While most of us were awash in wrapping paper on Christmas Day, Rick Rubin was dropping some serious gems on Andrew Huberman's Huberman Lab podcast.

Rubin published a best-selling book in 2023 called The Creative Act: A Way of Being which focused primarily on what has made him so successful. Thus, he dove into similar topics during his over two-hour appearance on the podcast.

Below, we've compiled five nuggets that we think will support you in whatever venture you're seeking to excel at in 2024.

On the question of worth

We don't make these things for an outcome. It's not the mindset to make something great. The outcome happens, you're making the best thing you can make. It's a devotional practice. Whatever happens after that happens, and that part that happens after it is completely out of your control. Putting any energy into that part that's out of your control is a waste of time. All it does is undermine your work. Your work is to make the best thing you can. So any thought you have about outcome undermines the whole thing.

On business

I honestly have no idea how it works. I have no clue. Everything seems to get done, but I have no idea in the inner workings of any of it. I try to stay out of as much... If it's not about making the beautiful thing in the moment, I don't really want to think about it too much. I don't want to be involved in that aspect.

On moving on from an idea

I would say there are many ideas that have not yet come to fruition, but I wouldn't say I've abandoned any. It seems like the ideas have a time when they want to come to fruition. Regardless of what I think, I don't get to determine the calendar. The ideas come, I can get excited about it, I can work on it, and then hit a wall. Nothing else and nothing. It's just impenetrable. Then there'll be another project that's just sailing along easily and the universe is working to help support that idea. I tend to work with there are several balls in the air at once, and I don't fight against... If the universe is not helping a project, I'm wary to fight with the universe.

On technology

I love that all the information is at our fingertips. Sometimes having so much information is hard to sort. I'll tell you a quick story, which was when the music streaming revolution happened. I was really excited. The idea that all of music is in my pocket now, and I can listen to any song, any album from any point in my life where I get to hear about something and it's all accessible right now in this moment. I was thinking at that time, I'm just going to DJ. All I'm going to do is DJ and I'm going to listen to anything I can think of that I'm excited about. I haven't heard the Talking Heads in a while. Let's listen to Talking Heads. Just how great that freedom is to have everything at your fingertips. What I came to learn very quickly is I don't want to DJ all day. I love that I have the ability to DJ all day. I love that when there's something I want to hear, I can find it. But I don't want to have to do the work of picking everything I'm going to listen to. I like being programmed to.

On creativity

I would say there's a part in the process early on where it is before it can get organized, where it's free and it's playful and it can be chaotic. It's just not the... It's a byproduct of whatever is happening. It's good because it's chaotic and it just happens to be sometimes chaotic in that experiment in the beginning where we're really playing with this idea of having fun and creating stimulation and seeing how it makes us feel. We could try wacky things to get there. But then when it happens, when you get that feeling of like, Oh, this is interesting. I haven't seen this before, then it gets more controlled. But it starts in a very free place. I don't know if I would really use the word chaotic, but it could be. It certainly wouldn't be wrong. I would say more free would be the word. Free. Like no expectation and total immersion in an improvisation that you're participating in that can go wherever it wants to go, and you're cool allowing it to go wherever it wants to go. Sometimes when it goes somewhere dangerous, that's when it gets interesting. I can understand that, that danger aspect.