Essentials: How to Access Your Creativity | Rick Rubin

Key Takeaway

Treat creativity as a practice of attention rather than a demand for instant brilliance. Today, keep a running note of “seeds”: phrases, images, questions, or moments that spark curiosity. Do not judge, organize, or force them into a project yet. Then protect one distraction-free block to experiment with a single seed, and step away afterward; distance gives your subconscious room to connect ideas without turning the work into rumination.

Episode Overview

Andrew Huberman speaks with producer and author Rick Rubin about creativity as an emergent process that cannot be forced but can be supported through attention, experimentation, and deep engagement. Rubin explains how to collect ideas without deadlines, develop them without over-controlling them, use self-doubt as useful feedback, and apply deadlines only when it is time to finish and share work.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Essentials: How to Access Your Creativity | Rick Rubin from Huberman Lab. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes to find the most effective and practical science-based tools for mental health, fitness, and productivity. I'm Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now to my conversation with Rick Rubin. Very happy to see you today, Rick. Thank you for inviting me. I am pleased. Of all the topics in science, and in neurobiology in particular, I admit that creativity is the most difficult to study. When I was reading your book, I was reminded of your example, this idea that ideas and creativity are a bit like a cloud.

If you look at it at one moment, it may seem to you that it has a certain shape, but a moment later it is completely different, and an hour later it may disappear altogether. How did you come to this and how does it help you, I don't want to say " extract", but try to access creativity. I think it's best to compare it to a dream. It's like dreams: they don't have to be logical. When you wake up, you may remember some of it, but not all of it .

And if you start writing them down, they come back. And they may not make sense to you. You know, maybe someday in the future you'll be able to look back and understand what they mean, or maybe not. This is roughly how the process of creating art works. It's as if we are creating something and looking for a feeling within ourselves. It can be a feeling of admiration or enthusiasm, interest, curiosity, a desire to learn more. This is not an intellectual process. This is something else. I think language is not enough to deeply understand creativity.

It's more magic than science. Do you believe that children are, by nature and design, more creative than adults? Yes. Children are open-minded and have no baggage. They don't have any belief system. They don't know how everything is supposed to work. They just see what is . Most of us choose from the infinite amount of data available to us to, well , as a species, make sure we don't die, reproduce, and feed ourselves, which are probably the primary functions. And then we learn what is good and what is bad, we learn to do certain things, or we get inspired by someone who creates something that we love, and we want to do it just like them.

And all this undermines the purity of the creative process. They can be tools to develop your skills so you can do it on your own. For example, if you are a singer, you can imitate someone you really like for a while to learn and eventually find your own voice. But if you're 3 or 5 years old and you try to sing, you don't sing like someone else. You sing in your own voice. And when you create something, you do it based on ignorance. And I think early in my career I had the advantage of starting to make music without any experience, which was helpful because I didn't know what rules I was breaking.

I did things that other people wouldn't do. When something feels creatively right, say in the studio, or maybe you're even listening to something someone sent you. And again, it could be about writing, or comedy, or, you know, science, or podcasting. How do you say, keep going when they may not even realize they've done it, and I'm guessing often they don't notice? I'll try to be in a setting where, as we discuss this, we can interact with it in the moment. Let's say I'm producing your new record, you gave me something to listen to, and I have some thoughts about it.

It wouldn't be very helpful if I just voiced them to you . It would be better to wait until we are in a place where we can try different options and see where it takes us. I wouldn't rely on words to do that. It would be more of a suggestion of something specific, we try it and then get more data. It's that simple. A big part of what we are taught in school is to make us follow rules . But in art, things are different, because the rules exist as a framework that can be tweaked as needed.

Sometimes they are useful, sometimes they are not. Understanding what you feel in the face of other opinions without doubting yourself—this is perhaps the most important thing to practice or a skill to develop as an artist: knowing what you feel and accepting your feelings. If I go against my own taste for the sake of some commercial idea, it negates the whole point of such an activity. This is not...This is not what this process is for. This process is me being myself and showing who I am, and you may or may not like it, but either way, that's how I see it .

