Podcrushed - TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie Tells Matthew McConaughey How Success Broke Him

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

New series sneak peek! No Magic Pill is hosted by TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, who fell apart after building and selling one of the most recognized brands on the planet. After a years-long journey through every therapy and treatment imaginable, Blake is finally talking honestly about the dark side of success and the reality of mental health. In No Magic Pill, Blake travels the country to sit down with survivors, experts, and cultural icons who have looked into the darkness and found a way out. These aren’t stories of quick fixes; they are honest conversations about the daily choices, big and small, that create a path forward. In this episode excerpt, Blake speaks with actor Matthew McConaughey about the darkest moments in his life and how solo trips helped him purge the shame, guilt, and embarrassment of his younger years. You can hear the full episode and hear more of No Magic Pill at https://lemonada.lnk.to/NoMagicPillBlakeMycoskie

Lemonado. Hi, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus here, and I can't wait for you to hear our new episode of Wiser Than Me with Cindy Lopper on Amazon Music. Cindy may be a girl who just wants to have fun, but for 40 years she has brought playfulness and a dash of punk to some serious activism. We talk about her lifelong LGBTQ-plus advocacy, her astonishing music career, and pick up a whole lot of wisdom. along the way. Listen now only on Amazon music included with Prime. I'm Blake Mikoski. As the founder of Tom Shoes, I helped millions of people and built a global brand. But selling my company cost me my purpose and nearly my life. I completely fell apart. I spent years chasing a single cure that would fix me, only to realize there is no magic pill. My new podcast is a look at how dark it can get

and also the daily choices that we can make to lead us back to ourselves. No Magic Pill is out now. Hey, it's Blake Mikoski, the founder of Tom Shoes. I'm dropping into your feed to share my new podcast with you. It's called No Magic Pill, because there is no magic pill when it comes to healing our mind. I have firsthand experience. As a successful entrepreneur, I gave away millions of shoes,

built one of the most recognized brands on the planet, sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars and then totally fell apart. At the peak of my success, I felt utterly empty. After a year-long journey through every therapy and treatment imaginable, I finally started talking honestly about the dark side of success and the reality of mental health. That's what this podcast is all about. In No Magic Pill, I travel the country to sit down with survivors, experts, and cultural icons who have looked into the darkness and found a way out. No magic pills, no quick fixes. These are honest conversations about the daily choices big and small that create a path forward.

You're about to hear a clip from my conversation with Matthew McConaughey, produced by Lemonade Media and the Enough Foundation. To listen to the full episode with Matthew, just search for no magic pill wherever you get your podcast. or click the link in the show notes. And make sure to follow so you don't miss a single episode. How do you come out of what you've done with Tom's going through an identity crisis of thinking you're not enough? Where did that narrative come from? Hi, I'm Blake Mikoski.

As the founder of Tom's Shoes, I helped millions of kids and I built a global empire. On paper, it looked like I had everything. But at the peak of my success, I was quietly falling apart. Alone with my thoughts, there were nights I would have done anything just to stop the pain. The guilt can get really heavy. The shame can get heavy.

I do not enjoy my own company. I started this podcast to connect with others who had reached the pinnacle of achievement, only to find profound emptiness, to learn from people I respect and admire. My first guest, Matthew McConaughey, has been a lot of. walked into the wilderness of his own mind and found something he could live by. I packed all my diaries away along with my steaks, water, and tequila and went to a place in the middle of the desert where I was locked in with nothing but me and who I've been in my past and my diaries. Who the hell do we think we are putting that limit on ourselves? We can go higher

and wider and deeper to find things out than I think we do. That action keeps giving me the same damn result and the ROI sucked. Matthew is living proof that he Healing doesn't come from a single breakthrough. It's about knowing who you are. Matthew's wisdom on how to take control of your destiny really help me during some of my darkest times. It might have even saved my life. Bam, there comes the breakthrough. In your first book, Green Lights, one of my favorite parts is you talk about how you got the part for Wooderson and dazed and confused.

And you say, you knew your man. Yeah. And in other times in your career, when you've had an incredible performance, you said, I knew my man. So my goal today is simple. My goal is for our listeners and anyone watching this to know their man. And their man is Matthew McCona. Okay. Okay. So let's get started with. Let's do it. With this. Yeah, points of prayers. I love this book. I mean, you can see right here, I have dog-eared and so many pieces. And I will never get through all of my questions and poems that I love to read. I want to start with what the poem is on the back. And I'd love for you to read it because you had to choose one poem for the back.

