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or listen to something we do, but when you re creating at that scale, what in your opinion has made us so addicted to wanting to become someone that people like and often go against who we truly are?
1
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You just said you like to sense that authenticity and feel how you feel.
1
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A lot of people are scared of that.
1
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A lot of people would rather mold and become malleable and evolve and become who people want them to be.
1
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Why do you think that is?
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People like to be accepted.
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People want to be accepted.
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And I m suggesting in the book that the best way to be accepted is to be yourself.
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It s not to change yourself to what someone else thinks.
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First of all, you don t really know what someone else thinks.
1
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And if you re not genuine to yourself, there s, there s like nothing, nothing is there.
1
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It s just a projection or a mask.
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It s not true.
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SPEAKER_00
And there s something about authenticity.
1
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Like I get to work with artists, some of whom have very different ways of seeing the world than me.
1
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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.
1
SPEAKER_00
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.
1
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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 view around us.
1
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If we re all thinking the same thing, it s boring.
1
SPEAKER_00
Why would we make anything if everyone thinks the same thing?
1
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What makes us interesting are the differences.
1
SPEAKER_00
And even the imperfections, the imperfections are what makes us humans, what makes us what we are.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, there s so much talk today about chat GPT and AI.
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It s like, it s a different thing than a human sharing their own experience, warts and all.
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That s what we love.
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We love, you know, you may hear a song about,
1
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someone who has terrible heartbreak, and you may not be experiencing terrible heartbreak, but hearing them honestly talk about a human experience, even one that we re not having, can make us cry, can make us resonate with them, can give us a better understanding of the world.
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Absolutely.
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And we re not all everything, you know, we re all only us.
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Each of us is ourselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, one thing when I was reading your book, it reminded me of
1
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Something else I read a while ago, and what I read said that the Japanese say we have three faces.
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One face that we show the entire world.
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The second face is the face that we only show our family and friends.
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And the third face, they say, we show no one at all, maybe not even ourselves.
1
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Sometimes we don t even, but what you re saying is almost like when we tap into that essence and become that self, that s where all this beauty and imagination and creativity stems from.
1
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Yeah, it s the most, it seems to be the most interesting and the most particular, you know, in a sea of information.
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The more yours is personal, the more it s not like hers or his or theirs.
1
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It s yours.
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And for all of us, we get more of a sense of reality.
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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.
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It s interesting.
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When I speak to someone who has a different view on anything, I always want to learn more.
1
SPEAKER_00
How did you get there?
1
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What can I learn from you?
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You know, I never assume that I know anything.
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Were you always like that or were there experiences in your childhood that informed that?
1
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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
1
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A lot of the reasons why we struggle with doing what you just said is defending our viewpoint gives us a sense of safety and security, and we feel vulnerable if someone else s viewpoint that seems opposite to ours could be true.
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So that s one reason.
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The second is we generally struggle as humans to entertain
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to opposing ideas.
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We struggle to understand the nuance that someone can be kind but also be assertive, or someone can be complex yet really compassionate.
1
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There can be these paradoxes that exist.
1
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I was reading recently about how black and white TVs are not really black and white.
1
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They re shades of gray.
1
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There is no black and white pixel.
1
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It s really, really minute shades of gray that are changing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Were you always that way?
1
SPEAKER_01
Always that curious?
1
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Did that start somewhere?
1
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Does that come from parents?
1
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Where did that come from for you?
1
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I m intrigued.
1
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I would say I ve always been open-minded.
1
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Early in my career, I probably had more of a view of, I know how to do it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, I know my way.
1
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And my way was fine.
1
SPEAKER_00
But over the years I ve realized that my way isn t necessarily the best way, it s just one way.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there are many other ways that are great.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was a vegan for 22 years, and now I m mainly carnivore.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you ve really committed to a vegan lifestyle, it s very difficult to break out of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for about a year, I was a... I believed that eating meat was the healthiest thing I could do, but I couldn t do it because I was vegan.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was committed to being a vegan.
1
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So it s a perfect example because it was something I was dedicated to for a long period of time.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had new information.
1
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It was hard to change.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was hard to break out of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
But as we get new information,
1
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We have to evolve.
1
SPEAKER_00
How can we live in an old belief?
1
SPEAKER_00
If you believe the same thing that you believed 20 years ago about everything, I don t know that you re living.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so we ve got to have that openness and the ability to question.
1
SPEAKER_00
Curiosity, a curiosity about what s it like if my view of the world is wrong?
1
SPEAKER_00
What does someone else know?
1
SPEAKER_00
What can I learn from?
1
SPEAKER_00
Not to disregard what someone else thinks.
1
SPEAKER_00
Why do they think that?
1
SPEAKER_00
I know there s something I can learn from someone who sees it differently than me.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I want to understand it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
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 behaviors, often the people that I feel act in ways that seem unreasonable or ways that I don t
1
SPEAKER_01
agree with when i track back and look at their past i can often be like oh there are the dots and they can probably see them to have why they ve chosen that path not that that part is right or wrong.
1
SPEAKER_01
It takes a lot to go beyond right and wrong because these constructs are so and that s what i feel this book does this book in itself.
1
SPEAKER_01
breaks the construct of what a book is, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like that, when I picked it up, I was assuming that I was going to read a memoir or like stories and tell, I assumed that s what it would be in my belief system of what a book is by a prominent figure who s had a life such as yours.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then I opened it up and I was like, wait a minute,
1
SPEAKER_01
This is like, this is not what I was expecting.
1
SPEAKER_01
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.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I thought even in this book, you re breaking down what someone sees as a book.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the cover does that, it s stunning.
1
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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.
1
SPEAKER_01
And you talk about habits in the book and we re only as creative as the habits we keep, you say.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do we develop that mindset?
1
SPEAKER_01
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?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s something you get better at the more you practice.
1
SPEAKER_00
And meditation is a great tool to quiet ourselves enough to get in touch with how we see the world.
1
SPEAKER_00
The closer we can get to what we see, that s a starting position.
1
SPEAKER_00
to be able to then understand how someone else sees it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting to be able to learn to argue the points opposite what you believe.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, if you don t understand all sides of the story, you don t really understand the story.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s helpful to understand the whole picture and hold all of the beliefs
1
SPEAKER_00
softly enough to be surprised and learn something new and change everything.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, the book is called The Creative Act and it is about being creative more than even doing things that are creative.
1
SPEAKER_01
But have you ever sacrificed creativity for anything on any project or on any personal endeavor in life where creativity had to be sacrificed or you felt pushed to sacrifice or where you felt it was being
1
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where there was a bit of a part of you that was like, I might have to let go.
2
SPEAKER_00
In the world of art, I feel fearless.
2
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I feel like whatever strikes me as this is what s interesting to me, I m good with that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t extend as strongly into life.
2
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I know people who are completely fearless in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not there yet.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s very impressive.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
2
SPEAKER_00
But within the confines of creativity and making things, I know.
2
SPEAKER_00
And only I know it through experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
I started only making things I liked.
2
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Luckily people like them, otherwise I d have a different job.
2
SPEAKER_00
I would still be making things because it was always my passion.
2
SPEAKER_00
I never thought it would be my work.
2
SPEAKER_00
I always knew I would make things because that s what I love to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
I thought I would have a regular straight job to support my habit of making things.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then miraculously, um, the universe allowed me to make things as a, as a full-time thing in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s amazing how we always talk about how life imitates art or art imitates life and why has it been harder to translate?
2
SPEAKER_01
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?
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a life and death commitment in art that s different than the life and death commitment in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jumping out of an airplane is different than telling a controversial joke.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can remember recently, four or five years ago, I had open heart surgery, and I was really afraid.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was with an artist friend who is a fearless artist.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I told him, yeah, I m going into the surgery.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m really nervous.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s like, are you going to be fine?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, why are you even thinking about that?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, that s a crazy thought.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because he s confident.
2
SPEAKER_00
He s fearless in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
still the normal fears of life get me.
2
SPEAKER_00
But in art, I know the real power in it is going to the fringe edges of where you can go.
2
SPEAKER_00
The purpose of doing it is to see how far you can take it.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I feel, in a way, obligated to do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I know that s what s most interesting to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, there s so much middle of the road, and it doesn t interest me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want it because it s louder, quieter.
2
SPEAKER_02
softer, harder.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s pushing some boundary.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s why I take notice.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not more of the same.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not just another.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the one that makes you stop and, did I really hear that?
2
SPEAKER_00
Did I really see that?
2
SPEAKER_00
What s going on here?
2
SPEAKER_00
You see a movie where you have to lean forward and pay attention.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s happening?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not just the audience s hand is being held and walk through a story simply.
