Discover the Unexpected Power of Self-Expression | Adam IN-Q DSH #695

And someone like you is super different from me, like having a poet on.

I didn't even know those still existed, dude, if we're being honest.

You can't be a poet

and do it for the idea of, you know, making money.

I don't think in general you should ever like choose art for that reason.

You should just follow your bliss and see where it takes you.

All right, guys, we got NQ, one of the most known poets in the world.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you for having me, Sean.

Yeah, we were just talking about how it's a lost art almost.

I haven't done it since middle school, and I feel like the generation now is even worse, right?

I don't even know if they're still teaching it in school.

Well, they're not teaching a lot of art in school, which is a shame.

Yeah.

Because art, I think, allows people to find their own identity, to explore the world and themselves, and ultimately can be...

a tool for stress release, anxiety release, and better mental and emotional health at any age.

Yeah, I feel like when we're young, we're super artistic just naturally, right?

And then we kind of lose it as we get older.

I agree.

I think that we lose it because we stop using it.

So I think part of the reason that we calcify is because as adults, we go after the things that we're good at, the things we can make money at, the things we can be validated by.

And we tend to stop proactively getting out of our comfort zone and creativity.

And it's part of the reason that I made this this new album and journal is to give people an opportunity to express their poetic voice.

Like you don't have to be a poet to write a poem.

You don't have to be a professional singer to sing a song.

You don't have to be a professional painter to put your emotions or something that's meaningful to you or images down on a canvas.

You just have to do it and be willing to play.

Absolutely.

I love that advice and it resonates with me because I was so scared of posting on social media, posting a podcast, any type of content because I was so feared of being judged.

How did you get over that and how did you move through it?

Great question.

I've never been asked that actually.

Because I was a huge introvert growing up.

So I was just always scared to even do public speaking, but I just had a co-host at first.

I feel like that helped to have an extrovert co-host.

So eased my way into podcasting.

And then I got comfortable enough to do it on my own.

So you found like somebody that you could partner with that balanced you out?

Yeah.

And then almost probably they took from your strengths and strengthened your weaknesses and vice versa.

So you probably like learned how to be more comfortable being uncomfortable.

Yeah.

And then it was just straight reps.

I'm 700 episodes in now.

So now to me, it's, it's easy.

Yeah.

I know I'm your fifth of the day.

Salute.

You know, it's very cool that you're able to do that because it takes a lot of focus.

It does.

Yeah.

When I filmed with Doug Evans, he was my eighth of the day.

And that episode ended up getting a million of views.

And talk about a good dude with a good message, man.

Big shout out to Doug Evans.

He's the man.

The Sprout King.

The Sprout King.

Absolutely.

He's probably an easier person to interview, though, because he's so infectious.

Yeah.

So like, even if you're tired, he'll...

pull the weight for everyone in the room.

Right.

You know?

Yeah, there's different challenges with different types of guests.

Some are introverted, some are shy.

Some it's their first show.

Some, it's they're the opposite where they're extroverted.

And I only only ask one question the whole episode.

So there's different challenges.

What makes a great episode for you or what are some of the episodes maybe you look back on and you're not as fond of for whatever reason?

I did go through a weird OnlyFans phase.

And I don't, I wouldn't say I regret it, but I kind of did that to get views, but those aren't the right type of views I want for this podcast.

So I just sprinkle them in every now and then, but there was a phase where I was doing like one a week.

It was crazy.

Got it.

Yeah.

But it's part of the game we play on social media.

You need to get some eyeballs some way or another.

100%.

When I,

you know, my flight landed and I was like, I want to do a little bit of research on you.

So I looked up and I saw an interview that somebody was interviewing you.

And it wasn't on the digital social hour.

It was like separate, but it was about the digital social hour.

And you were just kind of saying how you choose people is unique.

And, you know, you have different motives for choosing different people, but it's always something for the most part that you're interested in.

And you were like, like this one dude, he drinks his own pee.

And I started laughing and I was like, this is going to be a fun interview.

Yeah, I've learned so much the past year.

It's insane.

I've learned more in the past year than 25 years of my life combined just from podcasting.

Yeah, I hear that.

Yeah.

It's probably the best networking and learning vehicle in the world right now, in my opinion.

What do you think the biggest thing that you learned in the past year was for your personal growth?

