A Bit of Optimism - Matthew McConaughey on How to Fall Back in Love with Your Life

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

In a world defined by constant change, reinvention isn’t optional - it’s essential. We often assume reinvention comes from bold leaps or lucky breaks, but actor and author Matthew McConaughey’s story suggests a quieter approach can be far more powerful.In this episode, Matthew joins me to explore the inner practices that have shaped both his life and his legendary career in Hollywood. From stepping away from romantic comedies at the height of his success to sitting with uncertainty when there were no guarantees on the other side, Matthew shares how learning to get comfortable with discomfort empowered the most meaningful reinventions of his life. At the center of our conversation is curiosity - self-curiosity. Matthew reflects on decades of journaling as a way to notice patterns, stay honest, and make sense of moments that feel unclear. Rather than avoiding discomfort, he learned to treat it as information to study, learn from, and eventually act on.We talk about what it takes to stay relevant without losing yourself, why reinvention often requires carrying the risk before anyone else believes in the outcome, and how self-curiosity can become a compass when the path forward isn’t obvious.Matthew also shares how these ideas come to life in his newest book, Poems & Prayers - a collection of reflections shaped by presence, patience, and the courage to keep asking better questions.If you’re navigating change, questioning your direction, or looking to grow while remaining true to yourself, this conversation offers a grounded and thoughtful path forward.This is… A Bit of Optimism.---------------------------To check out Matthew’s new book Poems & Prayers, head to: http://www.poemsprayers.com---------------------------

I found a journal and entry I wrote the other day that I said, my life has been more getting comfortable with what I was, getting comfortable today with what I was uncomfortable with yesterday than changing what I was uncomfortable with yesterday. Let's double-click that because that's great. It's about getting comfortable with what you were uncomfortable with rather than changing the thing that makes you uncomfortable. Yeah.

When you have that sort of resilience, you're a repeat offender. You keep stepping in the same pile of shit, and you get up and dust yourself off. instead of ever stopping to go, why do I keep stepping in that same pile? What do you do when you're really good at something and your career is thriving as a result? Except you're really bored or have completely fallen out of love with it. That was Matthew McConaughey's challenge. He was Mr. Romcom for years.

And as much as he wanted to change, both his agent and audiences couldn't imagine him doing anything else. And so the offers never came. Instead of doing what most of us would have done, continuing to make the money and enjoying the success, he had the courage to simply stop. He started to say no to all the wrong offers, and he was determined to wait for the right one, no matter how long it took.

How did he find that courage? The secret is, McConaughey knows himself so well that the pivot was an easy choice. The question I wanted to answer is, how can the rest of us have that same clarity? And the answer? may surprise you. McCona Hay has actually been journaling since he was a teenager, and all those private pages that he wrote eventually became public, in his first book, Green Lights,

and again in his new book, poems and prayers. And the lesson all of his work teaches us is that when we have to make a hard pivot in our lives, it's actually much harder to do in the moment. And instead of waiting for them to happen, we can start preparing for them today. This is a bit of optimism. One of the things that fascinates me about you so much is a couple things. One, in an industry where you're only as popular as your last thing you did. You know, products on a shelf that everybody loves you while your product is selling and then you sort of, you disappear. Your ability to sustain a career for as long as you have is incredible. But also, you have a curiosity that takes you in different directions and you sort of

you're doing all these different things and people are still interested in what you're doing and you have something to share. Is that your personality or is that a strategy? Ooh. God, I think both. Subjectively, yeah, it's my personality.

I'm telling the same story in different ways. I mean, there's a through line to all the things I do. They are definitely under some form of just keep living what the hell else we're going to do. Is it a strategy? sure, am I objective enough to look at myself in times and go, hey, what are you doing? What do you want to do?

Is what you're doing is how it's being perceived? It's what you thought was going to translate, translate. And those don't always add up. So as much as I strategize and make plans, I mean, I've had hits that I thought were not going to be. I've got, you know, my favorite poem or favorite song, whatever thing that move every day. Not necessarily always everyone else's favorite.

You know, if I'm more popular, or less popular now, but I will say this. I admire the people that like my shit more now than I used to. You know what I mean? Like the people who go, ah, dig that McCona.

I have a great respect, more respect for more of them now in my life than say I did earlier when maybe I was even more popular. Because the work is better? Well, I think, because I think my work's better. Yeah.

where maybe it's not giving just what people may want. Some people were going like, oh, no, that's what I want, but that's also, that's a need. There you go. Like that. Okay. I think my work has gotten better, I hope, yeah. Does age have something to do with it?

You know, I think of like Hugh Grant, for example, right? Like, Hugh Grant was the pretty boy in all of the... Rom-coms. I took the baton from him. In all the rom-coms. But at some point, you age out of that. You know, like, you can't be the cute boy anymore because you're just too old to be the cute boy.

And now he's like a serious actor. He's a great bad guy. You know, he plays a lot of bad guys now. He plays a lot of complex characters now. And he's like, he plays like real people. He's not just playing the same character over and again. And I wonder if it's just because he aged out of that and now he's having fun. Is age a factor for you as well?

Yeah. Interest. Confidence. It means more to me, less objectivity, being less objective about, oh, what is it? Maybe I should give them that they want.

I've tried that. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't know the formula on that. So when I have gone, no, no, no. Do I have a real reason for one of this? Would I do this for not a dollar?

Is this going to be the greatest experience in my life? Is this my favorite movie project book? Whatever I've ever worked on my life is my last one? Yes. If I'm there, a lot of times it works out. And if it doesn't sort of financially translate into a hit or something, I'm like,

so what? The experience I had it meant to me. It's all my greatest hits. It's on my, you know. So is it age? I think you customized. Look, the 40s, the decade of the 40s were my favorite. That was a customizing decade.

