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what does it feel like when you see your mom's reaction to getting the beach house can you feel the car turning the corner it's about immersing yourself in that feeling as if it was going on right now and when you do that on a
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daily basis it's not long before reality catches up [Music] hey everyone welcome back to on purpose the number one health podcast in the world thank you so much for tuning in every single week to listen learn and grow now you know
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that i like diving into the minds of unique individuals people with incredible stories fascinating backgrounds people with insights that are going to help us understand how we can level up our own mindset now today's guest is gonna
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do just that today's guest is russ an american rapper singer songwriter and producer he's also the author of the usa today and wall street journal bestseller it's all in your head russ has made 14 studio albums in his career
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with several of his songs going platinum and gold his latest album shake the snow globe came out in january of last year and debuted at number four on the billboard album chart russ welcome to on purpose thanks for being
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crazy it's just like crazy hearing those things out loud i don't know just like tripping me out sometimes yeah how does it make you feel well like every once in a while i unjade and i'm like i go back to being 17 and i'm like what's going on like
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it's crazy i'm super grateful i would have your 17 year old self felt if they knew that this was gonna be the life you lived they would have thought i was lame that i didn't do it earlier they would have been like they would have been like took you to 28
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what a loser but um nah like i'm one of those people where you know when when people ask like artists or anyone like oh did you see this coming it's like well yeah how else do you make it happen i don't even know how you would make
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something extraordinary happen if you don't have like an extraordinary level of belief yeah i feel like there's a difference though between like seeing believing and knowing like some people just know yeah but i think sometimes we believe but
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knowing is like even a deeper like it is i know right do you know what i mean i agree with that that's interesting because i definitely when i was coming up it was it was that knowing feeling it was there was no doubt like doubt did not
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exist in my brain i knew that it was gonna work and you couldn't tell me any different i feel like if we look at the world today especially what's happened in the last 12 months but even before that you see that there are a lot of
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people who doubt themselves why do you think we do that to ourselves and how did you not fall into that i don't know if it's necessarily age or if it's exposure to outside chatter so when i was 17 it was really easy to believe in
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myself because there was no one saying anything like there was no haters or i had nobody telling me you can't do it maybe some friends like joking like oh yeah you're going to be a rapper producer but it's like you know i think a lot of it
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is you you're born a certain way i think the other thing is good parenting my parents especially my dad always told me i could do anything and would like constantly tell me i was special and all those things and you know i know
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there's people who think that you shouldn't tell your kids certain things like that but for me i you know i really commend my dad for putting the battery in my back and making me think i can do anything i want because
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that's why i wrote a book i don't read that much but i was like i could write a book why not you know so it's like i don't know man shout out to my dad my dad is like the confidence guru so shout out to your dad yeah i love hearing about a positive like
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father role model mine was more interesting my dad was more aloof and detached interesting which actually helped me because it helped me craft who i wanted to be because right i didn't have any pressure from him yeah and and so it's interesting how
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we all that's funny you say that because then it just made me think that the other thing is is i was always super super competitive and i looked up to my dad a lot like he was really good at basketball he was super smart he could just like do
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any he's one of those people like he could just do anything and like you ask him any question he knows the answer to it and since i'm super competitive i was like i have to be better than you i have to like beat you at basketball
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like he would always beat me at ping pong pool like you know what i'm saying like i just was always so competitive so i think that really pushed me he used to challenge me even with like school extra assignment projects where he
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always loves telling this story i think it's slightly overrated but i'll tell it and he'll be happy that i did i think seventh grade there was this class wide or grade wide uh sort of like extracurricular thing like oh answer
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200 of these math questions online and you'll get something i don't know and my dad just used to give me a hard time about not applying myself so just to shut him up i answered like all a thousand and like won the whole thing but like he always
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uses that story as just sort of this way this thing that i do where a lot of times i'll just do something to prove y'all wrong and prove me right you know yeah even if i don't really want to do it but sometimes that's
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enough motivation so i related to the michael jordan the last dance thing where like he would use any little thing to be like that was enough for me yeah you know what i'm saying like y'all picked carl malone as the mvp that was enough
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that's how i be feeling i only need a little bit and sometimes i make them up in my head i'm like it's like a make-believe level of motivation source of fuel so yeah i've heard you talk about that before like this idea of having some level of delusion yes and
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one of my favorite people who had that and i've studied his life through many books and teachings is steve jobs and so when you read the life of steve jobs steve jobs had something they call reality distortion field where he would
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distort the reality he experienced to be what he wanted it to be now that can be very dangerous yeah but is that like a real thing that's like a psychological real thing i believe so that's for sure what my entire life was from like
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17. now you got a word for it yeah now now it sounds good so yeah reality distortion field so tell me about why do you think delusion is useful and wherever you also seem to be dangerous because i think both is well i think it
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kind of depends on what reality you're trying to create but i do believe in you know i used to walk around saying all my beats are a million dollars a beat and i'm a billionaire and i just went platinum eight times these are all things i would say
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like that would have not happened and they were insane me and bugis my best friend who started diamond he put out a um a project back in 2011 and we called it 2020 and i produced the whole thing and we did the entire album from the
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perspective of 2020. so it was like we're on rolls royces and we just made millions like it was all just distorted reality but it ended up becoming reality so i do believe that if you want to change your reality you have to already believe that it
