Listen to yourself

Record producer and author Rick Rubin was consistently advised not to produce many of the bands and records that he is now famous for having produced.

He discussed this in his recent podcast with Andrew Huberman:

“I’ve been told with every new thing that I’ve done, ‘It’s a terrible idea and it won’t work’ — every single time…when I went from producing rap records to producing Slayer, [they said] ‘you can’t do that, you’re a rap producer, it’s going to be terrible don’t do it’. Or [with] Johnny Cash, ‘you can’t do that, you’re a metal rap producer, it’s going to be terrible don’t do it’.”

He did it anyway.

And by the standards of many music fans it wasn’t terrible — quite the opposite actually, the work was great.

It can be valuable to seek advice from others, and when people go out of their way to offer it, it is often given with good intentions.

Yet, in the crowd of all these voices is also your voice that is worth advocating for — you might know this voice by other names, like a “gut feeling” or “intuition”.

Part of being true to yourself is giving your voice the weight it deserves and having the courage to actually listen to it.