Rick Rubin ON: Why Unconventional Methods Lead to Success & The Secret to Genuinely Love What You Do

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How do you feel you have the numbering album in
the country, And I remember saying I've never been more
unhappy in my life. Let's say you spend twenty 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.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Podcast On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone, welcome back
to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Thanks to each and every one of you that come
back every week to listen, learn, and grow. I'm so
grateful that together we're trying to make the world a happier, healthier,
and more healed place. And you know, my goal in

(00:41):
life with this show is to try and introduce you
to people that I find have fascinating insights, have counterintuitive
points of view, are able to open our minds, help
us imagine and think differently. And today's guest is someone
that our teams have been in touch for around maybe
three years at this point and was waiting for this
opportunity to sit with him in his presence in person,

(01:04):
and so I feel really grateful to have this opportunity.
I'm speaking about none other than nine time Grammy winning producer,
named one of the one hundred most influential people in
the world by Time and the most successful producer in
any genre by Rolling Stone. Rick Rubin, of course, has
collaborated with artists from Tom Petty to Adele, Johnny Cash,
to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, to Slayer,

(01:27):
Kanye West, to The Strokes and System of a Down
to Jay Z. Rick Rubin, Welcome to On Purpose. Thank
you for being here, Rick.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Thank you for having me, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Just from the moment you walked in, it was I
felt a sense of synergy which was really beautiful to
experience as we were just walking over here. And I
would never start an interview with this question. Today, we're
obviously talking about your new book, which by the way,
needs no introduction in and of itself. It's been performing
incredibly well. It's been on the New York Times bestseller

(01:59):
list for for months now. The Creative Act A Way
of Being. If you don't already have this book, I
highly recommend it. Whether you think you're a creative or not.
This is a book that's going to help you tap
inward into helping you access a part of yourself that
you may not even know exists, or refine and deepen
apart that does exist. So highly recommend the creative act

(02:21):
that we're talking about today.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Rick.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
I wouldn't usually start with this question, but I feel
like you're someone that When I was preparing for this
interview today, this was the question that stood out to
me the most, and so I had to ask it
to you. You start this book by saying, we're all creators, right,
We're all creators, and I'm intrigued to know who have
you created? Like? Who are you like at the core

(02:42):
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.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I don't know if trying would be the word I
would use. I would say 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.

(03:28):
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

(03:50):
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 the work that I do.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, 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 liked the restaurant or you didn't like a.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Restaurant, or it's automatic. 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, and I think we
tend to overthink and put layers on top of something

(04:31):
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.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
That, absolutely. 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 five to
ten people to laugh at a joke or listen to

(04:57):
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 like to
sense that authenticity and feel how you feel a lot
of people are scared of that. A lot of people

(05:17):
would rather mold and become malleable and evolve and become
who people want them to be. Why do you think
that is?

Speaker 1 (05:25):
People like to be accepted. People want to be accepted,
And I'm suggesting in the book that the best way
to be accepted is to be yourself. 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 like nothing is there.

(05:47):
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,

(06:09):
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 learn anything is through the reality of seeing what's
around us and learning there are these different points of

(06:30):
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 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

(06:52):
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 someone who
says terrible heartbreak, and you may not be experiencing terrible heartbreak,
but hearing them honestly talk about a human experience, even

(07:18):
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.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
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 face is the face that we only show
our family and friends. And the third face, they say,

(07:52):
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 to come that self,
that's where all this beauty and imagination and creativity stems from.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, it's the most it seems to be the most
interesting and the most particular. You know, 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.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
For all of us, we get more of a sense
of reality. Even if our views are different than everyone else's,
it 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 to 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?

(08:50):
You know, I never assume that I know anything.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
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

(09:13):
sense of safety and security, and we feel vulnerable if
someone else's viewpoint that seems opposite to ours could be true.
So that's one reason. The second is we generally struggle
as humans to entertain to opposing ideas. We struggle to
understand the nuance that someone can be kind but also

(09:33):
be assertive, or someone can be complex yet really compassionate,
like there 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 sh
shades of gray that are changing. So were you always

(09:56):
that way? Always that curious? Did that start somewhere? Does
that come from parent? Where did that come for you?
I'm intrigued.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
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 twenty two years

(10:23):
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 vegan. I
was committed to being a vegan. So it's a perfect

(10:44):
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 live in an old belief
if you believe the same thing that you believe twenty
years ago about everything I don't know that you're living.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
And so we've got to have that openness and the
ability to.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Cure my curiosity, a curiosity about what's it like 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.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
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

