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The following podcast is a dear media production.
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She s a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire.
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Fantastic.
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And he s a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie.
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And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride.
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Get ready for some major realness.
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Welcome to the skinny confidential him and her.
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I wasn t silly enough to think that just the adoration of others would fill me up or make me feel whole, but I was silly enough to think that that external success would change how I felt about myself.
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I thought I would feel more secure.
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I thought my chest would be out if I accomplished these things.
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And of course, nothing changed.
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My moment-to-moment experience of life was largely the same.
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These things were really exciting and fun, and my career and the success I had were all blessings.
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So it s not like I was sad because of them.
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I was sad already, and I thought if I went down that path, it would solve these things.
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Hello, everybody.
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Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show.
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Today, we have an incredible guest, which many of you I m sure are familiar with, or at least with his music.
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That is Mike Posner.
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Mike Posner s expansive, multi-platinum music has earned him global recognition, and in 2019, Posner walked nearly 3,000 miles across North America.
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in an effort to inspire people to challenge themselves, surviving a rattlesnake bite along the way.
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He then made it to the peak of Mount Everest in 2021, which we discussed.
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It s a wild story.
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I m sure many of you, like I said earlier, are familiar with his music.
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He got a record deal from Jay-Z.
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Yes, Jay-Z.
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And then he had a hit song called I Took a Pill in Ibiza, which I m sure many of you have heard.
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And along the way really went into this journey of mental health, finding solitude, you know, meditation, really all of the things that make us better people.
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And his story is incredible.
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So, you know, we talk all about his music career, which I m sure many of you are interested in, but mostly what it looked like after he had success in the music industry.
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He kind of reached the peak there and then went to discover himself even further.
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So this conversation has a lot in there.
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Like I said, we talk about his childhood and his career.
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We talk about meeting Kanye and Jay-Z, the purpose of an artist, the thought behind his latest hit songs, internal versus external validation, why he got sober, the importance of solitude.
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This is one of those podcasts that absolutely shocked Lauren and I when we were in it.
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It goes all over the place and it s really just an incredible story.
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It almost felt like a long song that he was walking us through.
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With that, Mike Posner, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show.
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This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her.
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I get pumped to talk to people that have lived a lot of life in condensed periods of time.
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I feel you re one of those people, right?
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Like some of the experiences you ve had in a short window, like those get crammed over very long, but you crammed a lot early.
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To start, I know many people are already aware of who you are and what you do, but childhood, like background, where did you grow up?
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How did you grow up?
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Were you called to music always or was this something you kind of fell into?
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Grew up, I was born in Detroit, Michigan.
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Both my parents are, were born in Detroit.
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I grew up in a city called Southfield, which borders Detroit.
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Mostly black, middle class city.
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Had a great childhood, man.
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Had a little crew of boys, they re all my age, on my street, ride bikes, play basketball, play video games.
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And eventually started rapping.
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That s how I grew up.
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This is, I love where I grew up.
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So just normal?
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I mean, it s my normal.
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But like, happy childhood?
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It was nothing externally that was wrong.
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But yeah, when I was a teenager, I was very unhappy.
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Very unhappy.
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Why do you think that is?
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I think partly genetic, ancestral.
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I think that s in my lineage for sure.
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Parents, grandparents.
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Partly the environment.
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Michigan, I don t know if you ever spent time in Detroit, but in the winter,
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is pretty darn gray and the days are very short and the way our school was set up, you know, I d go to school in the dark and I d leave in the dark so I would go months without seeing the sun.
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You know, I think that didn t help.
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You couldn t do that one, there s no way.
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People don t talk about how, I mean you are right now, but people don t talk about how hard that is to live somewhere where it s dark a lot.
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Yeah.
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And then when it was late, I was inside.
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I mean, I look back on my, you know, things, you know, now as an adult, the things I was eating, like I was, I would eat six bowls of cereal a day.
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Yeah.
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And like, I m lactose intolerant, so I was just eating sugar and milk, you know?
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So I was like, and I wasn t sleeping, I d go to bed late every night, get up for school.
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So I mean, it really wasn t like setting myself up for success with, you know, things I know now that are kind of foundational and baseline.
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What was your cereal?
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I would eat crackling oat bran, granola, with or without raisins.
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That was the main one.
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No Lucky Charms?
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No, that was like when I was really little, I would eat that.
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I would eat that.
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But you know, all those cereals, it s just all sugar.
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It s basically like a full-on dessert.
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Yeah.
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We still give it to our kids.
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You mentioned that you started rapping, and you said it was your normal, but to me, how does one just start rapping?
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I don t understand that.
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I had this great friend named Ronnie.
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He s since passed away.
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So rest in peace, Ronnie.
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But he always had a scheme.
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Like we would hang out and he always had something we were going to do.
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Like, hey, today we re going to do this.
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And sometimes they d be like legal things and sometimes not.
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But one night he was like, hey man, we re going to freestyle tonight.
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And so we went in our parents  CD collections and we found albums that had tracks on them with no words.
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And we just brought them together and we started rapping.
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And I remember in the basement and I just knew right when I started doing it, I m never going to stop doing this.
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So it s like a prodigy.
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And I just, and I haven t, you know, so I just knew that was my thing.
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I didn t know that it was gonna be my vocation, like that I could get paid for it, but I knew I would do it the rest of my life.
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So at what point do you start the momentum of your career?
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How does that start?
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A lot later.
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So I started, you know, I m like eight years old and I start writing raps and writing songs and yeah, it weren t very good, you know, cuz I was just starting and
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It took me really about 12 years of just making music to make something that anyone cared about.
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And at the time in that space, in that era, how would one get discovered if you wanted to be discovered?
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That was an interesting question because at the time I was making or condense a lot of life into a few sentences.
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So I started rapping at 18.
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I meet Big Sean.
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And we re the same age.
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And Sean knows Kanye.
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I go to college at Duke University.
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Sean has a scholarship to Michigan State.
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Kanye says, don t go to college, you re gonna be a rapper.
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But I go to college, Sean doesn t.
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Sean then signs a record deal.
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And when Sean signs a record deal, something clicked in my brain and I go,
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I can do that too because my buddy did it and I knew I was like, my talent was comparable to his.
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So I started working and I m in college at the time and I was making
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I was making music where I had begun putting melodies to my raps.
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I was essentially singing raps now, but singing in such a way that as a hip-hop fan, I would like it.
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I was somebody who pretty much listened mostly to rap.
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I was like, this is how a rapper would want a singer to sing.
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And I was putting complex rhyme schemes, polysyllabic rhyme schemes into the singing.
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So my first song, it became popular, a song called Cooler Than Me.
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And it goes, you got designer shades just to hide your...
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So shades and face don t rhyme, but designer and hijer also rhyme.
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So there s three syllables that rhyme.
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So this is like rapper stuff, but I m putting melody to it.
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When you explain it that way, it s more complex than people maybe would think.
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Correct.
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And most pop songs aren t written that way.
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Now some of them are, but not really.
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It s kind of like putting a little rap trick into a pop song.
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So I was sort of like treading this line where I was both a hip-hop artist kind of, but kind of like a pop artist.
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And I was at school, I was at Duke University, and I knew my stuff would react on like hip-hop blogs.
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Your question was how would you get your career started at that time.
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At that time, if you were a rapper, you would try to get on these series of blogs.
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It was called Too Dope Boys, Nah Right.
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These were influential hip-hop blogs if you were really into hip-hop.
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And I knew I needed to get my stuff on there.
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But a funny thing happened while I was in the dorm room.
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I would always stay in from the parties because the dorms were always loud.
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except for 11 p.m.
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to 2 a.m.
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when everyone else would go out and they d go to party and be dead quiet in the dorms and that s when Mike Posner would record his songs because it was quiet.
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So I m like all nights my friends are going out, they re giving me a hard time.
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You re lame, you never go out.
