The Daily Stoic - Matthew McConaughey on Family, Fame, and Livin' Authentically

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

How has Matthew McConaughey managed to keep his priorities straight while living in the spotlight? In today’s episode, he opens up about balancing family life with acting, treating life’s choices as experiments, and focusing on creating a lasting impact rather than chasing quick wins.Matthew McConaughey has an impressive Hollywood resume, including Interstellar, A Time to Kill, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Dallas Buyers Club. McConaughey also works as a producer and spokesperson, and is the bestselling author of Greenlights. He also founded and runs the Just Keep Livin Foundation to help kids lead active and healthy lifestyles. You can follow him on Twitter @McConaughey, Instagram @officiallymcconaughey, and YouTube at Matthew McConaughey, and you can find his Roadtrip course at artoflivinevent.com/roadtrip📚Grab a paperback copy of Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/🎥 Watch Matthew McConaughey’s previous interviews on The Daily Stoic: Matthew McConaughey and Ryan Holiday on Stoicism and the Power of Doing LessMatthew McConaughey On The Art Of Livin’🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. When I travel with my family, I almost always stay in an Airbnb. I want my kids to have their own room. I want my wife and I to have a little privacy. You know, maybe we'll cook or at the very least we'll use a refrigerator. Sometimes I'm bringing my in-laws around with me or I need an extra room just to write in. Airbnbs give you the flavor of actually being in the place you are. I feel like I've lived in all these places that I've stayed for a week or two or even a night or two. There's flexibility in size and location. When you're searching you can

look at guest favorites or even find like historical or really coolest things. It's my choice when we're traveling as a family. Some of my favorite memories are in Airbnb's we've stayed at. I've recorded episodes of a podcast in Airbnb. I've written books. One of the very first Airbnbs I ever stayed in was in Santa Barbara, California while I was finishing up what was my first book,

Trust Me I'm Lying. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend you check out Airbnb for your next trip. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers. This heart-stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding

the aviation manufacturing giant, Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 MAX, the latest season of business wars, explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust, the decisions, denials, and devastating consequences bringing the Titan to its knees, and what if anything can save the company's reputation now.

Follow Business Wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Business Wars, The Unraveling of Boeing, early and ad free right now on Wondery Plots. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives. Hey, it's Ryan.

Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. Sometimes these intros, I record them long in advance. Sometimes they're basically real time, but I guess time recording this on Tuesday, I woke up this morning and there was like a half inch, inch of snow on the ground, which is pretty unusual for Austin. There's also a raccoon on the porch in the trap we set for last night. Actually, I caught one last night and then one after we went to bed. So I had to re-home two raccoons. I did one before bed last night. And then I bundled up the kids, scraped all the snow

off the front of the truck. We got in the car, we drove it down about a mile and a half down a road and let the raccoons go. Hopefully they find somewhere else to live other than under our porch. And then we drove around the ATV, checked on the lakes and the cows and the donkeys. Don't get many snowy mornings, don't get many fresh tracks in Austin, Texas.

We had one in 21 and we actually got to snowboard on a little chunk of the one little hill on our farm. Not quite that severe this morning, all of which feels very far from a warm evening back in early December, when the one and only Matthew McConaughey came out to the painted porch and did the podcast in person. Matthew's been on the podcast a couple of times. We recorded one remotely during the pandemic when Greenlights was first coming out. And then I think we did it again when the Journal came out remotely. That was a nice two hour interview.

But his people had reached out and said, hey, Matthew's doing some promo for the book. Would you want to do an event at the bookstore in the podcast? And I said, are you kidding? I've known him now, I guess it's like almost five years, but we never met in person. We just, we text and we chat every once in a while

and share books. And he was nice enough to blurb the Daily Dad and it's a courageous calling, I think. Anyways, he's been a nice friend and I'm a big fan of his work, obviously. And I think Greenlights is a really good book and it's been a massive hit. It sold like six or 7 million copies,

which, you know, celebrity sort of memoirs don't. I was telling him, we sort of did a walkthrough of the bookstore after, and I was giving him some different books that I thought he would like. And I was telling him that I never know what section of the bookstore to put green lights in, because is it self-help, is it memoir?

And depending on it, sometimes I go, I think we should move it over here. I've probably moved it three or four times. So it's kind of a book that doesn't really fit in a category, which is the best. You wanna kind of invent a category, you wanna do your own thing. It's a great book.

And this nice little chat we talked about, the things we've talked about on all the different episodes, but it's always unique and interesting talking to the one and only Matthew McConaughey. Greenlights is now available in paperback. I think we sold out of all our signed copies almost immediately so sorry about that but you can follow him at officially McConaughey on Instagram

and check out the Just Keep Living Foundation and then I'll be bringing you part two of this episode on Saturday because then we went out and did the the talk on the back porch so I asked a few questions and then fans asked a few questions and we'll round it out with that later in the week. If you are in Austin or Texas, I hope you stay warm. We sent all the employees home last night and are trying to keep everyone safe, but I hope either it's warmer where you are

or you're doing well. ["The Last Supper"] I almost wore the same jacket. I'm glad I didn't. Finally got to be weather where you can or you're doing well. Almost wore the same jacket, I'm glad I didn't. Finally got to be weather where you can wear them. I know. Last few days have been great. Little crispiness out there. I swam in Barton this morning and it was like one of the first days where.

The nice thing about Barton Springs is that in the winter the water is warmer than it is outside because it's always the same temperature. Right. It was like the first morning where I felt like that was true. Did you go into town? Yeah. How often? Every morning. You go to Barton's Fridge every morning? No not every morning but I go into town every morning. You drive into Austin?

Enjoyable morning rituals just like I mean you do it for your kids. Yeah so you're not like loving it you're just like that's just how it is. Okay so two hours of your day are driving? We trade my wife's doing pickup today We trade yeah, it's a lot you design your life and then you know life blows it and things blow up Yeah, yeah, I got good to go. Yeah. Look we moved into town. I got nine acres I'm looking at that other eight acres and someone's gonna mean you need to build a barn on the cabin I need to build a barn and I'm, the fuck do I need a barn for? Yeah.

Or man, you need to got an idea man cave over here. I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, to get away from who? Right. You need horses when you come in, man, you got horses running down. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All these bright ideas that then I'm on my own for. I'm like, I don't want a fucking barn.

Right. I mean, so I was like smaller space, got everything compact. And we are eight to 12 minutes from everything now. We got the electric bikes. That's very nice. So we did the opposite as Austin's and Gromit. We said, let's go get in it, raise the kids on black tops and dirt roads for the first 12 years of their life.

So now let's go negotiate and hustle. It's easier if you go through life thinking about all your decisions as temporary, you know? You know, Tim Ferriss, he talks about it's like, it's an experiment. We're going to do it for a couple of years. Yeah. So I'm trying to think, like, we love where we are. We moved out in the country. We live on a dirt road. We have cows. It's like the whole Texas thing. But yeah, I'm not sure how sustainable this drive thing is every day.

It's nice. But then, like, we moved out here because it was close to Austin because nobody lived out here. But now everyone and everything has moved out here. So now there's traffic going in every morning. How old is your? My son's eight. So what's that? That's not middle school yet. He's in second grade. So you got third, fourth, fifth, you got three more years there. Is there a middle school you might be able to go to out here? The school he's at is one through eight. But then my other son, he goes to school out here. We love it.