(11:52):
look at their past, I can often be like, oh,
there are the dots and they can probably see them too,
of why they've chosen that path, not that that path
is right or.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
It takes a.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
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 was assuming that I was going to read a
memoir or like stories and tells. I assume that what
it would be in my belief system of what a

(12:22):
book is by a prominent figure who's had a life
such as yours. And then I open 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

(12:43):
breaking down what someone sees as a book. I mean,
the color does it. 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? Andy? 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.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
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

(13:29):
to learn to argue the points opposite what you believe.
You know, if you don't understand all sides of the story,
you don't really understand the story. So it's helpful to
understand the whole picture and hold all of the beliefs
softly enough to be surprised and learn something new and

(13:53):
change everything you know.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
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 any personal endeavor in life where creativity had
to be sacrificed or you felt pushed to sacrifice the

(14:15):
where you felt it was being where there was a
bit of a part of you that was like I
might have to let go.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
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
not there yet. It's very impressive. I love it. But

(14:45):
within the confines of creativity and making things, I know
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 always knew I would make

(15:06):
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 the universe allowed
me to make things as a full time thing in life.
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, it's amazing. How we always talk about how like
life imitates 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 you find so effortless here.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
There's a life in 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

(16:01):
fearless artist, and I told me, I'm going into the surgery.
I'm really nervous. He's like, Oh, You're going to be fine.
Why you even thinking about that, Like, that's that's a
crazy thought, because he's confident. He's fearless in life. Still,
the normal fears of life get me. But in art,
I know the real power in it is going to

(16:27):
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. So I know 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

(16:48):
want it because it's louder, quieter, softer, arder. It's pushing
some boundary. That's why I take note. It's not more
of the same, it's not just another it's the one
that makes you like, you stop and did I really

(17:09):
hear that? Did I really see that? What's going on here?
You know, 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 walk through
a story simply. I like the complexity and difficulty that

(17:30):
forces me as the viewer to participate in what's going on.
I'm not just being carried along.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
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?

Speaker 1 (17:51):
It is helpful, And one of the things is realizing
the attitude we bring to things changes it completely. 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 are no insects.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Where I grew up was just a very 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've

(18:40):
been going to Kauai for a long time and I
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, which is what my

(19:02):
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 twenty years ago.
I don't know if I could have done that thirty
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.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's that conditioning where we're all, as you said, trained, conditioned,
prepared for in a certain way.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, 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?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
No, I did not know that the.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Reason everyone's afraid of sharks is because of the movie Jaws.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Wow. That I mean that makes a lot of sense.
That makes the world of sense.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, the world.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
How.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, what we seek or what we shun comes from
a movie or a song or a visual demonstration of
but whatever it may be. And I find hence so
many fears are not real. And as we're talking about,
fear only or so often exists mainly in the mind.
And that's what we're talking about, is a construct of

(20:13):
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 and more academic or whatever it
may be. We have these again, constructs right and wrong, academic, creative,

(20:38):
mostly polar opposites. And you're actually saying, no, no, no,
this is something everyone can access and has access to.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
It 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.

(21:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah. Absolutely, as simple as that, as simple as a
car anything, there a sprinkle of this or that.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Yeah, So we're all doing it, and the book is
an invitation to open that channel as far and freely
as you can.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
It really does that. I really believe it does that.
I what I love about it is you can truly
turn to any page. And I know they say it's
about a lot of books, and 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,
the context is completely out. Whereas with this there truly
is that sense of if you're looking for that creativity,

(22:02):
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 I'll
touch on a few that I'm intrigued by and curious about.
But what would you say are the biggest blocks that

(22:22):
people have to being truly creative and imaginative.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
One big block is concerns about what other people think.
That's a big one. 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 really it's all in our head.
It comes back to this thing of what I think

(22:47):
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,
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

(23:10):
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

(23:32):
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 this segment of the audience is going to
like it or 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.

(23:54):
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 form.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
And that's what you see so much 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 a service, it's an offering.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
As you said, absolutely language and even an offensive song
is that to someone? To someone it's like I worked
with man Slayer and Slayer were a very controversial, aggressive man,
and the people who came to see them didn't come
to see them in filled with hate. They came to

(24:52):
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
people in the audience who seemed like other than this thing.
To devote themselves passionately to seemed like often hopeless people,

(25:14):
and for them to have something that they love was
beautiful to witness.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
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select countries in the EU and Australia. And 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

(27:34):
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, but it would take months before the

(27:54):
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, more feedback, and so in
that world, I find us looking so much at like, well,

(28:16):
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 dative? Even in movies
now I find like we're just taking old IP and
remaking stuff. There's very little new ip. You just keep

(28:37):
seeing old ip finding its way back into TV and movies.
Do you say that that's creativity being stifled and is
hampering creativity?

