IN-Q On Reimagining Your Truth

The past couple weeks we went deep into nutrition. Now it's time to take a new direction. To delve into spirit. Creativity. And art. All powerful vehicles for connecting with, unlocking and ultimately expressing the authentic truth of who you are — the crux of life transformation. Today we Reimagine Your Truth. Today we meet IN-Q. Rapper. Actor. Teacher. Songwriter & internationally revered spoken word artist. Wait a minute — what?? A poet? How could spoken word, rap music and this guy possibly have anything to do with the themes of this show? I can read your mind. I get it. But I ask you to please reserve whatever preconceived ideas or opinions you may have about what's to come. Because ignorance is contempt prior to investigation. I promise you this — after this interview you won’t be asking yourself that question. I first met IN-Q up at a thing called Summit Series — an organization that began in 2008 with a small group of young entrepreneurs harboring a giant collective dream to change the world. Led by an enterprising young man named Eliot Bisnow (who coincidentally went to my high school), Summit began as an annual four-day events for 1,000 of the world’s leading entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, artists, scientists, athletes, and change makers with the intention of driving positive growth and collaboration. The events were extremely successful. But Summit has since evolved far beyond a mere producer of TED-like events. Today, it stands tall as a truly unique community of compelling thought leaders who truly are changing the world. About a year ago, the Summit organization took up permanent residence in Eden, Utah — a quiet hamlet north of Salt Lake nestled in the Wasatch Mountains — when they purchased a mountain. That’s right: an entire mountain & functioning ski resort called Powder Mountain. Not just any ski resort, “PowMow” is in fact the largest ski mountain in the entire United States. Ambitious? It's just the beginning. Summit's goal is to unite thought leaders and innovators of today and tomorrow by over time growing this now small community into an international epicenter of culture and innovation across all disciplines of art, music, technology, entertainment, science, literature, social entrepreneurism and education. Eliot invited Julie and I up to Powder Mountain this past winter to speak and simply enjoy a weekend getting to know Summit. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect. I had known the Summit crew for a couple years – in fact Julie taught them a yoga class back in 2008 when it was just a small group of people with big dreams cohabitating in a house in Malibu — but had yet to experience it for myself. I have to say it was a transformative experience. I left completely inspired. One of the most compelling people we met was none other than today's guest — IN-Q. I'll be upfront. I’m not a poetry guy. I’m not a hip hop guy. These are foreign worlds I know very little to nothing about. On the surface, IN-Q is therefore an unlikely choice for the podcast. But I was so impressed with this man. The moment I met him I knew instantly that I had to have him on the show. Before each group dinner up at Summit, IN-Q would deliver a poem – a true demonstration of performance art to set the energy of the evening. More prayer than poem. More inspirational panegyric than prayer even. I simply had never heard anything like it before. It was completely unique. But it's not just IN-Q's mad skills that left my jaw agape. To be sure, he is oozing with talent and displays total command over his instrument and art. It was his spirit that truly moved me. Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Rich Roll?

  Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, episode 81, with spoken word artists in queue.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:24Rich Roll?

  All right, let's do this, people. Welcome to the show, to the series of uplifting, spirit-elevating conversations known as the RRP. I'm Rich Roll. I'm your host. I'm the guy behind the mic. I'm here to light fires, catalyze change, broaden horizons, and help you blow through the glass ceiling on your innate human potential, not just physically, not just mentally, but emotionally, professionally, creatively, and spiritually. The goal, my goal, for you, is simple. To motivate and inspire you to take your life to the next level, to help you discover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. And in the words of today's guest,

• 2:06Rich Roll?

  "Help you reimagine your truth." So how do we do this? What's the path? The tip of the spear is to, each week, introduce you guys, by way of the lost art of long conversation, in-depth Vulcan mind melds, if you will, to the best, most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds when it comes to life transformation, thought and action leaders in health, fitness, wellness, diet, nutrition, creativity, art, entrepreneurship, and above all, and once again, life transformation. You see the recurring theme here, everybody. Last two weeks, we went really deep into the powerful disease prevention and reversal

• 2:47Rich Roll?

  possibilities presented by the plant-based diet. Wow, that's a lot of Ps. That's a lot of alliteration. Well, today, we're going to shift gears. We're going to go in a totally different direction, and we're going to trade in all of those Ps for As, for art, authenticity, aspiration, and actualization. Today, we're going to delve into, into spirit, really, into the transformative power of unlocking and expressing your authentic self. Today, we reimagine your truth. Today, we meet in queue. Who is in queue? Rapper, actor, teacher, songwriter, and revered spoken word artist. Wait, what? Poetry? What could

• 3:31Rich Roll?

  this guy possibly have to do with the themes of this show? I can hear your thoughts. I get it. But please, reserve your preconceived ideas about what this guy is about, or what you think this conversation is going to be. As I always say, ignorance is contempt prior to investigation. And I promise you that after this... Conversation after this interview, you will not be asking yourself that question. This is a really special conversation that Julie and I had with this remarkable young man and one I'm really excited to share with you guys. So by way of background, I first met in Q, Julie and I first met in Q up at this thing called Summit Series. How to explain Summit?

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  Well, basically Summit is an organization that began, I think, back in like 2008 with a small group of young entrepreneurs, very much forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds, with huge dreams to change the world. And it's led by a very enterprising young man named Eliot Bisnow, who began, Summit Series began with these events. They hosted these annual four-day events for about 1,000 people, 1,000 of the world's leading entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders and artists, scientists, athletes, and change-makers, really, to, the idea is and was and continues to be, to drive positive growth and collaboration

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  among these exceptional individuals. And the events were extremely successful. And about a year ago, Summit, which has become much more like a community than a producer of events, about a year ago, they took up permanent residence in Eden, Utah, which is a small town about an hour north of Salt Lake City, when they purchased a mountain. That's right. They purchased an entire mountain. It's called Powder Mountain. It's this gem in the Wasatch range, and it includes like a full functioning ski resort. It's not just any ski resort. Actually, Powder Mountain is the largest ski mountain in the United States, and it

• 5:42Rich Roll?

  was kind of this underappreciated asset that was sitting out there. And they have now made this their permanent home. And the goal is to open this up to individuals, to unite thought leaders and innovators of today and tomorrow. So they kind of bring people in and they're creating this amazing community there. And over time, the idea is that they're going to grow this small community into what they imagine will be an epicenter of culture and innovation. It's really a cool thing. And Eliot invited Julie and I up to Powder Mountain this past winter, a couple of months ago. For me to speak and for us to simply enjoy the community in the weekend and get to know

• 6:27Rich Roll?

  a little bit more about Summit and kind of what they're doing. And honestly, I didn't know what to expect. I've been familiar with Summit and I've known the Summit people for a couple of years now. In fact, Julie actually was the first one to meet them. She taught them a yoga class back in 2008 when Summit was just a small group of people with big dreams, sharing a house in Malibu. They were all cohabitating in this house. And I remember Julie was kind of dispatched by a friend out there like, hey, you know, there's this house with this group of people and they want somebody to come and teach them yoga. And Julie's like, well, it's not really what I do. But she kind of did it as a favor.

• 7:08Rich Roll?

  And I remember when she came back from this experience and she said, I don't know what these guys are doing or who these guys are, but there's something really special about them. And it was not long after that that I became familiar with what their mission is. And it's just interesting that it's kind of come full circle. And now we've had an experience to see them grow and kind of experience what they're doing up at Powder Mountain. And when we went up there, we had this incredible weekend. It was an amazing weekend. It was transformative in so many ways. And we met so many incredible people. And we left really blown away and very inspired by their mission. And you know, the takeaway

• 7:48Rich Roll?

  really is that that anything is possible. And to use their tagline, like, make no small plans. And definitely, that has inspired me to kind of take, you know, what we're doing and take it to a higher level. And it was just really, it was, it was just a really amazing experience. And so, one of the most inspiring people that Julie and I met over the course of these couple of days, Up at this mountain was NQ. And, look, I'm not a poetry guy. I'm not a hip hop guy. These are worlds that I know, you know, little to nothing about. So, you know, on a surface level, NQ is a very unlikely choice for this podcast. But I was so struck by

• 8:32Rich Roll?

  this man, and I knew that the instant that I met him, that I had to have him on the show. And it's not just his skills. I mean, he's a giant ball of talent with total command over his instrument and his art. But it was really his spirit, his energy, and this positive resonating message that he conveys through his art and his writing and his voice. To kind of paint the picture, before each dinner, they had these group dinners up at Summit. There were, you know, hundreds of people at these dinners. NQ would get up and he would deliver a poem to kind of set the energy for the evening. And these poems were just extraordinary. They were really almost more like prayers than poem, or more inspirational

• 9:15Rich Roll?

  pangerics than prayers even. And I simply had never heard anything like it before. It was remarkable, completely unique. And I was moved, you know, very moved by the experience of seeing this gentleman perform. And then Julie and I had a chance to spend a little time with him. And it was very clear that he's a special guy, a very special guy, and one of those people who's just touched, and you feel it, you know it, the minute that you meet him. To kind of give you a little bit of a background and flesh it out a little bit, NQ is a National Poetry Slam champion who's shared the stage, I should say, with artists like De La Soul, and Eminem, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and John Legend.

• 9:58Rich Roll?