In your book, you describe, again , thinking of the creative process as a cloud. For me , this, again, serves as an extremely powerful anchor. And then I think about biology, neurobiology, for example, strategy formation or implementation. And then, almost by pure chance or miracle, I flip a few pages further in the book, and there's a description of how animals try to achieve something: to eat, to mate, to find water, to meet the needs of life. This requires a narrow visual focus. This is something my lab is kind of obsessed with, and something I was obsessed with myself.

And with such a narrower visual focus, we know that the action plan also becomes narrower. Now, at a certain point, to come up with a new creative idea, it means that expanding one's vision or expanding one's thinking is somehow necessary. Well, it can be either a widening or a narrowing, but it's a change in aperture from the standard one to introduce something new that you may have already known about but didn't realize you knew. It's kind of like what a comedian does. You know, a comedian makes you laugh.

Usually what they say is outrageous, but you know it's true. It's just that no one talks about it this way, or no one has talked about it this way before. But it's the truth of it that makes it funny. Recognizing something that seems completely obvious once you see it, but no one else seems to see it or no one else points it out. So, do you think that today the fact that you can create something and, as they say, release it quickly is a fact? I can put something out on Twitter, Instagram now, and I get immediate feedback, which is external feedback, of course, but then I can iterate based on that feedback.

Do you find this problematic for wider creative possibilities? I don't think it's right or wrong. It's just more information that you can use or not use, and use it to your advantage, and you know, you can create something and release it, and people might not like it, and you're like, "Oh, they still do n't get it. Well, I have to...I have to work harder." There can be different stories happening at the same time when you create something and have an idea of ​​what it is , and then other people interact with it and have a completely different idea of ​​what it is .

They like it for different reasons than you do, or they don't like it for reasons different from why you like it. We can't control any of these things. The only thing we can control is how we feel about what we create. And any external information that undermines the clarity of that connection is probably harmful to the art, in my opinion . Everything I tried to do was something I liked myself, or something I was missing as a fan, something I wanted but no one else was doing.

So I'll do it myself. When I listen to an album or a song, I have to assume that at some point it becomes not the development of a creative strategy, but the implementation of a strategy. For example, the songs will go in this order, and at what point does someone decide, “Okay, it’s time to focus on this narrower goal”? Like, we have it. Let's work with this, because there is a packaging and completion component to the creative process. Is this part less enjoyable for you , or is it all part of one big arc?

It's all part of one whole. This is nice. It feels good. There is usually a good feeling when something is done. It's a commitment because until the moment you say it's done, you can keep experimenting and changing it. You know, if you think, " Maybe tomorrow I can do it better," then it's not finished yet. And you can think like that for a very long time, you can do it forever and never let anything out. Reaching the point where you're ready to call it quits is a wonderful feeling.

One of the things I talk about in the book— because it's hard to do, because it's fun to play, and it's fun to think that maybe it's not the best option yet—is to use any next project as motivation to finish the one you're working on now. I'm really interested in, you know, your process. When it comes to moving from project to project and you know you'll be working with someone, do you have a way to put aside the worries of the day, what you did last week, and how do you clear out that "noise" ?

What operational steps do you think could be applied universally, regardless of where someone, for example in Africa, is listening to this right now? When I work on a project, no matter what it is, I dedicate my whole self to that period of time, no matter what it is, whether it's 20 minutes or 5 hours, whatever it is. Complete concentration and no distractions. And when I come out of this process, I do my best not to think about him when I'm away from him. I'm not taking any materials with me.

I don't leave the studio with unfinished works and I don't spend time listening to them throughout the day or searching for ideas. I stay as far away from it as possible when I'm not dealing with it directly. And in the best of situations, I have something else to fully immerse myself in between. So instead of working on Project A for 5 hours and then walking away and doing nothing, I hope to get involved in Project B, or B, C, and D, giving myself full attention before coming back to Project A.

Even if you have disconnected, do you believe that your subconscious mind is still working on it? I believe so. I believe so . And I think that in general, thinking about a problem is not the way to solve it. I think we should take problems more lightly. And when I say " problem," you know, when we start a project, there's a question mark at the beginning of every project . I always get nervous when I start a new project because I have no idea what will happen.