Speaker 1 (28:45):
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

(29:06):
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, that's the book I want to write.
And well, 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. It's a different book. And

(29:27):
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. 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,

(29:48):
but this is the book 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.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yes, that's brilliant. There isn't a love for so much,
just because I with my first book, I had I
had thought of the title when I was writing it
because it resonated to me, because it was playful but
also curious, and it felt true to me. It was
the biggest reason why I chosen the title. It just

(30:17):
it felt like it was truth. And so the title
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 forty
fifty years living as monks. And so the book was
almost an offering to them in the way you're saying,

(30:38):
and 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 remember fifteen out fourteen out

(31:01):
of seventeen imprints said no to that title, 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 in game. No, but we think we can. 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

(31:25):
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.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Do you see that as a block to creativity? And
how and how do you purify that?

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I think that the goal is to get to this.
This is how I see it. I don't know what
other people are going to think. I can't know what
other people are going to 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

(32:04):
do they line up and where are they different? And
that's how we make sense of the world. It's not
one story. We all have a story. We all have
something to say, and we can all learn from each other.
And 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

(32:26):
the songs have been written there it keeps happening. How
do new jokes come up? They're all it's like they're
all the same, but then they're all different and how
we interpret it and are each and it comes from
each of our life experiences which are different. We each
have our own family origin story, We each have our

(32:49):
own places that we grew up, the things that we saw.
We could go 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.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
So true. Yeah, you're reminding 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 there's the core, there's but it's still different. And
there's some beautiful I want to point out to everyone
because I really do want you to get this book.

(33:31):
Everyone's listening and watching right now, and there's I've like
Dougy it some pages that have some really beautiful moments.
I really like this because one thing I really aim
to do here 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 which

(33:54):
identifies why I brought up now because exactly what you
said breaking the sameness right, and we think there's the
sameness or 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

(34:15):
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, may a partner of thirty years that
you don't get along with, a person you saw on

(34:36):
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.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yes, there's 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? He's like, I could sing

(35:12):
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 felt
the trueness to him in singing it.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, and so he but everyone still thought the song
was about a woman.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
It is. It is about a song. But there's a
long history of songs that are love songs that could
be to a woman or could be devotional. It's interesting
when songs walk this line, or when we think we
know what a song's about and we think it's about
a romantic relationship, when it's really about their child. You

(35:58):
know that these devotional.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Song So, and I'm sharing this with all of you
listening and watching because 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 so change the environment. If we're
looking for a performance of a different nature, it can

(36:20):
help to change an element of the environment. Turning off
the lights and playing in the dark can create a
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

(36:40):
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

(37:02):
often these physical, tangible changes around us.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
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

(37:26):
starts coming down, we usually stop playing the song. 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

(37:48):
Peppers was there. 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 we
thought about what could we do for this experience to
make it the first different one instead of the fifth.

(38:09):
If the first four were bad, could have been the
first good one 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 a recording
studio with people working in an office and other musicians

(38:31):
and other places. We had our whole own world that
we created, 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, eight there, work there, and never
left until it was done. Well.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah, I love that one. An audience, this one makes sense,
but I think people need to do more. When an
artist 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 on one person who isn't part of the project,
that can be enough. While some artists may overdo a

(39:14):
performance for an audience and others may hold back, most
tend to be more focused with someone else present. Even
if your art is nonperformative, such as writing or cooking,
it was still likely changed with an observer present. The
goal is to find the specific parameters in each case
that bring out your best I love the idea. I

(39:34):
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 and
they were like fifteen of us present in the audience.
He got announced on the stage in front of an
audience that wasn't going to heckle or be the meanest

(39:55):
to him, and he got to practice and it was
just such a beautiful way to do that for your friends,
but to experience that. And 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 the theater said to us is they

(40:15):
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 fifty to one hundred people that
weekend watching the show just as a rehearsal. And it
was so useful to me before I went out, and
it was huge, like absolutely huge, So I loved that.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
One I was listening to a story on the way here.
I was listening to a podcast in the car and
it told the story about the Beatles that when the
Beatles were interviewed individually, they were all these thoughtful, interesting,
soulful people.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
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
being with each other changed the way that they appeared

(41:14):
in the world.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
M Wow, Yeah, that group aspect is so interesting. You've
just spulked 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

(41:36):
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 played their movies to each other before they went out,
and he was saying that that's how confident they felt

(41:57):
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 in 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.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yes, 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,
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.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah, how have you 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 one 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 ten

(42:59):
show 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

(43:20):
the opposing fans 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?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
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

(44:04):
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

(44:26):
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 the Grammys, where
we're saying 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

