How to Access Your Creativity | Rick Rubin

(peaceful music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today my guest is Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin is credited with being one of the most creative and prolific music producers of all time. The range of artists with whom he's worked with and discovered is absolutely staggering, ranging from artists such as LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Beastie Boys, Jesus and Mary Chain, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Green Day, Tom Petty, System of a Down, Joe Strummer, Kanye West, Johnny Cash, Adele, and many, many more. Not surprisingly, therefore, Rick is considered somewhat of an enigma. That is, people want to know how it is that one individual is able to extract the best creative artistry from so many different people in so many different genres of music. Well, as today's discussion reveals, Rick's expertise in the creative process extends well beyond music. In fact, our conversation takes us into the realm of what the creative process is specifically and generally across domains, including music, of course, but also writing, film, science, and essentially all domains in which new original thought, ideas, and production of anything becomes important. Our conversation ventures from abstract themes, such as what is creativity and where does it stem from? To the more concrete, everyday tool-based approaches to creativity, including those that Rick himself uses and that he's seen other people use to great success. That took us down some incredible avenues ranging from a discussion about the subconscious, to how the subconscious interacts with our conscious mind, and how the subconscious and conscious mind interact with nature around us and within us. Indeed, our conversation got rather scientific at times, but all with an eye and an ear toward understanding the practical tools that any and all of us can use in order to access the creative process. We also spent some time talking about Rick's new book, which is all about creativity and ways to access creativity. The title of the book is The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. This is a book that I've now read three times from cover to cover, and I'm now reading it a fourth time, because it is so rich with wisdom and information that I'm applying in multiple domains of my life. Not just my work, but my everyday life. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Rick has an incredible ability to translate his understanding of the creative process in a way that is meaningful for anybody. So if you're in music, if you're a musician, it will certainly be meaningful for you. But it is not about music. It is about the creative process. And so whether or not you consider yourself somebody creative or not, or whether or not you seek to be more creative, Rick's book and today's conversation sheds light on what I believe to be the fundamental features of what makes us human beings. That is, what allows us, unlike other animals, to look out on the landscape around us, to examine our inner landscape, and to come up with truly novel ideas that thrill us, entertain us, entertain other people, scare us, make us laugh, make us cry. All the things that make life rich are essentially contained in the creative process, and to be able to sit down and learn from the Rick Rubin how the creative process emerges in him and his observations about how it can best emerge in others is and was truly a gift. So I'm excited to share his knowledge with you today. One thing that you'll quickly come to notice about today's conversation is that Rick is incredibly generous with his knowledge about the creative process. In fact, he very graciously and spontaneously, I should add, offered to answer your questions about creativity. So if you have questions about the creative process for Rick, please put those in the comment section on YouTube. And in order to make those questions a bit easier for me to find, please put "QUESTION FOR RICK RUBIN" in capitals, then colon or dash, whichever you choose, and then put your question there. I do ask that you keep the questions relatively short so that I can ask Rick as many of those questions as possible. We will record that conversation and we will post it as a clip on the Huberman Lab Clips channel. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Maui Nui, which I can confidently say is the most nutrient-dense and delicious red meat available. Maui Nui spent nearly a decade building a USDA-certified wild harvesting system to help balance invasive deer populations on the island of Maui. I've talked before on this podcast, and we've had guests on this podcast that have emphasized the critical role of getting quality protein, not just for muscle repair and protein synthesis, but also for repair of all tissues, including brain tissue on a day-to-day basis. And the general rule of thumb for that is one gram of quality protein per pound of body weight per day. With Maui Nui meats, you can accomplish that very easily, and you can do that without ingesting an excess of calories, which is also critical for immediate and long-term health. I should say that Maui Nui meats are not only extremely high quality, but they are also delicious. I particularly like their jerky, so their venison jerky. I also have had Maui Nui venison in various recipes, including...... ground venison, some venison steaks, and I love the taste of the venison. It's lean, but it doesn't taste overly lean or dry at all. It's incredibly delicious. So if you'd like to try Maui Nui Venison, go to mauinuivenison.com/huberman to get 20% off your first order. Again, that's mauinuivenison.com/huberman to get 20% off your first order. Today's episode is also brought to us by Thesis. Thesis makes custom nootropics, and as many of you have probably heard me say before, I am not a fan of the word nootropics, because nootropics means smart drugs, and frankly, the brain doesn't work that way. The brain has neural circuits for focus. It also has neural circuits for creativity and neural circuits for task switching and for imagination and for memory. There is no such thing as a neural circuit for being smart, and therefore the word nootropics doesn't really apply to anything specific neurobiologically speaking. 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Whoop is a fitness wearable device that tracks your daily activity and sleep but goes beyond activity and sleep tracking to provide real-time feedback on how to adjust your training and sleep schedules in order to feel and perform better. Six months ago, I started working with Whoop as a member of their scientific advisory council as a way to help Whoop advance their mission of unlocking human performance, and as a Whoop user, I've experienced firsthand the health benefits of their technology. It's clear based on quality research that Whoop can inform you how well you're sleeping, how to change your sleep habits, how to change your activity habits, even how to modify different aspects of your nutrition, exercise, sleep, and lifestyle in order to maximize your mental health, physical health, and performance. So whether or not you're an athlete or you're exercising simply for health, Whoop can really help you understand how your body functions under different conditions and how to really program your schedule, nutrition, and exercise and many other factors of your life in order to really optimize your health and performance, including your cognition. If you're interested in trying Whoop, you can go to joinwhoop, spelled W-H-O-O-P, .com/huberman. That's joinwhoop.com/huberman today and get your first month free. Huberman Lab Podcast is proud to announce that we are now partnered with Momentous supplements, because Momentous supplements are of the very highest quality, they ship internationally, and they have single ingredient formulations. If you'd like to access the supplements discussed on the Huberman Lab Podcast, you can go to livemomentous, spelled O-U-S, so livemomentous.com/huberman. And now for my discussion with Rick Rubin. Great to have you here today, Rick.