I hear it is for many men. You know, that's where I was like, 30s were getting rid of things that didn't feed me. 40s were leaning into the things that did and evolving and helping those get more mature and clear for me. And then Hugh, I don't know Hugh well enough, but I know he's got a crackling sense of humor. He'd probably say something like, well, I don't know if I grew out of those rom-coms. I'd say I'm just playing roles that are more like who I really am now. I would guess he would have some sort of comment like that, you know.

Oh, that was acting. Right, exactly. This is the real Hugh. The reason this line of questioning really fascinates me is because most of us are told to, you know, depending on your point of view, pursue passion, pursue talent, pursue, you know, work hard, whatever the thing is. But at some point, for whatever reason, whatever your initiation is you get good at something. And that getting good at something opens up more opportunity, gets you a promotion,

makes you recognize for that thing. But then at some point, it's not that it peter principles out. it's that it gets boring. And I see this amongst very successful people, which is they're good at making a movie, they get good at making the deal, they know how to produce. But they've kind of seen it all and done it all.

And though they're good at it, if you dig down deep, they're actually incredibly bored. And they either have golden handcuffs and the money is too good or the power's too good for them to make a shift, or what's more common is just fear, which is I can't start again.

And this is again where I find you fascinating. And I don't know if it's courage or foolhardiness or boredom or curiosity. But I think we have a lot to learn from you because you have reinvented yourself or added more arrows to the quiver as you've gone, which a lot of people can't do, not even don't do, but can't do. Right. Look, I will say this. I know I have a instinct to, if I put something out there, and if it becomes a hit, if it becomes popular, if it becomes like, oh, that's a part of the vernacular.

My instinct is to weave. Let's, oh, whee. So when all right, all right, all right becomes a thing, you're like, goodbye. Well, I'm goodbye, like, but I also understand, like Bruce Springsteen, I'm going to give you born the USA. in the encore, bro. I'm going to give you the hit. I understand the hit for what it is.

Some of my hits like that, I'll go, I'm not going to be arrogant enough to steal that low-hanging fruit from somebody if they want to say that. Because personally, it's the first three words ever said in film when I thought I was going to be working on a hobby on a film set in Austin, Texas in 1992. It turned out to be a career 37 years later.

So I'm not going to boohoo that damn thing. Right. And plus, I know the author. You know what I mean? So when I go work with somebody else creative, They'll want to go, hey, can you do, or someone writes a script for me to go, hey, can you introduce something?

They'll always put, all right, all right, all right in front of it. Or they'll go like, hey, maybe in this skit, you can do that. Uh-huh. And I'll, I'm constantly to go, no, no, no, I got new, I got, I'm not gonna rely on, I got new stuff. Or I got original stuff that's not a hit. And I'm just going to try some of that out, rather than go rely on those where I don't really need to.

But if it's coming from somebody else, first, I'll play right into it. and add on to it. It's a tricky thing because I remember in my career, so start with Y was the thing, and everybody just wanted me to do Start with Why. And I loved it and I believed in it and I was passionate about it and I was happy to do it. Then at some point, it's not that I got bored,

it's that I started to feel very disconnected from the work because I've been giving the same talk for so long, but it was not an authentic passion on the stage, even though I believed desperately in the idea I couldn't talk about it anymore. And besides, I had new ideas. And I remember I started to say, I won't do this anymore. I have new stuff. And people were so afraid of me doing new stuff because they're paying money. They want the hit. And so I'd say, I'd like new stuff. And people would say, no. And did you start just answering the question they should have asked? It was a combination of ignoring people. Because once you're on the staging and you have a microphone, it's too late now, right? And it turns out that the new stuff was really good.

so that they were happy. And it was also finding a couple of people who were like, all right, we're entrepreneurial. We'll let you try something new. And the first pivot was the most difficult because other people felt the risk more than I did. Yeah. Because they wanted me to play to the to the thing that they knew me for. Yep. And they had the risk. I was fine with making a pivot. And if I bombed, that's on me. Right. But once I did it once, people were much more comfortable with me trying new stuff in the future. So I guess the question is, is what was the first one that gave people comfort that you can pivot? Like the fear that they had of doing something new with you was excruciating and they couldn't do it. Right. Because they wanted the thing they knew that would work

and you were offering them something that there was no data. You're a rom-com guy. Yeah. You fit a box. Rain of Fire. It's a great, fun story, I'll tell you. So I'm Rom-com King and I get hired Rain of Fire. Dragon Slayer, Postpacolic Olympic London, okay? Well, I decide 4 a.m. that, you know what, Dragon Slayers wouldn't have. And I had good long locks and everything. It wouldn't have long locks. You know, no longer catch on fire. So I'm going to shave my head. Well, I shaved my head. The next day, this is back before phones and people just taking pictures. The next day, paparazzi got me on the street in New York with a shaved head. And it don't have shaved your head, but it can be ugly, the first three shave it. It's stark white and it's got lumps and divvets and stuff.

So I get a note from the finance. Two days later, he says they saw the picture. He goes, I'm going to see this picture where it looks, it seems as though you have a shaved head eye. I'm assuming this is a bald cap. And just to prank you're pulling, because if you didn't fact shave your head for this role, that would be bad karma. I'm like, oh shit, but I'm about to lose the job. How can I save this thing? I go tan my head out by the pool for a week.

I buy a three-piece blue suit and I go to this popping Hollywood party that next Monday night, man. And I'm getting in all the pictures and taking pictures with everybody on purpose looking sharp.

Two days later, those pictures come out in the trades. I look sharp with a bald head. It's tan, beards kind got gold locks in it. All of a sudden, get a call. Love the creative choice of the shaved head. Perfect.

