Embrace Your Artistic Passion & Turn It Into A Full-Time Living EP 1321

Multi-talented artist and rapper Harry Mack is best known for his unique, jaw-dropping visual freestyle rapping. He first came to fame when his Venice Beach Freestyle went viral, which propelled him to opportunities alongside the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, Ellen DeGeneres, Complex Music, and RedBull Music. His content has amassed millions of views and spreads smiles to all who watch. In this episode you will learn,How to harness your creativity to strengthen your personal brand. How to overcome fear and bear the responsibility for your own success. How to find your calling and actively pursue it. Tips on using nerves to your advantage. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1321Scooter Braun On Healing Past Trauma, Building A Business Empire & Finding Peace: https://link.chtbl.com/1244-pod How To Pursue Your Dreams Even In The Face Of Adversity w/Bobby Hall a.k.a. Logic: https://link.chtbl.com/1163-podHow to Change Your Limiting Thoughts & Beliefs Around Success, Self-Love & Happiness w/Lilly Singh: https://link.chtbl.com/1250-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  To each they own, but I'm in my zone and I'm all by myself, I am not no clone. I'm here with Lewis Howes on the School of Greatness. We all about the real, never kicking no fakeness. Y'all know I got the rhymes that'll leave I'm shook. It's H Mac off the brain, never written in books. Let's go.

• 0:16Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:39Lewis Howes?

  So you want to give me three words, huh?

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah, give me three words. Or whatever you are more comfortable with. You can either give me three at the top, or you can just lob them to me as we go.

• 0:47Lewis Howes?

  As we go?

• 0:48Speaker 02

  Just as many as you want.

• 0:49Lewis Howes?

  Geez, I'll give you three at the top.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  Okay, let's do that.

• 0:51Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if I'm gonna be that creative. I'm looking at Muhammad Ali, so is that, does that count as one word?

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 0:57Lewis Howes?

  Muhammad Ali.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 0:58Lewis Howes?

  Ohio.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Ohio, got it.

• 1:01Lewis Howes?

  And, um, love.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, alright. Muhammad Ali, Ohio, and love. Those are the three words. We rolling?

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  I might have to rock a show up in your hometown. It's H Mac, you know I got the truest style. I mean, I'm on the School of Greatness with Lewis Howes. All up in it, yo, we made it on the podcast. H Mac coming off the top with the raw blast. The lyrics and information win by every indication. Yeah, bout to get the TV show with syndication. Every obstacle, we quick to rise above. And when I see another human being, I don't judge. I know we struggle, and that's when push comes to shove. So I spit it from my heart, and I represent love. I know for people all around the planet, it ain't easy. So I'd rather try to channel that L O V E. Yeah, y'all know I'm trying to help you understand. To anyone low, I'mma reach out my hand. Knowing I can't win unless everybody's winning. I wish I had that same mindset from the beginning.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  It takes time, but over time, while learning these lessons, I expanded my mind. We call that progression. It's love from the heart, love from the soul. Love for these rhymes, love for these flows. And I love to control the mic that I hold. Rather have love for the soul than love for the platinum. Love for the watch, love for the gold. It's not about the material. I be getting lyrical, we're in Imperial. H Mac working a miracle. Y'all know I had to come through right now. School of Greatness, Harry Mag, Lewis Howes.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  How long were you doing the jazz drumming before you got into freestyle rapping?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Well, I started playing the drums at the same time that I started rapping. They both came into my world when I was about 10 years old.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  And I started performing both as a drummer and a rapper at some point in middle school. So I did like my first professional jazz gig at a farmer's market in Portland, Oregon, where I'm from. I was part of like a community, you know, youth jazz band up in Portland. And we got a gig. I don't know if it paid now that I think about it. Maybe I can't call it a professional gig. But I was 13 years old, you know, we played out at a farmer's market. And then simultaneously, I was rapping in a group that I had that started back when I was 11 or 12 years old with my best friends in middle school called State of Mind.

• 4:16Lewis Howes?

  A rap group?

• 4:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes. Now, I'm curious, like, how do you create confidence within yourself to do something that maybe you weren't supposed to be doing? Freestyle rapping, right?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  And to do this in public for strangers a lot? Like, how do you get the confidence?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Which I think is one of the key things that a lot of people are missing in life in general.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:39Lewis Howes?

  On how to have confidence to ask someone out on a date or to go for the career they want. But you, like, public speaking was the biggest fear for me growing up. And you kind of have to do this to express your talent. How did you learn how to overcome the fear of humiliation, embarrassment, looking silly, messing up? And gain that confidence?

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Man, that's a great question. Um, I think one of the most important things for me is, you know, confidence comes through experience. And I'm lucky in that I've been performing since I was a little kid. Um, I start, my first instrument was the violin. I started playing when I was seven years old. And I always remember my first violin recital. And the reason I'll always remember it is because I didn't play, because instead I just cried.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  The entire time, because I was so scared.

• 5:28Lewis Howes?

  How many people were there?

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Oh, there, uh, all the parents and, you know, some grandparents and aunts and uncles and.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Fifty or a hundred people.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah, fifty or a hundred people.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Was it a school recital?

• 5:36Speaker 02

  It was this place called the Community Music Center in Portland, where I'm from. So that's where I took violin lessons and, you know, every, every quarter or so, the teacher would put on a recital for all the students.

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  So the first time, you didn't play anything? You just stood there and cried?

• 5:51Speaker 02

  That was my first public performance opportunity. Yeah, I just, I cried the whole time. I didn't even actually like make it onto the stage. I just sat with my parents and cried. And the teacher kind of looked over and was like, it's not gonna happen, right? And my parents were like, yeah, it's probably not gonna happen. This guy won't stop crying. So, uh, I say that just to say that, uh, I wasn't some kind of born performer. The confidence that I have now wasn't gifted to me at birth by a long shot. It's something that I've worked through over time and something that I still actually have to a large degree. When I perform today, I still get nervous before I go out on stage. Oh, definitely. When we go out in public, like you're mentioning, and I have a series called Gorilla Bars on YouTube, which is essentially me going out in public and rapping for strangers. And I get very nervous at the beginning of those days, you know?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Less so now, because I've done it so many times and I know that it's gonna be okay. You know, I have data that I can look back on. I have videos. Yeah, exactly. I have results and the. Videos exist online and so at a certain point you kind of have to look at that and say, okay, stop being crazy, you know, it's gonna be okay.

• 6:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Um, but definitely that sort of feeling of nervousness, the, the increased heart rate, the shortness of breath, the feeling like this is crazy. Why am I gonna put myself out in these sort of situations? Why am I gonna expose myself to this kind of judgment is tough. One other thing that, that comes to mind, you know, when you ask about how to sort of gain the confidence to do something that maybe, you know, you're not necessarily supposed to be doing or something that's disruptive, you know, like going up to strangers in a public place and saying, hey, let me rap for you. Um, I feel very grateful that I started freestyling when I was a kid. I started when I was 10 or 11 years old. And at that age, I think, at least for me, and I think for a lot of people,

• 7:36Speaker 02

  we're just a lot less judgmental of ourselves.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  Less fearful.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  Just goofing around, being silly, having fun, trying stuff.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  Experimenting.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Right, like for me as a 10 year old, I'm in love with this music called hip hop, you know, at a visceral level. I'm in love with the way that it makes me feel, you know, the, the low end of the bass and the drums smacking hard and this vocal that even though I don't necessarily understand what the rappers are talking about a lot of the time at that age, the way the message is delivered feels so important and it's just gripping. And so I'm in love with this music and for me as a 10 year old at that time, it wasn't like some big decision that, oh, now I'm gonna start rapping. It was like, yeah, of course I'm gonna play around and try to rap, you know?

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I'm 10, like, and that sounds super fun to me, you know, and I love this thing. And like, why would I not try my hand at it? You know, at that age, it's almost like finger painting when you're in preschool or something. No preschooler does a finger painting the whole time being like, oh, is this good?

