“Did you ever tap into something that you feel is bad in you to win?” That’s a question Donald Glover asks in this interview, before confessing that he made one of his most popular songs because he felt a drive to prove somebody wrong.

In response, LeBron James says that he not only uses negative energy—sometimes, he actively seeks it out. If he doesn’t sleep well before a game, he will look in the crowd for a hater. That gives him the burst of energy he needs to play.

“For me, creating things is about finding a place for feelings that would otherwise interfere with ordinary life,” Questlove writes in his book, Creative Quest. “Those could be feelings of aggression. They could be feelings of depression. For me, those are two common ones, and they’re not feelings that I want to dominate my ordinary life, which is why they work so well as an engine for making things.” 

When Robert Greene wrote a book with 50 Cent, he saw 50 do the same thing. “I also learned from 50 his sense of being connected to the streets, of his anger, which he felt very deeply,” Robert says. “He had a lot of anger in him about other rappers, about how he had been treated by certain people. He channeled it into his work and he made it something you feel in his songs and his music. I learned in creating my books prior to working with 50, but certainly since then, to not be afraid of that anger, and to put it in there and to express it in my writing and in all the work that I do.”

Don’t run away from these feelings—find a place for them.