2
SPEAKER_00
I like the complexity and difficulty that forces me as the viewer to participate in what s going on.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not just being carried along.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m intrigued if you d be happy to go there.
2
SPEAKER_01
How do you use some of the creativity that you found in art
2
SPEAKER_01
in order to navigate some of the fears in life.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is it helpful?
2
SPEAKER_00
It is helpful and one of the things is realizing the attitude we bring to things changes it completely.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the same event could be terrifying or we can decide it s okay
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s the same exact event.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s just a mentality I hadn t experienced years ago.
2
SPEAKER_00
I grew up in a place where there were no insects.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where I grew up was just a very contained, protected environment.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my mom was afraid of insects.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I grew up with this feeling of insects as foreign and scary.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was in Hawaii about seven years ago.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there are centipedes that can sting you.
2
SPEAKER_00
They don t kill you, but they re very painful.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I d been going to Kauai for a long time and was aware of them, and in the back of my mind, afraid of them.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one night I woke up, my head was itchy, I brushed my head and I felt something extremely painful.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I said to my wife, I think I was just stung by a centipede and I have one of two choices.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can panic, which is what my entire life has led me up to, or I can decide it s okay and go back to sleep.
2
SPEAKER_00
And she said, the second one sounds better.
2
SPEAKER_00
20 years ago, I don t know if I could have done that.
2
SPEAKER_00
30 years ago, I m sure I couldn t have done that.
2
SPEAKER_00
The panic is what I ve been trained for my whole life.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s that conditioning where we re all, as you said, trained, conditioned, prepared for in a certain way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even things that we don t know about, like we may be afraid.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you know that people were not afraid of sharks before the movie Jaws?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, I did not know that.
2
SPEAKER_00
The reason everyone s afraid of sharks is because of the movie Jaws.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_01
That, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
That makes a lot of sense.
2
SPEAKER_00
Change the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Change the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it s unbelievable how, yeah, what we seek or what we shun comes from a movie or a song or a visual demonstration of whatever it may be.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I find the hence so many fears are not real.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as we re talking about fear only so often exists mainly in the mind.
2
SPEAKER_01
And, and that s what we re talking about.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s a construct of the mind.
2
SPEAKER_01
When we re talking about creativity, you addressed this fear head on in the beginning because it is a fear.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everyone has somewhat of a fear just as we say things like, oh, I can t sing.
2
SPEAKER_01
We say things like, oh, well, I m not creative, or I m not artistic, or I ve never really been a creative, I m more academic, or whatever it may be.
2
SPEAKER_01
We have these, again, constructs, right and wrong, academic, creative, mostly polar opposites.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re actually saying, no, no, no, this is something everyone can access and has access to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And do access.
2
SPEAKER_00
And do access.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we just don t all acknowledge it.
2
SPEAKER_00
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.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cooking food and it tasting a certain way and you think, oh, maybe it ll taste better if I add this to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a creative decision.
2
SPEAKER_00
We all do them every day we make creative choices.
2
SPEAKER_00
Any time 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.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
As simple as that.
2
SPEAKER_01
As simple as that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Just a detour in a car.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anything.
2
SPEAKER_01
A little sprinkle of this or that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we re all doing it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the book is an invitation to open that channel
2
SPEAKER_00
as far and freely as you can.
2
SPEAKER_01
It really does that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really believe it does that.
2
SPEAKER_01
What I love about it is you can truly turn to any page.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I know they say this 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.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whereas with this, there truly is that sense of
2
SPEAKER_01
If you re looking for that creativity, if you re trying to seek it within yourself, there s something that will inspire you.
2
SPEAKER_01
What have you found over the years, working with artists, working with yourself, what have been the biggest blocks?
2
SPEAKER_01
to creativity or to accessing that?
2
SPEAKER_01
What are the biggest blocks?
2
SPEAKER_01
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 people have to being truly creative and imaginative?
2
SPEAKER_00
One big block is concerns about what other people think.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s a big one.
2
SPEAKER_00
I made this thing that I love, but I think other people would like it more if I made it different for them.
2
SPEAKER_00
We don t know what they would like.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all in our head.
2
SPEAKER_00
It comes back to this thing of what I think isn t good enough.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I like it, that doesn t mean anything.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what people think.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, just because I like it, that doesn t give it any value.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, as an artist, if you like it, that s all of the value.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.
2
SPEAKER_00
not other people like it so it s successful.
2
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t mean anything because that s other people liking it is out of your control.
2
SPEAKER_00
All that s in your control is making the thing to the best of your ability.
2
SPEAKER_00
I talk about it, usually the way I talk about it is greatness.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the way I thought of it my whole life was,
2
SPEAKER_00
My interest is in making something great.
2
SPEAKER_00
Greatness, lasting greatness, timeless.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I came to realize recently, it s all an offering to God.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you re making an offering to God, you re not thinking about, oh, what s the budget?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or, I hope this segment of the audience is going to like it.
2
SPEAKER_00
We don t think like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a higher vibration.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re making the best we can make,
3
SPEAKER_01
to the best of our ability out of love and devotion.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s what it is.
3
SPEAKER_01
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.
3
SPEAKER_01
There is no higher, no higher form.
3
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, and that s what you see so much in nature around us.
3
SPEAKER_03
I ve always found like the sun is just selflessly serving and giving.
3
SPEAKER_03
And you see a bush of flowers or you see a tree that s growing fruits.
3
SPEAKER_03
And again, it s providing shade and fruit and it s just serving.
3
SPEAKER_03
And it s interesting how when you call it a devotional act, the idea that it s a service, it s an offering, as you said, in that language.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
And even an offensive song is that, to someone.
3
SPEAKER_01
To someone, it s like, I worked with Vance Slayer.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Slayer were a very controversial, aggressive band.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the people who came to see them didn t come to see them filled with hate.
3
SPEAKER_01
They came to see them filled with love.
3
SPEAKER_01
And for many of the people in the audience, maybe the only experience of love they had was connecting over Slayer.
3
SPEAKER_01
There were people in the audience who seemed like, other than this thing to devote themselves passionately to,
3
SPEAKER_01
seemed like often hopeless people.
3
SPEAKER_01
And for them to have something that they loved was beautiful to witness.
3
SPEAKER_03
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8sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia.
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How To Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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We re back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult, one life lesson at a time.
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And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you.
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So let s figure this stuff out together.
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This season, we re going to talk about whether or not we re financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership.
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We re going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account.
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And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party?
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All that plus so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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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.
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And I feel that that has become such a big challenge in today s world because there s so much data available, social media available, and you get instant feedback, right?
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So I think in the past,
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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.
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But it would take months before the audience heard it.
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Today, you could literally record something in three seconds, put it up, and get instant feedback.
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And so the feedback loop has got shorter, the time to create something has got shorter, it s easier to publish, and it s easier to get criticism or feedback.
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And so
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In that world, I find us looking so much at 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.
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Do you think that that obsession in social media, music, movies, of looking at it from a data, even in movies now, I find we re just taking old IP and remaking stuff.
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There s very little new IP.
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You just keep seeing old IP finding its way back into TV and movies.
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Do you say that that s creativity being stifled and is hampering creativity?
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Absolutely.
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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.
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This book, for example, it goes against all of the rules of publishing.
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From the beginning, I started the book eight years ago and I met with publishers eight years ago, told them, this is my vision for this book.
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And all of them said, that s not the book anybody wants from you.
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That s not the book.
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And I said, well, it s, that s the book I want to write.
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Yeah.
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And like, well, but surely you ll tell personal stories and you ll talk about Johnny Cash and you ll talk about, it s like, no, that s not what this is.
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It s a different book.
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And then I decided not to make a publishing deal then because even the ones who said they would go along with what my vision was, I could see that they really were fantasizing a different book than this book.
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I waited till the book was written and then said, do you want to publish this book?
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Not the book you think is the book that you want me to write, but this is the book that I wrote, that I wanted to write and wrote.
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Do you want to publish this book?
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And then when they read it, they re like, oh yes, we ll publish this.
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That s brilliant.
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The reason I m laughing so much is because with my first book, I had thought of the title when I was writing it because it resonated with me because it was playful, but also curious, and it felt true to me.
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It was the biggest reason why I had chosen the title.
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It felt like it was truth.
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And so the title I was proposing for my first book was Think Like a Monk.
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And I d lived as a monk for three years.
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I d studied under these incredible monks, and I wanted to share what I d learned from these masters who d spent 40, 50 years living as monks.
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And so the book was almost an offering to them in the way you re saying, a devotional act back to my teachers and guides.
