JOIN MY COMMUNITY

Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Hi it’s Marissa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes, our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialised fields to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond, your voice is your unique gift. It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:14

This week on a boy sent beyond, I am thrilled to introduce you to Humble the Poet, a Canadian born rapper a spoken word artist, poet and internationally best selling author who began his career pathway as an elementary school teacher. Humble has since been featured on major media outlets all around the world and has a massive social media following with more than 2.6 million followers on YouTube alone. Over the past few years, humble has also had huge success with these two first book releases, unlearn and things nobody can teach us, both of which have become international bestsellers. In this episode, we talk about his latest book release, which is titled How to Be Loved simple truths for going easier on yourself, embracing imperfection, and loving your way to a better life. In this latest book, humble talks about many concepts and themes around love, a word that has been Googled over 14 billion times. Today humble shares what he believes is the true definition of love and adds that to discover our true love, we must complete ourselves and strengthen our relationship with self. First and foremost before we open ourselves to discover true love. Humble also shares his insights on the journey of love things people do wrong in their pursuits for love, the biggest myths around love, and why we should not fall in love with potential. There are so many amazing pearls of wisdom. And I’m so honoured and grateful to have Humble the Poet on the show this week. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  03:43

Welcome to a voice and beyond. It’s Humble the Poet how are you?

Humble the Poet  03:50

I am fantastic. How you doing?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  03:52

I’m doing good. Now you’ve just moved to New York. You’ve been telling me all about that.

Humble the Poet  03:58

Yes, I have been here now for five days. And it’s been a roller coaster adventure.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:05

It’s certainly like it’s the big city, isn’t it? Everything is in overload. Everything is exaggerated. Everything’s bigger than life.

Humble the Poet  04:15

Completely everything. Yeah, it’s the city of excess. Somebody described it beautifully. It’s the city of unlimited second chances.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:23

Wow. Do New Yorkers give second chances? Because to me they I feel like they’re I love New Yorkers, but they have a different energy. And I feel like you wouldn’t want to cross the New Yorker because they’d forgive but they’d never forget.

Humble the Poet  04:40

Yeah, but there’s so many people’s you’ll never see him again. Oh.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:45

I like that. So if you don’t want to see anyone, you can just avoid them because there’s like 50 million other people you

Humble the Poet  04:50

can. You can just move three blocks away and you’ll have a whole different world.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:54

I love that.

Humble the Poet  04:56

I mean, I think the only way that the only way to really upset a New Yorker is by getting in There are ways slowing them down.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  05:02

100% I mean, I was saying to you earlier, the thing that gets me is how fast they talk. And I talk generally quite slowly, and I’m the person that likes to process information before I respond. And I feel the pressure. When I’m talking to a New Yorker, I feel like they’re going to talk over the top of me, because I’m not going fast enough for

Humble the Poet  05:25

completely completely.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  05:27

Yeah. Now humble, you are a Canadian born rapper, spoken word artist, a poet, internationally best selling author, and you are also a former elementary school teacher. You have a huge social media following with more than 2.6 million followers on YouTube alone. So no pressure on me right now. And you have been featured on a, like major media outlets all around the world. And to be honest, I first came across your work listening to one of Jay Shetty, his podcast, and I’m going, Oh, my gosh, that’s humble. And he’s going to be on my show. I feel really privileged to have you here. So thank you so much.

Humble the Poet  06:15

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:17

No, it’s the pleasure is all mine. And I’m fascinated with all the stuff that you do. And I want to start off by a question that I’m sure you’ve been asked by million people before and you now there, you’re in New York, you’re going to be asked by 50 million more people. But you have to tell me, where does the name Humble the Poet come from many, many,

Humble the Poet  06:41

many years ago, when I was younger, I was participating in a lot of hip hop events and things online. And so the name humble was my original screen name. And that idea comes from like a Sikh philosophy. Your biggest obstacle to peace is your ego. So I was raised kind of in that philosophy, so humble, kind of being a reaction to the ego, you know, said, you know, stay humble. And then I participated in different, you know, rap events, stuff like that. And then one of those events, one of the lyrics was, you know, I’m a poet, and I’m humble, the poet in the name kind of stuck off after that. And then once I started, you know, sharing my work online publicly, but public facing doesn’t mean that that kind of stuck. Yeah. And, you know, it wasn’t something that I thought of becoming, you know, the household name that is becoming now, you know, you don’t think about it back then. Is this the same way? We’ve all had funny email names? Yes, yes. And you know, I’m not lost on the fact that it’s not humble to call yourself humble. But here I am stuck with the name. And, you know, it’s been 13 years now. So we’re gonna keep rolling.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  07:46

That’s it. And it’s a name that people are going to remember too. So you know, you’ve got that on your side. It’s certainly memorable. And you began your journey, reciting spoken word poetry and coffee shops, and this was to impress girls. So how did that all come about? And where did that inspiration to write poetry come from?

Humble the Poet  08:09

I grew up on hip hop music and spoken word, like slam poetry. So I think it was always in me. And it was always something that I wanted to try. And I would do it kind of privately by myself, and then started doing online. And then yeah, you know, as I got a little bit older, and would be out in the city with my friends that you know, you walk back coffee shop at a poetry night, you see all the pretty girls inside, you’re like, wait a minute, I can go in here and share what I got. And see if it’s a good icebreaker. It definitely was, you know, and that was my motivation early on in the journey. You know, I was working as a school teacher. Yeah. So this was kind of my, my social, my social flexing what I could do to kind of meet new women and had new experiences and be social.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  08:48

So did you have trouble meeting women otherwise was were you kind of shy or lack the confidence and that kind of gave you that morale boost to get in there and put yourself forward?

Humble the Poet  09:00

I think for most people, I think the biggest challenge is always see ice break, breaking the ice. So I think what this did was just put me in a situation to do something that I that it was clear, I could do better than the average bear. And that was enough to break the ice. You know, it’s, it’s really interesting, where, you know, so I guess it doesn’t even, you know, create a level of confidence to still break the ice with women. But I think what it does, it just creates opportunity for them to come up to you after be like, Oh, I really liked that poem that you did on. And now all of a sudden ice has been broken, you know. So I think it’s creating the environment for connection, more so than anything else.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  09:37

So are your posts is your poetry romantic? Usually,

Humble the Poet  09:41

I mean, I have romantic poetry. And you know, I have it, but I mainly talked about social issues. It was actually anything that caught my attention that I thought was really interesting. I want to share with the world. So you know, interestingly enough, I talked a lot about politics and a lot about human rights. I talked a lot about that. At first, and then every now and then I would do something romantic if there was a muse or inspiration, you know, genuinely somebody, you know, somebody whose story had ended with me. And I’m, you know, reminiscing on them, I’d write something about them after the fact only after the fact never jury.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:16

So as a singing teacher, because that’s my background, and we have a lot of people hear from the singing voice community, and you talk about like you do rap and hip hop? Do you think about what’s going to come to your head before you start? Or is it just something that you’re in flow? And it just comes out?

