seed and it grows when it grows.
1:09:13
So, it was independently published in 2014 and now it's getting its worldwide release and you know, 5 years later.
1:09:20
And again, if I wanted it now, when I first published the book, then I would consider the book a failure cuz it wasn't a best seller the day I hit publish.
1:09:31
You know, it took 5 years for this book to grow into what it needed to grow for for the world to to connect with it the way it did.
1:09:38
And I mean, it goes to show that things don't happen on our schedule. No.
1:09:43
We got to trust that process when it happens and just try to have as much fun as we can.
1:09:48
And I'm excited to see where it goes with this now. Yeah, me too. And I'm excited for you.
1:09:52
I think it's a great book.
1:09:54
I I think it's uh I think it's it's what people need in the format that they need it and in the words that they need to hear it. Yes.
1:10:03
And and I love that it's an easy read in the sense that someone can pick it up anywhere. Yes.
1:10:08
And start wherever they need to.
1:10:10
And I say that in a positive way because I feel like anyone who's not got time to read a book or like, oh, you know, I don't know when I'm going to get a moment or I I'm not used to getting through books, this solves all that issue because you can literally just pick up one a day. Completely.
1:10:21
And and that was that was a big thing.
1:10:23
I wanted to really make it I'm not a book reader, you know, and and and the irony of of of getting plugged into the whole literary world is the amount of books that I Every time you have a meeting with a publisher, they send you home with a with a box of books.
1:10:35
So, I have a beautiful library now at my home of books that I haven't read.
1:10:39
But um I realized I'm like, I'm not the biggest book reader.
1:10:44
I I it's a time commitment sometimes.
1:10:47
And um I wanted to design a book that was easy to read.
1:10:52
So, yeah, every every chapter is no longer than two pages.
1:10:54
You don't have to read it in order.
1:10:58
You can literally pick out a random chapter every single day if you want.
1:11:01
You can read it backwards, forwards, skip a chapter, go even numbers, odd numbers, whatever you want.
1:11:06
Uh, you know, you can make a game out of it.
1:11:07
And I think that was the goal with this was really trying to make it easy and digestible and simple and practical.
1:11:14
And that was really the big thing.
1:11:14
And the success of this book, even even the Canadian when it was a a best seller in Canada, there were still spelling mistakes in the book.
1:11:22
And I think this is it was a very important lesson that I wanted to stress with people, especially my artists who are watching and listening.
1:11:29
Things don't have to be perfect. Totally, man.
1:11:32
We we that's an excuse we make like, "Oh, I need a professional editor." Oh, no.
1:11:35
I mean, I I had a proofread but from, you know, a girl I was seeing at the time and my sister.
1:11:39
You know, and they proofread it and even then it was still wasn't perfect. Yeah.
1:11:43
And, you know, it it it it it this this version now that you guys will be getting is is professionally edited.
1:11:49
And, uh, but even then, the amazing editors at Harper who understood my voice Yeah.
1:11:54
and understood that, "Hey, his his job here isn't to sound smart.
1:11:59
His his job here is to be easy to understand and digestible."
1:12:01
And, um, I'm really excited for people to read this and connect with it and and get feedback and, uh, there's an interesting activity at the end of the book encouraging people to write their own chapter and and send it my way.
1:12:14
And just you know, um, that's my favorite part is because what I realized the pattern that I've been picking up most recently is one thing that I was doing subconsciously and not knowing was building community.
1:12:26
I think in the beginning, I have two sisters.
1:12:28
So, I think in the beginning I thought I was always wanting brothers.
1:12:30
So, I was like trying to find brothers.
1:12:32
But what I realized now more is I want a community Yeah.
1:12:36
because, uh, I didn't feel like I fit in with people.
1:12:40
Um, not just as somebody with a beard and turban, but I also felt like as a creative, as an artist, uh, with my my my priorities, with my values, I didn't feel like I fit in.
1:12:48
And the moment I found anybody who kind of was on the same journey as me, it was just like, "That's it.
1:12:55
You're stuck with me now."
1:12:57
And I've been building this community, and I felt like what this book allowed me to do was expand that community and find more lifelong learners, more people who are excited at the idea of having their biases challenged cuz a lot of people don't.
1:13:09
You challenge a lot of people's beliefs and values, and that's a great way to lose a friend.
1:13:13
But, there are a lot of other people like, "Wow, I believed this for the last 20 years, and you just three sentences flipped it."
1:13:21
And I love when that happens to me.
1:13:23
Um I'm I'm scared if that ever stops.
1:13:23
I want to be 80 years old and still have beliefs that I that I held tightly endeared to me and be able to let them go and learn something new cuz that's how we know we're alive. Yeah. Yeah. Me as well, man. All the way. Completely.
1:13:38
Guys, I've seen Humble post every day crossing off the date on the calendar because he's been writing Yes.
1:13:45
and committed to writing this book.
1:13:45
So, I'm excited to share it with you.
1:13:47
Make sure if you enjoy this conversation, go grab a copy.
1:13:50
It's called Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life by Humble the Poet, guys.
1:13:55
So, if you are listening, make sure if you enjoy this conversation, go grab a copy of the book.
1:14:01
If you're watching, go grab a copy of the book. Yes.
1:14:03
It It will just It will just help you take away so many things in your life that are blocking you and and help you find the insights, the wisdom, and and more importantly, just just like real, true emotion.
1:14:19
Uh that I really think's going to help people move forward. Completely. And you know what?
1:14:22
And if you don't dig it, let me know.
1:14:23
Just you know, hit me up on social media after, you know, and just let me know what you didn't like.
1:14:27
And I mean, you know, we'll take that I I am open to constructive feedback, and and and I want that to come across in in the next book I release. I love that, man. Thank you so much, bro.
1:14:38
Thank you for having me, bro. Thank you, man. Thank you.
1:14:40
Thanks, guys, for listening.
1:14:40
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
1:14:46
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikeamonkbook. com.
1:14:56
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.