He has this outdoor nature school thing. It's like amazing. But now I got two kids in two different cities at two different schools. So it's like, I'm like a full-time Uber driver. With two different sets of friends? Yeah, so then all the parties every weekend are different, you know? Yeah, it's a lot. I understand friends. Yeah, so then all the parties every weekend are different, you know?

Yeah, it's a lot. I understand that. Yeah. You have to travel for your job a lot, but not, and not like, like me, I travel a lot, but I'm like Miami on Thursday, but I'm, I leave at seven and I get back at midnight. But you have to leave and go set up shop for a while.

How have you handled? We kind of got that down. One, before we had kids, Camilla said, I'll have kids on one condition. You go, we all go. So every, there's never been a film I did where they did not come with. Right. Now that has meant Camilla had to work with the schools to go, we want to go to school here, but we're going to have to pull them. So we have a teacher that goes with us, that gets,

that goes and works with that school that they're in for a couple of weeks, learns with and has a contact. So when we go on the road, whether there's room in the house or like last time in Santa Fe, we got an office space downtown with the kids, 8, 9 AM, went to school. The tutor was there. The tutor's up to date with the school of what they need to do. They go from nine to three, come home like a normal school day. Then Levi got a job on set in the camera department. So he's only doing school in the morning and working half days every day. And then sometimes we, you know, when they were younger, we go to New Orleans, we put them in Newman. Right. We put them in school. We were

in Cleveland. We put them in school. We were in London. We put them in school in London. Wow. Well, they had to wear the three-piece suit to take the scooters. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's just been a, we've experiment, we've been experimenting because Camilla's kind of one that worked that up with the schools, how to make that happen. They tried things like, had a robot in class that would follow the teacher and basically it was an iPad in a robot's body, but Levi or the kids could come into the class and be in the classroom through a screen and the teachers talk in the class and go, what do through a screen and the teachers talk in the class and they go, what do you think Levi?

And would discuss things with him. So, and that kind of worked. You've talked about not taking jobs because they weren't creatively interesting and turned down a lot of money to do it. Have you not taken stuff because it would be disruptive to family and life? I did the opposite of that, what I just did.

Film series that was going to be Georgia. Yeah. Right. Right. Now it needs to be in Texas. Well, quite a few million dollars difference. Yeah. I needed it to be, I wanted it to be in Texas because my kids now, ninth grade, 10th grade, Livingston down in whatever grade he's in, fourth, fifth, they're on the teams. We're in that cycle now. They're doing that. They have a life. They've got soccer practice in the morning, they got drama in the afternoon, they got

spring dance. And I'm going, we've been away, working mobile for so long. Right now, I want to give them that consistency. Sure. So when I gave money back, pretty gracious palm frond for the studio. And I want to go, OK, we'll make it work in Texas. We're going to shoot in Austin. That was my main reasoning.

And I looked at the amount of money I was giving back, which was a sizable amount. And I was like, dude, quality versus quantity on this, the quality that that I want my you know, but I still want to see the kids and I want to keep them in school for that four months here in my hometown. I'll take that hickey on the paycheck. Right. If you're going to spend money on something, that's a pretty valuable thing.

I think so. They only get it once. I think so. So what I'm saying is it's harder now for me to go, before it was like, dude, tough. And they were cool with it. And then we just did Santa Fe. They were cool with it. But boy, I see them and they've all been kind of yearning for like, can I get some consistency in my social circles, in my sports, in my drama? Yeah. And I'm going like, yeah,

you're in a flow now. Stick to that. So it gets harder as they get older. Right. Because they are involved with things that are more than just a whim. Sure. You know what I mean? And you are making more consistent friends that you'll be friends with next year and the year after. We're younger, the friends kind of change a little bit quicker and their interests change sooner, quicker. Well, it's like experiences are great, but at some point, kids or adults, you're like, I just want to be in my place.

Like I want to have my rhythm, I want to have my routine, I want to have my, I want normal life, not experience, experience, experience, experience. It's exhausting. At the same time, our family, I think got so adept at the travel. We all go pick up and go have someone now. We know what we need. We know we need a house. I don't get hired unless it's like a studio.

I go, my whole family goes. The dogs come. We need a nanny. We got somebody, you know, The dogs come, we need a nanny, we got somebody, you know, we're going, we need a house on the outskirts of town and that's how it's gonna be and that's part of my package. We've gotten so good at that though that like we all laughed about, we laughed about last night. That's where we're the most relaxed. Is when you're somewhere else?

Yep. Sure. And part of that is I'm probably more relaxed because when I go to act or something, it's a vacation for me. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Singular focus. Sure. I have a reverence for my craft enough where if that's all I focus on for three months, I feel like that's a worthy day every day. I get to see my kids at the end of the day. My wife goes, go out the door. Do not let go over your shoulder.

Go conquer, kick ass. I got this stuff handled. So I'm really relaxed. I've got one thing and all my other work, all the other peripherals I have, my team knows the month and a half leading up to where I go to work. Let's get those off the table. Let's anticipate. So you're not getting, I'm getting three emails a day. You also feel no pressure to reply to them. I think that's like, you're like, I'm here. This is the thing. I think about like travel days. Like if I know I'm flying somewhere, I don't's like, you're like, I'm here. This is the thing I'm, I think about like travel days. Like if I know I'm flying somewhere,

I don't feel like I have to do anything else that day. Like I know my job is to get to point B. And if I get anything else done, it's extra. But if I wake up at home, I'm like, I gotta do all, I gotta do all this stuff. Me too. Yeah. And then how much stuff at home, if you're upstairs or at the other end of the house

and you want to go to the kitchen to get the mustard, you forgot, you're running into two other things that you didn't plan on that you're going to need to handle on the way. Someone's going to interrupt you to go, hey, can you check this out? Or you're going to see a busted sprinkler head. You're going to run into two more things. It's never a single destination in back when you're on the home property. So I think also, it's that freedom that comes with,

you said it, a renter's mentality. Yeah. I don't own any of this. Let's take care of it, I don't own it. And if something's broke, I'm not going, man, don't I pay so and so to handle that? Or I bought that and didn't we get a warranty on that? Didn't, so I think it's part of it.

I don't think about shit when I'm in a rental car like I'm not even looking at the gas I'm not looking at the miles I'm not looking if it's clean or dirty I don't care if it's a nice car a not nice car I'm like this is the car I have all I got to do is use it to get over here right but when you're in your own car you're like oh wait I got it how's this do I like this car you know you're like, Oh, wait, I got it. How's this? Do I like this car? You know, you have like opinions about and I think there's something about happiness and peace. I think that is rooted fundamentally. And this is a very stoic thing about just not having so many opinions. When you're just like,

hey, my job, I'm acting right now. I'm in this place to do this thing. Nothing else really matters. So I don't have an opinion about what's happening back home. And everyone understands that they don't need my opinion or if they need it, figure it out yourself. And then I finish. You finish after three months and I'm like, OK, I'm about to go sit down with my laptop and catch up on all that stuff.

And my blood pressure is going up and I'm like, oh, man, this is going to be a slog. This is going to take two weeks. Yeah. And it takes a day. Unless you know what email bankruptcy is? What? Email bankruptcy is you just go, I declare email bankruptcy, mark everything as red. And then- I know people have done that.

I can't. I wish I had the confidence and the security as a human being to do that. I'm too worried about what I'm missing. I still have stuff flagged from nine years ago. Of course. I have shit I was like, I'll deal with this after the pandemic. You know, it's like so there. I have a thing of notes on next to my dad's, I'll show you when we go in there. I went to this like little conference like right before like the first week of March 2020. I took all these notes of all the things I was gonna do that pad is just sitting there. And I keep this is gonna be the week,

I'll get into it. Not even, I don't even know why I went to the conference because I never even looked at the notes. Here we are four years later, five years later. Now, will you look up and find, if you don't look at that, if that gets to the bottom of the deck over the next year, how many of those things do you think you've done in a year? Yeah, I mean, if someone threw it away,

I don't think I even remember that I had the pad. But how many do you think you would do subconsciously? I don't know, I think you've done a year? I mean, if someone threw it away, I don't think I even remember that I had the pen. But how many do you think you would do subconsciously? I don't know. I think I've done some. I guess I've probably done the important stuff and the rest of it's not important. But it's like why we... You know, it's like you get something from Apple and you're like, this is a nice box. I should keep this box. Listen, Tiffany. I got like a six-year-old iPhone box somewhere, I'm sure. But you actually don't need it. You just don't have the...

There's something about us as like hunter-gatherers that is like, I can't throw away this box. I could use this box. Yeah. Another version of that is when I'm working on a script, I get an idea. When I get the idea going, I'm writing that down because it's so particular and so genius. And there's hundreds of pages. The next week, the next two weeks, the next three weeks, the next month, by the time I'm shooting all those things that I thought were genius, I can throw away because they're so obvious.

Yeah. Now that I'm like, that was not a novel. Well, it was a novel idea two months ago. Right. So I'm like, well, did you even need to work all that? Did you need to take those? And I'm gonna remind myself, yes, you did. Because at the moment, you're right.

It's just been ingrained now because you've been preparing and working that that's obvious. And boy, I'm like, make sure that's in bold print. And I start thinking all of my ideas should be in bold print. And you get to the end, you're like, no, they shouldn't. I don't even need them, throw them away. I forget which Hemingway book it was,

but there's one of them where he just got rid of the first two chapters. And you go, Oh, is that a loss? And it's like, No, because the the stuff that got started in the first two chapters, informed all the other chapters, you just didn't need the what became superfluous. It was like wheel spinning. So you get rid of it and you start in the shit. And it's, it's assumed, right? Like, that's one of the humbling things about creative stuff. Like I just went through this. I was looking for an old document that I had somewhere. And I came across another document in a folder. So when when you're cutting, I'm sure

you went through this with your book when you're cutting, I can't, I can't cut this. What I'll do is I'll take it out and I'll put it over here. I'll use it for something later. Right. So I found the document of things that I'd cut from the book, telling myself I would go back to later and use, and I'd forgotten that it even existed. Yeah. Yeah. So you got it.

Yeah. And it would bet you there was nothing there that you're like, oh my gosh, I left that out. The book would not have been as complete as it would have been if I had added that. Yes. And there was nothing else that that stuff would ever work for. It's just prologue to the thing I was making. But it's hard. You got to have the discipline to be able to do that.

I'm fascinated with actors where it's like, you got to make up this story about the character, but nobody ever hears the story. It's just for you. And it's just in a hand movement. It's just in a famous line. All right, all right, all right. You know, like what all that is, it's all invisible to the audience. But it's- And it should be invisible. But it's actually not invisible.

It's just not. It's obvious. Yes. Cause you're like, well, that's who, that's who the character is. Or the best compliment an actor can get is after you're done, people on production go, dude, that's you. And you do another role that's completely opposite.

Yeah. And like, that's you. And you do another role that's completely opposite. And like, that's you. You didn't see the work, as they say with athletes. You don't see the work. You didn't see the prep. You didn't see, oh, I got a plan move. Oh, I got a little thing I'm going to do. No, you don't see any of that. I've talked to you about this before, launch pad lines. You know, what are some days confused? That's a love about those high school girls, man. I get older, but they stay the same age. That's a launch pad line. Look at that line. And that's when I looked, read that and I went, who is that guy? That if that line's not an attitude, if that line's not a joke, if there's nothing, he's not trying to be cool, clear, if that's his MO

on how he sees life, there's a way. That guy walks. That guy's walking. Is he walking head first, chest first, or midsection first? He's kind of leading. You know what I mean? Are shoulders here? Is he this guy? Or is he this guy?

It tells you how they sit. It tells you what he would buy in 7-Eleven. If he's got kids at home, what kind of music he listens to. So you could theoretically cut that line and still get the essence of the character. Yeah. So it informed the acting of all the lines. And then if at some point the director, the editors like, hey, we've got to cut that line for whatever reason. It's still informed and shaped every other scene in the movie.

It did much more much more work than the line did. Yeah. It informed how tight the doggone pants were. It informed, you know, there's a pinch of one necklace around the, that's a Nugent t-shirt. It informed delayed blinks. It informed where he was, where he should not be, where he would not be. It informed, you know, those people that, that character with that line, with that sort of perspective and philosophy, is not one of those people that intrude in your space. They're not soliciting. They're not looking to gather more to their way. They just are.

And if you want to come hang, yeah, there's general admission. He might can hang, but I'm not looking to like talk someone into that guy's not looking to talk someone into understanding his way of life or looking for soldiers. Right. He's not soliciting his way. He's an island unto himself, which becomes one of the things that become very attractive about people. I love people that like don't true that love. They like are who they are.

You're attracted to them. You're like, dude, you got your own thing going on, man. Whether I agree with it or not, I really dig that you're not needing me or you're not needing my affirmation to have more confidence in who the hell you are. Bravo.

Now I'm even more behind you because people who are uniquely themselves love that. Yeah, there's this stoic, his name was Agrippinus and he lived in the time of Nero. So this would have been a time where you're like, you don't want to upset the unstable, you know, vindictive tyrant, but he sort of just uniquely himself. You get invited to stuff and he would say no, and he was just himself, which sort of put him in the crosshairs. And someone asks, they go, you know,

why don't you just go along? Why can't you just be like everyone else? And he said, he's like, look, a garment is, you take a sweater, he's like, there's all the white threads. And then he's like, there's the red thread in the stripe that makes it beautiful. And he's like, I'm the white threads and then he's like there's the red thread in the stripe that makes it beautiful. And he's like, I'm the red thread.

You're the white thread. I'm the red thread. And I like that idea of like, you got to be- And we're in the same sweater. Yeah. Yeah. We all have a part, but some of our parts is to be our unique selves. New year, new resolutions. And this year on the Best Idea Yet podcast, we're revealing the untold origin stories

of the products you're obsessed with. And we promise you have never heard these before. Ever wonder how the iconic Reese's peanut butter cup was invented? Because it was by accident. H.B. Reese, a former frog salesman, True story. stumbled upon the idea after accidentally burning

a batch of peanuts. Classic. Proving that sometimes our best ideas arise from what seem like our biggest mistakes. And Jack, did you know there's a scientific explanation why humans crave that surprising combo of peanut butter and chocolate? I didn't, but it sounds delicious.

It is delicious. So, if you're looking to get inspired and creative this year, tune in to The Best Idea Yet. You can find us on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're looking for more podcasts to help you start this year off right, check out New Year, New Mindset on the Wondery app.

Who knows, your next great idea could be an accident that you burned. This is Nick. And this is Jack. And we'll see you on the best idea yet. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines door plug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers. This heart-stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant

Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of dam surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation. At the center of it all, the 737 MAX, the latest season of business wars, explores how Boeing, once the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust. The decisions, denials, and devastating consequences bringing the Titan to its knees, and what if anything can save the company's reputation now.

Follow Business Wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Business Wars, The Unraveling of Boeing, early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. of Boeing early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. I feel like you're someone you kind of let your freak flag fly a little bit. You're like you try to. Yeah. I don't try to.

