Book Summary: The internationally bestselling self-empowerment book from influencer, rapper, and spoken word artist Humble the Poet, now available in a new edition with a new foreword by the author. Unlearn offers short, accessible, and counterintuitive lessons for reaching our full potential. Beloved for his sincerity, playfulness, and sage advice, globally famous rapper, spoken word artist, poet, blogger, and influencer Humble the Poet has traditionally shared his message of self-discovery, creativity, and empowerment with his fans through music and written word.
Instead, we can use these events as opportunities for growth. In Things No One Else Can Teach Us, Humble the Poet flips the conventional script for happiness and success, showing us how our most painful experiences can be our greatest teachers. Humble shares raw, honest stories from his own life—from his rocky start becoming a rapper to nearly going broke to being the victim of racial prejudice—to demonstrate how a change in mindset can radically alter our outlook.
Humble sees life with unique clarity. In Unlearn, he opens our eyes to our own lives, helping us to recognize the possibilities that await us and the challenges that prevent us from realizing our dreams. Get A Copy. Hardcover , pages. Published April 9th by HarperOne first published March 6th More Details Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Unlearn , please sign up.
Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. You can read this book the "normal way"; at the bus on your way to work or under the sun at a beach while you can hear little kids screaming in ecstasy like they've never experienced summer before. You can read it with a pack of post-its in hand to take as many quotes out of it so you can be that person on Instagram [I am that person] or, if you are a monster, you can write on the book.
However, there are really three ways to go through the sayings of this book, and I chose the third one; spend s You can read this book the "normal way"; at the bus on your way to work or under the sun at a beach while you can hear little kids screaming in ecstasy like they've never experienced summer before. However, there are really three ways to go through the sayings of this book, and I chose the third one; spend seven Saturday nights drinking your green ice lemon tea no sugar please with a notebook and a pen by your side taking 26 pages of notes in a pages book feel free to change the numbers but don't add sugar in your tea.
See, if you follow Humble the Poet online, you pretty much know what to expect so you can't just read the book, you need to study the concepts he touches. The book description is actually surprisingly accurate and you get what you pay for.
There is nothing profound being said in the book and that's what makes it so unique. He is not the know-it-all type. Don't read it as a how-to guide rather than a letter from a friend who wants you to do better.
That is the best part of the book, he writes as he would I feel talk to a friend. There are concepts like "get your head out of your ass", "you do you, let them do them", or "you are not the fucking center of the world" and, my personal favorite, "we're all gonna die, so don't settle for a life you didn't choose". If this book was a YouTube video or an Instagram post, it would have millions of hate comments and I love that about it. It's so "normal" that it's controversial. It is authentic. It is a friend that will tell you to wake the fuck up and start living your life.
For me, it was the first time that a book made me want to write more than I wanted to keep on reading. It felt like a conversation, for some weird reason, I wanted to be part of. It reminds you the things you forgot as you got older and tired of trying. As I am writing this review, I realize that the style I am describing is that of a great teacher who gives advice to his students.
Be open minded and read this book as an open letter from a boy, who lived through his challenges to become a man, and wants to help you face your challenges by sharing his journey. View all 5 comments. So poorly written, so lacking in editing, so grammatically flawed and full of punctuation errors, it actually hurt my conscience to read. I thought if I started copy editing it myself, pen in hand, it might be a more fun experience, but all it did was make me feel like I'd wasted my money.
I was really excited to hear that Indigo now has their own publication company. I was heartbroken to find out that said company, apparently, does not have an editing staff.
View all 4 comments. Oct 06, Candie rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites-of Because I don't also make me ask the question, "Why do I need to prove this to anybody as well? Because it's kind of for you, but kind of for people that you don't know. And I've got those kinds of treatment too where you get people like, "Oh, I'm not sure who you are, but I'm going to take a selfie with you and I'll figure it out later.
That is incredibly uncomfortable. There's a friend of mine who -- I can't remember exactly where he was maybe at like an MMA. Oh, right, he was at a fight. It was like Conor McGregor versus Mayweather. And he took a photo of himself and Mike Tyson was behind him. And Mike Tyson's face is just like, "I'm going to kill you if you take that picture. But, of course, Mike Tyson rightfully assumed that he's just trying to take a picture with me in it and he was pissed.
It's a really funny picture because my Tyson looks like he's going to explode. And my friend is like this on assuming guy who is like, "I'm in the front row. Oh, Mike Tyson's behind me. Humble The Poet: [] You have to be cognizant of that. I think I learned that very quickly and it was like, "Hey, people are people," and even a lot of these big celebrities, they want to be in a space where they can just kind of let loose and they're not worried about cameras being pulled out.