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  Is anyone gonna like this? Like, oh, I wonder like, what's the point? Why am I even doing this? Maybe this isn't for me, you know? No, no preschooler is doing that while they're finger painting. They're just getting messy and having fun, being creative.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  And so I think for anybody at any age, you know, cause somebody might be listening to this and saying, well, that's great, but I didn't start when I was 10. You know, and I've done some, a lot of teaching, both drum lessons and working with, with freestylers and aspiring rappers, yeah. I've taught a lot of private lessons and also done some group stuff in schools. And, um, but when I'm working with people who are a little older, maybe in their twenties or thirties, or even older than that, um, I think one, one really important thing to keep in mind is as much as possible, if you can try to channel that inner child when you're practicing and when you're in the beginning, when you're sort of getting comfortable with this idea of doing something that feels crazy, like doing a freestyle, your first ever freestyle.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  If you can take the pressure off and, and not judge it and start finger painting, make it like finger painting, do something bad on purpose. You know what I mean? Don't try to be good. Make a sound. Why do you think it's so hard for people to be bad on purpose? I think as we get older, as we grow up, I think especially probably in, in western society, but, but in modern society in general, I think we get a lot of messaging along the way, whether it's from parents or teachers, that, you know, we kind of have to prove our, our worth through our output. You know, like if you get a good grade, well, that's great, you know, you're going to be celebrated. If you get a bad grade, well, now you're going to be in trouble, you know, and until you get that good grade, it's kind of like you have to earn that love in that moment. I know.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  You know, and we get those messages throughout our lives and I feel like the, the pressure behind those messages only increases over time, you know, when you, now you've got to try to get into a college if that's the path you're on. And then you graduate from college and you have to enter the workforce and you're not going to be able to make a lot of money until you prove yourself and move up that structure. And there's just this sort of feeling that putting out something into the world that's not of the utmost quality is somehow going to take away from like your personal self-worth as a human being. Yes. And that's not actually the case, you know, like I always would tell my students, it's important to remember that nobody is ever going to get hurt by your bad freestyle. You know what I mean? And nobody's ever going to die, like, right? Not, not even close.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  They're not even going to, they're not even going to feel any sense of, of pain whatsoever. You know, it won't cause any real world problem for any other human being on earth. But why do we put the pain on ourselves when we fail or embarrassed? Yeah, it's a good question, man. I mean, I do think it's because of the way that society sort of puts these messages out to us that our self-worth is dependent on what we do. Yeah. You know, and so people decide early on. I also think another thing that goes along with this is the way that music is taught, and probably other art forms as well, or anything that might be under the umbrella of creative work.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  It's sort of taught in this way where you, okay, let's say you want to be a musician and you're a child. Then often, very quickly, your parent will say, okay, well, maybe, but we're gonna have to get you some music lessons. You know, we're gonna have to get you with a professional so that you can learn the right way to be creative, right? When in reality, every child is creative. Like, I was banging rhythms on my high-chair tray, you know, and I didn't need anybody to give me permission to do that. Sure. And nobody, and but what so often happens is the child is banging rhythms on the high-chair tray, and then the parent intervenes and says, oh, maybe you're interested in music. Stop that, because that's probably not right. Let's go structure it.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll get you with a professional who will show you the right way to do this. And then so often what happens is maybe the student gets paired with a teacher. Maybe it's not the best fit, or maybe it's not the best teacher, who knows? Or maybe it's just the wrong time for that child to be learning in that particular way, and they struggle in those lessons, and they don't necessarily get very far. And then they get frustrated, because suddenly what was a very intuitive expression of creativity is now it's like, that's not it, and you have to do this now, right? Sure. And so that's frustrating to a lot of young students, I think. And then what ends up happening is they decide at that point, well, music's not for me. Interesting. You know, or this creative expression is not for me.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Or art or something, yeah. Or art, or anything, or even, you know, somebody who wants to create a podcast or build out a business like you've done. I think a lot of people have already decided, well, I'm not creative, therefore I can't do that. Right. And I don't actually think that's the case at all. I think, you know, it's, again, it's just this From a very early age, you're getting these messages that there's a right way to be creative and a wrong way, and you have to be taught the right way. And, and that, I think that sort of gatekeeping, almost, to creativity causes a lot of people to be turned off from it.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  Now, now, how did you learn to overcome failure then? You know, with, with, because you were into freestyle rapping when you were 10, 12, 13, in your teens. But you didn't pursue that as the next thing for you. You pursued jazz drumming, essentially.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  And then for what, about 10 years, you were doing like, you know, 50, $100 gigs for jazz drumming around LA, trying to make a living?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  Um, which you never really, let's say, made it financially. But you were living the dream, you were playing professionally, you're getting paid to play in front of people, which is pretty sweet.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn to overcome the failures that would come?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  That's a great question. Um, you know what? For me, I've always had such a strong passion for music my entire life that, you know, regardless of what happened in terms of my music career, so to speak, I feel like I've identified as a musician since I was very young.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  You know, um, my parents tell me stories about, you know, I used to love classic blues, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf. My dad would make me cassette tapes with those artists on them. And I loved them as a kid, and then there were times, like, before I was even walking, Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf would come on the radio and I'd start vibrating. I don't remember that, but that's what they tell me. Um, so, you know, and I would crawl to the speaker, and like I said, I would play drums on my high chair tray. And I've always been, I've always felt very connected to music. And so, you know, violin was my first instrument, then I went to the drums, then I started rapping. And there's been all these sort of different chapters in my life of how I've sort of expressed my musicality. And it hasn't always been the same, and it's morphed and it's changed.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And there have been times where, you know, I, I had to have a job that wasn't music. You know, I worked at a call center for about four years.

• 15:22Lewis Howes?

  Really? Here in LA?

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, at my alma mater, USC. I called the alumni and asked for charitable donations.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Give me some money, give me some money.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, which was a very challenging, you know, in many ways, soul sucking job. That actually taught me a lot, though. I think a lot of important lessons.

• 15:37Lewis Howes?

  I mean, to ask for money as an artist is hard to do, too.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  Like, to learn to sell yourself.

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:43Lewis Howes?

  To sell your art, your music.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:45Lewis Howes?

  Say, buy a ticket, buy a CD, whatever it is, that takes courage.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  And most artists don't want to sell.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Right. Right. I think there's a stigma around selling as an artist a lot of the time. You know, there's this idea that you shouldn't have to promote yourself, which is totally crazy. Of course, you should promote yourself, you know, as a musician. I mean, I'm a musician, but I'm also an entrepreneur, you know. I want to do, I'm so in love with music, I want it to be what I'm able to do full time with my life, you know.

• 16:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  And in order to be able to do that, I have to build a business around my music. So I think, yeah, learning how to ask for, for money, essentially, right? Learning how to promote, learning how to build rapport with strangers, learning how to network, lessons like that. And also learning how to, like you say, get comfortable with rejection.

• 16:36Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  I mean, working at that call center was a crash course, man. I used to be so uncomfortable on the phone.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  How often were you getting rejected or said no to?

• 16:44Speaker 02

  All, all day, all the time. And the funny thing is, I was set up to call the music school, because that's the school that I went to.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, and they got no money.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  They, yeah.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  They got no money.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Right. Or they're not working in music, and they spent a lot of money on a music degree, and now they're selling insurance or whatever it might be, and maybe there's some resentment there.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  They're like, screw USC, they didn't give me anything, yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 02

  USC didn't help me, you know, I'll never donate back, and all those kinds of things. It was great for me. It was great for me, even though I didn't really enjoy being there, because I would rather be playing the drums or rapping. Um, I gained so much from it.

• 17:15Lewis Howes?

  What were the three biggest lessons from being told no and rejection for four years at a call center?

• 17:21Speaker 02

  I think the the three biggest lessons, number one, I learned to just sort of let rejection roll over me, you know, I learned to not take it personally. Because after spending even just a few days in a call center, you will learn that it's not personal, it's not about you, right? Um, rejection is the name of the game. You're gonna get rejected most of the time. And then maybe one out of twenty calls, you'll get a donation, right? So the job is basically rejection. And so if you take that personally, you're not gonna last more than a week. So I quickly learned to not take it personally.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  And um, that's probably the most important important lesson, and that's helped me in a lot of other areas of life as well.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  The second big lesson from the call center, uh, I think is you don't know to what degree people can help you unless you ask. Give me an example. When I first started training for the job, they told me the first amount of money you're gonna ask for is two hundred and fifty dollars. And I couldn't believe that I would ask a stranger over the phone for that much money. And that's not some crazy amount of money, but for me in college at that time especially, and in general, just for a stranger on the phone to ask you for two hundred and fifty dollars, it seemed crazy to me. And so I was so intimidated just by that fact, that I had to start the call by asking for two hundred and fifty dollars. And uh, sure enough,

• 18:51Speaker 02

  you know, uh, not every time, maybe not even every day, but every couple of days, somebody would say, yeah, sure, I can donate two hundred and fifty dollars. I enjoy my time at USC, I'll do that, here's my credit card info. And so I think, you know, we have these sort of like limiting beliefs, right? That, oh, no one would ever give two hundred and fifty dollars. And granted, it wasn't, they weren't giving it to me, they were giving it to USC. But um, applying that now, you know, when I'm building a business and, you know, um, It's like, I don't know to what degree uh my fans are willing to support, or I don't know to what degree other people might be willing to join my team and support, you know, unless I ask. And if I have this belief in my head, like, well, nobody's gonna do that. Nobody's gonna come work for me as a full-time video editor, you know, why would they, why me?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Why would they do that? A lot of times, we have these sort of self-doubts, or these limiting beliefs. And so that's something that I got from the call center, is that, you know, all you have to do is ask, and the worst that's gonna happen is they'll say no.

