5 Questions With Dan Schawbel Episode 40: Mike Posner
An interview with Mike Posner about his journey walking across America, the truth about fame, how he’s found peace in loss, why mentoring is important to him and his best career advice.
Welcome to the 40th episode of 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel. As your host, my goal is to curate the best advice from the world’s smartest and most interesting people by asking them just 5 questions.
This episodes guest:
My guest today is singer, songwriter, poet and producer, Mike Posner. Born in Detroit Michigan, Mike’s father was a criminal defense lawyer and his sister is a civil rights attorney. While many people follow in their family footsteps, he had a completely different career trajectory in the music business. While attending Duke University in 2008, he produced his hometown friend Big Sean’s first mixtape. During his junior year, he followed up with his own mixtape, which led to signing with J Records. Mike got his next big break after releasing his debut album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff, when his first single “Cooler Than Me” reached number six on the US Billboard Hot 100. Despite his newfound celebrity and financial success, he wasn’t comfortable in the spotlight and struggled with depression. In 2015, he released his next single, “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”, which was later mixed by Seeb, gathering over 3 billion streams on Spotify globally. Over the course of his career, he’s produced and/or worked with artists including Pharrell, Snoop Dogg, Avicii and Maroon 5. In 2017, he lost his father, who had battled with cancer, and performed at his funeral to commemorate his life and their relationship. More recently, on April 15th he started his walk across America, a 2,800-mile journey from New Jersey to California, in order to get back to nature, meet a variety of people and promote his new album “A Real Good Kid”. In this episode, Mike and I have a conversation while he’s in Gilberton, Pennsylvania. You can literally hear the nature in the background as he delves into deep thoughts that will make you rethink how you live your life.
The 5 questions questions I ask in this episode:
- How has your journey walking across America impacted your life?
- What do most people not know about fame and how to deal with it?
- How have you found peace through pain and loss?
- Why is “Mentor/produce a younger artist” on your bucket list and how would you help them?
- What is your best piece of career advice?
Follow Mike’s journey: