Hozier
Appearances
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I think creating and sharing my art has brought me more clarity, more peace, more presence, more compassion, more self-awareness. And it's made me feel connected to others in a way that nothing else has. I would say emotion is energy in motion. So it has to move.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And if it doesn't move, it gets trapped inside of us and it can become disease, you know, disease, or you take it out on somebody in traffic for no reason. So you have to find ways to move the energy and to share the stories that are trapped in your mind and in your heart and your body. And there's many modalities to do that.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
You do breath work, you can, you know, do yoga, you can go to boxing even and have an intention behind your practice. You can, I don't know, meditate, go to therapy. There's plenty of avenues, but one that is underused is creativity.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
You can create and move the energy and you can alchemize those things that are trapped inside of you so that they transform into something else and you can feel energetically lighter and more free.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Well, I have two immediate answers that come to mind. The first one is. A poem about my father not being around and ultimately finding forgiveness. But I think that that's too easy of an answer.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And the real answer is going to sound cliche, but it's everyone. And then the next one, the one that hasn't been written, because it's the most current and in real time to my life. And whatever it is that I choose to create around is something that I need to express. It's a breadcrumb trail that I am following. I'm the first person in my audience. So I'm not thinking what other people wanna hear.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I'm paying attention in my daily life to when I get moved, when I get inspired, when I get pissed off and I pluck it out of reality and I put it down on paper. And then if I go back to that beginning place, the rest of the poem will almost write itself if I give it enough time and space. So every single one is a healing process.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And it's one of the reasons I like to facilitate for other people to do the same thing, because if they choose something moving and meaningful, it can be surprisingly healing.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
That is a great question. What you have to do is you have to hold two truths in the same space at the same time.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
holding on and letting go. When I wrote the piece about my father, it was a piece about my anger and ultimately forgiveness and gratitude, but I wasn't able to actualize it until many, many years later. It took me a long time to catch up with the piece. So the piece was almost like a prayer. You have to purge and pray simultaneously. And if you do,
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I promise you, you will wind up feeling like a different person on the other side. And then when you share it with somebody and you're unconditionally loved and seen, to really like see and be seen, to be willing to be open, to be willing to be vulnerable from a place of strength, it's scary as and it is always worth it. Wow. So when did you write this poem about your dad?
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Well, I think people think that peace is a destination or like a product. Peace is a process. There's stages of peace. There's layers that you have to keep uncovering within yourself. So right now I can say I am as fully at peace as I have ever been. I can't say that I am fully at peace. But one thing that I know about my life is every single thing that has ever happened to me
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
whether I understood it or not in real time or in retrospect has become a part of the quilt of who I am. I don't like to compare circumstances. I don't like to compare pain, but I've had a lot of pain in my life and everything that caused me pain is a part of my identity now. So if I reject that thing, I'm rejecting a part of who I am. Wow. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And so you have to accept it in order to integrate it, in order to alchemize it, in order to move on with it.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
in the moment and maybe you still don't wish but you know you wouldn't be the identity you are and the man you are without that pain i think there's a lot of them that come to mind um i'm not going to share some of them because i'm not ready to put them on display yet but i go into a lot of those stories in the album and ultimately in the journal
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
You know, when I created the Never Ending Now album, I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted anybody to hear it. I know. Remember, I was there. Because you were one of the few people that I sent it to and was willing to trust because of your integrity, because of our friendship, and because I love you. And I know you've been through real things. And so I was like, okay.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
But it's scary putting it out there. A hundred percent. I'm taking my own medicine. So I was like, all right, let me – I finished this thing, this work of art that was like a reflection of my path to self-love and love with a partner through poetry and this conversation that was very intimate that I had with my wife.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And then I was like, I don't know that I want to show this to people or even weirder, monetize this thing. Mm-hmm. And leave it open for people to criticize it, to judge it, to validate it, to compliment it. It didn't really matter what their response was. I didn't want to externalize my self-worth that way because it was so close to my heart.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And then I was like, all right, I'm going to send it to like five people. And I sent it to five people, including you and Mike Posner, who's a great friend. And Mike was the first person that got back to me. And my criteria for sending it out was, okay, if one person hears the album and hits me back and says, hey, this was moving and meaningful to me, like this landed. then I would put it out.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
But if everybody was like, yeah, this is good. I really like it. I think you should, then I wasn't gonna do it. And so Mike hit me back right away and he was like, Literally, he goes, if you don't put this album out, he said, I'll pry it out of your cold, dead hands. And then I sent it to you guys and you listened to it and had a similar but different response.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Then I was like, all right, let me lead by example, even though it's hard and scary.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
If I get rejected, if I put this project out and people don't respond to it or worse, they really don't like it, then at least I know they don't like something that's really me. I mean, I know that the art is separate from me. It's not really me, but it is as close as tracing paper could come when I made it. And so I'm like, all right, if they don't like it, at least I know I showed up.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
rather than making something that's perfect that everybody's gonna love and then they say wow i love this thing and i love you but i don't even feel it because i was never there Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
How do you do that? For example, I was thinking about many things that you have shared over the years driving over here and the courage that it took to do that. What was and is your process?
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I very much relate to that. I have a line that says, you have to be willing not to be liked in order to be loved. Otherwise, it's your representative they're thinking of. It's like that disguise thing that you're talking about, that character that you're playing, and you're doing it for good reasons. Survival.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
you know mental emotional physical spiritual if you felt unsafe in your life that's where the character came from exactly but the thing is it's exhausting to walk around with all that armor draining what was that what's that poem called that you were just i think it's called bird song you know i never really like named my my pieces until i actually put them out can you share that one can you perform that one do you have that one yeah i actually do
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
The birds aren't singing to win a Grammy. They're not trying to go platinum through their marketing or planning. They're just jamming. I listen without even understanding. The truth without agenda is authentically astounding. It makes me think of cheetahs. They don't run for our approval. They don't judge their spots or contemplate laser hair removal. It makes me think of wolves.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
They don't howl for validation. They don't have to get the perfect pic to post on their vacation. It makes me think of eagles. They're not soaring to impress me. Although once I saw a dolphin back flip over a jet ski. My point is neither one of them would sell me shit on Etsy and I doubt a porcupine would ever try to come off sexy.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Humans are the only animals pretending to be something that they're not. Why are we ashamed of what we've got? We should strut, chest out, head up. Let's be proud of ourselves for once. Isn't it exhausting sticking out your butt and sucking in your gut? And for what? It's a waste of energy. I'm giving up. In this moment, I'm enough. In this moment, you're enough. In this moment, we're enough.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I'm dismantling my image. We are perfect in our flaws. Birds don't care whether we listen. They don't wait for our applause. I have built a lovely prison, but I live behind the walls. So if love is my religion, I'll escape when freedom calls. You have to be willing not to be liked in order to be loved.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Otherwise it's your representative they're thinking of, but to truly be yourself, you have to let go of what was the past is like a prison. It's an echo repeating just because, cause, cause we are many people in our lives. So I'm not one to judge, but if they love one part of you, it's limited to what that does. I want your whole soul. I have no goal. Show me the unseen stuff.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Don't invite me over only after you have cleaned up. Perfect makes me wanna kick my feet up. No one's living in a catalog IKEA dreamed up. Have you ever seen a lion chase a hundred zebras? Have you ever seen a turtle hide inside a shell? A caterpillar doesn't know that she'll become a butterfly. So if you go to heaven, are you still aware of hell? Wow.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
No, it's like a few years ago.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I was on the phone with a friend of mine and the birds were just like really loud. And during the conversation, I said something about the birds aren't singing to win a Grammy. And then I thought, you know what? I like that. So I paused the conversation. I wrote it down and then started to build on it later.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I think all of them in some form or fashion, but I think some of them are self-love, some of them are romantic love, some of them are love of God, some of them are love of humanity, nature, all of it.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
I mean, I think I'm past 30 years, 30 years. Yeah. It's like one of the longest, at least internal relationships of my life. You know, my, my relationship with rhythm and rhyme. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Well, it's something that I try to teach other people. Like when I facilitate for the poetry workshops in person and why we created this journal in partnership with Passion Planner to scale those workshops without me having to be there, I automatically take away anybody's blocks by saying, don't try to make something great. Make something true.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And if you make something true, it will automatically be great. And I'm telling people stuff that I need to relearn over and over and over again, because if I sit down and I say, I'm gonna make something great, I'm just getting in my own way. I'm turning my back on the muse. I have to be willing to just take the ride. Some of the best poems for me, are poems where I'm surprised at where they go.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Really? Yeah, because I don't get overly strategic before I start writing. I just start in some sort of a spark and then see what fire it turns into.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
yeah okay the birds are this the wolves this the bears the this you know it's like let's keep the analogies going and then yeah it's like basically you're you're building um railroad tracks and you're the railroad tracks and you're the train and you're the conductor and you're the beginning middle and end the destination wherever you wind up
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And you're also none of those things because you're the observer. Wow. So it's a spiritual practice, creativity.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
well uh yes it's a usually a phrase within a much larger poem which is to be quite honest very annoying to me you know i want of course please follow me on instagram but it's like i always feel like it's a truncated version of what the art is and that's why i'm excited to put out actual like finished pieces that people can experience on their own time so it's a great window into my work but um i'm not sure snippets it's not the full thing you have this uh
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Let me say the next line. Yes. And I won't let the fear of losing you limit how I'm loving you. Oh my gosh.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Yeah. Yeah. Let me actually give you the behind the curtain. Context. Give me the context. So I was doing this collaboration piece. And it was like a marketing team and a brand that were involved in this project. I don't want to go into the specifics because it really doesn't matter. But they had liked this particular poem that had already been written. And it ends, save the day with love.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
So we're on this like planning call about the piece of art collaborative project that we're doing. And one of the guys goes, hey, is there any way we can change the final word? Because he goes, love is a bit soft. And he goes, I want to end on something that has more like strength and pizzazz. And I was like, no. Because it's not your poem. First of all, no. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
respectfully second of all i don't look at love as soft i said i look at love as hard and he goes okay and then the conversation ended and i hung up and i wrote this piece Love is not soft, love is hard. Love is not smooth, love is scarred. Love is not perfect, love is flawed. Love is not quiet, love is loud. Love is not pride, love is proud. But love is not certain, love is doubt.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And love is not leaving, love is turning around. Love is learning to fight for the middle ground. Love is not gentle, love is rough. Love is not fragile, love is tough. Love is not thinking that love is enough. So I choose to love you harder from the moment I wake up. Love is a revolutionary act. Love is an attack. Love is not abstract. Love is a fact. Love is saying yes when I want to say no.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
Love is saying stay when I want to say go. Love is staying high even when I get low. Love is going with the flow, holding on and letting go. Because love is not easy. Love is complex. Love is not right or wrong. Love is context. Love is not black or white. Love is progress because love is not a product. Love is a process, yes? So in the simple moments,
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
When the chaos fades away in the silence of the evening or the empty of my day, I remember what it feels like to give my heart away and think how lucky I have been to get to love someone this way and how lucky we still are to get to love someone this way. It's a miracle to be alive. That's why I have to say love is not a guarantee. It will come and it will leave.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
It relies on my belief, so it will bring me to my knees. Love is weak. Love is lost. Love is grief. Love is lost. Love is risk. Love is real, but love is worth the pain I feel. And I won't let the fear of losing you Limit how I'm loving you. I'm going to love you harder. It's a privilege to be hugging you. I'm going to love you harder more than ever before. I'm at peace with knowing love is war.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
That's what we're fighting for. So love harder. First yourself, then your family, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors in your community. Then try to love a stranger. Try to tap into your empathy. Imagine that you've known them and protected them since infancy. Now try to love the people that you don't love at all. Even people you don't like, they probably need it most of all.
The School of Greatness
How To Unlock Your Creativity & Access Your Visionary Mind
And if you can't love them big, see if you can love them small. See if you can hold compassion for the that they are and they are. But love is not soft. Love is hard. Love is scarred. Love is flawed. Love is loud. Love is proud. Love is doubt. And since love is most important when we do not know how, I will choose to love you harder in the never ending now. Wow.