「人生の仕事」を見つける——リック・ルービン

Yeah. Um if you're stacking a lot of things on top of each other each one of those things becomes less important. So if you have 10 things each one of them is 1/10 as important as one by itself. So if you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated because they're doing the work of everything and nothing is hidden. It's why it's not as easy as it sounds to to do less. But it it when you see it you can get the personality. I'll give you an example with guitars. If you a lot of recordings are made where a guitarist plays and then they double it and triple it and they create this like wall of guitars. And when you when there's a wall of guitars, you hear guitar but you don't hear someone playing guitar. You just hear guitar. It becomes more generic. When one person plays it and you can hear their fingers on the strings it's got more personality. It's more human. And I tend to look for those things where it's the the singular essence shows through.

I never thought about it because this was uh it was like a mission and a love and I didn't think of it even as work. It was just what I wanted to do is make these things. So, the fact that it took a lot of work wasn't It wasn't even in um it wasn't in consideration at all.

Yeah, it's just um as a fan I listen to music all the time. I fell in love with it. I wanted to be involved in whatever way that I could. Uh hip-hop was just starting in New York City. It was still a totally underground movement. So, the only place you could hear it was at one club downtown where I where I was going to school. Um there was only one club that you could hear hip-hop and that was once a week. But other than that, it was only in It was in the Bronx. It was in Brooklyn. But really just in like community centers and outdoor parties. It was underground and not well thought of kind of music. It was street music. And um and I would go to this club every week and hear the music. And at that time there would be a few hip-hop records coming out, 12-in No albums, only 12-in singles. And um there'd be maybe one new record every two or three weeks. And that's all there was. And I would so go to the club every week, hear the music there, and then I would buy the one single that would come out every few weeks. And the singles didn't represent what the energy in the club was. And I wanted to feel that energy in the club. So, I started the first record I made was called It's Yours. And the purpose of that was I was just trying to capture the energy of the club on record. And I didn't know anything about recording. I wasn't a professional. Yeah, I was a kid. The fact that I didn't know what I was doing allowed it to be true to what hip hop was. Whereas, all of the records that were coming out, the few and far between, 12-in singles every few weeks, they were made by professionals who made other kinds of music. They weren't made by hip hop people. And so, an outsider with experience was making what they thought hip hop was. But if you went to the club, you knew what it really was. And the club was in very stripped down, and it was scratching, break beats, drum machines, and rapping. And that's what the records were.

The records are like a documentary of the scene that was going on. And all of the other documents of that period weren't representative of the scene. They were representative of something else. So, profession the professional like the Hollywood version of it. But that's not what it was.

Yeah, something like that. It sold a lot I mean, for for a record in that world, it took a long time. Probably took 18 months to sell 100,000, but over 18 months sold about 100,000, and it was a hit as much of a hit could be in something that would never be on the radio and and a kind of music that nobody listened to or liked. As a matter of fact, back then, most people who were not hip hop fans didn't even acknowledge it as music. That's how far it was.

Don't know. It was the same thing though with Elvis and rock and roll. Like the grown-ups didn't acknowledge that as music. It was just some other thing that they didn't know what it was.

That's how foreign it was.

I always listen anything I liked I wanted to hear everything that the person that I liked everything they listened to that they liked. I was wanted to understand.

Same.

It's always been the case or the other version of it is um it's like it where I would hear something for the first time. I can remember the first time I heard the MC5. Which was uh a band from Detroit in the 1960s. Kind of a proto punk rock band. They're before punk rock, but it's has punk energy. And I heard that and it was really cool. And then I remember going to a uh used record store because the used record store had all the cool older stuff and they knew the most about music. So, you spend hours in used record stores and just talking to the people who work there. Same like um you heard Quentin Tarantino working in a video shop and just there's so much information around the people who really love this thing. Um and I remember they said, "Well, if you like the MC5, you might want to check out Iggy and the Stooges." And then I listened to the Stooges. I go, "I love this, too." And that was another also, Detroit, same time frame, same scene, and it was great music. Um, so it would either be music like the music that I found that I liked, or music that inspired the music that I liked. Both of those were things I would always pursue.

