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Jay-Z wrote in a way that no one else wrote.

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All the other rappers that I worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics, and I never saw Jay write lyrics.

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And when I played him the beat for 99 Problems, he said, okay, just keep playing it over and over again.

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And he sat in the back of the room.

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You could hear him mumbling or humming.

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After 20 or 30 minutes, he's like,

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Okay, I got it, ran into the other room and did the first verse.

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He did, let's say three takes, and then he came in and he'd listen to him.

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He's like, oh yeah, I think the second one's good.

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It just happens in his mind.

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And then this big list of people that you've worked with, I mean, it's just this unbelievable list.

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Jay-Z, Kanye, Adele, Justin Timberlake, and Mick Jagger, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

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Why do you think these people call you?

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Because I've been making things for 40 years, and I started making music as a hobby.

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It ended up picking on a life of its own and becoming a business.

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And that list, they're not special.

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I would say they're ordinary people who made a decision.

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I think of Eminem as a good example.

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Eminem is someone who's always writing because he wants to be the best he could possibly be and he's insanely obsessive about that.

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It appears that some people are just like inherently more creative than others.

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Well, creativity is beaten out of us over the course of our lives.

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We go to school.

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We're taught to follow rules.

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The rules are not there to help us.

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The rules are there to control us.

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We're not taught to be free, creative thinkers.

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So I'm suggesting we break free and express ourselves freely.

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How?

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Well, all of the best things involve risk.

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It's only through the risk that the greatness has shown.

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And so something needs to die.

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That lifestyle in that moment, that career path, that relationship, that's what needs to die.

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Is there a step one in that direction for people that want to hit the reset button?

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Yeah.

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The first one I'll say is

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In your early 30s, you had a depressive episode yourself.

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Yeah.

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It was really a tough time.

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I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

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Started having panic attacks and couldn't sleep.

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I got really sick, and it felt like I was shot with a poison arrow.

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Take me into that part of your life.

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So, um...

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Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins.

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The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed.

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So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know.

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And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button.

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But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better.

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And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this one right now and hit that follow button.

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I'm going to start Rick where my curiosity is.

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Yes.

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How do you sort of self-categorize or self-identify in terms of like your profession?

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Hmm.

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I would say I'm involved in art and creativity.

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And what is your involvement in art and creativity?

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Yes.

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might be as a coach.

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It might be as a collaborator.

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It might come up in a film project, or it might come up in someone who has a startup who wants to talk about what are the things.

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Creative solutions, any problem that we have or anything we want to get better at, there's usually a creative path there

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to improve, or at least to test to see if there are other ways around.

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Often the accepted version of how to move forward is another limitation.

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I'm very curious about your principles as it relates to finding the solution, whether that's in business or whether it's in music.

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And I'm really interested in if there's any similarities in the process of finding a solution.

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Because I'm an entrepreneur, I guess I'm a podcaster as well.

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I do investments all day, every day.

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I'm in the pursuit of a solution to a problem, a people problem, a creative problem.

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Do you have any high-level principles that are broadly applicable, irrespective of the type of problem you're solving?

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I'll tell you an interesting one.

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A word I've been thinking about lately is indefensible.

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Indefensible is a funny word because it's a really pejorative word.

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It's a strong pejorative.

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If something is indefensible, it's not just bad.

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Indefensible is really extreme.

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I'm thinking that in making art, indefensible is actually a good thing.

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Maybe not only a good thing, maybe a necessary thing.

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That you take things to the extreme that are indefensible.

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I can't tell you why.

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I can't tell you why because it's beyond reason.

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So I'm in that camp of reason is a tiny sliver of how decisions get made.

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And I would be much more in the camp of intuition or maybe some sort of a guidance from the universe.

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openness to being guided by something more, something, the creative force of the universe.

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You could call it God.

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I call it God.

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You're not required to.

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What art that you've been involved in creating would you define in the moment as being indefensible?

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A little over a year ago, there was a meme about vibe coding.

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The way it started was, if something new happened, a guy named Andrev Karpefi coined the term vibe coding.

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I didn't know what it was.

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That same day that he coined the term and tweeted about it, someone put a picture of me wearing headphones with my eyes closed, hand on a mouse.

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And that image became associated with vibe coding.

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Had nothing to do with me.

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I saw it.

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I didn't know what it meant.

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But then over the next few days, friends started sending me hundreds of this image associated with vibe coding in all different ways.

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And I thought, hmm.

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Now, the old me, pre-creative act me, would have laughed and moved on with my life.

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And one of the things that I learned through working on the Creative Act, one of the things it talks about a lot, is we're given information all the time around us.

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There are all these opportunities or invitations

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being made all the time.

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In the past, if someone told me about a movie that sounded like I didn't want to see it, that doesn't sound like it's for me, I would ignore it.

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But if two or three people say, you might want to see this movie, even if it's not interesting to me, it's almost like the universe, too much energy behind this.

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So this was an example of a lot of energy coming towards me relating to vibe coding.

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I don't know what it is.

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And I thought, okay, how do I participate?

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If I want to participate in this thing that's going on, an experiment, creative experiment.

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And I thought, okay, I'm going to write a joke tweet related to vibe coding.

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I thought about it and came up with, tools will come, tools will go, only the vibe coder remains.

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And typically the tweets get

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10,000, 20,000 views.

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I looked the next day, and this joke tweet has a million and a half views.

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It's like, something's going on.

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It was an indefensible act.

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There was no reason for me to do it.

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But I'm feeling this energy coming at me from all of these different directions.

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I participate.

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I answer the invitation.

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I'm going to go.

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comes back, there's interest.

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It's like, hmm, what would be the next step?

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And the next step is, well, I still don't really know what vibe coding is.

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Maybe I'll write a book about vibe coding.

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I put aside all of my real work, my professional work, to dedicate myself to this book on vibe coding and,

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And again, I couldn't explain it.

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I couldn't tell you why.

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I can't say it was a good idea.

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None of those things.

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I was following a calling, feeling like I was being invited to participate in this thing, and this is the way that I could answer the call.

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So I did.

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In so many ways,

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parts of our life, we might get that invitation to participate in something that is none of our business.

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Yes.

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All the time.

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Yeah.

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And we usually say no, because it's not what's on our business card.

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It's not what we've done in the past.

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And we are, you know, the more successful we become, the more narrow we become in many respects.

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Yes.

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I'm thinking about this idea of like how one resists their label so they can capitalize on all the callings or, you know, so they don't miss important.

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Any label that you put on yourself or that's put on you makes you smaller.

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No label supply.

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No label supply.

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We are beyond labels.

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It's tempting though, isn't it?

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Because labels are nice shortcuts at cocktail parties.

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There are also no shortcuts.

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And I hope you don't spend too much time in cocktail parties.

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No, I don't.

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Don't worry.

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I'm guessing what goes on there.

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Okay, so that's interesting, this idea of sometimes following the indefensible.

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Well, if you feel a call, even if it doesn't make sense...

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If you, for an artist to write a song, and you really feel like this is really, this is really meaningful to me, I think no one's going to like it, but I really feel it.

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I can't defend it.

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That's the best thing you can do.

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If you make something where you think this is for everyone or they're going to love it,

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It's like, it's too easy.

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The most interesting things are challenging.

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It's challenging to you.

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It's challenging to the people who see it.

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The things that are revolutionary.

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Most of the things that I've fallen in love with over my life, creatively, art,

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When I first see it often or first hear it, I might not like it at first because it's too much or I don't have any context for it.

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The true revolutionary works, we don't have context for.

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It appears to me, Rick, that sometimes things that are more of the same do bigger numbers.

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So I'm thinking about… Maybe for a period of time.

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I was thinking about two artists.

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One of them is Drake, who, listen, makes great music, makes hits, everybody loves them.

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They come out, we dance in the clubs to them, et cetera.

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Then I was thinking about, I think, a record that you worked on with Kanye, Yeezus.

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And I remember where I was when I first heard that.

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As a huge Kanye fan, I thought, here we go, we're gonna get more college dropout, here we go.

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And I put it on and I was like, what the fuck is this?

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But then I loved it.

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And in my little group of six.

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How long did it take, a while?

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A while.

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It took a while.

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I mean, you know, with Drake's stuff, I tend to like it on first listen.

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But with that Yeezus album, I had to really like persevere.

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And then I thought it was genius because it was a new paradigm.

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You worked on that album.

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And that's a good example of like, it was a sort of an anti-hip-hop album.

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And that was done intentionally.

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And it definitely, we went as far as we could into an indefensible realm.

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But what about the numbers?

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What about the sales?

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What about the record label?

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Is it an important album to you now?

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Did its job.

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Those near-term incentives, though.

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Listen, we need, Drake, we need you to make another.

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We never consider near-term incentive ever at any point in time.

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Never once.

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never a consideration.

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It doesn't exist.

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We're making things forever.

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We're making things that are truly personal to us.

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And if it's truly personal to us, if someone doesn't get it,

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That's, they just don't get it yet.

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Or maybe they'll never get it, and it's fine, because I know this is my diary entry.

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Can someone else read your diary entry and tell you it's wrong?

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It's not good enough.

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Or it's not true.

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It's not how you see the world.

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Everything we make is a diary entry.

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Everything we make is our personal, true expression.

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The reason we're saying it is to show you see it like that, we see it like this, or I see it like this.

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This is how I see it.

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And with that information, you can see it's like, ah, I never considered that before.

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There's more.

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The world is bigger than I thought.

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It's not just more the same.

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It's not just more numbers.

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And it's also, the more numbers game is a shorter term game.

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I remember I made an album with Linkin Park, who at the time were probably one of the biggest bands in the world.

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And they'd made three albums that were, I would say, stylistically very similar.

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They were rap rock.

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And there was a rap rock movement, Korn, I guess Rage Against the Machine was first, Korn, Limp Bizkit, all these bands.

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And Linkin Park was probably the last of that wave of music.

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And they were wildly successful doing that music.

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And when we started working together, there was a choice.

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We could continue working.

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and do the next in that same style, which the audience would love, and it would be easy to do.

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Or we could be true to where the band was in this moment of time, 10 years after they started, about probably eight, 10 years after they started, and be free to find the new sound, the next sound.

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And when we did that, probably half of the audience didn't like it.

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and half of the audience loved it, and new people came along, and they set themselves up to have a much longer career of making the things that they wanted to make, whereas they were already on the tail end of a genre that had they made another one, maybe it would have been, it probably would have been, you know, as successful as what they had done, but long-term, the genre was dying.

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00:14:58.306 --> 00:15:00.367
Again, none of this was thought about at the time.

231
00:15:00.427 --> 00:15:06.231
Another example I think of is Radiohead's Kid A. I remember when Kid A came out, I didn't like it at all.

232
00:15:06.591 --> 00:15:08.812
I loved the Benz and OK Computer.

233
00:15:08.832 --> 00:15:15.036
They were my favorite Ben, and then they made this album Kid A, and it was totally different, and it really alienated me.

234
00:15:15.676 --> 00:15:18.337
And today, that might be my favorite Radiohead album.

235
00:15:19.358 --> 00:15:20.338
It feels like a risk.

236
00:15:21.319 --> 00:15:24.621
Yes, but that's all of the best things involve risk.

237
00:15:25.709 --> 00:15:33.816
Because I'm sure you've also got examples where someone followed that thesis of listening to what they wanted to make or doing it for themselves and not thinking too much about the audience and it didn't work.

238
00:15:34.316 --> 00:15:34.676
Of course.

239
00:15:35.237 --> 00:15:39.080
And they could have just made, you know, a hit and paid off their mortgage and... Yeah.

240
00:15:39.540 --> 00:15:40.421
It's not so interesting.

241
00:15:40.681 --> 00:15:40.962
I know.

242
00:15:40.982 --> 00:15:41.962
It's not so interesting to me.

243
00:15:42.002 --> 00:15:43.684
I think that's, it's a different game.

244
00:15:44.344 --> 00:15:49.529
That's the, you know, that's the investment commerce game and I'm in the art game.

245
00:15:49.569 --> 00:15:50.549
It's just a different thing.

246
00:15:51.330 --> 00:15:52.831
There's nothing wrong with that other game.

247
00:15:53.972 --> 00:15:54.792
it's just not my game.

248
00:15:55.693 --> 00:15:57.874
Which one leads to more success over the long term?

249
00:15:58.414 --> 00:16:05.957
Defined by, let's say, if we define success in this context by the subjective opinion of people that that was good and money.

250
00:16:06.537 --> 00:16:09.378
All I can say is that I've been making things for 40 years.

251
00:16:09.398 --> 00:16:12.899
I have never done it the way you're suggesting.

252
00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:15.300
I've always taken the risk.

253
00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:18.001
I've always made my favorite thing.

254
00:16:18.041 --> 00:16:20.683
I've always supported the artists in making their favorite thing.

255
00:16:22.653 --> 00:16:26.694
Luckily, a lot of revolutionary things have happened from that.

256
00:16:26.994 --> 00:16:43.159
And I would say things that probably inspired other artists to be more free and more true and more honest and take bigger risks to make something more interesting, made the world more interesting place.

257
00:16:44.160 --> 00:16:45.840
Why do you think these people call you?

258
00:16:47.581 --> 00:16:49.361
I think it's probably different for different artists.

259
00:16:50.322 --> 00:16:51.302
Why did Jay-Z call you?

260
00:16:52.168 --> 00:16:58.231
The time that I first met Jay was when he was making the Black Album, and he wanted to...

261
00:16:59.412 --> 00:17:05.895
He was planning on retiring, and this was going to be his one song, his final album, the Black Album, was Jay-Z's last album.

262
00:17:06.255 --> 00:17:08.156
Turned out not to be, but that was the plan.

263
00:17:09.277 --> 00:17:14.079
And he asked his 10 favorite producers to each make one track with him.

264
00:17:14.899 --> 00:17:19.762
And ours was called 99 Problems, and it was a really fun experience to make.

265
00:17:20.570 --> 00:17:21.951
I mean, what an iconic record that is.

266
00:17:22.892 --> 00:17:24.334
What was your contribution to that record?

267
00:17:24.374 --> 00:17:25.275
Everybody knows that record.

268
00:17:25.975 --> 00:17:26.296
Everybody.

269
00:17:26.496 --> 00:17:26.696
Yeah.

270
00:17:26.956 --> 00:17:29.759
We created the track and we played it for Jay and he liked it.

271
00:17:29.859 --> 00:17:32.962
And then he wrote the words and rapped on top of it.

272
00:17:33.843 --> 00:17:35.505
So you produced the music.

273
00:17:35.525 --> 00:17:36.166
Made the music.

274
00:17:36.286 --> 00:17:36.886
Made the music.

275
00:17:37.086 --> 00:17:40.450
I read that you gave him direction in terms of the lyrics as well.

276
00:17:40.930 --> 00:17:43.433
Well, my friend Chris Rock had the idea of...

277
00:17:45.547 --> 00:17:50.031
Ice-T had a song called 99 Problems that was the opposite.

278
00:17:50.732 --> 00:17:56.958
It was, I have 99 problems and a bitch ain't one, and then it's a story about the girls.

279
00:17:57.379 --> 00:17:57.599
Uh-huh.

280
00:17:58.813 --> 00:18:03.874
And Chris said, you know, 99 problems would be a great hook and it doesn't have to be about the girls.

281
00:18:04.494 --> 00:18:07.375
And then I suggested to Jay, make it about the problems.

282
00:18:08.355 --> 00:18:09.795
And then that's what it was.

283
00:18:10.775 --> 00:18:14.636
And business people, startups, they seek your advice as well, entrepreneurs?

284
00:18:14.936 --> 00:18:15.376
All the time.

285
00:18:16.016 --> 00:18:16.876
And what are they seeking?

286
00:18:17.216 --> 00:18:19.837
Let's talk about 99 problems a little more because it's an interesting story.

287
00:18:20.597 --> 00:18:22.077
Jay-Z was signed to Def Jam Records.

288
00:18:22.337 --> 00:18:25.318
Def Jam Records was the label that I founded and...

289
00:18:26.456 --> 00:18:36.119
I was no longer at Def Jam when we made 99 Problems, and I remember giving it to the people at Def Jam, and the person who was the president of Def Jam at the time listened to it, and he's like, oh, this is great.

290
00:18:36.600 --> 00:18:38.920
It'll never be a single, but it'll be a great album track.

291
00:18:39.461 --> 00:18:40.401
I remember thinking, okay.

292
00:18:40.541 --> 00:18:41.721
And again, I don't know.

293
00:18:41.741 --> 00:18:42.862
I couldn't say.

294
00:18:43.542 --> 00:18:51.705
But the president of the label that I founded was saying this could never be a single because it doesn't sound like everything else on the radio.

295
00:18:53.244 --> 00:18:54.567
that was the old way of thinking.

296
00:18:54.607 --> 00:19:01.042
That was the normal way of thinking of like, you make things to go on the radio that sound like everything else on the radio.

297
00:19:01.663 --> 00:19:02.545
But if you do that,

298
00:19:04.716 --> 00:19:05.337
Who cares?

299
00:19:06.618 --> 00:19:07.839
It's just more of the same.

300
00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:11.763
So 99 Problems didn't sound like anything on the radio.

301
00:19:11.843 --> 00:19:15.326
So when it eventually got on the radio, it had a big impact.

302
00:19:15.747 --> 00:19:18.309
Another band I work with is called System of a Down.

303
00:19:18.409 --> 00:19:18.769
Yeah, I remember.

304
00:19:19.450 --> 00:19:27.518
And I remember bringing their record to Kevin Weatherly at K-Rock, which is the rock station, alternative rock station in California.

305
00:19:28.118 --> 00:19:32.100
And if they play it, all of the other alternative rock stations in the country play it.

306
00:19:32.120 --> 00:19:33.621
They were like the leading station.

307
00:19:33.881 --> 00:19:37.583
And this was a California band that was starting to get popular in the clubs.

308
00:19:37.903 --> 00:19:39.424
Maybe 200 people would come, but

309
00:19:40.635 --> 00:19:42.496
In a club, the club would sell out.

310
00:19:42.776 --> 00:19:43.316
Good sign.

311
00:19:44.236 --> 00:19:55.519
And I brought, I think the song was called Sugar, and I brought it to Kevin Weatherly, and I played it for him, and he said, not only will we not play this record, we will never play this band on our station, because it sounded insane.

312
00:19:55.699 --> 00:19:57.659
It didn't sound like anything else on the station.

313
00:19:58.820 --> 00:20:02.741
One year later, number one song on the station, most requested.

314
00:20:03.817 --> 00:20:10.840
And two weeks ago, I saw System of a Down sell out 80,000 seats in a stadium in Paris.

315
00:20:11.100 --> 00:20:12.540
They sold it out two nights in a row.

316
00:20:14.181 --> 00:20:16.522
I can't tell you how or why this works.

317
00:20:17.542 --> 00:20:19.943
I can't tell you that there's anything to follow.

318
00:20:20.223 --> 00:20:24.005
But I will say, we made the things that we loved.

319
00:20:25.199 --> 00:20:27.980
We never questioned if anyone else was going to like it.

320
00:20:28.060 --> 00:20:30.161
We never questioned what the audience was going to think.

321
00:20:30.201 --> 00:20:33.262
We never questioned where does it fit in the market.

322
00:20:33.522 --> 00:20:35.563
None of those normal conversations.

323
00:20:36.844 --> 00:20:38.384
We made our favorite thing.

324
00:20:39.025 --> 00:20:42.826
We took it to an indefensible level as far as we could go.

325
00:20:44.087 --> 00:20:47.328
And luckily, it worked out.

326
00:20:48.760 --> 00:20:50.481
Is there a way to get clearer on what you love?

327
00:20:50.521 --> 00:20:53.842
This sounds like a strange question, but- Meditate.

328
00:20:54.262 --> 00:20:54.762
Meditate.

329
00:20:54.922 --> 00:20:56.542
I learned to meditate when I was 14.

330
00:20:57.703 --> 00:21:07.426
And I think having a TM as a grounding element in my life- TM.

331
00:21:07.486 --> 00:21:08.766
A transcendental meditation.

332
00:21:09.286 --> 00:21:11.487
That was the first type of meditation I learned when I was

333
00:21:14.805 --> 00:21:15.627
It changed me.

334
00:21:15.768 --> 00:21:19.198
I know this because I stopped meditating when I went to college.

335
00:21:20.232 --> 00:21:24.435
And then when I moved to California right after college, I started meditating again.

336
00:21:24.835 --> 00:21:30.720
Somewhere I knew it was a big decision and somewhere I knew there would be a right moment to start.

337
00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:37.104
And it took several months before I actually sat for the first meditation after not doing it for several years.

338
00:21:37.965 --> 00:21:44.069
And in that first meditation, I realized, oh, this is very familiar to me.

339
00:21:45.270 --> 00:21:49.373
This is a big part of who I am, even though I haven't done it in five years.

340
00:21:50.772 --> 00:21:57.214
It's a big part of how I see the world, the fact that I got to do that from a young age.

341
00:21:58.294 --> 00:22:01.975
To understand who you are with it, I'm going to ask you who you would be without it.

342
00:22:02.696 --> 00:22:03.116
I don't know.

343
00:22:03.876 --> 00:22:05.056
I'm curious.

344
00:22:06.057 --> 00:22:09.798
I'm happy that I don't know because I like having the practice.

345
00:22:10.438 --> 00:22:17.080
But whether I continue a practice or not, I've done enough of it over the course of my life that

346
00:22:19.348 --> 00:22:19.949
I'm there.

347
00:22:21.650 --> 00:22:24.392
When I meditate more, it gets deeper.

348
00:22:25.553 --> 00:22:35.840
But even if I don't meditate, it's like Maharishi, teacher of transcendental meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, says every time you meditate, it's like making a deposit in the bank.

349
00:22:36.981 --> 00:22:38.622
So it builds up.

350
00:22:39.423 --> 00:22:44.306
And again, that was rhetoric before, but in my experience, I got to see, oh, it's not rhetoric.

351
00:22:44.547 --> 00:22:46.368
Like I actually had this experience.

352
00:22:47.914 --> 00:22:49.595
and it changed the way I saw the world.

353
00:22:49.735 --> 00:22:54.378
And I'll say, you see beyond the surface.

354
00:22:55.399 --> 00:22:57.821
You can see the depth underneath.

355
00:22:58.781 --> 00:23:01.583
And for me, the things on the surface are not so interesting.

356
00:23:03.424 --> 00:23:07.687
I'm interested in the depth, the depth behind it.

357
00:23:09.568 --> 00:23:12.390
So my first question would be, what is transcendental meditation?

358
00:23:13.011 --> 00:23:16.473
It's a mantra practice that's done silently.

359
00:23:17.959 --> 00:23:19.940
You do it sitting with your eyes closed.

360
00:23:20.600 --> 00:23:22.061
You learn it from a TM teacher.

361
00:23:22.081 --> 00:23:23.062
I can't teach it to you.

362
00:23:24.022 --> 00:23:24.943
We close our eyes.

363
00:23:26.043 --> 00:23:31.726
And then the mantra is a sound vibration that gets given to you.

364
00:23:31.806 --> 00:23:33.527
I was given mine when I was 14.

365
00:23:33.547 --> 00:23:37.249
I have never uttered it out loud since that time.

366
00:23:37.349 --> 00:23:38.710
I've never shared it with anyone.

367
00:23:38.950 --> 00:23:40.891
And that's part of the training.

368
00:23:41.632 --> 00:23:44.113
It's like a private sound.

369
00:23:45.765 --> 00:23:58.595
and you engage with this sound in the way that you're taught, 20 minutes, at least once a day, typically twice a day, I would do it right when I woke up in the morning, and then again before dinner.

370
00:23:59.155 --> 00:24:00.897
Those would be the two windows.

371
00:24:01.717 --> 00:24:06.121
When I lived in California, and I was working in different recording studios,

372
00:24:07.030 --> 00:24:12.452
I've meditated with Tom Petty and Johnny Cash and different artists before sessions.

373
00:24:13.353 --> 00:24:15.233
That would be part of our practice, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

374
00:24:15.253 --> 00:24:17.474
We would sit and meditate together before sessions.

375
00:24:18.435 --> 00:24:25.357
So I've had this experience for a while in my life, and it's probably the most profound thing I can mention.

376
00:24:25.377 --> 00:24:32.940
We'll get to others, but that's one that's a learnable, practicable action that really changed who I am.

377
00:24:33.420 --> 00:24:34.421
How did you know it was...

378
00:24:36.322 --> 00:24:36.862
efficacious?

379
00:24:36.882 --> 00:24:38.083
How did you know it was working?

380
00:24:38.263 --> 00:24:43.506
What is the measure that this practice is worth that investment in time, in your view?

381
00:24:44.266 --> 00:24:48.889
The only proof that I had was getting away from it and coming back to it.

382
00:24:48.949 --> 00:24:57.233
That was, I recognized it in that first meditation back, how deep and connected I was to this thing.

383
00:24:58.754 --> 00:25:02.916
And I'm guessing this unlocks, you said, a deeper level, a deeper level of creativity and ideas.

384
00:25:03.056 --> 00:25:03.436
Everything.

385
00:25:03.797 --> 00:25:03.897
Oh.

386
00:25:04.257 --> 00:25:04.617
Everything.

387
00:25:06.363 --> 00:25:07.604
deeper understanding.

388
00:25:09.025 --> 00:25:13.129
People often hear that meditation in various forms is beneficial.

389
00:25:13.469 --> 00:25:18.534
Very successful people sit here all the time and say it's so central to why I've been able to do what I've done.

390
00:25:18.914 --> 00:25:21.836
And then there'll be people, you know, that think, well, I was sitting there for 10 minutes.

391
00:25:22.017 --> 00:25:23.338
My brain is very, very busy.

392
00:25:23.538 --> 00:25:24.259
I tried it once.

393
00:25:24.299 --> 00:25:25.079
It didn't really work.

394
00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:26.260
And then they move on.

395
00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:33.386
And then I study some of the great creatives in the world, the great visionaries, people that I thought could see round corners in an atypical way like Steve Jobs.

396
00:25:34.187 --> 00:25:39.976
And there's always a practice, a meditation practice, well, so often at the very heart of their brilliance.

397
00:25:40.817 --> 00:25:43.080
So I don't currently have a meditation practice.

398
00:25:43.816 --> 00:25:44.937
My wonderful fiance does.

399
00:25:44.977 --> 00:25:46.318
She does it every morning for 20 minutes.

400
00:25:46.338 --> 00:25:47.698
She's a breathwork practitioner.

401
00:25:47.718 --> 00:25:49.079
So, I mean, it's her whole world.

402
00:25:49.439 --> 00:25:50.980
And tell me what she says about it.

403
00:25:51.601 --> 00:25:55.243
She says it unlocks a deeper level of calm.

404
00:25:55.663 --> 00:25:57.004
And I don't mean calm as in like stress.

405
00:25:57.044 --> 00:25:59.946
I mean a deeper level of like groundedness.

406
00:26:01.567 --> 00:26:04.989
And she says she feels more connected and

407
00:26:06.730 --> 00:26:08.872
Now in her context, I think that's more of like a spiritual thing.

408
00:26:09.032 --> 00:26:11.594
She feels more connected to the universe and others.

409
00:26:12.775 --> 00:26:19.060
As far as the creative experience goes, a spiritual connection is a big part of that.

410
00:26:19.500 --> 00:26:22.502
It's just the nature of how it works.

411
00:26:22.582 --> 00:26:24.764
It's not an intellectual process.

412
00:26:25.304 --> 00:26:26.465
It's a spiritual process.

413
00:26:27.406 --> 00:26:28.567
What is the mechanism of,

414
00:26:29.982 --> 00:26:32.004
that is causing these results that you see?

415
00:26:32.424 --> 00:26:33.865
From a biological perspective?

416
00:26:34.005 --> 00:26:46.935
I couldn't answer that in the way that you would hope, but I will say I think it allows you to let go of all of the ordinary concerns.

417
00:26:48.977 --> 00:26:57.423
I also have a question, which is, if you live with a person who says this practice is so impactful on her life,

418
00:26:58.460 --> 00:27:03.321
I'm questioning why you at least haven't tried it with her for a month to see how it would affect you.

419
00:27:03.341 --> 00:27:04.062
That's a great question.

420
00:27:04.082 --> 00:27:05.022
You're going to get me in a lot of trouble.

421
00:27:06.222 --> 00:27:06.983
No, it's a good question.

422
00:27:07.183 --> 00:27:07.363
Yeah.

423
00:27:07.463 --> 00:27:08.263
I have no good answer for it.

424
00:27:08.523 --> 00:27:08.623
Yeah.

425
00:27:08.643 --> 00:27:08.803
Yeah.

