If Your Art Doesn't Pay The Bills, Do This Instead | Rick Rubin

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"It's such a simple idea, getting to what do I actually like? No second guessing." - Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin asked Lewis a question that sounds simple but cuts through everything: If I gave you two different foods to taste, could you tell me which one you like? Of course you could. And no one could convince you that the one that tastes bad to you actually tastes good. That's the whole secret to creative work, he says. Trust what resonates with you the same way you trust your taste buds. It sounds almost obvious until you think about how much of your creative life you've spent second-guessing yourself, trying to like what you're supposed to like, making what you think will succeed instead of what genuinely moves you. Rick has spent 40 years producing music's biggest artists, and this simple principle is what he keeps coming back to.

The conversation goes somewhere unexpected when Lewis asks about struggling artists who can't make money doing what they love. Rick doesn't preach belief or hustle. He says divide them. Get a job that supports you so your art can be free. He talks about his cousin who became a dentist, practiced for 15 or 20 years, and finally had to admit it was the wrong choice from the beginning. How many people are living that exact life right now, stuck in a program they chose when they were young? But what really strikes you is how Rick talks about being in the studio after all these decades. He still gets that feeling when something's not happening, and then suddenly it is, and he doesn't know what changed. He's still surprised all the time. Still leaning forward with curiosity. That's not someone going through the motions. That's someone who protected the magic by keeping things simple.

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