To be fair, this is all anyone can do, speak from their own experience. It is difficult to generalize to the entire population because there is too much variety in experience, life, circumstance, wealth, health, etc. The self help genre is littered with books that only apply to 5% of the world’s population.
I always bristle when I hear people talking about how easy it is to choose to do something different.
Before anyone dares to suggest we all have the same choices available to us, they really need to think pretty hard about opportunities and access.
When everyone has the same access to opportunities, then I’ll listen to how we are all the masters of our own destiny.
I mean, if we all listened to Rick, then no-one would ever have been a coal miner, or a fucking toilet attendant or a fucking binman. I guess it must be all their fault that they’re not all millionaire record producers.
Sorry, I’ve not really anything against Rubin, he’s done some great things over the years, but that video was some grade A bullshit.
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I don’t generally listen to podcasts but someone recommended Huberman to me and found that he has a lot of great information in his pieces.
I think the guy means well and shares with us what he believes and what worked/works for him. If you think his call to invest your energy into something you enjoy equals encouragement for you to try and become a famous pop musician that’s on you. If you take his word as gospel that’s on you. Here’s a guy who’s telling us what worked and works for him, my first impulse is to say “thank you for sharing” - what comes after is up to me.
I don’t believe in the “follow your dream” gospel, for one because I don’t believe that “dreams” are neceesarily much better than lived reality, but also because for many of us, our “dreams” tend to be wildly naive and predominately not even our own, ie injected into us by pop culture and media. I mean how many kids’ dream is it to become a “football player” a “famous musician” a “movie star” etc…it’s bullshit. I wanted to be a professional basketball player as a teenager, spent most of my energy to get there, got there sort of, had to quit due to injuries and later realised that dream was actually more a social idea I took on for myself than “my own deepest-to-self-true dream.”
That said, each of us is responsible for themselves, obviously, so it’s my job to apply some intelligence to the advice I receive, test it, learn from it, and make up my own mind eventually. We alone are responsible for the teachers we choose to “follow” / the advice we choose to take.
I think his message is overall a fairly positive one, including the one in contention, even if I don’t love the wording of it. In essence he’s telling us “dare to follow your inclenations” — I think that’s great advice in a society where by the age of 17 you have to decide “what you are going to be” and most education is focussed on fitting in and functioning in accordance to expectations rather than truly enabling exploration of mind, body and world snd self - which Rick Rubin is mostly asking us to do.
I had a precariate background, left home at the age of 15, lived on the streets for a while…and certainly in those moments of hardship I was nourished and encouraged by those who advised me to not give up, face my fears, dare something new or different and meet life so luck could strike me too. Now will this work for everyone? Certainly not. But it’s much better advice in my book than something along the lines of “you’re in a difficult situation? Well guess what buddy, life sucks and you’re fucked so just try to not completely lose your shit and that’ll be good enough.” Not to say that “good enough” is not “good enough” but I don’t feel Rick Rubin ever says that, he just tells you “if you don’t feel right or good where you are, dare to make changes.”
I think it’s partially also confirmation bias (since we’re talking bias) to push this sort of simple yet challenging message aside, along the lines of “I’ve already made up my mind that this is the best I can do so don’t mess with my arrangement here.”
Now how each of us lives their life is up to each individual alone, but it’s worth mentioning that “sufficing” is also not much “saner”, more “realist”, more “honest”, more satisfying life advice — it also just can be mad cowardly and disrespectful towards one own talents and faculties.
Should you bet your house on your new track breaking through and making you the star of the next Super Bowl half time show? I wouldn’t advise it. On the flipside though be aware, as my wife says so beautifully, if you defend your limitations, you’ll get to keep them.
Balancing those two extremes is up to each of us, not Rick Rubin.
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I’m sure it’s a quote from elsewhere originally, but I remember it from the book, “Illusions the Adventures of a reluctant Messiah”
It’s a good one indeed
I hear it as, Argue for your limitations and they are yours to keep.
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Steps to success in the world of art, music, literature and film -
- Be born into FU money. You should have a trust fund but appear as one of the normies by wearing ratty jeans and driving a modest car. Remain unkempt at all times.
- Springboard off the considerable social capital you were born with. Your uncle is a pop music producer with a dozen grammys and platinum releases. Your father is a senior partner at a well known international law firm. You have connections to gallery owners and publishers thanks to exclusive social clubs that your parents are members of.
- Profit.
- Enjoy the self made fruits of your labors and be sure to speak freely on how it’s the risk averse, inept and lazy that are holding themselves back.
