The Resilient Mind - Be Yourself | It's the Only Thing That Actually Works - Rick Rubin

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Rick Rubin is one of the most legendary and influential music producers in history, having shaped the sound of artists across virtually every genre, from Johnny Cash and Red Hot Chili Peppers to Jay-Z, Adele, and Kanye West. Co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, he built a career not by imposing his vision onto artists, but by stripping everything back to what is raw, honest, and true — a philosophy that has produced some of the most iconic albums ever made. In 2023 he released his debut book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, which became an instant bestseller and revealed the deeper spiritual and philosophical principles behind his lifelong approach to creativity.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠Get Started with HeartMath: https://www.heartmath.com/resilient 🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channels for more:The Resilient Mind: https://www.youtube.com/@TheResilientMindPodcastThe Resilient Mind Interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@TheResilientMindInterviews🌍 The Resilient Mind Podcast is a proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Be Yourself. It's the only thing that actually works with Rick Rubin. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. I don't look at the outside very much. I look inward and try to focus on what do I feel? What am I seeing in the hopes that by sharing what's going on in me,

it maybe resonates with someone else. I can't predict what someone else would like. And I don't think anybody can. So if I'm true, authentically true to myself, that's the best chance of someone else liking something. People like to be accepted. People want to be accepted. And I'm suggesting in the book that the best way to be accepted

is to be yourself. It's not to change yourself to what someone else thinks. First of all, you don't really know what someone else thinks. And if you're not genuine to yourself, there's, there's like nothing, nothing is there. It's just a projection or a mask. It's not true. In a sea of information, the more yours is personal, the more it's not like hers or his or theirs. It's yours. There are these different points of view around us. If we're all thinking the same thing, it's boring. Why would we make anything if everyone thinks the same thing?

What makes us interesting are the differences. And even the imperfections, the imperfections are what makes us humans, what makes us what we are. As we get new information, we have to evolve. How can we live in an old belief? If you believe the same thing that you believed 20 years ago about everything, I don't know that you're living. You know, there's so much middle of the road. and it doesn't interest me. I want it because it's louder, quieter, softer, harder, harder.

It's pushing some boundary. That's why I take notice. It's not more of the same. It's not just another. It's the one that makes you, like, you stop and, did I really hear that? Did I really see that? What's going on here? You know, where you see a movie where you have to lean full.

and pay attention, like, what's happening? It's not just the audience's hand is being held and walk through a story simply. I like the complexity and difficulty that forces me as the viewer to participate in what's going on. I'm not just being carried along. You know, if I like it, that doesn't mean anything.

That's what people think. It's like, just because I like it, because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. Not other people like it so it's successful. That doesn't mean anything because that's other people liking it is out of your control. All that's in your control is making the thing to the best of your ability.

I talk about it, usually the way I talk about it, is greatness. And that's the way I thought of it. My whole life was my interest is in making something great, greatness, lasting greatness, timeless. And I came to realize recently, it's all an offering to God. And if you're making an offering to God, you're not thinking about, oh, what's the budget? Or I hope this segment of the audience is going to like it. We don't think like that. It's a higher vibration.

We're making the best we can make to the best of our ability out of our ability out of love and devotion. That's what it is. And there is no, I'm changing it for someone else because it can't be better than this devotional act that we're doing. There is no higher, no higher form. Most of the artists I work with don't read any criticism or reviews that they work good or bad most. Some, some do. And I would say the ones who are the strongest in who they are can even read a terrible review and laugh at it. And that makes sense because when someone gives you criticism, it's telling you as much about who they are as what you've made.

It's like we make things and then we make it with one through our filter, our perspective, and then you receive it through your filter with your perspective. So even if we both like it, we probably don't like it the same way for the same reasons. we all have our own relationship to it. Everyone has their own relationship to it. So any of these metrics of which is better, like the idea of the Oscars or the Grammys, where we're saying which album is better than another,

it doesn't make any sense to me because it's always apples and oranges. The only people who we can honestly compete with is ourselves. It's like, is this the best I can make today? Have I gone further than I've gone before? That's all we can do. That's the only kind of.

