682 How to Succeed as a Creative Entrepreneur and Artist with Humble The Poet

“YOU CAN RIDE A WAVE OR YOU CAN START A WAVE.” If you don’t know Humble, he’s a Canadian spoken word artist and music video creator. His poetry is so powerful, even Apple used it on their commercials. He opened up with me on this episode about how being from a Sikh background, and the racism he’s faced, has both hurt and helped him in life. He also discusses some of the problems artists today face and how they they can overcome them. I really have to say that this is a powerful episode. You don’t have to be an artist to appreciate it. His knowledge and insights are important to anyone who is on the road to greatness, and anyone who wants to be a leader. So get ready to learn all about the power of words, on Episode 682. Some Questions I Ask: What’s your original name? (6:43) Why is it a lot of people hope something will solve the problem for us? (13:21) You can’t see positivity? (25:46) Why did being a minority help you as a teacher? (31:37) Do you think artists can be truly happy? (37:45) What’s your favorite line of a poem you wrote? (44:30) In This Episode You Will Learn: How long it took Humble to transition from being a school teacher to a full time artist (10:45) The biggest mistakes artists make (20:37) The struggles he faced with racism (28:57) Why today belongs to the weirdos (34:51) How often he writes poetry (42:36) A poem Humble wrote for his father (47:04) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 682 Poetry, Art, Music, and a Thriving Life with Humble the Poet. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Couple of quotes I wanted to share with you. One is by Robert Frost, who said, "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found words." Another one from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who said, "Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone."

• 0:53Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious, what is the message you're sharing with other people that is written in the heart of them? What are you saying? What are you sharing? What are you creating? How are you living your life? And how are you contributing to the hearts of others? Powerful episode today with my friend, Humble the Poet, former elementary school teacher, turned MC spoken word artist, who has created some amazing work, done a commercial with Apple, come out with multiple books, self-published, that's now traditionally published, and created inspiring videos that has reached millions of people.

• 1:34Lewis Howes?

  And he went from being a struggling, starving artist, to figuring out his way and how to make a full-time living and abundance of income through poetry, art, music, and ideas, shaping ideas into reality. And I think you're gonna get a lot out of this one, whether you're a freelancer, an entrepreneur, a business owner, an employee, you're unemployed, if you're an artist, an actor, you're gonna find so much wisdom in the words of Humble the Poet. If you enjoy it, make sure you share it with a friend. LewisHowes.com/68 As I know, there'll be many moments for you where you might gasp, take a breath,

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  and reflect on your life, on how you can take it to another level, to make sure that you write pure, powerful words on the hearts of everyone.

• 2:28Lewis Howes?

  And without further ado, let's dive into this one with Humble the Poet.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. My friend Humble the Poet is in the house.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:42Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you, man.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Glad you're here.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me, man.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  Of course. You are a former elementary school teacher with a different name. What's your original name?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  My name is Konwar Singh.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  Konwar Singh?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:55Lewis Howes?

  And then you changed it to Humble the Poet in 2010?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, about 2009. I was flirting with different art names because back then I was way too scared to like show my face and share my work. So I was like, okay.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  With your real name?

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was like, hey, I'll put it out. And then I was in a studio with a bunch of guys and I was like, I was thinking, hey, what if I use the name Humble the Poet? And everyone was like, that name is horrible.

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  That name is too long. It's not going to work on social media. It's just a bad name. Nobody in the room had anything nice to say. And my attitude towards that was like, alright, cool. If you guys don't like it, let me show you what I can do with it. I've always had that problem growing up.

• 3:31Lewis Howes?

  Prove them wrong.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Proving people wrong, yeah. I'm trying to grow out of that now, but.

• 3:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you know, it's funny you say that because that was my entire upbringing was to prove people wrong about what I was capable or not capable of doing. And that fire is the second most powerful fuel in the world. Proving other people wrong, proving your parents wrong, or whatever it may be. But for some reason, about four years ago, I learned to shift that energy into like, let me prove people right or lift others up.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  And do it from a place of love and inspiration.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  It's way more sustainable.

• 4:02Lewis Howes?

  Way more sustainable because I was getting burnt out from that mentality. It took me to a certain place.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  And I'm sure it drove you.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  It does drive you, but then at the same time, you start to realize many of these people who you're trying to prove wrong, they don't even exist.

• 4:14Lewis Howes?

  They don't matter.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  They don't matter. They don't exist.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  20 years ago or something.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they grew up. They're not that same person no more. And it's that voice that stuck with you, connected with something that you believed in your own head. And you're like, okay, well, you know, nobody can make you feel ugly unless you feel it yourself in the first place. So their words hold hands or something that you say inside yourself. And I realized that where I was like, it's not sustainable to, you know, prove. Many of these people wrong, many of these people, you know, they weren't even that bad when they said certain things. So even when these guys are saying my name, there was still some constructive criticism there. They're still like, hey, this might be too difficult to work with. But yeah, throughout my journey, people have given me couches to sleep on, people have put money in my pocket. And I feel like people have let me stay in their homes, you know, just like Lily. And I was like, proving these people right will always keep my flame alive.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  And I think it's a healthier energy and it's way more sustainable.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How have you transitioned from being a schoolteacher to a full-time artist? Let's say, because you do music, you do poetry. You do, what else do you do?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  I design clothes.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  You design clothes, create love, don't find it.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:19Lewis Howes?

  How do you make money as an artist and as a poet?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  It's an interesting thing that you ask because it's not every art will make you money. I think one of my favorite quotes is, "Some art will feed your kids, some art will feed your soul." So make sure you know the difference and rarely are they going to be the same thing. So for me, I think in the beginning.

