#775: Jon Batiste — The Quest for Originality, How to Get Unstuck, His Favorite Mantras, and Strategies for Living a Creative Life

Jon Batiste (@jonbatiste http://instagram.com/jonbatiste) is a five-time Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and composer. His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues https://linktr.ee/jonbatiste, is set for a November 15th release. Sponsors: Ramp https://ramp.com/tim easy-to-use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and more: https://ramp.com/tim (Get $250 when you join Ramp) AG1 https://drinkag1.com/tim all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://drinkag1.com/tim (1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase.) Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra https://www.eightsleep.com/tim/ sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save $350 on the Pod 4 Ultra) Timestamps: [00:00] Introduction [06:46] Is the secret to long life embracing the mundane? [09:28] The gift of mistakes. [10:21] Why did Jon wait until he was 10 to speak? [12:51] How music and performance entered the picture. [13:36] An early exercise in winning over the room. [15:08] Choosing the personal facets that art expresses. [16:57] From a disappointing grade school performance to the Grammys. [21:44] Cultivating suspense and shifting modes of creative expression. [27:24] When perspective drives motivation more than stakes. [32:14] Spiritual practice and grounding mantras. [40:29] Surrender, acceptance, and growth through health challenges. [43:37] The fuzzy line between blessing and curse. [46:40] Growing up bullied as the "least talented" in a musical family. [52:50] Jon's visionary mother guided him toward piano. [55:23] Parental support for Jon's relocation to New York City. [56:15] Serious setbacks that almost made Jon quit Juilliard and music altogether. [01:00:37] Jon's advice to a younger musician enduring a similar path of hardships. [01:03:11] How Jon owns what comes his way rather than allowing it to overwhelm him. [01:07:30] Cultivating generosity without being drained. [01:09:32] Jon's billboard is invisible — but with deep posts. [01:11:47] My rough draft of five deep handfuls. [01:18:21] Jon's answer in musical improv. [01:25:42] Jon's upcoming album:Beethoven Blues (with bonus blues tutorial) https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Blues-Jon-Batiste/dp/B0DJ3K1214/?tag=offsitoftimfe-20. [01:39:09] Taking the hypotenuse to catharsis and other Parting thoughts. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show https://tim.blog/podcast, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors https://tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts https://tim.blog/transcripts. 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This isn't just any episode. This one turned out really, really special. And I really encourage everybody to listen to this once as audio only. If you are listening to this without any video, but also go to youtube.com/timferriss, two R's, two S's, to see the video. We recorded this episode in the recording studio designed by Jimi Hendrix, where he slept. The acoustics, the surroundings, everything is gorgeous and my guest was in the flow.

• 0:42Tim Ferriss?

  We happened to mesh really well together and it's one of those episodes that I will remember for many years. My guest, John Batiste, is a five-time Grammy Award-winning and Academy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and composer. I met him ages and ages ago, back when he was a mere incredible, incredible musician, composer, etc. But I've been able to watch him become the Marki-Lights John Batiste and it has been a thrill to watch. We talk about it all. His eighth studio album, Beethoven Blues, is set for a November 15 release. When we are sitting in Jimi Hendrix's studio, there are pianos, guitars, you name it, and we don't just talk.

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  We walk around and he uses music to answer some of my questions. It's phenomenal. Beethoven Blues marks the first installment in his solo piano series showcasing Batiste's interpretation of Beethoven's iconic works reimagined, and that is an understatement. You're going to hear a lot of it in this episode towards the last 25%, so buckle up and stick around. Beethoven Blues follows Batiste's studio album, World Music Radio, which received five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year. As a composer, he scored Jason Reitman's Saturday Night, now in theaters. The film depicts the chaotic 90 minutes before Saturday Night Live's very first broadcast

• 2:04Tim Ferriss?

  in 1975, underscored by Batiste blending of jazz, classical, and contemporary elements. He composed and produced the music live on set, capturing the intensity of the show's debut. He also appears in the film as Billy Preston, the show's first musical guest, and certainly he has lived that out himself. Additionally, Batiste composed and performed music for the Disney Pixar film Soul, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. You can find him at johnbatiste.com. That's J O N B A T I S T E dot com on Instagram and socials at johnbatiste. And boy, oh, boy, I love this. I really think you guys are in for a treat.

• 2:49Tim Ferriss?

  Stick around, listen to the whole thing, watch it a second time on video at youtube.com/timfaris. So we're going to get to the good stuff, but first just a few words from those who make this podcast possible. The following quote is from one of the most legendary entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley. And here it goes. "This team executes at a level you rarely see, even among the best technology companies." End quote. That is from Peter Thiel about today's sponsor, Ramp. I've been hearing about these guys everywhere, and there are good reasons for it. Ramp is corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. In fact, they're already doing that across the board.

• 3:31Tim Ferriss?

  Ramp has already saved more than 25,000 customers, including other podcast sponsors like Shopify and Eight Sleep, more than 10 million hours and more than $1 billion through better financial management of their corporate spending. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books eight times faster on average. Your employees will no longer spend hours upon hours submitting expense reports. I mean, within companies, fast-growing startups or otherwise, a lot of employees spend half their time, it seems, trying to get all this stuff together. No more. Ramp saves you time and money. You can get started, issue virtual and physical cards, and start making payments in less than 15 minutes.

• 4:15Tim Ferriss?

  Whether you have five employees or 5,000 employees, they've streamlined everything. And businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% in the first year. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/tim. All spelled out, that's ramp.com/tim. R A M P dot com slash tim. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. I have been using Eight Sleep Pod cover for years now. Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top, like a fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the pod, and I'm excited to test it out.

• 5:00Tim Ferriss?

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• 5:44Tim Ferriss?

  you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won't need them because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod 4 Ultra itself. They have imperceptible sensors which track your sleep time, sleep phases, and HRV. Their heart rate tracking, as just one example, is at 99% accuracy. So get your best night's sleep. Head to eightsleep.com/tim and use code TIM to get $350 off of the Pod 4 Ultra. That's eight sleep, all spelled out. eightsleep.com/tim and code TIM, T-I-M, to get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer your personal question?

• 6:30Tim Ferriss?

  Now would be an appropriate time.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 6:46Tim Ferriss?

  The snow monkeys in Japan figured it out. So we've been doing it a long time. They just hang out in the hot springs.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Did you ever go to a place in Japan, Okinawa?

• 6:58Tim Ferriss?

  I've spent time there because I lived in Japan.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know.

• 7:02Tim Ferriss?

  When I was younger, yeah. So I've been to Okinawa. I have. Yeah, culturally, super different from the rest of Japan. It's cool.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  I can't wait to go. I wanted to ask you if you had been. I'd never been, but I've always wanted to just go there and like, spend a long period of time, like months.

• 7:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Feel like it could change you.

• 7:21Tim Ferriss?

  I think it could in part because I asked everybody down there because the Okinawans have so many hundred plus

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:28Tim Ferriss?

  senior citizens. They live a long time, or at least they used to. And I asked every person I met, what's the secret? And they all had a different answer, which was pretty adorable. But the one constant was they were all active. I had a driver who was helping us out. He considered himself young. He was 85. And we would drive and he'd point to the retirement homes and he'd say, that's where you go to die. That's when you stop. He's like, as soon as you sit on the couch and start watching TV, it's over. And we would go to the farmers markets and you'd see people were 98, 103, walking around, shopping, tending garden, active. They're still engaged.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  That's absolutely incredible because all of those things you would think of are mundane and that you were trying to get away from doing.

• 8:17Tim Ferriss?

  Exactly.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  That's what I'm trying to retire from.

• 8:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Or I want to outsource that, which that almost becomes a way of life. It's like a philosophy.

• 8:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, totally. I remember I was reading different books by Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:34Tim Ferriss?

  And he had this, I think it was an essay. He was like,

• 8:39Tim Ferriss?

  If people tell you the purpose of life is not to fart around, don't believe them. He's like, I go to the post office, I wait in line. Most people don't want to do that. He's like, but that's the connective tissue, all those in-between moments. And if you're only celebrating the huge this, the huge that, the big events. I mean, you're missing like 98% of your life.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Wow. There's something about that I think about often. How do you maintain a flow state in waking life throughout the mundane? How do you embrace the mundane and find the muse in the mundane? Without having to go to some sacred place.

• 9:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. To take a time out.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Like, I have to go and plug into something else to connect.

• 9:25Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, totally.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Versus just being connected.

• 9:28Tim Ferriss?

  The muse in the mundane, how do you? How have you found that? Or how have you tried to find that?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Mistakes.

• 9:36Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Mistakes are amazing. Mistakes are brilliant. It's a gift to go about your day. And for something, either a mistake or something that you didn't plan, an interruption, some seeming calamity happening.

• 9:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  That allows for you to not only respond, but to create. And then in that moment, you have the ability to discover something that's much greater than anything that you could invent or devise because there's something that happens with the synapses in the way that you respond to seeming calamity. That brings you to your highest potential.

• 10:22Tim Ferriss?

  So I have to ask you about something I read when I was doing research for this, which is always fun because I get to be like a creepy stalker online for people I know.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:31Tim Ferriss?

  Which otherwise would be very strange.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:33Tim Ferriss?

  And uncomfortable for everybody. And I was reading this piece from The Guardian. And I want to ask about introspection because you're very reflective. And I admire that. I mean, you seem to have cultivated. Self-awareness in a lot of what you do. In this Guardian piece, they said, maybe that's because he didn't speak until he was 10, or something along those lines. Did you not speak for a lot of your, I guess, childhood, given the framing that they put in the article?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Man, you know what's amazing is those years, I don't have so many memories of those years either. And I don't understand why. I've just started to excavate that more and more in the last year. Just trying to figure out what was going on. What was the context? And for all intensive purposes, my life has truly been blessed. I've had such a great upbringing. But there was something about being born into the world that felt like I needed to observe before I participated. Felt like I needed to watch what was happening.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  And synthesize what was happening. All the different perspectives, all the different personalities, growing around a lot of colorful personalities, a lot of sounds and rhythms, a lot of life, life force, energy. And a lot of danger. So I think the aspect of being in all of that, meeting my natural state, my innate makeup. It was deeper than introspection. Something that I still have yet to put words to or fully understand in my early years, put me in a space where I was observing and gathering, observing and gathering, observing, gathering.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  And then eventually it became, okay, let me emerge into a new era. Let me try to mold some things. And it started with music. Let me try to mold the world around me. Let me try to shift things and create things and influence things, dare I say. Let me try. In little ways, I would start. And then it extended far beyond music.

• 12:51Tim Ferriss?

  What age would you say that was? Hard to pin down, but.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. You already peeped it out, Tim. It's like it's around fourteen or fifteen. It was music that allowed for me to have a opportunity to present myself. On stage, you have to present yourself in a way that is amplifying aspects of what's inside. And ultimately, you have a decision to make as a performer to decide how far between who you actually are and who you've created to project on the stage are you.

• 13:32Tim Ferriss?

  How big is the jump, the discrepancy between those two?

• 13:35Speaker 02

  It's a choice you make.

• 13:36Tim Ferriss?

  How do you think about it? Because I remember chatting with Andrew Zimmern, TV host, does a lot of different things. And he said, be very careful about, and I'm paraphrasing, but he was like, be very careful about who you are in episode one, season one, because you could paint yourself into a corner where you have to be that guy now forever if it's popular. How have you thought about that?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  I thought about it from first, the perspective of how do I get to a point where all that's within me? All these things that I feel, these ideas that I have, this vision becomes a reality. So that took so much stepping outside of my comfort zone. We called it throw yourself in the water. We would do things like when I was in college, my band and I would go in the subway and we would play for people. We wouldn't ask for money. We wouldn't busk. We would just play concerts for people who weren't expecting a concert. To just get to the point where we were fearless about presenting art and also wanted to change the atmosphere in this community of a train station that has all these people

• 14:41Speaker 02

  from different walks of life now locked in a train together. So it's a certain aspect of.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Winning them over that we worked on. How do we create harmony in this scenario? And then that extended. Now let's go and strike up conversation with people that we don't know. And talk to them about things that they're going through. And then let's share some things that we don't want to share that we're going through.

• 15:08Tim Ferriss?

  I have a big question for you. I think it's related to all of this and I've wanted to ask you a lot. And Molly's getting excited and stretching over here. So I think it's a good sign. So the question is about how to choose where you go on this quest of originality. It seems like that was part of your life pretty early, maybe 15, 16, 17. The phrase that keeps coming back is quests for originality. And of course, we're all original. We're all one of a kind.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, sir.

• 15:39Tim Ferriss?

  But in a saturated world, in a busy world, with so many facets of ourselves, you can go in a million different directions. You have a lot of choices. So how have you chosen which pathways to explore? Like interacting with these people on the subway? Playing some of the instruments you've played that I know were not assigned to you at Juilliard?

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 16:02Tim Ferriss?

  So how do you pick which aspects of yourself or which scent trails to explore?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  You have to understand what is it that's yearning to be expressed within you? Even if you're dreadfully afraid of it. You can have something within that seems so far away from the reality of your current state that it couldn't possibly be for you. In your mind, in every fiber of your being is telling you, this isn't what I should be pursuing. This isn't who I am. That's the one right there. That one right there.

• 16:48Tim Ferriss?

  The scary one.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  This isn't who I am.

• 16:50Tim Ferriss?

  That won't go away.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it sticks with you and you start to say, oh, it's not going away.

• 16:57Tim Ferriss?

  Could you give an example? Do any examples come to mind for you personally?

• 17:01Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. Well, performing for me, my first experiences with performing were traumatic at best.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  I mean, the level of performance anxiety that I still have is unbelievably paralyzing to the point that I've developed mantras and different ways of reaching for what's inside and also just a greater sense of purpose and philosophy that really is a foundation that lifts me to the point of taking the stage and sharing it because it's bigger than oneself, right?

• 17:38Tim Ferriss?

  And did you feel that yearning to perform? Was it an image? Was it a feeling? Was that the yearning?

• 17:44Speaker 02

  That was part of it. I remember my first time on a talent show, dancing, which is another aspect of it, dancing, something that I was not naturally accustomed to doing besides just at family functions. And it wasn't something that came natural to me. I was more of someone who was a spiritual mover versus the most precise dancer. But I went on a talent show with my best friend. We were in elementary school at the time and he goes on stage. He was a very natural dancer and he convinced me to join him on the talent show stage in front of the entire school from K through eight, the whole school,

• 18:26Speaker 02

  all the teachers, everybody just gathered in the auditorium. The music starts playing. It was like some sort of decrepit Michael Jackson beat like Fisher Price that you dance.

• 18:40Tim Ferriss?

  Oh yeah, Cassio S K one, I remember.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  It was going, man. And I get up there and I'm going and at this time, what I knew was the Running Man, MC Hammer.

• 18:54Tim Ferriss?

  I remember.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  You know that?

• 18:55Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, of course.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  With the pants parachuting.

• 18:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, gotta be careful. Can't ride any horses with that. But yeah, you can dance with them on.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Say ride the horse with that. What kind of horse? No, you gotta get away from that.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  I said, man, listen, let me try to run a man. That didn't work. Everything I turned to didn't work. Okay, let me try to do the moonwalk. Keon just did it too. That didn't work. It was a mix of cheers and laughter. Both this sort of excitement by what he was doing from the audience and also this sort of, what is wrong with this child to think that he could be up there? I was mortified. And I remember leaving that scenario and thinking I would never, I had so many moments. That's the thing that I remember most about performance early on. Every moment I tried to perform, I faced rejection and left thinking, I don't ever have to do that again.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  There's nothing in that for me. Now, fast forward, you know, I'm thinking about that dancing moment because it came back to me again a couple of years ago when we were at the Grammys and we were rehearsal. And I'm leading this performance with thirty dancers. And there's a moment where we all run. The tape is probably somewhere out there. But there's a moment where we all run in place. We break the fourth wall, we jump into the audience. And we run from the stage and the vision, Jamel McWilliams and I, we were coming up with this vision of, let's just break through the screen. Let's break through any pretense.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Let's build an energy with our collective here, this group of us, that just permeates every soul watching. I remember even saying at some point on the stage, touch the screen, get a blessing. It was almost like Tony Robbins motivational speech meets, you know, Baptist church. Baptist, yeah, it was just, we got to this point where the energy, it was fierce. You know, just like a shaman, just moving the energy around. We got to this running move and that was the launch of it all. And I remember thinking back to when I was that kid in second grade. And I was almost booed off the stage if it wasn't for Keon, right?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And I'm doing this move at the Grammys and it's happening in real time. There's a collective life force energy that's coming from it. And that's the thing that creating that moments like that, moments long before that, whether it's in the subway, just creating that energy was the call.

• 21:39Tim Ferriss?

  That was what you were yearning for was creating the energy?

• 21:42Speaker 02

  That type of.

• 21:43Tim Ferriss?

  Electricity?

• 21:44Speaker 02

  It's electricity, it's community. It's what the world could be. It's an aspirational vision of of us. I thought for a while like, what is the field that I enter into to create this or to cultivate this? What is that space? And I didn't have words for it for many years. And it evolves over time and it requires performance, but it's so much. I've never said, I shared this, but I even think, I mean, we already getting deep, so why not?

• 22:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, let's go for it.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  But this idea has led me to places that in recent times, I don't know how much longer I will be performing or be a musician.

• 22:30Tim Ferriss?

  Why is that?

• 22:31Speaker 02

  I've never said that, but it's been coming up in the last. I mean, Suleika and I have talked about it before, just because we have that type of relationship of exploring and challenging each other. But the form of the vocation is shifting and the gift of music for me and its meaning in my life and its application within the vocation is also shifting.

• 22:54Tim Ferriss?

  Do you know where it's shifting to or do you just feel the tectonic plates shifting? And you're like, all right, let's pause and pay attention. How are you experiencing that shift, that shifting?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Man, it's such an intuitive thing. It's such a trust-based relationship.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  You don't force it. You don't force it. You can't force it. It just tells you when it's time.

• 23:21Tim Ferriss?

  Is that a sensitivity that you think everybody has? Or do you think you have greater sensitivity to feel that and to sit with it? Even though it's might be uncomfortable to not have a compass pointing you in a certain direction?

• 23:34Speaker 02

  I think those early years coupled with now by my own volition. But, you know, when I was in college, there were times when they sent me for psychiatric evaluation. In those early years, there may be some root to your first question about why wasn't I speaking? There may be some root within the way that my psyche was formed. And for me, also the superpower within that. That's allowed for me to develop a relationship with presence and with being that allows for me to trust and have faith. And also just the natural state of an artist is to have complete faith,

• 24:19Speaker 02

  unwavering faith in the ability for you to make this thing real that no one sees or can experience yet but you. And you have to do your best with words, which fail to describe it, to communicate to collaborators, to potentially join the ranks of building this thing, you know?

• 24:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I do. I think I want to turn this into a confessional on my part. So maybe for another time.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  No, no, go for it, man.

• 24:44Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I do, there are experiences on the maybe far end of the spectrum. You have mystical experiences, which by definition are ineffable, right? They, they, they, they translate very poorly to words. And then there are these felt senses and these evolved capabilities that also predate language. So it's very difficult, if not impossible, to apply clean prose to describing them. And to that extent, I do think I feel what you're saying. And I'm curious, as these things are taking shape in your body and your mind, these things you feel that are not yet externalized, how much of it is waiting and how much of it is sort of tickling the muse

• 25:27Tim Ferriss?

  for these original concepts or ideas or impulses? Are there ways that you help yourself to generate or be receptive to new directions and new ideas?

• 25:40Speaker 02

  You know, I was checking out Alfred Hitchcock the other night. Suspense. If you think about the device of suspense in cinema that he mastered and you experience that through the things that he created. At least for me, that was something that brought me back to an understanding of the muse, which is this idea that suspense is created when there are stakes and when you don't know what's going to happen on the other side. So you then have to put everything on the line

• 26:22Speaker 02

  that you believe in, that motivates you, that powers you. You have to put it on the line in order to move toward whatever your desired outcome is in a limited amount of time. And sometimes without enough intel or intellectual processing of the information to even know which direction you want to take it in. You just have the moment. So for me, I love to create these pockets of suspense, these pockets of pressurized creativity or pressurized experience that leads me to discovery that it pushes me forward.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  And I think about things that are not music, like cinema or there's so many things that are not connected to the actual craft that I draw from, much, much, much more than actually thinking about the inspiration of music and the fruit of the craft itself.

• 27:24Tim Ferriss?

  So if we take a closer look at the stakes and the unknown, I'm wondering if I'm hearing you correctly because I was just a week ago, I had a conversation with a number of friends, having dinner, drinks, and I posed a question, which was, what do you do when you get stuck or you're feeling stuck? You want to push yourself in a new direction. And there were a lot of different answers, but there was one common thread, which was, in effect, I need to book the theater, so I write the play. A feeling of getting in over your head where you commit to something and then you figure out what that thing is gonna be. But now you have something like on the schedule, people are involved, and then you're in the dark groping around, you kind of figure it out.

• 28:08Tim Ferriss?

  I'm wondering if you apply some version of that in your own life? If that's what, in a sense, you mean by like stakes and moving into the unknown? Or if it takes other forms?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  That was the gateway drug. But what happens for me at this point is the zoom out. And the zoom out is this perspective on all things. Time, the perspective of your lineage, the understanding of your lifespan. All these things that require you to zoom out to really assess and feeling your marrow to grasp. And it makes those commitments feel minor to me, even if they're attached to some monetary outcome or some consequence that is deemed dangerous by the way that we, our metrics

• 29:04Speaker 02

  on these things, almost become so irrelevant to me that it requires me to have another motivation in order to really reach the thing that is most impactful and most resonant within.

• 29:17Tim Ferriss?

  What kind of motivation motivates you these days?

• 29:20Speaker 02

  So when you have the zoom out, when I come back to the creative process, it almost has to be the opposite of what it used to be, which is, you know, let me put myself in a position, throw myself in the water and figure out how I'm gonna evolve and do something. Then it eventually went to, how do I go into, how do I bridge this into a whole nother craft? How do I create? That's why I love the idea of what we call genres, which are just silos that promote ignorance. That's fun for me. That's not based on a truth. So the zoom out helps you to assess all the truths. The laws, this is what is, right?

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Then the motivation has to come in the opposite way of force. It has to come almost like a dream comes to you in the night. You can't do anything about your dreams per se, but feed the dream machine. You can't generate the opportunity for you to have a certain dream.

• 30:23Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  You can perhaps interact with your dream once it arrives. And it's so ephemeral. Even remembering your dreams oftentimes can be difficult depending on what space you are in your life. It makes everything that happens delicate. And it makes everything that I commit to in some ways very tenuous when it comes to the mammoth mechanics of our industry. And I'm getting to a point, which is a part of the realization where perhaps there's not a context within the industry and the mechanics therein that as they exist today, that I can find true inspiration from.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  And that I can connect the dots of my, there's a constellation of inspiration that crosses so many spectrums of society. And I can't access it if I play by these rules.

• 31:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, if you're, if you're in the silo playing by the, the laws in quotation marks, right?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. And the zoom out gives you such a perspective on that, that it makes you fiercely prepared for when the dream comes. Because then you'll embrace it because it's your top priority. It's the chief motivation, but you can't make it come.

• 31:39Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, but you're primed to receive it when it shows up.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  You're ready. So when I don't have inspiration or I have a block, I do nothing. I live. And it's absolutely because of the deeper inspiration that I'm blessed to feel. I, I feel it's been cultivated. I'm connected to it and I know it's real. It doesn't have to greet me every day. I know it's there.

• 32:04Tim Ferriss?

  It's like an old friend. Not a lot of maintenance required.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Yes, it just requires you to be focused and be ready when it's there.

• 32:14Tim Ferriss?

  So let's say. The muse makes an appearance. You're receptive and you're not grasping, but your hands are ready to catch, right? And then you go into execution mode on whatever it might be, or you start exploring. I want to come back to something you mentioned, which was the performance anxiety and the mantras and various things you use to ground you. What are the mantras that you have landed on?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Well, I haven't shared all of them. I share some. Two of them we share at the shows when we perform often. One is one that I thought of for children and I thought of for the child within me. And it's, "I feel good. I feel free. I feel fine just being me." And you go over and over and over and over. "I feel good. I feel free. I feel fine just being me." Circular melody. "I feel good today. Oh, so good today. I feel good. I feel free. I feel fine." One, two, three. "Bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum." So everybody sings along automatically.

• 33:22Tim Ferriss?

  I've seen it. I've seen it because I was in Moody Theater in Austin, watching this just extend into the audience.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:30Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing to watch.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 33:32Tim Ferriss?

  Amazing to experience and participate in, too.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  I was so, man, that was such a great feeling seeing you there. Just because I understand you get it on so many levels. You really understand. It's such a spiritual practice. It's not so much about me showing up and playing instruments or, you know, "Look at how great the band. Look at this dance. Look at the..." More and more, more and more. And it always has been, but more and more. How do we continue to refine this spiritual practice? This ritual of community, of sharing, of artistry? All of it? And what are we pointed at? What are we focused this life force energy at next? So those mantras for me are the...

• 34:18Speaker 02

  If you don't live it and it's not a part of you, it's not going to come out of the instrument. What we play is life. What we create is life. The quality of the human being, the quality of the vessel, even a broken vessel, which is oftentimes the most effective, the most relatable, the most universal. But there has to be that space in you that you've saved. That is the sacred space. It doesn't have to be. Of course, there are great ways to cultivate physical world sacred places and practices. So for me, those mantras and my prayers in that sense of understanding how to always know if that's there. And if it's not there, it might be time to take

• 35:03Speaker 02

  six months, a year, whatever I need to take off. So that then I can know that it's there. But right now I'm in a period where it's very strong. So it allows for me to be fearless. Which is something that I haven't felt that this strongly in a while. Oh yeah, gotta ride the wave then. You know what I mean? Yeah, you gotta paddle for the wave. Yeah.

• 35:31Tim Ferriss?

  Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs

• 36:14Tim Ferriss?

  with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 36:35Tim Ferriss?

  What other mantras can you share?

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Oh, man, this is deep. You going in?

• 36:40Tim Ferriss?

  I'm going in.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Tim, man.

• 36:42Tim Ferriss?

  Scoop a gear intact.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Tim. Yeah, you know.

• 36:47Tim Ferriss?

  Because I believe in the power of mantras.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  Oh, you?

• 36:50Tim Ferriss?

  I do, in meditation, in repetition, the ability to, in a sense, end up with the mind of no mind, to cleanse the palate. I mean, there's so many different ways you can use mantras also, which is why this is as deeply interesting. I mean, it can be a concentration practice. It can be sort of an erasing practice to regain some equilibrium. There's so many different ways to use repetition. Could be drumming, too. It doesn't have to be, could be instrumental. There are so many different ways that you can enter unusual, uncommon states using repetition. So I'm very, very interested in this, which is why I'm asking.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yes, for sure. So two of the ones that I, not for stage, but just more for crisis that I go to is be still and know, which is from the Bible, be still and know that I am God. It is this idea that, I'll give you a practice. So be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know that I. Be still and know that. Be still and know. Be still, be. Just this idea, I've sat with that, and each phrase has a different meaning. Even be still and, then breath, or room tone.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  There's, there's messages in that, that space. There's messages in the crevice. So I've done that and sat in that, and it's changed my entire perspective on a crisis or something that I felt perhaps I was wronged or perhaps, you know, there's so many opportunities for us in this life to transmutate darkness into light or even darkness. Into just into perspective. Another one is thy will be done, which is one of surrender. Now, we believe there's a divine power. There's however you name it, whatever your relationship to it is.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  We've, for the most part, had an experience that something beyond explanation. The universe is carrying us in some way. Thy will be done is trusting that there's a divine logic to it all. When there's nothing that you can do, thy will be done. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Because the belief of this divine logic allows for you to understand that there's a path and you are accounted for in that path. You are accounted for. There's so much that is allowed for you to be. The culmination of so many things has led to you and there will never be another you. You're the only one.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  That specificity alone is something that comes to me when I'm in that thy will be done. It's a revelation of so many other things, which is also allowing for the right thing to occur and for me to be accepting of it versus for me to control it without knowledge of what the true right thing is. So there's so much that you have to cleanse yourself of from believing or from holding on to that's not actually connected to the best outcome. But you can't always know that, especially in crisis.

• 40:14Tim Ferriss?

  It's very hard to know. And so many parables are always like this, this happened, such good news, maybe.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:19Tim Ferriss?

  Such and such happened. This is terrible. Maybe. It just depends on so many things outside of our sphere of knowledge that on so many levels can't be known. When would you be inclined to say to yourself that last mantra? When would you apply that in your life?

• 40:37Speaker 02

  So many things that happen to us with our health. I talk about Suleika a lot. I love her, as you know.

• 40:45Tim Ferriss?

  She's great, yeah. Had her on the show.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Yes, and I also borrow a lot of phrases from her. In particular, this idea of being between two kingdoms. This idea of the kingdom of the well, the kingdom of the sick. And we all exist in this in-between space. And we have a passport for both, which is something that she created this understanding of that through the way she lives through it. The way she gracefully moves through this time with such grace, with such power, with such clarity. I think about that. I think about how there's a certain surrender

• 41:29Speaker 02

  that's required of all of us in times when we deal with health challenges, whether it's us or a loved one. And you find yourself in moments where there's literally nothing that you can do to take away pain or to take away the unknown and the anxiety of waiting. So that's an opportunity for a great amount of growth. That's an opportunity for a lesson to be instilled in a way that almost nothing else that I can think of affords you the chance for that will be done.

• 42:02Tim Ferriss?

  That will be done. Yeah, this coach I worked with for a while, he used to say, this is your pop quiz from the universe. When something unexpected would pop up, he'd be like, all right, all that meditation you've been doing?

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Let's see it.

• 42:14Tim Ferriss?

  Let's see it.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Let's see, bro. Come on, bro.

• 42:18Tim Ferriss?

  You've been rehearsing. This is game time. Let's see how it goes.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, Tim, you know what I'm saying? When you're in that moment.

• 42:27Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, I've had a lot of sympathy for watching you both go through that journey. And I can only imagine what it's like. I mean, I have been, of course, and most people listening have been in a position where they feel powerless to help or they don't know how to help a loved one. But I had a lot of sympathy for a challenging road. And also really.

• 42:49Tim Ferriss?

  Been in awe of how much growth both of you have exhibited through the challenges and pain and so on. In any case, I just wanted to say that.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Oh, man. It means a lot to hear that. And it feels so much, so much of the time, as odd as it may sound, it feels like a privilege to go through it together in the way that we have seen it. It shifted into almost the orientation of blessing. And that's not to say that the difficulties are any easier, right? It doesn't change the nature of hard things. They're hard. But there's something about life, there's a truth. There's

• 43:37Speaker 02

  something about going through the fire that is, is so required and something about suffering that is so essential. This idea that we're meant to run from pain or run from difficult things and find the most leisurely and completely frictionless existence possible is such a lie. It's not just a lie because it's not possible, but if it were possible, that would kill you the most.

• 44:14Tim Ferriss?

  It would rob you in so many ways, which is, of course, easy for me to say, sitting in this comfortable chair right now.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 44:20Tim Ferriss?

  In the midst of it, it's sometimes hard to see. At the same time, there was an astrophysicist, Janet Levin, who was on the podcast some time ago, and I'm going to butcher this quote, but it's more the concept for me that has really stuck. She said something along the lines of, "I used to look for the underlying path that would help me navigate around obstacles. And then I realized there is no underlying path. Like, the obstacles are the path through which you discover yourself, through which you learn, through which you grow." Like, that is the path.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  That's the path.

• 44:52Tim Ferriss?

  Take those away.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 44:53Tim Ferriss?

  And then you're just... Just a free-floating essence of comfort. That's just not the human experience.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 45:01Tim Ferriss?

  And also, you're talking about blessings. So I could imagine, even an earlier version of me would say like, oh, come on now. I mean, I suppose that's helpful, but maybe it's delusional and it's overly optimistic. But it's deeper than that. And I think that misses the mark because given a longer timeframe, given all the unknowns, it could be a blessing, it could be a curse, but you can't know which it is over time. And it depends a lot on your perspective. So you might as well choose blessing. That is the more enabling perspective. And since you can't know, it's a coin flip. Choose the side of the coin that is most enabling, it seems to me, at least in the abstract. It's easy to say.

• 45:43Tim Ferriss?

  Taxi runs over my foot and we'll see how I do later today, but.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  It's that. And it's also, you only will know when you are there. You have to go there to know there. You only know what it can be for you when you're in the fire. Everybody can talk about what they would do when they are there, right? We can all say, man, if that would have happened to me, I would, you know, slay the dragon. Or I would, you know, whatever you think you would do, most often is not what you would do. And that's not because you're not who you think you are. It's because there's so many other factors you can't know. And for many things in my life that I think about, the things I've learned the most from

• 46:31Speaker 02

  are when I've embraced the discomfort and realized what I was made of through it.

• 46:37Tim Ferriss?

  Let me just sit with that for a second.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:40Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have, and then we're going to rewind the clock and I want to go back to very young John with a question or two, but do you have any favorite failures? Now, I put failures in quotation marks because this is something that at the time seemed crushing or seemed awful, that actually in some way set the stage for much bigger or better things later. Do you have any of those types of slips or rejections or failures that come to mind?

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Wow. I feel like my life is riddled with them. And I also feel like I've moved through them. Fairly quickly, not cavalier, but there's a sense of understanding it now that I didn't have then.

• 47:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. How do you move through them quickly? Why do you think that is?

• 47:31Speaker 02

  It's because I know they're for my own good, not that they're all for my own good. I guess the reason is because I don't actually believe that failure exists.

• 47:40Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  It's not that it's necessarily for your own good, but failure doesn't exist. There's opportunity for you to take something from the experience. And even if the experience is reinforcing something that you already know, it's reinforcing something that you already know. It's an opportunity for you to see this experience, this thing that you wanted, this thing that maybe you hoped would work out, but didn't work out. All of that adds to the fabric and the richness of your character and your experience and your knowledge base. So that you, as I say, you go there to know there, you've been there. I've traveled that road. I've played those notes. I know that piece. I sung that song.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  I own that. And there's always on the other side of everything, the opportunity for transformation.

• 48:29Tim Ferriss?

  Can you tell a story of any, I'm not gonna use the word failure, growth opportunities that you encountered before you turned into John Batiste and kind of marquee lights, right? Cause you've really popped in a huge way since I first met you ages ago in probably Utah or wherever we happened to be.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:48Tim Ferriss?

  It was, I can't remember initially where it was, but before that, can you tell the story of any incidents where things didn't go your way and how you metabolized it?

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Man, I grew up in between Kenner, Louisiana, which is a very old school, southern town, old country, railroad tracks running through the middle of it with canals, provincial, southern town just outside of New Orleans. And New Orleans is another planet.

• 49:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  And I grew up, you know, as a kid, getting bullied for all types of things, man. When I was in school, I'd get bullied, whether it was, are you okay? Are you with us? Are you slow? You know, your feet, your nose, your hair, all these aspects of self-esteem that were attacked. So then you go through life in the early years with no real understanding of what you have of value to offer the world, what you have to connect. So fast forward, you get to a point where you discover music, but it's still something that, you know, amongst my family, I was the youngest and least talented. When I was growing up, I didn't think that I would ever be a performer

• 50:04Speaker 02

  because there were thirty other people who had that covered.

• 50:07Tim Ferriss?

  It wasn't like- That's just wild to try to paint a picture of that in my mind. That's a lot of performers, yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  People don't get that. They think, oh, you were born with a tambourine in your hand and you came out singing. This is not the case. There was a glorious awkwardness that was a decade or more before I touched the instrument. Started at eleven years old, late bloomer in the context of everybody around me. Now, there were so many bad gigs, bad performances, and I was known as the kid who would play expressionless. I would be playing and it would be all well and good, but my face would have no expression, none. It would be like I was shut off. So I get to the point where there's a long period of hours and hours in the practice room and performances

• 50:57Speaker 02

  between fourteen and seventeen.

• 50:59Tim Ferriss?

  Where were you at the time, still?

• 51:00Speaker 02

  In New Orleans.

• 51:01Tim Ferriss?

  New Orleans.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  Living in Canada, going back and forth to New Orleans, performing at night, going to two schools at once. Just this idea that you had the art school in that evening, then in the mornings you had an academic school. Still getting bullied, still also becoming somewhat of a young musical phenom, but not the best one. So there's like, still not really like- Uh, you don't really know where you fit or where it's all going.

• 51:30Tim Ferriss?

  And was at that point, was piano the sort of key to that phenom perception? Or was?

• 51:36Speaker 02

  It was the piano that was the thing. That was something that, you know, I'd alternate between playing in clubs at 14, 15 years old that I wasn't supposed to be in at night after going to school. And then I would also on the weekends be doing classical piano lessons and piano competitions. So alternating between those two realities and also going and really finding this sort of tribe, my peers, starting bands with first my cousins Travis and Jamal, who were older and multi-instrumental and inspired me. Then Troy Trombone Shorty Andrews, who's maybe at the time we met 11 or 12, he'd been playing

• 52:20Speaker 02

  for a decade and touring the world. So we start bands, we're doing club shows, we're doing all these things and constantly just presenting things that are experimental and pushing ourselves to do things that we've never done. I didn't have a desire or a real push to go into music until I was maybe 17 and I moved to New York on my own. And the first story of failure-

• 52:44Tim Ferriss?

  Mad Pals for one sec. So, okay, that's a cliffhanger. So first story of failure.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 52:50Tim Ferriss?

  What did, what did the conversation look like when you're informing friends and family that you're going to move to New York? All right, what was the drive behind this? How did that go? And then we're going to get back to the cliffhanger of-

• 53:04Speaker 02

  I felt like there was a great deal of support. My mother is a visionary when it comes to understanding what someone could be. She was the, the driving force of the piano being the instrument that I focused on at 11 versus, you know, several other things that were in the periphery. I could have chosen the drums.

• 53:26Tim Ferriss?

  And just in brief, why did she think that was a clutch move?

• 53:31Speaker 02

  I don't understand how she does it, but she does it.

• 53:33Tim Ferriss?

  Or she just saw-

• 53:34Speaker 02

  That's the thing. That's her thing.

• 53:35Tim Ferriss?

  You have a piano player inside of you.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Even if she didn't see that fully, she saw that the piano-

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Is the right direction for you to take in music?

• 53:49Tim Ferriss?

  Is it because it's the option that opens up the most options? Or is there more to it?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  I don't know if she had a vision. She mentioned sometimes that there's a sophistication to the piano that she was attracted to. That felt like it was the instrument for someone who is going to apply all of their forces and all of their abilities. It's a conductor's instrument. It's the maestro's instrument. So I know that that was a part of her thinking. It's the thing that's gonna allow for you to be as highbrow or as lowbrow as you want.

• 54:26Tim Ferriss?

  I think it was a smart. I mean, it seems maybe self evident to say, but very prescient, incredibly powerful, deeply directing. Because when I look at what you're capable of doing, part of the reason it seems to me that you're able to harness this broad spectrum of options is because you have that highbrow card to pull out. And if people want to nitpick or they want to do this and this, you're like, all right, let me just sit down for a second. And then they're like, okay, I take it back.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:56Tim Ferriss?

  Which buys you permission to do a really wide range of things.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:01Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Yes, that is her thing. She's very clairvoyant. It's also a leadership quality she has. She was environmentalist before it was the in vogue thing to do for many years. You know, she, she would, in a different time, not having been born in the South, a black woman like her would be a CEO of a company. It's a different thing that she has that's, it's significant to think about now in retrospect, all the decisions that she made, which eventually led to me graduating high school a year early, moving to New York as a minor at 17. And her supporting that. My dad also supporting that as a musical mentor.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  My first musical mentor, he was the one who was like, okay, New York where cats really play, bruh. You know, in New Orleans, we play. And then there's like a legit thing with, you know, the cats in New York. They're a little stiff, but you'll learn a lot. So he supported that too, from a different angle, right? So I went up there and he's like, you know, if you can make it in there, you have a lot to come back with. The vision was never, oh, you'll go there and stay.

• 56:11Tim Ferriss?

  Stay there.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  You dig?

• 56:13Tim Ferriss?

  I do.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  I do.

• 56:15Tim Ferriss?

  So you, you were saying your first failure. So you get to New York. What happens?

• 56:20Speaker 02

  It's a disaster.

• 56:23Speaker 02

  Man, listen.

• 56:25Tim Ferriss?

  Molly's like, I'm listening.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  You dig? I went to New York and within the first week, I'm in the subway, traveling around, and I pass out on the platform.

• 56:38Tim Ferriss?

  Pass out on the platform?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, because I'm out. I'm like, what's going on? What's happening here?

• 56:43Tim Ferriss?

  This doesn't happen a lot. I pay attention to this. Molly's sitting right next to you. Hello, Molly. It's my, my external nervous system.

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 56:51Tim Ferriss?

  So you pass out on the platform?

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 56:54Tim Ferriss?

  That sounds dangerous.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, very dangerous. Luckily, there were some friends there who could catch me and take me to, which at this time was, I think it was Roosevelt, the ER, the one that's right next to Lincoln Center, maybe near Fordham. We went there. I'm there, they say, oh, you're exhausted. And maybe you're having some migraines or something. They give me Tylenol, tell me to go away. I'm having night sweats. I'm basically feeling this sharp pain in my lung. And then I start to pass out again. I feel this intensity. Meanwhile, the second day that I was there, before all this happened, I'm in the dorms, the Juilliard. I'm unpacking, I'm doing all the thing. The bunk is up. I fall off the bunk.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  And basically fracture a rib, if not close to it. They do the X-ray. They're like, you got a lot happening. But now, this is the wildest part. I go back to the ER. They say you have walking pneumonia that you've had for two weeks. You have to stay here overnight, over a few days, while, you know, we give you the IV fluids and the antibiotics and all the things. I missed the orientation of the school year. I missed all the things that you kind of get acclimated to. And there's nobody that is in New York. I have a second cousin who lives in Harlem, who I get acquainted with. And we become closer during this time. But I remember thinking, am I supposed to be here? From falling out the bunk.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  And I'm like, no, I can't miss this. So I go back. I'm just in there. Next thing you know, I'm fainting in the subway. Oh, man. Oh, I'm just exhausted. I gotta cool out. Next thing you know, I'm in the nights and sweating. Something's happening. That's my lungs crying out. You know, you've had pneumonia. You've been walking around with this. So between that being the first year of me being in New York, first time at Juilliard, first time being away from home, it completely felt like a crash and burn scenario. It's time for you to get out of here.

• 58:56Tim Ferriss?

  All the signs point to the exit.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Everything's telling me at this time internally as I'm sitting in a hospital. I remember those days. It was like three or four days I was there. And I felt this sort of, as a kid, you're like, I don't want to tell my parents, but I also don't feel like I belong here. I need to get out of here. And it's also this kind of, there was a dichotomy of coming from this very rich cultural heritage and this beautiful expression of excellence and pedagogy. But Juilliard being this European classical legitimizing entity that especially

• 59:36Speaker 02

  as a young black kid, pushing the boundaries of what generationally my family has achieved. And also musically, eventually wanting to, you know, become a disruptor from inside of all of it and just in the most benevolent way, rip it all down and build it again in a different way. Knowing that that was somewhat of a motivation and then landing and sort of dead on arrival, felt like it was ultimately the type of failure that it almost not only made me go home, but quit music. Just kind of like, this isn't my profession. I can just go home. I had a whole bunch of things I could have done other than this. You know, to sit in there by yourself thinking about, is this a message?

• 1:00:22Tim Ferriss?

  So what happened? You're here. What resurrected the confidence or the direction?

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Just the in a knowing, man. You gotta just know.

• 1:00:31Tim Ferriss?

  All right. Hold on, hold on.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  I don't have a-

• 1:00:33Tim Ferriss?

  I believe you. I believe you and I underscore it. And you're a sensitive guy. When I say sensitive, I mean, like, your instrumentation is sensitive. You're like a jewelry scale, not some like, scale at the sports club in New York that's five pounds off. You're down to like the nanogram. So you have sensitive instrumentation. You're thinking to yourself, Man, I really thought A, B, and C. Here I am. I've had this 12 car pileup of disasters. Maybe I should just go home. What did the little whisper say that started to tilt it back in the other direction towards that inner knowing? Or what was the feeling? That's one question. If you want to take it a different angle, I would say, let's say

• 1:01:14Tim Ferriss?

  there's a kid 10 years from now, basically you, very similar, Kennesaw, Louisiana, at Juilliard, sends you a letter. All these things have happened, different set of disasters. But he's like, I really don't know if this is for me. I could go back and do A, B, and C. So very similar situation. And he's like, maybe he has an inner knowing, but you don't know. What do you say to that kid would be another way? You can take it whichever direction makes sense.

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  So youngster, take your time to find the prize. There's no rush. Pace yourself. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger is what they say. But until you experience it, that's the only way. The texture that that added to me immediately in retrospect is why I continue. The inner knowing that these experiences, which are just, you know, a series of unfortunate things at an unfortunate time, can be exacerbated in your mind and in your psyche, especially if you stew in it. So I think, and I would tell this to

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  the youngster, that happening to you is the gift of your arrival, because it allows for you to figure out upon entry, how to process all of the discomfort that's to come in different forms and different ways. So pace yourself. Take your time. It's your time. It doesn't all have to happen right now.

• 1:02:51Tim Ferriss?

  As I'm listening to describe the gift of these unfortunate events, because it's preparing you for the discomfort to come, it makes me think of psychological and spiritual calluses. It's like, oh, now you can do some real heavy lifting.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:10Tim Ferriss?

  That's right. So the sensitivities, I want to double click on again just for a second because personally, and I've seen this in friends, busy, busy, busy, go, go, go, 100 miles an hour, trying to do everything all at once. And that hasn't been me forever, but there have been periods of time when I'm like that. And when I'm in that gear, I wouldn't say that if someone were to ask me, do you feel a deep sense of inner knowing about where you're going to be a year or two from now, where you want to be, I'd say no. However, if I slowed down a bit, if I decluttered my mind a bit, not necessarily watching paint dry, but I create the space, whether it's through meditating, whether

• 1:03:52Tim Ferriss?

  it's through exercise of a certain type, like I just did archery before I came here, which clears my mind really well, then the volume of the competing voices in my head has been lowered enough that I can hear things, right? And I'm wondering if you have ways to do that for yourself, or if the signal is just so strong, you don't need to do that. But I mean, you have a lot of projects and commitments, and I'm sure you have a million opportunities presented to you. When things get noisy, how do you help yourself to hear the inner feelings and voice and so on, so that it doesn't get drowned out?

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  Man, Tim, we have to own what's been entrusted to us to own. We really have so much that is divinely bestowed upon us. And you wake up every day as a steward of it all. And then you get up and you have a choice. Do I pick up my phone? Do I give my mainframe away to some other thoughts or ideas or visions or distraction, if you want to even call it that? It's a choice, whatever. I don't really. How did I set that intention

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  prior to laying down the rest? What am I feeding into my psyche? What am I watching? The eye gate? What am I listening to? That's why I make music a certain way, because I know that for some, that's going to be a fueling prerequisite for them.

• 1:05:28Tim Ferriss?

  It's going to be their fertile ground.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, something powerful is going to emerge from that. So for me, it's like

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  Owning a car or you have this, you have this thing is on lease. And to me, that's it. I don't try to hear, as I was saying before, it's like a dream if it comes. I don't rely on that to be the thing. And I have ways like for you, archery connects you or primes you to be connected. I've strayed away from the desire to have this mystical encounter at every turn in order to prove the existence of be still and know. This is funny how that's come. When you evoke these mantras, I'm telling you, man.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  But that's not a real thing. That's not a real need for me to own what I've been given. Now, to own what I've been given also, when it comes to how to be primed to hear and to receive the download, it's found in the mundane things and also the basic things. Do you drink enough water? Do you get enough sleep? Do you fill your heart with love when you can? Do you fill your mind with good things? Not even just things that are of good report. Of course, it's great, but also information that will empower you with what you have.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  For me, I've studied music as an empowering force for what I have. I've studied many things, music being chief among them. That's going to ignite me based on what I've been given. What ignites you? How do you surround yourself with all of that? And then, okay, we have a sense of that to some degree. We have a lot of experts in that to some level. The flip is, how do you cultivate giving it all away, all the time? How do you give it? The measure of your greatness is the measure of your generosity. How do you give it?

• 1:07:34Tim Ferriss?

  Now, this is sharing the thing that you have on lease, this thing you've been endowed with.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  That's hard because you can cultivate portals of giving. You can donate. You can give your time, which is the highest level of giving. In terms of intentionally giving of your time is the highest level that you can go. But can you give of your time and your resources and your energy in a way that's not regulated by a portal or something that you set up in advance? Can you live in a posture of giving? Can you create a generous temple within? And can you walk through the world and live in a space where you're unfettered and unbothered

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  by the need, but also you've preserved, you've maintained the vessel so that you don't completely rid yourself of your life force energy? You don't want to be drained. There's many things that can drain you and pull from you. And there's darkness in the world. So then the discernment comes with this sort of awareness. And there's spaces in time when I'm much, much more aligned with that. And it's so clear. And so many moments of the deepest, most lasting impact and inspiration have happened when I'm in that space. But it's maintenance. It comes back to like, it's so simple. It's so simple.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  And we feel good when we do that because that's how the machine was made. We have joy when we do that. We feel purpose when we do that. It's like the machine was made a certain way. If you take care of the machine that you have, it's going to function a certain way.

• 1:09:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you gotta do the maintenance. May not be sexy, but the machine needs maintenance.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  That thing need, come on. Get it together. Come on, doctor.

• 1:09:33Tim Ferriss?

  Just a few more questions. I'm having so much fun. I may go for six more hours. But if you could put something, metaphorically speaking, on a billboard, right? So this isn't an advertisement. It's to get a message, feeling, a quote, anything out to the world. Just pretend that hundreds of millions of people would see it, billions, who knows? Could be anything. What might you put on that billboard?

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  I don't know if I would take that opportunity.

• 1:09:58Tim Ferriss?

  Tell me why.

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  I don't feel called to do that. And I also don't feel like we're in a time where anything without context can be received purely.

• 1:10:11Tim Ferriss?

  Tell me more about that. This is a thread that I think I'm also pulling on in my own way. So I want to hear more about what you mean by that.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  Everything is received now based upon the context that we have defined within different cultures and all of our culture of humanity and the stereotypes and the practices, the sociocultural practices and all of the ways we relate to each other and exist. We have decided to go in the direction of believing that I can look at you or I can hear something, a snippet of you.

• 1:10:53Tim Ferriss?

  Fragment.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  A fragment of Tim is all I need to understand. And whereas there's a proliferation of data and we're more connected now than we've ever been. But we're not, we're more susceptible to deception as well. And we would rather express and connect in those ways in lieu of going deeper. And a billboard and media and all these expressions, which is why I love this, because it allows for that. But all these other forms that we have propped up as primary, separate us from depth.

• 1:11:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's the, the surface level that doesn't lead to the deeper levels. It prevents us from getting to the deeper levels, in a sense.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  So you don't want to traffic in that anymore?

• 1:11:45Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  In any way?

• 1:11:47Tim Ferriss?

  The reason I started this podcast 10 plus years ago now, was to be able to get into the deep water.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  Yay.

• 1:11:54Tim Ferriss?

  To have the space for that and to hopefully, at the time I didn't know, but attract a listenership who also felt a thirst for the subtleties that you can only touch upon and the holistic edges of a person or a topic that you only get access to when you have the space. When you have the time. So I resonate a lot with that.

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Sometimes things take multiple listens, multiple exposure. If you feel something from something, that's your first signal, the emotional connection, something even if you don't understand why, or something relates to something you experienced, or something that you heard, you want, you aspire to, has been revealed as clues, or tips, or some vision, right? That's how you know that there's many, many, many more layers there for you.

• 1:12:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, totally. I was just thinking, as you were saying that, of this book that I've read so many times called Awareness, by Anthony de Mello. I think the subtitle is The Promises and Perils of Reality. In any case, really fun book, very short, and I've read it on Kindle, but I've also read it in paperback over and over again. And what strikes me is each time I read it, because I have one copy with highlights over time, I highlight different things whenever I go back, because I am a different person in a different situation, or a developing person in different circumstances with different feelings about things.

• 1:13:29Tim Ferriss?

  And it's just remarkable how each pass reads like a new book, almost.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  This is the thing that I've been thinking about for years, this idea that as people, whether creative or not, but it applies to the creative, obviously. We only have two, maybe three, ideas in life. We have two ideas that we are constantly refining, recreating, presenting, refining, recreating, presenting, and this...

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Your life's idea set.

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  Then if that's the case, how much, and I ask you this because I want to know if you made a list of the five books or the five things or five places. Cause I love your list. This inspired me. What are the five things that you know you could possess in this lifetime? If you had to wipe everything else away and the only knowledge and the only inspiration, only experience, the only everything that you could draw from were of this five. Cause I'm reaching a point where that's almost something that I'm willing to live by.

• 1:14:54Speaker 02

  Instead of the pursuit of more knowledge, more understanding, more broad vision and connectivity. How do I go as deep as I can within a handful of things that are for me and leave the rest?

• 1:15:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  Which is a radical like. So for you, if you were to play that game, what are the five?

• 1:15:21Tim Ferriss?

  Maybe you should have a podcast. Maybe that's your next thing. I will, I will give it a shot and then I want to ask you the same thing because what's a cool twist on the question is it's not just books, documentaries, people, but experiences or beliefs that could be in the list. Then it gets really interesting.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  It's.

• 1:15:42Tim Ferriss?

  Right?

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:43Tim Ferriss?

  Then it gets super interesting. Cause you can't outsource it.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:15:47Tim Ferriss?

  Now you have to own it. So for me, I was thinking as you were talking, and this is rough draft.

• 1:15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. I totally get it.

• 1:15:55Tim Ferriss?

  It's rough.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  It's changing every other day.

• 1:15:57Tim Ferriss?

  Might be a lot of red ink at some point, but, but what comes to mind for me was number one, everything's going to be okay. I think from a very young age, I've just been hyper vigilant, had a lot of bad things happen to me as a kid. So my system has always been oriented towards things are not okay and they are not going to be okay. So you have to be constantly scanning your environment, scanning people for threats, et cetera. So number one would just be everything's going to be okay. Number two would be it's all about relationships. The relationships are what matter. Friends, family, that's it. That's it. And also your relationship with yourself, but honestly, I feel like I best develop myself in relationship. So I pay attention to.

• 1:16:38Tim Ferriss?

  The question of do I like the version of myself that I am when I'm with this person? So the relationships being everything. Number three, this one, we could dig into it if we want, but I would say death isn't the end. So don't be afraid of it. That might require some explanation, but I would say, don't spend your whole life afraid of death. That would be number three.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  That one, it got a lot of meat on the bone.

• 1:17:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, there's a lot of meat on the bone there.

• 1:17:06Tim Ferriss?

  And I would say, honestly, those are the top three that immediately come to mind. What I might say is for me personally, don't be afraid of your sensitivity. It can be hard, but it's a gift. The instrumentation, like my sight, my hearing, it's all very, very, very sensitive. So being in a place like New York City can be completely overwhelming. Being at a dinner party with eight people can be really overwhelming. So interestingly, so I very rarely go to concerts, but when I attended your event, it resonated differently because it wasn't unidirectional. It was not the sage on the stage or the performer on the stage inflicting sound on the audience.

• 1:17:48Tim Ferriss?

  It was a collective experiment and there was a lot of emergent participation and interaction, which changed how my senses metabolized the whole thing, which is very interesting.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:18:00Tim Ferriss?

  So I didn't feel any overwhelm at all at that event. But on a pure decibel level, it wasn't overwhelming, but you're in a concert, right? And it's a cozy venue.

• 1:18:11Tim Ferriss?

  You feel it. So I would probably talk to myself about the sensitivity because I viewed it as a liability for a long time. But I think there are different ways to frame it. That's what comes to mind for me. What about, what about for you?

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Man, wow. You might, I could play my answer.

• 1:18:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, let's do that.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  Cause it's in abstract form, but rapidly approaching clarity.

• 1:18:36Tim Ferriss?

  Let's do it. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. Where are we going to do that over here?

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  If, I mean, is that okay?

• 1:18:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, we got the live mics on. We can just wander over.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Oh, we don't need, okay.

• 1:18:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's give it a shot. I'm excited about this.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  So see.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  I do these concerts.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  Well, I'll, I call them streams. It's like stream of consciousness. Completely improvised. Spontaneous composition, right? I'll sit at the piano and without any sheet music or any preparation, I will play ninety minutes, two hours. Wow. And it really invites the audience to feel this wave. It's akin to a collective chant. And we're, we're in spaces that we're discovering together. So when I was saying I wanted to answer at the piano, I was just gonna stream for a minute.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Thank you for that.

• 1:22:24Speaker 02

  Thank you, Tim. That's beautiful, man. Beautiful to be with you, Shae.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, likewise.

• 1:22:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  I like your answer.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Speaker 03

  So what does that feel like to you, to do that? What is the felt sense?

• 1:22:39Speaker 02

  Feels like you are traveling. You're moving. And your hand is telling you,

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  "This is what I want to play."

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  And as you play it,

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  you're seeing all of the colors and you're hearing the sound that

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  it starts to tell you, "Now I want to go here."

• 1:23:10Speaker 02

  And then it...

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's telling you things that you don't know. You're not familiar. But it's going there anyway. And that's the biggest difference. Because it's telling you something you haven't practiced. You don't know if you can actually play. You don't know if you actually will make it.

• 1:23:38Tim Ferriss?

  Why do you think it takes you there?

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  It's the truest expression. The moment calls for what it calls for. And you can't really dictate what the moment calls for based on your preparation.

• 1:23:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, or your preference.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Your preference is...

• 1:24:00Speaker 02

  It's... Because it's your preference, it's probably not true.

• 1:24:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that makes sense to me.

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  So it truly is music that is channeled from...

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  It's channeled to you for everyone in that moment never to happen again.

• 1:24:27Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you so much.

• 1:24:31Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:24:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:24:37Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So glad we did this.

• 1:24:39Speaker 03

  This is amazing, man, to have the piano here like this.

• 1:24:42Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's beautiful.

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  I didn't know you were gonna have this. I never have you done that. I haven't heard that before with the piano.

• 1:24:47Tim Ferriss?

  The only time we ever had a piano make a guest appearance, very different, was 2000... Let me get this right. Fifteen? A long time ago, I interviewed Jamie Foxx at his house.

• 1:25:04Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah!

• 1:25:05Tim Ferriss?

  And he got on the piano for a second. It was very short. But totally different context. Totally different context. Because there's the instrument. Then there's the vessel, then there's the communication between the two. And that's the one and only time that piano, in my recollection, has made an appearance in 750 episodes. So this is a first.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Man, that's amazing.

• 1:25:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's incredible. So, I have to ask you because I, number one, I'm excited about it. We can do it here. I don't need to sit down. But Beethoven Blues.

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the blues.

• 1:25:53Tim Ferriss?

  I am excited about this.

• 1:25:54Speaker 02

  Yes, it's gonna be amazing to share.

• 1:25:56Tim Ferriss?

  Especially after our conversation, even more so.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:26:00Tim Ferriss?

  And after spending a little more time hanging out. It's been a minute.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:26:04Tim Ferriss?

  Because now I'm thinking about the music as something that I can ingest, something that I can let feed me.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:26:15Tim Ferriss?

  Inspire in the sense of breathing in.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, that's right.

• 1:26:19Tim Ferriss?

  So could you say a bit more about how that came to be?

• 1:26:22Speaker 02

  You know, the idea is something that I feel uniquely positioned to do is hearing Beethoven's music and not just playing it as it says, you know, on the score, but being in conversation with Beethoven and extending his music. So, as we talked about, you know, this idea of streams, this sort of spontaneous composition. If you were to take Beethoven's music and exist within the music as if you were co-composing it with him and adding all these elements that, many of which, all of which existed after his time on Earth.

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  So you have things like flamenco music or gospel music, soul music, jazz music.

• 1:27:18Speaker 02

  And blues primarily, which to me is the, not just musical innovation of the 20th century, but...

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  An innovation of human expression and spirituality.

• 1:27:34Tim Ferriss?

  Could you say a little bit more about that? Because I listen to blues.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:27:39Tim Ferriss?

  But I want to understand why you feel that way about it.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Blues.

• 1:27:43Tim Ferriss?

  And it's not that I disagree, but I want to understand the magnitude of what you're saying.

• 1:27:48Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Blues is a form of music. It's also a form. It's a 12-ball form. It's a sound. It's a style. It's an inflection. You can sound like the blues without playing the blues. If you moan or you cry, the instrument wails.

• 1:28:15Speaker 02

  That idea is something that is about our existence and the human condition. And the blues is an allegory for the human condition in sound. It's a musical allegory that exists within the context of a cultural movement. So that's something that has not happened and has existed before it had a name. So for you to find things like that in the world that are foundational to our existence, and then to figure out, how do I name them and identify them so then they can be shared? And then furthermore, how do you create a whole system

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  that not only becomes its own form of musical engagement, social-cultural engagement? There are dances, there are blues rituals, juke joints, stomps, boogie-woogie, all this that we've grown accustomed to. Now I can also implement that into other spaces of music, which becomes this democratic expression of humanity. So what I started to think about with the blues is there are forms of music that express that aspect of the human condition and that pathos, but didn't have all of the language that we have to acutely express it

• 1:29:40Speaker 02

  and also include the range of cultural diasporic reality that has existed since. So now, we can take that.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  And inject these other forms of music, these other expressions with something that's so profound and so deep and so rooted, so human. It's an opportunity. It's opportunity of a lifetime for an artist. And the blues provides that. Not a one other thing in the technical realm. The blues is simple and is complex. The blues is generally three chords, but you don't always have to be playing those three chords to be playing the blues. It's spiritual, but it's also very much scientific. So if you take these five notes.

• 1:30:32Speaker 02

  That's the pentatonic scale. That's the sound of the blues. The pentatonic scale, though, in this form, has existed in music since the beginning. Gagorian chants, indigenous folk music, music of drum circles in West Africa and Ghana, all the different sounds of Appalachia. Eastern music, you've heard this sound.

• 1:30:58Speaker 02

  You hear this sound in every culture since the beginning. Now, if you add.

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  If you add that note, that's what we call the blues scale. The blues is in the sound of the pentatonic scale. That, in and of itself, has a perfect symmetry. The blue note is the expression that

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  our early ancestors in this country created to add the sense of the American experience to this scale. It's more than a scale. They added this to exemplify the specificity of America and the experience of American life.

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  In all different ways you can play the blues, even without playing the scale. Because the thing about the blues inflection is that if you can capture that blues inflection, you can find melodies that have the blues. You can find voices that have the blues. You can find rhythms that have the blues, mainly the shuffle rhythm, which is something that came from Africa and is the marriage of six, eight over two. A two beat and a three beat combined at the same time. And that evolved into the American shuffle rhythm. So all of these things are so interconnected and so sophisticated, so intricate. And the blues, after all that,

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  you can sit on a porch or a barroom or a juke joint and anybody can sing it. And it's always two verses and an answer.

• 1:32:45Speaker 02

  "The thrill is gone. The thrill is gone away. The thrill is gone. The thrill is gone away."

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  Finish it for me.

• 1:32:55Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, I saw that.

• 1:32:56Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm just saying.

• 1:32:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  That's how simple it was codified.

• 1:33:00Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, the architecture, like the basic undergirding sort of I-beams of the architecture are quite simple, but the way that it can be applied is just beyond counting, right?

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  It's the thing that existed in the air and the thing that we've all felt within. And it took this American experiment for it to emerge into a form.

• 1:33:24Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, it's a combination of like discovering fire, right, this thing that has always been there that we now have a form for. And it's also something very elemental that can be wielded in a million different ways. And as you have different cultural influences, you have different combinations of people, newer and newer and newer ways of applying it emerge.

• 1:33:48Speaker 02

  We've heard it in rock and roll basslines our whole life, the old...

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you know, just thinking about all of the ways that I've heard the blues before even really understanding that is so ubiquitous. You know what I mean? I'm thinking we're here in Jimi Hendrix's studio.

• 1:34:09Speaker 02

  That's the pentatonic scale. There's just so much that you would, you can listen to so much and understand it. So when I took Beethoven, I was thinking.

• 1:34:28Speaker 02

  You know, if you put that on it.

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  Beethoven in the Congo.

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  One, two, three, one, two, one, two, three, eh.

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  Woo! Hey, you tell.

• 1:35:17Speaker 02

  Oh! So you know what I mean?

• 1:35:19Tim Ferriss?

  I do.

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  And then you find the blues, it's a.

• 1:35:32Tim Ferriss?

  My dad used to play that song on the piano when I was a kid. That specific.

• 1:35:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:35:39Tim Ferriss?

  Segment just activated like Ratatouille style. When Anton Ego flashes back to being a kid.

• 1:35:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:46Tim Ferriss?

  That was wild. It's incredible what music does. I mean, I'm not a musician, but it's so igniting, to use that word. It's just an incredible key that unlocks.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  These songs too are so deeply connected to us.

• 1:36:03Speaker 02

  Beethoven wrote songs we're listening to. These compositions, these melodies, themes, all these things we've heard for years and years over generations. So it ignites people's love, not just for music, but brings them back to moments in their life, experiences in their life. And that's what this album, this music is generally about the concept of Beethoven blues, but also about the humanity that it will bring people together, bring somebody back to the instrument who stepped away for many years. Kids who are growing up who, maybe I don't see myself in classical music, but now I see, oh, there's a, I see something that was always there, like the blues can bring it out.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  But it just hadn't been presented to me in that way.

• 1:36:49Tim Ferriss?

  Mm-hmm. And I mean, what comes to mind as an image for me also is you have these various tributaries of music that have, in some ways, separated out. I'm not sure I'm using the right geological term here, but they've sort of separated and flowed out into different fingers. And what you seem to have done, starting, maybe not starting, but certainly at Juilliard, especially afterwards, you've sort of brought these flows back together in a way that they can intermingle, which gives people permission to remix, to make something that is uniquely theirs.

• 1:37:25Speaker 02

  To live, baby!

• 1:37:26Tim Ferriss?

  To live.

• 1:37:30Speaker 02

  That's it!

• 1:37:31Tim Ferriss?

  That's it.

• 1:37:32Speaker 02

  It's not just the music. It's not about the music.

• 1:37:36Speaker 02

  It's about the music and more. Wow! He played that.

• 1:37:44Speaker 02

  I like doing this, these harmonies. Like, imagine if you, there's a version on the album that goes for 20 minutes, and it makes this into a...

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  It's this healing trance. It's like a meditation.

• 1:39:10Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just gonna put this album on repeat and listen to it a thousand times.

• 1:39:14Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:39:14Tim Ferriss?

  I mean, 20 minutes of that, I mean,

• 1:39:20Tim Ferriss?

  that feels like, that feels like taking the hypotenuse to catharsis.

• 1:39:30Speaker 02

  Yes, that's it. That's the idea.

• 1:39:35Tim Ferriss?

  I feel very privileged to even watch you do that.

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  Brother, thank you. I'm grateful for you building this space and allowing for folks to come in and share who they are and what they have to offer. And then it becoming this feedback loop of us all growing, of us all learning and growing together. That's you, man. Thank you for that. That's powerful stuff.

• 1:40:01Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you. I love doing it. How did this end up being a job? Crazy.

• 1:40:07Speaker 02

  Blessing of life, right?

• 1:40:08Tim Ferriss?

  John Batiste, johnbatiste.com. Beethoven Blues. Go get it, everybody.

• 1:40:14Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between 1.5 and 2 million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half-page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered, or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.

• 1:40:57Tim Ferriss?

  And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog/friday. Type that into your browser, tim.blog/friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. I have been using Eight Sleep Pod cover for years now. Why? Well, by simply adding it to your existing mattress on top, like a fitted sheet, you can automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed. Eight Sleep recently launched their newest generation of the Pod,

• 1:41:40Tim Ferriss?

  and I'm excited to test it out, Pod 4 Ultra. It cools, it heats, and now it elevates automatically. More on that in a second. First, Pod 4 Ultra can cool down each side of the bed as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature, keeping you and your partner cool, even in a heatwave. Or you can switch it up depending on which of you is heat-sensitive. I am always more heat-sensitive, pulling the sheets off, closing the windows, trying to crank the AC down. This solves all of that. Pod 4 Ultra also introduces an adjustable base that fits between your mattress and your bed frame, and adds reading and sleeping positions for the best unwinding experience. And for those snore-heavy nights, the Pod can detect your snoring and automatically lift your head by a few degrees to improve airflow and stop You or your partner from snoring.

• 1:42:25Tim Ferriss?

  Plus with the Pod4Ultra, you can leave your wearables on the nightstand. You won't need them because these types of metrics are integrated into the Pod4Ultra itself. They have imperceptible sensors which track your sleep time, sleep phases, and HRV. Their heart rate tracking, as just one example, is at 99% accuracy. So get your best night's sleep. Head to 8sleep.com/tim and use code TIM to get $350 off of the Pod4Ultra. That's 8sleep, all spelled out, 8sleep.com/tim and code TIM, T-I-M, to get $350 off the Pod4Ultra. They currently ship to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. The following quote is from one of the most legendary entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon

• 1:43:10Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:43:52Tim Ferriss?

  and automate expense reporting, allowing you to close your books eight times faster on average. Your employees will no longer spend hours upon hours submitting expense reports. I mean, within companies, fast-growing startups or otherwise, a lot of employees spend half their time, it seems, trying to get all this stuff together. No more. Ramp saves you time and money. You can get started, issue virtual and physical cards, and start making payments in less than 15 minutes, whether you have five employees or 5,000 employees. They've streamlined everything. And businesses that use Ramp save an average of 5% in the first year. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. Just go to ramp.com/tim.

• 1:44:34Tim Ferriss?

  All spelled out, that's ramp.com/tim, R-A-M-P.com/tim. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply.