ReMaster

On March 7, 1987, the Beastie Boys' album “Licensed To Ill” became the first rap album to top the music charts. The group’s lawyer called their producer Rick Rubin and asked, “You have the No. 1 album in the world—how does it feel?” After a few seconds of silence, Rick said, “I've never felt worse in my whole life.” Rubin was 23 years old when his dream of having a No. 1 album came true. Previous to that point, on and off, he experienced varying symptoms of depression. During low moments, he would think about one day achieving his dream, and that thought gave him hope. “When that happens,” he'd think, “this hole inside me—whatever it is inside me that makes me feel bad—will go away.” When the day came, Rubin was overwhelmed with a feeling of hopelessness because... “The thing that I’d been waiting for my whole life, the thing that was going to fill that hole inside me, had happened, and I didn’t feel any better. The hole was still there.” Takeaway 1: Many rich, award-winning, celebrated people talk about chasing money, awards, or recognition, getting it, and realizing that it didn't feel like they thought it would. That it didn't, as Rick said, fill the hole inside them. “Most people who are really driven to achieve something,” Rick explains, “are doing it because they think it’s going to satisfy something in them. Yet most worldly things tend not to be so satisfying.” Takeaway 2: If not worldly things—awards, money, celebrity, etc.—what should we strive for? What actually is satisfying? In his book “The Creative Act,” as well as in interviews, Rick talks about anchoring your satisfaction and your sense of success to the work itself. “Success isn't about popularity, money, or crtical esteem,” he says. “Success has nothing to do with variables outside yourself...All that matters is the work itself. Success occurs when you've done all you can to bring out the work's greatest potential.” There's a word for being someone who gets their satisfaction from the work itself: Autotelic. From the Greek "auto" (self) & "telos" (end)—an Autotelic is "someone or something that has a purpose in, and not apart from, itself." As opposed to someone who focuses on having a No. 1 album or other worldly things—for an Autotelic... “The work is the win,” as Ryan Holiday once told me. Since you control the work itself more than how it’s received, Ryan said, “Ultimately, you have to love doing it. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra.” - - - “He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.” — Robert Henri Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!