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  And if they can be the same thing, that's beautiful, right?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Oh, fantastic.

• 5:43Lewis Howes?

  Then you've hit it.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Then you've hit it, but you still have to be mindful that we don't live in this happily ever after world. So if you find that balance, balance isn't one time achieved and you're good. You know, it's always going to be a constant thing that we got to focus on. So if you are passionate and enthusiastic about something and then you find a way to earn money doing it, that's great, but at some point, it may still turn into a job. At some point, you may start focusing more on the process instead of the content. And I think we've seen that in history quite a few times. I'm trying to be very cognizant of that as well. For me specifically, in terms of making money, it was hand-to-fist journey for me. In the beginning, I quit my job thinking I had a record deal. So I was working as a teacher. I was making good money as a government job. In Canada, they pay them pretty well.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I told myself, art was just a hobby. Art was a way to impress girls. Art was a good thing to do after work. And somebody came to me with a writing deal that would have been worth twice what I was making as a teacher. I was like, this is perfect. Quit the job immediately, didn't know anything about lawyers, paperwork, nothing. Left my job, moved into a condo that I had as a rental property. So I was a responsible adult before all of this. I moved into that, started working on this music. And then a year later, everything fell through. No money came, nothing happened. A lot of it was my wishful thinking, me having my blinders on, not seeing the warning signs, not realizing how shady the people I was working with actually were. And then that's when I hit the point where I was like, okay, it's been a year.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  You are, you know, eighty thousand dollars in debt. You don't have any money, you don't know how to make any money. All your credit cards, line of credit, everything's maxed out. Wow. You're gonna go back to work, what are you going to do? And then at that point is when my real journey began. What year was this? This was the end of twenty eleven. And so that's when it began, the journey of what? I guess my relationship with reality. So no longer was I insulated. I think being a student and going straight into a school. I was working and living in a very safe environment. As a school teacher, all your colleagues are on your team. There's no competition, you know, you're not being paid in comparison to anybody else. You're on a pay grade for your years and experience. Everybody had my back because the priority were the kids.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  So if I showed up late after lunch or something, somebody would be watching my students. So it felt very safe. You felt like everybody had your back. And then you jump into entertainment and the first people to recognize your talents are the people who are like, how can I benefit off this talent? So I had never been exploited up until then. I was a little bit sheltered in terms of mindset, in terms of trusting people. So after I got that first burn, it was kind of this, I felt like I was suffocating on fresh air for the first time, like my bubble burst and I didn't know what to do. And there was a lot of self pity for a couple of months. There was a lot of uh. You know, I turned to, my best friends were NyQuil and muscle relaxers. And I literally thought sleeping it off would, it would all fix itself.

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  When we have problems, we pretty much have three ways to address it. I think we can most realistically humble ourselves, take a step back and figure out the problem. B, ignore it, deal with the consequences. Or C, we pray for a miracle. Whether that's winning the lottery, whether that's, I think in terms of our environment, that's hoping science fixes it all up. So I think for me, I was hoping for the miracle to come. And what was really happening was I was doing nothing and I was digging myself deeper in a hole.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Why is it that a lot of people hope that some, something or someone or will solve the problems for us?

• 9:17Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's what we grew up seeing on TV. I think everything was neatly wrapped up in a boa after 22 minutes. Everything always had a happy ending or it was resolved.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  This is my challenge, and I don't know if I'm gonna piss anyone off by saying this, but this is, I see people saying this sometimes, uh, using either religion or God as a scapegoat, saying, "I'm gonna pray that God has got to solve all my problems." And I'm all for prayer and I'm all for connecting to, you know, God or gods or whatever you believe in.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  But you also have to take action. You have to, you also have to do the work. You can't just say, "Well, God's gonna give me the lottery ticket or God's gonna place the right person in front of me." God might, or the universe might, but if you don't get off the couch and if you don't start working towards something, then probably nothing's gonna unfold to you. Am I right?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's a popular notion where it's like, give God the credit when things go well, but then take the responsibility when things don't. And I think that seems to be the popular notion. And I recently tweeted, I said, "Hey, you know, for those who believe, what if you believe that you've been given the tools, you've been given the gifts, now you gotta use them? Maybe you got the hammer in your hand, praying isn't gonna get you to use it."

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  The treasure is already right in front of us, or it's within us, right? Paulo Coelho would say that in The Alchemist. Like, all the things we have is right here. And we just have to learn how to cultivate it and use it.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:39Lewis Howes?

  That's the challenge, though. I feel like so many people are waiting for their parents, or God, or whatever, to put something in their lap.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  And I think it has a lot to do with, you know, having these entitlements and these comforts. And I think that that one quote about, you know, you don't know how strong, you're like a teabag, you don't know how strong you are until you're in hot water.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  And I think for me, I had to hit that rock bottom. And I know the, one of the changing points for me was I used to sleep with music playing. And then I heard, while the music was playing, and then in the morning, one morning, J. Cole's Dollar in a Dream, Part Three came on. And he says, he goes, "What are you gonna do? Are you gonna grow bitter or grow cold? Or are you gonna rise out of this?" And that immediately got me out of bed. And I remember printing all these messages on paper and sticking them all over my walls. And none of them were like fluffy Tumblr quotes. They were all like, sink or swim. You don't make any of the shots you don't take. You want a vacation, go back to your day job. You can do this. Show me what you're made of. And it really was for me, I talked to myself to like, suck it up. No one's gonna solve your problems.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Even if you didn't put yourself in this situation, it's still your responsibility to address it. And I think that's the big one people need to understand is, our problems may not be our fault, but they are our responsibility. And I think once I owned that responsibility and said, "Look, here are your options." And a lot of the options, none of them were groundbreaking thoughts, like,

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  It was, "You need to sell this place. You need to get out of debt. You're gonna have to move back home with mommy and daddy for a bit. You're gonna have to lick your wounds and figure this out and build yourself back up." And the journey of 2012 to about 2015, 2016, that's what that journey was, of figuring it all out. And I'm so glad I went through that. It taught me what was really important for myself. It taught me how to, how to live much more minimally. Realized most of the stuff I didn't need. Even now, things are going really well. I still live my struggling artist budget.

• 12:32Lewis Howes?

  Lifestyle, yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you live that, because you're like, "Oh, I really don't need half of those things." And then things start to find you anyways. You start to get free clothes, you start to get free things as an influencer, or what have you.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  Trips, whatever, yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, trips and everything as well. And then you start to realize like, wow, you know, I don't need a full closet full of clothes. I don't need 18 pairs of shoes. Me specifically, if other people enjoy it, by all means. But it taught me a lot about what was important. And I think- The big thing what it taught me was the value of my time. How I spend my time is more important than anything else in the world. I think that's the most important, because you can't make time back. We can always make our money back. And from that point, it was, you know, it was sucking it up. You know, lacing up my bootstraps or whatever the sayings are. And I, I pretty much first identified the problems, which was I had a lot of bills that I couldn't afford to pay. I didn't even have the option of going deeper in debt.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Everything was maxed out. I needed to liquidate. So I went on Craigslist and sold everything that I could. At that point, once I liquidated all that, then I sold my place.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  I paid back all my personal loans first. There were a lot of people that, you know, they believed in me.

• 13:40Lewis Howes?

  Give you a hundred, few hundred here, a couple of thousands.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And my big thing was I didn't want to be that guy who borrowed money from people and avoided them. So once I, I realized in this situation, I called everybody, said, listen, I don't have your money right now, but I will get you your money. I am not going to avoid you. I am letting you know this is my situation and I owned up to it.

• 13:58Lewis Howes?

  That's the hardest thing to do for people.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  It is.

• 14:00Lewis Howes?

  Is to confront the people that loaned them money.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  When they've passed the due date of paying it back, right?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  It's like, uh, I don't want to talk to this person because I can't.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Because it gets, it gets a little bit awkward. And I, but the thing, the truth was I didn't have any options. It, it wasn't that I could have done anything. I had to still figure it out. I'm proud to say I did pay everybody back and then eventually the bank got their money too. You know, they were last and I think I got out of debt end of 2014. So it took about three, four years to get out. And then I had fueled myself for those three, four years. Oh, it's going to feel so good when you have that zero bank account. It's going to feel so good.

• 14:35Lewis Howes?

  And then what?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  It felt good for like three days.

• 14:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  And then you're like, all right, what's next?

• 14:39Lewis Howes?

  Now I gotta make money.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta make money.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  Now I'm at zero.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  I'm at zero, yeah.

• 14:44Lewis Howes?

  Now what do I do?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Now what do I do? But I think the good thing was whatever I did to get to zero, I kind of maintained that. I, I mean, I, I didn't start spending money and buying jewelry and stuff like that. I maintained that lifestyle. And to be honest, by the end of 2015, I had a pretty juicy bank account from just, you know, small pieces of work. But what I also realized is all these years I'd been planting seeds. I had written my first book independently. I crowdfunded it. And I put it out to my followers. I had about 60,000 followers on Facebook back then. But back then, when you had 60,000 followers.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  They all saw it.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  They all saw it. It's not like Facebook now where you can have a million followers and like eight people see what you post. But they all saw it and I raised about twenty-five grand of doing the first book. And that really taught me a lot about putting myself out there, making myself vulnerable, asking for help, connecting with people. And I think that was the pivotal moment where things started to spiral upwards. From there, different opportunities came, meeting different people, and you start to realize that, hey, we don't need everything immediately. Like, you know, people may know, we've been friends for a while. This is my first time on the show, but we've been hanging out. And I think that's the important thing where I started focusing a lot more on the rainbow and not thinking about the pot of gold. And really thinking that, hey, I need to enjoy this journey now while I'm on it.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  And go back to what made me excited about it since I was a kid, spending hours behind my computer editing videos with no audience, with no idea if even I was gonna share it with the world. And really just trying to reconnect with that person, because that keeps things as authentic as they need to be. What are the biggest mistakes you see that poets or artists and creatives in general do? I think the number one thing is I think we have to be a lot more honest with ourselves. We can't start acting a little bit high and mighty and be like, hey, this is all about helping other people. Sometimes it is about us. It's about getting attention, you know? There is a business involved in this, you know, we're trying to get our followers. We're in an attention economy. And there are different tricks and tools that you can do to get attention. And I think, I'm not here to judge people for what they do to get attention,

• 16:45Speaker 01

  but I think it's important that they understand why they're making the decisions that they're making. So if I got a cool poem, but I'm still putting some girl's cleavage in my thumbnail to get people to watch it, I have to at least be honest with myself about that. Because it is, you know, I'm in L.A. I understand. You gotta do what you have to do to get attention. And I think often I, people reach out to me, they're like, oh, I need to make a difference. I need to change people. I need you to help me reach a larger audience. And I think to myself, if you really want to make a change, you can join somebody's movement. The fact that you want to lead a movement makes it about something more. And Tony Robbins talks about all of us have that need for significance. So I have compassion towards them for wanting that significance. We all want it. There's just healthier ways of getting it.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Because I feel that if you're chasing fame, just like when I was chasing being debt-free, I wasn't simply visualizing it, I was emotionalizing it. I was promising myself a certain feeling when I hit it. And I can promise you, and I know you've experienced this too. We rarely accurately can predict the emotions we're gonna feel when we hit a certain milestone. And how long it's gonna last. So getting out of debt felt great for a couple of days, then I was back to the next thing. You know, hitting certain other things in my bank account felt good. You know, I just signed a major publishing deal, felt great for a couple of days. You know, I was in Apple commercial, a whole bunch of things that happened. And you're like, oh my God, this is gonna be the greatest thing ever. And it only lasts for a short amount of time. And I think that's really important for people to recognize.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  If you put all your hopes and dreams into these big moments that last little moments, you know, little bits of time, then you're gonna be disappointed.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 18:19Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna feel depressed, you'll be like, oh, I thought this was the end all be all. It was like the pot of gold. But really, as the saying goes, it's all about enjoying the journey. And I think that's what I've learned to appreciate over time is like, I'm in the middle of a talk show that just came out.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, congratulations, man, that's really good.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. And it's been like a year and a half, two years in the making, you know? So it's like, you think when it launches, it's gonna be this like unbelievable feeling, I did it, like it happened. And yes, but also now's the time to work even harder.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:48Lewis Howes?

  It's out, now there's a whole, that's when it begins, the journey. The promotion, the marketing, the working to get it picked up, all those things.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Completely, yeah. And the thing you have to also realize is your real reward in the game of entrepreneurship or in the game of living a life through your own terms, the real reward is more opportunities.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  It's not a juicy check, it's not gonna be a private jet. It's gonna be more opportunities to do the things that excite you.

• 19:13Lewis Howes?

  Freedom, flexibility, all those things.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Freedom, flexibility.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  And the real reward for me has been stories of people that are impacted by the work. And I'm sure you get that a lot too, when you come out with a song or a book or a video, and it resonates so deeply with someone's struggles or challenges, and they feel either relief or they feel a sense of... Power moving forward, or it helps them overcome something. For me, that's where I get the reward.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Like, that's more than the paycheck.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  It's interesting you brought that up, because I think what you actually caused me to do is have a little bit of an existential crisis. Because after hanging out with you and realizing.

• 19:48Lewis Howes?

  What happened?

• 19:50Speaker 01

  I remember once we were talking about metrics in terms of success, and you said, "I want to see how many people I can impact." I think a lot of the content that I create around self-help actually came from me needing to figure it out for myself.

• 20:02Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  So when I was in the dumps, I couldn't afford a fluffy Tumblr quote. I couldn't afford some empty affirmation. I can only afford to consume the realness and pragmatic advice. And as a student, as a lifelong learner, I loved sharing my notes with the world. And that's kind of where these books and my Instagram posts came from. They came from that space more so than a space of, "I need to help certain people, I need to do certain things." And when you made that metrics, I was like, "Wow, Lewis, I need people to know, Lewis really cares about you guys." He cares about you guys, you guys get him up in the morning. And I think for me, I had to be honest with myself and say, "I do care about people, I want to help people."

• 20:44Speaker 01

  But as I had to do, as you had to do, and most people that we know who are selling at a higher level, is there's only so much we can help, and people have to.

• 20:54Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Show them the door, they gotta walk through it.

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  And I think for me, I started to realize when I started getting these messages about, "Oh, you've helped me do so and so." It kind of, I'd already prepped myself as an artist to kind of have thicker skin for the negativity, and that thick skin keeps out the positivity as well.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, really?

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:11Lewis Howes?

  So you don't see the positivity?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Well, I kind of look at the opinions of other people a little bit more as white noise, whether it's negative or positive. Because I grew up with racism, I grew up, you know, getting comments as, "Why is Osama rapping, what's happening?" And having thick skin in the neighborhood I grew up in as well, you need a little bit thicker skin. My friends, they're all jerks, we all tease each other a lot, what have you. So I think I always used to measure, even when hate came my way, I used to measure it through the wit. Like, is this a witty joke? Was I worthy of something funny for them to say? So even when the positivity came, and I think when I was struggling, a lot of it had to do with reading a positive comment and knowing that I was struggling, being like, "Well..." Your love and affection and kind words aren't paying my bills right now. And really kind of being in that pragmatic space. Now that things are better, kind of realizing that a lot of it is

• 21:57Speaker 01

  a little bit more white noise than I want it to be. And I think specifically talking to you and Jay Shetty. And seeing it in your eyes, how much connecting with people has been fantastic. And I was like, wow, there's so much more sincere and authentic in it. And that made me really question myself, what I wanted to do and why I was doing it. And I think it was healthy for me to be honest with myself about that and be like, look, I, what keeps me going is the creativity of it. The reason my content has this feel of self-help or self-improvement is because those are timeless ideas. The same way Bob Marley or Lauryn Hill or, you know, even the Beatles wrote certain types of content that it will stand the test of time because it's talking about the human condition.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  And when I first started, I was heavy into activism. And then you start digging deeper. You're like, okay, instead of talking about this greedy country or this greedy government, let's talk about greed. And then now let's talk about the greed inside of me. And I think I took that journey a little bit more. And so I think, and I also kind of understood the idea that as an artist, once you put your work out there, it's no longer yours. So people interpret your work as they interpret it. It becomes theirs. It becomes theirs. And that has a lot to do with their context. And comedians have talked about it. If a comedian makes a joke about rape or murder, for example, if somebody in the audience has experienced that, they're not going to enjoy that conversation as much as other people. So you realize that I'm only half the conversation. Once I'm out there, once my words are out there, I can't take them back and I can't control it.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  So I think I've kind of had a little bit of a divorce from my work and the audience and that context. And I was like, hey, you know what? Let me continue to learn and continue to share. But I don't think, you know, the messages that I get, and I'm grateful for them. And I do, I just got a message yesterday saying, you know, I wanted to harm myself and your words stopped me from doing so. When I was younger, I wanted to harm myself too, and it was somebody else's words that did it. So I guess I feel like I'm just part of a grander system and I want to help people. But I think on a selfish level, it's really about the creativity, learning new things, the access to really cool people that this life affords me and. Adding value, and I think adding value whether people see it today or not. Because for a long time, nobody was seeing what I was doing, and I had to keep going.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  And I think I'm trying to maintain that mindset.

• 24:12Lewis Howes?

  That's great. Do you face a lot of challenges and struggles with racism or based on the way you look? Or anything, your appearance for people?

• 24:21Speaker 01

  I mean, overall, I wanna say yes, but it's been such a double edged sword. It's, you know, growing up, it was a lot more difficult, but I think it definitely built character. And I'm glad it happened, I think.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  And for those that aren't watching the YouTube.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I have a very juicy beard and I wear a turban. And I know, I am Punjabi, which is a North Indian. And a lot of people think that I'm Middle Eastern or Muslim, which I'm not. So I'm part of Sikh heritage. Sikh means student.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  Sikh, right?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  It's Sikh. A lot of people say Sikh.

• 24:50Lewis Howes?

  But it's spelled?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  S I K H.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  S I K H?

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  Sikh is how you?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Sikh in Punjabi means to learn. So Sikh is a student. We represent 2% of India. And we're a martial group of people. We have a philosophy of chasing the truth, understanding yourself, understanding everybody as one. And pretty much, we're considered saint soldiers, so we're not the most passive people. We're, you know, we have to learn martial arts. We're not the most passive aggressive individuals, but it's been a cool journey. And so kind of realizing that, you know, coming out to LA and learning words like safe space. I grew up where we thrive in the opposite. You know, we've always been, so I'm the minority in my home country where my parents, I was born in Canada, but

• 25:37Speaker 01

  I'm a minority in Toronto. I'm a minority where my parents were born in Punjab. I'm a minority anywhere I go. So that's been my reality. I couldn't even imagine being in a world where I was part of the majority.

• 25:47Lewis Howes?

  And I think. How's it feel? Or how are you affected by it?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Um, I see the benefits of it. I think when your identity is challenged regularly, you actually have to own it. So I'm not who I am because somebody told me to be this way. I am who I am because. I had to think about it. People challenged me. People like, why are you looking like that? You're not gonna get any girls if you look like that. You're not gonna get any opportunities if you look like that. And for me to be like, well, no, this is who I feel most comfortable being. This is, this is, this is my heritage. This is what masculinity, how I understand masculinity to be, growing up. And Will Smith said it. He goes, you know, you give it power, you give racism power when you acknowledge it sometimes. So, you know, work through it, work around it, smash a hole in it, do whatever you have to do. And I think as well, as the story played out long enough, where I saw the benefits.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  As a teacher, being a visible minority really helped me out, especially as an elementary school teacher.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Um, they needed the numbers. Elementary schools don't have a lot of males, even less males of, you know, different ethnicities. So I definitely got preferential.

• 26:48Lewis Howes?

  So it was an advantage for you?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  It was an advantage. I think in the Trump world, it's an advantage. I think what a lot of people need to acknowledge is Trump encouraged a lot of underrepresented people to find a backbone and stand up for themselves.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, now, now minorities have more of a voice than ever.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  They've, they've had to find that voice.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  And I think that's an important thing that, you know, maybe we should send him a fruit basket for it. Because he created conditions where we had to find our voice and realize that, hey, no one else is gonna take care of us. We have to do it on our own.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Let's stand up, let's make, let's shout it out on social media, let's form groups, let's collectively come up with ideas and how we can combat this or...

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Completely. And so for me, I think I've, I've received opportunities because of that.

• 27:28Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. You've got an Apple commercial.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Got an app, started an Apple commercial for, the first iPhone commercial in Canada, that was shot just for Canada, yeah. And celebrating the 150th birthday.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  Because I feel like more than ever, we're celebrating diversity and inclusion of diversity in general in our society, wouldn't you say?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  I, I think definitely, and I think being from Toronto, which is one of the most diverse places on the planet, even when I did the Apple commercial, it was really interesting. One of the things they said to me was, we have three... Three restraints that we kind of want you to work around. We said, you know, you're celebrating Canada, so we don't want you to get stereotypical. So no poutine, no Mounties. We don't want you.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  Loonies and tunnies.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Loonies and tunnies. Don't get stereotypical, maple syrup. The second one was, um, don't take a dump on the US. You know, many Canadians identify themselves as being not American. Uh, we don't want any of that in your work. And the third one, which I thought was the most interesting, is don't lean on diversity.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  Don't lean on it.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't lean on multiculturalism. We've, we've had that.

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  We are multicultural.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  We've had it for twenty, thirty years now.

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  We are multicultural.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we are. So don't, don't lean on that. Now, write a poem and celebrate Canada. And I was like, damn, they took out all the good stuff. And I remember going to a party and I was at this party and I realized that the diversity extended beyond ethnicity. So I saw an East Asian guy who looked like a punk rocker. And then I saw another East Asian guy who looked like he was, uh, you know, a young professional. And then you see another East Asian guy who was a hipster. And you realize that once people are allowed to be how they were born, their ethnicity, now they also have the freedom to be what they want, the archetype. You know, and I think LA is a really good example of that. You walk down the street.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Everyone.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Everyone's a different, you know.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  Different character.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I know my father, he gets always worried about me coming to the States because he thinks it's all Trump country and I'm gonna get a hate crime. And I was like, listen dad, I can walk down the street in LA with a bright blue turban, wearing a bikini, no one's looking at me. Because there's always seven other people who are much louder than me on these streets. And I love that. I love the archetype. I love when people get to decide how they're gonna be diverse. And I think that's where we need to be heading now. And I think the city of Toronto is like that right now.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  I think this is your quote where you said, don't be realistic, don't play the popularity game, and don't chase trends. Today belongs to the weirdos, the creatives, the introverts, the beardos, and everyone else who doesn't fit in. That seems to be the opposite of most popular branding advice. Why do you believe this?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  I think it's also kind of, you know, what we were talking about a little bit earlier, there's you can, you can ride a wave or you can start a wave. And as an artist who is now working on slower, you know, slow cooked work. That takes a lot longer. Deeper work. Deeper work. I'm not focused as much on my process. I'm not trying to release something once a week. I'm not trying to release something on a schedule. I'm trying to get stuff to a point that I'm proud of and getting it done. And that's when, as an artist, I have the ability to bring something new to the world. I think one of the main challenges and the importance of artists is we're here to create new ideas that the world hasn't experienced yet. And those ideas influence the entire planet. You know, you watch a movie from the seventies and eighties that depict the future. We pick up off of that, whether it's video phones, whether it's

• 30:39Speaker 01

  architecture, whether it's the style of cars. You know, I feel like Elon Musk. Flying cars. Yeah, flying cars. Elon Musk, I feel, is just like completely influenced by whatever movies he saw as a kid when he's designing these Tesla cars. Even their features or what have you. And I think as artists, it's really important that we understand that we're here to contribute something, not just to add to the noise. So if there's a current trend and we're just riding these trends, we're not really contributing. And our biggest resistance comes from people who value the past. These people are called fundamentalists, but fundamentalism isn't just religion. There's fundamentalists in sports, people arguing should soccer have instant replays? Uh, should hockey have a thicker blue line? You know, should basketball allow seventeen year olds to play?

• 31:23Speaker 01

  And people like, hey, it wasn't like that before, don't change it. People who value the past. They are the biggest source of resistance to an artist who's trying to bring in new idea. And I think that's why it's so important for us to have these guys like Kanye West, because he is the guinea pig for the ultimate artist. He's like, look, this guy is saying anything he feels at any given moment in time. Nobody's saying he's always right, but everybody can say that he's free to say it and think it. And he's kind of showing the world that, hey, look, I'm doing it. And what are the real consequences of me doing it? I still have a business, I still have my family. That may not be on everybody's Christmas list, but you're kind of signing up for that when you're an artist. Really? Yeah. When you plug yourself into society and you stick to the template, your biggest challenge is going to be boredom.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  And I think, you know, consumerism gives us a lot of stuff to kind of occupy ourselves. When you unplug yourself and you take the entrepreneurial ship, you live life by your own terms, your biggest challenge is going to be isolation. Yeah. You're going to feel a little bit lonely. Do you think artists can be truly happy? I don't think happiness should be anybody's goal. I don't think there's any value that actually comes from happiness.

• 32:29Lewis Howes?

  What should be the goal?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Stimulation, experience, growth, contribution. We grow when we learn and as Bill Gates said, success is a lousy teacher. So we learn from everything that is the opposite of happiness. And when we learn and we grow, that's when we're able to contribute and add back. And I think for me personally, I want to to give this world more than I took from it before I leave. And I'm not gonna get that being happy. And happy happiness isn't a sustainable idea.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  Cause you gotta be in some type of challenge or trying something that you fail at in order to grow. Cause that's where you can give back.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. You gotta rip the muscles for them to grow back stronger. And I think that's the same with your artistic muscles, that's the same with with your with your life. So I think in the beginning, a lot, including your story, my story, is in the beginning, it is we are living an uncomfortable situation that was not by choice. And we slowly crawled, dug and fought to find light at the end of the tunnel. And then we made it out. And I think the difference after that is, did we go and start searching for more uncomfortable situations to be in? Cause they may never find us anymore. We gotta find them ourselves. Some people get comfortable, take a lifelong vacation and their story rides out. I think for folks like you and I, we're like, well, what's the new challenge?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  It may not find us, we have to find it. How do I empty my bank account and put it into something and invest into something, invest into myself? How do I take risks? How do I get that feeling that I used to get on a roller coaster in life? How do I create that for myself? And I think, how do I find problems that I'm excited to solve? Cause I think that's the other thing. There's no such thing as a life without problems. We just gotta find a life.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  Unless you're just playing it safe and not trying anything.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Even then, well, the problems come from that, you know, you know, atrophy. We get, we get, our life can have atrophy. So I feel like instead, let's find problems that we wanna solve. And I think, you know, most of our conversation, I recently hit you up about, you know, marketing and investing and stuff like that. And learning, you know, where can I spend my money? How can I do these things? I could just leave it in, you know, I was afraid of going broke for the longest time after I made money. That I had just a very simple savings account.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  You just saved it all, put it on one account.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  It's all in one account.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that funny, the challenge is, okay, I'm in debt, I need to go to even. Then you get to that, you solve one problem, then you're like, okay, now I don't want to be broke anymore.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  I need to make money, and then you get good at making money, but then it's just in a savings account. And you say, well, this is just sitting here not making me any money.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  So how do I invest it? And you have to learn a whole new game. And then it's like, okay, I'm making all this money, now there's all these taxes.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  How do I save from like, all that structure? So, there's always a new challenge when you grow.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think we need to look forward to those challenges. I think those challenges in themselves should be our markers for success. I personally am not trying to be goal oriented anymore. I'm trying to be more habit oriented. So, what direction do I want to head? Well, I want to, I want to have a business that continues to earn. I don't care if I hit a million or 10 million, I just want to be earning. So, you know, if I'm making more this year than I made last year, then I'm on the right path. And let's maintain that as a sustainable model moving forward. Versus kind of propping up the idea like, oh, when I hit my first million, because I already did that with the debt. You know, oh, when I get out of debt, I'm gonna feel a certain way. So, hitting other markers, I know they're gonna feel a certain way. I think there's actually a study that came out that said, you know, if you're making, I think they said for a major city,

• 35:59Speaker 01

  if you make over seventy-five thousand dollars, your well-being and happiness is no different from seventy-five to like five billion. Because, at the end of the day, once your basic needs are met and you're out of the struggle phase, what's next? I challenge my followers, I have a post coming up soon, where I challenge them to say, hey, you won ten million in the bank. After you won the ten million, a year has gone by. So now, let's take out that, I'm gonna buy my mama a house, I'm gonna buy this car, I'm gonna travel the world. Let's get that out of your system, a year has gone by, what does your day look like? What does your life look like? How are you spending your time now? Now that you've gotten all that out of your system, that's the life that you should be wanting to live. And most of that doesn't really take a lot of money, you know, on a daily basis.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  How, what's your day to day gonna look like? What are you gonna be eating? How are you gonna be spending your time? Who are you gonna be spending your time with? And a lot of that, I don't feel it has a lot to do with money. It's gonna have a lot to do with how we spend our time and what we think is really important.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  How often are you writing poems? Interestingly enough- Or poetry in general? Poetry in general is not happening as much as I want it to happen. I'm working on a book right now. My deadline is the end of October. But it has made me realize that, you know, before I got into the world, the literary world, and I was just rapping and writing spoken word poetry, that was my only mode of communication. So if something frustrated me in the world and I wanted to write about it, it had to be written in rhyme. It had to be. Really? Which is a lot more work than writing a pro. Once I got into writing books and finding success with it, I realized I'm doing less work but getting more success. And that really almost kind of got me into this corner of being a little bit lazier. I've become more aware of that now, so now I've had to set it.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  So I have a daily goal right now of a thousand words per day. And I see on my Instagram, I mark it down. I have a calendar, a little calendar printed off off the internet. And every day on my Instagram story, I put the X if I get it. Oh, that's cool. And if I don't do it, I put a little sad face. So it's my accountability with the audience. A lot of people have hit me up saying they're doing it for healthy eating. They're doing it for the gym now. So my goal is once I hit the deadline and submit my manuscript, that's also when, you know, you publish the book, that's when the second payment comes in. So I'm like, all right, after that, I'm gonna maintain it. Just the same way I was saving to get out of debt, I didn't change my spending habits after I got out of debt. I have a lifestyle that's allowing me to write this book. Once I'm done the book, I'm gonna convert that into 16 bars.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  And write poetry, write rhymes every day. Because I think creating that from an artistic level is some of the most exciting stuff that I've done. What's your favorite line or paragraph of a poem that you've written? Most recently, the one that's been sticking with me is actually the one I wrote for Apple, which is, "We see ourselves in the stories of others, but free ourselves writing our own." And I feel like storytelling is this thread that we can all have to connect with each other and also connect with ourselves. And I think the second we have a healthier way of connecting with ourselves, we can have a better relationship with the rest of the world. Because once we start to see ourselves and be forgiving of some of the things that we may, the world has told us isn't cool.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  It's not cool if you didn't, if you're not productive. It's not cool if you didn't hustle hard today. If you give yourself a little bit of compassion for that, then it'll allow you to have compassion for the rest of the world the same way. And I think most recently, learning the idea that all humans need to feel connection. And the fast food potato chip version of connection is like social media, but also self pity. Feeling sorry for ourselves is the easiest way we can feel connected. Cause what I'll do is like, nobody understands me. Nobody understands what I'm going through. Louis doesn't understand, she doesn't understand. I've isolated myself from you guys, but at the same time strengthened my connection with myself. But just like eating a lot of McDonald's, it's not sustainable.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And eventually, you know, there'll be negative impacts of having that. And kind of challenging people to say, look, it's, you know, and as, as you've said, and it's stuck in my head. Good things happen when we delay gratification. It's true. Self pity is instant gratification for connection. Social media is instant gratification for connection. And if we say, hey, let me limit my social media, let me limit my self pity and focus on more long-term ways to feel connection. Connection with human beings, connection with people in the world, connection with strangers, connections with our families, which are a lot more work, but are a lot more sustainable in the long run. Yeah, yeah. Do you have like a 30 second, one minute poem you can share that you ever memorized?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  A 30 second, one minute poem that I have memorized? Okay, yeah, I have one. So this one was written for my father. My father was a, my father had a master's degree in economics in university in India. But when he came to Canada in the seventies, he didn't have the option of, of using that education. So he became a cab driver. So I wrote a poem called Life of an Immigrant. They told him the grass was greener with an endless flood of possibilities. Katrina watched him drown in debt. Land confiscated by the local government. So he flies high in the jet plane. Plain clothes just exposed them to the harsh winters of life. But his wife won't know about the sweat soaked in the bank notes sent home. Boy getting grown, he starts to groan. Soms is rumbling, hungry for a better life.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Now he's stumbling over foreign phonetics in those verb tenses. They laughing at his accent. It's not an accident though, that his master's in economics isn't honored. Most economic for a father to hop his ass in a cab and never bother getting out. That car or his dreams, memorize the route and collect the fare. It isn't fair when they say you don't belong here with that long beard and that towel around your head. Hear what was said, soaking the hate. Can you relate? Life of an immigrant.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Love it, my man.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother.

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  We've got two final questions for you. Before we ask those, where can we connect with you online? How can we get your books? Where can we follow you?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  So it's Humble the Poet on all social media. Most active on Instagram, trying to add value to the world and make people smile. Everything I do is on my website, humblethe poet dot com. So many cool projects working out, so.

• 42:16Lewis Howes?

  YouTube channel as well, right?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  YouTube channel, so I also am a filmmaker and I make music videos that take me a long time. Super, they're my babies and that's where all the money I make, I kind of pour into them and I kind of create these and the goal is again, make new ideas and bring things to the space that haven't existed yet. And I grew up on a lot of amazing rappers, but a lot of beautiful visuals. So if you remember all the hype Williams stuff, so like every Missy Elliott video you've ever seen, every Busta Rhymes video you've ever seen, they're always larger than life and I'm really trying to bring that back. So I've been self-funding my own music videos and really kind of shooting some cool stuff.

• 42:54Lewis Howes?

  It's great, man. And the next book comes out?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Oh, depending on where you are in the world, it's very different. So my book, Unlearned, has just become a bestseller in Canada and I just got picked up by Harper here and we're doing a redesign for that, so that's probably coming out in the spring. And the book I'm writing right now, which I don't have a title for, should be coming out at the end of next year. So that's gonna be my major publication debut. Yeah, and then, but you can find my stuff right now on Amazon before I signed a contract and they make me take it off.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly. This is called the three truths question we ask everyone at the end. If this was the last day for you and you'd achieved everything you wanted in your life, let's say it's a hundred years from now, but you've gotta go on, your body's gotta leave the earth, it's time to pass on. But it's a celebration, you've got everything you want, you've done everything you wanted to do, but for whatever reason you gotta take all your work with you. So no one has access to the videos, the poetry, the books, it all goes with you. And you could share three final lessons with the world. And this is what they would have to remember you by. Three truths or lessons, what would you say are your truths?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  The first truth is, you know, everyone tells us to be ourselves, but we can't be ourselves if we don't know ourselves. So really spend time, put it in your calendar, half an hour a day, just to figure out who you are, you know? And if you consider that sitting quietly in a room and meditating, by all means, if it's going for a long walk, do that. If it's going into the middle of the desert and taking some funny drug and figuring out that way, whatever you consider self-exploration is, please do it. It'll help you understand yourself and be yourself and connect with the rest of the world. Never run away from discomfort. Never run away from discomfort. Discomfort is your friend. All good things happen outside your comfort zone. So leave it slowly, but surely,

• 44:46Speaker 01

  but never run away from discomfort or uncomfortable situations. And I think last is, you know, I think the quote is, we overestimate what we can do in a day and we underestimate what we can do in a year. So I think it's focus on the baby steps. Focus on the rainbow. Don't even think about the pot of gold. It's the rainbow that's really made out of diamonds. Enjoy it, dance on it. Tomorrow isn't promised. We are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. That is not depressing, that is liberating. You get to live on your own terms and enjoy that. And it'll feel good if you add value to other people's lives. It's not, it's not simply a moral thing. It's really, you will feel good if you can contribute and you will find that significance that you're searching for

• 45:31Speaker 01

  by contributing to other people.

• 45:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. That's good. I think it was about 50 truths, but I like that. I like it. The run on. I acknowledge you, Humble, for finding yourself and speaking your truth into the world because, you know, I think it's really hard for people to stand up and be who they want to be. And you're... Physically showing it, you're showing it emotionally, you're showing it verbally, you're constantly being true to what you want to do and the message you want to share with the world. So I acknowledge you for all the work you do, man, and for your constant progress, constant growth, constant learning, you're being the example of what we should all be.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Man, I'm learning from you and I'm not even, I'm not saying that to gas you up. Again, we hang out a lot off camera and you are that guy. And again, you are so that guy, you made me question who I was. So I was like, wow, his energy, his enthusiasm, it's there, it's there all the time. You don't even consume caffeine. So I was just like.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  I have coffee every now and then.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Every now and then.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  But I don't drink alcohol.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm a little bit more rough around the edges with my lifestyle decisions. So when I see you do these things, I was like, he, the only way he can do this on a sustainable level, as far as you've done it, is you have to actually care. And I think that's important. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there. There's a lot of people selling dreams and pretending to have a great life in order to prey on people who are desperate to get out of the hole. And I know this because I was in a hole and I was desperate and there was a lot of people trying to take advantage of me. And I think the world is a better place for great guys like you that actually exist doing this for the right reasons.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, brother.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  So thank you, brother.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is being in constant competition with yourself and focusing on getting better every single day. And one of my favorite quotes is, when you're good, you got to tell people. When you're great, they tell you.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  Oh, Humble the poet. Appreciate it, brother.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed this one, my friends. If you did, shout it out on Twitter, on Instagram, tag both Humble the poet and at Lewis Howes. Make sure to follow Humble, check out all of his work and art and poetry and music, all the good stuff that he's up to. He's leading an inspiring life. And I want you to be inspired by all the stories we bring to you, by all the individuals, what they're creating, what they're up to, how they're making an impact in their own life. So you can apply this to your life. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. They said, "Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone." What is the art you are putting out in the world? You may not think you're an artist, but you are. How are you impacting the hearts of everyone else?

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  What is landing on them? What is sticking to someone's heart because of what you say and who you're being and how you show up? That is what you should think about. What is the thing that people feel the most when they think about you? Or your message? Or your work? I love you so very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.