Yeah. You know, you don't try not to. Right. Don't try not to. I'm not trying to hide it. Yeah. I mean, it's more relaxing that way. It's also I think I get more done, more things that I want

in life. Sure. It's clear what I don't want. It's clear my relationships. It's kind of like, if I'm not hedging my bet, play act and then I can read, someone can read if they want my time and my relationship or not. And I can read if they want, if I want theirs or not. I think his point was like, beautiful things stand out. You know? Like it is weird that we all are totally unique, have unique DNA, we never exist before again. And then we're like, well, what's everyone else doing? I should do that.

Do you know what I mean? Like there is something about, there's something kind of sad about the way we deliberately mute our colors or mimic other people's colors. Yeah. But we also, it's wise, I think, to understand the machinations of how populace works, how being in with the group works, to understand the rules of each game, knowing your zone and still being able to be

yourself or still being yourself if you're playing a role to get what you want. It's like the Dylan thing. He was like, what is it? Like, no, don't go, I don't know what all this be yourselves about, man. It's like, you are what you create, man. We're all our creations.

That's a form of being yourself. I'm a new creation every day. Yeah, yeah, totally. Which you are. Right, if you wanna be, you know? Whatever part that is you're playing. The best ones you don't see in playing a part, like going Which you are. Right. If you wanna be, you know? Whatever part that is you're playing. The best ones you don't see him playing a part, like going back to acting.

In real life or in acting, or athletics. You don't see the work. You don't see the, oh, there's a tell. Oh, I saw him do a thing. He played an attitude. He didn't play himself. You don't see those things. It's seamless.

That person is kind of, in a way, everything to everybody, or almost everything to everybody. Well, to me, it's like, do you want to be the actor that gets the parts that Matthew McConaughey turns down? Or do you want to get the parts that they're offering to you because they want you? You know, it's like, it's better to be a category of one, to be a monopoly of yourself.

But most of us go, I don't know, I'd rather just kind of get somebody else's leftovers. Right, right, right. Right. And sometimes those leftovers are damn worth getting. But I hear you when you are when you feel when you're living and you're like you're one of one. Yeah, you want to be the first person they ask, because that's that's what they wanted. Not like the third, fourth, fifth unlimited.

But there's something safer about it, right? It's like, you know, hey, if I open a donut shop, like people like donuts, I'll have the donuts. You know, like there's something about just doing another version of a thing that a lot of people do. It's safer in one sense, but the ceiling is capped because you're never going to... But you've... I've been in positions where I was the

third pick. Yeah. And I saw it. It was like I'm gonna show them why it should have been the first pick. Yes. For the next... Sure. I'm gonna make sure I don't just dial this in, which I could connect all the dots and do it really well. Yeah. I'm gonna do something makes them go, who's that guy? Yes. I want him for first pick next time. Yeah. So it can be a ramp to a higher ceiling. Totally. But I think what you're saying is, I'm saying it's a lot easier to just sit there and go, yeah, let me get the leftovers and do what I can with it.

Yeah. And mimic what the status quo would be for that. Well, in business, they have this idea, there's red oceans and there's blue oceans. Red ocean is where there's lots of competition, right? The water's all chummed up. And then you wanna go to the blue ocean where there's no other boats, it's just you, right?

And like when I went to my publisher and I was like, hey, I wanna write a book about an obscure school of ancient philosophy, they were not like, that sounds huge, you know? But then when it works, then somebody else, like I just saw the other day, so I wrote a daily so someone just wrote a book called everyday stoic. Okay, like it's this, it's the same fucking book. Yeah, right. And so I'm sure it'll do okay, because some people will

accidentally think it's the book that I wrote, right, right. Or like, I remember one time I went on Instagram, and my mom was following, like, stoic daily or something like and my mom was following like Stoic Daily or something like she was following the, she was like, oh, I heard what you're doing. I was trying to follow it and she just got confused and she got like a copycat. When you're a copycat, there's a big target and you can get, you know, if directionally you're right, it works. But ideally you want to do the scarier thing that didn't think that would work and then

you are the main thing. You got the monopoly. You're creating Roy Spencer, who's a friend of mine. You know Roy? GSTNM, great advertising mind, marketing mind. He GSTNM in Austin. They had the 7UP account. And I think the story goes they were fighting against Coca-Cola and Pepsi and they couldn't

get past, and I think it may be even RC, they couldn't get past the four hole. And he said, wait a minute, we're fighting to be in the cola category. Let's create a new category and be the un-cola, which became the ad campaign. And then they were number one in a new category, a new ladder that they created. Yeah, if you can't be first, just invent a new way that you are first or or the only. That's what you want to be at.

Instead of hey, these things are popular. Let's make more of those things. It's like, it's like why there's scenes in music because like a band comes out and they're singular. And then they're like, let's go get all the other similar bands. And then it feels like they were all part of this thing. But really, it's kind of this copycat thing. It's boring. It's hard to break through. So you get it. But you ideally, you want to do your own thing. Life's too short to be someone other than yourself. I feel like. I mean, you can pull it off. I just think you're going to get there going, what if? Yeah. I didn't find out. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't take

the chance for the, to absolutely get booed by the masses on a complete failure. Or I didn't get the chance to absolutely find out and show up on the other side and they go, you did it. Yeah. How'd you do that? What is that? What is that thing you're doing? Never seen it before. I mean, I've got a, you know, I'm, I'm working on a certain things, ideas I'll have or things I'll say that'll be very, like I work in the tech world with like, like Salesforce and they're talking, it's tech talk, right? And I work, I'm an advisor over there and I work with the marketing team.

And I think what I bring to them is I could colloquialize and familiarize and personalize all the techie data into a bit of a poem. Can speak to the heart a little bit instead of just the head and go, oh, I understand what that is. I didn't know what all the dots and nexes and CRMs and acronyms were, but I understand that. And it's like obvious to me, but a lot of those minds are going, wow, how'd you do that? I'm like, I don't understand what you're saying, but this is what I summated in a way that sort of modern natural vernacular, you put your spin on it. You got a few things that sometimes you gotta watch that too

with our cliff notes. When you have something, we may process it many times and it becomes obvious to us. And then you project it or you play it out there for the first time or share it and they're going, wow. And you're like, come on, wow, that's an obvious one. And you're like, no, that's the one. Don't edit that one out. That's brand

new. It's like the joke script writers do this in Hollywood. Early script is a great joke everyone loves, but they still have to go back and rewrite the script. Give them a couple of passes. They'll remove that joke. And you're like, dude, you're tired of it because you wrote it a year ago and you've rewritten it twice. Remember, we're giving it to an audience for the first time. We love that one from the beginning, don't make a straight line, Crooked Man. That was a winner.

Keep that winner there. Don't get a new bright idea. That is great, even though you got bored with it because you've written it. You've done the rewrite 10 times. No, the lowest point for me on a book is when I have to come in here and record the audio book, and I have to read it all out loud. And it's such a painstakingly awkward, weird

process. I'm like, at the end of it, I'm like, I'm not sure this is good at all. Yeah, just because the the process of reading a book out loud audio, it's so painful and exhausting and weird, and not a natural thing at all. You never just read a book out loud in an empty room. You're not getting any feedback from the audience. And so it makes you question the whole thing. I'm curious how you think about it as an actor because you have to be kind of uniquely uninhibited.