I always think like the motivations, I always want to know why people are doing what they're doing. I think the motivations of what they're doing, the reason they they go into their like chosen profession is really important. You thought music was going to be like a hobby, like you were going to have to get a day job.

Yeah, can you talk about that?

You were in a band, right?

You played I think guitar.

In a punk rock band, so it's very rudimentary.

Yeah, I just always followed what was interesting to me at the time. So, when punk rock came along, well, first punk rock would be heavy metal. Heavy metal at that time was really more like hard rock than what we think of now as heavy metal. So, it would be Aerosmith, AC/DC, Ted Nugent. Those were kind of the mainstays of what arena rock was like when I was 13 or 14 years old. And I loved that music, and then I got a guitar and tried to play along, and it didn't it didn't go well. But then when punk rock came along, I could it was easier for me to play along because it was more basic music.

Uh the next thing that happened was in in my interest in hip hop in high school, there were some kids No No one in my high school liked punk rock except me, but there were some kids who liked hip hop, and this was in again in the very very very early days of hip hop.

Yeah.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And where I was, I would not have said it'll ever get big. I was in the stage where I'm going to make this, and the few people who like this will all like it, and that's it. There was no upside. There was no thinking anybody else is going to like this. That's how underground it was.

The first hip-hop record I produced was T La Rock, It's Yours.

It was one single.

LL's first record was the first record after that.

Yeah. I think all of them probably had the dorm room address, cuz that's where I lived. And "Reduced by" I probably said it for the first time on LL's record.

Well, I thought about the idea of produced by, and I thought the word meant to build up. Like I I think of production as building. And really what I was doing was taking apart and reducing. I thought maybe reducing would be "Reduced by" is more accurate in this case, and that's that's how it happened.

days it weren't he didn't did it weren't songs. It would be um he would just have notebooks of lyrics. And they weren't in song order. It was just rhymes. And um we would look at all the lyrics together and say is there something here that could be the basis of a song like I need a beat for example. That could be a repeated phrase that ends up being a hook. And and the reason like many of the hip hop records before the Def Jam records were somebody would start rapping and then they would rap for a few minutes and then they would finish rapping. It wasn't like a song. It was more like a monologue.

Kind of but but it was still in a rap style but it wasn't in a song structure. It was like Jamaican toasting. But the fact that I grew up on the Beatles and loved the Beatles and my understanding of music is based on the Beatles. And the Beatles were the greatest songwriters ever. And the structure of their songs are really um organized and tight. So based on what I knew about lit from listening to the Beatles, I applied that to rap music so that it would be structured more like a Beatles song instead of like a monologue or a Jamaican toasting record.

Probably not so different. It's it's probably pretty similar. Just it it depends on the artist like because LL was a solo rap artist and he didn't have a a band or make music. I was responsible for making the the tracks. And my version of that was a very stripped-down minimal thing. But now I get to work with bands sometimes that have a big sound and they're a lot of players and you I'm looking for the essence of each of these artists. And the essence tends to be stripped down, but it's stripped down to what they are. I just finished the new album with The Strokes and they're a band of five people. So it sounds like a band of five people. Doesn't sound less than that.

Sounds like what they are.

Sometimes for the sake of the whole work, removing things about it that you really love is part of the process. And instead of if you have if you have 100% and you know at the end you want to have 70% of what you have, like you have 30% too much, instead of whittling down that 30 to get to the 70, I would say reduce it to 40% let's say. Force yourself to get to 40% and then add back what's what's needed to get to the 70. And it it it works in a different way. You you have a better understanding of the work after the ruthless edit because you find out, especially with a group because in a group everybody votes. So with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we'll record for an album, we might record 40 or 50 songs and then all of us vote on A, B, or C. And then if everyone picks it as an A song, that's going to be on the album. If it's really divided, it might not be. You know, it'll be it'll be a democratic process until we get down to like what is everyone together think is the best thing that we can make. That's a ruthless editing process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It helps to get to that point of what are the ones you can't live without, however few it is, and build from there, build out from there.