426
00:27:09.043 --> 00:27:09.223
Yeah.

427
00:27:09.243 --> 00:27:11.004
Because it's what it has to do with it.

428
00:27:11.104 --> 00:27:14.345
It's, you're not looking for cues from the outside.

429
00:27:14.665 --> 00:27:16.885
You're looking for cues on the inside.

430
00:27:17.606 --> 00:27:18.706
What lights you up?

431
00:27:19.946 --> 00:27:21.567
What are you excited to play for your friend?

432
00:27:21.607 --> 00:27:24.628
Not what are you excited to play for your friend of like, what do you think this will

433
00:27:26.700 --> 00:27:30.887
You're playing it for your friend like, wow, can you believe something like this exists in the world?

434
00:27:31.468 --> 00:27:32.189
How cool is that?

435
00:27:32.882 --> 00:27:52.757
The distinction that I'm trying to make is often, if you read business books or entrepreneurship books, when they're talking about innovation, when they're talking about the great companies like Amazon, or I heard Sebastian, who's the CEO of Klarna say the other day, who's a tech founder, they spend a lot of time thinking about the customer, the customer's problem, and they work backwards, they call it, to the answer.

436
00:27:53.177 --> 00:27:59.442
So they'll zoom in on Rick's world and say, Rick has these problems, he's da-da-da-da, and they'll work backwards from there to a answer.

437
00:27:59.462 --> 00:27:59.882
Yeah.

438
00:28:00.122 --> 00:28:03.625
That's how Amazon say they built the platform.

439
00:28:03.745 --> 00:28:09.129
And one of the quotes that's quite famous with Jeff Bezos is he bets on things that he knows won't change.

440
00:28:09.730 --> 00:28:14.033
He says, no one in 10 years is going to come up to me and say, I wish my package would take longer.

441
00:28:14.653 --> 00:28:16.815
So he can double down on that as solving the customer problem.

442
00:28:17.195 --> 00:28:19.177
Does that sit in contrast to what you're saying?

443
00:28:19.197 --> 00:28:20.658
Or is it the same thing?

444
00:28:20.798 --> 00:28:21.639
Or is it a different type of work?

445
00:28:21.659 --> 00:28:21.759
Yeah.

446
00:28:22.366 --> 00:28:28.953
Well, I'll start by saying if you look at the history of Amazon, it lost money for probably 20 years.

447
00:28:29.033 --> 00:28:32.376
It was considered one of the worst investments until it wasn't.

448
00:28:33.497 --> 00:28:35.759
They kept doubling down on what they believed in.

449
00:28:36.981 --> 00:28:37.842
It wasn't working.

450
00:28:38.262 --> 00:28:40.124
The audience showed it didn't work.

451
00:28:40.604 --> 00:28:42.186
The model showed it didn't work.

452
00:28:42.907 --> 00:28:46.290
But they stuck to what they believed, and it changed the world.

453
00:28:47.990 --> 00:28:49.492
So it's the same thing.

454
00:28:50.554 --> 00:28:58.546
It's doubling down on what you believe in when all of the metrics are showing you it's not working.

455
00:28:59.167 --> 00:29:00.329
That's the story of Amazon.

456
00:29:01.632 --> 00:29:15.318
I think people have different levels of their ability to, you know, if we take practices like meditation aside, it just seems that through history, some people are better at cultivating that or listening to that internal voice than others.

457
00:29:15.638 --> 00:29:22.962
Obviously, I sit here and interview these, like, some of these great founders, and it appears that some people are just, like, inherently more creative than others.

458
00:29:23.302 --> 00:29:27.284
Some people are in the analytical part of their brain and they need 1 plus 1 to equal 2 all the time.

459
00:29:28.125 --> 00:29:32.007
I'm wondering if there's other ways, if you think there is an inherent difference in creativity.

460
00:29:32.587 --> 00:29:36.449
I think that creativity is beaten out of us over the course of our lives.

461
00:29:36.890 --> 00:29:42.293
I think we go to school, we're told to repeat back what we're told.

462
00:29:43.173 --> 00:29:44.814
We're told to sit in a chair all day.

463
00:29:46.555 --> 00:29:49.237
Our spirits are broken by institutions.

464
00:29:50.242 --> 00:29:53.965
We're not taught to be free creative thinkers.

465
00:29:54.205 --> 00:29:55.846
We're taught to follow rules.

466
00:29:57.087 --> 00:29:58.608
The rules are not there to help us.

467
00:29:58.868 --> 00:30:00.269
The rules are there to control us.

468
00:30:02.030 --> 00:30:08.215
I'm suggesting we break free and be free and express ourselves freely.

469
00:30:08.415 --> 00:30:11.517
And that's our purpose here on the planet is to express ourselves freely.

470
00:30:11.637 --> 00:30:12.438
That's why we're here.

471
00:30:13.914 --> 00:30:19.356
What you're saying links to something we were talking about earlier, which is at a very young age, we're taught that the things we make are a means to a particular end.

472
00:30:19.456 --> 00:30:24.117
And that end is promotions, pay rises, capital, success, job titles.

473
00:30:24.957 --> 00:30:34.860
In the creative process, are you saying that it's never productive to talk about how we'll measure success and to try and optimize for that measurement?

474
00:30:37.001 --> 00:30:41.802
In the creative process, I tend not to think about those things differently.

475
00:30:43.182 --> 00:30:47.606
I can't think of an example where we would want to use data.

476
00:30:49.507 --> 00:31:02.178
I think it's much more about this internal feeling and then the feeling we have when you play it for someone, when you share it with someone, whether it lights someone up.

477
00:31:02.218 --> 00:31:05.501
You can tell when someone really resonates with something.

478
00:31:06.701 --> 00:31:10.845
Sometimes the numbers don't show, the numbers can't reflect that.

479
00:31:12.152 --> 00:31:23.297
You can have two things that are kind of on equal footing commercially, yet one of them lights you up, and the other one is, well, this gets the job done.

480
00:31:24.397 --> 00:31:27.018
They're different.

481
00:31:27.038 --> 00:31:37.443
And long-term, chances are, the one that lights you up is going to have more value to you, and you'll be more willing to support that thing over time.

482
00:31:38.815 --> 00:31:44.339
in your book here, The Creative Act, A Way of Being, you talk about the things that block creativity.

483
00:31:46.120 --> 00:31:49.903
Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work.

484
00:31:51.128 --> 00:31:52.308
Believing you're not good enough.

485
00:31:52.928 --> 00:31:53.568
That's a big one.

486
00:31:54.429 --> 00:32:00.210
Someone at some point in time, you were singing, and someone's like, ah, you can't sing when you're a kid.

487
00:32:00.850 --> 00:32:02.170
And that gets larger news.

488
00:32:02.190 --> 00:32:03.610
Singing is not something I can ever do.

489
00:32:04.871 --> 00:32:05.931
Or you're a terrible cook.

490
00:32:07.431 --> 00:32:08.591
Or you're not smart enough.

491
00:32:09.671 --> 00:32:14.872
So often, the gifts that we have are stifled and smothered.

492
00:32:16.213 --> 00:32:17.153
We're all creative.

493
00:32:18.131 --> 00:32:26.703
We may not choose to embark on a creative, make creative choices, but it's on us.

494
00:32:27.364 --> 00:32:27.944
We can.

495
00:32:28.585 --> 00:32:29.947
We just have bad information.

496
00:32:31.389 --> 00:32:35.535
We're told we're not good enough, and we believe it, and it's not true.

497
00:32:36.940 --> 00:32:42.765
When people say that, oh, you know, Rick is a creative and they say Stephen is not a creative, what are they actually saying?

498
00:32:43.125 --> 00:32:45.707
What is that, like, in our culture, to be a creative?

499
00:32:46.088 --> 00:32:48.189
How are we misunderstanding the definition?

500
00:32:48.209 --> 00:32:49.791
See what I'm saying?

501
00:32:49.811 --> 00:32:51.532
Because we do, we go creative.

502
00:32:51.572 --> 00:32:53.193
They do a little bit of art and music stuff.

503
00:32:53.233 --> 00:32:54.274
Creative, not creative.

504
00:32:54.474 --> 00:32:55.155
Excel documents.

505
00:32:55.375 --> 00:32:56.216
Creative.

506
00:32:56.536 --> 00:32:57.777
What are we actually saying there?

507
00:32:59.058 --> 00:33:00.439
I think it's a way to...

508
00:33:02.633 --> 00:33:03.874
try to simplify the world.

509
00:33:03.894 --> 00:33:07.276
The world is complicated, and I think all of us can do anything.

510
00:33:07.777 --> 00:33:11.700
I'm not saying all of us could do everything to the best of our ability better than anyone else.

511
00:33:12.340 --> 00:33:15.983
That's a big part of it is the idea of competition.

512
00:33:17.244 --> 00:33:21.467
Like, if I want to play baseball, I know that I could get better at baseball.

513
00:33:21.867 --> 00:33:24.489
That doesn't mean I think I could get good enough to play on the Mets.

514
00:33:25.610 --> 00:33:32.075
But I know I could get better, and I know I could train anything that I'm interested in and get much better at it.

515
00:33:33.700 --> 00:33:39.983
And as soon as we're not capable of playing for the Mets, we think it's not for us and we shut that off.

516
00:33:40.843 --> 00:33:42.944
We're not doing a service to ourselves.

517
00:33:43.365 --> 00:33:50.468
We're not becoming our best selves or really living up to our full potential as humans.

518
00:33:51.899 --> 00:33:57.183
It feels like a natural human instinct to compare in order to understand the value of anything.

519
00:33:57.363 --> 00:33:58.884
I feel like we do it when we go to restaurants.

520
00:33:59.064 --> 00:33:59.825
There's three steaks.

521
00:34:00.265 --> 00:34:02.006
The expensive one's probably a bit bougie.

522
00:34:02.427 --> 00:34:03.708
The cheap one's probably not good.

523
00:34:03.808 --> 00:34:04.668
I'll go for the middle one.

524
00:34:05.028 --> 00:34:07.310
Seems like a way that humans take shortcuts.

525
00:34:07.650 --> 00:34:08.791
But we do it with ourselves as well.

526
00:34:08.851 --> 00:34:11.913
So I know that the thing I've made is good as if I look over at your thing.

527
00:34:12.954 --> 00:34:15.156
And mine is ranked better.

528
00:34:15.396 --> 00:34:16.237
Or mine is prettier.

529
00:34:16.257 --> 00:34:16.857
Yeah.

530
00:34:16.997 --> 00:34:21.379
or richer, are you saying, for us to get out of the business of comparison?

531
00:34:21.399 --> 00:34:25.140
Yes, because I'm saying it's always apples and oranges.

532
00:34:25.540 --> 00:34:29.441
If you were to ask, who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince?

533
00:34:30.122 --> 00:34:33.363
I would say, Michael Jackson's much better at being Michael Jackson.

534
00:34:34.163 --> 00:34:36.044
And Prince is probably better at being Prince.

535
00:34:36.924 --> 00:34:39.245
But you can't compare what the two of them do.

536
00:34:39.285 --> 00:34:40.545
They do two different things.

537
00:34:41.926 --> 00:34:44.266
Before you mentioned Kanye West and Drake,

538
00:34:46.456 --> 00:34:47.957
There's no competition there.

539
00:34:47.997 --> 00:34:50.179
They do two totally different things.

540
00:34:50.599 --> 00:34:53.081
What you get from each of them is totally different.

541
00:34:53.842 --> 00:35:01.368
I wouldn't want from Drake what I get from Kanye, and I certainly wouldn't want from Kanye what I get from Drake.

542
00:35:01.568 --> 00:35:02.268
It's pointless.

543
00:35:03.469 --> 00:35:04.630
Is either more creative?

544
00:35:05.351 --> 00:35:06.372
That's for you to decide.

545
00:35:07.249 --> 00:35:08.009
That's for you to decide.

546
00:35:08.029 --> 00:35:12.870
There's no, the whole idea of competition between artists is it's such a weird thing.

547
00:35:12.890 --> 00:35:15.411
Again, it's back to who has a better diary entry.

548
00:35:15.871 --> 00:35:16.571
It's ridiculous.

549
00:35:17.811 --> 00:35:21.232
Feeling you don't have the energy it takes.

550
00:35:21.992 --> 00:35:24.353
These are all things that are not conducive to the work.

551
00:35:24.893 --> 00:35:26.433
Yeah, I have that one sometimes.

552
00:35:27.693 --> 00:35:30.174
Feeling like I'm not up to it too much.

553
00:35:31.134 --> 00:35:32.754
I flew here yesterday from London.

554
00:35:32.774 --> 00:35:35.275
I'm tired, I'm a little jet lagged.

555
00:35:35.950 --> 00:35:37.331
I'm going to show up and talk to you.

556
00:35:38.251 --> 00:35:39.012
Maybe it won't be good.

557
00:35:39.852 --> 00:35:43.255
Maybe it's better to just lay down, relax, and recover.

558
00:35:44.295 --> 00:35:44.715
But I'm here.

559
00:35:44.956 --> 00:35:47.757
I show up.

560
00:35:47.797 --> 00:35:51.720
You've referred to yourself as a lazy workaholic.

561
00:35:53.001 --> 00:35:53.361
It's true.

562
00:35:53.661 --> 00:35:54.922
What is a lazy workaholic?

563
00:35:55.862 --> 00:36:00.425
Often, most days, I would rather not do any of the things that I'm scheduled to do.

564
00:36:01.546 --> 00:36:04.368
And I schedule the things, and I show up.

565
00:36:05.637 --> 00:36:06.818
and I do what needs to get done.

566
00:36:08.158 --> 00:36:10.040
Do you ever settle with creative work?

567
00:36:10.860 --> 00:36:16.023
The deadline for the record label is approaching, the work is not yet done, we'll finish here and we'll send it.

568
00:36:17.724 --> 00:36:18.925
I tend not to do that.

569
00:36:19.005 --> 00:36:22.627
I tend not to work on deadlines until we're past the point.

570
00:36:22.667 --> 00:36:31.112
The first time we would ever establish a deadline is when we already know we've cracked the code, we know what this is gonna be, we can see it.

571
00:36:31.232 --> 00:36:32.793
It may not be completely finished,

572
00:36:33.585 --> 00:36:44.515
but we have a good idea of what it is and how it's going to work, and it's maybe 90% done, then we might set a deadline for that last 10% of finishing it.

573
00:36:44.956 --> 00:36:48.259
And that last 10% probably won't make or break the project.

574
00:36:49.700 --> 00:36:56.723
Part of what you accept when you pursue the creative process you've described, where it's really about like, do I like it?

575
00:36:56.763 --> 00:36:57.504
Do we like it?

576
00:36:58.184 --> 00:37:04.427
Is you will create things that are at some points just absolute legendary and unlike anything else that exists.

577
00:37:04.467 --> 00:37:05.548
They are not the same.

578
00:37:06.308 --> 00:37:09.770
But part of the risk you take is you'll make things that other people just don't like.

579
00:37:10.510 --> 00:37:14.192
That's all there is in this process is you have an idea.

580
00:37:15.047 --> 00:37:15.647
You build it.

581
00:37:15.888 --> 00:37:20.491
You may learn along the way that the idea was maybe not the best idea, and it turns left.

582
00:37:21.032 --> 00:37:26.456
I'm starting out to make this blue statue, and it turns out to be this red painting.

583
00:37:27.556 --> 00:37:32.280
You don't know that going in, but you discover it through the process, and it could take a long time.

584
00:37:32.380 --> 00:37:35.663
Other times, you'll think, I'm going to make this blue thing.

585
00:37:35.903 --> 00:37:36.924
You make it in five minutes.

586
00:37:37.889 --> 00:37:38.869
There it is, done.

587
00:37:40.470 --> 00:37:43.830
And we can't, you can't calculate that.

588
00:37:43.890 --> 00:37:46.231
You can't anticipate what's going to happen.

589
00:37:46.511 --> 00:37:51.052
But if I wasn't doing this experiment here, I would never get to the better thing.

590
00:37:51.492 --> 00:37:52.832
It happens all the time.

591
00:37:53.573 --> 00:37:59.834
And then sometimes you build it and it doesn't work for 20 years and then it becomes Amazon.

592
00:38:01.338 --> 00:38:05.920
I've thought a lot recently about how time horizons change the work that you do.

593
00:38:06.361 --> 00:38:15.225
And that's kind of also what I'm hearing there, because in that example you gave of this blue statue thing, if you were under a time horizon, you wouldn't have the space for that exploration you've described.

594
00:38:15.245 --> 00:38:19.768
And actually, in all of our lives, we, I think, apply time horizons.

595
00:38:19.808 --> 00:38:21.929
We say, this part of my career is going to be five years.

596
00:38:22.029 --> 00:38:23.970
And in those five years, I want to achieve these things.

597
00:38:24.530 --> 00:38:29.253
How do you think about setting personal time horizons, but also like creative time horizons?

598
00:38:30.194 --> 00:38:35.278
One of the things I talk about in the book is that there are different phases of creativity.

599
00:38:35.378 --> 00:38:46.968
The first phase is the seed phase, then is the experimentation phase, then is the crafting phase, and then is the finishing, completion, editorial phase.

600
00:38:47.988 --> 00:38:53.413
And you can't set a timeline early in that process.

601
00:38:53.493 --> 00:38:54.494
In the seed phase...

602
00:38:55.565 --> 00:38:58.207
You have to try a lot of things, and it's going to take as long as it takes.

603
00:38:58.327 --> 00:39:04.751
And in the experimental phase, which is where you're taking the seeds and seeing what they want to be, that takes time.

604
00:39:05.331 --> 00:39:19.080
And then in the crafting phase, the third phase, it still takes time because now you have the seed, you see what it wants to be, you've given it time to gestate, you see how it grows, and now in the crafting phase, third phase, you start trimming it and making it the way you see it.

605
00:39:21.290 --> 00:39:25.794
All of that has to happen before there's any idea of a timeline.

606
00:39:26.134 --> 00:39:28.916
Because until that time, you don't really know what you're making.

607
00:39:29.397 --> 00:39:29.957
It's a dream.

608
00:39:30.758 --> 00:39:38.324
But once you've gotten gone through these three phases, and you have this thing in front of you, it may not be finished, but you see what it is.

609
00:39:39.105 --> 00:39:40.726
You see it, and it's good.

610
00:39:41.347 --> 00:39:42.448
You're excited about it.

611
00:39:42.708 --> 00:39:45.330
When I say it's good, I mean it's good to me.

612
00:39:46.171 --> 00:39:46.691
That's it.

613
00:39:47.692 --> 00:39:48.473
That's where it ends.

614
00:39:49.133 --> 00:39:49.834
It's good to me.

615
00:39:51.025 --> 00:39:53.286
I like it enough that I'm willing to show it to you.

616
00:39:53.906 --> 00:39:57.728
If I like it enough that I'm willing to show it to you, I like it enough to show it to everybody.

617
00:39:58.609 --> 00:39:59.969
People will hear this as creative advice.

618
00:40:00.029 --> 00:40:01.190
I was hearing it as life advice.

619
00:40:01.450 --> 00:40:05.852
I was hearing the seed phase of my life, the experimentation phase of my life, the crafting phase.

620
00:40:06.552 --> 00:40:07.053
It's the same.

621
00:40:07.553 --> 00:40:08.273
It's all the same.

622
00:40:08.413 --> 00:40:13.656
And that's why the creative act started with this idea of how to make things.

623
00:40:13.836 --> 00:40:18.198
And it turned, what I realized through writing the book is, it's how to be in the world.

624
00:40:19.210 --> 00:40:25.873
That you either live your life to allow these things to happen or you don't.

625
00:40:26.754 --> 00:40:30.756
And if you live your life to allow these things to happen, then you're an artist.

626
00:40:31.096 --> 00:40:39.080
Even if you're a businessman or if you're a chef or if you're a mother, you're living your life as an artist.

627
00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:40.801
You're embodying it.

628
00:40:42.204 --> 00:40:47.026
and it's coming from you, and it's, I want to say it's who you are.

629
00:40:47.267 --> 00:40:50.368
It's not who you are, but it's who you are in that moment.

630
00:40:51.128 --> 00:40:55.671
I'm showing you this beautiful thing as a reflection of how I see the world today.

631
00:40:56.531 --> 00:40:58.572
Now, tomorrow, I may see the world differently.

632
00:40:58.652 --> 00:40:59.172
That's fine.

633
00:41:00.173 --> 00:41:04.295
But when I share it with you, this is the best it can be in this moment.

634
00:41:05.398 --> 00:41:17.425
The reason I was asking this question about the, you know, sometimes the world might not like what you give it is because of this word failure, which you talk about in the book as well, and how to deal with failure.

635
00:41:17.665 --> 00:41:22.908
I guess a lot of the reason why people won't take the risk to listen to themselves, to what they love, is...

636
00:41:23.188 --> 00:41:25.189
is because of the word risk.

637
00:41:25.549 --> 00:41:28.431
And with that comes, I might lose money, I might lose friends.

638
00:41:28.771 --> 00:41:34.935
If I quit this job and pursue that violin hobby and go to Peru and violin up in Peru, I'm going to lose friends.

639
00:41:34.955 --> 00:41:36.136
People are going to think I'm strange.

640
00:41:36.576 --> 00:41:38.037
So I'll conform.

641
00:41:38.717 --> 00:41:38.897
Yeah.

642
00:41:39.457 --> 00:41:45.001
And I'm saying you have to do all of those things, lose the friends, take the risk.

643
00:41:45.401 --> 00:41:47.102
And I'm also saying that,

644
00:41:48.535 --> 00:41:54.385
I'm not saying that 100% if you go move to Peru and be the violinist, it's going to work.

645
00:41:55.486 --> 00:42:00.334
And you may want to have an actual job to pay the bills while you're doing that.

646
00:42:01.176 --> 00:42:01.737
That's okay.

647
00:42:02.785 --> 00:42:05.407
The idea that it all has to be one thing.

648
00:42:05.567 --> 00:42:16.115
I have to do my dream thing, and it has to be my hobby, my love, my profession, the way I support myself, doesn't have to be.

649
00:42:16.976 --> 00:42:21.259
When I started making music, I thought I was gonna have a real job, and I'd make music, and it would be my hobby.

650
00:42:21.339 --> 00:42:22.160
I would do it forever.

651
00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:29.565
I would do exactly what I was doing, but I thought I would have a real job to support myself to do these things that I wanna do.

652
00:42:30.866 --> 00:42:31.306
Luckily,

653
00:42:32.323 --> 00:42:36.464
I was able to, it turned into its own thing by nothing that I did.

654
00:42:36.684 --> 00:42:39.065
Had no expectation that it could be a profession.

655
00:42:39.125 --> 00:42:41.125
I had no, it couldn't be.

656
00:42:41.385 --> 00:42:42.606
It was a ridiculous idea.

657
00:42:43.026 --> 00:42:44.206
I did it because I loved it.

658
00:42:44.666 --> 00:42:55.309
And while I was going to school and while I was probably going to go to law school and I would have a regular job, day job, and I would do music as the love of my life.

659
00:42:55.369 --> 00:42:56.049
That's what I would do.

660
00:42:56.933 --> 00:42:58.173
Luckily, I didn't have to do that.

661
00:42:59.013 --> 00:43:00.734
But that's what would have happened.

662
00:43:01.194 --> 00:43:07.695
A lot of people at that age are told to follow their passion, find their purpose, which sounds like this, you know, because the word passion is a singular word.

663
00:43:08.175 --> 00:43:12.636
And also the word find means I have to go out there and actively pursue the thing.

664
00:43:12.656 --> 00:43:16.937
A lot of people listening now would say, you know, I've been told to find my passion.

665
00:43:17.377 --> 00:43:24.339
And when they look at their job in the factory or wherever it might be, you know, whatever they're doing, they go, okay, this isn't it yet, but I will get there.

666
00:43:24.359 --> 00:43:25.339
Yeah.

667
00:43:25.519 --> 00:43:26.260
at some point later.

668
00:43:26.560 --> 00:43:26.760
Yeah.

669
00:43:27.241 --> 00:43:27.741
And I will jump.

670
00:43:27.761 --> 00:43:29.302
So you're saying don't jump necessarily.

671
00:43:29.683 --> 00:43:32.045
There are realities of life that you have to deal with.

672
00:43:32.085 --> 00:43:36.529
I'm not saying ignore the fact that you have to pay rent.

673
00:43:36.789 --> 00:43:41.172
Or say, I'm happy living in my parents' house until it works.

674
00:43:41.273 --> 00:43:41.733
That's fine.

675
00:43:42.814 --> 00:43:45.576
I'm saying there are realities of life that have to be dealt with.

676
00:43:45.756 --> 00:43:49.620
Don't put the pressure of that on your art.

677
00:43:50.580 --> 00:43:52.480
Because then you won't make the best decisions.

678
00:43:52.680 --> 00:44:05.243
You'll make short-term decisions based on real-world issues that you have to deal with in that moment that won't support the long-term benefit of the work you're doing, the real work you're doing.

679
00:44:05.843 --> 00:44:11.404
I'm sure you've sat there in those moments where you're trying to persuade an artist to follow themselves and what they, no?

680
00:44:11.764 --> 00:44:13.344
I don't try to persuade anyone of anything.

681
00:44:13.444 --> 00:44:15.025
Oh, really?

682
00:44:15.085 --> 00:44:15.185
No.

683
00:44:15.225 --> 00:44:15.985
I wouldn't use that word.

684
00:44:17.397 --> 00:44:18.437
I wouldn't use the word persuade.

685
00:44:18.617 --> 00:44:19.358
What word would you use?

686
00:44:20.078 --> 00:44:20.818
We talk about it.

687
00:44:21.598 --> 00:44:25.139
I ask, what do you hope to accomplish?

688
00:44:25.479 --> 00:44:27.120
And then I'd support that process.

689
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:28.120
Can we role play?

690
00:44:28.180 --> 00:44:30.121
I pretend I'm an artist who wants to write an album.

691
00:44:31.141 --> 00:44:32.601
Okay, so I am actually learning to DJ.

692
00:44:32.621 --> 00:44:33.662
I've been learning for like four years.

693
00:44:34.462 --> 00:44:35.282
What would you say to me?

694
00:44:35.522 --> 00:44:37.062
So I could come to you and say, Rick, I want to make an album.

695
00:44:37.323 --> 00:44:38.863
What would the first questions be to me?

696
00:44:39.365 --> 00:44:42.209
Play me the, of all the things you've made, play me your favorites.

697
00:44:42.630 --> 00:44:43.291
Let's talk about it.

698
00:44:43.631 --> 00:44:45.474
I would listen to it, and then we would talk about it.

699
00:44:46.495 --> 00:44:49.299
So I play you, let's say it's a house song.

700
00:44:49.640 --> 00:44:50.040
I play it.

701
00:44:50.261 --> 00:44:51.202
I say, this is my favorite.

702
00:44:51.522 --> 00:44:53.585
I would tell you whatever I think about it, honestly.

703
00:44:54.246 --> 00:44:54.607
Honestly.

704
00:44:55.648 --> 00:44:56.668
even if you thought it was terrible.

705
00:44:57.128 --> 00:45:02.670
Yeah, I probably wouldn't say it in an unpleasant way, but I would probably ask more questions around it.

706
00:45:03.650 --> 00:45:12.833
Ask how, you know, to explain to me what it is that you like about it, how did you get to that, what equipment did you use, was it fun making it, was it a good experience, have you played it for other people?

707
00:45:13.473 --> 00:45:14.014
What's it like?

708
00:45:14.134 --> 00:45:14.894
What's the experience like?

709
00:45:14.934 --> 00:45:16.976
What's the feeling you get when you're making it?

710
00:45:17.016 --> 00:45:18.878
What's the feeling you get when you play it for a friend?

711
00:45:18.898 --> 00:45:19.979
Have you ever played it in a club?

712
00:45:20.019 --> 00:45:20.659
What's that like?

713
00:45:21.380 --> 00:45:23.521
I would listen to what you say and then we would talk about it.

714
00:45:24.162 --> 00:45:32.949
Often an artist will come to me, they'll tell me exactly what they want to do and then say, I have no idea what I want to do, can you help me?

715
00:45:34.050 --> 00:45:35.571
It's like they can't hear themselves.

716
00:45:39.012 --> 00:45:44.973
There's a, we all have this barrier between, it's a little bit how therapy works.

717
00:45:45.013 --> 00:45:48.094
If you go to see a therapist, you might talk.

718
00:45:48.754 --> 00:45:49.975
They might not say anything.

719
00:45:50.535 --> 00:45:57.677
But through the talking, you start understanding what you believe, what you think, what's going on in your life.

720
00:45:58.377 --> 00:46:01.037
You might have epiphanies just because someone's listening.