Humble the Poet  10:38

Oh, I mean, no, I’m definitely not the inflow type. I am the Think it out, plan it out, express it, and revise it repeatedly. I think that’s me a lot more I think I think I used to rely on I love the Stephen King or the you know, the difference between an amateur and professional artists is that professional artists find inspiration every day from nine to five. You know, it’s kind of in the amateur waits to be inspired. And yeah, so I think from that concert, I, you know, over the years, I really learned because I think a lot of it would be choose the things that would inspire me to write the things that I was learning. And then I think maybe later on, it was things that I was feeling. So I think you know, and I’m still on that journey now. And I think that’s what I’m trying to explore moving forward to see how I’m feeling and use the writing to work through what I’m feeling, you know, so I think moving forward, if I started making music now, which I plan to do, it’ll feel a lot more like journaling than creating music for people to enjoy and dance to.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  11:46

When was the last time you rapped?

Humble the Poet  11:49

I mean, I, the last time I released music was probably over the pandemic, I had some songs that were kind of in storage that I put out, I released the full project in 2017. And, you know, I did, and I had poetry projects for that as well. But I mean, I write and record, you know, when I’m settled almost every day. So, you know, this, this flows through me.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  12:11

That’s, is that part of your self care, something that you do for yourself? That gives you a creative outlet, but it also makes you feel good?

Humble the Poet  12:23

Yeah, completely. I think it’s the one. You know, especially when you become I think went for anybody that gets paid to do something that kind of sucks the fun out of it. No matter what you do for a living? I don’t think no matter.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  12:36

Yeah, expectations.

Humble the Poet  12:39

Yeah, so I think for me, that is, you know, music is one of those things where the labour is the reward, just going through it, and it’s so much excitement and fun doing it. And not worrying about where it lives after, and the amount of pride and joy taking that. So yes, it charges my battery, it’s probably the only amount of intense work that I do that I leave feeling more energised doing,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:04

that’s when you truly know that you’re in flow, we use that word before, but when you really love something, it doesn’t feel like work. It just feels like it feels your soul.

Humble the Poet  13:16

Yeah, but I think I’m also learning just like this world of being a professional, anything just requires and a ridiculous amount of energy and time towards it. You know, as you know, I do a whole bunch of other art, which, you know, makes me the bulk of my income. So the music, stay a passion. But if I want if I wanted to, you know, pay my bills exclusively in music, like, you know, it wouldn’t come from making better music, it would come from being a marketer. I’m a music marketer and making sure people hear my songs on tick tock and all that. That would be exhausting. For the sake of it, yeah, right. Now I get that, you know, and I mean, that’s the challenge, even with the book, you know, I’m on here to promote my book, and it’s, you know, this, I’m lucky that, you know, the an audience that reads books, you know, is a very critically thinking, careful, conscientious group of people. And that’s a lot different than people in audience that’s there for music. You know, they’re they kind of like you for a song or a moment in a song. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:19

that moment. Exactly. And they forget about you a couple of weeks later, because the next song is just been released by someone else.

Humble the Poet  14:27

Exactly. And that’s not the case with books. I think you have, you know, you live in somebody’s home once they take your book, and you’re on their shelf in your you know, and I think I can honour that relationship a lot more. And I feel like especially with with the with the books, you know, the effort shines, you know, the amount of work I put into this new book, The efforts shine a lot, you know, in terms of the editing in terms of the writing in terms of what made it what didn’t make it. I wrote more than double the amount of this book, and then had to shave away more than half For the book, you know, and even if you look at the book, the writing the font is a little bit smaller than normal. Really just just so they can squeeze it all in. Yeah. Oh my gosh, they wanted me to shorten it more. They wanted me to shorten it more.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:13

Yeah. But you felt that, then you were going to lose part of your messaging or what was important.

Humble the Poet  15:20

Yeah. And I mean, even like, what I ended up what we ended up cutting, you know, it was just as important what we what we just ended up doing was taking different themes away. You know, I had a lot of battle, a lot of things that were signs back, like science based stuff. So we decided to just take that side of it out, let’s take the science of it that was to stick with the emotions. And let’s do that. And so in what I did to some chapters in the book are QR codes. So you can you know, I couldn’t fit the chapter in the book, you could scan a QR code and read it. Yeah, cuz I didn’t want you to lose it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:55

I’ve never seen that anywhere. Wow. Okay. Now we’re going to talk about your books, because you’ve released two books previously to this one. There was unlearn and things nobody can teach us. And they both became international bestsellers. So it must be a lot that goes on in your head. Do you find the writing process easy? Or are you like us someone that’s a slow writer? Or do you get into that mode, and the words just seem to appear out of nowhere, and you go back a few days later and read what you’ve written? You go, I don’t remember writing,

Humble the Poet  16:34

writing becomes a lot easier for me. And again, this was my third book. So this is yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  16:39

Sorry. We haven’t told our listeners the titles. So it’s how to be yes, simple truths, but going easier on yourself embracing imperfection, and loving your way to a better life. So that is a new book that was released December last year,

Humble the Poet  16:59

December 2022. Yet right at the end of December, Hay House with Hay House, yes. Okay. So I guess the way that I can best explain it is my first book was called unlearn. And I self published that originally. And it became very successful independently, and it kept growing. And then I signed with HarperCollins. And they republished it, but the writing process of that book I had done myself, and to this day is still selling extremely well, because I feel like it’s very organic people connected with it. The second book, things no one else could teach us. That was the first time I worked with professional editors. And what they really did was they took my raw talents, and they really helped me refine it, and kind of showed me the differences between an amateur and a professional. And what they really did was they gave me a lot of process, you know, teaching me structure teaching me planning, teaching me all of that. So they didn’t get in the way of my creativity. They just said, don’t just wait to be inspired to Riley really planning although then they taught, they taught me a lot. And what I did with this third book is I mixed what I could do with him was what they taught me.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:02

Right. So it’s a balance

Humble the Poet  18:05

is a beautiful harmony, more than a balance.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:07