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is your reality but obviously if you like are trying to do something evil or ill-intent it's not gonna be great for everyone else yeah just before we started recording we were talking about you know being creative and being busy
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and you said something really interesting you were just like you know i'm always creative i've always got stuff going on here and then you're like there's some days where i don't you know feeling lazy like walk us through that because
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as someone who's super creative who's loved for your creativity and how original your work is and that's why i've always liked you i've always thought your sound is very original and unique and it's hard to like be like
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it's like oh it sounds like that person or sounds like it's like oh no no this is original like that's where i've always resonated with your work tell us about how that is something you achieve even though there are days where you
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kind of feel like i just want to sleep all day or whatever yeah it's tough because uh me and bowie's talk about it all the time the highs and lows of an artist is really dramatic at least for me like i'll have days if i go into the studio and make something i love
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i'm like on cloud nine like everything is great in my life but then i go to sleep and i wake up and that next day none of that matters like i move on very quickly and and i'm just like okay now i need to make another one but if i can't make another
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one if that day i'm just not feeling it or i go to the studio and i try nothing works i'm like this is i should just give up this is this is it i'll never get a creative source you know what i mean and it gets very like
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you sink really low sometimes especially if you go for me i make so much music that if i don't make a song for four days i'm like this is crazy like what's happening i'm depressed so it's hard but you got to just remember that um
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you just have to have faith in sort of the creator in the infinite and you know i don't feel like i really make music i feel like i deliver it you know because i feel like it when i have those moments it's just something that's coming to me
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and i'm the vessel and now i'm just delivering it and i'm executing it and i'm almost discovering it in the studio i don't know if i'm creating i'm discovering it if that makes sense so you're not always going to be
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in that place where you're getting the message and you're getting the energy so this is what it is just hard it's the waiting time in between will make you feel like this is it i'll never make another song what makes you feel that i love what you
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just said about delivering versus creating i i think that's phenomenal and it's explained really well what makes you feel like you're in alignment where you can deliver versus forcing you to create like what are the things that
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lack of thought right yeah lack of thought those times where you get into that place where you're not thinking and you're just feeling and like i said just delivering like i'm not even thinking about what oh should i say this like you get the
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inspiration and you just execute it that's when you just enter that flow state and it's just special you know but it's tricky it's hard especially like i said as i got uh not even necessarily older just more visibility
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there's outside chatter now in my head you know what people are gonna think i know that i'm not just releasing it to my friends anymore like you know so it's it's become trickier to tune out everything but um yeah man just try to focus on the
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present moment that's like what the one thing that i learned this past year was really like how do i slow down time and i was like okay well the way i slow down time is to slow down my thoughts and the way i slow down my thoughts is
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to be present you know you notice if you're just mindless and you're you know you're making a sandwich but you're thinking about oh my god what i need to do tomorrow and what all of a sudden two hours passes right but if you really
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think about like you know you cutting the sandwich and what that's like and you stepping on the grass and what your feet feel like time moves really slow you realize how slow time moves so i just try to do that i try to stay in the present even
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in the studio you know i don't try to uh have my thoughts already beyond when this comes out and this is gonna be like this and how's it gonna go then i'm just like man let me just like actually hear the music and feel the music and just operate from
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this place i love hearing you talk about this man because you know these are some of the principles that i'm constantly sharing in my work yeah but hearing how it applies to a music artist in your career it brings me so much joy
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yeah because it's practical it's real like you've got time pressures you've got you've got pressures from labels collaborations whatever it may be like there are real life pressures but when i hear you say that and that's how you feel aligned
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how did you get introduced to this work or this set of thoughts and beliefs and mindsets was it something that you had since you were a kid or where did you start exploring with the idea of being present experiencing fear
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delivery the present moment is recent because you know what i didn't need i felt almost like i didn't need to be present i guess when i was coming up because there wasn't anything pulling me away from the present moment i kind of only had the present moment if
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that makes sense it was just me and bugis in the basement making songs and that was it there wasn't tours coming up and videos you know there was none of that so uh but as this past year and past couple years have been happening i got into the
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power of now book and just sort of just the whole ideology around just being present started reading more into that whole theory and i just i bought you know i bought into it a lot of this stuff people don't
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realize that a lot of the stuff like the teachings the self-help stuff you have to be open to receiving it you know and if you're not open to receiving and you're not willing to buy into it then i you know i hear you but god bless you
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know i can only tell people it works for me um but it worked for me you know being president yeah i love that you mentioned the power of now and then when you talk about flow state yeah for anyone who's listening if you've not read that book it's a
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brilliant book as well flow state yeah it's called flow and for anyone who doesn't know flow the way it's defined in that book is where your skills meet your challenge exactly so i told you i saw like a youtube video
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yes that was like enough for me i should read the book though yeah no no no but you brought it up and it's it's a brilliant concept and you're really experiencing that because most people it says experience when their challenge is above
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their skills and so they feel frustrated disappointed when they give up yeah all their skills are above their challenge and then they feel bored because they actually have more skills than what they're trying to achieve and
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i think that's i fell into that a little bit which is why i started working with outside producers because it was so easy for me to just like go downstairs and make like a rust song you know like have a million beats i can make it be