721
00:46:01.677 --> 00:46:07.659
Most people are not used to being heard, really heard, deeply heard.

722
00:46:08.913 --> 00:46:13.574
Often you'll say something to someone and they're thinking about what they're going to say next.

723
00:46:14.115 --> 00:46:18.256
Like what they're, they're not really hearing what you're saying.

724
00:46:19.696 --> 00:46:28.279
And I find if you really are there and listen to what someone's saying, they tell you what they want to do.

725
00:46:28.459 --> 00:46:36.441
And then my job is to just help remove the roadblocks that they're putting in the way of themselves to get there.

726
00:46:37.375 --> 00:46:43.560
And when they say what they want to do, but then ask you what they should do, is that a lack of sort of self-trust?

727
00:46:43.600 --> 00:46:43.860
What is?

728
00:46:45.141 --> 00:46:49.784
Yes, but that lack of self-trust is what is the condition of the world.

729
00:46:50.264 --> 00:46:52.406
That's how we're indoctrinated.

730
00:46:53.707 --> 00:46:55.108
Most people don't trust themselves.

731
00:46:56.069 --> 00:47:04.535
And it's a fine line because there are the few people who might seem to really trust themselves and you think, oh, they're egomaniacs.

732
00:47:06.342 --> 00:47:15.569
Usually when someone really comes off as wildly egotistical, it's usually hiding some insecurities, really.

733
00:47:15.589 --> 00:47:16.509
It's like a mask.

734
00:47:16.929 --> 00:47:21.953
So that's dealing with someone who's insecure and dealing with someone who's overconfident.

735
00:47:22.433 --> 00:47:24.995
It's often two sides of the same coin.

736
00:47:25.415 --> 00:47:28.538
And we're really looking for this middle place of reality.

737
00:47:29.455 --> 00:47:38.877
Like, not what you're afraid of about yourself, or what other people are going to think, but where are you really on this?

738
00:47:40.018 --> 00:47:41.858
I often describe it as tasting food.

739
00:47:41.878 --> 00:47:46.199
Like, if I gave you two pieces of pizza and say, taste the two pieces of pizza, tell me which one you like better.

740
00:47:46.919 --> 00:47:47.960
It's not a hard question.

741
00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:51.260
You'll probably say, I like this one much better than this.

742
00:47:52.581 --> 00:47:57.382
And when I ask you which tastes better, you wouldn't say, well, I think this guy's going to like this pizza better.

743
00:47:58.855 --> 00:48:00.997
You would say, this one tastes better to me.

744
00:48:02.838 --> 00:48:06.422
That's the goal, is getting to that, this one tastes better to me.

745
00:48:07.443 --> 00:48:07.903
Simple.

746
00:48:08.584 --> 00:48:13.688
We don't believe that it can be as simple as it is, and it is simple.

747
00:48:16.182 --> 00:48:33.196
If you were to bet on an artist being one of these great artists that you've worked with because they have a set of characteristics or a perspective or a humility that is conducive with what you've seen results in exceptional work, what are those similar attributes?

748
00:48:33.596 --> 00:48:38.861
As someone that does a lot of investing in entrepreneurs, I was wondering if there were similarities even there.

749
00:48:38.881 --> 00:48:39.621
I'm sure there are.

750
00:48:39.641 --> 00:48:40.742
Because some of it sounded the same.

751
00:48:40.762 --> 00:48:41.262
I'm sure there are.

752
00:48:41.282 --> 00:48:41.383
Yeah.

753
00:48:42.643 --> 00:48:55.567
I asked a friend of mine who is a venture capital guy about when he's picking things to invest in, is it the premise of the business or is it the founder?

754
00:48:55.827 --> 00:48:57.167
And he said, it's always the founder.

755
00:48:57.387 --> 00:48:58.727
It doesn't matter what the business is.

756
00:48:59.207 --> 00:49:02.868
He said, if I believe in the person, I'll back them.

757
00:49:04.989 --> 00:49:05.189
And...

758
00:49:06.962 --> 00:49:09.103
I suppose it would be the same with artists.

759
00:49:09.123 --> 00:49:11.865
It's like, it's the artist.

760
00:49:11.885 --> 00:49:15.027
It's not like, well, they wrote a great song.

761
00:49:15.828 --> 00:49:17.969
The great song is more like the great product.

762
00:49:17.989 --> 00:49:21.151
It's like, maybe they could do that again.

763
00:49:23.033 --> 00:49:29.417
But if you see that the way that they see music, the way that they innovate in the things that they make,

764
00:49:31.157 --> 00:49:31.959
That's a good sign.

765
00:49:32.019 --> 00:49:32.701
Tell you a story.

766
00:49:33.543 --> 00:49:34.325
The band The Strokes.

767
00:49:35.067 --> 00:49:36.069
I produced their new album.

768
00:49:36.129 --> 00:49:37.633
Just came out maybe a month ago.

769
00:49:38.254 --> 00:49:40.820
And they had asked me to produce an album for them maybe...

770
00:49:42.181 --> 00:49:48.443
I want to say 15 years ago, and I listened to the demos and I didn't hear it.

771
00:49:48.543 --> 00:49:50.844
I didn't, I didn't, I'm not saying it couldn't be good.

772
00:49:51.044 --> 00:49:54.385
I just didn't see the way in for me.

773
00:49:55.226 --> 00:49:57.326
It's like, I don't think I should do this.

774
00:49:57.386 --> 00:49:58.607
I don't, I don't feel it.

775
00:49:59.207 --> 00:50:02.708
And then they asked me another time, maybe 12 years ago.

776
00:50:03.208 --> 00:50:04.289
And I listened to the demos and.

777
00:50:05.441 --> 00:50:06.122
And I didn't hear it.

778
00:50:06.162 --> 00:50:09.204
I couldn't, I just, I don't see how to do it.

779
00:50:10.345 --> 00:50:10.946
So I passed.

780
00:50:11.647 --> 00:50:12.467
I didn't see how to do it.

781
00:50:13.508 --> 00:50:14.669
Give me some color on what that means.

782
00:50:14.689 --> 00:50:14.869
Yeah.

783
00:50:14.930 --> 00:50:23.998
It's like, um, when I hear something and I know I can see a path, I can hear a thing.

784
00:50:24.038 --> 00:50:25.079
Doesn't have to be good.

785
00:50:26.042 --> 00:50:32.487
But I could hear something in it like, I understand what this is and I want to see what this can become.

786
00:50:33.228 --> 00:50:34.709
I didn't feel that the first two times.

787
00:50:35.589 --> 00:50:42.395
And then on the first album we worked on together, which came out about six years ago, they sent me demos again.

788
00:50:43.115 --> 00:50:45.037
They were probably the worst demos they ever sent.

789
00:50:46.738 --> 00:50:47.939
But I could hear what it could be.

790
00:50:49.060 --> 00:50:52.583
And one of the demos might be a 20-second voice note.

791
00:50:53.329 --> 00:50:57.593
Whereas in the past, there were these produced demos of like, here's our great new songs.

792
00:50:58.694 --> 00:51:05.200
But in this 20-second voice note, I could listen and think, I really want to hear this whole song.

793
00:51:05.240 --> 00:51:10.925
Whatever this is, this seed of an idea, this is going to be good.

794
00:51:11.165 --> 00:51:12.706
Has the potential to really be good.

795
00:51:12.746 --> 00:51:13.207
How do you know?

796
00:51:13.950 --> 00:51:14.270
feel it.

797
00:51:15.010 --> 00:51:15.831
There is no knowing.

798
00:51:16.371 --> 00:51:17.792
It's a knowingness.

799
00:51:18.292 --> 00:51:20.293
It's like, I have a knowingness.

800
00:51:21.073 --> 00:51:22.654
I couldn't explain it to you.

801
00:51:22.994 --> 00:51:25.835
It's an internal experience.

802
00:51:25.875 --> 00:51:29.777
One of the things is, again, you tend to want to lean forward, not lean back.

803
00:51:30.277 --> 00:51:32.978
You tend to want to listen again, not skip to the next one.

804
00:51:33.859 --> 00:51:35.499
It generates curiosity.

805
00:51:35.519 --> 00:51:37.020
It generates interest.

806
00:51:39.921 --> 00:51:40.982
And I want to know more.

807
00:51:41.794 --> 00:51:43.835
Do you set goals in your own life?

808
00:51:44.015 --> 00:51:44.235
None.

809
00:51:46.796 --> 00:51:55.539
You strike me as someone who has a, who is okay with uncertainty in a world where most people need certainty in order to take forward motion or take an action in a direction.

810
00:51:56.139 --> 00:51:58.380
I know uncertainty is real.

811
00:51:59.240 --> 00:52:05.723
I had a house in Malibu that was my main house with all of my possessions that eight years ago burned in a fire.

812
00:52:06.843 --> 00:52:10.925
And when that happened, you very quickly see, like I thought I would live there forever.

813
00:52:11.798 --> 00:52:15.300
When that happened, I realized, hmm, impermanence is real.

814
00:52:16.541 --> 00:52:17.781
I thought I was going to live there forever.

815
00:52:18.762 --> 00:52:19.723
It's gone now.

816
00:52:19.863 --> 00:52:20.463
It's a lot.

817
00:52:20.803 --> 00:52:22.344
It's a dirt lot.

818
00:52:23.845 --> 00:52:27.107
So I don't think that we can know anything.

819
00:52:27.547 --> 00:52:36.192
We just kind of move along and make decisions based on the information we have at the time, and life unfolds.

820
00:52:37.653 --> 00:52:39.714
I guess an analogy would be sat-nav in the car.

821
00:52:39.914 --> 00:52:45.436
You get in the car in the morning, you, you know, put your seatbelt on, then you set your sat-nav and say, this is my goal.

822
00:52:45.656 --> 00:52:46.676
This is where I want to go.

823
00:52:47.076 --> 00:52:47.856
And then you drive.

824
00:52:48.056 --> 00:52:49.797
So you put action towards that goal.

825
00:52:50.257 --> 00:52:52.498
What you're saying sounds more like you just drive.

826
00:52:53.318 --> 00:52:54.298
Yeah, all the time.

827
00:52:56.119 --> 00:52:57.239
Yeah, I used to do that.

828
00:52:57.299 --> 00:53:01.641
I remember, it's funny you bring that up, but there was a period of time

829
00:53:03.262 --> 00:53:08.245
when I worked a lot in the recording studio, a lot of hours, many sessions.

830
00:53:08.425 --> 00:53:12.247
Sometimes I made eight albums a year and I'd be working on different projects at the same time.

831
00:53:12.888 --> 00:53:20.532
And then I would have a day off on the weekend and I wouldn't make any plans, but I would just drive and just listen to music in the car and drive.

832
00:53:20.592 --> 00:53:26.176
And I might end up somewhere, but I might just drive for a couple of hours and relax.

833
00:53:26.736 --> 00:53:27.357
And it felt good.

834
00:53:27.597 --> 00:53:28.477
You might get lost though.

835
00:53:28.577 --> 00:53:29.198
And that's the risk.

836
00:53:29.418 --> 00:53:29.798
That's okay.

837
00:53:32.038 --> 00:53:33.119
That's why we have goals in our life.

838
00:53:33.139 --> 00:53:35.401
That's why we make a five-year plan, a New Year's resolution.

839
00:53:35.421 --> 00:53:36.622
I've never done any of those things.

840
00:53:36.943 --> 00:53:37.583
Couldn't imagine it.

841
00:53:39.605 --> 00:53:42.087
Seems like a terrible limitation.

842
00:53:43.188 --> 00:53:45.891
As good as it can be, I could never imagine that.

843
00:53:47.823 --> 00:53:57.351
I would have much more ordinary understanding of the world than what actually happens, than seeing the impossible become possible on a regular basis.

844
00:53:57.751 --> 00:53:59.012
I certainly couldn't plan for that.

845
00:54:00.033 --> 00:54:07.579
Now because it's happened so much in my life, I accept that's how it is, and I'm on the ride.

846
00:54:08.820 --> 00:54:11.241
You accept the unknown and the uncertainty?

847
00:54:11.301 --> 00:54:11.742
The unknown.

848
00:54:13.203 --> 00:54:18.924
Is that something that we can all do, or is that a privilege that you have now that you're so successful in that?

849
00:54:20.164 --> 00:54:22.845
We limit ourselves in so many ways.

850
00:54:24.165 --> 00:54:30.366
I can remember a very successful artist who was going through a really hard time.

851
00:54:31.286 --> 00:54:33.026
Went out to dinner at this restaurant in Malibu.

852
00:54:33.046 --> 00:54:34.567
I remember specifically what it was.

853
00:54:35.727 --> 00:54:38.807
And I remember thinking, this person might commit suicide.

854
00:54:38.967 --> 00:54:42.448
That's how I could feel their energy was so...

855
00:54:45.477 --> 00:54:49.860
unbalanced and so conflicted and they were suffering.

856
00:54:51.380 --> 00:54:55.323
And I remember saying, you know, you don't have to keep doing this.

857
00:54:55.983 --> 00:54:58.024
You know, you've done a lot of great things.

858
00:54:58.244 --> 00:54:59.325
You've had great success.

859
00:54:59.745 --> 00:55:01.026
You can afford not to do this.

860
00:55:01.966 --> 00:55:10.972
And anytime you want to, you can say, you know what, I'm going to move to the other side of the world and live on the beach and just eat good food,

861
00:55:13.798 --> 00:55:20.324
You're not obligated to continue doing what you're doing that's causing so much conflict in your life.

862
00:55:21.264 --> 00:55:21.925
You've done enough.

863
00:55:23.827 --> 00:55:33.775
And I found out years later, I didn't even know that the person really heard what I was saying because they were really in a hard place.

864
00:55:35.276 --> 00:55:39.200
But years later, that person said to me, remember what you said?

865
00:55:40.040 --> 00:55:41.842
You said I could go, I could check out.

866
00:55:43.420 --> 00:55:46.201
And he didn't do it in the way that I imagined.

867
00:55:46.241 --> 00:55:48.762
I didn't know that that's what happened, but he did that.

868
00:55:50.242 --> 00:55:59.105
I know several people who committed suicide, and I have one friend, a good friend, who unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.

869
00:56:00.185 --> 00:56:11.088
All of them, in those moments, it's like they feel like the choices I've made have me boxed in, and there's no way out.

870
00:56:12.977 --> 00:56:41.515
And when someone thinks that the inclination to commit suicide is the person knows something needs to die, and they think the body needs to die, but in reality, those choices that they made, that lifestyle in that moment, that career path, that relationship, that's what needs to die.

871
00:56:42.344 --> 00:56:45.105
and they can go and start a whole new life.

872
00:56:46.845 --> 00:56:48.906
And we don't see that.

873
00:56:48.986 --> 00:56:53.268
We get very locked in thinking this is all there is.

874
00:56:54.628 --> 00:56:56.148
And this is not all there is.

875
00:56:56.649 --> 00:57:01.610
This is what we have chosen, and we're going along on this path.

876
00:57:02.290 --> 00:57:03.991
And at any time we say, you know what?

877
00:57:05.031 --> 00:57:06.812
I wanna do it all differently.

878
00:57:08.430 --> 00:57:11.212
I want to start a whole new life in a whole new way.

879
00:57:11.993 --> 00:57:14.315
And that doesn't take a lot of money to do.

880
00:57:14.875 --> 00:57:19.079
It might take less money to do because you can move to somewhere in the world that costs nothing to live.

881
00:57:19.559 --> 00:57:21.241
Beautiful places where people are happy.

882
00:57:22.261 --> 00:57:22.902
It's just a choice.

883
00:57:24.203 --> 00:57:27.145
It's almost like we're playing a game.

884
00:57:27.626 --> 00:57:28.486
It's a game of chess.

885
00:57:29.988 --> 00:57:36.213
You can get up and leave the table and not play anymore and go on and play a different game and have fun.

886
00:57:37.576 --> 00:57:39.018
It's always available to us.

887
00:57:40.239 --> 00:57:42.723
You could press a button and it all goes away.

888
00:57:43.504 --> 00:57:45.927
And it doesn't mean you have to die for that to happen.

889
00:57:46.387 --> 00:57:49.732
Just that scenario has to stop.

890
00:57:50.533 --> 00:57:51.574
And you go on and find a new one.

891
00:57:52.862 --> 00:57:55.765
I've seen a lot online, again, about how to find your flow.

892
00:57:55.885 --> 00:58:00.550
That feeling when everything just clicked, distractions disappear, and suddenly you're operating at your very, very best.

893
00:58:00.650 --> 00:58:04.033
But most of us treat flow like it's something that just happens randomly.

894
00:58:04.234 --> 00:58:07.917
But when you're operating at the highest level, you can't just leave that to chance, or at least you don't want to.

895
00:58:08.077 --> 00:58:11.861
Bad days are expensive, and you need to be able to zone in on demand.

896
00:58:11.961 --> 00:58:14.284
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897
00:58:14.684 --> 00:58:21.010
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898
00:58:21.130 --> 00:58:25.655
Sometimes I'm here with an investor or a business person or a philosopher or someone talking about menopause, whatever it might be.

899
00:58:25.975 --> 00:58:27.777
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900
00:58:27.937 --> 00:58:32.782
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901
00:58:33.062 --> 00:58:36.866
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902
00:58:36.886 --> 00:58:37.947
And it's no longer just chance.

903
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907
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909
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910
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912
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913
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914
00:59:32.844 --> 00:59:39.550
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915
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916
00:59:43.434 --> 00:59:45.736
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917
00:59:47.878 --> 00:59:50.080
A lot of the prison that I think...

918
00:59:52.343 --> 00:59:58.946
I almost hear you sort of inferring to that we've kind of built, that makes us feel boxed in, is our identity.

919
00:59:59.546 --> 01:00:00.587
This word identity.

920
01:00:01.247 --> 01:00:06.150
I am a lawyer in Manhattan and a father and a mm.

921
01:00:06.210 --> 01:00:07.350
And I took that identity.

922
01:00:07.430 --> 01:00:08.591
It's almost a bit of a trade I made.

923
01:00:09.271 --> 01:00:12.933
I accepted it, which meant that at cocktail parties, people were impressed by me.

924
01:00:13.813 --> 01:00:18.956
And so, you know, we traded something for something else, and now we're boxed in.

925
01:00:20.076 --> 01:00:23.018
And I hear a lot from our listeners on this show, they feel stuck.

926
01:00:23.338 --> 01:00:23.558
Yeah.

927
01:00:25.700 --> 01:00:26.200
We're free.

928
01:00:27.661 --> 01:00:28.121
We're free.

929
01:00:28.201 --> 01:00:36.566
We just have to choose to take advantage of this human gift of freedom and we can start over.

930
01:00:38.467 --> 01:00:45.031
I remember the one close friend who tried to commit suicide and luckily lived.

931
01:00:45.912 --> 01:00:47.273
I went to visit him in the hospital.

932
01:00:48.466 --> 01:00:54.731
He was laying in a hospital bed, and he was seemingly catatonic.

933
01:00:54.751 --> 01:00:56.373
He hadn't spoke since this happened.

934
01:00:57.354 --> 01:01:03.058
And I was standing in the hallway, and there were a series of his friends coming to see him.

935
01:01:03.099 --> 01:01:04.920
Everybody would go into the room one at a time.

936
01:01:06.141 --> 01:01:14.788
And I listened to the two people who went in before me, and they were crying, and they were acting as if he had died.

937
01:01:16.090 --> 01:01:16.350
Now, I...

938
01:01:17.471 --> 01:01:18.211
He's laying there.

939
01:01:18.271 --> 01:01:19.292
He's in fetal position.

940
01:01:19.332 --> 01:01:20.292
He's not saying a word.

941
01:01:21.333 --> 01:01:24.514
And I'm just thinking, this is really weird.

942
01:01:24.594 --> 01:01:27.315
This is, it's really, the whole scene is weird.

943
01:01:28.055 --> 01:01:29.616
Never seen anything like it before.

944
01:01:30.817 --> 01:01:36.119
And my first thought was, the people who are going in there and talking to him, they have no idea how to act.

945
01:01:36.959 --> 01:01:38.960
None of us do because this is an unusual situation.

946
01:01:39.020 --> 01:01:43.662
Unless you've been in it, which I hadn't been before, you'd have no idea what to do.

947
01:01:44.202 --> 01:01:45.743
But I knew from listening to,

948
01:01:47.258 --> 01:01:48.258
This is not the best.

949
01:01:49.139 --> 01:01:51.360
What they're doing is not the best situation.

950
01:01:51.620 --> 01:01:52.420
There's a better way.

951
01:01:53.220 --> 01:02:02.164
And I was the next one in and I went in and I looked down and I said, again, I don't know where this came from, but it came.

952
01:02:02.464 --> 01:02:08.747
I said, this may be hard for you to see right now, but you're in the sweet spot.

953
01:02:10.239 --> 01:02:15.201
And I remember saying that, and he looked at me, and he looked at me like I was insane.

954
01:02:16.342 --> 01:02:21.685
But it was the first time anyone, the first thing he reacted to was that.

955
01:02:24.266 --> 01:02:26.607
And I said, you just hit the reset button.

956
01:02:28.348 --> 01:02:36.072
I said, all of the things that you hate to do, that you feel obligated to do, that you feel committed to do,

957
01:02:36.986 --> 01:02:43.832
that made you want to not be here anymore, you just hit the reset button.

958
01:02:43.872 --> 01:02:46.274
You never have to do any of those things again.

959
01:02:48.316 --> 01:02:50.298
And now you can do anything you want.

960
01:02:51.099 --> 01:02:52.099
You're free to start.

961
01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:58.325
All of those old ideas, none of those obligations are hanging over your head.

962
01:02:59.638 --> 01:03:04.042
And we ended up having a really nice conversation and he got up and he got dressed and he was like himself.

963
01:03:04.423 --> 01:03:07.365
It was an amazing, an amazing experience.

964
01:03:09.207 --> 01:03:13.732
But that that's how boxed in we feel.

965
01:03:14.973 --> 01:03:16.574
But it's all just a story.

966
01:03:17.415 --> 01:03:18.176
It's not true.

967
01:03:18.756 --> 01:03:19.337
We are free.

968
01:03:21.160 --> 01:03:24.502
Is there a step one in that direction for people that want to hit the reset button?

969
01:03:25.323 --> 01:03:26.303
Is there a first step?

970
01:03:27.464 --> 01:03:37.350
Well, I would try to see what are the things in your life that really you want to change, and then think about what's the cleanest way to change them.

971
01:03:38.531 --> 01:03:41.253
Leaving a job, leaving a relationship.

972
01:03:42.193 --> 01:03:46.936
You know, the reason these things happen is we make commitments with good intentions,

973
01:03:47.968 --> 01:03:52.572
And then when it's hard to keep the commitment is where it starts feeling boxed in.

974
01:03:52.952 --> 01:03:56.095
Now, I think commitments are a good thing both to make and to keep.

975
01:03:56.735 --> 01:04:01.980
That said, there can be a point where it becomes life and death.

976
01:04:02.760 --> 01:04:07.204
It's like this commitment that I made was a mistake or something changed.

977
01:04:07.264 --> 01:04:11.308
Maybe the person that I married became an alcoholic.

978
01:04:11.328 --> 01:04:11.648
Yeah.

979
01:04:12.147 --> 01:04:13.968
And it's really hard living with an alcoholic.

980
01:04:14.469 --> 01:04:15.269
And it's not fun.

981
01:04:15.349 --> 01:04:16.890
This is not what we signed up for.

982
01:04:17.551 --> 01:04:22.694
And I can do everything I can to help this person, but maybe nothing works.

983
01:04:23.095 --> 01:04:27.958
And at some point, it's okay to hit the reset button and say, you know what?

984
01:04:29.649 --> 01:04:33.632
You're not doing any favors if you're locked in a situation.

985
01:04:33.652 --> 01:04:46.100
I have a lot of friends who are in relationships, and maybe the relationship has gone south, but they stay in it because both sides of the couple feel like this is the life we signed up for.

986
01:04:48.141 --> 01:04:54.085
And in reality, you're not doing any favors for the person being unhappy in a relationship.

987
01:04:54.895 --> 01:04:57.917
It's the nature of love is it's a two-way street.

988
01:04:58.958 --> 01:05:05.682
Or the same I can say if someone is in love with someone and the other person unrequited love.

989
01:05:05.702 --> 01:05:07.083
The person's not in love with them.

990
01:05:07.923 --> 01:05:19.230
There's no really such thing because the nature of love is it's like a negative and a positive magnet pulling towards each other.

991
01:05:24.625 --> 01:05:25.205
It doesn't work.

992
01:05:26.586 --> 01:05:34.032
And it's just a fantasy of what, you know, it's a beautiful fantasy of what you think, like, as an optimist, it could be so beautiful.

993
01:05:35.973 --> 01:05:41.017
But if it's not there, it's best for everyone involved.

994
01:05:41.297 --> 01:05:46.361
I have some friends who feel like, well, I don't want to break up with them because it'll destroy them.

995
01:05:48.757 --> 01:05:49.638
It's not true.

996
01:05:50.520 --> 01:05:56.448
It's better for everyone involved, if it's not working, to find the new beautiful life.

997
01:05:57.049 --> 01:05:57.690
You can do that.

998
01:05:58.351 --> 01:05:58.832
It's okay.

999
01:06:00.212 --> 01:06:03.253
I imagine as well there's some people who have lots of small misalignments.

1000
01:06:04.113 --> 01:06:05.853
None of them are huge issues on their own.

1001
01:06:06.194 --> 01:06:08.914
But now they have a life full of 100 small misaligned things.

1002
01:06:10.015 --> 01:06:10.595
Could be anything.

1003
01:06:11.375 --> 01:06:13.195
And so their life feels really fundamentally misaligned.

1004
01:06:13.215 --> 01:06:17.497
But it's actually just maybe they struggled with honesty across many little areas of their life.

1005
01:06:17.637 --> 01:06:18.857
And maybe those can be worked on.

1006
01:06:19.017 --> 01:06:19.937
And maybe it can be fixed.

1007
01:06:19.977 --> 01:06:22.418
But in either case, don't let it just linger.

1008
01:06:23.118 --> 01:06:24.198
You know, repair them.

1009
01:06:24.518 --> 01:06:25.999
It's hard conversations though, Rick.

1010
01:06:26.019 --> 01:06:26.119
Yeah.

1011
01:06:26.139 --> 01:06:26.259
Yeah.

1012
01:06:27.119 --> 01:06:29.221
A lot of people aren't good at that, you know, people pleases.

1013
01:06:29.281 --> 01:06:34.724
And there's a through line here with creativity generally, I think, this idea of like people pleasing the difficult conversation.

1014
01:06:34.744 --> 01:06:40.007
And I've obviously seen from some of the things you've mentioned through this conversation, like you'd be willing to tell people like, this isn't for me.

1015
01:06:40.828 --> 01:06:42.929
I imagine you're offered a lot of money a lot of the time as well.

1016
01:06:44.370 --> 01:06:51.994
How do you sort of pass through that if you're offered a ton of money to do something, but at some level it's not aligned with your principles or values?

1017
01:06:53.575 --> 01:06:54.596
I want to make good things.

1018
01:06:54.936 --> 01:06:56.297
Like I want to make something good.

1019
01:06:57.660 --> 01:07:02.003
Have you turned down large numbers in terms of money or other incentives?

1020
01:07:02.763 --> 01:07:06.385
Because you didn't feel something was going to be good or was aligned?

1021
01:07:06.946 --> 01:07:08.086
Yeah, I'm sure I have.

1022
01:07:08.367 --> 01:07:10.228
I can't think of examples, but I'm sure I have.

1023
01:07:11.248 --> 01:07:12.209
I don't think about the stuff.

1024
01:07:12.229 --> 01:07:13.870
Like, I think about the things I do.

1025
01:07:13.890 --> 01:07:15.651
I don't think about things I don't do, you know?

1026
01:07:16.512 --> 01:07:17.972
Does it matter to you, the money part of it?

1027
01:07:18.533 --> 01:07:21.615
I want to be in success.

1028
01:07:23.316 --> 01:07:24.637
I want to participate in the success.

1029
01:07:24.817 --> 01:07:25.497
I think that's right.

1030
01:07:25.997 --> 01:07:26.918
That feels right to me.

1031
01:07:28.302 --> 01:07:32.765
I never make a decision for a financial reason.

1032
01:07:33.886 --> 01:07:39.149
That said, if we make something successful, that's valuable.

1033
01:07:40.330 --> 01:07:47.315
And in your own life, and we're talking there about mental health, through your early 30s, you had a depressive episode yourself.

1034
01:07:47.615 --> 01:07:47.815
Yeah.

1035
01:07:49.140 --> 01:07:50.401
Was there a causal factor?

