A Journey of Finding Your True Purpose Feat. Mike Posner

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So hey guys, I'm calling on all my friends here in the audience for a little bit of help.

We're conducting an audience survey at gum.fm-slash-my-let.

And we want to hear from you so we can make things here even a better experience for you

and create content that you want.

We all know that there's ads on our show, right?

So we want to improve the experience.

But in order to do that, we need to know a little bit more about you.

So my friends in the audience, we want to improve that experience.

So please help us to survey as quick, easy, and it's a free way to support the show.

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This is the admiral show.

All right, welcome back to the show, everybody.

So let's think about this guy this morning.

I'm so excited I got to talk with him.

I've been waiting about six months to do it.

I think he's the most interesting man in the world.

Do you guys remember those Dosekies commercials where the guys like the most interesting man in the world?

I'm pretty sure this guy qualifies, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

This is going to be such a compelling conversation today.

Let me throw a few things at you.

Grammy-nominated, I took a pill in a visa, you all know that song.

Cooler than me, great song.

That's just two of a whole bunch of them, right?

But on top of that, the same guy who's done all that, he's climbed Mount Everest.

He's done the 31 mile continental divide trail journey trek.

He's hyped across America 2900 plus miles.

He's been bitten by a rattlesnake on top of it and almost died.

And he's like got this very gentle kind spirit about him.

He's also gone through like a major life transition as well.

But like, and this is all in 37 years.

So I'm pretty sure he qualifies for the category.

Mike Posner, finally, welcome to the show, brother.

Great to have you.

Hey, and good to meet you and thanks for having me on.

You know, it's humbling to hear that introduction.

But you know, all those things that I've done, they've been amazing.

And I'm mostly proud of them.

Although I'm also keenly aware that some non-trivial part of the inspiration to do them was

I was addicted to getting other people to like me.

And they're not my biggest accomplishment.

They're even all those added up together on the external.

My biggest accomplishment is I went from somebody whose emotional home base, their set point,

was depressed, was negative.

To somebody whose emotional set point now is joy, faith, and love.

And not saying I don't dip down every once in a while.

And sometimes I go even higher.

You don't have moments of bliss and ecstasy.

But you can change your emotional set point.

And that's my greatest achievement.

And I hope that we can put other people on the path of doing the same thing.

Because it's possible.

If my depraved rear end could do it, then anybody can.

About 850 shows.

I think that's literally the best opening sentence of any guest out of 850.

No disrespect.

Well, usually ease into the good stuff.

You're already getting off to a fast start here.

Sorry.

No, it's awesome, man.

So let me ask you, let's just start there.

We're going to let this thing flow.

By the way, I relate to that set point being kind of, I don't know if I'd call mine depressed.

I'd call it kind of melancholy.

You know what I mean?

I relate to that very much.

And I think a lot of people do.

So is there some way you would say initially that there was a catalyst to change it?

Did you get a bottom of some type?

Or and what did you do to begin the journey upwards?

Yeah, man.

Like I had accomplished all these things.

I had walked across America.

I climbed the Toss Mountain World Everest.

I had millions of dollars, millions of followers.

But everything that a perfect life was supposed to be on the outside.

Even, listen to this.

I even had an Instagram account full of followers that I had convinced I was inspiring.

Right?

I was already teaching, you know,

teaching, selling people to dream that I got it figured out.

And then I remember I was at my home in Michigan.

And it just was like the juice, the juice ain't here.

I am, and I remember this year, I was eating clean.

I was doing the ice bath.

I was in, actually, my body looked beautiful.

But I kept getting sick.

And I kept getting depressed.

And I couldn't figure out why.

Like what, what is, what is missing here?

I got everything on the external,

including the, it's supposed to be health, right?

I'm doing all the right stuff.

And what is not working, but something was not working.

And everything was irritating me.

I got this lakefront home.

I'd get out of the ice bath.

I'd look in the reflection on the sliding door.

And like if my abs didn't look just perfect, I was upset myself.

Someone's wrong.

I'd go in that sliding door.

My mom was there.

Because I knew what a good person was supposed to act like.

A good person, they're kind to their mother there.

So I invited my mom up to stay at the house for a week.

But she was putting some dishes away.

And the sound of the dishes clanging against each other.

It was like sandpaper grating against my, my very being.

Like everything irritated me.

And then I remember I went downstairs and I, I checked my phone.

And I had a message from one of my managers at the time.

And it was a screenshot.

And he goes, I just need to know if this is true.

And it was a screenshot of from Instagram.

And someone said, uh, a singer who walked across

America got my friend pregnant and abandoned the child.

And I said, I knew I didn't abandon the child.

Because I would never do that.

But the way I was living my life,

I wasn't sure that hadn't had a child.

And maybe the person just never told me.

Because I was being sloppy with my energy.

And I was afraid of intimacy.

So I would get in weird relationships.

One night stand is on the road.

Things like this.

And I wasn't sure.

I'm like, dude, I have a kid out there.

And the stress of all these things start add on to one thing after another.

And I called my friend Doug and I go, Hey man, like, I need help.

So I either need like a high level therapist.

Because, you know, I have a freaking ego, right?

At the time, I'm like, I'm special.

So I need like some special therapist who like knows about famous people.

Or I need some high level life coach, you know, that gets it.

So Doug, he goes, well, you could just talk to me.

I said, with all due respect, he's one of my best friends.

I go, you're about to have a child.

And I got, I got a lot of problems.

If I had just one, come on, I'd ask you for help.

But these things are stacking.

And before I get over the one, another one was hitting.

And I was overwhelmed.

And I think a lot of people know that feeling.

Like, I'm just underwater with problems.

And great description.

And so he said, okay.

And a few days passed.

And then he forwarded me a voice note.

And the voice note was from Tony Robbins.

And Tony said, Mike, Doug, share it a little bit with me about your story.

And I'd be honored if you came to my event date with Destiny as my guest in December.

And it was like, you know, August, I was like, what the hell do I do till then?

And I almost didn't go.

I said, man, it's kind of far.

But that's my whole life was like, just kind of negative.

I look for the negative in it.

So anyways, Doug said, you got to go, man.

So in December came around, I went to the conference.

And I was a little skeptical at first.

I was sick again.

And I was like, do this and

there came a moment.

I think it was the third day of the conference.

And Tony's leading some exercise.

By the way, I love Tony.

He changed my life.

He's leading some exercise.

And he didn't teach this.

He was doing some kind of meditation thing, like a visualization.

And he didn't say this in the in the activation.

But it's like God just spoke to me in the moment.

It just landed in my nervous system in a way I knew was true.

It was like, you are getting sick.

You are getting depressed because you are avoiding the fact

that you are scared to death of relationships.

You're scared of intimacy.

And until you address that and face that fear, life.

Hey, life, I'm only giving you pain to wake you up

because I want you to go this way.

So you can have what you actually deserve,

what you actually hear for.

You got to stop lying to yourself because I had this whole story.

You know, if love happens, great, but I'm not really looking for it.

The truth, and I believe myself, but the truth underneath all that was,

I really wanted to have love.

I really wanted to have a family.

I'm here to have a family.

You know, we as men, we're here to provide.

We're here to protect, right?

It's part of our nature.

And so I was letting this part of my nature

die underneath all these lies I was telling myself.

And life told me in that moment, or I call it God.

I believe in God.

But for some people, maybe they don't like that word.

The word doesn't matter.

You know, where do you call it?

Life with a capital L.

I think God and life are in many ways synonymous.

I think God, life, love, maybe all one thing.

It is above my pay grade.

But whatever it is, it gave me the message clear.

Face the fear, or we're going to give you louder warning signals.

The pain is going to get worse until you wake up.

So I had a choice across roads.

It was like, I'm either going to change my emotional set point.

I'm going to stop lying to myself, which I had these stories.

I'm an avoidant person.

Relationships are hard.

You know, my relationships don't work out.

Give up all these stories rooted in the past, rooted in fear,

and step into who I really am, which is a man, a leader.

And it's one of the other.

You're going to go that way.

And I knew where that was going to end.

If I kept going the way I was, I was going to be a dude with, you know,

six pack abs and millions of dollars at his mansion alone.

Sixty years old and people not going to, or Mike, how you doing?

I got a big fake smile on my face.

I'm doing good, but inside I'm a, I'm a lonely man.

That's where my life was headed.

My gosh, bro.

And, and, or is face to fear?

And it's a whole bunch of expansion, growth, freedom, beauty, joy, faith, love.

Some pain also, right?

There's pain on the journey, but way less suffering, right?

And so that was it.

That was the turning point.

And I have not looked back.

It's been, I think, three plus years since that moment.

And I cured my own depression.

Wow.

So, that was, whoa, here we go.

So, I want to ask you about that.

First off, this story thing, everybody is real.

This story you tell yourself about yourself in your life,

you're doing everything in your personal power you possibly can to quote,

totally personal power, um, to confirm the story and make it true.

Amen.

As you validate it over and over and over again to find more proof,

that you're a particular activating system in your brain.

It's scanning your environment to find more and more proof

that what you're saying about you is true.

That's why that old adage of, if you believe it, it's true,

actually comes to fruition.

But I want to go back a second.

We'll talk about what you did to shift, but before we do it,

we want to ask you something and maybe you haven't considered this, maybe you have.

But I too relate to that.

I had a story one time I was building my first, like, big home.

It's just a great blessing.

I had financial resources for the first time.

Building this mansion is just a stressful day.

I was mad at the contractor and we had just lost a business deal.

And I'll never forget it.

I walk in the living room with his house that's being built.

And I'm just furious, right?

And at the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions.

I was losing big time.

And in the kitchen, building my kitchen,

we were these about six men.

They had mariachi music plan.

They were dancing.

They were working.

They were doing work.

They were great at that they were proud of.

And they were joyous and blissful and passionate.

And I remember standing there like an idiot in the middle of this house under construction going.

They're winning in life and I'm losing.

But on Instagram, I'm the dude with the mansion.

But I'm the dude living in these emotions of stress,

fear, anxiety, worry, these men live in bliss.

And I remember going, you better change something right here.

And in my case, this is what I want to ask you about.

I want to meet you in the middle here.

I had to try to figure out why was this way first.

And maybe that's not relevant.

Maybe you just decide to change.

But in my case, I realized something about me.

Since I was a little boy and I think a lot of people do this,

I confused significance or recognition with love.

Meaning when I when I was a little boy, if I brought home an A or I hit a home run

or I had big muscles when I got older, I got what felt like love.

It's like superficial love, acknowledgement.

And so in my little brains, significance and recognition was love.

Except it's not.

They're two totally different things.

So I was great at significance, terrible at feeling loved or giving love.

Do you relate to that at all?

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Yeah, of course.

I just organized, you know, first two and a half,

maybe three decades of my life around, you know.

Why do you think us, you know, artists become artists?

You know, it's like we want that hit of significance from the audience.

We have often some psychological flaw that we haven't cleaned up yet.

And we want to manipulate the audience to giving that fake love

or the attention, that significance.

So we don't have to look at that thing.

And so that's unfortunately a large percentage of the artists we have.

They don't feel the love, the real love.

And so they're trying to outsource it.

Crowdsource it, right?

And I'm not saying that with judgment,

because I did it for years.

And sometimes to be honest,

it'll try to rear its head to the street.

And I say, hey, you know, I love you,

but you're not, you don't get to drive the car anymore.

You know, and so I talk about the three stages of

artistry and their relationship with their fans.

And it probably applies to influencers,

podcasters, things too bad.

You know, I come from the music world.

So I say the first stage is popular.

You start to get some recognition.

And you go, wow, like, this is incredible.

And what could ever go wrong with this?

Like, I actually, maybe I don't even need to have a wife or a girlfriend

because I get all this love.

Like I feel so filled up from these strangers who all see

the essence of how great I am.

And if you've done great work, that's true.

There's only senior essence and not all your, you know, your, your flaws.

And so there's some, there's something to that,

because you're presenting the, the, the jewel inside yourself in your art.

And a bunch of people are relating to that and you're getting this attention back

and acknowledgement.

So that stage wants, puppy love, stage two, I call disillusionment.

Because something happens where you go,

do some of those people, they don't like me.

They're not paying attention anymore.

There could be a dip in popularity in scope.

Wow, this changes.

Or some people flip and they go from liking you to hating you.

Or some people just come out of nowhere and they, they're hating you.

So this is, oh, man, I thought I had this security from this,

this significance, but now it's gone.

And that's painful.

That's what I call disillusionment.

Now, a lot of people get stuck there and they're getting this love hate

relationship with their audience.

But there's a third level, a third stage in that service.

It's going, okay, once I actually address the thing that you just got clear on,

you addressed it, hey, this came from when I was a child and you know,

I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop living under that programming.

Because it's just programming that I've, that I've operated under for years.

And we can change any happen.

We can change any, it's one of the things I love about Tony.

Because you don't have a disease, depression with a disease I had.

It's not something I had.

It's something I did.

Yeah.

And so you get clear on in stage three, you get clear on, okay?

What are these laws or these pain points that may be come from childhood?

And sometimes they even come from before childhood.

Sometimes they come from your mom's childhood.

I mean, I don't for sure.

There's some, some stuff that I picked up from my mom.

And when I was in my early 20s, I was kind of like upset with her about it.

But then when I learned more about her, I say, you got it from your mom.

And then, and then it probably went on from there.

So sometimes it's not even us, but it's up to us to end the cycle.

So you get clear on, okay, what are my pain points?

What are these old stories?

What is the new ones that I'm going to tell?

And, and where am I going to start real relationships with real love?

And then I'm going to go back to my audience.

I'm actually going to serve them.

It's not about manipulating them anymore to get this hit of significance.

It becomes about what can I give and it can become one of the great joys of your life.

And it doesn't replace a primary relationship or your family.

But it's a place for you to pour love out and contribute.

So true, brother.

By the way, I don't think I think you could replace artist with human.

I think most humans are thinking, well, if I get enough money or I get a bigger house or

I got the right shoes or, you know, people look up to me.

I'm going to feel different about me.

This thing you just said on significance.

I can tell you an inside thing.

It's interesting.

Rob Deertick is a good friend.

He's been on the show a couple of times.

And we had this running thing because this is a topic once you have a breakthrough in your life

that you really discuss with one another.

And so I'm every time I go, man, I'm not into significance anymore of recognition.

He's like me either.

Like, almost like we were above it, right?

And so we went like six months bantering back and forth about how evolved we had both become,

you know, and we're at a Rams game together.

Our wives were sitting in between us.

And I can't hear him.

And he's like, hey, hey.

And I'm going to go, when he goes, in five, I can't hear him.

I go, what are you saying?

He goes, I'm a liar.

And I go, what are you talking about?

He goes, let's go get a hot dog.

And I'll tell you when we walk up, he goes, bro, I still love significance in recognition.

I go, good dude.

I'm so sick of lying about this, so do I, right?

But he said something, what you just said.

He said, but I get it now by contributing.

So I feel significant when I'm giving the difference, bro.

And so I think I get it in a healthy way now.

That's it.

And he goes, and that contribution is because I love people.

And so it's just a subtle loop that changes.

But this is like one of the more profound conversations we've had on the show,

because I think this is just humans.

I don't think it's just singing or just speaking on stage like I do.

I think it's human nature to be this way.

So let me ask you, I mean, this is a broad question.

But if someone was listening, it's going, bro, I'm with you.

And I live kind of in a lower state of being a lot,

where I'm down or melancholy or worried or anxiety,

or all the way to depression, like you've described.

And they said to me, hey, brother, like, what do I do?

What do I do?

What would you say to that person?

I would ask them four questions,

but they can answer the questions themselves, you know?

So I would challenge or invite that person

to ask themselves these four questions.

The first comes from my buddy, Chris Work.

Chris Work wrote the book,

Kris B. Cancer is an incredible book.

He cured himself a cancer without Western medicine.

And he's helped thousands of others to repeat this miracle.

And he credits his entire journey of healing

back to it.

I think he was getting a massage or a raky or someone.

He went to get some bodywork done.

And the healer asked him this question.

They go, before we start this journey,

I got to know, do you want to live?

Yes or no?

And most of us have never really asked that question

seriously to each to ourselves.

Because, you know, these things build up.

They talked about them early, these micro-recentment.

There's a little bit of feeling a lot of us have a,

hey, you know, I'll do this, but I don't really want to.

I'm here, but I should be doing something else.

And it's so ubiquitous and a lot of our experience of life

that it's just kind of running in the background.

A lot of us think that it's actually part of life.

It's not part of life.

It's an impediment of life.

And so most people answer that question, yes.

But they realize like there's something

sort of not as good as they think it should be.

That part of going on a small side tangent,

and I get back to question two,

that part of oneself that goes, hey, I think,

I think my life is supposed to feel better than it does.

Where does that come from?

Because that's really interesting.

A lot of us have this idea that life should feel better than it does.

But better in a way that maybe we've never even experienced.

So how is the mind telling us about some experience

that we don't know anything about?

So I have a theory.

I don't know if it's right, but I think it's right.

And I think it comes from beyond the mind.

I think that feeling is true.

I think that's our soul.

Or if you don't like that word,

your higher self or like your deeper self going, hey,

there's more for you here.

And the pain you feel is actually the chasm

between where you are and where on some level,

you know life should be.

Not externally, but the feeling, the experience of life.

It's like when you see those guys working on the house,

the pain isn't just that.

You felt anger that day because we all feel anger sometimes.

The pain is something is recognizing

there's a chasm here and the amount, the further the wider the chasm,

the more the pain.

So I think that part of ourselves is correct.

And it's a larger part of ourselves calling us to grow,

calling us to become more.

So that's the end of the tangent.

Now, what's the second question?

The first question was, do you want to live?

Yes or no?

The second question is, if yes, and most people say yes,

why?

Why?

And this question, it comes from

Dr. Frankl.

And Chris asked it also, but it's man search for meaning.

You know, and would Nietzsche say,

he who has a why can endure almost any

circumstance, any how, any condition can overcome anything.

And all of us have a purpose of being here,

but not all of us have uncovered it yet.

And by the way, it changes.

Your purpose when you're 15 is not the same as your purpose when you're 30.

And it might change week to week.

And Victor Frankl talks about that in the books.

He goes, stop measuring life and saying life isn't meeting my expectations.

And start asking, what does life expect to mean?

What does life expect to me in this moment?

And the purpose, your purpose of life,

might not be some overarching thing, some crazy thing.

It might just be to hold that old lady's hand,

to look at that child and not.

It might be something very immediate.

So that's the second question.

And the third question, my buddy,

my buddy, Elliott, this now.

So it comes with a story.

Am I rambling too long?

Not in the least.

Okay.

So the third question is, came from Elliott.

I was at a point, another low point in my life.

This low point came before the one before.

It was a bunch of low points, right?

And so I'd reach this point in my life.

Where my father had just passed away.

A couple of my peers that I worked with the music industry,

a Vici and Mac Miller, they had just died.

And there was this feeling like,

exactly what I just referred to.

Like there's something inside me that I'm not expressing.

Like there's some difference between what I have to give

and what I'm actually giving.

And it doesn't feel good.

It feels like I'm wasting life.

And I got just real down, real down.

And I grew a big beard at the time.

I just turned 30.

And I remember I had a new album coming out.

And you know, it was about maybe seven years ago.

At that time, you would still go to a lot of radio stations.

And you basically schmooze.

You know, shake these guys hand.

Make, you know, pretend like you're their best friend.

And so then they put your song on the radio.

And they can get like these 12 year olds addicted to your song.

And that's supposed to be success.

And I'm just like telling Elliott,

we were in Alaska on a camping trip.

And I'm like, dude, I'm done.

Like I don't, I'm 30.

I'm what am I doing?

I don't want to play this game anymore.

Like I'm through.

I don't want to do it.

And when I say I'm done, I'm like, I was really there, Ed.

Like I had thoughts of like, I should kill myself.

Whoa.

I like it.

Like I, there's something about how I'm showing up in the world

that feels like it's taking away from the world.

Not adding to it.

And so I said to Elliott, I go, dude,

I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm done.

He looks at me.

By the way, I think friendship is seeing another's potential

so clearly that they can see it themselves.

So that's Elliott.

He's incredible.

And my like depressing word just kind of like bounce off

him as if he's got a force field.

And he looks at me and he goes,

because I just told him I don't want to do it.

I don't want all this stuff.

And he goes, well, what do you want?

Yeah, I never, I never asked that question.

I'm sending your bouncing around my life,

making lists and lists of what I don't want.

And if any of your listeners like,

if your mind has like mine,

by the way, you're not your mind,

but if your mind is like mine,

it creates lists of things that happen in the past.

You didn't want.

It's got to list the things right now that are happening.

You don't want.

And it even has a giant list of things

that haven't happened yet.

But if they did, you sure as heck wouldn't want those too.

So no wonder, no wonder I was miserable.

I sucked there.

I thought, what do I want?

What a question.

And I couldn't believe the words that came out of my mouth.

They were, I want to walk across America.

Well, I almost couldn't believe I said it.

Did you ever thought that before?

Yeah, I'd heard about a guy who had done it five years ago.

And I remember I thought, that was pretty freaking cool.

And then I just put through on the back burner like it.

I thought, maybe I'll do it one day.

But then I got back to business as usual.

Make album going tour.

Make album going tour.

Make album going tour.

And then in that moment,

that's what I wanted.

And that was the answer.

It came from beyond my mind.