I love that it’s a harmony of both aspects. Yeah,

Humble the Poet  18:12

yeah. So I wrote from my heart, but I planted it, I planned everything out, I structured everything else. So when I felt something that I want to write about, I would write notes, pages of notes, then those notes were turned into big sticky notes. And those sticky notes would be put on my window. And then I would put my computer on the window, read to the window, and then I would wake up first thing in the morning and immediately go to the computer, read the sticky notes and start writing. So there will be no writer’s block, because I already had what the core points I needed to say. And I understood, okay, so it was really a beautiful balance of they really served as kind of the string to my kite. You know, saying, okay, look, you can go anywhere you want. But we need to keep a little bit of structure otherwise, you know, yeah. And that that’s what really made this book, you know, super special is because I learned a lot from them. And then I learned how to make it my own. And that’s, yeah, so the writing, the writing has gotten significantly better. And just small things like learning to get rid of the word actually, I used to write a lot and use the word actually. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:18

that’s an unusual word to keep

Humble the Poet  19:20

writing on. Yeah. And they pointed it out. I didn’t I didn’t see it. No, you don’t. Yeah, so this time after finishing the book, I would like Ctrl F and look for the word actually, in September, like do I need this word every time and I would have deleted them. So I was I was really, as I said, like, I, I had a lot of time to write this book, because it was my pandemic project, and that a lot of time to edit this book. And I just kept going over and over and shaving away. So everything that’s left is what’s important, and what’s essential. Excellent. And I’m really proud of that, and it makes it very, very easy to understand. There’s no words. It’s not complicated

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:59

and doesn’t have actually 500 times, it does not

Humble the Poet  20:02

have actually five on your time. And you know what, I probably don’t have any words in this book bigger than mayonnaise. How many lessons

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:09

is that’s a really interesting word to use as, as a comparison, mayonnaise. That’s

Humble the Poet  20:18

what I used to do as a teacher, that was kind of the rule never, never speak to the kids with words bigger than mayonnaise. I love that. Yeah. So I try. I try to keep the reading level for this very, you know, because different people have different levels of education. And you don’t have to use big words to explain complicated ideas.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:36

No, that’s the thing I get most frustrated about in academia. Because in my world, I’ve done a PhD in written a thesis, then written an academic textbook. And I tell you, I don’t feel comfortable in that world. I’ve got to be perfectly honest, I don’t feel comfortable because I like imagery. I love using adjectives, I love to express myself. And in that kind of writing, you can’t know it’s got to be all science based. It’s all got to be well documented, evidence based. And it’s not a world that I feel comfortable in. So I’m so slow writing that kind of stuff. But let’s get back to your book. The book is around love. And I know a great part of that is around self love. And we’re going to get that to that in a moment. But I do have many questions around love. And and since knowing that I was going to interview you, I’ve been listening to other people talk about love that’s just seems to be this thread of information that’s coming into my life at the moment. But the word love has been Googled more than 14 billion times. And people want to know what is love? So what’s your definition of love? And have you ever been in love?

Humble the Poet  22:05

So my definition of love is peace. You know, love is not getting everything, it’s wanting nothing. And I don’t necessarily prescribe to the language of being in love. Yes, and no, I think I think love constantly exists, and what we can do with access and realise love. And the relationships we have show us where where love is because we create pathways for that love. So, you know, I’m not, I don’t like saying ideas, like I found love, or I, I deserve love, or I earned love. You know, these aren’t these are not what love is love is love is the breeze. You know, and you have to open your sail to catch it. You know, and that’s internal work. Right? So So, yeah, so for me if have I been in love? Have people show me where love is? 1,000%? And have I created pathways of love between me and other people? Yes. Have I destroyed those pathways? Yes. Have I formed new ones? Yes, like 1,000%. And I think oftentimes, you know, love is not a complicated thing. I think the confusion, what I’m realising and having conversations with people is the confusion is really around romantic love more than anything else, you know, because we don’t have questions around the love that we have for siblings and our parents and our best friend or a love for writing or a love for chocolate ice cream. We don’t have any questions around that. We don’t need to read books about it. You know, we but we need to understand this kind of interaction where it’s like, okay, how do I go from strangers to this person being the most important person in my life. And all the rules of these kind of early transactional and, and encounters with each other, we start to mix up with love. You know, because what we want to do is you want to earn their affection, we want to earn their adoration, we want to earn their trust, we want to earn their attention. We want to earn their approval. And we think these things are love. You know, when we win with anybody else, we don’t do any of this. So I think what it really boils down to and at the end of the day, you know you’re successful in the romantic realm, when you can be yourself with the person like what you’re aiming to do with that person is sit on a couch with them and watch your favourite TV show together while you’re both wearing sweats and eating popcorn. You know, but we assume that that requires expensive trips to Paris and jewellery and engagement rings and all these gestures. You know, these things aren’t love. You know, these things are facsimiles of love that we chase because we desire more love from somebody but being seen being you know, being accepted. For as as we are, in all this stuff. That’s love when we feel Let peace was something you know, not all the pleasure and excitement that we’re chasing in this the sparks that we think we need to have with another person that’s not love. You know, that’s, that’s everything else that’s almost the other direction.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  25:12

Yes. So in order to feel that love with other people and what you’re saying I what I’m getting from you right now too is that we put so much pressure on love with those people that are outside of our family where we’re trying to form relationships or love relationship with somebody, or a long term relationship with someone, a partner in life, someone that’s going to stand beside us in love in life, we tend to put so much pressure on that, is that because we have high expectations of what that actually is, and what it needs to be? Or is it because we’re trying to fill a gap, something that we feel is missing within ourselves, or we don’t have enough self love, that we put the pressure on that relationship?