competition that makes sense is continuing to evolve and push ourselves artistically and not get complacent, especially in success. It's easy to get complacent once something works. It's like, I'll just keep doing more of that. It ends up maybe one more time you can get away with it, but once three are similar, it stops being interesting. It's the obsessive nature of being really into something that once, you're a lot of, once you start down a thread, you just keep pulling forever. If you're interested, many of the artists

that are great at what they do are great at what they do for that very reason. They fall in love with this thing, and then they just want to know everything they could possibly learn about it. And there are no distractions. I'm working on a project now, a documentary project with comedians. And one of the things that they talk about is their commitment, like when other people are doing things on the weekend going out with their friends, they're going to perform every, you know, every night that they can possibly go out and perform until they can get good at their craft. And this could be for a period of, you know, 10 years of just having bad performances, you know, having people not like what you do, like banging your head against the wall,

but that obsession with breaking through. And when I say breaking through, I don't mean breaking through to the audience. I mean, breaking through with themselves to where they get past all of the blocks and to be free in this moment in a way where they can really express their views and be heard and people can react. It's a fascinating thing. But I think in general, people don't like to be told what to do. So the best way that you could inspire someone to do something is through the way that you carry yourself. If you act in a creative way in the world and you do it to the best of your ability. And if someone else recognizes it, it might inspire them to do the same.

So I think it's hard to teach someone something that we don't practice. We have to practice it. Maybe your purpose in life isn't related to your job. Maybe your job is your job and the job is the thing that supports you. And then the rest of your waking hours are devoted to your purpose, whatever that is. If you need to have a job to support yourself, that's great. That's a noble thing to do. And follow your dreams.

But I'm not saying they're one thing. They don't have to be one thing. And don't let following your dreams undermine your ability to support yourself. it could do, it could actually do the opposite. If you decide, I want to be a comedian and I'm putting all my eggs in the comedian basket and I'm going to be a comedian, the pressure of having to support yourself will change you as a comedian, not for the better. You want the stability of being able to take care of yourself in the world to be free

to do whatever your passion is, whatever it is. I think there's a mythology that the people who make things that we love are special people and that we think that they're, you know, the people on Mount Olympus, and they're these magic people who are geniuses, and then there's the rest of us. And that's not the case. It's like we're all just people. We're all doing our best. We all are good at some things, not good at other things.

We're humans. And sometimes we find a way to make something beautiful. and the call came, how do you feel you have the number one album in the country? And I remember saying, I've never been more unhappy in my life. And I think we mistakenly think some kind of outward success is going to change something in us, and it does not. It may make life more comfortable, but it doesn't change who we are. and any hole in ourselves that we're hoping to fill does not get filled.

And if you spend, let's say you spend 20 years of your life working towards a goal that's going to solve everything, and then you finally achieve what you've been trying to do for 20 years, toiling away, I won't have any fun because I'm working for 20 years for this end, and then you get that end and nothing changes, that's when you get hopeless. So it's not uncommon to see very successful artists who are very unhappy in life because they're working towards this,

the thing that's going to make them feel better, and it does not make them feel better. I'm sure you've got to meet many very successful business people, billionaire people. Very few of them are happy, very few. and they've reached their, they've accomplished their dreams and are unhappy because we don't know what we want. You know, we don't know what's going to make us happy.

We're trying to fill something that maybe can't be filled through material or cultural success, public success. It's something else. It's some internal thing. Don't do things just because you think you're going to get something for it. That's not why we do things. Do what's interesting to you. Follow what's interesting.

Don't worry about the outcome. Yeah. We don't know. We can't predict the outcome. We can never predict the outcome. Follow your own inner guide. It directs us. It might not make sense to us.

Might not make sense to anyone else. Certainly won't make sense to anyone else. But it might not even make sense to us. And that's okay. It's fine. Yeah. Listen to yourself. Why is it telling you this?

there are levels of wisdom that we don't know. We don't understand. So when you have an intuition to take the stairs instead of the elevator, or I always go home this way, but today, for some reason, I feel like going this other way. Or maybe I'm going to cross street and walk on that side of the street, whatever it is, whatever little intuitions in your body that come, listen to them, see what happens, be open to there's more going on than we know. There's a lot more than our conscious mind can pick up going on.

The wisest thing we can do is know enough to know, we don't know. If you start from maybe, maybe that's true, it could work, who knows? Yeah. Not hold anything so firm as this is the way it is. I know how it is. Anytime you know how it is, your world just got a lot smaller. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.