(44:49):
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 album than Drake's
album is. But the idea that one's better than the other,
it makes no sense. Who has a better diary entry.
It's like it's if we are actually making these personal things,

(45:14):
you can't compare them or 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

(45:38):
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.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah. Yeah, that's so true. And 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 seven hundred
thousand podcasts in the world, and today there's like two

(46:17):
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, there's seven
hundred podcasts. You don't need another podcast too late, too late,
exactly too late. And then now everyone's like, oh my god,
there's two million podcasts, Like it's too late, and we
do that, we start again, using a metric to say

(46:39):
and you'll only feel that way if you're planning to
repeat what's already been done, Because 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 just because every other podcast you
could be like, there's so many interview parks. There are

(47:00):
so many interview podcasts, that's true, and they're all different,
and they're all different exactly, you know. And we've got
introduced through your long term friend and my new mutual
friend Andrew Huberman, who's also been a guest on this podcast.
Is a phenomenal podcast. I love his podcast, but so
different to who I am, so different to what we do.
And then there's a million other friends that we have

(47:21):
that have shows. So the most common thing I hear
when it comes to creativity or it comes to tapping
into 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?

(47:41):
Because we're want to help, what are people's challenges? 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 bouts of procrastination or thinking? Yeah, and how
do you define it? Because I almost think.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
I would say 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

(48:18):
and try to solve it, but go do something else
and go 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 car came kind of close to me,
all of those things that living in the world, even

(48:39):
though it's not 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? What is it going to rain? These other
things are happening. That's different than just sitting in a
room looking at your life. Just those outside queues can

(49:06):
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 I was sitting here staring into each other's eyes,
and it's a beautiful idea I've had. There was a
period of time where I lost a whole bunch of weight,

(49:28):
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 in an office. Everything shifted just because we

(49:51):
were moving, we were doing something, there were external stimuli.
Even though the external stimuli had nothing to do with
what we were doing, it changed. It was a change
in context that really did make the conversation much more interesting.
And there's also something about when you're walking, you're not

(50:12):
looking at each other, so it's easier to go into
your own thoughts when you're not looking at someone. So
it's very interesting, a great experiment. Lost a lot of weight,
and the meetings were the best they've ever Doten.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There's a
lot of working couple 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

(50:48):
what you're saying is you're walking with each other, yes,
and you're looking off into the same directions. You're almost
creating a future, the idea that you're forward your future, forward,
your future facing.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
It's funny my wife and I whenever we get to
a new table and we're sitting 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 the cheek.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah. I love that. And that makes so much sense
with leadership meetings, creative meetings, and 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,

(51:40):
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
come back.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
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. We're not thinking about
driving once we've been driving for a while, but just
driving ideas come. I know many musicians, singers who will

(52:16):
listen to the instrumental music in the car and then
sing along when they're driving because they're more free than
when they're sitting with a recorder. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Absolutely, absolutely, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, no, And 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
going to figure it out. And the idea that actually

(52:48):
going on a walk, picking up something else. 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 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

(53:09):
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,

(53:31):
they found two sets of charts of types of employees,
employee and employee B. Employee A knew lots of people
that knew each other, and employee B knew lots of
people that didn't know each other. And they were looking
at which ones more creative, innovative and hence more imaginative
inside a company, and they found it was employee B

(53:52):
because employee A knew people who knew people who knew
them back any more circles closed closed circles that created
these echo chains. And you asked the same ten 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

(54:13):
think applies to environment as much as it applies to people,
is more random and disconnected, you have more chance of
having an original, authentic or idea spark as opposed to
you surrounded by the four same people and you talk
about the same things absolutely, And that to me has
always been what I'm trying to do. It's like, I

(54:35):
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 use 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, yes, Like I
love that. I have thought about that for so long,
submerging yourself. We've lost that ability to submerge. We don't

(55:00):
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.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
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 once you start down a thread,
you just keep pulling forever if you're interested. Many of
the artists that are great at what they do are

(55:36):
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,
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

(55:58):
their friends, 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, ten 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,

(56:23):
I don't mean breaking through to the audience. I mean
breaking through with themselves to where they get passed all
of the 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.

(56:48):
I just want to ask about being being a monk.
Tell me about your experience.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
What would you like to know?

Speaker 1 (56:54):
How did you choose to do this first?