Incorporating spirituality in my life, which I neglected for 25 years.

How do you do that?

Grounding meditation.

I've tried all types of therapy, past life therapy.

I hired a psychic as a spiritual coach, different things.

But seeing that there's a greater purpose than just making money was a big mindset shift for me because for 25 years of my life, I just chased money with no purpose.

So now I have both going for me.

And that's why the podcast is killing it, in my opinion.

It's not just for money.

Yeah, you think people

they maybe have like practical advice on how to become more successful and abundant but also how to live a better healthier life right yeah it's encompassing everything because at first it was just a show about making money that was the first probably i don't know 50 100 episodes that was the goal of the show because that was the goal for me but now as i've had all these people it's changed cool sure yeah And someone like you is super different for me, like having a poet on.

I didn't even know those still existed, dude, if we're being honest.

Well, you can't be a poet uh and do it for the idea of you know making money you know it's not like

it's not really like that i don't think in general you should ever like choose art for that reason you should just follow your bliss and see where it takes you yeah um i had many years of struggle but i've been lucky enough to make a great living doing what I love.

Nice.

Yeah, it must be tough to make a living in that space these days.

It's very hard.

Eventually I ended up kind of like transitioning into songwriting, and I got pretty successful at that.

And then I think I used that financial foundation and the network that I had created to get back into spoken word because I'm so passionate about the art form.

Right.

So when you were songwriting, was that ghostwriting or were you named on the pieces you were making?

No, I'm named.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you didn't want to pursue the ghostwriting?

Well, what do you mean by ghostwriting?

Like, like writing something and being an independent contractor and getting paid a one-time fee and then not being recognized for

your work.

So allegedly, all the top artists these days have ghostwriters that make their songs and you're not named anywhere.

You just get paid behind the scenes and the artist takes credit for the song.

Yeah, I don't know a lot about that.

So I can't like overly comment on it.

But the way that we do things, even with really big artists, is it's all contractual.

And

I'm named as one of the writers on the songs.

And

I like it that way.

Nice.

I like it upfront, clean, and clear.

And

yeah, I've been really lucky to work with incredible artists over and over again.

Yeah, you've worked with some of the biggest.

So what was that first kind of hit song that propelled that side of your career?

I co-wrote Love You Like a Love Song by Selena Gomez.

Wow.

That's a banger.

Which,

you know, has

brought a lot of changes into my life.

Really?

Randomly.

How so?

Well, I just think it was like when you do one thing that connects with the zeitgeist of popular culture, you then know it's possible and it kind of like changes your mind state.

Like, I think that there's a difference between the dream of dreams and the reality of dreams.

When you have the reality of dreams, then you kind of like own it.

It's cellular for you.

And I think you can move through life and navigate from that place of infinite possibility better.

Right.

You got a taste of it, so you knew more was possible.

And from there, you had many other hit songs.

Yeah.

And how were you able to write in a way that you knew it had that viral component?

Because people, there's so many writers that never get those views, you know?

I mean, I've always considered myself a poet first and a lyricist second.

Songwriting is very, very different than writing a poem because writing a poem is a very personal experience.

I just choose something that's moving and meaningful to me.

And then I follow the breadcrumb trail until i reach the end in fact sometimes i'll be surprised at where it winds up yeah which allows me to know that i'm in the poem you know rather than like trying to make the poem what i want it to be i'm uh

a passenger as well yeah no that's cool because i think some people force it right they they want to go viral so bad they're just forcing crazy lyrics or whatever trying to shock people that shock value these days Yeah, that's true.

And then when I'm like writing with an artist or for a Disney project or something like that, I'm just thinking about how best to bring my imagination in combination with the truth through the frame of whatever this person wants to say in this song.

Yeah.

And it's also stylistically different because my poems are really like condensed and choppy.

There's a lot of rhythm and rhyme.

Conceptually, you can go all over, and then

you know, macro, micro, everywhere, nowhere.

And it can really like touch people's hearts in that way.

It's like three minutes per poem, five minutes per poem.

Oh, wow.

Whereas, like, songs might be three minutes, but there's so much less lyrics in there.

So, you have to actually like say something,

but not say something too deep that it takes people out of the song.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you have to use really round syllables as opposed to like choppy syllables.

So it's a very different experience, but being a songwriter brought more tools into my toolbox.