So if you'll read it and then tell us why you chose that one, that'll be a great way to kick it off. The victor sees the light last. The final believer wins the crown. Don't pull the parachute too early. Fly until you touch down. It's a lightning bolt. it's a it's it's it's magnanimous enough to go wait what are you talking about but everyone can put their own story wait a minute what do you mean the the victor what's the last light so this is

a bit of i'm a fan of icarus in reverse you know the story of icarus he's he's flying up near the sun with his with with his son yeah to not get too close don't and the son wants to go the s o in son wants to fly closer to the s u in son but the father goes oh don't do that man you're the wax on your wing will melt and you'll fall to the earth? Yeah. Well, you know, a kid does and wax melts and goes down. He falls.

Because he got too close to the sun. I think what we need is to fly much closer. Meaning we so often go, oh, ho ho, oh, it's getting hot. My wings might wax on my wings might melt. And it's freaking 45 degrees, man. And you're not even, it's not even sweating yet, bro. So it's that, it's where I talk about in Greenlight's man-made roofs, certain ceilings, mortal ceilings we put on ourselves.

And it's a very arrogant thing to do. Who the hell do we think we are putting that limit on ourselves? Totally. And it's through comparison and consumerism, what the world says, how we feel about ourselves. Can it be this good? If it's going good, wait, could I do that? Could that be me? I don't know.

These things that are man-made. And so that don't pull the parachute. We pull the parachute too early. I know I'm guilty of it. I'm pulling it too early instead of going, what was going to happen? You're going to get bruised. Yeah. Well, you may have come away with the scar too.

Yeah. You might have broke a bone, but did you find out? Totally. And we can go higher and wider and deeper to find things out than I think we do. Totally. And if it does get hot, we can handle breaking sweat. Back to green lights now. one of the things that I love about that, and I think it ties into what we were just saying is you talk about the difference between a resume and a eulogy.

How has that affected how you live your life? Well, I bring it up in a couple of poems in here about we can seem to be able to remember as far as we can project. And the writing of green lights, I had to look over my shoulder into my past. Okay. Back to probably down back to eight years old. that was not a comfortable experience for me, especially for the first two weeks. I felt shame, I felt guilt. I was embarrassed. Jeez, oh, man. Did you ever feel like saying, fuck it, I don't want to do this? No, I didn't get myself the option. Good. I mean, I packed all my diaries away.

Okay. Along with my steaks, water, and tequila, and went to a place that had no electricity in the middle of the desert where I was locked in with nothing but me and who I've been in my past or my diaries. And I learned from previous trips that there's, There's an initiation period when we go away with ourselves. Yes. Where the demons on our back, man, are dancing and having a good time at our expense, where the guilt can get really heavy. The shame can get heavy.

And I know for me, I do not enjoy my own company for a little while when I go off these shifts. Amen to that. But I've learned that there seems to be, for me, it's around. day 12. Day 12, really? Seemed for whatever reasons. It's happened on numerous trips. There's around day 12 where all of a sudden I have a purge or a wake up and I go, okay, dude, what are we going to forgive? And what are we going to change?

Meaning what parts are we going to forgive? What parts are we going to go? Buck stops here, man. No more of that bullshit. Yeah. Cut it out, you repeat, offended, son of a bitch. You know what I mean? That action keeps giving you the same damn result and the ROI sucks.

Yeah. Cut it out. Yeah, yeah. Or what do we forgive? Yeah, dude, you're human, hey, man. And so about around there, the things that were maybe embarrassed or shamed or feel guilt about, we can look at and go, instead of maybe crying about it or going pounding and breaking bleed, making our knuckles bleed over it, we can start, all of a sudden, start to go, bam, there comes the breakthrough, at least for me.

For sure. Now I start to laugh. You're holding on, you're not holding on so tight. Uh-uh. So if I'm hearing you correctly, some of those first 10 days, it's all coming in. It's internal. Yeah. And what are you doing?

Is there an actual practice? I mean, for someone who might be listening to this, thinking, like, I want to go away. I want to try this. Like, this is, and some people can't be alone with themselves for an hour. Look, if you can get to a place where you can have some physical movement. Yeah. A trek. Nothing, not sprints, but a destination, a hike.

Yes, okay. So move the body? To move the body is helpful. If you cannot. Yeah. And you are like where I was, now I could move around the desert, but I was basically kind of locked myself up in this little almost shed. You know, I had my helmet, a chin strap, my mouth guard,

and I patted the walls and wore a cup and my jock strap. Just so I was like, I don't need any sharp objects or I don't need to be using any heavy machinery right now. You know those mornings where he's like, dude, let's just try and keep from, you know, hitting something where we bleed today. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know those moments.

