Rick Rubin Addresses Criticisms & OPENS UP About His Greatest Challenge in Life

how do you feel you have the number one album in the country and I remember saying I've never been more unhappy in my life let's say you spend 20 years of your life working towards a goal that's going to solve everything and nothing changes that's when you get hopeless the best-selling author and host the number one Health and Wellness podcast on purpose with Jay Shetty who have you created like who are you like at the core of it how do you see yourself I think we live in a world today where people create who we

are to us in our own minds our families and friends create us our the media we consume creates us and I think everyone will agree that we have so many influences but who's the you you're trying to create or have tried to create over the last few decades I don't know if trying would be the word I would use I would say um I'm true to whoever's inside there I don't look at the outside very much I look Inward and try to focus on what do I feel what am I seeing in the hopes that

by sharing what's going on in me it maybe resonates with someone else I can't predict what someone else would like and I don't think anybody can so if I'm true authentically true to myself that's the best chance of someone else liking something so I would say tuning into myself and being honest with myself and anything I can do to get closer to understanding what I like and why I like it and what I don't like and why I don't like it is helpful in in the work that I do yeah I I love that idea

of almost like a personal check-in or a sense check and it's interesting we do it after we eat food like you know whether you like the restaurant or you didn't like a restaurant or it's it's automatically it's funny because I've been asked about like how can you be so confident in your opinion it's like if you taste food how confident can you be if you like it or you don't like it it's so clear it's so face value yeah and I think we tend to overthink and put layers on top of something as simple as

it tastes really good I like it or you know what this one's not for me yeah it's as simple as that absolutely and and why do you think it is though that over the years we've all as humans from your perspective your opinion I'd be fascinated to know you've worked with so many people who also make things that are fascinating to billions of people on the planet right there's we all experience what it feels like to get 5 10 people to laugh at a joke or listen to something we do but when you're creating at

that scale what in your opinion has made us so addicted to wanting to become someone that people like and often go against who we truly are you just said you you like to sense that authenticity and feel how you feel a lot of people are scared of that a lot of people would rather mold and become malleable and evolve and become who people want them to be why are we why do you think that is people like to be accepted people want to be accepted and I'm suggesting in the book that the the best way

to be accepted is to be yourself it's not it's not to change yourself to what someone else thinks first of all you don't really know what someone else thinks and if you're not genuine to yourself there's there's like nothing nothing is there it's just a projection or a mask it's not true and there's something about authenticity like I get to work with artists some of whom have very different ways of seeing the world than me and I support their Vision a million percent even though whatever they're talking about maybe I may be diametrically opposed to

what they're talking about but I support them a million percent and anything I can do to support them getting their message across the clearest they can I support that the only way we can um learn anything is through the reality of seeing what's around us and learning there are these different points of view around us if we're all thinking the same thing it's boring why would we make anything if everyone thinks the same thing what makes us interesting are the differences and even even the imperfections the imperfections are what makes us humans what makes us

what we are it's like there's so much talk today about chat GPT and AI it's like it's a different thing than a human sharing their own experience warts and all that's what we love we love you know you may hear a song about um someone who has terrible heartbreak and you may not be experiencing terrible heartbreak but hearing them honestly talk about a human experience even one that we're not having can make us cry can make us resonate with them can give us a better understanding of the world absolutely and we're not all everything you

know we're all only us each of us is ourselves yeah one thing when I was reading your book it reminded me of something else I read a while ago and what I read said that the Japanese say we have three faces one face that we show the entire world the second phase is the face that we only show our family and friends and the third face they say we show no one at all maybe not even ourselves sometimes we don't even but what you're saying is almost like when we tap into that Essence and become

that self that's where all this beauty and Imagination and creativity stems from yeah it's the most in it seems to be the most interesting and the most particular you know um in a sea of information the more yours is personal the more it's not like hers or his or theirs it's it's yours yeah and for all of us we get more of a sense of reality even if our views are different than everyone else's it's still helps us understand this is this place that we're in where there are these there are these different views it's

interesting when I speak someone who has a different view on anything I always want to learn more how did you get there what can I learn from you you know I never assume that I know anything were you always like that or whether experiences in your childhood that informed that because I feel like there are a lot of people more generally speaking and I don't like to stereotype but just as an overall sense a lot of the reasons why we struggle with doing what you just said is defending our Viewpoint gives us a sense of

Safety and Security and we feel vulnerable if someone else's Viewpoint that seems opposite to us could be true so that's one reason the second is we generally struggle as humans to entertain two opposing ideas we struggle to understand the Nuance that someone can be kind but also be assertive or someone can be complex yet really compassionate like they can be these paradoxes that exist I was reading recently about how black and white TVs are not really black and white they're Shades of Gray there is no black and white pixel it's really really minute shades of

Shades of Gray that are changing so were you always that way always that curious did that start somewhere does that come from parent where did that come for you I'm intrigued I would say I've always been open-minded earlier in my career I probably had more of a view of I know how to do it like I know my way and my way was fine but over the years I've realized that my way isn't necessarily the best way it's just one way and there are many other ways that are great I was a vegan for 22

years and now I'm mainly carnivore when you've really committed to a vegan lifestyle it's very difficult to break out of it and for about a year I was a I believe that eating meat was the healthiest thing I could do but I couldn't do it because I was a vegan I was committed to being a vegan so it's a perfect example because it was something I was dedicated to for a long period of time I had new information it was hard to change it was hard to break out of it but as we get new

information we have to evolve how can we how can we live in an old belief if you believe the same thing that you believed 20 years ago about everything I don't know that you're living and so we've we've got to have that openness and the ability to my curiosity a curiosity about what's it like if if my view is my view of the world is wrong what does someone else know what can I learn from not to disregard what someone else thinks like why do they think that what I know there's something I can learn

from someone who sees it differently than me and I want to understand it yeah and that's exactly why I asked you about your past because I feel that I always try and study someone's past in order to understand how they came to a conclusion because or even their behavior is often the people that I feel act in ways that seem unreasonable or ways that I don't agree with when I track back and look at their past I can often be like oh there are the dots and and they can probably see them too of why

they've chosen that path not that that path is right or wrong um it takes a lot to go beyond right and wrong because these constructs are so and that's what I feel this book does this book in itself breaks the construct of what a book is right like that when I picked it up I I was assuming that I was going to read a memoir or like stories and tell I I assume that's what it would be in my belief system of what a book is by a prominent figure who's had a life such as

yours and then I opened it up and I was like wait a minute this is like this is not what I was expecting and I'm seeing like poetry and I'm seeing like Rhymes and I'm seeing just short Reflections and some really beautiful even exercises and activities that you suggest and I thought even in this book you're breaking down what someone sees as a book I mean the cover does that it's stunning and it's like that's something I would love to help people develop because I think it's a skill it's a habit and you talk about

habits in the book and we're only as creative as the habits we keep you say how do we develop that mindset is there a step-by-step system or is it something that you just start tomorrow and you now are more Curious when something conflicting comes your way it's something you get better at the more you practice and meditation is a great tool to quiet ourselves enough to get in touch with how we see the world the closer we can get to what we see that's a starting position to be able to then understand how someone else

sees it and it's interesting to be able to learn to argue the points opposite what you believe you know if you don't understand all sides of of the story you don't really understand the story so it's helpful to understand the whole picture and be hold all of the beliefs softly enough to be surprised and learn something new and change everything you know the book is called the creative act and it is about being creative more than even doing things that are creative but have you ever sacrificed creativity for anything on any project or in any

personal Endeavor in life where creativity had to be sacrificed or you felt pushed to sacrifice the way you felt it was being where there was a bit of a part of it I was like I might have to let go in the world of Art I feel Fearless I feel like whatever strikes me as this is what's interesting to me I'm good with that it doesn't extend as strongly into life I know people who are completely Fearless in life I'm I'm not there yet I it's very impressive I love it but within the confines of

creativity and making things I know um and only I know it through experience I started only making things I liked luckily people like them otherwise I'd have a different job I would still be making things because it was always my passion I never thought it would be my work I I always knew I would make things because that's what I love to do I thought I would have a regular straight job to support my habit of making things and then miraculously um the universe allowed me to make things as a as a full-time thing in

life it's crazy yeah it's amazing how we always talk about how like life imitates our or imitates life and why has it been harder to translate from art to life that idea of fearlessness what are the things that you find yourself fearing in life that that you find so effortless here there's a life and death commitment in art that's different than the life and death commitment in life jumping out of an airplane is different than you know telling a controversial joke I can remember recently four or five years ago I had open heart surgery and