So when I went back to writing spoken word for myself, I had more of an ability to express myself in a new way.

Right.

That makes sense.

No, but that makes so much sense with songwriting because if you write something too deep, they're not going to listen.

They're going to be thinking about that lyric so much that the song's just going to keep playing.

Yeah, you want them to keep their hands up for sure.

Yeah.

And that's why a lot of rap songs these days are so simple.

Yeah.

You know, it's like,

I feel like it's lost its touch a little bit, the rap and hip-hop space.

I don't know.

There's still people that really make me think, really make me feel, and also can get me to throw my hands up.

Yeah.

Name it, man.

I want to hear it.

I mean, did you listen to the Kendrick Lamar diss yesterday?

Oh, I did.

Still 10 times.

That was amazing.

That was amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, as someone that writes poetry, you probably really appreciate that because there were so many different phases of that song.

It wasn't just like a one-track thing.

It was six minutes straight.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah.

I've never seen a diss that long.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I used to freestyle and battle and do all of that back in the day.

So sometimes if you're in a cypher, you would just go until the other person cuts you off.

But there was like four songs within that one song that he did.

For real.

And yeah, I loved it.

So you used to freestyle rap?

Yeah.

That's cool, man.

You still do it?

You know,

it was where I started.

And I always thought that maybe I would blow up as a rapper, and it just never happened.

And I wound up in an open mic for poets when I was 19 called the Poetry Lounge, and it turned out to be coincidentally the biggest open mic in the country.

Wow.

It was on Fairfax and Melrose in L.A.

And we got 350 people every single week that would just pack into this tiny little club.

and people would get up and do spoken word.

So I got up and I was just like doing my rapping a cappella and people responded and that community very quickly became a family.

And, you know, I was on HBO's Deaf Poetry Jam.

We won the National Poetry Slam championships together one year.

Wow.

So I woke up one day and I was like, all right, I'm definitely more of a poet than an MC

and I want to pursue this.

But then I had to figure out how could I monetize it while maintaining my artistic integrity,

which was quite a journey.

I bet.

Were you a big student of the game?

Were you studying a lot of poets?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Any that stand out to you that you really liked well i i'd say the people that i was inspired by most were the people that were in my community they were my contemporaries because a lot of us came from uh

you know being mcs and uh

there was that edge to the community that and i think competition poetry it was the first time i saw people being celebrated for um

I don't know, being vulnerable from a place of strength.

You know, somebody could get up and talk about something real yeah, and people would support them.

But it was also a place where, if you got up, you know, if you weren't good, people would give you a pass as long as you weren't an asshole.

But if you thought you were good, yeah, and you weren't good, people would let you know.

You got kicked out?

Yeah, I don't know, kicked out, but people would let you know for sure.

Would they boo?

Yeah,

sometimes has that ever happened to you?

I never got booed.

Okay, no, but I've been in a bunch of situations as a performer over the years that were very very challenging.

The room was just tense.

Yeah, or just more like,

you know, I shouldn't have been performing there.

Because as a poet, you'll take whatever gig you can get literally.

And that's how you cut your teeth.

That's how you put your 10,000 hours in.

It's not a genre that has legs like other genres do.

You get to a certain talent place in other genres.

And for the most part, if you find the right team around you, they can follow the yellow brick road to some sort of success.

For a poet, it's very different.

You know, I'm like a pirate, man.

I was in the jungle with the machete, just cutting my way through.

And all of us were.

So we probably wound up in places

where we didn't belong, but we also then learned how to perform anywhere because of it.

And I know how to take my space wherever I am.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

There was probably only one path to make it as a poet rather than as an artist.

You got different paths you could take, right?

Yeah.

What about you?

How, if you were to look on your path, how do you think you arrived here?

That's deep, dude.

I've changed my mindset to think everything happens for me now, not to me.

I used to have victim mentality,

but I used to listen to podcasts every single day, man, 10 years straight, Joe Rogan with my dad.

So I think subconsciously, podcasting's always been something I liked.

I was fascinated with.

I always liked to learn and just timing.

It worked out.

I sold my marketing agency and then started a podcast a few months later and fell in love with it, dude.

Now it's the most fun I've ever had doing a job.

I'm really happy to hear that.

And I'm happy to hear that you are providing for other people something that was so beneficial for you.

I do have a question, though.

You had that success.