And if you're that guy who does it, then you're not getting invited. And we've had that, we've had that ourselves. Lilly hosted parties and small things like small get together and somebody gets a little too generous with their filming and you just say, "All right, that person doesn't get invited back. Jordan Harbinger: [] Yeah, it's an interesting sort of unwritten rule of culture now when you're with other people that have a public profile.
You kind of almost have to be like, "Okay, we're at this event together. Everyone's filming. You can text somebody but no pictures, no videos. How many people are doing shots with me, and now I'm like in a video doing that. We're playing chess and I just said, "Do you mind if I document. And just saying that like, "Is it cool if I document this?
And some people, especially out here, they know they've signed up for it and they can be on camera all the time. It takes a toll as well. I saw something interesting about why there's so much violence on reality shows and it's not simply to get people's attention and get ratings.
Jordan Harbinger: [] Really, I assumed that's what it was. Just the negativity bias that sucks people in.
Humble The Poet: [] And I'm sure that that plays a big part, but there's also this idea that when the camera's on, you're on and because you're on, the longer you're on, it starts to exhaust you. And when people are exhausted, they're more irritable. Humble The Poet: [] And I've seen that. You go to a wedding and everyone's dancing at the wedding and then the camera kind of pans away, everyone's posture gets better and then they start looking a little bit better.
And I understand that idea about being on, and now imagine being on a reality show where you're on eight, nine hours a day. Maybe at the end of the day, you're just exhausted and somebody crosses you the wrong way and just like forget it. Let's go for it. Jordan Harbinger: [] What are the things in the book that you seem to be fond of saying is wanting less is better than getting more. And I don't have a good segue for it, so I'm just diving into that. But I love the idea because there's always more, but when we are happy with the less, we don't have to drive ourselves so crazy trying to achieve more.
But how is being satisfied with less or being happy with less different than say giving up on achieving more? Humble The Poet: [] I think so for me it came from going broke. It didn't come from -- it was involuntary minimalism. Jordan Harbinger: [] Involuntary minimalism.
So you went broke. What happened? You don't have to tell us exactly, but I'm curious like how did you end up with debt? Humble The Poet: [] The quick story is I was working as a teacher and then somebody presented me with a record deal.
So I was making music and somebody came up to him and said, "Hey, we can write music for these artists. You can make a boatload of money. Here's a six-figure deal for about like 10, 12 songs. You can do this and live out your dream. So I immediately kicked my tenant out and I moved into this condo and I started working on the music. And then it took me about six months before I realized that, "Hey, I haven't received any money from the deal.
I was doing other work as well and staying busy, but I was like, "Oh, it's coming. These things take time. They take time. And then it took about a complete year before my denial completely went away and realized this isn't happening. And I lived off credit cards, line of credit for that entire year.
Plus when I was working as a teacher, I wasn't the most responsible spender. I had debt, but it was manageable because I had a salary coming in. Now I had no income coming in and what ended up happening was, it was the end of , I was about 80 grand in debt. I had no means to make an income. I had no idea how creatives made money at that point. And so my first thing I had to do was start selling everything, including the place. I had to sell everything and move back in with my parents.
And then all the things that I thought I was going to miss, you know, like a year later I was like, "Oh I didn't even think about those things anymore. Or even equipment, there is certain equipment that I had to give up and sell and that I needed for recording. And I've figured out ways to get stuff done without it.
And I was like, oh, it wasn't so bad living life without these things. I was really afraid like I'm used to living a certain lifestyle. How can I ever go back? And it helped me realize what was really important and not. Now, you know, I'm very grateful that things are significantly better and I never jumped back into that world of, "All right, let me get back into the nice stuff.
Jordan Harbinger: [] You mentioned depression and some of your videos, it sounds like you have experienced that. Is that related to the debt issues? Humble The Poet: [] Actually, it's related probably before. My sisters were like, "All people who are vegetarian often have low iron and you're probably tired because of that.
That was an experience that happened way before any of this. I was probably just a first-year teacher, what have you. And I think that's kind of made me realize, "Hey, there's a chemical element to this. There's a hereditary element to this. I wasn't a fan of the anti-depressants I was given, but it was never a mood issue for me.
It was more of an energy issue for me. And I think as I become more cognizant of that and try to do things accordingly. When things hit the fan with me with this, it definitely brought me to the lowest I'd ever been and that I was definitely medicating, mostly relaxers, NyQuil. Just doing everything to just completely feel numb. Until I had a moment where I just like, and you got to sink or swim. It's a sink or swim. No one's coming to save the day. No one's going to come to bail you out of this.
You're going to have to do this or die and also realize that you want to give up on this Humble The Poet thing, by all means, give up but people in the neighborhood will call you Humble The Poet for the next 10 years. So that'll probably drive you mad. So let's just decide to do this.
And if we can only do this for two more years before we go into the dirt, let's do it for two more years or let's do it until we're And I'm definitely having to have those honest conversations with myself. I felt a certain way and I'd be reading the Tumblr quotes and they weren't helping. I was reading a lot of other people's stories and seeing the gaps of, "All right, how did they go from being in the pits to being where they are now?
Jordan Harbinger: [] They don't. They go, "Oh well here's a meme or quotes to look at. This sort of self-help fluff is no substitute for real work on this. Like what did you do? Humble The Poet: [] I didn't go to therapy. What I did was I started writing until what I wrote actually felt good on a practical level. As I said, I sold all my possessions and that took a little bit of chunk out of my debt.
I moved back home. And then I started focusing on how creatives make money. I met an artist out here actually who was a small-time rapper, but he was like, "Hey, I make a lot of money at my shows because I sell t-shirts. I sell the tablecloth of my display at the end of the show. Humble The Poet: [] That's what kind of prompted me to understand the economics of things. And at the same time, I was like, "All right, where else can I find the money?
I was like, all right, creative grants. I had a pretty good resume as an artist. So I started getting grants. Humble The Poet: [] I mean I'm Canadian so we're a little bit more privileged but I think some exist out here too.
But I mean I'm talking about grants. I would take gigs, I would take gigs I didn't want to do anything for the money and spending a lot less. And as I said, it took me -- end of is when I had my wake up. You need to get your stuff together at the moment.
And I didn't get completely out of debt probably until early Well, thank you for saying this because I think a lot of these influencer people are like they really do want to post a quote or a meme or like, "Here's a photo of me looking cool somewhere.
You're like, "Oh that person's inspiring and cool," but then you just go, "But I'm not that person. I'm this person. Humble The Poet: [] It does. And I think, also avoiding -- the idea of always think positive. Your negative thoughts, your negative memories, your physical pain, they all serve a purpose.
These are all messages and there's all value to them. And for me, there was a lot of kicking myself and the person that gave me this deal, I should've seen all the warning signs. And some of the people in my circle were like, "Oh I knew he was shady from the beginning. Humble The Poet: [] Yeah, thanks for telling me what your hindsight is.
And I really wanted to avoid the memory because it made me feel like garbage. Not realizing at the time like no, the reason that memory is "hunting" you is because there's something to learn from it. The moment you learned from it, you won't make that same mistake again.
And now that memory is not a bad thing, that is a gift. And I think when I had that perspective shift, I was able to now move forward being like, hey, I'm about to step into something I don't understand, but even if I mess up, what I'm going to do is I'm going to learn from it and I'll move forward and I'll see the value in it. And being able to change my mindset from win or lose to win or learn, this wasn't something that was fluffy.
It was like, look, either it's going to go the way I want it to go, or it's not and I'm definitely going to learn something. And the only thing in my control is my attitude, my effort, and my expectations. I always have control over those. Nobody can control that for me. Let me focus on that. And I always reminded myself, blame and power go hand in hand. Take the blame so you have the power.
So these mindset shifts made a difference. Again, in no way, shape or form is my life, sunshine and daisies and rainbows all day, I have low moments. Sometimes those low moments might just be being angry. Sometimes the low moments might be low iron. Sometimes it could be what I received from my family, you know, in my genes.
And sometimes I'm in a situation where I'm like, "Look, you should be completely grateful for what you have, but you feel like trash. Write it out. You know, just type it out, sing it out, scream it out, dance it off. Do something, just don't do nothing. Movement is medicine. Make something happen. So I think for me it's always about the pragmatic side. And it has to be a practical application. I don't want to sell fluff to anybody. I don't appreciate anybody selling fluff to me.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of bite-sized stuff in the book. Probably because you are a school teacher and kids' attention span which is like 10 minutes long. Humble The Poet: [] Every chapter is only two pages. You don't have to read the book in order, you can open it up anywhere. And as I said, I've been challenging people just open up the book to any page and you're going to find something you immediately connect with.
Jordan Harbinger: [] I like the idea that life doesn't actually get easier. We just get stronger as a result of our experiences, whether we like it or not. I mean that's the only choice we really have.
And I think that there's a lot to learn from all of the crap that I've been through, and of course everyone else too, but it is hard to not just sit in it for a while. That's the challenge is not figuring out that there's something to learn. It's knowing when to go, "All right, I should probably figure this out now instead of just feeling sorry for myself.
Humble The Poet: [] And as well as being, hey, maybe you got to sit in it for a while and that is self-compassion. But maybe set a time limit on that. No different than like, you know, I just got back from India after a long trip and I'm saying, "Hey, tomorrow I'm not going to be productive. Tomorrow, I'm just going to binge on Netflix," and just kind of get my internal clock ready.
It's the same thing. You go through a challenging time, you go through a heartbreak, you go through some loss, give yourself some time to heal. And I always equate it to having a broken leg. There's not much you can do to speed the healing, but there's plenty you can do to mess it up and slow down the progress.
So I think for me, even when I was, I stayed in bed for about a week and self-medicating, making all the wrong decisions.
Looking back at it now, there was an element of self-compassion there. I was doing it, thinking I was going to be doing it forever. Now, looking at it, it was like, "Hey, maybe you got blindsided and you were still in shock and you were hurt and you were hurt by somebody you really cared about.
You needed that week to heal. I'm like, "All right, you got your rest now get up and now let's see what we can make happen. Jordan Harbinger: [] You have this idea that if you don't have a six-year self-concept, media will build one for you. I'd love to hear what you have to say about this because I feel like this is a huge problem with people right now is they don't really know who they are. Many of us don't in fact, but then back in the day, we used to go travel or learn something or study something or build something to learn that.
Now, we're just looking at like Instagram or watching YouTube videos and we're like, "Oh, I guess I have to be that way. It's bad for us. And all you had to do was not open a magazine. But now social media has inundated us so much and it's such a part of our lives where again, we're filling in the gaps in relation to what's in front of us.
How do we build a moat around our psyche so we don't let those types of influences in? Humble The Poet: [] I feel like self-awareness is that only moat where you're just kind of like, "Hey, did I care about having abs yesterday? No, I only cared about having abs after seeing Aubrey Marcus' topless picture.
Thanks, Aubrey. Your source of all my problems when it comes to Humble The Poet: [] And it matters, again, even just hanging out with people or me coming in here and be like, "Oh, look, this guy's got a three-camera of podcasts. You've got lighting. And he's got a person listening for a sound, so we're not going to find out if this is messed up at the end of the episode.
It's only a priority to you today because you're in front of somebody that's doing it. And you have to figure out what's actually important to you. And I'm realizing this going back and be like, "Oh, I was writing stories and sharing, and performing when I was like eight, nine years old in front of my class and loving it.
Like this was almost coded into you. And I was always thinking about my accountant because this guy is such a dweeb. When I was independently publishing this book, I was getting checks from Europe in euros. I was getting UK pounds, getting American dollars, and Canadian dollars. And at the time, he was like, "Oh, I've never had a client who had so many different currencies.
He's like, "I'm excited to tackle. Humble The Poet: [] I was like, you're such a nerd. But I love the fact that this type of stuff excites you. Everybody in the world has that. We don't know what it is. It might know for some people it might be skateboarding, for some people, it might be electrical engineering.
For other people, it might be making electric cars or, or coming up with a new way to make an eggless cake that doesn't taste bad. It could be anything. There are a billion problems in the world that need to be solved. And there are people who are excited to solve them. When I think about my accounting, I want to curl up in a ball and not deal with that. So you find somebody who's excited for that. And if you think about a guy like Eminem, he's very excited to put words together and rhyme new things and the more you challenge him the better.
And I think that's what we need is we all need to find that thing where the challenges don't feel bad, they're exciting. The same way we get excited playing a video game or playing basketball or whatever it is. And that requires internal dialogue, internal exploration and that requires a little bit of time away from all the external stuff.
Jordan Harbinger: [] Yeah, good point. I think it goes along with your idea that we don't overcome a fear to move forward. We move forward to overcome the fear and through action something that people -- I don't know exactly why this resonated so well -- but I said something kind of a throwaway where I said action ends suffering. Because when I was going through a series of hard times last year, it was like a blender with a top off.
And everything was splattering out and I was going crazy. Then I was like, "Wait a minute. If I work on rebuilding my business, rebuilding my show, doing what I need to do to get everything back in order. The energy is focused in one direction. I felt a million times better than I did where the energy was going everywhere. I wanted to just run my head through a wall.
It seems like that's a lot of what you're saying as well. It's like, look, you need to find that thing, that challenge that excites you. Otherwise, it's like you're just not focused enough in the right way. And it feels bad to the creator, it feels bad to you. It feels bad to the artist, feels bad to whoever. Humble The Poet: [] And it also re-appropriate other elements of our lives.
So, for example, if you're like, look, my obsession is painting pictures of apples and I want the world to see how beautiful apples are just as I do. Now all of a sudden you're like, working at that day job. It is no longer a burden to me, that is my source to pay for all my equipment to paint these apples. So that's a part of this. And now I can go in with enthusiasm every day because that is part of this process because there is no job in the world that doesn't have these unsexy elements.
Jordan Harbinger: [] Oh, for sure. People go, "Oh, I love that you're doing what you love with the show. Don't ruin your hobby unless you just can't avoid that. Humble The Poet: [] And I think that was a big thing where I see a lot of people who didn't do that. Some of the guys that work with music were like, "No, I don't want to be a full-time musician because that's going to suck the fun out of the music.
Humble The Poet: [] And I need this music to maintain my sanity.
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