I believe that what's supposed to be will be and when I can get in that place of acceptance that regardless of what happens with Maniac or the next single or my album and how many first week sales it does and YouTube numbers all of that is not happiness it is completely
the best-selling author and host the number one Health and Wellness podcast on purpose with Jay Shetty hey everyone welcome back to on purpose the number one Health podcast in the world thank you so much for coming back every week to become happier healthier and more healed something that I'm
always working on for myself and one of the things I love about this community that we've built here is I love talking to people who are using their platforms for a greater purpose who Find autistic and creative ways to talk about the things we care about here whether that's
mental health personal growth addiction personal challenges that we go through internally and externally and today's guest is someone who has used their platform through and through to talk about really important interesting fascinating topics I'm talking about multi-platinum and Grammy award-winning
artist Macklemore who's made history with a combination of Commercial Success critical Acclaim and international appeal with a total of 12.8 billion combined streams today and Macklemore is one of the most successful Independent Artists of the 21st century and he's
consistently used his art and platform to raise awareness around issues of addiction and recovery and now the two new singles are out chant and Maniac make sure you go and stream and listen uh Macklemore Ben you could tell me how how you want me to go Ben thank you so much uh for making the
trip to be here thank you so much for this opportunity for having me man yeah fantastic amazing let's get an intro one take oh yeah well we have to cut it down I mean there was so many achievements I was like I need to get back you know everyone knows you are right I grew up listening to music when I was back in
London and so for me to be sitting with you today is awesome and and you'll see that for a few of the questions I'll ask but I wanted to pick out I love this lyric here that I wanted to share with you it's obviously one of yours uh and I wanted to start with this your new song
chant says they told me that I vanished they told me that I had it they told me that I'm gone I told him don't panic yeah and when I was listening to that there's a lot of what they're thinking about where you are right and my question was where do you feel you are today oh
let's just get into it okay you said you like to get in yeah absolutely you know I think there is a constant narrative when you're in the public eye there's a constant narrative about who you are and that ranges between people that love you people that hate you people that you know have maybe heard a song or two
and what I like to get back to is cutting out the noise of any sort of outside influence in terms of who I am as a person that when you put yourself out there when you put out art in any capacity can I do it in a way where regardless of its success or lack thereof or critical Acclaim or
Nothing at All I know who I am and I think that that is the most important part about being an artist because it's very easy to start looking and I was actually I was I was listening to something that you said and you can correct me because I will be wrong but about seeing yourself through
how you think other people see you and how how false that is and we get this very precious light this finite amount of time on this Earth and we waste it wondering what other people think of us and also inheriting how we how we believe that they might be seeing and it's a waste of time and I got to a
point years ago and granted this is a daily process to like completely shed this so I I have by no means arrived but I stopped reading what people were writing I stopped reading reviews and I make art because I love it and when you do that and you come from a pure genuine
place that is where happiness lies and fulfillment lies in the creative process so that's what I'm getting to with those lyrics the chant is just getting back to the core of who I am as a person as a and as an artist regardless of the outside yeah I love that and I love what
you're saying about how it's a daily practice it's something we have to recommit to that ritual of getting back there and blocking out the noise I wonder when was the first time you felt you lost that did you feel you had that and then you started to lose that as certain point or was it something that
you've always been able to like grasp on to even when it's been tough I think that at the height of our success and I look back to coming off of um you know number one Thrift Shop was number one Can't Hold This was number one all of a sudden this music that you feel like is yours becomes the world and it
becomes open you know to public interpretation I think I lost it then I think that um there was a point where it wasn't just a relapse anymore I went back into active addiction around that time period I didn't know how to maneuver the success I had been an underground rapper
forever and as long as like that like you know my entire career was just like this and then all of a sudden there was this Skyrocket moment and when that Skyrocket moment happened and you're at the mercy of the critics and the think pieces and like the people that are out there just to write
scathing reviews or whatever I lost it and when and I compounded that by then turning to to drugs to escape it right like there's no escaping that there's figuring out healthy ways to to cope or even better to heal or to just you know tune it out but I tried to put drugs on
top of that to escape which made it that much worse and for me um you know with my history of addiction it is a progressive disease so I'm I'm putting drugs on top of it and I turn to a place of fear and I think that that fear really was a paralyzing force in that time period where I was scared
I didn't know how to deal with the outside world yeah so around that time kind of and it's crazy because it happened at the height of the success right so I had on one side all these you know Awards and acclaim and millions of people and millions of dollars and all this money and and all these things that
in is society's eyes that's what you're working towards and on the other side I had completely lost track of who I was and the things that actually really mattered and when when did drugs first come into your life like when was your first connection with that because you
talk about your history of addiction right but I'm intrigued by that I I feel like we always talk and I do want to talk about recovery but I feel like it's really interesting watching like when we as young people or as adults get involved with anything of this sort to then go back the other way so when was
your first kind of foray into that space the first time that I ever drank alcohol and I consider alcohol a drug I was 14 years old and my parents drank and I had a liquor cabinet in my house above the fridge and I went into that liquor cabinet and I took one shot of vodka I
was 14 years old and I had on my undershirt I had Tupac in the background I poured one shot I took the shot and uh and I was like oh my God I love the way that I feel right now like I finally am turning this off I took two more I wonder what three feels like another one wonder what four
I ended up I probably weighed 130 pounds and I took 12 shots of vodka in maybe a 30 minute time period and um you know ended up stumbling I got on the bus to go downtown Seattle I ended up throwing up all over myself in a McDonald's the cops came I had to run from the cops
that was the beginning of my drinking career which turned out to be a very painful one um in the moment and in hindsight and yeah you know drugs came along with that marijuana and you know some pills and a bunch of other things but you know that was the beginning of um a very unhealthy relationship from
the very jump and for different people it's different things like for some people it's confidence for some people it's sounds like numbing the noise like switching this off you said was was that the goal was that the intention like where where was that coming from and where did it escalate to like what was
the the reasoning behind it for you the easiest way for me to describe it is that it was like an allergy it was once I had a sip or a hit or a sniff or whatever it was I wanted more and I couldn't turn that off and I never could it was like from the very first time I didn't take
two shots and say you know what I don't want to get busted by my parents like I'm done this was like I took one and and went to 12 in a really short period of time and the longer that I've been in recovery and examining my own life and maybe what led me to that point because
I mean maybe you know it I don't know what the science is in terms of genetics or being predisposed I had some things that um happened at an early age that I think I wanted to turn off and it wasn't until relatively recently that I've kind of examined those and seen other men in the recovery Community