1036
01:07:50.881 --> 01:07:55.704
And how important was that in shaping how you think generally about the world and the art and the creativity?

1037
01:07:55.724 --> 01:07:59.325
Because I know I've heard you say on Newsday that it changed you permanently.

1038
01:07:59.566 --> 01:07:59.866
It did.

1039
01:08:00.646 --> 01:08:03.268
Take me into that part of your life.

1040
01:08:03.288 --> 01:08:04.588
You're 33 years old, my age.

1041
01:08:04.908 --> 01:08:05.569
Yeah.

1042
01:08:05.609 --> 01:08:06.389
What happened?

1043
01:08:06.749 --> 01:08:09.971
What happened was I had been an only child.

1044
01:08:11.432 --> 01:08:16.895
My parents really loved me, really cared about me, always supportive.

1045
01:08:18.198 --> 01:08:18.878
I went to school.

1046
01:08:19.158 --> 01:08:20.959
I started making music as a hobby.

1047
01:08:21.920 --> 01:08:28.923
It ended up taking on a life of its own and becoming a business and had great success for all those years.

1048
01:08:29.784 --> 01:08:35.026
And then at 33, for the first time, it got called into question.

1049
01:08:36.027 --> 01:08:38.528
I had a business relationship with a big company.

1050
01:08:39.588 --> 01:08:42.910
The person who I was in relationship with was one of the

1051
01:08:44.358 --> 01:08:49.302
probably the top person in the whole music industry, well-loved, beautiful person, one of my mentors.

1052
01:08:50.163 --> 01:09:02.532
He got politically forced out, and a new person was put in, who I didn't have a relationship with, and that person called me and said, I read our agreement because he had adopted the agreement that I had with my mentor.

1053
01:09:03.153 --> 01:09:04.174
He's like, I don't like it.

1054
01:09:04.874 --> 01:09:06.776
When you come back to California, we should talk about it.

1055
01:09:07.817 --> 01:09:08.197
That was it.

1056
01:09:08.457 --> 01:09:09.498
That was the whole conversation.

1057
01:09:10.138 --> 01:09:11.520
Now, for me, I didn't...

1058
01:09:12.576 --> 01:09:23.080
I didn't know because I had so much success for so long, I never had to deal with any instability in my life in that way.

1059
01:09:23.100 --> 01:09:25.681
I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

1060
01:09:27.082 --> 01:09:32.244
And I started having panic attacks and couldn't sleep and got really sick.

1061
01:09:32.464 --> 01:09:41.468
And again, for almost anyone else, the exact same scenario would have been, okay, we'll deal with it when I get there, no problem, and move on.

1062
01:09:42.323 --> 01:09:46.227
but I didn't have the ability to deal with it because I never had to deal with anything like that.

1063
01:09:46.288 --> 01:09:49.071
I didn't have the musculature to deal with that issue.

1064
01:09:50.452 --> 01:09:52.875
And it felt like the rug was pulled out.

1065
01:09:52.935 --> 01:09:56.559
I didn't know what to do and sunk.

1066
01:09:57.780 --> 01:10:01.064
And then it ended up going on for years, even after

1067
01:10:01.885 --> 01:10:02.865
the problem was solved.

1068
01:10:03.505 --> 01:10:08.287
I ended up leaving the company, starting a relationship with a new company, everything was fine.

1069
01:10:09.267 --> 01:10:15.869
But some, it's like, it was like I was a balloon that got burst in that moment.

1070
01:10:17.109 --> 01:10:19.330
And I'm still not the same person as I was before.

1071
01:10:20.512 --> 01:10:26.614
Now, maybe now I'm more rooted in reality, which probably sounds funny after a lot of the things I've been saying.

1072
01:10:27.454 --> 01:10:30.295
Before that, I would say I never questioned anything.

1073
01:10:30.335 --> 01:10:33.776
It was just like everything was always rolling in this one direction.

1074
01:10:34.776 --> 01:10:36.696
And that was the first time that it was questioned.

1075
01:10:36.876 --> 01:10:41.338
And it sunk me and took years to get out of it.

1076
01:10:43.098 --> 01:10:49.660
What I will say, though, is that because of that, so many of the artists I work with deal with...

1077
01:10:50.505 --> 01:10:52.506
a lot of personal issues.

1078
01:10:53.447 --> 01:11:02.573
And before that, before I was 33, I probably didn't understand how they felt as much as I do now.

1079
01:11:03.253 --> 01:11:08.436
Because now I've had an experience where I feel like the bottom fell out.

1080
01:11:10.137 --> 01:11:14.540
I would say it has helped my understanding of the artists I work with.

1081
01:11:15.831 --> 01:11:18.653
On your Desert Island Discs, you said, it wasn't anything that I understood.

1082
01:11:18.693 --> 01:11:19.974
I thought I was dying.

1083
01:11:20.135 --> 01:11:20.355
Yeah.

1084
01:11:21.175 --> 01:11:25.619
The essence of this is a, it was your first sort of big professional, dare I say, rejection.

1085
01:11:25.639 --> 01:11:26.259
Yeah.

1086
01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:26.800
Yeah?

1087
01:11:27.260 --> 01:11:27.460
Yeah.

1088
01:11:29.342 --> 01:11:34.946
I was wrapped up in that, in who I was.

1089
01:11:36.267 --> 01:11:40.291
And that questioned who I was for the first time.

1090
01:11:42.232 --> 01:11:42.853
And you went to therapy?

1091
01:11:42.873 --> 01:11:42.993
Yeah.

1092
01:11:43.773 --> 01:11:43.953
Yes.

1093
01:11:44.233 --> 01:11:56.784
Went to therapy and ended up using an antidepressant drug, which I tend not to be a drug person, but it was bad enough for long enough that that was the final.

1094
01:11:58.005 --> 01:11:59.286
It was the last thing.

1095
01:11:59.306 --> 01:12:05.771
I was seeing a different therapist, probably a therapist or a healer, at least one five days a week.

1096
01:12:07.114 --> 01:12:12.379
And every time I would wake up and go and just thinking, maybe today it's going to be better.

1097
01:12:12.619 --> 01:12:13.820
Maybe today it's going to be better.

1098
01:12:14.901 --> 01:12:15.862
And it wasn't better.

1099
01:12:17.544 --> 01:12:18.565
It was really a tough time.

1100
01:12:20.393 --> 01:12:22.834
What was going on under the surface of this?

1101
01:12:22.854 --> 01:12:29.496
Because on the surface, one would say, Rick got a professional rejection, and it resulted in him saying that he thought he was dying.

1102
01:12:30.156 --> 01:12:31.257
That's what we see on the surface.

1103
01:12:31.277 --> 01:12:34.598
Well, it was totally, it all was happening on the unconscious level.

1104
01:12:34.878 --> 01:12:39.339
Couldn't sleep, was nauseous all the time, didn't want to get out of bed.

1105
01:12:39.360 --> 01:12:45.742
It was like, it was a, I felt it in a physical way and didn't want to do anything.

1106
01:12:47.782 --> 01:12:48.323
What is this?

1107
01:12:48.423 --> 01:12:48.883
What was that?

1108
01:12:50.437 --> 01:12:58.644
Well, I've heard it described as like being shot with a poison arrow in a philosophical or a psychological way.

1109
01:12:58.724 --> 01:12:59.925
I was shot with a poison arrow.

1110
01:13:00.916 --> 01:13:03.337
Because I've looked at your earliest years.

1111
01:13:03.377 --> 01:13:05.858
I've looked at, you know, two wonderful people there.

1112
01:13:06.138 --> 01:13:06.398
Yes.

1113
01:13:06.618 --> 01:13:07.318
Your mum and your dad.

1114
01:13:07.498 --> 01:13:07.738
Yes.

1115
01:13:08.939 --> 01:13:16.121
And sometimes, you know, when I interview people that are anomalous in some way, I find that their upbringing had some sort of trauma and they had a chip on their shoulder.

1116
01:13:16.141 --> 01:13:20.043
But with you, I had very much the opposite, that you had two parents that really, really loved you.

1117
01:13:20.243 --> 01:13:20.783
Really loved me.

1118
01:13:21.943 --> 01:13:22.624
Could do no wrong.

1119
01:13:22.964 --> 01:13:24.144
But that was part of what it was.

1120
01:13:24.164 --> 01:13:29.106
It's like I had been raised believing I could do no wrong.

1121
01:13:30.703 --> 01:13:42.455
And then in the real world, making music, the success showed that I could do no wrong until someone decided, you know what?

1122
01:13:42.715 --> 01:13:43.596
I don't like what you're doing.

1123
01:13:45.638 --> 01:13:48.601
So I just had no, I just didn't have context for it.

1124
01:13:49.241 --> 01:13:50.062
No way to deal with it.

1125
01:13:51.744 --> 01:13:53.345
Sounds like a horrific season of your life.

1126
01:13:53.706 --> 01:13:53.806
Yeah.

1127
01:13:53.826 --> 01:13:53.946
Yeah.

1128
01:13:54.301 --> 01:14:20.581
would you if there was a button on the table now that would allow you to erase it would you press it I would not why I feel like every event that I've had in my life positive and negative has brought me to where I am now and I wouldn't want to change a thing I wouldn't want to change anything what did it give you

1129
01:14:22.100 --> 01:14:23.381
It gave me a different perspective.

1130
01:14:23.421 --> 01:14:27.546
Again, I think it brought me down to a more realistic view of the world.

1131
01:14:27.786 --> 01:14:32.251
Still one who believes in magic and that the impossible is possible on a daily basis.

1132
01:14:32.951 --> 01:14:37.776
But before I might've felt more like Superman and I don't feel like Superman anymore.

1133
01:14:38.617 --> 01:14:39.198
What'd you feel like?

1134
01:14:40.619 --> 01:14:40.940
Tired.

1135
01:14:41.440 --> 01:14:41.841
Tired?

1136
01:14:44.662 --> 01:14:52.585
I am, you know, as creatives, I want to go back to this question I was asking you earlier on about the similarities you see in these great artists.

1137
01:14:52.985 --> 01:14:59.127
I heard on one end conviction, and then I also heard humility, which kind of seemed like opposing forces.

1138
01:14:59.627 --> 01:15:05.809
Is there anything else that you see in the similarities between the Jay-Zs, the Kanyes, the list of people that you've worked with is endless?

1139
01:15:05.829 --> 01:15:06.930
It usually has to do with

1140
01:15:08.011 --> 01:15:13.441
a point of view, seeing the world in a way that other people don't see.

1141
01:15:13.601 --> 01:15:19.352
Now, maybe something that everybody sees, but no one has pointed out before.

1142
01:15:20.475 --> 01:15:23.057
They notice the world in a different way.

1143
01:15:23.097 --> 01:15:24.318
It's what a great comedian does.

1144
01:15:24.819 --> 01:15:29.562
Great comedian says something and you laugh at it because you relate to what he's saying.

1145
01:15:29.582 --> 01:15:31.624
It's like, of course, so funny, so ridiculous.

1146
01:15:31.764 --> 01:15:32.525
That's what we do.

1147
01:15:33.566 --> 01:15:34.186
It's the same.

1148
01:15:34.246 --> 01:15:36.989
It's seeing another layer of what's possible.

1149
01:15:37.389 --> 01:15:40.892
Understanding the world on a deeper level than we think we see it.

1150
01:15:41.812 --> 01:15:45.816
And with art, we get to experience all these emotions that,

1151
01:15:47.138 --> 01:15:52.020
that are happening to someone else, but because we're humans, they resonate.

1152
01:15:52.621 --> 01:16:00.324
And we get to feel, you can hear a song of heartbreak, and you don't even have to be heartbroken, but you feel, you can feel it.

1153
01:16:00.364 --> 01:16:05.567
You can see a movie that can really impact your life.

1154
01:16:06.787 --> 01:16:15.812
And art has this incredible ability to widen our perspective and see things from different angles that we couldn't see before.

1155
01:16:16.672 --> 01:16:18.236
Do great artists work hard?

1156
01:16:19.239 --> 01:16:19.901
Very hard.

1157
01:16:20.743 --> 01:16:21.546
What does that mean?

1158
01:16:21.566 --> 01:16:23.712
From the outside, you'd think...

1159
01:16:25.231 --> 01:16:30.575
you check into the recording studio and make something and put it out and then you go on tour and everybody screams.

1160
01:16:31.155 --> 01:16:32.817
It's a grueling job.

1161
01:16:33.617 --> 01:16:34.898
Everything about it is hard.

1162
01:16:35.058 --> 01:16:40.162
It's wildly competitive, not because you're competing with other people, but because a lot of people are trying to do it.

1163
01:16:40.863 --> 01:16:49.209
And you can be tremendously talented, but if you don't have the work ethic to go with it, it's unlikely that anyone will ever hear what you do.

1164
01:16:49.629 --> 01:16:51.330
So it's this combination of

1165
01:16:52.799 --> 01:17:12.791
really diligent work ethic, doing whatever it takes, and some interesting perspective, an interesting point of view, an interesting view on the world that someone else looks at and thinks, hmm, I never saw it that way before.

1166
01:17:13.871 --> 01:17:19.715
Is there a way that you know to make my perspective on the world more interesting?

1167
01:17:20.537 --> 01:17:25.279
It sounds like you spend a lot of time looking at business and self-help material.

1168
01:17:26.659 --> 01:17:38.824
And I would say maybe look at the great things outside of that area and see how they rhyme or how they resonate or how they relate.

1169
01:17:39.964 --> 01:17:46.747
Often we get great ideas from something having nothing to do with what we're actually interested in.

1170
01:17:47.645 --> 01:17:51.006
will see some new thing, I would say start going to museums.

1171
01:17:51.567 --> 01:17:56.569
You know, go to museums, look at the art, take the walking tour with the headphones, listen to the stories.

1172
01:17:58.310 --> 01:17:59.930
Read the great literature.

1173
01:18:00.671 --> 01:18:06.093
When I say the great literature, it's not one single list, but if you ask around, you'll find out.

1174
01:18:07.331 --> 01:18:10.092
And if three people recommend it, definitely read it.

1175
01:18:11.492 --> 01:18:12.753
See the great movies ever.

1176
01:18:12.953 --> 01:18:15.914
See the great movies, the greatest movies of all time.

1177
01:18:15.934 --> 01:18:22.256
It's funny, because when we're told how to become a good insert occupation, we're told to go study that occupation.

1178
01:18:22.456 --> 01:18:24.137
Be a good lawyer, go study law.

1179
01:18:24.277 --> 01:18:32.840
But oftentimes, it appears to be the case, even with someone like Steve Jobs, that they have these sort of rare things in their skill stack, like his love of design and typography.

1180
01:18:33.800 --> 01:18:38.524
No one at university would have told him, okay, you want to be a great computer programmer, go do typography design.

1181
01:18:38.724 --> 01:18:38.924
Yeah.

1182
01:18:39.604 --> 01:18:47.770
Yeah, and so usually, what makes you good at what you do is not that you do it the same as everybody else.

1183
01:18:47.850 --> 01:18:51.873
So if everyone is reading the same books, they're going to have the same perspective.

1184
01:18:53.014 --> 01:18:53.895
I would go outside.

1185
01:18:53.915 --> 01:18:56.597
I would also recommend reading old books as opposed to new books.

1186
01:18:57.738 --> 01:18:59.018
Ancient wisdom's the best.

1187
01:19:00.099 --> 01:19:01.060
Start very old.

1188
01:19:03.934 --> 01:19:05.054
I mean, I've got some books here.

1189
01:19:05.494 --> 01:19:05.754
Yes.

1190
01:19:07.235 --> 01:19:07.875
Good choices.

1191
01:19:09.295 --> 01:19:10.115
You're a fan of these books?

1192
01:19:10.435 --> 01:19:11.136
I love these books.

1193
01:19:11.216 --> 01:19:11.436
Why?

1194
01:19:11.856 --> 01:19:12.356
What did they give you?

1195
01:19:12.656 --> 01:19:17.917
I first read The Tao when I was, I had just moved to California.

1196
01:19:17.937 --> 01:19:19.957
It was probably 30 years ago.

1197
01:19:20.998 --> 01:19:27.759
And I read it and I felt like this is different than anything I read before.

1198
01:19:29.660 --> 01:19:31.520
It speaks to me on so many levels.

1199
01:19:32.675 --> 01:19:36.919
And then I remember reading it something like six months later, and it was an entirely different book.

1200
01:19:37.559 --> 01:19:43.405
And it's the kind of book that every time you read it at different points in your life, you will read an entirely different book.

1201
01:19:44.045 --> 01:19:46.608
And this was the inspiration for The Way of Code.

1202
01:19:47.814 --> 01:19:54.478
And the way of code is essentially an adaptation of the DAO for vibe coding.

1203
01:19:55.699 --> 01:19:59.701
Oftentimes, books can be summarized into a sort of a lesson.

1204
01:20:00.581 --> 01:20:02.743
Is there a central lesson that you got from that book?

1205
01:20:04.023 --> 01:20:07.625
Maybe I would use one sentence like that the soft overcomes the hard.

1206
01:20:07.705 --> 01:20:08.446
That would be a good...

1207
01:20:09.260 --> 01:20:10.080
That would be one.

1208
01:20:10.901 --> 01:20:13.022
Things that seem counterintuitive.

1209
01:20:13.963 --> 01:20:17.124
That non-action is often the best action.

1210
01:20:17.144 --> 01:20:19.265
Now that seems crazy.

1211
01:20:21.406 --> 01:20:23.087
But that really is where it's at.

1212
01:20:23.768 --> 01:20:25.569
You know, there's a story about Napoleon.

1213
01:20:26.469 --> 01:20:36.995
That when someone would come to Napoleon during all the warring stuff that was going on, they would come with an emergency, you know, you're the only one who can answer this.

1214
01:20:38.440 --> 01:20:44.564
here's the problem, it's an emergency, he would always say, bring it back to me in two weeks.

1215
01:20:46.726 --> 01:20:55.592
And the idea was 99% of the problems that need your immediate attention in two weeks will resolve themselves.

1216
01:20:56.392 --> 01:20:59.034
And if it's still a problem in two weeks, he'll deal with it.

1217
01:21:00.795 --> 01:21:01.936
I might try that with my fiance.

1218
01:21:02.496 --> 01:21:03.177
See how it goes.

1219
01:21:05.902 --> 01:21:08.444
It's an interesting idea, though, that, um, what was that phrase you said?

1220
01:21:08.464 --> 01:21:08.964
The soft?

1221
01:21:09.505 --> 01:21:10.705
The soft overcomes the hard.

1222
01:21:10.966 --> 01:21:12.647
The soft overcomes the hard.

1223
01:21:12.667 --> 01:21:26.797
Yeah, it's like the idea of water dripping on a rock, that eventually the water will eat through the rock, slowly dripping, and the water's soft, the water's totally pliable, malleable, soft.

1224
01:21:27.942 --> 01:21:28.702
And what about this book?

1225
01:21:29.463 --> 01:21:30.103
Is there an essence?

1226
01:21:30.643 --> 01:21:45.429
Well, I like Carl Jung, and this is probably his most mystical book, but in general, his ideas of archetypes and looking into dreams and synchronicity are beautiful ideas.

1227
01:21:45.489 --> 01:21:50.351
And I think that they're really how the world works.

1228
01:21:51.152 --> 01:21:51.592
So...

1229
01:21:53.585 --> 01:22:03.872
I find comfort in reading him because it's different than what we're shown in math and science, but maybe closer to how it really is.

1230
01:22:04.612 --> 01:22:09.956
I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate, especially on this point of you saying that synchronicity is actually more so how the world works.

1231
01:22:11.256 --> 01:22:14.018
Yeah, I think we don't know how anything really works.

1232
01:22:16.400 --> 01:22:21.323
I think the world is much bigger and more interesting than...

1233
01:22:22.099 --> 01:22:24.080
then we give it credit for.

1234
01:22:25.541 --> 01:22:31.203
And most of the things that we think we understand maybe are not so accurate.

1235
01:22:31.443 --> 01:22:43.929
Like one of the things about science is that science is the understanding of how things are now until the next scientific breakthrough comes and negates everything that was before it.

1236
01:22:44.649 --> 01:22:46.170
It's like this ongoing

1237
01:22:47.330 --> 01:22:47.851
interest.

1238
01:22:48.311 --> 01:22:52.154
And I think maybe there's an inner knowingness, like we don't know why.

1239
01:22:52.634 --> 01:22:55.776
You meet somebody and you really want to spend time with them.

1240
01:22:56.657 --> 01:22:58.358
I don't think that science can explain that.

1241
01:22:58.779 --> 01:23:00.620
And you meet someone else and you feel like, you know what?

1242
01:23:02.041 --> 01:23:03.502
I don't want to be around this person.

1243
01:23:04.523 --> 01:23:07.425
There's something going on energetically here that's not for me.

1244
01:23:09.373 --> 01:23:19.016
I think that that's the kind of wisdom that probably has more impact on our lives than anything that you can, any data can show us.

1245
01:23:21.457 --> 01:23:25.719
I was thinking about how believing what you've just said might change my life.

1246
01:23:26.279 --> 01:23:26.759
Yes, it would.

1247
01:23:28.780 --> 01:23:30.421
In what ways do you think it might change my life?

1248
01:23:30.941 --> 01:23:43.148
It's like you would take the shackles off of feeling like it has to be this narrow way or thinking, well, if these numbers look like this, then it means this and this is what's going to happen.

1249
01:23:43.568 --> 01:23:48.831
When in reality, you know, many times you've looked at the numbers and then acted accordingly.

1250
01:23:49.131 --> 01:23:52.313
And then three years later, realized it didn't really work out the way I thought.

1251
01:23:53.762 --> 01:23:54.684
That's the real world.

1252
01:23:55.225 --> 01:23:58.130
Like, that's one way of looking at things.

1253
01:23:58.170 --> 01:24:00.374
You know, the money ball approach is one way.

1254
01:24:01.195 --> 01:24:04.501
And then the other way is when you met your wife and you felt like,

1255
01:24:05.345 --> 01:24:06.045
I want to be with her.

1256
01:24:06.846 --> 01:24:07.406
That's different.

1257
01:24:07.847 --> 01:24:11.729
There weren't any metrics you could use to calculate whether that was a good idea or not.

1258
01:24:12.609 --> 01:24:23.156
It's like an invitation to trust ourselves more as well, because you're talking about energetic feeling and... And doing things that would make trusting yourself make more sense.

1259
01:24:24.476 --> 01:24:25.197
That's the other part of it.

1260
01:24:25.217 --> 01:24:28.459
It's like if you spend so much time not trusting yourself...

1261
01:24:30.347 --> 01:24:36.216
then that antenna to be able to tell what's going on might be a little rusty.

1262
01:24:37.138 --> 01:24:40.003
So anything you can do to start

1263
01:24:41.907 --> 01:24:46.048
using the antenna as often as possible and letting it dictate you.

1264
01:24:46.488 --> 01:24:51.570
There was a time when I was surprised by the miracles that I would see, and now I'm not surprised.

1265
01:24:52.210 --> 01:24:57.631
It's still surprising, but it happens enough where it's like, yeah, that's what happens.

1266
01:24:58.492 --> 01:24:58.992
Look at that.

1267
01:24:59.892 --> 01:25:00.712
Can't predict it.

1268
01:25:01.332 --> 01:25:02.233
Can't bet on it.

1269
01:25:03.093 --> 01:25:07.034
But when it happens, like, hmm, it seemed like that's what was going to happen.

1270
01:25:08.615 --> 01:25:09.035
Happened.

1271
01:25:09.795 --> 01:25:10.255
Look at that.

1272
01:25:13.810 --> 01:25:18.433
And do you think there is a higher force taking actions on our lives?

1273
01:25:18.453 --> 01:25:25.857
I think there's a higher creative intelligence that, I'll say, lives the world.

1274
01:25:26.138 --> 01:25:30.800
Like the thing that allows plants to grow.

1275
01:25:31.441 --> 01:25:33.102
There's some generative force.

1276
01:25:34.363 --> 01:25:42.808
I don't know that it's like aiming particularly at you or me, but there's some energy that like life wants to live.

1277
01:25:45.596 --> 01:25:47.858
And you can ride, same, like catching a wave.

1278
01:25:48.138 --> 01:25:51.702
You know, you can catch the wave.

1279
01:25:52.482 --> 01:25:53.323
The wave is there.

1280
01:25:54.004 --> 01:25:57.327
There's a lot of waves beyond the ones in the ocean.

1281
01:25:58.147 --> 01:25:59.388
And you can ride those waves.

1282
01:26:00.149 --> 01:26:03.252
You can't always see them, but you might be able to feel them.

1283
01:26:03.272 --> 01:26:04.193
You might be able to...

1284
01:26:05.572 --> 01:26:07.293
Over time, you start to recognize them.

1285
01:26:07.893 --> 01:26:12.275
And for some reason, it seems like the universe wants us to know about this.

1286
01:26:12.475 --> 01:26:16.517
It's what I talked about paying attention and about the way of code.

1287
01:26:16.577 --> 01:26:18.858
Like, it was a ridiculous thing.

1288
01:26:19.258 --> 01:26:20.178
It was indefensible.

1289
01:26:20.898 --> 01:26:24.800
But I listened to this feeling.

1290
01:26:24.820 --> 01:26:27.461
It was coming from a lot of sources.

1291
01:26:28.602 --> 01:26:29.622
Didn't make sense to me.

1292
01:26:31.425 --> 01:26:34.466
But it felt like, hmm, I'm being asked to do something here.

1293
01:26:34.486 --> 01:26:35.046
What could it be?

1294
01:26:35.806 --> 01:26:36.886
Let me try to participate.

1295
01:26:38.827 --> 01:26:46.128
What I hear from a lot of what you're saying is, it's making me think about how like rationality as an idea, being rational can be a bit of a curse.

1296
01:26:46.188 --> 01:26:48.429
I would consider myself to be quite a rational person.

1297
01:26:48.869 --> 01:26:50.429
I would say rationality is overrated.

1298
01:26:51.529 --> 01:26:54.430
The rational world is very small.

1299
01:26:54.490 --> 01:26:58.591
There are much more interesting things going on than the rational world.

1300
01:27:00.450 --> 01:27:02.792
Yes, that's exactly what my fiancé would say to me.

1301
01:27:04.032 --> 01:27:05.994
What she has been saying to me.

1302
01:27:06.074 --> 01:27:12.278
I think we go together, funnily enough, you're talking about plus and minuses, because she is someone that helps me break outside of rationality.

1303
01:27:12.378 --> 01:27:12.618
Yes.

1304
01:27:13.379 --> 01:27:22.225
And when she speaks to me about these ideas she has, about these bigger ideas she has, I always listen very intently, although at some level I am, I guess, rebuttling them.

1305
01:27:22.945 --> 01:27:25.247
But do you see how they impact her life?

1306
01:27:25.267 --> 01:27:26.428
Do you see what they do to her?

1307
01:27:26.448 --> 01:27:26.848
Yeah, absolutely.

1308
01:27:28.118 --> 01:27:30.040
does it feel like it raises her vibration?

1309
01:27:30.060 --> 01:27:30.160
100%.

1310
01:27:30.340 --> 01:27:33.943
Yeah, it's like there's, that counts.

1311
01:27:34.524 --> 01:27:38.067
You know, the way she feels, that counts.

1312
01:27:39.829 --> 01:27:40.269
Her vibe.

1313
01:27:40.889 --> 01:27:41.250
Yeah.

1314
01:27:43.270 --> 01:27:43.731
One of the...

1315
01:27:43.791 --> 01:27:45.553
Enough for you to want to be around her all the time.

1316
01:27:45.633 --> 01:27:45.953
Yeah.

1317
01:27:46.494 --> 01:27:49.317
I feel like I'm, yeah, leeching off that vibe to some degree sometimes.

1318
01:27:50.959 --> 01:27:59.068
What you talked about higher intelligence and you talked about a generative force, which is the perfect segue into the big subject of the moment, which is artificial intelligence.

1319
01:27:59.829 --> 01:28:01.550
Kind of links to what you were saying about vibe coding as well.

1320
01:28:01.930 --> 01:28:09.555
For the first time ever, I was saying yesterday, I got a message from one of my friends who isn't involved in technology saying like, I'm concerned.

1321
01:28:10.796 --> 01:28:12.036
I don't know what this technology is.

1322
01:28:12.096 --> 01:28:13.157
Is it going to take our jobs?

1323
01:28:13.557 --> 01:28:14.218
I'm concerned.

1324
01:28:14.478 --> 01:28:18.560
And that for me was the bat signal that this is really getting down to everyday people.

1325
01:28:19.441 --> 01:28:27.106
This week, there was an anthropic researcher who also worked at ChatGPT OpenAI say he thinks it might be...