I was really afraid and I was with a an artist friend who's a Fearless artist and and I told me I'm going into the surgery I'm really nervous he's like oh you're gonna be fine no why are you even thinking about that like that's that's a crazy thought because he's confident he's Fearless in life still the the normal fears of Life get me but in art I know the real power in it is going to The Fringe edges of where you can go that's what it the purpose of doing it is to see how far

you can take it so I feel in a way obligated to do that it's like no that's what's that's what's most interesting to me you know there's so much middle of the road and it doesn't interest me I want it because it's louder quieter softer harder it's pushing some boundary that's why I take notice it's not more of the same it's not just another it's the one that makes use like you stopping did I really hear that did I really see that what's going on here you know what you see a movie where you have

to lean forward and pay attention like what's happening it's not just the audience's hand is being held and walked through a story simply I like the um the complexity and difficulty that forces me as the viewer to participate in what's going on I'm not just being carried along I'm intrigued if you'd be happy to go there how do you use some of the creativity that you found in art in order to navigate some of the fears in life is it helpful it is helpful and and one of the things is realizing the attitude we bring

to things changes it completely so the same event could be terrifying or we can decide it's okay and it's the same exact event it's just a mentality I had an experience years ago I grew up in a place where there were no insects uh wow yeah where I grew up was just a very uh contained protected environment so I was and my mom was afraid of insects so I grew up with this feeling of insects as foreign and scary and I was in Hawaii about seven years ago and there are centipedes that can sting you

they don't kill you but they're very painful and I'd always and I've been going to Kauai for a long time and was aware of them and in the back of my mind afraid of them and one night I woke up my head was itchy I brushed my head and I felt something extremely painful and I said to my wife I think I was just stung by a centipede and I have one of two choices can Panic which is what my entire life has led me up to or I can decide it's okay and go back

to sleep and she said the second one sounds better I'll do that 20 years ago I don't know if I could have done that 30 years ago I don't I'm sure I couldn't have done that the Panic is what I've been trained for my whole life that's that conditioning where we're all as you said trained conditioned prepared for in a certain way yeah even even things that we don't know about like we may be afraid did you know that people were not afraid of sharks before the movie Jaws no I did not know that the

reason everyone's afraid of sharks is because of the movie Jaws wow that I mean that makes a lot of sense that makes the world yeah change the world yeah and it's unbelievable how yeah what we seek or what we shun comes from a movie or a song or a visual demonstration of what whatever it may be and I I find they had so many fears are not real and as we're talking about fear only so often exists mainly in the mind and and that's what we're talking about is a construct of the Mind when we're

talking about creativity you address this fear head-on in the beginning because it is a fear everyone has somewhat of a fear just as we say things like oh I can't sing we say things like oh well I'm not creative or I'm not artistic or I've never really been a creative I'm more academic or whatever it may be we have these again constructs right and wrong academic creative mostly Polar Opposites and you're actually saying no no this is something everyone can access and has access to and do and do access and do access yeah we just

don't all acknowledge it but deciding to take a different route home because there's a traffic jam in front of you and figuring out the way to go that's a creative decision cooking food and it tasting a certain way and you think oh maybe it'll taste better if I add this to it that's a creative decision we all do them every day we make creative choices anytime we do something that's not exactly the same as the way we did it yesterday the reason it's different is because we made a creative Choice yeah absolutely as simple as

that as simple as this sprinkle of this or that yeah so we're all doing it and the book is uh an invitation to open that channel as far and freely as you can it really does that I really believe it does that I I what I love about it is you can truly turn to any page and I know they say this about a lot of books and I I don't think it's true for most books to be honest because if you pick a random book a random page of a book it the context is

completely out whereas with this there truly is that sense of if you're looking for that creativity if you're trying to seek it within yourself there's something that will inspire you what have you found over the years working with artists working with yourself what have been the biggest blocks to creativity or to accessing that what are the biggest blocks is it I know and and I'll touch on a few that I'm intrigued by and curious about but what would you say are the biggest blocks that people have to being truly creative and imaginative one big block

is concerns about what other people think that's a big one I I made this thing that I love but I think other people would like it more if I made it different for them we don't know what they would like it's a it's a really it's all in our head it comes back to this thing of what I think isn't good enough you know if I like it that doesn't mean anything that's what people think it's like just because I like it that doesn't give it any value it's like as an artist if you like

it that's all of the value that's the success comes when you say I like this enough for other people to see it not other people like it so it's successful that doesn't mean anything because that's other people liking it is out of your control all that's in your control is making the thing to the best of your ability I talk about it usually the way I talk about it is greatness and that's the way I thought of it my whole life was my interest is in making something great greatness lasting greatness Timeless and I came

to realize recently it's all an offering to God and if you're making an offering to God you're not thinking about oh what's the budget or I hope I hope these this segment of the audience is gonna like it we don't we don't think like that it's a higher vibration we're making the best we can make to the best of our ability out of love and devotion that's what it is and there is no I'm changing it for someone else because it can't be better than this devotional act that we're doing there is no higher no

higher form and that's what you see so much in in nature around us I've always found like the sun is just selflessly serving and giving and you see a bush of flowers or you see a tree that's growing fruits and again it's providing shade and fruit and it's just serving and it's interesting how when you call it a devotional act the idea that it's it's a service it's an offering as you said absolutely in that language and even an offensive song is that to someone to someone it's like um I worked with Van Slayer and

Slayer were a very controversial aggressive band and the people who came to see them didn't come to see them in filled with hate they came they came to see them filled with love and for many of the people in the audience maybe the only experience of Love they had was connecting over Slayer you know there were there were people in the audience who seemed like other than this thing to devote themselves passionately to seemed like often hopeless people and for them to have something that they love was beautiful to witness and that that sounds like

one I think you're spot on that that fear of what will people think what will people say art versus audience almost and I feel that that has become such a big challenge in today's world because there's so much data available social media available and you get instant feedback right so I think in the past a band would lock themselves in a shed or whatever it may be and then work on stuff and maybe their friends would listen or they would listen and but it would take months before the audience heard it today you could literally

record something in three seconds put it up and get instant feedback and so the feedback loop has got shorter the time to create something has got shorter it's easier to publish and it's easier to get criticism or feedback and so in that world I find us looking so much at like what's the data saying of the trends of the pace of music or the frequency of music or whatever and that's obviously only music but you could apply that to anything else do you think that that obsession in social media music movies of looking at it

from a date of even in movies now I find like we're just taking old IP and remaking stuff there's there's very little new IP you just keep seeing old IP finding its way back into TV and movies do you say that that's creativity being stifled and and is hampering creativity absolutely and the beauty of it is because so much of what's being made is being made that way that if we choose to make something not like that it really stands out this book for example it goes against all of the rules of publishing from the

beginning I started the book eight years ago and I met with Publishers eight years ago told them this is my vision for this book and all of them said that's not the book anybody wants from you that's not the book and I said well it's that's the book I want to write yeah and like but surely you'll tell personal stories and you'll talk about Johnny Cash you'll talk about it's like no that's not what this is yeah it's a different book yeah and then I decided not to make a publishing deal then because even the

ones who said they would go along with what my vision was I could see that they really were fantasizing a different book than this book yeah I waited till the book was written and then said do you want to publish this book not the book you think is the book that you want me to write but this is the book that I that I wrote that I wanted to write and wrote do you want to publish this book and then when they read it they're like oh yes watch this that's brilliant the reason I'm laughing

so much is because I with my first book I had I thought of the title when I was writing it because it resonated to me because it was playful but also curious and and it felt true to me it was the biggest reason why I chose an entirely just it felt like it was truth and so the tile I'd I was proposing for my first book was think like a monk and I'd lived as a monk for three years I'd studied under these incredible monks and I wanted to share what I'd learned from these Masters

who'd spent 40 50 years living as monks and so the book was almost an offering to them in the way you're saying it a devotional act back to my teachers and guides and every publisher is like Jay you should just write a book about like how to find your passion or like you know like what you love in life and I was just like that's there's Beauty in that there's nothing wrong with the book about how to find your passion that's great but that's not me like it's not my experience it's not my book and