But you're saying you simultaneously had that victim mentality.

How do you square that?

Like, do you know what I'm asking you when I ask you that?

How did I balance it?

Well, no, a lot of people that have victim mentality,

even if the circumstances

and they're right, you know, it's like these circumstances suck.

Yeah.

But if you start then taking that on, you see it even when you're not in those circumstances, right?

And it becomes oftentimes very difficult to have success.

So how did you have success while simultaneously having that victim mentality?

I think hard work offset it to a certain degree.

I worked very hard for five years straight, 15 hours a day on average, seven days a week.

So that might have offset it a bit.

But really just personal development, probably the most, trying to get out of that mentality, trying to unlearn a lot of things I learned growing up

and just being around the right people.

So environment.

So I'd say those three things helped me get out of it.

And even today, like I still have trouble admitting when I'm wrong sometimes, but it's not as bad as it was.

It used to be every single thing was someone else's fault.

And you feel like everything was somebody else's fault because if you took responsibility for it, then the illusion would come crashing down.

Yeah, I just had no accountability for my actions.

It was crazy.

Looking back on it, it's nuts that I thought that was.

I can relate to that.

I was an only child.

Yeah, me too.

So I think that might have played a role.

What else in your family dynamic do you think led to that?

Divorced parents.

You too?

My mom and my dad were not together at all.

And so I didn't even meet my dad until I was 15 years old.

Yeah.

And

that was very complicated because then I externalized what I thought a man was supposed to be like.

And I had a lot of self-worth issues as well.

Victim mentality continued to play the same negative loop over and over again.

Yep.

And what you choose to focus on grows.

So I think I was very violent to myself internally, and I was probably violent to my relationships and to the world at large

until I got to a place where I was like, okay, like this isn't working anymore.

And then I slowly crawled myself out of the hole that I had dug.

But strangely enough, poetry was always a companion for me.

And it was always an outlet for at least having more clarity.

And at least I gave myself the opportunity for alchemy.

to take whatever I was going through that I had nobody else to discuss it with and put it on the page so I could see that story as separate from me.

And I think in a way, that's partly what led me to not only do keynotes and public shows, but also workshops to get other people telling their own story so that they can have a sense of empowerment through creativity.

Love it.

So it's almost like therapy for you.

It has been for sure.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's powerful.

Yeah, traditional therapy didn't work on me, but I could see something like this actually working better for me, being able to get my thoughts on paper, express because I used to hide emotions.

Yeah, I mean, you should definitely use the journal.

Yeah.

I think it would be surprising how much impact it could have.

You know, like I see it over and over again.

You know, I started out doing these things at libraries and junior highs and high schools.

And basically, I was like giving kids an opportunity to express themselves, to see and be seen, to talk about things that were important and to be celebrated for their voice, their unique voice, and to accept each other so that they could create a powerful community.

And I saw it was like real for these kids.

It gave them a new perspective and in many ways shifted people's lives.

Wow.

But I didn't think it would work on adults.

You know, it wasn't until 15 years later that I started doing like corporate gigs.

And I realized, whoa, like adults need this as much, if not more than kids do because they have more stories that are piled upon other stories so they have to move through all the layers just to like get to something true interesting yeah because you're speaking out fortune 500 companies yeah and what is that core message because you're not in their face telling them what to do you're more laid back what are you motivating these guys to do well my first book was called inquire within and that really is what i'm telling them to do i'm saying inquire within this can be a bonding exercise.

It can be a chance to connect with each other.

A lot of times in the workplace, especially, people have miscommunication because they have lack of context.

They don't know who they're working with, literally.

And then they have conflict because they've misunderstood something.

So this is a contained opportunity through creativity.

and specifically poetry, which is something they would never normally use,

to get to know each other and to cheer for each other and to remember that they're on the same side.

So it's like a trust building exercise for organizations.

That's important because there's a lot of jealousy within organizations, right?

Yeah.

Climbing the ladder.

Machiavellian.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's important that they're all on the same team with the same mission, but not to get too jealous of each other, even though someone's making a little more or whatever.

Yeah.

I mean, look, the reality is, is like, if within a company, people were vulnerable all the time, nothing would get done.

Right.

Literally, nothing would get done.

But being vulnerable, none of the time isn't working either.

And as generations change and culture changes, I think companies and corporations are recognizing that.

Yeah.

We were talking earlier.

You mentioned you did some mental health stuff as well.

Yeah.

And that's part of the reason why we're putting out the journal and the album This May for Mental Health Month.

Because for me, as you said, this was therapy.

It was a tool for better mental and emotional health.

And I see over and over again how it can be the same tool for other people.

But I wanted to scale the experience without me having to be there.

Right.

Because otherwise I always have to show up to facilitate and there's a limit to that.

Yeah, you can't scale it up.

No.

Like I'm going to Mexico for a kind of like a corporate retreat slash festival tomorrow.

But only they're going to experience it.

And even if they have the most

incredible experience in the workshop, ultimately they're going to leave without a structure to continue on.

Right.

So I always try to say, hey, you don't need me to create more poems.

You just have to choose something moving and meaningful.

Put 20 minutes on the clock and create something and then share it with somebody else so that you can be witnessed and release it into the world.

But there was no roadmap.

So the Never Ending Now Poetry Journal is a roadmap for

the quality is so great.

It's the best quality I felt on a journal, to to be honest thank you

published this yeah so this is in partnership with passion planner and they really did a world-class job it's beautiful from cover to cover and it goes through all of the poems on the album with different themes

so it gives people an opportunity to move through fear through pain um through happiness through dreams growth all the way up into love and gratitude.

So you write the poems with the intention of evoking a certain emotion out of the reader?

No, I named them afterwards.

Okay.

Wow.

That's interesting.

You know, it's not like I sit down and think,

what does anybody else want to hear?

Or how do I want to confine people's experience of my art?

Instead, I sit down and I think, I'm the first person in my audience.

What am I curious about?

Like, I'll do an example poem.

and I'll give you the setup.

I went to my cousin's house and she had this like little pond in the backyard.

Yeah.

And she had these, what I thought were koi fish swimming around.

They were like these really big fish.

So I said, oh, Sophia, when did you get these koi fish?

And she says, they're not koi fish, they're goldfish.

I said, goldfish, because my only experience of goldfish is like, you know, you go to a fair when you're a kid, you win a little game, you get a goldfish in a bag, and then you go back home, you put it in a bowl, it lives for literally like a week, and then you wash it down the toilet.

Mine lasted a day.

Yeah, see, there you go.

So I said, These are not goldfish.

Goldfish are two inches.

She said, No, goldfish will change their size depending upon their environment.

Wow.

And I said, Really?

And she said, Yeah.

So I went home, I looked it up, and it's true.

Goldfish will literally change their size, like their body will change depending upon where they live.

And I thought thought I could relate.

So I wrote this poem.

Defining myself is like confining myself.

So I undefined myself to find myself.

They say a goldfish will only get as big as its bowl.

But if you put it in a tank, the space can change the way it grows.

It needs to have the room or its potential doesn't show, so its environment's essential for unleashing the unknown.

I ponder if it knows that it could grow beyond the bowl,

that it could have a pond the size of an Olympic swimming pool, that the world is so much larger than the boundaries that it's known.

Somehow, I empathize with this little golden soul,

because I too have unexplored and unexpressed goals that were suppressed by an environment I couldn't control.

Am I still playing small?

Because it's all that I've known when there's a giant in my bones I'm not sure I've ever shown.

I ask myself this question when I'm purposely alone.

When my body grows to take up all the rooms inside my home, I expand in all directions, every single inch consumed.

I'm a billion feet tall now, my head over the moon.

I look down on the earth as it slowly spins around.

I look down on the countries and the cities and the towns.

I look down on the square blocks and buildings all around.

I look down on my street and rip the roof right off my house.

I look down on myself sitting writing on my couch.

Look, I barely pay attention.

I'm the one that's looking down.

How unaware I am of where I am.

It's profound.

So I put the roof back on and I shrink myself back to the ground.

Man, it's crazy how I fit infinity inside my doubt.

How I stuff the universe into the tiniest amounts.

How I keep the solar system in the corner of my mouth.

How I speak into existence, then forget what I'm about.

about and most days I'm not sure which side of the glass I've been on I win a Grammy in the shower every time I sing a song but when the spotlight is on my first instincts to run I have to super glue my feet to even tell you where I'm from I've been training for a quarantine since I was very young for an introvert it slightly hurts to tell you that they'll come I would rather get into a staring contest with the sun, although I'll never get to see who won.