open up about sexual Trauma from an early age and be open and willing to talk about things that happen to them things that like definitely growing up I never heard about and up until relatively recently finding a community of men in recovery I never heard people talk about openly in meetings so I'm
like maybe that was the reason why I don't know exactly yeah yeah no that's that's fair I mean I think it's always a collection of things rather than it being one thing but when you're talking about recovery now and you know congratulations on just you know an incredible journey to recovery when it
was at its lowest plane which sounds like it was when you were at your highest point externally you're at your lowest point internally and it's it's actually not as surprising like that happens so often right like you hear that so often that people had their best moments accidentally in their way
moments internally what was it that did give you reassurance or redirection to say I want to find a way out because I can imagine that's so dark and anyone who's listening and watching maybe they have a family member who's in that position or maybe they have a loved one
or maybe they're in that position themselves and they're listening to us right now and they're like but it is so dark it is so hard it is such a strong addiction that it always looks easy on the other side from the outside but the person who's been through it knows what it's taken right what was it at that low
point that dark point that you said no I I see another side to this life and death what do I choose it came down to that and I knew the truth I had been lucky enough that I had already been to rehab I had already understood that this is the disease of addiction this is an
uncurable disease this is something that I don't graduate from this is something that I don't go into remission like this will be with me forever and as a daily uh reprieve and a daily practice what am I doing for my recovery I went back to the origin the roots of what wrote the
music that ended up being the heist that ended up getting all the awards and all the love and all of that I went back to that place of okay where were you when you felt fulfilled and what did you have and I had a home group where I where I went and I had a service position and I
made coffee for a bunch of other alcoholics and addicts and on Tuesdays in order for the meeting to happen I needed to show up an hour early and put out the chairs in the meeting and I needed to make the coffee and the coffee was trash it was horrible but I needed to do it and I had that accountability I
had that sense of community I didn't feel alone I felt something that I think all human beings want which is to feel a part of and the disease of addiction leads you to isolation at least for for a lot of us um you know right before I went to treatment I would you know the only
person I would pick up the phone for a call was the drug dealer the the blinds were drawn I was in a super dark place now granted after the height of of everything I couldn't hide I couldn't hide from the world I had a full calendar I just wore sunglasses inside and kept going
um but I remember my wife and I and it was after the Grammys and my wife and I we went to India and um you know I was actually detoxing from from drugs during the Grammys like I was like you know maybe three or four days off of opiates and definitely was not out of my system whatsoever so that
place of fear was very still there I never talked about this before and I remember winning the four Grammys and at the after party got a pill from somebody again at the after party and that was the beginning of another attempt to escape everything that was happening my wife and I went to
India and I and I really detoxed and realized that I needed to find my community again that all of this other external pats on the back all these strangers all these people that are are with you for the for the moment but they don't really know me I need to find the people that
really know me that really love me and the people that share this commonality of the disease of addiction because those are the people that speak my same language That Make Me Feel Again a part of and not distant and disconnected and why India What specifically about India
I'm fascinated it's my favorite place on Earth there's something about this spiritual undertone it's not even really undertone you can just feel it energetically moving throughout India um you know we were we were traveling around from from Varanasi to dharmasala to you know Delhi to all over wow and um
no one knew who I was no one cared I was back to just being Ben and there was something so simple about that in that moment and I think that you you travel throughout India and you see extreme extreme poverty and people that are um still happy and fulfilled in that and you
realize that to actually be fulfilled and happy in this world all what we have been taught in the western world that we need these benchmarks in terms of success and square footage of a house and what type of car all of these things do not lead to happiness and I was reminded of all of that and I just I
just love this I just love India that's amazing was that your first time there or you no I've been there before yeah oh wow that's incredible yeah obviously I I've spent so much time in India and that's been such a I feel the same way as you do about it in the sense of it's It's spiritual energy that's just
emanating right constantly yes and I I find it's even easier to develop spiritual practices there and habits there and and things like that what have become some of the habits or practices or rituals that you feel you've formed that have aided this process of recovery Community seems to
be a big one of them you keep referring to being around those people reconnecting with who you were before what what are some other things that you've really worked on that you think of being pillars of supporting you at this time I think service is a massive pillar in terms of getting outside of
self you know it talks about in in some of the literature that I that I work from the disease of addiction is rooted in in self-centeredness and in order to get outside of self the quickest way to do that is to think about other people it's like the the thing that's under all
of our noses it's right there in plain sight and yet we keep going on our this journey of like what do I want right now how can I serve myself what are my needs what are my immediate family's needs but to really actually you know to find like connection with other people it is to
serve and that's something in the recovery community that is one of the you know pillars wow that's a massive part of it and it's looking inward it's doing the step work it is uh figuring out my Character defects really stripping down figuring out who I am and how can I improve and there's so much
work to be done you know I mean and I'm at a very I've been in and out of the rooms of recovery for 14 years now and I relapsed at the beginning of coven so I have a couple years but I still feel like a newcomer I still feel like this is brand new and um I'm just on the precipice of figuring out something
that's uh gonna open a new door yeah service is such a underestimated habit and ritual and hearing you speak about it in that way is so life-giving because I think it's one of those things as you said we've just completely taken out of society it doesn't really exist in our vocabulary
it doesn't really exist in our recommendation to people or as an antidote to anything but as you're saying in in the recovery Community it seems to be a big pillar and a big part of that do you do you remember an opportunity where you got to serve or something where you tried to do something like
that where you felt the benefits that you just described was there a particular example I mean I don't know if there's a particular one that sticks out but I think even to piggyback off what you were just saying in terms of society even with this culture of like
okay now we are working on our mental health now I'm in therapy now I'm you know eating healthy now I'm working out now I'm doing Bikram Yoga like whatever like all of those things are fantastic right like those are all great things of of the self-care model that we have now
but they can still without the balance of service you're still thinking about me me me me right like what do I need right now how how can I get my life you know I need to talk about my trauma and all of that and that's again fantastic it's still easy to be thinking about self in all of those practices and
can you actually have all of that in that still balance am I thinking and showing up for other people and that can be as simple as you know picking up a phone call that you feel like you're too busy to take that can be as easy as listening to to a story of someone
um when you feel like you know you're running and gunning and you're trying to keep up with everything in life and just slowing down and showing up for for others when you don't want to that's the thing is like because services in a way there's still a selfish component of service because you are
