Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Matthew McConaughey Talks Life Lessons And Leaving Your Legacy | Ear Biscuits Ep.309

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Two lifelong best friends and Matthew McConaughey talk about life for a long time. Listen to R&L and special guest Matthew McConaughey go into a deep, philosophical dive on how to live a life worth living on this special episode of Ear Biscuits! Matthew’s Greenlights: Your Journal, Your Journey is coming 12/7/21 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Every Canadian dairy farm is unique. That's why every farmer takes charge of their own unique environmental farm plan. Also drawing from 57 environmental practices. My plan starts with soil health. And part of mine includes biodiversity. Why care so much? Because Canadian dairy farmers hold themselves

to higher standards. That's what's behind the blue cow logo. Dairy Farmers of Canada. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. With Matthew McConaughey sometimes. Oh no long time. With Matthew McConaughey sometimes. Oh no, you're not Matthew McConaughey? Yeah, we don't have him here for that part.

And I'm Link. This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we are talking to Matthew McConaughey. Expanding the circle. It is not an interview. It's a, we wanted it to be a conversation. We wanted it to be an extension of what Ear Biscuits has become,

even though it is exceptional that we decided to be a conversation. We wanted it to be an extension of what Ear Biscuits has become, even though it is exceptional that we decided to do an interview. And we didn't do it just because, well, he's so famous, we gotta talk to him. It was that, and I mean, it was more than that. It was personal for us, honestly. We're not about to make Ear Biscuits anything other than what it is.

Right. For the most part. I mean, we kind of broke the seal on, okay, we can bring in a guest sometimes. But the reason that we decided to do this is, it goes back to, I guess it was beginning of 2020 is when we were actually, we were given Matthew's book, Greenlights,

which is something that happens pretty often, right? Celebrities write books and their teams send them out to other celebrities or people who have an audience so they might read them and talk about them. So we end up getting quite a few books. And I saw this, you know, his book come in and I was like, oh, this is interesting. This is more of like a memoir kind of thing.

But I didn't immediately like say, okay, I'm gonna start reading this thing. It was my good friends, Lance and Lacey, you know, beard and lady who make all the grooming products for Mythical. Oh, really? They live a life of adventure and they live a life of embracing new ideas

and new challenges and following those things. For instance- With gusto. Deciding to revitalize a historic haunted hotel in Arkansas and turn it into a hotel that you can visit. That's like the latest thing that they've done. They're always doing something like that. I mean, we wouldn't have our grooming products

if it wasn't for them hatching that idea. And so when they said, "'Have you listened to Greenlights yet?' And like Jessie and I have a text thread with them that is very much that, have you watched this thing? I told you when we went home for Christmas or whenever it was was for the summer, they were like, you gotta watch this

and you gotta watch Bo Burnham's Inside with them. I waited specifically to watch that with them. But anyway, so- So a recommendation coming from them was like, all right, I'll do it. Yeah, and so- Did you read it or listen to it? I listened to it because I've kind of moved

almost exclusively into audio books to my, there's not a small amount of shame that comes with that, just for me personally, because I have this bias towards reading, but I can do anything else while I'm listening. So I just ended up listening to all kinds of books, like multiple books a month is like my pace now, right? And then you started talking to me about aspects of it,

like just how his approach to being, expressing himself and being creative and going after his muse and the principles of it. 90% of it to begin with was, man, you can't believe this thing that happened to Matthew McConaughey. Right, right, just great stories. And you can't believe the way that Matthew McConaughey decides to tell you the story. Everybody knows Matthew McConaughey decides to tell you the story.

Everybody knows Matthew McConaughey at this point. So you can imagine how he's gonna tell this story. But so listening to him do it in his very McConaughey way, it's just, it was a treat. And I was resisting telling you the story. You know how when you get into something, you wanna just tell people the stories? And you're like Mr. Spoiler-reverse to the nth degree.

So I had to be like, well, there's a story about him going to Australia. And it's like, okay, well, I've been to Australia. You can't give away too much, but then you ended up getting into it. He went as a foreign exchange student. You should say that, but. Yeah.

I didn't listen to it for a number of weeks because I had other stuff, but then I had hit this dry spell and I was like, I need something. And I started listening to it two weeks ago. And then after I was almost done with it is when they were like, hey, he wants to come on your show.

We're like, I think we gotta make this happen because it resonated with us so much. So as you'll see, we turned it into us getting what we needed out of it and our own purposes. Yeah, it's not really an interview as you can, I would advise most interviewers to not begin interviews by just telling stories about themselves like we did.

It was kind of like what Chris Farley used to do on SNL when he was- Remember that time when you, no, we didn't do that. No, but I had a feeling not knowing Matthew personally, but knowing of him and listening to the book and I had a feeling that he would just get right into the, he's a let's have a campfire conversation kind of guy. And so he just, he stepped right in here

and it would have been nice to have him actually at the table, but you know what? He's still on video chat. It is what it is. So if you watch the video version, it's there. All right, let's get to it. It's great to meet you. We don't typically have guests on our podcast,

but we both read and listened to Greenlights and we love good stories. And you got some good stories, man. And so we love you. It's been many moons since we have had a conversation outside of just the two of us talking, because we figured out we've got quite a bit that we can just talk about to each other about.

Yeah. But we both connected with your book. And I mean, lots of people have connected with your book in a big way, but something about your stage of life, your story, kind of you're coming from small town South. There was a lot that we could relate to. And there's a lot that's on our minds that I think selfishly,

you know, when you start talking about legacy in Greenlights, I mean, that's like, we're having so many conversations about that and also on this podcast. So I think selfishly, we just wanna pick your brain a little bit and kinda unpack some more of that.

But first, when it comes to these stories and just relating to that. There's a couple of uncanny. Yeah. Uncanny parallels. I love you talking about your mom basically telling you to plagiarize the poem that then. I won. And then you won. I won the whatever the seventh grade poetry contest.

Yeah. Because I mean, talk then you won. I won the whatever, the seventh grade poetry contest. Yeah. Because, I mean, talk about, yeah. Because does the poem mean something to you? Yeah, I understand it. I mean, so you like it? Yeah. I mean, it brings up a feeling in you, Matthew. Yeah.

I mean, it says if all that I would want to do would be to sit and talk to you, would you listen? I mean, that's like, yeah, you know, mom. So you understand that? yeah, then write that. Well, but it's Ann Ashbury. No, but as I said, you signed your name because you understand it. It means something to you, so it's yours. That was her reason.

If it means something to you, it's yours. Now here's my version of it with my mom. We had this poster contest. Countywide. Countywide, Harnett County, anti-drug message. And I told my mom, now my mom worked at the public health department and there was a pamphlet for everything.