Like it just, I almost heard the words come out of my mouth

like as if someone else said it.

I was surprised.

And I, and I, I reeled back.

Because when I heard the words come out, I went.

My mind came back in and I said to Ellie, I said,

but you know, I told my manager about this once.

And he said it was a crazy idea.

Ellie, it goes, that's great news.

I like Ellie.

I like them too.

I said, what do you mean it's great news?

He goes, that your manager said it's a crazy idea.

I said, what do you mean?

He goes, you got to understand, man.

Not all crazy ideas are great.

But all great ideas are crazy.

So good.

And he goes, so your manager thing is crazy is a great sign.

He goes, and I think you walking across America is a great idea.

So I eventually did that walk and it changed my life.

It didn't cure me in my depression.

But it gave me some, some amazing tools.

And eventually put me on the path that got me to where I did.

So that's the question number three.

I'm stealing that.

I steal it because I steal it from him all the time.

By the way, I asked him, I go later, you know, because it was such a deep moment.

I said, because he's one of my best friends.

So I go, dude, did you make that up?

He goes, what?

Did not crazy idea line?

He goes, I don't know, probably.

Even though, so maybe he got it for someplace else, but I think he did.

I think he's sharing the role for sure.

I think he channeled it, but the last question is sort of just an expansion on that,

which is, you know, what really would make life worth living?

So I would start there, you know, to answer these four questions and get a little

momentum focusing on what I do want, you know, what I do want.

By the way, it's best way to give someone feedback, right?

Don't tell them all the things that they just did that piss you off.

Ask them to do what you want them to do.

Hey, hey, this would really make a difference for me.

It would light me up if you did X, Y, or Z works.

So life is rigged in a way where we get what we focus on.

So life is rigged in such a way where when you focus on what's wrong,

you notice more of what's wrong.

You get more of what's wrong.

When you focus on what you want, right?

And Jesus said, pray as if you've already received it, right?

I think that's true, right?

We got all this new age stuff came out about law of attraction, right?

And it's all true.

But Jesus was talking about it 2,000 years ago.

Pray as if you've already received it, right?

Didn't come from the secret.

And I love the secret, right?

But this concept has been around for a long time and it's true.

We get what we focus on.

And so you got to get clear on what you want.

You got to get clear on, do you want to live?

You got to get clear on what's your purpose?

What's your why?

Because without a why, dude, I don't care.

You can have the craziest life.

It'll turn to mush.

It'll turn to drudgery if you don't know what that why is.

You got to get clear on what you do want.

And what would make life really worth living?

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This is a masterclass, brother.

I didn't know we're going to go this deep.

Come on.

The thing I would add, I just want to keep rifting.

And I want you to be doing both the teaching here today.

But, you know, everybody, this is what we're really talking about

is beginning to live your life with some intention.

Lauditing where you're at.

Is this still my dream?

Just still what I want?

Is this what I want when I was 15?

But now I'm 30.

That's not what I want anymore.

Right?

It's okay to audit your life and audit and ask yourself these questions

because that's a life that's live with intention.

That's a life when you get to the end of it.

You go, okay, I gave it everything I had and I maxed out my life.

But one where you just live unconsciously with all of your patterns

running all of the time, it's just like a book that's the same chapter

on every, the same page, same chapter.

Every time you turn to the page, it's the same experience.

So if you want a different experience,

you've got to ask different questions.

And one thing Tony does talk about that I do as well

is the quality of your life is often the quality of your emotions.

But a lot of times your emotions come from the questions

you're asking yourself.

Huge.

Huge.

You said something really profound earlier

that was like of a million profound things.

And I'll mess up how you said it.

So to explain, you said, you're not your thoughts

or you're not always what's going on in your mind.

You said something like that.

What did you mean by that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, this machine in our brains,

that's just saying words, saying thoughts.

It's not who you are.

It's some very small part of your being

as a soul.

You know, what does the shard didn't say?

We're not human beings having a spiritual experience

for spiritual beings having a human experience.

So the mind was evolved to keep us safe.

It's a scanning device, often for what's wrong.

Because our ancestors, if you believe in evolution,

the ones that scanned for what was wrong,

that noticed all this little sound or that over,

they were paranoid.

They survived.

Because they noticed, they noticed the potential danger

when it occurred.

And so all of us have what's called a negativity bias built in.

Meaning we tend to focus more on what's wrong

because this mind thing is here to keep us alive.

It's not here to make us happy.

It's not designed to.

So if you live your whole life in your mind,

you're not going to be fulfilled.

Because your soul is way bigger than the mind.

And so I'm a big meditator.

I also love, you know, as much as Tony,

equally in a different way at our toll,

who teaches we're not our mind.

And I don't know about you.

We talked about earlier, you know,

things that is always saying what you don't want.

But it's just always saying stuff all day long.

And some of the stuff it says is great.

And some of the stuff it says is really stupid.

And most of what it says is very repetitive.

If you ever take a day, you know, a lot of people,

I've had this blessed life, a lot of freedom.

So I'll be able to do weird experiments.

So like I've gone to a retreat center

for a total of two months of my life,

where they put you in a little cabin,

and they just leave you there.

And once a week, they drop food off in the barebox.

So you're taking care of the woods already chopped.

So you just sit there and you meditate.

And when I watched my mind,

just sitting there for hours a day, seven hours.

It's like, hey, this thing,

it's often pretty negative, not always.

And it's super repetitive.

Yes.