still you know this feels good there's something that feels good about it but you're actually you know benefiting others at the same time yeah and it's so counter-intuitive right like we constantly feel like we have to focus on ourselves to solve things but the
study's actually back up what you're saying as well there's so many studies on depression that show that even people who are depressed who support other people are going through depression are happier than those who are not supporting that community and so right even about supporting that same
Community makes such a huge difference and I I know that for sure in my own life that that was the Insight that saved me too was because for me the change happened that I worked harder on myself in order to serve people better so what you're saying by the balance it was like the more I try to serve others
the more I realized that I needed to be purified yeah that's real and so then I worked on my purification in cleansing so that I could yes try and give back better and again this is a daily process I haven't arrived either but that cycle became a really beautiful cycle where
it's like let me work on myself so I can give my best to others yes now that I've given my best I need to refuel and then that becomes this beautiful Journey that you go on as a human and I feel like for me I'm I'm there today too where I'm trying to pour out into people and then I'm trying to pour
in so that I have more Purity to pour out that's a really good observation and I think that yeah it is a cycle it's a constant you know evolution of like oh my god I've been giving so much like now I need to refill the tank you know the spiritual tanker or whatever it is
um that that does get depleted and that there is this balance that needs to be found it's much easier said than done yeah of course absolutely how have your lyrics and music changed at that time because I feel like you know a lot of musicians feel they often write their best stuff in the worst times in the
darkest times because it's raw it's real like you can connect to people's emotions and people also feel that way so they can see themselves in your music right how have you felt as You observe your music evolving and with the two new singles like has that has that impacted the music or
do you feel you're writing from a place of always working on yourself and that's what connects with people I think that I'm always working on myself you know I was you know just in the coffee shop an hour hour and a half ago and I get the coffee and I go to the bathroom and I'm
like you know I just felt this wave of depression and I'm like huh like where where is that coming from I didn't find an answer the darkness is always there I don't have clinical depression by any means I'm you know someone that I would like to think is like relatively happy but I do go through lows I'm a human I'm
going through this this spiritual experience in this human form but I I felt this wave and I was like I wonder if if Jay ever feels this wave of depression which I do want to hear if you do but like but I also had this this thought of like you know this is what
creates art right if we were always just like this or if it was just kept going up and it just got better and better until we died and then we're out here uh it wouldn't be interesting like I need to feel those you know moments of elation and translate that to music I need to feel those moments of of
Darkness uh you know sometimes it's self-inflicted sometimes it's just that way that you don't know where it's coming from but it's like this blanket of Darkness over you and you're like man I gotta fight through this right now um but it all makes great music yeah it all makes great art if you Channel it
yeah but do you feel that yeah I think I I want to answer your question there's some things I could relate to when I was in my teens and I first started hearing about depression and that time it wasn't the norm to talk about those things like today as you said we're we're trying to
talk more about these things but when I was in my teens when I first had someone was depressed in my head I was like how can you be depressed you have everything like that was I was one of those people who looked at a friend who seemed like they had it all together and couldn't
fathom or understand how they could be depressed right it's like you make good money well you know you you have a good situation you know you're a good looking dude like what's what's your you get women like right I had that very basic view as a teenager and then I felt it for the first time
when I left the monastery so I lived as a monk for three years majority of it in India and when I left that's the first time I felt depressed and I was around 25 going on 26 and that was the first time it hit me in my entire life and that was because I had a plan and I had
a direction I was going in and it didn't work out yeah and all of a sudden I had I wouldn't even say a wave I would say a very strong sense of depression and I didn't even let myself admit it to myself at the time because I was so scared about what would happen if I admitted it and so if you asked me
during that time I would have said I'm fine and it was only years later that I was able to locate and say actually I was depressed during that time I just was scared to even say it out loud because I didn't know who to say it to and it was then where my monk skills and
tools that I'd learned actually came to help me and give me that direction now today that was that was nearly 10 years ago since I left so it's been a long time and I'd say today that I get sad thoughts I get depressive thoughts but it's two things one is they don't last as long anymore because I
found a process and tools of what to do with them and the second thing is I see them as useful yeah as you said as insight into what can be changed transformed grown what work needs to happen right so now they're not things they're trying to avoid or things I'm saying are bad or labeling them as
negative I accept that as a human you will always have thoughts but it's your choice what you want to do with them and I've now learned skills and tools that allow me to process them differently than I would have 10 years ago right and so it's not that you will never I don't
think there's anyone on the in the world who could never have a negative thought or a tough thought or a difficult thought because the world is put in such a way that there's constantly conflict there's constantly uncertainty right so unless you're numb from it all there's going to be something that gets
beneath your skin or something that gets into you but it's what you do with that it's kind of like saying wishing for a day where it stops raining and stops being cold it's like that's never going to happen the weather's gonna be the weather yeah it's gonna rain it's gonna get cold it's gonna snow
and you either have your umbrella and your snow boots ready to go or you're going to be cold and wet yeah and so I think for me it's like I'm focusing on what's my umbrella what's my snow boots what's my raincoat you know what are those tools and habits and practices that help me through that does that make
sense 100 yeah I love it yeah I'd be lying if I said I don't have sad thoughts or and I think we have to get out of that because I think we all deep down believe that we will one day get to a place where you don't feel that way and that kind of I feel stops us from getting
there I don't know if you've ever sensed that yeah I you kind of think about getting over something we both talked a lot about getting through stuff yes and with it but I feel like in society we have this idea of you you're an addict and now you've recovered right and you
said I'm in recovery and yes I'm guessing that's language that lost yes completely yeah it's interesting you said that because I the first time that I went to India I was 19 years old and I did a three days silent meditation and on the third day I remember like I couldn't meditate I never had really
meditated I'm trying to calm the Mind follow the breath I have no idea what I'm doing and my business is never going to work for me on the third day I was like up in the hills I was looking out over you know a mountainous terrain and you know I'm watching the trees and
I'm closing my eyes and and the trees are still and you know I'm seeing it through my eyelids and the the breeze came through and I had this moment of meditation where I I didn't have any thoughts you know or whatever version that was I thought that I was having this experience and um
and I felt this wave of just like this warm peace this sustained whether it was three or ten seconds or whatever and um it was this contentment that I don't know that I'd ever really felt and it was interrupted with the thought of but you're gonna lose this but you're gonna go back
and I think that there was a that part of that was like but you're gonna go back to drugs but you're gonna go back to depression but you'll never be able to sustain this and part of I think what the compulsion around using for me is is like you know you get that moment of ah you know like
I've turned off the thoughts or like you know the the drink hits or the drug hits and now I'm you know equanimous in my in my you know being and you know I feel I'm high I I like the effects of this drug and um and then you go down and then you're trying to find that high again when
really for me what I've experienced is the most sustained period of happiness that can be achieved is through a practice of clearing the mind um now do I meditate presently not at all not at all as I'm saying all this I'm like bro why why aren't you meditating man you got to get back
um but yeah I just you know I I remember that feeling of peace and and immediately being like but you're not going to be able to hold on to this it's a lack of a practice Yeah and and that's that challenge right it's like constantly wanting to hold on to anything yeah and constantly want to go
back to anything both of those thoughts I think is what I'm referring to and it seems like we're aligned it's that yeah I feel like those are the two thoughts that actually keep us the most trashed completely so I want to hold on to this and I want to go back to that
and those two things keep you trapped for forever and ever and ever because now you can't experience and you can't present and you can't be yeah and and it takes you everywhere and you know towards more the beginning you were talking about you're like you know life and death like that's you you've had
near-death experiences yeah and that's one of the most challenging emotions and obviously no one ever wants to go back to feeling that way talk us through that of having a near-death experience and how that impacts you when you reflect on something like that the near-death
experiences they're not linear in terms of the um you know I kept going down down down it was rock bottom and then I almost died it wasn't that necessarily you know it can you know just be like yes I wasn't in a great place I was in active addiction and I use this drug and
that drug and I ended up in the hospital and my heart was beating out of my chest that type of thing but I think of this moment where um I was withdrawing off of Oxycontin I was just crying I was crying I was in the middle of the street it was summertime in Seattle which is like the most beautiful place
in the world I'm biased but it was the most it's the most beautiful place in the world in the summer time and I'm there and I can't stop crying and I see no future for happiness all my serotonin was completely depleted I was 100 reliant on this drug for any sort of
crane to pull me out of a place of wanting to die and I think that these near-death experiences yes I have had actual like you know you were close moments um and you know ended up in the hospital moments close to you know death but even more scary than those are those moments where you don't care
it can even go a step further than you don't care it goes to a place of I don't want to be here those are super super scary in hindsight in the moment it's like take me well yeah take me I'm not fighting anymore I'm not fighting for life anymore I I've I've gone down the trail deep enough into the forest of
this that I am fine to just leave this physical space that's scary yeah it definitely is I I you're reminding me of I had a conversation with Dennis Rodman like three years ago now on the podcast and I asked him what his purpose in life was and he said to survive another day
like to live another day and to have someone say that in front of you like in an interview I was like it really took me aback because you're not expecting that Aid that much honesty but but in that moment that much yeah you know vulnerability as well and I know he's surrounded by a good group of people who
are supporting him and helping him but it was scary even to experience and you know you've had your partner your wife who's been such a big part of your journey you know you've spoken about her music like she's been such a supporting figure obviously she loves you that's
that's without a doubt and you love her but what do you think has allowed her to be a supportive and helpful partner during this time and how have you tried to help her help you sometimes you may have got it wrong sometimes you know but tell me a bit about what she's done exceptionally well
yeah and then when you've helped her help you in an exceptional way but then sometimes when maybe you haven't helped the situation yeah oh it's a good question you know my wife is is a is amazing she's a big fan of of you she's super excited she to come today all right she's she's not here she's she's
directing a music video actually so she's in the midst of planning for that tell her I said my love I I definitely I'll send a gift we'll have to send something with you yeah she's she's a massive fan so um it's cool to talk about her she's um yeah she's my best friend she's
amazing she um I think first and foremost you know I was in I was in rehab in 2008. and I had been with her for you know since 2006. so we're you know a couple years into a relationship and she was supposed to come up and visit me in rehab and all the families show up you know the the commencement of
group therapy starts my at the time girlfriend wasn't there and she had ended up getting arrested on the way up she was still drunk from the night before after that she never went to treatment she did some some 12-step work but she has never used sense and she was definitely you know one of us like one
of me an addict and an alcoholic and um never had that off switch but the way that she has shown up for me is that she has stayed clean and for herself first and foremost foundational level and we just celebrated last Friday her uh 14 years of of sobriety and I got to watch her
take her take her coin go up to the front of the meeting in front of you know 100 people and take her coin and she's all nervous and you know I have tears in my eyes and I'm just like this is my person I'm rooting for her more than anything um to be clean and to be healthy and
it's something and she has done something that I haven't been able to do which is continuously stay clean and um it's a complex question you know like how do I help her help me the one thing about the disease of addiction is that it is Insidious and that when I am an active addiction it starts before I
actually pick up the first drink or drug it starts slowly and it creeps and it escalates and it starts telling me you know what no one's around No One's Gonna know you can do that all of a sudden I'm in self-will I'm not in God's will anymore I'm in self-will what do I want
and that selfishness Rises and Rises and Rises and it can start with simple things you know just like you deserve that like go ahead buy that hmm omit that these these little ways that it just starts creeping creeping creeping getting louder and for me all of a sudden it leads me to this place of none
of that works like material possession to feel happy does not work for me you know like go ahead get another watch go ahead get that jacket get those shoes you know do that have that experience you deserve it it doesn't spiritually fulfill me so now I'm like I'm on empty in the spiritual tank and I'm reaching
for anything come on more more more how do I fulfill how do I fill this void this this God's eyes hole what how what do I do with this and eventually I start to think uh a drink or a drug sounds like the best idea because I hate myself now how can I help my wife help me in those
moments it's counterintuitive because when I'm in active addiction and the disease is talking to me I don't want to tell anybody the disease is like don't tell her no she doesn't care you know the lies the lies that I'm telling to myself in order to act out are getting increasingly loud it's a
very you know I probably sound crazy right now but it's um you're educating that's how the disease works for me and I think unless you have the disease and maybe it sounds crazy but that's actually the narrative that's slowly happening whether I'm conscious or
unconscious in my head to get me to the point of hating myself enough that a drink or a drug sounds like the best solution so I have to tell her I have to be honest and she has seen enough relapses at this point that she's like dude what are you doing you're in self-will right now
where when was the last time that you called your sponsor one of you got outside of self when have you done something in your recovery Community why don't you go to a meeting she holds me accountable even when I don't want to be held accountable and usually I can tell because she she'll say something and if
I'm naturally defensive if I'm like no you don't know what I'm doing you know usually I'm like okay she's got she's got a pulse she knows me very well and she's trying to help you dude like you know if she says you know sometimes she can miss misread the room and I can completely hold that space and
listen to her and be like I I understand that I could be doing better and these these categories but I'm actually feeling pretty good right now and I welcome that from people in my life like I think part of addiction is that it's it has to be secret you know even
