Give Your Ego A Break

“And this is the main thing I learned was that I’m writing music for an orchestra. I’m like, “I don’t even know what I’m doing. Why is that coming out?” I don’t feel like I’m doing it. I feel like I picked up the pen. I feel like I had the idea to do the cards, but then when everything just starts coming out so quickly, like that’s how fast I wrote that movie. I go, I really feel like something else has taken over. So this is what my belief is, because I hear it in different realms. You ask Keith Richards, “How do you come up with these riffs?” He goes, “I don’t. I don’t. They’re floating around the sky and I pull them out first.” You ask asked Jimmie Vaughan, “How do you play guitar, those solos?” He goes, “It’s like a radio. Once you get a tune just right, you can’t even believe what’s coming through.

So I believe, I call it the creative spirit. There’s a spirit assigned to all of us that’s creative, that doesn’t have hands. It needs you to pick up the pen, pull out the cards, and then when you start getting in the flow and you’re like, “Whoa,” it’s writing. That’s that. And if you can have that mindset, you take your ego out of it and go, “All I need to do is be a good conduit for this thing. Be a good pipe and it’s going to come through.” So you don’t ever have to get hung up on that question you had. Well, what happens when you can’t come up… It wasn’t me to begin with. If it’s not coming out, it’s because I’m blocking it and if I were to do this and I’m flowing, and if I were to say, “Wow, I just wrote 10 cards. I don’t know if I can write more. How did I do that?” You just shut the pipe because your ego got in the way. You just clogged it because it gets pissed off that you think it’s you. It’s not you. It’s like, “Dude, just open up. Let me through, pick up the fucking pen.” -Robert Rodriguez, excerpt from his podcast interview with Lex Fridman

Give your ego a break.

YOU didn’t make it.

Instead you got out of the way and let it happen.

That’s the secret. (Put you do have to sit down at the desk and pick up the pen.)

Listen to this phenomenal podcast interview with Robert Rodriguez. It’s quite possibly the most inspiring and greatest lesson on creativity you will ever hear in your life. (H/t to my friend Ron for bringing it to my attention.)