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And every publisher was like, Jay, you should just write a book about how to find your passion or what you love in life.
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And I was just like, there s beauty in that.
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There s nothing wrong with a book about how to find your passion.
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That s great.
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But that s not me.
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It s not my experience.
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It s not my book.
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And I remember 14 out of 17 imprints said no to that title.
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Yeah.
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And we still went with it.
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Yes.
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And I couldn t be more happier because of that.
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But you re right.
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You can t control what the audience wants, even if you played every perfect metric in the game.
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No.
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But we think we can.
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We think there s a part of us.
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And that s what I was going to ask you, that almost one end is saying,
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I am too worried about what people think.
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But the opposite almost is the ego of, I can either control everything perfectly so that this becomes the number one chart-topping song, or I m right and I know everything.
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Do you see that as a block to creativity?
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And how do you purify that?
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I think the goal is to get to this, this is how I see it.
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I don t know what other people are going to think.
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I can t know what other people are going to think.
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But this is how I see it.
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And I want to show you how I see it.
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That s my purpose here on the planet, is to show you how I see it.
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And then I want to see how you see it.
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And where do they line up, and where are they different?
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And that s how we make sense of the world.
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It s not one story.
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We all have a story.
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We all have something to say.
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And we can all learn from each other.
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And it s fascinating.
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It s like there are the same set of chords used in all the songs, yet new songs keep coming.
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You know, there s someone who say all the songs have been written.
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It keeps happening.
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How, how do new jokes come up?
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They re all, it s like, they re all the same, but then they re all different.
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And how, how we interpret it and are each, and it comes from each of our life experiences, which are different.
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We, we each have our own family origin story.
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We each have our own places that we grew up, the things that we saw, we could go and do the same thing together.
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And then get back and discuss what we saw and see two completely different things.
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And it s not like one of us is right and one of us is wrong.
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We re just noticing different things.
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There s so many data points to take in and we each take in the ones that speak to us.
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So true, yeah.
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You re reminding me of the famous words of Mark Twain, of history never repeats itself, but it always rhymes.
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And that, right, the idea of like, yeah, like the same song doesn t come back, but there s a rhyme, there s the chord, but it s still different.
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And there s some beautiful, I want to point out to everyone, because I really do want you to get this book, everyone who s listening and watching right now, and there s, I ve like dog-eared some pages that have some really beautiful moments.
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I really like this because,
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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.
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And you do that artfully in this book.
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And there was this section here, which identifies why I brought it up now, because exactly what you said, breaking the sameness, right?
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And we think there s...
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the sameness or completeness, and you give these beautiful examples of things people can do in order to do that.
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And I just want to touch on a couple of them.
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Please.
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And would love to hear some examples from you where it worked.
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So I really like this one.
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Change the context.
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So you say, there are times when a singer doesn t connect with a song like an actor whose line reading falls flat.
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It can be helpful to create a new meaning or an additional backstory to a song s lyrics.
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A love song might sound different if sung to a long-lost soulmate, a partner of 30 years that you don t get along with, a person you saw on the street but never spoke to, or your mother.
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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?
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Yes, 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.
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I don t really feel these words.
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And I said, well, how about if it s a devotional song to God?
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He s like, I could sing that song.
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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.
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He felt the trueness to him in singing it.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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And so he, but everyone still thought the song was about a woman.
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It is.
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And the song is about a woman.
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The song is.
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Right, right, right, right, right.
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But there s a long history of songs that are love songs that could be to a woman or could be devotional.
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Yeah.
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It s interesting when songs walk this line, or when we think we know what a song s about.
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Yeah.
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And we think it s about a romantic relationship when it s really about their child.
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You know, these devotional songs.
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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 and the work you do.
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So change the environment.
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If we re looking for a performance of a different nature, it can help to change an element of the environment.
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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.
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Other shifts we ve experimented with include having a singer hold the microphone instead of standing in front of it.
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and recording early in the morning instead of at night.
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To access a greater degree of variation, one vocalist chose to hang upside down while singing.
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Could you tell us some examples of those?
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Because I find that, again, these are just, they re so simple, but we don t do it.
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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?
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And it s often these,
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physical, tangible changes around us.
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Yeah.
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And so it happened in the studio.
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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.
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Usually when that happens, as soon as you reach whatever peak you re at and it starts coming down, we usually stop playing the song.
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But one thing we ve done in the past also would be, again, changing the contest, turning the lights off in the studio.
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It changes everything.
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It s not take seven, it s the first take in the dark.
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And it changes, it changes.
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The first album I recorded with the Red Hot Chili Peppers was their, I think it was their fifth album.
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And the albums that they had done before, they had all done in traditional recording studios.
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And they told me that none of those were good experiences.
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So we thought about what could we do for this experience to make it the first different one instead of the fifth if the first four were bad.
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Could have been the first good one in
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in the same environment or we could change the environment and it would be the first of any kind.
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So we chose to rent this big house not far from here and record in this mansion.
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And that was very different than showing up to a recording studio with people working in an office and other musicians in other places.
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We had our whole own world.
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that we created.
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And some of the members of the band didn t leave during the entire, I don t know, six weeks or two months.
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They never left the premises.
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They just stayed there, slept there, ate there, worked there, and never left until it was done.
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Wow, yeah, I love that one.
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Invite an audience.
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This one makes sense, but I think people need to do more.
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When an artist thrives on being in front of a crowd, we may bring in several people to watch a session.
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Being observed changes how an artist acts.
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Even if the audience consists only on one person who isn t part of the project, that can be enough.
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While some artists may overdo a performance for an audience and others may hold back, most tend to be more focused with someone else present.
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Even if your art is non-performative, such as writing or cooking, it will still likely change with an observer present.
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The goal is to find the specific parameters in each case that bring out your best.
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one of their buddies wanted to become a stand-up comic, but he had no experience in stand-up comedy.
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So they threw him a stand-up show in their backyard, and there were like 15 of us present in the audience.
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He got announced onto stage in front of an audience that wasn t gonna heckle or be the meanest to him, and he got to practice.
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And it was just such a beautiful way, A, to do that for your friends, but to experience that, and I m on tour at the moment, this is my break period,
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for my test, we were practicing, rehearsing in a small theater in Thousand Oaks.
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And so what the theater said to us is they could throw it out to their local audience members who would have no clue who I was or what I was doing.
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And they d come along.
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Little did I know that we d have like 50 to a hundred people that weekend watching the show just as a rehearsal.
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Yeah.
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And it was so useful to me before I went out and it was huge, like huge.
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So I loved that one.
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I was listening to a story on the way here.
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I was listening to a podcast in the car and it told a story about the Beatles, um, that when the Beatles were interviewed individually,
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they were all these thoughtful, interesting, soulful people.
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Wow.
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But when they were interviewed, even two together, they became sarcastic and never said much about anything real and was much more of a performative, cool, like to look cool in front of the other one.
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Wow.
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That just being with each other changed the way that they appeared in the world.
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Mm, wow, yeah, that group aspect is so interesting.
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You ve just sparked another thought for me that I think would be really interesting for people to hear.
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You going back to this, it s interesting, again, them being on their own allowed them to be more of their authentic, deeper self to some degree, I guess.
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I think it was in Bob Iger s book where he talked about how
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he was saying that george lucas spielberg.
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Tarantino and a bunch of others used to have a movie mastermind when they play their movies to each other before they went out.
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And he was saying that that s how confident they felt about their own work.
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because they were showing their competitors their movies, 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.
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And we know that a Tarantino movie versus a Spielberg movie has no similarities.
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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.
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But people who just taste you, you respect, you like what they do, they like what you do, and being able to share your work back and forth is a really great feeling.
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Yeah, that s a really nice segue.
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How has that affected how you ve learned to filter criticism and feedback?
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Because again, going back to the world we live in today, because of that instant feedback loop,
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You can have a hundred comments that are negative on social media, your song didn t make it, it s not as big as the next album, you have the top ten chart, you didn t make it.
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I think the way everything s measured and broadcasted now can make criticism and feedback in one sense seem louder.
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Before you went into a room and someone told you you weren t getting a new deal and no one knew,
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today you didn t get a new deal, and the whole world knows, and your fans know, and the opposing fans know.
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It s messy.
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It s like, how have you worked on that for yourself and the work you ve done?
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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.
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And even people who are listening today, how do we think about feedback and criticism?
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Most of the artists I work with don t read any criticism or reviews of their work, good or bad.
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Most.
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Some, some do.
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And I would say the ones who are the strongest in who they are can even read a terrible review and laugh at it.
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And that makes sense because when someone gives you criticism, it s telling you as much about who they are as what you ve made.