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And I go down the hall one day into my friend Xander s room.
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And he goes, dude, you know, I just want to tell you yesterday we were at the party and your song came on, because I had MySpace.
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He goes, your song came on, all the girls knew the words.
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Whoa.
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And I said, well, that, you know, I ve been doing it 12 years.
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He said, that never happened before.
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And he goes, and they played it twice in a row.
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Whoa.
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I go back down the hall to my room and my phone rings.
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It s my mom.
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My mom is a Detroit hard rock.
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She tells the truth.
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She doesn t exaggerate.
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You don t have to imagine how she s feeling because she ll tell you.
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She doesn t placate.
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I answer that phone call and she goes, Michael, I heard that song, Cooler Than Me, on your MySpace, and I really like it.
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Michael, my jaw hits the floor, because I ve been making music 12 years.
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My mom always supported me, paid for studio time, got me music lessons, but she never told me she liked one of my songs.
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So I m like, okay, that s weird.
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These white girls at Duke like my song, my mom likes my song.
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And then, the next day, Sean calls me.
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He goes, yo man, that Cooler Than Me song?
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He goes, that sounds like a hit song to me.
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And that s not even in my realm of possibilities, a hit song.
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I m just a college student.
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But now I m hearing the white girls at Duke, my mom.
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and Big Sean all love the same songs.
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A wide range of- Correct.
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So now I m going, okay, I need to get my music not only on these hip-hop blogs, I need to get it in a place where people who aren t into hip-hop and aren t going on these weird sites and pirating music can hear it.
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And so at the time,
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the safest place to get music, still is a safe place, was iTunes.
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But the problem was, it was 2009, and so people my age, we didn t buy music, we stole it.
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We stole it.
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Those were the days, just ruin the family computer with whatever you were downloading.
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Correct, so I go, okay, like no one s buying
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Kanye s music or Jay-z s music that I know so they re damn sure not gonna buy my music because they don t know who I am So I found this loophole.
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It was a thing called iTunes U and if this is boring we can skip over it So there was a thing called iTunes U and it was made for professors to put up their lectures for free So they would put up
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I never knew what that thing was for.
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I would see it all the time on their computers.
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It was just boring.
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It was like some dude talking about... It was literally a podium symbol, right?
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Yeah, it was like footage of a classroom.
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It was like a class.
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And so I found the guy who ran iTunes U for Duke.
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And this is where maybe fate comes in.
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His name was Todd Stabley.
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I get on the phone with Todd.
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I said, hey Todd, my name s Mike Posner, and we start talking, I said, I really wanna get my album on iTunes U, I m a student.
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And so I m hoping it can qualify to be educational and it could go on there.
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And he goes, we start talking, he goes, where are you from?
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I said, I m from, born in Detroit, like I just told you, I m from Southfield, Michigan.
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He goes, I m from Southfield, Michigan.
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I would gladly put your album on iTunes U. You still keep in touch with him?
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No, I haven t talked to him for years.
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It s pretty cool though.
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Yeah, but he put it on there and then it like really expanded and my buddies that I went to school with
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They all sent the link to their friends that were at different colleges.
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We all changed our Facebook profile photos to the album cover.
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And I would ask my friends that I went to high school with that were at different colleges to share with all their friends.
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And within a few months, you know, I d get emails and offers like,
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Can you like play this bar in Dayton, Ohio or play this fraternity party and pay 500 bucks or 700 bucks and I d go and it wouldn t be big shows, maybe like 50 people, but everyone there knew all the words to my music, to that album, that mixtape.
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That s gotta be a trip.
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It was a trip, and then I was living a double life, so I d go to school during the week, and then I d play Thursday, Friday, Saturday concerts at college, college, college, and I d go back a second time, go back to Dayton, and it d be 300 people there, and I d go back a third time, it d be 3,000.
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So how fast does it really start growing?
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From the time where that gets discovered to the time where thousands of people are showing up?
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You know, it s like, it depends what demarcation lines you choose, like 12 years or, you know, 12 months.
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But from, from me releasing that first, from me releasing Cooler Than Me to me getting a record deal was probably
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Nine months, a year.
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It happened quick.
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You went to Duke.
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I did.
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Duke is not an easy school to get into.
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So I feel like there s another aspect of this I need to dissect.
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So not only are you a super talented musician, you re also really smart.
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I feel like you have to have like gnarly grades and marks and all kinds of shit to get into Duke.
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Am I right about that?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it s probably fair to say.
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It s not an easy school to get into.
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No.
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I studied pretty hard in high school and in college.
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So you re real smart too.
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Book smart.
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You know, smart in some ways, other ways I m not as good.
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You can tell you have a lot of retention.
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You want to know why I know that?
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Because we start, I ask you a question and then you go on a little story and then, but you come back and you can repeat the question back to me.
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And I talk to a lot of people all the time.
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Not a lot of people can do that.
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That means that you re able to retain a lot of stuff and connect words quickly.
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Thank you.
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There s a lot of processing up there.
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Thank you.
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Yeah.
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But I mean, I don t think you could do, I always believe that people that can string
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Those wraps those words together like you have to be process is on a certain speed, right?
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Like you can t because in order to connect it and make it all sound right and make it rhyme you and also make sure that the context of the words make sense together that requires a lot of quick.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, and you can develop it, you know, like I don t freestyle that much anymore.
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But when I do it, you know, you you get better at it the time.
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Who did you grow up with together?
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You mentioned Kanye.
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Who are the people that are in the same ether as you and are you guys collaborative?
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Are you competitive?
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What s the energy?
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Kanye was already like an icon to us.
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Already?
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Yeah.
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So I was like a generation after him.
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My generation was like me,
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Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller.
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Those are kind of like, and there were a bunch of others, but those are like, you know, sort of my class of artists that I was emerging with in that first chapter of my career.
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And is there competition or is everyone supportive?
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That s pretty much all love between those guys.
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Especially Shawn and I. I always felt healthy competition with Shawn.
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I wouldn t be here without Shawn.
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He s changed my life twice in like immense ways.
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He s kind of like this guy that...
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He ll float into my life and just change its direction and then float out.
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I m like, whoa.
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And always for the better.
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So yeah, it s just all love.
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We inspired each other, though.
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Certainly, you see this guy who was in your mom s basement with you, and you re rapping and freestyling, and then he gets a record deal.
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It changed my perception of what was possible.
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for myself and as I m sure you guys have touched on this podcast in your lives, you know,
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Your life, I believe, is the printout of your beliefs.
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If you want to know what you really believe, just look at your life.
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So true.
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And yeah, right.
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And so he was somebody who expanded my beliefs.
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And that internal expansion was just quickly followed by an external expansion.
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You know, like when he got a record deal, I knew I could.
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And eight, nine months later, I was sitting across the table from Jay-Z in a meeting.
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He offered me a record deal.
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That s gotta be weird.
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It is, because it s Sean.
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So when you re sitting across from Jay-Z and Jay-Z s offering you a record deal, what s going through your mind in that part?
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I was still a student at Duke, it was the end of my junior year and by then my music was catching on such that major record labels were taking notice and some of them were sending agents or A&Rs down to my concerts to meet with me and so I just had this double life going.
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I m a student but I m kind of becoming more popular and famous and I was taking meetings with
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different labels, and then it was like finals week.
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So I m back at Duke, I m in the library, and I gotta write my papers.
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And like you said, Duke s a tough school, and a lot of my classes were on a curve against just really smart students, man.
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And most of them weren t living a double life.
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They were there to study.
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People from other countries, their parents sent them there like, you re gonna study.
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SPEAKER_00
And so anyways,
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I m writing a paper and my manager calls, hey, you gotta go back to New York.
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I m like, dude, nah, man, I don t think you get it.
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Like, I gotta write this paper.
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He s like, no, you gotta go back.
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Jay-Z wants to meet you.