Speaker 2 (56:56):
I was born and raised in London, and when I
was around eighteen 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 speak. And so I

(57:18):
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 London,
and so I'd go and one of the nights I went,
I was invited to hear a monk speak. And I
was eighteen years old and my I didn't really have
a perception of monkst like, I didn't really have any

(57:41):
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 eighteen.
And my friends were very persuasive and convincing. They said,
yeah it, we'll go. And so I went to this
event kind of like not expecting anything, wanting to leave,

(58:05):
and I was just completely flawed. This monk was from India,
he was born and raised in India, a thick Indian acts,
and he was wearing saffron robes. And there was nothing
externally that I should or should have found it attractive
about him as an eighteen year old guy. But his

(58:26):
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 eighteen year old self was just

(58:47):
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,
and it was like 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

(59:07):
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 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,

(59:29):
I turned down my corporate job office and actually went
and lived there for three years. 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

(59:50):
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 part 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 realized, so I always ask people who's your monk? Like,
who's the person you need to me that you haven't

(01:00:12):
met yet that could change your life.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
There's an 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 a monk. You can't be a bad monk.

(01:00:35):
If you're living as a monk, you're a monk.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
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 and essence and just in
spirit even in just your presence and what you talk about,
the vocabulary you have that. Where did that get infused
with the work you do? Like or is? Again? Has

(01:00:58):
that always been there?

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Or what was?

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Georgia?

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
I learned to meditate when I was fourteen, 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.

(01:01:21):
Had I not stopped, I wouldn't have recognized that. So
stopping and starting was a very clear Wow, this this
is a big part of how I see the world already,
even with not doing it for the last five years.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
What type of meditation is in how gm im? Oh? Okay,
it got it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
I learned TM changed my life and since then I've
learned for PASTAA and I do many different many different
practices and breathing practices and Taichi and many different meditative practices.
I often come back to TM, maybe because it was
first and it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Yes, absolutely, simple and beautiful, yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting
to me and meditation just seems to be. But there
was definitely a generation where meditation became really prominent in
the lives of so many especially so many people today
that you meet that are doing You know, Ray Dario
has been on the podcast a million times and again

(01:02:14):
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 there's
so much more talk about breath work and meditation. And
if you had any words of wisdom or insight for

(01:02:37):
anyone who's trying it, experimenting, what would you suggest to them,
as someone who's done it for so long, had breaks
found usefulness in it? Are there any things that come
to your heart or for front of you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
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

(01:03:08):
a as a way in and find the practice that
works for you. And I've also used like yoga nidra
or different guided meditations which also are beautiful and helpful. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Absolutely, I used a load of Yoga Nidra when I
had my harnia surgery. I was like, I couldn't get
a sleep because of the paid and so yoga needra
is beautiful if you have trouble sleeping. Everyone Yogendra is
like really special. You strike me as someone who appreciates
growth and inner work and self work through through at

(01:03:42):
least what you've said today and shared today and the
thoughts in the book. And I was wondering, what do
you feel has been 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 all working on now?

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
No, I would say losing weight was the biggest challenge
of my life. I weighed three hundred and eighteen pounds
at one point, and I was overweight my entire life,
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

(01:04:26):
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 my life for the I got
so much healthier with his help. And he said, in

(01:04:47):
the last two years, I've watched everything you've done, ninety
nine out of one hundred people would have shared one
hundred pounds, and for some reason, it just the weight
just doesn't come off. His just scratching his head. I
don't understand it must be, you know, must be something else.
And then finally I saw a nutritionist at UCLA, and

(01:05:08):
I hadn't by this point, I believed 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 I was sure it wouldn't

(01:05:29):
work because I'd tried everything and nothing worked. So 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, a great, great man. He worked
for Frank Sinatra and signed Jimmy Hendrix and signed the
sex Pistols and unbelievable person, unbelievable human being. And he

(01:05:52):
was the one who got me to see this nutritionists
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 I did, and I
lost like one hundred and fortund one hundred and thirty
five pounds in fourteen months. 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

(01:06:14):
change because I tried everything, and it was In some ways,
this is 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 thought was right

(01:06:36):
and it worked and the same like I was, I've
never exercised in my life. And then I started hanging
out with Larrd 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

(01:06:56):
I'm good at. It's just interesting the way they see
the world. So I got to hang out with these
incredible athletes and through giving myself to them of doing
what they said. You know, I first day when I
couldn't do one push up and then and I say
I can't do it, don't say you can't do it

(01:07:17):
so you haven't done it yet. And then they, you know,
train me where I could do one hundred consecutive push
ups like crazy things. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Yeah, you reminded me of Thomas Edison's statement of when
you feel you've exhausted all options, remember this, you haven't,
And 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 eve experienced that with myself as well, especially with

(01:07:46):
my gut and inflammation, where I was like I was
doing everything right, I'm living a healthy life and still
having this, and then again passing myself over to an
amazing coach who's just told me exactly what I need
to eat, and all of a suddn you feel better
and it's almost like magic when it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Yes, but it's also fighting the right coach because you
could see ten 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. 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 had the experience you had. It

(01:08:23):
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. And
the next one was Tick, not Han. When I saw
tick not 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 went into
a trance in his presence. And this is with two

(01:08:45):
thousand people, you know, in a room of two thousand people.
He stepped out on stage and I felt like I
was going to pass out. YEA, that's how much PC carried.
So seeing these things, seeing these incredible teachers and these
deep souls and getting inspired and learning from them all
is that's the work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Absolutely, 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've 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

(01:09:27):
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, them 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 he help even if
it's not your child, but my friend, my family member.