• 19:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  And you don't have to take that personally.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  And learn how to not take it personally.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. And what's the, what's the third thing?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Well, the third biggest thing for me that I gained from the call center was learning how to, essentially, learning how to network with other people. Learning how to talk to other people. You know, I was uh, I wasn't antisocial necessarily.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Were you introverted though, or were you?

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and I still am. I mean, I still, there's this, there's, you know, there's the performer Harry Mack that goes out in public and asks people to freestyle for them.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  The extrovert, who's the performer?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:17Lewis Howes?

  But the rest of you is more of an introvert.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. At the end of the day, I, you know, prefer to read a book.

• 20:23Lewis Howes?

  You don't like people.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  I love people, but you know, I need a, I need to recharge alone.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure, it's a lot of energy, I'm sure. To be that creative, to also overcome your fear every time if you're going out in public and talking to strangers and saying, "Hey, do you want me to freestyle rap for you?"

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:39Lewis Howes?

  They're like, "Get away from me, I'm trying to get to the store," or whatever, "I don't know who you are."

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  It takes a lot of courage and energy and thought and creativity.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  Even if you've done it for decades, it still takes energy and effort.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it does. I mean, at the end of a, a day of shooting Gorilla Bars, where we're out in public doing what you just mentioned, it's, I'm exhausted.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Drain, probably.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  I'm completely drained.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  How long do you go for?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Uh, it depends. We'll be out there for three or four hours, maybe. Yeah.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  But it's like, it's the rejection and then it's the highs, right?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  You get like, both sides of it.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:10Lewis Howes?

  And it's managing the energy of both, right?

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's in this, if, if, if we get the yes and we're able to do a performance, within that three minutes and 30 seconds of me performing, I'm giving everything.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  You're all, you're in the zone.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Everything I have, in the zone, and such a high level of focus. I mean, it's very mentally taxing. Although it happens in a very short frame of time, um, it's a sprint.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Because you have to pull, I don't even know how you do this, but I'm assuming you've got... I don't want to actually assume, but I would think that you would have a vocabulary

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  of words that you know, here's thirty words that all rhyme.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Or ten words that all rhyme. And there's somewhere in your mind, I think people call it like the mental castle or something where there's places in your mind where these words can be stored.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:55Lewis Howes?

  Where you can tap into in different places in your mind.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  And link together. And that is an incredible skill that people can learn how to do, but it just takes a lot of effort and energy.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  To master that.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  You see people doing that with like counting numbers or cards or names and memorizing things. It's like.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  It is a gift, man.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  Man, thank you. No, it's, it's, it's really a lot of fun and it's exactly how you described it. It's a vocabulary. You know, being a freestyler is completely different than, you know, if I were writing songs and making albums in a more traditional sort of format. Cause in that sense, you're taking time to, you know, pen something and revise it, maybe get it to a place where you're happy with it. And then you're committing it to memory. And it's always essentially coming back out the same way. What I'm doing is I'm attempting to develop a language.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  You know, my own personal language and vocabulary.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  And adding music and tonality and all these different elements.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  To make it rhythmic.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  And pop and be unique, not just let me rhyme in monotone.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  Flow in a different way.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And by the way, that's not to take away from the great songwriters of, of the genre as well, whom, many of whom I love. You know, and have influenced the way that I rap. So I love Nas, you know, I love Kendrick Lamar. I love Eminem. I love, you know, Jay-Z, Biggie. I love these artists and, and they're my heroes. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a different part of the brain. And it's, it's a different approach because my goal is to be able to rap about anything at any moment. So if we have a conversation and we touch on certain things, or maybe you, you know, Louis, you teach me something and drop a concept on me that I hadn't thought about before, you know? I wanna be able to say, huh, you know, okay, let me put a beat on and rap about that.

• 23:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  And the only way that I'll be able to do that successfully is if I have this vocabulary that I'm comfortable with.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  So how big of a vocabulary is it that you have? And are there different buckets of rhyming words that you put in there like I'm just?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Yes, hundred percent.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  I have no idea how this works.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know exactly how large the vocabulary is. It's funny, people will say to me like, oh, like you must be a genius, you know, like you have this insane vocabulary. I don't actually think that's true. Like I know people who use way bigger college words.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  All the time I have to say, what does that mean, you know? So I don't think it's actually about the size of my like regular vocabulary, how most people would talk about vocabulary, right? Like the words you know. But I think what I've practiced and the skill that serves me as a freestyler is that I have quick access and deep familiarity with the vocabulary that I do possess. So I know how to grab the words that I do use.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Quick.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Quickly, and I can find the right ones for the given moment. And your question about rhyming buckets sort of, you know, is one way to think about it. Yes, one hundred percent. Over time, you know, the first time you try to freestyle about coffee, you might quickly discover you don't have one single word that rhymes with coffee. What rhymes with that? And that will manifest when you say, yo, I'm sitting here sipping on the coffee.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  So that used to happen all the time, you know, when I was young. Oh, yeah, my first freestyles were not good. I've practiced, I've gained my skills over time through practice. But and then maybe you go home and think about it, what rhymes with coffee? And then eventually you think, oh, stop me, can't nobody stop me. That could be a useful rhyme with coffee. And then eventually over time, you have coffee and probably and watch me and cacophony as a slam stretch rhyme, you know?

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  And not for free or whatever.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Exactly, there you go, yes, yes.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  So it's adding two words that make it rhyme, maybe not one word or something, yeah?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Exactly, and you start to build that up with a range of words, you know? And you start to commit them to. Memory, the more that you use them.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  And so in that sense, it really is a language. I like to remind people like we're improvising right now. Like we're freestyling right now, utilizing our language. And we're not overthinking it, you know, we don't have a plan. Like, I don't know what you're gonna ask me. You don't know what I'm gonna say back. And many of the things.

• 26:09Lewis Howes?

  It's jazz.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  It's jazz. It's live jazz. It's or it's a freestyle cipher session. And what's so cool about that is like, we're not completely inventing, we're not completely reinventing the wheel with everything, every single thing we say. Like if I sit down, you might say, hey, welcome to School of Greatness. I'm happy to have you here. And I'm gonna say, oh, thanks, Louis. It's really an honor to be here. Right? And and sentences with basically that exact same structure have been said millions of times. You know, and it's the same when I'm freestyling is it's it's not that I'm completely creating from scratch every single time and trying to make something brand new. It's just the fact that I don't have a plan and I'm fully open to going in any direction. And I'm gonna use the vocabulary that I do have and the words that I have and my fluency and the sort of language of rap

• 26:54Speaker 02

  to communicate to the best that I can in that moment, what it is I'm trying to say.

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  It's really cool, man.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 26:59Lewis Howes?

  But for how many years were you doing the jazz drumming for?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Uh, from age ten till.

• 27:05Lewis Howes?

  I mean professionally.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Professionally, yeah. I so I went to school for jazz in at USC. I graduated in two thousand twelve. And I gigged around LA from two thousand twelve to two thousand seventeen.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, okay.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  And then you decided to, were you still doing the freestyle rapping thing at the time, just kinda like for fun with friends?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I I sort of uh fell victim to this thing that I I think a lot of people might go through who who, you know, go to college and earn a degree. Uh, my degree was in jazz studies and I was a drummer on paper, you know, and I I did love playing the drums. I really did, and I love jazz music. I still do.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  But. My heart and my creative voice was really in hip hop.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  Even before you went to USC?

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so. I think it always kind of, I think, you know, hip hop is the first music that grabbed me directly. You know, my dad was a jazz fan and he had this incredible collection of CDs and albums from, you know, the jazz greats, Miles Davis and Coltrane and people like that. And he gifted that music to me, you know, he shared that music with me and that was an incredible gift. I'm really grateful that he did that and I, I do love jazz, but um.

• 28:17Lewis Howes?

  But it doesn't speak to your heart the same way hip hop does.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It spoke to my dad's heart that way, you know. Hip hop grabbed me directly, no middle person.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  But you didn't have like a, a path to pursue after high school necessarily to say, I'm gonna go try this hip hop thing, man.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. I was fortunate enough that my parents supported me getting a jazz drumming degree.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  That's a, that's a big deal.

• 28:38Speaker 02

  That's rare.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Rare.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  That's rare. A lot of parents.

• 28:41Lewis Howes?

  Cause they know you're not gonna make money.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's so unlikely, you know, the, the, the number of people on earth that can make a, a good living playing jazz. It's a handful and it's the best of the best of the, I mean, it's the greatest living jazz.