I feel like self-consciousness is the enemy of most authentic artistic expression. Like, if I'm thinking about what other people are gonna think about this, that's when I do something that sucks. That's when I pull my punches or I make it awkward or weird. You kind of have to be free flowing in the moment about it. Alright, so if self-consciousness is being...

Could we say that's being objective? You hop into your eye in the sky and you have a look down at yourself and the third person. How am I doing? How does this translate to how is it? I would say being objective is positive. Self-consciousness to me has an element of kind of shame. You're like anticipating what other people are gonna think and you're looking at how awkward you are. Okay, okay.

That form of self-consciousness. Because I do think, yeah, you're tripping yourself. Yeah. You're thinking about how this is gonna be, like if you're trying to win an Oscar, you're probably not going to win an Oscar. Because now you're characterizing the performance with what you think other people want.

No, you play anticipation. You get ahead of yourself. You put cherries on top of the icing, and the icing was enough. Yes. And you go, you put a little, as my great mentor in life, Penny Allen, the act teacher, certain performance of mine, she was like, no, it's good, honey. But you have to understand, you don't have to try to hit

a home run every time you're at the plate. Sometimes you could bunt, sometimes a single is good. Not every scene needs to be, oh, the big, you know, it's the old Paul Newman thing, man. Show them those baby blues and smile. No word twice film, man. If you do it every scene, it doesn't mean as much. Every scene so monumental, it's like, well, what did anything? It's like a coach that yells all the time. You're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to really be listening to, what he really means or not.

Cause he yells everything. Objective though, I think if you don't get hung up in that objective too long, I think it's important. I think the subject of is the place, the home base. Start at, and if you're confident enough with that, you can hop to the objective and say, how am I looking? Without getting self-conscious, just to see the landscape, because I'm here, I'm solo man,

but I've hopped out to have a look, what's the landscape? Oh yeah, it still looks smooth up there, there's no cliffs. If your head's down, you don't run off. It looks like yeah I'm doing, I'm actually, it looks like I'm doing what I intended to do. Oh it actually looks like it's getting received as I was hoping it would be received. But you got to hop back and you can get back into the subjective because you can get caught looking at the jumbotron of your life and use another sports analogy. That's what happens to players. There are how many players, Leon let you running back

the kickoff, you look at the jumble, I'm going to be in the top 10 sports center tonight. That's when you get caught. It's like a call. When you look up to see where your ball went, that's when you fuck it up. We ain't golf, any golfers out there. I bet you would take my best rounds.

Well, when I walked off the 18th green and didn't know it was my last hole. Yes. Yes. Cause you were a hole. Because I was headed to the next. Yes. Best performances I've given are when I'm done and they go that's it. That's a wrap. I go okay see you tomorrow and they go no no no that's a film wrap. We're done. Right. No tomorrow. You're like oh really? Right. How'd I do? Yeah. Show me the scorecard. Yes. You know. Yes. Right. If you're aware that you are playing your best game ever as you're playing it, that's when you fuck it up.

That's when you bogey the 17th. Yeah. And bogey the three put the 18th to lose by one. It's choking at the finish line. It's it's realizing you and I've talked about that before. I had those immortal finish lines that just go. And as long as you trust that it's being recorded and that the strokes are played. And yes, I counted my strokes right on that hole

and I've signed it. Let me find out how many under I was or how I played after I'm done. Come tell me. The proof's there. But if I see it coming and I see that end zone coming, what do we do? A little tight, a little self-conscious.

Do I deserve to be here? I think I'm doing really good. All of a sudden you're out of the moment. You're not, your body's not behaving. You're not performing the act that you've just been naturally performing one at a time, one in a row, every moment, every day. I think that's the sophomore slump too. If you're like, you record the first album, you're in it. And then you're, if you're on the next one, you're like, I have to top what I did last year. I feel like I got really lucky. So the obstacles of the way came out

and didn't do that well. So I had the next book. So I was in the middle of the next book, well into the middle, by the time it really started to do well. And so I was just busy both ways. Like I was too busy to be depressed that it wasn't doing well. And then too busy to be depressed that it wasn't doing well.

And then too busy to be elated that it was doing well. I was busy. I've known a bunch of people, their first book was this huge hit and it's been really hard to do two and three and four because now there's an expectation. Yeah. Hey, I've been working on my second one for a while.

Up to this. Yeah. It's probably hard because this was unexpectedly Oh, up to this? Yeah. Yeah. It's probably hard because this was unexpectedly good, I think, to people. And it was an original idea and a thought and a green light was a philosophy that was a prism that once it clicked with me for the months or year or whatever it took me to write it, I was seeing everything through that lens. Yeah.

Measuring every, I, oh, I just had a, that was a green light moment. Yeah. Everywhere. My dance with life, I was just, that was the music was through that lens. Yeah. Measuring every, I, oh, which is had a, that was a green light moment. Yeah. Everywhere. My, my dance with life, I was just, that was the music was through that lens. My new book, I've got a, what I think is a really solid lens and philosophy to look through, but I'm not without trying looking at life through that lens. So when I looked through, when you start looking through the lens, I could not not write that. Yeah. It had me. Sure. I had nothing else I could do. I had to. Yeah. And it was not hard

because it was all encompassing 24-7 and I was seeing it everywhere. So I haven't got there in my next book where the philosophy that I'm purporting is how I'm seeing life in its writing itself. Yeah. Well, also, you know, and you say something in the new forward, or I guess it's afterward, where you were saying that, like this is a really specific book. Like it's a book only you could have written because it's only about you.

And it is not like your normal sort of self, it's not really a self-help book, it's not really a memoir, it's kind of a new thing, right? It's like we're saying, it's a new category. So it was really specific and it happened to be general. The downside of that success is you now know there's a general audience, right? So you're like, well, what do they want?

What do the people that read the first book want? Instead of the more natural, less self-conscious way, which is like, what do I wanna say? And you gotta get out of that and just make what is exciting and interesting to you and true to you. And also, then there's the reality of like, when's it supposed to come out? When's our slot? And now you don't have the same time and freedom that you would. I mean, the first one is, what is it you said? Yeah, the first one's 50 years in the making.

Right. The other one. I don't have as many stories. It's 50 years in the making. Right. The other one, I don't have it's many stories. It's 50 stories. Use your best five years, five years later. You know, I mean, I tried to share my great stuff. And plus, if you do, people smell even if it's pulled off well. If I study when I know I'm pretty, I feel like I'm pretty conscious of what people what

tapped a nerve with that book. Yeah. But if I played into that, unless I did it so definitely that you couldn't smell it, again, see in the work, you smell the panda. Yeah, that's self-consciousness. You're like, you want this from me, so I'm going to be that thing. And I can tell that you cooked another souffle under a different name because that's what we loved about the last one. But I could, you didn't, it didn't start, you know, the egg came before your chicken. Yes.

Well, that's what I think is so weird about meditations, right? This, this should be a weird, this should be an unreadable book, right? You have the most powerful guy in the world, 2000 years ago, worshiped as a guy. His life is incomprehensibly unfathomably distant from ours. And every night he would write these little notes to himself, not thinking of an audience, right? There's stuff he's like, remember that customs officer in some, you know, province of the Rome, he's clearly not thinking of us

because he's not even explaining. There's like a shorthand to it. So it shouldn't, the idea that 2000 years later, it's relevant to athletes and to college students and stay at home moms, like it shouldn't make any sense. But part of the reason it works, the universality of it is inseparable from the specificity of it.

He's talking about what it's like to be him, a human being without any pretense, without any self-consciousness, without any performativeness, and thus it becomes totally relatable in little individual slices, because you see yourself not in all of it, but in that specific thing he's talking about.

You're like, oh, yes, this morning, I didn't wanna get out of bed in the morning. Or this morning, yeah, I lost my temper. I thought about this. So there's something in all great art that is specific and then becomes universal. And when you try to go the opposite direction, it ends up being for no one. Yep.

Look, I started off writing green the first two weeks. I was trying to write impressively. I remember going back, going, woo, you just turn a phrase. Woo. Let's do more. For two weeks, I went on and then I got to the two week period. I gained a little confidence that I had some goods to share, worth sharing. And then looked at my stuff and I was like, that's bullshit.

You're waxing the car, man. You know, the engine, let's talk about the engine and the oil and you're waxing the car. And I was like, that's good wax, but it's bullshit. Yeah. Compared to what the honest truth is. So then got the conference, you go, dude, don't write impressively. If you write it well, and honestly, it may be impressive, but don't write impressively. And the first two weeks, I was trying to write impressively. And it was superfluous shit, too many adverbs and kind of stuff that I was like, oh, that's a nice turn. But I was like, yeah, but you're not coming from the inside out. It's coming from the outside. It's like gilding the lily or whatever. Yeah, you're acting the part rather than being the part.

Yeah. Yeah. I think if he, if Marxist-Ruelis had sat down to write a work of philosophy, I'm not, I'm sure he could have done it because clearly a talented writer, and I'm sure there are a lot of philosophical things you could say. And maybe even we would sit down and talk about it because lots of ancient philosophy has survived. But there's something uniquely personal and raw and real about it. And I think that the best art is that it's there isn't that element of performative

ness, there is something about something stripped down about it. I say that similar and I know that me personally, my greatest success is not mean like most but just the most qualitative successes I've had mine are when I not ask permission. Not in any anti way. Yeah. Just no, I'm not apologizing. There's nothing to apologize for. I'm not apologizing and I'm not asking permission. And not to go like, I don't think I need to. No, that's one step away. No, I'm not asking permission. Not, I don't think I should ask. No, you're not there yet. If you're going, I don't think I should ask. That's already too sort of

gilding the lids to get to something. No, I'm not asking permission. And almost like, not even me to say it out loud, but just knowing it. Now there's no permission going to be asked from me on this. Cause you were gonna, you're gonna do it anyway. You don't care. And you're like, you're thrown into isolation and self-reliance and it goes a little bit deeper

cause you don't have the attaboys or way to go or the soft landings. And you're like, dude, it's me on me right now. Here we go. And that's just hell of a charge. I mean, a good charge of stimulation to get in. And you can get in that subjective place to where you're not even. I think I'm always aware, I think, I think, I'm always aware when I said earlier, like know your zone. I'm aware. Like I said, I pop into that objective spot and go, I think I kind of know,

like I had a, I don't know if I ever showed them. I wrote reviews for this book before it came out. The blurbs are like a, like a New York Times style. No, I wrote your reviews that I put in the words of other people's mouth. Okay. And I have them and I was gonna put them in the book and it was gonna be a comedic twist of a 90% through it, way through it.

You're gonna get to all these reviews. They're like, wait, the book just came out. And I've got them and they're funny. They're pretty spot on. Interesting. About what people that did review the book actually said about the book. So I was popping out into awareness going,

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Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or in Apple podcasts. There's something to that like Amazon used to have this thing where maybe they still do but Amazon had this thing where you want to like launch a product, you had to write the press release first. So like, imagine that it's existed, you've gotten all the way to the end, you're writing the thing describing so it's not so you're having to think in advance. Like, cause you don't write your own press release. The marketing department is sitting down

and write the press release. What are they able to say about this thing? And if it's not exciting, then you've failed. And so let's start from what needs to be exciting and in there at the beginning. And I think that's that kind of objectivity rather than, because like oftentimes as a creative person, you get really excited.

There's all the things that are exciting and interesting to me. And then there's where it overlaps with what people might be interested in. And the ideal projects are where those two things overlap. That's where you get some explosive. And so you gotta have the objectivity to know, hey, is this a thing that like just I'm interested in? Right. Or is this a thing that like has a wider resonance outside me?

And look, if it was only going to take an afternoon, just do the thing that's interesting to you. But if you're going to spend five years of your life on something, it's got to have some... Nice to check in on supply and demand. Exactly. Exactly. I do this with movies before I get started. I'll go sit down with the director and producer and I was like, for shits and giggles, man. What's the poster? Yeah. We hadn't shot it. We had to be started shooting. What's the poster? Right.

Yeah. It's it's the it's it's the calvary coming over and there's a setting sun behind the mountain and you are silhouetted. And there's 60 of you coming over the mountain of the setting sun. Okay. It lets me know this is going to be sort of epic story telling. Now what it is, man, it's a closeup of you and your face here with that scar that you're going to get from the one, the lion cry. Oh, this is character driven. This director's coming from more of a character driven way. That informs me of how I'm gonna communicate

and work with that director. And we may, you may end up, I know that you end up getting there, that original poster idea may completely change. But I think it's informative to have an idea of let's project further. It's reverse engineer from what you want to end up. Yeah.

Yes, that's totally. What's the poster? Yeah. If you had to write your poster right now, your goal that you're headed towards, what's it, what's gonna be said? Yeah, we have that book in the bookstore. Have you read the Road to Character by David Brooks?

He says like, there's two basically courses in life. You can be building a resume or you can be building a eulogy. And I think what happens is if you're not thinking about the end, you're just stacking up resume values, right? You're like, I did this, I accomplished this, I made this, I beat this, you know, I made this amount of money. It's all accomplishments. But that's not what people talk about at a funeral. They're like, they're talking about your character. They're talking about the impact you had on people. They're talking about the impact you had on people.

They're talking about whether you were happy or not, whether you had a good life or not. And so if you're not reverse engineering from the eulogy you want, you're defaulting to the building of resumes. And that's like, when it comes down to, hey, should I do this project or this project? Should I move here or there?

Should I get married? Should I get married? Should I stay married? When you're thinking about these choices, you know, it's gonna come down to whether you're reverse engineering from something more significant and meaningful that is a eulogy, or are you just going, what makes the most money?

What's easiest? What's easiest to explain, et cetera? It's why I'm a fan of the value of religion. It's about obedience to death. Yeah. And that's having that in the mind and in the heart. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. That's the end goal. And if there's a belief in something happens after with religions have, okay, does what I do here now, how I live, oh, it matters.

Yeah. Which things matter? Right. Those things we're talking about, the mortal resumes? Yeah. Or that eulogy, and that's what I love, my favorite thing about religion that you get the value, the values that come with a lot of religious texts is based around an obedience to death. Yeah, accepting the reality and the inalterability of death. No amount of money or power or fame allows you to escape this thing. This is a mortal game. Yeah. And there's an immortal game. Yeah. But this is a mortal. But you said the way to escape the mortal game is through family. I think, you know what I mean? Like people think about multi- I think it's the best one going.

Yeah. No, no. I mean it in a good way. It's like people want to have multi-generational impacts. Like, hey, I'm gonna build this huge company. Right. Meanwhile, like, they've got this little person living in their house that they could have... There are things on a day-to-day basis that affect me because of decisions my grandfather made or didn't make. And so that's three generations right there.