(01:09:50):
What are 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 well.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I think in general people don't like to be told
what to do. So the best way that you can
inspire someone to do something is through the way that
you carry yourself. And 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,

(01:10:26):
it might inspire them to do the same. So I
think it's hard to teach someone something that we don't practice.
We have to practice it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Yeah, that's the hardest part. Yeah, but it's also the
most fun. It's like ye, and it's our purpose. It's
the reason where 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.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
When you're trying to find your part, that's the part
I think that confuses or concerns so many peop 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

(01:11:13):
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
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

(01:11:35):
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'm meant to do. It's just my role. And
that's such a liberating place to live for us. Absolutely,
But it's almost feels like today there's so much pressure

(01:11:59):
for people to pursue that will find that yes, so
they either don't find it or they get scared to
look for it. What have you found to be useful
on that?

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
Well, I want to say that giving the example, you
gave of the cookie cutter work. 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.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Yeah, and a lot of us are trying to make
it the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Yeah, and it's beautiful when it happens, but it doesn't
always happen, and it's out of our control. Also, 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,

(01:12:53):
And don't let following your dreams undermine your ability to
support yourself. It could do 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
to support support yourself will change you as a comedian,
not for the better. You want the stability of being

(01:13:17):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Yeah, 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 could
be autistic as opposed to sometimes Actually, I'm going to
debate my own statement, because sometimes it also feels like
the pain is the pain of trying to do something

(01:13:50):
is what cbo as well. But yeah, I mean, I'm but.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
But it could be there's pain in it anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
There's pain anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
There's pain in you know, getting up in front of
people and them not laughing is painful.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Yeah, yeah, there's pain in it anyway. Yeah, there's plain
in it anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
If that means you also can eat, I don't know
if that makes it less more or less painful.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's almost like giving ourselves permission to
make our 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.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Yes, You're always worthy, It's who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Yeah, why do you think we don't feel worthy of anything?
Not just making 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 anything.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
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 are 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.

(01:15:00):
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. No, do you
know what I mean, There's no there are no special people. Really,
we're all special.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And everyone please listen to that again
and again and again, because it's that's the mess of
like that person's gifted, this special, they did something unique,
and I promise you if you knew them twenty 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

(01:15:35):
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

(01:15:56):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
To My first memory of outward success came when 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 happened, I
wouldn't I would have no idea how I felt. And

(01:16:28):
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 I
think we mistakenly think some kind of outward success is
going to change something in us, and it does not.

(01:16:49):
It may make life more comfortable, but it doesn't change
who we are. And any hole in ourselves that were
hoping to fill does not get filled. And if you
spend let's say you spend twenty years of your life
working towards a goal that's going to solve everything, and

(01:17:11):
then you finally achieve what you've been trying to do
for twenty years toiling away, I won't have any fun
because I'm working for twenty 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 are very unhappy in life because they're

(01:17:35):
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.
You have a billionaire people, very few of them are happy,
very few, and they've reached there, they've accomplished their dreams

(01:17:57):
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 cultural success, public success. It's something else.
It's some internal thing.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
What was it that at that time that but.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
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, you know,
it changes nothing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Yeah. I found that there were only a few things
through my monk experience that helped me realize what made
a difference. One was something we're experiencing today, which I
really feel from you and Homer, who's always been here,
he's filmed every episode pretty much we've done for the
past gods how long now, but that there was a
stillness and a quiet and a presence. And so the
first thing was presence. That the idea that presence a

(01:19:00):
big part of joy and happiness and just being able
to actually be here right now in the way you
said your one of your favorite books was where you go,
there you are. Wherever you go there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Yeah, of course, wherever you go, there you are 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,

(01:19:36):
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 sometimes is the most important, is the
service element, the act, the offering that we were working
always in devotion. And those were like four really simple

(01:19:56):
things that I think have always our form part of
the mocktail of joy, happiness, success. When you said something
really beautiful there you said the first time you fell
out with success. When was the first time you experienced
in with success well or felt that? Or is that
something that's constantly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
That's something probably making something that 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

(01:20:34):
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

(01:20:56):
feeling is like, wow, can you believe it's just out
there like that? I remember, I remember, 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. It's like, wow, WrestleMania,

(01:21:18):
it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
Yeah, and you still feel that today, that's what.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
It's just so wild. Yeah, you can't believe it. Yeah,
it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
It's magic that I love. I love that seeing like
how long have you done this?

