The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 306: Brian Koppelman - Follow Your Curiosity And Obsessions With Rigor

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Episode #306: Brian Koppelman - Follow Your Curiosity And Obsessions With Rigor Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Sustaining excellence: Ability to focus on the work Preparedness Ability to collaborate "Being responsible enough to show up on time is surprisingly effective and important" "People that follow their curiosity, obsessions, and passions" -- They truly love what they're doing and work with incredible rigor.  If you love what you're doing, it doesn't feel like a job.  It's work that's enriching you at the same time. "What we're really trying to do as leaders is get people to perform at their highest level and to do it together, because what we do is highly collaborative."  "I was the kind of person that would read a book and if I liked it, I would stay up all night reading it.  And I would learn the words from that book.  I would look them up.  I loved the way words sounded and I loved the idea of communicating with great efficiency and humor." "Where this passion really landed for me, it made sense to do this work.  Working with great rigor is a lot easier when you're borderline obsessed with something and when you're curious." "Curiosity keeps you diving deeper." "I was a frustrated and blocked writer and I was starting to feel that I had made mistakes.  But those two hours every morning... Writing. Made me feel alive." "And he (my boss) said to me, 'Look, you know you're a writer and that's what you want to do.'" "Dude.  You do have a half hour a day."  You have to make time to do the work. "We finished the screenplay.  We sent it out and it got rejected by every single agency in Hollywood.  I'm not exaggerating." "I  wrote down what every person said... And then it sold the next week, and every agency called us back trying to sign us.  Nothing was different on the page.  I read them all back what they had said and they would all lie back to me.  I had them written down on a big yellow legal pad.  I read them out loud on a speaker phone.  These guys all lied back to us. Nobody just said, 'well I guess I was wrong,' but then they all wanted to sign us.  It taught me a great lesson about gatekeepers in the world.  They don't always know." "It means don't blindly accept negative feedback from gatekeepers." Feedback -- "We have friends/peers in place to give feedback to each other."  John Hamburg (Meet The Fockers; I Love You, Man; Along Came Polly). "You want feedback, you need feedback. But you don't want feedback from that jealous old friend who you know secretly doesn't want you to be successful." "I don't have people in my life who don't want the best for me.  We root for each other... Hard." Comfort in your own skin: "It's a lifetime pursuit.  It's so hard." "The battle is to accept who you are while not giving up on improving yourself.  To continue to try to become the perfected version of you which you can never be.  And to accept your own frailties and faults." "One simple place this comes from is to avoid lying.  My wife and I don't lie to each other.  We've never lied to each other. When you have that to start, it helps with the rest because you're not fronting." "I do morning pages every day, I meditate, I take long walks and think." "When you do all of those things and you live with intention, you start to become more comfortable with who you are." "But each time you stretch and grow and you're rewarded, it encourages you to stretch and grow." "Never Fake The Funk" -- "It's about pretending.  It's about lying to yourself.  Don't pretend, don't lie to yourself.  It's really easy to get swept along by other peoples conception of who you are. And by other people's ideas of what success is.  Defining success for yourself is crucial." "Any interaction I have, I view as an opportunity for growth. For me and the other person." Feedback is fuel... Hearing that you've helped someone is the fuel that drives this machine Having successful parents and the expectations that come from that... "My dad was very good at showing me what it took to be successful." "For some reason, my dad would always point out, 'there's nothing worse than the son of a rich kid.'" "I never wanted to be looked at as just the son of somebody and just skate.  I wanted my parents and sisters to be proud of me.  I wanted my kids to be proud of me." "I learned at a young age how to talk to powerful people.  To find a way to make them laugh, to not be intimidated by them.  Because I grew up around those people, I knew exactly what they're like.  That's a gigantic advantage that I had because my father took me to meetings.  I watched people sell to him, and I watched him sell to others, so I learned what worked." "My dad was a workaholic, but he really cared about us.  He never missed a ballgame.  He would go to New York City, work a full day, come home to Long Island, watch me play a decent third base, and then drive back to the city for a meeting.  I never wondered 'Is my Dad going to show up for the game, my dad always showed up for the game." "I would never eat dinner until my dad got home.  If he was going to be home at 9:00, I would wait up, my dad would come home and we would talk about his day and about business.  And just hearing the stories enabled me now to be able to understand aspects of business." "Whenever my son asked me to play catch, I would say yes." "I always walked my daughter to school.  Those little things, kids knowing that, it gives you a kind of closeness. It's having the connection..." "You don't have to start over, you're in the flow.  You always have this time." Tell your kids, "You did well because you worked hard."  Don't say, "You did well because you're smart."  Compliment the work ethic. Writing Billions on spec... You write it for free, you don't have a deal in place. "We wrote it for us." Showrunner = Responsible for everything you see on the television show.  Writing it, overseeing shooting of it, the editing, the design, all of it.  Leading 150 people on the show. How to make hiring decisions? "No assholes" "We really check references" The work has to be excellent "We hire keys to run departments and trust the keys to hire their departments.  Hiring the keys is a lot of time and effort, a lot of meetings." "I want to know that they're really going to kill for it.  I want to know that they're a good person.  That they'll get along with everyone.  We're all there lifting everyone else up.  So you need to know that everyone is there for the same reason.  'I love this show and I want it to be great.'" How they hired Damian Lewis -- "We had three long meetings.  We each checked with people who had worked with each other.  We knew people loved working with him.  We knew he showed up prepared." How to be creative and innovative... A collaborative process: Recognize people when they do great "The truth is 'hire people that are smarter than you.  You never pay a bad price when you hire people that are better than you.'" "Part of not fronting, of not faking the funk, is admitting when you don't know the answer."  "Let's get the best idea.  Let's source the best idea that we can." Career advice: "Do the work." "Think about the story you want to tell and start telling it." At thanksgiving, why should you not talk about your new creative endeavor: "It's a lot easier to say I don't have the time than to say I'm scared to do it." "Say what your dream is too soon and someone will shoot it down.  Train yourself not to do that." Create a whole family (extended family) group chat Use the "Get To Know You Document" Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea

The working with great rigor is a lot easier and doesn't feel like a job when you're borderline obsessed with something. And when you're not just obsessed, but when you're curious, it keeps you chasing, right? Curiosity keeps you diving deeper. Keeps me diving deeper. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday.

Text learners to 44222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Text learners to 44222. Also have some cool updates coming for those who want to be a part of my book launch team. Text learners to 44222. Now, on a night's featured leader, a very special one for me. I flew out to New York City to sit in his office with him. It is the great Brian Coppulman, a creative hero of mine. He wrote the movie Rounders.

In fact, that was his first screenplay, a number of other movies he's written. Most recently, he is the co-creator, executive producer, writer, and showrunner of my favorite TV show, billions. So much to get to, a few of the topics we discuss, the importance of following your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor. Then the process of bringing something to life from a blank page and how this can relate to all of us. And then growing up with a very successful dad and the expectations he set for himself because of that. We went deep here and he does not talk about this often. And then how to become more comfortable in your own skin. This was an extremely wide-ranging yet very deep conversation with someone I look up to very much.

much. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Brian Copleman. All right, first, Brian, thank you so much for having me here in your office. New York City. It's good to be here with you, man. My pleasure, Ryan. I am fascinated by creative leaders, which is something that you are, someone who not only is a creative person himself, but you lead others. My podcast is called The Learning Leaders Show, so it's focused on the people who are kind of in charge of others leading and managing people. And I'm curious from your perspective, when you think about actors, directors, producers, the people that make things happen, the creatives and those who sustain excellence, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among those people? Well, let me just back up for a second and we'll answer that question. I rarely think of myself as being in charge of other people.