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I said, don t fuck with me.
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He goes, I m not fucking with you.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, go back.
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SPEAKER_00
Booked a flag obviously agreed to go back, but I really didn t think it was actually gonna happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought that I d go up there and then They would say Jay got busy, you know meet with his number two or number three That s what I thought was gonna happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t tell a soul.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t tell a friend I didn t tell anybody cuz I didn t I didn t want to say hey, he s got and then have to say they say how did it go and have to go I didn t meet him, you know, so I just like I
2
SPEAKER_00
kept it to myself and I flew to New York just like a ninja man, like on a covert mission.
2
SPEAKER_00
No one knew I was going except my manager and we went and it was incredible and it was really a story I should tell you before I go in the office which was maybe nine months or a year before I walk into Jay-Z s office.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was in New York with Sean, and Sean invited me to go to Kanye s Glow in the Dark concert at Madison Square Garden.
2
SPEAKER_00
I go to Will Call, Sean says, there s two tickets there for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I asked Will Call, okay, two tickets, Mike Posner, they say, there s no tickets here under that name.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you sure?
2
SPEAKER_00
She picks up another clipboard, flips over the page, there s no ticket.
2
SPEAKER_00
I call Sean, I say, hey buddy, there s no tickets here for me, he goes,
2
SPEAKER_00
Okay, don t worry about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just come meet me at the studio.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m at the studio with Kanye.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m thinking, oh, that s way better than just getting the tickets.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I show up to the studio and Shawn meets me downstairs.
2
SPEAKER_00
We go up the elevator.
2
SPEAKER_00
We walk down a hallway.
2
SPEAKER_00
He deposits me into basically a waiting room next to the studio and he goes in the studio with Kanye.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I can hear Kanye s album 808 s Heartbreak Through the Wall.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s what he s made.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not out yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what he s working on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I hear my voice seep through the wall.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s a song that I made with Sean called Who Knows.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m thinking, dude, this is this is the moment.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, Kanye West is listening to my song.
2
SPEAKER_00
that I made with Sean, and at that time, it s four people in the music industry that could change my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Pharrell, and Kanye.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, this is my moment.
2
SPEAKER_00
The music stops, and I see the doorway.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s an open door, and I see a blur of bodies walk by.
2
SPEAKER_00
Including Connie s including Sean s a bunch of other people and no nobody says anything to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I realized they re leaving me and I was like the chutzpah of a 20 year old me I go like fuck that, you know So I get up and I follow him to the elevator and I get out there and the down button is already illuminated they re waiting for the elevator and Sean, you know before I get suplexed by a bodyguard introduces me to Kanye he says
2
SPEAKER_00
Kanye, this is Mike Posner, he made that song I just played you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Kanye gives me a fist bump.
2
SPEAKER_00
And no one says anything.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I muster up all the courage I have inside my little skinny white body and I say, did you like it?
2
SPEAKER_00
And he looked at me and he said, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh God, it s devastating.
2
SPEAKER_00
He said no and it wasn t rude at all.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was just honest, which I appreciate because it really lit a fire in me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I got in that elevator and I go, for some reason that could have doused my dreams, but it ignited them.
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you think he knew that by saying that, that it would ignite them?
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think
2
SPEAKER_00
He has a commitment to telling the truth.
2
SPEAKER_01
Uh-huh.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think he was telling the truth.
2
SPEAKER_01
And now you look back on that song, what do you think?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, that brings me back to Jay-Z s office a year later.
2
SPEAKER_00
I sit down with Jay-Z, and I m nervous, and I go, I ll play you some music.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s like I got my backpack now, my laptop in it, you know, I take out my laptop, and I m, where can I plug it in?
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, there was no airplay yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m looking for his aux cord, and it s like, you know, finally we get it plugged in.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I play him Cooler Than Me, and he starts nodding his head, like this, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can tell he really likes it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we just have a great meeting.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was like two hours.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was in there talking for a long time.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then... What s the general conversation about?
2
SPEAKER_02
Like what are you guys chatting about in there for two hours?
2
SPEAKER_00
Vision, like my vision and the vision he saw for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
He was so insightful, such a student of music.
2
SPEAKER_00
He knew who my inspirations were by listening to my music.
2
SPEAKER_00
He said, you know, I can hear this and this, and I think you can make an album like this, but you gotta work hard for it and stumble upon it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the album, he said, was like my favorite album at the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was The Love Below by Andre 3000.
2
SPEAKER_00
So he was just insightful and the man.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he looked at Jon Manili, his right hand man, he goes, so what do we do?
2
SPEAKER_00
Jon says, I think we do a deal.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like trying to contain my excitement, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we shake hands.
3
SPEAKER_02
How old are you at this time?
3
2021.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you re, you re young.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, compared to how old I am now.
3
SPEAKER_00
At the time, I was the oldest I had ever been.
3
SPEAKER_02
But still, just the reason I ask, it s like 21, it s hard to contain your emotions at that age, especially when you re with those kind of people.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I never had a problem containing my emotions.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just had a problem expressing them.
3
SPEAKER_00
I go back to... No, before I go back, I m walking out of the room, shake his hand, I go... Something inspires me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I say, yo, can I play you one more song?
3
SPEAKER_00
He goes, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I plugged my laptop back in, I played him, who knows, same song.
3
SPEAKER_00
And song finishes and he looks at me and he says, that s incredible.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can t believe you almost left without playing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
He goes, never forget to play that song.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
3
SPEAKER_00
I went on a plane back to Duke, I go back to the library, write in my paper, check my email, I got a record deal offer from Roc Nation.
3
SPEAKER_01
Air sculpt.
3
SPEAKER_01
I had the best experience with air sculpt.
3
SPEAKER_01
As you guys know, I lost 60 pounds post baby and I work out literally seven days a week.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m walking, I m moving, I m eating lots of protein.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m doing all the things, but I just wanted something to give me a little bit of refinement.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I decided to get my jawline area, not on my face, but like right underneath, there was a little bit of stubborn fat there.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I also decided to do my arms.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I am so glad I did.
3
SPEAKER_01
Aerosculpt is the move.
3
SPEAKER_01
Aerosculpt was invented in 2012 by celebrity cosmetic surgeon Dr. Aaron Rollins.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s been on the podcast before.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s also been on my Instagram story.
3
SPEAKER_01
He is a genius.
3
SPEAKER_01
Over 60,000 people have enjoyed the Aerosculpt difference, including obviously yours truly.
3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
And the procedure is so gentle that they can even take your natural fat and use it to enhance your boobs, your butt, your face, as opposed to implants or synthetic dermal fillers.
3
SPEAKER_01
I did not move any fat.
3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
So I took it out underneath, like I said, kind of like my neck area and my arms.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the best part is you re back to your daily routine in under 48 hours.
3
SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
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3
SPEAKER_01
Terms and conditions apply.
3
SPEAKER_02
The Skinny Confidential Him and Her Podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.
3
SPEAKER_02
If you ve been listening to this show for a while, you re probably doing all the things.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re probably taking care of your body.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re probably eating the right things, taking the right supplements.
3
SPEAKER_02
But one thing we neglect all the time at our detriment is our mental health.
3
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3
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3
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3
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3
SPEAKER_02
And a lot of times we have stress because we carry too much inside and we don t talk nearly enough about our feelings and our thoughts and our ideas.
3
SPEAKER_02
This is why Lauren and I love BetterHelp so much.
3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
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Quick break to talk about ServPro.
3
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
Years ago, Lauren and I had a flood in our condo.
3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
And I just remember at that time, it being such a nightmare.
3
SPEAKER_02
I wish then that I knew about ServPro because ServPro is the number one choice in cleanup and restoration, and they do construction too.
3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
Like I said, Lauren and I had this apartment.
3
SPEAKER_02
It flooded and it was an absolute disaster.
3
SPEAKER_02
We got displaced.