It's nature and its nurture, twisting into jungle life, fighting the competition, branching out to reach the light.

I tried to listen, but could only hear my ancient heart.

It screamed at me to make my life into my greatest art.

But where to start?

These walls are keeping people out and keeping people in.

I guess it's good to know where someone ends and someone else begins.

But our boundaries become prisons

when we see what could have been.

The biggest goldfish ever measured 18 inches, snout to fin.

Finn.

Wow.

That was bars.

I love it.

Nice.

Deep message there, too.

Really relatable because, you know, we grow up in our house and we think that's it.

We think that's the world, but getting out and traveling can really expand your consciousness and what you know about the world.

And the podcast, too.

Just having a conversation with somebody, being willing to like go there with them, like really see who they are, meet them in the middle.

Yep.

Be willing to be the teacher and the student.

Yeah.

Podcasting is great.

And I hope people are more open about the guests they have on because some podcasts just have on one sort of crowd, but that's why my show is unique.

I'll have on all sorts of people, got their perspective.

You're saying because, like, some things will be like overly health-oriented or overly sports-oriented, or no, if it's a health podcast, that makes sense.

I mean more like divisive things like politics, religion,

stuff like that.

Yeah, there's a lot of divisiveness out there.

A lot.

You know what I think we should repopularize?

Saying, I don't know,

but powerfully,

like instead of saying, I don't know,

or needing to pretend that you know,

how about just saying, I don't know.

I need to do some more research.

I need more conversations around that before I formulate an opinion that I'm ready to share.

People think they're experts on everything.

Yeah, they're forced to as well.

You know, like you have to have.

Not only an opinion, you have to have their opinion.

Right.

I love that, though.

That's true.

Yeah.

We should popularize that.

Say, I don't know more guys if you're watching this.

It's okay to say it.

And it's okay to say it from a place of strength.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think people feel weakened when they say it for some reason, but it's okay if you don't know enough about the topic.

I mean, there's plenty of things I don't know.

That's how I know things.

Good old Google, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, good old Google.

It's a different time, man.

I don't think you need to go to college to learn certain things anymore.

Did you go to college?

I did for a year.

Me too.

Did you major in poetry?

I mean, I majored in communications because I was confused and had no idea what I wanted to do.

What did you major in?

I was trying to do marketing, but couldn't get into marketing school.

So I think we both basically did what we were supposed to do.

Yeah.

Now we have one of the top marketing shows.

Ironic, right?

How many people listen to this per episode, do you think?

If you add the clips in a lot.

Because the clips are getting millions a day.

We're more on the short form than long form, but millions.

I don't know millions per day, but millions per month.

And you said that Posner was one of your favorite interviews.

Shout out to Posner.

I just love how authentic he is.

It's rare to find people like that these days.

Yeah, he is a very true, connected, grounded person, artist, and friend.

Yeah, to have that openness, it takes a lot to be that open.

Yeah.

He's actually one of the reasons that I decided to put out the Never Ending Now album in the first place.

Nice.

Because when I finished it, it was so vulnerable

and and it had been so healing for me as a process to create it because it's really about my path to love.

Right.

Self-love first and then, you know, a partner and then the world.

Yeah.

I was like, man, this is like really important for me to create, but I don't know that I want to show it to anybody as a product.

Like, I wasn't sure that I wanted anybody's judgments, criticisms.

even compliments.

I didn't want to like externalize my self-worth in that way.

Interesting.

So I decided to send it to five people and Posner was one of the people that I sent it to.

And my criteria was like, if anybody got back to me and said that it really resonated with them, then it would be worth it.

Wow.

And Posner got back to me right away and he was like, you have to put this out.

That's huge.

Yeah.

So.

So you were very uncomfortable making this book.

Well, the book is a little bit easier for me because the book is like taking all the poems, putting them in one place, and then creating prompts and context for poetry so it removes any barricades for people finding their own voice.

Got it.

The album's different because

the poems are that way.

It's like when I have creation

and I finish creation, then I decide do I want to put this out as a presentation.

So it's first creation, then presentation.

Not all the things that I create, do I wind up presenting?

But all of the poems that are in the book and are in the album, I was ready to present.

So I I felt comfortable with that.

The thing that was uncomfortable is my wife and I have a very intimate conversation that was recorded, but was not intended for anybody else to hear it as the through line of the album.

