#649: Rick Rubin, Legendary Music Producer The Creative Act, Overcoming Creative Blocks, Developing Your Perception and Sensitivities, Reinvention vs. Going Narrow, The Future and AI, and Much More

Being a great artist, we think of it as the person who makes the thing; we think about it that as the making. What makes an artist great happens not in the making; it happens in the way of being in the world, the way of experiencing the world, the way of noticing the thing that someone else doesn't notice, the way of seeing what's beautiful when everyone else sees the mundane.

That's the way I like to work. I go in with kind of a blind belief that something good will happen, and until it's proven impossible, I will continue banging my head against the wall.

I would never assume because you put more time into something, it's getting better. Most people equate work time with progress, and that's not the case.

Collaboration, you would expect, to be working with others, but it's not. The collaboration section is about working with yourself and the universe. Everything we make is a collaboration, because we're not doing anything ourselves ... All of the things that make us who we are, we bring into all of our projects. So, we're always in collaboration. It's never our idea.

If you speak to a scientist or a mathematician about some problem that was very difficult to solve... eventually, when they get to the solution, it's not exotic. It, more often than not, it was right there the whole time. It was so obvious. We miss what's right in front of us.

We're scientists experimenting, and it's all an experiment. And sometimes we get the experiment right at the beginning, and we don't know it—and we won't know it until we may do a hundred other iterations that are not better.

In most collaborative projects... they'll be many ideas, and there will be a battle of wills to see which idea wins ... It's more of an ego conflict battle ... From my experience, those are not how the best decisions are made.

If you're part of a movement, and if you're riding a wave of a movement, and if the movement goes away, look closely at whether you want to keep riding that same wave or not.

The artist is making the thing that you didn't know you want, the thing that you didn't know that you couldn't live without, the thing that you didn't know was possible.

Not everyone can be da Vinci. We can all be the best we can be.

I think if you are trying to ride a wave and you're not already connected with all of yourself, chances are that won't even be successful.

Try to find a way to get feedback from people who genuinely care about you and your work, not a general reader.