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  And it's the greatest and the most marketable, the ones that promote themselves and package and position their brands.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  In the right ways at the right time.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  My brother talks about this, you know, he's like, there's so many, he sees so many talented people that are just in their room thinking someone's gonna discover them.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  It's like, if you're not building your personal brand and promoting yourself, like what you do through content.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  No one would know who you are.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  You know, there's probably only, I don't even, I don't even, I haven't seen any other people do what you do.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure there's a handful of guys who are doing street stuff around the world.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  Um, street rapping, but you have built a personal brand that allows you to be known.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  That allows you to generate revenue.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  And a lot of artists, I feel like. Just work on the craft only and then sit and hope someone discovers them at a night gig.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  Once a week.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:49Lewis Howes?

  But this is a daily thing where you are creating content, building personal brand and mastering craft.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's so important because I don't want to have to wait for somebody else to give me permission to have my success.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  I want to be able to manifest my own success, using my own creativity and do it sort of on my terms, you know, and in a way that aligns with my heart and makes sense for me and showcases what I do in the best possible way. And I think one of the challenges that freestyle improvisers, because there's a long lineage of incredible freestylers way before Harry Mack, you know? One of my biggest influences is MC Supernatural, who's one of the greatest freestyle rappers to ever live. Yeah. And there's many others as well. That's just one. But one of the biggest challenges they faced is that like a freestyle rapper doesn't fit in easily to sort of the machine of the music industry.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Right? Because people working at record labels, they might hear an amazing improvised freestyle, all about their outfit and the label name and maybe the whole catalog of the last year, and it might blow their mind, right? That's happened time and time again. And then they say, oh, this person is amazing. This is great. Do you have a single for radio? Do you have something we can promote? Where's the album? We want to put you on tour, but we can't do that unless we have streams, radio plays. Structure. People need to know that they're going to be able to come out and sing along. What do they sing along with? You know, what are you going to do basically to help us make money?

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  How can we monetize?

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so the monetization was all kind of outsourced in many ways. Because like pre-social media, that was kind of like the best avenue was to hope that you got discovered and signed by a record label because they're the ones who actually have the budget to promote. You really didn't have the power, for the most part, as an independent artist back then. There just weren't the tools available to you in the same way they are now to kind of take control of that. So I have a huge privilege, you know, coming into my career now, in this era where there's all these free social media platforms that you have access to. And everybody has this phone in their pocket that's also a 4K video camera, you know, and we can capture anything and we can share it with the world.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  And if it has creative merit, or if it's marketed creatively, if you're able to connect with an audience, then you're able to build an audience organically and you're able to succeed. And you can do that on your own terms without waiting for anybody else's permission. Right. And you can make mistakes and learn from them, and you can experiment and try things. You can do things when you want to. You never have to wait, you know, for someone to say, "Oh, it's not the right time. Maybe we'll try it then." Or, "Oh, I don't know if this is the right direction. We don't want to waste time or money doing this." You get to make those decisions, and it really gives a lot of power to, you know, the independent artist. And I think one of my missions and goals in what I'm doing is to change the landscape

• 32:53Speaker 02

  for freestylers in particular. Because to me, it's an absolute travesty that all of these great freestylers who inspired me are not as well-known as their peers who maybe had big radio hits, you know, and went more the traditional path. These improvisers are some of the highest-level, you know, creative musicians on earth, you know, similar to a Miles Davis or a John Coltrane. And they deserve to have that light shine on them. And I think for young freestylers coming up today, hopefully I can play a part in them looking and seeing, "Oh, there is a path for this," you know, "or there is a way to pursue this on my own terms." And even if I prefer to freestyle and create kind of in the moment, and I prefer to have

• 33:39Speaker 02

  it be different every moment and not, you know, write it down and recite it the same way every time, that doesn't have to mean that there's no future for it. Right. Because for so long, that's how it was posed. To freestylers, it says, oh, this is great, but when are you gonna pivot? When are you gonna do what actually matters, right? It's like, okay, you can freestyle, but when are you gonna make a song? Cause until you do, it's not really a thing, you know?

• 34:03Lewis Howes?

  It's a cool gimmick or whatever.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. It's a fun, it's a fun way to sharpen your sword, so to speak. It's a good practice routine. You're obviously very talented and anyone who sees it knows that, right?

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  But we can't monetize it.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  We don't know how to sell it. And so that's the whole thing is that piece about you're obviously very talented and anybody who sees it knows that. Well, now it's like, okay, let me film it.

• 34:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  And anybody who sees it will, you know, acknowledge the talent and, and if it, if it moves them or speaks to them personally, then they may be moved to, to follow along with what you're doing. And, and, and maybe if, if you get to a point where you're having a show, they'll be the ones to buy the tickets. And, um, so, yeah, I, I, I would love to sort of, um, make that kind of wave where, you know, it, it, for so long, I was talking to somebody and they talked about how, you know, you'll say, oh, they're, they're a great freestyler, but they don't know how to make a hit song. He said, well, do you ever ask the freestyler, do you wanna make a hit song?

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, and it's the same thing for comedians. It's like, oh, he's so good, uh, at standup, but like, he's never written a TV show.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Did you ever ask? Right. Do they wanna do that, you know? And, and it's almost as though, you know, somehow only the, the latter is relevant or important. And what, you know, what about just being a good freestyler? Maybe that, you know, is in and of itself. I, I of course personally believe it is valuable. You know, I'm, I'm very passionate about it and I'm not the only one. And, and I would love to create a world where up and comers can say, oh, dope. This is, this is my thing and I get to show it myself and I don't have to wait.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  Have you created a freestyle membership yet?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Not yet. Well, I'm on Patreon.

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. Of other freestylers?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Of, no.

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  I'm saying like a club.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  That would be dope.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  A membership where you are the, you know, kind of the leader, the host of the community.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:50Lewis Howes?

  That pays to be a part of it, where you provide resources and tools to help them expand their reach or something like that.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  That would be really dope.

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  The next, the next, next thing for you.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 35:59Lewis Howes?

  When, when did you realize that? Because you kind of grew up in the social media world.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  When you started doing freestyling and doing it more full time. What, 2016, I think you said, or 20?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  And yeah, 2017, basically, end of 2016.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  So the tools of, I guess you really, you know, TikTok started to come along in 2018, I guess.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Uh, YouTube started to make it more for live streams and Instagram started to have video, I think, around then.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  You kind of transitioned right when live video, vertical video.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:34Lewis Howes?

  Started to come around in the last four years.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  When did you realize like, oh, this is a way to make a great living and not just make 50 bucks a night and some chicken nuggets at the local bar?

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  Drumming. I, after, I know you got a commercial, but I mean, with the, with the social media wave, when did you realize, oh, I can make a real living here?

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great question. You know what's funny? Uh, my first sort of taste of having a viral video was the end of 2016. I made a video with my friend and, you know, uh, it was for his channel.

• 37:08Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Um, and it got a hundred thousand views overnight. It was me freestyling while driving down Sunset Boulevard and rapping about the changing scenery around me. That was my first taste. That was kind of the catalyst for me saying, okay, I gotta dive in on this and see what I can build. You know, it, it gave me the excitement.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Had you made any content before then?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  As a freestyle?

• 37:27Speaker 02

  None.

• 37:27Lewis Howes?

  You were just kind of like doing it for friends, for fun, but?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  I had various, you know, I had my band in, my group in middle school and high school. We became pretty popular, but it was, it was written songs. It wasn't really freestyling. In college, I, I put in just an absurd number of hours freestyling in the dorm with my friends. I mean, insane, like.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Every night, just like?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Whatever's happening, I'm rapping.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. At least like two or three hours almost every night.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  That's fun.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, and, and became known around like, you know, party circuits as this crazy freestyler guy.

• 37:57Lewis Howes?

  It was like the trick that you could pull out and bring out to a party.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Exactly, yeah. It was always fun, you know, make little circles at the party and freestyle, which is how most people get started freestyling.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  That's fun.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Um, I had a band for a while with my, with my, uh, you know, jazz studies cohorts at USC. It was dope. It was kind of like, you know, we, we looked up to the roots and groups like that that had live instrumentation. So we had, you know, drums, bass, guitar, keys, horn section, and then I was the front person freestyling.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Uh, which was a lot of fun. We became a very popular party band. So, you know, we would play all around the USC campus and, and, uh, and, and things of that nature. But, uh, yeah, the first content that I made was at the end of 2016 and it was for my friend's channel. And it got a hundred thousand views overnight and that was enough of a catalyst for me to realize I need to start my own thing. Didn't have a YouTube channel, didn't have like a professional Facebook page or even like, you know, my IG was just a personal IG. You know, which I barely ever posted on. I wasn't a social media guy. Didn't know anything about it.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  You're an introvert.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was an introvert, you know, uh, so I, I, I just wasn't that into it. But all of a sudden I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is a way that I can, um, create energy around my freestyling. Like, that's interesting, you know?