And sometimes if you're in, that can happen when we're on our own and stuck in our own world where we feel like we're going to implode and we feel like paralyzed, well, then strap the old helmet on. Yeah. Protect yourself. Yeah. Pat the walls and go. Okay.

All right. Let's have it out. Yeah. And you can have, you know, so it's put yourself in a location where you can have it out with yourself. I like that. And get rid of the, get rid of the barbed wire and put some padded walls up for yourself. drink out of a plastic cup.

I like that. Or and get to a place where you go, I have a destination today. I have a place I need to get to to find my bed. Yeah, yeah. To get water. Yeah, I know. It's a simple thing because the movement. Yeah, like the old saying of chop wood, you know, carry water.

Yes. Like sometimes that just simple repetition of accomplishing a simple task can get the momentum that you need to get clear in the head. And then that's when you really get those insights, downloads, and helped you reading this great book into the world. And that is part of, I think, how we rehabilitate. When we just start dealing with the chopwood, carry water, deal with what's right in front of you for long enough,

one in a row, enough times. And we start to get out of the cave. I love you, said one in a row. I don't know which book that is in, because I've read both of them so many times now. But I love when you talk about one in a row, is momentum. And one of my favorite parts about green lights is you'll be telling a story. And then all of a sudden you go, note to self. And it's just like, it's like, I'm like on the treadmill. And I'm like,

okay. And it's always like this really practical piece of advice. And one of my favorite notes to self is that, you know, one in a row. And so just that, that's the key is, is like have that, that one in a row, create some momentum, chop wood, carry water, know that if you're all going to go alone, it's going to be hard for, you know, a period. That's part of the purging. Part of that, I think, is understanding going in. Yeah. It's got, I'm about to go through hell for a little while.

It reminds me experience I had in my healing journey. I had this great psychiatrist and we threw a lot of work together, realized that I had been struggling with this feeling of not feeling enough. And he told me, he said, we have to reprogram your subconscious. And this is not going to be easy. It's going to take time. and it's going to take discipline and it's not going to feel better or quick. And so what we did very simple for 40 days I committed,

sounds very simple and kind of silly, but I woke up for 20 minutes every morning. I closed my eyes and I said, I'm enough, I've always been enough. I'm enough. I've always been enough. A mantra. 20 minutes of the morning, 20 months of the evening,

I'd never done anything like this. It felt silly. It felt stupid. All the demons were coming here saying, don't listen to the psychiatrist. You need to do this. You need to go to this retreat. And the first couple weeks it sucked, day 28, I started feeling better.

By day 40, I really started to believe it. So I totally know what you're saying when this advice is really practical. This is definitely a note to self. It is, you know, prolong the potential, expect the discomfort to be longer. And then when it's not, it'll get through it. Yeah. When you do, you're like, oh, I had more in the tank. Exactly, exactly.

Like I could have done, instead of 40 days, I could have done 80 days. Once you got past day 28. Yeah, exactly. But up to day 28, it sucked. What am I doing saying this damn thing again? Is it 20 minutes yet? No, it's only 17. I mean, it was like, yeah.

Okay, another note to self that I just love is, and it has a great story attached to it, is just because you can does not mean you should. Yes. This story hit me. The first time I read your book was like four or five years ago. I never forget. I was in Mexico listening to it, running on the beach. And this really hit me.

hard and I'll explain why, but please tell this story. Okay. So good. Yeah, so this comes from a story. It was 1995-ish, I think. I've gotten my first sort of real acting role after Days Confused. It was on a film called Boys on the Side. And we were shooting in Tucson, Arizona. I got like, I'm the fourth lead, Drew Barrymore, Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Louise Parker, Herbert Ross is directing. they got i got they rid of me a house i got a house on the edge of the swarrow national forest man i got i got i just got a dog got this one bedroom cool it's the guest house off my whole backyard was the desert it was so you're living oh it was good and that little house came with the housekeeper and she would uh just had a little loft bedroom anyway she would make my bed and she'd come and clean

up me some snacks and the thing a tupperware for my lunch and she would uh just had a little loft bedroom anyway she would make my bed and she'd come and clean up me some snacks and the thing, a Tupperware for my lunch, on the floors, walked, clean the dishes. And also, one thing she did is she would press my jeans and starch them with a freaking line down the middle. Yeah.

And they were folded up, that crispy look. Anyway, I had this, my friend, the late Beth Alexander, come over. She was Herbert Ross's assistant at the time, and we were becoming friendly. And we're hanging out on Friday night, and I'm telling her, dude, this is so great. And this place comes to this maiden.

She does this and this and gets what she else. She also presses my jeans. man. And I'm like, and she goes, well, that's great. If you like a jeans pressed. And I was like, I don't like that line down my jeans, man. But I was so happy to have it because I never, it was never an option before my life. Yeah.