I think that, you know, especially because we're in a creative endeavor. So my, first of all, my partner and I run the whole thing together. My partner, David Levine, has been my creative partner for a long time and over 20 years. And what we're really trying to do is, I guess the way that leaders do, what we're really trying to do is get everybody to perform at their highest possible level and find a state of flow. Like that's, you know, for what we do, you're trying to create an environment where people can do this. the best work that they can do all together because what we do is highly collaborative. You need people to feel a huge sense of agency to take their own lead and perform well. When you ask about high performers in the creative arts, the truth of it is it's hard to give

a unifying answer that cuts across all these creative disciplines. If I had to pick a few, I would say focus, preparedness. When you're talking about sustained success at this, sustained success producing quality work, I would think the ability to focus on the work, the ability to collaborate. I would say the, you know, weirdly, like being responsible enough to show up on time

is surprisingly effective and punctuality counts important David and I always felt like we had a slight edge when we would go out to Hollywood in the beginning of our career and have meetings because we would never be late and sometimes people would comment on that and to this day I can't understand

showing up late for an appointment like you got here early, I was ready early we started this thing early and I think that that matters and then I mean broader, more broadly I think it's people who got into the creative arts because they were following their curiosities, obsessions, and passions.

I have not found that people who sort of tried to use the arts in a calculated way, not calculated, even a loaded word, meaning calculate, meaning badly, but people who sort of thought, well, I have these tools, so I'm going to apply them in this area. For me, it seems, if I look at the people I've worked with who've had this sustained success. They truly love what they're doing,

and they've worked with incredible rigor to be able to do it. And I see that when I think about the actors, the writers, the directors, and I think that ties into this idea of being prepared, of being collaborative, of being disciplined. I mean, a lot of the reason you're willing to do that

is if you love the thing that you are doing, you're willing, it doesn't even feel like work to be prepared. It doesn't feel like work to show up. No, it doesn't. And it's, or if it is work, it's work that's enriching you at the same time. Right. I've, I felt when you're, when you're fortunate enough to do something that you love on a daily basis, it, it's work. I mean, because you work really hard to be good at what you do.

Yet it probably doesn't, it hasn't felt like a job. You probably haven't felt like yet a job and how since when. Well, in a long, I mean, I would say there have been a couple of gigs I've taken. Yeah. For money to write something. Like, let's say that David and I just finished an indie movie. So I spent a year and a half. making a movie and earning a tenth of what I normally earn earned as a screenwriter.

Sometimes after that we would take some writing jobs that did feel like jobs. We stopped doing that at a certain point because of that. Because it was hard to do our best work when it felt like we were just taking the gig for other reasons. You don't, in our minds, you don't get into this for that. You get into this to do work that you're really engaged by, that work that fires you up. up. And then, you know, as a responsible person, you find a way to earn a living. Yeah. I, it's funny. You already said in the first answer, the three words, I've written out a lot. You can see my notes here, but the three words I wrote down when I thought of you, though, I said, I want to write

down the three first things that come to mind. I mean, I listen to the moment. I watch all your stuff. I've watched rounders a million times. Sure. The three words I wrote, curiosity, obsession, and rigor. I think you use those words, maybe more than any three words, meaning you follow your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor. Yes. Well, you know, I try to distil, I mean, people ask these questions. You know, you try to distill some of this down, especially, I like demystifying artistic achievement. I do think, of course, there's an ineffable part of it, right? There's a part that will always feel a little bit like magic when you're sort of conjuring something from thin air. But, you know, the reason is the reason. The reason is, you know,

that I started doing this, or one of the reasons, was I had this incredible love for, you know, everybody likes the movies, but I would watch a movie I loved enough times in a row to memorize it. Enough times in a row to really think about the way the words fit together. Enough times in a row that I could quote the whole thing to you, that I can imitate it. I would, if they were doing a play at school and I didn't get, and I got cast in a part, but it wasn't a lead part, I'd find a way to also work on the crew and assistant direct it. I will say back then, with zero thought that I would do this for a career, no part of me thought I would do this for a career when I was in high school. Yet, if you look back on it, because I

played sports, you know, and if you look back on it, I mean, you'd see me playing two varsity sports, not a start either, but, you know, but playing two varsity sports, but also every weekend being in the gym, the theater, which was in what was called then the girls gym, and doing theater. You know, I'd be doing theater on the weekends and playing sports and listening to me. I was doing all this stuff. And this stuff became the thing that I would think about all the time. You know, I was a kind of person. I'd read a, if I got a book and I started reading it and I liked it, I would stay up all night reading the book. And then I would think about it and I would, you know, learn the words in the book if I didn't know them. And so I built up accidentally.

I built up a larger than usual working vocabulary. Not because, it was some intention that I had, but it was because I loved the way words sounded, and I loved the way that you could unpack different meanings, and I loved the idea of communicating with great efficiency and humor. And so when you, I got into all that stuff, then as I started realizing where this passion really landed for me, it made sense to do this work. And when I say work, you know, earlier we were saying it's not like a job, and that's true. But the working with great rigor is a lot easier and doesn't feel like a job when you're borderline obsessed with something. And when you're not just obsessed, but when you're curious, it keeps you chasing, right?

Curiosity keeps you diving deeper, keeps me diving deeper. And so if I find, like, you know, when David and I stumbled into the world of poker, I couldn't get enough of the language of the game of poker. I couldn't get enough of the customs of that insular world, of the way those people spoke to each other, signaled to each other, of the way somebody would spot a waitress in an underground poker club and signal for the food,

and the waitress would know when it was okay to tell a joke or when someone was in a hand and they should just slide the menu to them. Like each little custom of that world was, and again, not where it was like, hey, I have to learn this because I want to write about it. It was like, God, for some reason, I want to know everything about these people. I want to know everything about who they are and why they're here and what this means. And it felt romantic to me.

And it felt something in that place I wrote once that it made sense to me the way St. Patrick's makes sense to a different sort of man. And that is what it felt like. So then doing all the work, which was just a ton of very challenging work, writing that script, figuring out how to tell that story, getting that movie made. And so it was a lot of many hours and, you know, at times brutally draining. But I never woke up and felt like, oh, what a fucking drag. I have to deal with this.

I woke up thinking, all right, suit up. Let's go. Let's rock and roll. You know, I was in all the time. But it wasn't, at that point, you, let's go back to Rounders real quick. So maybe we'll go chronologically. First, rounders for me in my life, Brian, just, I'm sure you hear this all the time for me, but I think it's worth saying.

It's my sophomore year, Miami University, I'm playing quarterback. I'm battling Ben Rothersberger. It's a, it's the most stressful time of my life up to that point. Okay, we are, it's a daily thing. We're in class together, the weight room, the film room, certainly on the field. He's better than me, better player. every day when I would have like a 40 minute break. But I mean, you were the better guy, right?