3
SPEAKER_02
We didn t know who to call.
3
SPEAKER_02
It took months to fix and we were living out of a hotel.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like I said, an absolute disaster, which I m sure many have experienced.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not just floods that affect people.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s obviously storms and fires and all sorts of stuff, mold, all the things that we talk about on this show.
3
SPEAKER_02
And Servpro specialized in cleaning and restoring all of these issues.
3
SPEAKER_02
They re faster to any size disaster with over 2,000 locations nationwide.
3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
Like I said earlier, if you have any kind of disaster or household issue, all you have to do is call 1-800-SERVE-PRO and they ll send over a professional to make it like it never happened.
3
SPEAKER_02
In addition to this, if you don t need cleanup or restoration, they also do construction like I mentioned earlier.
3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
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3
SPEAKER_02
Contact your local ServePro today by visiting servepro.com or call 1-800-SERVE-PRO.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s so interesting that two people who are so successful had completely different perspectives.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And also not, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like, they re so unique, you know?
3
SPEAKER_00
And artists are all unique.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s subjective.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s what makes an artist an artist.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have a... I say, you know, an artist by definition doesn t belong.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t sing because I have an answer, I sing because I have a song.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So an artist, yeah, they re an artist because they see things differently, see things differently than everyone else and their job is to see beauty and divinity in the mundane and to help others see that through their art.
3
SPEAKER_01
What song is your favorite out of those two now looking back?
3
SPEAKER_00
Right now, maybe.
3
SPEAKER_00
Who knows?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because cooler than me, I still sing a lot.
3
SPEAKER_00
Who knows?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s like not on the set list.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it hard?
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve listened to it less times.
3
SPEAKER_01
Doing what you re doing at 21 and having this success.
3
SPEAKER_01
You said white girls at Duke are singing to your music.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it hard to have all the temptation of drugs, alcohol, women, or were you just always really focused?
3
SPEAKER_00
I was tempted by all those things and really what I was was insecure.
3
SPEAKER_00
I truly thought, I never felt like I belonged and I truly thought that if I became popular and I got this
3
SPEAKER_00
record deal, I wasn t silly enough to think that just the adoration of others would fill me up or make me feel whole, but I was silly enough to think that that external success would change how I felt about myself.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought I would feel more secure.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought my chest would be out if I accomplished these things.
3
SPEAKER_00
And of course, nothing changed.
3
SPEAKER_00
My moment-to-moment experience of life was largely the same.
3
SPEAKER_00
These things were really exciting and fun, and my career and the success I had were all blessings.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s not like I was sad because of them.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was sad already, and I thought if I went down that path, it would solve these things, and it didn t.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s so it s we hear this so much on the podcast.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like Tony Robbins talks about the art of the art of fulfillment versus the science of achievement and it s like you you work so many of
4
SPEAKER_02
us are so driven to think the money and the accolades and all the achievements are going to make us happy and then when you get to that line and you don t feel happy, you have to look at yourself and I think you have to focus on the art of fulfillment.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it sounds like your journey has been a lot of that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well it was a blessing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Tony s got another line I love.
4
SPEAKER_00
He says, achievement without fulfillment is the biggest failure.
4
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Biggest failure you can have.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I just love that, you know?
4
SPEAKER_00
I love that line, that distinction.
4
SPEAKER_00
And for me, it was just such a blessing because I got this lesson in what doesn t work for me and what was ultimately a dead end.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it led me to ask, okay, if not this, then what?
4
SPEAKER_00
And the next chapter in my life became about
4
SPEAKER_00
finding things or places inside myself that did change the moment, my moment-to-moment experience of life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, if chapter one was
4
SPEAKER_00
Doing what didn t work chapter 2 is being a student figuring out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Okay, what does chapter 3 which I m entering into now Is sharing what I learned in chapter 2 so when you that s why I m here when you re at the peak of Your success and you ve achieved all these different things and you re signed by Jay-z and you re surrounded by all these incredible I m sure there s girls.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s anything you want
4
SPEAKER_02
Was there an epiphany that caused you to start looking for that fulfillment?
4
SPEAKER_02
Do you remember something that happened or was it just a slow process?
4
SPEAKER_00
It was a slow process, but it s a process of pain.
4
SPEAKER_00
At first, you re like, oh man, I m getting this success and then I feel the same, so maybe I just need more of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you start chasing more of it and then you get that and
4
SPEAKER_00
Still you feel the same, what up though.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then really, really life took it away from me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I stopped being successful.
4
SPEAKER_00
My career really hit a like very, very cold, cold patch.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I went from, you know, taking my shirt off at the shows and crowd surfing to just having an empty calendar.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I had to figure out who I was when I wasn t famous, young Mike Posner.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it was a lot of that, that probably started the journey.
4
SPEAKER_00
And also we talked about Sean.
4
SPEAKER_00
He, he floated back into my life and I ran into him in the studio.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I remember Michael, he was, he was like glowing in the studio.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it just felt so good to be just to be around his energy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And also at this simultaneously his career was taking off.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, dude, what the heck are you doing?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like what s going on with you?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like, do you got to read these couple books?
4
SPEAKER_00
And they were spiritual books.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I never had a spiritual part of my life before that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Sean gave me those books and I read them with an open heart.
4
SPEAKER_00
And one of the first things I read was, you know, probably like a spiritual principle, like 101.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you probably sound basic to you guys, but to me at the time, it wasn t basic.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was profound.
4
SPEAKER_00
It said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, and that s when I started meditating, and then I just went deep.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, I got to meet Ram Dass, and then I m going on all these retreats, and I m spending time in solitude, and fasting, and just exploring my consciousness, and exploring what would change my moment-to-moment experience of life.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s what we re really talking about here.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you say fulfillment, we re talking about a state of being now, not in the future, now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know, as we all know, you can achieve
4
SPEAKER_00
massive amounts of accomplishments in the external world, but if while you do them, you re in a stressed and anxious state, well guess what?
4
SPEAKER_00
You have like a stressed and anxious life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, the key is, well one, you don t have to pick one or the other.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the key is like, okay, how do I achieve what I want to in the external world while being in
4
SPEAKER_00
beautiful state.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s what my life is about.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s what I m always working to master and what I m hopefully helping others to master as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve obviously, I love the post you did about your song I Took a Pill in a Pizza and there s been some press obviously about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think, tell me if I m wrong, one of the things, or maybe you wrote this or the press did, a lot of the things that you wrote in that song are just
4
SPEAKER_01
not true at all, or they re completely counter to your life now.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I wrote that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You wrote that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Then to now, why so counter, and what s the main fundamental change that you re trying to articulate to people?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, I wrote, you know, I took a pill and abused this song about pain.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a song about exactly what we re talking about, crystallized into three minutes, you know, probably more articulately than I am now.
4
SPEAKER_00
Expressing these thoughts of disillusionment, of making it to the mountaintop and not really making a difference in your life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, having to come down off the mountain.
4
SPEAKER_00
I really, like, wasn t famous anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, girls weren t excited to see me when I walked on stage anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, I wasn t getting offers to do covers.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it was just a song about my pain.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that song blew up massively.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, it did.
4
SPEAKER_00
It did.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s not a but, I mean...
4
SPEAKER_00
And we could talk about why maybe that is maybe, maybe the culture was starved for some authenticity.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s like a time in 2010 where, or 2016 where songs are more, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Um, and yeah, I want to look at my life then to now.
4
SPEAKER_00
It makes me so proud because every lyric in it, you know, I took a pill and a visa to show Avicii I was cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
When I finally got sober, felt 10 years older, but fuck it, it was something to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would never do that now.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would never take a pill from a stranger because I love myself.
4
SPEAKER_00
I love my body.
4
SPEAKER_00
And especially not to...
4
SPEAKER_00
make somebody else think I m cool, like I know who I am now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I go down the list of the lyrics in that song and I m so proud that they were all honest at the time and none of them are true now.