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boom do this it's like alright cool whatever you know but it kind of i got into like a rut creatively because i was making songs but i was like i don't even it just wasn't even that fun you know and i think it was because it wasn't
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that challenging anymore so um i started working with outside producers where it was like okay this is a bit of a challenge and then further i started trying to get on beats even if no one hears them i started to get on production that i don't like in a sense
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almost to just be like can i make a song out of this wow yeah just like because i got the studio in my house and i don't need anyone to record me so i can just be down there like experimenting so there's been beats that producers send
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me and i'm like i don't like this at all but i wonder if i can make a song out of it and it becomes this cool little like fun project and a lot of times it's turned into songs that i'm like this is crazy wow like i get so much more fulfillment
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out of it because i couldn't see it coming a lot of my songs i'm like before you know when i'm making the beat i already know what the whole song's gonna sound like and most of those usually end up being very successful so i'm not gonna
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downplay them but it does make the process not as uh on an easter egg hunt yeah yeah yeah so yeah yeah i love hearing that because that's putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation right and most of us avoid that yeah yeah most
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of us just want to hear a beat and feel something straight away right we'll see because people are around other people i would never i would probably never do that if there was people in the studio yeah with me like actually out of all the beats you played
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give me the one i don't like and i'm just gonna try to make something you know what i mean yeah i like that's why i always tell people whatever your craft is make sure you have it in your house if you can because those
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moments of solitude when you can kind of just be weird and you know experiment and dance around crazy and be nuts that's where you're really gonna you know i have a i have a line where i say the public praises people for what they
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practice in private you know so uh i just feel like that's when you gotta hone in on everything is what you're doing in private so i like when i'm by myself in the studio i'll be getting weird [Laughter] can you tell us what's the weirdest
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thing that's ever happened i mean it's not that weird but it's like when i'm by myself i'll put on a beat that i'm like i don't even know what i'm about to do on this and i'll just put the auto-tune all the way up and go stand in the booth for 60 takes just wailing and just making noises and i'll be like this is wild or this is trash but this was really cool you know like i sent my manager some song i did uh where i made a beat and i just put
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the auto tune on full blast and just freestyled the whole song and i was like i just had to get it out yeah but it was cool but like i would never put it out but it was awesome this is so inspiring i i that's i love that approach yeah it's
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just it's so refreshing hearing that it's a refreshing process yeah you know because you get so rigid with like your process and this is what i do and we sit here and i make this kind of song it's like every once in a while you have
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to shake the snow globe that's where that whole concept came from you have to just you know it's like the tin man and was it like turn the auto tune up and put on some crazy heat and let me just be a maniac for an hour it breaks the formula
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you work in this formulaic yeah product line manufacturing and you don't you can't manufacture greatness that's from school yeah that's from school school is such a factory setup you know how were you at school what kind of i was incredible at school
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to be honest i'm not even a lie i was i was like i'm really not i was not one of those like yeah i struggled in school and it was difficult i was really really good at school because i wouldn't apply myself but i was definitely the kid who like didn't
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study never did homework but i would get a's and b's on all the tests and so everyone was just like but i would be like you know i was second i always say this and it's not even something i'm necessarily proud of
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but it just gives context but like a senior superlative i was like second for most likely to make a teacher retire because i was just the kid in class like constantly talking distracting people challenging the teacher but i had an a
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in the class so i was just super annoying which i know is a surprise to so many people and so tell me go back to the point you were making before before i interjected around why you think that factory yes well yeah because you know you're
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you have an expiration date as a kid in school you got to be out by a certain time in high school whatever age it is uh go to this department of the building when the bell rings you know what i mean it's just very like like there's no creativity in there you
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know that's why i'm really big on having arts in schools and you know just because otherwise you just i don't know just like creates these robots i love that you break the mold how do you get to a point though where you've
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what i find fascinating already your process is fascinating to me what i find more interesting though is that your your ability to trust yourself yeah when you come up with something insane because very few people ever allow
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themselves to do a wild card thing right now when you do a wild card thing in the studio on your own and you discover something like a sound or a auto tune or whatever it is and you discover a a b or a sound that yeah oh i like this
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how do you then trust yourself to go with that when now when you play it to someone they might be like all right you're crazy russ like this is never gonna work how do you then approach that it's that level of it's that stain of confidence
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that's just you can't remove i just still oh like nas has this quote in an interview i believe where he said if it doesn't scare you you shouldn't put it out so i've always kind of like kept that in the back of my head
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you know i usually move with that and i'm and i'm cool with that and i like that with my fans what i've created is this trust and this unpredictab un predictably unpredictable sort of relationship where they know they can
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expect me to be doing the unexpected meeting they know it might be raps they know it might be singing but they don't know what it's going to sound like but they know it's going to be me and so i think i've done a very good job at painting
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my canvas and kind of giving people who i am so it's allowed me a lot of creative freedom i always tell up and coming artists like when you're coming up you don't want it then this is my opinion when you're coming up
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and you're building your fan base you're conditioning them to expect a certain thing from you a certain sound or whatever and you're you're creating this creative window a lot of people if you just come up only rapping right you get your whole
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fan base off of only rapping let's say you know you just you haven't really fully tapped into you yet and now you want to start singing a lot of fans are going to be like you switched up what are you doing did it and you know you could lose a lot of