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It s like we make things and then we make it with one
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through our filter, our perspective.
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And then you receive it through your filter, with your perspective.
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So even if we both like it, we probably don t like it the same way for the same reasons.
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We all have our own relationship to it.
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Everyone has their own relationship to it.
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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.
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If you have a Drake and Beyonce,
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And you re deciding which album s better.
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Well, Drake s album is clearly a better Drake album than Beyonce s album is.
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And Beyonce s album, I m sure, is a much better Beyonce album than Drake s album is.
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But the idea that one s better than the other, it makes no sense.
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Who has a better diary entry?
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It s like, if we are actually making these personal things, you can t compare them.
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compete in any way with anyone else, the only people who we can honestly compete with is ourselves.
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It s like, is this the best I can make today?
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Have I gone further than I ve gone before?
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That s all we can do.
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That s the only competition that makes sense is continuing to evolve and push ourselves artistically and not get complacent, especially in success.
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It s easy to get complacent.
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Once something works, it s like, I ll just keep doing more of that.
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It ends up maybe one more time you can get away with it.
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But once three are similar, it stops being interesting.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That s so true.
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And that comes back to that sameness point that,
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We always, and I m just addressing things that I know all of you are thinking and feeling right now, or I m assuming you are, the idea of, oh Jay, there s already, you know, when I started making podcasts, I think there were like 700,000 podcasts in the world.
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And today there s like 2 million plus, maybe even more now.
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And that s in three years, it s tripled.
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Since I started four years ago, it s tripled.
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And so when I started, everyone s like, Jay, there s 700 podcasts.
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You don t need another podcast.
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Too late, too late.
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Exactly, too late.
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And then now everyone s like, oh my God, there s 2 million podcasts.
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It s too late.
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And we do that.
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We start again using a metric.
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And you ll only feel that way if you re planning to repeat what s already been done.
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Because if you re not planning to repeat it, then you re one of one.
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You re not one of 2 million or one of 700,000.
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It s one of one because you re only bringing your own essence out, right?
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Like, just because every other podcast, you could be like, there s so many interview podcasts.
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There are so many interview podcasts.
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That s true.
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And they re all different.
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And they re all different, exactly.
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And we got introduced through your long-term friend and my new mutual friend, Andrew Huberman, who s also been a guest on this podcast.
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He has a phenomenal podcast.
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I love his podcast, but so different to who I am, so different to what we do.
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And then there s a million other friends that we have that I ve showed.
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So the most common thing I hear
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when it comes to creativity or it comes to tapping into your essences, distraction, overthinking, and procrastination.
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Those words come up from my community again and again and again.
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And that s the kind of community listening I do like to do where I m like, well, what are people struggling with?
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Because we re trying to help.
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What are people s challenges?
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I have to know from them what they think it is, and then I ll also share in the way I do.
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Have you or anyone you ve ever worked with ever dealt with
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big bouts of procrastination, overthinking.
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And how do you define it?
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Because I almost think.
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Well, I would say there s two.
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Distraction and procrastination are related and different.
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Procrastination is not a good one.
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Distraction can be.
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Distraction can be helpful.
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You can use distraction if you hold a question to be solved.
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and don t sit and think and try to solve it, but go do something else and go, you know, take a walk or go for a swim, you ll find that it changes, it changes.
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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.
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All of those things that living in the world, even though it s not challenging in any real way,
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It s a distraction that s using some part of your brain.
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Some part of your brain is occupied with, do I turn left or do I turn right?
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Oh, look at that thing over there.
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Oh, is it going to rain?
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These other things are happening.
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That s different than just sitting in a room, looking at your laptop, just those outside distractions.
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cues can give you a way in to solve a problem that you wouldn t solve if you were sitting and working on it.
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For example, if we were now doing this podcast together on a walk, it would be a very different podcast than us sitting here staring into each other s eyes.
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And it s a beautiful idea.
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There was a period of time where I lost a whole bunch of weight.
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And one of the things that I did as part of that was I only did walking meetings.
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Before I used to only do lunch meetings.
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So I switched the lunch meetings to walking meetings.
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And I would meet people in Santa Monica and we would walk.
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And the meetings were so much better than the meetings either in a restaurant or in an office.
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Everything shifted just because we were moving, we re doing something.
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There were external stimuli, even though the external stimuli had nothing to do with what we were doing.
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Yeah.
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It, it changed.
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It was a change in context that really did, um, make the conversation much more interesting.
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And there s also something about when you re walking, you re not looking at each other,
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So it s easier to go into your own thoughts when you re not looking at someone.
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So it was very interesting, a great experiment, lost a lot of weight, and the meetings were the best they ve ever been.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That makes a lot of sense.
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There s a lot of work in couple psychology that suggests that when couples argue, they re usually sitting on opposite sides of a dining table.
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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.
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And now you re working against each other rather than what you re saying is you re walking with each other.
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And you re looking off into the same direction, so you re almost creating a future, the idea that you re forward, you re future forward, you re future facing.
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It s funny, my wife and I, whenever we get to a new table and we re sitting to eat,
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we always say, we look at where the chairs are and one of us will say, cheek to cheek.
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And we tend to sit next to each other instead of across from each other.
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Cheek to cheek.
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Yeah, cheek to cheek.
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I love that.
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And that makes so much sense with leadership meetings, creative meetings.
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And I love that.
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I love, love, love.
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And this is why this book is so beautiful because it has so many really subtle points in the idea of the difference between distraction and procrastination.
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Yes.
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and how distraction can actually be healthy.
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And especially as you said, when you hold a question or you, you hold an idea and you re just kind of toying with it, but you might pick up a book, you might go for a walk, you might whatever, you can do all these things, but it s almost like you re using that time wisely to come back.
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Absolutely.
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Going for a drive is a great one.
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Yeah.
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And just the, just paying attention to
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not crashing, even though we can drive essentially on autopilot, we re not thinking about driving once we ve been driving for a while.
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But just driving ideas come.
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I know many musicians, singers, who will 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.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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That makes perfect sense.
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Yeah.
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No.
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And it s, it s so interesting how we have so many, we ve also built up again, going back to our conditioned beliefs, we ve built up a negative relationship with the word distraction.
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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.
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And the idea that actually going on a walk,
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picking up something else.
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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 because I enjoy the kind of stimulation and the creative juices that start flowing if I get a moment to just observe.
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And then sometimes I just want to observe nature outside where I can just sit and bask and almost bathe in nature, which I find to be so useful because
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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 corporate organizations, and MIT was doing the study.
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They found two sets of charts of types of employees, employee A 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.
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And they were looking at which one s more creative, innovative, and hence more imaginative inside a company.
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And they found it was employee B, because employee A knew people who knew people who knew them back.
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Small circle, closed circle.
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Closed circles that created these echo chambers.
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And you asked the same 10 people for advice, and employee B knew lots of random people
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who had no connection to each other.
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And the point was being made that if your circle, and that I think applies to environment as much as it applies to people, is more random and disconnected, you have more chance of having a original, authentic thought, idea, spark, as opposed to you re surrounded by the four same people and you talk about the same things.
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Absolutely.
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And that to me has always been what I m trying to do.
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It s like, I want to know what the monks think, and I want to know what Silicon Valley thinks, and I want to know what music geniuses think, because there s something there.
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Absolutely.
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A word you use in this book that I want to touch on, and that s why this came up for me, was submerge.
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And I loved it.
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When I saw that word, I was just like, yes.
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I love that.
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I have thought about that for so long, submerging yourself
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We ve lost that ability to submerge.
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We don t submerge ourselves much because we have so much of a little.
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How have you, in this hyper-connected world, working with the most connected artists in the world, how have you encouraged
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yourself and others to continue to submerge when everyone s asking us to swim shallow?
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I think so many of the great artists do it naturally.
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You can t help it.
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It s the obsessive nature of being really into something that once you start down a thread, you just keep pulling forever.
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If you re interested, many of the artists that are great at what they do are great at what they do for that very reason.
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They fall in love with this thing, and then they just want to know everything they could possibly learn about it.
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And there are no distractions.
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I m working on a project now, a documentary project with comedians.
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And one of the things that they talk about is their commitment.
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Like when other people are doing things on the weekend, going out with their friends, they re going to perform every, you know, every night that they can possibly go out and perform.
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until they can get good at their craft.
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And this could be for a period of 10 years of just having bad performances, having people not like what you do, like banging your head against the wall.
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But that obsession with breaking through.
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And when I say breaking through, I don t mean breaking through to the audience.
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I mean breaking through with themselves to where they get past
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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.
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It s a, it s a fascinating thing.
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I just want to ask about being, being a monk.