You said that. So I had like a 40 minute break, okay, in between like a class and I'm eating my lunch to go. I go back to my dorm room at Han Hall, Oxford, Ohio, have my food. I had one of those TVs with the VHS that's attached to it, you know? They don't make them anymore, obviously. VHS, not DVD. And I watch Rounders every day for my whole sophomore season. Every day.

I had one movie. That was it. And so I just love the thought of, I like the words. I like the way they talked. I like the little intricacies of it, which then I've read the script because you've published it online for people to read. And I was amazed, because I don't know, I'm not in the arts like you. I was amazed that that was all written.

Like you wrote that stuff. It wasn't like Matt Damon and Worm, Ed Norton did it on their own. That was the stuff that you guys wrote. And so that blew me away that you guys, first time making a movie, correct? this is your first ever script and you and you guys wrote all of that detail that went on to become this cult hit. I'd love just to kind of hear about that kind of process and your mindset at that stage in your life. Well, that's the job of somebody writing a screenplay. I mean, that is the job is to create on the page, the movie that people are going to see. Yeah.

And David and I met every morning at 8 in the morning. We worked from, he came back from bartending. It was before I had to be in my job around 10.30 at the time. So David and I would write from 8 to 10 every morning. And we had stacks of books. We had glossaries of old language of New York, of poker, because this was pre-Easy search internet. And so we had stacks and stacks and stacks of references. And then at night, we would be out in the poker clubs talking to people and listening and taking notes, and then meeting people in the world of poker and asking them questions so that we could draw the world with that level of specificity, that level of detail. And I mean, it was a great time, you know, I've told this before, but I before that was just a

frustrated and blocked writer. And I talk about this on my podcast a lot. I was a frustrated and blocked writer and I was starting to feel like I had made some mistakes in my life by not doing this. And those two hours every day fueled me so much. So it's the opposite of what a bad job feels like. You know, all that work was worth it because it made me feel alive. And it made me feel alive the rest of the day. And so that I couldn't wait to get back to writing again. Even though, and this is important to say, it's not like the writing was just sailing. along. Like that eight to ten block, there were many days where my head hurt, where I felt like a failure, where I felt like I wasn't up to the task, where I felt like I had a huge case of hubris

where it was like, who do I think I am, that I believe I can be a writer and not only a writer that I can write movies. I mean, it's, it was an audacious thing. You know, I had a, Amy and I had a young child at home, a baby, and that meant she had to watch the baby, you know, two more hours in the day by herself. And I had all those doubts, and I also had those feelings of inadequacy of not being good up to the task. But by the time I left each day, some pages got written. And I would read them over at night often. And there was some spark in them.

and I would take notes and figure out what we wanted to change, if we wanted to change something. And I knew somehow this is worth it. This becomes a movie, it's worth it. We sell the screenplay, it's worth it. If it doesn't, it's worth it because I've engaged what might be the best part of myself for the first time and allowing myself to see the results of that.

Did you tell anybody? Yeah, there's a couple different ways to go, to proceed. Yeah. I didn't say what I was writing about. I told like one person who was a... I mean, Amy knew what you were doing. Amy always knows, but there was a guide to the world,

a guy named Shecky Green, John Schachter, and he was one of the people who gave me a lot of insight. He introduced me to the guy who became in the movie Joey Kinnish in real life. His name was Joel Bagels. And he introduced me to bagels and sort of like kissed me into the world in a way.

And so I would talk to John about it a little bit and say, hey, there's what we're working on. I did tell people that I was writing because I wanted to, I didn't want to put enough so much pressure on myself that I'd quit my job, which is a mistake I think people make. They think, I have to be an artist

or I have to do something, and they quit their job, which then put so much additional pressure on the doing. Then you have to make money, yeah. Yeah, so I didn't do that. Yeah. But I did tell a few people because I wanted to make sure I kept the promise.

Yeah. And I thought about whether to tell people, and I waited, I think, until we got a little of the ways going. I had to tell the person who's one of my very best friends was my boss in the music business when I was working in the record business. And for a minute, I had thought about quitting and when I went to talk to him to maybe do something else.

And he and I talked a lot about it. And he said, come on, you know you're a writer. And that's what you really want to do. And that's what you have to do. And so when David and I decided to do this, I went to him and I said, look, there are days I might get in until 1045 or something like that because I'm writing the script. and he was super supportive and said, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, do it. Yeah.

I think that's actually good advice for a lot of people listening now. They have a job. They have responsibility. They have a spouse, kids, mortgage, all that stuff. But they do have this creative pursuit, something they want to go after with rigor, right? They want to follow their curiosities. I hear me say the word curiosity hundreds and hundreds of times on this show. And I've, if I get asked that question, that's what I say, you don't have to quit because

then you put this intense pressure to pay. the bills when you don't have any income coming. So yeah. Because dude, you do have a half hour a day. Right. I don't know. No matter. More.

Yeah. I mean, listen, if you're, if you're working two jobs and you just had a baby, maybe you don't have a half hour. Right. But most people. Essentially, you have a half hour that you're doing some bullshit. Yeah. You just have a half hour.

Honestly, if you're on your iPhone when you're taking a shit, bring your laptop computer in, buddy, you know, and do whatever the thing is that you're doing. You can use your phone for that too. Yeah, you can write on your phone. I'm saying, you know, go like there's a half hour. I will say this, the non-jokey answer is you do have to sacrifice something, and I have never had a problem sacrificing social engagements. I've never had a problem.

I'll say it's lucky for me. I don't like parties. I've never cared about parties, even in college. Like I did a lot of other things to waste time, but big parties. and all the things that are attendant to that. So whether that means there's a dinner that your spouse really wants you to go to, there's got to be a way that you can say,

okay, well, we're going to do one, but I'm not doing two. You're invited from your office to go to someone's birthday celebration to play ping pong. Maybe there's some marginal utility in the hangout, but if you're honest with yourself, you went bowling with everyone two weeks ago

or played pool with everybody or went to the video game night you can it's a lot easier to just drift into that and there's a sort of a social pressure to do that on the other hand talk about gaining reps the moment you stop doing that

nothing becomes easier than not doing that and then picking your spots and knowing when it matters and then when you do show up you matter more and that's a half hour gained where you can go to sleep so let's say yeah but I'm too tired then And at eight at night, that's fine.

I get it. It's hard to chase your dream at eight or nine after you've worked 12 hours. But go to sleep. Yeah. Like most, I'll say there have been many times in my life that I've hung out with my kids and my wife and said, guys, I'm going to bed and gone to bed,

like at a crazy early hour, 9.30, 10. Yeah. 915, not a lot. But I have because I knew then, okay, I can get up at four. And if I get up at four, I can meditate, journal, and at 5 o'clock, I can do two hours of work without anybody knowing or being aware of it.

I can find this time to figure out what it is that I want to do. Now, maybe you can't find two hours. But if you want to be a writer, if you write a half hour a day, you can write a page. If you can write one page a day, if you want to write screenplays, you could write like four screenplays in a year. If you want to write a novel,

that's 365 pages. Let's say you take weekends off. that's still what, 290 pages or something like that. Like, there's still one page a day. And don't take weekends off, one day off. Weekends are someone in the best time. I mean, I write on the weekends a lot, but it's what I do for a living. Yeah.