Speaker 1 (01:21:29):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Like how long have you done what you do?

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Thirty five years?

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Yeah, like there was I got to go to I've
been a Manchester United support of my whole life, and
I got to go again. Recently. I have a really
wonderful relationship with the club and I went to watch
a game recently when I was back in England and
it was the first time I got to meet legendary
manager Sir Alex Ferguson, and he's the most decorated manager

(01:21:54):
in Premier League history and United It's longest standing manager
and you know, with the greats, and I got to
meet him for the first time and we're 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

(01:22:17):
those who but he was talking about football like a fan.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Yes still yes.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
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 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 as it was
the first and I was like, how are you still
you know? How is it that it's still so fresh?

(01:22:42):
And I guess same question to you like, how is
it still so fresh that a WrestleMania a song surprises
you and you still get that childlike like.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
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 It was 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 off of Los Cienna Boulevard, and

(01:23:11):
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, how cool it was, and that now, however,
many years later, twenty five years later, seeing a stadium
of eighty thousand people and the song comes on unexpectedly,
it's just bizarre. It's bizarre because I know the modest

(01:23:34):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
I love that because what I'm hearing you say that
is 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,

(01:24:10):
small moments of discovery and of intrigue and curiosity, which
which you made a note of somewhere in your subconscious
so 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 that you're living through all
those miniature moments that created it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Yeah, and I never listened 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.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
Is there a reason you don't listen to it?

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
As Because I'm always making something new, I've had no
reason to go back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
You never even feel a sense of nostalgia or.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
Like a 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 time ago.
This might listen to this and see if this scuse
me any inspiration. Yeah, so more as a tool, but
I would do the same for something I didn't make.
You know, it would be let's listen to this Stev
Wonder song because we maybe will learn something same.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. There's there's a beautiful chapter's
book that I want to talk about, which is all
about memories and subconscious and I felt that you talk
about this idea of larger intelligence 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

(01:25:36):
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
when I read you say that you actually wrote about
dreams and journaled about dudes, 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 too messy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
And they go and they a dissipate me very quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
So quickly, so quick And that's when I was reading that.
Bo I was like, Okay, I need to hold onto these.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
So some of the tricks I talked to some degree
in the book, but I just touch on it in
the book. There's so much to talk about. But when
you wake up, you don't move at all because 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
about it, if you just shake your head around, it'll

(01:26:26):
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

(01:26:48):
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 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

(01:27:10):
time the dreams made no sense. They were just these
abstract you know, Salvador Dolly paintings, 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 I read it, and when they were happening, I
thought every dream every night was completely different, and none

(01:27:33):
of them more about anything I understood. And years later,
when I looked 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. I don't
remember what it was, because it was probably twenty some
odd years ago, but I remember being shocked by, Oh,
this didn't make I was too close to it to

(01:27:54):
understand it. I was too close, and with a little
bit of distance you can see what it is. 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

(01:28:17):
not obvious. It's very beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
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 as you're showing us how to do. And
the modern day question is, well, what's the benefit of that?

(01:28:41):
Like why would you do that? And and when I
was asking in my head, I was like, if I
just listened to you, and I'm listening to you, and
I remember reading what I read, and I'm thinking, the
benefit is just the act of observing and just being
there and being and then, like you said, being able
to then look back potentially and potentially if you maybe not,
maybe it is to see if there are connections and

(01:29:03):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
It's an important point. Don't do things just because you
think you're going to 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

(01:29:34):
not make sense, might not make sense to us, might
not make sense anyone else. Certainly won't make sense anyone else.
But it might not even make sense to us. And
that's okay. It's fine. Listen to yourself. Why is it
telling you this? Why is it telling you this? I
mentioned my heart surgery earlier. My son was born eighteen

(01:29:55):
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.
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 going to want his mom. So you're
going to have all this energy and nothing to do

(01:30:16):
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 going to be taken. So I decided
I want to learn deadlifts heavy deadlifts. The only exercise

(01:30:37):
experience I had was with Lard Hamilton, and we didn't
do 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,

(01:30:58):
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. So really you're focused,
and I like focusing on things, so it was fun.
So then I thought, okay, learning like proper form Olympic deadlifting,

(01:31:20):
and I'm doing the Olympic deadlifting. And as the weights
got heavier, I realized I had this anxiety before a lift.
It 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 going to happen. The

(01:31:41):
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? Turns out the wisdom of the body.

(01:32:03):
Knowing that. When I finally found out what was going
on in my heart, and I talked to the heart
surgeon and he asked what kind of exercise I do,
and I said, oh, I'm doing this heavy Olympic deadlifting.
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

(01:32:25):
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.
So there are levels of wisdom that we don't know,
we don't understand. So when you have an intuition to

(01:32:46):
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, or maybe I'm in
a cross street and walk on that side of the street.
Whatever it is, whatever intuitions in your body that come,
listen to them, see what happens, be open to There's

(01:33:07):
more going on than we know. There's a lot more
than our conscious mind can can pick up going on.

Speaker 2 (01:33:13):
Yeah, we often do so many things because we think
they're right, we think they're healthy. They the thing you're
meant to do in it, but it doesn't sit with
you somewhere, 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 fourteen, and
so that voice is very loud. But I know a
lot of people that I've worked with and coached and

(01:33:35):
also worked with in my life that started to stop
listening to their own a voice at fourteen, and so
it's very quiet now, and so it becomes harder to
really hear it because we've suppressed it for so long.
And then the ego or the outside noise is so
loud that we're guided by that, we're not misguided by that.

(01:33:58):
It's hard to tap into it. And have you found
anything that helps you tap into it when you feel
like you're losing or have you met someone and you've
worked and you've said, hey, just try this to tap
into it again. And the example 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.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
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 applies, and
maybe it doesn't, but it's okay, it's okay. No, there's
no bad intention on the wisdom that's being shared with us.

(01:34:41):
People are offering their best information, but 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 side yourself. And
I would say, getting to wherever it is that you've gotten,

(01:35:05):
we've usually gotten there through listening to something going on
inside of ourselves. 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.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
It's hard. Yeah, like you either do it at the
beginning or you do at the end. And it's almost
like they're the same in the sense of what you
were saying earlier. The idea of there's this beginner's mindset
where you 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 too.

(01:35:47):
I don't know. Therefore someone else must know, or I've
known up to now, and now I don't. No one knows.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
I don't know, and nobody knows. No one knows, And
everyone's intentions are good. They're not out to get us,
but nobody knows. They think they know. The wisest thing
we can do is no enough to know. We don't know.
If you start from maybe maybe that's true. It could work.
Who knows. Yeah, not hold anything so firm as this

(01:36:16):
is the way it is. I know how it is.
Anytime you know how it is, your world just got
a lot smaller, tiny.

Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
Yeah, there's yeah, it's this. This idea is crystallizing for
me as we're talking. This idea that you can 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

(01:36:46):
you've been saying all along, it's like you've got to
feel how it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:50):
And I'm not saying will always be right?

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
No, no, no, no, no no, no, there is no well,
there is no.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
Yeah, there is even there isn't even wrong, right, yeah.
Pay attention to what's going on inside yourself. There's so
much information going on inside of ourselves, intuitive information.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
Greg, This has been such a beautiful and fascinating conversation
for so many reasons. We end every one Purpose episode
with a final five, 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 at the end. But the first question

(01:37:29):
is what is the best advice you've ever heard, received
or given?

Speaker 1 (01:37:36):
Don't listen to anyone, And what is.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
The worst advice you've ever heard received.

Speaker 1 (01:37:40):
Or given don't do the thing you love?

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
Question number three, how would you define your current purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Making every step that I make in the interest of
the highest good?

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Question number four, what's something that you believe strongly that
you think other people find it hard to understand everything?
That's really everything? And fifth and final question, If you
could create one law that everyone in the world had

(01:38:18):
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. 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

(01:38:39):
go back to again and again and again day after day,
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 Rick, you also have podcast

(01:39:00):
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
Yeah, it's called Tetrogrammaton. I've been doing the Broken Record
podcast for about five years, where I mainly speak to musicians,
and I'm so interested 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?

(01:39:23):
So I've recorded the first fifteen of them.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
Okay, amazing, amazing. Where can people find it? Everywhere?

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Everywhere?

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
Okay, okay, make sure you go and subscribe to the podcast.
Got fifteen. I'm sure they're coming out weekly or week.
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

(01:39:50):
there'll be some new people there too, But make sure
you do that. Rick, thank you so much for today.
Thank you for your energy, your presence, your 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

(01:40:12):
people to find their truth as well.

Speaker 1 (01:40:14):
So beautiful, Thank you so much for reading you, thank
you for of course, thank you. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
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

(01:40:40):
just want to keep doing that

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Rick Rubin ON: Why Unconventional Methods Lead to Success & The Secret to Genuinely Love What You Do