The secret to creativity: 90% of success is creativity - clip from Lex Fridman Podcast #465 with Robert Rodriguez. Guest bio: Robert Rodriguez is a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sin City, El Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Alita: Battle Angel, The Faculty, and his newest venture Brass Knuckle Films.

So this is my other trick. And this is the main thing you gotta learn about. If you take any away, this isn't me doing it. I totally believe it. Because when you start doing this, you go, where are these answers coming from? I'm asking the right question, but how come the answers just keep coming like this? I believe, because I do so many different jobs, I've learned this over the years. I remember when I was in 2002, I was like, how is it that I'm the production designer, the composer, which I don't even know how to read or write music, and I'm writing orchestral score, and I'm doing the editing, and I'm doing the cinematography. I haven't been trained for any of these. I never went to school for these specifically. Must be something about creativity. So I went on Amazon, it's 2002, and I look up creative books. Anything that has creativity in the title, I just ordered it. And I've got a bunch of books on creativity. And I was reading them through. One of them was like really speaking to me. Yeah, that's it, that's the process. And then it says gels and mediums, and I'm like, oh, this is a book specifically about painting. But it applies to music, editing, cinematography, writing, it's all the same. So that's when I realized that creativity is 90% of any of those jobs. The technical part of setting up the cameras, of writing a script in format, or reading or writing music, that's 10% of that. How many musicians don't read or write music and they're fantastic? It's because 90% of what they do is creative. Now, I believe that that same person, even if they only do music, could literally jump from job to job creatively and do a superior job than most technicians. And there's also something to say there about the learning, the technical aspects of an art. You collide with the experts. What happens is, I've experienced this a lot with using cameras and so on. I don't know shit about cameras. And you roll in, and there's all the experts almost talking down to you and telling you how things are supposed to be. Everything is wrong. I talked to somebody about soundproofing a room, and they said, they gave me prices that are insane, and the amount of effort is insane, and the geometry, the dynamics of this room are all wrong. I'm like, why can't I just fucking hang up some curtains? It seems like that kills most of the echo. I don't understand. And they're like, no, this is all wrong. The corners are gonna have some, and I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna try, and I'm gonna see what it sounds like, A and B. Okay, here's audio with curtains, here's audio without curtains. Seems like this is fine. Move on to the next thing. I think that when you say creativity, some of that is being a rebel, not listening to the experts. Yeah, well, you're going on your creativity, which is, what is that? Do you consider yourself a creative person? I think you play guitar. Yeah, guitar, piano, yeah, everything. You play piano, but would you call yourself a creative person? Yeah, I think so. Good, you should. I think that's a positive way to phrase it. I would just suggest to anybody is just own it, own it, and just say, when I do so many different jobs, it sounds crazy when they would introduce me. Hey, Robert, he does this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I was like, I get tired just hearing that list, but when I think about it, there's really only one thing I do, and I live a creative life, and when you live a creative life, that means anything that has to do with creativity, whether it's filming, or piano, or guitar, or sculpting, you can just, you can do it. You can take it on and do it, because it teaches you more about your main job. I become a better director by doing all those jobs, because when somebody just does one job, they barely know that job. You have to do more to learn about creativity, and this is the main thing I learned, was that I'm writing music for an orchestra. I'm like, how did I, I don't even know what I'm doing. Why is that coming up? 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, 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, and 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. Yes, I asked Jimmy Vaughn, how do you play guitar? I did 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 gonna 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, and I learned this when I was 19, when I had a daily cartoon strip. I had to draw a comic strip every day to get paid, and I would be like, I'd have to draw one drawing, draw another drawing, and then it's like, okay, these kind of go together. It was a process, and sometimes I just felt like, I wish I could just envision it, sit back. I'm gonna try that method. I went home, and I would sit back, and just try to get in my sofa, try the sofa method. I'm just gonna try to picture the comic strip, and then as soon as I got one that I think is funny, then I'll just go draw that, be done in a half hour. Why waste three hours? I'd sit there, sit there, sit there. My deadline would be coming up. Got like 30 minutes. I'm like, oh, shit. Gotta go sit and draw it out, and it's like, oh, okay, I got this drawing. Oh, this kind of goes with that. If I make another drawing, I have my strip. That's the only way to do it. If you don't get up, the creative spirit ain't gonna come visit you if you're doing this. It needs your hands, and it's not gonna fucking reward you for sitting there waiting for it. You have to jump in and do it, and people, when they say, oh, well, I'm not ready, how pissed off is that spirit now? It's waiting for you to feel like you're ready. It's not you. Just start doing the action, and it's gonna come through, and the ideas will come, and the answers will come because it's not you. If you can take your ego out of like, you'll be blessed with this never-ending flow of ideas because don't take ownership for it, and know that if it's not coming out, it's because you're just clogging it because this thing's got endless ideas. And you give that same advice for making films, which is don't plan, if you wanna be a filmmaker, don't plan the movie. Don't think about making the movie. Just go in and start. Yeah, I would meet a lot of people who introduce themselves as aspiring. I'm an aspiring filmmaker, and I wonder how, what would you tell an aspiring filmmaker? I'd say, stop aspiring. Because if you call yourself that, you are that, and you're always gonna feel like you're not ready. And you don't, you just jump in before you're ready. You don't feel like you're ready till, I didn't feel like I was ready to do mariachi till I was probably in my last few days of filming. You became ready as you went. You didn't know all that stuff. I couldn't have figured all that out in advance. When my kids worked with me on a project that we did similar, by the end, they realized, they did an interview with my son, who after just two weeks of doing one of those projects, you're a different person. He's suddenly waxing philosophical about the creative process and going, I never knew how my dad did mariachi until we did this project together. And I realized he didn't know either. He didn't know how he was gonna do it. He figured it out day by day. Every challenge that got thrown at him, he had to figure it out. And that's the biggest lesson. Most people never start. And that's the biggest thing. Don't wait till you're ready or they'll be on your tombstone. Here lies so-and-so. He was never ready. And you don't wanna be that guy. Jump in. No, it's not you. You just gotta be the hands. And that relieves a lot of pressure from you because then you don't have to ever have to do anything. Really, you just have to be the hands.