you talk about 10 years ago with like you know this depression that you're like I feel like I I had to be okay I had to be fine I had to tell people I was fine and there's the secrecy with addiction that we can't talk about it that when those thoughts come in or in recovery
and I'm like I'm a person in recovery I have to be like you know holding up these pillars and now I'm a public figure in recovery and I need to be it's like dude I am still I am just like everyone else completely fallible and so far from who I want to be yeah but the more people that I can talk about that I
can talk to where I'm not a secret that is when I share my truth and it opens up a platform for other people to or when they share their truth all of a sudden I feel comfortable in the space to tell mine yeah the disease dissipates and by the way you don't in your words don't sound crazy at all
actually I feel like you're educating us and enlightening us on what's going on inside and so actually I'm learning a lot and I appreciate it a lot because I don't think we we only watch these if it doesn't happen to us you only watch it from the outside right and you have no idea what the
dialogue in someone's mind is and so hearing what dialogue you've had in your mind right is massively Illuminating because like you referred to mine I I agree with that on so many levels and that's that wasn't even addiction that was that was a form of depression that I
was experiencing and couldn't vocalize it what to speak of something when you're going through addiction yeah and and I couldn't agree with you more that whether it's something tiny or whether it's something huge if we don't talk about it you actually never learn like I I had a very non-life-threatening
surgery recently like it's pretty routine it's inconvenient but it's not like you know it's not I'm not gonna you know die from it like that's not what kind of surgery it is and me even just telling some of my friends about that I found out a quarter of my friends
have had that surgery but never told me like no one ever talks about it and I know it's not a big deal but the point is that knowing that they'd had it and knowing that they'd been through the surgery and knowing that they'd recovered or knowing where they'd had struggles was useful yep what to speak
of addiction or something that's far more detrimental to your health and well-being yeah you know I can totally understand why being able to share that and and I really love the point you're making about and and this is partly societal and ourselves is you just explained a lot of
roles like I'm a public figure in recovery I'm uh I'm uh this in this I'm a music artist who was addicted whatever so we we create all these titles and roles and designations that are not the real us and Society forces us to play them and we force it there was a lyric that I I love this is probably one of my
favorite songs that you've done I was talking to my uh I have a meditation program that I've created for com and we were just there recording before this and so we I'm recording for like four hours just teaching meditations and I was speaking to my producer I'm really
good friends with his name is Ben too uh saying that you were coming on the show he loves rap too and so I was sharing that you were coming on and we've then started talking about some of our favorite songs he was saying this one was his and I was like oh me too it's a light tunnels uh and and there was this
lyric that um that I thought was really powerful for what we're talking about right now you say uh they want the gossip they want the drama they want Britney Spears to make out with Madonna they want Kanye to run and go on longer because that equates to more dollars they want talking topics they want
trending topics you know etc etc and so you know it's it's that idea that we're trying to create Society is trying to create these identities right for us and then we kind of try and live up to those identities how do you in this moment disconnect from that and go well
actually yes people may say I'm a public figure going through recovery I'm a music artist doing this how have you found a way over time to not subscribe to that identity and be like no I'm Ben I'm you know who who are you today like how do you create that disconnect things that help my kids
getting off of social media again not to be redundant but my my community in recovery I think we're all trying to get back to that place whether you're in the public you know space or not it's the idea of who am I really at the core and I've always used used art as a medium to
find out my own truth and to find out who I am as a person but it's all the things that we're kind of discussing it's like and that you were talking about in terms of service too like you know doing your own work and then putting it back and then going back and forth in this cycle I think it's getting
exercise I think it's clearing the mind I think that it's um picking up the phone I think that it's like I I think it's these small little acts throughout the course of a day that that you realize that all of this is so fleeting and then it that it's not real it's not
all of that world that's in light tunnels that we're speaking about it's as real as we make it and I think that it's really challenging to divorce yourself from media when you are a part of the media when you are a part of a a topic or you know you can I could throw
out 10 celebrities names in like the first you know you'll have thoughts and judgments right away when you hear someone's name and we've put people we've compartmentalized people we put them into boxes we don't really get to know who they are and I think that that's why long-form podcasts or you know
conversations are have helped to kind of reshape how we view certain people um and are actually really beneficial to get to know individuals outside of uh a headline now the unfortunate part is and also for how short our attention spans are and now you know we you know five second
increments 15 second increments we're scrolling we're moving on we can't retain information we're on to the next it's really dope to see that like long-form podcast there's a lane for this where either it's super fast or like I'm gonna listen to Joe Rogan for three hours yeah you know what I mean
and like and I think that that's because people are longing for something deeper they want to hear conversation they want to see the evolution of of dialogue start here and go here you know like that is what actually is real we are not we we are not creatures that operate in
in three to five second increments um there is a flow in an evolution and I think that explaining who who we really are you know our Character defects our flaws our shortcomings to the things that make us brilliant and unique um to really examine those yeah is is what this life really is all about yeah and
that the rest of it um is something is a hurdle to get over I I love that analysis of it I really do because you said earlier you you said we're Spiritual Beings having this Human Experience and I think a lot of people on their spiritual Journeys or their inner Journeys at one point you get caught
in the evolution of it where it's hard being a spiritual being having a human experience like you're like how do I make music in this world but then not feel of this world right like that becomes a really tough thing and I've worked on that personally I work on it personally I
work with so many people on it personally and I find that the natural human instinct is to retreat yes it's like to remove ourselves and when I became a monk I think subconsciously that's exactly what I was doing where I wasn't escaping because I didn't have a a bad experience with the material world
I could just see from other people's experiences that the material world wasn't satisfying to them yes I could see people who were more successful than me more wealthy than me more you know everything than me I was 21 years old and I could see that they weren't happy
and so I was like okay well I need to figure out a different path and I gained three years of getting time to figure out what my values were and who I was and why I wanted to do anything and then coming back like I find that too today where it's like I'm not a monk anymore I'm married I I have I have
businesses we have we we have money like you know things like that and it was like I had to make peace and sense of those ideas for what they meant to me and what their use was without them defining me or me trying to distance myself from them so I think when we first we Chase things yep and
then we run away from them until we figure out how to use them properly yes no it's on your Instagram today and you know a massive way that we size people up or that we gauge success is by numbers right analytics and find our own value right like how did this Tick Tock do why did this one work in this one
didn't it yeah you know I really liked what I said in in this one and yeah and no one really no one shared it yeah why yeah I mean that's part of your business yeah yet your platform is based around like mental health which in a way our society and and yet the way that you