Humble the Poet  26:09

I think that plus a whole bunch of other things, I think, you know, I think the software that we have as human beings for survival has taught us that we need to gain approval of others. You know, we live in small societies, we needed to be working with the community or they would have kicked us out and then we would have died. You know, so being people pleasers and gaining approval is a survival method it does is no longer relevant. You know, upsetting people in your community right now will not lead to you being ostracised, you know, and as I said we’d I wouldn’t you know, New York, us move three blocks away, and you’ll have a whole new community. But that, you know, that’s not going to change in us anytime soon. Our biological makeup is this takes hundreds of 1000s of years to develop. So we you know, I feel like, you know, you combine that with what media shows us, you know, when media shows us love stories, romantic comedies, porn, all of these things, they show us a hyper normal example of what it is. They show it to us entertainment us, but we don’t what no one’s realising is it’s also informing us as to what we think it should be. Exactly, exactly. The healthiest romantic couples you actually know, in your life would not make a great TV show, there will be two peaceful and too boring. And it wouldn’t be any excitement, because they’re at peace. And there’s nothing to take pictures of, there’s nothing to do anything. And you know, sort of creating all this level of excitement is to get people’s attention, but then that also serves to inform people that I must have that excitement in my relationships. And I think that’s why we start to chase all of this stuff for the for that reason, and I think is also, you know, this idea, again, you know, this lack of self love isn’t a whole, you know, this incomplete list, I feel incomplete. We are not a complete individuals, you know, completeness isn’t something you can measure a hue, you can measure life that’s complete, because when you die, your life is completed. You know, your credits rolling, but you can’t measure a person as complete, or enough or worthy. These ideas again, I’ve been kind of signalled to us because you know, there’s an economy around it. And nobody is it just says very simple rule. No, nothing on the outside will be a solution to what you feeling on the inside. The internal problems require internal solutions. And, you know, so if you don’t feel good about yourself, the answer is not going to come from somebody else. There’ll be a bandage, but that’s not you know, and stick around long enough your old patterns are going to reemerge. Exactly. And self love requires you to accept yourself as you are, you know, even with the big hole, you know, with whatever you think that hole is,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  28:52

yeah. Well, we’re, we’re all imperfectly perfect.

Humble the Poet  28:56

But you know, they were imperfectly imperfect. That’s a beautiful way to put it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  29:00

Yeah, in our own way. And I’ve been married for 30 years. Amazing. And so we’ve been together for 33 years, my husband and I, and I mean, like we’ve had our ups and downs. It’s not smooth sailing. Because we’re two different people where sometimes one person is a little different stage than the other person. But I think for us when times get tough, the thing that I always go back to was what was it that I first loved about this person? What were the qualities that I I admired about this person? And we dated for two years before we moved in together? It was when we had the commitment that we were going to get married that we actually started to live under the same roof. And the excitement for me was, you know, we would date and would go home, then it’d be a few days or a week before I’d see him again. And I look forward to that. And I’ve kind of feel that that set the foundation, just taking our times to gradually know each other, really set the foundations for the relationship. Do you think these days, people try to hurry love, they they move in together? Too soon, they don’t take the time to actually get to know each other before they’re in a butson all, like living with each other. And having all the pressures of day to day life without having built that foundation?

Humble the Poet  30:41

I think absolutely, I think, you know, to even put it simply, I think people view love as a destination and not a journey. You know, it’s really a journey between you and another person that you’re walking. And it can’t be measured in time. It has to be measured in quality time. And quality time isn’t watching TV with the person, you’re not building a connection, just by spending time with the other person, you’re not building connection, just by sleeping in the same bed as a person. You build a connection through vulnerability, you build the condition to seeing the other person and being seen by the other person in all your glory. And that doesn’t just mean naked, that means naked, spiritually. That means naked mentally, that means in every capacity and accepting the person that they are, and seeing it as a journey, I think very often again, and we have economies around this we have a whole wedding industry, people are working towards Yeah, they view their wedding is like the the the they view their wedding as like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You know, like it’s an accomplishment to get married. Getting married is not an accomplishment. staying married is an accomplishment. You know, your your 30 year anniversary should be a lavish party, not your zero year wedding. You know, you didn’t even what other what other what other part of human society do we do that we don’t throw a party, when we start high school, we throw a party when we graduate high school, we don’t throw a party starting college, we throw a party graduating college, that is no longer true. It’s got to be an accomplishment. Getting married is not an accomplishment. staying married is an accomplishment. Living live with somebody going being in the trenches with them. And you know, and but right now is people are more in love with the wedding than they are with the marriage. And they view it they don’t view it as a journey. You’re starting a journey with somebody celebrate every step of the journey. Yes, but the biggest part of the journey is not the beginning of it. And what you’re doing it you’re throwing these lavish weddings and going into debt, and then you know, finances is a massive contributed to divorce. Yes, you know, so we kind of set ourselves up for this type of stuff. Whereas if we just shift our mindset, which is like this is a journey, you know, the and again, we all are, you know, abiding by these templates of society, whether written and unwritten, which is a all you need to step one, meet somebody step two, date, step three, proclaim that you’re going steady, or you’re monogamous or exclusive move in with each other do this. But it’s like no like it, there’s no schedule in timing for this, you got to work through it together. And also, again, how are you spending your time together? You know, are you guys sharing first experiences? Or are you guys just simply making the other person experience everything you love? And then having them forced you to experience everything they love? Are you guys creating mutual new experiences together? And I think there’s a lot of that, because that binding gets created that way versus it being comfortable. And again, any country in the Western world or any English speaking country, for that matter, has ridiculously high divorce rates, and we know those who just got divorced, there’s still a whole group in there that want to be divorced and won’t. And is something worth understanding when it comes to this, which is, you know, it’s not a battle, and I don’t want to view it as rushing and not you know, I my parents are a product of arranged marriage. You know, they’re about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in 2024.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:09

I know other people in that same situation, who have had very successful marriages,

Humble the Poet  34:17

completely. And they’re on a journey together, you know, you know, and they got married in a gymnasium. And they know that their reception was the same gymnasium and Canada, because there were new immigrants, no money. But, you know, their journey has spanned five decades, and it’s a very different journey than other people would have understood. But there’s still some of the some of the recipe of a successful relationship exists within them. And one of the core ones is a common priority. When you share priorities, not interest, you share priorities with somebody, you guys can work towards them together. And again, they were both thrown into this and you know, they were figuring it out as they went and they were both in their 20s and You know, my dad would have been 24, my mom would have been 22, you know, and they were kids doing it, doing their best, doing their best. I’m not saying that a perfect marriage, I’m not saying either of them, you know, what have you, but they were doing their best. Plus, they were in a brand new country, you know, with a different climate and with a different language with all these things, and they were figuring it out. But I think all of that allowed them to do it. And I think what we have to look at his times have changed dramatically. And we have to have a deeper understanding that you know, what, there may be more than one way to approach this and understand this. And again, marriage isn’t some sort of higher level of love than any other love, you know, again, you’re establishing a pathway with someone, and is showing you where love is, and a marriage is continually refining and working on that daily with, yeah, whereas maybe what’s your best friend, you guys can catch up once a month, once every three months. And that’s enough to keep the maintenance of the pathway there. And but you still love them dearly and deeply. And I think for that matter, it’s just really understanding that look like since the beginning of humanity, as individuals, we have been taught that you have to work to keep the collective movement to collectives, priorities must matter. So if you’re in a village with 100, people, you’re constantly told, you have to help make this village successful. I think what happened over time, especially with the industrial age, is that we don’t have small villages anymore, we have large societies, yes, our large societies don’t have a goal other than, you know, an economy. You know, it’s buy stuff, work, make money, buy stuff, that’s what every society’s actual goals are. And what they’ve done is they just found a million ways to make you do it without you realising it’s like you watch your favourite television show, but that’s also showing you all these advertisements, but it’s also showing you this hyper normal doesn’t exist. And you participate in all of this. Now, people have dream weddings before they even have a husband or a wife, to be you know, and all of that is, is back into feeding the economy. And I think a big thing to recognise as you start to realise how much of your priorities were taught to you. And they’re not taught from some, you know, they’re they’ve been morphed, you know, the knight in shining armour, you know, is a real story of, you know, people that lived in feudal societies, and their only option for social mobility was to join the army, and you join the army, you can come back a hero, and now your, your options to get married have increased a little bit more. That’s the night is the man in uniform, they want the man in uniform, but the man in uniform had value back then, because he actually went to war. And he survived and came home. And those those wars mattered. In only those wars were for the survival of the society or the, or the village of the community. You know, now countries go to war over oil. You know, you’re not you’re not a hero for going to war anymore. You’re an employee, you have a government stealing somebody else’s stuff. Yeah. But we still have that narrative. These people are heroes, the most countries in the world don’t have to be at war ever. And now that we trade, that’s not a thing. So now the knight in shining armour is the guy with the shiny belt, or the shiny shoes or the the nice car. And you know, so now it’s like what you have to do to be chosen. But none of this is love being chosen as a prospective mate is not love being chosen as being chosen? Yes, yeah, sure, having a symmetrical face or a certain body type, or a certain tax bracket is going to increase that. But none of this yields more love. It just yields more being chosen. You know, and, and it’s not and it’s also not a there’s not a punishment, to not play this game.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:57

Well, the problem now has been exacerbated by social media, because anyone can go on social media and post a photo of themselves with a six pack or with their shiny shoes, or their shiny car, or with a Rolex watch, or whatever it is. And with humans, isn’t it that we make up our minds about somebody within seconds, we form an opinion of them. So with social media now, or these dating apps, unless you have the six pack, the shiny car, the shiny shoes, the Rolex, people just go next. Right? So a lot of these people will probably really decent people are being overlooked. So how many of these people are looking for all the wrong qualities and they’re bitterly disappointed or they have the wrong values based on this is what society is presenting. to us as being the perfect person that we need to be with

Humble the Poet  40:05

1,000%. And it’s also just, again, the awareness, the awareness that, look, everybody’s pretending on social media, not just you, everybody, and everybody understands what it is, and this is not. This is, you know, these are platforms designed to just fracture your attention and make you upset and make you emotional. There really is it’s not, you know, people go on line in, you know, here’s an experiment, anybody, here’s an experiment anybody can do, they can send a voice message to a friend of theirs. And then they can go make a video for social media and don’t instantly notice a difference in their voice. Oh, you know, I’m talking to you on this podcast. And again, this is absolutely professional right now. But I’m still speaking to you like a regular person. But if I’m on if I go on social media, Hey, everybody, its humble, the poet today we’re gonna talk about love, you know, and everyone just turns they don’t, they just turn into this kind of hyper real version of themselves, hyper normal, that’s the right word, hyper normal version of themselves, which is like, that’s not how I sound. That’s not how I look, you know, and I don’t want to filter to take any blemish off my face. And I’m pretending and then when I look at everybody else’s stuff, they’ll look at it. So unflushed fragment that was calling my thumb, I forget that they’re not, this is not a real person I’m looking at, I’m looking at a sliver of who they actually are. I’m in the nosebleed section of their life. And I get to see what they’re pretending that I need to see. Same thing with couples. Same thing with everything else social media started, do it didn’t start like that. It started originally like, Hey, let me let me catch up with my best friend and you know, see what them and their dogs are doing today? Well, now it’s completely changed, where everything is concocted, and it is, it’s really pulling on certain heartstrings and emotional, and ancient feelings that we have, because now the need to be accepted can be counted in the likes, and the comments and all of that, not understanding that that’s all based off of a robot and an algorithm and software. Yes, I hate it is different than in carry about, it can’t matter. It really can. And even as someone like me, who has to make a living off, getting the message out that I have something like a book to sell, it’s still not worth it, the game is not worth it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:20

I agree, I get really annoyed when I have coffee with a girlfriend, and she’s crying about how miserable her life is. And then two seconds later, I see a post on social media just as what you said, Oh, my life is so wonderful. I’m going, girl. What are you doing? What are you doing,

Humble the Poet  42:42

I get so many private messages from people talking about how they’re struggling, and then you look at their profiles, and then you would never know. Exactly. And again, it’s a game that is detrimental to us. And I think you know, more and more people need to recognise that then if you could avoid being on it in every capacity, you will be so much better off. And the happiest person I know, never got on social media because he never upgraded his phone. And he never, you know, he had an old Blackberry. He never got on smart, he never gone smartphones, and then spent a good five years without an iPhone. And then he got an iPhone and everyone on social media. By then he realised that, you know, he dodged the bullet. And he is more easily the most piece I’ve ever met anybody in my life? Because none of his decisions in life have anything to do with taking a picture. Yes, there’s not for anyone else to see, or anywhere else to be.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  43:31

So when it comes to love, and you know, okay, there’s the pressures of social media, and, you know, people rushing this idea of love. What, Why else do we get it so wrong? Like, how important is the role modelling from our parents and the relationship, their relationship and what we observed growing up as children?

Humble the Poet  43:57

I think we have to definitely become aware of our influences. You know, I don’t know if our parents can be seen as role models, but they definitely become role models, you know, those who raised us become the first model of what a relationship should be, even if they’re dysfunctional relationships in themselves. And you know, as humans, we love what’s familiar more than we love with healthy, you know, so, if our parents had a certain type of dynamic, we’re going to find ourselves attracted to that dynamic because it feels like home, because it feels familiar doesn’t Adalja to it. So it’s really about bringing that awareness. I mean, I look like, for example, my mother was significantly younger than I am today when she had me. Yes, you know, yes, she’s just a kid figuring things out, you know, and making it up as she went. And to this day, she still is. And from that standpoint, is giving her grades for that and also being like, look, I don’t need to follow in their footsteps. They grew up in a world without Wi Fi. Like my parents grew up in villages. They’re from a different planet than I had to grow up and yeah, Yeah, so from that standpoint is really about just being aware of it. And it’s not about blaming them if they if they weren’t the best influences, it’s just about recognising their impact, and then filling in those gaps yourself. So you know, I have a chapter in the book that says, you know, self love is being your own nurturing parent. No, it’s not, it’s not just being like, I’m a victim, because I had crappy parents, as mainly, okay, cool. What what was missing in my upbringing, okay, I can do that. Now, I have a friend, you know, he’s in his 30s. Now, he just recently took his inner child to the dollar store and went on a shopping spree about toys and candy, you know, because he, he grew up homeless. And he never got to do that as a kid, you know, and his mother struggled with addiction. So you know, now that he’s in a better place, he’s like, Alright, let’s go. Let’s make up for that. Now. You know, and, you know, now he’s eating chocolate bars and chips and doing all the stuff that he couldn’t do as a child. And he’s, and he’s having that moment with his inner child now in establishing that relationship with Himself. And I think that’s the important thing that we have to do here, like no other relationship is more important than your relationship with yourself. And your relationship with yourself is going to inform any other relationship you have.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  46:07

That’s really interesting. Because people say that you, as a woman you try and marry, you end up subconsciously marrying someone that’s like your father, for men subconsciously marry someone that’s like a mother. Well, my mum passed away last year. And I’ve been on quite a grieving journey for the last 12 months. along that way to along that journey, too, I’ve had some anger. Because when I was born, I was born with a job of taking care of my mom, she was having a nervous breakdown, prior to me being conceived. And the doctor said to her, go and have a child, so that that child will take your mind off yourself. So I was given with the job of taking care of her all her needs. I was my so my whole childhood was taken away from me at that time. And it was all about her. And I didn’t realise till only a few months ago, that some of the problems that I’ve had, in my own relationship with my husband, have been that I have had problems receiving love. Because as a child, I didn’t realise that I wasn’t receiving love, I was the one giving and nurturing I was like the parent and times in my relationship. And I must admit, my husband’s 11 years younger than me, that I’ve been taking care of him. And he’s, he has come from a upbringing where he was blamed and shamed. And so he needed nurturing. And so that the two of us have kind of had this weird dynamic. And we have split up a couple of times, we have separated twice in that 30 years. So it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. But in that time that we’ve separated, we’ve taken that time to work on ourselves, and discover who we truly are, and what’s what matters to us and our own values. But it’s interesting, my problem in my relationship has been not allowing myself to be in really in a place of receiving. And since I’ve found that out, it has changed my life. I’ve now said I am ready to receive, I want to be in that situation where I get to enjoy and receive and it’s absolutely changed our dynamic and I’ve told my husband, how I felt I said I now want to be receiving and and I explained why. And he’s also changed, you know so you go back to you have to really get to know yourself, don’t you and your relationship with self and have an understanding of what love means to you, and how you perceive love.

Humble the Poet  49:23

And all the things that you thought were loved that one you know because because it came attention came usefulness it came all of these different things and I think that’s where this becomes a challenge because these are things that you express it to those that you love very often you know if you think of a child, you think of a parent you think of whatever they don’t have to do or be anything you know just just buy a you know hold the baby for the first time they don’t have to do or be anything you love them regardless, they can make a mess on you immediately and it doesn’t change anything. And if going through that process and you know and even hearing your story about what you and your mother it’s you know a Getting these romanticised ideas and you know her getting horrific advice from a doctor, being told to have a kid and get your mind off things like you know, start a garden, get your mind off things like, yeah, you bring in a whole new human being into this world. And, you know, I’m you know, I’m sure all your listeners are grateful that she still made that decision because we all have you now. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  50:21

I’m happy to be here. We’re happy to have you. Yeah. But it has messed up my relationships, not only my relationships, past with, with partners, but also friendships, it’s really messed up French

Humble the Poet  50:38

words, you’re moving forward with his own beauty to that.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  50:42

Yeah. And it’s so liberating. Yeah, and there’s so

Humble the Poet  50:45

many of us are floating unconsciously through this, not even having any awareness of what’s happening or how we’re impacted. So I think from that standpoint, that’s, you know, that’s a massive, that’s a massive requirement to kind of realise love, and you know, and this idea of receiving love is very often that, you know, the walls that we put to protect ourselves end up being in prison. And then we’re keeping everybody out, including Love. So it’s really about letting these walls go, which is being vulnerable, just be vulnerable. At the fear and risk of getting hurt. And it’s okay to get hurt. It really is okay. And from that standpoint, you know, that’s the way these connections and these pathways love the form.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  51:26

And in that relationship that I had with my mom, it was almost like it was a conditional love. So is there such a thing as unconditional love? Or do you think that in a relationship, one person is always giving more than the other person and then that tends to change over.

Humble the Poet  51:49

So I feel like if you want to have unconditional love, the unconditional love should be for love. unconditionally, believe in love. And always put your faith in love. And when it comes to our interactions, I mean, we’re human, and there will be conditions and we will respond to the way people are. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think, you know, if you had somebody that loved you, no matter what, and very loudly, you know, again, that’s going to really sabotage you for developing new relationships. Because you’re not going to have a level of accountability. You know, you’ve never, you know, you think about the mama’s boy, you know, his mom showered with praise and love and you didn’t even deserve it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  52:34

Sounds like my brother entitled brat, even though he’s 11 years older than me, and I love him dearly, but oh my gosh, talk about a mama’s boy.

Humble the Poet  52:46

And here’s the thing with that is then when they get into the dating world, and now you’re meeting women who have conditions because they don’t know you, and they’re gonna love you, you know, all of a sudden is a level of accountability that you’re not used to. So you’re gonna continually run away from somebody who wants you to step up your game. So, you know, this. Yeah, so this shouldn’t be this kind of concept of unconditional love, it can be I love you regardless, but this conditions on how I treat you this conditions on me taking care of you, you know, this people I love dearly that I would never lend money to, you know, I understand, you know, so you know, we want to romanticise these ideas, we want to be accepted for as we are and as we should. But that doesn’t mean we can just, you know, we have to also understand that we’re constantly moving, and we’re moving forward or backwards, and we should definitely choose forward and make progress. You don’t need to be perfect, but you have to be making progress.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:38

Yes. And, okay. So, you know, there’s differences, obviously, between conditions, and boundaries,

Humble the Poet  53:48

what I would say is the standards, let’s call them standards, standards, okay? Because they’re about you. Now, they’re not about the other person.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:56

So there are things that people say this is a deal breaker, is it important to know what our deal breakers are? Because I mean, obviously, that takes a lot of self awareness to get to that point where you go, this is a deal breaker. Yes. How important is that then to express what those deal breakers, all those standards, that’s, as you call them are? And how do we best communicate when those standards have been violated?