And so she would come, I mean, that's how I learned about sex, through a pamphlet. She brought home a pamphlet, she said, well, Link, this is, here's an anti-drug one. And look, there's a picture right here. And it says, there are lots of fun things to do instead of drugs. And then it's a guy holding all these other things

like badminton thing and like an art easel and stuff like that. And so she basically said, draw that. But here's the thing about my mom, I don't even think she knew what plagiarism was. There was no process where she explained it to make it okay. She didn't have a pithy tenant

that you can prescribe in your book. For her, it was just very innocent. This is a great idea. Why don't you just do exactly that? And I did it and I won. I mean, by a long shot. You won. I won, baby. I mean, he won the whole county, which-

I believed it. And listen, as his best friend at the time, what grade was that? Fourth or fifth? I had no idea. I didn't tell anybody. I thought you had dug really deep. Yeah.

Deeper than ever. I still have it. I have a laminated poster of this in my office that somebody mailed me. Yeah, and now the other thing that was a bit of an uncanny parallel. So my dad is a bit of a larger than life character. At any time throughout my life,

even when I felt like I was afraid of nothing, I've always been afraid of him, right? Right, yeah. And in a good way, the good fear. And so about the time that we were seniors in high school in Buies Creek, North Carolina, where nobody that we knew had taken any sort of entertainment path. Our idea of being an entertainer

was the guy who would come to the middle school dances and do, he was either a DJ or he could be a magician. You know, that was the guy, right? I've seen him do both at once. And so, but we had this idea, we wanna go to film school. And I had that conversation with my dad that you had with your dad when you called him up and said, I'm thinking about going to film school.

And that was pretty built up for you. You know, you kind of had to like breathe into that moment, very much so i mean it was a moment where i wasn't sleeping well with the idea of going to film to law school so that was keeping me up at night it was then it was weeks of sharing stories and stuff i'd written with my buddy rob bindler who was n, who was the only film guy I knew. And plus, he was at Longview, Texas. He didn't watch many films there either.

So I'm sending him stuff in New York. He's writing back going, man, this is pretty good. This is good. And I knew he'd give me an honest opinion. And then I get the confidence. Then I find the book, Greatest Salesman in the World, the Augmentino book. And you know, sometimes a piece of art or a book will find you or a person will share something with you. And you're like, they've been reading my mail. This is direct line. This was written for me right now. I have no question about it. When we have that

clarity, whether it's true or not, it is true. Right. So that book found me, gave me the courage to say, that's what I'm doing. And then I had to plan out when the best time to call dad was since he was paying tuition. So I said, like I said, in the book, I picked out Tuesday night, seven o'clock he's home from work. He's already eating dinner. He's having a beer with mom on the couch. Best time to get it. Not Monday, Tuesday. And I called him 736 and laid it on him. And he gave me that great response, you know? Okay. More, more than yes.

He's don't half-ass it, you know? But go on about your story about, so you were coming out of North Carolina. Well, the thing is, is that I must have not, I did not plan as well as you did because when I told my dad, "'Dad, I'm thinking about going,' you know, Link and I are thinking

about going to film school." Right. Right. I mean, we had built up, it had been years since we had done the blood oath and said, we're gonna create something together. And like, we had really colluded and we had each other and we like, you know, worked up each other's courage. Well, we had this plan.

At one point it was, okay, we're gonna go to UNC Asheville. I'm gonna play basketball, but they have a film program and you're gonna be, like, And if they need someone to keep score, I've done that. That didn't really come to fruition, but then it was just like, okay, are you gonna do what everybody else is doing

and kind of just go into the state school or whatever? And I said, dad, I wanna go to film school. He didn't say don't half-ass it, he said, well, I'm not paying for that. But the funny thing is, so, and we put that in our book, the book of mythicality we wrote a few years ago, by the way, Matt Inman, also our editor, incredible guy. Oh yes, Matthew, Matthew E.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Inman, Inman. Oh, Inman. Oh yes, Inman. Inman, yeah. Inman's great. Yeah, man. And what great hair. Can I quit complimenting on his hair? Oh my God.

Yeah, well, he's got the greatest hair. And we actually, like, we experienced the transition of his hair? Oh my God. He's got the greatest hair. And we actually, like we experienced the transition of his hair. That's true. Because in book one, he- I like to think we inspired it. It was close cropped, but book two, it was a whole new thing.

So, but in my, because I put that in the book and my dad said, you know, that's not what I said. You remember that incorrectly. He was like- I made for a better story. He said, well, not what I said. You remember that incorrectly. He was like, I did. I made for a better story. He said, well, I must've said something that that was what you felt. Yeah.

And that was the result. Hey, he and my mom may know each other. Yeah, I could see into it that he did not, he was not very supportive of that idea. You know, I mean, so we went to engineering school and the rest is history and it kind of worked itself out. We took a more circuitous path. Y'all both, you both went together.

Yeah. Off the same school, engineering school, and you end back up here sitting next to each other, having your platform, a form of entertainment, film, storytelling here in front of the mic. Yeah, so it ended up, you know, we found a way. Who knows what would've happened. We found a way.

It was quite a circuitous path, but I think it turned out to be the most strategic way for us to get to where we wanted to get. We just didn't know that. So he did us a favor. Yeah, it's all science looking back so much we're going forward in it, but you can connect all the dots,

whatever your dad said or didn't say, whatever you felt was that ain't happening. So derail and I'm going my own way and you end up right back and you go, damn, what if he would have said, yeah, I go to film school. Probably wouldn't have worked. I'd have gone up. Exactly, yeah.

Well, one of the things that we really connected with and something that's kind of been on our minds relates to your sort of, your very intentional decision that you made to say, I'm not gonna work on another rom-com, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So talk a little, just for anybody who isn't familiar with that decision,

kind of give some context for that decision. And then as it relates to your legacy is kind of where we wanna take it. Sure, sure. I think it's around 2010-h or so maybe a little earlier, but I'm, I'm rolling in rom-coms. I've just done had like four in a row that have all done well.

Their rom-coms are middle budget studio pictures, meaning at that time is around $35 million budgets. It's above the line cost. Cause you don't have a huge production value. It's not, you're not like making a Chris Nolan film where you're spending all this money on production and it's about how the two you know and you most rom-coms how the guy and the girl get along it's what the chemistry of them them is and we know they're going to meet them meet the beginning

break up for some reason in the middle and then he'll chase her at the end and catch her on a bridge or a moped or something and the credits will roll we'll be happy we got there then the fairy tale is good we've seen it all we know how it's going to end but we just want to see it again because who are the who are the leads usually in it do we do we want to follow them in this love story yeah so i've done four of these they're i'm the rom-com guy in hollywood man i took the baton from hugh grant and i'm running with it that's my lane I've got ownership of that lane. I'm the go-to guy. I like doing them.

They're fun. I call them Saturday afternoon characters. They're like a flip-flop character. You don't take rom-com, you don't get in there and hang your hat on humanity. No, you're supposed to bounce from cloud to cloud and keep them light.

And I believe I did a decent job of that. Anyway, with their success, they became so successful that the dramas I did want to do, where I did want to hang my hat on humanity and see if I could really flex my active muscles, the studio system saying, no way, McConaughey. No, thank you. And I say, wait, I'll take a 50 cent pay cut. No, thank you. 100% pay cut. Look, man, I'll do it for scale. No, we don't want you. You're the rom-com guy. Stay over there. Oh, damn it.

Well, that coincides with the fact that I've now met the woman who later became my wife, but I knew I fell in love with her very quickly, Camilla. And we had a first child. She had the child. We made the child, right? So I have the first child coming to town. If you know from the book, my life's dream was to be a dad, man. So I'm like, all of a sudden, my life is full and vital.

I get madder. I get sadder. I laugh louder. I have more joy. I mean, I got to talk about meaning. I got meaning in my life, right? Gotcha. My life is now not bouncing cloud to cloud like a rom-com.

All right? So I'm going, hey, well, I wish my work could challenge the vitality of my life. But it doesn't. Ah, damn it. So if I can't do what I want to do, I'm going to quit doing what I've been doing. So I said no to rom-coms, made the call to my money man, to my agent and stuff. And I said, I'm not going to do any more rom-coms. Can you be a keeper at the gate and hold them back from coming my way?

She had many a tear with Camilla because this drought could be, I may not work for, I don't know how long. I may not ever work again in Hollywood if I stick to this, which when I was going to do it, I knew I was going to stick to it. So six months go by i'm offered nothing but rom-coms no thank you no thank you no thank you no thank you i think a really fun story just as i'm going on my preacher's box now and you sound like and i sound so pure tentacle i think it's a really nice story to tell you that at month eight without working there was a rom-com that came in with a five million million offer and I read it and I said, no. They came back with an $8 million offer.

I said, no, thank you. They came back with a $12.5 million offer. I said, no, thank you. They came back with a $14.5 million offer. I said, let me read that thing again. How did it sound at that point? It was better. It was funnier.

The thing was more, it was the exact same words as the original offer, but it was a better script. Oh more, it was the exact same words as the original offer, but it was a better script. Oh yeah, it was. So I ended up saying no. I said no to that. And that, I believe in hindsight, was a bit of a turning point.

Meaning in Hollywood, that's when I think the studios that had me on a list to offer me movies, that's when they got the message, oh, McConaughey's not bluffing. Yeah, he's serious about this. He just turned it down for 14.5 and it's a damn good script, but he's not doing it.

So I say no to that. Then nothing comes in for another year. Summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken Parmesan delivered. A cabana? That's a no. But a banana? That's a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana?

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App for details. And we know where it goes, and I do want to get into that, but like even pausing at this point, I mean, it's, I think we relate. I mean, our, our situation is different. We're, we're in a different world of entertainment, but we had these, but we had these aspirations of being filmmakers. And then with the advent of YouTube, that was our opportunity to develop our audience. And I mean, we tried a lot of things before landing

on our daily show, Good Mythical Morning, which then became this thing that was a huge success. So now 10 years running, five days a week, we've been putting out a couple videos a day for our show, really connecting with our audience. I mean, it's super rewarding. So much of our career has come from the opportunities that that show that we created and continue to evolve afforded us. And now And now we're sitting here 44, 43 years old, continuing to invest and build a team around this show. Yeah.

Also doing this podcast, which is a passion project of ours, which is doing really great too. But there's this itch, especially I feel like at this point in our lives, you know, I've got three kids, Rhett's got two kids, we've got happily married, you know, we're living the dream that we shook with a blood oath in middle school and no matter what Rhett's dad said or implied,

we found a way to make it happen. And now we're sitting here and we've got a lot of gas in the tank. Yeah, you've built currency. So I feel like, you know, I don't wanna build it up as a turning point, but I do, maybe it is. These are the things that we're wrestling with.

Well, we start asking the question. In terms of legacy. Is GMM our rom-com, right? Because it's the thing that it works, there's great money in it, it's the thing we're known for. And you talk a little bit about the fear, you can make fear motivated decisions, but you kind of had to push that fear down.

You said good fear, the way you feared your dad, you had a good fear. I mean, yeah, man, well, one, congratulations. You guys are mid forties, I'm 51. I mean, what do we call this? Termed midlife crisis. Well, whatever. At least we got the footspaw to lean into some resistance.

Yeah, okay. At least we got some footspaw to question a blind spot, to question, oh, I'm successful. And what I'm doing, is it significant? There's a difference. Hey, also, we don't want to boohoo our rom-coms right you know what i mean definitely like i trust me i remember i i was when i when i was trying to make that choice and i was still doing the rom-coms i remember talking to my great mentor

penny allen i was like i just she was like what is bugging you about i go i just feel like i'm like i'm like i feel like i'm just an entertain She goes, who the hell do you think you are sloughing off being an entertainer? What do you got against being just an entertainer? I was like, thank you. Put me in my place. So we have to give the credence, I think, to what we've done and not try to make a straight line crooked. At the same time, we want to lean into, whoa, wait a minute, man.

Is there more here? And can it still be fun? Can we still have a joy? Because it doesn't have to. I know what I have to watch is when things are going, I love to work hard. If my work's constructive and I feel it working, I don't mind. If I can break a sweat every day, that's fun to me. I don't like to work hard and then be frustrated and go, I don't know where it went. But I have to watch that if it's not hard, I don't think it's worthy. And sometimes my easiest stuff, you know, when you sit there and you tell a joke and you malaprop the damn thing and people laugh at the malaprop more than they

did at the real joke. You're like, oh, geez, that was just an accident. That was the hit. Yeah. You know, we go we go out, you know, and we we go. I write the book. I got things in the book. I'm like, this is going to be the home run, man. Some of the stuff that people never talk about that. It's this other stuff. And I'm like, oh, you know, so I look for it sometimes to be harder than it should have to balance that. So how do you lean into the blind spots, but also not just, like I said, not trying to make a straight line crooked. Not trying to go, well, it's not hard enough. This is worked out.

Do we have, we have to check in with ourselves. We come from small towns in the South. I dealt with that, my success early. Like, geez, why me? I deserve this? You know what I mean? Am I breaking a sweat enough? You know what I mean?

So, I mean, congratulations on the questions, guys. Yeah, and I think- I'm in them too in my life. Well, thanks for the congratulations. We appreciate that. And I mean, we are extremely grateful for what we've got. And the show is our friendship on display. And we can sit down behind our desk

and we can just kinda be ourselves. And people are drawn to it. And we've got down behind our desk and we can just kinda be ourselves and people are drawn to it and we've got great relationships with our fans because of it and it allows us to launch other things that we wanna do to a certain level. But then you think about the stories that we wanna tell and the filmmakers that we wanna become and there's a bit of a chip on our shoulder.

You know, you got gratitude on one and then I think there's a chip on the other one. It's like, okay, you guys came up from YouTube and maybe there's a little bit of parallel to sending the, when you sent the business, sent the message to the business that you weren't even gonna take the $14.5 million offer and that really did it.

It's like, we're trying to find a way to say, not to our fans because they know, but to the gatekeepers to say, hey, we're writing this thing and this thing and we got to get it into the right person's hands or we got to, we still have things we wanna say and assert ourselves and it's different than what we're known for and what we're successful for. Right. And it's different than what we're known for

and what we're successful for. Right. And it's, so there's this, you know, there's, it's a bit frustrating. It's also- What's the frustrating part? Because you're not sure? You're not sure. Yeah, go ahead.

Because you've already got, the fact that you're sitting here, we have microphones in front of us i'm on your show you've got a you you can be heard right even if you want to talk to even if you're talking to those people out there that may be able to say yes let me see what you got your script on it maybe finance that you've got you've got you already got a huge leg up. So you're in. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, two things came to mind when you were talking there is, and this comes when we're not sure, and being not sure is obviously very healthy and true for us to be, maybe sometimes more,

but when it's time to take action, it can't, I i know you y'all know you can't be waiting for permission oh yeah yeah yeah you're gonna say a version of effort this is what we're doing by hook or by cook and we're not asking permission and then it's gonna be i mean probably that i love there's a line that that heard somewhere along my line in life that I bring up in the book that sometimes it's not about which decision you make. It's just about making damn one

and jumping and doing it and you find out. Yeah, like shit or get off the pot kind of thing. I mean, go find out. Yeah. I mean, it's our relationship. For me, I know a lot of times

it's my relationship with time. You know, you get a decision like this, you start thinking, I don't know if I, am I wasting time? Do I have enough time? Yeah. And all of a sudden you look up and you're 50 and you're going well and you're 55 then you're 60 you're sitting like yeah why would it when i we were 46 why did we just go okay let's see and plus and then what do we find out oh time is actually on our side but if with if we head into it without complacency, you know what I mean?

I mean, it's another version of your stories. You may, maybe, I don't know, not that you're asking my advice on this, but you've got a show. Are you pitching some of these stories? Yeah, yeah, so I think the way we're playing it right now is really all along the way over the past 10 years since we've been in LA,

the business has been built around since we've been in LA, the business has been built around what we've been doing online and that's where we built our team and our studio and that's all working really well. In the meantime, we've been writing pilots, we've been writing features. We're doing that and we are getting in the rooms and it's a completely different process.

Over here on the internet, it's like idea, put together the team, execute it, see what they think about it, see what the audience thinks about it. There's no gatekeeper. When we get into the traditional Hollywood thing, we kind of deal with the gatekeepers of it all. So I think we're kind of in a,

let's have our cake and eat it too. Sure. But when we, like we both connected with that story when you were basically like, well, I'm gonna, and the dynamics are different of course, but you were like, I'm gonna just turn the faucet off. Right. And they're gonna be like, the only way you get this back on

is if I'm doing what I want to do specifically. Right. Right. And so that's kind of the thing that's sort of ruminating right now is like, what, you know, what does that mean for us? Is that, cause it's not like, hey, we're gonna stop doing the show. That's the only way for us to move to the next thing.

It isn't as clean as that for us. But I think that the question, bringing it back to the idea of legacy and what you're known for, I think that's a part of it for us is just like, okay, if I'm walking down the street, if somebody recognizes me, it's gonna be like nine times out of 10, it's gonna be from Good Mythical Morning

and it's gonna be like, oh, the episode where you guys ate the pig testicles or whatever, you know? And it's just like, okay, that's awesome. I'm glad that meant something to you. Do I want the thing that nine out of 10 people will remember me for is eating pig testicles on the internet? Or do I wanna be like, hey, here's the thing that I wanna,

there's a story that I wanna tell. So what part of that for you was like, okay, here's the thing that I want to, there's a story that I want to tell. So what part of that for you was like, okay, I mean, I heard. Well, yeah, I hear you. I mean, I hear you. Look, you know, our favorite bands still play their hits, the concert. Yep.

You got a pretty good hunch coming up in the encore. Yeah. You got a pretty good hunch. Coming up in the encore. Yep. Yeah, you know what I mean? With good reason. Yeah. I understand. Also, I'm still introduced.

The first three words I ever said on film in 1992 in Days Confused. All right, all right, all right all right all right yeah right now were there times in my life i'm like really again yeah i look back and i go geez i'm glad you didn't get get too upset about that because you'd have been dorking out mcconaughey are you kidding me and i switched over to going you damn right i'm the author of that and let me unpack what that means to me and it was the beginning of my career and it's three affirmations and you're right. Puts a smile on my face too.

Hey, I'll ride the, what do you mean am I tired of it? I rode it. You know what I mean? I love that. So grabbing a hold of the greatest hit and going you damn right. And I understand why it became a greatest hit. Now, does the success of what we're understood to do

and our brand is, can it be so successful that it holds other avenues down for how it can be heard and seen? Yeah. Yeah. I remember this. Eric Church. I think he's North Carolina, isn't he?

Is he? I think he might be, yeah. line, isn't he? Is he? I'm not a hermit, I'm sure. Anyway, he came and played one of our annual fundraiser, MJ&M event, me, Mac Brown, who's coach at North Carolina, and he came and played.

And he wouldn't play any of his hits. He wouldn't? On purpose. On purpose. I believe, I didn't talk to him long about it, but I believe it was about, no, he's in constant creation. Yeah. Fast forward, before you get hooked into that,

I think, I believe his thought was, oh, if I keep giving you that, you're anticipating that at the end of the night and you're not going to be listening to mine. He was playing this new stuff, stuff that wasn't even heard. People didn't even know. I was like, Paul Seaman.

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out of the last day how about a 4 p.m late checkout you just need a nice place to settle in enjoy your room upgrade wherever you go we'll go together that's the powerful backing of american express visit amex.ca slash ymx benefits vary by card terms apply but there's another way to look at it. I mean, again, you don't want to boohoo the rom-com. You don't want to boohoo the all right, all right, all right. You don't want to boohoo the success of the show. That's what I mean by don't make a straight line crooked. Own that shit.

Damn right. You know what I mean? But I hear you do you feel like you're being held down i can't get this other thing out that i think is as good or better because it can only be seen through the lens of what i'd succeeded with before yeah uh i hear you you know what again'm going to go back to that. Don't ask permission. Yeah, I like that. Don't ask permission and go forward. And you also, we have to watch this with legacy thoughts, though, man.