talk about this is via Tick Tock via Instagram via these social media things that have got our societies stuck in this place of comparison in this place of of ego in this place of I am lesser than I am not enough look at all of these other people's lives I am living
scrolling these death Scrolls that we do I feel horrible about myself call culture that is really addictive how do you balance the game that you have to play yet with the spiritual mental health side that you have to live yeah definitely it's such a great question and I'd say that so I started doing what I
do today offline when I was 18 years old so after I met the monk for the first time which I talk about my book think like a monk I I met my first monk teacher at 18 years old and I started spending time with him and whatever he would teach me I would share it right because I was so blown away by it so I
started a club or a society as we called him in England uh a society in at University at College called think out loud and every single week I'd invite students over and we'd sit and we'd dissect a movie and talk about it philosophically psychologically spiritually and I would facilitate these
sessions and when I first started them like zero people showed up because it's like people at 18 want to get drunk and go to the club they don't want to come to a society to think out loud yeah and so then I started handing out posters and flyers because I realized that I had
to do a bit of marketing to make sure people were interested and then people started coming and so by the time I finished University we had 100 people coming yeah and no one paid for it it was absolutely free I did it because I loved it I did it because I got the buzz of presenting what I was
learning to people and helping them and I built some of my best friendships that way because I met all these people at University who were like oh yeah we we Jay helps us understand the stuff he's learning from the monks and the wisdom same stuff I do today and then when I went to the monastery
obviously I actually spent time studying and deepening my meditation and actually deepening my skills and since I've come back I've done the same thing so I've been doing this offline when no one cared and no one viewed and no one watched and there were no followers and
there was no money for 10 years before I did it online so up until six years ago if you came to one of my events in London called conscious Living 10 people showed up once a month to hear me talk about these same things that I talk about today it sounds like my underground rap career right yeah
exactly that's that's basically what it is it's like and I did it for 10 years not thinking one day it would be big I did it because I loved it I love this so yeah I went from it yeah I loved it I did it for 10 years with no money no followers no nothing yeah and it was
amazing even when 10 people showed up I was so grateful yeah so then when six years ago this kind of took off and then the last couple of years it's really blown up I live in gratitude every day and yes I am massively aware of what connects with people and what resonates with people
but my intentions different my intention is How Deeply can I speak what I'm learning and what I've learned so that it scales and gives access to everyone so I'm not basing myself worth on how many people like it I'm basing my ability to simplify ideas on that and that's just one part of me right my
self-worth is based on how I feel about myself how my wife thinks about me because she knows me really well right how my monk teachers feel about what I do and my best friends who've been my best friends for like nearly 20 years like those are the people whose opinion
matters deeply to me my community here matters to me but at the same time my self-worth is not based on that my ability to do my job well and the purpose I've chosen is based on that and I think like you're saying that isn't a perfected formula it's a Daily Commitment yes to can I improve my
ability to communicate but this isn't me improving who I am this is me improving my ability to communicate seemingly complexity ideas in a way that everyone can understand and digest them but that's just one percent of who I am that's not that's not me an entirety if that makes sense it does yeah do you
look at the numbers of course I do yeah 100 I I think it's hard to do what I do without looking at the numbers it's just that the numbers don't dictate like I won't go to sleep upset at myself as a human being as a soul because of a number going badly I will just be like
there is a defect in my process of communicating or effectively transferring this message that I can work on but if I think this is a problem with me yeah that's too heavy and that's where I think the disconnect is hey dude you can always blame the algorithm yeah I always blame the algorithm I don't
like doing that that's when in doubt I'm one of those people that I will sit down with people I'll be like the issue is never well yeah very rarely is the issue actually the algorithm from my six years of social media experience the issue is your ability to understand
what is going on but again that's not you and so and I think that's what we've not learned how to differentiate our album sales from our self-worth right or our social media following from our self-worth and identity so to me there are two things this I need to improve professionally but my professional
failure is not a personal failure and I think that I'm always grappling with that again I have not arrived this is a daily conversation in my yeah but I feel healthier that I want to figure out how to fix this for this but fixing that is not fixing this these are two separate
like I meditate for me I don't meditate to improve my career and I don't focus on my career to improve my feeling of me they're two separate Lanes yeah if that makes sense it does I see success and happiness and I want to come to this to ask you I see success and happiness as two separate
Lanes yes happiness is what I do for myself and success is what my career brings and what it can achieve but I don't cross the two because uh that's when I think it gets messy for me and I wanted to ask that like as you've gone through so many highs and lows successes and losses
how have you how do you define success and happiness for yourself right now like how do you look at those terms and what do they mean to you now compared to what they meant to you like 10 15 years ago right and I hope I'll answer you a question yeah you did yeah beautifully honestly it was just an honest answer
yeah yeah no I I think about success very different and I get caught up in The Matrix of everything of course but am I fulfilled happiness is fleeting right the more we try to grab onto it the further it gets um do I have sustained fulfillment do I have meaning do I have purpose do I have
a life that is worth living do I feel excited to wake up most days am I engaged with my kids all of those things that to me is what success feels like today now I also have a business I have multiple businesses and I like to win I'm a competitive person me too I get
that I do like to win now winning I think is a is a tricky thing right because oftentimes we don't know what we never know what's in store I might drive away from here and you know crash down the hill and that's it you you don't know and I think about you know what I want you know in the
last two singles that you've mentioned I thought that they're really great pieces of Art thought that they were you know had potential for like you know Chan it's like it's got this endemic hook and you know it's it's got a feature that people know and I'm rapping really well and the beat gets really big
hasn't performed well commercially Maniac sounds like something that could be on the radio and you know it kind of is but it's bubbling slowly but it's not really streaming well all these things I have a team of people that are trying to figure out that we're trying to figure out why this
worked why this didn't work and um I realize that the universe is already it's already been written I believe that what's supposed to be will be and when I can get in that place of acceptance that regardless of what happens with chance regardless of what happens with Maniac
or the next single or my album and how many first week sales it does on YouTube numbers and if I grow my Tick Tock audience all of that is not happiness it is completely separate and if I get too caught up in that like you're saying if I get too caught up in that world then I cannot
truly be fulfilled and have meaning in my spiritual life which is where the true like I'm just okay I'm just okay with what is and I don't control it and some of the most painful experiences where I was like why is this happening to me like God why would you do this to me were my
greatest blessings were the things that opened up the door for something and it sounds cliche it's like you know but you have to go through those moments of pain you have to walk through that fire to get to that place of oh I had no idea why I was doing that and now I am here and look at how beautiful this moment is