In every domain, there are people who to make beautiful things. I like people who make beautiful things.

it's all the same. I think most of what I do is not really about music. I happen to work in music, but it's not about the music. Does that make sense?

You're at Shangri-La and you walk through the space and you see it doesn't feel like other places you've been.

It it has the same aesthetic as the records I make or the things that I work on, the things that I like, things that I buy, you know, the objects I buy would have the same aesthetic. So, it's all fitting into a I'd say worldview.

the same.

It's all the creative spirit.

It feels like his entire life is centered around writing words. He's totally preoccupied with that. So he always has a notebook. He's always making little notes. He writes tiny and tiny letters. And he's always making notes. And at one point I asked him because he's got notebooks and notebooks and notebooks and I said, "Are you are you working on new songs?" I said, "No, I'm just like keeping active. Keeping active in the skill set." And I said, "Are you going to put those in a song?" He probably said 90% of it will never be in a song. He's just writing. Just writing. And that's what he does. He writes.

He does. And I would say the same type of obsessive

He's obsessed.

I'm sure there are. I have I have to think about it, but it it's That's [snorts] not the only way to do it. For some people, it happens in a more natural way, and for some people, it's more of a Work ethic is always a a part of it, but for some people, work ethic is the reason they are who they are. And there are other people who are just incredibly talented and have enough work ethic to get over the finish line.

I don't like to quit. I like to see things through. When I start something, I like to see what it can be.

Yeah.

Oh, for sure.

I'm a lazy workaholic.

[laughter]

Cuz it doesn't feel like work? Explain.

Rick, I don't believe that.

No, you love this too much, though. What do you mean?

You like the end result?

Okay.

That's surprising to me.

[laughter]

Do you like being podcast more than music now?

I I want to like pull on this for a little bit if you don't mind.

So I heard um Billie Eilish's brother who I think they have a close collaboration with and he so he was describing the difference between him and Billie. He said that he enjoyed the process of making music. She enjoyed having made the music. So are you more like Billie in that case? Like you like that it's done?

Mhm.

yourself to do it.

Have you ever just like I'm gave up in that moment and just walked away for a little bit?

So you Okay, so you do have this like

really good work work ethic.

Yeah.

It's frustrating and and boring and takes a great deal of patience. It's like waiting for paint to dry. You're just waiting, waiting, waiting. And trying different things and nothing works. Until something either works or something happens and it just comes together and and I can't tell you why.

Once you get saying like we have to protect this, we have to protect this. Once you're aware of it it's harder to protect. Like in the in the process of it happening. If you realize this is it. It's like it's like um what is it in golf? The yips. You know, like when when you're playing golf if you like if you [clears throat] start thinking about it instead of just being in it you can't do it anymore. So it's almost like you have to get out of yourself to allow it to happen. Maybe not me, but for the artist. The artist has to get to this place where it's like they don't even know they're doing it. It just happens. It's not a performance. It's something else. It's it's a it's just like a real moment happens. And it's thrilling.

Exactly.

Same.

It's in the way.

Yes.

I like meeting the people. And even before the podcast started, I would still if someone was interesting to me, I would reach out to them, want to spend time with them, hang out with them, and just learn from them, really. I can remember the the one where it became obvious to do the podcast was Someone introduced me to Dana White.

Great. He's great.