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Tell me about your experience.
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What would you like to know?
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How did you choose to do this first?
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I was born and raised in London and when I was around 18 years old I started going to events in the city where speakers were invited to come and share their stories or journeys or successes or whatever it may have been and this is obviously before podcasting and before YouTube and so you actually went to events to hear people like yourself or anyone speak and so
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I would go and listen and there d be founders of companies, there d be athletes, there d be musicians, people like that that would come to universities and colleges in London.
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And so I d go and one of the nights I went, I was invited to hear a monk speak.
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And I was 18 years old, and I didn t really have a perception of monks.
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I didn t really have any, 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.
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And so I said to my friends, I didn t really wanna go, but I said I d only go if we went to a bar afterwards.
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That was my state of consciousness, age 18.
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And my friends were very persuasive and convincing.
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They said, yeah, yeah, we ll go.
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And so I went to this event, kind of like not expecting anything, wanting to leave.
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and i was just completely like floored
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This monk was from India.
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He was born and raised in India.
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He had a thick Indian accent.
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He was wearing saffron robes.
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And there was nothing externally that I should or should have found attractive about him as an 18-year-old guy.
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But his whole message, and that s why I smiled when you said it earlier, his whole message was that the greatest thing you can do in the world, or greatness, is
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to use your gifts in the service of God and use your gifts in the service of humanity as a devotional act.
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And he was talking about how living in devotion.
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And my 18 year old self was just completely like mesmerized by that idea.
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I was just like, I ve never heard this.
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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.
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And it was like, this guy was just saying that that wasn t it.
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And so I went up to him as you do after an event when you re blown away by a speaker.
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And I just said to him, I was like, I just want to follow you around.
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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.
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And he said, well, I m doing all these events in London this week, you can come.
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So I would go along and then that turned into my,
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during college, that turned into my summer and Christmas vacations being with him.
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And then when I graduated, I turned down my corporate job office and actually went and lived there for three years.
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And so it was like all these little steps up to like this very big decision.
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And so that s why it was just one person who
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I ve just always been fascinated by people that you meet that can change the trajectory of your life.
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And the reason why I do this show is because I want to introduce people to people and thoughts that I think will change the trajectory of their life.
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Because I didn t ever want to be a monk.
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I didn t think I d become a monk.
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I didn t crave to.
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It wasn t a path I saw for myself.
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but it became the best thing that ever happened to me at that time, and now I live in gratitude, but I also realize, so I always ask people, who s your monk?
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Who s the person you need to meet that you haven t met yet that could change your life?
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There s a example in the book of people say, you know, I m not a good artist or you re either living as an, I say, you re either living as an artist or you re not living as an artist.
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There s not, you re not good at it or bad at it.
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It s like being a monk.
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You re either living as a monk or you re not living as a monk.
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You can t be a bad monk.
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If you re living as a monk, you re a monk.
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Yeah.
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I love that.
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Yeah.
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It s beautiful.
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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 in, in just in spirit, even in just your presence and what you talk about, the vocabulary you have there.
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Where did that get infused with the work you do?
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Or again, has that always been there, or what was your journey?
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I learned to meditate when I was 14, and that s turned into a big part of my life.
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I stopped meditating when I went to college, and then when I moved to California, I started again.
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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.
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Had I not stopped, I wouldn t have recognized that.
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So the stopping and starting was a very clear, wow, this is a big part of how I see the world already, even with not doing it for the last five years.
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What type of meditation is it, and how do you?
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TM.
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TM, oh perfect, okay, got it, got it, yeah.
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I learned TM, changed my life.
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And since then I ve learned Vipassana, and I do many different practices, and breathing practices, and Tai Chi, and many different meditative practices.
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I often come back to TM, maybe because it was first.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And it s beautiful.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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It s beautiful, simple and beautiful.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And it s interesting to me, 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 Dalio has been on the podcast a million times.
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And again, he talks about TM as being such a big part of his financial success in terms of making
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wise financial investment decisions, and he is a special human as well.
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I feel like that resurgence is back now, where there s so much more talk about breathwork and meditation.
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And if you had any words of wisdom or insight for anyone who s trying it, experimenting, what would you suggest to them as someone who s done it for so long, had breaks,
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found usefulness in it?
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Are there any things that come to your heart or forefront of you?
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The first thing that comes up, there s a beautiful book called Wherever You Go, There You Are.
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I love that book.
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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.
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So I would recommend that book as a way in and
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find the practice that works for you.
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And I ve also used like yoga nidra or different guided meditations, which also are beautiful and helpful.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I used a lot of yoga nidra when I had my hernia surgery.
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I was like, I couldn t get asleep because of the pain.
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And so yoga nidra is beautiful.
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If you have trouble sleeping everyone, yoga nidra is like,
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Really special.
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You strike me as someone who appreciates growth and inner work and self-work through at least what you ve said today and shared today and the thoughts in the book.
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And I was wondering, what do you feel has been
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the hardest thing that you ve worked on internally or the most challenging thing that you ve worked on internally?
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You said you can only compete with ourselves artistically, but internally, what has been the greatest challenge that you ve worked on or are working on now?
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No, I would say losing weight was the biggest challenge of my life.
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I weighed 318 pounds at one point and I was overweight my entire life.
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And I tried everything from the beginning.
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I went to Weight Watchers meetings with my mom, you know, like my whole life was dealing with weight issues.
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And finally, just honestly getting the right information because
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I would do whatever was recommended and nothing worked.
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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 changed my life.
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I got so much healthier with his help.
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And he said, in the last two years, I ve watched everything you ve done, 99 out of 100 people would have shed 100 pounds.
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And for some reason, the weight just doesn t come off.
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He s just scratching his head.
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I don t understand it.
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It must be something else.
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And then finally, I saw a nutritionist.
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I was a nutritionist at UCLA.
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By this point, I believed nothing would change the situation.
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My mom was obese, my mom was in a wheelchair.
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I just assumed that that was the way it was.
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It was a genetic thing, I assumed.
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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.
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And I was sure it wouldn t work because I tried everything and nothing worked.
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But I loved this person who recommended me to go.
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He was one of my great mentors, recently passed away.
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His name was Mo Austin, a great, great man.
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He worked for Frank Sinatra and signed Jimi Hendrix and signed the Sex Pistols.
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An unbelievable person, unbelievable human being.
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And he was the one who got me to see this nutritionist at UCLA.
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He said, just go to see this guy, go to see the guy that I send you to and do whatever he said.
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And I did.
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And I lost like 140 pounds, 135 pounds in 14 months.
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But that was probably the most radical, just because it was a lifelong issue.
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And I believed it couldn t change.
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Eventually, I believed it couldn t change because I tried everything.
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And it was in some ways, this is interesting, the moral of the story is through giving up,
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I turned myself over to this nutritionist.
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I didn t do what I thought was right.
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I did what he thought was right.
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And what he suggested sounded crazy to me.
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but I did what he thought was right, and it worked, and the same.
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I ve never exercised in my life, and then I started hanging out with Laird Hamilton and these incredible athletes, because when I lost a bunch of weight, they invited me to start training with them.
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And I just wanted to be around them, because they re such interesting people.
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I like being around people who are good at what they re good at, especially when what they re good at is different than what I m good at.
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It s just interesting the way they see the world.
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So I got to hang out with these incredible athletes,
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And through giving myself to them of doing what they said, you know, I first day I went, I couldn t do one pushup.
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And then, and I said, I can t do it.
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Don t say you can t do it.
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So you haven t done it yet.
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And then they, you know, train me where I could do a hundred consecutive pushups, like crazy things.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You reminded me of, um,
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Thomas Edison 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 fascinating that you chose that but I think that s so true where you think you re doing everything right and I ve experienced that with myself as well especially with my
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my gut and inflammation where I was like, I was doing everything right.
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I m really living a healthy life and still having this.
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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 sudden you feel better.
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And it s almost like magic when it happens.
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Yes.
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And, but it s also finding the right coach because you could see 10 other coaches and do what they say and it doesn t work.
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Yeah.
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It s, we re so different.
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That s another thing, the idea that one size fits all.
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It s like, there is no one answer for anyone.
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We have to find our path.
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You could have seen probably many different monks and not had the experience you had.
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It was that monk spoke to you.
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I remember the first time I saw Ram Dass speak, I felt like this is the first spiritual teacher that really speaks to me.
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And the next one was Thich Nhat Hanh.
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When I saw Thich Nhat Hanh speak,
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I felt so much peace in my body hearing him speak that I couldn t even hear what he was saying.
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I went into a trance in his presence.
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And this is with 2,000 people.