I never know. There is always a feeling of anxiety because I know that whatever is going to happen is completely out of my control. Something interesting will come up or not, and we will follow it wherever it leads. And until there is something we can follow, I feel very anxious. Even though I know, even though it's never gone away, you know, it's come up every time, but there's something about it, because I also feel like there might be expectations placed on me that I'm going to make it happen, and I know that's not the case.

This is not how it works. So what I keep coming back to is that I imagine in my mind the two ends of a continuum. One is a fairly narrow focus, learning, training, implementing strategy, developing skills, improving skills. And the other side is a cloud. And so we take this cloud, and we decide what these things are. Yes. We live our lives, doing it every day with everything we see. If it's something unknown and unusual for us, the very first thought is: it doesn't make sense .

Then, without thinking, we invent a story that explains what happened. Hypothesis. Oh, maybe he's running because his dog ran away and he's chasing it. Maybe that's why he's running. And just as we assume that this could be the case, we calm down, because now it's not just a strange man running, but a man who is probably chasing his dog. And now we perceive this story, which we ourselves just made up, without even realizing it, as an event that actually happened. And then, later that day, if someone asks, "Yeah, did you see that guy running down the block?" I'll say, "Yes, he was chasing his dog.

I saw it." And you won't even realize that it was just a hypothetical story —the first possible explanation that allowed you to move on. We spend our whole lives reacting to things, making up a story about what we think could have happened without realizing we're doing it, and then we go on living as if what we made up actually happened. And we never know for sure. This leads us to the conclusion that there is little we can know. Do you understand what I mean? Our understanding of everything around us is so superficial .

We are grasping at straws. We have no idea. We don't know anything. And there is great power in this knowledge. Because if you think you know what's going on, you're probably being misled. Not because someone is deliberately deceiving you, but because they are telling you what they see for themselves, even though they themselves know nothing . That's all... Do you understand what I mean? This is all fiction. Everything we... Everything we know is fiction. Maybe, maybe it's true. This...This brings us to professional wrestling. This... This is the reason why professional wrestling is closer to reality than anything else we can watch or any other content.

We know this is fiction. We know it's a show. This is a story. And that's exactly how it works, only we think wrestling is fake and the world is real. In reality, wrestling is real, and the world is fake. I want to ask you about wrestling. So, I have questions specifically about wrestling, but they're really about the process. What is your attitude towards wrestling? Uh, I think he maintains that playfulness where anything is possible. In wrestling, we constantly expect surprises, it's a way to feel the energy of a sport where there is no competition.

Everyone works together to put on the best show they are capable of. So it's more like a ballet than a sporting event. Actually, I like the way you describe wrestling—it's the energy of the sport. It's not about whether it's one technique or another, or who won and who lost. This is energy. And I guess that's the energy he evokes in you as a viewer. Yes. It's the energy he evokes in me and the reality that he is honest at his core. In a world where it would seem that nothing is inherently honest.

To some extent, it's comforting, and it still remains a mystery : I wonder if it's true or not, because we never know for sure. Someone is getting injured. Did they really break their backs? Are they just going on vacation? We do n't know. We will never know. This is fascinating. When you wake up in the morning, are your thoughts immediately structured , or do you enjoy this state when the clouds disperse? For me, it's a slow process of waking up, and I like it . I like not to get too involved in work too early.

Do they become more structured throughout the day? Is your thinking becoming more structured around projects and plans? to deal with things that need attention after that. And in preparation for work. And when I go to work , it's more like this free thing where I'm hoping again that something good will happen , welcoming it, paying attention, and maybe trying to attract it, but realizing that I don't have the ability to make it happen. I can just be present and be ready if it happens. Obviously, deadlines matter.

Time of day, right? There are only a certain number of hours in the day when you can stay in rhythm or in a state of readiness for perception. Have you ever caught yourself in a mode where you just "plow"—like , here we are, I won't be home for dinner today. Then, you know, we will press on. Like "put the coffee pot on the stove" and all that. Many, many times throughout my life. Not so often now. And one of the things I discovered while working on the book is that we don't have to treat different stages of work the same way.

I used to do that. Everything used to be in this state of play. Everyone had such a free schedule. It happens when it happens. If it takes two or three years, it doesn't matter. That's not the point . It's just that this thing has to be great. And while working on the book, I realized that there are different stages. The first stage is the collection of seeds, which is a kind of constant part of life in general. I do this all the time, whether I'm working on something or not.