Well, what happened? Somebody, I don't know, some secretary or somebody, go, I think he looks kind of hot. And he went, you do? Okay, I was in. They wanted, they wanted the locks of the romantic, comedy McConaughey. That was it.

And I just bucked it and then kind of out hustled the hustle by going, well, I want to keep the job. And I'm going to, if I can make them think I look, you know, HOT to somebody, their eyes, then I'll keep the job. And it worked. Yeah. Look, and now speaking engagements, I get, you know, I do speaking engagements, I go talk to the companies that are going into a new year.

here's their theme, and they will love to talk about green lights. Well, I put out poems and prayers, and I go, okay, I like talking about a lot of stuff about green lights. And they're true stories. I can tell them for days. The same time, I've got other stories, and I've, even since then, I've got new ones, and I've got new philosophies on life that I'm trying to test and find patterns in for the next book and just philosophy. Well, again, when I said earlier, do you answer questions that they should have asked? I'll come off of the typical greenlight answer that they,

love and give them something new. And it is maybe a little shocking the first time, but I'll test it. You know, you can tell in the audience, did it translate, even though it's the first time they've ever heard it or not what the moderator expected, the da, da, da, da, da, da. And if I pull it off, I start to incorporate that and now of a sudden I'm building a new narrative for what I will talk about and how I will talk about things that are different than they were four years ago. But when, when did the market become comfortable with you doing things that were different and not what they had hoped for or expected? Well, I forced my own hand and thankfully four stairs and they played into it.

Literally, when I took the time off from the rom-coms to go do the dramas. And I didn't know how long I'm not going to get offered. And it went for two years. Right. And then they came back and thought I was a new bright idea for something like a Killer Joe, which was an independent, hard R, almost NC-17 show. But it was an independent that it popped above the level, the waterline. But the point is you had to start with an independent.

Yes. You had it. So this makes sense. So there was somebody where they could pay less money to get a McConaughey. They were willing to take a risk because they'd rather have your name in the trailer than you play a rom-com guy. Like big Hollywood wouldn't take the risk on you. No. They let me back in the independent world and we're like, yeah.

And you know what? We'll pay a fourth of your quote. if you want to do that drama but we ain't touching your quote for the rom-com right and then it was we're not paying your quote

at nothing doesn't matter how low you take but then the independent comes in I happen to be in an interesting story that pops its head a little bit and I go ping the baby bang and it was rapid fire one two three I had that

and two others kind of came out at the same time they weren't all the big successes they were independent but they sort of got their head above the water line, the performance and the movies. They were either, they were just radical. Yep. They were wild little indies that kind of got me in the Spirit Award sort of area, right? Yeah, yeah. And so with that success, I kept going. Then we get some that, well, mud wasn't,

mud was still, not a big studio thing. That was like a $10 million thing. Now as far as a club was something we had had that we shop for $5 million. So yeah, they continued to be independence. As a matter of fact. Yeah. Even then True Detective went back into TV. I, I mean, I don't know if I'm counting this correctly, but there wasn't a big studio film that came back to me. What, Interstellar? I mean, you tell me. Maybe.

I think. That may have been the first big. So now this is really interesting, right? This is really interesting. So which is if somebody has the confidence to pivot a career that the market, your boss, whoever it is is afraid to put you in the new job, Instead of trying to convince the market that they're wrong,

you have to be willing to bear some of the cost of their risk. I think so. And in your case, you bore the risk by going off the market for a while. You bore the risk by dramatically dropping your fee because you knew you couldn't command your old salary for new stuff because no one will take the risk. No one's going to pay your big salary on something they've never seen you do before. but an independent film that wants your name more than anything else will.

And then you said it was a bunch of indies, and then the first big Hollywood director to pick you up, is kind of known for being a risk taker. Yeah, and he did it off of, he said, off of performance in mud, and a risk taker, but on a very large budget, but a director who's got the power to go, this is my choice. And again, my head immediately goes to like Quentin Tarantino, choosing John Travolta.

Right. Basically gave him his career back. And we'd never seen Travolta do a role like that. Right. But you're right. He saw you in mud. And you know what's so funny? This is part of bearing.

This is, I love this. And this is what happened in the Dragon Slayer film. It's what happened here, which is it's people have no imagination, right? There's a reason why we stage a house, which is if you walk into a house and apartment that you want to buy and it's empty, nobody buys it. So they put fake furniture in and they put fake pictures on the wall. Because people have no imagination, you have to do the work for them so that they can see the thing that they think that they're looking for. And I like, I got in trouble when I was selling, because I love art and I've got art everywhere, every

empty space has something in it. And I was told when I was selling my apartment, I had to take stuff off the walls because some of the art was too esoteric and people wouldn't be able to imagine. themselves, that's not their art. Okay. And so what you're doing is you allow the independent filmmaker to take the risk on you, and you're willing to bear the cost, taking less money, doing something that's, quote, unquote, less prestigious. And then you're allowing somebody to, you're staging the house, you're allowing somebody

to see you in a way they've never seen you, and then you get picked up because he saw you in mud. Right. And I'm also, this time, though, Camilla, I was just had our first child. Yeah. And I believe never as man more masculine than right after their first child. I mean, my head and my heart and my loins and instinct were so synchronized. Where if I thought about it, my investments at that time in business and relationships,

my choices for films, my instincts were, bam, I was just going with them. And I was not asking permission. I had an F you attitude about, oh, yeah, watch this. I was like So part of it was I to the studios No, no, wasn't that I was just like, watch this