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In a room of 2,000 people, he stepped out on stage, and I felt like I was going to pass out.
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That s how much peace he carried.
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So seeing these things, seeing these incredible teachers and these deep souls and getting inspired and learning from them all, that s the work.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And, and, and you re right that finding our mentors, our guides, our teachers is such a, or people that inspire you is such a, such a big part of life.
7
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And I ve found studying their stories and studying their, their life, it gives so much texture to your own as well.
7
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And, you know, when, when you look at.
7
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passing these things on.
7
SPEAKER_01
When you look at passing, you know, as you start this book by talking about how you re like, these aren t facts, they re my thoughts, and hopefully they help and support you.
7
SPEAKER_01
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?
7
SPEAKER_01
How do I help, even if it s not your child, but my friend, my family member,
7
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What have you found helpful ways in being a proponent of ideas that you believe in?
7
SPEAKER_01
Have you found specific things to be more authentic?
8
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and useful, and hence…
8
SPEAKER_01
Translate better.
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think in general, people don t like to be told what to do.
8
SPEAKER_00
So the best way that you can inspire someone to do something is through the way that you carry yourself.
8
SPEAKER_00
If you act in a creative way in the world and you do it to the best of your ability, and if someone else recognizes it, it might inspire them to do the same.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I think it s hard to teach someone something that we don t practice.
8
SPEAKER_00
We have to practice it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s the hardest part.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but it s also the most fun.
8
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And it s our purpose.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s the reason we re on this planet, is to do this work, to do our work, whatever that is, whatever our part is, to play our part in this giant symphony.
8
SPEAKER_01
Hmm.
8
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When, when you re trying to find your part, that s the part I think that confuses or concern so many people because so many parts today have become barcodes or conveyor belts.
8
SPEAKER_01
And there s so many of you doing your part.
8
SPEAKER_01
It may feel sometimes where it s like, well, I work in a company where we all do the same thing.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like what is my part?
8
SPEAKER_01
I think there s such a,
8
SPEAKER_01
We ve been talking about originality the whole time, but I think so many people feel like what they do is so much of a commodity.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not original.
8
SPEAKER_01
When someone s searching for that purpose, as you said, your purpose is to play your part, which I think is beautiful.
8
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And I couldn t agree more.
8
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A few years ago, I really came to the conclusion, I realized that what I do is not better than anyone or worse than anyone.
8
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It s not early than anyone or later than anyone.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s not,
8
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for anyone or not for anyone.
8
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It is just what I m meant to do.
8
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It s just my role.
8
SPEAKER_01
And that s such a liberating place to live from.
8
SPEAKER_01
But it almost feels like today there s so much pressure for people to pursue that or find that, that they either don t find it or they get scared to look for it.
8
SPEAKER_01
What have you found to be useful on that journey?
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, I want to say that given the example you gave of the cookie cutter work, maybe your purpose in life isn t related to your job.
8
SPEAKER_00
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.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and a lot of us are trying to make it the same thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it s beautiful when it happens, but it doesn t always happen, and it s out of our control also.
8
SPEAKER_00
We can decide.
8
SPEAKER_00
I would say if you need to have a job to support yourself, that s great.
8
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That s a noble thing to do.
8
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and follow your dreams.
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But I m not saying they re one thing.
8
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They don t have to be one thing.
8
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And don t let following your dreams undermine your ability to support yourself.
8
SPEAKER_00
It could do, it could actually do the opposite.
8
SPEAKER_00
If you decide I want to be a comedian and I m putting all my eggs in the comedian basket and I m going to be a comedian, the pressure of having a support, support yourself will change you as a comedian, not for the better.
8
SPEAKER_00
You, you want the stability of being able to take care of yourself in the world, to be free, to do whatever your passion is, whatever it is, fishing, you know, whatever it is.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and that s so true that I think the scarcity ruins the art.
8
SPEAKER_01
right?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s the abundance of, I did my day job.
8
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I m now safe and secure.
8
SPEAKER_01
I can be artistic as opposed to sometimes.
8
SPEAKER_01
And 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 is, is what creates good art as well.
8
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I mean, I m, but, but you re, it could be, there s pain in it anyway.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s pain anyway.
8
SPEAKER_00
There s pain in, you know, getting up in front of people and them not laughing is painful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, there s pain in it anyway.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s pain in it anyway.
8
SPEAKER_00
If that means you also can t eat, I don t know if that makes it less, more or less painful.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s almost like giving ourselves permission to make art.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like I feel like there s a moment where you go, now I m worthy almost.
8
SPEAKER_01
But what you re saying is you are always worthy because it s who you are.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes, you re always worthy, it s who you are.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Why do you think we don t feel worthy of
8
SPEAKER_01
anything, not just make it up, but so many of us, I think, feel a sense of like, we re not worthy to do what we love.
8
SPEAKER_01
We re not worthy to share our purpose or our passion.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s a sense of, we don t want to give ourselves up.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think there s a mythology that the people who make things that we love are special people.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that we think that they re, you know, the people on Mount Olympus and they re these magic people who are geniuses.
8
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And then there s the rest of us.
8
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And that s not the case.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s like, we re all just people.
8
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We re all doing our best.
8
SPEAKER_00
We all are good at some things, not good at other things.
8
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We re humans.
8
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes we find a way to make something beautiful.
8
SPEAKER_00
But that s it.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s no, do you know what I mean?
8
SPEAKER_00
There s no, there are no special people really.
8
SPEAKER_00
We re all special.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I, I, everyone, please listen to that again and again and again, because it s, that s the massive, like that person s gifted, they re special.
8
SPEAKER_01
They did something unique.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I promise you, if you knew them 20 years ago, you wouldn t think that, but you just met them at this precipice of their life.
8
SPEAKER_00
They don t think so.
8
SPEAKER_00
They don t think that.
8
SPEAKER_00
Or if they do think so, their art will suffer.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
The ones who believe the hype.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
How did you respond?
8
SPEAKER_01
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?
8
SPEAKER_01
And how did you respond to it?
8
SPEAKER_01
Because I hear so many people say, I just wanted to repeat it, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
And that again, getting caught in that same, when was the first time you experienced, maybe even felt successful and how did you respond to it?
8
SPEAKER_00
My first memory of outward success came when the first Beastie Boys album, Licensed to Ill, was the number one album in the country.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I got a call from a person who I worked with saying, you have the number one album.
8
SPEAKER_00
I only know this because I remember the phone call.
8
SPEAKER_00
Had the call not happened, I would have no idea how I felt.
8
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And the call came, how do you feel you have the number one album in the country?
8
SPEAKER_00
And I remember saying, I ve never been more unhappy in my life.
8
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And I think we mistakenly think some kind of outward success is gonna change something in us, and it does not.
8
SPEAKER_00
It may make life more comfortable, but it doesn t change who we are.
8
SPEAKER_00
And any hole in ourselves that we re hoping to fill does not get filled.
8
SPEAKER_00
And if
8
SPEAKER_00
You spend, let s say you spend 20 years of your life working towards a goal that s going to solve everything.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then you finally achieve what you ve been trying to do for 20 years, toiling away.
8
SPEAKER_00
I won t have any fun because I m working for 20 years for this end.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then you get that end and nothing changes.
8
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That s when you get hopeless.
8
SPEAKER_00
So it s not uncommon to see very successful artists who are very unhappy in life because they re working towards this, the thing that s gonna make them feel better.
8
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And it does not make them feel better.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m sure you ve got to meet many very successful business people, billionaire people.
8
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Very few of them are happy, very few.
8
SPEAKER_00
And they ve reached their, they ve accomplished their dreams and are unhappy because we don t know what we want.
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, we don t know what s going to make us happy.
8
SPEAKER_00
We re trying to fill something that maybe can t be filled through material or cultural success, public success.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s something else.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s some internal thing.
8
SPEAKER_01
What was it that at that time that put you?
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it was more, I think it was more just the reality of,
8
SPEAKER_00
well, that doesn t matter at all.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s always been, I ll say, I like when people like the things I make.
8
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it changes nothing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
It changes nothing.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
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I, I found that there were only a few things through my monk experience that helped me realize what, what made a difference.
8
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One was something we re experiencing today, which I really feel from you and Homer, who s always been here.
8
SPEAKER_01
He s filmed every episode pretty much we ve done for the past, God knows how long now, but,
8
SPEAKER_01
that there was a stillness and a quiet and a presence.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so the first thing was presence.
8
SPEAKER_01
The idea that presence is a big part of joy and happiness and just being able to actually be here right now in the way you said, one of your favorite books was, Where You Go, There You Are.
8
SPEAKER_01
Is that it?