Humble the Poet  54:27

So yeah, boundaries are your standards, right? And boundaries is you protecting yourself and putting yourself first and understanding that that’s important because you’re not of any value to anybody else. If you’re not being taken care of the challenge with these, these, you know, what we refer to as deal breakers is that we don’t The problem is I don’t think we think about them enough. You know, so, for example, and I’m gonna give you a funny New York story, because New York is full of hilarious stories. You know, a girl said to me, you know, I really liked this guy, but then I found out he goes to Starbucks. Oh, Yeah. So, so let’s unpack it. Let’s unpack it. Okay. Because look, she’s being honest. So what, you know, in her in her in her eyes, you know, I think him going to Starbucks probably represents that he is much, he’s not as interesting as he could be, you know, he’s, he’s kind of plugging himself in. He’s just going where everybody goes, he’s his definition of coffee is whatever Starbucks makes. Whereas she might be a little bit more hip to the coffee scene, she might be, have more preferences for for different types of coffee, she knows all the cool spots. And he’s a little bit more, you know, the fast food version of it, right? But what she needs to do is, so there’s not about Starbucks is really about is in, you know, what she’s probably thinking, thinking, Is he an independent thinker as he is, he is the one these type of things the involved in his local community, or they just pick, you know, like, the easiest, the easiest stop, you know, and I think, you know, it’s like somebody who eats a microwave dinner versus somebody who prepares their own dinner or they conscientious do they care? You know, are they eating processed food at a fast food restaurant? Because Starbucks is fast food at this point? Yeah. You know, Is he is he attached to familiarity? You know, if I remember travelling, you know, my travel the world, you know, my my familiar thing would be a McDonald’s breakfast and get a McDonald’s breakfast in Melbourne, you can get a McDonald’s breakfast in Berlin, you can get him beaten back in India. And there’s a level of consistency and familiarity there. So maybe she’s like, you know, he, he doesn’t in a city like, you know, New York, which is flooded with cafes, and coffee spots, the fact that he goes to Starbucks kind of shows that he’s, you know, kind of basic. So I think what you really need to do is go deeper with that and fill the deal breakers, not Starbucks to deal breaker, maybe somebody who’s not, you know, as conscientious about what matters to them or not. And I think that’s no different when it comes to height. You know, girls want a guy with a certain height, and that becomes a deal breaker. But the question is why? You know, I don’t want to, you know, you know, I want to think that I’ve heard I don’t want to take pictures with my man and be taller than him. And then the question is, but why? Why don’t you want to take pictures? What? Well, that doesn’t look, well, why doesn’t that look nice? And we have to keep asking why? Yeah. And I think what I think is going to reveal is a will I want someone that I look good with to impress other people. And then good luck, you’re good luck on your journey, because you care about other people more than what actually matters to you. Or it can go the other way would say I want to feel safe. And right now superficially, I just assume somebody who has a few inches on top of me, will make me safer for whatever dangers exist in the world. When the truth is we keep going, why? Like, why is the guy who sticks to and actually make you feel safe? Where do we literally what do you, you know, are you are you imagining walking down a dark alley with him and five ninjas jumping out, and he’s gonna somehow protects you more effectively than the guy who was five, five. You know, why is this important? And I think when we get deeper into the whys, is when we get the actual the actual standards and the actual red flags. In only I can want to my red flag that my my red flags or my one of my deal breakers, for example, is I will only date somebody who’s in therapy. You know, and that’s, you know, and that’s me thing. I want someone who’s doing their work, I want someone who’s pursuing a journey of self awareness. I want somebody who is practising communicating, I want somebody who is relying on a professional to help them process the heavy emotions they have, you know, and I want somebody to have that level of independence. You know, that’s what that is. Now, again, you know, a valid criticism can still be that well, you know, to have a really good therapist requires money. So now you’re also saying you need somebody in a certain tax bracket. Yeah, but I’m not saying I need her to drive a Ferrari. I’m just saying, I need somebody that is prioritising this, and they’re prioritising this over most of the other expenses that people spend money on, you know, I’d rather have a therapist and a Netflix account, or even a car. Honestly, I don’t even want to grow with a car. I want to go with a therapist. Yes. So I think as a guy who still falls for the most beautiful women, you know, I ignored my deal breakers many times for women who were just, you know, I found beautiful and breathtaking. And then two weeks later, I suffered the consequences of them not being in therapy. And then I had to remind myself look, you put yourself in the situation, you know, we developed this, this standard and this deal breaker very conscientiously, it wasn’t superficial. And now you are constantly reminded why. And I think that’s what it is. I think people should have to deal breakers people should have their their red flags and their standards and their boundaries, they should just think deeply of them. And the best way to think deeply of them is to continually say why like write this down and say I want to get a lot of money. Why You know, and then we start to figure things out, I think oftentimes it goes to a primal need of security, safety, reassurance, and then you start to realise Well, what actually is safety and security and reinsurance and 2023? Is not height, female? And also, what is the trade off of having somebody who makes an enormous amount of money? Most likely, they’re not going to have time for you, because they’re too busy doing whatever job is required to make that enormous amount of money.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:00:29

Yeah, I love your deal breaker. Yeah, I love that. You want someone who’s in therapy, and one I’m understanding from that is you want someone who is investing their money on their personal growth? Yes. And in in them, you want them to be their greatest investment? Yes. And it all comes back to what we started out on was talking about self love, self worth, yes, that place of value that you placed on you. Because in life, we are the only people who determine our value

Humble the Poet  1:01:08

1000 Personal

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:01:10

selves. It’s ourselves. It’s got to come from us. And that’s something my husband and I are constantly doing is investing in ourselves as individuals. And then we come together as a couple. And we have so much to talk about. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we’re going to start wrapping this up humble, you’ve been really generous with your time. And I know that one of the things that you you talk about is that people say love is so complicated. And after listening to all of this, people would say, wow, this really is super complicated. But what advice would you give them to help them make it simple? What’s the biggest thing that the biggest piece of advice you could give to somebody around love?