If we are solely based off of projecting how we want to be seen, we're not being subjective and selfish enough. You know what I mean? We can be overly objective. The idea of legacy to project into our end, go to our deathbed, look back and ask ourselves, what's our eulogy going to be? What are we going to remember for? I think it's an extremely great thing to do for ourselves, but we can't live by it. Or if we live by it, we're going to miss out. We're going to look up if we live to be 100 and go, what'd you do the last 50? You were trying to just get here,

living off of what you thought the rolling credits were gonna be? Yeah. You know? Well, and that's my, that's, you know, I don't know if you know much about the Enneagram personality stuff, but I'm Enneagram three, which is an achiever performer, you know, and one of the things that you do

is you over-ident identify with what you projected out into the world. So whatever it is that you begin seeing people respond to. Yeah. So if that was, oh, well, let's be, I'm gonna be good at basketball. Okay, that well, that's all right, that's the thing. I'm gonna be the basketball guy.

So no, I'm gonna be the guy who plays music. I'm gonna be the guy who makes YouTube videos, whatever the arena was. And so yeah, that's been, that's what my therapy has been about over the past few years is learning to find, well, what does Rhett actually want? And I do think I've gotten to a place

where it's less about how do you wanna be perceived and more how do you wanna live your life? I mean, that's one of the things I really admire about your philosophy of life is it's about a life well lived. It's about living life to the fullest, right? And I think that this kind of, this gets into another thing that I think that

as a good Southern boy, you can also relate to. And that is the idea of pairing a desire for legacy with humility. You know, you talk about how to your family, you're just Matthew, right? They immediately ground you. Same exact thing happens. Even my mom will just approach people randomly in Walmart

and say, do you know Rhett and Link? Well, Rhett's my son. She will do that. But when I'm with say, do you know Rhett and Link? Well, Rhett's my son. She will do that. But when I'm with her, I'm just Rhett. And in the South, there's this ethos of the moment that you're too big for your britches, everybody's gonna let you know, right? So how have you kind of paired that?

The idea of legacy or being an entertainer in general is that you got something to say. Writing a book like Greenlights, you've got something to say that you think is worth people's time. How do you balance that with the concept of humility? Well, it's a great question because I don't know about y'all,

but the idea and the church that I was raised in, humility, to be be humble to bow down to make yourself at least number two I could understand it and get great worth out of it when I was bending my knee out of it when I was bending my knee to my God. But when it came to society, mortal men, women, I found that I didn't know how to be humble without losing confidence. And I found that when I would be humble, it was almost a, I didn't know how to be humble. You know, those people that are falsely modest and you're like you condescending son of a bitch, cut that out. You know what I mean? Cut that out. That's BS. You're BS and not only me, but yourself. You know what I mean? It's like, no,

it's that Renise Sherman story. I tell, Hey, she told me, Hey, you know what? You're cute. You're really a cute young man. When I was in ninth grade, I was like, Oh, she was like, Hey, reached out and grabbed my hand. She was a very good friend of mine. Grabbed my hand. I said, what? She goes, someone gives you a compliment. cute young man. When I was in ninth grade, I was like, Oh, she was like, Hey, reached out and grabbed my hand. She was a very good friend of mine. Grabbed my hand. I said, what? She goes,

someone gives you a compliment. It's true. Just look them in the eye and say, thank you. Yeah. Well, yes, ma'am.

Heard. Now I came across, um, a definition. And I find this very true for me in my, in my life. A lot of times it's about what Webster's dictionary are we working off of?

The definition of humility. Cause I've questioned, well, you want me to be humble? Everyone says be humble, but no one likes to be humiliated. You know what I mean? Right? But yet humiliation is an extension of being humble. But no, you ask me, you want to be humiliated? Everyone's like, no, but you don't want to be humble?

Yes, please. Right. So when I heard this definition of humility as being knowing you have more to learn, I was like, oh, that's the one I'm talking about. I can go forward and bow and have reverence and say please and say thank you and respect, but I don't lose confidence. My shoulders can still be back. My head can still be high. My heart can be high because I can admit that, yes, I've got more to learn, 100%. I purchase. I'm in forever. Different definition, and it made it click for me, which allowed me to be, allows me to be humble, but still not lose my confidence. Because we know, man, confidence is

a huge thing. And I'm a believer in the necessity of our ego. We try to pound that down. If you don't have an ego, if you don't have an ego if you don't have judgment you got no identity you got to have it we got to have a healthy ego we are everything experience of our life no matter how zen or or selfless we are it comes through us it's the only feeling we can own and it's ours and it's original and we need to, when that needs to be in capital letters or in bold print to ourselves, I think it's a very true thing to face that and look in the mirror and go,

that's exactly what that is. I know, you know, I have an opinion that I know why I succeeded. I know why I had my hand in getting what I wanted there. I know why I had a hand in failing to get what I wanted. Whether it's winning or losing. Well, it sounds like you're talking about the, it's really a form of realism, right?

And just being like, believing the truth about yourself. Right? If that is, well, I am good at this thing. Right. That's true. I need to work on this. That's also true. So like more of a self-awareness where you can kind of find yourself,

cause I mean, we've all got the imposter syndrome constantly and you show up in a new place, a new room, new project, whatever, you get that imposter syndrome. But then at the same time, I usually have two equally, you know, equal thoughts in my brain. One is I shouldn't be here and damn it, I should be here. You know?

And it's sometimes I can be a little bit, yeah, the false humility stuff can be problematic, but the moment that you start to think that, okay, I've got something to say that is better or my story is better than your story kind of thing and it becomes this thing where I am belittling or taking advantage of others in order to get my thing across, that's when it falls apart.

But I, so, because I think I was trying to figure out like when you talked about making the selfish choice, I think this helps contextualize that because you did refer to making the selfish choice, but I think there's caveats to it, right? Sure, and look, selfish is another word that my pastor says I'm pushing a big rock up a steep hill trying to redefine this one.

All right, let's hear it word that i'm a i'm a well as you just said when if it's belittling others i don't think it's true selfishness in the infinite game in the law if we're really playing the long game we're really trying to create green lights in our life live a full life a quality life there are sacrifices we make today to get a larger reward tomorrow. And someone would say, well, wait, that's sacrificing that what you want today right now. That's that's that's very unselfish of you to know that's it. That's very selfish of me because I'm going to go without this dime today to get my dollar next week.

So if I have any time understanding delayed gratification and quality of life, and I'm considering, hey, you're damn right, I want to fill my bank account. If I consider also, I want to fill my soul, can I fill my soul's account along as well in the way I fill my bank account? I would say that's being more selfish. Because what's more selfish? To get to the end of your life and go, I just filled my bank account, but my soul's account was barren. Screwed people over, burned bridges, did what I wanted all the way down the road. And now I'm here, a lonely SOB. I got no family. I got broke things out there. Gosh, I would say that's less selfish. Yeah, right. Because what got the bigger ROI? So it's not in belittling others. because I'm with you. If it starts to be at the

expense of helping someone else out, which is the historical sort of definition of selfish, doing things for one's own without relation or empathy for anyone else, it could be a certain definition. That's not what I'm talking about. Right. I'm actually trying to say that the more selfless you are, the more selfish you are being. Right. New religion says that.

I would also say the more selfish you are being, the more selfless you may actually be being as well. I mean, even the end goal of every major world religion is that ultimate personal connection with the creator or eternity in paradise. I mean, that's kind of a selfish proposition. It's the most selfish proposition. Even if you're saying,

you're telling me I can live a certain way and let's get to heaven? Right. If you're living now, that's the ultimate selfish ambition. Whether you're, you know, for a believer who prescribes to that. I mean, I think it's, we have to be,

in that version I would say we have to be more selfish, but now mind you, I'm redefining what that means. The long game, the long term of selfishness. If you're prioritizing yourself and your own health, everyone around you is gonna benefit, I think is ultimately. Bingo. If you're trusting yourself,

that's how you trust other people. Respecting yourself, that's how you're gonna respect other people more. And again, these are just things that we make a contradiction, which I don't believe are. I believe a much more paradox. And I think it comes to light specifically, I mean, when you were talking about that juncture,

the non-rom-com anymore juncture, and it wasn't just you making a decision, you said there were a lot of tears and conversations with Camilla and you were starting a family together and it was a palpable risk. Oh yeah. And so it wasn't just something that you're like,

I wanna do what I wanna do. I mean, so you were taking into account your family and they had to be on board. I had to look at finances. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anime! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman.

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My wife understood. She saw my pain and angst and unrest at wanting to do roles and have work that challenged the vitality of my life. She said soon, soon as she heard that coming from in here, she was on board with me. Then she started, we sat there and she goes, she's the one who pointed out, this is going to be hard. You don't know how long it's going to be. You're going to be dry. How long you're not going to work. She also knows where I'm going to have to go at that time going,

you're not working. I know how much significance you get from work know how much significance you get from work. How much significance you get, Matthew, from accomplishing things. How much you like to prepare, then finish, then, oh, okay, I did that. I do. I do. I still do. And she was like, oh, boy, every day. You're saying every day could be a Saturday?

saying every day could be a Saturday without the structure of work, the two jobs a year, three jobs a year that you take that go for four months or so. So that could be appealing, but that could be scary. Scary as all get out. Trust me, I've said it before. The days are long all of a sudden. I mean, I can only tend the damn garden and be a you know, be a good dad to my son for so long. All of a sudden, about three, three o'clock, I'm getting antsy going. I've got nothing. I'm building here. No calls are coming in. Start to look up over there and go, hey, look at that bottle. Hey, it might be time. Well, no, it's a little bit early on that. You know, you get you get restless and to hold a bearing there.

and to hold a bearing there. Luckily, I had her and I had a young son that anytime my mind got off and I was off in this monastic sort of sabbatical I was on, I would look to my newborn or look to my relationship or convince myself, trust, trust. The longer you endure this, very much like the Australian year. I clicked into it.

I believe that if you endure this, very much like the Australian year. Yeah. I clicked into it. I believe that if you endure this, there's a greater reward at the end, Matthew. Trust it, time's on your side. Get in the bathtub and read some Lord Byron. Yeah, that's great. I don't wanna spoil that whole thing because I want people to experience it in the book. But yeah, I mean, you got a lot out of it.

The least of which is not a kick-ass punchline. I mean, with the reveal of it. But I mean, in contrast to Rhett, I think when you talk about like counting the cost and the risk and looking into the unknown when you're at a turning point in your career, I think that that's the part that resonates with me because we have so much like, you know, yesterday,

oh, and I think this, you know, it may have been one of your poems in your book or may have just been something you said. It gets blurry in the audio book if you're in a poem or not, which I actually liked. I'm like, maybe the whole thing's a poem. Innocence, yeah. But the one where you were talking about

making love to your wife earlier in the day and then having drinks and it's like everything after that was like the dancing was better, the drinking was better, all the other things that you do with the rest of your day. The spices and the food were better, everything. The conversation at 3 a.m. across the table was always all better. Yeah, it does set a nice stage

to have a good session to begin it. Yes. And you know what? Yesterday, that happened to me. Me and Christy, we sorted our mail. Oh, you had morning sex yesterday? Made a little love. I had morning sex yesterday

because she was leaving to go to North Carolina. And you know what? I was like this, and then I was like, I'm taking my son, he's gotta have more driving under his belt before he can get his license. We're driving around Los Angeles. We're driving over the Hollywood Hills. I'm like, son, you are driving on the Sunset Strip

right now. And then we come back around, we're going up, it's like, let's go up to Griffith Observatory. And then I get back home and I'm hanging out with the family and I went for a mountain bike ride, I came home, I said, I'm gonna get in the bathtub. I got in the bathtub and I looked out the window and I saw the sun reflecting off the mountains.

And I'm like, this, I feel so secure in this nest. This is beautiful. This is a beautiful thing. And a lot of it had to do with starting off with a little love making. It can open up the aperture. But it can also trap someone like me into a sense of security. Comfort zone.

I don't wanna just put it out there as a wrong choice because it could be a right choice for somebody. I don't know if it is for me, but I do know I have this tendency to overvalue security and especially when I've got so much. Like that day was, and there was other things. I have this tendency to overvalue security and especially when I've got so much. Like that day was, and there was other things. I don't, if I walked you through all of it, I'd be like, damn, you had a perfect day.

Or I had my perfect day, okay? So, but I'm at this point where we're having these conversations and I, you know, I can, I'm fueled off of his being antsy from a creative standpoint, I benefit from that to pull me out of this space where I'm like, the risk is scary.

The unknown is scary. I mean, are there certain things that you have to drop to go for what you want? And when it gets to those details and you're having those tearful conversations, I mean, nothing's as scary as I think when we had nothing and we were trying to build something. Right.

So that being said, I'm still at this point where looking into that unknown and saying, okay, what am I willing to give up to go for what is still in my tank? Like that you had a passing comment of when you were positioning everything, there was a lot of practical steps.

Like you shut down a production company, I think you said, you shut down a record label. I'm like, okay, McConaughey had a record label. Of course he did. And then you shut it down. And it's like, when you feel like you can do so many things, it's hard to know what's the right thing to go for. But if you look really deeply,

I think that answer's in there for us. And it's just a question of, okay, what are we willing to shut down to open up? What, you know, do we have a buyer's club, a Dallas buyer's club in our future? I mean, how much could you see it? How much was it just foggy? I, yeah, it was hazy.

But the decision, the truth of the decision to say, I'm going to sacrifice not doing any more of the work that I'm in pole position to do, which were the rom-coms, that was clear. And that was clear to me in solitude. That was clear to me at 2 a.m. alone. That was clear to me at 3 a.m. with Camilla in the dark without any other noise. And so the truth of it was clear. Now the execution becomes the hard part. And then to trust that, that no matter what, I'm taking this now out into the masses and the weather's going to get gnarly. Trust that to be true. Trust that to be, believe in that as time goes by and you start to go, ah, maybe I could amend that.

You know what I mean? Hey, let's go. How secure are you yesterday? The morning you had with your family? The morning you had with your wife? My question is, like any good drug, love, sex, booze, whatever they are, fame, attention, the problem's not really when we got them or on them. The problem's with when it becomes hard to live our life and be secure when we don't have them. The problem's a week later when you hadn't hooked up,

when you haven't had that morning. Why are you a little bit, why are you moving a little bit faster? Why are you not, why are you, why are you not saying, why are you not noticing that your son's driving on sunset strip? Because you're thinking, what do I got to do here at 11 today? You're thinking ahead, you're out of the moment, right? Yeah. So that's a question that is that i think is also worth unpacking but to get back to i think what your last and initial

question your last question was you've built currency you've earned currency you're looking yourself at the base you guys are going we got we've earned currency here damn right and we know we're responsible for it first own that then. Then go, well, I don't want to be foolish with it, but I also don't want to be beholden to it. So I'm so protective here that I'm going, hey, we built this. Let's just be so damn happy and so damn impressed with what we've built. Hey, let's just fade off and maybe we can retire and go play golf. I don't know. It's not what I want to do. At the same time, you don't want to take your currency to Vegas and just start blindly saying, hit me or I fold without looking at your

cards. So first this, I would go to this and I talk about this in the book, process of elimination before you go to identity. Before you affirm about what it is you want to do, you start eliminating what you don't want to do. You were bringing that up. I started eliminating things on my proverbial Monday morning desk, my record company, my development company. Things I was like, you got these little campfires and none of them are just flaming big. You can't. They're not enough flame to really heat the kitchen. Not enough flame for Valhalla. I need to get rid of a few of the campfires so I can add more time, gasoline, wood to these fires that are most important.

So then you go, what are the most important ones? What are my non-negotiable things? What's going with me as I go forward, no matter what the hell I do? What am I going to tend to? What gardens am I tending to? I'm taking care of going forward in my life that are non-negotiable. For me, I go husbandry of going forward in my life that are non-negotiable. Yeah. For me, I go husbandry and fatherhood, my family.

That's a non-negotiable. Whether I go run for governor or I go make a rock album, that's non-negotiable. Yeah. So when I look at that and I try to point those out, it helps me go, okay, well, at least we don't have to wonder about that one. Yeah. So when I look at that and I try to point those out, it helps me go, OK, well, at least we don't have to wonder about that one. Yeah. And as I'm going forward, let's just put that over here in the bag and say, if I'm going wherever I go, this is happening with me. So it's great, great to have things, certain things that are black and white in our life that are not like, well, I'm not sure that's debatable. No, that's not debatable. Right, yeah. I'm not debating that. It'll help.

It seems to help. It doesn't answer the question, but it does at least lead you into going, I find, having more in front of you and ways to pathways to get what you want, that could work. It decreases the amount of options. Yeah. And that's a good thing. Yeah, and I do think that that is the, I'm not gonna say it's easy, but it is the easy part is making those identifications. Right? I mean, you can,

you start thinking about those fires and you think, oh, well, this fire is not really for me. This fire, somebody said that this would be a good idea. And we do 20 different things. And so you start looking around and you're like, this one seems strategic because this person said it was. Then the hard decision is to just let that fire or to douse it.

That's the hard part. How much do we want? I love it, man. More ideas. Come on. I can tell you. My biggest asset, my biggest downfall, not my big, one of my biggest downfalls would be that I think I can make anything work. I can be moved and think anything's creative and anything's right.

Yes. Yeah. My biggest downfall would be the same thing. My biggest upfall would be the same thing. Because all of a sudden be the same thing because all of a sudden I'm going to wait a minute, you know, you get too many things. All of a sudden I got all these campfires here and I'm inviting more campfires

onto my desk. I question like my life now going, you don't need new fires. You don't need new ideas. You need to sculpt what you got. Yeah. You need to start framing. You need to take that,

clean up that wood and get fewer fires, larger flames. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, cause I can talk myself into an idea and then by the afternoon be convinced that this is the best idea. And this, yeah, here's all the reasons that this is gonna work. But you went, you know,

we talk about our blood oath a lot, you know, it's fun, but it's so meaningful, you know, we talk about our blood oath a lot. You know, it's fun, but it's so meaningful. You know, when you wrap things up and you talk about your top 10 list and you know, you read it and you didn't have to say that they had been checked off. You know, so it's, what does that mean for your legacy now? Like, how do you look at it?

Because that's kind of where the book ended, but then you're not done. Well, again, as I was saying, no, I'm not done. And some people have said, hey, you've accomplished all these 10 goals. Well, no, I haven't. There's only one I've accomplished.

And that was winning the Oscar for best actor. The other nine, my relationship with God, my relationship as a father, being close to my my my my parents now because my mother's the only one alive those the egotistical utility and those i'm i'm on the way to succeeding those i'm i'm but those are i have to work on those those are some of my non-negotiables if i look at those i go you're gonna be doing me you're in process of trying to achieve these goals until you leave this earth. It's what I'm convinced of. I don't have a new 10 goal sheet.

If anything, I need to look back at the original goal sheet and go, how do we better tend these gardens? How do we evolve the tendance of these gardens, of these goals that you already have? And not be satisfied. I still have an entrepreneur spirit of, hey, there's new things. World changes. But we also, as we know, I mean, it's Eddie Vedder says,

you can change by staying the same and sticking to your modus operandi, your original goals and going no i give that i'm i'm going to still take care of that i'm going to maintain that i'm going to make that help that grow and work on that daily that changes you get new ideas new things come in our lives and we go oh we get successful we get new opportunities i don't You know, there's a great, what would you do with $14 billion? Someone said, take off five zeros and do what you do with $14,000 a million times. I don't know where to move the decimal, but I do know what you're saying. You know what I mean?

And there's real truth to that. At the same time, we don't want to be hoarders. Yeah. We got success. We don't want to hoard our currency and say, this is good. I made it. Because we know it's not a summit we're on. We know we didn't get to the top of anything.

And I think we also got to understand that there really is no top, no matter what, even if you exceed your dreams that y'all have right now in 20 years, you're not gonna be there in 20 years going, we did it. You're gonna be there in 20 years if you succeed, if everything going, what's next?

Yeah, right. I hope so. That's just part of the game. Yeah, that's good to hear, especially from you. I feel like we've gone through the Greenlight's workbook and it's not even out yet. Yeah, well, yeah, because we want to be mindful of your time

and we could talk to you forever. We said this is gonna be selfish and I think, you know, mission accomplished, we got some nice- Tell us about the workbook, which comes out on December 7th, I think. Yeah, it's the journal. Journal.

As you know, the book is based off of 37 years of journaling. Right. And put out the book, and I noticed that a lot of people didn't really journal, didn't write things down, but then would talk to me about, oh, and they did, it really helped them. mean so oh yeah it's a jerk this is it um and what you what you what you uh i got little prompts in here okay so there's certain things for like for instance

i'll kick you off you know there you go tell a love story about your family all All right. I'm gonna nudge the writer. Where I was the author of Greenlights, this is so, you're the author. This is your, whoever's got a journal, it's your story. I'll be there to guide you with a couple of, hey, think about this, think about that, throughout the book. So I'm kind of there with you, but when you write things down,

you're extending the socratic dialogue we think we have to cry it's cracked dialogue all the times we think things yeah you know um you two can share things you've got the the bond etc i have my wife who i share things with and other great friends but man we can say let's not forget that the first and foremost and last person that we should be sharing our thoughts with and making obligations with and contracts with is the M and the E, the Y-O-U. That's what I mean, again, by being selfish. It's a selfish endeavor to be maybe more selfless, to be a better, more truer self, to be a better person for more people as well. And it starts, I believe,

with making a contract with ourself. And you never look back. Exploring ourselves. You never look back. And that's what journaling is for. Because we've journaled, you know, kind of coming up, but you never look back and think, man, I wish I hadn't recorded that.

I wish I had. I should have journaled less. You always think, man, I wish I, oh, there was that dry I had. I should have journaled less. You always think, man, I wish, oh, there was that dry spell where I just did like one thing for a year. Like, you know, and I do think that having that structure and those ideas to get you started could be super helpful. Yeah, very cool.

You know, the other thing I just say is that we typically, journaling has gotten that a bit of a wrong definition that, oh, you go to it when you're frustrated, confused, and in trouble. Okay, it's good for that. Don't forget to go to it when you are rolling, when you are catching green lights, when you are on time and in line and on your frequency. Dissect your success. frequency. Dissect your success. Dissect the stuff that works in your relationships, in how you started your day, in how you ended your night, in what worked through the day. Man, because you will go back. I've done it so many times when I've then gotten into a rut, off frequency, lost, frustrated, confused. I've gone back into my journal and gone, what were you doing back in June, man? You had a, that month, you were just rolling.

Your relationships are great. Your career was great. You saw beauty in the world. You were just, I was on time. And I'll go back and I'll see habits that I had that now that I'm in a rut, I'm going, oh, you quit doing that. Let's go back.

And it's helped me recalibrate and go, ah, and shifted me back into my lane again. And if you need to install a recorder in your car, you can do that too, right? Yes, you can. I love that idea. Whatever it takes, man. That guy's got a CB to himself.

Yes. In his truck. DJ. Let's DJ. Well, Matthew, man, thanks so much for spending the time. Like I said, we're big fans of you, big fans of the book. And I just think that it totally makes sense that this, you know, the do it yourself version is the next thing with the journal.

So yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, write your story. And you know what? Now that we've heard from you and had all our questions answered, we're gonna go for it and we're gonna blame you if it doesn't work out. Awesome, yes, yes, please do. All right, thanks, man.

All right, man, thank you. Call me. All right. All right, we just talked to Matthew McConaughey. Remember that? We did. It just happened. And you know, it was kinda like, there's just sometimes, I mean, we haven't been, like you said, we haven't been talking to anybody

besides the two of us, but I kinda just felt like we just kinda hung out with somebody who- He's not gonna be your new best friend, if that's what you're thinking. No, well, you know, well, I've got something on the side with him that you may not know about. But no, but I think that the sort of the rhythm that comes from, and again, I don't wanna make it seem like,

yeah, we've got the same life experience as Matthew McConaughey. As you'll get from that book, man, the dude has lived this crazy, crazy life. I've never had a dream about some place and then traveled there. Twice. More than once in my life. I haven't done it at all.

So, but I do think that just, yeah, that was a very beneficial conversation for the two of us. Yeah, I think there's no magic bullet. You know, it's not like, okay, I'm gonna do this because he said this phrase and everything clicked into place. But I mean, the way that he presents his life of stories

in the book is very inspirational. It's like, when in doubt, go for it. Have the experience, embrace the experience versus finding the excuses to not do it. Of course, that can't be a blanket statement across the board, but it's inspirational and a great reminder that like going for something and being up for the experience of it

harbors so many rewards that you can't expect. And also chasing who you truly are and your passions is something that really resonates. And I think a lot of people, a lot of our fans may think, it feels like you guys have lived a life that is leaning into risk and trying new things.

And I know that there is a part of that and some significant points in our career that are kind of characterized by that mentality. But I think that the way that we perceive ourselves and our critical analysis of the way that we operate is that we err on the side of being too practical. Yeah. And we end up being too reasonable

and we make decisions that make too much sense. And I think that there is a part of us that is, wants to ask the question, well, what would it be like if, fill in the blank with an impractical question or decision? Because the fact is, and it's hard for me to see it and say it, that we are in a position where we could go after things

based on the success that we have and the relationship that we have with Mythical Beasts. So it's, yeah, there's still a lot to think about there. And we'll continue to, we won't keep talking about it forever, yeah, there's still a lot to think about there. You know, but- And we'll continue to, we won't keep talking about it forever, but- Whose wreck is it? Well, I think that whoever's it is,

I mean, we know what we're wrecking. I've already wrecked journaling, now I can say, and if you want Matthew McConaughey to give you thought starters, well, there's a journal for that that's coming out soon. Greenlights Journal. But yeah, listen to Greenlights. I mean, if you like good stories.

And I would say, now we both listened to it and it's an incredible audio book because I mean, it's Matthew McConaughey. So you know that the way that he's gonna McConaughey it when he delivers it is gonna be worth your time. I will say, we also do have the physical copy of the book and a lot of the things that he talks about, complete with pictures and bumper stickers, et cetera,

a lot of that stuff is in there. So I think it's, you know, choose your poison, but both of them are great. And there's a reason that it's reverberated so widely, you know, over the past year or so since it's been out. We are leaving on trips independent of one another. Me and Christy are going on a trip to Big Sur and- I'm going to Key West.

Oh man. Never been there. Never been to that little- Key? Little thing that Florida pooped out at the end of itself. It's like the dribble of pee from the penis that is Florida. Oh gosh, you should have saved that for your intro. That's what we'll be talking about next week on Ear Biscuits.

But, you know, hashtag Ear Biscuits. Let us know what you think about this conversation. You probably have some thoughts about how good is the ego. I don't know exactly if I agree with him on that, but maybe some of it's semantics, but get into whatever you want to. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. We'll be here next time.

On the flip side of our trips.