8
SPEAKER_00
Wherever You Go, There You Are.
8
SPEAKER_00
John Kabat-Zinn, beautiful book.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, of course, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Wherever You Go, There You Are.
8
SPEAKER_01
The other one is learning and growth, the idea that we re growing, we re evolving, we re learning.
9
SPEAKER_00
stimulation of evolution, we all need to evolve.
9
SPEAKER_00
The third one was achievement, there was a sense of achievement but I think today s sense of achievement has become about an external metric as opposed to do we even think that s worthy of achieving or pursuing.
9
SPEAKER_00
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.
9
SPEAKER_00
And those are like four really simple things that I think have always formed part of the mocktail of
9
SPEAKER_00
joy, happiness, success.
9
SPEAKER_00
You said something really beautiful there.
9
SPEAKER_00
You said the first time you felt outward success.
9
SPEAKER_00
When was the first time you experienced inward success or felt that?
9
SPEAKER_00
Or is that something that s constantly in progress?
9
SPEAKER_01
No, that s something probably making something that would have been one of the very first records I ever made.
9
SPEAKER_01
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 a club.
9
SPEAKER_01
Even getting the club to play it, just so I could hear it in the club, that experience of like, wow, there it is.
9
SPEAKER_01
Or the first time you hear something that you make on the radio.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s very exciting, not because of what it means, but just I spent my whole life listening to music on the radio.
9
SPEAKER_01
And now there s something I made on the radio.
9
SPEAKER_01
I still have this experience.
9
SPEAKER_01
on a semi-regular basis just out in the world I ll be somewhere and
9
SPEAKER_01
in a coffee shop and a song will come on that I produced.
9
SPEAKER_01
And the feeling is like, wow, can you believe it s just out there like that?
9
SPEAKER_01
I remember, I remember, I could choke myself up.
9
SPEAKER_01
I could remember being in the room, what we were doing, like, and now it s playing here.
9
SPEAKER_01
How crazy is the world?
9
SPEAKER_01
I went to WrestleMania yesterday and a song I produced was played at WrestleMania.
9
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t expecting it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t expecting it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was like, wow, WrestleMania, it s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you still feel that today.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s what s so special.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s just so wild.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
You can t believe it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s magic.
9
SPEAKER_00
I love, I love that seeing like, how long have you done this now?
9
SPEAKER_00
Like how long have you done what you do?
9
SPEAKER_01
35 years.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like there was, I, I got to go to, uh, I ve been a Manchester United supporter my whole life and I got to go again recently.
9
SPEAKER_00
I have a really wonderful relationship with the club and,
9
SPEAKER_00
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.
9
SPEAKER_00
And he s the most decorated manager in Premier League history, and United s longest standing manager, and worked with the greats.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I got to meet him for the first time, and we were just hanging out and talking and having lunch before the game.
9
SPEAKER_00
And what I loved, what you were saying about you love watching people with greatness, what I loved about him was,
9
SPEAKER_00
He was talking about football like a fan, still.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was like, Sir Alex, you gave me the best memories of my childhood.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was naming all these games that they d won.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I knew he knew that.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like me telling you my favorite songs you ve worked on.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know you know them, but I had to tell him for my sake.
9
SPEAKER_00
And he was like living each game with me as if it was the first.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, how are you still, you know, how is it that it s still so fresh?
9
SPEAKER_00
And I guess same question to you, like, how is it still so fresh that at WrestleMania, a song surprises you and you still get that childlike, like.
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause it doesn t make sense.
9
SPEAKER_01
None of it makes sense.
9
SPEAKER_01
I remember the ordinary situation that it came out of.
9
SPEAKER_01
I remember the studio,
9
SPEAKER_01
It was one of the first times I ever came to California.
9
SPEAKER_01
I remember it s not a studio now, it s a flower shop where the studio used to be off of La Cienega Boulevard.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it was this tiny little studio.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I remember being in this tiny little room and one of the first times in California and what a fun experience it was making the record and how cool it was.
9
SPEAKER_01
And that now, however many years later, 25 years later,
9
SPEAKER_01
seeing a stadium of 80,000 people and the song comes on unexpectedly, it s just bizarre.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s bizarre.
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause I know the modest beginnings of all of these and it s just regular people like you and me showing up somewhere and making something that we think is cool.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s unbelievable that it has some life that goes on.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I love that because when I m hearing you say that, it s like,
9
SPEAKER_00
you took notes, like there were mental notes of like, that moment we went in, 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.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was all those minute small moments of discovery and of intrigue and curiosity, which you made a note of somewhere in your subconscious that you then recall and live through when you hear that song in that moment.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re not living there just listening to a song at WrestleMania or on the radio or number one.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like you re living through all those miniature moments that
9
SPEAKER_00
That created it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I never listened back to music that I work on.
9
SPEAKER_01
So when I do hear it out in the wild, it s, it s funny.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like, wow, look, it s still there.
9
SPEAKER_01
Crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Is there a reason you don t listen to it?
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause I m always making something new.
9
SPEAKER_01
I have no reason to go back.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
You never even feel a sense of nostalgia or like a,
9
SPEAKER_01
No, unless I m working with an artist and there s an example that comes up where I think, oh, we did something like this a long time ago.
9
SPEAKER_01
Listen to this and see if this gives you any inspiration.
9
SPEAKER_01
So more as a tool.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I would do the same for something I didn t make.
9
SPEAKER_01
It would be, let s listen to this Stevie Wonder song because maybe we ll learn something.
9
SPEAKER_01
Same.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that makes sense.
9
SPEAKER_00
There s a beautiful chapter in this book that I want to talk about which is all about memories and subconscious.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I felt that you talk about this idea of larger intelligence and tapping into and even making almost journaling about dreams.
9
SPEAKER_00
which I found was something that I m definitely going to practically take on.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I ve never journaled about dreams.
9
SPEAKER_00
I know I dream and there s times when I forget and there s times when I remember and sometimes I ll tell someone, sometimes I won t.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I, I, when I read you say that you actually wrote about dreams and journaled about dreams, I was like, all right, I m going to start doing that now.
9
SPEAKER_00
So that s something you ve directly impacted me to do as a practical thing because
9
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I ve had fascinating dreams in the past.
9
SPEAKER_00
I ve forgotten.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s, it s too messy.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they go, they dissipate very quickly.
9
SPEAKER_00
So quickly, so quickly.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that s when I was reading that part, I was like, okay, I need to hold on to these.
9
SPEAKER_01
So some of the tricks I talked to some degree in the book, but not, I just touch on it in the book.
9
SPEAKER_01
There s so much to talk about.
9
SPEAKER_01
But when you wake up, you don t move at all.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because the way the dream works it s a chemical reaction in your brain.
9
SPEAKER_01
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 be gone.
9
SPEAKER_01
So you keep pen and paper right next to your bed and the minute you wake up,
9
SPEAKER_01
You grab the pen and paper, moving as little as possible, and just start writing.
9
SPEAKER_01
And even if you only remember, I remember there s a part in the dream where this happens, write the part you remember.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you ll see through the process of writing, more of the dream will appear.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s, you don t, even when you wake up, you don t, you won t remember as much of it as you know, but once you start writing, you can start tapping into more.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, and before that, this happened.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then this happened after that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you ll start noticing more details and the more you practice it, the better you get at it.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I did that for a period of time.
9
SPEAKER_01
And at the time, the dreams made no sense.
9
SPEAKER_01
They were just these abstract, you know, Salvador Dali paintings.
9
SPEAKER_01
And just went on abstract.
9
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea, strange, strange dreams, no idea what they are.
9
SPEAKER_01
And then years later, I found that journal and I read it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when they were happening, I thought every dream every night was completely different.
9
SPEAKER_01
And none of them were about anything I understood.
9
SPEAKER_01
And years later, when I look back at it,
9
SPEAKER_01
all the dreams were about the same thing.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they all were, it was so clear what my subconscious was telling me.
9
SPEAKER_01
Uh, I don t remember what it was cause it was probably 20, 20 some odd years ago, but I remember being shocked by, Oh, this didn t make, I was too close to it to understand it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I was too close.
9
SPEAKER_01
And with a little bit of distance, you can see what it is.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s also interesting to see how your subconscious works, how it,
9
SPEAKER_01
how your subconscious abstracts reality to show it to us in a way that s intriguing and interesting, but not obvious.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s very beautiful.
9
SPEAKER_00
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, 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.
9
SPEAKER_00
And the modern day question is, well, what s the benefit of that?
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, why would you do that?