I remember 15 out 14 out of 17 imprints said no to that title yeah and we still went with it yes and I couldn't be more happier because of that but you're right you can't control what the audience wants even if you played every perfect metric and game no but we think we can we we think there's a part of us and that's what I was going to ask you that almost one end is saying I am too worried about what people think but the opposite almost is the ego of I can either control everything

perfectly so that this becomes the number one chart topping song or I'm right and I know everything is that do you see that as a block to creativity and how and and how do you purify that I think that the goal is to get to this this is how I see it I don't know what other people are gonna think I can't know what other people are gonna think but this is how I see it and I want to show you how I see it that's my purpose here on the planet is to show you

how I see it and then I want to see how you see it and where do they line up and where are they different and that's how we make sense of the world it's not one story yeah we all have a story we all have something to say and we can all learn from each other and it's it's fascinating it's like there's there are the same set of chords used in all the songs yet new songs keep coming you know there's someone who say all the songs have been written they're they've it keeps happening how

how do new jokes come up they're all it's like they're all the same but then they're all different yeah and how how we interpret it and are each and it comes from each of our life experiences which are different we we each have our own family origin story we each have our own places that we grew up the things that we saw we could go uh and do the same thing together and then get back and discuss what we saw and see two completely different things and it's not like one of us is right and

one of us is wrong we're just noticing different things there's so many data points to take in and we each take in the ones that speak to us so true yeah you remind me of the famous words of Mark Twain of History never repeats itself but it always Rhymes and that right that the idea of like yeah like the same song doesn't come back but there's a rhyme there's a there's the chord there's that but but it's still different and and there's some beautiful I want to point out to everyone because I I really do

want you to get this book everyone is listening and watching right now uh and there's I've like dog-eared some pages that that have some really beautiful moments I really like this because one thing I really aim to do here on on the podcast but also in life is to try and give people really practical Tiny Steps that they could take and you you do that artfully in this book and there was this section here uh which identifies why I brought up now because exactly what you said breaking the sameness right and we think there's the

sameness will completeness and you give these beautiful examples of things people can do in order to do that and I just want to touch on a couple of them please and would love to hear some examples from you that where it worked so I really like this one change the context so you say there are times when a singer doesn't connect with a song like an actor whose line reading Falls flat it can be helpful to create a new meaning or an additional backstory to a song's lyrics A Love Song might sound different if sung

to a long lost soul mate a partner of 30 years that you don't get along with a person you saw on the street but never spoke to or your mother have you I was intrigued have you ever asked an artist to sing to someone real in their life potentially to get an emotion out yes there's uh the first example that comes to mind is we were doing a cover of the song the first time ever I saw your face with Johnny Cash and he read the lyrics and he said I don't know if I could

sing this song I don't really feel these words and I said well how about if it's a devotional song to God Isaac I could sing that song and when he changed it to being not singing it to a woman but singing it to God he was able to tap into the energy of the song and he felt the vibration he felt he he felt the trueness to him in singing it wow yeah and so he but everyone still thought the song was about a woman it is yeah it is yeah but there's there's a long

history of songs that are love songs that could be to a woman or could be devotional yeah it's interesting when songs walk this line or when we think we know what a song's about yeah yeah and we think it's about a romantic relationship when it's really about their child you know these devotional songs so and I'm sharing this with all of you listening and watching because I know you I know where you're sitting there thinking Jay I procrastinate I overthink I don't know how to focus which we'll get into all of that but I want

to share these with you because I want you to try them out in your own area in the world the work you do to change the environment if we're looking for a performance of a different nature it can help to change an element of the environment turning off the lights and playing in the dark can create shift in Consciousness and break the chain of sameness from performance to Performance other shifts we've experimented with include having a singer hold the microphone instead of standing in front of it and recording early in the morning instead of at

night to access a greater degree of variation one vocalist chose to hang upside down while singing could you tell us some examples of those because I find that again these are just they're so simple but we don't do it we will sit at the same desk every day banging our head against the wall with the same tabs open on Google going why can't I be creative and it's often these physical tangible changes around us yeah yeah and so it happened in the studio it's not uncommon if we've played a song three or four or five

or six times and it just feels like it's not getting better or we've reached a certain Peak and it's really not all it could be but then it starts not being as good usually when that happens as soon as you reach whatever Peak you're at and it starts coming down we usually stop playing the song um but one thing we've done in the past also would be again changing the contest turning the lights off in the studio is it changes everything it's not take seven it's the first take in the dark and it changes it

changes the first album I recorded with the Red Hot Chili Peppers was their I think it was their fifth album and the albums that they had done before they had all done in traditional recording studios and them they told me that none of those were good experiences so he thought about what could we do for this experience to make it the first different one instead of the fifth if the first four were bad could have been the first good one in in the same environment or we could change the environment and it would be the

first of any kind so we chose to rent this big house not far from here and record in this mansion and that was very different than showing up to recording studio with people working in an office and other musicians and other other places we had our whole own world that we created and and some of the members of the band didn't leave during the entire I don't know six weeks or two months they never left the premises they just stayed there slept there ate there worked there and um never left until it was done well

yeah I love that one uh invite an audience this one makes sense but but I think people need to do more when an artist thrives on being in front of a crowd we may bring in several people to watch a session being observed changes how an artist acts even if the audience consists only of on one person who isn't part of the project that can be enough while some artists May overdo a performance for an audience and Others May hold back most tend to be more focused with someone else present even if your art is

non-performative such as writing or cooking it will still likely change with an observer present the goal is to find the specific parameters in each case that bring out your best I I love the idea I had a few friends a few years ago one of their buddies wanted to become a stand-up comic but he had no experience in stand-up comedy so they threw him a stand-up show in their backyard God and there were like 15 of us present in the audience he got announced onto stage in front of an audience that wasn't gonna Heckle or

be the meanest to him and he got to practice and it was it was just such a beautiful way a to do that for your friends but to experience that and I'm I'm on tour at the moment this is my break period but for my test we were practicing rehearsing in a small theater in Thousand Oaks and so what does the theater said to us is they could throw it out to their local audience members who would have no clue who I was or what I was doing and they'd come along little did I know

that we'd have like 50 to 100 people that weekend watching the show just as a rehearsal yeah and it was so useful to me before I went out and it was huge like absolutely huge so I loved that one I was listening to a story on the way here I was listening to a podcast in the car and it told a story about The Beatles um that when the Beatles were interviewed individually they were all these thoughtful interesting Soulful people wow but when they were interviewed even two together they became sarcastic and never said much

about about anything real and was much more of a performative cool like to look cool in front of the other one wow that just be being with each other changed the way that they appeared in the world well yeah that that group aspect is so interesting you've just sparked another thought for me that I think it would be really interesting for people to hear you going back to this it's interesting again then being on their own allowed them to be more of their authentic Deeper Self to some degree I guess I think it was in

Bob iger's book where he talked about how he was saying that George Lucas Spielberg Tarantino and a bunch of others used to almost have a movie Mastermind where they'd play their movies to each other before they went out and he was saying that that's how confident they felt about their own work because they were showing their competitors their movies yes but they weren't scared of anyone stealing an idea or taking a concept because they were so confident who they were and all their friends were so confident in their Styles and we know that a Tarantino

movie versus a Spielberg movie has no similarities yeah and in some ways that Community we talk about that in the book too having a community of it doesn't have to be people who do the same kind of art as you but people who just taste you you respect you like what they do they like what you do and being able to share your work back and forth is a really great feeling yeah how have you that's that's a really nice segue how is that how has that affected how you've learned to filter criticism and feedback

because again going back to the world we live in today because of that instant feedback loop you can have a hundred comments that are negative on social media your song didn't make it it's not as big as the next album you have the top 10 shot you didn't make it I think the way everything's measured and broadcasted now can make criticism and feedback in one sense seem louder before you went into a room and someone told you you weren't getting a new deal and no one knew today you didn't get a new deal and the

whole world knows and your fans know and the opposing fans you know it's messy it's like how have you worked on that for yourself and the work you've done and even the artists that you work with who I'm guessing may be more sensitive to it may not have that natural confidence or groundedness in what it is how do you how and even people are listening today how do we think about feedback and criticism most of the artists I work with don't read any any criticism or reviews that they work good or bad most some some

do and I would say the ones who are the strongest in who they are can even read a terrible review and laugh at it and that makes sense because when someone gives you criticism it's telling you as much about who they are as what you've made it's like we make things and then we make it with one through our filter our perspective and then you receive it through your filter with your perspective so even if we both like it we probably don't like it the same way for the same reasons we all have our own

relationship to it everyone has their own relationship to it so any of these metrics of which is better like the idea of the Oscars or uh the Grammys where we're saying which which album is better than another it doesn't make any sense to me because it's always apples and oranges if you have a Drake and Beyonce and you're deciding which album's better well Drake's album is clearly a better Drake album than Beyonce's album is and Beyonce's album I'm sure is a much better Beyonce album out than Drake's album is but the idea that one's better

than the other it makes no sense so who has a better diary entry it's like it's it's if we are actually making these personal things you you can't compare them or um compete in any way with anyone else the only people who we can honestly compete with is ourselves is like is this the best I can make today have I gone further than I've gone before that's all we can do that's the only competition that makes sense is continuing to evolve and push ourselves artistically and not get complacent especially in success it's easy to get

complacent once something works it's like I'll just keep doing more of that it ends up maybe one more time you can get away with it but once three are similar it stops being interesting yeah yeah that's so true and it comes that comes back to that sameness point that we always and I'm just addressing things that I know all of you are thinking and feeling right now like or I'm assuming you are the idea of oh Jay there's already you know when I started making podcasts I think there were like 700 000 podcasts in the

world and today there's like two million plus maybe even more now and that's in three years it's tripled since I started four years ago it's tripled and so when I started everyone's like Jay the 700 podcasts you don't need another podcast too late exactly you're too late uh and then now everyone's like oh my God there's two million podcasts like this too late and we do that we we start again using a metric to say and you'll only feel that way if you're planning to repeat what's already been done uh because if if you're not

planning to repeat it then you're one of one you're not one of two million or one of seven hundred thousand it's one of one because you're only bringing your own Essence out right like yes just because every other podcast you could be like there's so many interview podcasts there are so many interview podcasts that's true and they're all different and they're all different exactly like you know and we we've got introduced through um your long-term friend and uh my new mutual friend Andrew huberman who's also been a guest on this podcast is a phenomenal podcast

I love his podcast um but so different to who I am so different to what we do and and then there's a million other friends that we have that I've showed so the most common thing I hear when it comes to creativity or it comes to tapping into your Essences distraction overthinking and procrastination like those words come up from my community again and again and again and that's the kind of community listening I do like to do where I'm like well what are people struggling with because we're trying to help what are people's challenges I

I have to know from them what they think it is and then I'll also share in the way I do have you or anyone you've ever worked with ever dealt with big bout to procrastination yeah absolutely and how do you define it because I almost think I would say there's two the distraction and procrastination are related and different procrastination is not a good one distraction can be distraction can be helpful you can use distraction if you hold a question to be solved and don't sit and think and try to solve it but go do something

else and go you know take a walk or go for a swim you'll find that it changes it changes and the distraction of when you go for a walk and seeing oh look at that tree over there look at those birds or whoa that card came kind of close to me all of those things that that living in the world even though it's not um challenging in any real way it's a distraction that's using some part of your brain some part of your brain is occupied with do I turn left or do I turn right

oh look at that thing over there oh is it going to rain these other things are happening that's different than just sitting in a room looking at your laptop just those outside cues can give you a way in to solve a problem that you wouldn't solve if you were sitting and working on it for example if we were now doing this podcast together on a walk it would be a very different podcast than us sitting here staring into each other's eyes and it's a beautiful idea I've had there was a period of time where um

where I lost a whole bunch of weight and one of the things that I did as part of that was I only did walking meetings before I used to only do lunch meetings so I switched the lunch meetings to walking meetings and I would meet people in Santa Monica and we would walk and the meetings were so much better than the meetings either in a restaurant or at uh in an office everything shifted just because we were moving we're doing something there were external stimuli even though the external stimuli had nothing to do with what

we were doing yeah it it changed it was a change in context that really did um make the conversation much more interesting and there's also something about when you're walking you're not looking at each other so it's easier to go into your own thoughts when you're not looking at someone so it was very interesting a great experiment lost a lot of weight and and the meetings were the best they've ever been yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense there's a lot of work in couples psychology that suggests that when couples argue they're usually sitting

on opposite sides of a dining table and when you're sitting with something in between you first of all I mean here we don't have anything but you have something in between you it's already creating a distance and now you're working against each other yes rather than what you're saying is you're walking with each other yes and you're looking off into the same direction so you're almost creating a future uh the idea that you're forward your your future forward your future facing it's funny my wife and I whenever we get to a new table and we're

sitting to to eat we always say we look at where the chairs are and one of us will say cheek to cheek and we tend to sit next to each other instead of across yeah I love that and that makes so much sense with leadership meetings creative meetings and and I I love that I love love love and this is why this book is so beautiful because it has so many really subtle points and the idea of the difference between distraction and procrastination yes and how distraction can actually be healthy and especially as you said

when you hold a question or you you hold an idea and you're just kind of toying with it but you might pick up a book you might go for a walk you might whatever you can do all these things but it's almost like you're using that time wisely to to come back and absolutely going for a drive is a great one yeah and just just paying attention to not crashing even though we can drive essentially on autopilot yeah we're not thinking about driving once we've been driving for a while yeah but just driving ideas come

I know many musicians uh singers who who listen to the instrumental music in a car in the car and then sing along when they're driving yeah because they're more free than when they're sitting with a recorder yeah absolutely absolutely that makes perfect sense yeah no and it's it's so interesting how we have so many we've also built up again going back to our conditioned beliefs we've built up a negative relationship with the word distraction we've built up a negative connotation around if I don't solve it right now sitting in this one place then I'm never

gonna figure it out yeah and the idea that actually going on a walk picking up something else that's that's one of the reasons why I like having in my office here in the studio back in my home everything's quite minimalist but I have a lot of like little artifacts and little things and because I enjoy the kind of like stimulation and the creative juices that start flowing if I get a moment to just observe and then sometimes I just want to observe nature outside where I can just sit and bask and almost bathe in nature

which I find to be so useful because there was this incredible study from MIT a few years ago where they tried to look for who were their most creative Innovative employees inside the organized inside corporate organizations and MIT was doing the study they found two sets of charts of types of employees employee and employee B employee a knew lots of people that knew each other an employee B knew lots of people that didn't know each other and they were looking at which one's more creative Innovative and hence more imaginative inside a company and they found

it was Employee B Because employee a knew people who knew people who knew them back small circle closed Circle closed circles that created these Echo Chambers and you asked the same 10 people for advice and employee B knew lots of random people who had no connection to each other and the point was being made that if your circle and that I think applies to environment as much as it applies to people absolutely is more random and disconnected you have more chance of having a original authentic tour idea spark as opposed to you're surrounded by the

four same people and you talk about the same things absolutely and and that to me has always been how what I'm trying to do it's like I want to know what the monks think and I want to know what Silicon Valley thinks and I want to know what music Geniuses think because that's there's something there absolutely a word you in this book that I want to touch on and that's why this came up for me was submerge and I loved it when I saw that word I was just like it's like I love that I