And I was like, I don't like that fucking line. Yeah. What about shit? And we started laughing. Yeah. And I was just that, that, you know, when you can, ask you up if you want to before you do is a really great question because when a lot of times when we get an option to have something new or more, we're like, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Especially when it comes to more, I think. Yeah. Which we forget that, yeah, not enough of a good thing sucks, but a close second is too much of a good thing. Exactly.

Right? But we're like, yes. Because we've never had it before. Yeah. Because, well, why wouldn't I? Wouldn't I be, wouldn't it be insensitive of me to say no? Totally. Yeah.

Especially if that's been, if you've been told. That is what you should want by society. Like, I mean, I can remember this when I sold Tom's shoes. All of a sudden, I had all this money. And I was like, well, I got all this money. Like, I should, I'm going to build this crazy house in Jackson Hole. I'm going to have an indoor golf simulator, a rock climbing gym in my garage, all this stuff. Soon as I moved into the house, I looked around and I was like, I don't want to take care of all this shit.

Right. I don't want to have a staff person running around fixing this, fixing that. It was like, it was crazy. And so I had to. a lot of fun building it because I thought I won it because I thought I won my jeans press for a second. And instead, you know, six months into living in the house, I said, we're going to Costa Rica. Yeah. Simplifying life. Yeah. And you've done that a lot. You've done some, that's another thing I really

appreciate that what seems like in times in your life where things have gotten a little wobbly, a little, you know, maybe too much is going on. You've simplified. You've made some really, you've done a good life edit. I think I've done a decent job of that. I've found to go. away to places where for me as a celebrity to go to places where no one knew my name was something I needed. I remember the first trip to Peru is right after I got famous after a time to kill. And I was questioning. Then you were super famous. Like, I mean, we're like, like, that weekend was bananas. Like your whole life is done. Different. Different. Different. I have no strangers do I meet anymore. The world is mirror. You are now. Everybody. Matthew McKinney. And I'm going.

I only said that four people in my life, man. This place is... I love it. You know? Yeah. So I needed to get my feet on the ground, but at the same time, I needed to enjoy... All of a sudden, the world was yes to me. Yeah.

So you go to Peru. So I click out, boom, go to Peru. And partially what I needed was this. I needed to find it to check the validation. And I knew I had it. I just had to go prove it again. But I did question of like, okay. people now that I just got famous, I've got all this adulation for this and that and the other.

Okay. And I'm trying to decipher which part's real and which part's bullshit. Yeah. So I said, I'm going to go. One thing I need to find out is I'll be, I'll be gone for 22 days, which for whatever reason, 22 days seems to be about the time I go on these trips. Okay. Full time. So the first 12 days are a little long time. First 12 days are wonky, bro. And then La Laloz, Mateo, the last 10 days were great. And I was, I always like to say this. I was about green lights. I was now at the place long enough to go, I could live this. this could be my existence. It sounds like my ayahuasca trips.

Now it's okay to return. Yeah. The pain of the ayahuasca is so bad in the beginning and in the end is just bliss. Yeah. And as soon as you go, I could do this. And do this again. Yeah. Then you're like, well, I can return home?

Yeah. Great. So one thing I needed was can I meet and it happened? The people I met on Hello in Peru, who only knew me as Mateo. Yes. The Nova movie I had done or anything. Amazing. That's it.

How great did that feel? I must have felt so good. Well, it was great. Just the, because after when you get famous, what happens is you, there's a few sort of just salutations that are skipped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, what's your name? Yeah, what do you do? Yeah, everything.

Yeah. And people coming in. They know, they're not, you know, I'm sorry about your, sorry about Ms. Hud's cancer. Yeah. I don't want to, how did you know, I had a dog, two, had you, I don't know her, how did you know, three, how did you know she was sick? You said that on hello. Hi. My name is Matthew.

you, what's your name? You went five deep on howdy. Easy. Right? So I needed to do what did happen was meet people that knew me as Mateo. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. And at the end of 22 days, the tears in their eyes and the tears of my eyes and the hugs we had on the sadness and happiness of saying goodbye were all based off of the man they met named Matteo. Yes. Who had nothing to do with the celebrity and the experience in times that we had together for 22 days. That one. That's right. I got it. I still got it. I got it. It's not all, it's not only this thing. So it gave me a sort of self-under identity again. It reaffirmed my own identity that, oh, I got it. I got it.

To listen to the full episode with Matthew, just search for no magic pill wherever you get your podcast or click the link in the show notes. And make sure to follow so you don't miss a single episode.