1326
01:28:28.066 --> 01:28:31.629
at the end of the human race, or at least there's a more than 10% chance of that.

1327
01:28:33.271 --> 01:28:34.692
AI is a broad subject.

1328
01:28:34.712 --> 01:28:36.514
I'm sure you've got lots of thoughts on it.

1329
01:28:37.194 --> 01:28:40.037
Yeah, I think it's a wildly powerful tool.

1330
01:28:41.278 --> 01:28:43.460
And I'm curious to see what it can do.

1331
01:28:44.341 --> 01:28:47.343
Like any powerful tool, it could be really dangerous.

1332
01:28:47.964 --> 01:28:49.966
It could be used for bad or it could be used for good.

1333
01:28:51.507 --> 01:28:52.908
Fire burned down my house.

1334
01:28:53.995 --> 01:28:55.616
I wouldn't say we should ban fire.

1335
01:28:56.416 --> 01:29:00.037
Fire cooks our food, does some good stuff, heats our houses.

1336
01:29:00.438 --> 01:29:04.139
It's one of these things, like the internet, changed the world.

1337
01:29:04.599 --> 01:29:08.021
It does some really good things, probably does some really bad things.

1338
01:29:09.647 --> 01:29:10.407
Very powerful.

1339
01:29:10.887 --> 01:29:11.768
The printing press.

1340
01:29:12.328 --> 01:29:15.789
When it came along, the church tried to ban the printing press.

1341
01:29:16.129 --> 01:29:16.810
They didn't want that.

1342
01:29:16.970 --> 01:29:21.931
They didn't want books to be able to, they didn't want information to be able to be for everybody.

1343
01:29:22.391 --> 01:29:24.592
Good came from that and probably some bad.

1344
01:29:25.272 --> 01:29:26.153
Can it be creative?

1345
01:29:27.393 --> 01:29:27.833
I don't know.

1346
01:29:28.253 --> 01:29:28.794
I'm curious.

1347
01:29:29.154 --> 01:29:29.594
I don't know.

1348
01:29:29.674 --> 01:29:35.616
I feel like everything we've talked about today about what creativity is has to do with point of view.

1349
01:29:36.676 --> 01:29:38.317
And AI doesn't have a point of view.

1350
01:29:39.996 --> 01:29:46.622
AI is the collected ideas that already exist.

1351
01:29:47.403 --> 01:29:51.126
It doesn't have, it doesn't see it from a particular angle.

1352
01:29:51.806 --> 01:29:58.893
And if you ask it the same question several times or several days in a row, it may give you a very different answer day after day.

1353
01:29:59.533 --> 01:30:02.436
So it's not like it has, this is how it sees the world.

1354
01:30:04.195 --> 01:30:14.204
If I asked an AI to make 10 million different tracks, would it, theoretically, it would at some point make a hit, even though it doesn't have a point of view per se?

1355
01:30:14.664 --> 01:30:26.094
Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, it's hard for me to say what a hit even is, but I would say it could make 10,000 tracks and you might like one or two of them, or you may like 5% of them, you might.

1356
01:30:26.114 --> 01:30:26.795
Yeah.

1357
01:30:26.915 --> 01:30:27.696
And that's interesting.

1358
01:30:27.956 --> 01:30:31.578
And I could see like there was a time when we would sample records.

1359
01:30:31.798 --> 01:30:40.824
When we were doing hip hop records, it was called crate digging, where you'd go to record stores, find old records, listen to them all the way through and find one little part.

1360
01:30:40.844 --> 01:30:44.846
It's like, ah, this little breakbeat, let's use that and make a new song out of it.

1361
01:30:45.106 --> 01:30:47.048
And you change the context to make something new.

1362
01:30:47.548 --> 01:30:52.351
So if AI was playing music constantly in the background, and then all of a sudden I heard a little clip,

1363
01:30:52.939 --> 01:30:53.979
Oh, that's a good sample.

1364
01:30:54.039 --> 01:30:55.300
We can make that into something.

1365
01:30:56.020 --> 01:30:56.780
That would be a use.

1366
01:30:58.340 --> 01:31:06.702
I think the idea of it doing the end-to-end of replacing the artist, I don't think it does.

1367
01:31:07.202 --> 01:31:08.183
I can't imagine doing that.

1368
01:31:08.203 --> 01:31:09.183
I'd be curious to see if it could.

1369
01:31:09.743 --> 01:31:12.924
But I think what we want from an artist has to do with point of view.

1370
01:31:13.404 --> 01:31:21.566
And I see AI maybe as a tool that could help the artist and maybe even help the person who doesn't know they're an artist be an artist.

1371
01:31:24.028 --> 01:31:30.801
I can't draw, I can't play any instruments, I don't have any talent, I have no way to express my creativity.

1372
01:31:31.618 --> 01:31:39.602
but I could talk to the AI and maybe I could prompt the AI into making something beautiful through iteration and prompting.

1373
01:31:40.042 --> 01:31:43.904
So maybe more people will get to be creative using AI.

1374
01:31:44.084 --> 01:31:45.285
And I think that's a beautiful thing.

1375
01:31:45.665 --> 01:31:47.366
This is such a recurring debate.

1376
01:31:47.586 --> 01:31:51.368
You hear it probably on every panel everywhere at the moment, which is, can AI be creative?

1377
01:31:51.388 --> 01:31:52.369
And I've thought a lot about

1378
01:31:53.109 --> 01:31:58.857
Like, I've sort of tried to interrogate the question itself, because you first sort of need to define what creativity is.

1379
01:31:59.337 --> 01:32:07.208
And then I think what people are saying is when they think of creativity, they actually think of good creativity that sold well, or that was number one.

1380
01:32:07.709 --> 01:32:09.992
So oftentimes, I remember when my friends were saying to me the other day,

1381
01:32:10.812 --> 01:32:14.194
I don't think AI could ever make, and then he named a great song.

1382
01:32:14.874 --> 01:32:15.855
AI could never make that.

1383
01:32:16.295 --> 01:32:30.523
And even when I look at that great song, what's making him think it was great creativity in hindsight was actually, as you used the word end-to-end, an end-to-end process of having the meeting with MTV, building up distribution and reputation.

1384
01:32:30.643 --> 01:32:35.325
Maybe people following that artist's life and therefore that being part of the point of view.

1385
01:32:35.345 --> 01:32:36.585
People have followed Olivia Dean.

1386
01:32:37.166 --> 01:32:39.587
So when she makes music, something else comes with that.

1387
01:32:39.667 --> 01:32:40.627
A story comes with that.

1388
01:32:40.887 --> 01:32:43.769
Olivia Dean signed to a record label, so maybe there's some support there that's done.

1389
01:32:44.149 --> 01:32:47.090
And in hindsight, we go, amazing creativity.

1390
01:32:47.590 --> 01:32:54.392
But what we're actually saying is there was this long process which resulted in this me experiencing this thing.

1391
01:32:55.432 --> 01:32:56.533
And so I consider it creative.

1392
01:32:56.733 --> 01:33:05.956
Now, AI might, like I was trying to think like, okay, AI could help with maybe the tool that you describe, but isn't the whole process part of what we look back on and say that was great creativity?

1393
01:33:05.976 --> 01:33:08.356
I would say the whole process.

1394
01:33:08.576 --> 01:33:10.717
I also think it's even beyond the process.

1395
01:33:10.797 --> 01:33:13.558
Like the things that we make

1396
01:33:15.168 --> 01:33:18.609
are the reminders that we're creative.

1397
01:33:19.570 --> 01:33:20.610
They're just the output.

1398
01:33:21.090 --> 01:33:26.932
The real creativity is the idea that allows this thing to be made.

1399
01:33:27.672 --> 01:33:36.516
If you look at Alfred Hitchcock, his movies, he works out his whole movie in advance, and he storyboards the whole movie.

1400
01:33:36.536 --> 01:33:41.017
And if you look at the storyboard, he doesn't even really need to make the movie.

1401
01:33:41.137 --> 01:33:42.298
The whole thing is there.

1402
01:33:42.318 --> 01:33:42.918
Yeah.

1403
01:33:43.478 --> 01:33:44.339
just in drawings.

1404
01:33:44.899 --> 01:33:45.660
Exactly.

1405
01:33:46.121 --> 01:33:47.222
Frame by frame.

1406
01:33:47.662 --> 01:33:48.703
The whole movie is there.

1407
01:33:49.003 --> 01:33:53.428
Wes Anderson makes his movie frame by frame in advance before there are actors.

1408
01:33:53.968 --> 01:34:00.895
So he could watch the whole movie like a mock-up of the movie.

1409
01:34:02.500 --> 01:34:06.663
And then with the actors is where he executes the idea.

1410
01:34:07.343 --> 01:34:16.189
And I think AI could be a great tool to assist in this mocking up, but it's the prompt.

1411
01:34:16.709 --> 01:34:18.510
The prompt is where the creativity is.

1412
01:34:20.432 --> 01:34:29.818
The prompt is what Wes is using and what Alfred Hitchcock is using to tell the artist what to draw in each frame

1413
01:34:31.036 --> 01:34:32.317
the creativity is there.

1414
01:34:32.557 --> 01:34:33.918
It's not in the drawing.

1415
01:34:35.059 --> 01:34:36.500
It's not in the finished movie.

1416
01:34:37.381 --> 01:34:38.802
It's in the prompt.

1417
01:34:40.403 --> 01:34:51.512
So I feel like now using prompts, anyone can prompt, and you can get better at prompting through experimentation.

1418
01:34:53.433 --> 01:34:59.678
So someone who thinks of themselves as not creative, the idea of learning how to prompt, it's pretty easy.

1419
01:35:02.477 --> 01:35:05.840
It's really like the barrier of entry is very low.

1420
01:35:07.342 --> 01:35:08.363
And I think that's a good thing.

1421
01:35:10.866 --> 01:35:18.133
In a world where the barrier of entry is so low to creating, what becomes the distinction?

1422
01:35:18.393 --> 01:35:21.396
What makes a great artist from a not-so-great artist?

1423
01:35:21.416 --> 01:35:23.218
Well, it's the same thing now.

1424
01:35:23.478 --> 01:35:24.539
It's the same thing as now.

1425
01:35:24.659 --> 01:35:25.100
Like the...

1426
01:35:26.085 --> 01:35:30.486
The reason you love the artists you love is they make something that changes your life, moves you.

1427
01:35:30.546 --> 01:35:31.987
You want to listen to it a million times.

1428
01:35:32.007 --> 01:35:33.967
You want to see the movie over and over again.

1429
01:35:33.987 --> 01:35:35.968
You want to read their books.

1430
01:35:37.768 --> 01:35:46.110
I don't know if the AI itself could write the book that you want to read over and over again.

1431
01:35:46.130 --> 01:35:49.151
I don't know if that's a problem, if that happens.

1432
01:35:50.111 --> 01:35:53.012
I don't see any indication that that's going to happen.

1433
01:35:53.032 --> 01:35:53.732
Hmm.

1434
01:35:55.047 --> 01:35:57.849
but more good art doesn't seem like a bad thing.

1435
01:35:59.490 --> 01:36:07.315
Me and my business partner out there, Georgia Gibson, we were on Spotify and we listened to this song.

1436
01:36:07.335 --> 01:36:07.855
We really liked it.

1437
01:36:09.589 --> 01:36:11.590
And about two months later, I figured out it was AI.

1438
01:36:11.950 --> 01:36:14.971
The only reason I figured out it was AI was because I went to get more from the artist.

1439
01:36:15.611 --> 01:36:17.992
And as I clicked through, I realized it was AI.

1440
01:36:18.272 --> 01:36:24.515
And then the other thing that happened around the time is there was these two songs from this Spotify artist, I guess.

1441
01:36:25.095 --> 01:36:25.915
And one of them disappeared.

1442
01:36:26.596 --> 01:36:29.917
And so that's when I went on Google and was looking like, what happened to that song?

1443
01:36:30.337 --> 01:36:31.818
And it turns out it was an AI artist.

1444
01:36:32.318 --> 01:36:34.759
Something interesting happened when I realized I was listening to an AI song.

1445
01:36:35.059 --> 01:36:35.459
What happened?

1446
01:36:35.899 --> 01:36:36.880
I didn't like it as much anymore.

1447
01:36:37.220 --> 01:36:37.620
Interesting.

1448
01:36:39.522 --> 01:36:53.292
And so when I think about, again, creativity, I wonder if there is a sort of an irreplaceably human element because it resonated with me because there was this story that it came from this woman who was singing and she was talking about this subject and it meant something to her.

1449
01:36:53.312 --> 01:36:58.455
And then when I found out it was none of that, the song lost something.

1450
01:36:59.096 --> 01:37:01.097
If you think about Andy Warhol's art,

1451
01:37:03.707 --> 01:37:08.631
Andy Warhol started as a commercial illustrator.

1452
01:37:08.651 --> 01:37:11.693
So he would draw shoes for advertising, let's say.

1453
01:37:12.814 --> 01:37:16.957
And then he came up with what essentially now what we call pop art.

1454
01:37:17.878 --> 01:37:23.182
And pop art was a Brillo box or a Campbell soup can.

1455
01:37:23.222 --> 01:37:26.525
And maybe the first Campbell soup cans, he drew them and painted them.

1456
01:37:26.945 --> 01:37:27.826
Those were the first ones.

1457
01:37:28.346 --> 01:37:29.267
But then over time,

1458
01:37:30.498 --> 01:37:33.559
He did a series of images that were screen printed.

1459
01:37:33.799 --> 01:37:39.221
So like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, really famous, the most famous Andy Warhol images.

1460
01:37:40.241 --> 01:37:41.282
He never painted anything.

1461
01:37:41.322 --> 01:37:42.402
He never touched anything.

1462
01:37:44.843 --> 01:37:49.385
He said, we're gonna use this shot of Marilyn and we're gonna treat it in this way.

1463
01:37:49.745 --> 01:37:55.547
And he prompted the people in the studio to screen print these things.

1464
01:37:57.008 --> 01:38:01.031
And they're not less Andy Warhol.

1465
01:38:02.772 --> 01:38:06.335
The art's always in the ideation.

1466
01:38:06.936 --> 01:38:08.096
That's where the art is.

1467
01:38:08.677 --> 01:38:12.299
It's not who put the paint on the canvas.

1468
01:38:14.781 --> 01:38:24.789
There was a time, even going back to the Renaissance, so many of the painters had studios, and you'd see Rembrandt, and Rembrandt might have painted...

1469
01:38:27.073 --> 01:38:27.813
70%?

1470
01:38:27.853 --> 01:38:29.774
He might have painted 30% of that painting.

1471
01:38:30.534 --> 01:38:35.436
But it was his vision for the painting, and he would have the guys in the studio, you guys do this.

1472
01:38:35.456 --> 01:38:38.677
I'm not sure if Rembrandt's the best example of this, but could be.

1473
01:38:39.337 --> 01:38:48.720
It's a normal thing that artists who had studios would have other people, other painters, disciples, who would do a lot of the work.

1474
01:38:50.142 --> 01:38:51.343
Happens now in the studio.

1475
01:38:51.403 --> 01:38:58.406
So many records, you'll hear a, it can be a band, but then the band isn't playing on the record.

1476
01:38:58.446 --> 01:39:00.086
Studio musicians are playing on the record.

1477
01:39:01.847 --> 01:39:02.387
It's normal.

1478
01:39:02.648 --> 01:39:05.909
It's just part of the process, but doesn't make it less good.

1479
01:39:05.969 --> 01:39:07.030
It's just a different thing.

1480
01:39:07.470 --> 01:39:07.870
It's fine.

1481
01:39:10.771 --> 01:39:12.792
It's the ideation is where it comes from.

1482
01:39:12.892 --> 01:39:18.595
And I don't know that the AI's ideation is interesting to anyone.

1483
01:39:18.855 --> 01:39:19.175
We'll see.

1484
01:39:20.932 --> 01:39:30.635
I always think with like the F1, if they removed Lewis Hamilton from the car, I wouldn't watch the F1 anymore, even if the cars drove faster and beat their times.

1485
01:39:31.055 --> 01:39:36.156
Because there's something in me watching a human being experience those emotions of competition and anger.

1486
01:39:36.196 --> 01:39:38.877
And, you know, you can kind of see by the way they're driving how they're feeling.

1487
01:39:39.117 --> 01:39:39.858
And you can relate to that.

1488
01:39:40.018 --> 01:39:41.018
I felt like that in work once.

1489
01:39:42.252 --> 01:39:46.233
Yeah, it does seem less interesting if it was just a car, automated car doing it.

1490
01:39:46.933 --> 01:39:58.835
So what has been removed is kind of, I guess, what I experienced with that Spotify song I was talking about is like human relatability and resonance and me too and connection.

1491
01:39:59.035 --> 01:40:01.375
But it's interesting that you liked it before you knew.

1492
01:40:02.036 --> 01:40:02.836
And that's interesting.

1493
01:40:02.876 --> 01:40:03.936
You know, that's interesting to me.

1494
01:40:04.456 --> 01:40:09.757
And I wonder, would I be against something

1495
01:40:10.831 --> 01:40:12.131
because of the way it was made.

1496
01:40:12.911 --> 01:40:14.232
It doesn't make sense to me.

1497
01:40:14.572 --> 01:40:15.492
You either like it or you don't.

1498
01:40:17.852 --> 01:40:18.033
Hmm.

1499
01:40:23.974 --> 01:40:25.494
It's, we're living in interesting times.

1500
01:40:25.774 --> 01:40:26.334
Absolutely.

1501
01:40:28.035 --> 01:40:31.195
You used the word miracles earlier on, which I found to be an interesting word.

1502
01:40:31.435 --> 01:40:31.655
Yeah.

1503
01:40:31.795 --> 01:40:36.176
And I wondered if you had experienced miracles through the creative process of working with great artists.

1504
01:40:36.556 --> 01:40:36.996
All the time.

1505
01:40:37.717 --> 01:40:38.217
What are those?

1506
01:40:38.317 --> 01:40:39.397
Is there a miracle you could share?

1507
01:40:41.890 --> 01:40:47.512
there's a Avett brothers song called, um, no hard feelings.

1508
01:40:48.233 --> 01:40:50.354
And they were playing it in studio and it was okay.

1509
01:40:50.494 --> 01:40:50.994
It was fine.

1510
01:40:51.894 --> 01:40:52.655
It wasn't great.

1511
01:40:53.835 --> 01:40:54.936
They played it a few times.

1512
01:40:54.996 --> 01:40:56.536
And then finally they played it one time.

1513
01:40:56.676 --> 01:41:00.038
And again, I don't even remember if we even said do anything different.

1514
01:41:00.058 --> 01:41:01.318
Might even just try it again.

1515
01:41:01.778 --> 01:41:04.360
You know, it could have been that nothing changed.

1516
01:41:05.580 --> 01:41:07.521
And for some reason, um,

1517
01:41:09.370 --> 01:41:11.591
while they were playing it, it was like time stopped.

1518
01:41:12.972 --> 01:41:15.033
And this incredible thing happened.

1519
01:41:15.333 --> 01:41:16.033
I don't know why.

1520
01:41:16.773 --> 01:41:19.014
No one involved knew why or how.

1521
01:41:20.915 --> 01:41:31.200
But after, I remember about a minute into the song, I remember thinking, there's this feeling it's scary because it's really good.

1522
01:41:31.520 --> 01:41:32.821
We don't know how or why.

1523
01:41:34.264 --> 01:41:36.126
I hope they can get to the end of the song.

1524
01:41:36.506 --> 01:41:41.650
Because if they don't get to the end of the song, we don't have it, and maybe we can never get back to this.

1525
01:41:42.731 --> 01:41:43.671
That's what it's like.

1526
01:41:44.092 --> 01:41:54.880
So as soon as you realize in the process, if you happen to realize, okay, something shifted, something magic is happening now, sometimes you don't know it right away.

1527
01:41:54.920 --> 01:41:56.442
Sometimes you know it after.

1528
01:41:56.882 --> 01:42:00.445
I made an album with Neil Young where we recorded for a week.

1529
01:42:02.306 --> 01:42:03.207
It was not good.

1530
01:42:04.723 --> 01:42:10.787
The band, it sounded like the band not only couldn't play the songs, but would never be able to play the songs.

1531
01:42:10.827 --> 01:42:12.328
That was a feeling in the first week.

1532
01:42:14.149 --> 01:42:19.393
And at the end of the first week, Neil said to me after, he's like, don't worry, next week's going to be better.

1533
01:42:19.773 --> 01:42:20.594
They're going to be able to do it.

1534
01:42:20.614 --> 01:42:21.814
It's like, okay, okay.

1535
01:42:21.834 --> 01:42:25.037
Like, nothing showed me that, but...

1536
01:42:25.935 --> 01:42:27.415
let's go, I'll listen.

1537
01:42:28.116 --> 01:42:35.197
And then the next week, Neil said to Ralph, the drummer, he's like, okay, let's play the third song again.

1538
01:42:35.217 --> 01:42:37.418
And Ralph's like, well, we already did that last week.

1539
01:42:37.858 --> 01:42:39.298
And he was like, oh, maybe we can beat it.

1540
01:42:39.978 --> 01:42:42.019
And Ralph's like, no, I really think we got it.

1541
01:42:43.499 --> 01:42:48.880
And now last week, we thought not only did we not get it, but that we may never get it.

1542
01:42:49.320 --> 01:42:51.461
And then we tried playing it again, it is no better.

1543
01:42:52.409 --> 01:42:55.690
And then Ralph says, put on the one from last week.

1544
01:42:56.470 --> 01:42:57.931
And he puts on the one from last week.

1545
01:42:58.671 --> 01:43:01.692
And he says, well, turn down the bass a little bit.

1546
01:43:04.413 --> 01:43:05.513
Maybe turn the piano up.

1547
01:43:06.833 --> 01:43:07.874
And we listen to it again.

1548
01:43:08.394 --> 01:43:17.557
And it seemed like it still had problems, but the magic was there.

1549
01:43:17.577 --> 01:43:19.917
It had a lot of mistakes.

1550
01:43:21.985 --> 01:43:27.930
But forgetting the mistakes, the feeling, the feeling was there.

1551
01:43:28.790 --> 01:43:43.641
And then our job was just like doing little bits of repairs here and there, or a little ducking a sound, or featuring a sound, or adding another vocal, or doing little things.

1552
01:43:44.242 --> 01:43:50.767
And almost the whole album turned out to be recorded that first week when it seemed like it would never happen.

1553
01:43:52.295 --> 01:43:53.755
So that felt like a miracle.

1554
01:43:54.376 --> 01:43:59.477
The question that's front of mind when you talk about these moments where great art was created, everybody wants to know how to make it repeatable.

1555
01:43:59.877 --> 01:44:01.137
How do we repeat that process?

1556
01:44:01.157 --> 01:44:03.138
Yeah, it's not, none of this is repeatable.

1557
01:44:05.379 --> 01:44:09.800
No, the thing that's repeatable is you show up and you keep going until it's great, whatever it takes.

1558
01:44:09.940 --> 01:44:10.780
That's the thing.

1559
01:44:11.440 --> 01:44:17.862
And sometimes you listen back, like you'll make a demo or you'll do a little sketch and you think this is...

1560
01:44:18.680 --> 01:44:21.681
this is a great idea, this is beautiful, now I'm going to make a big painting.

1561
01:44:21.981 --> 01:44:23.841
And you work on the painting for months and months and months.

1562
01:44:24.402 --> 01:44:25.502
It never really comes together.

1563
01:44:26.122 --> 01:44:32.204
But then you look back at that original drawing that you made in five minutes, like, you know, that's actually it.

1564
01:44:33.124 --> 01:44:35.705
Happened on the first album I made with Johnny Cash.

1565
01:44:36.145 --> 01:44:40.406
We recorded all these songs in my living room of him singing and playing guitar.

1566
01:44:41.786 --> 01:44:43.947
We weren't recording for an album.

1567
01:44:43.967 --> 01:44:44.847
We were recording...

1568
01:44:46.639 --> 01:44:48.320
it was the way that we got to know each other.

1569
01:44:48.540 --> 01:44:54.722
I asked him to play me all of his favorite songs, songs he liked to remember from growing up, songs that mean a lot to him.

1570
01:44:54.942 --> 01:44:57.142
Or I might say, can you try playing this song?

1571
01:44:57.202 --> 01:44:58.283
Let's just see what it sounds like.

1572
01:44:58.663 --> 01:45:03.164
More like trying to understand what sounded good when he sang it.

1573
01:45:03.345 --> 01:45:05.105
We were doing this exploration.

1574
01:45:05.705 --> 01:45:07.266
And we did that with the idea of we're going to

1575
01:45:08.006 --> 01:45:14.389
Test 100 songs this way, and then maybe we'll find 10, and the 10 that we like best will go into the studio with a band and we'll record them.

1576
01:45:14.889 --> 01:45:16.930
And we did that and recorded them with a great band.

1577
01:45:17.990 --> 01:45:19.771
And it was interesting, but it wasn't better.

1578
01:45:20.011 --> 01:45:23.813
And then we did it again with a different band, same thing, wasn't better.

1579
01:45:23.833 --> 01:45:33.337
It's like, I guess those recordings from the living room, which we had no thoughts of anybody ever hearing, that's right.

1580
01:45:34.282 --> 01:45:37.586
They have something that the real recordings don't have.

1581
01:45:38.847 --> 01:45:40.850
And we ended up putting out those.

1582
01:45:42.592 --> 01:45:45.596
But again, we didn't go into the process to do that.

1583
01:45:46.711 --> 01:45:49.233
We discovered it through the process.

1584
01:45:50.053 --> 01:45:55.756
And sometimes it's the opposite way where you have a clear vision of what it's going to be and you do it all the way.

1585
01:45:56.577 --> 01:46:02.680
And it tells you through that process, it wants to be this entire other thing.

1586
01:46:02.941 --> 01:46:03.581
It wants to be.

1587
01:46:03.921 --> 01:46:04.622
It wants to be.

1588
01:46:05.062 --> 01:46:06.943
You're saying that as if it's got a mind of its own.

1589
01:46:07.303 --> 01:46:07.683
It does.

1590
01:46:08.764 --> 01:46:09.024
Hmm.

1591
01:46:10.525 --> 01:46:13.587
Well, I'm only saying it does because it shows you

1592
01:46:15.360 --> 01:46:19.381
No, what you think is wrong, try it like this.

1593
01:46:20.881 --> 01:46:23.062
You're sort of personifying, you're sort of, yeah.

1594
01:46:23.342 --> 01:46:24.082
I'm personifying.

1595
01:46:24.142 --> 01:46:26.823
It doesn't say it in words, but it's clear.

1596
01:46:26.843 --> 01:46:29.283
The indicators are clear.

1597
01:46:29.323 --> 01:46:33.204
What we get back is, hmm, we thought it was supposed to be this fast.

1598
01:46:33.224 --> 01:46:36.585
When we listen to it, it's clearly much too fast.

1599
01:46:37.505 --> 01:46:38.345
We have to play it slower.

1600
01:46:38.745 --> 01:46:40.946
We thought it was going to be a loud electric song.

1601
01:46:41.726 --> 01:46:43.867
Turns out it wants to be a really quiet song.

1602
01:46:44.267 --> 01:46:45.007
We didn't know that.

1603
01:46:46.590 --> 01:46:51.275
Has there been a time where you thought something was just the most amazing thing ever?

1604
01:46:51.716 --> 01:46:57.001
And then when it went out into the world, the world didn't subjectively think it was amazing?

1605
01:46:57.202 --> 01:46:57.582
For sure.

1606
01:46:58.463 --> 01:46:59.484
It probably happens often.

1607
01:46:59.784 --> 01:47:06.572
And how do you rationalize that on the basis of... As soon as I decide that I like it enough to share with the world...

1608
01:47:07.593 --> 01:47:08.013
I'm done.

1609
01:47:08.053 --> 01:47:09.173
I move on to the next thing.

1610
01:47:09.193 --> 01:47:13.634
I can't, what anyone else thinks doesn't really impact it.

1611
01:47:13.714 --> 01:47:15.014
It's fun when people like it.

1612
01:47:15.254 --> 01:47:16.455
I love it when people like it.

1613
01:47:17.295 --> 01:47:19.695
But that's total bonus.

1614
01:47:20.475 --> 01:47:24.716
The real work is I like this enough to put it out into the world.

1615
01:47:25.977 --> 01:47:27.257
My name's on the back of the record.

1616
01:47:27.597 --> 01:47:28.677
The artist name's on the front.

1617
01:47:29.337 --> 01:47:30.617
They like it enough to put it out.

1618
01:47:31.118 --> 01:47:32.198
I like it enough to put it out.