9
SPEAKER_00
And when I was asking in my head, I was like,
9
SPEAKER_00
If I just listen to you and I m listening to you and I m remember reading what I read and I m thinking the benefit is just the act of observing and just being there and
10
SPEAKER_01
And then, like you said, being able to then look back, potentially in the future, maybe not, maybe it is, to see if there are connections.
10
SPEAKER_01
And the subconscious, you re so right, is speaking to us in almost such a compassionate, artful way without telling you on the nose.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s an important point.
10
SPEAKER_00
Don t do things just because you think you re going to get something for it.
10
SPEAKER_00
That s not why we do things.
10
SPEAKER_00
Do what s interesting to you.
10
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Follow what s interesting.
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Don t worry about the outcome.
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We don t know.
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We can t predict the outcome.
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We can never predict the outcome.
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Follow your own inner guide.
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It directs us.
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It might not make sense to us, might not make sense to anyone else, certainly won t make sense to anyone else, but it might not even make sense to us.
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And that s okay.
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It s fine.
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Listen to yourself.
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Why is it telling you this?
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Why is telling you this?
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I told I mentioned my heart surgery earlier.
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My son was born 18 months before the heart surgery.
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I didn t know about the heart issue.
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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.
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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.
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So you re going to have all this energy and nothing to do with it.
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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.
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Because you re going to want it to go to your son, but he s not going to want that.
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He s going to be taken.
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So I decided I wanted to learn deadlifts.
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heavy deadlifts.
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The only exercise experience I had was with Laird Hamilton, and we didn t do any formal exercises like that.
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We did a lot of weight training, but it was more balance and coordination oriented and super fun, really interesting, and as challenging mentally as it was physically.
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Usually, you d cognitively not be able to do it before you physically couldn t do it, which was fascinating to me too.
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It was never like sitting on a treadmill looking at the TV.
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It was always, if you were not paying full attention to everything you were doing, you d probably get hurt.
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So really you re focused.
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And I like focusing on things.
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So it was fun.
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So then I thought, okay, learning like proper form, Olympic deadlifting, I m doing the Olympic deadlifting.
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And as the weights got heavier, I realized I had this anxiety before a lift.
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That didn t make sense to me.
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And even to the point where I talked to the trainer and I said, something doesn t make sense.
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I m going to pick up this weight and one of two things is going to happen.
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The weight will go off the ground or the weight will not go off the ground.
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If the weight doesn t go off the ground, we ll take off five pounds and then I ll try it again.
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If it goes off the ground or doesn t go off the ground, I don t care.
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I don t care at all.
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why would I have anxiety if I don t care?
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Turns out the wisdom of the body, knowing that when I finally found out what was going on with 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, you know, heavy Olympic deadlifting.
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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.
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Wow.
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He s like, there was no worse thing you could have done with what was going on in your heart.
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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.
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Yeah.
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So there, there are levels of wisdom that we don t know.
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We don t understand.
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So when you have an intuition to take the stairs instead of the elevator, or I always go home this way, but today for some reason, I feel like going this other way, or maybe I m gonna cross street and walk on that side of the street, whatever it is, whatever little intuitions in your body that come, listen to them, see what happens, be open to, there s more going on than we know.
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There s a lot more than our conscious mind can,
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can pick up going on.
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Yeah, we often do so many things because we think they re right, we think they re healthy, they re the thing you re meant to do, but it doesn t sit with you somewhere.
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And I think so many people have... I know for a fact that I feel like I started following my intuition when I was probably around 14.
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And so that voice is very loud, but I know a lot of people that I ve worked with and coached and also worked with in my life that started to stop listening to their inner voice at 14.
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And so it s very quiet now.
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And so it becomes harder to really hear it because we ve suppressed it for so long.
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And then the ego or the outside noise is so loud that we re guided by that.
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We re not misguided by that.
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it s hard to tap into it again.
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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 with and you ve said, hey, just try this to tap into it again.
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And the examples you just gave right now kind of feel real too, where it can be something as simple as take that route, do that.
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Because I find that people lose touch with it.
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Absolutely.
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I would say when you re getting advice of any kind, expert advice from whoever it is,
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No, maybe that applies to me.
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Maybe that applies, and maybe it doesn t.
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But it s okay.
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It s okay.
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No, there s no, um, bad intention on the wisdom that s being shared with us.
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People are offering their best information, but they re the information that they re offering is based on their experience.
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So no, even when it s someone you really respect when they re suggesting something, maybe that would work.
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Maybe I ll try it.
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Maybe not.
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but listen to what s going on inside yourself.
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And I would say, getting to wherever it is that you ve gotten, we ve usually gotten there through listening to something going on inside of ourselves.
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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.
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Makes no sense.
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It s hard, you either do it at the beginning or you do it at the end and it s almost like they re the same.
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What you were saying earlier, the idea of, there s this beginner s mindset where you re always open to hear people s thoughts, so you don t know.
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There s that idea of, I don t know, we have to feel and see.
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But that s different to, I don t know, therefore someone else must know, or I ve known up till now, and now I don t, no one knows.
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I don t know, and nobody knows.
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No one knows, yes.
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And everyone s intentions are good.
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They re not out to get us, but nobody knows.
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They think they know,
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The wisest thing we can do is know enough to know we don t know.
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If you start from maybe, maybe that s true.
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It could work, who knows?
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Not hold anything so firm as this is the way it is.
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I know how it is.
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Anytime you know how it is, your world just got a lot smaller.
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Tiny.
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Yeah, 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.
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And a lot of us try and place so much emphasis on knowing, but no one actually knows.
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And so it s better to either change our thoughts, change our behavior, or focus on our feelings and sense, as you ve been saying all along, it s like you ve got to feel how it- Yes, and I m not saying we ll always be right.
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No, no, no.
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No, no, no.
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There is no.
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Well, there is no.
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Yeah.
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There is even, there isn t even all right.
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Yeah.
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Pay attention to what s going on inside yourself.
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There s so much information going on inside of ourselves.
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Intuitive information.
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Rick, this has been such a beautiful and fascinating conversation for so many reasons.
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We end every On Purpose episode with a final five.
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And these answers are answered in one word or one sentence each.
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So you have that kind of capacity.
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And I want you to tell us about your new podcast that s coming out as well.
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So we ll talk about the end better.
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The first question is, what is the best advice you ve ever heard, received, or given?
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Don t listen to anyone.
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And what is the worst advice you ve ever heard, received, or given?
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Don t do the thing you love.
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Question number three, how would you define your current purpose?
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Making every step that I make in the interest of the highest good.
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Question number four, what s something that you believe strongly that you think other people find it hard to understand?
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Everything.
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That s brilliant.
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Everything, everything.
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And fifth and final question, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
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Love each other.
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Rick Rubin, everyone.
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The name of the book is The Creative Act, A Way of Being.
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If you don t already have a copy, again, I highly recommend it.
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I promise you it will be an investment that will be something you pick up for years.
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It s not a book you read and put down and then you never see it again.
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It s gonna be a book that you re gonna 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.
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So if you ve been someone who s been blocked, stuck,
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trying to find out, you know, where that s gone or haven t ever seen it before.
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This will be the book to unlock it.
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I highly recommend it.
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And Rick, you also have a new podcast as well.
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Yeah.
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It s called Tetragrammaton.
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I ve been doing the Broken Record podcast for about five years where I mainly speak to musicians.
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And I m so interested in
11
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in people who are not musicians.
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I mean, it s just one of the things that I m involved in, but I m much more curious than just about music.
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And it just seemed like, why would I do that?
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So I ve recorded the first 15 of them.
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Okay.
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Amazing.
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Amazing.
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Where can people find it?
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Everywhere?
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Everywhere.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Make sure you go and subscribe to the podcast.
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Got 15.
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I m sure they re coming out weekly or they ll come out weekly and sounds like I m sure you ve got some phenomenal guests already lined up.
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So please everyone who s listening and watching with the book, go ahead and listen to the podcast as well.
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I m sure you re going to be hearing.
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amazing interviews and introductions and new insights on people that you know and love and I m sure there ll be some new people there too, but make sure you do that.
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Rick, thank you so much for today.
11
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Thank you for your energy, your presence, your work in putting this together and making sure you put out the book you wanted to put out.
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I m very grateful for it.
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As I said, I was personally
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amazed at how you d transformed how people would have thought about a book from you.
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And I hope it inspires many more people to find their truth as well.
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So beautiful.
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Thank you so much for reading.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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I appreciate it.
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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.
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My fears are only going to continue to show me what I m capable of.
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The more that I face my fears, the more that I feel I m gaining strength and gaining wisdom.
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And I just want to keep doing that.
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Guess what, Will?
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What s that, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murderers or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
11
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
11
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.