4
SPEAKER_02
It would feel stressful to me to have a hit.
4
SPEAKER_02
And what I mean by that is like, you have a hit song and then you re like, oh my god, I have to do another hit that overtops this hit.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is that how it feels?
4
SPEAKER_00
It can.
4
SPEAKER_00
It can.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s certainly like, you know, there s sort of like an inherent message coming from record labels and agents.
4
SPEAKER_00
And your job as an artist, you know, is to tune that out.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you want to have an internal pressure on yourself to write something better, not necessarily something more popular, because you can t control popularity and reception.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can just do good work.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a good way to look at it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you can do work you re proud of.
4
SPEAKER_00
So internally, you always have pressure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, I want to write songs that
4
SPEAKER_00
are better than the ones I was writing five years ago.
4
SPEAKER_00
I always want to be developing my craft.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when you have a gift, you know, part is like you re born with a gift.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think you have a duty to take care of that gift and develop it and then share it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you just shift that, you just tune that stuff out.
4
SPEAKER_00
You could play the game, be a businessman.
4
SPEAKER_00
But inside,
5
SPEAKER_00
You re saying, yeah, but I m evaluating my work on a different scale.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m part of a lineage of great songwriters.
5
SPEAKER_00
I look back, Woody Guthrie goes to Dylan, goes to Springsteen, goes to Taylor Goldsmith, goes to Conor Oberst.
5
SPEAKER_00
These are the writers that impressed me.
5
SPEAKER_00
Some of them never had hits.
5
SPEAKER_00
Some of them never had Grammy nominations.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think would they think this is dope?
5
SPEAKER_00
But ultimately, screw that too.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do I think this is great work?
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s all.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would say the top five things that are the most important to me, solitude is really high up there and I m really trying to focus on that and I think you re the perfect person to have on the podcast.
5
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned meditation.
5
SPEAKER_01
How has your journey with solitude evolved and how do you think it s made you better and more Zen?
5
SPEAKER_00
Solitude is sort of like a drug.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I know.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s my first foray into solitude.
5
SPEAKER_00
I went to a beautiful place in Colorado called the Tara Mandala Buddhist Retreat Center.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hesitate to say it because it s going to freaking fill up now.
5
SPEAKER_00
But there it is.
5
SPEAKER_02
How did you find out about it?
5
SPEAKER_00
I just started googling, you know, I wanted to do a retreat.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everyone hears about silent retreats, different meditation.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to do a retreat because
5
SPEAKER_00
I had an inkling, I had fooled around with fasting and you know if you fasted before, you know there s a period where you really feel hungry and then you reach a threshold and you go into an altered state of consciousness that really isn t available when you re not fasting.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I suspected and I had an inkling solitude might be the same thing, might follow the same pattern.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like I had at that time spent a day or two alone before, and it felt bad actually.
5
SPEAKER_00
I never liked that, I felt dry.
5
SPEAKER_00
My life seemed like black and white, but I suspected if you went longer, there might be a threshold where you would tap into a state that I had never been in before.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I started Googling, I m like looking for places where you could just,
5
SPEAKER_00
do a retreat in solitude.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there really, like, aren t many.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot where if you join a, like, a serious Buddhist Sangha, that you can do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But there s not many you can just do without being in that community.
5
SPEAKER_00
Except for this place.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it s one of the few in the US.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe it s changed, but at that time, it was really, like, I think maybe the only one I could find.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I had to apply, so I applied.
5
SPEAKER_00
They want to make sure you re mentally stable enough to do it.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was like exploratory in that way.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just wanted to find out what would happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I did seven days the first time, and I ve done it four times total.
5
SPEAKER_00
The longest I ve done is 21 days.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_01
No talking.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes I find like,
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, we ll talk to my like, I ll be on have some thought train going and I might like answer a question out loud or something will happen.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ll say whoa and but my voice will sound really loud.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s not like talking is
5
SPEAKER_00
Talking is really not a big deal to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, as a singer, your voice gets tired of going vocal rest all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s really that being alone is like the defining thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just nobody else there.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you could talk if you want to, but there s no one there to hear you.
5
SPEAKER_01
When you meditate, do you try to clear your mind?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you try to observe your thoughts?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you let them come in and out?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you have a strategy or is it just whatever comes up?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I practice several different flavors of meditation.
5
SPEAKER_00
The base of my practice is TM, Transcendental Meditation, which is mantra-based.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you learn TM, you go to a teacher and they give you a mantra and you repeat this sound that doesn t mean anything internally.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then thoughts come in and when you notice you re having thoughts, you just go back to the mantra.
5
SPEAKER_00
I practice a lot of different types of meditation, Vipassana retreats and Vipassana meditation.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m always exploring other ones, but you know really to go back to the solitude question is is What I learned as I did more of the retreats I got older at the beginning I was exploring but I also found while I was on the retreats I was practicing what I was gonna say about the retreat while I was on the retreat I was basically like doing Instagram in my mind.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, okay, so I m only here to show off.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m only here to have experience that other people didn t have.
5
SPEAKER_00
Instead of getting gold chain, I m doing a meditation retreat so I can feel special.
5
SPEAKER_00
So as I got a little older, I realized that s really bullshit.
5
SPEAKER_00
And on one of my retreats, I read a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know Tinette Han?
5
SPEAKER_00
He s an amazing human being.
5
SPEAKER_00
He transitioned out of his body a couple years ago.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was a Zen Buddhist monk, really responsible for us even knowing what Zen and mindfulness are in the West, this guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
Martin Luther King Jr.
5
SPEAKER_00
nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s a serious, serious man, beautiful man.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he wrote one of these books that, imagine I m in this cabin alone, I m like,
5
SPEAKER_00
Eight days into retreat.
5
SPEAKER_00
I haven t seen anybody for eight days and I m reading the thing and it says Retreat is about re-entry
5
SPEAKER_00
Trees About Ranch, he said, if you go on retreat and you don t come back a better version of you, show up a better member of your community, a better son, a better father, a better brother, you wasted your time.
5
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t matter if you, God came down, touched you, you had some transcendent experience, you saw visions, you saw light.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you don t come back a better you, you wasted your time.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was really impactful for me because before that I wanted to have a spiritual experience.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to feel kundalini energy go up my spine.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to have visions and I wanted to get higher.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to become more divine.
5
SPEAKER_00
And instead of having a spiritual experience, you know, I really think God wants us not to just have spiritual experiences, God wants us to have spiritual lives.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so while I was busy trying to become more divine, really I needed to become more human.
5
SPEAKER_00
That was an inflection point.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, the solitude is like training.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because when you re alone, like you say, you examine your thoughts, you meditate.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I noticed I would get upset or frustrated or pissed off.
5
SPEAKER_00
And no one s there.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m making me upset, frustrated, pissed off.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so often in life, I m going through when I m not in solitude and I feel those feelings, but I blame it on what happened or blame it on somebody else.
5
SPEAKER_00
But on retreat, they re not there.
5
SPEAKER_00
No one else is there.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like if you re ever in any minor state of suffering, it s your fault.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s my fault.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you get very in tune to these sort of patterns, like malware that you have running in the background.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then it becomes a lot easier to shift them in solitude.
5
SPEAKER_02
Does that have to do, like not to, because it sounds like such an intense process, but not to dumb it down.
5
SPEAKER_02
No, but does that, is it almost like it s because you can get to a place where you can take extreme personal accountability?
5
SPEAKER_02
Is that, is that like you taking ownership over your thoughts as opposed to blaming the external?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because there s no one to blame there.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you can blame, but like really, it s your fault, you know, if you re there.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so, it s a lot easier to dwell in these states of presence there.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just kind of like, it s like training wheels.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you go home and like Ram Dass said, you know, if you think you re enlightened, go spend the weekend with your parents.