• 39:04Speaker 02

  And so I set up my YouTube channel, but what's so funny is my first, you know, uh, I, I, I made a couple of videos that didn't really get too many views. You know, I was starting from scratch. Eventually we went out to Venice Beach and I had sort of my first like, you know, hit, so to speak. I had a very viral, yeah. Um, it was called Venice Beach Freestyle Part One. And we posted that on YouTube and it, it went pretty crazy on YouTube, but on Facebook it went bananas. It got reposted by this viral conglomerate site and ended up getting like, you know, 20 million views or something on that one repost. And across all the reposts, it was upwards of 40 million views or something like that. And that had never happened to me before.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  2016, 2017?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  2017, February 2017.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you remember the exact day.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, I remember. Cause it was, it was mind blowing for me, you know? I, I, it was just insane. I had never experienced that before. Um, just all the, all the comments and, and just seeing it reposted and shared here and on blogs that I knew about. And seeing my video up there was just wild. Um, but what's so funny, I did a few videos after that, but I, I didn't turn on the ads for any of those videos.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  I did this for years, man.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Cause I thought it would annoy people.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  Dude, I did for six years on YouTube.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Did you do it by choice or did you not know that, that it was there?

• 40:16Lewis Howes?

  I did it by choice because I didn't want, I wanted to serve and add value and I didn't. Want like some sleazy marketing.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  Campaign in front of my videos, right? So I was like, alright, I'm just gonna add so much value to my community and build this up for free. And we did this for five or six years.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  I went back, I, I started turning on the ads a couple of years ago.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  In the first month, I go, oh, this is not bad. And it just kept growing.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  And I went back and just looked at the views from the previous five years.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  And I about threw up when I realized that I lost about a million dollars.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  Minimum.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  And it probably would have been three or four because had I known I was making the money, I'd have been like, let me pay attention to like really go all in on YouTube.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  And make better content and update the, I didn't do any updates of thumbnails. It was like, just threw it up.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  And so just based on the views, it would have been a million dollars.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  Over five years, which is a lot of money in five years.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 41:10Lewis Howes?

  And, um, and that's why I said, okay, let's, let's really go all in on this and see how we can optimize this. And, and then at that point, it was also kind of the tipping point where I think they were just putting ads on every video anyways.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:22Lewis Howes?

  You had it turned on or not. They're like.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  I see.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  We're monetizing your videos. We're like.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  Might as well make money from it.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 41:28Lewis Howes?

  Everyone sees ads anyways. So it's like, okay, it is what it is.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 41:31Lewis Howes?

  But, um, so you didn't start doing that originally, but then you turned it on after these.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I never turned them on, uh, because, I mean, similar to you, I, I just thought that it would turn people off from the videos. I would rather have more people see it. And at that time, I felt like the ad would deter people from watching it. And I don't know if that's actually true. I think, you know, it's hard to say. Like you say, now that the ads are so ubiquitous. I mean, they're everywhere. Uh, I think people just expect it. And it's, it's totally normal. Uh, but that was my philosophy back then. I really didn't know anything about YouTube.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  I have kind of a funny situation too. We talked about it a little bit earlier, but, um, around that same time, after I'd been making these sort of non-monetized YouTube videos for a while.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  Video.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  I got called to do this Mitsubishi commercial. And it was, it was the craziest thing at the time because, you know, even though I was having these viral videos, I really wasn't making very much money. I mean, I was very much living month to month, which I was used to because I had been a gigging jazz musician for all those years. So I had no overhead, no savings, you know? And I basically just covered my expenses, my rent, my groceries and gas.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Food and said, yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and sort of started over again at the top of each month. I got called to do the Mitsubishi commercial and it ended up being a national TV ad for nine months in the US and Canada. It's a trip. It's me dressed up like a Mitsubishi salesperson and they come in to, you know, test drive the car. And then we go in the car and I start freestyling the features of the car.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  And did you freestyle the whole thing every time or did you kind of have pre-planned? Like you knew some of the terminology of the whatever you had.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, so for the, like, you know, for the ad agency and for like the Mitsubishi corporation, they want to like approve the copy.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  Right. So hard, man.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I, I, I wrote a verse about the, the full disclosure. All right, for your audience. Uh, yeah, no, I, and I've talked about this before. I wrote the verse out, uh, word for word about the car features and shared that with them. And then we came up with this concept where I would do one take like that.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  And then one freestyle.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, completely freestyle, just rapping about their outfits or whatever came to mind.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Mix it in somehow.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Mix it in with the stuff. So the, the final product included some of my preconceived lyrics and then some freestyle.

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Um, but you know, for me at the time, that commercial, you know, I, I made more money than I had ever made in my life. To do that commercial and it wasn't any, you know, insane jaw dropping amount. But for me, living month to month, it was like, oh wow, I can breathe now. For the first time and that felt really, really great.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  But I also learned a really, really important lesson at that time. You know, I had always had the goal of making an album, you know, writing songs and sort of making more of like a traditional hip hop album. Even though, you know, I didn't really have experience doing that since my high school days. It was something that I really wanted to do. And I also felt at that time, a lot of pressure to do that because I felt like that was the obvious pivot. Like we were talking about earlier.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  It's like, okay, this freestyle thing is cool, but...

• 44:42Lewis Howes?

  If I want to go make real money, I gotta do this album thing.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. I have to, you know, go to radio and I have to become, you know, whatever image you have of a famous, successful rapper. I felt this incredible amount of pressure to somehow embody that, you know, rather than, you know, remembering that I should just be myself and do what comes naturally to me. I wasn't quite there yet mentally.

• 45:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  So I was struggling with that. Um, and then here comes this Mitsubishi commercial. And so I said, oh, great. This will be my record label advance. You know what I mean? This will be the, the money that I can sort of live off and use to fund my album and, you know, um, uh, get producers to work with and make some music videos and things of that nature. So...

• 45:23Lewis Howes?

  And you, you stopped making content during that time?

• 45:25Speaker 02

  I stopped making content. I took a break. This, I took a break from YouTube for almost a full year.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:32Lewis Howes?

  It could be irrelevant if you go a year away from your content.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Easily, easily. I mean, now we post, you know, uh, daily on multiple platforms. You know, we go hard. But at this time, uh, I was like, well, I'm not making money on these YouTube videos anyway because I didn't turn the ads on intentionally because I didn't want to turn people off for the video. So it's, it's funny, but I, I thought, well, you know, I, I gotta figure out how to pivot and actually make this career happen. Um, and so I lived off the, you know, the Mitsubishi money for almost a full year and I used it to sort of fund my album. And then it got to the end of the year and I was basically out of money, you know? And I looked up and, and all of a sudden there's this panic, you know? And I'm, I'm saying to my girlfriend, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I think I'm gonna have to go apply to, you know, Trader Joe's down the street or Starbucks. You know, I, I gotta get a job, you know?

• 46:20Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to get a job soon. And shout out to my girlfriend and she basically said, you know, that's, that's nonsense, you know? You have an audience and you have this talent, you know? You just have to activate your audience. Like, let's actually figure out what that looks like for you.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  And so at that point, I said, you know what? You're right. And I said, I'm gonna change my approach and I'm gonna actually do YouTube. Like a YouTuber, you know, I'm gonna learn how to monetize a YouTube channel. I'm gonna learn how to do social media. In a way where I'm able to build it out as a business, you know, and I started really doing the, doing the knowledge and doing the research. To understand how that works. And so from that moment on, that's when I sort of rebranded and started calling those men on the street freestyle videos. Gorilla bars. And I sort of came back at that phase after doing the album. The album was not very successful, by the way.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  It was a big thing for me and I'm proud of it and I'm glad that I did it, but it, it didn't make too much of a splash. And so it was like, okay, let's get back into this YouTube thing. Rebranded the series as Gorilla Bars and started doing the videos monetized.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  With the ads on from the onset and um, you know, we, we made, I think, six or seven episodes. We made six episodes and then the seventh one came out and, and went super viral on YouTube. And that, and so it was like, yes, I'm back in the game. Just, just enough.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  So you started making money from the ads there a little bit and then, and then you start going hard on all the platforms, right? Like I found you on TikTok, I think, you know, later this, earlier this year or something. Started doing TikTok, Instagram and just kind of creating content for all platforms.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 48:05Lewis Howes?

  And now you're trying to maximize and monetize wherever you can there, right?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Hundred percent, yeah. It, it started then, it was me trying to learn how each of these platforms work. And what specifically works well for Instagram as opposed to YouTube, Facebook as opposed to TikTok, you know, like. What are the sort of idiosyncrasies of all of these platforms and how are people using them to build businesses? And then seeing how I can apply that to what I do. And in the beginning, like at that time, you know, I'm doing every part of it myself essentially. Which is a really important phase of the whole journey that I'm really grateful for, you know, I'm.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  You're not just outsourcing it right away. You're learning it first so you can understand the. Language of how these things work.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:48Lewis Howes?

  And then work with other people eventually.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and and you know, learning the language of it, but also just out of necessity, like I couldn't afford to pay somebody else to do it.

• 48:56Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Um, but it's good. I mean, even if I could have, I think uh it it's better this way, right? And I'm and this is, I'm sure you can relate to this, you know, I think pretty much every content creator out there goes through that phase.

• 49:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I spent years broke learning this stuff back in two thousand nine, ten, eleven.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  And I had no money, so I'd obsess about it all day.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:16Lewis Howes?

  Until I could start hiring people, yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah, I mean, I was doing the Gorilla Bars, I was editing them, um, I'm not an editor, you know, first I was in iMovie. You know, and just, I mean, it took me days.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  To get one little video.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  To get one little video. And then, you know, it you, I would spend the whole week, I remember my calendar just had these huge editing blocks, like basically that was my job, I became an editor.

• 49:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Cause that was the biggest bottleneck kind of to getting the stuff out there. Um, I would pay like freelance videographers to come follow me around while I freestyle for people on the street and and then I would get all the footage and edit it together. Create the thumbnail and an app on my phone, you know, um, come up with the title, do the description, all that stuff, get it out. And then the the most challenging part, other than editing the long form, was repurposing.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Right, it's hard. It's not easy, you know.

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  Well, now there's so many different tools and apps that can like cut it up so quickly, you're like, you wish you had this four years ago.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  I know, but. Yeah, and and then and then the platforms would always be changing too, so it's like, well, IG used to be one by one, but now it also accepts this larger size. And now there's IGTV and, you know, there were all these different things happening and each of them sort of required their own format and you.

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  Where's IGTV? Is it gone now?

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they phased it out, they phased it out.

• 50:29Lewis Howes?

  It was like the biggest thing.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  It was.

• 50:31Lewis Howes?

  And now it's just all reels, right?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is crazy.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  Overnight, you could be, have your whole strategy on one thing and you have to be flexible and adaptable for the next thing.

• 50:40Speaker 02

  It's so important, you have to be malleable, you know, you have, and that's always kind of how.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  You have to improvise, kind of like freestyle.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Hundred percent. It's all improv, man. It's all a freestyle. Yeah, cuz you never know what's gonna happen with any of these platforms. You know, they could get, you know, eclipsed by whatever the newest thing is. You know, TikTok is, is kind of, TikTok is influencing all the platforms now.

• 51:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  You know, everyone is, has their vertical kind of constant feed, a la TikTok.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  And that could evolve in a year.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  You never know.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  What do you think is the biggest challenge that creatives and artists, musicians have today? And making a full-time living with their art?

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think the biggest challenge, first and foremost, I know for me personally, and probably for a lot of other artists and creatives out there, is overcoming the fear to step up and do it.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  Do what?

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Be that artist. Be that creative. You know, for me, it was the overcoming the fear to be Harry Mack. You know, to be the person at the forefront. You know, I, for so many years, was a drummer. I was a support player. You know, it wasn't my band. It was, maybe the singer calls me to play and support their vision. You know, I'm in the background, you know, and I'm doing the best job I can to support them. And that's a beautiful thing to do. It's a beautiful role to have, to be a support musician, you know, and to help somebody else's vision sort of flourish and do the best you can. But, you know, it was like, tell me when and where and what I'm supposed to wear and how much we're getting paid and I'll be there, you know? But to be that singer, you know, to say, oh, well, this is my vision.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I'm the one that is bringing these people together around my vision. I'm the one making the calls, you know? I'm the one putting my creative voice out and, you know, exposing myself to feedback and exposing myself to criticism and making myself vulnerable, you know? That's terrifying. And it was for me, anyway, you know? For years of my life, I was essentially crippled by fear and unable to

• 52:48Speaker 02

  Fully express my gift, you know, to the world and embrace it for myself and then be able to put it out. And use it to connect with other humans, which is what I do now, but I was too scared to do that. And there was a long phase of time, like from when I graduated from college to 2017, when I started making content. Where I was just like in my room, making beats all day, you know, freestyling, rapping to beats. To yourself. To myself, to myself and never sharing with anyone. It was never good enough. Wow. You know, it was this, for me, a lot of the fear sort of manifests as perfectionism. Where it's never ready. Wow. And it's never good enough. And you know, my friends and roommates at the time and people that I lived with would try to talk sense into me. Dude, it's really good, yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, like put this out, like you, you put so much energy into doing this, but you never share it. Um, there's this concept, um, I think it's from Ira Glass called The Gap. Okay. Are you familiar with this concept? Maybe, sure. So, the reason that, you know, creatives get into making things is because they have really good taste, you know? So like, they, they appreciate good art or creativity or good podcasts, whatever it is, they appreciate good media. So we have good taste and so it inspires you to want to start creating yourself. When you start creating yourself, you realize that what you're capable of making at that time as a beginner doesn't come anywhere near the people that you look up to and admire.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  In other words, there's this huge gap between your level of taste for creativity and art and what you're actually capable of creating. Wow. And that's a really challenging phase because it's, it's very discouraging. And it makes you feel like what you're making is not worthy of being put out or shared. But the secret to the gap is you can't start closing that gap until you share what you're working on and get feedback. Right. You know, the only way to actually. Get from what you're doing now to closer to the people you look up to. For me, you know, the Supernatural who I mentioned, or Nas, or you know, whoever I put on that pedestal, these people are like superheroes to me, you know, and always will be, you know? And so to think, well, I'm way down here as Harry Mack, like, what's the point of me sharing this?

• 54:57Speaker 02

  But the only way I can start to climb is to share my work and get real feedback from real human beings.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if you just did it in your bedroom every day and no one ever saw it, then you'd never get closer to where you want to be.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you know, I've met so many musicians who have hard drives full of incredible work that nobody's heard. And you know, suddenly I'm playing that role, you know, so much easier to give advice than people.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, once you've done it, yeah.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  And to take it for yourself, right? So, you know, I'm saying, what are you doing? Like, if I had this, you know, there's that whole thing too. If I had this hard drive, I'd be putting it out.

• 55:27Lewis Howes?

  Which all your friends probably told you, man, if I could freestyle like that, I'd be doing this at every gig, anywhere I go.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  Exactly, and that's so, it's so easy to say, right? Because you don't have to actually face the consequences of doing that, which is, you know, you're again exposing yourself to guess.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  Embarrassment, or failure, or humiliation, or no one laughing, or no one clapping, or whatever, yeah.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  Hundred percent, yeah, and that's, and that, that thought is, is so terrifying. So I think that is the biggest challenge for creatives, especially because, you know, and then the second biggest challenge after facing our fear, but they're very closely related, is the challenge of having to do it all yourself.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot, man, the weight, can be a lot.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, we talk about, you know, obviously, the whole thing with the traditional path of the record label, you know, being very limiting for, for most people. But that being said, if you, if you did get signed to a good record deal.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  They do all the work, a lot of the work.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a whole, yeah, you have to be a good musician, right? Or a good songwriter, or whatever it is you do.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  And they produce and promote and package and all those things.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  They put you on the billboard, they distribute it all around the world, you know, they choose how to market it.

• 56:33Lewis Howes?

  They do all that stuff, they tell you where to show up and just do your talent.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly, and so, you know, that's not a walk in the park either, but I do think that it's very intimidating to recognize that the, you know, it's, it's both intimidating and empowering, right? It's like, we have all the tools available and that's incredible. We can do it ourselves without needing permission from anyone. It's amazing, and I've seen what it can do firsthand, and I'm so grateful for these tools and for this ability to do it myself, but... Not every part of the job is fun.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  And there were times when I'm up at 4 a.m. editing this video for the fifth day in a row. Trying to drag the little cursor in iMovie. Shout out to all the video editors out there. I have no idea how they do that. But you know, there's times where you feel like-

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  If you put a video out and it doesn't deliver and you're like, man, I spent a week on this and knowing I got 100 views and I made nothing on it.

• 57:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 57:29Lewis Howes?

  And if that happens week after week, you start to feel a little discouraged.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. You do, you do. So I think overcoming the fear and then embracing sort of the responsibility that comes along with sort of doing it yourself. Those are some of the biggest challenges we face. And also what you alluded to just now. Learning how to not take feedback personally.

• 57:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes, it's huge, man.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Is so important. And it's an ongoing journey for all of us, I think.

• 58:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, especially probably once you start to gain success too.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  And you start to build awareness and attention. You know, you have an ego you still have to manage.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  Once you're successful or more successful than where you were.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  And to get the feeling of rejection or no one cared for this video or live when I performed. That still doesn't feel good.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  So learning how to not take it personally is a superpower.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  For so many people.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, really embracing the process and being in love with the process of creating.

• 58:40Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  And not so focused on the end result, you know?