And I said, he actually reached out to me. He's like, "Anytime you want to meet, I'm down." I was like, "Great. Let's do it." We met. We sat at my house. We sat outside to talk for about 3 hours. And at some point in the conversation, I said, "Do you mind if I record this? Because I feel like I'm not going to remember what we're saying, and I'm really liking this story." And that was sort of a breakthrough of like, "This is kind of what doing a podcast is like. I'm I already do this in my life. I don't record them. But I meet the people that make things that are interesting to me, and I spend time with them, and I listen to what they do, and I ask a lot of questions because I'm curious. So, it really is an outgrowth of my normal life. So, I like doing that.

podcasting in the world. I listen to thousands of episodes. I was listening to your podcast Broken Record back in the day. I was like, "This is incredible." And you were heavily into like interviewing musicians back then. That was the format of that show was just talking to musicians. And then Tetragrammaton, you took, in my opinion, to another level. And you're talking to all kinds of incredible people. I listened to I just had a conversation with Toby Lutke, founder of Shopify.

I used one of your episodes to prep because he's such such a unique mind. One of the most interesting conversations I had. But I I was I I analyzed people like, you know, there's handful of podcasters that are really great. There's a couple million in the directory. Only a handful are really great. Yours is really great. And I'm like, "Why the hell how is it unfair this guy is like gifted at music and now he's gifted at podcasting? Why is this the case?" And what I came up with and I started analyzing and thinking about what you do in your day job, what you've done for over four decades. And I was like he's a professional listener.

I don't he's listening to the guest. He is in the moment with the guest.

And it's like that is why one of the reasons why obviously you're you have a lot of interesting things to say, but one of the reasons in my opinion that you're so great at podcasting.

When I listen to your podcast, I feel you have this combination of like sincere interest

in the other human being

and a desire I think you just said this, but the way I think about it is the way I think about you when I listen to your podcast is like a desire not to form an opinion, but to understand.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be an end to your curiosity, either.

You think of yourself as a researcher?

Okay, I don't know about this. Tell me about this.

Is it all consuming for you? When you when you find these these pockets of interest?

I admire people that do things for a very long period of time and I you can tell a lot about people by what they admire. It's like I want to do these kind of podcasts till I die. Like it's like what's your strategy what's what's success look like for you for in 5 years and 10 years? One that I'm still doing it and two that I'm just making things that I'm proud of.

There's no … download number, there's no how many ads I sell. It's just like that's it. And I'm terrified that one day, you know, I'm going to wake up and be like I don't want to do this anymore.

It's still terrifying.

Mhm.

This is why I kept asking like do you think you'd like making a podcast like we can have a conversation. We could be doing your show right now instead of mine and at the end of this hour or two hours like we have it's done. We have something we can we can do it again tomorrow. Like the the the amount of time from you know, creation to output is so much shorter than an album or even a great song.

And if you're what you're saying like you I think you called yourself a lazy workaholic. I'm saying lazy alcoholic. Lazy workaholic.

Like it almost it's almost like this isn't work. This isn't feel like work to me.

I feel like you I was a little surprised with the way you described working in music that does feel like

So yeah, I I think I might be well-positioned. This is I'm just now getting advice from you because I I'm a huge fan of you, uh and I respect the way you think. Anyways, I just did another podcast on the the book you wrote, Creative Act, by the way. And I just There's so many ideas that you put into words that are in my head that I didn't have words for in there. So if I right now I feel like this is I don't work a day in my life. I feel like I wake up and I'm like compelled or like I don't even know the word to use it. Like then there's no doubt that I'm just on the right path. If If I was sitting here and we weren't recording and I was just seeking your advice. Like I don't feel it's that work at all. The only time it feels like work is when I have to edit, which I … hate, but I do it anyways cuz I think it makes it better.

But that's the only time.

But I feel you have complete control over your time and your life.

I choose it. And I have to acknowledge I made this. No one's forcing me to do this. I said I would show up. I have to show up.

Yeah, it's like I'd be happy not doing anything. Well, I I don't know. I don't know if that's true cuz I just know what It's never been It's never been the case. I've always

Yes.

Yes. And I'm lazy. It's a real part of it. I'm telling you an honest piece of this, which is every day, it's not like, "Let's go." Every day it's like, "Oh, no. I got to go work."