1619
01:47:33.258 --> 01:47:33.618
Here you go.

1620
01:47:34.863 --> 01:47:35.444
What's next?

1621
01:47:36.244 --> 01:47:38.646
And what comes of that you're treating like none of your business?

1622
01:47:39.086 --> 01:47:39.387
Correct.

1623
01:47:42.669 --> 01:47:49.214
Because anything that I think of past that is going to totally undermine the creative process.

1624
01:47:49.795 --> 01:47:59.402
The creative process is a pure, delicate process to be protected.

1625
01:48:04.360 --> 01:48:05.440
Totally undermines it.

1626
01:48:06.081 --> 01:48:07.761
The house of cards crumbles.

1627
01:48:09.882 --> 01:48:15.363
When we're working in the studio and something starts sounding good and someone, one of the artists might say, oh, this sounds like it could be a single.

1628
01:48:15.383 --> 01:48:18.624
It's like, we're not talking about that.

1629
01:48:18.904 --> 01:48:20.905
That has nothing to do with what we're doing.

1630
01:48:22.445 --> 01:48:22.965
What are you doing?

1631
01:48:23.686 --> 01:48:24.826
Making the best thing we can make.

1632
01:48:26.605 --> 01:48:28.046
We're making the best thing we can make.

1633
01:48:28.146 --> 01:48:33.911
And I always use this, I always thought of it as greatness, like we're working towards greatness, timeless greatness.

1634
01:48:34.812 --> 01:48:35.552
Didn't know what it meant.

1635
01:48:36.153 --> 01:48:40.376
And more recently I came to realize we're making it as an offering to God.

1636
01:48:41.157 --> 01:48:49.584
And if we're making it as an offering to God, things like the numbers, that's insignificant.

1637
01:48:51.205 --> 01:48:54.948
This is, we're doing our best as an offering.

1638
01:48:56.683 --> 01:48:58.064
There's nothing deeper than that.

1639
01:48:58.924 --> 01:49:00.785
There's no metric that competes with that.

1640
01:49:04.386 --> 01:49:06.467
I didn't always know that, but it was always the same.

1641
01:49:10.648 --> 01:49:11.929
Was there a point when you realized that?

1642
01:49:12.469 --> 01:49:13.430
Yeah, a few years ago.

1643
01:49:14.870 --> 01:49:16.131
And it felt good when I realized it.

1644
01:49:16.151 --> 01:49:22.273
It was like, ah, of course, you know, 35 years in.

1645
01:49:23.734 --> 01:49:24.654
Do you remember the moment?

1646
01:49:26.238 --> 01:49:27.599
I have a vague memory.

1647
01:49:27.639 --> 01:49:28.739
I don't remember the specifics.

1648
01:49:28.759 --> 01:49:31.221
I remember I was sitting on a lifeguard chair in Hawaii.

1649
01:49:32.282 --> 01:49:36.804
And I remember thinking about it there, but I don't know if that's the moment where it struck me.

1650
01:49:37.284 --> 01:49:48.551
But I remember it was like, it was a total epiphany, even though it was only, you know, for me, it didn't apply to anything else.

1651
01:49:48.611 --> 01:49:50.292
It was just like, I realized that,

1652
01:49:52.053 --> 01:49:55.654
what I've been doing all this time without understanding it, it just became clear.

1653
01:49:55.674 --> 01:49:57.174
It's like, ah, that's what it is.

1654
01:49:57.194 --> 01:49:59.935
Yeah.

1655
01:49:59.955 --> 01:50:04.596
It was a great, it was a great feeling of like, now it all makes more sense.

1656
01:50:07.277 --> 01:50:12.698
Do you mean in the literal sense, you think that you are making offerings for a higher power?

1657
01:50:12.798 --> 01:50:13.759
Very, very literally.

1658
01:50:13.779 --> 01:50:14.679
I'm saying God.

1659
01:50:19.313 --> 01:50:21.935
And God defined as the higher power.

1660
01:50:21.955 --> 01:50:23.516
We can call him the father.

1661
01:50:23.776 --> 01:50:24.297
Okay.

1662
01:50:24.957 --> 01:50:30.602
And you're literally, so the art you make, the music you make, he is actually the customer in some respects.

1663
01:50:31.582 --> 01:50:33.264
No, because it's a gift.

1664
01:50:33.364 --> 01:50:34.565
So he's not a customer.

1665
01:50:35.025 --> 01:50:36.966
He's the beneficiary, but he's not the customer.

1666
01:50:37.927 --> 01:50:44.192
And it's like a, I want to show you my best.

1667
01:50:45.989 --> 01:50:49.010
out of love and thanks, gratitude.

1668
01:50:50.010 --> 01:50:51.310
Here's the best I can do.

1669
01:50:54.731 --> 01:50:55.411
That's what it is.

1670
01:50:57.572 --> 01:50:58.452
This is my best.

1671
01:51:00.572 --> 01:51:01.953
If anybody else likes it, great.

1672
01:51:02.133 --> 01:51:04.173
But if not, we're good.

1673
01:51:06.914 --> 01:51:10.054
Does he ever give feedback?

1674
01:51:10.074 --> 01:51:12.535
I want to say that when other people like it, I might...

1675
01:51:13.752 --> 01:51:16.274
I might take that as a good sign, but I don't know.

1676
01:51:16.514 --> 01:51:17.415
I don't really think about it.

1677
01:51:18.015 --> 01:51:25.881
But I feel like when a lot of people like it, it's like the energy of it is positive all the way around.

1678
01:51:28.523 --> 01:51:29.464
Interesting to think about.

1679
01:51:30.145 --> 01:51:30.885
Fun to think about.

1680
01:51:31.265 --> 01:51:32.426
Do you think that's why we're here?

1681
01:51:33.187 --> 01:51:39.712
Because I'm now trying to figure out why there'd be such a relationship with God where we were offering gifts and how that links to our maybe higher purpose.

1682
01:51:41.245 --> 01:51:43.467
Well, I think we're here to show who we are.

1683
01:51:44.047 --> 01:51:45.448
We're here to self-express.

1684
01:51:46.769 --> 01:51:47.329
I am here.

1685
01:51:47.589 --> 01:51:49.811
I'm here to tell you this is me.

1686
01:51:50.031 --> 01:51:51.232
This is how I see the world.

1687
01:51:51.612 --> 01:51:54.134
And say to you, show me who you are.

1688
01:51:54.194 --> 01:51:55.415
Tell me how you see the world.

1689
01:51:55.855 --> 01:51:58.757
And the way we make sense of it is we discuss that.

1690
01:51:59.238 --> 01:52:01.159
And in some areas we may line up.

1691
01:52:01.219 --> 01:52:02.660
In some cases we may differ.

1692
01:52:02.920 --> 01:52:04.101
But that's how we figure it out.

1693
01:52:05.002 --> 01:52:09.124
And everything we do is, this is how I see the world.

1694
01:52:10.488 --> 01:52:17.833
And then other people say, I never saw it that way, but yes, I'm on board with that.

1695
01:52:17.953 --> 01:52:19.794
And other people are like, no, that's not for me.

1696
01:52:20.315 --> 01:52:20.855
And that's fine.

1697
01:52:22.836 --> 01:52:23.617
But we are here.

1698
01:52:23.757 --> 01:52:25.999
Our purpose is to self-express.

1699
01:52:28.440 --> 01:52:30.322
Through several different means, through?

1700
01:52:30.542 --> 01:52:31.182
Any different way.

1701
01:52:31.342 --> 01:52:34.384
Any self-expression comes in a lot of forms.

1702
01:52:37.307 --> 01:52:41.270
But the best version, it's never because they did it this way.

1703
01:52:41.830 --> 01:52:42.911
That's not self-expression.

1704
01:52:44.272 --> 01:52:46.734
Copying that, they were successful and I'm copying them.

1705
01:52:47.475 --> 01:52:48.575
That's not self-expression.

1706
01:52:49.937 --> 01:52:50.977
That's a different game.

1707
01:52:52.899 --> 01:52:54.100
That's not what we're here for.

1708
01:52:54.360 --> 01:52:54.960
You can do it.

1709
01:52:55.020 --> 01:52:55.501
It's fine.

1710
01:52:56.381 --> 01:52:56.842
It's fine.

1711
01:52:57.302 --> 01:52:58.403
But I don't think that's why we're here.

1712
01:53:00.115 --> 01:53:02.696
I sat with someone who is an expert on consciousness.

1713
01:53:02.736 --> 01:53:05.597
He's a physicist who is very spiritual.

1714
01:53:05.957 --> 01:53:19.281
One of the things he said to me, which has really stayed with me, is he was positing that potentially consciousness itself is God has divided consciousness into lots of little pieces, into my French bulldog Pablo, into Rick, into someone in China.

1715
01:53:19.922 --> 01:53:24.503
And he set us all off to go and explore and understand the world.

1716
01:53:24.623 --> 01:53:27.164
And by doing so, consciousness is seeking to understand itself.

1717
01:53:27.724 --> 01:53:28.525
Very strange idea.

1718
01:53:28.765 --> 01:53:30.006
And then I went to, I think, Malta.

1719
01:53:30.367 --> 01:53:33.430
And I was driving down the road in Malta, and I looked and I saw these tourists.

1720
01:53:34.210 --> 01:53:40.616
And with that idea in mind, that consciousness has divided itself to go and understand itself into these pieces, into a fish so we can go check the bottom of the ocean.

1721
01:53:41.017 --> 01:53:44.100
I saw these tourists, and they were all just looking up at this mountain.

1722
01:53:44.861 --> 01:53:50.446
And like, in the abstract, it looks like a very strange thing that we're fascinated by the novel,

1723
01:53:50.706 --> 01:53:52.247
And so I started to think, maybe that is true.

1724
01:53:52.287 --> 01:53:57.431
Maybe this thing called consciousness is this exploration to understand itself.

1725
01:53:57.931 --> 01:54:03.015
And some consciousness has gone into Rick, and Rick is experimenting and creating to understand.

1726
01:54:03.035 --> 01:54:10.801
And kind of what you were saying reminded me of it, because it sounded like you were talking about consciousness itself and the self-expression of consciousness.

1727
01:54:10.921 --> 01:54:12.142
It could be.

1728
01:54:13.523 --> 01:54:14.504
It's a beautiful idea.

1729
01:54:15.124 --> 01:54:15.945
Strange idea, isn't it?

1730
01:54:16.065 --> 01:54:16.225
Yeah.

1731
01:54:16.829 --> 01:54:17.529
That's strange to me.

1732
01:54:18.050 --> 01:54:18.890
Not strange to you?

1733
01:54:19.050 --> 01:54:19.651
Okay.

1734
01:54:20.071 --> 01:54:20.491
Not at all.

1735
01:54:20.511 --> 01:54:21.191
I think nothing is...

1736
01:54:21.952 --> 01:54:22.872
Nothing is off the table.

1737
01:54:23.092 --> 01:54:25.053
Nothing's off the table.

1738
01:54:25.073 --> 01:54:29.935
One of the great artists you've worked with, we talked about, is Jay-Z.

1739
01:54:30.376 --> 01:54:30.556
Yes.

1740
01:54:31.156 --> 01:54:37.519
And you have this wonderful eight-part documentary coming out with Jay-Z, which I was fascinated enough to...

1741
01:54:39.140 --> 01:54:40.381
I found fascinating to watch.

1742
01:54:41.441 --> 01:54:45.263
It's right out on the 18th of September, and one of the clips that I watched from it

1743
01:54:46.663 --> 01:54:47.404
just had us run down.

1744
01:54:49.227 --> 01:54:50.790
It's the story of this brand.

1745
01:54:51.111 --> 01:54:51.511
Ah, yes.

1746
01:54:52.192 --> 01:54:52.813
Ace of Spades.

1747
01:54:53.323 --> 01:55:00.169
I found it really fascinating the story that Jay-Z told about this brand, Ace of Spades, for many reasons.

1748
01:55:00.289 --> 01:55:18.584
But it also, it rhymes with some of the things you're saying about integrity and how you feel and his decision to abandon another brand and at a cost, at a near-term cost against his near-term incentives and pursue launching his own.

1749
01:55:18.990 --> 01:55:26.573
Yes, and what's interesting, what's most interesting about that story, and it's not, we don't make a lot of it, it's just a passing remark.

1750
01:55:27.213 --> 01:55:36.397
But what happened was, he decided not to support a company going forward.

1751
01:55:36.597 --> 01:55:36.997
Christelle?

1752
01:55:37.558 --> 01:55:37.778
Yes.

1753
01:55:39.094 --> 01:55:42.256
which he had made very popular in the hip-hop community.

1754
01:55:42.276 --> 01:55:43.557
He was the first person to drink it.

1755
01:55:43.937 --> 01:55:44.798
Nobody knew what it was.

1756
01:55:45.278 --> 01:55:52.804
He talked about it in records, in songs, and it became a very popular drink in the hip-hop community.

1757
01:55:54.065 --> 01:55:58.768
And the person who ran Cristal said some disparaging remarks about it.

1758
01:55:59.968 --> 01:56:02.069
About hip hop people drinking Cristal.

1759
01:56:02.249 --> 01:56:03.889
I can't get them to stop drinking it.

1760
01:56:04.509 --> 01:56:04.709
Yeah.

1761
01:56:05.649 --> 01:56:08.070
And Jay was insulted, rightly so.

1762
01:56:08.610 --> 01:56:09.430
And he said, you know what?

1763
01:56:10.651 --> 01:56:11.011
No more.

1764
01:56:11.271 --> 01:56:12.151
I won't do that anymore.

1765
01:56:13.191 --> 01:56:15.432
Now, that didn't happen.

1766
01:56:15.492 --> 01:56:17.112
And then he thought, I'm going to go start my own.

1767
01:56:17.152 --> 01:56:18.133
That's not what happened.

1768
01:56:18.913 --> 01:56:19.653
That happened.

1769
01:56:20.173 --> 01:56:26.275
And almost immediately, someone came to him and said, I'm thinking about starting this brand.

1770
01:56:26.295 --> 01:56:27.315
Do you want to do it with me?

1771
01:56:30.037 --> 01:56:32.899
And all they had was the bottle, which he loved the shape of the bottle.

1772
01:56:33.420 --> 01:56:34.901
He loved that it was a gold bottle.

1773
01:56:36.342 --> 01:56:50.575
And it's like the universe allowed, first he gets this negative comment, he reacts following his belief, stood for what he believed in.

1774
01:56:50.675 --> 01:56:51.716
Removed it from his clubs.

1775
01:56:51.976 --> 01:56:52.236
Yes.

1776
01:56:52.897 --> 01:56:56.600
And this new opportunity that he was not looking for

1777
01:56:58.055 --> 01:57:02.438
arrives, and it's like you couldn't write the story.

1778
01:57:03.358 --> 01:57:07.261
I mean, you could write the story, but it seems almost unbelievable the way it happened.

1779
01:57:07.501 --> 01:57:09.122
But that's how it really happened.

1780
01:57:09.522 --> 01:57:21.390
And that's, again, like the miraculous nature of Jay did the right thing, and in response for doing the right thing, he ended up owning a champagne brand.

1781
01:57:22.951 --> 01:57:24.672
Do you believe that's how the universe is working?

1782
01:57:24.712 --> 01:57:25.032
Yes.

1783
01:57:26.333 --> 01:57:26.773
I know it.

1784
01:57:28.643 --> 01:57:29.023
I know it.

1785
01:57:29.663 --> 01:57:30.424
Is that karma?

1786
01:57:30.624 --> 01:57:31.144
What is that?

1787
01:57:31.184 --> 01:57:34.085
Well, you could call it that.

1788
01:57:34.305 --> 01:57:35.745
There's a lot of names.

1789
01:57:36.206 --> 01:57:37.166
There's a lot of labels.

1790
01:57:37.966 --> 01:57:39.767
But you can call it karma.

1791
01:57:41.007 --> 01:57:44.689
When he took that action, he wasn't thinking about how he might benefit.

1792
01:57:45.829 --> 01:57:46.589
Not at all.

1793
01:57:46.929 --> 01:57:57.213
All he knew was, these guys are insulting this movement, and I'm not going to have anything to do with them anymore after I was telling everybody this is the best stuff.

1794
01:57:58.442 --> 01:58:02.905
They insult us, we're crossing them off.

1795
01:58:03.465 --> 01:58:04.686
They're not for us anymore.

1796
01:58:05.406 --> 01:58:06.807
We will not give them our business.

1797
01:58:08.208 --> 01:58:10.249
He wasn't thinking about starting a business.

1798
01:58:10.530 --> 01:58:12.451
He wasn't thinking about that at all.

1799
01:58:13.992 --> 01:58:15.393
But it became a great business.

1800
01:58:15.513 --> 01:58:20.216
It became a great business, but it's the universe filled the void.

1801
01:58:20.556 --> 01:58:21.677
This is another thing we could talk about.

1802
01:58:21.697 --> 01:58:22.577
It's an interesting idea.

1803
01:58:24.578 --> 01:58:26.980
You're in a, you're dating someone,

1804
01:58:29.484 --> 01:58:33.728
you think maybe this is not right for the long term.

1805
01:58:35.669 --> 01:58:45.557
But you're going along with it, and then you think, well, maybe I'll meet someone while this is happening, and then if I like that person more, then I'll get out of this relationship for that relationship and switch.

1806
01:58:46.578 --> 01:58:47.479
A lot of people do this.

1807
01:58:48.740 --> 01:58:52.083
I feel like it's not the way, I don't think that's the way it works.

1808
01:58:52.423 --> 01:58:58.408
I think when you know that something isn't working, and you end it,

1809
01:58:59.356 --> 01:59:07.158
and you create that vacuum, you create that space, the good thing that you're looking for can come in to fill it.

1810
01:59:07.639 --> 01:59:13.901
Jay wasn't looking, in this case, he wasn't looking for a good thing to fill it, but he did create a vacuum in his life.

1811
01:59:14.321 --> 01:59:22.763
There's a thing that he's out there representing, and now he decides based on their action, I'm not going to represent this anymore.

1812
01:59:23.544 --> 01:59:25.284
And the universe steps in and says, you know what?

1813
01:59:26.284 --> 01:59:28.125
You're doing a good job representing that thing.

1814
01:59:29.918 --> 01:59:34.002
How about representing one for yourself that you can feel good about representing?

1815
01:59:35.563 --> 01:59:38.106
It's funny what you were saying there about creating a vacuum.

1816
01:59:38.646 --> 01:59:41.869
We in culture, like generally in society, we celebrate starting.

1817
01:59:42.783 --> 01:59:45.124
So like, you know, you start a new job, you start a new thing.

1818
01:59:45.464 --> 01:59:52.687
But obviously, from what you've just said, logically, you can't really start anything big in life without first doing something, which none of us really glamorize.

1819
01:59:52.967 --> 01:59:53.687
Actually, it's the opposite.

1820
01:59:53.707 --> 01:59:54.288
We say never quit.

1821
01:59:54.648 --> 01:59:55.088
Don't quit.

1822
01:59:56.128 --> 02:00:05.772
But that is the necessary first step to starting, to starting a brand, which in Jay-Z's case, went on to be worth $630 million at the time when he sold his stake.

1823
02:00:07.693 --> 02:00:09.274
We have a weird relationship with quitting.

1824
02:00:10.394 --> 02:00:11.154
We need certainty.

1825
02:00:11.174 --> 02:00:11.815
I need the branch.

1826
02:00:12.295 --> 02:00:12.535
Yeah.

1827
02:00:13.971 --> 02:00:16.035
No, I think it's an empowering thing.

1828
02:00:16.156 --> 02:00:18.561
It's like taking control.

1829
02:00:18.601 --> 02:00:21.667
I just had a conversation about this recently with someone who's a

1830
02:00:23.198 --> 02:00:32.103
very high up person in a very high tech company who is, um, who's decided to step down and he's stepping down for the right reasons.

1831
02:00:33.423 --> 02:00:37.145
And he's concerned that people, the perception will be, he's being fired.

1832
02:00:37.626 --> 02:00:42.008
That'll be the outside world, but he's really stepping down because he doesn't like what's going on there.

1833
02:00:42.448 --> 02:00:45.390
And usually people don't leave jobs at that level.

1834
02:00:46.831 --> 02:00:51.213
So it's an interesting, it's an interesting moment in time when that, when that happens.

1835
02:00:52.581 --> 02:00:57.032
Similar to what you were saying about getting artists to step outside of their genre, to quit their genre.

1836
02:00:57.333 --> 02:00:57.554
Yeah.

1837
02:00:58.616 --> 02:00:58.737
Yeah.

1838
02:00:58.757 --> 02:00:58.857
Yeah.

1839
02:01:01.400 --> 02:01:03.521
This is something that I've made for you.

1840
02:01:03.601 --> 02:01:07.763
I realize that the Diary of SEO audience are strivers, whether it's in business or health.

1841
02:01:08.024 --> 02:01:09.885
We all have big goals that we want to accomplish.

1842
02:01:10.225 --> 02:01:21.971
And one of the things I've learned is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable because it's kind of like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards.

1843
02:01:22.371 --> 02:01:25.593
The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tasks.

1844
02:01:25.613 --> 02:01:29.135
tiny small steps, and we call this in our team the 1%.

1845
02:01:29.155 --> 02:01:33.378
And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here.

1846
02:01:33.558 --> 02:01:39.862
So, what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries

1847
02:01:40.863 --> 02:01:43.265
And we released these last year and they all sold out.

1848
02:01:43.585 --> 02:01:49.668
So I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diary.

1849
02:01:49.708 --> 02:01:54.151
So now we have a better range for you.

1850
02:01:54.351 --> 02:02:03.937
So if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again.

1851
02:02:04.017 --> 02:02:06.779
And you can get yours at thediary.com.

1852
02:02:07.019 --> 02:02:08.780
And if you want the link, the link is in the description below.

1853
02:02:10.253 --> 02:02:12.515
I hear you used to make music with one of these things here.

1854
02:02:13.796 --> 02:02:16.338
I've never used that particular device, but it looks beautiful.

1855
02:02:18.240 --> 02:02:19.601
You know, if I came to you, Rick, and I went...

1856
02:02:23.024 --> 02:02:23.484
I love that.

1857
02:02:23.805 --> 02:02:24.025
Yeah.

1858
02:02:25.146 --> 02:02:27.728
And clearly, I mean, objectively, it wasn't great.

1859
02:02:28.889 --> 02:02:29.249
I don't know.

1860
02:02:29.269 --> 02:02:29.990
It could be great.

1861
02:02:30.590 --> 02:02:32.452
But if I was like, Rick...

1862
02:02:36.575 --> 02:02:37.216
I want to put that out.

1863
02:02:37.605 --> 02:02:38.606
Do you really believe it's great?

1864
02:02:39.066 --> 02:02:41.387
If you really believe it's great, I support you putting it out.

1865
02:02:41.607 --> 02:02:41.888
Really?

1866
02:02:42.388 --> 02:02:44.309
If you really believe it's great, yes.

1867
02:02:46.150 --> 02:02:46.691
Would you interrogate?

1868
02:02:46.711 --> 02:02:52.134
You're giving me this hypothetical with like, what if this thing that's bad, if I tell you I think it's great?

1869
02:02:52.214 --> 02:02:53.895
It's like, you don't believe it's great.

1870
02:02:55.546 --> 02:02:58.551
I trust when you tell me I really love this thing.

1871
02:02:58.571 --> 02:03:00.454
I want to play it for people.

1872
02:03:01.155 --> 02:03:01.957
I support that.

1873
02:03:02.457 --> 02:03:04.120
Even if you don't, it doesn't matter if you.

1874
02:03:04.140 --> 02:03:04.721
It doesn't matter.

1875
02:03:05.142 --> 02:03:08.608
And if I don't like it, I'll say you might want to try these things.

1876
02:03:10.117 --> 02:03:13.478
But I always support somebody who makes something that they love.

1877
02:03:14.178 --> 02:03:15.259
That's beautiful for the world.

1878
02:03:15.679 --> 02:03:20.520
Is there an example of that with artists you've worked with, where they presented you with something and you didn't really get it?

1879
02:03:20.540 --> 02:03:21.061
You didn't feel it.

1880
02:03:21.081 --> 02:03:21.701
You didn't like it.

1881
02:03:21.781 --> 02:03:26.102
They put it out and it was a huge success for them, but also for the audience.

1882
02:03:28.123 --> 02:03:30.204
I can think of one, but I don't really want to talk about it.

1883
02:03:30.784 --> 02:03:32.004
But yes, I could think of one.

1884
02:03:32.665 --> 02:03:33.245
It has happened.

1885
02:03:36.066 --> 02:03:39.187
Is there anything you can tell me about it without identifying what the song was or the person was?

1886
02:03:42.334 --> 02:03:45.255
I was working with an artist and there were lots of good songs.

1887
02:03:45.776 --> 02:03:49.437
And there was one song that I felt like, this one doesn't fit with all the rest.

1888
02:03:50.258 --> 02:03:51.899
It feels like it doesn't go with the others.

1889
02:03:53.199 --> 02:03:57.261
And the artist chose to include that one.

1890
02:03:58.022 --> 02:03:59.322
And it ended up becoming a big hit.

1891
02:03:59.342 --> 02:04:03.804
It wasn't the first single, but it did become a big hit.

1892
02:04:06.606 --> 02:04:10.408
And it's anytime I give my opinion,

1893
02:04:11.477 --> 02:04:18.183
This is a really interesting idea, this idea of I'm asked, how do I have the confidence?

1894
02:04:18.203 --> 02:04:21.766
Because when I say I don't like something, I really mean it.

1895
02:04:21.786 --> 02:04:24.608
It's like, well, how could you have the confidence that it's not good?

1896
02:04:25.149 --> 02:04:28.191
It's like, well, I have the confidence that I don't like the pizza.

1897
02:04:30.013 --> 02:04:31.594
It doesn't mean more than that.

1898
02:04:32.375 --> 02:04:37.719
You know, it ends, I was asked to produce Guns N' Roses' first album, and I turned them down because...

1899
02:04:38.582 --> 02:04:43.005
I went to see them live, played in a little club in a basement, maybe 30 people there.

1900
02:04:43.746 --> 02:04:46.808
And they were a hair band at the time with makeup and stuff.

1901
02:04:46.828 --> 02:04:48.649
And I just looked like, I don't really get it.

1902
02:04:49.810 --> 02:04:51.671
Now, they went on to become Guns N' Roses.

1903
02:04:52.952 --> 02:04:59.776
It's good that I didn't work with them because if I would have worked with them, it might have turned into something different than what they did without me.

1904
02:05:00.317 --> 02:05:00.537
Mm-hmm.

1905
02:05:01.403 --> 02:05:05.065
So it wasn't the right fit.

1906
02:05:06.326 --> 02:05:07.287
Do you know what I'm saying?

1907
02:05:07.347 --> 02:05:16.892
It's like, it's, I'm honest about what I see and it's true, but it's only true for me.

1908
02:05:19.474 --> 02:05:25.137
I'm wondering if you can be at the inverse of that, if you can be a great creative and never be commercially successful ever.

1909
02:05:25.638 --> 02:05:27.819
Absolutely, for sure.

1910
02:05:29.747 --> 02:05:30.207
For sure.

1911
02:05:31.587 --> 02:05:34.288
Probably more often than not.

1912
02:05:35.928 --> 02:05:37.769
That's probably regular.

1913
02:05:39.069 --> 02:05:45.951
Because becoming successful has so much to do with other things beyond being talented.

1914
02:05:46.671 --> 02:05:51.352
Like the talent is a piece, but then the stars have to align.

1915
02:05:51.752 --> 02:05:54.553
Like for anything to break through and get successful,

1916
02:05:57.263 --> 02:05:59.305
So many things have to go right.

1917
02:06:00.205 --> 02:06:03.408
So many, totally out of your control.

1918
02:06:06.530 --> 02:06:09.952
You must've worked with a lot of artists where you thought, I know this person is so talented.

1919
02:06:10.453 --> 02:06:11.333
Yeah.

1920
02:06:11.613 --> 02:06:13.735
But for whatever reason, they just didn't.

1921
02:06:14.275 --> 02:06:15.216
Yeah, it happens.

1922
02:06:15.236 --> 02:06:17.237
The world wasn't, it happens.

1923
02:06:17.357 --> 02:06:19.079
And that also could be a karmic thing.

1924
02:06:19.699 --> 02:06:23.482
Like there could be, maybe for some reason, this person is good as they are.

1925
02:06:24.725 --> 02:06:27.126
that's not their path on this life.

1926
02:06:27.466 --> 02:06:29.986
Maybe success is not part of their life path.

1927
02:06:32.287 --> 02:06:33.487
Who knows?