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard for people.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  It's so difficult and it's challenging for me at times, you know? And I still, you know, I've been doing this for a little while now. But I still, you know, I might read through the comments and read, you know, 20 positive comments and then there's just one negative comment. And it stands, for whatever reason, it sticks with me more than the positive, right? So I think, you know, it has to do with sort of, you know, if you're gonna- If you're gonna take all that positivity so deeply to heart, then the danger of that is you're also gonna take that negativity deeply to heart. So I think part of it has to do with, you know, kind of tunnel vision on, on you, you know what your gift is and you know what your mission is. And if you can focus on that and sort of keep your nose to the grindstone and, and keep creating what you know you're meant to create.

• 59:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Without being distracted by the noise.

• 59:33Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  It can be helpful. Yeah.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  What's been one of the lowest moments for you in the last eight, 10, 10 years of doing this journey?

• 59:42Speaker 02

  That is a great question. Lowest moment in the eight to 10 years of doing this journey? I don't know if there's one moment in particular that I can pinpoint, but I do know that in the years prior to when I started making content, 2014, 2015, 2016, when I was out of college with this jazz drumming degree, in debt, you know, I took a student loan to get a jazz drumming degree.

• 1:00:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's hard to pay that off.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  That's not the smartest move necessarily in hindsight, but that's what I did. That was my reality. And, um, and I was struggling, you know, I mean, I was barely making it, you know? And there were times that I, you know, there were times where as much as I didn't want to, I was, you know, calling my dad, asking if I can borrow a hundred dollars or whatever to, to close the gap, you know, between, and, and, you know, my parents are comfortable, but we're not rich or anything like that. And, and beyond that, it's just you wanna be your own person at that, at that phase, you know? But I was barely making it. And, um, you know, at that time, like, I was not fulfilled. I was not happy. You know, if I'm being honest, I really was, was struggling personally.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  And I was struggling as well with sort of, you know, I, I was sort of abusing vices and things of that nature, you know? I was drinking a lot at that time, which is a habit that had been ongoing for me for a while, you know? Um, and it wasn't a good place for me to be, you know?

• 1:01:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Um, just in general during that phase, I didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel. Excited on a daily basis. I didn't feel creative. And I felt stuck. And I think really all of that can kind of be summarized as as the fear and insecurity that I was kind of grappling with. You know, like, that's really what that was.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  At that phase, I was too insecure and afraid to sort of step into

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  being Harry Mack, you know, or or or being my full creative self, you know, I wasn't giving myself permission to, you know, lean into hip hop and lean into freestyling and lean into my gift, you know.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  And so I was creating all these limitations on myself. There was this feeling that I, you know, I can't do that, you know. I'm stuck here. And so it really took

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  it really took my friend, honestly, it took my friend Jacob asking me to help him with that video.

• 1:02:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  At the end of 2016. Shout out to Jacob because I really feel like if he hadn't have done that, I don't know when I would have like on my own accord said, yeah, you know what, it's enough of this. I need to, I need to, I need to break out of this and start sharing my gift, you know.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  So it was kind of that push that helped you see the light?

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was a push kind of disguised that like, I didn't know that he was pushing me in that way at the time. I was just doing a favor for him as a friend. Like, sure, I'll freestyle on your beat, man. If this is gonna help you, yeah, I'll do that, you know.

• 1:02:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  That sounds, that sounds great. Let's do it.

• 1:02:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  And and then, of course, ironically,

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  it was kind of like, you know, we we get this 100K views overnight and it's almost like he's smiling back at me like, here you go, my friend.

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  Now's the time.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Take it and run with it, you know. Yeah, yeah. So I'm I'm so grateful, you know, I'm grateful to him and in general, I'm just, I'm grateful that I have people around me who are telling me, you know, put this out, like, do this, you know, do this freestyle thing. It's so special, you know, when you do it, there's no reason to keep it hidden from people. And so, yeah, I mean. It was, it was, it was big, man. It was big to start doing that. I'm, I'm glad that I was able to shake out of that other kind of space.

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  I'm glad you did too, man. You're inspiring a lot of people. Um, so many cool things. I could take this, but I want, uh, I want people to follow you and really tap into your message and your art and your craft. You're Harry Mack everywhere on social media, Harry Mack Official on Twitter.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:56Lewis Howes?

  Uh, and if they want to watch you live on tour in Europe, harrymackofficial.com/shows.

• 1:04:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  But just get on your newsletters to see whenever you're doing live stuff and, uh, if you're ever in Venice, I guess, what do you do? Do you go on the streets in LA sometimes still?

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  We, yeah, recently we've been sort of going to other places outside of LA to mix up the scenery a little bit.

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  Um, so when we're on tour, you know, we'll, we'll shoot gorilla bars when we're in new locations.

• 1:04:23Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, we toured in the US earlier this year, so we have gorilla bars all around the US, Chicago.

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  It's fun, man.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  Um, but just to get signed up for your newsletter, they'll be able to see when you're doing live stuff or anything else online. Check you out on YouTube. If you guys want to be a part of your, you do a live every two, two times a month?

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Wordplay Wednesday every other week on YouTube, so tap in for that.

• 1:04:45Lewis Howes?

  To watch you live, interactive online, which is a lot of fun. So make sure to check you out there. How else can we be supportive and of service to you?

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  Man, uh, well, first of all, I want to thank you for having me on this show. I'm a huge fan of this show, a huge fan of yours. So it's, it's a, it's already a huge gift, uh, that you've given me just to be able to be here and talk with you. Um, other than that, man, just, you know, I, I, uh, I encourage people to check us out on Fridays at nine AM. We drop our long form video on YouTube. Um, but really just, uh, you know, i- if the videos move you, you know, it's, it's such a joy for me to be able to lift people up with freestyles. You know, I've come to realize more and more over the years that. You know, I used to want to be the best freestyler in the world. Uh huh. You know, that was like, I wanted to do that so that I could like write that down somewhere.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Right. Like I'm the best freestyler in the world to serve my own ego. But what I've learned through doing this is that um, this is a way to connect with other people. Mm hmm. And to allow other people to be seen and heard. You know, especially when other people are giving me words or giving me their stories and they're coming out in a freestyle. It's amazing um, what effect that has on people. And I feel so lucky to have been able to be a part of that and see that so often where people, people's faces will go from hard and stiff to just smiling bright and this like childlike laughter. Yes. And that's the dopest thing to me, you know, like that's the best part of my job. I remember when we first went back out there to do a Gorilla Bars after I took the time off.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  The, the guy who was filming it said to me at the end of it, he was like, dude, that was an awesome day. We made so many people smile. And I just thought like, yeah, bro, that's right. Like that is awesome. Like, you know, as simple as that sounds. And you know, there, there have been times where um, that so I'm going off on a tangent now, but I just want to say uh, the level of emotional connection that can occur through improvised freestyling is I've been surprised by it at times throughout my career. There was a time during COVID um, on Omegle, which is a platform I use to freestyle for strangers, where I connected with a guy and we did a fun freestyle. He gave me a few random words, Batman and, and I think he said dark streets and whatever else it was.

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  And I did a regular freestyle and he enjoyed it and smiled and laughed. And he was like, oh man, before you go, can you do one for this person? And he grabbed a sheet of paper and held it up and it was the, the pamphlet from a memorial service for his fiancee who died of COVID, like a month before I'm speaking with him. His fiancee died? His fiancee died of COVID. Oh man. And he holds up this paper and he's like, you know, can you do a song for her? Oh my gosh. And I, I was so, you know, taken aback and I said, man, can you tell me a few things about her? And he said, we, we loved going on road trips, you know, um. And he gave me a couple other, you know, pieces of information.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  And I was, in the moment, like, to be completely honest, I was somewhat intimidated by the task at hand because I wanted to do something, you know, special.

• 1:07:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, honoring.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, um, but I, but I felt like it was really important for me to do this and to do the best job that I possibly could. And so I did a freestyle, sort of in honor of his, you know, late fiance. And at the end of it, he's crying.

• 1:08:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  And, and I said, you know, we don't have to use this for the content. Obviously, you can just have this if you want, or, you know, and he said, no, no, no, I want you to put this out. People should see this.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:08:24Speaker 02

  And it was one of the most like powerful pieces of content we've ever made.

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:08:29Speaker 02

  And so for me, like, that's what this is about, you know? What I do, it's not about me being the best freestyler in the world so that I can win some award or, or feel somehow superior because I did that, you know? Even if I, even if someone does consider me the best, it's subjective and it doesn't last forever. And there's some 12-year-old now who's working on their freestyles that's gonna be so insane when I'm sitting on the front porch in my rocking chair, I'm gonna say, this guy, that's impossible. You know what I mean? It's so, it's a, these things are fleeting, but, um, for me, it's more about like, I want to give this gift of, of hopefully being able to lift people up and allow people's stories to be heard, allow people to feel seen, allow people to be a part of something.

• 1:09:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  You know, and to engage in that sort of connection. So to answer your question, how can people support and help me? If you enjoy or smile while you're watching any of the content, that alone is huge for me. That's, that, that gives me a strong sense of purpose and I'm happy to be able to put that smile on your face.