I've thought about that for so long submerging yourself we've we've lost that ability to submerge we don't submerge ourselves much because we have so much of a little how have you in this hyper-connected world working with the most connected artists in the world how are you encouraged yourself and others to continue to submerge when everyone's asking us to swim shallow I think so many of the great artists do it naturally can't you can't help it it's the obsessive nature of being really into something that um once you start down a a thread you just keep

pulling forever if you're interested many of the artists that that are great at what they do are great at what they do for that very reason they fall in love with this thing and then they just want to know everything they could possibly learn about it um and there are no distractions I'm working on a project now a documentary project with Comedians and one of the things that they talk about is their commitment like when other people are doing things on the weekend going out with their friends they're going to perform every you know every

night that they can possibly go out and perform until they can get good at their craft and this could be for a period of you know 10 years of just having bad performances you know having people not like what you do like banging your head against the wall but that obsession with breaking through and when I say breaking through I don't mean breaking through to the audience I mean breaking through with themselves to where they get past all of the uh blocks and to be free in this moment in a way where they can really

Express their views and be heard and people can react it's a fascinating thing I just want to ask about being uh being a monk tell me about your experience uh what would you like to know um how did you choose to do this first I was born and raised in London and when I was around 18 years old I started going to events in the city where speakers were invited to come and share their stories or Journeys or successes or whatever it may have been and this is obviously before podcasting and before YouTube and so

you actually went to events to hear people like yourself or anyone speaking so I would go and listen and they'd be founders of companies they'd be athletes they'd be you know musicians people like that that would come to universities and colleges in in London and so I'd go and one of the nights I went I was invited to hear a monks Peak and I was 18 years old and my I didn't really have a perception of monks like I didn't really have any I I'd seen saintly people and holy people coming from an Indian background

but I never really knew what monks were or what they did and so I said to my friends I didn't really want to go but I said I'd only go if we went to a bar afterwards that was my that was my state of consciousness age 18 and my friends were very persuasive and convincing they said yeah yeah we'll go and so I went to this event kind of like not expecting anything wanting to leave and I was just completely like flawed this monk was from India he was born and raised in indeed a thick

Indian accent he was wearing uh saffron robes and there was nothing externally that I should or should have found it attractive about him as an 18 year old guy but his whole message and it's that's why I smiled when you said it earlier like his whole message was that the greatest thing you can do in the world or greatness is to use your gifts in the service of God and use your gifts in the service of humanity as a devotional act and he was talking about how living in devotion and my 18 year old self

was just completely like mesmerized by that idea I was just like I've never heard this like everyone's been telling us how to be successful and how to start a business and how to launch a company and how to become number one or and it was like this this guy was just saying that that wasn't it and so I went up to him as you do after an event when you're Blown Away by a speaker and I just said to him I was like I just want to follow you around like I just want to spend

time with you and learn from you and sit at your you know sit at your feet and just take observe and and he said well I'm doing all these events in London this week you can come so I would go along and then that turned into my during college that turned into my summer and Christmas vacations being with him and then when I graduated I turned down my corporate job offers and actually went and lived there for three years fantastic and so it was like all these little steps up to like this very big decision

and so that's why it was just one person who I've just always been fascinated by people that you meet that can change the trajectory of your life and the reason why I do this show is because I want to introduce people to people and thoughts that I think will change the trajectory of their life because I didn't ever want to be a monk I didn't think I'd become a monk I didn't crave to like it wasn't a path I saw for myself but it became the best thing that ever happened to me at that time

and now I live in gratitude but I also realize I always ask people who's your monk like who's the person you need to meet that you haven't met yet that could change your life it's a example in the book of people say you know I'm not a good artist or you're either living as an I say you're either living as an artist or you're not living as an artist there's not you're not good at it or bad at it it's like being a monk you're either living as a monk or you're not living as somebody

you can't be a bad monk if you're living as a monk you're a monk yeah I love that yeah it's beautiful I mean you've you've had so much even today you know and that's why I was excited to meet you in person because you have such a spiritual journey in essence and just in spirit even in just your presence and what you talk about the vocabulary you have that where where did that get infused with the work you do like or is again has that always been there or what was your journey I I learned

to meditate when I was 14 and that's turned into a big part of my life I stopped meditating when I went to college and then when I moved to California I started again and when I started again I realized oh even though I hadn't done it for the last five years a big part of who I am is because I did it when I did it had I not stopped I wouldn't have recognized that so the stopping and starting was a very clear wow this is this is a big part of how I see the

world already even with not doing it for the last five years what type of meditation is it um okay got it got it yeah I learned TM um changed my life but since then I've learned vipassana and I do many different many different practices and breathing practices and Tai Chi and many different meditative practices um I often come back to TM maybe because it was first yeah yeah and it's beautiful yes absolutely simple and beautiful yeah absolutely and it's interesting to me meditation just seems to be but there was definitely an a generation where meditation

became really prominent in the lives of so many especially so many people today that you that you meet that are doing you know Ray Daly who's been on the podcast a million times and again he he talks about TM as being such a big part of his financial success in terms of making wise Financial investment decisions and he is a special human as well I feel like that Resurgence is back now where where there's so much more talk about breath work and meditation and if if you had any words of wisdom or insight for anyone

who's trying you experimenting what would you suggest them as someone who's done it for so long had breaks found usefulness in it we are there any things that come to your heart or Forefront of you the first thing that comes up there's a beautiful book called wherever you go there you are I love that book I had meditated a long period of time before I read it but I remember reading it feeling like this is the best both introduction to meditation and reminder of the power of meditation regardless of where you are in your meditative

Journey so I would recommend that book as a as a way in and find the practice that works for you and I I've also used like Yoga Nidra or different guided meditations which also are beautiful and helpful yeah absolutely I used a lot of Yoga Nidra when I had my hernia surgery I was like I couldn't get a sleep because of the pain and so yoga Nida is beautiful if you if you have trouble sleeping everyone you're gonna just like really special um you strike me as someone who appreciates growth and inner work and self-work

through through at least what what you've said today and shared today and the thoughts in the book and and I was wondering what what do you feel as being the hardest thing that you've worked on internally or the most challenging thing that you've worked on internally you said you can only compete with ourselves artistically but internally what has been the greatest challenge that you've worked on or are working on now no I would say losing weight was the biggest challenge of my life I weighed 318 pounds at one point and I was overweight my entire

life and and I tried everything from the beginning I went to Weight Watchers meetings with my mom you know like my whole life was dealing with weight issues and finally just honestly getting the right information because I would do whatever was recommended and nothing worked at one point in time I had a performance coach living at my house for two years who watched everything I ate and got me to exercise and change changed my life for the I got so much healthier with his help and he said in the last two years I've watched everything

you've done 99 out of 100 people would have shed 100 pounds and for some reason it just the weight just doesn't come off Zach he's just scratching his head I don't understand it must be you know must be something else and then finally uh I saw a nutritionist at UCLA and and I had by this point I believe nothing would change the situation my mom was obese my mom was in a wheelchair I just assumed that that was the way it was it was a genetic thing I assumed and I went to see a guy

at UCLA based on a mentor friend of mine saying I really want you to see this guy and um and I was sure it wouldn't work because I tried everything and nothing worked so um but I loved this person who recommended me to go he was one of my great mentors recently passed away his name was Mo Austin great great man he worked for Frank Sinatra and oh wow signed Jimi Hendrix and signed the sex pistols and uh unbelievable person unbelievable human being um and he he was the one who got me to see this

nutritionist at UCLA he said just go to see this guy go to see the guy that I send you to and do whatever he said and and I did and um I lost like 140 pounds 135 pounds in 14 months wow but that was probably the most radical just because it was a lifelong issue and I believed it couldn't change eventually I believed it couldn't change because I tried everything and it was in some ways this is an interesting the moral of the story is through giving up I turned myself over to this nutritionist I

didn't do what I thought was right I did what he thought was right and what he suggested sounded crazy to me but I did what he said what he thought was right and it worked in the same like I was I've uh never exercised in my life and then I started hanging out with Laird Hamilton and these incredible athletes because when I lost a bunch of weight they invited me to start training with them and I just wanted to be around them because they're such interesting people like I like being around people who are good

at what they're good at especially when what they're good at is different than what I'm good at it's just interesting yes the way they see the world so I got to hang out with these incredible athletes and um and through giving myself to them of doing what they said you know I first day I went I couldn't do one push-up and then and I said I can't do it it's like don't say you can't do it so you haven't done it yet and then they you know trained me where I could do a hundred consecutive

push-ups like crazy things yeah yeah you reminded me of um Thomas Edison's statement of uh when you feel you've exhausted all options remember this you haven't and I I think it's so interesting with health specifically it's it's fascinating that you chose that but I think that's so true where you think you're doing everything right and I've experienced that with myself as well especially with my with my gut and inflammation where I was like I was doing everything right I'm really living a healthy life and still having this and then again passing myself over yeah to

an amazing coach who's just told me exactly what I need to eat and what and all of a sudden you feel better and it's almost like magic when it happens yes and but it's also fighting the right coach because you could see 10 other coaches and do what they say and it doesn't work yeah it's we're so different that's another thing the idea that one size fits all yeah it's like there is no one answer for anyone we have to find our path you could have seen probably many different monks and not have the experience

you had it was that monk spoke to you I remember the first time I saw ramdas speak I felt like this is the first spiritual teacher that really speaks to me the next one was tick not Han when I saw Han speak I was so I felt so much peace in my body hearing him speak that I couldn't even hear what he was saying I I uh went into a trance in his presence and this is with 2 000 people you know in a room of 2 000 people he stepped out on stage and I

felt like I was gonna pass out yeah that's how much PC carried so being seeing these things seeing these incredible teachers and these deep souls and getting inspired and learning from them all is um that's the work yeah absolutely and and you're right that finding our mentors our guides our teachers is such a or people that inspire you is such a such a big part of life and I found studying their stories and studying their their life it gives so much texture to your own as well and you know when when you look at passing

these things on when you look at passing you know as you start this book by talking about how you're like these aren't facts then my thoughts and hopefully they they help and support you when you think about giving this I can imagine a lot of young parents who are listening thinking well how do I help my child tap into their creativity how do I have help even if it's not your child but my friend my family member what uh what have you found helpful ways in being a proponent of ideas that you believe in have

you found specific things to be more authentic and useful and hence translate better well I think in general people don't like to be told what to do so the best way that you could Inspire someone to do something is through the way that you carry yourself and if you if you act in a creative way in the world and you do it to the best of your ability and if someone else recognizes it it might Inspire them to do the same so I think it's hard to teach someone something that we don't practice we live

to practice it yeah that's the hardest part yeah yeah but it's also the most fun it's like yeah yeah and it's our purpose it's the reason we're on this planet is to do this work to do our work whatever that is whatever our part is to play our part in this giant Symphony when when you're trying to find your part that's the part I think that confuses or concerns so many people because so many parts today have become barcodes or conveyor belts and there's so many of you doing your part it may feel sometimes where

it's like well I work in a company where we all do the same thing like what is my part I think there's such a we've been talking about originality the whole time but I think so many people feel like what they do is so so much of a commodity it's not original when someone's searching for that purpose as you said your purpose is to Play Your Part which I think is beautiful and I couldn't agree more a few years ago I really came to the conclusion I realized that what I do is not better than

anyone or worse than anyone it's not early than anyone or later than anyone it's not for anyone or not for anyone it's it is just what I meant to do it's just my role and that's such a liberating place to live from absolutely but it's it's it almost feels like today there's so much pressure for people to pursue that or find that yes that they either don't find it or they get scared to look for it what have you found to be useful on that well I want to say that given the example you gave

of the cookie cutter work that's right um maybe your purpose in life isn't related to your job maybe your job is your job and the job is the thing that supports you and then the rest of your waking hours are devoted to your purpose whatever that is yeah and a lot of us are trying to make it the same thing yeah and and it's beautiful when it happens but it doesn't always happen and it's out of our control also yeah we can decide I would say if you need to have a job to support yourself

that's great that's a noble thing to do and follow your dreams but I'm not saying they're one thing they don't have to be one thing and don't let following your dreams undermine your ability to support yourself it could do it could actually do the opposite if you decide I want to be a comedian and I'm putting all my eggs in the comedian basket and I'm going to be a comedian the pressure of having a support support yourself will change you as a comedian not for the better you you want the stability of being able to

take care of yourself in the world to be free to do whatever your passion is whatever it is fishing you know whatever it is yeah and and that's so true that I think the scarcity ruins the art right it's the abundance of I did my day job I'm now safe and secure I can be autistic as opposed to sometimes and actually I'm going to debate my own statement there because sometimes it also feels like the pain is the pain of trying to do something is is what creates good art as well but yeah I mean

I'm but but it could be there's pain in it anyway there's pain anyway there's pain in you know getting up in front of people and them not laughing is painful if that means you also can eat I don't know if that makes it less more or less painful yeah yeah definitely it's almost like giving ourselves permission to make art like I feel like there's a moment where you go now I'm worthy almost but what you're saying is you are always worthy because it's who you are yes you're always Worthy is who you are yeah why

do you think we don't feel worthy of anything not just make it up but so many of us I think feel a sense of like we're not worthy to do what we love we're not worthy to share our purpose or our passion there's a sense of we don't want to give us I think there's a mythology that the people who make things that we love are special people and that we think that they're you know the people on Mount Olympus and they're these magic people who are geniuses and then there's the rest of us and

that's not the case it's like we're all just people we're all doing our best we all are good at some things not good at other things we're humans and sometimes we find a way to make something beautiful but that's it so do you know what I mean there's no there are no special people really we're all special yeah yeah yeah and I I everyone please listen to that again and again and again because it's that's the mess of like that person's gifted they're special They did something unique and I promise you if you knew them

20 years ago you wouldn't think that no but you just met them at this precipice of their life they don't think so they don't think that yeah or if they do think so their art will suffer yeah the ones who believe the hype yeah yeah how did you respond what was your first time you felt and even if maybe you didn't even allow yourself to feel it but what was the first time you experienced success and how did you respond to it because I hear so many people say I just wanted to repeat it right

and that again getting coined that same when was the first time you experienced maybe even felt successful and how did you respond to it my first memory of outward success came when um the first Beastie Boys album Licensed to Ill was the number one album in the country and I got a call from a person who I worked with saying you have the number one album I only know this because I remember the phone call had the call not happen I wouldn't I would have no idea how I felt and and the call came how

do you feel you have the number one album in the country and I remember saying I've never been more unhappy in my life and uh and I think we mistakenly think some kind of outward success is gonna change something in us and it does not it may make life more comfortable but it doesn't change Who We Are and any uh hole in ourselves that we're hoping to fill does not get filled and if you spend let's say you spend 20 years of your life working towards a goal that's going to solve everything and then you

