Bert Black Rack is a Grammy Award winning composer, producer, deejay and sound engineer. You may know his work in producing for iconic groups like Public Enemy Monks, about a dozen others born into a creative family. Birk out to see his father, legendary soul and rock keyboardist William de Smitty Smith collaborate with everyone from Bob Dylan to Rick James to Fleetwood Mac, and it ignited his love of creating music as well. But what is it like to heed the call to adventure and creating music for a living? What is the inner journey like for someone as accomplished and as established his bird? Well, let's get into it below. The line is brought to you by play cast media and is the easiest way to set up a professional premium podcast in your home or office. Go to play cast media dot com and get their premium podcast in a box delivered right to you. Everything need for where a premium podcast and that's good Alliteration. Premium podcasts in a box, all the equipment info that guides you on setting up everything you need.

You go on the site, you clicked, buy and boom! It's all in your door step into Before you know it, you're just click and record. It's that easy. I'm recording this on play cast equipment right now, and I've never sounded better. Having a professional sound studio in your home or office has never been easier or more straightforward than with play cast. So go check in the play cast media dot com that's play cast media dot com and tell him James and Johnny kick it with the music. This'd is below the line. Yes, I made it. All right, we got Bert Black Rack here. My good buddy Burt doing James. I'm doing well. Doing well. Burn. How you doing it at,

um, lovely to see

of my friend. Good to see is well to see. I'm glad to be here. Well, it's something we were just chatting about. That I want to ask you a little more about was, um, the expense of validation, your Grammy Award winning, um, producer, engineer, composer D. J. And And you were saying that when it comes to record deals, which is, you know, it's something that I don't know too much about. They can be really expensive forms of just what you really want is validation. What did what did you mean by that?

People, um tend to think all that glitters is gold. So making something creative, whether you're making art, whether you're making music, which is what I do, Um, even if you're an investor, or maybe you're ah, person, that's an inventor. You always want to take it to the next step and have somebody that is on your team saying, you know what? What you're doing is incredible. Let me help you out. And as a creative, that's all you're looking for.

You're looking for people to say, Hey, they believe in me. So if they believe in me, I must be good and they're going to take me to the next level, right? This person here has all the money. They know how to make things happen there, what I want to be. So if I get in bed with them, I'm gonna be what I want to, because they say so and then that makes you think that you've made it. When someone validate you immediately, you say I've made it

now in this in the start of world, I can't help but to think there's two forms of that that I remember which one is. And my first startup 10 years ago, I brought on a cofounder that it was just a friend. That was interesting when I was doing and it gave me this validation of like, Well, he thinks this is exciting, too. Why did you come on? Is as a co founder and he's a great, great, talented person. But boom, just 50% of the company, because what I see when I look back what he was giving me, it was really validation and the same thing with great investors. You you remember just watching,

like a YouTube video of, ah, amazing world class venture capitalist investor. And I thought, man, if he could invest and what I'm doing and that would be we'd be good, like it would be king making type of situation. Neither of those were King making, in fact, a lot of stress, energy, and a lot of just there was a lot of expense to seeking that type of validation. You know, Have you have you sought expensive forms of validation in in your career?

You know, I grew up in this music business. My parents were pretty. You know, it depends what you look at influential. You look at his big you haven't heard of home, but you know, they're one of the first black families tohave a publishing company. So in 1970 black people just didn't own their own publisher. You do a deal, you give your publishing up. It's just how things work. You know, somebody like Sam Cooke who figured out that he should own his own publishing in the sixties. That was revolutionary.

And for listeners. Do you mind explaining what publishing is? And the music industry?

Um two. Let's say you own you write a song and let's say there's 200% Forget the 100%. Let's say it's 200% to this song. So you write this song and there's 200% to share. Around. 100% of that is the actual recording. So you make that recording you like, um, Creedence Clearwater Revival. You like that song that you hear? That version of that song is the master coffee isn't that Master copy gets 100% of all that 200% revenue. The other 100% gets split into half publishing and performance. So the publishing aspect is 50%. The right. The writers performance aspect is the other 50%. So if you do a deal with a record label, they own the master coffee.

If you sell your publishing, that's another 50% of the pie gone. So now you're down, so 1/4 of what the whole thing is worth. So the norm is that you give up your publishing to somebody or they buy from you and they say, Hey, this is you know, this isn't something I want to deal with. It's a s. So here here's a few 1000 bucks here. Somebody will take care of the publishing for you, and that's a huge revenue stream, and you can't use a song without getting the publishing cleared. So

you even your own song, you've got to go and reach out to the publisher to say we want to use a song I wrote in my bedroom over here, correct.

And while and you even have to ask because you don't own the master. So Rihanna just acquired all of her masters in the last couple weeks, and that's a big deal, because all the song she wrote, were owned by Def Jam. So now she's got him all. She owns all the masters for publishing a split between her and the other songwriters. You know, she's not total control. She can license anything that she wants. She can do whatever she wants. Now it doesn't have to ask anybody. So back in the seventies, unheard of to have your own publishing company. But my parents, my father did a record deal, and part of the deal was they wanted to take care of the publishing kind of the same way I explained it.

No, the publishing is a hassle. You know, we'll take care of it. And my mom and kind of sparked her in a weird way. And she said she went home. I thought about it, started kind of researching it, and she said, Hey, Smitty, we're gonna do our own publishing company And my mother started the publishing company because my dad was a genius writer, singer player, Um, connector, his personality,

his ability to meet people and be infectious. I mean, he had it all, but you can't do it all. So that business side of it, that publishing side of it was something that he wouldn't have cared about. You know, he would have just kept pushing because he was focused on so many other things that he was bringing that. But my mom was like, No, we should do our own publishing company. So we had our own publishing since 1970 which we still own to this day, which I now all own all of it. So all of the songs, all the demos, all of the that 50% you know,

of that 100% off a sham, plus the other 50% of the writer share. So if a song is on A and M, they own the master. But I own 75% of the song. Well, because I own the publishing to it, and then it's half of the writer share. Um, that's cool. What was? So so when you get do a deal with a record label, um, you're giving up all of that for the right to be a part of that bigger entity that you think is the validation When, when when what they're doing is playing a numbers game. If we sign everybody that we hear is cool,

then nobody else consign him. There's 100 amazing artists out there, and we consign 50 of them, and we'll put that will put 47 of them to sleep and focus on the three. Now, there's no competition. I've made more money on records that have never been released. I shouldn't say more, but I've made a lot of money on records that have never been released. Compared to stuff has been released. Yeah. Wow. The numbers

game. Yeah. Rule. Never even thought about that side

of things. Yeah, you know, you'll do an album. Somebody's going home. And their record 2030 40 songs and then pick ton of amount of there. You got paid to be in those sessions and work on that stuff, right? All right. Interesting. Oh,

um, well, and you mention your parents, I would love to toe ask about them. And, um but you also mentioned something. I'm gonna come back in a second. Also mentioned something interesting that your dad, who anyone can look online and see how talented Smitty's Nick, his nickname. How talented he was. Um, but you mentioned that he is great personality. Tell me about how the you know the importance of that aspect, too, to someone that doesn't know much about the music industry and thinks outs, you know, make the music and and then that itself is going to be proof of your worth. And and you're gonna be the art that people enjoy. But you got

to get it hurt. You got to get it to the next step. You enjoy it. You love it. Your family loves it. Your friends love it. You played it for strangers. They love it. How you gonna get everyone else to hear it? And that's a whole different aspect. Ho, do you get You get a manager to do it. You get a publicist, do you sign a deal with a record label? You gotta figure out how to get it to each step of the game.

And what was it about your your dad's personality that he met down by

people We would we would throw barbecues all the time. We had these parties at our house that for me was just normal. And I realize now why I have parties and just that kind of hang because it was just normal. People still talk about him like all the barbecues at your guy's house. And you know, all these cool people are coming over that I didn't know about or didn't really realize, Um, that were big famous artist, but he was keeping in contact with them nagging there. May I got a song? Come play on this song. Put your song on your album Let me come I'll come play with you Hey, man, you're you're great, Smitty, Your organ playing your keyboard You can play on my selling em And I got you all come through and you meet somebody at that place and then go work with them and just be just be that guy just be amazingly happy And he'd make that introduction and keep it and keep you just engaged his humor, Um, magnetic. It was he He was rare. He's one of a kind people I still talk to because I'm involved with all of the old songwriters and all these godparents of mine and uncles and aunts and can't say his name without them Just gushing. Yeah,

is a, um a really talented person that I work with. Um, she is a self described lovable nag, and so you you're mentioning these words. I think you're easy to look over. You mention his personality, and you mentioned he would nag. It's so necessary and and she countered in this obviously loveable way, it's a lovable nag. Um, but you could be lovable and not get anywhere. But having the courage and confidence to just be a little bit of a nag is it can be the difference between a 10 acts return on on the time and energy you put into your art versus what it would be without that. And I, uh, you know, when we know each other through we've known each other for a few years or through Airbnb music.

And it is, um, And when I was building that out, I loved you Were you were very lovable, lovable neck rubbed off a little. It was It worked, okay? I mean, it's like, you know, it s so so much of the time. It's just it's flagged in the inbox. But I'm not gonna get to it, you know, today or tomorrow. Then you get another email just hey,

just following up. And if that person hadn't sent that, then I just it might have been on the, you know, eternal to do less. But yeah, lovable nag was. I heard it was a few weeks ago. I was like, That's actually so She is so good at what she does because she has embraced that. But the

other thing is going to be a bigger advocate than you. Rain. You got to be the biggest advocate for yourself, which then ties into the confidence, the validation and securities. He's too intense, always doing it too much all he doesn't do it enough. You're so great. Why don't you get out there? And oh, he's this guy doesn't shut up. There's just this toeing the line that doesn't align. It doesn't exist, a line that changes with each person that you deal with, and you've got to be adaptable.

Where is that? How do you How do you balance that line for someone that has, um, immense success? Like, I think if anyone is 17 wanting to get into the music business, everything you've done, you'd say Wow, checks just about as many boxes as you could check and on the other side of, you know, winning a Grammy. Look what is Do you still have insecurities about balancing that line.

It's never goes away. It's constant. I know guys that have multi 1,000,000 records, 100 million records, the biggest songwriters in the business. They can. They can raise the finger and get whatever they want, and they're still validation from them that that's needed. You know, you tell him how great they are, and they're thankful. But, you know, deep down there's what Oh my God, what am I going to do next? How can I stay on top of this? I can't rest on what I have.

It's That's a constant. It's How do you check that box? How do you check all those boxes? You can't do it alone. It's hard to do it alone, you know, having some sort of support on dying support. There's a really helpful, whether it's apparent a partner, um, a band, you know. That's why bands air, just best friends and brothers and sisters all through the beginning, and they get that deal on. It's amazing and you go on tour and it's just out of control issues.