Humble the Poet  1:02:01

So love is not complicated. And if it feels complicated, then what you’re dealing with is not love. Serving was the first thing you know, attention power control, adoration, affection, you know, success cloud, this isn’t love, love is very simple, but not very easy. You know, loves the verb loves work, love is service. You know, a lot of sacrifice and you have love everybody in this listening to this has loved they have family members, they have hobbies, they have TV shows, they have favourite foods, all of that is love. That is all love stuff that makes you want nothing else. And we just realised this journey of courting a stranger to turn them into your soulmate is what makes things feel complicated. And you know, we’re very, in very often love starts with serving another person with enthusiasm. And that’s no different than you know, if you’re a grandparent and you got grandkids to love them isn’t to make them watch your favourite movie to love them. Just ask them what their favourite movie is, and sit down with them and watch their favourite movie with them. And ask them questions about their favourite sports and their favourite activities. You know, diving into their world not having them dive into your world and making it about you and feeling seen and validated. It’s about seeing and validating somebody else. The best way to realise more love is to love people more. You know, no, get in your way for trying to help other people and trying to serve as other people trying to love other people. Love is that thing that the more you give, the more you the more you’ll realise you don’t need to receive love. Love isn’t a transaction. It’s not a it’s not a loan, as a gift. Just give it away freely. Because you’ve done so much to love yourself. And loving yourself as being vulnerable with yourself. You know, looking at yourself in the mirror and accepting what’s in front of you saying thank you to what’s in front of you. Journal, dancing, feeling your body, praying and being honest about what you’re thankful for praying and being honest about what you want. All the self, the self awareness, exploratory journeys are the ways that you will take yourself out on a date. You know, as I said, my friend took himself candy shopping, he took his inner child candy shopping, you can do all of this, start this journey. And when you have a stronger relationship with yourself, you will have so much love within you that you can share it and not worry about who’s giving it back.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:04:23

I don’t want to go down this road. But I have to ask one question about that. Are we all capable of this? I mean, what about narcissists? I feel like because I have a narcissist in my life at the moment, who was creating a lot of drama, who I’ve decided to walk away from. It’s not someone it’s not my husband like, but I figured that that person is not capable of love, because they have so much hatred for themselves.

Humble the Poet  1:04:55

No because, again, the love that we we actually enjoy Life in the love that we should be striving for is that love that is so large and encompassing it can love all those things, even things that we consider unlovable. And you know, these terms like narcissists, they get thrown around very often, you know, by non medical professionals, and we have these definitions of gaslighting and all this other stuff. But the truth is like, people are hurt, and hurt people hurt people. And, you know, most often when people you know, I remember, as a teacher, when I was working with kids, you know, you always separate the child from their behaviour. So you don’t call a kid a bully, you tell the kid they’re acting like a bully? No. So you know, so when you when a child, so if a child is doing something that I don’t like, I would tell them, I don’t like your choice. I like you. I don’t like your choice. Yeah, can we crumpled up these choices and throw them in the garbage and I can enjoy being with you. And that’s literally the same thing in DC do as adults, life’s too busy for us to be around people that are just too exhausting. So I’m not telling you to reconnect with this person in any capacity. But this person needs, they just they need to go to go on their journey and do their work. That’s what it is. There’s not they’re not incapable they might just have a harder journey. And again, I’m not I can’t assume people’s backgrounds and where they’re at No, but my my general belief is people are people are trying their best with the tools they have, and the experiences that they’ve had. And, you know, that doesn’t mean we have to accept everybody as they are, you know, we can we can love people from afar, and we can stay away from certain people, they don’t vibe and gel with us. And I think that’s completely fine. Because everyone’s on their own journey and the way people act, they’re still telling their story. And you know, but I do believe everyone is capable of it. It’s just about how much work we’re willing to do.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:48

Yeah. And and if you’re willing, as the recipient to be part of the collateral. But anyway, is there anything else you’d like to share about your book humble, in wrapping this up? Is there any thing that we haven’t covered? Up on?

Humble the Poet  1:07:06

No, I think, you know, the big bulk of the book is about loving yourself, you know, I’m I’m not giving people dating tips, I’m not telling people how to meet people at a bar and get their phone number, I’m not doing any of that. I’m telling people how to strengthen your relationship with yourself. And, you know, that in itself will put you in a situation where, you know, you may or may not find a partner after that, but I can promise you, the stronger your relationship with yourself is, the less you’ll care and worry about somebody else, you know, and the less you’ll worry, and stress on feeling incomplete, because nobody else can complete you, you know, there’s no enoughness when it comes to a person, you are a person that’s it, then you don’t measure yourself and worthiness you can’t be worthy of love. Love will love you regardless. And it’s just about accessing that love. And realising that the times that you don’t feel love is most likely from the walls that you built up. As I said, if you’re if your love is the breeze, and you can’t feel it, because your sails closed, the work you have to do isn’t to find the breeze, the work you have to do is to open the sail, to open yourself up to love because it’s everywhere with everyone. You can be vulnerable with complete strangers, you don’t have to tell them, you don’t have to tell them your deep, dark secrets, but you can just be vulnerable and tell them something. You know, this is only our second time meeting you telling me that story about your mother and makes me feel closer to you. And then invites me to tell stories in a similar fashion. And I think that’s the important thing. We have to stop trying to look good, and have the social media best foot forward. It doesn’t serve anything. No, it attracts people temporarily. Let’s start by being vulnerable on day one. And that not only with others, but with ourselves. And that will start allowing love to flow between us and everything else.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:08:43

Yeah, a week before I met my husband. Someone asked me in the gym, are you dating anyone at the moment. And for years before that, like in between from when my first husband died to like the six years that I was on my own and I was a serial dater. I wasn’t letting anyone get too close. I had so much baggage too emotional baggage, of course. And I never forget saying to this person. Now, I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. And actually, I’m really happy on my own. I don’t feel I need to be with anybody.

Humble the Poet  1:09:20

Famous last words,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:09:21

a week later, but it was the first time in all those years I actually felt good about me. And that’s when I’ve met that person. So totally resonate with what you’re saying. Okay, now humble, you’re in the process of writing another book at the moment. Also,

Humble the Poet  1:09:42

I’m in the very early process of planning a book out around anxiety. Yeah,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:09:47

I think that will definitely be a best seller. I think we’re living in as the most anxious society ever, you know, ever since COVID, and wars and everything else that’s going on in the world, we’re going to share links to all your work in the show notes. So if anyone wants to go and find you learn more about you go and find you on social on to your website to your books, and especially your latest book on love. They can find all that information in the show notes. Book. Thank you so much for spending time with us on the show. It’s been such a pleasure having you. And good luck with life in New York.

Humble the Poet  1:10:32

Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:10:35

Yeah, take care and best of luck with all your ventures in the future. Thank you. Thank you humble. Okay, bye. Bye.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:10:48

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