finally achieve what you've been trying to do for 20 years toiling away I I won't have any fun in because I'm working for 20 years for this end and then you get that end and nothing changes that's when you get hopeless so it's not uncommon to see very successful artists who were very unhappy in life because they're working towards this the thing that's going to make them feel better and it does not make them feel better I'm sure you've got to meet many very successful business people billionaire people very few of them are happy very

few and they've reached their they've accomplished their dreams and are unhappy because we don't know what we want you know we don't know what's going to make us happy we're trying to fill something that maybe can't be filled through material or uh cultural success public success it's something else it's some internal thing what was it that at that time that put you I don't know I don't know I think it was more I think it was more just the reality of well that doesn't matter at all and it's always been I'll say I like when

people like the things I make of course and it changes nothing yeah it changes nothing yeah yeah I I found that there were only a few things through my monk experience that helped me realize what what made a difference one was something we're experiencing today which I really feel from you in Homer who's always been his he's filmed every episode pretty much we've done for the past continents how long now but that there was a Stillness and a quiet and a presence and so the first thing was presence the the idea that presence is a

big part of joy and happiness and just being able to actually be here right now in the way you said you're one of your favorite books was um where you go there you are wherever you go there wherever you go there yeah yeah wherever you go there you are um presence the other one is learning and growth the idea that we're growing we're evolving we're learning there is some some kind of stimulation of Evolution we all need to evolve the third one was achievement there was a sense of achievement but I think today's sense of

achievement has become about an external metric as opposed to do we even think that's worthy of achieving or pursuing and then the fourth which to me it sometimes is the most important is the service element the the act the offering that we were working always in devotion and those were like four really simple things that I think have always a formed part of the the mocktail of joy happiness success when you you said something really beautiful there you said the first time you fell outward success when was the first time you experienced inward success or

or felt that or is that something that's constantly important no that's something probably making something as it would have been one of the very first records I ever made the experience in the studio of hearing something that I haven't heard before getting excited by it and then maybe going out and hearing it in the club you know like even getting the club to play it just so I could hear it in the club that experience of like wow there it is or the first time you hear something that you make on the radio it's very

exciting not because of what it means but just I spent my whole life listening to music on the radio and now there's something I made on the radio I still have this experience on a semi-regular basis just out in the world I'll be somewhere and in a coffee shop and a song come on that I produced and the feeling is like wow can you believe it's just out there like that I remember I remember I I could choke myself up I can remember being in the room what we were doing like and now it's playing

here how crazy is the world I went to WrestleMania yesterday and a song I produced was played at WrestleMania I wasn't expecting it I wasn't expecting it I was like Wow WrestleMania it's crazy yeah and you still feel that today that's what says it's just so wild yeah you can't believe it yeah it's crazy it's magic that I I love I love that seeing like how long have you done this now like how long have you done what you did 35 years yeah like there was I I got to go to uh I've been a

Manchester United Support my whole life and I got to go again recently I have a really wonderful relationship with the club and I I went to watch a game recently when I was back in England and it was the first time I got to meet uh legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson and he's he's the most decorated manager in premier league history and United's longest standing manager and you know worked with the greats and I got to meet him for the first time and we were just hanging out and talking and having lunch before the before

the game and what I loved what you were saying about you love watching people with greatness what I loved about him was he was talking about football like a soccer for those who do but he was talking about football like a fan yeah still yes like I was like I was like Sir Alex you gave me the best memories of my childhood I was naming all these games that they'd won and I I knew he knew that it's like me telling you my favorite songs you've worked on I know you know them but I had

to tell him for my sake and he was like living each game with me this is the first and I was like how are you still you know how is it that it's still so fresh and I guess same question to you like how is it still so fresh that at WrestleMania a song surprises you and you still get that child like like because it doesn't make sense none of it makes sense I remember the ordinary situation that it came out of I remember the studio in um it was the one of the first times

I ever came to California I remember it's not a studio now it's a flower shop where the studio used to be uh off of La Cienega Boulevard it was this tiny little studio and I remember being in this tiny little room and one of the first times in California and what a fun experience it was making the record and how cool it was and that now however many years later 25 years later seeing a stadium of 80 000 people and the song comes on unexpectedly it's just bizarre it's bizarre because I know the modest beginnings

of all of these and it's just regular people like you and me showing up somewhere and making something that we think is cool it's unbelievable that it has some life that goes on yeah it's crazy but I love that because what I'm hearing you say that it's like you took notes like there were mental notes of like that moment we went in that like there's a gratitude and there's a perspective of it wasn't just as you've just laid out it wasn't just about having a record on the radio it was all those minute small moments

of Discovery and of intrigue and curiosity which which you made a note of somewhere in your subconscious that you then recall and live through when you hear that song in that moment you're not living there just listening to a song at WrestleMania or on the radio or number one it's like you're living through all those miniature moments that that created it yeah and I never listen back to music that I work on so when I do hear it out in the wild it's it's funny it's like wow look it's still there crazy is there a

reason you don't listen to it is that because I'm always making something new I've had no reason to go back yeah you never even feel a sense of nostalgia like uh no unless unless I'm working with an artist and there's an example that comes up where I think oh we did something like this a long time ago this might listen to this and see if this gives you any inspiration yeah so more more as a tool but I would do the same for something I didn't make you know be let's listen to this Stevie Wonder

song because we maybe we'll learn something same yeah yeah that makes sense there's there's a beautiful chapter in this book that I want to talk about which is all about memories and subconscious um and I felt that you talk about this idea of larger intelligence and and tapping into and even making almost journaling about dreams which I found was something that I'm definitely going to practically take on so I've never journaled about dreams I know I dream and there's times when I forget and there's times when I remember and sometimes I'll tell someone sometimes I

won't and I I when I read you say that you actually wrote about dreams and journaled about dreams I was like I'm going to start doing that now so that's something you've directly impacted me to do as a practical thing because I feel like I've had fascinating dreams in the past I've forgotten it's it's too messy and they go and they dissipate very quickly so quickly very quickly so quickly and that's when I was reading that I was like okay I need to hold on to these so some of the tricks I I yes talked

to some degree in the book but not so I just touch on it in the book there's so much to talk about um but when you wake up you don't move at all because the the way the Dream works it's a chemical reaction in your brain so it's also good to know if you wake up from a scary dream and you don't want to think of about it if you just shake your head around it'll be gone so you keep pen and paper right next to your bed and the minute you wake up you grab

the pen and paper moving as little as possible and just start writing and even if you only remember I remember there's a part in the dream where this happens write the part you remember and you'll see through the process of writing more of the dream will appear it's you don't even when you wake up you don't you won't remember as much of it as you know but once you start writing you can start tapping into more Oh and before that this happened and then this happened after that and you'll start noticing more details and the

more you practice it the better you get at it so I did that for a period of time and at the time the dreams made no sense they were just these abstract you know Salvador Dolly paintings and yeah and just went on abstract I have no idea strange strange dreams no idea what they are and then years later I found that journal and and I read it and when they were happening I thought every dream every night was completely different and none of them more about anything I understood and years later when I look back

at it all the dreams were about the same thing and they all were it was so clear what my subconscious was telling me uh I don't remember what it was because it's probably 20 20 some odd years ago but I remember being shocked by oh this didn't make I was too close to it to understand it I was too close and with a little bit of distance you can see what it is yeah yeah and it's also interesting to see how your subconscious Works how it how your subconscious abstracts reality to show it to us

in a way that's intriguing and interesting but not obvious it's very beautiful the reason why I love that so much is I even had to retract the immediate question that came into my mind and I retracted it because and I'll tell everyone what it is but I retracted it because I just love the act of observing and being present with your dream is as you're showing us how to do and the modern day question is well what's the benefit of that like why would you do that and and when I was asking in my head