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people and they might think that you're changing when really the whole time that's been you you just didn't have enough time to discover it so i was really proud of myself that i was able to kind of give people the whole scope of my
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creativity so that when i do go left field no one's going to be like what are you doing because it's kind of like oh yeah that's just being russ like we know that sometimes he's giving us red sometimes it's yellow sometimes it's
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orange whatever you know that's kind of why i did the artworks all like that too yeah just to let you know that all my music is all different colors it's not just one just spending this time with you already and even when you came in and
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stuff like you're someone who's who's very comfortable in their own skin but at the same time you're not arrogant and egotistic did everyone hear that yeah i'm just that's a first you know no i agree too i think i fought into the
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own narrative he doesn't have an ego i don't know no i definitely haven't no i mean in the sense of let's yeah let's talk about ego for a bit because and and i mean in a good way i was saying as a compliment that i feel that you have a very uh
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you know what from what i'm hearing or at least and i'm only basing on this conversation i've had with you but it's like there's a stability between like knowing you want to learn more and be better yeah but you are confident about who you
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are and where you are which is which is a beautiful place to be by the way thank you who doesn't want to be between those two things yeah uh how have you tempered that ego that we all have with the desire to learn and grow and
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realize there's more to go but i'm really happy with what i've done because that's what i'm hearing yeah but i want to kind of break that down for people because i think a lot of people live in either extreme either they're
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celebrating their last win right for like seven years right or they're just like i'm the worst i'm never gonna win i'm never gonna win and they don't appreciate where they are yeah i think for me to be honest despite perception or whatever
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um i had to hype myself up i had to be the biggest believer of myself that's the only reason why any of this worked and i think that and because i'm very vocal about it because i'm putting it out into the universe so that it comes back
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it could come off like i think i have nothing left to learn and no nobody can offer me anything and i know it's like no y'all just don't know what self-belief sounds like clearly um you might know what it looks like and some people are just more
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um quiet about their self-belief just to get people to like them otherwise you get kind of my perception but um but no i've always still been a massive fan of people and a massive just supporter of anything dope anyone
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anyone that knows me from when i was nothing to now from two years old to now like if you're dope at anything i'm always the first person to like root for you dm you send you advice like bro hit me anytime and even just looking up to people i'm
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i'm a fan out i'm like yo you're incredible i would love to work with you i'm that person too so i don't know i just there's it's the duality you are able to have the utmost confidence in yourself while still also knowing that okay but this person
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is really dope too and if we come together it could be really fire i'm just really confident in myself and so i'm not desperate to reach after collabs and things like that but it doesn't mean i don't think that i know everything and you know i'm
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always asking all my like my engineer friends like yo what plug-in is that like this is crazy oh you're fired you know when people guess you could ask even like kid super when i first met him the dude who made this sweater
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uh he did my gypsy video years ago like 2014 and when i first met him he thought i was hella weird because or like socially awkward because i kept giving him mad compliments because i was so it was like my first real kind of video ish even though it
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wasn't like some big production but i was just so enamored by the process and i thought it was so dope that i'm just like that's who i am i'm a very complimentary person and like i'm always gonna give people their flowers and he was just
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like i'm like nah i genuinely feel like that so i don't know i've always been able to have that level of duality yeah i love the idea of that that paradox like it feels like uh it feels like it's not allowed like it
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sounds like it should not be possible to think both those things yeah but actually that's where all the magic happens i agree right like that you we always think no you have to choose you have to decide or you're either raw
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but actually hearing you say that yeah actually i i think both those things yeah uh i i love that and i love how that doesn't stop you from appreciating others yeah uh who was it that appreciated your sound earlier on that you think made a
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difference to you and and may you know guided you or was it just you for yourself it was me and probably bugis like uh you know for the longest time it was just bugis wrapping and me producing and that was uh my closest example
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of like someone who i thought had really good taste and i trusted their opinion artistically so when bugis gave me the green light to be like yo yeah you should rap it was just kind of like okay well game over for everyone else like if bugas
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thinks it's tight you know so and that's how it still is like um you know you it's it's important to have you only need one but it's important to have at least one person who believes in you sometimes almost more than you and and there is no jealousy or weird uh you can't win because then i won't win like it's a very weird thing so i always you know commend boogies for being like the best friend you could have in something that i'm doing you know
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what i mean yeah let's talk about that i like what you brought there about men specifically like and you took me straight back to like my teenagers where yeah i'd be best friend with a dude and he'd be like my brother but then we'd go out and he'd be like
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all right let's see you can get more girls today right like that would be his mentality or like well like oh let's see who who'll be better at the sport today and it was every time i've realized that everyone in my life or
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male relationships if every time a guy a friend of mine has tried to turn a friendship into a competition yeah they haven't lost it in my life yeah like they're no longer in my life because i just wanted to be friends well now don't get me wrong me and
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boogie is dumb competitive okay explain we played basketball together like anything me and boogies will turn into a competition for sure but when it comes to a dream you're following after like it's never like yo how many streams did
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your song do bro you know what i'm saying it's never been that how do you build that balance what is it about him and what is it about you that allows you to build that kind of a friendship because i think that's rare yeah i do especially
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in today's social media world stream world i mean followers views comments engagement all this stuff that we all talk about i think we're both trying to do the same thing you know and we're both uh we were both real friends before all