  And he's even performed on stage with Cirque du Soleil. I believe he's the first poet to ever perform on a Cirque du Soleil stage. So that's pretty cool. He's toured over 70 colleges with his one man show. And he's also a musician. He's written hit songs for Miley Cyrus and Rock Mafia. And he co-wrote Selena Gomez's hit song, "Love You Like a Love Song." So, the guy is sort of multifaceted and multi-talented. He's been featured on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, Verses in Flow, the Discovery Channel, Disney Channel, ABC, NBC, A and E, Nickelodeon, et cetera. I'm not going to give away his story. You'll have to hear it through our conversation. But it is one that you're going to want to hear, that you're going to want to stay tuned for the whole thing.

• 10:43Rich Roll?

  And one that, no doubt, is going to make a powerful impression on you. Not only will it move and inspire you, it will help you reframe your perception on life. It will help you, in the words of the man himself, reimagine your truth. So let's dig his thoughts.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  I actually, it's funny, I think I looked older when I was 25.

• 11:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  I was really kind of like an angry person in my twenties. I think it really showed up on my face, you know?

• 11:20Rich Roll?

  Of course it does.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  And now you're a love child.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  I feel.

• 11:24Rich Roll?

  That's right.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:25Rich Roll?

  I know you've, well.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  You embody some beautiful energy, so.

• 11:29Rich Roll?

  I want to get into the spiritual journey from here to there. But I thought you could bless us by opening this up with a little, with a little poem, maybe to set the stage.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:41Rich Roll?

  Set the energy.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I didn't know we had started.

• 11:44Rich Roll?

  We're on, man. That's the way it works.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  That's the trick. We slide in.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  You need me to get closer? Okay, cool.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  It's hard for me to say yes.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  It's easier for me to say, next year.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  When the weather's fine. When I have the money. Or the time. Or the relationship I want. Or the career. Or the house. Or the car. Or the watch.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Watch life pass me by, waiting for an invitation. When the world is greater than my nation or my occupation.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  The only thing I know is that we're all in this together. And the future of this earth depends on how we treat each other. But how we treat each other starts with how we treat ourselves. And how we treat ourselves starts with how we see ourselves. And how we see ourselves starts with context. Nothing can exist without its opposite. Remember this, the next time you find you're in an argument and both sides are talking shit, you forget your point, except you're angry now and wanna win. So you continue yelling till they give it up by giving in, so you can stand victorious because you're right on what again?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Seriously, what are we talking about?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  That's why we send young people to war. Young people tend to die without asking what for. But one man's ceiling is another man's floor. "Let's meet up in between," said the ocean to the shore, hopelessly inquisitive. "A mind without a master." "I watched the master on a tab of acid then performed after, and yet my set was an unparalleled disaster because all my poems came out as..."

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Do you laugh on impulse or do you choose to laugh? Do you ask because you care or do you merely ask? I ask you this because I care about how humans act. Were animals aware of our future and our past? And this can be an obstacle to traveling our path. Instead of just accepting where we're at, we analyze our tracks for what we could have had, looking back, focused on the memories instead of on the facts, hence what we attract. But it's hard to factor in how fast it really flashes past. It's an exponential graph from creation into ash. I'm sentimental one minute, then I'm making plans, staking claims, shaking hands, breaking out or breaking in.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I have about a billion mimes hidden underneath my skin. And they pull my face into this grin, or push my wrinkled forehead, and so poor the gin philosophizes 'cause no one has your awesome eyes. Your view is worth the lows and highs you go through on these coaster rides. Control has got you holding on when letting go could be more fun. Hands up. Put your hands up. Wherever you are. Now feel the drop. Eventually, it all has to stop, level out, then come back up until you reach the very top, because one day, all your wheels fall off, so take advantage of your shocks.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Do something you've never done. Do someone you've never done. Go someplace you've never gone. Someplace that could scare you some. Be someone you've never been. You feel all that adrenaline? It's medicine to jumpstart the spark inside your skeleton. See, everywhere you are is where you're supposed to be. So hopefully, you're hopelessly as lost as me. Because if you're not, you ought to be.

• 15:46Rich Roll?

  Beautiful, man. That's just magic.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  That's gorgeous.

• 15:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 15:52Rich Roll?

  Lovely. I know, I feel like, alright, the podcast is over.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 15:55Rich Roll?

  What else?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  We got the transmission.

• 15:57Rich Roll?

  What else needs to be said, right?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 15:59Rich Roll?

  It's quite a talent that you have, quite a facility for words and performance. And, you know, it kind of begs the question of the power of words, the power of intention, the power of the performance, and what that carries in terms of communication as a human, right?

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you always blow me away. I've seen you now, maybe, six times or so.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  And you always take me, you just delight me and surprise me with your mastery over the use of words. And then you take me to a place that I never thought I would touch in this kind of expression. And then you go way beyond it.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  I love that. Thank you.

• 16:52Rich Roll?

  Your poetry really generally seems to orbit around a very positive, forward-thinking message, but I gather in the little bit that I know you that this was not always the case or the place from where you were coming from. So I'm interested a little bit in your journey.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  It's been a long, long one.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  We want you to start at the beginning.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Well, I'm from LA and I was born and raised in Santa Monica.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Which street?

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Bay Street. Bay Street and Lincoln. Right across the street from Tommy's Burgers.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Okay, we know that.

• 17:30Rich Roll?

  It's like Dogtown.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  It is, yeah. And, you know, I was raised by my mom. She's a schoolteacher. And, you know, my father was not around and so she raised me by herself. And I think when I was around 13, I got bit by the bug of hip-hop and just absolutely fell in love with it. Just the ability to express myself in any way that I wanted to. And I think what first drew me to it was freestyling, which I've kind of recently rediscovered. And the ability to just express yourself for the sake of expressing yourself.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  You know, I think that's probably why a lot of people meditate is to let go of everything and put themselves in the moment, or maybe that's what you find when you run, you know, is you just completely get into the zone. And for me, when I started, it was just an outlet for me to connect words in the moment and not think about anything else but expression.

• 18:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  And I just absolutely fell in love with it.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  And so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an emcee and I, you know, spent all of my time pursuing that.

• 18:57Rich Roll?

  Who were your guys? Like who were the guys you were listening to and looking up to?

• 19:01Speaker 03

  I mean, it was a lot of people. There was a, I mean, I was a real hip hop head and when I grew up, at the time that I grew up, it was really lucky and I'm very grateful for it because there was a sense of ownership that people still had over hip hop. I mean, it kind of hit the mainstream for sure, but hip hop that I was listening to was not about being successful. It was about being great and being innovative and being unique. And there were so many different styles that were popular amongst the hip hop scene simultaneously. And everybody was really distinct from each other. And there was a sense that like if

• 19:45Speaker 03

  you became really popular for the wrong reasons, you were selling out. That certainly does not exist anymore. You know, I kind of watched that transformation as a lot of people have.

• 19:58Rich Roll?

  The selling out is the win now. You know, the bling bling.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  It's, it's a, it's certainly not looked down upon.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  So, you know, but I was listening to Trap Call Quest and Gang Star and, you know, there was a band in LA called Freestyle Fellowship, Far Side, the whole Hieroglyphics crew and, you know, Public Enemy and Eric B and Rakam and Jay Rue the Damager and Wu-Tang Clan. And I mean, you know, the list goes on and on. I took shrooms when I was like 16 years old and listened to the Illmatic record, which is Nas. And I, I put my head up to the speakers and I was like stripping balls, man. And I, I like just remember. Having this realization that Nas was God.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  And that my whole life would make sense after that. I was like, oh, I get it. Nas is God. You know? So that's how much I respected hip hop. And the ability to express from it. And I would say that's where my, my first gratitude started.

• 21:11Rich Roll?

  Was that, was that, that was going on like in high school?

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Were you going like Santa Monica High or something?

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I went to John Adams Middle School.

• 21:20Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did? Wow.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Santa Monica.

• 21:21Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And, and so when do you start kind of performing and taking this to, you know, the outward world?

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Um, well. I mean, you really couldn't shut me up in high school. All I did was freestyle. I mean, it was probably annoying as shit.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  Right. Like, oh, here he comes again.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  And I'm like, I don't give a damn. I expand my wingspan and I'm about to kill it. Uh, sipping on a Miller's. I don't give a, you know, like, it was like, that was all, that was just nonstop. I wouldn't even do anything in classes, other, you know, the,

• 21:53Rich Roll?

  Hey man, you gotta get your 10,000 hours in.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 21:55Rich Roll?

  Mastery, right?

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so. Um, it was cool though. It was just, like I said, my opportunity to kind of get myself into the moment in a different way. So, I was freestyling with, with all of my friends and, you know, we had different like, emcees that were in the school and there were battles and,

• 22:14Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Um, then I started writing, uh, I think when I was like 14 maybe. And, uh, and then started recording with like, random kids who were doing producer stuff on four tracks and, and stuff like that. And then, I actually made an album when I was like 16 and 17. It's still probably the best thing that, that I've ever done.

• 22:38Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Cause it was just the, um, the purest thing.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Really?

• 22:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  That's how you feel today?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it came from, um,

• 22:47Speaker 03

  It was just absolute tribute.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Isn't it beautiful?

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  When you're that free.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:55Rich Roll?