I was like if I just listen to you and I'm listening to you and I'm remember reading what I read and I'm thinking the benefit is just the act of observing and just being there and and being and then like you said being able to then look back potentially the potential in the future Maybe not maybe it is to see if there are connections and the subconscious you're so right is is speaking to us in almost such a compassionate Artful way yes without telling you on the nose but it's an important Point don't do things

just because you think you're gonna get something for it that's not why we do things do what's interesting to you follow what's interesting don't worry about the outcome yeah we don't know we can't predict the outcome we can never predict the outcome follow your own inner guide it directs us it might not make sense it might not make sense to us might not make sense to anyone else certainly won't make sense to anyone else but it might not even make sense to us and that's okay it's it's fine yeah listen to yourself why is it

telling you this why is it telling you this I told I mentioned my heart surgery earlier my son was born 18 months before the heart surgery I didn't know about the heart issue I knew about the heart issue and that it was something I was born with but I didn't know that it was anything I would need to deal with Wow and a friend of mine said when my son was born you're going to have a whole lot of energy and your son is gonna want his mom so you're going to have all this energy

and nothing to do with it so pick something interesting to you or that you want to do or something you want to accomplish because you're going to have all this extra energy with nowhere to put it because you're going to want it to go to your son but he's not going to want that he's he's going to be taken so I decided I want to learn uh deadlifts heavy deadlifts I I the only exercise experience I had was with Leonard Hamilton and we didn't do any any formal exercises like that we did a lot of

weight training but it was more balance and coordination oriented and super fun really interesting and challenging as challenging mentally as it was physically usually you'd cognitively not be able to do it before you physically couldn't do it which was fascinating to me too it was never like sitting on a treadmill looking at the TV it was always if you were not paying full attention to everything you were doing you'd probably get hurt yeah so really you're focused and I like focusing on things so it was fun um so then I thought okay learning like proper

form Olympic deadlifting I'm doing the Olympic dead lifting and as the weights got heavier I realized I was I had this anxiety before a lift that didn't make sense to me and even to the point where I talked to the trainer and I said something doesn't make sense I'm gonna pick up this weight and one of two things is gonna happen the weight will go off the ground or the weight will not go off the ground if the weight doesn't go off the ground we'll take off five pounds and then I'll try it again what

if it goes off the ground or doesn't go off the ground I don't care I don't care at all why would I have anxiety if I don't care um turns out the wisdom of the body knowing that when I finally found out what was going on in my heart and I talked to the heart surgeon and yes what kind of exercise I do and I said oh I'm doing this you know heavy Olympic dead lifting he just he put his hand his head in his hands and he said every time you lifted the weight you're

playing Russian roulette every time wow he's like there was no worse thing you could have done with what was going on in your heart so and again I didn't know that but something in my body had all this anxiety around something that I didn't care about at all yeah so there there are levels of wisdom that we don't know we don't understand so when you have an intuition to take the stairs instead of the elevator or I always go home this way but today for some reason I feel like going this other way yeah or

maybe I'm going to cross street and walk on that side of the street whatever it is whatever little intuitions in your body that come listen to them see what happens be open to there's more going on than we know there's a lot more than our conscious mind can can pick up going on yeah we often do so many things because we think they're right we think they're healthy they're the thing you're meant to do and it but it doesn't sit with you somewhere yeah and and I think so many people have I know for a

fact that I feel like I started following my intuition when I was probably around 14. and so that voice is very loud but I know a lot of people that I've worked with and coached and also worked with in in my life that started stop listening to their inner voice at 14. yeah and so it's very quiet now and so it becomes harder to really hear it yes because we've suppressed it for so long and then the the ego or the outside noise is so loud that we're Guided by that we're not misguided by that

it's hard to tap into it again have you found anything that helps you tap into it when you feel like you're losing it or have you met someone and you've worked with and you've said hey just try this to tap into it again and the examples you just gave right now kind of feel real too where it can be something as simple as take that route do that because I find like people lose touch with it absolutely I would say when when you're getting advice of any kind expert advice from whoever it is no maybe

that's maybe that applies to me maybe that maybe it doesn't but it's okay it's okay no there's no um bad intention on the wisdom that's being shared with us people are offering their best information yeah but they're the information that they're offering is based on their experience so no even when it's someone you really respect when they're suggesting something maybe that would work maybe I'll try it maybe not but listen to what's going on in inside yourself and I would say getting to wherever it is that you've gotten we've usually gotten there through listening to

something going on inside of ourselves I I have many successful musician friends who have gotten there through listening to what's going on inside themselves and then in success think it's time to start taking direction from the outside world makes no sense it's hard you eat yeah like you either do it at the beginning or you do at the end and it's almost like that they're the same as in the sense of what you were saying earlier the idea of there's this beginner's mindset where you're always open to hear people's thoughts so you don't know there's

that idea of I don't know we have to feel yes and see but that's different to I don't know that for someone else must know or I've known up till now and now no one knows I don't know and nobody knows no one knows and and everyone's intentions are good they're not out to get us yeah but nobody knows they think they know the the wisest thing we can do is know enough to know we don't know yeah if you start from maybe maybe that's true it could work who knows yeah not hold anything so

firm is this is the way it is I know how it is anytime you know how it is your world just got a lot smaller yeah tiny yeah there's yeah it's this this idea is crystallizing for me as we're talking this idea that you could be thinking you can be doing you can be feeling or you can be knowing and a lot of us try and play so much emphasis on knowing but no one actually knows and so it's better to either change our thoughts change our Behavior or focus on our feelings and sense as

you've been saying all along it's like you've got to feel how it yeah and a mad thing will always be right no no no no no no no there is no well there is no yeah and there isn't even there isn't even on all right yeah pay attention to what's going on inside yourself there's so much information going on inside of ourselves intuitive information Rick this has been such a uh beautiful and fascinating conversation for so many reasons we we end every on purpose episode with a final five uh and these answers are answered in

one word or one sentence each so you have that kind of capacity and I want you to tell us about your new podcast that's coming out as well so we'll talk about the end but uh the first question is what is the best advice you've ever heard received or given uh don't listen to anyone and what is the worst advice you've ever heard received or given don't do the thing you love question number three how would you define your current purpose making every step that I make in the interest of the highest good uh question

number four what's something that you believe strongly that you think other people find it hard to understand everything that's brilliant everything everything and Fifth and final question if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be love each other beautiful Rick Rubin everyone the name of the book is the creative act a way of being if you don't already have a copy again I highly recommend it uh I promise you it will be an investment that will be something you pick up for years it's not a book

you've read and put down and then you never see it again it's going to be a book that you're going to go back to again and again and again day off today month after month and find new gems and new jewels and new wisdom that will inspire your creative Journey so if you've been someone who's been blocked stuck trying to find out you know where that's gone or haven't ever seen it before this will be the book to unlock it I highly recommend it and uh Rick you also have a new podcast as well yeah

it's called tetragrammatin I've been doing the broken record podcast for about five years where I mainly speak to musicians and I'm so interested in in people who are not musicians I mean it's just one of the things that I'm involved in but I'm much more Curious than just about music and it just seemed like why would I do that yeah so I recorded the first 15 of them okay amazing amazing where can people find it everywhere everywhere okay okay make sure you go and subscribe to the podcast I've got 15. I'm sure they're coming out

weekly or they'll come out they'll come out weekly and sounds like I'm sure you've got some phenomenal guests already lined up so please everyone who's listening and watching with the book go ahead and listen to the podcast as well I'm sure you're going to be hearing amazing interviews and introductions and new insights on people that you know and love and I'm sure there'll be some new people there too but uh make sure you do that Rick thank you so much for today thank you for your energy your presence your uh work and putting this together

and making sure you put out the book you wanted to put out I'm very grateful for it I was as I said I was personally amazed at how you'd transformed how people would have thought about a book from you and I hope it inspires many more more people to find their truth as well so beautiful thank you so much for reading it thank you thank you I appreciate you if you love this episode you'll really enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion my

fears are only going to continue to show me what I'm capable of the more that I face my fears the more that I feel I'm gaining strength I'm gaining wisdom and I just want to keep doing that