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So you’re suggesting that before getting annoyed with someone’s advice enough to tell them to f off, we should first check to see if they’ve offered advice elsewhere that’s not problematic? Seems a wee bit silly to me.
Communication theory 101. Nothing particularly insightful there.
To be fair and put things in perspective, I don’t hate the guy. He’s good at what he does. But dishing up rubbish advice deserves to called out.
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Talk about “your process” and how you’re only doing you and just trying to do what you’re “feelin’”
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Thank God first and foremost for being your top producer during your Grammy acceptance speech
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What I think is at the core of his message is that each person has unique gifts and talents and can live in a way that embraces creativity. A life well lived is being the most authentic version of yourself, and when you do that, you and the world at large, are better off. Each person is responsible for creating their own life and if there are elements of your life that are no longer serving you, it is up to you to make changes to improve your circumstances. I don’t think he’s advocating for dropping all responsibilities and running away from your problems, but more emphasizing the importance of listening to yourself and having the courage to stand up and walk your own path.
At least that’s my takeaway.
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Rick Rubin, an overweight nerd who found success and produced some great music… Well, I’m happy for the guy. I guess he could be more like Brian Eno and bitch about all the people that shouldn’t be making music. But, whatever…
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There seems to be a wealthy advice industry around. Good advices seem to have become big business in the social media world. It’s not just the big names preaching the do-what-you-feel-is-right and follow-your-passion pihlosophies. But also so many youngsters preaching the way to success, wealth and happiness these days. There are more gurus than adepts on instagram these days.
The same rings true for the music biz, so many preaching the right way to mix, to listen, to synth, to success etc. These good advices have become inflationary. And especially when big names, such as Rick Rubin start to preach it’s got some strange flavour. Don’t get me wrong, definitely appreciate the guys work and records. But the follow-your-dreams philosophy is often built on luck, chance and solid advantages. And it has to be seen in the context of its time. These days are nothing like the 80s anymore - both socially and musically.
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Never heard of him, had to look him up.
And that’s why I am going to fake my death also.
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It worked for her…well, sort of.
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Its not a new message. " if your life sucks, change it" . Lots have said it. However, as said numerous times in this thread already, not everyone has the same access to options that will let them do that.
Its easy to tell people that message if you were fortunate enough to have access to options that let you change your situation. But if you dont, that advice is useless, and insulting.
Edit: dont mind Rubin as a producer. Couldnt get past 3 Mins of that video. Regurgitated pay per guru yoghurt weaving nonsense.
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I mean that’s sort of the individualist-meritocracy in a nutshell.
He’s absolutely talented, but little of the advice he provides is grounded in our experiential.
He’s excellent as a facilitator, and the advice he gives is tuned towards you already being at the place where you approach him in his home studio.
Adages like that are not really “advice” so much as attempts to justify success and failure based on that same survivorship bias, and/or to instill very podcast-y influencer-y feelings of power without direction.
You could stop there too! 
I like the weft of your whey.
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People in fortunate situations are perhaps not the best to advise others on how to escape their less-fortunate situations. This doesn’t mean that they haven’t worked hard or been brave, or have nothing to offer by describing their journey etc., but come on. Serendipity always features.
Now trying to think of the made-it’s who still talk to regular joes on equal footing, and I can only think of Dolly Parton. I guess success gives egos too much power.
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Some people are talented and lucky.
Some people are talented and unlucky.
Some people are untalented and lucky.
Some people are untalented and unaware.
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This reminds me of the time I had a minimum wage zero hour contract shit job for a few years and couldn’t make ends meet half of the time. I sent out tons of application letters but wasn’t even invited for a meeting in 99% of the cases.
At the time I once talked to someone I knew and asked her for advice on finding a job which would support me, and she asked me: well what kind of job would you like to do? I told her i’d be happy with basically any job which offered some guarenteed hours so my income would be sufficient each month.
She then told me that I would just have to figure out what I wanted to do, and that after that, this job would just come along after a while. After being weirded out by this reaction I started to understand that life really had been that way for her, her social connections and financial support system had allowed her to just figure things out and start a job she liked through one or her parents’ friends after deciding that would be the thing she wanted to do.
She sincerely believed my problem was not knowing what I wanted to do, instead of there just not being any jobs that would hire me. The whole idea of just deciding to do what you’re passionate about is such a priviledged concept. Anyone who thinks they ‘made it’ because they were smart enough to figure this out is impicitly saying anyone who has a shit job has no one to blame but themselves.
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