But it doesn't feel like it feels like out of almost anybody in the world that gets paid for being them

is you.

And you're saying that's not the case.

Did you ever spend any time with Tony Bourdain when he was alive?

Were you ever a fan of any of his?

Okay, so I read all his books, watched all his shows. And in his book, I was shocked because that guy

first of all, like in his book, he describes what it's like to be a heroin addict, which is insane. And the amount which you realize when you read Kitchen Confidential is like the same work ethic he used to score drugs as a junk as a broke junkie. Once he broke that habit, he just applied it to writing and building TV shows. Like his work ethic was the same. He was just directing it at the worst thing possible, being a … heroin addict. And then he directed it in a positive, generative direction, and and he took off. But he said something very similar to you. He's like, "Somewhere deep inside me is this guy that just wants to smoke weed and lay in bed all day." And he goes, "I have to fight His writing's beautiful. He's like, "I have to fight that guy every single day."

That fishing analogy is really important to me. I've heard you say this a a few years ago.

I heard Akon one time describe uh working with Eminem. And he shows up into Detroit and he gives him a call. He's like, "All right, I figure we're going to do a night session, you know, these guys are usually nocturnal." Calls him at like 7:00 p.m. And Em's like, "Yeah, I'll I'll I'll see you tomorrow." And Akon's like, "Tomorrow? Like, what are you talking about?" Shows up and doesn't realize that he treats it like a job. Shows up at 9:00 a.m. Right, he's in the studio writing like you're saying recording verses. I think it's like let's say noon. [clears throat] He literally be in the middle of a verse. He's like, "Oh, I'll be right back. I'm going to take lunch." And he's like, "What?" Goes comes back at 1:00. Goes back to work at 5:00. He's like, "All right, I'll see you the next day." And people like misunderstood what Akon was saying is like he doesn't wait around for inspiration. He shows up every day knowing that if he does the work then it will come.

It's exactly what you're saying about fishing.

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Yeah.

Yeah, it's like the idea of creating a palette. And the albums that speak to me most are ones when you hear them, you know if an if an artist has 20 albums, but you hear a song, you know, oh, that has to be on that album, that seventh album, because that's the only album that sounds like that. Even though the band always sounds like the band, this group of songs sounds different than all the rest and it and it may be that this it was either recorded in a different way or all the songs are about a particular thing or they're using different instrumentation than they used to use. I like it when an album like stands alone outside of an artist's career as a defining moment in time. It's not just more of the same.

Yeah, that happens by coming up with like uh a series of rules that only apply to this project. Those are the constraints. So that could be

case with the first one was I didn't know that it was going to be a an acoustic album which it turned out to be. Um but that was something that through the process of recording I learned the most interesting version of this to me is when he's singing alone which is really the demos in my living room, him singing me songs. That sounded better than when we went into the recording studio with musicians and played them with the band. It wasn't as interesting. I didn't know that in advance. That wasn't a premeditated idea. And then in terms of the material that he would sing I grew up with this image what what spoke to me about Johnny Cash was this image of the man in black. And the man in black is a mythical character. Yes, it's Johnny Cash but it's not just Johnny Cash. It's like the mythical Johnny Cash, the Johnny Cash who's the man in black. And the man Johnny Cash could sing a funny song. The man in black probably wouldn't sing a funny song. So the material that we picked was always through the eyes of what's something that man in black the legendary mythological character, What would he sing? And those are the songs that we chose.

Yeah.

Yeah. But but a big part of it, too, was the choice of material. That's a big part of it for for those albums.

even just a Not even just a funny song. It had to have a certain amount of gravitas to fit the a mythical character singing it.

to water it down. Is it Is So this is the case in companies since obviously I my my main focus is on entrepreneurship.

It's like even if there's a group, there's usually like a main person. Is that the same thing in bands? Is there always like one chief like There might be four guys in the band or five guys in the band. Is it usually the stronger personality that has more influence?

So if we go back to this

Almost exactly 10 years older. We're we're day we're our birthdays are a day apart.

Yeah.

Yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, because he he was a producer. And as you learn more of what you can do, you tend to do that. You tend to they tend to get bigger. At that point time I hadn't done it enough. It was my first record, so it was that was the the Cult Electric was my first rock record. No. No. Same. Like same time. Yeah, this is like 19 No, this is still in New York. I'm still living in the dorm. I'm still living in the dorm at NYU. Yeah. Yeah, I was doing what I was very simple, but I stayed true to that as much as I can. There probably been a couple of examples along the way where I may have uh I may have not stayed true. Very few. If you look at my whole recorded discography, there may be two or three examples where it got out of control, or where the artist that I'm working with just had a very different vision, which does happen sometimes, and usually we end up not working together again. And there've been one or two occasions where we end up not even finishing a work because it's just too We just see it in a different way. I had that experience with Joe Cocker. We went into the studio to to record, and I had a specific vision of how I saw Joe Cocker, and what I thought was great about Joe Cocker, and he really had a vision of it being something different than that, we weren't on the same page, and it didn't jive. So, it never happened. He's got good taste, and he's got a great work ethic. Those are the two. He said something really interesting that I thought really summed it up, which was Jimmy is in the banking business. These are his words. He said, "I'm in the banking business and you're in the church business." And that's the difference. He said, "I'm doing uh a passion and belief." And he's doing a bottom line, what's going to work, what's going to be good for business. And it's just two different thing, two different mentalities. [laughter] And then Tom goes, "I've never heard somebody describe music that way." It's going to buy me a house. There's a bunch of stories that Jimmy tells in that podcast with you about the crazy things that you see in the music business, you know, where I think he tells the story like the Phil Spector coming to the studio with like a butcher's in a butcher's outfit and he's got like guns strapped to him everywhere and David Geffen's in the studio and John Lennon's getting drunk. Do you have any like things that stand out from you? I've never heard you here tell any of these like stories of stuff you've seen inside studio. What was his reputation for you to do this, though? Violence? Yeah. We mentioned Toby Luke earlier and in the conversation I had with him that was very fascinating, he said something where he's like, "There's not like one right way to do things. There's probably a hundred." And which I think you would agree with. And he's like, "You just have to find the one that fits best for you. And just do that." And you would think this like computer German computer programmer engineer would be like very rigid, but when you talk to him, he essentially just runs his life by all intuition. You are all intuition. Like explain what like why you you essentially it your entire life is just it's in my opinion, like managed or or run by just intu- intuitive feelings. Is this your guided by intuition tied to I feel you have a skepticism of human knowledge. I think you say like I think we know very little about everything. Uh Thomas Edison has this famous quote where he's like we don't know 1/1000% of anything. Yeah, so if you believe you don't know anything, then what is the only other thing you could do is be guided by your intuition. I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. 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Other businesses have seen immediate results, have scaled [music] to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day, and increased their revenue by millions. So, you want to get started quickly before all your competitors are on Axon, and you can do that by going to [music] axon.ai/sendra. That is axon.ai/sendra. Yeah. Yeah. M is much more um well, he writes down the lyrics and he's really studious in the way that he works. And he'll also record take after take after take after it's written and try different things. Jay's much more spontaneous. It all happens in his head and then he'll get up and say it once or twice and that's it. M is totally involved in every aspect of everything and Jay is like play me a bunch of stuff. If I hear something I like, I'll think about it and if not, I'll see you tomorrow. It's like Jay will only be there when he needs to be there and if you hear something that sparks an idea, he'll sit and just say play it over and over again. Play the music over and over again and he sits in the back and you almost it's it goes on long enough where you forget he's even there because he's just silent in the corner listening, sitting on a couch listening over and over again. 