6
SPEAKER_00
Go spend the weekend with your in-laws.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s the real test.
6
SPEAKER_00
You come out.
6
SPEAKER_00
Retreat s about re-entry.
6
SPEAKER_01
We re addicted to the chaos of the inner dialogue narrative that we associate with or identify with.
6
SPEAKER_01
So if we like to create chaos, it s almost like part of your identity.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it sounds like you kind of tried to break that in solitude.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, most of us, I thought like the voice in my head was me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Then I sit there on the meditation cushion for a few hours and I just watch it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m like, this voice is insane.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
First of all, it keeps saying the same thing over and over again.
6
SPEAKER_01
What was it saying?
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean it would like, it would go back to some like dude that I got in a yelling match with 10 years ago and just replay it over and I m like, dude, we just did this, you know, over and over and over.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or do these doomsday scenarios where like, hey man, we should like definitely do this thing.
6
SPEAKER_00
If not, that might happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
If not, then that might happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
If not, then that might happen.
6
SPEAKER_00
Then like,
6
SPEAKER_00
Then that would really be bad, and it s just spiraling, and it s like, this voice isn t me.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t believe any of the things this voice is saying.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so, it s a very deep process because then you re going, well, who am I?
6
SPEAKER_00
I m the thing watching the voice.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m the consciousness that s aware of my thoughts, that s aware of
6
SPEAKER_00
my bodily sensations, that s aware of my senses, things start to get a little trippy.
6
SPEAKER_01
When you were sitting in solitude, did you decide to, I don t even know if this is the right word, hike Mount Everett, like hike Mount Everett, climb Mount Everett?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we used to say climb.
6
SPEAKER_00
How does one decide to do that like how does it even come into your head?
6
SPEAKER_00
That came from, first, me doing the walk across America.
6
SPEAKER_00
So 2019, before I decided to climb Everest, I decided to walk across America.
6
SPEAKER_00
It might sound really random to your listeners, like, why did you decide to do that?
6
SPEAKER_00
Starting from where?
6
SPEAKER_00
I started from Asbury Park, New Jersey.
6
SPEAKER_00
But more accurately, I started in the Atlantic Ocean.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was important to me to actually start.
6
SPEAKER_00
You wanted to start end-to-end.
6
SPEAKER_00
Water-to-water.
6
SPEAKER_00
Water water.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there you go.
6
SPEAKER_01
I like it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I walked across New Jersey, Pennsylvania Ohio, Indiana, Illinois by yourself I Posted on social that if you found me you could walk with me Oh and people came from all over the US to walk for a day sometimes longer.
6
SPEAKER_00
So that s a few hours and It s really deep.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, I would ask them always why did you come here?
6
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes they were a fan of my music.
6
SPEAKER_00
They wanted a picture.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes they just wanted to see if they could find me, like a strange scavenger hunt.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like Waldo.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
But sometimes they came because they had no one else to talk to.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, they were high school seniors who didn t know what was next.
6
SPEAKER_00
They were professionals who felt trapped under their own success.
6
SPEAKER_00
They were soldiers who had seen killing and who had killed.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so we would walk together, healing in our own ways.
6
SPEAKER_00
I walked across Missouri during a heat wave.
6
SPEAKER_00
I walked across Kansas.
6
SPEAKER_00
I walked into Colorado.
6
SPEAKER_00
I could just see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon, went, ah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Pain shot up my left leg and I heard a sound I didn t want to hear that was, shh.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I realized a poisonous rattlesnake just bit me.
6
SPEAKER_00
So long story short, man, I was in the hospital five days, my legs swelled to the size of an elephant trunk.
6
SPEAKER_03
When that first happened, did you know what to do to, to, to stop the spread of that poison?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, call 9-1-1, call 9-1-1.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so we did, and I asked dispatch because I felt the poison going through me and I felt myself fading out.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s scary.
6
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, it was scary for sure.
6
SPEAKER_00
I asked dispatch, am I going to die?
6
SPEAKER_00
And the voice on the other end of the phone said, I don t, I don t know, sir.
6
SPEAKER_00
I spent five days in the hospital and then I couldn t go back.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had to heal.
6
SPEAKER_00
My leg was jacked up.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I went home and I ve tried a bunch of plant medicines before.
6
SPEAKER_00
Snake venom is the one that changed my life the most.
6
SPEAKER_00
Got really hurt, but eventually decided I m gonna finish what I started when I healed.
6
SPEAKER_00
Everyone sort of expected me to just quit.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, like, good try, you got bit by a freaking rattlesnake.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t meant to be, but I had hid behind that excuse too much in my life.
6
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t meant to be.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, a lot of times when we re saying it wasn t meant to be, we re just saying I m giving up.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t want to, like,
6
SPEAKER_00
It was a serious moment in my life.
6
SPEAKER_00
The only way for me to become the version of me I wanted to be to get to the next chapter, I had to go finish the walk.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had a thousand more miles.
6
SPEAKER_00
There wasn t a podcast I could listen to.
6
SPEAKER_00
There wasn t like a piece of advice a friend could give to me.
6
SPEAKER_00
There wasn t a book I could read.
6
SPEAKER_00
I had to do it.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I went back and you asked me about Everest.
6
SPEAKER_00
I started to walk and I got to those Rocky Mountains and I went up with them after the snake bite.
6
SPEAKER_00
I went down, I got to the other side and I felt like I had a cape on my shoulders.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m like, that fucking snake couldn t stop me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Nothing could stop me.
6
SPEAKER_00
I can do anything.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I started to dream about Everest.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the more steps I took, the farther I went on my walk, the more that dream started to transform from a dream into a plan.
6
SPEAKER_00
I said, dream either grows into a plan or withers into regret.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so by the time I jumped in the Pacific Ocean, I already had a kind of a plan on what was next.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that was to climb the big one.
6
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The whole time if you disregard the snake bite, how long is the whole thing?
7
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If you disregard the snake bite, five months.
7
SPEAKER_02
Five months and a week.
7
SPEAKER_02
Fuck.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I thought it was going to be much longer.
7
SPEAKER_00
Do you want to know how bad at geography I am, Mike?
7
SPEAKER_02
You thought it was going to be like four days?
7
SPEAKER_00
Ten days.
7
SPEAKER_02
Nah, that s in a car.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s in a car you could do it in 10 days.
7
SPEAKER_00
Listen, he didn t marry me for geography.
7
SPEAKER_01
One time I took her to Atlanta and she s like, we re in Atlantics in New Jersey.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, no, wrong.
7
SPEAKER_00
I do other things.
7
SPEAKER_00
When you decide to make this decision goes into the preparation to not hike, climb Mount Everest.
7
SPEAKER_02
So I never unpacked.
7
SPEAKER_02
I finished the walk.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I didn t go home, you know.
7
SPEAKER_02
Two weeks later, my body was pretty jacked up.
7
SPEAKER_02
I let it rest a little bit.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then I started climbing.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I eventually met the man that became my coach, Dr. John.
7
SPEAKER_02
And he said, I asked him the same question.
7
SPEAKER_02
How do I go from a guy
7
SPEAKER_02
who walks on flat surfaces but has never held an ice axe, never climbed a mountain, never worn crampons to a guy that belongs on Mount Everest.
7
SPEAKER_02
I didn t just want to climb Mount Everest, I wanted to belong there.
7
SPEAKER_02
And he said, Mike, train for climbing mountains by climbing mountains.
7
SPEAKER_02
So that s what we did for a year and a half.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s good advice for anything.
7
SPEAKER_02
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_02
Three years, sorry, three times as long as my walk was.
7
SPEAKER_02
I climb mountains with John.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed 71 mountains.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed mountains in Colorado.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed mountains in Wyoming.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed mountains in Ecuador.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed mountains in Pakistan.
7
SPEAKER_02
We climbed mountains in Mexico.
7
SPEAKER_02
Wherever we could go because it was a pandemic.
7
SPEAKER_01
Selfishly, what do you think the most beautiful places are?
7
SPEAKER_02
It s hard to mess with Nepal.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s really hard to mess with Nepal.
7
SPEAKER_02
I mean, the Himalaya is...
7
SPEAKER_02
and get goosebumps thinking about it.
7
SPEAKER_02
The Himalayas, the Himalaya, man.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s a spiritual portal.
7
SPEAKER_00
What do you have when you re climbing all these mountains?
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, I need snacks.
7
SPEAKER_00
I need my ionic water bottle.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t need hair and makeup, but I need like sunscreen and my visor and like, what do you have?
7
SPEAKER_00
How much can you bring in this?
7
SPEAKER_00
Are you wearing a Jansport?
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, what do you do?
7
SPEAKER_02
It depends on the mountain.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
So, you know, if you re doing something that s one day, you re gonna have, you try to be fast and light because the longer you re out there is a dangerous, is a dangerous thing.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you re always balancing between having more gear, more rope.
7
SPEAKER_02
more food, more water, but then you re heavier.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you re slower.
7
SPEAKER_02
And being slower is a risk factor in and of itself.
7
SPEAKER_02
So we will typically try to be fast and light.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s how we would, that was our style.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, we would try to carry less, but yeah, it depends on the expedition.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, if it s longer, you re gonna have a sleeping bag, you re gonna have like,
7
SPEAKER_02
It depends how cold it is.
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SPEAKER_02
So a bit, you know, I got really good at reading weather reports and understanding, you know, what that meant I needed and what it meant I didn t need.
7
SPEAKER_02
So I wasn t slow.
7
SPEAKER_00
And are you hunting?
7
SPEAKER_02
No.
7
SPEAKER_00
No hunting?
7
SPEAKER_02
No.
7
SPEAKER_00
So you bring your own food?
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
Our goal is to climb the mountain and then get off the mountain and get home safe.
7
SPEAKER_00
And in your regular diet, are you vegan?
7
SPEAKER_00
What are you carrying in your backpack?
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s not the healthiest diet because you need food that s light, and also you need food that doesn t freeze.
7
SPEAKER_02
So when it s really cold, can you still bite into it?
7
SPEAKER_02
So, there s like certain types of bars that, you know, we learn like they freeze.
7
SPEAKER_02
You can t eat them.
7
SPEAKER_02
So, and then a lot of dehydrated meals.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you have like backpacking meals, these food that come in a bag, and the water s taken out of it, it s dehydrated, it s very light.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then you have a little stove on Everest, you know, you d melt snow.
7
SPEAKER_02
Melt snow in the stove, boil it, you could add water to the dehydrated meal.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s not like the best diet for sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
What s the longest stretch of time to climb up and down?
7
SPEAKER_01
Maybe Everest was the longest or was there a different one that was longer?
7
SPEAKER_02
Everest, okay, it s like an expedition.
7
SPEAKER_02
So it s a little different than, you know, the training hike.
7
SPEAKER_02
So you re not home for two months, but you set up what s called a base camp at the base of the mountain.
7
SPEAKER_02
At base camp, things are more comfortable.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s almost like you might be there for a few months.
7
SPEAKER_02
So bring a lot of stuff in there.
7
SPEAKER_02
You d bring like more creature comforts and you wouldn t climb with them, but you leave some stuff at base camp.
7
SPEAKER_02
And at Everest base camp, you know, they use yaks and they use helicopters to bring stuff.
7
SPEAKER_02
So like at base camp I had a guitar.
7
SPEAKER_02
I had like, you know, I had stuff.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m not climbing mountains with a guitar.
7
SPEAKER_02
You should tell everyone you did.
7
SPEAKER_02
No, to stay in integrity.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was just like playing my guitar, climbing Everest.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so, yeah, it just depends.
7
SPEAKER_02
So the actual expedition to Everest for us was two months.
7
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_02
But the summit push was more like a week.
7
SPEAKER_00
You have a phone when you re doing this?
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I had a phone.
7
SPEAKER_02
The phones freeze.
7
SPEAKER_02
So we use GoPros.
7
SPEAKER_02
When I say freeze, they don t like turn to ice, but like you take them out and you go these really low temperatures.
8
SPEAKER_01
you take your phone out to like do a video and the battery will go if you have it out for 30 seconds you watch the battery go from like 60% to 20 just in 60 seconds
8
SPEAKER_00
And then how do you charge it?
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, you don t really need it, first of all.
8
SPEAKER_01
So one thing people do if they want to use the phone, a lot of people, like I brought a camera, you want to like take a picture on the summit.
8
SPEAKER_01
So if you have a GoPro or phone, you just keep it like, you have a bunch of layers on, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
But you keep it like on the inside.
8
SPEAKER_01
So like the closest to your actual body where it s hot.
8
SPEAKER_01
But then yeah, when you take it out, you got to be quick.
8
SPEAKER_01
Charging it, I think I brought a charger to camp too, but then every, you know, is it saying like ounces become pounds.
8
SPEAKER_01
So every little thing you re carrying, you know, cost you time, cost you your life.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know what would go viral for you?
8
SPEAKER_00
Not that you already haven t gone crazy viral, but
8
SPEAKER_00
You should too.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so I do this thing where I m like, what s in my bag?
8
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, Oh, here s my lip gloss.
8
SPEAKER_00
And here s my little wallet.
8
SPEAKER_00
And this is my like, my, I don t know, eyeliner, you should do a what s in my bag to hike Mount Everest.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you should literally walk us through and show us because
8
SPEAKER_00
To you, maybe it s a little bit more normal because you ve been around it, but I feel like people would find it fascinating.
8
SPEAKER_01
I would find it fascinating.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think you re right.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think I should do the video and then the things I say that I brought should be all your things.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Ten things I need to mount.
8
SPEAKER_01
First off, my lip gloss.
8
SPEAKER_00
Number two.
8
SPEAKER_01
My eyeliner.
8
SPEAKER_00
Eyebrow brush, mouth tape, a phone charger.
8
SPEAKER_02
Here s my sun visor.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think that it d be cool to see every little tiny weird thing that you brought.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re probably right.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m sure there s a massive audience.
8
SPEAKER_02
just for that kind of stuff that are like super into the gear to do that kind of stuff.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, insecure men.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s the audience, dude.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like we were talking about watches when you first came in.
8
SPEAKER_00
Insecure men, small penises, trying to climb big mountains.
8
SPEAKER_00
Small penises aren t allowed on the podcast.
8
SPEAKER_02
No, we were joking earlier.
8
SPEAKER_02
When you first come in and you re like, a guy gets a watch and he thinks all the girls are like, man, that s a sick watch.
8
SPEAKER_02
But it s mostly just dudes high-fiving.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, same thing with Jordans.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s so funny.
8
SPEAKER_00
When a guy gets a new watch, this is how they drink at dinner.
8
SPEAKER_00
They go like this.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re like itch their ear and they re like itching over here.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, did you say the same thing about?
8
SPEAKER_02
Bags and rings is like this is my new bag Whoops know when someone gets engaged I
8
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was facetiming my girls in New York today.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was facetiming, I shared my screen, I was showing her a watch and she was just like, I do not give a shit.
8
SPEAKER_01
She didn t say that, but I watched her eyes glaze over like, she went, oh.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s cool.
8
SPEAKER_01
It is cool.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think if she was like massively into watches, it might be a little weird.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m massively into watches because of him.
8
SPEAKER_00
Really?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
You caught the bug.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think she got educated about it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I got educated.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s a cool little like subculture.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
I like appreciate him is more what I should say.
8
SPEAKER_02
I think it s a it s a cool like what I think you know as you get deeper into it I think like certain it s just like collecting anything like it s kind of like well why d you if you had the choice of all these things in this range like why was it that one over this one.