And he was obviously affected by his grandparents. And so it gets real big, real quick. You realize, oh, the things I do or don't do has an enormous impact on these people. Meanwhile, yeah, another movie, another book, another project, it could affect people. But if we're really being honest, it's a pretty ephemeral impact. Yeah. And you can't ever really measure. Because you don't know till after the fact. Succeeds success or failure. Sure. Did it matter that I did three months of press for that or

they've done the same if I would have done anything? You know what I mean? Right. We're with children to use, not the term of them being, you know, collateral exports, but that's our greatest export. Yes. That that's our immortality that we have 18 years to work on this little epic called our children. And we don't own them to make them be like this. You've got children. How quickly?

My biggest lesson I got when I first had kids was, oh, I thought it was more culture and environment than DNA. And I was like, oh no, the DNA, they are who they are. Yes. It was more DNA than I thought. It was the first lesson I learned. I got slapped in the face by that because I thought it was like the parent is full sculpting. I was like, no, you're nudging and you're carving here and you're trying to put more wood to healthy and give it going to turn them on and feed them in front of them. And you want them to get a few bruises. You don't want to take away all the thicket and the broken glass, but you also don't want them to,

you know, break their leg every time they go out the door. So you want to give them a little bit, you know. Your job is to help your kids become who they are, not become what you want them to be. Yeah, and I'm not teenagers now. That's a whole new fun game. Of which I am happy to say I'm really enjoying, I feel like I'm hitting my honey hole of being a father. In a way,

he's the most challenging, but I didn't know that there was a stop between, I always thought it was your father early and then later on you can become a friend. But don't become a friend too early because they need a father. What I've realized now is that in between father and friend, there's a bridge called brother. And I'm able to, especially with my teenagers now, them be in a tough situation or a great situation and I'm patting them on the back rather than, hey, come here, here's how you

got to... And I'm not just going like yeah, man It's like I have a different arm around them. I'm with them going through things Yeah, I also don't have to edit my good stories as much anymore. I Can I can keep in there? Yes in the juicy stuff because they can be like they get it now I'm like, oh really like yeah, it's funny you meet families and you're like, oh you guys like like spending time together Like that's and if that wasn't exactly your childhood experience, you're like, oh, like people go, like you just said, you got 18 years together.

And then you see people and they're like, oh no, they're spending, like I hear from people, like one of my favorite things of all time is when somebody comes in to the bookstore to get one of my books because their kid told them about it. And I'm like, oh, you guys are you guys have a mutual relationship that is not primarily predicated on the fact that they live in your house. Right. You know, like when someone's like, Oh, let me text my son about that. I love Oh, it's not that they're friends, but

they have this exchange that that surpasses, you know, the the like, the legal part of the relationship. And so actually, you have their whole life, you know, if you do it right, you have you have your whole life, because ideally, their life goes on longer than yours. They have your whole life to be taught and instructed and modeled. And that's how it can go. If you do it right. I'd like that spin a term you have your whole life and they have your whole life, but you don't have their whole life. Right. Yeah. Access.

My buddy Bart nags at three daughters, you know, Bart, yeah. And I'm, you know, talking about teenage years coming on to how he's a good, good man, good father. And I was like, gimme, gimme, gimme a hand, man. He goes, maintain access. Yeah. Keep access. And I've had to watch, again, going into the brother, father to brother and being different, times where they'll share something and condemn themselves. And I would have not known. And they're wise enough to know that if I don't tell, I'm probably not going to find out. Yeah. And first reaction, I go to judge and jury and then have to go, no, dude, they're sharing that with you.

Yeah. And it has to be some, we've got to give some credit and a little bit of amnesty for the fact that they shared something that they knew it could have got away with. Yeah. That's right. That's what you want. Yeah.

And so main and learning the things that other parents already know, like it's, you don't get it right here in the one-on-one sit downs. You get it driving to school for the hour with your music on while they're looking out the window and it's not the, no it right here in the one-on-one sit downs you get it driving to school For the hour with your music on whether looking at the window and it's not the no look me in the eye unconditional You know attention right now. Yeah, that's hard for them But when you get it in passing throwing the ball, yeah, and you're getting this great stuff You know, so mems working on that is maintaining access You know the story about George Washington the cherry tree tree, chaps on the cherry tree, and he tells his dad, I was reading once that we missed the lesson of the story,

because it's not real, it didn't actually happen. The lesson was that he told his dad what he did, and that he trusted he wouldn't get his ass beat for it. You know what I mean? Like that, which would have been unique in the 18th century, that he told his dad the truth, and his dad took the truth as the important thing, not the, I have to inflict punishment upon you

for having screwed up in some way. That's what you want. When I tell the story about me and my dad in there, when he got physical with me for stealing that pizza, he was not hurt because I stole the pizza. He was hurt because I lied to him about it. He'd stolen many freaking pizzas, man. He just wanted me to go, yeah, I always stole the pizza. He was hurt because I lied to him about it. He'd stolen many freaking pizzas, man. He just wanted me to go, yeah, I stole the pizza, got busted.

He'd go, no, damn it. Money, if you're going to do that, you got to get away with it better. You know what I mean? Or what? What did you do with your allowance? But he was never, and I didn't know that until after. And I will never forget the pain in his eyes, the fatigue of his jaw dropping was not how am I failing that my son stole a pizza?

It was how am I failing that my son wouldn't just tell me the truth about that? How am I failing that I raised a son that lied to me three times about stealing like, God damn pizza, come on. The way I would think about it now is what did he do that made you not feel comfortable telling him? Right? Why did you lie? Because there's something we do, we want them to say, you can come to me.

That's what we say. But then every day with our actions, we're like, yeah, if you come to me, it's bad for you. Right? We're not actually making it, you know, there's there's what you say. And then there's the case that you make every day. Dude, the night I wrote a little quick blurb on at the beginning about losing my virginity by blackmail when I was 15. Maybe I was 14. You know what the threat was? No, you come to this hotel and you're going to me or I'm going to go to your house and tell your parents that you've been drinking beer at your log cabin you built in the woods.

Yikes. I mean, tell my mom and dad that, man. I'm getting in trouble. I know now, my parents would have been like, told that girl to get your ass off our porch out there. You try to manipulate her son. Come here. Come in here. And we'd have hugged it out. I didn't see it. And I would have not been blackmailed that night. You know what I mean? So I've got a couple. If you knew you had St. Farber. I misread a couple of

times. I'm sure there's more than that. So we were miscommunicating or I was misperceiving along the way in some way or not seeing clearly what I know, what was it? What I'd seen with my older brothers and how they were disciplined by rules and stuff like that. Maybe I didn't see it clearly. There's a guy, Dave Carey, who lives in Georgetown. Or maybe I was just chicken shit. I was talking to someone the other day, I was like, I wish that my track coach just said, you know, this to me,

I would have gotten through. And my friend was like, they said that to you several times. What the fuck are you talking about? So there's something about we can't hear what we're not ready to hear. So they probably told you a thousand times, come to me no matter what it is, you won't get in trouble. And then you just refuse to hear.

But anyways, there's this guy named Dave Carey who lives in Georgetown. He went to the Naval Academy. He was in the Hanoi Hilton with Stockdale and McCain, prisoner of war for like six or seven years. I asked him once- I was just in Vietnam last year. Oh, wow.

He's this amazing guy. And he was saying that one of the things he learned as a parent, he's like, you always got to remember the goal of every conversation is to get to have the next conversation. I think about that a lot. Cause you think your job is like, I got to discipline them. I got to get this point across. I got to make them. I got to get this point across I got to make them understand this and it's like you don't know that this is the conversation where that is supposed to happen

Actually, it might be 15 years from now They're gonna be calling you with some problem or not calling you with some Because of how you acted in this moment. Yep. Amen. Yeah, that's a good one. It's a good one to remember. It's good for life too, generally. It also takes some pressure off. Yeah, of course. Yeah. If you think this is the moment, you're probably gonna... Yeah, I definitely have that pride and arrogance to feel like, no, I gotta make it clear right now. It's black and it's white. Do you understand? Is that clear? Say it back to me. Great, period, done.