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this and we both understood you know we read napoleon hill so we understand the power of a mastermind and we just as big of egos as me and him have we never let it get in the way of like supporting one another and any of that you know
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so i don't know i just think it comes down to the person like how real are you you know some people are just fake this is what it is yeah yeah no and that and that idea of being able to have at least even one person just one that's all you want you
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don't need yeah because sometimes we try and we want ten or twenty like that and you're right for most of us we're lucky to have one yeah and that's that's a good enough start you mentioned napoleon hill and mastermind
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when what age were you when you read that book 17. bugis gave me the book so bugis was putting me on to a lot of that stuff he put me onto napoleon hill he put me on to the alchemist um you know so that's the thing we weren't just like the
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i would say the like typical 17 18 year olds you know hanging out we graduated high school 17 and we just were locked in the studio from then until now you know so it was a lot of self-discovery but out the gate and once we left high
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school we were reading those books so it was just kind of like we were ready to go mentally like we read those books and we were both the kind of the kind of people that we buy into something quick and then we latch on to it and then that's that
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you know if that's what we believe you can't tell us anything different you know like if i'm go i went vegan for a year because i watched one documentary and like that was that like once something clicks in my brain
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i'm done you know i mean like right now i haven't had bread or grains in two weeks because i just like woke up and it clicked like my brother nutritionist told me and i latched on to him boom that's it i've like me and him have always been
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very good at just once we decide something that's what it is he lost a bunch of weight you know 30 40 pounds because he just decided i'm done you know so once me and him decided this is what we were doing with our lives there was no
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yeah but maybe we're not doing it with our lives or if this was it and we were both fully committed and every day and every like every second of our lives was committed to this you know that requires such a level of discipline
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to like make a choice and to stick with it and i find like that's something a lot of us struggle with today i'm terrible at discipline and i've always been terrible at work ethic but then i realized that it was the work and not
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my work ethic it was the work you know i didn't have good work ethic in school because i didn't like the work it's not hard to get up and do something you love every day and i think i think people get judged off their work ethic incorrectly because they get judged
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their work ethic is judged off of how well and how consistent they're doing work they don't enjoy how can you how can you judge somebody off of that yeah judge me off of you know what i love that's how i can really tell if you're about it or not
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like you say you love this you say you love basketball and i know you do but you just you're not putting in the work that's how i know you're not really about it now i can judge you accurately but if you're like if you're a
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basketball player and you love basketball but um you know somebody's judging you off of how well you do uh paintings and every day you're in the art studio that's not even fair i love that what do you think is the
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most difficult thing you've been through personally like what's been a moment of time in your life where you felt you were really battling with something to overcome it 2018 was pretty rough for me uh just because when i was 17 and i had this
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vision of what my life was gonna be and what it was going to be like to be on and successful and a musician and money and fame and whatever uh i had this very innocent like just the world is made out of like marshmallows and cotton candy
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perspective on it you know and when i got on it started off like that but then it very quickly turned and i got this very nasty side of like fame where there's a lot of negativity and hate and narratives and things that
32:05
are out of your control and things that are so frustrating trying to fight everything because i'm i'm a fighter you know and i'm competitive and i don't i don't like just rolling over so this isn't a broken version of success this just
32:17
is success this comes with it too i didn't like i didn't plan for that i thought like once you get on everything is perfect and everything is fine because that's what you think when you're 17. so um that was tough just like the dose of reality of like
32:30
oh okay this is not what i thought it was gonna be but that has to be okay because this is what it is that's such a brilliant thought that you just said that it wasn't a broken version of success that just was successful and it's so interesting because you're
32:46
so right that when we're teens we think we're going to get to a place where it doesn't matter and even now i think a lot of people look at people like yourself and other people that we both may know in our lives and people just be
32:57
like oh yeah but that that person's life everything probably just works out just the way that well that's well like that's what's so frustrating right is that people on the outside looking in their response to everything any famous
33:08
person is going through is you have millions of dollars why do you care about anything it's like what do y'all think money is according to most people's theory once you have fame and money you have no emotions that's it
33:25
you're no longer a human is what you're trying to tell me i shouldn't feel sadness i shouldn't feel anything because i have money and fame it's like okay let's run with that fine i'll buy into that for the sake of the conversation
33:39
however if you're telling me now that because of money i'm above certain human emotions then you're telling me i'm above you so now when i act like i'm above you don't now also come back and say why are you acting like you're better than me
33:52
well you just told me i'm better than you because i don't even have the same emotions you have so which one is it am i better than you or do i experience the same emotions as you it can't be both that's why i encourage people on the outside looking in to just
34:05
shut up you know it's like in a i'll take a more compassionate empathetic line but yes in the same idea of yes like the idea of i love the way you explained that i think it's it's a great way of cutting through the noise
34:21
yeah because it's it's so easy because also when we think someone is safe yeah from human emotion because of money and fame then we think when we get money and fame we will also be afraid of human emotions so and you're in for a
34:37
rude awakening right exactly we're projecting it on to you but then you're setting the same standard for yourself yeah of i hope and i and literally i've heard i think every person who's rich and famous will say the same thing
34:49
it's just like hey this is this is what it really ended up at it's going straight no no and it doesn't matter what any rich and famous person says everyone on the outside looking in won't believe it yeah they'll be like nah that won't be me though
35:02
yeah it's like you know what i hear you i was there too but you know i think i think the beauty of understanding is understanding when you don't understand and i always say that i think there's understanding and understanding that you
35:16
don't understand yeah like a lot of people need to accept that you don't get it yeah and that is being compassionate yeah like i can hear you but it doesn't mean that i feel you it doesn't mean that i get it you know that's that's it that's it well
35:31
said man that is so true i i think that was yeah that's such a great definition of compassion that you just gave because i think even when it's even when someone calls you up and said hey my my parent just i had a friend tell me this my parents
35:43
just got diagnosed with stage four cancer yeah it's like i i can't empathize i've never been in that position so i can't be like oh i feel you i get it right i have to understand that i don't you don't understand i don't understand that is
35:56
understandable correct yes yeah yes and sometimes that's all people are looking for in those moments is just like i just want you to be here and present i don't expect you to get it you know it's the people who try to act
36:08
like they get it that actually makes you feel even more alone it's like wow you're really showing me that you have no clues going on yeah and i mean when you're talking about this time in your life the 2018 when you're
36:19
experiencing success not broken success yeah in your words what are you learning at that time like what is the what's we kind of know what you're learning but what's your process of getting out of it yeah of figuring it out even before letting you get out of
36:36
it letting go of my hold on to what it needs to be that was the ego the ego was like it's supposed to be like this though and it's it's supposed to be what it is you know and once i let go of all that and then that's why i came out with shake to snow globe because i realized i just needed to reset and unjade i was like man it is what it is yeah it just is what it is like it's it's what it's supposed to be and as long as i'm still operating from a
37:04
place of love and a place of wanting to share um i'm gonna be ai it'll be what it needs to be you know and that time is also what led to the book in 2019 it's all in your head which it was all in my head a lot of times in my life i
37:18
kind of sometimes accidentally speak things into existence so i had the title of it's all in your head for years like i always had this idea of writing that um from a positive standpoint obviously like you know manifesting and self-belief and all
37:33
those things but it's funny that i had this title it's on your head right you're your own worst enemy or your your own biggest fan you pick whatever it is and then while i have this title 2018 happens and i'm losing to myself mentally
37:50
you know i had to snap out of it you know so it was just one of those things where i needed to like listen to my own advice and be like bro it's all in your head now you know like but now on the negative side yeah but
38:07
it's a choice at this point do you want to fight everything and fight the whole world or do you want to let it go yeah and was writing the book quite therapeutic in that because i almost feel like when you're writing a book
38:15
called it's all in your head it's far more simpler to go inward because yeah you're kind of dealing with topics and themes that work for you what was the biggest thing that you put in the book that you felt was what helped you overcome and where that
38:29
whole book and especially the process of it was like an interview so i had this woman who would come and she had the tape recorder and i had all the chapters mapped out like what i was you know because it was
38:41
all song titles so i knew what the chapters weren't going to be i knew what i was going to talk about um i just needed somebody to help me organize all my thoughts so she would come with the tape recorder and just we would go chapter by chapter
38:54
and she would say okay we'll talk about manifesting what it means to you and i would just talk and so it was really like a week and a half of therapy sessions and then we organized all of it together and i you know did my stuff and whatever and it was
39:07
like man this was it that's why i love that book because it's really me like that was me talking to a therapist for a week and a half in a book i love it yeah and how amazing is that that people have that accessible to them
39:19
right because if everyone could have a diary of them being in therapy right i think that'd be phenomenal yeah to be able to look back and and work through it you've mentioned manifestation of a few times and and i think you've taught us some really
39:32
in my opinion again very personal and refreshing ways yeah we hear about the word a lot and randomly you're obviously someone who believes it lives it knows it is experiencing it what is the process that you have practiced for you
39:48
that has worked for you that others could understand because i think there's a lot of like misconceptions around it but for someone who it's working for and someone who believes in it yeah how would you describe it it's that knowing thing you were talking about
40:00
it's not necessarily just seeing it oh i can see myself with money and then like then that's it now you're gonna get money it's more so knowing it and also feeling it and and not just like excuse me not just oh like i said you
40:13
can see the beach house you bought your mom it's it's what does it feel like though what it do like what does it feel like when you see your mom's reaction to getting the beach house and can you can you feel that can you feel the car
40:25
turning the corner to the beach it's about immersing yourself in that feeling as if it was going on right now and when you do that on a daily basis it's not long before reality catches up with your thoughts you know and like i said
40:40
it just has to be something you believe and buy into this whole theory you know if you believe that we are just the universe experiencing itself and you know we're all in tune and connected to the infinite and all these things
40:53
then you're gonna be fine as far as as far as this you know method goes but if you don't then it's not for you you know and was that the best thing you manifested the beach house uh it was one of them for sure but just like this whole career man just
41:08
this whole life was a complete uh product of law of attraction but also being proactive i wasn't just sitting yeah no you don't just like click your heels and go back to kansas you know what i mean like tell us about the work tell us about the product the actual like so we get it the immersion the feeling yeah and i know you're doing the other part too tell us about the strategy the the networking the the yeah the actual skill yeah because
41:35
you have to have a skill right well skill can get developed you know skill is developed i was not the most skilled when i started at all all of it sucked so uh you know you develop skill through repetition and through practice
41:48
and putting in the work but yeah i don't think people understand that you actually need to put in the work and be persistent you just also have to couple it with a very positive mindset but you know will smith talks about um
42:03
the concept of and i've like mentioned this a lot like laying a brick a day until you have a wall you know i think his dad took them you know the story i'm talking about they like did the break a day like how are we gonna build a wall and you go out
42:14
there and you lay a brick a day so i really resonate with that whole um story and concept and i think it's really true i think a lot of people are just focused on the whole bigger picture and like how am i gonna be this famous musician
42:27
like i haven't even made a song yet it's like you're not supposed to be thinking about like all that to the point where it's daunting and crippling you're just supposed to you know what i know i'ma get that i can feel what
42:37
it's like but in the meantime i'mma lay a brick a damn or make a song a day or make a b today or find samples every day or study every day like as long as you're doing something towards the bigger picture a small thing every day you're good
42:49
that's real that's real and that's how it has to be built yeah everyone always think it's like that the wallet analogy that you're talking about you kind of just turn up i was thinking about that one day i was i was looking out into the city of la
43:01
and i was just thinking like someone had to think about this right i was in dubai recently i was thinking the same it's like it's just a desert it's a no it's a bunch of ideas yeah and someone had to think about it first like they would have looked out
43:12
into like desert yeah and had to think about it but we don't think about that because we walk into a city you walk into ev like that's what i find fascinating is that every day you're walking around in somebody's idea
43:24
that's how you know thoughts are powerful like we're sitting inside like this chair was somebody's idea to make it look like this and the cushions to be this soft and these shoes like you're just constantly surrounded by other people's ideas
43:37
and i think the really cool thing about free will is contributing your ideas back into the infrastructure of what's already going on that's so powerful man yeah what you just said now is so powerful how how do we how do we know if our idea is
43:50