  Well, this idea of freedom and we had yesterday on the podcast, I interviewed this guy Wuda, who's this tea master.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  We're drinking his tea right now.

• 23:07Rich Roll?

  This Buddhist monk.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  It's really amazing.

• 23:08Rich Roll?

  Enjoying right now.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Shout out to Wuda.

• 23:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's amazing. And he, you know, he's dropping mad spiritual truths left and right, both on the podcast and afterwards with all these crazy, you know, sort of Zen tales and stories and everything like that. But we were talking about this idea of freedom in form. And he was using the example of a child that dances, like when a five-year-old kid is dancing and a little girl is just free and there's no, it's just impulse and, and natural, you know, sort of just letting, letting herself do what she wants to do, right?

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 23:44Rich Roll?

  And, and comparing that to like a master ballerina, you know, in the, in the Russian ballet or something like that, who's been studying her whole life. And her freedom when she dances is she's equally free, but she's doing it within the construct of a form that she has mastered, right? Allowing herself to be free within the confines or the rules of that particular discipline. And I was thinking about that earlier today when I was thinking about you coming over. And I was thinking about how spoken word and freestyling and rap is very similar because you have to get into this state of consciousness where the thinking mind has to go away. And when you're channeling and freestyling,

• 24:26Rich Roll?

  there's no, it's, it's going too fast for, for you to be thinking about what the next word is going to be. You have to be in this state of flow, like where you're tapped in and you're so present in what you're doing to allow that to just work through you, to allow that mastery, that practice that you have worked on over the years to manifest itself, right? So in certain respects, that's like a meditation practice to be able to get into that, like in an Eckhart Tolle, like power of now, kind of state of being, right? So as a youngster, were you aware of that? Or is that just, that's occurring as a result of just your passion for the music?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  I think it was uh it was occurring as a result of my passion for the music, but I also think I was intrinsically aware of it. I mean, I had a lot of uh emotions. I was a sensitive kid. I was an angry uh young man and I just I had a lot to get out and I had a lot of thoughts and my mind wouldn't shut off and this is a way for me to uh you know turn on the faucet and just kind of let it flow. My favorite thing still like and and like I said, I've kind of just rediscovered that aspect of of uh my creativity is the freestyling. But my favorite thing when I freestyle is when I I surprise myself. And I have absolutely no idea what that last word of the sentence is gonna be and then it just appears.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  So it's almost like I'm getting out of my own way to to become a channel for whatever uh is kind of pouring through me in that moment.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  But that's felt. I mean, when you perform, it's felt that you don't know what that that you're just a channel and that you're that you don't even know what the last word is gonna be. That's been my experience with you. And that's that's what's blown my mind like every time.

• 26:16Rich Roll?

  You hear it. I mean, you hear it time and time again from painters or whatever their discipline is like, oh, it wasn't me, you know, I just I showed up for it and it came through me and that's what it is when you're in that kind of state of presence. Um but if somebody were to ask you, well, all right, so it's kind of like when you're dreaming, you know, obviously you're creating that fantasy, but you don't know what's gonna happen next in your dream, even though you're the one who's presenting the narrative, but you're not consciously aware of it.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 26:44Rich Roll?

  But if somebody was to ask you, well, then where is it coming from if it's not your thinking brain like where? What is the repository of that word that is flowing through you just when you need it?

• 26:55Speaker 03

  Well, I would start the question by or start answering the question by saying that I think probably some people misinterpret even the concept of like being a channel. And they almost feel like, well, when you're saying it wasn't me, it was something else. It almost comes off as pretentious to some people. When in reality, it's kind of the utmost of humility, cuz You know, my identity gets in my way.

• 27:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  When I'm performing. If I could completely take it out of the way and have a soul expression for a soul connection every time, uh, that would be my goal. But, you know, sometimes my ego gets in there or my wounds get in there. And I'm coming from those two places, which are really the same place. When I'm coming from a channel place, I, I would say that I'm coming from my soul. And when I'm coming from my soul, uh, my experiences matter. You know, the things that I've gone through, my emotions matter. But my identity doesn't matter.

• 27:53Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  You know, because that's here today, gone tomorrow, you know? And, and as we all are, we're all made out of the same things, you know? Uh, we're all literally made out of stardust. And so if I could aspire to do one thing, it would be to, uh, to perform like stardust. And I, I, I do not even remotely come close to accomplishing that yet. But I like the idea of the more fun I have when I'm doing it and the more open I am to it coming through me, the more, you know, uh, maybe it will continue to show up in, in different ways.

• 28:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that it, to, to kind of eradicate the ego. When you, when you say like, I'm a channel for it, it is, it is a statement of humility because you're saying it isn't me. It isn't my ego that produced this, something, it's coming from something outside of that. Um, but I think that when you say, you know, your goal is to, if you could just, you know, take your performance out of whatever is informing that in your personality or your pain. I mean, you do a marvelous job of kind of harnessing the truth that comes from that experience, whether it's that pain or, or some aspect of your ego to, you know, convey or communicate some kind of universal, uh, truth that we can all tap into and, and relate to.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  So there's a purpose for the ego, I think, in that expression, if done properly.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that when, when I express the ego through my soul, it's done properly. When I express my ego through my ego, people miss it. You know, when I express my pain through my soul, people get it. And when I express my pain through my pain, it's too easily missed, you know? If, if I get on stage and I don't have my rage. People aren't gonna connect to me.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  But my soul has rage. It's not just my ego and my pain that has rage, my soul does. Like, my soul has rage for the mortality of it all, for the injustice of it all, you know? For the things that I've gone through, the things that I see, you know? The things I haven't yet gone through, you know? Maybe what's happened to me in ways that I can't even consciously understand, you know?

• 30:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  So, when I show up with that, I think people respond to it. But when I show up from like a place that's like... And I'm not even talking about what I say. I'm just talking about maybe how I say it and how I am when I'm saying it. When I show up from that place, like, of wanting to get something out of the interaction, rather than just being present. I always feel like I walk offstage feeling like I could've given more, or I could've gone deeper. And in that way, for me, at this stage in my career,

• 30:42Speaker 03

  I'm very, very happy when anyone has any response to my work, that, whether it's a good or a bad response, you know? But it's more about me and whatever my journey is to get to that place where I can fully show up and fully not show up simultaneously.

• 31:13Rich Roll?

  Well, in many ways, the definition of an artist is somebody who's able to communicate a certain truth about something. And there's a truth that flows through your work, and there's a vulnerability, and there's an authenticity. And you never hit a false note. It's like, when you're on stage and you're doing what you're doing, it's very evident and clear to anybody that... The reason that the power emanates because whether somebody agrees with what you're saying or not, and they know that it's your truth. And so, you as an artist, when you sit down to write, or channel, or whatever it is, there has to be some kind of... Litmus test as to whether this is resonating as an as an honest sentiment,

• 31:55Rich Roll?

  or sentiment isn't even the right word, but you know, an honest idea or a false note. Right. So how do you, how do you find that difference? Like, I'm sure when you're, like you just said, you're on stage and you know, like, oh, my ego got in the way or something happened and you, you get off stage and you feel like you didn't quite do it right. Like, obviously you weren't fully tapped into the truth that maybe you aspired to express in that moment.

• 32:19Rich Roll?

  So is there like a, like, how do you, how do you, like, what's your process for figuring that out?

• 32:25Speaker 03

  For the writing aspect of it?

• 32:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for the writing aspect of it.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  The writing aspect just always starts from, like you said, something that resonates. So like, you know, if, if we spent the whole afternoon together, you know, separate from the podcast, I guarantee something that.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Are you gonna write about us?

• 32:42Speaker 03

  I would, I would for sure write about it.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  We'd be so honored for you to write about us.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  I would be honored.

• 32:47Rich Roll?

  Be careful.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  No, I, I can trust him. I have full trust in this dude.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  So it's just like, I was in a conversation the other day and I was moved by the conversation. I was moved by the energy. And so I said something that was like real in the moment. And I said, I think I said, you know, it's, it's all about you and it's not at all about you. And that's life, you know? And I went, oh, that resonates. That, that feels true to me in this moment. And then I write it down and then that will be kind of the start of, of the next piece. And then for me, the train tracks in writing a poem is just about letting the poem write itself

• 33:38Speaker 03

  and just making sure that every line feels authentic. And sometimes I'll write some shit that's dope, but it's not right. So I'll be like, nah, dope isn't good enough. It's not about.

• 33:49Rich Roll?

  Right, it's like the comedy writer who's writing a screenplay gets overly attached to a joke, but it's not moving the story forward.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so that's basically, you know, the process of writing the poems. And then sometimes I'll get to a place where it's not my truth anymore, you know, but I still have to do justice to the truth that was there when I wrote it, because it can connect with other people.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  And that, I think, goes back to what we were saying before. If I'm coming from my soul, then I can still tap into all of that and do it in an authentic way that can be of service.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  So you can kind of tap into the feeling of humanity.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Or on a larger scale, instead of just what's relevant to you at that moment.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, you talk about, you said, you know, my ego doesn't matter, but my feelings matter, my emotions matter. So, you know, you're connecting to all of this from a very feeling tone. You know, like, that's really your, that's your compass. Your compass isn't your brain necessarily. I think you're really with your emotions.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  It's interesting, I'm very with both.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  With both, okay.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, my brain is like,

• 35:08Speaker 03

  I've had to make friends with it over the years. I'm a Gemini, like, in every sense of the word, you know.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Are you?