1928
02:06:34.207 --> 02:06:35.668
That's a different question, you know?

1929
02:06:37.248 --> 02:06:40.889
You co-founded Def Jam when you were a very young man.

1930
02:06:40.909 --> 02:06:43.349
I think you were 21 years old when you co-founded Def Jam.

1931
02:06:44.470 --> 02:06:45.410
Probably when then...

1932
02:06:46.845 --> 02:06:49.548
Through that process, you got to meet some incredible people.

1933
02:06:49.568 --> 02:06:52.711
I've got some of the albums that you produced around that time and published.

1934
02:06:53.411 --> 02:06:57.255
But one of those people throughout your career, and then thereafter was Jay-Z.

1935
02:06:57.635 --> 02:06:58.977
What was special about Jay?

1936
02:07:00.678 --> 02:07:02.900
Jay wrote in a way that no one else wrote.

1937
02:07:03.181 --> 02:07:07.985
All the other rappers that I worked with spent a lot of time writing lyrics.

1938
02:07:09.146 --> 02:07:10.588
And I never saw Jay write lyrics.

1939
02:07:12.425 --> 02:07:16.347
And when I got to work with him, I got to see him not physically write lyrics.

1940
02:07:17.428 --> 02:07:24.952
And when I played him the beat for 99 Problems, he said, okay, just keep looping it, keep playing it over and over again.

1941
02:07:26.132 --> 02:07:34.056
And he sat in the back of the room and it went on long enough that I almost forgot that he was there because I was talking to the engineer and the song's just playing over and over and he's silent in the back.

1942
02:07:34.237 --> 02:07:36.818
On occasion, you could hear him mumbling or humming.

1943
02:07:38.650 --> 02:07:41.533
And then after 20 or 30 minutes, he's like, okay, I got it.

1944
02:07:41.993 --> 02:07:44.996
Ran into the other room and did the first verse.

1945
02:07:45.856 --> 02:07:46.277
Totally.

1946
02:07:46.577 --> 02:07:47.278
The whole thing.

1947
02:07:48.199 --> 02:07:48.939
Nothing was written.

1948
02:07:48.959 --> 02:07:49.059
Just.

1949
02:07:51.767 --> 02:07:52.747
He just remembered it.

1950
02:07:53.468 --> 02:08:00.011
And he did several takes, and each of the takes, the words were the same, but the cadence was different.

1951
02:08:00.091 --> 02:08:08.354
Like, almost as if a saxophonist was playing a solo, and you know how the solo goes, but every time you play it, you play a little different?

1952
02:08:09.375 --> 02:08:10.215
That's what it was like.

1953
02:08:10.255 --> 02:08:13.297
Like, it had emphasis in different places.

1954
02:08:14.337 --> 02:08:15.958
And the cadence was a little different.

1955
02:08:15.978 --> 02:08:23.684
And one word might be featured in one version, whereas in the next version, that word just kind of went by less important.

1956
02:08:23.825 --> 02:08:26.887
And then, so he did, let's say, three takes.

1957
02:08:27.527 --> 02:08:28.949
And then he came in, he'd listen to him.

1958
02:08:28.969 --> 02:08:30.370
He's like, oh yeah, I think the second one's good.

1959
02:08:30.890 --> 02:08:32.531
And then he's like, okay, keep playing it.

1960
02:08:32.651 --> 02:08:35.814
And he sat back down and he did the same thing again.

1961
02:08:35.834 --> 02:08:38.056
About another half hour later, he's like, let's do the next one.

1962
02:08:38.836 --> 02:08:39.457
Till he was ready.

1963
02:08:39.557 --> 02:08:42.259
So it just happens in his mind.

1964
02:08:44.079 --> 02:08:44.399
What is that?

1965
02:08:44.419 --> 02:08:45.120
Is that taste?

1966
02:08:45.220 --> 02:08:45.560
Is that?

1967
02:08:46.221 --> 02:08:46.641
I don't know.

1968
02:08:47.082 --> 02:08:50.304
It's a real and unusual skill set.

1969
02:08:51.185 --> 02:08:51.946
Very unusual.

1970
02:08:51.966 --> 02:08:54.808
I don't know how we can remember because it's complicated.

1971
02:08:54.868 --> 02:08:58.751
It's not like in a rock song, there might be four lines in a verse.

1972
02:08:59.192 --> 02:09:00.293
Pretty easy to remember.

1973
02:09:01.073 --> 02:09:04.316
But rap songs have a lot of words and it's complicated.

1974
02:09:05.297 --> 02:09:05.417
But

1975
02:09:06.557 --> 02:09:14.041
So that was the first thing that really, I would say, separated him from everyone else from me, is that his process was totally different than anyone else I ever worked with.

1976
02:09:15.542 --> 02:09:19.224
Which is interesting, because other people might arrive at the same outcome, but take a different journey there.

1977
02:09:19.244 --> 02:09:23.246
They might, you know, write lots of things down.

1978
02:09:23.606 --> 02:09:23.786
Yeah.

1979
02:09:25.007 --> 02:09:26.468
So there's not a correct process.

1980
02:09:26.708 --> 02:09:30.710
No, with all of these things that aren't, there's never a right way.

1981
02:09:32.568 --> 02:09:35.512
What works for one person doesn't mean it works for someone else.

1982
02:09:36.012 --> 02:09:45.743
And that's one of the real dangers of getting advice from people is someone tells you, I wrote it this way and it was really successful, so this is how you have to do it.

1983
02:09:45.843 --> 02:09:46.724
But that's not true.

1984
02:09:48.026 --> 02:09:52.351
It might work, but that might be the way that it works for that guy, not you.

1985
02:09:52.371 --> 02:09:53.432
Yeah.

1986
02:09:54.032 --> 02:10:03.714
So always be wary when getting advice, because again, people give you advice with the best intentions, but they're giving you advice based on their story, not your story.

1987
02:10:05.294 --> 02:10:06.415
So where do we get advice from?

1988
02:10:08.715 --> 02:10:11.376
I would say listening to a lot of stuff.

1989
02:10:11.396 --> 02:10:17.697
It depends on what the sub, like what, where we're, what medium we're working in.

1990
02:10:18.537 --> 02:10:22.318
But I would swim deeply in that medium, whatever it is.

1991
02:10:23.972 --> 02:10:26.914
and then really listen to what's going on in you.

1992
02:10:28.055 --> 02:10:35.120
It has to do with you, how you see it.

1993
02:10:36.601 --> 02:10:38.622
It's an internal compass that tells you where to go.

1994
02:10:40.143 --> 02:10:44.166
And I'll also say there may not only be one answer.

1995
02:10:44.326 --> 02:10:46.268
There may not even be a right answer.

1996
02:10:47.349 --> 02:10:51.912
And that's where it really comes down to like this internal feeling

1997
02:10:53.637 --> 02:11:11.134
of I would hear as much information from as many people as possible, hopefully conflicting, and then really check in and take as much time as it takes to internally get to a point of where you know what the right answer is.

1998
02:11:11.354 --> 02:11:13.176
You know what the right answer for you is.

1999
02:11:13.977 --> 02:11:18.041
There is no right answer, but you know what the right answer for you is.

2000
02:11:19.528 --> 02:11:21.069
And that's what you always want to get to.

2001
02:11:21.189 --> 02:11:22.689
What is the right answer for me?

2002
02:11:22.869 --> 02:11:23.410
How do I know?

2003
02:11:24.270 --> 02:11:24.750
You'll know it.

2004
02:11:25.771 --> 02:11:31.413
And if you don't know it, you don't have enough, there's not enough, you haven't done enough research yet.

2005
02:11:31.753 --> 02:11:34.034
Because it has to come from you.

2006
02:11:34.394 --> 02:11:48.800
It has to come from you of, I've gotten to the point, I've done enough homework of conflicting information where I can listen to myself and I feel good about it.

2007
02:11:51.533 --> 02:11:56.975
One of the ways that that voice inside of us gets conflicted is we have our parents.

2008
02:11:57.635 --> 02:11:58.275
I know your story.

2009
02:11:58.295 --> 02:11:59.015
I know your parents.

2010
02:11:59.455 --> 02:12:01.956
You know, they kind of thought maybe you'd be a doctor, but you didn't like needles.

2011
02:12:01.976 --> 02:12:03.497
So they were like, okay, he can be a lawyer.

2012
02:12:04.337 --> 02:12:05.817
A lot of people say they have that voice.

2013
02:12:06.237 --> 02:12:06.878
My parents.

2014
02:12:07.058 --> 02:12:13.220
And it's sometimes hard to untangle what voices me and my wishes versus external.

2015
02:12:13.540 --> 02:12:13.740
Yes.

2016
02:12:14.580 --> 02:12:18.341
I remember when I first went to college and moved out of my parents' house.

2017
02:12:21.928 --> 02:12:27.789
to understand what in my head was me and what in my head was them.

2018
02:12:28.910 --> 02:12:39.252
I was definitely confused, but had to create that space or lucky enough to create that space to allow it to happen.

2019
02:12:40.212 --> 02:12:48.514
Again, I didn't go to college for that to happen, but in college, being outside of the house,

2020
02:12:54.354 --> 02:13:00.291
who I was and who they were and where we were aligned and where we saw the world differently.

2021
02:13:01.082 --> 02:13:01.682
And it was fine.

2022
02:13:02.203 --> 02:13:04.604
But it took time because I didn't know that.

2023
02:13:05.545 --> 02:13:06.145
I didn't know that.

2024
02:13:07.406 --> 02:13:16.471
If you ask a lot of people who they want to be, or in your case in music, you know, what music they want to make or what their goal is, they will say things that they don't realize have come from somewhere else.

2025
02:13:16.592 --> 02:13:16.772
Yes.

2026
02:13:17.092 --> 02:13:17.912
Happens a lot in my life.

2027
02:13:17.952 --> 02:13:19.773
I'll interview someone, I'll say, what do you want to be?

2028
02:13:19.814 --> 02:13:22.895
And they'll say something just arbitrary and big and fancy.

2029
02:13:23.436 --> 02:13:24.877
And then oftentimes when you like ask...

2030
02:13:25.637 --> 02:13:48.879
or questions there's nothing behind it so they got it from instagram or they got it from their parents how how can we cultivate a better understanding of um of our own truth it's like when i played you that bad song you started trying to you you went in search of truth how can i how can i know how can i pass out what is me and my alignment and what is inherited from somewhere else i i

2031
02:13:49.880 --> 02:13:54.602
As I said before, I think you need to find some practices that ground you in yourself.

2032
02:13:55.402 --> 02:13:56.603
Meditation is a great one.

2033
02:13:56.703 --> 02:13:57.703
I'm sure there are others.

2034
02:13:59.504 --> 02:14:02.846
But you have to get in touch with you.

2035
02:14:03.426 --> 02:14:05.267
Maybe therapy works for some people.

2036
02:14:06.948 --> 02:14:09.469
But you've got to get to who you are.

2037
02:14:11.750 --> 02:14:13.811
It's a big job.

2038
02:14:14.291 --> 02:14:14.911
It's a big job.

2039
02:14:14.951 --> 02:14:17.592
And it's not a quick, there's no quick fix.

2040
02:14:21.035 --> 02:14:22.816
was in a talk therapy session.

2041
02:14:22.836 --> 02:14:24.417
I remember not knowing how to talk.

2042
02:14:24.857 --> 02:14:26.458
I didn't know how I felt about anything.

2043
02:14:28.019 --> 02:14:28.880
I didn't know how to talk.

2044
02:14:29.100 --> 02:14:31.602
I didn't know about my inner state at all.

2045
02:14:32.482 --> 02:14:38.346
And only through repetition and doing it over time and you start understanding.

2046
02:14:38.426 --> 02:14:41.348
So it's just another skill set to develop.

2047
02:14:42.208 --> 02:14:43.249
I never looked inward.

2048
02:14:43.749 --> 02:14:46.171
Even with all the years of meditation, I never looked inward.

2049
02:14:47.892 --> 02:14:48.432
Are you there now?

2050
02:14:50.058 --> 02:14:50.578
I think so.

2051
02:14:50.638 --> 02:14:51.298
Do you know who you are?

2052
02:14:52.179 --> 02:15:01.202
I think, I don't know that I could explain it, but I feel like, I feel like I am grounded in myself and I feel it pretty clearly.

2053
02:15:02.162 --> 02:15:05.423
What's the difference between when you weren't and now that you are?

2054
02:15:05.463 --> 02:15:08.064
Is it a feeling or is there a symptom?

2055
02:15:09.104 --> 02:15:09.725
Is it happiness?

2056
02:15:12.466 --> 02:15:15.807
I would say there's more of a, no, there was happiness there too.

2057
02:15:16.047 --> 02:15:17.367
So it's not happiness.

2058
02:15:21.168 --> 02:15:26.832
In the time that I didn't know who I was, I probably didn't know why, but I remember being happy.

2059
02:15:28.813 --> 02:15:30.214
It's not happiness.

2060
02:15:33.816 --> 02:15:39.219
I think I come back to the word knowingness, just like you feel it.

2061
02:15:44.202 --> 02:15:47.705
When you ask me something, I can tell you how I feel.

2062
02:15:47.905 --> 02:15:49.446
I can tell you how I see it.

2063
02:15:50.463 --> 02:15:52.985
I don't know if I was able to do that before.

2064
02:15:53.766 --> 02:15:55.027
I'm talking about when I was young.

2065
02:15:55.368 --> 02:15:57.670
I don't know if I could do that.

2066
02:15:57.770 --> 02:15:59.251
I still like the things I like.

2067
02:15:59.311 --> 02:16:00.652
My taste was still my taste.

2068
02:16:01.653 --> 02:16:10.702
But I don't think I could, um, I don't know that I could access it as well as I can now.

2069
02:16:12.224 --> 02:16:14.265
Is happiness a goal to aim for?

2070
02:16:14.986 --> 02:16:16.086
Well, I like happiness.

2071
02:16:16.606 --> 02:16:21.549
I don't think it's a goal, but I definitely would rather be happy than not.

2072
02:16:22.089 --> 02:16:23.170
Joyful is beautiful.

2073
02:16:23.190 --> 02:16:26.652
I think maybe the word is peace.

2074
02:16:27.392 --> 02:16:38.498
Getting to a point of... Because peace, like resting in peace seems like a really good state.

2075
02:16:41.473 --> 02:16:49.315
And I guess when things get, if things get too high, there's always the other side, you know?

2076
02:16:49.815 --> 02:16:59.278
Like even if I find myself in a really great mood, which does happen sometimes, sometimes the next day I'm just in a bad mood.

2077
02:16:59.818 --> 02:17:04.259
And it almost feels like it's a, maybe it's a chemical thing.

2078
02:17:04.319 --> 02:17:08.400
Maybe if you burn, if you really use the feel good chemicals

2079
02:17:09.582 --> 02:17:11.043
Maybe there's a deficit the next day.

2080
02:17:11.103 --> 02:17:11.543
I don't know.

2081
02:17:11.603 --> 02:17:12.483
I don't know how it works.

2082
02:17:13.863 --> 02:17:19.866
But it feels like if everything's cool and if that keeps going, I like that.

2083
02:17:21.126 --> 02:17:24.927
An artist that is very familiar with the highs and the lows, one of my favorite artists is Kanye.

2084
02:17:25.587 --> 02:17:26.428
And you've worked with Kanye.

2085
02:17:26.648 --> 02:17:30.529
I wanna ask the same question about what made him different, what makes him brilliant in your point of view?

2086
02:17:31.890 --> 02:17:35.931
He's, I've said this to him,

2087
02:17:37.673 --> 02:17:39.654
I'm totally fearless when it comes to art.

2088
02:17:41.174 --> 02:17:43.134
He's totally fearless always.

2089
02:17:43.675 --> 02:17:44.615
He's fearless in life.

2090
02:17:45.095 --> 02:17:46.075
I'm not fearless in life.

2091
02:17:47.296 --> 02:17:52.977
I'm a good collaborator for him when it comes to art because I am fearless in art and not everybody is.

2092
02:17:54.818 --> 02:18:01.019
But he's always fearless and it's really something to behold.

2093
02:18:03.240 --> 02:18:03.780
Great strength.

2094
02:18:05.415 --> 02:18:09.797
It's rare to have that many successes when you're taking such big risk.

2095
02:18:10.397 --> 02:18:11.777
That's what fascinates me about him.

2096
02:18:12.017 --> 02:18:13.158
Yeah, I don't agree with that.

2097
02:18:13.578 --> 02:18:13.898
Really?

2098
02:18:14.478 --> 02:18:15.539
No, no, no, no.

2099
02:18:16.179 --> 02:18:19.520
I think the risk and the success go hand in hand.

2100
02:18:20.481 --> 02:18:23.722
It's only through the risk that the greatness is shown.

2101
02:18:25.583 --> 02:18:29.044
So it's not possible to sort of produce more of the same and still be considered a great?

2102
02:18:30.865 --> 02:18:31.825
I don't think so.

2103
02:18:33.192 --> 02:18:33.732
I don't know.

2104
02:18:33.752 --> 02:18:36.494
It doesn't seem right to me.

2105
02:18:36.514 --> 02:18:38.895
It feels like there's this edge.

2106
02:18:40.156 --> 02:18:43.278
There's a tightrope, and you're walking on the tightrope.

2107
02:18:43.738 --> 02:18:46.860
And if you make it, it's really good.

2108
02:18:47.780 --> 02:18:50.281
And if you don't make it, it's not so good.

2109
02:18:51.022 --> 02:18:54.164
But the only choice is the tightrope.

2110
02:18:54.424 --> 02:18:54.784
The risk.

2111
02:18:55.184 --> 02:18:55.384
Yeah.

2112
02:18:56.845 --> 02:18:58.686
And then you will achieve greatness.

2113
02:18:59.546 --> 02:19:01.888
Well, if you make it, yes.

2114
02:19:03.111 --> 02:19:03.851
If you make it, yes.

2115
02:19:03.951 --> 02:19:04.752
But that's the risk.

2116
02:19:04.872 --> 02:19:09.614
And it's the risk that I wholeheartedly support.

2117
02:19:10.234 --> 02:19:11.554
Wholeheartedly.

2118
02:19:12.015 --> 02:19:12.235
Why?

2119
02:19:13.195 --> 02:19:14.736
Because that's where it's at.

2120
02:19:15.316 --> 02:19:25.280
If the goal is to make the most beautiful thing you can and to self-express in the purest way, it's a razor's edge walk.

2121
02:19:27.101 --> 02:19:29.942
There's nothing ordinary about it.

2122
02:19:31.225 --> 02:19:33.047
It's beyond ordinary.

2123
02:19:33.907 --> 02:19:35.929
There's nothing normal about it.

2124
02:19:37.130 --> 02:19:39.472
Normal is nothing to aspire to.

2125
02:19:40.853 --> 02:19:43.095
Average is nothing to aspire to.

2126
02:19:44.956 --> 02:19:52.582
If you're looking for greatness, sometimes eggs get broken, but that's just, but that's what comes with it.

2127
02:19:52.682 --> 02:19:53.543
That's how it works.

2128
02:19:55.448 --> 02:19:56.569
Are we all cut out for greatness?

2129
02:19:56.889 --> 02:19:59.211
Because it comes with a cost and walking tightropes is not for everybody.

2130
02:19:59.311 --> 02:19:59.652
Yeah.

2131
02:20:00.773 --> 02:20:02.534
I think we all have potential.

2132
02:20:02.574 --> 02:20:06.598
And when I say greatness, it's like we all have potential to be the greatest version of ourselves.

2133
02:20:07.598 --> 02:20:11.882
You know, you can be the best version of you.

2134
02:20:13.744 --> 02:20:17.287
I don't know what that is compared to other people who are great at other things.

2135
02:20:18.528 --> 02:20:21.810
You know, it doesn't mean you'll be the best F1 driver.

2136
02:20:22.131 --> 02:20:22.291
Mm-hmm.

2137
02:20:23.737 --> 02:20:28.603
But your light can shine brighter than anyone else doing what you do.

2138
02:20:29.664 --> 02:20:31.126
And I'm into that.

2139
02:20:31.827 --> 02:20:32.668
I support that.

2140
02:20:32.768 --> 02:20:33.649
I want to see that.

2141
02:20:35.006 --> 02:20:41.949
Were these great people, this big list of people that I have in front of me that you've worked with, I mean, it's just this endless, almost unbelievable list.

2142
02:20:42.089 --> 02:20:58.255
Everybody from, like, Justin Timberlake to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to helping, I mean, Kanye on his, the record Runaway, which is one of the most incredible records of all time, to, we've talked about Jay-Z and System of a Down and ACDC and Mick Jagger.

2143
02:20:58.295 --> 02:21:00.336
And, I mean, there's an endless list.

2144
02:21:00.416 --> 02:21:03.177
When I look at it, I go, were these people all great?

2145
02:21:03.417 --> 02:21:03.597
Yes.

2146
02:21:04.297 --> 02:21:10.303
And were they great from birth or are they ordinary people that made a decision?

2147
02:21:10.864 --> 02:21:13.566
I would say they're ordinary people who made a decision.

2148
02:21:13.666 --> 02:21:21.774
Maybe some of them had some particular gifts, but others were ordinary and cultivated a gift.

2149
02:21:22.915 --> 02:21:25.258
That list, they're not special.

2150
02:21:25.878 --> 02:21:27.440
They're not the only ones like that.

2151
02:21:29.411 --> 02:21:32.753
But they really rode that wave.

2152
02:21:32.953 --> 02:21:34.674
I think of Eminem as a good example.

2153
02:21:34.774 --> 02:21:36.596
Eminem is someone who's always writing.

2154
02:21:37.236 --> 02:21:41.899
He's always writing because he wants to be able, he wants to be the best he could possibly be.

2155
02:21:42.559 --> 02:21:45.641
And he's insanely obsessive about that.

2156
02:21:46.322 --> 02:21:52.826
So his entire life is focused on sitting in a notepad writing all day and all night.

2157
02:21:53.026 --> 02:21:54.167
It's all he does.

2158
02:21:57.170 --> 02:21:58.271
That's what makes him him.

2159
02:21:58.991 --> 02:22:00.533
Even if he's not publishing an album or.

2160
02:22:01.253 --> 02:22:01.814
Doesn't matter.

2161
02:22:03.535 --> 02:22:05.016
It's not, he's not writing.

2162
02:22:05.477 --> 02:22:07.698
I asked him one point looking at his notebooks.

2163
02:22:07.718 --> 02:22:10.561
He's like, is all this going to, you know, is, are all these for it?

2164
02:22:10.581 --> 02:22:11.321
He's like, no, no, no.

2165
02:22:11.401 --> 02:22:13.062
99% of this stuff no one will ever see.

2166
02:22:14.163 --> 02:22:15.324
I just want to be good.

2167
02:22:15.725 --> 02:22:17.146
I want to, I'm practicing.

2168
02:22:17.206 --> 02:22:19.768
I'm, I want to get better at what I do.

2169
02:22:20.866 --> 02:22:22.928
He's in training always.

2170
02:22:23.428 --> 02:22:30.053
If you think of it like an athlete, you know, there are athletes who, there are some athletes who train in the off season and there are some who don't.

2171
02:22:31.334 --> 02:22:35.437
And the ones who train in the off season are usually better and usually have a longer career.

2172
02:22:36.509 --> 02:22:37.149
It's like that.

2173
02:22:38.210 --> 02:22:39.470
When we sat down, you asked me a question.

2174
02:22:39.490 --> 02:22:43.652
You said, Stephen, you're doing this podcast, have the guests changed you?

2175
02:22:44.072 --> 02:22:49.294
And much of what I've shown here is how you've changed people's lives through being a coach or a producer or however you might define that.

2176
02:22:49.734 --> 02:22:56.577
My question to you is, can you give me a couple of examples of artists that, for whatever reason, fundamentally changed you?

2177
02:22:57.277 --> 02:22:57.477
Yeah.

2178
02:22:58.078 --> 02:22:59.998
The first one I'll say is Johnny Cash.

2179
02:23:00.379 --> 02:23:00.879
Johnny Cash.

2180
02:23:07.887 --> 02:23:14.412
humble and quiet and smart and didn't offer much.

2181
02:23:14.632 --> 02:23:18.936
Like, if you didn't draw him out, he wouldn't say anything.

2182
02:23:20.557 --> 02:23:25.661
But anything you asked him about, he knew about and had a really incredible point of view.

2183
02:23:26.322 --> 02:23:27.082
But he wasn't...

2184
02:23:29.007 --> 02:23:32.008
He didn't have a need to let you know that.

2185
02:23:32.868 --> 02:23:34.668
It was all going on inside.

2186
02:23:35.189 --> 02:23:37.369
And he was a beautiful spiritual person.

2187
02:23:37.449 --> 02:23:38.169
And I loved him.

2188
02:23:38.409 --> 02:23:46.371
And I feel like my life was really improved getting to spend so much time with someone so inspiring.

2189
02:23:47.111 --> 02:23:47.712
That's one.

2190
02:23:49.292 --> 02:23:50.912
What is the emotion there?

2191
02:23:51.833 --> 02:23:52.093
Where's?

2192
02:23:52.413 --> 02:23:53.333
There was some emotion there.

2193
02:23:53.833 --> 02:23:54.093
Yeah.

2194
02:23:55.073 --> 02:23:55.974
He's a beautiful man.

2195
02:23:56.714 --> 02:23:57.274
Beautiful man.

2196
02:24:01.433 --> 02:24:06.297
Next one would be Tom Petty, who was...

2197
02:24:10.740 --> 02:24:13.522
He was the ultimate craftsman.

2198
02:24:14.163 --> 02:24:16.464
So in The Beatles, you have John and Paul.

2199
02:24:17.285 --> 02:24:25.911
And John was more of a raw nerve who tore his chest open and led with his heart.

2200
02:24:32.865 --> 02:24:36.446
a savant of music, like a craftsperson.

2201
02:24:37.446 --> 02:24:39.587
Paul could take anything and make it good.

2202
02:24:40.607 --> 02:24:46.469
John was like a raw nerve who could just show his soul.

2203
02:24:46.949 --> 02:24:49.010
And they're two very different skills.

2204
02:24:49.530 --> 02:24:51.550
And together, that's what makes it the Beatles.

2205
02:24:51.730 --> 02:24:53.871
Also, the fact that George and Ringo are incredible.

2206
02:24:53.891 --> 02:25:00.653
I mean, even with, you know, even as great as Paul and John are,

2207
02:25:01.789 --> 02:25:03.469
It's only the Beatles when it's the four of them.

2208
02:25:05.530 --> 02:25:06.730
Paul is the craftsman.

2209
02:25:07.670 --> 02:25:08.951
Paul knows all the parts.

2210
02:25:09.711 --> 02:25:11.391
Paul knows how to put it together.

2211
02:25:11.711 --> 02:25:16.713
He was the only one of the Beatles who knew how to do that, other than George Martin, whose job was to do that.

2212
02:25:16.753 --> 02:25:18.873
But Paul understood that side of it.

2213
02:25:20.673 --> 02:25:21.874
Tom Petty was like Paul.

2214
02:25:22.294 --> 02:25:25.154
He could play anything.

2215
02:25:27.035 --> 02:25:29.435
He saw all ways around it.

2216
02:25:30.176 --> 02:25:31.496
He knew how to make it.

2217
02:25:33.010 --> 02:25:36.151
And in addition to that, was a great songwriter.

2218
02:25:36.331 --> 02:25:42.574
So he had kind of what was great about John and Paul both in him.

2219
02:25:44.955 --> 02:25:46.515
So being around him was really inspiring.

2220
02:25:46.595 --> 02:25:51.917
Also, as a record producer, I learned a lot from getting to work with him.

2221
02:25:51.937 --> 02:25:54.618
I offered an outside perspective.

2222
02:25:54.658 --> 02:25:55.979
I was younger, younger.

2223
02:25:56.323 --> 02:25:56.723
different.

2224
02:25:56.763 --> 02:26:07.411
So I brought something to the table, but I learned a tremendous amount because at the time that I worked with him, I had only worked with artists who had, you know, made their first albums, like new artists.

2225
02:26:07.971 --> 02:26:15.196
And he was a very established, brilliant studio recording artist.

2226
02:26:15.576 --> 02:26:17.438
So I got to learn a lot from him.

2227
02:26:18.198 --> 02:26:20.760
What did he teach you if there had to just be one lesson you pulled out?

2228
02:26:21.813 --> 02:26:25.777
one of the things he talked about was everything always had to be in time and in tune.

2229
02:26:26.438 --> 02:26:29.541
You have to understand every word of the vocals.

2230
02:26:31.202 --> 02:26:36.347
Seems like an obvious thing, but so many records, you can't understand every word.