and I think that the trick is um remembering in those moments of of why why is this happening that there is a deeper reasoning and that this will pass yeah totally yeah the way I was thinking about what you were saying and well I was sharing earlier and it's that
imagine you just bought a brand new car you love it you think it's beautiful it's great and you go driving and you sing when you drive out here and you're driving your car and then someone knocks into it and it gets a dent and it's a really bad Dent that means you can't drive it needs to
get fixed it needs to get sorted out now when I get out of that car and I get into bed that night if I'm thinking I'm dented that's just inaccurate the truth is something I have something I care about is dented and that needs to be fixed right but I'm not dented because my
cause dented I'm not damaged because my car is damaged my cause damage needs to go to the shop and needs to get fixed but that doesn't damage me and I think that's that disconnect where it's like yeah like when you're saying like the album sales isn't all right whatever it is it's like yeah that needs to be fixed
that needs to be sorted out but that doesn't mean that I'm broken that just means that there is a system mechanism which somehow how we're creating how we're building that can be improved yeah right and so to me and and I love the point that you're saying that to me it's also
an alignment of how much we're creating and what we're creating I find that when I make something out of alignment it's more likely to fail when I make something from a place of I'm making this because I really believe in it I care about it I've actually focused on getting good at it and now
I'm putting it out there it has a better chance of doing well yeah versus when I put something out because I'm like I can do this I know I can do this because I have this and so I think when people are like oh I have followers so I can do this right but you don't really want to
do that you're just doing that because you have followers and I think there's a study that shows how after someone sells a company in the next two years they make their worst investment decisions why because now they have money yeah so they make bad investment decisions when you didn't
have money you made better investment decisions because you were so careful and so thoughtful about it yeah and so I find like sometimes abundance leads to stupidity because abundance needs to be treated with love and respect as opposed to with abandon and and
wastage yeah but you brought up a good yeah yeah in terms of you know the 10 people that would come out in London yeah to talk and what your intention was and I think that for all of us but particularly being in in the public eye it's constantly moving that needle back to what is my intention
here yes what is my intention yes and if you're in the studio and and or you know I'm in the studio and I'm creating a record if I'm going into it like this is the one that's going to be on the radio that song sucks yes thank you that song is horrible yes no one wants to hear that and the public is smarter than
we give the public credit for they can tell when an artist doesn't know another artist and they just made a song because the labels were like you know what one plus one equals three no it doesn't real art is felt yes authentic people yeah that's that's what's contagious is when
people can actually feel and hear that authenticity you can't manufacture that and again but with all the noise with all the white noise it's it's in the periphery if I'm not centered if I'm not spiritually fit I am eventually going to feel like guys we need a tick tock song
we need something that like is going to be really catchy in a five second increment and if we don't have that then I'm not going to be happy yeah and it has been proven time and time again that that's not how art Works yes and I think that this fast food way of of of media right now in some ways can be great but
in other ways it's it has my fear is that it's killed the art it's it's killed the overall Arc of an album or the growth of an artist you know from track number one to song number 15 I've realized in this in this album cycle that I'm like in the beginning stages of putting out we don't take in media like
that anymore like the album is almost Obsolete and um I don't ever want to get to a place of creating out of necessity to appease an algae Rhythm or a structure that I don't believe in yeah I don't believe in it now that's going to say I'm not going to play the game with
what I've created yeah but I don't want to create and then go play the game that is brilliant I I love that if the intention in in The Vedas which is the the system that I studied as a monk or The Vedic tradition it said that there's four motivators or four intentions which were
my intention so the lowest form of intention is fear or insecurity we do something out of fear so it's like I'm not relevant anymore right let's make something that makes me feel relevant right that's fear that's not from a place of art so you make something from a place of fear it might do well it
might blow up but you won't feel satisfied because you know that you were just scared and now you're scared to do it again yeah so when you create a fear it just creates more fears for new creativity because you don't know how you got there the higher up from that is
to have the intention of what you were saying you have a Target or a goal but you just plucked it out the air I want that number one I want to build a billion dollar company I wanna and now it's just about this goal because the goal makes you feel good you don't actually feel good about what you're
making but you like the idea of it might become a number one Whatever billboard or whatever it may be and so that's a goal or Target higher than that intention is you're doing something because it feels true to you and then higher than that is you're making something out of service
or to improve people's lives or to impact people so when you look at those four intentions what I'm hearing is you're like I want to try and make things in those top two intentions yes and that way I'll be fulfilled and like you said we can play the game with those things too we'll still figure out a way
to make those things relevant and important but we know that the art is sacred the art wasn't sold out and I think that's what I Vibe with too like I I can totally get behind that because I always connect back to why I started and what connected and I love the joy of
making something sacred go viral I get so much of a kick out of that rather than making something sell out go viral because it would go viral anyway yeah that's great dude like no you're inspiring this this is well I mean you think about whenever I'm in the studio you're trying to get to those top two and
and it's almost an exercise when I'm in front of the page to work through those bottom two layers because they're there they're not always there but they can pop up you know that like can you do it again and then you said it like okay now you did it you're still not fulfilled can you hold on to
it and you watch people their entire careers trying to hold on to that relevancy yeah and it's just this game of like come on can we hold on to this thing that's like you know so we can be putting this Echelon and keep working and keep going and never take more than
a you know 14 months off of an album cycle we got to keep going what award show are we showing it's exhausting it is exhausting and I couldn't keep up with it and I realized that it really um you know in the first couple months of being like really famous that this was not sustainable for me that I needed
to recharge that I needed to take take time off to work on myself so when I go into the studio I'm not operating out of that place of fear of scarcity of you know what if this doesn't happen it's like dude and I think that that's easier said than done when you had the success right when
you're like you know what I'm gonna be good for Life yeah financially I'm straight just be honest I'm gonna be okay but when you're you know when you're really you know I'm trying to feed my family and I've been there too you know I'm trying to you know make sure that I
don't overdraft that I'm that I you know can pay this month's rent with my six people I'm living with and you know I need to get this show so there's there's a privilege in being able to like be like okay well like now I'm just working on the spiritual side of myself um and there's an actual real side of it
you know in terms of the the physical world of I need to eat yeah I need to be able to pay for this roof over my head yeah but that's a great point but still I'm almost writing in that space to to get out the cobwebs of those first two two layers and get to a place of you know what bare
minimum this does nothing at least we had a great time in the studio at least I found out some truth about myself at least this was an exercise where I got better at my craft and I enjoyed being creative and I got together with Community whoever was in the studio and we made something that