8
SPEAKER_01
It says something about you.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah yeah exactly.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
First of all, just like a little side tangent, how is it to date you when you appreciate solitude so much and you appreciate hiking mountains?
8
SPEAKER_00
What is that like?
8
SPEAKER_00
Is your girlfriend, fiancee, wife?
8
SPEAKER_01
Girlfriend.
8
SPEAKER_00
How is that for her?
8
SPEAKER_00
I want to interview her.
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, she wasn t my girlfriend at the time.
8
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
But yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
She d be a great interview.
8
SPEAKER_00
I bet it d be interesting to hear her perspective on you.
8
SPEAKER_01
She s incredible.
8
SPEAKER_00
Does she give you space to be with your thoughts?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think she needs that too.
8
SPEAKER_01
So I try to give her the same gift.
8
SPEAKER_01
And this is why I said earlier solitude s like a drug.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because I feel like it s easier to be very peaceful when you re alone because no one s there.
8
SPEAKER_01
So what you want to use it, use it as a like retreat is about re-entry.
8
SPEAKER_01
You want to use it to come back in your life.
8
SPEAKER_01
But you want to need it to be happy.
8
SPEAKER_01
So for me, I think my next retreat that I do, spiritual retreat, probably wouldn t be solitude.
8
SPEAKER_01
I d probably go to a hostel, do the opposite, where I have no space, where I have just people all over me.
8
SPEAKER_01
Because I feel like I m pretty good at being alone.
8
SPEAKER_01
I want to get better at being bothered, having people in my grill.
8
SPEAKER_00
It d probably be a challenge.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it d be good for your mental toughness.
8
SPEAKER_02
But it sounds like the end goal is to just be able to be in any environment.
8
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
That takes work.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, at the end of the day, we re all trying to
8
SPEAKER_01
create agency and sovereignty.
8
SPEAKER_01
So, over our own lives.
8
SPEAKER_01
We don t want to be going through life blown about by the vicissitudes of our own emotions or what happens.
8
SPEAKER_01
and just find ourself wherever that takes us.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, we wanna feel like, hey, I m in control of my emotions, I m in control of my life, not saying I m perfect, not saying I never feel sadness or pain, but for the most part, I live my life in a beautiful state, no matter what happens externally.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that is the goal, and I believe that goal is attainable.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ve certainly changed my, I m not saying I m perfect, because I definitely am not, but I ve certainly moved my life more in that direction.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, like,
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, when I listen to a Beezer, it s like, you know, it feels like I was a different person then.
8
SPEAKER_00
Before you go, tell us what your goal was with making that TikTok.
8
SPEAKER_00
Did you know it was going to go that viral and affect so many people?
8
SPEAKER_00
Because I mean, people were sending me, I got like 10 different people texting me that video.
8
SPEAKER_00
Like it was impactful.
8
SPEAKER_00
Did you know it was going to do that?
8
SPEAKER_00
Did you mean for it to do that?
8
SPEAKER_00
What s the aftermath of that?
8
SPEAKER_01
You talking about the one where I was writing about Ibiza?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you showed the juxtaposition about how you did this and then how you ve changed your life and evolved it.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, I didn t know.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was just really reflecting on it myself.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was like, oh, this is interesting.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was celebrating my 36th birthday.
8
SPEAKER_01
I wrote that song around my 26th birthday.
8
SPEAKER_01
I said, wow, life has really changed since then for the better and I want to acknowledge that.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so I just was writing.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s always like this with me.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t know why.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s natural.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m sort of jealous of these songwriters.
8
SPEAKER_01
I knew it was gonna be a hit or whatever.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s never how it s worked for me.
8
SPEAKER_01
I just write from my heart.
8
SPEAKER_01
And most of what I write is not very popular.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ve written a thousand songs, written a book of poetry, I m writing a book now.
8
SPEAKER_01
And every once in a while I have these pieces that just really connect with a lot of people.
8
SPEAKER_01
Anytime I have tried to do that when I was younger,
8
SPEAKER_01
Like it s never worked.
8
SPEAKER_01
And anytime I m just, I m just creating from inspiration, sometimes it does.
8
SPEAKER_01
So, it s more offering, you know, it s just like God or inspiration is putting this idea in my heart, my soul, and I m gonna get it out, I m gonna share it, and then the rest really is in my business.
8
SPEAKER_00
What I love about your whole career, though, is like life is really reps, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
I love weightlifting and I m obsessed with weightlifting right now because weightlifting is reps.
8
SPEAKER_00
You just put the reps in and what you ve done and built with your career, with the solitude, with the with the climbing, it s all reps.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s just putting the work in over and over and something sticks.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think people need to hear that because a lot of people don t realize how many reps you have to put in to do something really profound.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And life reps, you know, things that change your experience of life, like spiritual growth in life, they take longer.
8
SPEAKER_01
So you start doing the right thing, you start thinking the right things, positive thoughts, you start having more faith in your life.
8
SPEAKER_01
Guess what?
8
SPEAKER_01
Your whole life doesn t change in two months.
8
SPEAKER_01
You don t see that muscle grow as fast as you might if it
9
SPEAKER_01
as your bicep or your quadricep.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so, to anyone listening to this, just keep going.
9
SPEAKER_01
Keep going, this is just the beginning.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s very easy to think and evaluate life based on what s already happened.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like I said earlier, we re all the oldest we ve ever been.
9
SPEAKER_01
So we feel like we re old.
9
SPEAKER_01
Nah, this is just the beginning.
9
SPEAKER_01
You have no idea.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, six years ago, I was 30.
9
SPEAKER_01
No idea my life would be what it is now.
9
SPEAKER_01
No clue I would have walked across a continent.
9
SPEAKER_01
No clue I would have climbed the tallest mountain in the world.
9
SPEAKER_01
No clue I d be sitting here talking to you guys about these experiences that hopefully are bringing inspiration and opening and transcendence to others.
9
SPEAKER_01
I hope, I pray.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so if you re in pain right now hearing this,
9
SPEAKER_01
Just keep going, because every moment of breakthrough in my life has been preceded by pain.
9
SPEAKER_01
So your pain, get excited, man.
9
SPEAKER_01
Something good is about to happen.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you might get bit by a rattlesnake along the way.
9
SPEAKER_00
Let s hope not.
9
SPEAKER_00
You just have to get back up and get back up there.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Where can everyone find you?
9
SPEAKER_00
Pimp yourself out.
9
SPEAKER_00
Tell us what you re doing, what you re working on, how we can follow you.
9
SPEAKER_01
All my stuff s just under my name, Mike Posner.
9
SPEAKER_01
P-O-S-N, like Nancy, E-R.
9
SPEAKER_01
And what am I working on?
9
SPEAKER_01
I m writing a book right now about my walk.
9
SPEAKER_01
And in some ways it s harder than the walk.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s gonna take me longer than the walk took.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I have a new album coming this year.
9
SPEAKER_01
Rad.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ll be one of those white girls listening to it, Daniel.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you will.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you will.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Mike.
9
SPEAKER_00
Mike, thank you for coming on.
9
SPEAKER_01
Hey, God bless you guys.
9
SPEAKER_01
I knew this was gonna be a home run.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right when I told you.
9
SPEAKER_00
Courtney, Courtney, you gotta shout out Courtney.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you for making this happen.
9
SPEAKER_01
Love you, Courtney.
9
SPEAKER_00
Love you, Courtney.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
9
SPEAKER_00
doing a giveaway.
9
SPEAKER_00
We are giving away our literal one of our last bottles of caffeinated sunscreen.
9
SPEAKER_00
All you have to do is head to my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostick and tell us who you want to see next on the show.
9
SPEAKER_00
I love collecting data from those comments and just really zoning in on what you guys want to see.
9
SPEAKER_00
Hope you guys love this episode with Mike as much as we did.