good or is that even the right question i don't think that's the right question i think i think is it serviceable you know does it help [Music] you know is it just for you or is it are you serving a bigger purpose that's why i
44:09
think music is really great because we're you know it's a service for the world we're providing you know big or small however you want to quantify it is on you but it's definitely a service that we're providing and i realized you know after i got money and fame and
44:25
whatever um i was like man the whole point of this like i had i literally said this to myself the other day in the shower that's where all my ideas happen and i don't feel bad i don't feel bad about that because pharrell said the
44:37
same thing yeah um but i literally just blurted out i was like i need more money so i can help more people it was just like a thing that blurted out and i was like i was like yeah that's the whole point of all this i had this like epiphany i
44:52
was like i'm 28 i made it the only thing left to do is obviously i keep making it but it's to help other people make it you know and i just think that our goal is to just give and i think there's a very uh misled sort of
45:12
idea that we're supposed to be getters and i think um bugis actually mentioned this concept to me about being a go giver instead of a go-getter i think a lot of times especially with music success fame we're just thinking about what can we
45:28
get you know and what can i get from the world when i put this song out and so on and so forth but it's more so about what can i give to the world tell me about a message or a piece of fan mail or an experience you've had with a fan
45:43
or a listener that made you realize how impactful music is on someone i'm sure you've had some phenomenal and you know it's so many man to be honest and i'm so fortunate that it's so many but every day people are sending me messages
45:56
of you saved my life and you meet people and they're crying their eyes out because it's like you helped them so much and that's you know that's when you realize it's just way bigger than you you know it's just way bigger than you and
46:10
like i said i think i'm just excited to keep giving to the world and i know that could sound cliche and like you don't believe that i'm actually that generous but it's really like you know anyone around me knows like i'm always
46:25
trying to help you know i'm always trying to like give people money or whatever just because it's like that's you know my mom told me a long time ago when i first started getting money she said uh money is meant to change people's
46:39
realities and so if you have the ability to do it you should so i get a kick out of just like you know i'll see a fan on twitter and they're like raising money for like their dance program and i'm just like here you know a kid will send me a dm
46:55
like you know my mom's funeral and i'm just like why not you know and i don't need to post about it it's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to give it back and i and i think i'm also a very big believer in not blocking the natural flow
47:12
of the universe and i think money is a force of energy and when you get it and you're just focused on keeping it you're gonna lose it so i always get money and give it right back and i think that's why it keeps coming in yeah i just give it away yeah and it's
47:24
given in your own way right like i think what i love about what you're saying and you're talking about the cliche of giving to me it's you figured out how you like giving yeah and and that's what matters for all of us because
47:37
some people are going to do charity work some people are going to build schools some people are going to support the people around them some people are going to help yeah a person on twitter or whatever who who can't even pay for their mother's
47:48
funeral or whatever it is like you know the point is if supporting in the way you can yeah and in the way you feel called to yeah because that's all you have and it tripped me out when like i said when boogies brought
48:00
this concept to me and go give her yeah go give her and and i was like man i never fully understood the complete reason why i got so much out of life already and he was like it's because you gave so much and i never thought about it like
48:22
that but you know when you think about you know i have more songs out than some of the veterans in the game most of them you know i got 500 songs just like the game i give to try like i give a lot and i don't think
48:35
about what i'm doing i'm like i'm about to give this so i can get it yeah yeah you know i'm just like giving it because i naturally want to do that but it makes a lot of sense that you know givers get more than the ghettos yeah and even when you're giving and
48:48
it's not even being loved or received that way but you continue to give yeah because sometimes it's easy to give when everyone's kind of like oh we listen they give you the validation but sometimes you're just giving because
48:59
we'll see but if you're only giving it to get something back then you're not giving me anything you're loaning it that's what i always tell people like women i don't care who it is don't give me love if you're only giving it to get
49:11
something back then it's conditional and it's not giving you're loaning me love you're only loaning me love for an extended period of time until i give it back i don't do that i give love and give game and give money and whatever it is i don't
49:25
expect anything back i give it because that feels like the right thing to do and it aligns with my spirit how do you feel or how do you respond when you realize someone just learned it to you when you thought that they were giving i expect most
49:40
people to act like that right because most people are like that most people are out for self they're very self-serving and so i know that most people are operating from a place of i'm not doing any favors and i'm not doing anything
49:55
for free and so i'm not really surprised i'm not that naive you know i think you can be you can be naive if you want to the point of like i really thought you were just helping me out it's like okay you know i don't assume anyone's
50:10
just helping me out i like you get in trouble and you get your feelings hurt when you assume people are as kind as you or people you know not to be like i'm the most kind person ever but you can get your feelings so if you
50:22
assume everyone is like you that's when you get disappointed and you know and you suffer and the whole thing with suffering it comes from attachment so if you get attached to the idea that oh well they're going to operate how i'm
50:33
operating you're going to suffer you know so i try not to get attached to anything really yeah that's the only time people suffer is when there's attachment involved yeah you know you're not going to freak out if a water bottle right here gets like
50:46
burned or your table gets burned you're not that attached to the table you know so that's when you got to like choose in life with your what's worth getting attached to which i really think it's people and animals
50:57
people and pets that's about it you know everything else is pretty replaceable yeah off top of my head yeah i'm gonna add people pets and purpose we'll add a third one sure yeah people pets and purpose i like that yeah but even the purpose it's hard
51:10
you know you get so attached to that you can suffer a lot along the way if things don't go the way you want them that's that's what happened to me in 2018. i was suffering because it wasn't going the way i was attached to and once i let go
51:22
of that attachment to how i thought it was supposed to go i was fine yeah you know sure there's dips in here and there but for the most part i'm good yeah yeah i always say to people you you get to where you want in life just not in the way you imagined it
51:34
yeah or when yeah or when you imagined it and that's the challenge right it's like you have reality and then you have your projector screen up here yeah you're trying to make this projector screen happen but but this is reality right now
51:46
yeah and that's what you're actually going through just have faith that whatever you want you're gonna get it in whatever life you want you're you're gonna achieve it but it doesn't matter when that should be irrelevant you know you
51:59
have you can't put a deadline on your own success it's crazy yeah it ruins people you know you know those people that are like by 30 if i don't have to do and it's like then what's what's going to happen at 30 if you don't
52:11
you know what i'm saying like what happens you know and you don't know when yeah you don't you know you're 28 now like my my life took off externally internally my journey started at 16. sure but externally my journey started at 28.