I'm gonna make you go Tap out, got it, O'Connorah, got it, got it, got it, okay unanimous we got it, geez, another one, oh shit, okay, stop it, no Okay, I tap out, I'm gonna make them tap out What's the balance between confidence and arrogance? I like the balance between certainty and selfishness I'll say this I've always had a I've had a lifelong wrestling match with understanding humility

because as I was raised, maybe it was how humble came across, how I heard it coming across, maybe through the church, that there was a sense of humility for 45 years, my shoulders would draw, and my head would get down when I would be humble, or if I was too high,

we were always brought down the ground on our family about don't be it on your toes. You ever pulled up to a stop sign and you pull up and it's their turn. They were there before you and you pull up and they wait and like, go. And you're like, go. And all of a sudden you're in an interaction,

you're like, your false humility of saying, I'm just going to let everyone go today. You're stopping traffic. You've just taken, given it costs us more time by just, it's gone to have a false modesty. And I would lose confidence in my understanding of humility for 40-something years. So to battle that, I would come out and overcompensate my confidence

into some arrogance to where, I mean, I was more than ego. I was I, I, I'm responsible and I'm doing this, to overcompensate for that false understanding of humility. Until I heard the definition of humility being admitting, we have more to learn. Or someone told me the other day, being extremely honest. And I was like,

oh, now I can grab a hold of that. My shoulders are still back. I understand to be humble. My chin's up. And I admit, I got a whole lot more to learn. And yes, do I love to be in the know? You damn right, I love being in the know.

I also want to be in the know about what I don't know. Now I'm understanding humility where I'm walking and I'm seeing an opportunity. There's the gap. Get it. Bam. Took it. Introduce myself.

Oh, that person meant to this. Two years later, we've written a movie. We're making it together. That's because of that moment. That night where I saw that gap and they were walking out the door and said, I want to talk to the time it about this, bam. Where if I had been that understanding of prior humility, I don't, no, no, no, let me go.

Let me go ahead. We'll cross again. Bob Gaylor, who is the chief master sergeant of the Air Force many years ago, he said, and I love this definition, and it's very consistent with what you said, which is don't confuse humility with meekness. Humility is being open to the ideas of others. Yep. Yeah.

And where did you learn that humility was you have always more to learn? Where did that come from? So much I know in my life, and I think maybe for a lot of people, is our own definition of the word. Yeah. You know, I always was like, wait a minute. Everyone's preaching be humble, but no one likes to be humiliated. There's just words that we malaprop, or each one of us have a different prescriptionist definition,

or our experience of how we grew up with that word meaning. You know, it takes on a different definition. And sometimes I know for me it's just a click. If I can get the right definition, click, oh, and that's not a false definition. That's actually one I can constructively use and go forward. Oh, oh, I get it. I can battle over something for years and be confused and confounded and one little click. What'd you say?

Say that again? Ah, now I get the whole equation. Thank you. This is a great example. these words, you're right. The problem is it's like we're constantly being told by teachers, parents, you know, colleagues, bosses, be humble, you know, be confident, be humble, be confident, be humble. But those words, as you said, they mean shoulders up, shoulders down, shoulders up, shoulders down. And you find yourself playing this silly game, but when you find a definition that

just allows you to manage your behavior appropriately, which is be open to the ideas of others, you always have more to learn. Instantly, you show up, shoulders up and ears, out. It's not arrogance. It is confidence. Right. And it is humble because you're like, ooh, that's interesting. Tell me more of that. Yeah. I think you're right. And boomerang back to be able to look in the mirror and go, you're right.

Yeah. That part we like to forget in our definition of humility or selflessness. Yeah. You know, I think that's where we bastardized the definition of selfish. True selfishness, I don't think means do whatever you want at, you know, at your neighbor's peril. That's not selfish. It's actually not most selfish because if it's at your neighbor's peril,

when you're out of town and someone's robbing your house, your neighbor's less intended to go, hey, I'm going to call the cops for my neighbor. I'd say that's more selfish to take care of your neighbor with your choice as well as taking care of your own. Is investing and making sacrifices today for our children's future, more selfish? Or it is to absolutely whore

rampage all our resources today, so they'll be left to nothing. Which one's more selfish? I would say the first is more selfish. If you love your kids. I mean, again, you talk about infinite game. So much of it's based on how far out can we project. Say more about

how it's more selfish. Like you didn't love them, right? You give a damn bad your kids. If you're going to make a sacrifice today of some resources you have, or maybe it's sacrificed some time of something that you want to do. You could do it another time, even though you really want to do it right now. Just maybe spend time.

Okay. With your kid. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's that practice that. And hence in hope, spending that time, more time with them will help them become more healthy adults as they go out into the world on their own in the future because of the time they got quality of quality. Or if it's more magnanimous, you get a resource that we have. right now in our life that we're using up to go, man, you know, we're getting ours now. But boy, we're depleting the future for my daughter's generation when she becomes, or her

kid's generation. But if I sacrifice some now, they'll have more later. So which one's more selfish is what I'm saying? There's data on this that when people invoke, you hear politicians do it all the time. You know, when we invoke, it's the right thing to do for our children. What would you do for our children? What about the future preserving the future? And nobody ever makes the right decision with that framework, right?

Because we always think about the here and now. But there's data on this that when people have a sense of where they come from, you're actually better at making long-term decisions because you don't want to let down those that came before you. You don't want to make their sacrifices go in vain. So if you know about the sacrifices your parents' parents made on your behalf, or that benefited you, you want to uphold that legacy, And that actually makes you a better decision-making.

So actually, seeing yourself in a continuum. And in the continuum, yes. If you do that, isn't that ultimately more selfish? Or I ask you this, because my pastor thinks I'm pushing a big square rock up a big steep hill with this redefinition of selfishness. I'm trying to reclaim it to go, no way. Everything we do should be more selfish. We should be more full of ourselves.

We should project further if we can just believe that the rewards of our, what we do now, if we can project further out for when we may get them. And we may not even get them in this lifetime. Maybe it's our kids, maybe it's the next generation, maybe it's four generations or not. Isn't that delayed gratification a more selfish act? If I play the role of your pastor, I think that you are playing with the paradox. Yep. You can't choose a side because it's a paradox, right? So every moment of every day, you are both an individual and a member of a group. You're you and you're a member of a team, a family, a church, whatever it is, and every day you're confronted with small or big decisions, do I put myself first at the sacrifice of the group or do I put the group first

at the sacrifice of myself? And there's two schools of thought. Protect yourself so you can help the group, protect the group so they can help you. You made the neighbor analogy. But the reality is it's both, and it's sometimes paradoxical, and it doesn't always line up. And this is part of the difficulty of being human. So I think to say, that's more selfish or that's more selfless, the answer is yes. Like, selfless acts will benefit you and selfish acts may benefit them. And I think it's the paradox of the juggle. And the goal is not to let the scale tip too far in either direction, because there's also a difference between being selfless and martyring yourself, where you're giving and giving and giving so much of yourself

where you get no sleep, all you have is stress because you want to be the best person in the world, that's self-destructive and that's just stupid. And so saying no, sometimes is the best thing you can do for the greater good. Do unto others as you would have them. Do unto you. Love yourself as your neighbor.

that's directly just going back to the self-ish. It's accepting, it's accepting that even when I'm a part of a group of community, a society, a church, a team, even in those moments that I'm a part of a whole, I am also me. And as I think to try and reconcile the paradox, you know, people can write whole books. about one side versus the other, and I think it's a fruitless exercise. The answer is both. And the only way you know you're doing a good job is you can only check in on your selfishness by checking in with yourself. You can only know if you're doing a good job on selflessness by checking in with others. And I think the way you reconcile the paradox is by constantly checking in with others and constantly checking in with yourself, that you get feedback from others. Are you okay?

thank you for being there for me versus you selfish asshole. Yep. Right? Because if you only check in with yourself and never check in with others, you run the risk of being costically, toxicly selfish. Yep. Versus selfless. Yep.

Which is toxic to yourself. So I think that as social animals, we forget that we have feedback mechanisms. And I think perhaps this is why you've become an advocate for positive selfishness. is I think you have a practice of checking in with yourself more than most. Okay. I've been told that many times. And I would guess that where you've over-indexed on arrogance by accident

is because you were checking with yourself and forgot to check in with others. Yeah. That's when myself has been turned into certainty. Right. Where you humbled yourself excessively, it's because you took the counsel of your dad or others too much at the loss of checking. kingdom with self, which I would, which at the most basic level is, you know, gut check. The most basic levels does this feel right? Yeah. Did you cultivate checking in with yourself?

Like, what age did you start journaling, for example? Start journaling at, uh, sincerely journaling at 17. Okay. What happened at the age of 17 that you said, I'm going to start writing it down my life? Well, which is a checking in practice. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think it was going really, well and I was you know I was the guy in high school who was yeah I was popular yeah I won most handsome I had a four handicapping golf I had a job with some cash my pocket I was dating business and girl my school but I was also you know best friend good friends with the quarterback of the football team but I was also one of the only guys that was friends with with Betty

Rice who was everyone thought was the only class gothic lesbian. You know, I was also the guy that got in fight because the gang tried to pick on Ernie, the short little black kid with the big Afro and they kept thumping him and I just was kind of, he was the underdog. But I noticed that things were going well for me. For some reason, I think it partially did with my buddy Rob Binler, who because I was such an extrovert and on the weekend would love to just go party and chase girls, he was my first friend that I met in art class,

and he was a 120-pound wet Jewish kid who he introduced me to, hey, you ever watch movies on a weekend night? You ever read a book? So we became buddies. It was great because my mom would call Salt and Pepper. I would bring him on Friday night to our tailgates in the country where we drink beer at the kegger and dance and taste girls,

listen loud music. And then on Saturday night we go to his house, and watch a movie or two. And talk about, he introduced me to a philosopher book or something. We play ping pong and just hang out. And so he invited an introspection that I didn't know was there, but I had already. So I start writing things down about like, why are things going well? Well, I noticed in ways that I was handling preparation for my grade so I could make mom and dad happy.

I didn't give it down my grade. It doesn't need to make A's to make mom and dad up. If they're happy, then my life's easier. Then I'm getting more of what I want. My curfew gets extended. I can go play more. I got more freedom. So I got that game. I don't remember how the Liberty Bell crack, but I passed that test. You know what I mean? So I'm figuring this out. I'm also noticing at this time, oh, this high school GED shit don't mean nothing, bro. Just got to make some good enough

grade to get into a college. And I also noticed at that time at 17, college don't mean nothing either, bro. So I started to kind of think past that, even at 17, and write things down in my life. I was like, these are working. And these will, I believe these will continue to work. Now, cut to a year later, I'm exchange shooting Australia. I'm lost, lonely. That handicap, the girl, the 45 bucks from my pocket, the no curfew, the straight A's,

red light, stop. I'm in the middle of the country and bump, want nowhere with a very odd family and I'm all alone. I don't have my buddy Rob to hang out with talk about on Saturday night. O'Lay, he was one of the only people I wrote. I don't have my friends or that girlfriend or my affluence that I had on Friday night for my confidence to bounce things off. I ain't even got my parents to bounce things off.

So while I'm losing my mind over there, I'm alone, basically. I'm going mad, but something in me is telling me, this is good. The harder this gets, I was finding a certain pride and honor, independence I felt like I was paying, because I was like, boy, this, every day I go through this, is a better reward on the other side. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to keep believing that.

Now, was I tricking myself for partial sanity? Yes. Was I surviving on a certain optimism? Was it delusional to an extent? Yes. But I would say, in hindsight, it happened because I don't think I'd be here with the Labab if I didn't have that year. I wrote in earnest in that year because I was my only friend I could talk to. So I wrote 14-page letters to me.

I returned 16 page letters to me. I was in the Socratic dialogue that was awesome, but I look back at it now, they're hilarious, son. Talk about too many adjectives and adverbs with a kid who's lost. It was like 19 line run-on sentences with more L-Ys on more words.

It was like, oh, you've lost your grease, but I stuck with it. Yeah, I was forced to, figure out who the hell I was. I was forced to talk to myself without having any exterior stimulus or that I could trust coming to me. And it was a full year,

which is a long enough time to get through the other side of it. I stayed in hell and I didn't have a parachute to pull. As you know, if we stay in it long enough, sometimes you'd come out the other side. I had this experience with riding greenlights. Yeah.

I looked in my past. I had shame. I had guilt. I had embarrassment. The first two weeks of sitting down with my journals since I was 18 years old were hell to look at. And then on the 12th day, all of a sudden I'd read something shit I did. And I went, and I laughed.

And all of a sudden, I started looking at all the other shit. And I started giddling. And I started noticing all the other shit I fucking did. I was like, oh, it got you here. That time when you were extremely arrogant, you got hump. Look six months later, you got humbled in front of a bunch of people. bam, you got brought down to the ground. Oh, you learned a lesson there. Oh, and I started to notice it was a science to get me to where I am. So I started to laugh at those things that I was

embarrassing and guilty about. In earnest journaling, started 17, continued through a hard, hard year at 18. And since then, has been, I write when I'm in trouble and I've learned, and I always said early on, don't just pick up the damn pen when things are going shitty. Pick up the pen when things are going well because there's an engineering, there's science to it. You have a remarkable relationship with discomfort. And the idea that the things you do in your life are a mechanism to live a life you want to live. Right. So, for example, you weren't necessarily motivated by grades, but by getting good grades,

you recognize that your curfew goes up and your parents leave you alone. Yep. You know, so you go through the discomfort of studying, not for the grade, but for what the grade provides. Yep. And you're in Australia in a very uncomfortable. situation, and you could have shut down, you could have acted out. But this relationship you have with discomfort and your ability to project the life you want to have, and that you dealt with it

in a fascinating way, that, remember, you're only 17. Right. And I find it so fascinating that in this period of discomfort, you say, how do I lean into uncomfortable here? I'm going to write it down and put my discomfort right on the page in front of me. There's two things I want to bring up on that. One is I found a journal and entry I wrote the other day that I said, I've, I've, my life has been more getting comfortable with what I was uncomfortable with yesterday than changing what I was uncomfortable with yesterday. Let's double click that because that's great. It's about getting comfortable with what you were uncomfortable with rather than changing

the thing that makes you uncomfortable. Yeah. Now, here's the challenge with that that I noticed when I was 35 and I'm still working on it. when you have that sort of resilience, you're a repeat offender. You keep stepping in the same pile of shit, and you get up and dust yourself off. Instead of ever stopping to go, why do I keep stepping in that same pile? Oh, maybe when I turn the corner of this part of the race in my life, I'll weave to the right for the first time. No, I'll step in it over and over and over and go, get back up.

And part of that, as I think with most of us, our upfalls are actually our downfalls too. You know, what we're the best at is actually where we can work on the other side of the coin just as much or more in our life. So good. I can be a repeat offender. Your grit becomes destructive. And part of that, creatively, is what I have to watch. Yeah. My upfall creativity is I think I can make anything work, Simon.

Yep. I got a theory that I think it's a term rather than a theory, I think more. But it goes along with your infinite game and our talk. about projection and playing through the immortal, immortal finish line. And I've noticed that I do this and I've been practicing it and sort of find it working on this pattern for a few years called oversight. I oversee everything. Relationships.

I come into this. I don't know you that well, but I come into this with a great reverence for you. I go into projects with a great incredible reverence for them. Even myself and the world, the art, Most people, myself included, underperform. But the reverence that I went into them with, I find that I got so much more out of them and for me and out of the project because I thought it could be perfect

and transcendental. It got close to genius, maybe even touched in the prophetic areas, but never became divine, but oh, I wouldn't have got there if I wouldn't have come in with such reference. And then going, ah, you went for the A, you got the C, instead of going for the C and getting the F. Ah, great. There we go. I think it's a nice way to approach life,

which is to give people the benefit of the doubt and have such reverence and respect when you walk in the room and you say, prove to me why you are not deserving of this reverence versus coming in with a cynical attitude and be like, prove to me why I should like you more, respect you more. And because you'll find the evidence, right? Which is if you're looking for someone to be great,

you'll find all the evidence of their greatness. If you become in cynical, you'll find all the evidence of them letting you down. And what it does is it boosts other people up. They want to make you proud rather than prove you wrong. Slight change of tack here, which is, can you tell me something specific that you've done in your career?

It doesn't matter if it's commercially successful or not. But any project that you've been a part of, at any point in your career where if every project were like this one, you'd be the happiest person alive? The latest one, and I, without knowing it now that I'm saying, of course I'm saying the latest one, because the last thing I'm doing is always my favorite one I've done. Last project I've done besides one.

I had one of my first ones. I'm not going to say the name of it. But I just had a project here in the last couple of years that I finished that was not my, into doing it, it was not my favorite one I've ever done. Every other project I've done, the one I was doing last was like, this is my favorite one ever. Okay. So what was it about the last project that you just did that you would say if every project was like this one moving forward?

Literally, I'm living the perfect life. The book tour that I took with poems and prayers. And I'm not just saying that because that's the book that I've got out there right now. Instead of going to bookstores and signing, I said, let's have some more fun here. And I said, a lot of these poems are musical. They're poetry. They're fun. I like orating them. I like saying them, what if I go?

And I remember I was like, oh, my friend John Mellon camp went to unannounced to state parks with a guitar and stood up on picnic tables and just started playing and saw how would gather. I was like, oh, that's a great idea. And I stuck on that for a couple weeks. I was like, well, let's organize myself a little bit more than that. What if I get theaters? I'll go to theaters. See if you see what size I can get some people in. I'll do some poetry.

And I was like, wait a minute. What if I'm about a musical guest? So within a week, I worked up, boom. I got a 22 minute opening sermon. And then I invite the musical guest out. We talk about some themes in life about a certain prayer. They play, they accompany, I do 12, 12 song playlist, and it's spoken word prayers that are songs. I did eight stops with eight incredible musicians.

I do a show, New York, fly to Nashville, sleep, wake up that morning in Nashville, 11 o'clock, show at 6 o'clock from 11 to 4.30, work on the next day's show, which was going to be in Tulsa. I was always just working on one day ahead, one day head, one day at the playlist and what I was going to write. That, a lie, it was like a documentary, so I was only a day, I was only a day ahead of preparation, not months a day. It was live. It was vital. I think getting on stage and not having the demarcation or the border between communication, which there's four borders in film, right? I'm doing someone else's script, someone else's character, going through someone else's camera eye and edited by someone else. So there's four filters from my raw expression before it gets

to you. All right. Even writing, that's one filter. But boy, the direct line, and I've never done stage before, the direct line of being on stage and that each night and then slowly getting the confidence to go, oh, on the fly, I'm going to update how I communicate with what I'm getting back. But what specifically was it about this tour, specifically about this tour that stands, I mean, you've had a remarkable career, you've done remarkable films, you've had incredible collaborations, you've done collaborations before, you've done all of this, what was it about this tour that, out strips, everything else you've ever done.

I wrote it. I believed everything I said, and I had so much fun presenting it and sharing with it directly. No Memorex, no record. This is it live. It's not to bank away as an asset to put out later. It's one of the best natural drugs I've ever had.

Okay. And I was high. Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory. Not like we went to my grandparents every weekend, and something specific that I can relive with you. Okay. Front yard, Getty Street. Busiest street in Evaldi, Texas.

Five lanes. Two going each way and one turn in the middle. We lived right on it with no fence to the street. But there was a sidewalk, asphalt sidewalk. And we had St. Augustine grass in that yard and one pecan tree. And in the hot summer, I remember being out. I was allowed to play in the front, even though there was no, I knew not to go past the sidewalk, right? In my dike, well, I remember being there and under that tree and it being hot and me finding for the first time that, oh, the roots of St. Augustine's a longer, thicker grass with a deeper root needs more water.

No matter how hot the day is, the roots of the St. Augustine are always cool. And I remember that being a coolant for me. Besides being in the shade, I could find shade starting in the middle of the sun on my feet by nestling my bare feet into the roots of the St. Augustine, and it would cool my feet, which would then cool my body. I remember thinking that was really cool. So of all of the amazing experiences you had as a kid, good, bad, an amazing mother, sounds like a fantastic experience in school. What was it about this memory that is the reason you chose to tell it to me over all the others?

Probably because that same afternoon. I heard this sound coming from down the street and Getty Street about a quarter of a mile away. It was going, and it grew louder as it neared me. And I looked up and I already had rocking my. I was right when it got in front of the house, there was a car, and there were four guys in one of them being my oldest brother, and they had the windows down,

and their asses out the window, and just as it got in front of me, nah, nah, nah, nah, na, nah, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, fat man. Throw that rock out there, and they laugh, and it fade off, na, nah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Down the street. and as much as that drove me and my little pudgy diaper self crazy

how cool was that my big brother my oldest brother and his friends took time to pick on me while I was playing in a diaper in the front yard I knew I knew that was a love letter even then as much as it made me there's something really interesting between those two stories I'm not sure how to reconcile it but when you told those two stories of the tour

and then this the front yard. There's a lot of connection. There's discovery and self-discovery, like standing in the grass and discovering for the first time, these roots that can keep you cool, the discovery of view on stage, never done stage before,

the newness. And then there's also the reaction, which is you get the reaction of the audience, you know, which you said was intoxicating here. It's the outside world that's sort of like, you know, that my big, brother that I look up to. And this is your point about you show up with reverence, you know, that they take time out of their day. Like, that's a very different perspective than most people

have, which is, oh my God, he's thinking about me with his friends. I wouldn't have been able to verbalize that then, but I knew it then. Like as much as I threw the rock out of him and wanted to hit that car. It was part of the fun rather than anger. It sounds like. Yeah. I mean, I didn't go sulk about it for long. Right. I mean, if I had to draw sort of a pattern here, which is, there is a self-discovery about you, which is you are very curious about the thing that is you. Yes. And I think that a lot of people go through the world,

even if they're curious about the world, I don't think a lot of people are curious about themselves. And when they are, it's when they have to work on something or deal with something because something went wrong. You got trouble at work. You have relationship issues, and now I've got to deal with this thing that I've got a temper, but I wouldn't call that curiosity. I'd call that reaction or triage.

And you have an ongoing curiosity about yourself. The story you tell about you in high school, you're this really popular kid, but you want to know why you're popular. You're in Australia and you want to know why you're struggling and your comfort with all of these themes that we've been talking about, your comfort with discomfort. And I think it all boils down to this common root, which is you are insatiably curious about yourself, even the discussion about trying to give selfishness a better brand. Yep. There's this pattern that is this, a book of prayer, a book of poetry, which is really an exploration

of self. All of these things, the journaling, you can see the boredom when you're the rom-com guy and you're saying yes to shit films, you know, until you stop saying yes to shit films, not because the market doesn't want it. It's because there's nothing to learn for you for you. Yep. Amen. And so I think the lesson that I'm learning from you is less about confidence. It's less about risk.

It's less about discomfort. All of these things that I thought it was, what I'm recognizing is for all of us to cultivate a curiosity about ourselves. We're always told travel, see the world, read books, watch movies, ask questions. But how many of us are watching our own movie or asking ourselves questions or traveling with ourselves,

watching ourselves, we have a lot of sleep and watching ourselves and we don't have a lot of sleep and being curious and asking ourselves, why did I react that way and being genuinely objective as best as we can to understand ourselves without being self-effacing, just curious. You define something that I, it's definitely true for me.

And you said it in a way because it is different than those other things of confidence or self-it. It's not that. It's not that. It's as much. You get that all the time. Oh, you're, you're, you're, you're, you seem so confident. And I got, okay, mathematically speaking, yeah, because I prepare so I can relax. Okay, I get that.

Da, da, da, da. But I go, but, but. I suffer bouts, not bouts, I suffer stages of insignificance all the time. Because I'm bored, I haven't had a new self-discovery or figured a new philosophy that I go, oh, that's mine. Now I'm going to, I write all day. And it'll be a note, it'll be something, it'll be an exchange I had with someone, a malaprop that'll be funny, a realization about myself or about something that's working in the world for me. that is getting a like response or healthier positive response. That, that work.

I'll try to, I look for those patterns. I don't even know if I look for them. I think I'm inherently just finding them. People go, this is somewhat of a joke, but it's not. He's just so self-involved, you hear people say, about people. I've even been told that. And when I got told that once I stopped, I went, well, who else do you think I should be involved with? I think we should be more self-involved.

I don't, I don't, my, my gap between being, you know, the man I want to be and the man I am is because I believe not self-involved enough. And all those self-curiosity of myself may be one of my strongest suits. Of somebody who likes to talk about themselves and is, and, and, and dissect themselves to those who have no self-curiosity comes across as self-involvement, which they mean pejoratively. Right? And I think to your point about trying to redefine words and trying to redefine selfishness, I think it's more, it's less of trying to correct them or embrace their words and trying to convert these bad words that are good. You're so self-involved, but self-involved is good. You're so selfish, but selfish is good. Instead of raging against the machine, I think to offer it as a lesson to others and saying, no, what you're witnessing is somebody who is very curious about themselves. And every lesson I have learned about myself is because I'm curious about me and I wish others were as curious about them. as I have learned to be. Yes. Again, this may be naivete. Why would someone not be really curious about themselves? Or are they curious? They just don't know what to be curious about. I think there's many reasons. I think, one, it's scary because I may not like what I see. And if you don't like what you see, you could run away from it versus saying, good, let me learn more about this.

Two, I think it's hard to do because shame, embarrassment are around the corner with some of those things. And so it goes back to to be comfortable with being uncomfortable means I can explore myself even if it's uncomfortable. And I think for people to learn to be uncomfortable is a mechanism for curiosity. And for some, and I wish this weren't the case, but it is, I think just some people aren't curious about the world or themselves and they go through the world. I can't believe with happiness, but they just sort of go through the world as that happens. It's a beautiful thing to be curious about something and why not start with yourself because it's the easiest thing. You don't need to go anywhere else. And we have to have or understand our own monologue before we can have a

dialogue. I think so too. And we're always so preoccupied with what somebody else said or how they said it or if there is self-courcity, it's more like self-flagellation, which is lying in bed going, why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I say it that way? Not with a curious why, but sort of a self-effacing why, versus I wonder why I said it that way? What is it about me? And why am I carrying such discomfort and upsetness about the way I said that? And what can I learn so that I improve upon it next time, which is to offer oneself grace in the moment of curiosity. It's not a judgment. It is because remember, this is what we tell people. Instead of being judgmental, be curious about other people. We're doing the same thing, which is instead of

judging oneself, offer oneself grace and forgiveness, and now be curious about yourself in the same way you wish to be curious about us. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you have, you have learned it for whatever reasons the way you were raised. You have learned it and it has benefited you. And you became a, you have become a model for the rest of us is why self-curiosity is really a good thing. Huh. Love that deep. All right. I like that. That's a good play. All right. That's a good play. We'll do a couple quick fires. As someone who has embraced reinvented throughout your career, what advice would you give to people who feel stuck in a box

that they've been in for years and worry they can't break out of it? Oh, Simon just said it. Be more curious about yourself. I would have said, take more risk, but as he said, that would have been the backup dancers for more curiosity for yourself. You've been journaling for over 30 years and describe it as a way to catch the truth.

what happens for you on the page that doesn't happen anywhere else? Well, it's taken a while for me to get my fingers or my pen to keep up with my mind as I'm writing it live and to keep the train of thought going or sometimes I'll just, if it's too much, I just got to record it and then translate it. Memorializing a live feeling. That was a maybe a moment in time, it speaks a truth across many, many, many things. And if I didn't write it down, as most of us do, when you first start writing, or you're trying to get writing, when it's hard, is, you know, you cross a great truth. You have a great exchange. You hear a great joke.

You're always like, that was so good. I'm never going to forget it. There you will. And then you forget it. So it's jot it down. That's why I wrote the opening grants. I write stuff down so I can forget it. Because if I don't write it down, I'm playing grab ass with, what was that thing?

She said. Oh, that thing, Simon, so it was so good. What was it? Now I'm just on the hamster wheel, right, gling grab ass with my thoughts. Or if I wrote it down, I'm like, ah, there it is. There it is. That's good.

McConaughey, what a pleasure. This has been very inspiring. I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing wonderful stuff. My pleasure. I look forward to doing it again and for even longer. And thank you for the insight and teaching me something or a way to at least understand it better and through your words about myself.

Thank you. A bit of optimism is a production, of the Optimism Company. Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devin Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts, and if you want even more cool stuff,

visit simic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.