Are we done now? Okay, everyone got it? Okay, now let's have ice cream. It's like, instead of this day, I'm like, no, it's just, you don't have to put a period on the end of it. Keep it open and we can still have the ice cream while we're finishing up the conversation.

Right, which is that it's, hey, we only got 18 years. Says who? Right. You know, you're not gonna, can't have any good conversations when they're 22? I hope you could. So it's like kind of Yeah, I think whenever I'm extrapolating, I'm usually getting myself in trouble. It's like, I'm worried if you did

this, and then you don't understand this, then this, this, this, this, and you'll end up living under a bridge somewhere. Or, you know, and works if I let them talk to me this way. In this situation, no one will ever respect me ever again You know, it's that extrapolation Based on you know an absurd series of assumptions It's also I think as far as a you and I really like logic. Yeah And everything's so logical most of these discussions are not about logic

Yeah, they're very passionate and animal want. Yeah. Need reactionary discussions. I mean, I don't, you know, and I was like, two plus two is four. There's the math. What don't we get about it? That's, that's, a lot of times that's not the point

that they're understanding or want to understand. They go, oh, Oh, I get it. Yeah. I didn't know that was the math. That's not usually what they're asking. Do you want to be right or do you want to be married? You know, I told you that Mark Waters goes to girlfriend's past. Yeah. I do my homework on, I prepare a lot for roles and I go into scenes and I mean, I know my man.

Yeah. And I've got clear decisions on what I would do and what if I hear something what I wouldn't do. And he's coming up in this one scene and he's saying like, yeah, well, I do it. And he's like, okay, that's good. You try this. I was like, no, no, never do that. No, no, that's false.

It's false. We'll do it. No, no. And he's like, after a couple of retorts back, no, that's false. It's false. We did. No, no. And he's like, after a couple of retorts back, he goes, you know, Matthew, you are never wrong. And I was like, thank you. But there's, there's more than one way to be right. And I went, oh shit, touche Mark. I'll never forget that moment. Yeah. And I, he just like, and I went, oh, and it was one of those, you,

you hear certain things along the way. Maybe once every couple of years, some moment you'll hear and it'll, it'll, it'll be branded on you. Yeah. That's it. That's one that stuck with me on that, on that subject. There'd be more than one way to be right. I'm like, I love being right. Of course. You know, I honestly wish more people love being right. Being right is almost gone out of O in a lot of ways. Um, I don't think it's nostalgic to say competence is a real measure. Yeah. Sure. Doing something well, right. As compared to doing something not well and wrong. Yeah. But it's a, it's a, it's, it's not on the top of the list. I mean, you know, I've talked about before,

I wish people need to bring embarrassment back. No, shame, shame can be helpful also. It can be bad for art, but like, if you're not, if the only thing that is holding you back is whether something is strictly legal or not, we're in a lot of trouble, you know? Why'd you do it? Cause I could.

Yeah, right. That's, I hear you Augustus McCray. Yeah. You know, I hear you as a kid, but do you know, do you want to. Yeah. Right. That's, I hear you Augustus McCray. Yeah. You know, I hear you as a kid, but do you know, do you want to? Yeah. Ask yourself if you want to before you can. Yeah.

When you can, ask yourself if you want to, or if you maybe should. Can we go that far? I mean, I think we're realizing, oh wait, the whole American system was based on these norms that we never wrote down. And we just assumed people wouldn't do certain things. And then certain people come along and they go on to do whatever I want. And we're like, we don't have any checks for that. Like checkmate, you win. You know, no, that's 100% a big

problem. That constitution of normal expectations and decency or that were unwritten and understood. Yeah, are oblique now. There's supposed to be some things that you commit harry-carry afterwards, because you know what I mean? You're like, I'm out, I lost. It's like, no, sorry, yeah. Shake hands on it, got me.

Yeah, exactly, you got me there. Yeah, you know? But if we don't have that, we're like a little bit, oh shit, we just have to wait for this person to die, I guess? Self and... Yeah, we just have to wait for this person to get tired or give up or, I don't know, it's crazy.

The final check in our system is like, would a human being be shameless enough to do X, Y or Z? Yeah, you know what's crazy? I put a full circle in and then I wanna take you into the bookstore to show you something. But we were talking about like the prologue. I have two pages of notes of things I wanna talk about. I didn't even look at them.

But I think I got everything I wanted to set. You know, like you do the, Eisenhower had this thing about how plans are worthless, but planning is everything. Yeah, man. You do all the prep, you do all the thinking about it. And then you probably don't use one fucking bit of it. Saying earlier, I show up when I'm doing my best work, I show up with copious amounts, like a note.

And I get there and I'm like, well, duh, duh, well, duh, well, duh. not bringing that script to set anymore. That was then, do I trust that it has informed me enough? Yeah. And do I go back and go, oh, you could have done, yeah, but there, but because I wasn't adhering to that or going back, hang on a sec, let me look at my notes, I found another magic trick along the way. Totally. Because it was in the moment. I wasn't going, hang on a second. Let me check my notes to make sure. But I love to prepare and have those signposts there.

If you hit these, you will succeed. I don't know if you make magic. If you ask those questions, it will be a good interview. But if you have the basis of those questions and we go where we've been, maybe it's a great interview. To be able to relax though into that, because I love the word, you love the word. And then today, I know if I'm gonna give a speech

or something, there's some species around, I'm like, dude, don't change a word of that. Don't go off script. Yeah, but you're gonna be reading instead of going, engaging, and I have times where I'm like, I don't care. That's going to be printed. And then when it's printed, I want it to be exactly what is said here. So maybe I won't be the best performing orator, but what we'll live on after will be exactly what I meant to say. Well, there's different, in that case, you're not actually, the audience you're

performing the thing to is different, right? Because you're like, Oh, this is going to be played in different meetings. Like the Gettysburg Address was somewhat underwhelming as a speech. Like the guy that goes before Lincoln, he speaks for like two and a half hours. The Gettysburg Address was four times shorter than the prayer which opened the ceremony. I heard this the other day on the rest is history. It's incredible. He gets up there, he gives a speech and people are like, they thought it was a pause before the rest of the speech. It's so short, but that Lincoln wasn't performing for 500 people or 5,000 people at Gettysburg. He's performing for the newspapers whom he has handed a copy of the address and

he's performing for us. He was attempting, as people don't think of him as this logical, he was attempting to redefine what America stood for in a series of 270 words. It was almost a contract he was writing. He's like, this is what America is about. He wasn't trying to persuade you with his eloquent voice. It was these very tightly wound sentences. And that those have endured,

obviously, for 200 years or 150 years. That's what it's so yeah, you got to know who you're performing. What mark are you hitting here? Are you hitting the mark for the live studio audience? Or are you performing past them for the camera, which is being watched by millions of people? And that's a bit of that objectivity, not necessarily self-conscious, but that's a bit of that objectivity of knowing your zone, who's my audience, I know this is going to live and have a long tail.

Where is it going to be reprinted? That's what this performance may not be great, but these words will live on and hopefully be life changing. Yeah, totally. Love it. Want to check out some books? Yeah. Sweet.

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