52:27
wow and so you know i'm 33 now and it's and it's just interesting it's like you just don't know when what's going to happen and and you just but you trusted the way you believed in it yeah yeah i loved that trust yeah that's that's really
52:40
beautiful man dude this has been like this has been one of the most refreshing conversations yeah in a long time nice like i love how you've brought everything you've learned along the way and made it so practical yeah in your i've had to make
52:55
sense of my whole everything like yeah you've really made sense of it like listening to you i'm like wow like this is you know you can tell that russ is reflected and deeply inter internalized these concepts because it's really easy to say the
53:12
stuff uh but the practical aspects of it of how you live it yeah is what's blown me away yeah i appreciate it well i always tell people being a musician uh it's such a self-discovery thing like you learn just so much about
53:27
yourself and the universe when you're an artist and you're you know it's just i don't it's such about like diving deep into the depths of yourself and discovering you and it's when you're making when you when you're the type of artist i feel
53:41
like i am which is i'm trying to talk about the truth i'm trying to help people i had to kind of those self-help books and just kind of moving through this journey i had to find the way to apply all this stuff to
53:52
my life in a practica practical productive way you can tell man yeah thank you but yeah we we end every interview the final five so this is a rapid fire fight live so you're gonna answer every question in one word or
54:05
one sentence maximum fire so that's for every one of them easy for you you're a lyricist and yeah you know you've you this will be easy for you all right the first question is uh what's the best advice you've ever received what if it can turn out better
54:17
than you can imagine second question what's the worst advice you've ever received be realistic nice that's good that's a good one all right third question what's one thing you're trying to learn or grow and develop right now more of
54:32
a affinity and appreciation for the present moment i like that all right question number four what's one thing that you think other people value but you don't value i don't know what do people value that i think is dumb um crocs
54:54
all right i agree yeah good all right fifth and final question uh if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow what would it be the golden rule bro that they teach you in fifth grade like do unto others as they
55:09
you know what i mean if everyone had to only treat people the way that they would be treated i think obviously the world would be in a much better spot you'd be much more conscious of like all right maybe i shouldn't do this but the thing that's funny about that i
55:24
always laugh when people think they get away with something you did it there's always to me i believe the universe is seeing everything jay electronic has this line where he's the universe is listening be careful what you saying it you know it's like
55:38
you might think you got over on me you did it somebody saw yeah you know good luck enjoy that and the worst thing is you saw somewhere deep inside of yourself yeah and that's the worst one yeah like that's the one that eats you
55:50
up the most everyone rushed this has been honestly one of my favorite conversations yeah that was really there are so many things you shared that i hope everyone who's listening and watching is going to go back and listen to watch and write notes uh i didn't tell you at the start but now i'm like you should have taken notes because this is one of those episodes where there were just so many practical examples of not listening to people's opinions
56:11
finding solitude for your creativity allowing yourself to be wild and insane on your own so you can discover new things about yourself uh the ability to balance confidence with humility at the same time i mean you've just been dropping bars the whole time i really like the way you framed all the questions though cause it had me thinking in ways i wasn't like i never really thought about the duality of the ego while also being a fan and just
56:36
being i never told anyone about being crazy in the studio when you're by yourself like the auto-tune thing i love that that was one of my favorite things but no i appreciate it man and i hope everyone who's listening and watching
56:46
uh go and grab a copy of russ's book it's all in your head it will be a great read for you if you love this conversation and of course uh all the music all the albums but uh thank you for coming on on purpose man and we hope we can have you back for
56:58
part two for sure thanks for having me yeah we should do this regularly because i feel like it would be nice to see your evolution yeah and your growth as time goes on yeah man thank you thank you thank you everyone who's listening and watching
57:10
thank you for watching on purpose and i want you to tag me and russ on instagram with the things that stood out to you on twitter as well what is it that you heard what is it that he said that you just can't stop thinking about
57:22
and you want to share with your friends make sure you tag both of us i love noticing what really resonates with you guys uh thank you again for listening and watching we'll see you next time if you want even more videos just like
57:33
this one make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here i'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book think like a monk from think like a monkbook.com check below in the description to make sure you order today