• 35:16Speaker 03

  I just have a bunch of different personalities, and they're always kind of having conversations upstairs. But like, you know, I would say to answer maybe your original question, which was partially about the journey, you know,

• 35:31Speaker 03

  I was just expressing all of it through my poetry for a long time. And I'm glad that I did, and I'm glad that I have all of that material that I can kind of mine from now, and that I was able to get it out on the page and use that as like a therapy for myself and my life. But then I also got to a point where I realized I didn't want to live in that chaotic confusion anymore. And so I started to build these kind of like foundational beliefs just for my own happiness, you know. And that kind of helped me quiet my brain, or at least frame the thoughts that I have

• 36:15Speaker 03

  in a very specific way to move me towards creating infinite possibility in the future.

• 36:21Rich Roll?

  Was there something, was there a series of events or something that happened in your life where you realized like, I can't continue being this angry guy? Or was it just a slow kind of movement towards, you know, trying to find a better way to kind of cope and be happy in the world?

• 36:38Speaker 03

  Um, well,

• 36:43Speaker 03

  you know, I woke up at a certain age and I was, I was broke, you know? The girl that I was with, you know, had, had left and it wasn't like amicable? Is that, is that the term? You know, so, uh,

• 37:02Speaker 03

  I had to kind of just look at myself in the mirror maybe and look at not who I thought I was being, but who, or who I wanted to be, but who I actually was showing up as to the people around me. And then I think my pendulum probably swayed too far to the other side and then I started like overextending to try to be this fucking good guy or some shit. And that didn't work either, so, um, you know, now I kind of just try to accept all sides of myself, you know, all the shadow sides, the things that maybe I used to not be proud of or go to when I didn't want to deal with something, you know? Uh, now I just kind of accept them all or do my best to. I do my best to love them

• 37:47Speaker 03

  and really like embrace them and know that they're a part of me, but not to operate from that place.

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  To take the self judgment out of it.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:55Rich Roll?

  Just understand that you have your, you're, we're all imperfect beings. We're all flawed. We all make mistakes. But to be able to accept yourself and love yourself for all of the, the good and the bad.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and to operate from, hopefully like a place of love and, and that place of that soul expression, you know, which... Like I said, can still express all sorts of things that it needs to express. I mean, my soul is competitive. You know, I mean, it even is, you know, there's a part of my soul that feels like gets that like ah. There's difference between that and being like ah. You know, I don't know if I was able to articulate what I really meant right now, but I know what I meant.

• 38:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know what you mean. No, it's, it's, well, I think what, I think what you're getting at is, is the difference between letting that control you and, and just being aware that it exists, but at least having the upper hand with it so that it's not controlling your behavior or your emotions or your decisions.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  So would you say that your heart is the master of, of your whole thing, your whole ecosystem? Is it, is it working in conjunction with your mind like, or is your mind your master? Is your heart your master or your mind your master?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  I think my heart and my mind are just getting to know each other.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  They're just like, they're, they're becoming friends.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  All right, cool.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  And, and I feel, I feel like my soul is, is definitely friends. And I feel like my body's still probably catching up. So I probably need to get on your guys' level for a bit. See what happens.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  On the plant power program.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 39:38Rich Roll?

  To bring it back to the narrative, so you have this, this hip hop dream, right? And you start pursuing that, but at some point, um, you make a different decision about the dream that you want to pursue. So what was happening that led to that?

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Well, the decision kind of made me, I mean, I was, I was trying to get signed off of that first record. And it wasn't a time where you could put anything out. It wasn't, you know, you literally at that point needed to have the record company be the middle person. It's 1996, 95. And which is great for kids. I love that they have this creative control to have a platform to put stuff out. You know, that we could be in your house right now, we're just creating something and people are going to get a chance to experience it in one way or another.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  I am just so blessed to be able to like, experience that shift in popular culture, you know, around the world with the internet. Like I feel that way, you know? But at the time I didn't have that and didn't know anybody, didn't know how to get my stuff out there. And. Ultimately, I was like, you know, rapping and battle rapping and, you know, and I think I, I think I just got bored of like, uh, like trying to figure out different ways to say I was better than other people. And I couldn't, I couldn't quite, I couldn't quite figure, I didn't get bored with hip hop. I just got bored with the battle kind of aspect of it. And I couldn't quite figure out how to break myself the way that I wanted to.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  And I wound up at a place called The Poetry Lounge, uh, which is DA. So it's DA Poetry Lounge, um, in LA. And it turned out to be the biggest, uh, open mic in the country nationally over the past fourteen or fifteen years. So, uh, basically we get three hundred and fifty people every Tuesday night for that whole period of time. And it became kind of like a, uh, a platform for me to express myself that I really didn't have. And I was going and, uh, doing my raps a cappella and people were responding to them. And I needed to get that out in a different way.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  And, um, and so this kind of became my new home and it became my new community. And, uh, over the years was unbelievably inspired by all of these different artists that came through the door. So I was very lucky.

• 42:04Rich Roll?

  And how, how long ago was that?

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Uh, so I started doing that when I was maybe two thousand. Um, I think that's about right. And, uh, and then I just kept going. I just kept going every single week. And then Def Poetry Jam happened on HBO and we won the national championships for, uh, the slam stuff, uh, I think in two thousand and four. And, um, I think we all, I can't speak for anybody else, but I'll speak for myself. I think that everyone in that community kind of felt like someone was going to come along and, uh, Blow it up the way that it deserved to be blown up.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  And yet, uh, for me, I certainly wasn't business minded at the time. I didn't even know how to network or give a shit. I was still really angry. It's funny, my, my deaf poetry performance is hilarious because I wrote this piece about when hip hop was fun. I still, the whole entire time just wanted to be a rapper. I was.

• 43:01Rich Roll?

  You're still not fully buying into this poetry slam thing. Is this just a vehicle to become a rapper?

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Totally. And I loved all my people there. So it was like this great, uh, place where steel was sharpening steel, but I just wanted to be an MC still. And was making album after album. I made like 10 albums, always trying to get out. You know, and I had pretty much gotten farther and farther away from doing it for the sake of the love. I was in a place of needing to be validated, needing to be compensated, you know, and, and that came through and it, it didn't really line up with me. And the products that I was making. So it wasn't about my talent at that point. It was just about how it was being expressed that really wasn't connecting. And, um.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and so I think ultimately I woke up around that same time, uh, that I was telling you about earlier, you know, when I, when I took a look at myself in the mirror and, and I just realized, you know, I, I was more of a poet than I was a, an MC, at least at that point in my life. And, uh, wasn't quite going to make it as a rapper the way that I had always imagined. And now how in the world am I gonna make any money doing poetry?

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. Like, were you like, were you like, were you like pissed? Like, oh, man, I guess I'm a poet. Like, or were you like, all right, man, I'm going to step into this.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  No, I was a little bitch about it. I was, I was like, you know, I was like, my dream, like.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  Why does it have to be this? Right?

• 44:37Speaker 03

  You know that voice? I don't know if you have that. It's that meh, like meh, that, that voice, you know, it's like.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  And it just manifested in so many different ways, but ultimately, I'm super, super grateful for where I am right now. Like, I really feel, like, I can say with a hundred percent certainty that I am completely at peace with my past. I am very excited for my future, and I am very grateful to be sitting with you guys right here, right now. Like, I feel like this is the best moment of my life. And I don't, I don't say that as lip service. Exactly.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  The only moment.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Exactly. I went to a psychic one time, and she, I mean, we can get back to the narrative, but my mind starts to, and she put, uh, speaking of tea, she, she put a, a, a tea thing in front of me. And this is at the very beginning, you know, she says, do you want tea? I said, yes. And she goes and makes the tea. She puts it in front of me, and she says, you are a spiritual being having a human experience. And she says, this is a spiritual being having a tea experience. She said, it's a miracle, and it's here for you. And your problem is, you don't look at your life like that.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 45:57Rich Roll?

  That sounds like my counselor in rehab. It's pretty much exactly what he, well, when I was in rehab, you know, the, the question comes up, are you a spiritual being having a human experience? Or are you a human being having a spiritual experience? And I was like, I don't even understand that question, let alone know how to answer it. And, uh, and that was, that was, you know, I had a similar kind of, um, moment where that was presented to me as kind of a new first step in looking at things differently. So that's beautiful. And I think it, you know, a big, a big, uh, theme, or maybe the central theme of this podcast is, is how to live more authentically, how to find, like, your, your inner voice, or unlock something inside of you that is more true to who you are,

• 46:42Rich Roll?

  and to express that more deeply. And your story is one of trying to divine that in your own self, and thinking it's one thing, and then discovering this other thing. It's a related thing, but it's different than what you thought it was. And being attuned enough to kind of pay attention to the universe, and, and have the faith to, you know, step into that, or to follow that thread.

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, and also being in, you know, a place where you're taking responsibility and you're, you know, courageous enough to look at all parts of yourself and embrace and love all parts of yourself. And that's a very key, um, you know, step in the transformation because we're all, you know, we all have light and dark experiences. We, you know, you can't get away from that. And you can-

• 47:28Rich Roll?