will be around forever regardless of if it's viral or if it's a number one or top 100 it doesn't matter we made something with pure intention and the people that heard it were the people that were supposed to and everything else is outside of my control and if you're a creative
then you just keep going yeah you just keep going and I was like I was listening to some old music that I had written in like you know 2004 or five or something the other day and there's this Dennis Hopper sample and he's talking about um you know if you're an artist if you are really truly an artist
um your art is like breathing you have no choice but to create that that is the exercise and I want to be that person I am that person I don't have to try to be that person I just I am an artist and for those of us that are there is no choice the success is a bonus but at the end of
the day if I wasn't doing this for a living sure I might have a different nine to five but I can almost guarantee you that when I get home from work I'd be going right back to writing raps yeah and that and that's what it is it's that love it's that dedication and I love the clarity
you gave though of when you're on the come up versus when you've created a platform because I agree with you that sometimes fear and the goal of survival are actually what gets you started and gets you going and gets you your first breakthrough it's just once you've had that please upgrade
yeah right because if you don't upgrade at that point you're still driving in gear too yep and it's like but no no you were meant to get to gear five by now and you're still going at gear two and it's like that's what takes you down the other way and so I agree with you I
think you're right that I think it's such a great clarification I'm so glad you brought that up that sometimes fear and the goal and the insecurity is what gets you moving yeah and there's nothing wrong with that it's just that it gets you moving it's just not going to keep momentum and
I've just seen too many people just stay on that gear too and and that's when you when it all breaks down right so I I think that's that's such a beautiful description where where are you today as you look to the Future as you look to now as you look to to what you're building and creating for
yourself like what are the values that govern your personal and professional life today like what are some of the values that you're developing working on and and holding close to Your Heart Right Now honesty with myself with my partner uh with my kids with my community I want
to be transparent in all facets of where I'm at I think that vulnerability honesty telling the truth are constantly things that I come back to that just make my life more streamlined I don't want to hide anything I don't want this person to know this part of me and this person
like I want to be someone that can hold that space of this is who I am and um and I'm honest about it I want to have integrity in that sense I want to keep delving into the layers of my own Character defects of things that I need to work on of studying my past traumas in order to figure out my next step and
to figure out where I'm at um I want to I want to be a dad that listens that ask questions that is there for the Beautiful Moments the difficult ones that's super important to me and I realize that with my lifestyle there's a frequency in our house right like my wife is working on a
million things that have to do with all of our creative projects I am there's people in and out of my house all the time and I think that that frequency my kids I know they can feel it I know they can feel the insanity of this creative like you know home that we have that is
beautiful but it's also chaotic and I I want to make sure that um I'm taking time for those small moments that is much of like this Rat Race that we're in to to do a media run and to you know go from here to the next thing to this and that I taking the time to really be present with my kids
because it goes so quickly you know my daughter's already you know my my eldest is seven and a half and it's like seems like it's so cliche it seems like yesterday she was you know two months old and um I know that that's how life moves and I just want to be someone that like when I look back at it all through
all the ups the Downs the triumphs the the shortcomings that I can look back on it all and be like you know what I left something here on this Earth I was I made some art that impacted the world and that doesn't need to be on a broad big broad brush stroke scale that can just be with a
couple individuals that I made some art that resonated that changed some lives and not in a grandiose way but just like the MCS that came before me underground rappers that changed the way I think about life that you know I think about there's this there's this rapper that passed
um from from the group Blackalicious his name's Gift of Gab and he passed last year and he had this this era of of fantastic music and he and he passed away I didn't know he was sick and he passed away um during covid and I remember just thinking like I never got to tell him what his music
meant to me and the spiritual um the spirituality in his writing and how that resonated with me when I was 18 years old that led me to delve into myself via the pen and um that if it wasn't for him I might not have ever written other side I might not have ever written same love
that he actually gave me some tools that opened up this conduit that I was able to channel something bigger than myself in these moments that led to music that then impacted others and that that music could go on to to transfer in different ways to a Next Generation that is what I'm seeking as a person and as an artist
and I think that that you know when you've had that platform you know or you have a platform like I have there's this tendency to think that it has to be on this massive scale and I don't want to think about my life in this big you know open canvas of a world like I need to
you know there needs to be millions and you know a billion people that know who I am and lose what's right in front of me which is my seven-year-old my four-year-old and my 14 month old or my wife and know that my family is there and that's at the very Forefront of what I care
about just as much as speaking to the rest of the world I don't want to miss that man that's extremely powerful and uh I love that reflection coming through you right now and channeling all those ideas with us uh we end every episode with two uh segments uh one's called the final
five which is uh every question has to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum so you have a sentence one word two one sentence you get you get that uh and then we'll do the other one so these are your final five Ben uh the first question is what is the best advice you've ever received be present
nice be present simple and easy that's good advice that's that's always great advice uh what's some of the worst advice you've heard received or seen repeated or advice you never want your kids to receive advice you'd never want them to hear I never want my kids to believe that other people's opinion of
them is any of their business I agree that's beautiful all right question number three uh what is your current purpose in life like how do you define your purpose today and the work you do and who you are my purpose is to create to explore and to show up for other people uh
question number four if you could uh what's something you used to value that you don't value anymore I used to Value superficial momentary escapism Fifth and final question we ask this to every guest on the show if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be
that all people would have empathy for one another I need that and accept people for where they're at Ben thank you so much thank you I'm so grateful to have spent this time with you today had the opportunity to connect with you I mean we've been talking for like nearly two hours it's
been amazing and uh thank you for being so open so vulnerable so so giving and also just generating so many interesting directions for this it felt like a real conversation and back and forth so I appreciate that a lot absolutely thank you so much thank you and uh everyone who's been
listening and watching whether you're walking your dog whether you're cooking whether you're uh on your way to work on your way back from work or at work I want you to share what you learned today so please tag us both on Instagram on tick tock on uh YouTube on whatever platform you use Twitter and just let us
know what were the insights that stuck with you maybe there's a practice or an idea that you're going to share with a friend I love knowing what's gonna stay with you from this conversation and of course we hope that Ben will come back on in the future and uh keep documenting
this journey with us absolutely you have an open invite them whenever you want to come back and uh so grateful for your time likewise thank you if you love this episode you'll really enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion