FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
Become arrogant. Make others gossip about you. Break social rules. Be unapologetic about your actions. Act from your highest will. Remain hopeful no matter what. Walk like you own the place. Move like a winner. Rest because you deserve it. Get things because you want them.
Reality responds to those who live as if they already have the things they’ve always wanted.
Hard work is a lie.
Let reality bend to your will.
Rick Rubin on why "less is more" is harder than it sounds:
"If you're stacking a lot of things on top of each other, each one of those things becomes less important. So if you have 10 things, each one of them is one-tenth as important as one by itself."
That's why reducing is harder than building.
Rick explains: "If you're making something and you want the least amount involved, those things have to be really critically curated because they're doing the work of everything and nothing is hidden."
Then he gives the example that makes the whole idea land... Guitars.
"A lot of recordings are made where a guitarist plays and then they double it and triple it and they create this wall of guitars. And when there's a wall of guitars, you hear guitar, but you don't hear someone playing guitar. You just hear guitar. It becomes more generic."
The alternative is the version most producers won't commit to:
"When one person plays it and you can hear their fingers on the strings, it's got more personality, it's more human. And I tend to look for those things where the singular essence shows through."
The lesson sits underneath almost everything Rick has made.
Stacking is safer. Doubling and tripling hides the player, smooths the edges, and lets you avoid choosing.
But it also strips out the thing that makes the work feel like it came from a specific human being.
The personality lives in the parts you can hear fingers on, the parts that weren't covered up.
Less is more, but only if you're willing to do the harder work of curating ruthlessly enough that every remaining element earns its place.