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Jay Shetty PodcastBenny Blanco's Journey From Recording Music in His Bedroom to A-List Music Collaborations
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WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Benny Blanco on fearless creativity, tough mentorship, and staying grounded
- Benny Blanco describes early creativity as resourceful experimentation—layering sounds with two boom boxes and developing a trial-and-error approach he still uses.
- He explains his “amnesia to failure” mindset: he doesn’t fear failing, resets quickly, and keeps trying until something lands.
- He shares pivotal mentorship experiences, from a harsh early mentor who demanded higher standards to his own experience mentoring and signing a young assistant who later became a major producer.
- He recounts how sudden success triggered crippling anxiety, leading him to long-term therapy (CBT) and a meditation habit that helped him regain stability, with working out later becoming his “new meditation.”
- He emphasizes the importance of rituals, love, community, and listening in relationships, and says he now pursues projects more for personal fulfillment than competition for external success.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasCreativity can start with improvisation and “making a mess.”
He describes making early “multi-track” recordings by bouncing sounds between two boom boxes, and says his process today still resembles throwing ideas around first and cleaning up later.
He treats failure as disposable information, not a verdict on identity.
He says he’s never cared about failure and describes having “amnesia” after failing—waking up the next day ready to try again.
Relentless initiative and tolerance for discomfort shaped his early growth—along with learning what not to repeat as a mentor.
He recounts paying to book a producer’s studio time just to meet him, then driving from Virginia to New York on weekends to work—despite the mentor being harsh, including throwing a hard drive out the window.
He values long-term development: potential, personality, and persistence can matter more than early output.
He tells the story of bringing a 15-year-old assistant into high-level sessions, later discovering the assistant secretly made music, signing him despite early songs being “terrible,” and watching him grow into a top producer.
He links better art-making to stable routines, love, and work–life boundaries.
He says love and a grounded life show up in art, and he keeps rituals (like seeing his mom every Sunday, cooking, and set work cutoffs) to stay balanced.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesI don't care about failure at all. I don't care, and I never did.
— Benny Blanco
I have amnesia the second I fail.
— Benny Blanco
I still work like I've never done a thing in my life.
— Benny Blanco
It's fun. I love the climb. Like, that's my favorite part about life.
— Benny Blanco
Food is, like, the best social lubricant in the world.
— Benny Blanco
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SPEAKERS
Benny Blanco
guestRecord producer, songwriter, and artist known for major pop collaborations and hit records.
Jay Shetty
hostPodcast host and former monk who teaches mindfulness and meditation.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