I'm always in the seed-gathering stage , and there are no deadlines, nothing that interests me, that I want to learn more about, or that has the potential to become something. I'll hear something and think, "Hmm, I'd like to read more about that ." Or I wonder if there's a movie about it. Is there a movie about this? If not, maybe it's worth making a movie, you know, I want to again, that's what I want in my life. Let's see if it exists. If it doesn't exist, then maybe it's interesting to implement.

But I know that the desire exists, because I have it . So, there are no deadlines at the seed stage . It's just a wide open part. And the next stage is called the experimentation stage, where you start experimenting to see what this seed wants to do. You are involved, but you do not dictate the course of action. You create the conditions for something to happen, but it's not about you. It would be like the equivalent of you planting a seed, watering it, making sure it's in the sun, and waiting.

So you're involved, but you can't make it grow, you know? And when it sprouts and grows, or turns into a plant, then you can look at it: " Okay, what is the potential of this plant?" And then the third stage is the creation stage, where you say, "Okay, I have this plant." Maybe I'll prune it, or maybe I'll combine it with other plants to make something different out of it. Now it's like the material you have , and finally comes the completion or finishing stage, that is, the final edit, getting that version that you can share with the world, if you're going to do that.

And I realized that when you move into the completion phase, you can set a deadline and it won't hurt the project. In fact, it might even help the project, and I did n't know that before. So I worked on projects that took longer than necessary, and perhaps not to the benefit of the project itself, because I didn't know it. I didn't understand the time limits because I'm so aware of the need for no deadlines during the experimentation phase that I assumed it applied to the entire project.

It's not like the first phase clearly ends, then you start the second, the second ends, and you start the third. You are constantly moving between them. I am constantly collecting new ideas. I am always in the first phase . And, to some extent, there is probably always some version of experimentation going on. Maybe not right now, but if something is on the list of things I want to explore, hopefully I'll get to that list, experiment, and see what it can turn into. And if they do turn into something , then they move into the creation phase, where it's more of, "Okay, now I have this." What do I know about such things?

What can I combine this with ? What can I use this for? How can I get involved as a craftsman? At the end of the creation phase or deep into it, you begin to see the end. You know, you start to see the ending, and then you can even define it. But I would advise that if you do it, you define it only for yourself, not for anyone else, because if something new comes up : if you, uh, set a deadline, a public deadline, and then while you're working on it, a new discovery happens and you realize, "Oh, this could actually be a lot better than I thought, but I need more time ." This is harder to do if you have already set a deadline.

The section on self-doubt was very interesting to me . I'll read the first sentence from it , it's about how self- doubt lives in each of us. M-hm. And while we may wish it would go away, it exists to serve us, uh, and is further described as, um, "dancing" with self- doubt. One can imagine that the better a person masters their craft, the less self- doubt they become . I think that's what many people think. Is n't that right? You become better at what you do, your self-confidence increases, and your insecurities decrease.

But I think we both know a lot of successful people who understand that there's often a flip side, where people feel pressure because they did it once and now they have to do it again. Self-doubt—it's, well, it's like self-examination. It can either be very useful or it can blow you away. So, we all have it, and if we let it destroy us, we won't create anything, and that's not good. But when used as a tool for balance in life, it serves a wonderful function. I think the phrase in the book goes like this : through doubt, you can come to a great work, you know, a masterpiece.

Have you ever come across music that sounds great live but doesn't work at all on a recording? You don't have to name names. Yes, I don't think so. I think maybe there are artists who are great live but have never been able to convey it well on record. The Grateful Dead is a good example of a band whose albums, in my opinion , are not their strong point. But if you listen to their live recordings, they are really interesting and very different from each other. And that's partly what makes the Grateful Dead interesting—their unpredictability.

They are looking for something MGM. and sometimes they find it. Mhm. And if you're there when they find it, it's exciting. It's not just following a script. It's like something is actually happening. This is a real moment. What I strive for in the studio is to create real moments that don't necessarily sound perfect when you listen to them. They sound like something really happened, and in that moment, something happened, and it's a special moment. That's really how jazz works too. The way you describe experiences that pass through time, or things that arise over time, and the creative process as a way to capture those moments, was beautifully captured in the conveyor belt analogy.