If you ever take a day,

if you ever take a day,

and I know and not everyone has this luxury,

wait, even if you take two hours,

and you just sit down without your phone,

and you just observe the thoughts in your head,

I forget who you had to quote,

all of humanity's problems stem from the fact

that a man and a woman too is the older days, right?

is that we cannot sit quietly alone in a room.

So if you ever take just two hours,

and just watch the thoughts you have,

you'll be amazed, first of all,

you'll forget you're doing it almost immediately,

and you'll get carried away with your thoughts.

But then, after why you notice,

it keeps thinking the same thing.

And it's like, so,

our culture is almost a monument

to rationality, to thinking mind, right?

We have,

for better or worse,

gotten away from the churches,

the synagogues, the mosques,

and we worship more the university,

the scientists, right?

And science is amazing, right?

It makes all of our lives great and comfortable,

but it's not going to make you fulfilled.

So, you are not your mind.

I'm not my mind.

It is not his mind.

We are the consciousness.

I'm the consciousness that gets to move

Mike Posner around.

I'm not even Mike Posner, right?

That's like, I believe a costume

that I'm wearing this go around.

And the more we can identify

with the part of ourselves,

actually beyond language, beyond words,

you can just feel it.

And the moments are quiet.

And everyone's had these moments.

Virginia Woolf called these moments of being, right?

Everyone's had a moment where

it just made sense.

The mind actually stopped.

It was pure blue.

That's you.

That's the real you, right?

I tell you, like I just tell you,

this idea, I just want to say this,

yes, I want to acknowledge you just for a second.

You are making a difference.

This is a real contribution.

I just want you to know, like legitimately,

like this is extraordinary what you're sharing.

And that's worth acknowledging in you.

Like God's really using you, Mike.

I mean, truly, truly.

And everyone, Mike, who's saying earlier about your brain

and these repetitive thoughts,

your mind is always trying to move towards

what it's most familiar with.

And so if it's familiar with these,

you know, those ruminations

of what you're worried about and afraid of

or not liking or not going well,

you're going to get more of it

because your brain's designed to conserve energy.

It's lazy.

And so that's why a life that's not evaluated

is an unlived life.

And so what we're really talking about here,

just for the gift of today,

because you are even I are both blessed.

We could go somewhere for a week.

Some people listen to going,

I got three kids.

I got to pick up from school.

I got to do homework.

I got to take them to soccer.

I got to get back to work.

But here's the thing.

You have to give yourself those couple hours.

Once a week, somewhere,

did you sit with yourself, sit with God

and just be with you.

And if you can't do that,

you have to ask yourself,

why do we not enjoy my own company?

And why do we need other people around me all the time?

That's worth at least asking why.

And then I think it's building your own

recipe that causes change in you.

I don't want to ask you about this.

And maybe it's not one of the formulas.

But as I read about you,

and I've known about you obviously for a long time,

but it's not normal resume, bro.

I mean, let's just be honest.

I mean, I haven't climbed Mount Everest.

I haven't walked across the country.

I haven't done the continental divide.

I almost haven't died of a rattlesnake bite.

I don't have, you know,

Grammy nominations.

Like I'm just a dude with a flag behind him doing a podcast, right?

That's all I have.

But like, so I don't relate to all of that.

Having said all of that, though,

humans develop sort of recipes to their wellness, their bliss.

If you look at your life,

it looks to me like challenging yourself

to do something is one of those recipes.

Like you, it appears as if part of you living your life

is a challenge that then you go pursue

and see if you can expand your being

relative to the level of that challenge.

As I always say, I'm addicted to the expansion of my being.

Thank you.

Is part of your formula from time to time coming up with a challenge

for yourself to see what you're capable of

or is that something in the past?

It's evolved.

It's evolved, but it's definitely part of it, right?

And life will give you these challenges anyway, right?

So it's like, I like to put challenges in my life.

So I'm inviting in the grow.

I like to set a goal.

Sometimes where I go, hey,

the version of me setting this goal

cannot do this.

I actually have to become

some version myself that I'm not now

in order to get this done.

So I like a goal like that.

In the past, they've been

but some physical challenges, some expeditions, things like that.

Probably be honest with you Ed.

Because I was an army of one for so many years,

the challenge now that, you know,

and I have somebody, you know,

I still run the altruism stuff right here there, right?

It's important for me to keep that

so warrior part of life.

But the number one challenge, right?

I want to be humble today, right?

Because it's like,

I receive what you said.

I know God, when I'm at my best,

God is working through me, right?

And not all the time,

because sometimes my brain gets in the way.

But my challenge now is,

I'm being on the family.

And some of the things that I'm teaching today,

dude, like when I'm with my fiance,

who's the most wonderful woman in the world,

I sometimes get angry.

Right? I'm like,

Oh, where did that come from?

Oh, that's the part I need to work on now, right?

This is like,

this is like pointing me in the direction

of what I need to work on.

And so, for me,

when I said it involves,

it's less about

going and doing some really hard with my body,

although that does,

that does do, you know,

it's a certain flavor of the expansion.

But having done a bunch of those,

the one that's more challenging for me is,

is being less selfish,

being in a family unit,

putting others before myself,

doesn't come naturally to me.

Because I've been,

I've been doing the Mike Posner thing for a lot of years.

And so,

that's where the juice of my life is now.

It's the most challenging part of my life now,

because I need to grow the most

to have the family that I want,

that I will have.

So there's some pain in that for me.

And I welcome it.

And so the other things have been training.

And the other thing about

there's been a lot of external achievements

in my life.

And like I said,

part of that was by design.

I wanted to become somebody I was proud of.

Part of that was,

I wanted to, you know,

get your attention.

I wanted to be able to go in the podcast

and have my like,

oh, he's the most interesting, right?

So part of it was not good,

it was significant.

And part of that thing was grace.

I think that, listen,

I want to share light with the world.

And for some people,

they'll listen to me versus someone else

because I got all these things.

That's right.

And I have to report back,

hey, I was still at that Michigan house,

depressed.

I was still in the last school at Elliott

thinking, maybe I should kill myself.

And so maybe I think so.

God gave me all those blessings

and then he gave me the pain with it.

So I could teach from a place not,

not from him from having read it in a book

but from having lived it.

Hey, like, I got the external stuff

but I wasn't winning the internal game

and you want to be there.

So let me help you win the internal game

and you can win the external game too.

There's a lot,

you know, there's a lot of teachers on that, right?

And you can't both.

Hey, man, I agree with you.

Listen, some of us have just

shows our giftedness

if we're great at it grabs attention.

My sister,

I think, is the greatest school teacher.

She's actually an assistant principal now.

Her gift is to work with children, right?

She's expressing her gift

and pushing the expansion of her being daily.

She's not going to get lots of recognition for that gift.

She'll get it when she gets to heaven.

So many of you,

your recognition won't be here.

It's okay to go chase money.

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing on one other,

a big house.

That's okay.

It's just what we're both telling you.

But nothing's worse than a couple rich people telling you.

It's not worth getting rich.

It's certainly better probably

to have financial means than not.

It's something that goaliers

and you and God work together to make it real.

That's wonderful.

But when it becomes your identity,

you will be empty.

And so that's the difference.

I'm just curious.

I'm watching you.

Well said.

Well said.

Thank you.

Well, you're in a body.

You embody it.

I said it.

So there's the difference.

Some days.

Some days.

I'm going to ask you,

if I'd have met you at 30,

he's 37 when we're recording this,

you have a certain

and everyone's hearing it.

There's a there's a spirit about you

that's I'd call it

wise, like an old soul,

but very gentle.

There's a there's a peaceful spirit about you.

Had I met you seven years ago

with that same spirit have been present

or have you sort of

or has that changed in you?

In other words,

externally are you different also

in the way that you communicate,

you vibrate,

you know, you go about your life.

Is there been a difference in that

or did you always have a little of that?

I think there's a huge difference.

I mean, I feel way different.

My frequency,

like we talked about my set point.

30 was that.

30 was like that conversation with Elliot.

That was like,

and that's part of what I want to share to

with people like,

because maybe there's someone listening to this

who's really in a tough moment.

Like really in a tough moment.

And maybe no one knows about it.

But keep going.

Because at 30,

I had no idea it would be this good.

Not the external stuff.

I didn't know I could feel this good.

And you can't have a life without pain,

but you have a pain with a lot less suffering.

So at 30 to answer your question,

I would go through a lot of pain.

I think I was seeking a lot already.

I was already in the meditation.

I already read.

I'd already spent a lot of time

seeking out answers.

Because I

was searching for them.

I was just getting ready to walk across America.

So I think I could probably spit some

spit some game at that point.

But looking back was, was I really

mastering that that the feeling part,

the internal part.

Yeah, no, I hadn't figured that out yet.

And I haven't fully figured it out now.

But I got it more figured out than then.

Is part of that figuring it out?

You can tell about relationships earlier.

I just have this feeling listening to you.

And I don't know this.

That I have to believe, this is just my belief system.

And you can believe whatever you want.

Everybody, I love all of you.

But doing this alone without a knowing

or a growing relationship with your version of God,

sure is hard.

And for me,

you know, I'm where I'm at my life

through God's grace.

And I'm pretty bold about that fact.

I love people that, you know,

I love people.

And so whenever your faith choices,

that's not what today's episode is about necessarily.

But I'd be making a huge mess if I didn't ask you about that part of your life.

Has your relationship or understanding of God changed over this time as well?

And is that a big, is that the most important relationship you have or one of them?

Yeah, it's the most important.

And it has changed.

I grew up

in a Jewish household.

But I was raised

what was called secular humanistic, meaning

I went to Sunday school, but I wasn't taught anything about God.

I asked my mom about this later.

I said, why didn't you raise it like that?

She goes, I had a childhood where a lot of stuff was forced on me.

And so we raised you that way, not because I don't believe it.

She believes in God.

But we raised that way because we wanted you to make a decision when you're an adult.

Sorry, but actually, I make a lot of sense.

So then,

the spiritual part of my life really started with my friend, Big Sean.

Big Sean.

Yeah, do you know Big Sean?

Yeah, I do.

I know who he is, yes.

So he and I, we met in Detroit when we were kids.

So we're in the same age.

So I knew him when I was 18.

And then my music started to take off.

Then his took off.

And I saw him about, I think we're probably 23, 24.

And he was like glowing.

Like glowing.

And the external part of his life was exploding as well.

And I sometime like, dude, what, what, what, what he, what changed?

He goes, you gotta read two books.

One is the Alchemist.

Three book.

And the second one was asking it is given.

It's a book all by the law of attraction.

So I read these books and they sort of open in my eyes to

have a spiritual part of my life.

I would run.

I would say, well, I used to be depressed.

I would say, I am joy.

I would say, I am faith.

I am love.

And it, it told me to reframe challenges when they came.

But I learned to ask this new question.

What am I supposed to learn from this?

Inheriting that question, you know, assume the subtext is like,

there's something out there that is like actually

gifting me this experience.

Barbara Katie says life's not happening for you.

Life's not happening to you.

Life's happening for you, right?

I heard a book right there, you know.

And so that, that was a big part of faith.

And then it, it evolved.

Like even it's evolving.

Excuse me.

In the last year of 2025, I had some, excuse me,

I had some wild experiences with, with Jesus,

moving in my life, signs in my life.

Like just, I don't want to go, it's like, you know,

crazy, excuse me, crazy stories.

But just having wild signs where Jesus was moving in my life.

And so it's evolved so much and it's evolving.

But it is the most important relationship.

Louis Hays says, my security does not come for my bank account,

my spouse or my parents.

It comes from my ability to connect to all that is,

which I call God, right?

And that's the only place I'm always mess up this line from scripture.

Jesus says, you know, don't store up your treasure where a rust

and thieves can get them or something.

I don't know the exact way to say it.

But what he means is

everything on this earth changes.

It goes away.

You can't, you can't place your security in another person.

Even in my fiance, I love her.

If she could give me that security, she would.

But she's a human being, right?

She can't be exactly what I needed to be at all time.

And what kind of a man would I be?

Right, but that's what I needed.

So you can only get that security from one place and that's God.

And I think that's what we're all searching for.

And it's a personal, it's a personal

relationship and I'm like you, I love people.

I'm here to just be a blessing.

The more we can realize, you know, our life actually,

my life actually doesn't belong to me,

that this higher power and we talked about not being the mind,

I think that's how you connect to it faster, right?

You identify with this part of you that's connected to it.

And you start to live a life that I'm stepping into more,

it's scary for me and where you just listen to that thing as it guides you.

And sometimes it speaks to us in dreams.

Sometimes it speaks to us in through other human beings.

And sometimes it speaks to us through that still small voice inside us.

And that's the life that I'm interested in leading,

not one that's like, hey, I read this.

This is the next step.

I don't even go do that.

I feel like I'm on a magical journey.

And the bread crumbs get left for me by God.

I just try to follow what it says and here we are.

Well, I'm sitting here emotional.

I mean, this is quiet because I can't believe we've had this conversation today.

And I, first off, I just remember this as you're afraid.

Jesus holds you in the palm of his hand.

And so he's always with you.

He'll never leave you nor forsake you.

And so you don't have to have that fear.

But I know exactly what you mean.

I have it from time to time as well.

It just makes me emotional to see this.

The whole conversation, I've done 800 and some odd 900 of these.

None have flown by this quickly.

And none have I felt like I'm just in the beginning.

Not the end of this conversation.

I truly mean that.

And I'm going to make you come back on here and do this again.

I would like to be my pleasure.

Because, bro, like, I'll just tell you that you're being used for good.

And you're remarkable.

Just accept that, please.

And I also, something's out right now that we need to talk about at the end.

Because here's the good thing about this conversation.

It's been so incredible.

I'm 100% sure everybody stayed to the end.

That's how good this is.

And I think everybody's with me saying, please come back.

But what's up with I went back to Abiza.

We need to know about this.

So tell us.

Yeah, this is incredible.

It's such a blessing.

We talked about my life story today.

And I get to encapsulate a lot of these moments with music.

So you want to know how I felt, right?

This moment of Elliot, where I've been like, listen to a real good kid.

I made an album, a lot of these chapters of life.

And so when I look back on these, this body of work of music, it's pretty cool.

Because it's all there.

But I think it's 12 years ago now.

I wrote a song called I Took a Pill in Abiza.

And it was a very successful song.

And it was a heartbreaking song about how empty my life was,

having reached fame, but kind of on the other side of it.

And the chorus was all I know are sad songs.

Maybe two years ago on my birthday, because I wrote the song on my birthday,

26th birthday, I wrote an Instagram post.

I said, you know, 10 years have gone by.

And this song, every lyric in it is now untrue in my life.

So I went through each line.

I said, you know, what I was talking about in my life at that time,

when it was honest and vulnerable, and it was real at the time,

I go, all these things are transformed in 10 years.

Like, what a great, what an amazing 10 years.

Thank you.

And I got a guy that works me on social media.

So he was the post went viral.

So then he would like every six months, he would change the post,

repost it up.

It'd go viral again.

You know how they do that, right?

And they keep telling me all this keeps going, keeps being taking off.

People keep resigning with the message.

Finally, my fiancee says to me,

well, you keep doing this post about how your life changed.

She goes, why don't you rewrite the song with new words about your life now?

So I said, hey, I'm supposed to come up with the song ideas.

I had creeped, creeped in on my territory.

So I said, this is a good idea.

So I did so.

And it came out, it just came out.

More beautiful than I could imagine.

So I'm really excited to share that song with the world.

And people can go check it out.

It's called, I went back to Ibiza.

And it's about transformation.

Okay, you're coming back to the end of my let's show.

I can't wait to meet you in person, man.

Yeah, brother, same here.

Would you do that?

We'll do it soon too.

So everybody, I just sometimes already know what your response is.

So I'm not going to add anything to today.

This was extraordinary.

And put this one in a time capsule.

And I'm really grateful for you, bro.

Really grateful for you too.

God bless you.

God bless you, man.

Hey, everybody, this is, this is why I do the show.

Why this old man is still doing this thing right now.

It's days like today.

This is why I do the show right here.

God bless you, everybody.

Please share this.

Max out your life.

This is the admiral show.

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