2231
02:26:36.387 --> 02:26:38.309
And he would listen back, and he's like, ah, this word...

2232
02:26:39.276 --> 02:26:43.039
It's supposed to be plural and you can't hear the S. I have to rerecord it.

2233
02:26:43.079 --> 02:26:49.183
Or maybe we could punch in the S. Because if you can't understand it, it loses something in translation.

2234
02:26:49.203 --> 02:26:51.745
You have to understand every word.

2235
02:26:52.765 --> 02:26:54.987
So timing, tune.

2236
02:26:57.689 --> 02:26:58.689
He also was...

2237
02:26:59.690 --> 02:27:02.412
another person who would work forever on it until it was right.

2238
02:27:02.592 --> 02:27:05.294
He was not at all lazy.

2239
02:27:05.734 --> 02:27:07.956
He would never want it to be done.

2240
02:27:08.596 --> 02:27:10.918
The first album we worked on together was called Wildflowers.

2241
02:27:11.058 --> 02:27:18.022
And I think we probably worked on it, not every day, but we worked on it over two years, probably two and a half years.

2242
02:27:18.303 --> 02:27:19.483
It's a long time for an album.

2243
02:27:19.503 --> 02:27:21.445
At that point in time, especially, it was a long time.

2244
02:27:22.281 --> 02:27:23.341
But there was no hurry.

2245
02:27:23.381 --> 02:27:24.981
It was just like, oh, we're making progress.

2246
02:27:25.022 --> 02:27:25.662
Let's keep going.

2247
02:27:25.682 --> 02:27:26.282
Let's keep going.

2248
02:27:26.302 --> 02:27:26.982
Let's keep going.

2249
02:27:27.882 --> 02:27:31.863
And so I learned a lot from him also about patience.

2250
02:27:33.183 --> 02:27:34.583
Some might say that's perfectionism.

2251
02:27:35.383 --> 02:27:38.084
And people think of perfectionism as a form of procrastination.

2252
02:27:38.124 --> 02:27:40.504
Yeah, there was no procrastination in it.

2253
02:27:40.804 --> 02:27:44.165
And I've been around procrastinating artists too.

2254
02:27:44.625 --> 02:27:45.505
It's a whole different thing.

2255
02:27:45.825 --> 02:27:46.265
How do you know?

2256
02:27:46.285 --> 02:27:48.506
How do you know if you're a perfectionist or a procrastinator?

2257
02:27:48.686 --> 02:27:49.586
Is there a symptom?

2258
02:27:49.904 --> 02:27:59.010
Yeah, the real procrastinators get to the point usually has to do with being afraid to put it out into the world.

2259
02:27:59.910 --> 02:28:07.775
So there are some artists I know, famous artists, you know who they are, who haven't put out an album for 10 years.

2260
02:28:09.036 --> 02:28:11.037
I think the longer you wait, the harder it gets.

2261
02:28:12.678 --> 02:28:13.139
In general.

2262
02:28:14.019 --> 02:28:14.199
Why?

2263
02:28:15.580 --> 02:28:18.562
The pressure, like, the longer you wait...

2264
02:28:19.497 --> 02:28:23.641
the more it feels like it can never live up to what the expectation is.

2265
02:28:25.683 --> 02:28:27.484
It's a difficult position to get into.

2266
02:28:29.886 --> 02:28:34.030
And the perfectionist, their reason for delay is not to do with fear.

2267
02:28:35.071 --> 02:28:36.773
It's to do with something else.

2268
02:28:36.793 --> 02:28:37.373
Is that what you're saying?

2269
02:28:38.114 --> 02:28:38.734
Hard to know.

2270
02:28:39.295 --> 02:28:39.835
Hard to know.

2271
02:28:40.436 --> 02:28:40.876
I don't know.

2272
02:28:43.138 --> 02:28:43.839
Yeah, I don't know.

2273
02:28:45.565 --> 02:28:49.507
So those are two artists that you've mentioned that changed you, Johnny and Tom.

2274
02:28:50.647 --> 02:28:52.088
Is there any others that front of mic?

2275
02:28:52.108 --> 02:28:52.848
Let me see.

2276
02:28:53.928 --> 02:28:54.388
Adele.

2277
02:28:56.629 --> 02:28:57.690
She's really good.

2278
02:28:57.710 --> 02:28:59.090
I mean, she's amazing.

2279
02:28:59.911 --> 02:29:02.632
I feel like everything she does is great.

2280
02:29:04.652 --> 02:29:08.094
When she sings, everything stops.

2281
02:29:09.258 --> 02:29:12.539
And she can do it over and over again, and it's always great.

2282
02:29:13.079 --> 02:29:19.161
It's not like some singers work for a long time singing a bunch of takes and piecing them together to get the good one.

2283
02:29:20.201 --> 02:29:25.843
She'll sing a song 30 times in a row, and it'll be great 30 times.

2284
02:29:25.863 --> 02:29:28.624
It might not be the same 30 times, but it'll always be great.

2285
02:29:29.304 --> 02:29:32.545
You produced her 21 album, worked on songs in there.

2286
02:29:32.565 --> 02:29:32.965
Some of that.

2287
02:29:34.969 --> 02:29:36.571
Did you know she was great when you met her?

2288
02:29:37.712 --> 02:29:40.755
Was there something that made her distinctive from these other great artists?

2289
02:29:41.857 --> 02:29:52.128
At a time when most pop artists at that time didn't write their own songs, she was more like a throwback to the 70s singer-songwriters, and,

2290
02:29:52.660 --> 02:29:57.022
So there was something about her, I also got to work with Shakira, who also writes her own songs.

2291
02:29:57.162 --> 02:30:05.026
And there's something about those pop artists who write their own songs that it's different than someone who can just deliver a song well.

2292
02:30:06.927 --> 02:30:13.370
So I feel like it's a little bit of an anomaly in a pop world where so much of it is more, I wanna say manufactured, meaning

2293
02:30:14.303 --> 02:30:17.065
a bunch of people work on the song and then the singer sings the song.

2294
02:30:18.225 --> 02:30:22.828
Adele, a key piece is that it always comes from her.

2295
02:30:23.809 --> 02:30:25.990
And you can feel that in the songs.

2296
02:30:26.090 --> 02:30:27.471
And it's more personal.

2297
02:30:28.452 --> 02:30:29.092
And I love that.

2298
02:30:31.605 --> 02:30:32.265
you can feel it.

2299
02:30:32.645 --> 02:30:33.546
I've seen her live as well.

2300
02:30:33.966 --> 02:30:37.347
It feels like this is the first time she's ever sung a song when we experience her live.

2301
02:30:38.307 --> 02:30:49.611
Rick, what is the most important thing we haven't talked about that we shouldn't talk about, should've talked about as it relates to creativity and the art of making great things or good things or whatever the measurement stick might be?

2302
02:30:50.771 --> 02:30:52.352
I think we've kind of covered it.

2303
02:30:52.672 --> 02:30:55.513
The main idea really is don't listen to what anyone tells you.

2304
02:30:57.013 --> 02:30:57.854
Be true to yourself.

2305
02:30:59.067 --> 02:31:05.309
work hard, never give up, don't quit, and just keep going.

2306
02:31:05.569 --> 02:31:09.591
And don't put undue pressure on your art.

2307
02:31:10.531 --> 02:31:21.835
Find a way to live that doesn't put pressure on your art so that you could be totally free in the things that you're making for them to be the dream version.

2308
02:31:22.835 --> 02:31:28.117
And hopefully at some point, the dream version takes over.

2309
02:31:28.983 --> 02:31:31.604
and it becomes your whole life, not just your passion.

2310
02:31:34.006 --> 02:31:35.787
Why did you make this documentary with Jay-Z?

2311
02:31:36.987 --> 02:31:51.876
Well, I had made a documentary with Paul McCartney a few years ago that was six episodes, and the reason for that one was there were no—I never saw any documentaries about either Paul or the Beatles about musicianship.

2312
02:31:52.116 --> 02:31:55.898
They were always about either the songwriting or about Beatlemania.

2313
02:31:57.428 --> 02:32:02.030
And I thought, without the musicianship, there wouldn't be Beatlemania.

2314
02:32:03.050 --> 02:32:07.211
And yes, you need, yes, the songs, you couldn't deliver the songs without the musicianship.

2315
02:32:07.732 --> 02:32:11.413
So I thought there was this big void in the story of Paul.

2316
02:32:11.993 --> 02:32:21.176
If you were to make a list of the best bass players of all time, Paul belongs at number one, but most people wouldn't even put him on the list because you don't think of him as a bass player.

2317
02:32:21.196 --> 02:32:22.537
You think of him as Beatle Paul.

2318
02:32:24.141 --> 02:32:29.804
And I just thought there was an opportunity to shed light on something that I love.

2319
02:32:31.765 --> 02:32:38.729
And I thought that was going to be a more traditional documentary, but it turned into a different kind of documentary.

2320
02:32:39.369 --> 02:32:48.234
Happened by itself, wasn't pre-planned, turned into this interesting thing that was different than anything else that had been made with Paul or about the Beatles.

2321
02:32:49.235 --> 02:32:49.895
And people liked it.

2322
02:32:51.569 --> 02:32:53.350
It felt like a dream for me to be part of it.

2323
02:32:53.850 --> 02:33:01.373
And after that happened, I was thinking about who else is, I wanna say misunderstood, because that's kind of what it is.

2324
02:33:01.474 --> 02:33:07.716
Like, yes, Paul's great, and everyone knows Paul's great, but people don't think of him as a great musician.

2325
02:33:07.756 --> 02:33:09.077
They think of him as something else.

2326
02:33:12.038 --> 02:33:13.619
And I started thinking about Jay-Z.

2327
02:33:13.979 --> 02:33:14.199
Why?

2328
02:33:14.800 --> 02:33:19.542
Because Jay-Z is thought of today as this incredible businessman.

2329
02:33:20.479 --> 02:33:32.383
And he's, you think of him as billionaire businessman, behind the scenes genius, married to a famous singer.

2330
02:33:35.123 --> 02:33:39.024
Most of what we think about him isn't poet.

2331
02:33:39.225 --> 02:33:40.665
That's not the first thing you think of.

2332
02:33:42.167 --> 02:33:49.029
And even the people who like Jay-Z might not really know the depth of the writing.

2333
02:33:49.650 --> 02:33:51.410
And I thought, it's an interesting story.

2334
02:33:51.770 --> 02:33:55.752
The lyrics are really intricate and really difficult.

2335
02:33:57.052 --> 02:33:59.693
And it's astounding what he does.

2336
02:34:00.613 --> 02:34:05.415
And he's famous, and that's the reason he's famous, but nobody knows it.

2337
02:34:06.457 --> 02:34:07.798
People see him in a different light.

2338
02:34:08.499 --> 02:34:16.344
So I thought shedding light on the poet, the lyricist, the artistry of Jay-Z was a really interesting thing.

2339
02:34:17.165 --> 02:34:19.126
And luckily, I shared the idea with him.

2340
02:34:19.587 --> 02:34:24.090
And when I told him the idea, he said, he said, I like it a lot.

2341
02:34:24.770 --> 02:34:29.174
I'm not going to say yes, because if I say yes, we're going to make it.

2342
02:34:30.194 --> 02:34:30.735
And I don't know.

2343
02:34:31.715 --> 02:34:32.276
So I'll let you know.

2344
02:34:33.136 --> 02:34:33.637
He said, okay.

2345
02:34:34.760 --> 02:34:37.203
And then we didn't talk about it again for probably a year.

2346
02:34:38.825 --> 02:34:46.235
And then I called a friend of his and I said, you know, I shared this idea with Jay a year ago.

2347
02:34:46.275 --> 02:34:47.657
We haven't discussed it since.

2348
02:34:49.719 --> 02:34:50.160
What do you think?

2349
02:34:50.661 --> 02:34:51.962
He's like, call him and ask him.

2350
02:34:52.877 --> 02:34:55.579
I said, I feel like I already told him the idea.

2351
02:34:56.000 --> 02:34:58.462
Don't you think he should just call and ask, tell me he wants to do it?

2352
02:34:59.082 --> 02:35:00.984
He's like, if you don't call him, it's not going to happen.

2353
02:35:01.184 --> 02:35:02.405
He's like, just call him and ask him.

2354
02:35:02.745 --> 02:35:05.928
And he'll either say yes or no, but at least you could ask him.

2355
02:35:07.089 --> 02:35:08.530
It's still, I heard that.

2356
02:35:08.630 --> 02:35:10.732
That was good information given to me of what to do.

2357
02:35:10.852 --> 02:35:16.397
And I probably didn't call for six months, eight months, just because like felt uncomfortable.

2358
02:35:17.117 --> 02:35:17.898
Really discussed it.

2359
02:35:20.390 --> 02:35:25.874
And eventually, I can't remember if it happened in a call or if I ran into him or if I went to see him.

2360
02:35:26.975 --> 02:35:27.635
Can't remember.

2361
02:35:28.956 --> 02:35:31.458
But the next time we talked about it, he's like, well, let's do it.

2362
02:35:32.059 --> 02:35:32.339
It's okay.

2363
02:35:32.439 --> 02:35:33.680
And then we did it.

2364
02:35:36.862 --> 02:35:37.322
It's stunning.

2365
02:35:37.422 --> 02:35:38.984
It's stunning, I think, because it's different.

2366
02:35:39.804 --> 02:35:41.726
It's different in a way that's quite surprising.

2367
02:35:42.306 --> 02:35:47.450
And so a couple of observations I had is things are usually shot in a certain way.

2368
02:35:48.388 --> 02:35:53.211
It felt like you had, again, once again, abandoned the rules of how to shoot something like that.

2369
02:35:54.152 --> 02:35:59.955
Even like the color grading, the sort of black and white color grade that I saw on the screen.

2370
02:35:59.996 --> 02:36:01.396
And then some of the angles were a bit off.

2371
02:36:01.436 --> 02:36:03.178
I'm like, that's not how you shoot an interview.

2372
02:36:04.158 --> 02:36:09.602
But for some reason, it felt like I was spying on a personal conversation.

2373
02:36:09.822 --> 02:36:10.422
That's what it was.

2374
02:36:11.063 --> 02:36:13.364
It was a deeply personal conversation.

2375
02:36:13.384 --> 02:36:14.485
And...

2376
02:36:16.775 --> 02:36:24.620
In all the years of seeing interviews with Jay-Z, he doesn't do so many, but the ones that you've seen, he's never like that.

2377
02:36:24.740 --> 02:36:24.960
Yeah.

2378
02:36:26.622 --> 02:36:27.422
He's never like that.

2379
02:36:27.542 --> 02:36:28.303
I feel like I was listening to that.

2380
02:36:28.323 --> 02:36:29.603
And this is really who he is.

2381
02:36:29.684 --> 02:36:35.988
Like, you really, after you watch this, you'll really know who Jay-Z is, which is incredible.

2382
02:36:36.208 --> 02:36:39.210
It's an incredible privilege to have that point of view of...

2383
02:36:40.296 --> 02:36:43.658
a real intimate view into someone so great.

2384
02:36:44.319 --> 02:36:49.442
Clearly he felt very safe with you as well, because you do get that real side of Jay-Z that I think is really rare.

2385
02:36:50.883 --> 02:36:53.225
Speaking of incredible things, this book is also an incredible thing.

2386
02:36:53.545 --> 02:36:57.227
I know that in part because so many of my guests have come here and talked about it.

2387
02:36:57.708 --> 02:36:58.008
Really?

2388
02:36:58.608 --> 02:36:59.049
So many of them.

2389
02:36:59.429 --> 02:37:03.512
And so many people hold it up as their favorite book on creativity, I think because it's challenging.

2390
02:37:03.532 --> 02:37:03.832
Yeah.

2391
02:37:04.762 --> 02:37:08.926
I think which is the essence of Rick Rubin in some respects is to be a challenging coach.

2392
02:37:09.507 --> 02:37:13.011
This book, I think, finds itself being the same, which is a very challenging coach.

2393
02:37:13.031 --> 02:37:14.612
So I think it came out in 2023.

2394
02:37:14.632 --> 02:37:16.054
I'm going to link it below for anyone that hasn't got it.

2395
02:37:16.074 --> 02:37:18.456
If you haven't got it, I think it might be the challenge you need.

2396
02:37:18.556 --> 02:37:20.818
And I don't necessarily think it's a book necessarily about creativity.

2397
02:37:21.139 --> 02:37:24.883
It's really just, I consider it to be a philosophy book, dare I say.

2398
02:37:25.103 --> 02:37:25.283
Yeah.

2399
02:37:26.328 --> 02:37:27.149
Tarot cards.

2400
02:37:28.289 --> 02:37:31.271
Some people noticed, I think that you have, is it 73?

2401
02:37:31.631 --> 02:37:31.951
78.

2402
02:37:32.732 --> 02:37:35.613
78, we call them chapters.

2403
02:37:35.814 --> 02:37:36.514
Areas of thought.

2404
02:37:36.754 --> 02:37:38.455
Areas of thought in this book.

2405
02:37:38.955 --> 02:37:40.356
And that tarot cards have 78.

2406
02:37:40.456 --> 02:37:41.217
Yes.

2407
02:37:41.777 --> 02:37:42.417
Is there a link?

2408
02:37:43.078 --> 02:37:44.098
There is and there isn't.

2409
02:37:44.159 --> 02:37:45.980
I'll tell you the link and it's a pretty funny story.

2410
02:37:49.141 --> 02:37:52.483
Originally, there were, I want to say 60...

2411
02:37:56.241 --> 02:38:01.282
think there were 63 areas of thought when I first thought of areas of thought and giving them names.

2412
02:38:02.783 --> 02:38:08.564
There was this period where the book wasn't separated into the ideas and it was just a lot of pages of ideas.

2413
02:38:09.644 --> 02:38:20.527
And then tried to move them after years of unsuccessful organizational methods, got to the point.

2414
02:38:21.915 --> 02:38:36.945
again, through a lot of failed experiments and some successful experiments, moved from 1,400 pages into a little bit of a shape when the areas of thought came to be.

2415
02:38:38.406 --> 02:38:40.487
And they were, I think they were 63.

2416
02:38:40.507 --> 02:38:45.951
I have them, they're handwritten and I have a photograph of them in my phone, the original 63 areas of thought.

2417
02:38:47.682 --> 02:38:52.543
And then once we separated all the ideas into the 63, there ended up being more.

2418
02:38:52.723 --> 02:38:57.245
And I think there ended up being something like 82 or 83, 84.

2419
02:38:57.285 --> 02:38:59.065
They were in the 80s.

2420
02:39:00.065 --> 02:39:02.626
And then the book was done, and there were 80-something of them.

2421
02:39:02.826 --> 02:39:08.508
And I have a collaborator named Neil who is a friend of mine who lived in my neighborhood, great writer.

2422
02:39:09.327 --> 02:39:14.349
who helped me from the beginning, although not in an official capacity until the end.

2423
02:39:15.029 --> 02:39:16.729
He was involved the whole way.

2424
02:39:16.889 --> 02:39:21.671
And I was working with another writer, and it just didn't work out.

2425
02:39:22.331 --> 02:39:28.973
And then we got to the point where there were these 83 or 84 areas of thought, and it was all done, and everybody was happy.

2426
02:39:29.473 --> 02:39:35.235
And I remember calling my friend Neil and saying, okay, book's done, we have 83 areas of thought,

2427
02:39:36.778 --> 02:39:38.161
I'd rather it be 78.

2428
02:39:38.301 --> 02:39:41.226
He's like, what are you talking about?

2429
02:39:41.828 --> 02:39:42.449
What do you mean?

2430
02:39:42.469 --> 02:39:46.075
I said, well, I want it to be related to something.

2431
02:39:47.638 --> 02:39:48.560
The tarot cards are 78.

2432
02:39:50.710 --> 02:39:59.032
If we had 103, I would say let's make it 108 to get it up to 108, because that's another, there are certain numbers that are good numbers.

2433
02:39:59.072 --> 02:40:02.913
78, 108, 144 is a good one.

2434
02:40:03.633 --> 02:40:04.494
It's some good numbers.

2435
02:40:05.174 --> 02:40:10.295
I want it to have a reference to something else in the world of a number.

2436
02:40:12.076 --> 02:40:13.596
And he's like, why?

2437
02:40:14.596 --> 02:40:16.177
That's just, that's how I feel.

2438
02:40:16.397 --> 02:40:17.057
That's how I want it.

2439
02:40:19.533 --> 02:40:22.215
And I remember him saying, he's like, you're insane.

2440
02:40:22.916 --> 02:40:25.318
He's like, you've been working on this book for eight years.

2441
02:40:26.519 --> 02:40:30.523
Now you want it to be randomly 78 instead of 83?

2442
02:40:30.543 --> 02:40:31.483
It's good.

2443
02:40:32.004 --> 02:40:32.464
Be happy.

2444
02:40:32.484 --> 02:40:32.965
It's good.

2445
02:40:33.245 --> 02:40:33.725
Be done.

2446
02:40:33.745 --> 02:40:37.669
I said, we have to figure out how to make it 78.

2447
02:40:38.149 --> 02:40:38.389
Why?

2448
02:40:39.550 --> 02:40:40.191
Just a feeling.

2449
02:40:41.552 --> 02:40:42.733
So listen to what happens next.

2450
02:40:44.014 --> 02:40:45.676
I have an assistant at that time named Dylan.

2451
02:40:45.696 --> 02:40:45.816
Dylan.

2452
02:40:49.931 --> 02:40:55.196
we work on the 83 sections independently, so they're almost like separate essays.

2453
02:40:55.996 --> 02:41:02.642
And when we would work on it, we would work on, let's work on 37, whatever it is, whatever the title is, and just work on that section.

2454
02:41:02.682 --> 02:41:04.684
We work on each section independently.

2455
02:41:06.826 --> 02:41:14.693
And I said, okay, put them all, here's the order, put them all in order, and he put them in order, and the next day came, we were in Italy, I remember,

2456
02:41:15.544 --> 02:41:18.567
This is the day after the conversation with Neil where he told me I was crazy.

2457
02:41:19.448 --> 02:41:24.332
And he said, weirdest thing, I put them in order and there are 78 sections.

2458
02:41:25.073 --> 02:41:26.955
I said, no, there were 83 yesterday.

2459
02:41:27.936 --> 02:41:29.177
He's like, now there's 78.

2460
02:41:30.398 --> 02:41:31.840
I said, where are the others?

2461
02:41:32.220 --> 02:41:33.201
He said, there are no others.

2462
02:41:35.983 --> 02:41:36.504
That happened.

2463
02:41:38.852 --> 02:41:40.653
So did somebody miscount or something or?

2464
02:41:41.074 --> 02:41:41.454
Don't know.

2465
02:41:42.335 --> 02:41:42.895
Nobody knows.

2466
02:41:43.415 --> 02:41:49.159
But we were sure they were 80 something and it turned, and I wanted it to be 78.

2467
02:41:49.740 --> 02:41:52.782
And the next day there were 78 and nobody did anything.

2468
02:41:55.044 --> 02:41:58.126
Someday you're gonna, Neil's gonna find four chapters and not mention it.

2469
02:41:58.306 --> 02:42:00.488
Maybe, or maybe call excited.

2470
02:42:00.528 --> 02:42:02.249
Like I told you, you were crazy.

2471
02:42:03.170 --> 02:42:07.533
Rick, we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for.

2472
02:42:08.613 --> 02:42:16.655
If you could make a phone call and you had 60 seconds to call anybody and it had to be an apology, who would you call and what would you say and why?

2473
02:42:20.975 --> 02:42:23.476
It's a hard question for me to answer for several reasons.

2474
02:42:24.436 --> 02:42:27.336
One, I almost never make a phone call.

2475
02:42:28.317 --> 02:42:30.077
And I'm not really a phone person.

2476
02:42:31.197 --> 02:42:35.818
So the only reason I would call somebody, it would have to be some sort of an emergency situation.

2477
02:42:39.210 --> 02:42:45.579
And I feel like there are not a lot of outstanding apologies to make.

2478
02:42:47.982 --> 02:42:48.783
What about a thank you?

2479
02:42:49.424 --> 02:42:50.345
A thank you would be great.

2480
02:42:50.785 --> 02:42:52.127
I could call anyone and thank them.

2481
02:42:52.388 --> 02:42:55.251
If you could only make one last phone call to say thank you.

2482
02:42:55.512 --> 02:42:57.134
A one last phone call.

2483
02:42:58.158 --> 02:43:02.481
I would probably call Muriel my wife and just thank her for being in my life.

2484
02:43:03.221 --> 02:43:14.268
And maybe either her or my child to just thank them for bringing so much light into my life.

2485
02:43:16.770 --> 02:43:20.612
How did that change you?

2486
02:43:20.812 --> 02:43:21.613
It's different.

2487
02:43:22.113 --> 02:43:22.773
Totally different.

2488
02:43:23.274 --> 02:43:23.554
Um...

2489
02:43:28.332 --> 02:43:29.873
it's beautiful being in a relationship.

2490
02:43:29.893 --> 02:43:30.774
We travel as a pack.

2491
02:43:30.814 --> 02:43:31.875
We go everywhere together.

2492
02:43:32.035 --> 02:43:34.016
We've, we've never been apart.

2493
02:43:34.577 --> 02:43:43.943
I don't think, I think maybe in the 15 years that I've been with my wife, we've maybe spent three nights apart in 15 years, something like that.

2494
02:43:45.725 --> 02:43:51.649
And we're, everything we do, we travel together.

2495
02:43:52.129 --> 02:43:54.231
This, this is a long time that I'm away from them.

2496
02:43:55.051 --> 02:43:57.613
So I'm looking forward to getting back with them and becoming a father.

2497
02:43:59.018 --> 02:44:00.119
It's just so much fun.

2498
02:44:00.139 --> 02:44:11.490
I get to see the world in, I get to see the things that he's excited about that remind me of things I was excited about.

2499
02:44:12.291 --> 02:44:16.955
And I get to show him things that I like, and sometimes he likes them.

2500
02:44:17.976 --> 02:44:22.461
And sometimes he says things that I can't imagine how he...

2501
02:44:23.417 --> 02:44:24.457
how he knows them.

2502
02:44:24.698 --> 02:44:30.520
There's a real wisdom that's, uh, it's baffling.

2503
02:44:31.840 --> 02:44:32.521
It's just fun.

2504
02:44:33.961 --> 02:44:40.384
You talk in the book about how children are the great reminder of what, you know, creativity might be at its essence before we fuck it up.

2505
02:44:40.644 --> 02:44:40.904
Yeah.

2506
02:44:40.984 --> 02:44:48.027
And it's the, it's the thing is that when you're a little kid, you haven't yet, no one has told you

2507
02:44:48.928 --> 02:44:51.811
what you can and can't do yet, how the world works.

2508
02:44:51.891 --> 02:44:53.674
You really look at things with wonder.

2509
02:44:55.155 --> 02:44:59.400
And that's the perspective of a great artist.

2510
02:44:59.440 --> 02:45:03.405
They're walking around in wonder, in awe.

2511
02:45:04.585 --> 02:45:15.812
of things that maybe seem ordinary to everyone else, but the world is filled with just incredible beauty.

2512
02:45:16.012 --> 02:45:16.812
It's breathtaking.

2513
02:45:17.693 --> 02:45:18.393
It's breathtaking.

2514
02:45:19.334 --> 02:45:20.234
People are amazing.

2515
02:45:21.315 --> 02:45:22.196
Talk to anyone.

2516
02:45:23.476 --> 02:45:24.197
It's interesting.

2517
02:45:24.437 --> 02:45:25.337
People are interesting.

2518
02:45:26.398 --> 02:45:29.320
If you just slow down and really listen,

2519
02:45:31.703 --> 02:45:32.223
Rick, thank you.

2520
02:45:32.664 --> 02:45:40.990
Thank you for the inspiration and the wisdom and for being a challenging coach to many millions of creatives all around the world and being fearlessly yourself.

2521
02:45:41.030 --> 02:45:41.930
This is a fantastic book.

2522
02:45:41.950 --> 02:45:49.756
I'm going to link it below for everyone that hasn't yet read it, but also the HBO documentary with Jay-Z, the eight-part documentary we referenced, is out now on HBO.

2523
02:45:50.076 --> 02:45:53.098
It comes out on September 18th, so if you're watching us after that, it's already out.

2524
02:45:54.739 --> 02:45:55.320
Thank you, Rick.

2525
02:45:55.700 --> 02:45:56.120
My pleasure.

2526
02:45:56.560 --> 02:45:58.262
It's on Mubi and the rest of the world.

2527
02:45:58.762 --> 02:45:59.282
Rick, thank you.

2528
02:45:59.603 --> 02:46:00.043
My pleasure.