30 minutes, 25 minutes later it was like, I got it. Jumps up. He runs into the room. Hit record and he does the whole thing just from his head. It's amazing. He's the only person I've ever seen do that. Most of his albums were made very quickly. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of them it all happens in in the whole thing. Yeah. Yes. Very different. Just two different styles. Both amazing. But they just come at it from different I I think it's just different personality types. I would describe him as obsessive. You know, he's really perfectionist. Uh willing to do whatever it takes for it to be great. diligent, hardworking. And Jay's much more relaxed. Jay's It just kind of happens for him. He's doing it. But it's just a different style. I do a different thing, so it's hard to say. What I do changes according to who I'm working with. Like whatever whatever the artist needs is what my job is. So, in some cases, it's totally hands-off. And some cases, it's well, we got to start from the beginning and try to figure this out together. Yes. I'd say that's that's accurate. I don't know if I do. I don't know if anyone produces me. Yeah. I don't know. I Luckily, I have friends who um friends and family who are not particularly interested in what I do. So, I have reality around me a lot of just like, "That's crazy. Don't You know?" Like a lot of "That's a bad idea." And And it's interesting for me because some ideas I hear, "That's a bad idea." It's like, "Okay, maybe you're right." And so And many ideas is like "I'll show you. I'll show you it's a good idea." I'm I'm I feel I have to do this, you know? I won't change my mind. But I'm open to hearing ideas and definitely open to help if If someone suggests something that makes it better and I see that, it's like that's the best. I'm not closed-minded because someone offers information, even experienced wisdom. I might not always choose to use that information. I don't think so. I have a lot of self-confidence. I think that's the mix That's the mix. I think, you know, I was lucky I learned to meditate when I was young and meditation's been a big part of my life. So, it it's never been about ego. It's never been about me, you know? It's It's uh I'm confident in being able to share what I'm experiencing. I hear something like "That's amazing." And I hear something else is like, "You know, it's not good enough." And nothing anyone can say will tell me otherwise. So, like I I know I can feel it. when I say confidence in my own judgment this is how I see it. I'm not saying I'm right. I never say I'm right or I know what's best. None of those things. This is how I see it. I see it clearly. This is how I would vote for it. If I get to vote, I vote for this. But it's not my way or the highway at all. Depends. Like the I would say rarely critical. What it usually is it starts apprehensive. When we start, because it could be anything. So, at first, it's scary. So, I don't know what's going to happen. So, you would say you don't have an you're a a a So, like a self-critical inner monologue constantly playing in your mind. It's interesting. The reason I asked this question is because um I was with a a an entrepreneur I met yesterday. Guy's worth $10 billion and he wakes up every morning at 5:30 just assuming he's going out of business and like it's actually paranoid. He lives like a paranoid life and that's why he thinks he's good. This is very common with like a lot of people. And um I used to have a self-critical, like kind of mean I was … pretty mean to myself. I was getting Brad Jacobs uh actually had him on the show. His I've talked to him a bunch. And he used to have that, too. And now he's in the '60s of like it's counterproductive. It's not helping anything. And some something I talked about this on the podcast. You can hear me mentioning it over and over again for a few years. It's just something one day just … snapped. And I just don't do that anymore. And I went back and I was reading my notes on you, and I was just telling my partner Rob about this. This is the way I look at the work we're doing now. It's like I like Rick's framework that like you look at your work it's just like an entry to a diary. It's like there's nothing to be critical about because like you did the best you possibly could have done. Yeah. And I might not do the same thing I would have done 10 years ago, and that's fine. But I don't have any regrets about 10 years ago, that's what I thought. That's real. Each each of those installments are real. So it's always true. It doesn't mean that's who you are forever. That's who you are in that moment. It's really freeing. It's helpful for an artist to think that way. Cuz usually, especially when we're younger, we think the thing that we make is this is my this is my magnum magnum opus, and this is going to define me for the rest of my life. And it's a daunting hill to climb. But when you realize it's like this is just the one today, and we're going to make another one tomorrow. And hopefully the one tomorrow's going to be as good or better than the one today. What's true today? What's the one I I usually say that if you are excited to share it with your friend, like if if if I'm working in studio and before you know, long before record comes out, if when making something and if someone comes and I'm excited to play it for my friend who has good taste and who likes good music, it could come out then. Like if if I want to play it for for them, that's good enough for everybody. Do you know what I'm saying? But we But usually artists will feel like, "Well, I'll play this for my boys, but it has to be a lot better before regular people can hear it." And that's ridiculous. It's like as soon as I liked it enough to share it with one person, chances are it's ready for everybody. Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, there are occasions where someone will come to me and say, "I'm thinking about doing this crazy thing." And I'll say, "Hmm, I would have wondered about that." But more often than not, when people share their hopes and dreams, that's all you need to know. It's like, "These are my hopes and dreams, but I'm afraid of this, this, and this." Mo- Most often it's go with the hopes and dreams. Don't worry about any of that stuff, cuz that stuff doesn't matter. What someone's going to say. Uh will I be able to keep doing it? Uh my last one was successful, what do I do now? Success is a funny thing, you know, when you're young and you get successful quickly, no one's prepared for that. And it's awkward and uncomfortable. And you think that's the thing that you want, but when you get it, it's not like what you think it is. It's very different. And there are all these uh pressures that come with it that no one's ready for and no one learns how to do. And it's not like whoever uh you learn good habits from over the course of your life, they don't know how to deal with it because they're they never got, you know, overnight famous or successful or like it's it's a weird thing. Um [clears throat] so a lot of artists kind of implode in success. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think those are all of them. That it's like because the last one takes into account a lot of like there's both the the mask of overconfidence and ego which is hiding insecurity or there's the insecurity but they're they're really the same. You know, they're just presenting in two different ways. have the same overnight success. One of them gets really boastful and I'm the greatest that ever lived and the other one is like oh my god, they're going to find out that I'm not it's that I'm really a fake. But those are both the same people it's they're two sides of the same coin. The the megalomaniac is a way of hiding the insecurity. It's a it's a brave face. They might not know this. They rarely know it, you know. It's different sides of the same imbalance. I think the fact that I learned to meditate when I was young and always had a uh a a grounded and and I and the fact that I know it's not me. That's it's like those two things like I'm grounded and I know I'm lucky to participate in this magic that's happening. I get to be in the room when it happens. But it's not from me. Yeah, I would say that. I'm in the service of it. I'm devoted to setting the stage to allow it to happen. And I'm patient in waiting for it to come. It's not like when it's great, it's like I did a great job. It's not that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's it. And sometimes I'll go into a friend's house and I'll think hmm, the furniture in here isn't arranged in the best way. Maybe I'll rearrange the furniture. I've done that. I've done that. Depends. Some of them, you know, some are cool with it. Some are like, he's crazy, you know. Well, it's just like seeing the possibility. Um I've I've worked on a lot of um a lot of living spaces and the idea of designing a house from scratch is a daunting one to me. I can't imagine doing that. Cuz too many options. But if there's a house that exists, I might be able to see well, what's the best version of this thing that already exists. And that's what same same with music. It's like I hear what's there and now what's the best version of this? What can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it better? Same thing as James Dyson. Exactly the same. Yeah. Yeah, so I was like, why don't I just make what I actually like? And it wound up working out like fabulously. Which these are my favorite kind of people because you're Again, it goes back to like why are you doing what you're doing? And you're doing it because you wanted to make it to the point where You were willing to just make music at night and have a normal job just because you like doing it. What would have to happen for you to basically disappear and to not and to stop stop working with musicians, stop making podcasts? This idea of the you the example that you use in the book of the house on the mountain that no one can ever see no one will ever see. Say more about the thinking behind that though. I think the metaphor that you're using there though is like almost like a a map for people to find their life's work if they haven't found it yet. It's like, "What are you already doing?" And what will you And what will you do no matter what? What won't you stop doing regardless? Yeah. Great. Pleasure.