He can't believe it's all coming together, and then you get the second album minutes struck, more stressful and How come he's getting all the accolades? And, you know, I've got stuff to get to the third. It's like, just falls apart. And why does it fall apart? You know, there's so much mental side to it, it's just impossible told the line with five people in a van, and each person's telling their own line. So

you know why? Why does it fall apart? It sounds like you You recognize that there's a pretty universal formula. Why do you mind telling me a little more of why you think it falls apart?

You can't balance five different personalities. You can't balance would show me a scenario where there's five different personalities that are balanced, which doesn't exist. Five dogs. You know, there's always the leader of the pack, but you see the other one that's whimpering or there's one that's over aggressive had there's no scenario where that exists. My brothers and sisters is always in fighting, so when people say bands are broken up and it's like I watch you guys break up, it's the anomaly is, um how did you guys stay together? You know, the stones is that's rough to d'oh, but the stones have done, and I don't know how Keith Richards is still alive. By the way. It's, like, so unfair. You have people dropping dead at 27 is do it is still rolling along

every vice possible, is there? What do you think that they discovered? Or is it just luck? Share luck? Or if you make it to that success, you realize it. It's written everywhere. You won't have the success individually.

Truck D says. Probably the one of the best lines. Groups don't break up, they take breaks. So I think that the Stones took breaks, right? Yeah, Aerosmith kind of broke up, but they took breaks. But, you know, their stuff was more public with, Ah, Stephen and, um My God, for getting a guitar player does the guitar, Blair,

Joe Joe Barry wanted more recognition. I'm writing the songs. How come Stephen gets to go out? And so they ended up going to cut a deal Where Joe gets half, Stephen gets half. Stephen can't appear without him appearing right next to him, and that was their ability to be able to tow the line with each other, and they're still rocking and rolling. But it took them to re negotiate there, deal with each other. That's just two people. So it's hard, You know, I think it's hard. Thio Expect a band to stay together. That's why the solo artists seem to do always do the best.

But then, when you go behind the season, start peeling back the layers of the solo artist there, they got a lot on him. There are a lot of stress that they're dealing toys,

right? What is Have you had moments in your career? Will you've, um, where you felt alone and not supported? If you're saying

that it's it's so critical to have support. By the way, I'm not letting that 10 x comment goingto go without. Give it a shot out to Grant Cardone. I i'ma I'ma Cardone. I love Cardon. He's been helpful for me the last two or three

years. And who is his after

10? Ah, he's ah. Would you call him a motivational speaker? A businessman, a businessman first turned into a motivational speaker whose concept of 10 Xing life and what you do is basically if you're gonna make 10 phone calls in an hour, you should be making 100 phone calls in an hour. If you're supposed to send out 100 emails that day, you should be figuring out how to send out 1000 e mails. You can't expect results by doing the minimum. If you 10 X everything, then you'll start to see results. If your idea like he says, is I've got this great invention. The president of HP would love this. You get on the phone, you call H P.

Don't let any time go between your thoughts and what you know in the action. Because the longer you take between that thought in action, that's when the doubt sets in. If you run that idea past somebody and they're gonna say, Oh, you're crazy 10 x everything. It's crazy. Make people block you. We're sending them e mails, make them lock you, then you know you're getting and this somebody's head, right? Right. So tell me your question

again. Well, it was have there been times where you felt unsupported, he said. You know how critical

supports and I've been lucky. Um, my mom and my wife never once have been with my wife's for 20. I'm always forgetting 27 years 2027 years. We've been in the same house together for 24 years and not once has she even suggested to think about mentioning Stop doing what I'm doing, which is crazy being a musician and being in the music business. She grew up in the music business. Her father was as incredible as my father. All the things that he did, they're both pioneers, is black men and what they did. I think he's the first black man to be sponsored by Ivan Is. And he had a band with Jimi Hendrix. Him, Jimmy and Buddy Miles had a band together. Good God, Stevie Wonder's or God Father,

many Ripper tents or godmother. So that's who she grow up around. All right, So I think that having that kind of woman gave her a lot of perspective on what this is all about, what it takes. And when she identified that, this is the man I'm gonna marry. A year before, I even knew she existed and she got what she wanted. Dad, she just knew what it took. Thio keep me happy. And and the new all the underlying shit that this stuff is. And there was an eight to her, as opposed to being somebody who's not from this world. They just don't get it.

And they would pressure you in different ways. So she's I mean, I've been the one that said I maybe I should switching to thinking about doing this instead. And she's always just been star gits crazy, too. May I think about it? And my mom is She's just always been down. Should always Doesn't matter has always been down. So having those two to be able to Leon has been huge. And then I think I've had different partnerships with people and I see how they come together and then it breaks off. And then I start thinking about your groups. Don't stay together. Relationships come and go toe. Have something that's last eternally is the rarity. When I tell people I've had this group of friends of 50 people for 30 years, or like Jesus Christ,

I said High schools, amazing. That's all. Hated high school unfriend with all my friends from high school. Oh my God, I don't know anybody from high school. So home. I know that those things are rare, as opposed to being the norm and being with different groups. My group in high school, my group at a high school, the people that I meet and work with. I realize those things or moments in time. And that's just what it's supposed to be that 23 years, that's six years, that one year it's all when you can grasp the concept of things are supposed to be that moment in time and not this is supposed to be forever.

This isn't supposed to last forever. Then you become mawr in the moment and you don't feel so much anxiety and depression over Wolf Man, Why did we break up? Why didn't we? Working together? I thought we were gonna do this. You do that. But every relationship you get into, you think that it's going to be eternal. So I think when I started grasping that concept, which was early on, um, it really made things a lot of used to reform normalized it. Yeah, and I realized that a lot of people were jealous of me. And it's not a jealousy of cause.

I've got money because it definitely wasn't the case. You know, wife and I are scraping together a go to the Laundromat. But the life that we live, the things that we prioritized living the life that we want was what people were jealous about. I want I wanted to buy a drum machine. This SP 1200 drum machine sample on drum machine thing was, you know, made a bunch of music on and one and one really bad. And it was about 1400 bucks, and we didn't have the money to get at me and my wife. When was this 1994 And I was played college baseball. So me and ah, William Rehnquist, I remember, went to go get lunch at the taco stand at the Taco Place.

And there's a magazine called The Recycler. So back when we were younger, we had the recycler, which was you. Open it up and people are selling stuff. Cars, you know, everything. So instead of on the Craigslist, this was Craigslist imprint spot one, which was expensive, you know, he spent like, 2 50 on one cheese. Um, I dropped to 50 on this,

but you by and I saw somebody is selling an SP 1200 for 1000 bucks. I was like, Oh, wow. So I talked my wife into, We were living in a single apartment, so I had my dream. I got my girl with a single apartment. We're paying 5 75 a month for it, which was really expensive than people thought. We were crazy. Why you're paying that much money. It's in a nice neighborhood. My wife wouldn't have it any other way. I said, Hey,

let's go on the hood. You know, we she wouldn't have it. It's a good thing. So my sister had a two bedroom apartment and she was paying like 500 bucks for it. She had a second bedroom wide open. I said, Let's go move in with my sister Will save 2 50 a month. We can put that towards me getting a drum machine. So in two and 1/2 months, I had enough money to go buy a drum machine. One bought that drum machine and I would sleep with it on my chest, and my wife thought I was out of my mom. What do you do it? Do it finally got what I wanted, but that's what we that's what we prioritized where those things I'd be wearing off brand shoes and my friends would say,

I would never rock turn texts. All right, well, you know, your drum machine that I got my drum machine, I'm making music. I'm living the life that I want to live. So I think that support is it's hard to get, and it's hard to get. So a lot of times you find that support within band members, all right? And then you start getting that division. You know I want this or you want that. But to have that support outside of that ecosystem and it's undying, it's it's a big deal.

It's interesting that it's with with co founders. With band members, you can almost form a bond because of a shared in security and the shared need for validation. And and But if that's the recipe, or if, as the the grounding beneath that relationship, uh, it's only a matter of time before it resurfaces, that's true. That's true. But it can be exactly what was needed of banding together when times were tough. Um, but yeah, you had Yeah, uh, success to the situation. You had time,

and maybe it kind of rears its head again. Yeah. Do you mind telling me? Um do you mind telling me one of the questions I like to ask is three stories that have helped shape you as as creator as a person? You three stories that helped shape who? You who you

are. Who? Three.

Huh? You can you can take your time with Yeah.

Three. What if I had 15 and I'm just cycling through all of them

and choose your best three

one story. One story is we were really popular. Is DJs in our high school and then in our local area, like we were doing all the parties

and? And what about what year? And this was in L.

A. This isn't l A So this is in the 7 86 87 87 88 89 Hi, Andy. So probably get 89. And we're doing what? We're just having a blast, but it's just we're just love it. And there's, um, one really one of my best friends. Still to this day. Deejay Newmark from a group called Jurassic Five. Yeah, so him and I were in this group together, and there was a couple other people, but him and I were wired a lot the same. You know,

we're business minded. Um, we wanted to reinvest. So what we were doing, we were into, you know, we had a bunch of groups together. We had a clockwork last lows flow, forgetting another one. So, you know, we were going to make demos and spending money on demos, but we started to realize we always had money in our pocket at one point. And what We're not a lot of money, but we never had to ask. Hey,

I want to get some shoes, Mom or I want to go by these records. We always had enough to go do what we want it needed to do. But we always found we were re investing. Call the other people in the group are buying gear, getting rims on their truck. We weren't wired that way, so kind of. I think it was like in 89. My dad asked us. Um, he asked me Hey, what are you guys doing? What you guys always taken? It's like a whole you know, we're de chain.

We're doing these parties that, uh, how much you guys making? Um, I said I don't know. he says, What do you charge? And we're like, I don't know. We what? I don't know. We he says You guys not see the need to start charging and you said, Well, how much do we charge? And his answer was, as much as your mouth can say,

and you look at him and you want to ask, Well, what do you mean by that? But you know what he means, but you're trying to process it. And to this day, Mark and I still at one of our as much as your mouth can say, because it's it's really universal it. I like it. There's no right answer except for the answer that can come out of your mouth crazy

and a great piece

of advice, right? And then the other one, which is just an offshoot of that is no all kinds of music. But we were just into our genre and that know all kinds of music we Mark and I talk about. It's still a Roy cheese. We were bullshitting in high school, you know, we were in the first year to him. Call it, were bullshitting when we started getting into all the other kinds of music completely over in our world. But that as much as your mouth can say, really formed. Um, that's a good one. Yeah,

that's a good one. That is a good way. I also like that getting and getting in all forms of music. I think it's, um, one of my favorite business thinkers. That guy named Charlie Munger, who's, uh, who's He's Warren Buffett's like right hand man partner in his firm, but he's probably, ah, the smarter of the two and just not, as maybe publicly well known. But he he has, ah, really strong viewpoint of having a latticework of mental models.

And what he means by that is just mental models taken from psychology, philosophy, um, physics, business and really just having a complete interwoven viewpoint on on so many different subjects to inform whatever your passion, our path is as being your businesses. It's just is informed by discipline, like psychology as it is, you know, anything you know, finance related. Um did. And when you, when you were told, Listen, all forms of music, why did it open up your world? In what were some of the some of that crazier music you were listening to that that helped open up the world.

I got into Dave Brubeck. He is song called Take 51 of the one of the biggest songs ever. And my dad was showing me a video in his bedroom. Um, and I refer to my dad a lot, and I always say, You know, he never was around, but he never with around, never baseball games, never always gone on the road. And I always say that. And then when I think of, like certain things, like what? Whatever I'd get out of him was powerful, you know,

just in passing 45 words. You know, I just like, potent. Um, but, you know, it was me and my mom and my sister just rolling tight all the time. Um, but he was playing that. He said, They come in here, Look at this in at a videotape of Dave Brubeck playing take five, I think was take five years, he said. Look at the movies,

playing uh by four with his left hand and 44 with his right and 54 is a time signature, and I'm looking at him and his hands are like completely detached from each other. It's one thing to be playing, you know, all this crazy music, you know, piano on your hands. That's one thing. But to be doing different time signatures is incredible. That really stuck with me. And from that I got in tow like Henry Mancini, composer. I started listening to some of him, and I'm like this through This shit is funky like, you know, there's this underlying groove to his stuff and I started loving him in Ah,

Charlie Bird, Parker and, um, Charlie Parker and Donald Byrd. And I started getting too likes and jazz stuff, and I remember my girlfriend back then I picked her up in my car. She says, Will you change your listening to jazz and stuff? I remember that vividly. So it's like, Yeah, I guess I was listening to a lot of Chazz and then getting into deeper soul music, digging like all these songs that you listen to all these rap song that you love been finding the original samples to it. You're like, Hey, wait a second, that's ever last. Never missing a B.

Wait. That's where it came from. That's Roger and sap

like Whoa! And then you start like, you know, you stumbling on it and you're freaking out like that's a whoa, This is really cool. So then you start digging for more stuff like that, and then it became I don't want the never missing a beat. I don't want George Clinton's atomic dog Everyone sample than Atomic Dog like I want to find stuff that nobody has and make it fresh.

That's yeah, there's It's interesting because it reminds me of I've had this, So I was always loved computers. It was my first job Evers repairing computers when I was 13 years old and loved, um, technology. But I also played basketball, was decent at that and loved sports early on. Then why started to Thio start companies and and found things I thought, you know, sports is for some reason, I just thought sports wasn't that wasn't that interesting anymore. Now I'm completely Pendulum has come back to where I will. I love watching sports cause I feel it between sports, athletics and arts. You can watch excellence it so you can watch excellence and you can't do that in any other profession. I can't see what an amazing,

excellent doctor is what you can get. An expanding into different genres. They're seeing someone play two time scales on their hands in the same time, it pushes your limits of what excellence can be. And, ah, so I think it's if if I see some heroic athletic feat or you you can see a painting in a museum in it and blow you away because it's it's so visceral experience with excellence,

plus the work ethic. Right? Plus, supposed to valid. Getting validation, right? What you want tohave a program toe want you? You want your coach to want you, then you want to be a starter. Then the cycle wise act I started. I'm better than him, right? And then you want to get drafted and then you want to get a big contract, and it's all same forms of validation. It's a trip. It's really and it's sports are big for me. I played baseball all through college.

I still play to this day, play hardball and being a catcher was huge, huge, huge because I got to see the whole field. There's not one player on that diamond that gets to see every player so I get to see all of the action. I'm involved in every play, like a composer. Yep. But also the backbone. And also the grunt work, right? We're taking the beating. You're taking the balls off your body. You've gotta guard the plate. You've got a be aware of where people need to be in your hidden. They're always like an afterthought.

Know the short stops, the biggest deal, the pictures, the biggest deal. The center fielder who's hitting all the bonds there, always the Steven Tyler's. They're always the famous people. But I really enjoyed that position of being just a rock and just kind of staying in the cut, playing my position, being part of a group. I really, really couldn't tell you how important that was and how frustrating it would be being in a group and then seeing people not wanting to adhere to the structure of it and not, you know, get jealous of certain things and a cycle already. What are you guys doing while I'm just this kind of rock personality and my wife sees that they are people that are getting jealous. You got people that want what I have and I'm like,

dude, we all have this. You're staying in my bedroom. You know, you've been staying here for three months for no, you're benefiting from that. I do. From the Yeah, they were making music together. Where? You know what do you What do you want? I got you starting in this career. You never wanted to rap. I heard, you know, do we should do this

like it's well, innocent. And I don't want to. I want to ask the questions of the other two stories, but nobody will actually want a building. It's it's It's rare to hear a creator talk about that aspect of jealousy when envy. I mean, it's one of the cardinal sins for a reason. We all feel it, and it is so human. But you really get to hear someone talk about it. What what is what is your experience exposure? That jealousy been like,

um, I'm lucky because I don't have any envy. So I've never been jealous of somebody or wanted what somebody else had. My experience with it is not really seeing it unfold in front of me not identifying that house. Somebody's feelings are, and that it's the green eyed monster, but then reflecting on it. You see, that's the only thing that could have been. That's what was going on. That person was just jealous of like, It's crazy. I've been in relationships where there was jealousy, and I'm not friends with him anymore. But there's a couple who I'm very tight with that we kind of went through that phase. So it's not, um,

it's not something that's not irreversible. Steven Tyler and Joe Berry. You know, it could be worked out if you get past it. But generally that other person's ego just won't let it go and can never really, really let it go. It's rare to be able to let it go and repair it. I, um

such a destructive emotion Force,

man it is. And I've never I can't think of a time where, you know, I see things and I'm like, Oh, I need to figure out how to do that or that something I want to do. What can I do to get to that level and has never been like, Oh, you're doing that, man. I'm

so I want that just because you

haven't right. It's like I'm that our group. Perfect example. High school. I was the manager. I was getting all the gigs. I just had the hustle I was. That guy dies out of a mouth on me. And, you know, I was very cocky, very confident of Yeah. Of

what? I have to go now. Had,

you know, nobody can ever tell me anything different. And if they did, then I just moved on to the next right. That wasn't a problem for me. And so there was two DJs, Newmark and G down, Gee down. Never had turns able to never practice. This dude just came out and was just able to unbelievable talent be ableto mix, scratch his ear. His ability to bpm match. Incredible. Do was funky. So those two of the DJs we do parties. They were the DJs, but I started wanted TJ.

I'm, like, want to get on the turntables? Wonder practicing and they would never let me. It was always this order this high, Archy, this, You know You know what you're doing Where were in the room for five hours and there's never any time when I can get on and practice. And so I got frustrating. So I ended up getting with my best friend, Chris Cook, and we ponied up our money half in half, and we bought turntables together. A deejay. Newmark, to be clear,

is one of my best friends to this day. And he is probably my third biggest supporter behind my mother and my wife. He's been instrumental in always throwing me records, always giving me the kind of the inside scoop being in his group. He's had a lot of access to things huge, huge, huge influence and the ability to be able to be kind of ah, behind looking through his eyes sort of has been a huge, huge advantage for me. Not a lot of people have that type of relationship. So I started practicing all the time, and Greg G down actually lived underneath me in our apartment, ended up moving there, and I'm an early bird, not start going. And he called me like,

you know, 789 in the morning like a man. You gotta turn it down and sleep it like this motherfucker, man. Immature practicing, getting busy. So then I got good at deejaying and remember Greg saying whatever he does, he's gonna be good at whatever I do. Whatever I focus on, I'm gonna be good. I remember him saying that. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And I got I got really good at it, and I we started splitting parties.

We get two parties a night, like, Okay, let's put the records in half. You do that party, I'll go to this party. Yeah. And then when we when I moved up north, the humble the decision was I was gonna leave all my stuff down here and go up there and, like, focus on school and baseball. And then it got really funny with Mark and graying and like, the dividing of it all. And it got really funky, so I just kind of taken. We have split in the records in half. I sold a bunch of my stuff, brought on my turntables up there. That was a big deal.

And so where Where was envy in this in this story, where was it? Ah, influencing Because he didn't have any. Well,

well, that's equally well, you know, is envy the same as I don't want you to want what I'm doing. You know,

this is my little Yeah, that's your lane, right?

You know what? The roles were reversed. I'm like, Yeah, come over here. I'll show you what I'm making these managing happen or who I'm talking to are having me. I'm not trying to hoard it all.

Yeah. So you have one person that might want to stifle your development out of either jealousy or envy. Air territorial nous currently have someone that wants to see you grow correct and, you know, and we don't need a Ah, I need I don't wantto put you on the spot for for how these folks have developed. But I would imagine that the supporter is able to build these relationships and it's it brings up this this concept that, um that I recently heard on another podcast, which was the senior CE concept that there's genius, creative ability and the ability to work the scene. And and there's certainly no creo scenes that that that kind of, you know, bubble up of you have New York L. A. Or Berlin or London for music. You in tech of Bay area or worked Berlin, or tell Aviv or wherever it is.

But it's the ability to create, plus the ability to to utilize the scene and the network that it's those two things are are 50 50 you know as critical as the other. And in the downside of someone that is easily in knighted by by envy and jealousy is they really struggled to build relationships they not only like, fail to realize, Oh, these. As people around me become successful, I can leverage that that kind of network ability, or it's like two sticks holding each other up in the mind versus one and laying out flat. But it's also it's this continual thing that will bubble. People are always gonna be better new and anything you're pursuing. And if you feel it, if it's a destructive feeling that comes up, Um yeah, you you end up non building that network and you end up not being able to tap it. Thio at least this This concept,

which sounded pretty damn accurate of of a senior CE and less seen genius or Dad working. Yeah, which is networking and working, and it's, um, if you're a jealous person, it's just seeps through your ports, you could just see it, and it's destructive on you. Multiple fronts like that Well, so tell me a 2nd 2nd story, Um, something that's

shaped to your right. What's a second story? Um,

And by the way, while you're thinking I'm gonna give up shadow to the weird drink we're drinking today, um, I do a ah, a future. We're drink every episode bird. So today's were drink Is the Mountain Valley spring water The coolest, most vintage looking possible bottle. Even though this brand is probably, like, eight months old, but it looks super vintage and 150 years

old. I think they've been around for a while, okay? Yeah, and it is water.

It is just straight water. Water's been around quite a while, but it's get is very good spring water and had a cool bottle that intrigued me. Okay, second story.

I I usedto be a max. Raise bicycles up until I was 13 years old, I think, and again a badass at and I had, like, almost 200 trophies. Whoa, right. My room is just loaded with, um and I was just whipping everybody's butt. And and, um but I was never Well, you know what's weird to say That I wasn't cocky, but I did have a pair of, ah, you know, like custom pants and a and, ah, jacket and my pants on the butt said, Eat

my dust. All right. So up for interpretation. So people might have thought, Yeah, I just had a little cocky. You're backing it up with 200

trophies, just killing him. But I never remember being that guy with my chest out and, like, you know, Oh, I've doped and you can't mess with me. It was just that, you know, I was confident I was really good at it, but I know a lot of those white kids were just parents were just live it. It was My mom used to tell me they were just livid. Really. How come? Because I'm the only black guy out there, All right, there's no blackheads racing bikes back then and the late seventies early eighties,

and I'm just whipping them all. Even my sister. My sister was dope when she started doing, she was beaten boys and yeah, yeah, So I remember one race where it started out on the top of a hill. And it was, you know, as a kid, I'd probably go look at it now it doesn't look as steep, but it was Steve. I remember sitting up there like, Damn, that's a steep hill. And that's the starting point. And we all come down the come down to the bottom of the hill and there's the first burn that goes left.

And I was like, in the front three people and somebody clipped my tire in the back, which, you know, I always thought was on purpose. And I crashed. It was like a gnarly crash, so it shook me up. What? Thinking back. I wasn't hurt. I was just shook. It was going fast, and I was dazed, But I was okay, So I remember,

like getting up kind of slowly and taking my time and like, oh, you know, And then I was like, people. I remember hearing people go, Oh ho, Whoa! And then I got back on the bike after taking my time and started just to go kind of slowly and people were cheering me on like, Oh, man, he's okay. He got back going. And then, you know, one last kid kind of passed me and I got out.

I went and did the finish line. So you know, I didn't quit. I just went through it and finished it. But in hindsight, I could have hot back on, kept going easily finished in the top 45 And, you know, um but I didn't. And then we didn't know this. My mom didn't know it either. But they said if you would have finished in second to last, you would've won first place because you were up in points by that much for the day. So that right there I was like that just struck me is I'm never stopping again. If I can breathe. If I can walk,

I've never stopping again on whatever I'm doing. I'm never letting anything Hold me back. Um, toughen up. There's no we know you want sympathy. It's knock this shit out. And if I fast forward to 10th grade, I'm catching in high school. And there was a collision at the plate and I was really good at blocking the plate and getting people out, catching the ball, causing a collision, getting him out. And I got the guy out and my nose started bleeding profusely, just gushing blood. And they were gonna take me out of the game and I was like, No,

no, no. I remember they had, like, tissue paper, and I took it and stuffed up my nose. Put the mask back on. I remember the coach was like, What? Well, this guy's bad. After I finished the game with two things up my nose because of that lesson of a man, If you can walk, if you can breathe because not broken, keep pushing. That's awesome.

Which is part of my problem now. Which is why you know, my mom keeps telling me, Dude, you can't sliding into bases. You can't keep doing those things. You got to take it easy. I've actually had toe psychologically. Thailand, dial it back and I'm out there. Playing is like duty. Gotta dial it back. You gotta die because you're still trying to go like that. So I've been pretty good at dialing back now.

Well, it's and it's such a valuable feel like it's a really valuable lesson. Yes, you might need to dial it back it, uh, at times. But it's such a valuable lesson because as a creator, especially, and something like music, where there is no there's no scoreboard, there is no race. There's no time clock right to to have a lesson learned of of even when there was a time clock, you were perceiving where you were in the race wrong, like you could've still one correct. And that's when they were, you know, keeping tabs on everyone. And it was a structured race and creative endeavors. Whether it's startups or or or making music where there is no scoreboard, you can so easily hypnotize yourself into thinking you're so far beyond you can't you can't win or you can just misdiagnose where you are.

Boy, you just hit it on the head there. Remember I told you earlier that I had to put together a little demo for somebody who wanted to check out some of the music I was doing because they wanted me to teach them. So I was like, What am I gonna show them? I don't know. I don't have a whole bunch of stuff. And I started looking through stuff, and I'm like, Holy crap, my diversity is through the roof. I'm all over the place. Musically, I got so much stuff, Why did I? I thought I had nothing. I thought the scoreboard I was starting at whatever I've done in the last month or two.

It's why I created that scoreboard in my mind that I got nothing and the one actually step back and look at it. It was it was vast. And I was actually patting myself on the back of my mind like, Dude, you're killing it. What are you doing?

Yeah, we're so prone to Ms Diagnosis where we are. I mean, you're so bad. It value judgments in general of what's going once bad and our developments, but also where we are, you know. And it's, um it's a healthy reminder that it's in that specific story like not only were you wrong, but you're so friggin close to winning the race. Yeah, and yet it's, Ah, that's a great lesson learned.

And I'll tell you, uh, probably more valuable not finishing, you know, finishing like I did. But if I would have hopped back on and you know, one you know, because back in, in, in the mix and going always wonder what that side of the story would have been

if it had never learned

that lesson right and or showing me like to see you can't give up. You crashed hard. You know, you still ended up winning and you know, you that that was the way. But I always won. You know, I was always bad on it, So I don't know if that would affected me

as much as I doubt it. All right, I doubt it's, ah, sometimes it's the It's the failure said that end up teaching him not only more but the singularly powerful lessons you don't you are. You could have easily forgotten and, you know, success. Okay, it's a great second story. What's that? What's 1/3 story to come see

my band on that second story where I keep pushing myself. My back is wrecked my knees, a wreck, and I'm still out there playing and I'm still on. It's like I should be not, you know, like how much painting you win. What are you doing? And it's like, you know, I'd rather die doing what I want with dealing with the pain than sitting back and stop coming to it where I see every single person around me who was just not doing it. They're just not doing anything. They're going to work. Coming home going out with the kids and that's it. I can't do it. I want to be the guy out there who's 75 80 years old, still playing.

That's my still guys. I still have the hard headedness. My knees, Air superstore the last two weeks, coming home like cheese little, please. Um, so I'm still hardheaded about it, but that's how I want to go

out. How do you do anything? Thank you. Everything. Yes. Yeah.

All right. And the third story asking my mom for advice. There was one time we were living on Dumas, so I was under 12 years old. Where's two month? Um, it's in Woodland Hills, but, you know, that's how I kind of ah, memorize things were like, you know, where would I don't know where I remember. Why Waas So on du Monde that was 2nd 6th grade were on Grand Cheeto. That was kindergarten to first grade. If we

were in l. A as well.

Yeah, Boron Galindo. It's in a Topanga. And that was 7th 7th grade, half 1/6 grade, seventh grade. A query? No, seventh grade. If it was Oak Woods, it was the summer of seventh grade, You know? S Oh, that's how I can kind of remember where things were. So we're on Dumas. So do I. Gotta tell my graffiti rock story,

too. Um and so I was living on do Mark and I asked my mom for advice on something. I was like, Hey, Mom, pop out. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she thought for a second. And she said, You know, you'll figure it out, you'll make the right choice.

And I looked at it on me. But I'm asking you for advice and I look good. Is that if you're not, you know, I don't know. I'm asking you. And she was like, Now you'll figure it out. And she's still like that to this day. That was, um, I started figuring it out and always seemed to make the right decisions. She gave me the right to sign my own absence slips. Remember, you would get out of school or you wouldn't show up, she said.

Now you can just forge my signature. But she had that much trust and how I moved in. I never abused it. Crazy, Crazy. You'll make the right decision. Yeah, so I think that one's a pretty good

one. Yeah, it's a counter counter intuitive for most

parents I met. Yeah, but, you know, it was different then. You know, we were riding our bikes all day all night. Get in, get in as the street lights are out. One time we went from Woodland Hills. Basically, Calabasas is to Universal City, which is all across Ventura Boulevard. We took Ventura Boulevard on our bikes, me and great pen all the way down Ventura, which is the busiest street in the San Fernando Valley and then came back and he would never let your kids. You would never let your kids do anything like that.

Well, the it could be different in L. A. But I think the world is actually safer now than it was in the in the U. S. Safer now from violent crime that it was in the fifties. But we are are like narratives in our minds because of the news. Cycles are local news and and we actually think it's the you know, it's way more dangerous.

I think it's the traffic aspect. Winners like four times more cars. Oh, l a probably brothers like you're riding your bike down the street or theirs not cars parked at every possible space where now every possible space is filled. Plus, people are circling the block tryingto park there you got the obstacle of people over roars and all that you're like, Dude, I'm not letting you ride all the way down Ventura to the other side

of you. How has L a changed over the last 30 years from your adolescence toe. Now

I think one of the big things that have changed is people really complain a lot about the gas prices here, you think the highest in the country. So even that's up there with Hawaii and people who weren't here don't remember smog alerts. And we used to have every morning would look at the news and I would tell you it's ah three Stage four stayed five stage smog alert and you would look at the smog alerts to know if you were allowed to go outside, we would go to school. And if it was a 45 states smog alert for recess and lunch, You stayed inside the buildings. The smog was just a thick layer. You look now you're like, Oh, my God, we got so much smaller. The smog van was four times as worse. You would take a deep breath if I take a deep breath and you will go, you couldn't get past like the first stage because it was just unbelievable. Your eyes would be burning. So one of the big things of L.

A and its changes when they implemented that, uh, the climate trying to take care of all the climate and the of stuff with the small checks on your car every two years. His major day made a huge difference on the quality of living here. And you don't realize that most of the big rig trucks and all that go through L. A from here to San Diego to back to all the produce comes from here. It there's just so much traffic here that creates a lot of smart. There's 20 million people in l A county. Whoa, there's hit. Here's a statistic. Canada has 34 million people. California has 40

l. A is 20

way has 18 to 20 of them. Wow. So people don't realize the air quality in the prices it's kind of work are kind of fucked. You have to. We have to do it in order to make it livable. E. I think that's one of the things everyone knows of the, um, property values have gone through the roof. But there's like these areas there are worth so much money that I mean, they were the hood, Culver City, the hood. Nobody wanted to go to Culver City, Venice. The hood wouldn't go too. You wouldn't be in Venice past five or six o'clock absolute hood downtown.

L A. Weren't going anywhere near that Koreatown. Nowhere near that. Anything south of Hollywood Boulevard. Nowhere near that. The desirable areas were Hollywood Hills. All those hills Beverly Hills, Bel Air print would maybe a couple areas I'm forgetting about. But a lot of places were undesirable, which are now $234 million properties. Hancock Park was desirable, but most of the stuff was hoods, and you could have gotten into any of those things for peanuts.

What's there? You now that's that is Ah, peanut territory is gonna be big. You know, there's one come to mind of actually, we're sitting here in Silver Lake over. Lake was awful. Yeah, is super hip

now? Yeah. Even me and my wife left here in 95 and it was People were like I wouldn't live there. It wasn't that hard of a spot. Actually, we moved in. We got a letter on our door like, oh, somewhere within the first month that said no *** allowed. What? What year is this? 95. Maybe 96. And we were like, What the hell? I remember we had a transgender living across the street, Black man dressed as a woman,

and she had a kid. And I remember we were really cool with her. Um what, which is really validating for me and my wife causes, like we were never judgmental of anything. We grew around so many characters that that was, like, totally cool. And we got that noticing were like, What the hell? And we know it was the guy living next door to us a gay guy. And, um um, we knew it was him. But, you know,

you can't really So we took that letter and made copies of it and put it up all around the neighborhood, and people were coming to us left around like, Oh, my God. I can't believe that. Do we're not like that and promise and pop you up and we live next door to an al anon center, the next door to us with an Allen on center. So, Silver Lake, um hi. Gay population, yet still hated black people. It was still really? Yeah, it was fasting just around the corner from here off of Echo Park Boulevard.

And I grew up in Texas, and I and I don't think you would have seen anything like that in the nineties. I mean,

I got it. I got it bad as a kid,

man and obviously lived in in Dallas, and it's Ah, it's, uh, you know, uh, metropolitan. So was L. A. Yeah, but still, that's that is, um that is sad, but it sounds like the community was that was not the prevailing

no viewpoint. Once you call people out on it, then it becomes more microscopic. But I mean, as a kid, I was I got brutalized. I lived in a heavy white area, and I think about back I don't like, uh, came home and asked my mom one day. What does *** mean is like? I mean, someone's calling you a piece of trash. But I had a problem processing that. Still like. Okay, that means piece of trash.

I could have gone and called someone else that, you know, like all you're a piece of trash or your garbage. So I'm gonna call you that word. And, um yeah, I didn't quite Yeah, I didn't quite resonate at one parent. Come up to me and hold my wrist out and take his hand and rub my risk like this. He was rubbing the bottom of his wrist on top of my wrist, like trying to rub out a piece of some ink or something, or there was a stain on me. He's trying to rub it out, and he did that. And then he held my hand upto all of the kids and the parents there and said, Look,

he's not black. What? Yeah, Craig shy. It's

Father. What was he trying to dio? Was he?

It was, you know, with what? I'm not black because I am leaving in the valley. I'm living around all of these white kids. All these Jewish kids. All right? I didn't talk us out of I What parent does that? Yeah, What nut job is wired that way? Toe. It's baffling. My wife is half black half way, you know. She's yellow Show, just brutal. I mean,

she's got it worse because the black people don't except her little height. People don't accept her. I mean, there's my friends. I got a bunch of Jewish friends. I would, uh, when I was a kid. I remember I came home one day that my mom I said, Mom, I want I want, uh, I want a bar mitzvah. I've been to like my bar mitzvahs. I'm seeing these kids chip off. Yo, that dude got?

Yeah, getting getting paid in an envelope. I remember one night, borrow one of my buddies, Michael Lane had one and, yeah, he got, like, five grand. I was like, Okay, I want one.

Come on. I'm like Mom, I wanna have a bar mitzvah. So this shows how many you know, the demographic I was around, people don't have this type of influence. And she was like, Well, you got to go to Hebrew school. I was like, Cool, let's go in. And then she, like, pause and thought about it, and she was like, your family doesn't have any money.

You're not gonna get those gifts like high. Cool. Okay, I'm cool on that. So that was kind of what I grew up around, but people weren't, you know. You know, my family was my mom and dad were revolutionary, you know? First black publishing company. My dad came for Virginia Dirt poor from the hood. Met my mom in Canada. They So we're gonna move to L. A. We're gonna You know,

my dad was a big fish up there musically in Canada. And I told you this. 34 million people in Canada, Toronto There's like, no, no, 67 11 10 million people. Right now I want to become popular there. It's It's over. It is not much. You can do it. So he's like, I want to go to l. A. Other people want to l a Alan fake. My mom used to sing with moved l.

A and David Foster All these people and they come out here with nothing and to try to forge a new path. So what they were doing was was a big deal. A monkey telling me the story. They moved into an apartment that Dominique try an O got them into because he lived there right next to Chinese Man Theater, Grauman's Chinese. And she said they gave the landlord all the money they had to move in. And then she said, Your father went back to the landlord said, Hey, look, we gave you all the money we had. Can I borrow $75 to buy food? And the landlord came $75 to buy food, so they really were scratching together and they forge the whole life out here and they, you know, were fitting into where people aren't fitting in. They were really doing some amazing things. So

But you said earlier about, ah, people wanting what you have not not because you, it's not for money, but people you sensing that people want. What do you have? It sounds like your your parents and you, um, you just by the mere fact of heating the call to adventure, it incites people to yes, to really resent that if if they're not heating that call to venture in there and their own

life, my mom's whole family never leave their little circle. My dad's old family and never leave that little circle so they would all make their judgments to They were all like, Yo, you're pretentious or, you know, you think you're and and for them it was a call him. I'm almost like I'm out of here. And my dad was possessed to come from where he came from to do what he did. He possessed his output creatively in his possessiveness to be ableto get to come out Incredible, Incredible. Such such a good learning lesson

at one of my recent guests. There's a radio deejay really successful. Ah, it's radio personality. The correct term in you said it's, um Yeah, you can you can tell when people are talks about how you can tell when people are are not listening to that call to adventure. And yes, and you can listen to it any point in time you can give into it. But, um, it's ah, it can eat you up inside if you don't listen to it. It's so true. Okay, so tell me. Last question I have for you,

Bert, is, um what's something you think a lot about? But you rarely get a chance to discuss something. They're professionally, socially. You think a lot about he.

Rarely. Any chatter about the psychology and the mental side of, Well, let's just call it the music business. It can stretch out to other things, but the music business, the psychology, the depression, the insecurity of it, trying to navigate all of it and not having, uh, somebody the balance it off,

you know, walk me it, walk me through that.

You know, it's one thing toe working 9 to 5 and be miserable at your 9 to 5, right? You're fighting your the pressure and you're fighting your own. I want to do this. I want to be, You know that. But you get this weird little thing every two weeks when you're doing that and it's a paycheck. So at least you getting some sort of standard of living. You know what you're gonna do? You know what you got? You got his figure. Your budget out. If you're in the red, you know something's coming in this business. If you're on the creative side,

that's, um, fun. Sirens going on, man. I don't believe we're gonna leave men that l a at its finest. Yeah, we're leaving it in on the yet

on the creative side, the checks are not consistent by any means. So I imagine not knowing when you're gonna get your paycheck next paycheck when you're going to get some money. And how are you going to support yourself? Not alone. Your kids, your wife? Or are you gonna pay your bills and struggling with that mentally is really hard to be told by your parents? Oh, I wanted to music mom and your parents saying, Oh, you know, you're not gonna make any money out of what are you gonna do? Make sure you have something to fall back on. That's one thing, toe. Actually Do it and B and then actually live it to be told that this is how it's gonna be.

But you're not in the music business, Mom. You know you're not creative. You never dealt with it. You don't know. So I'm not gonna listen to her. She doesn't know what she's talking about. You know, my uncle used to play guitar, went up until he was 20. You know, he's got his perspective, but that doesn't you know, you guys don't know. I know better that actually be in the thick of it and start to realize that's what it is that's difficult to navigate mentally. So how do you navigate with how am I gonna pay my rent?

Do I have to call and borrow money from my parents? Been dealing with the psychology of Oh, my God. How am I gonna ask them again? What am I gonna do? And then all my failure? Oh, it's not working. What am I gonna do with the landlord? I got a three day of eight notice my lights are out. How do you know? It's one thing to have your lights out. It's another thing to deal with it mentally. And how do you deal with it? Mentally? Who's helping you with that?

Who's talking you through it? Who do you got to lean on to help you not go crazy? Having it happened a couple times a year because you're not getting a truck was paying you any money. No one's paying you money. The play guitar startup band You can you know, you go to a club, you have to pay them to be in the club.

What were some of the year kind of mental approaches early on? That that worked against you or that changed

over time. A man. You know, I'm lucky, man. I got my wife and my mom. I had riders with me, you know that. It was like we're going through it together. We're going to figure it out. I'm the super fortunate, Super Super fortunate. And even within that, it was still hard mentally to try toe deal with Like am I failing? Am I a failure? You know, thinking that you're a failure and not having any revenue coming.

It's hard thinking. You're a failure, working at a job you don't like. But you have revenue coming. That's a different level of stress. And people have trouble making that leap from, You know, I'm gonna quit my job and go do what I want to do and live that life that takes a giant leap of faith. And then, when you're doing it, trying to navigate through it, it's uncharted waters. You can't ask somebody. Hey, how do I get through this and get through that? You know,

unless somebody is close to you, you can ask somebody. In theory, I can tell people I mentor people all the time. Dude, get a job while you're doing this. Have a job while you're doing this. You gets You're in L. A. It rough.

What? What do you mean by its rough? Tell me. Finally, order. So specifics of Okay,

financially, Financially, it's rough. How do you pay if you're lucky? Your warrants. $1400. How do you plan on paying Just the rent in your water and your food? You know, how do you are You gonna go up with $2200 by making music? Are you selling music? Are you playing live? Are you d daring stuff just to break even? What do you What are you gonna do? And no one's gonna pay you that. Why you have toe be in demand. People have to see Hey, he's in demand.

Let me bring him on. Let me work with him. So until you get to that level, you're gonna be thinking. So how do you deal with the sinking? That's why all waiters or actors or actresses, right? That's how you swim. So when I'm telling people that it's it's unless you got a support system. If you don't have a support system out here, it's gonna be rough. If you're living in a small town, your expensive, they're completely different. The situation's different. You can float by a lot easier, but out here it's It's It's rough. Yeah,

so? So I clock's ticking right when you get here, correct? Yeah.

And I try to give people that perspective on it all. Still encouraging them toe. Stay creative. If you're not making something every day, you're missing a

day. Can can you tell me a little more, more detail of what you mean by the stress and the uncertainty? What does have been like on you told me before about the physical side.

Old? Yeah. Like you know, whether you're starting out and stressing out on how do you get to the next step or whether you're famous, they're still always the stress of maintaining and gaining. How do I maintain? How do I gain? How do I get to the next step? And you're constantly strategizing your call it scheming. Call it planning. Call it budgeting. You're constantly doing that to figure out how do I get to that next step and you're the one that has to come up with it. There's no plan to do it. So as you push forward trying to figure out how my going to do this not everything is gonna work. Things never really unfold like you think they are. All of my success has been seemingly out of left field. Anything that I've tried to do hasn't happened. Everything that I mean, everything that's just unfolded naturally. So you'll you'll

tell me. Tell me a little more about that two off forcing versus non non forcing.

You know, I can shove music down your throat, James, and say Do this is you gotta You gotta love this. You've gotta Are you gonna love it, or do I need to figure out a way tohave your wife in your best friend in some random person? Tell you Oh, dude, have you heard? Birch said Memberships dope. Then you're more inclined to listen to it and be impressed by it. So the goal is to get people naturally, organically interested in what you're doing. And if that's through force, you can't force yourself through life. If you keep trying to force stuff down people's throats, you can't find the force of square peg into a round hole.

You're going to get injured, things were gonna fall apart. You're gonna have things breaking off. So you gotta find, almost, in essence, the path of of a path of magnetic, right, the path of mag magnetic things that are attracted to each other. You have to let the natural flow of things come to you. And it's hard to find that balance of how do I sit back and wait while I need now and there's that fine bounds. It's

tough. You also know that I I do need a lovably nag. Yes, but also, I can't force in

its I get it. It's a fine balance. And when you start forcing a lot and not getting the results you want, you start. You start getting pissed, you start getting stressed that comes across mentally, comes across physically a lash out that yourself, you lash out of people around you, Um, s O that forcing that it ends up reflecting back on U. S. You can see a hippie and like, Oh, look at that. Their lives so free, they're living. So,

you know, at least they're not forcing life. They're not forcing things on themselves. They've been able to release a lot off some of those gnats to some of those things that just eat you alive than they got other issues. But that forcing thing. I mean, I've seen every single musician I grew up around get sick, every single one. And it's because it's a constant fight. It's a constant howto I, you know, constant dog paddling.

Have you been sick?

Yes, especially in the last. Ah, I don't know if I can count the back, but yeah, you know, I hurt my back, and that turned into right, Yes, I turned into drinking and I will look back and I'm like, Oh, I was drinking whiskey because of my back pain. And that was actually allowing me to mitigate how much my backer and how much my leg was hurting me And that, you know, you re Jamison is antiseptic. And I started believing that I'm like, Oh,

this is you know, I'm digging it. But when I stopped in 2000 January 2016 all of this should unfolded. She just started, hit me left and right And I was flustered like I stopped drinking and now my my back goes out My back never went out on me. It would be so wrong. It would hurt. But I was on the floor for two weeks and my studio couldn't move face down. My wife had to tie a belt around my ways. Toe lift me up to put a bowl underneath me so I can go pee. And I couldn't even move my arm to get to go. There's my Feroz and just in incredible pain. Then I, uh right, I had an up a dural. I've been dealing with my back to this day, It's actually feeling good the last three or four weeks that this car director I've seen So that was in April

Was that related to stress?

Well, I think that the, you know, I think that I heard it picking up a speaker and trying to put it in my truck by myself. Remember hearing something happened on my back, but it didn't hurt, And I never had, like, that moment of Oh my God, I'm in pain. But I remember when I think back I owned a marijuana business on one of those, the first black owner of a dispensary in Los Angeles, and I remember being in there doing back exercises because my back was sore and asking my best friend, Rusty. Hey, you know, what do you got back?

It's like you said all you need to do this and do that. So I had issues then, but I was never floored. But I was drinking. And and then since I'm independent, right don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to go to work and have to deal with the boss. I can wake up and sip. I can do whatever the hell I want. So I had no boundaries, so I looked back and I might do That was what was helping me get through some of that pain. Um, so I think that, um I think yes.

Yeah. Say of you were telling about the physical side you mentioned before to me and and previous conversations about the physical side of just the stress people don't see. What can you tell me? A little more about that?

You get really single, you get focused. And every musician I grew up with never dealt with their injuries, never dealt with illness, never dealt with any sickness. So that was kind of how you did it. Richie Havens had no teeth because he would just pull his teeth out instead

of going to the dental. You mean they never dealt with? It isn't They were so afflicted by it, but they just didn't pay

it any mind, right? And that was the way it was. You know, that's how it was in the 50 60 seventies, you know, forties all. You just pull the tooth out. You just you know you have. You have sugar. Diabetes is called sugar. You know, you just you just don't deal with those things. So

and because of the financial side because of justice taken away from its earning, it's it's it's

not, you know, black people, creative people are considered their ostracised are considered weirdos. They're considered on the other side of the scope, and they're not Todd, you're not given a lot of the advantages that other people have, you know. I mean, black people historically have just been just completely forgot about so they don't have the tools or they don't know that. Hey, there's these options to do this stuff, and when they go seek those options out, they're not there for them. People think Oh, you know, he's strong.

I get it all the time. I go the doctor all the time. And there's this aspect of your to you. You're in great shape for you. You know, it's like, if I was it was a different scenario. I know I'd be treated differently, and sometimes you can't afford it sometimes. You know, you've been told dentists are bad. You know where the doctors are gonna mess you up. Don't take pills. Medications bad. Don't do that. You have high blood pressure.

Don't take the medication. That's gonna mess you up even more when it's not necessarily the case. So, um, on the physical side of it, I think that I when I had when my back started to hurt me, I didn't attack it like I'm attacking it now. So I attacked it from a way of drinking, right, smoking. That really helped ease the pain. And I think that when I started to deal with the pain and I stopped drinking, that's when my back went out. And that's when I was little floored for two weeks. And I was I was done. I couldn't move.

I'm like, This is crazy. I stopped drinking. And now this shit's getting I'm just done, and that's in April. And then you fast forward to September and my left face is frozen. I'm talking to Newmar and he said a man on the left side of your face isn't moving. I don't know what you're talking about, and I look and it's not moving. And my dad had, like, two strokes and two heart attacks. My uncle I found I found my dad dead on Thanksgiving, and he had died of a heart attack. And he had already had two strokes. He wrote a book called Stroke of Luck.

Wow. Right. And, um so I'm looking at Mike. Oh, my God. I'm having a stroke. I've always been sensitive to, like heart attacks and strokes because I've grown up around it. I stopped drinking soda. Pop it 14 because I'm like, Oh, this, You know, this soda pops bad sugar is about all that stuff. Um,

so, um, I'm having a stroke. I call my doctor, and I said, Hey, I need to come in. I think I'm having a stroke. I'm Dr Remember driving like that, I'm able to drive with this stroke. This is crazy. I get there. My doctor was on one of my best friends till we went to high school together. And he says, Move your eyebrows and move my eyebrows And he says, You have bills.

Palsy? Yes. Of what? Bell's palsy, All right? And explained it to me. And he says Good could be a form of shingles, he says, And there's medication for her. Don't give me a prescription for medication for it. I'm like, form of shingles. That's we're okay. And I don't feel the prescription because I start doing my research and then I'm like the epiphany comes. I said, This is stress.

I'm having Bill's policy because this is stress, probably crab. Then I, um, figure out that my health insurance covers physical therapy in October, and I start doing physical therapy for my back, and I start doing that therapy for a full year. You come around October, November, December. You get all the way around to the next year and, um, back is on and off, and then you get to December and I have a seizure, and what happened was I was getting up from the sitting position and I was frozen. I couldn't move and I see like a bright white light.

I'm like looking and I see the bright white light and I'm like, trying to move. I'm trying to punch my arm. I remember, and I just couldn't move. And I said, Oh my God, this is This is what is like to die. And then I wake up to my wife on the phone saying, I hear saying my husband just had a seizure and I'm thinking, Oh, hey, Jesus, Crisis that all extra dramatic. What is she talking about? You know,

because I'm foggy and so she says, Yeah, when you were fell down, you had a seizure. You're seizing and you're punching with your right arm. And I said, Oh, that's crazy because when I was frozen and I was trying to move my right arm, I remember that. So then she says, Yeah, you were like by doing that, she said, I thought you were kidding when you were frozen, so I was like, flashing your eyes because I came around and she's didn't move.

So I go to the neuron. I go to the hospital. They put me on an anti seizure medication um, they take my driver's license away from me. The medication they put me on within, like, two days. I'm completely melting down like I'm hot and cold. It's like I'm just It's brutal, Whatever

I'm taking and when was this is December

17 2017. The back was April 2016. I stopped drinking January 2016. The back was April 2016. The bell's palsy was September 2016 started therapy October 2016 and then by then by the therapy and the Bell's palsy. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna restructure home going about this shit

One made you stop drinking in January 2016

because I got a D u I in 2011 july 11th 2011. So then I promised myself that I would never get behind the wheel again if there's a drop of alcohol on my breath and we didn't have Hoover and lift them. So I'm deejaying and I got to call a cab or get someone to drive me. And it's costing me 80 bucks round trip for $200 gig that I'm doing. So it was. It was rough and so I'm holding true to my word. And then January 2016. One of my dear friends, Dan Dalton, he's, ah, Damian Marley's manager. Him in Quiapo been married forever and cripples. Mom passed away and I went to the funeral, and afterwards we're back in his house and we're hanging out. And I had four drinks that night. Remember vividly.

I bought four bottles of booze for their house at four drinks. It's like to, well, 30 in the morning. It's time to leave and they live in Calabasas, which is a long drive back to my house. And I'm thinking, Okay, I'm gonna take an uber and Jesus that's a long uber. Then I got to take it back here to come pick the car up and what I am. So I rationalized to myself, I'm gonna drive and drive home, drove home, got home. And I said, I'm never drinking again. I don't trust myself. I don't know my you know, I know myself would want if I just until I can trust myself to stick to my word. I'm never doing

it again. And all that time you feel like it was masking stress. Yep, didn't manifest itself after.

Yeah, I mean, I was I was touring and traveling like crazy. I was. I mean, my passport. I got eyes on the middle of my second passport, right? And I'm thinking back now is like, How in the hell was I sitting on buses and planes and moving care? How was I doing that with my wife back, boys. And I'm like sipping whiskey. You know, we're just know me. And you were just numb enough to be able to do it. I would bring foam rollers with me on stage.

I had back things. I had those icy patches. Yeah, I had my massage balls, my baseballs softballs to sit on. I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, Oh, ma'am, that's impressive how I was doing that. So as I started to release, All right, as I started to let go of someone of the crutches, I realize that's him. Self medicating. What? What do other musicians do whatyou other creative people do to help get them through stuff? What's their method of self medicating whenever we're not taught how to get through this stuff, right?

Yes. So slight. Aside to that, actually, that comes to mind is I would deal with stress in a in a weird way where I would actually, it's right on the other side of this stressful moment is when I would physically get sick. And I remember piecing it together in all these different vacations that that I would go on after kind of to mark stressful things or, as you know, vacation right after, like our honeymoon. Perfect example. I got so sick, but I'm never sick during the actual stressful moments. But then, when I actually have a time to release it, just it hits me. And I didn't really believe in that side of things until it was so just pattern predictable.

And then, after we sold our our company was so stressful that afterwards, like two months after I became randomly allergic to eggs for three months and I love eggs. It was so strange, but and it's it's his actual like, ah, medical thing where you could just acquire a very temporary allergy. And every time I get sick, it's related to my stomach and being stressed beyond stress related. So it's it is not that strange to hear that you stopped drinking in the kind of medication, and then a few months later, the stress manifests itself, you know, physiologically in in these various ways. Yeah,

And like I said, I've got no buddy to report to, so I can't self medicate. Mmm, right, as much as I want to And a lot of us do self medicate and some and it doesn't even have to be with alcohol. You know, it could be what just we that could be with it could be, even without a drug, you could be self medicating when you really need somebody to talk to when you really need to look at things objectively and step

back from it, you can't manage everything. Yes,

can't manage everything. And, um, when you release that, when you accept that you can't manage it all, you can't figure it out. You need to be able to lean on other people. That's when you start. Thio figure things out and leaning on other people isn't getting a record deal. It's not getting a manager. You know, if I get a manager a record deal,

it's not yet passing through a gate with a gatekeeper that's not leaning on people in

this stress will go away and then I'll feel better. And it's like, No, it's a lot deeper than that. You've gotta dig inside your soul and find a different way to move now. And it just didn't it just it didn't stop. You know, I had the had that seizure and, you know, it was like, Jesus Christ, I've changed how since I had Bell's palsy I changed my structure and I started going things about different differently. And I really changed a bunch of things about how I moved. And then that happened a year and three months later, and I'm like, You know what? I'm not working anymore.

I said, I I I'm just stopping everything. I was stressing. From October 16 to 17 December 17 there became a huge trunk in there where I was pissed off a bunch of my dear friends that I've known for 30 years. One of them thought it was okay to drop the N word on me, and I told him, No, you can't do that. And then he insisted it was okay because we've known each other forever. No wanted to stop being friends with him. That was in December. It was in the September had Bell's palsy right when that happened and I was told all you know it and he doesn't mean that all of us, I let it go and he does it again and in May 2017. And then there's another. You know, the same group of friends are sympathizing with me,

you know, And then I'm being told Oh, since people aren't acquiescing to me that I'm, you know, lumping everybody together. Oh, he's not racist, Ozai And I said, I never said he was racist. I said, I don't want him to say that word to me and always had to do is apologize and refused to. I talked to other everyone else in the world and like do that is crazy that you're dealing with that. Why do you even deal with that? That's like the most insane thing I've ever heard. Well, this group of people think that Ah,

you know. So I was sieving holding all this in for this group of people. Then I had Bell's palsy and I just cut everybody. I cut all those motherfuckers down. I said, You know it. This is This is manifesting in tow, having a seizure. So I cut a ton of him out. I regret one of home, and I keep trying to reconnect with one of them, and he's a little upset, but I keep trying. I'm like, do it on, You know,

you're my brother, Steve. You're my brother. Brothers get in fights. I was going through a lot of stress. I thought I was dying, but he hasn't come back around. But I cut everything out to stop working. Talk to my wife. I says, that's it. I can't do anything for six months. I need to reassess the shit. And, um, just kept working.

Like I was just doing lessons out of the house. Feel safe of my little thing. But stop doing. Ah, D Jake Eggs out. Unless it was something special or something. Something that really connected to me.

And did you feel good about it? Did you feel Yes. Were you like this is right now it's like so I I regret this has to happen,

but it is what I need. This is what all this is about. If I don't do this now, if I didn't do that, then I would. I'm digging my grave. I'm being in the ditch. Stever. But absolutely. There's no two cents about it. My dad died at 52. I saw this business eat him alive. I seen him eat all of these people alive that I know. I see what they look like. I see how they don't take care of themselves. I it was poignant for me.

How do you feel? Sick beyond the psychological side now on the mountain and crushing? Yeah. You

feel absolutely crushing that. Everything is like water off a duck's back. Um, the universe is providing. It will provide if I let

it. And do you feel like that's tied to that? That window of time where you were, like, I'm gonna walk away from this. You gonna disconnect, Or did you

trim it? Yeah, because I needed to. I needed to absolve myself of everything in order to, um, absorb what I needed to. I did. I was absorbing everything. I was absorbing peoples negative energy, and there were positive energy than I was processing the negative energy and processing the positive energy and tow thoughts into my head and to my body thinking what it is And what does that mean? And this means that ties me to cut it all out, start from scratch and to start re absorbing. And then I learned, you know, um, it was a Don Miguel of Don Forget his name. The four agreements don't tell her anything personal.

Somebody says, Dude, you suck. Don't take it personal. Somebody says, When you are handsome, don't take it personally. That's them reflecting how they feel on to you. Maybe they want to be you because you're handsome. Maybe they're jealous of you. So they say, You say you have no idea. Just don't take any of it

personally. One of my one of our previous guests, Eric Reese, said that when people are giving you feedback, they're telling you so much more often than not, they're telling something about themselves, not about you, whether it is what they want you to be right for them in their life or and it's negative feedback or even when they're giving you praise. It could easily be the same thing of what they want you to be, Um, and it's telling you something about them. I know it's I described it when I was building out tilt. I described my experience were maybe four years in and I was visiting. We had an office out of Toronto when I was visiting our team up there and I was chatting with with him in between meetings and and and just said, Yeah, it's is interesting being in this role in being you and and news articles and and being kind of watched as a as a founder and as a company, it and your critical remarks as well as I mean,

it's way more praise than we ever desert, but still like it was, it felt like a you know, like this. It felt like this imagery of of a pig with a potbelly and this massive belly is just exposed. Okay, And it felt like it could be punctured, wounded it so unprotected, um, from every angle and in trying to create. And I think it's because I psychologically cared so much what other people thought. I mean, still, so human nature, toe toe want that feedback to know that you're being useful in the world, so there's a very natural reason for it.

But then there's also the very vain reason for it of an unhealthy reason. If that's where you derive your you're worth, you know it's It's one thing to lean on feedback loops that what you're doing is useful from other people. It's another thing to require it to just the right in yourself, Cora of whether you're being used for now, rock and what's so fun and freeing about something like this podcast or or just the place that I am. When I when we sold our company, I was like, I'm never starting anything ever again and I didn't create three Cos that's all I knew was just creating things from when I was 20 years old and while and I was just Well, it was, It was I don't I never felt like it was impressive. Just felt like, Oh, that's what I'm naturally wired to. D'oh! It's the only thing out that I'm

really skill

that people want, right, and it's, you know, being resourceful. And you just take these things and duct tape them together and you know, it's it's. Somehow people value it and and I remember feeling like others what I'm wired to do, too. Then yes, I guess in one sense the height of doing that and selling company to to every me out. And I actually was having the exact opposite reaction where I was saying, I'm never doing this again because it was so, so hard at times and because I was just I've defrauded, derives too much, so much of my value from these feedback loops from others and and wasn't feeling that that, you know,

feedback loop that it was was valuable. And I think anyone in that artistic or creative entrepreneurial realm, it is so tempting as we kicked off the conversation toe so tempting and may be necessary early on, just to hear what you're doing is valuable and to get that validation. And and yet it can be so stressful at the time. But so freeing to disconnect from that need. Yes, and and you said it without skipping a beat, crushing it right now and on and

even still. Like I said, I needed to put together something for this person to listen to. And it's somebody that might I'm gonna mentor. Somebody wants

me to mentor, and this was today or this week is today, and I have

to give them something to check me out. And I was like, Oh, man, I don't have anything. What am I? You know, Jesus was embarrassing, and it's like, Whoa, I'm going back. What am I doing? Is I start to listen? I'm like Hoyt. Oh, my God, This stuff is Don't I'm out of my mind.

Where am I going? It's so it's a constant struggle. It's a constant fight trying toe Stay in that right zone. You're, uh if you're not like you said, if you're not doing it every day, I meditate every morning. If you're not doing something constantly, then you're not doing it in allowing something else to slip in, Which is doubt, which is fear, which is anxiety. I mean, there's so much anxiety out there that people don't even know they're having.

Yeah, you said, you know, self medication. And there are so many ways of of of doing that, I think one of the big ways is also and settle in silent ways. Is is procrastination.

Oh,

my God. It's like you medicate by not doing it because you fear maybe the reception of it, or you have these internal doubts. And if you know, even If you're just doing something as seemingly innocuous as procrastinating, it's a time to it can be a time to internally reflect. I'm okay. Why am I pushing this off so much? If

you don't finish it, then you can't critique. It has never done

exactly that.

It's then you can't say, Oh, it sucks, right? It's always this. Oh, it's going to be great when I

it's And I tell this to friends as well. If like, ah, something is as innocuous as as procrastinating on something you've wanted to create a wanting to work on her, wanting to start that's worth a deeper look, yes, and whether it's as you touched on, just someone to talk to you. It's just a simple is out of talking to someone that supports you have. Hey, I really actually want to talk about this out loud to try to figure out why I'm putting this putting this off for so long, and you can be as drastic as a you know, as self medication they're drinking or could be something as as silent as putting it off. Um, you know, for forever, and chatting with something that supports you about why that might be the case. That person

has to know the right answers and they may not know they just may love and support you, but may not know how to fix some of those issues. So then who do you go to? I went to a therapist. I've been in and out of therapists, but in the late nineties, a bunch and then in the last four or five years, just going in and out just to get some of those things was like, Why am I trying to figure all this out myself? If I don't know? You know, I read books in there. That thing's shine on my like, Oh, that's what it is. That's what I'm That's what I'm dealing with. Okay?

How do I fix that? How do I address that issue on a consistent basis? Right? So it's seeking out the tools that are available on you gotta be. You got to get out of your own way, right? You've gotta figure out how can I get all of these negative thoughts? How can I stop thinking I don't have anything to play? This person wants me to mentor them. How can you get that out of your mind because it's hard to do,

man. It

is, well, it's procrastinate. Procrastinating is one of one of the things that I fight with.

It's S O y. It's It's it is easy to do it, especially cause no one will ever call you out for it. You know, if you if you are drinking 1/5 of whiskey each day, everyone will will eventually call you out of hate when you look at this. But procrastination I looked I I look at that as this silent killer of the soul because it is not because you you create the so by creating and and and having this reception of your work that actually has nothing to do with it. It's more like you just have these when you create. You have these experiments with truth that you just can't have when you're hypothetically thinking about what you're gonna do. I mean, even if it's the smallest little you have a garden. All right. You have these his experiments with truth of whether it's, I mean, if you have a garden and you learn the fact that you control so little of the creation process or that you got bring in so many other amazing aspects that are far more critical than planting the seeds, like you know, the sun in the water or the constant. You know, whatever it is that maybe that metaphor doesn't work.

But but But you have to

do it. But you have to do it and you see that and you have that exposure to that truth by creating rather than, you know, for most of us in the world we live in, it's so non over the last 200 years, it it's so easy to just not participate and to get that paycheck telling you Oh, well, you're doing what you should be doing by being, you know, in the accounting department at big Company X and not actually participating in the U leave that job. You go home, you turn on the TV and what do you watch? You watch two hours of other people living their lives and you go from office to couch office to couch, not participating in shit. For many people that are making money off of that, they want you to do that. You don't want your landlord Netflix,

your boss. That's that's what they want. But you're not getting the exposure to truth and truth. Fuck, it hurts at times where it's, you know, it is trying to create anything you're going to bump into Just what you thought that is not that ain't true is true and and in that helps refine you know what truth is, But it's if you are pressing or deal what we're trying about earlier, Uh, not heating that call to adventure, whatever it is that you're self medicating are numbing yourself from you aren't taking that in And you're not getting the place that you're talking about right now off crushing it. Because maybe, uh, it's ah, it is something that you need to go through off just dealing with it and dealing with it so much. You got to take some time away.

It's It's so true. I couldn't agree with you more. You know, one of the things that unfolded for me Airbnb these experiences, that that how we met but that really you know, it's already doing hosting and the hosting I'd already stayed. I fulfilled three of my biggest dreams in 2013 and 14 and I attribute it to Airbnb by being able to stay in an Airbnb in different parts of the world and then create projects behind it. And the affordability of staying at their allowed me to spend money to do what I needed to dio If I had to do the hotels, I could have only stayed for four or five days because I had an Airbnb. I could stay for three weeks for the same price. So when I come home and I tell my wife, I'm like, we gotta turn that, um, storage unit in the back into a guesthouse for Airbnb. She's like, Get the fuck out of here.

No way. I don't want the strangest. I says, Dude, we have to do it. We live in the middle of L. A. We have the best area in town. You've got to give people this opportunity to come to L. A. And experience what I experience. It's life changing Your guy We got to do it, talked her into it. We did it. She you know, my approach was just though some sheets and a pillow in there and let them figure it out right,

because that's where some of the places I stay and I was happy. But she's like No, no, no. So she made it beautiful. And so we were killing it on the ah hosting. So when experiences came around, I'm like, whatever Airbnb does, I'm in because because I love his life changing and I know it sounds crazy, but it was really a different way to look at the world with really different wayto approach. How you move through the world. You know, people used to travel from city to city and stay in people's homes. That was the norm for traveling until the hotel industry came and took over. And so when they said experiences,

you know, we were like, Oh, well, maybe you do a deejay experience in our you know? All right. But who's gonna want to do that, which comes back to what we're saying is, you just got to start. You just got to do something. You can't procrastinate. Once you start, the journey will start to unfold. And then the deejay thing just completely blew. It is completely blew up, people just

people try to mimic. For listeners that don't know it's you can experience being a deejay with birds here in l. A. So you could come from you could be traveling from Beijing and and coming to Hollywood in l. A. And you get to be a deejay and learn how to toe. To be a deejay for

a day was true if it be a deejay is a b a g j dot com or be a deejay on Airbnb. But you go to my website black or act dot com, and it's all up there. And by doing that, that led me into mentoring the air being beast. And I get to mentor people through all of it. And before it's starting like I'm not thinking that it's gonna do this, I'm just like I don't know. But it's that self doubt instead of just just going for and then when you realized you go for something and you start with the first step, then the next step will present itself. And then you got to make that move, and then the third step will present itself, and then you make that

move on before someone tells me. I bet you also thought Okay, this will be a fun side thing that's like, you know, small party. Maybe make some extra del rather than this crazy cool, unexpected as you as I'm using your own words. I'm not I'm not putting words in mouth. I've known Burt talk about this. Ah, handful time and go from this thing. It's like, Okay, that could be a small fund thing to being this this really cool thing that it's like everybody who comes to l. A wants to do

this thing here. Yep. And it's helped shape me. And so as I take that break off from everything and I cut everything out, the experiences unfold. And that's what one of the things that I look at and I decided to absorb

nature boars a vacuum here, man.

And then from that, you guys started the concert series and you guys were hitting me up like, Hey, you know, you should do a show, right? And whatever you guys say or do, I'm like, whatever Airbnb says or do I'm like, Yeah, OK, but they were like they want me to do a show. What can I do? I don't know what I would do and then uncertain untrue Zama ble, which was something that I have been trying to figure out trying to do trying to put together didn't know how to do it. I own ah, 150 master tapes. So songs that were never released from the seventies and eighties that are played by all the greatest musicians in the world.

Oh, these are the ones you're saying you make money off of, but because they're not released. Correct? Yeah, correcting.

And I own the Masters like I was explaining earlier. So I own the master side. So I collect 100% of that revenue, and then I own half the publishing. So I collect 50% of the publishing and I own half the writer. So that 50% So I'm getting 75% of the pie every time that song is played, our license and the other person's getting and even 75% because it's uh huh. Whatever. I'm getting a large chunk of it. So I've been trying to get these songs out to people, right? I've been trying to get him to kind of trying to get him to Dre because this is what they do. They sample. I've got samples I own. You don't have to go through this whole rigmarole like you D'oh! To clear it with so need to get so need to clear with the publisher to get come to me. I can sign it off immediately.

So I'm like, this is the greatest idea. I got bells palsy because I got so close and then it would fall through. And I'm like, This is crazy. This is perfect. Like, why aren't people phone for? So Airbnb says he should do a concert to resign this concert, Siri's and what can I do? Like the unsure Zama ble. I've been playing this music and clubs and people like, What is this you're playing? I can't get it on my shoes, Sam. And I'm like,

Yeah, dawg, it's untrue, Zama. Bill, you can't mess with it. I said I'm gonna do My hunch is available show. And that's because I completely pulled back from everything and started to absorb only things that I thought that made sense. You know, if the entrees Amable show has more into getting to the people that I've been trying to get to act naturally. So instead of trying to force his way throat Now we got two or three different people James is running into saying, Hey, dude, this is really cool. You heard this. And then Boom.

And I've always known when the third person tells you something, you gotta listen. Then that person believes in it. So you can't have your wife and your sister. You know, you can't have your mom and dad say, you gotta check this out. It's got to be organically random, and that's when it starts to unfold. So they're being being

That's actually not not lying. That's how I angel investor. A big part of it is if I hear something three different times, like, Okay. All right. That's the thing. I've something I've gotta

check out. Yeah, So I'm I am living what I'm speaking, and I'm still fighting what I'm trying to get rid of. But at least I see it. I see the things that are infectious things that are are are not good. And I'm able to identify a lot quicker, and I'm able to get rid of it a lot quicker. I'm ableto I'm able to say, Why am I not feeling Oh, man, I can't do that. That's right. Push it off to the side huge. I feel so

good. Yeah, well, it's so good. Man and bird reference. Some were chatting about over lunch, right before recording of of this concept that, um that I remember here in a few years ago of just attachment is a virus, and you can re catch it. And you know, there is no there's no point of enlightenment where you're you just are beyond it or no point of success where you are beyond it. It is something like a virus that you you don't get vaccinated for, And the average I heard this the other day is crazy. The average American is subjected to 2800 advertisements a day. So it doesn't matter how mentally strong you are possible. You're Yeah, that is,

you can look it up 2800 advertising today. And no matter how mentally strong you are, anyone could be brainwashed by that. And that's just the advertisements. When you go on, get drinks with your friends and they're talking about any type of like something that gives you this foam. Oh, this kind of fear of like I'm not doing enough. You can You can get re infected by it, and it's requires kind of a daily, their daily meditation, daily, journaling or daily. Just moment in time. Off, you know,

a window time of 10 minutes each morning just to resend to yourself. Meditation. Yes, it is. It allows you to to re inoculate yourself from that virus, Cora. And if you go three weeks, I know for me. If I go three weeks of not doing that, if I could three days of not doing that it is. I'll read one thing. It sends me into a little bit of of a negative thought cycle that, like you said, you can get better at least at least observing. Oh, that's what's happening.

Wouldn't set that off. Oh, it was hearing from sewn so that that ex happened and it entered this attachment of negative thoughts cycle into my end, my brain. But yeah,

do you find when you meditate, like with the minute I'm done meditating? I'm like, jumping up, ready, doing the next thing, and I don't even realize it like I'm into the next thing. Like what? Well, how

did It is certainly an antidote to procrastination because, yeah, it's almost like you're purposely procrastinating by procrastinating. You like I'm gonna do nothing for 20 minutes. And yet nature voice vacuums like it makes you II do jump kind of up from from my morning meditation on I'm ready

It's crazy. The first time I noticed that all life this is a game changer.

It's pretty is pretty Damn, it's activating that

and the vision board to you start seeing stuff and then it starts arriving. You like while you got actually write it down and you start to believe it. I had one more health illness, I have to tell you that. Please. Um So speaking on my health issue three weeks ago, two or three weeks, about three weeks ago, my right leg swelled up 1/3 of the size. Bigger. I looked. I come out of the Charlotte, my ankle looks. I got cankles. I looked down on both sides and on my right leg is huge. Send a note to my doctor. I love the Cedars Sinai at,

by the way, you can just type a note and goes right to him. And he responded. Within three hours, I said he had my leg a swollen up. He said, Come in. So I came in four hours later, they do a scan. I got a blood clot behind my right knee. Like what the hell? What? I said, have you had surgery? They said no. Have you been on the planet?

And I've, you know, there's no no completely no reason. He puts me on eloquence. So now I want my fourth medication that I've seen a commercial for that I ignored my whole life. And I'm like, eloquence.

I've seen that commercial like, Well, wait a second. What did I turn into? A 65

year old, A fair person. And I went to the er hematologist, um, last Wednesday and she has no idea why it happened. So they ran all their tests. I'm having these things happen that they can't figure out they can't figure out my seizure. They can't be another life that we think it was a seizure. I'm on. Um um I've got hypertension, So my head, I get light headed out of nowhere right now. May I stand up and I get light headed? I exercise and my blood pressure was just dropping from 1 30 to 90. And it's been happening since college and no one's ever diagnosed it. And I've been hammering these doctors like, you know,

my I feel sick and nauseous. I get dry heaves when I do this, and I haven't really gotten answers, but I keep pressing him for it, which goes back to how when people are sick now they're just yanking their teeth out as opposed to dealing with it. I'm like dealing with it and dealing with it and not taking no for an answer and digging in. And I got to see a specialist on Cinco P, which is for hypertension, and he said, You know what? This medication will probably work for you. I've seen this happen before and he gave me a low dosage, and I've noticed that when I stand up, I don't feel lightheaded. And I'm saying, Wow,

I didn't realize that I felt lightheaded every time I stood up. This is completely changing. So you're talking through 100 and 87 days later is when I stopped drinking 187 days later, I stopped smoking 492 days ago. I'm still seeing little things pop up and it gets me depressed and I'm like fuck. This doesn't stop. When is this gonna stop? I don't. I'm working. But it's like now you haven't flushed it all out behind. You're still working it Blood clots. Not because they were just There's something going on. Still, you've got to keep fine tuning. And that's been a metaphor to me that I can't rest on my laurels when I think that I'm there. I'm not there. And this is ah, synonymous with life and how you need to live. You need to keep meditating, keep exercise and keep

going. There's no there. There

is no there. It's the there is. What do you do in the next moment?

Yeah, I have, uh, taken up a lot of your time today. Per, but, um So on that next moment I want you to be ableto get after, uh a, uh, What do you got going on for the rest of today? Thank you for for spending the time with with me. And I can't wait to hear some of the country's amable music next time in l. A.

You know, I got you. I want to thank you for bringing me out because thes air the things that I want to absorb that I have endless time for So when I get a call from you saying, Hey, I want to blow up balloons with you Water balloons,

I'm comin changed. Yeah. What?

You know, these are the things that I want to absorb. So I thank you very much for bringing me down. And, um yeah, it's really cool that you reached out that writ Really cool. I've going back to Airbnb. There's been it's been life changer. They've gotten a few people out of there that have been magnanimous, got rid of these old people and got some of real good

energy's. Well, speaking of the next moment, I want you to be ableto get out of your bird. But thank you so much for come down and sharing a little more your story with man

and the list. My pleasure. Thank you for having me got Let me release. This is part of my therapy.

Well, I got a free therapy session. Well, I did have to pay the therapist to 50 is part of mine as well. Thank you so much. I'm a good rest of Dan. Well, I look forward to down the side again. Awesome. All right. Later. All right. A friend's and listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you want to hear more of these types of conversations, go over to your favorite podcast, app and hit,

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