• 1:09:28Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. Well, Harry, I want to acknowledge you. I've got a couple of final questions before I ask them. I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to share your gift. You know, to having the courage to transition from doing something that you think you were supposed to do, which was follow this one path.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Lewis Howes?

  And say, okay, this isn't working for me anymore. There's something inside of me that feels like it needs to come out. And having the, the, the trust to take the leap, you know, even when you were in a darker place. I really acknowledge you. Also for your, your mindset around your craft, because I think a lot of people are doing their craft for fame or money, which is a byproduct of you being talented. But to hear you say you want to bring joy to people and create connection. And vulnerability and intimacy and let people be seen.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  I think it's incredible gift of you as an artist, man. So I really acknowledge your heart for that intention.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:10:25Lewis Howes?

  Because I think that will take you so much farther and longer than just trying to be famous and make a lot of money and be the best.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Right. Oh, I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Appreciate that. Appreciate that.

• 1:10:35Lewis Howes?

  This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three truths question.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:40Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetical scenario, imagine it's your last day on earth, many years away from now.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:10:45Lewis Howes?

  You live as long as you want, you get to accomplish everything, you change millions of lives through your craft or whatever you want to do.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  Uh, but for whatever reason, no one has access to your message anymore. All your content is gone.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:57Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetical.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:58Lewis Howes?

  Um, all your work, but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true that you want others to know about.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:06Lewis Howes?

  And this is all we have to remember you by. What would be those three truths?

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Hmm. I love this. Okay. My three truths, um, I think the first one would be, uh, don't neglect your inner child.

• 1:11:23Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, yeah.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  Don't neglect your inner child. Feed your inner child, nurture your inner child. Because I think, you know, I, uh, my, my first rap recording was made when I was 12 years old with my friend Brady for our group State of Mind. And, um, I'm really grateful that I still have access to those recordings and I listen to them from time to time. And it's just amazing to hear, you know, it's not, it's not good by, by any objective standard, but there's so much potential in it. And more importantly than that, there's just this unique creativity that exists because we were only 12 years old and we hadn't yet been so morphed and, and sort of.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Changed and sort of influenced by all of these voices like we talked about before from society or from parents or teachers. You know, these limiting ideas were much less prevalent in our minds at that time. And so I think it's a really special thing to be a child and to have this sort of childlike curiosity and creativity and, um, and, and just this, this sort of freedom that comes with not being so judgmental of yourself. And I think certainly to be able to freestyle and improvise, you have to tap into your inner child. So that would be, that would be one is don't, don't, you know, especially now in this modern society, don't let that inner child get stifled. It can be hard to access it, right?

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  As adults, because we have a lot of responsibilities and, and again, we have all this sort of influence from external forces, but, um, tap in with your inner child. That's number one. Number two would be, um, commit to being a lifelong learner. Mm-hmm. Um, never stop learning. You know, I think for me, um, I'm always trying to learn new things and I think I'm so grateful to have music because music is, it's, it's infinite. You know, you never, it's not the type of thing you check it off your list and say, cool, I did that, what's next? Sure. You know, it's unlimited, the potential is unlimited.

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  And so I think having the humility to say, no matter how much I think I know about music or anything about life, you know, no matter how much I think I know right now, um, there's so much more that I don't know. Right. You know, and, and that will always be true. Sure. And sometimes you, you learn so much and then what you forgot is what you knew when you were 12. Right, right. You know what I mean? So it's, so, so there's always more to learn and I think if you have that mindset of being a lifelong learner and never sort of becoming complacent, um, it will take you really, really far. Mm-hmm. So that's number two.

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  And then number three, uh, I would say it's, it's okay to be afraid, but don't let that fear stop you from sharing your unique gift with the world.

• 1:14:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:18Speaker 00

  Because that's what, you know, that's what's gonna help make the world a better place.

• 1:14:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Speaker 00

  If you share that gift, so.

• 1:14:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I've got one final question, but I wanna throw a curve ball and see if you could do a recap freestyle and answer the question.

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:33Lewis Howes?

  In it somewhere.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  Oh dope, I love it.

• 1:14:35Lewis Howes?

  So the, the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:14:39Lewis Howes?

  So if you can define greatness somehow.

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:14:42Lewis Howes?

  Within a recap of what opened up for you during this interview for you.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  This is amazing.

• 1:14:48Lewis Howes?

  Of what you experienced, of what, you know, you, yeah, shared as a recap.

• 1:14:54Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:55Lewis Howes?

  And add the definition for you of greatness.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  I love it. I love it. Let's do it. Let me just, uh, pull my phone out to get a beat here. Let's see. Oh, this is perfect right here. Okay.

• 1:15:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. Uh, yeah. Come on. Listen. Uh, yeah, yeah. Check, check. One, two, one, two. Come on. Yeah. One, two, one, two. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey yo, my truth, I'm about to state this. My experience, I will relate this. I'm talking about my definition of greatness. I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Hey yo, my truth, I'll be ready to state this. My own life experience, I'll try to relate this. I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Check. I'm breaking down my definition of greatness. Yeah. One, two, off of the top, gripping on the mic, H-Mac, go let it rock.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  Y'all know I wanna grab the mic and go wild, but I can't do it unless I find my inner child. I remember all of the freedoms and the liberties when I had that young creativity. Yeah, it's kinda tricky to define the mind of a child when it's some refined. The ability to go anywhere on the path, not overcome by the science and the math of adult living. Hey yo, it's real, not fiction. Wasn't hit with all them adult restrictions Wasn't hearing voices in my ear Telling me that I should chill, I should have fear Wasn't feeling doubt when I looked up in the mirror I just closed my eyes, dreamed it manifested and it appears Yeah, that in a child I'm about to nurture it And if it's been too long since I've heard from it Put a beat on so I can get free

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  So I can finally manifest that in the child in me Yeah, thinking back to sixth grade with my homie Brady The first state of mind CD, it went crazy Prepubescent rap, sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks Yo, it's FC100 rolling mic, I'll never get parked Back when I was young, before my voice dropped I'm trying to make sure that has a special spot All up in my heart, homie, all up in my soul I gotta let loose and let go of the control Yo, Rule 2, y'all know my soul's burning I must make a commitment to lifelong learning Yeah, there's always more stones to turn over There's always more time for me, as a floater Turn into a grower, the improviser The one that gets better with time And more clever with rhymes Through years, I stay committed and always gain more knowledge And never sit back and feel like I'm most polished

• 1:17:22Speaker 00

  It's not about my ego, it's about where I can take it And gaining information for me is truly sacred And when I kick a rhyme, it's like my soul is standing naked I gotta keep it honest with my fans, I can't fake it That's why at late at night, my brain gets shook From all the wild information that I gain from books I stay reading all the time, blowing my mind with every line And teaching me new places to climb And this is real right here, this part is not fake Some of the best lessons I've learned were gained through mistakes So many times in my past, I thought I had the answers But really, there's more questions inside of my stanzas Really, I'm not the professor teaching y'all how to do this Cause on the daily, man, I feel like a student It's important for me to grow from mistakes when I stumble It's important for me to stay low and remain humble I got this self-love, and it comes from my heart

• 1:18:06Speaker 00

  And I know I have a gift, and I share it in my art But I never think I'm the most talented, most smart Cause I know I'm just one human that's doing they part It's about the whole, it's about the collective, that's from my soul And finding new places where Mac is about to go So we about to take it there, I make it rare, y'all know I'm here to spit I gotta go and share my gift, and this last message here, I wanna make this clear I can't Ever be held down by my fears. I been through that. I had to wait to see my style evolve. I was tripping in a dark place without the hall and other habits and vices that used to hold me down. It made me feel like a king missing the golden crown. I knew there was a gap I had to close, but I was too scared to go and share my flows. Shout out to my homie Jacob who threw me in the car.

• 1:18:48Speaker 00

  Sunset Boulevard, threw the couple bars, hundred K views. Later went viral, no monetization, but still sharing all my creations. I had to get the bag, then lose the bag, then go back to applying for jobs. What a drag. Then got a little piece of inspo from the love of my life who told me, "Man, get back on the mic." Started YouTube channel with the ads turned on, clipped it up for social media. The flow's more strong. And slowly but surely, it's crazy when you witness, we be expanding and building out a business. Who'd have thought nowadays we taking over? I kick clear rhymes now I stay sober to each day own, but I'm in my zone and I'm all by myself. I am not no clone. I'm here with Lewis Howes on the School of Greatness. We all about the real, never kicking no fakeness.

• 1:19:32Speaker 00

  Y'all know I got the rhymes that'll leave them shook. It's ancient smack off the brain, never written in books. Let's go.

• 1:19:42Lewis Howes?

  That was epic, man. Thank you, brother. Thank you, man. Incredible, man. Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.