“…the stories that we tell ourselves and other people become our lives.”

— IN-Q

This is a conversation about the story you are living inside, about creativity as a practice rather than a talent, and about why being witnessed helps us release what we might otherwise carry alone.

Before this conversation started, IN-Q walked the entire Finding Mastery team through a poetry workshop. Each person wrote about a personal experience with risk that changed the direction of their life, then read it out loud to the room. Mike opens this episode saying he has never started a podcast feeling the way he felt coming out of it.

IN-Q is a spoken word artist, two-time Emmy-nominated lyricist, multi-platinum songwriter, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Inquire Within. He has written songs with Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Aloe Blacc, and he was one of the original members of Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles, the open mic he calls church without religion.

IN-Q and Mike get into the three guidelines he gives people before they write, and the night he read his old breakup poems and realized every one of them applied to the new breakup.

He also describes giving himself the room every morning to decide not to be a poet. Choosing it again each day – instead of waking up already being one – keeps the work from turning into a life he inherited from a version of himself that has already faded away.

Both of them tell stories about an old chip on the shoulder, and the two trace back to a similar place. The chip became fuel. IN-Q calls it unhealthy fuel, and describes chipping away at it now, trying to turn it into a sculpture.

Change your story, change your life, is how he puts it. He also tells you exactly where to start.

Enjoy the conversation.

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Links & Resources

IN-Q’s Website: in-q.com

IN-Q’s Books: Inquire Within, The Never Ending Now Poetry Journal

IN-Q’s Album: The Never Ending Now (featuring Isabella Turso)

IN-Q’s Poetry Special: IN-Q – Live at the Ace Theatre, streaming on Amazon Prime Video

IN-Q’s Poetry Workshops and Retreats: in-q.com/poetry-workshops

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The Psychology of Storytelling | IN-Q

Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

The Psychology of Storytelling | IN-Q