  You shouldn't want to, because those dark experiences are the things that can, that catalyze the growth and make you look at yourself.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  Well, and it's the challenging experiences that shape us and that really bring out, I mean, we were talking earlier about, you know, it's, it's those moments where you're on your knees that you have an opportunity to, um, expand your devotion and your connection to spirit. And, you know, we were talking with Wuda yesterday and, you know, this is a primarily health podcast and we're all trying to, you know, get healthier and, and live more authentically. And, you know, um, you know, he was talking about the spirit being an integral part of that whole life, you know, it's, it's not one without the other. And no one's more spiritual than someone else, you know, intrinsically. I mean, we're, we all have it and we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

• 48:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 48:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  We just can't because it's just, there's just a wide open space.

• 48:31Rich Roll?

  But I want to find, I want to talk about, uh, this idea of truth, you know, poetry as an art form, um, and, and art being about an expression of truth and some form of universal truth. And, and kind of this evolution of poetry. I mean, if you were to tell somebody, "Oh, I'm a poet," it's sort of like, well, who's a poet? You know, like, that's sort of weird. You know what I mean? Like, who does that?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  You know, but like, what you do is really a modern, you know, incarnation of, you know, what E. E. Cummings used to do or whatever, in a, in a way that is accessible to pop culture and a mainstream audience. And the vernacular that you use to kind of talk about universal truths, but set them in the context of things that are happening now and, and the things that we're talking about, um, gives it a point of relatability and accessibility for somebody to be able to pay attention and not dismiss it. And so I guess my question is like, how has the journey been sort of, you know, identifying with yourself as a poet as opposed to an emcee?

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Well, for the last like five years or something like that, when I kinda started to define myself as a poet, then I was starting to figure out, well, how can I create a market that is still creating itself? And so I kinda set out to do that, and I think my main goal is to try to break poetry and popular culture. And I still have that as kinda one of the branches on the trees, you know, in my forest.

• 50:03Rich Roll?

  Right, I mean, you were talking about how you thought, or everybody thought, in the wake of Def Poetry Jam, like it was gonna blow up in a certain way.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:12Rich Roll?

  I gather that the next thought was, well, it didn't exactly go in that direction, or at least the way maybe everybody thought it might at that time.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I think Def Poetry was a really great vehicle for us, but I think probably in retrospect, if I was going to have done the show, or if I was gonna do a different show that maybe had different intentions, I would've taken the five best poets that were around at the time, and I was not one of them, trust me. But I would've allowed those poets to have half an hour specials. Because I think if you wanna break a genre, you have to make a star. And I think to make a star, people have to fall in love with you.

• 50:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, they have to emotionally connect with who that person is and what their story is, right?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:53Rich Roll?

  It's as opposed to somebody walking on stage, you have no frame of reference.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Maybe too many people, so it's watered down.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  Is that what you meant?

• 51:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, it's kinda like if a comedian gets up and just tells a joke, and then sits down, well, you might remember the joke, because the joke was funny, but you wouldn't remember the comedian.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  You know, so I think a similar thing kinda happened with Def Poetry, and by the way, it was hugely successful, so I'm really grateful to it and appreciative to have been a part of it. And it won a Tony on Broadway, and so it did a great job. But I think as a whole, for it to move forward now, you know, we need to find a platform to break a star, and to get that exposure on a larger level. And there's some people out there who are doing it.

• 51:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, what's going on in that world of trying to, you know, grow this movement, this culture, this scene?

• 51:42Speaker 03

  There's a guy named Shane Cozen, who's really very amazing, I really like his work a lot. There's a guy named Lemon Anderson, who's really great.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  I'm familiar with him.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, Fibology.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  And versus and flow is something that is trying to to kind of rejuvenate it for for this new generation. And then online, I mean, there's a lot of people online who are like, you know, able to kind of cut out the middleman like we were talking about before and just kind of directly connect to the fans, which is, which is really fantastic. And I've been certainly doing it in my own way. I mean, I haven't paid any attention to my branding visually at any point in my career ever, because that generational thing of where I came from and probably laziness and stubbornness to just made me want to go, if I make the right thing, they'll come calling, you know?

• 52:39Speaker 03

  So now is the first time that I've started to pay attention and, you know, we've been doing a whole rebranding just to create the right type of conversation with with the audience that's out there for NQ. Because I don't really think branding is anything more than purpose. And I'm I'm certain what my purpose is or what my chosen purpose is.

• 52:57Rich Roll?

  I like that word better anyway. I mean, when you start talking about branding, it starts sounding like you're trying to hoodwink somebody into, you know, paying attention to something they might ordinarily not, you know? It sounds like it's a it's an effort to kind of, I don't know, confuse people or, you know, how do we message this person so that we can get them to do X, Y, and Z? And there's something inherently unauthentic about that. So I think ultimately, you're probably better off that you weren't worried about that and you were just focused on trying to create, you know, the best art that you could.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:33Rich Roll?

  And I think that brings up the issue of, you know, truth and authenticity and and your willingness to be vulnerable in the expression of your art. And these are all things that are why your work resonates and will make it timeless and ultimately why you're able to develop an audience and a following that's going to be loyal to you. Because people know, they can tell, and especially young people with the internet, growing up, and they have so many choices about the content that they can expose themselves to. And when we're kids, it's like, oh, you got a couple of TV stations, you get what you can get. And inauthentic, authentic, it doesn't matter, like you're just starved for something to watch or to listen to. And now, it's not that way. And I think people, like, I think that the

• 54:15Rich Roll?

  point being that I think our antennae for what's lacking in genuineness, or our antennae for what's not authentic is much more finely attuned, and people are in search, searching for things that are, that are real.

• 54:30Speaker 03

  I totally agree. Yeah, I think, I think now, more than any other time is, is the right time for poetry. Because I think people are really looking to connect. I think the wonderful thing about the internet is it has connected us on a worldwide level. And I can take a picture with you right now, and somebody can see it in Libya. I mean, it's bananas. But I also think it's made us feel isolated. So there's a, there is more of a return to people stepping into community more intentionally, and trying to find things that, that connect us. And I think, poetry is a really beautiful genre that, that allows people to share their stories without anything else.

• 55:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  And that's why I'm a big, you know, cheerleader for it, not only in my own work, but for other people, and also for everyone to just speak their soul, you know, to, to get their thoughts out on a page, and to kind of talk about stuff that's going on in their heart, and have a different perspective on it, or get the experience of sharing it with people that they love, or sharing it with strangers. You know, the, the, the main thing that I think humanity needs to move forward, not that I have any right to, to say what my main thing is, but who, who doesn't have a right to say anything? So, I think

• 55:55Speaker 03

  it's empathy. I think empathy is the, the main thing. I think empathy changes how we interact with ourselves, and how we interact with the world. And I think it's really easy for us to pass each other on the street. And not notice that there's a whole universe going on. Everybody has hopes and dreams and fears and all of the things that we've we've kind of covered earlier. And so if anything, uh, my work attempts to do is just connect and plug people into the moment where they can kind of have a human experience and hopefully it inspires them to, uh, share their stories in ways that connect as well.

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  And sharing your stor- I mean, for people to share their stories, that's that's a frightening thing for probably most people because it requires a certain level of honesty, you know, and overcoming denial and the courage to express it, whether it's, you know, on a blog that two people read or, you know, a podcast that lots of people listen to or whatever the the format is, it takes a certain, uh, courage and willingness to engage in self-awareness and and to express that, you know, and and I think that a lot of people are really scared of that.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  You know, I mean, would you agree? Because because vulnerability, I think culturally is culturally defined as weakness, especially with men.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I I agree, but I even think that like the idea of masculine and feminine is kind of changing and and, um, and the idea of weakness should change as well. I mean, I I think there's a lot of strength in being able to be vulnerable, but not be vulnerable from a weak place. I mean, if you can really stand up and say, this is what's going on with me, this is what is going on with me, this is what I want for myself in the future, uh, and you do that from a place of strength, I think that people are drawn to that.

• 57:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, because it's they can see the honesty in it and and they understand and respect that it takes courage to do that.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, and maybe and maybe maybe they want to do it themselves and so that they can see an example of that and and they're attracted to it because secretly that's really what they they want to get out of their systems, so. I don't know, I love doing workshops and stuff because I like when people stand up. You know, it's it's great to do it with kids, but it's also great to do it with adults. You know, I like getting like adults together and like.

• 58:19Rich Roll?

  It's probably easier with kids because they don't have all the, you know, stuff that's preventing them from just expressing, you know, that I mean, like adults. I'd be terrified to do what you do. I mean, that sounds like the most frightening. Like I can do certain things, but like to do what you do, that absolutely would be, that would be very hard for me to like overcome my mask or whatever to get up and and be vulnerable on stage or something like that.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Then that's why we gotta do.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  We gotta get you in the workshop.

• 58:47Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  No, but I think there's another, there's another element when, that I think is very connecting and very healing for humanity and it's when someone shows their humanity in a very honest way, you know, and admits that, you know, they have faults or they're not, you know, they're not perfect or they have fears or, you know, or anger or sadness and it, for me, it's it's a feeling that I can feel and it's kind of a relief. It feels like a relief, like, oh, I can, I can easily sit

• 59:24Speaker 02

  down next to this person because they've been gracious enough to show their humanity.

• 59:35Rich Roll?

  When you watch other people do what you do, I mean, what is your divining rod between what is great spoken word or great poetry and something that isn't?

• 59:48Speaker 03

  You know, the, for me, I don't really pay attention to the, to the style or the mastery. It's just about the honesty for me. And if somebody brings me into their, their world and allows me to connect in that way that you were just talking about, then I'm super stoked. I mean, And that's why I always negotiate my own style and just check in with myself of where I'm coming from, because there's a lot of people I've seen who are great, but they don't resonate with me.

• 1:00:18Rich Roll?

  Like technically.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it's like, basically like, like hearing like a singer and, you know, they have the most amazing voice and you're like, oh, they have such an amazing voice, but you don't feel them. And then hearing somebody else who doesn't have the ability, you know, like that, but the tone that they have, the soul that they sing through, you know, you're just totally locked in right away. So that's kind of what I look for as well in poetry.

• 1:00:57Rich Roll?

  Your success in this medium has kind of brought you back to music, right? Like you've been co-writing with some amazing artists and having success in that, in that field, not necessarily as an MC, but working with some pretty cool people, right?

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Rich Roll?

  So tell, talk us, talk us through a little bit of that.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Well, I ended up getting a, a publishing deal with a company called Rock Mafia, who's, they're producers out of Los Angeles. They're one of the top pop teams around, which is interesting because I never listened to pop music before I arrived, but I think they were looking to add a little bit of edge on the lyrical side. And I was looking to have a home to create in and have a way to make money while I was trying to figure out how to break spoken word. And it was a really good combination and it's been a really great partnership ever since.

• 1:01:53Speaker 03

  So I was able to like do co-writes on Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus and, and artists like that who I developed my own friendships with and, and then have moved on to working with Aloe Black, who's a great friend of mine. So we, we did a song for his new album and there's some other stuff that I can't quite, quite talk about yet.

• 1:02:16Rich Roll?

  Not public yet.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  But there's some, there's some good stuff right around the corner on that level and.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  And yeah, I kind of have been able to set myself up in a, in a really good way where now I can kind of like, settle back and look around and decide what I want to create for myself and, and how I want to create and, and who I want to create with. I had a really, you know, in quotation marks, big meeting last week and I remember if I was 20 or something like that, if I would have gone in on a meeting like this, I would have been so.

• 1:02:49Rich Roll?

  Fronting.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  Fronting and also just agenda oriented, just like trying to do something. And I wasn't trying to do anything, you know, for, for me, it's like, I know what I want to create and I also want to make sure that anybody that I work with, I, I respect and want to have a relationship with. So it's just kind of coming in and vibing and.

• 1:03:09Rich Roll?

  And having that trust that if it works out, it was supposed to, and if it doesn't, it wasn't, it wasn't supposed to happen.

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. And that's, I mean, from all of that, I wound up, you know, from being a, a battle MC at 13 years old, you know, to, to being, you know, the, the first poet to work with Cirque du Soleil, I mean.

• 1:03:27Rich Roll?

  I want to hear about that.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  I never would have imagined that type of a, a transition, you know, when I, when I was a kid, but you kind of have to let go of what you, what you want it to be, to find what it is to then figure out what it can be.

• 1:03:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, in, in certain respects, that's surrender. You have to let go of the results, be tuned in enough to be able to read the signs, pay attention to what's going on and, and allow it to lead you so that your ego isn't making the wrong decision, right?

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:03:57Rich Roll?

  And I just know from my own experience, I mean, I love that story about the meeting. I relate to that completely because I've been in places in my life where I was very agenda oriented or very ego fueled and I'd go, I'd get the opportunity to have a meeting where I could get something out of it and just being, holding on so tight to wanting a certain outcome and basically never getting it, you know, it was never going to work. And now to be in a place where I'm really happy doing what I'm doing, I'm very fulfilled and I have all these different outlets. And when I go into a meeting, it doesn't matter to me. I'm just gonna share, this is what I'm doing.

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Rich Roll?

  And like, let me hear about what you're doing. We'll see if this is a fit. Even if I can, you know, in my mind, I can see, well, if this works out, this could lead to this and this and this. But, but really detaching from that and just, and, and understanding and actually really believing in my core like, well, you know, the result of this is, is gonna work out the way however it's supposed to and being okay with it either way.

• 1:04:59Speaker 03

  There's a certain freedom in that.

• 1:05:00Rich Roll?

  There is, it's huge. And I think when you're in that place, you end up getting the thing that you want anyway. I mean, that, cause the energy is completely different.

• 1:05:08Speaker 02

  I think you end up getting more.

• 1:05:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  More than you ever could dream, more than you ever could imagine.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like going on a date too. It's the same thing. I mean,

• 1:05:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  You can, you can attribute it to that too. You know, you go on a date and you like want something, like there's some sort of something rather than just.

• 1:05:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And you're projecting a certain energy on the other person, you know? Yeah, it's interesting. Um, all right, man. So I gotta hear what it was like to get up on stage at Cirque du Soleil. Like that was just like two weeks ago or something, right?

• 1:05:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was.

• 1:05:38Rich Roll?

  So how did that happen and what, what, what was that about?

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Well, last year, uh, they did, uh, this, um, big show that's called One Night for One Drop. It's a, like a nonprofit that brings water to people who don't have access around the world. And, um, it's, uh, Geez who runs Cirque du Soleil. It's his nonprofit. And, um, it's really an amazing organization. And so in their first year that they did this big show, they did it at the O Stage at the Bellagio. And, uh, they asked me if I would write a piece for it. And so I did, and I kinda came into that situation and, you know, so much stimulus before, so much stimulus after, and then kinda bringing it in,

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  you know, and, and having four minutes of, of me kinda speaking with waves in the background. And it was a very, very unique situation. And um, and I loved it and it went so well that they asked me to come back this year. So we did it at the Mandalay Bay, the one theater for, for MJ. And um, it was, it was fantastic. So they asked me to uh, basically sum up the show this year. So I, I come up and I do the piece and uh, afterwards I go down on an elevator and then the four tenors come out and sing hallelujah. I mean, it was really, it was absolutely, it was absolutely crazy. And so they filmed it with uh, you know, uh, the top quality that, that you could possibly do something like that. And there are rumors that I can't, can't discuss.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Right, they're doing some documentary or something like that?

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're gonna do something with it.

• 1:07:12Rich Roll?

  And did you write a piece specifically for that event?

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  I did, yeah. Yeah, last year the piece, I liked the piece that I did last year. But it was specific to uh, water, you know, and kinda humanity and where we are and where we're going. And um, and so this year I wanted to make sure that I didn't do the same piece. Cause it wouldn't be interesting or challenging to me or the audience. And so I tried to do something that was more, uh, I would say, uh, not vague and ambiguous, but just a broader scale so that I wasn't doing specifics that would only let the piece live in that environment. And uh, and then next year, uh, if, if we do it again, which I imagine that we will,

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll probably go to one of the places that they're creating infrastructure. And uh, I'd like to tell a story. Because that's, I think if you, if you continue to go back to the same thing in anything in life, you have to move the mirror in some.

• 1:08:15Rich Roll?

  Well, you have to have new experiences that inform the, the art, the message that you're trying to convey, right?

• 1:08:21Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah. So, but it was exciting, man, and it's exciting to work with athletes, you know, that, that do death-defying things on a moment to moment basis.

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  It's extraordinary what those guys do.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Rich Roll?

  And uh, I mean, did I read, did you like share a stage with Barack Obama too? I mean, you've been on stage with pretty cool people like Red Chili Peppers and like,

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Rich Roll?

  So, I mean, how, how did these things come about? I mean, what happened, when were you with the president?

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Well, it was before he was the president, so it was when Howard Dean was running. Ah. And he was speaking, Hillary Clinton was speaking, Howard Dean was there. And I went up and did a political poem. There was maybe four thousand people there. Wow. But I'm making that up, so I really don't know how many people were there. It's all right. There's five million people.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  We won't hold you to it.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. What's funny is...

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  A lot of people. There were a lot of people there.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  There was a lot of people there. And I'll tell you what, if camera phones were, like, available back then, it would have blown up on the internet. It was a very, it was a very special, special moment. So, I went up on stage and I did this, this piece. And I finished and I got offstage and Howard Dean grabs my hand. And he comes back out, he puts my hand up, and he says, "What about in queue for president?" And the whole place just goes crazy, you know? That would have been like your GIF on the internet forever. I mean, crazy, right? So, I walk offstage, Hillary is there, she says, "I liked your work." I said, "Thank you." I shake her hand.

• 1:09:58Speaker 03

  I walk over, Barack Obama is there, and he says, "I was very moved by your piece." We shake hands. And I, I knew of him, but I didn't really know of him yet. And, and the only thing that I can say is, and I remember actually having this thought without any real context to the thought, is I remember thinking that he was one of the most powerful people I had been around. That his energy was so connected, that I felt like I was the only person in the universe. And I really did not have any context to feeling that way.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  And yet I was not in the place, you know, where I would have anything other than just that thought, and then let that thought go. So then he says, "We stay in contact." Oh, he says that to you? He gives me his card. And I lost his card.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  I swear to God, I didn't even, I was like, oh, cool, like a card.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Dude, I'll see you around.

• 1:11:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so this was like the election cycle before he ran for president the first time.

• 1:11:04Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:11:05Rich Roll?

  So it's unbelievable, but there is something very unique about certain individuals. I mean, you hear, growing up in DC and being around politicians, I mean, you hear that about Bill Clinton, that he has this facility, this talent for when he's in a conversation with somebody, everything else goes away and he's so focused and he's, he has such a facility for making the other person feel like they're the only person that counts in the world and that's a certain gift or a talent. And, you know, certain people put out certain energies, you know, and it's, it's interesting that you were able to pick up on that like years before, you know, what happened to happen with him.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I had heard that too, and I don't know if I had heard that beforehand or, or since, but it was very apparent to me. It was, I've really never, in fact, if I, if I really think about it. You know, but I didn't, yes, but I didn't even think that specifically. I just remember having that read, that download of like, wow, like this guy's really like something about this person. And I think if I'm, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't know that I ever met anyone else that had such a powerful energy. I think it's maybe easy for me to say that in retrospect, based on circumstances, but that was, that was my experience and yet I still lost his card.

• 1:12:21Rich Roll?

  You did, yeah, I know. Having that, knowing like I just met this guy who's so powerful and then not having the wherewithal.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, that, that tells you where my mind was at.

• 1:12:32Rich Roll?

  You didn't have your shit together.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was just like, whatever, I'm fucking moving and like whatever I was thinking, you know?

• 1:12:38Rich Roll?

  That's funny.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Rich Roll?

  We're running out of time because I know you got to get back to the studio, but there's a couple of things I want to do before I let you go.

• 1:12:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:12:45Rich Roll?

  First, the first thing is kind of going back to, you know, a theme of this podcast is trying to convey some.

• 1:12:54Rich Roll?

  Some tools or some inspiration for people that feel stuck in their life. Like you're somebody who's been able to access a certain truth about yourself to embrace a passion and develop a life around your passion. And that's something that I think is elusive for a lot of people. They feel stuck in their lives or they just can't. Maybe they don't know themselves well enough to even know what that thing is.

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:17Rich Roll?

  So how do you begin to? You know, what is, what is something you could say that, that would be helpful to somebody who's struggling with these ideas?

• 1:13:29Speaker 03

  I would say you're not alone, you know? That everyone has been there and personally, I've certainly been there. And I would say that if you want to change something in your life, you have to change something in your life. And you have to find a way to move the mirror. So, you know, even if you don't know how to change the specific thing that you want to change, you have to change something else. That's impactful enough to where your perspective shifts. And if your perspective shifts in any way, then it shifts in every way. And then maybe you'll start to see some things differently.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  I would say that's one. The other thing is doing things that scare you, creating things that scare you as experiences. Because like personally, for a very long time, I only really stayed doing the shit I was good at because I didn't like the feeling of not being good at other things. And so I wouldn't put myself in fearful or challenging situations. And I would think that because I got on stage and performed in front of all these people and said all of these things, that I was actually being courageous when in reality that had become second nature for me in the way that I was doing it.

• 1:14:54Speaker 03

  And if I wanted to progress in that department of my life, I needed to do other things that scared me. You know, and, and be in those situations where that fear or the fear of failure or the feel of fear of doing something awkward or something like that becomes fun. And so that's another thing, I think, embracing things that scare you.

• 1:15:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, in terms of making it fun, that, that requires taking the self judgment out of it. Like if you fail, like who cares, let's, let's make it fun. Take that, take that, that aspect of the equation out of the equation and then allow yourself to fail. Like give yourself that permission.

• 1:15:38Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:15:38Rich Roll?

  It makes it easier to walk through that, that fear, I think.

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  Exactly. And if, if you wanted specifics, I mean, you know, I don't know, take a hula hoop class. I mean, just something stupid that, that not, not that hula hooping is stupid.

• 1:15:51Rich Roll?

  To begin, to start creating a habit around doing these things, start with something small.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, and putting yourself out there in that way. And then just seeing how it feels, you know, or, or write a poem.

• 1:16:06Rich Roll?

  Write a poem.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  Become a poet.

• 1:16:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, everybody's a poet.

• 1:16:13Rich Roll?

  What is it like when you go to prisons and you, you try to teach there?

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  You know, I only went twice and I forget the place that I went to actually now, but I went twice. And it was, it was actually two of the best experiences that I've had. Just because the gratitude of the guys that I was able to be with during those shows was really apparent and they were very connected. And you know, I got up and I did a piece called God Doesn't Make Mistakes, you know, to a guy, guys who were sitting in prison. You know, and, and what that moment was, you know, you could, you could feel it in the room, you know?

• 1:17:01Speaker 03

  And, and that's the whole thing is even the thing that you're talking about earlier of how do people find something for themselves? And then it really does start with. Taking responsibility for everything that you have ever experienced in your life, which is a very difficult thing to do. It was very difficult for me and it continues to be a choice that I make on a moment to moment basis.

• 1:17:24Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  But, uh, I believe that I've co-created every single thing that I'm experiencing. And I believe that I'm doing it to evolve and to raise my vibrational level and to share my story and to connect with people and to have that soul interaction. And so, all of the things that I look at in my life is the tragedies or the pain, all of those things are really the things that we talked about before that I can use to move forward, but I have to take responsibility for them first in order for me to own them.

• 1:17:56Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  Otherwise, they have power over me in a way that continues to show up in my day-to-day interactions as a man and ultimately as an artist.

• 1:18:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  That's true. And by taking responsibility, then you are no longer a victim.

• 1:18:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  And you can rise out of that. And I completely share that same experience, definitely.

• 1:18:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, whatever it is you're going through, you know, what do you want to do now?

• 1:18:27Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. That's good. Well, that's a good... Yeah, that's a good, uh, that's a beautiful place to end it, I think, but I'm, I'm hoping that you'll take us out with another poem. And I really loved, you don't have to do this one if you don't want to, but the, the poem that you delivered when we were up at Summit, um, before that, the final dinner in the big house. Do you remember that one? You remember which one you did?

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  I think it was a World Peace poem.

• 1:18:55Rich Roll?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think I'm gonna hold that one because...

• 1:19:00Rich Roll?

  Okay, no problem.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  I don't know it yet well enough to, to share it the way that I want to.

• 1:19:05Rich Roll?

  It's a pretty, that was, it's a pretty new one, right?

• 1:19:07Speaker 02

  It's a deep, very, very deep one.

• 1:19:08Rich Roll?

  I think that was the first time that you had done it or one of the earlier...

• 1:19:10Speaker 03

  It was the first time I had done it, uh, in a live setting and I haven't done it since then.

• 1:19:15Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  And, uh, and since I was doing the Cirque thing, you know, I haven't spent any time focusing on it. And so, five and a half minute piece.

• 1:19:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's long. I know.

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  The other thing about the piece is it's, it's like, it's interesting, like, I was...

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  I was where I needed to be to write it, but I'm still stepping into who I need to be to say it. Because it's a very, it's a very deep piece.

• 1:19:40Rich Roll?

  Very deep, yeah.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  And, um, and so I'm kind of still working on myself to be able to deliver it in the way that I need to.

• 1:19:48Rich Roll?

  Deliver the one you want to deliver.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  This is a true story.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  This one time I saw a dude who worked for Vons, collecting stacks of shopping carts in the parking lot with only one arm. Now, I should say that on this particular day, I'd been feeling down about myself, depressed about some stupid shit, complaining in my head that I'm not as far along as I would like to be, that life is victimizing me. And mind you, I was buying food at the time to put into my car, to put into my house, to put into my fridge, to put into my mouth.

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  And that's when I saw him. Ten carts deep, pushing them with one arm down the street, whistling. I swear he was whistling. Do you know how happy I would have to be to spontaneously pucker up my lips like I was about to blow a kiss, then open up a bit and push the mare from my esophagus into a higher pitched shit? Really fucking happy. I mean, totally ecstatic. I would have had to have just had a three-way with Scarlett Johansson and Rachel McAdams, where both of them had orgasms as they screamed out, "NQ is the best we've ever had." Then, at that point, I would whistle.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  I mean, at that point, I'd probably dance around a little. Anyway, back to this dude. First thought I had, I'll admit, was a bit rude, but hear me out before you boo. See, I was confused. Because if I was in his shoes and I had to choose a job, this would not be the job I'd choose. And I know that sounds hardcore, but honestly, this is the one job that I would want two arms for.

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Now that being said, this dude was a motherfucking gangster. The army had, looked like it was strong enough to be the anchor on an oil tanker. Like he could have been Arnold Schwarzenegger's trainer back when he was starring in The Terminators and it woke me up like the scent from a cup of Sanka. So I went home and wrote this poem as an ode to thank him.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  See, it really got me thinking about my situation.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  Why the fuck am I complaining?

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  This world is full of people maintaining.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  No matter who you are, or where you're from, we all have to wake up every day and accept the fact that we don't know where we'll go or why we've come. And that can cause confusion. So we distract ourselves with movies and with music and focus on amusement instead of self-improvement, a mutually agreed upon collective delusion. With this much stimulus and this little understanding, it's no wonder we don't all just completely fucking lose it. Genius and insanity are closer than they seem.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Your perspective is the difference between your nightmares and your dreams.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Because if everything is energy and my body is a vessel, then my struggle is unique and beautiful.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  But that doesn't make it special.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  And this motherfucker had the balls to up and whistle with a fistful of shopping carts that he guided like a missile. And it blew me away like a sneeze into a tissue that someone who was seemingly so many issues could be unequivocally so blissful, while someone who's as lucky as I am could be self-creating problems by the listful.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Well, I guess that's my process.

• 1:23:36Speaker 03

  But when it gets indulgent, it can border on obnoxious, insulting, and even repulsive. So from this point on, right now, if my thoughts start thinking that they're important, or my feelings start feeling too distorted, I'm gonna sort them into categories to see if I can change them. If I can, I'll simply make the moves to rearrange them. If I can't, I'll acknowledge them, but won't engage them, look them square into their eyes, smile while I face them and...

• 1:24:33Rich Roll?

  In-Q. Thanks, man. That was awesome. Beautiful. Thanks for coming by, man.

• 1:24:40Speaker 03

  Of course, man. Thank you for having me.

• 1:24:42Rich Roll?

  Inspiring.

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  The world is a much better place for having you in it. Thanks so much.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  Alright, so if people wanna connect with you, it's in-dash-Q.com.

• 1:24:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's in-question. So...

• 1:24:56Rich Roll?

  That's what it stands for? I was gonna ask you that, and I just got caught up in the conversation.

• 1:25:01Speaker 03

  That's it. In-dash-Q. In-question.

• 1:25:03Rich Roll?

  That's what it stands for, isn't it?

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  So, in-Q.com, and then...

• 1:25:07Rich Roll?

  At In-Q Life on Twitter.

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:25:10Rich Roll?

  And Instagram, right?

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 1:25:11Rich Roll?

  Those are the places.

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:25:13Rich Roll?

  What's coming up, man? Oh, you're going to Israel?

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  Going to Israel tomorrow.

• 1:25:16Rich Roll?

  What are you doing tomorrow? What's going on there?

• 1:25:18Speaker 03

  Ah, there's an amazing trip that's, uh, that's being organized by a friend of ours and some of the Summit community, and so, uh, we're just, we're going. It's a bunch of artists, a bunch of tech people, and, uh, we have this kind of extensive tour, and I've never been before, and I'm very, very excited to, to experience it. Um, you know, traveling always, always lifts the veil, you know? So, uh, that's, that's, that's where I'm at. There's a lot of stuff coming up, but I'm, I'm happy, happy in this moment and happy to be going there tomorrow.

• 1:25:54Rich Roll?

  Alright, cool. But if you, if people wanna find out where you're performing next, it's on your website.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna do something at 41 Ocean when I get back, I think sometime in April or something like that. I think it's April 26th. So, you know, but they can go and get all the information on the website for sure.

• 1:26:10Rich Roll?

  Right. All right, man. Thanks, brother.

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  Much love.

• 1:26:12Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  Namaste.

• 1:26:21Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody. That's our show. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that helped expand your horizons a little bit. I hope that helped you reimagine your truth. I dig that guy, man. I think I'm gonna have him back on. He's awesome and I'm a better person for having him in my life. I hope you feel the same. So, before we close it out, a couple quick announcements. I wanted to bring you up to speed on a couple exciting things. The first thing is, I've got an app coming soon, an iOS mobile app for the podcast. And we've been testing it out. We've been developing it for a while and it's pretty close to launch and I'm really excited about it. It'll be the kind of thing you can put on your iPad

• 1:27:06Rich Roll?

  or your iPhone. It's not Android compatible. We're just doing iOS right now. So, for those of you with an Android phone, we'll look into developing something like that for later. But for now, just version one, we're launching iOS. And it's gonna be the easiest way for you to get all the podcasts on your iOS device. It's great for, you know, a lot of people all the time. They're like, I'd listen to your podcast, but you know, how do I find it? Or how do I get it? Which is, you know, kind of remarkable and amazing to me. It's so simple, but yet it seems to elude a lot of people. And this is gonna be an easy way. For those people, they can just get, you know, download the app off the App Store and they don't have to worry about iTunes or, you know, how to find it or whatever. It'll

• 1:27:48Rich Roll?

  just be at their fingertips. So, a great way to share the show with friends who maybe are unfamiliar with the world of podcasting. And the other great thing is, it's gonna help us build this community. It's gonna help us grow the Plant Power Revolution. And it is going to have the entire catalog of podcasts on it. All the way back to episode one. If you get the show off iTunes, you know that you can only get the most recent 50, and now we're up to 81. So that's 30 odd episodes that are inaccessible unless you delve deep down into the bowels of my website to find it. And this is going to be a way for you to easily access all the episodes, all the way

• 1:28:31Rich Roll?

  back to our rough and tumble beginnings. That's something we're going to offer to the early adopters of the app. Of course, it's going to be free. The app will be totally free. Eventually, we'll do later iterations and versions. We're going to build out a premium functionality to it where you can upgrade the app to access certain things that are premium content. And eventually, we're not going to have the entire catalog available for free. But for early adopters, that's what you're going to be able to get, which is pretty cool. What else about it can I say? It's the bomb. It's really cool. And

• 1:29:13Rich Roll?

  we'll have it ready soon. We've got to get it through the whole App Store approval process and all of that. And I don't know how long that takes. It might take a little while. But I just wanted to let you guys know, make you aware that this is in the works and coming soon. And of course, I'll make an announcement when it is completely available. But we are close. The second thing is, we have a new nutritional supplement product that's going to be launching very soon. It's called Ion. It is an electrolyte capsule supplement for the athletes out there. It's a lot like Salt Stick, if you're familiar with that. You've heard me talk about that product on the show before. It has a lot of similarities with that, but we've made a couple tweaks to that formula. And in our opinion, it is

• 1:29:57Rich Roll?

  improved on that product. I'll fill you in more on the details of that on the eve of launching it. But we've got it all in stock. We've just got to build out the functionality on the website so that we can make it available and offer it to you guys. But really excited about that. I've been testing it out on my rides and my runs, and it really works well. And as you know, as an athlete, particularly an endurance athlete, you've got to keep your electrolytes in check. And the way that most athletes do that is they suck on the Gatorade, or they get these sugary drinks. And we're taking the electrolyte aspect out of Away from that. So it's just getting you what you need. The electrolytes without all the additives, without all the sugar, without all the artificial coloring and sweeteners

• 1:30:40Rich Roll?

  and all that kind of stuff. Really proud of it. It's been a long time in the works and we're getting ready to launch that. So stay tuned for more information about that as we get close. That's it. Want to support the show? Best way to do that, just tell a friend. Once we get the app going, you can share the app too. We love it. This is a word of mouth thing. It's a grassroots thing. It's grown very organically over time. We're really proud of that. So yeah, that's the best way to do it. Just to share. And you know what's really great and what I love is when people share the podcast on Instagram. I absolutely love it when I get tagged on a photo of somebody out on a run, you know, with some kind of screen grab of the podcast or a picture of them out exercising, saying

• 1:31:25Rich Roll?

  that they're listening to the podcast. So I totally dig that. Keep it up, you guys. And, and yeah, that's a great way to share it too visually with your friends. Amazon banner ad, of course. We have an affiliate relationship with Amazon. If you're gonna buy something on Amazon, just click through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com or bookmark it on your browser. That way, when you buy something on Amazon, it will not cost you a cent extra, but Amazon kicks us some loose commission change and that really pays our bills here. And it allows me to pay Tyler, my son, to produce the show. He's the one who does all the music and puts the whole show together and gets it up on iTunes. And

• 1:32:06Rich Roll?

  you are rewarding young entrepreneurship when you use the Amazon banner ad. So that helps you feel good about it too. We really appreciate it. People have been doing that and I dig it. So thank you. You can donate to the podcast too, one time basis, or you can do it on a weekly or monthly basis. Thank you to all the people that are going that extra mile to support us in that way. We just added Bitcoin functionality for all you Bitcoin fanatics out there. If you're into Bitcoin, now you can give us a tip through the donate button on the richroll.com homepage. And that's pretty cool too. We're in the modern era with that. All right. That's it, you guys. Want to learn more about getting

• 1:32:49Rich Roll?

  plant-based? The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, our course at mindbodygreen.com. Julie and I take you through three and a half hours of streaming online video content. Everything you need to get more plants into your life. We're really proud of that. So you can check that out. And of course, for all your plant power provisions, go to ritual.com. We got t-shirts, we got beanies, we got trucker hats, we have new stuff coming up. We've got a cycling kit that we're working on that we're pretty excited about and all kinds of new designs and apparel. And of course, our nutritional supplement product line, our J C E cookbook, our downloadable meditation program, our B12, blah, blah, blah, all that good stuff. You guys know that. So go there for all of that. And that's

• 1:33:33Rich Roll?

  it. You guys, follow me on Twitter at at ritual, on Instagram, at ritual, Facebook, all that good stuff. And I will catch you guys next week. Thank you so much. I know there are so many demands on your eyeballs and your ears for all of the content that is available to you. So it means so much that you would spend a couple hours with me each week, listening to this podcast, and I greatly appreciate it. It motivates me to keep the quality high and to continue on this mission. It's been incredibly rewarding for me, and I hope for you as well. So have a great week, everybody. Reimagine yourself. Take things to the new level and blow the glass ceiling on your possibilities. And

• 1:34:16Rich Roll?

  in the words of Summit, make no small plans. We'll catch you next week. Peace. Plants.