So

that's a very different level of like intimacy.

And it was based on a medicine journey that I had gone on and I was kind of like sharing some of the things that had happened during it.

And halfway halfway through our conversation, we were in the car.

She like took out her phone and just started recording it.

And I knew she was doing it, but we were already so in the flow that I didn't change my tone at all.

So I wasn't like busy with how I would be perceived.

And because of that, it's really raw.

Wow.

But it also was like the perfect backdrop to the rest of the album

because it can be a mirror for other people to think about their own journey to self-love.

That's really cool.

Was there an intention when you went on that medicine journey or a problem you wanted to fix?

I had been seeing a therapist for like six months, and she also ran these retreats.

I don't want to say her name because, you know, it's not

yet able to do that in a way

that maybe she would want.

So, but it was very meaningful for me, and

it culminated in us doing this kind of like journey together.

And I did 3.5 grams of mushrooms, and I did

MDMA, and I did DMT all at once?

I mean, it was during a day.

Holy crap!

Yeah, that's intense.

I've done mushrooms and MDMA.

That's acid, right?

No, MDMA is

MOLLI, basically.

Okay, I haven't done Molly.

Yeah.

It's fun.

Yeah.

I've done mushrooms and acid.

I would pick mushrooms over acid, personally.

Not drug advice, by the way.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not promoting anything for anybody.

I'm just sharing my life.

I'm a big micro-doser, actually.

Oh, yeah.

Twice a week.

Do you do it right now?

I was thinking about it this morning, but I didn't.

Okay.

Yeah, I haven't done it for a podcast, actually.

I like to do it while I'm working.

Yeah, I understand.

Yeah.

It just gets you focused.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Yeah, it's really, really helpful.

I've done split tests on days where I'll do the same task with and without, and I'm like twice as productive.

Yeah.

Do you have a hard time coming down though, even when it's micro-dosing?

Because I'm very sensitive, and no matter what portion i take i can feel it in my system really yeah wow you're

you might be an empath are you really good with energies like you could feel

yes i think that i am i also think that like you know i wear a little bit of like social armor and so like i probably like detached from my body many years ago and i've been working back to be reconnected ever since um

But yeah, I could see that.

Yeah, because I don't feel it at all with mushrooms, any sort of downfall or anything.

Okay.

So you're just super sensitive.

That's interesting.

But that makes sense as a poet.

You got to be really in tune with your emotional side.

Yeah, to the point sometimes I wish that I wasn't.

It's annoying.

But it's like your superpower is also your kryptonite, right?

Right.

And as a guy, it's even more annoying because we get judged on being too emotional, you know, expressing ourselves.

And we should change that narrative too.

But I was scared of just expressing myself growing up.

Yeah.

But you don't seem like that to me anymore.

Now, yeah, I'm not as much, I'd say.

I still won't cry on camera, but yeah, I've gotten a lot better.

But will you cry off camera?

That's a good question.

My dad passed last year.

I actually cried.

I'm sorry about that.

But even that, I was like trying to hold it back, to be honest.

Because you thought you weren't supposed to?

Just because I haven't done it in so long.

I forgot how to.

Yeah.

It just started coming out, you know.

So I'll say something to you.

And like, I hope it doesn't come off as pretentious at all because I don't mean mean it to be but emotion is energy in motion

that's really all it is it's supposed to move

and the thing is is if the energy doesn't move then it can get trapped inside of us and that's in many ways I think what turns into disease or dis-ease

or you take it out on somebody in traffic and I'm not talking about you I'm talking about the universal you I'm talking about me talking about us so you have to find ways to move the energy.

And like crying is just like, it's like letting air out of a tire, man.

You know, it's just our judgment on crying that makes us scared to do it because it makes us feel like we're weak or we're not men.

It's necessary.

You know, and if you don't do it through tears, fine, do it through laughter or do it through moving your body, you know, meditation, breath work, but you have to find ways to move the energy, man.

I agree.

I think there's trapped energy in people's bodies and it can manifest into disease.

Yeah.

I 100% agree with that.

Yeah.

And a lot of guys just keep that bottled in, you know, that anger or sadness, whatever it is.

Yeah.

And look, rightfully so.

Like, I get it.

You know, you don't want to go into a situation and

feel like not in control of that situation because not being in control could bring about danger mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, you know, so you want to protect yourself.

And I understand that as well.

But like, if you're protecting yourself all of the time and you're carrying your armor all of the time, it can get really heavy, you know, and at a certain point, you forget to even put it down.

Yeah.

So it almost like fuses to your skin.

So that's when you have to like just dig, dig, dig, dig to get back to that soft place

inside of you because that place is special too.

Absolutely.

And I think a lot of its environment too, because my parents both,

so my mom would deal with her problems with anger.

So yelling, sometimes slapping, whatever.

And then my dad had Asperger, so he didn't even know how to express emotion at all.

So how did you navigate that?

Well, I didn't know he had that till he was 60.

So I just thought that was normal.

But yeah, some days he'd be yelling, some days he'd be distant, and I would just have to be very observant.

That's why I'm a good listener, good podcast host, I think.

But it was tough with my mom because once I got older, I started wanting to fight back.

Yeah.

And I remember one day we were fighting.

I pushed her.

She almost fell down the stairs.

I could have killed my mom just being a teenager.

And I was like, wow, I need to really control this or it could end up ugly, you know?

I hear you, man.

There's all sorts of stories like that.

I'm glad that that didn't happen, you know, and I'm glad that you were also able to recognize it because there are many, many people that had a moment like that, me included, that it could have taken that

left rather than the right.

And,

you know, I did a workshop in

jail in Flint, Michigan last year.

And, you know, a lot of these guys, man, just came from hard environments.

and made some mistakes, but everybody wanted the same thing.

They wanted really to be loved ultimately, to be seen, to be respected, to have purpose, for their families to be okay.

They wanted safety and prosperity.

So I think we have these like universal commonalities.

And sometimes, you know, these things happen in our lives.

And it's good to just remember that you're not your worst mistake.

You're not your worst day.

And also, if you can recognize it in real time, you can make changes.

And those changes can inspire other changes from others.

Yeah, it's crazy how one bad judgment can you can end up in jail from it.

Prison.

Yeah, I know.

All All from one time where you couldn't control that emotion.

Yeah.

But you could, for example, write a poem about that moment, right?

Because that's like a moving and meaningful moment in your life.

It's a moment that happened that you're already charged about.

You wouldn't talk about it after 15 minutes normally at a dinner party or something like that.

So it's that layer deeper.

And if you say to yourself, I'm writing a poem.

And then you start to write, it doesn't matter how you write stylistically.

It can rhyme if you wanted to.

It doesn't have to.

It could be long.

It could be short.

As long as you're not like shorting yourself.

It could be a journal entry.

But if you say it's a poem, it's a poem.

And if you start in that place that already sparks you, the rest of it will catch fire.

And then you could actually talk about that realization and talk about how it shifted who you are in your core.

And then when you read it to somebody, it just kind of like releases a little bit of the the intensity around that story and just gives you a little more clarity, a little more presence, and a little more peace.

Absolutely.

You're like an alchemist almost.

You ever been called that?

Thanks.

I appreciate you saying that.

That's like a very high compliment.

I don't consider myself an alchemist, but I do consider art alchemy.

Like art is a form of alchemy.

You're taking...

something and transforming it into something else.

And then if you're willing to give it away with an open heart, you can make other people feel less alone in the world because they can see their story in yours.

Right.

Um,

yeah, so I'm just trying to take pain and turn it into something beautiful.

Yeah, I just feel like you're able to channel your energy, your emotions onto paper and then have someone else read it and kind of feel that.

It's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's really cool, man.

When does the did the album and the book drop already?

Yeah, so the album's coming out, um, I think in a couple of days, but by the time people listen to this, it'll it'll be out.

You can listen to it on Spotify or Apple or YouTube, anywhere that the streaming platforms are.

And then

the Never Ending Now poetry journal, you can get it at in-q.com, which is my website, or passionplanner.com, which is my partner in creating this piece of art.

And then you can also get it on Amazon.

And if you do get it, or you listen to the album, please reach out to me because I would love to hear about your experiences.

We just are very excited about giving people a new

outlet for mental and emotional health for creativity.

And

love it, man.

We'll link it below.

Anything else you want to close off with or promote?

No.

Just appreciate you having me, man.

I absolutely enjoyed chatting with you.

Yeah, that was fun, man.

Thanks for watching.

100%.

Yeah.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.