You finished rounders. What did you think when you got done? Like, when you reread it, you and Dave are sitting there, you're looking through it. You're like, this thing is, this is legit. Like, this is good. Because, I mean, I want to hear about what happened as you shopped it a bit. But did you think, wait. we put to this is really good you know uh at the time i was too new to it to really know i knew that

it was you'd read screen plays i'd read some i knew it was not like i knew there was a voice in the thing yeah and i knew we'd found a story that hadn't been told in new york like i knew no one had written the new york underground poker movie right and that we'd found a way to tell the new york underground poker story. But I wasn't sure that it was, look, our goal was to do something like Diner was for us,

a movie that people would want to watch over and over again a quote. And the fact that happened is amazing to me. And I knew there were some really funny lines in it. And I felt those things were there. But I didn't really know. And so you were going to ask about what happened. You know, we sent it out and it got rejected by

every single agency in Hollywood. I'm not exaggerating. Every agency rejected. it. And I remember because it was early on, I wrote down what everybody said, and then I had this great satisfying moment, which was, you know, first of all, it was very depressing. I spent a month and a half feeling like, well, this was, I was wrong. This thing wasn't great. Did you sell a job? Oh, yeah. Okay. I didn't quit my job until Rounders was greenlit and we'd sold two other things. But got you. Uh, and neither did Dave quit the bartending job either, even though we got a, when we sold Rounders, we got, you know, for the time.

like real money, enough money three times that Dave was making Tending Bar, but he didn't quit until like three things happened. And when this, when the thing got rejected a bunch, I wrote down what all the agents said. And then it sold on a Monday and on Tuesday or Wednesday, every agency called us to try to sign us. And I read everybody what they'd said. And they all lied back. What they say? Like what were the notes? Do you, I mean, you got to remember. But I made it. No, like one guy would say it's overwritten. Another guy would say it's underwritten. It was all bullshit. Those terms don't mean anything. But I read the notes to the people.

I had them written down on a big yellow legal pad on my office desk. And Dave came over and we were sitting there on opposite sides of the desk and I was reading this stuff out loud on a speaker phone. You know, like pretending we were in Jerry McGuire or something laughing our asses off. And these guys all lied. And it was all guys, maybe one woman. And they all lied like, oh, I didn't read it. That was my reader or my assistant. Or I read the wrong script and I thought it was yours.

Or nobody just said, well, I guess I was wrong. or hey man, I just couldn't believe it was good. They all just had to say some bullshit. But then they all wanted to sign us. And nothing had changed in the script. The only thing it changed is some person of authority and taste in Hollywood, supposed taste had said yes to it. And that made all of them immediately change their opinion, which taught me a great lesson

about gatekeepers, of course, which is that they don't always know. And in fact, often they don't know. That's easier for them to say no to something than to say yes, because that doesn't cost the money up front. And that doesn't mean ignore feedback or criticism, but it doesn't, what it does mean is don't blindly accept it. Interesting when you bring up feedback. I get the sense, or I should just ask you, how do you strategically place people in your life to tell you no or say Brian, that's not good? Or is that Dave? Well, it's Dave and Amy for sure. and my kids, you know, my kids are now 23 and 19, and we have really incredibly great relationships

and honest relationships, and we all keep each other honest, the four of us. And David and I definitely do that. But we also have put in our lives, we have friends, peers who tell each other the truth. And we share screenplays with each other. So John Hamburg, who's a really incredibly great writer-director. I mean, he wrote, I love you man and directed I Love You Man and along came Polly and wrote the Fokker's movies. And we trade scripts with Hamburg all the time. So Hamburg will finish something and send it to us. And we will sit down and spend the time and really make notes and then really talk to him about it. I had a friend of mine send me a script two weeks ago, an Academy Award winner, this friend. And he asked for notes. And so

I didn't spend a lot of time saying, here are the great things. I was like, here's what's fucked up. He does the same for me. We do this for each other. And so this, in fact, that guy, that Academy Award winner, when Dave and I had the first cut of the Billions pilot, had him and a couple other friends, like guys like Mike Barbiglia, come to screen it, to give us notes. And we wanted the harsh notes because they were going to see it. before the network saw it. And so you want feedback. You need feedback if you do what we do. And then you're selective about who you get feedback from. So you don't want feedback from that jealous old friend who you know secretly has to root against you because your success makes them feel bad.

But look, dude, I'm 52 years old and I've been at this a long time. And I've had, I've gotten the sort of practice at ferreting, at finding best practices and ferreting out the bad. So I don't really have people in my life who I think aren't there for me in the way that I'm there. They're rooting for them. You're rooting for each other. I'm rooting for each other. You know, my friend, the Academy Award winner, he's a genius. And all I want is to see his next movie.

And so I want to give him the best feedback I can so that I can see his movie and it's going to kill me. You know, and that's the way we are with each other. Finding it's important not to think when you, when you have some. success in any of these fields and the way you've seen it with football and with your own football success in college and your brother's professional football success and the success that Dave and I have been lucky enough to have. Obviously, you could choose to have a friction-free existence if you want. The problem is you will then feel dead inside. Yeah, yeah. No sense of satisfaction. Right. And you know it too, right? The fear you don't want to ever turn into Prince Humberdank from the Princess

bride and you what you want is to have real interactions all the time part of this another thing when I listen to you talk and and obviously watch what you put out I get this sense mainly I probably get this from your podcast I get this sense that you have this extreme amount of comfort in your own skin and I think that is surprisingly rare with people maybe not in your life you're shaking your head because maybe not in your life the people you surround I was like, but, but in, and so I love for you to maybe expand on that or what, like, how could, how does this happen? How do you develop this?

That's a lifetime pursuit. It's so hard. Right. No, I was shaking my head more just like, yeah, dude. Okay, yeah. No, becoming comfortable. First of all, it's for everybody, we could all be put in a situation where we don't feel that way.

Um, is there a situation currently where you don't like, I'm, I'm trying to think of it now. Well, it's when you become self-conscious, right? Yeah. of yourself. But the battle, the battle is to accept who you are while not giving up

on improving yourself, right? To continue to try to become the perfected version of you, which you can never be, and accept you for your own frailties and faults. And, I mean, look, part of that comes from,

well, one simple place that comes, comes from is to avoid lying. And that's so simple. No. And you know, I'm an atheist, and so I can't look to a higher power for this. What I have to do is come up with a set of ways that one ought to live a moral life. So my wife and I don't lie to each other.

We've never lied to each other. We check in with each other all the time. We really focused on our kids. These are such basic things. But when you have that to start, start. It helps with the rest of this stuff, right? Because you're not fronting. You don't have to remember anything. Like what's the opposite of being comfortable in your own skin is like having to put on a bunch of stuff. Constantly. Yeah. So look, I'm 35 pounds heavier than I wish I was.

So I'm aware of that. It bothers me. But what I don't, I don't try to hide that fact. I don't, I'm not uncomfortable if someone brings it up. I'm happy using the word fat. because otherwise you're engaging in some kind of self-hatred. So what I have to do is find a way to address it. So like I do cardio every day. I'm trying to eat better. Like you try to leverage yourself to do better. But also there's no point in walking into a room and saying yourself,

oh my God, I'm fat. Everyone's going to look at me. They're going to know that I'm a fat guy. I have to. So you better just fucking walk into the room. Like, hey, here's who I am. This is me. Yeah.

And now it's easier for a man than a woman. this day and age to do that and a lot of stuff is but and being older makes all that stuff easier and i do things i have a practice you know i i do morning pages every day i meditate twice a day i take long walks and think and when you do those things and then you eliminate like lying from your life and and you um live with some kind of intention i think you just start to become more comfortable in who you are. And I'm sure, look, it's hard. I'm sure that some of the positive reinforcement I've had

in the public sphere helps. I would not be telling the truth if I, I think the podcast helped me. You know, I started in 2013, the thing I recorded in 2013, but it launched in 2014, January of 2014. That's what, that's five years of doing the podcast. five years of doing the podcast, where I was able to get feedback early on quickly that the stuff I was interested in thinking about, talking about, resonated with people. And I'm sure to some

extent that helped me in this, in the next stage of growth. And I'm sure the success the television show has also helped. I think, I don't think it would, now that said, I think I think I I, for a long time, was able to walk into a room and feel comfortable in my skin with who I am, even way before that if I'm thinking about it, but way before that. But each time you try to stretch and grow, and then you're rewarded, it encourages you to continue stretching and growing. And so that's the other part, as we're talking this out loud, how do you not stagnate? How do you not, when you're feeling okay, how do you not just...

allow yourself to become stagnant and stop. And I think you've got to pick things that you continue to be fascinated by. And you have to try to chase them and grow. We were, you were doing a Twitter Q&A one night and I asked you if you were giving a commencement speech, what would the title of the speech be? And you said the title would be never fake the funk. What does that mean to you?

I sense it's tied into all this, right? That's why it made me think of it is this, like we just, it sounds so basic and simple, but we don't lie. Like we don't, we don't lie. That's just something we just don't lie to each other. Like something we,

and I don't lie in general. And if you really think about your life, and there are people out there who tell like little stupid lies. Like some, like it really, it's really frustrating. Is it why do you lie about dumb stuff? Try not to.

Right. I mean, looks and everybody, once in a while, yeah. You know, listen, nobody can avoid when your aunt is like,

does this dress look right? And you're already at the restaurant. There's, you don't, don't be cruel. There's no reason to say, that's not even a lie, right? That's just the kindness.

Sure. But don't fake the funk for me is like about pretending. So it's about lying to yourself and then through the lie to yourself, living a lie. Don't try to be a finance bro unless you really want to be a finance bro. Yeah. Like, and if that's what you're turned on by, go do that thing. Yeah. But it's really easy to get swept along by other people's conception of who you are.

and by other people's ideas of what success means. And defining success for yourself is crucial because it'll stop you from fake and the funk. From, you know, we've all been in a room with somebody and there's just something that doesn't feel aligned in their presentation. They're a look in you in the eye, they're doing their thing,

but somehow you're like, you know, someone said this about a ball player recently. I want to remember who? because I was talking to a sports team owner about a famous basketball player a very tall basketball player, not minute ball, a guy wasn't played in 10 years. And the owner said, you know, he never loved the game.

And I said, what do you mean? He said, yeah, he just didn't love it. It was a job. It was a 9 to 5. He was big. It made some sense. He never cared about it. Now, that guy made a lot of money

and lived a life. so maybe it was worth it for him. But people looked at him. He was tall. He was reasonably coordinated. And suddenly 12 years that he could never get back of his life, he was doing a thing that he didn't care about. And he was probably someone with options.

And so let's say, listen, that's a once in a, nobody has that gift. And it was a way to make security for your family. So yeah, go do that thing. But you wonder, how can you do that thing? but also do a thing that sets you up for afterwards, that also find a couple hours of the day that fuels you so that you're not living a lie to yourself and other people, which just would make you sad and miserable.

Yeah. A commonality I found in those who sustain excellence, I've done 300 plus of these as well over the last four and a half years, is that they're very thoughtful, reflective, and intentional. And as I, I'm glad that's why we're doing this in person, because I can literally see you think, And you're extremely thoughtful and you're really like thinking the entire time. Have you always been this way?

Did you have to develop this? The way I'm saying this is because there's somebody listening right now who's just kind of like mindlessly punching a clock and they make a fine living. But maybe there's, I want to learn, can you develop this and how? I'm not sure that. I mean, there are parts. Yeah, I was always, I mean, the thing I was always able to do was talk and think. I could always engage in a conversation and think.

That's a, you know, one guy's born 7-4, and someone else is born with the capacity to talk in paragraphs and think about things. And then it's what are you gonna do with the, you know, what are you gonna do with it? How are you not gonna squander it? Yeah. But I do make a choice, I would say this.

Okay, here's what I love about your question. I could go into autopilot right now and it would be very hard if someone were listening to tell the difference. No doubt. I could go into autopilot, not be in the room with you really, and just spew a bunch of this shit out. And I make the choice not to be,

that has to do with intention again and not fagging it. That has to do with the fact that somebody is listening to this who's at an inflection point in their life. Like somebody is listening. 90% of the people were helping them pass the time and that's awesome. Like, that's great. Somebody is in their car or jogging or wishing they were jogging and running

and they're walking and they're at an inflection point and they're trying to understand if they can summon the courage because it's fucking scary to make a change. And I'm just thinking if they're there, I want to give them the benefit of the best thinking that I can. We're here now. We have these mics in front of us. This is an opportunity. Right now we have a chance to like maybe actually help a person. Like can you imagine that we might actually be able to help someone. woman decide that she's going to find 20 minutes to begin her personal training practice. Like she's going to figure out how to do this thing that seemed crazy 50 pounds ago and now she's in good shape.

And she's like, the idea of that is awesome to me. And so any interaction I have, I try to view as an opportunity for growth for me or the other person. And that I've developed. I would say that is not something. I think what came naturally to me was being able to speak really quickly, think really quickly, and react. And the thing that was more hard one was being really aware of using those things with clear intention. One of the questions I get is, don't you get tired of doing this after years and years and 300 plus of these?

And actually the answer to me, and I'm curious to get your thoughts on this is it's the opposite of that. because the response from that lady who started her personal training business because she heard something on episode number 97 three years ago is intense fuel for me. Like that feedback is fuel. And it excites me, makes me more curious, makes me want to come to New York and meet with Brian Coppola. Like, that's the thing. I'm curious as you keep going is that part of it too where you hear from people.

They tell you Brian, like you. The feedback is great. Listen, there are times when having to prepare for the podcast while I'm working 17 hours on billions and want to be with my kids isn't fun. It's like pressure because like you, I never want to show up unprepared and I never want to show up not really ready to get the best out of the person with whom I'm talking. So there are times it's a drag to thinking about it. never a drag doing it. And I'm always happy that I've done it. And that's why I've done it for this long.

It's possible that I will, at some point, do a more seasonal approach because doing it while doing the show is hard. Often I'll have to do it on a Saturday or Sunday when I'm like writing all day. And we've been working really 17 hour days on billions. And the reason I've kept doing it, though, is what you say is that, you know, I will, Well, a couple things. One, I do love engaging with people I admire and I want to learn from. So the opportunity to sit with somebody that I might otherwise not have gotten to know.

So that's something. But the more of it is seeing people want to change and then change. Yeah, that's amazing, man. I mean, even if you did that once in five years, it's great. But to repeatedly get letters from people about that, I'll never take it for granted. I'll say, you know, the truth is I don't have any magic to offer people. And so this is kind of what I can offer.

And so sometimes I'm happy to get letters. There's not much more that there is that we can do. It's then it's up to you listening, you know. Because there's not much like Tony Robbins and Julie Cameron's books really help me. And I know Tony. Tony and I are friendly. Dave and I produced the documentary. I'm not your guru.

But the benefit I got from Tony Robbins was reading his book and going to an event. You know, and that's, I did call him when Trump got elected to say like, how do I keep my head on straight? What do you say? I mean, he gave me a little personal advice. But honestly,

that was the only time in like the whole time I've known him that I was like, all right, I need you to be Tony Robbins for me. Was it helpful? It was, but nobody could help. I mean, it was a little bit helpful, but nobody could help me. Did he help you help yourself? Sorry, I don't know, alienate part of your audience, but for me, it was a tragic day.

I mean, I've heard you talk about it. You know, shift gears a little bit. Sure. I grew up with very successful parents. And most notably, from an outward, if you viewed our family, my dad has done very well, still is. And he's my greatest. What industry?

He led a thousand-person sales force. At what company? At Lexus, Nexus. So he did that. And it was a huge leadership role with, you know, you're responsible for basically a thousand people's lives. They're talking about you. Now there's layers.

You know how that goes. But my point is, so he did really well. And I think to me, there, it was almost like an unspoken expectations within the family that we're going to do well. And your dad. Was your dad first generation? Meaning like, first generation to do well? He grew up very poor.

Yeah. Yeah. Did he? Yeah. Okay. So we have something. I grew up very, very poor, but poor. Yeah.

So like, my dad didn't grow up very, my dad. dad was lower lower middle class yeah why asked him about college and he said he he he he hated college because he had no money and he wished he literally told me he'd wish we recorded podcasts i wish the rich guy would have like just somehow given me a little bit of money so i could i didn't enjoy college so that type of you know and but then he you know does really well still does he's the guy i talk to daily um and your dad's very successful guy and you got into the same industry as as him initially correct what can you talk about him a little bit like can you talk about the impact he's had on your life and still, you know.

Well, the biggest impact he had, I said this recently on I was on Andreessen's podcast, but I'll talk about it again. An unmitigated positive, right, for me. Often the children of successful people can get all fucked up all number of ways. Sure. You see it all the time. My parents were incredibly good with me at letting me know I'd have to find my own success at making me aware of how lucky.

My mom was very good at it. They said that to you? My mom was very good at saying it. Yeah. My dad was very good at showing me what it took to be successful. But I'd also say the biggest advantage, the two. One, you brought up college. I mean, going, you and your brother went to college

on athletic scholarships. But for me to go to college, debt-free, was a gigantic advantage, and I didn't even really know it at the time. Like, I really figured it out later, as my friends had to do all sorts of things to pay off college debt, and I didn't have to. For some reason, the way it manifested me,

when I was young where I grew up on Long Island, there were a lot of rich kids. I grew up in an area of Long Island that was incredible privilege, incredible wealth, a lot of new wealth, like a lot of sports cars, a lot of like the 17-year-old kid

in a sports car. And for some reason, my father would always point out, my dad would always say there's nothing worse than the son of a rich man, even though I was kind of the son of a rich man. He would really,

and he would say, he would always say to me, I eat there, he goes, when I have to compete in business against the son of a rich guy, I know I'm going to fucking crush him. Mm-hmm.

And I would say why. He goes, because I'm hungry, because I care, because it matters to me. And I think hearing that just made me never, I never wanted to be looked at ever as somebody who just was the son of somebody and like could just, um, skate. You know, I couldn't. That was very clear to me from them. But beyond that, it was like, I wanted my parents and sisters to be proud of me. And I wanted my kids to be proud of me.

I want to be proud of myself. And also, I was never into drugs as a kid. Like in college, I smoked too much pot. But I was never into drugs a kid. It was never a cocaine person. I was never like I just didn't, for whatever reason, I didn't go down those paths, the paths that often knock you off course.

I watched people though and noticed it. And I noticed the disrespect I had for the people driving around in a Ferrari. that somebody bought him. And I didn't want it. I didn't look at that and be like, I wish I had that. I looked at that like, what the fuck is wrong with that kid?

Like, where's that going to get him? I always had that sense. It's a huge advantage, though. And I know you have this too because of what your dad did, is I learned from a young age how to talk to powerful people. I learned from a young age

how to not be intimidated, how to walk into a room and shake somebody's hand and find a way to make them, laugh or find a way to connect with them and not be intimidated and not feel like, oh, my, they control my destiny. So many people feel like when they meet a rich, powerful person in business, this is one or

done. And they're going to be judging me. I, because I grew up around those people, I know exactly what they're like. It doesn't take any thought or work for me to connect with them, to communicate with them. I just know how. That is a gigantic advantage that I had because my father took me to meetings. I watched him. I watched people sell to him.

So I learned what worked. I watched him sell to more powerful people. And I watched what worked. And again, it wasn't, and really because I liked hanging around with my dad, because my dad was the kind of guy, he's still his 79th birthdays this weekend. And we're all getting to get my sisters and their kids and my kids. we're all going to have dinner together. And we're on a big chat.

I highly recommend this, by the way. If you have a family and you're in your 30s now and you're just starting to have a family with young kids and you have your brothers and sisters and people are like busy, my son about a year ago only and we're older, he's 23. He put all of us on one chat. So my two sisters, my dad, my mom passed. So my dad, his wife, and everybody's kids. So there's seven grandkids that my father has.

And we're all in one giant chat that is sometimes like informational, like hey, I landed in Miami, but sometimes it's to celebrate someone's achievement, someone got something in the school paper, sometimes it's, hey, I stubbed my toe, here's a picture of it, does it look like I need to go to the doctor from one of the kids?

But that connection to the broader family is a great, even the, Even the big family, which you wouldn't, it's great. It's, I recommend it for everybody. Because we all have these little chat groups with our little nuclear family or our friends. Do it with your slightly bigger family, and you'll see that it's a useful thing

to all feel connected. And stuff, but what I was going to say about my dad is, he was a workaholic, kind of a person, but he really, really cared about us. And so we had these rituals, he and I. he and then I'll tell you one other thing that I actually haven't said in a podcast that I just want to write down

because it's my one best piece of advice in a certain way but he never missed this sounds like a cliched thing but he never missed a ball game of mine so like he would go to New York City work a full day come home to Long Island

like an hour and 10 minute an hour and 20 minute drive depending on traffic watch me suck at you know play a decent third base and then give up three homers as a pitcher and then drive back to the city to go to a meeting or a thing and he didn't do that once or twice i mean that is just what he did without a thought i i never wondered is is my dad going to show up for the game my dad always showed up for the game and um especially in the years that i you know when i was late in high school and i was the 12th man on a team that

got to the quarters of the state championship and i was never playing he wasn't at every game that I was on the bench. But if there was a chance I was going to play, he would definitely be there. And that idea, so he would do that. And then the other thing is, I would never eat dinner until he was coming home. So if he was going to be home at nine on a night that there wasn't a game, you know, or whatever, I would sit. My sisters would have dinner with my mom. They were younger. And even from when I was probably 10, 11, I would just wait up. And whenever my dad came home, I'd sit with him and have dinner. And we would talk about, his day and about business.

And just hearing the stories enabled me now to be able to understand aspects of business. So I think that's a huge advantage of it. And I think that that's part of why, for me, it was a positive where for other people it could be a negative. I mean, when I was younger,

the specter of not living up to it was great. And I had a lot of fear about that. Will I ever be able to achieve what he achieved? you know, I've had this great advantage. I've conscious thought you. I've had these great advantages. And if I don't find a way to be successful, I've let this down.

But that stuff, you let that stuff go at a certain point. Also, I've been lucky enough to be successful. What's the story? Oh, no, here's what it is. This is something I said to my son because something my dad said to me. My dad did it. He didn't say it to me, but he did it.

And I said it to my son when he was born. But it transfers to your daughter or, I decided, I decided early on that any time my son wanted to have a baseball catch, I'd have a catch. If you wanted to have a football catch, there would never be a time I would say no to having a catch. And that, and it's the same thing I decided, I would always walk my daughter to school. And you'd say when you email me, you wanted to talk about some of the parenting stuff. And so those things, literally a little thing, small promise to yourself, if the kid wants to have a catch, no matter what mood I'm in, I'll go throw a ball.

It's cold outside. It's fine. We'll put on jackets. We'll go throw a ball. And just knowing that, kids knowing that, it gives you a kind of closeness that's almost like nothing else can give you. What are those, I've heard or read

that you walked your daughter to school every day. Yeah. How did that come about? What are some of the things you talked about as she got, or I have daughters, you know, and I drive to school. Oldest is 12, younger, since four. So I, I, I, um, well, the great thing is right,

right, it's really just having the connection every morning. Yeah. So that whatever is on her mind, like, oh, I mean, she's now a freshman in college. I sense you guys are so tight. I mean, social media is all I know. But, but I, yeah, we're super, super tight. It seems like you're real tight. And yeah, because, you know, whether it was like, oh, I'm scared of this girl who's been

mean to me or I'm excited because there's a boy who's cute or whatever the thing is, or literally like there's a new librarian. You know, something that normal, like, hey, there's a new librarian at school. and she said I might like this book and whatever. The specifics of it hardly matter at all, right? Yeah. What matters is you're there with your daughter who knows consistently. Now, you don't create an unrealistic expectation either that you're going to let down.

So here's an an anew. I'd walk her to school unless it was impossible that day. So that meant seven out of nine days I walked her to school for 10 years or whatever it was. And you just, it accretes, man, so that you're just in this long conversation. you don't have to start with like, where were we? It's like you're just picking up and you're in the flow. And by the way, some days it could be racing to school because she's late and you're yelling at each other. But it doesn't matter.

It's that you have this time. And so now at college, you know, she'll be walking across the campus and she'll FaceTime. And she'll say, I was just walking and I wanted to see your face for a minute. And so putting in that time then rewards you in getting the FaceTime now. Yeah. They're growing up with successful parents to creative people who have done well for the themselves. How do, how is it?

My kids are so hard working that I, I, I, I, they're just in it. Do you think, I'm guessing though, for me, I've seen the model and I try to model it. Like, that's the thing, right? We, we, you, because your kids, they, they don't necessarily listen as much to what you say, but they certainly see what you do. And so that's the thing. I think the, the, the leadership aspect of this, whether it's in an office, uh, in a business setting at home with your kids, it's, it's.

It's I'm modeling the behavior every day by what I decided to do. I say yes every time they ask to play catch. I walk her to school almost every day. Like those types of things. I'm modeling the behavior. They see you work. They see how hard you work. They see how hard you guys work.

I think that is part of what it means to lead when it comes to kids. Yeah. I mean, I'm always loath to try and beyond the things I said talk about it because they're their own, they're their own people and they're figuring all this out themselves. I read the one sort of tangible thing early on I realized I read this book by Pope Bronson and Ashley Merriman and the title of which nurture shock and in that book they talked about this study and the study showed they took two groups of kids they gave them the exact same test they told one group and it was an easy test everybody did well and they told one group you did well because you're saying smart and they told the other group you did well because you worked hard and prepared. And as the

tests got harder and harder, the group that was told you did well because you worked and prepared kept working and preparing and grinding and they did better. And the group that was told you're smart when the test got too hard, they decided up, I'm not that smart and they quit. And so early on, we rewarded our kids when they did well, we would compliment their work ethic. That's the only sort of tactical thing. And small but huge. Like if you ask them now, they would both say, well, we can grind, you know. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's useful, I think. Yeah, the action of it. Um, it's it's interesting how these things go. I don't know how it is for you, but sometimes you envision it and it's so cool, like to be able to have this dialogue, especially about the real important stuff when it

comes to parenting. But I do want to talk about billions a little bit. Billion is my favorite show on TV. I know you hear that probably 50 times a day. That never gets boring. I'm never tired of hearing. It is my favorite show on TV was, uh, and the cool part was, I mean, I was listening to your podcast as you guys were probably writing it before it even came episode one. And so there's a million of everything to get through when it comes to billions. But how about the beginning? So you guys write it on spec. And can you explain what that means for the non kind of showrunners or writers in the audience here?

Sure. Well, what it means just flat out, it means you write it for free. You're writing it for yourself. You don't have a deal in place. At the beginning, that's where everybody is. But when you have an established career, you can often pitch something. something and then write it. But David and I were at a professional low point. I mean, this I've talked about kind of too much to talk about now, but in a fresh way, you can just find me

talking about this on Twitter. I've done lots of threads about it. But essentially, we were at a very low point in our career. We'd had a couple of setbacks and decided to reclaim, decided that we needed to just write something that was just for us that would be kind of undeniable. And we wrote that billion script with Andrew Ross Sork and three of us. And somehow in the doing of it, We were able to do something that was. What we felt was if we had a script that we controlled, we would have some leverage to get somebody to make it. And it turned out to be true.

Wow. How do you go about, you're the showrunner. Showrunner's in charge of technically everything, correct? Like, can you define what a showrunner is for those? Yeah. Sure. It's just a newer in the dictionary now for the last year or so. Yeah.

So the showrunner on television is responsible for everything that you see. The showrunner is often at the title, executive producer of the show is often a creator of the show and is charged with writing it, overseeing the shooting of it, overseeing the editing, overseeing the design of it, all that stuff. So David and I have about 150 people working on the show who all report to different people who all report to us. And so we work and collaborate with all these people, but ultimately it's on us. How do you go about making decisions on who to bring on the team? What's your thought process?

Because you guys are in charge. No assholes. I mean, we really check references. Yep. We meet people. Yep. First, the work has to be excellent. Then you meet people.

But also, we hire keys so the key person who runs the department. And once we have a key that we love, that person hires their department. And you trust somebody. You trust them, empower them. Oh, you have to. Absolutely. Like, so yeah. You couldn't.

There's too many people. No. So we have, you know, And so for key hires within that, so you'll hire a key, sometimes they'll say, hey, I want you to meet this person who I'm bringing in is my number two. And you go, great, let's sit down and talk about it. Why do you love them? Most of the time, by now, our fourth season, and we just finished our fourth season, I mean, if one of our keys is like, I'm bringing in these people, it's great for us. But hiring the keys is a lot of time and effort for us, a lot of meetings, a lot of thought, a lot of checking references. Gotcha. And then you empower them to make decisions on their own. because you have to.

I want to. Yeah. Yeah. You want to. Yeah. What, what are some of the things you check references? What are qualities that you really value in other people to be on the,

on the billions team? I want to know that they're going to really kill for it. And I want to know they're a good person. Honestly, have to know that they're going to get along with everybody. Yep. Because we're like, it is like when you're doing this thing working this many hours, this hard, all as a unit,

You really can't have prima donna people in the middle of it. You really can't have people in the middle of it who, because we're all there lifting everyone else up, right? We're all there to help everybody else do the best they can. We're all there if someone needs us to cover for them because they have a family. So you need to know that everybody is there for the same reason, which is I love making television. I want to make this show.

I love the show and I want it to be great. So, you know, those are the things you're looking at. for like real team people and real smart engaged people with looking our we have we're in a lucky position being the show we are in New York so we have the pick of the litter and so we're picking top crafts people yeah what about what about actors you know I don't know I mean I know just the actors from their performances from from watching that you have on your show yeah what's the process of making those decisions is it similar or is it like I watch them on on I've I've I've heard how some of them.

We spend time with the actors too. And certainly for anyone who's going to be in a major part on the show. Like how did, okay, let's for example, like how did Damien Lewis come, how did that become? I mean,

that was, I mean, with Damien and Paul, Paul we'd made movies, Paul we had a long relationship with. Yeah. Damien, we were just meeting for this.

And so, uh, the head of Showtime called us and said he could get Damian the script. We wanted Damian to be in the show. We were just enormous fans of his work. Damian read it. And then we had three meetings, two long Skype meetings.

Then he flew to New York from England. we had a long dinner and a long meeting after that where we got to know each other. We also talked to people he worked with. He talked to people who'd worked with us. And we knew we saw the world create it. We saw the creative process the same way. And we knew people loved working with him. We knew he was prepared.

And that's a key. These people show up incredibly prepared and it makes a gigantic difference on your day. Yeah. Brian, I really appreciate the time. I mean, this is, I could go with for you forever. I think you have a couple more. Yeah. Yeah.

I just am fascinated as you, this collaborative process of because a lot of people listening just so, you know, are those who are like VP level at a huge company. So they may be in charge of a few leaders below them. And so they're thinking like, okay, this guy runs a TV show, 150 people. I want to know how you're able to both be creative and innovate because that's what you got to do in business and you got to do that for your show as well. Like there's a lot of TV out there. People can watch.

There's a million services, right? It's hard to grab attention. So the combination of building the right team, a collaborative process, a creative endeavor that is actually... I mean, it is, I think it's basic stuff to the extent that I know. It's like, I don't recognize people when they do great. Hires people. I mean, I'd say this.

In turn, we are constantly in this again, a lot of this stuff does sound like sound bites. But the truth is, the older you get, the more you realize like hire the smartest, hire people smarter and better than you all the time. You never pay a bad price when you're around people smarter and better than you. Which also though comes, bringing it back to this being comfortable on your own skin because that, the people who have that, you can feel it and they have this security in oneself to say,

I actively want to put myself in rooms. Part of not fronting and not faking the funk is if you're a leader, I don't know, admit when you don't have the answer, right? Admit when, hey, does anyone know how to solve? this problem. I'm having a hard time solving this problem. Not in a panicked way, not at the wrong moment, right? Not when the whole, not when you have five minutes to finish the day, then figure, but I mean, pick a moment when you can afford to take the time and look at your team and don't fake it either. A moment when you really, and go like, all right, I don't actually know

that I have the right answer. Anyone have anything? It's amazing how much people want to then give and how much they respect the fact that you looked to them for guidance and to solve a problem. And then when you do know. Of course, they follow. When you do know, they know this guy. I think of the best bosses I've ever worked for. That's it. Because when one of my best, she lives here in New York, we just email this morning and

talking about this very thing, I said the reason you had such high credibility because you were willing to say, I don't know. You were willing to tell me what do you think? And you genuinely wanted, one in my opinion, you generally needed it, you know? That's important too. I'd say the person is like number two in our writer's room. He's a guy named Adam Perlman, super smart, Harvard guy and really, really hardworking and bright.

And early on, we made it clear Dave and I to Adam. Like, if we give you a script that we've written and you see a flaw in it, just tell us. help us solve it and you know he works for us that's scary to have to say to your bosses who are successful at this on this level i think that there's that scene i don't really buy that scene or i think you guys could do better but we by telling him to do that it only then when the three of us are sitting together it's three creative equals three people now yes did david and i have the final say of course but knowing that and being comfortable in it means let's go let's get the best idea out here once we have the best idea we all know what to do

let's get let's source the best idea that we can yeah one more um and you've you've kind of done this throughout the talk but i'm still curious uh let's say you're sitting here with a 23 year old really smart person who says i want to i want to lead have a career similar to yours i want to do what you've done what's what well there is no sort of like recipe but i i would say i mean i just do the work, right? It's so simple. Just don't think about, I would say this, don't think about leading the career, don't think about like leading the life I lead or, or having my career. Think about the story you want to tell and start telling it and do that a bunch of times. And, you know, then you'll get there. What about, real quick, I said one more, I mean,

it meant two more. At Thanksgiving and your, ants there and you're about to take on this creative endeavor. Why should you not talk about it? Well, yeah, don't, listen, just don't be self-defeating, right? Don't. When they tell you, why would you do that yet? Okay, it's really scary. Like, so I said this thing the other day that a lot of people pulled and put on their Instagram as a quote. I already didn't realize it when I said it. But I said something like, it's a lot easier to say, I don't have the time than it is to say, I'm scared, I won't be good enough at this thing. And, It's true.

And so one of the ways in which we are able to prevent ourselves from doing the thing that we should do, and one of the ways in which we give into that fear is by giving other people power to harm us. And one of the ways we do that is say what our dream or secret idea is too soon to somebody we know we'll shoot it down. And somebody we know when they shoot it down, it's going to, like, sink in and puncture us. And so just train yourself to not do that once. If you're going on a holiday dinner, be like, tonight, I'm not going to tell Aunt Mabel my secret dream. And I'm going to see what happens,

how I feel, if I feel a little better after the dinner than I did before. Just do the work, like you said. You know, do the work. Thank you for really for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you chased me down, Ryan. I'm so happy with what you're doing and that we could finally get in a room together.

Me too. Where would you send my listeners to learn more online? At Brian Cappleman on Twitter. And I'm also on Instagram, also my name. Awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. That was awesome. Wow, that was one of those surreal moments, sitting face to face with Brian in his office.

The level of thought and the care he put into this meant so much to me as I saw him really going deep in his mind as he was answering those questions. I'm so glad that I was able to do this one in person with him. and then explore the office where all of the writers for the show Billions where they create it. I got to see everything. It was quite an experience

and even had, Brian and I tossed football for a while inside his office, which was just an incredible place. I'm so grateful. I hope you can sense how much I love doing this. And I'm so grateful that you,

the avid listeners, give me the opportunity to do this. And I'd love it if you would, share with a friend or two that you think this could be helpful for and that they would hopefully find it useful as well. The best form of marketing is word of mouth one at a time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to give me these incredible opportunities to meet my creative heroes like Brian Coppiment and have long-form conversations and be impacted in a big way. I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you.

Next week. Can't wait.