I'll just read it. Be aware of the assumption that your way of working is the best just because you've done it before. Maybe you could elaborate a little more on that. I mean, we want to have mechanisms and routines that we can trust. Yes. But this, I believe, is an important warning . Yes. When something works, it's easy to fall into the illusion that it's the only or only right way to do things. It's just one way, and it just worked that time. This is important when you get advice from people who have more experience than you.

The advice they give you is not based on your life or experiences, but on their lives and experiences, which have completely different data than yours. So, maybe they are giving you good advice, but maybe it is good advice for them and not for you. I think it's quite difficult to even understand what's right for ourselves. And if we somehow figure out what suits us, we'll be happy, but we'll still wonder: I wonder if this is the only way. Maybe there's an even better way that we're not thinking of.

I forget the exact title of the section, but there is a section on how to be alert for clues. Yes. Do you think there are clues everywhere? Yes, I think clues are everywhere if we pay attention. We will hear a phrase, it will trigger a thought, we will see something unexpected, or if someone recommends something, maybe it is a coincidence. If three people recommend the same thing to you, it may not be a coincidence. I believe that the universe is on the side of creativity. And the universe helps make everything happen.

And it could happen because of you or because of someone else. So, if you're careful, maybe it will happen because of you. Faith is a huge part of the conversation about everything in the world. You know, what we believe in has power. If we believe we can create something great, the chances of it happening are higher than if we don't believe it. So I would say that any opportunity to use your faith to your advantage is very beneficial. You make it clear : although our own abilities are sometimes questioned, you believe that the elements for creativity exist.

Certainly. All these elements are already here. Everything is here. We can choose. A conveyor belt moves past us with small gifts. First we should notice that this is a conveyor. Then we notice the gifts, and that becomes the starting point. And then we might even feel...... enough strength to grab one of the gifts, open it, and see what's inside. And then, maybe, this will be the beginning of something truly beautiful. Everything I create or have created has always been based on something I see or hear, and that allows me to see something I hadn't noticed before.

So I wanted to ask you if being happy is important for creativity, but certainly many unhappy people have been able to create as well. But the more I listen to you, it seems like it all comes down to the ability to be attentive. Yes. So whether I'm happy or not is perhaps not as important as whether I'm able to avoid distractions. Yes. I would say that the ability to stay engaged in the work is probably the most important part of it. And how you feel is less important, unless your feelings prevent you from experiencing what your work gives you.

I want to ask you about another aspect of the process—meditation. How would you define meditation? Well, there are different types of meditation. Usually we either use a mantra, which is a kind of creating a trance for ourselves, similar to how we listen to something before bed to distract our conscious mind. It's as if we are drowning out our internal dialogue with a sound we create, a word, a phrase, a series of phrases, or we are focusing on our breathing. But the purpose of focusing on the breath is not to hear that inner voice that we usually have.

These are the one-pointed concentration exercises I mentioned. Another version is mindfulness meditation, where you close your eyes and simply be present . There is no story here, no interpretations, nothing like that. Almost like a review of everything that arises at the moment of emergence, and you do this over a period of time. But in all of these cases, whether it's mindfulness meditation , or mantra, or focusing on the breath, in none of them am I thinking, in none of them am I concentrating—I'm just being aware of sensory perceptions in one case or, in other meditations, practicing not thinking about anything else.

There is also what is called the surgical series from the Monroe Institute, which I used when I had surgery. You listen to this recording and it allows your body to heal faster and eliminate some of the trauma that occurs when you, you know, get cut. This is traumatic. But just by listening to certain things, you can, uh, really have a powerful effect. Recover much faster. I remember I had to go into surgery under anesthesia, my eyes were closed, I didn't talk to anyone because I was lost in myself, and my wife was there when they came in and said, "Oh, uh , Rick has already been sedated because he's ready to be taken." Should I give him something ?

"He says, 'But look at his numbers.' He says, ' I can't.' I love that. I love that you're so eager to share what you do and your experiences, and I just want to thank you for being such an incredible guide and such a great friend. Thank you. I love you. I'm so happy to be here with you, and every day I see you is a good day. Mutually.

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