The Nick Bare Podcast - Archive - Matthew McConaughey | Nothing Is Unbelievable

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Nick kicks off the conversation with a brief introduction of Matthew and his tendency to be “as cool as the other side of the pillow”—acting quickly on the next practical step while maintaining calmness. Asking Matthew to share about his book, Green Lights, Nick appreciates Matthew’s ability to be present in the moment. Learn how this aspect of Matthew’s life has evolved over the course of his various achievements as he has learned the importance of putting his head down to work hard, rather than worrying about the minute-to-minute results. Listen to the importance of having “joy in the doing” and why you should stop anticipating the ending of things. Matthew shares how perspective and experience build maturity and wisdom, and how he fights against the addiction for immediate results and chasing false summits. The conversation shifts as Nick asks Matthew to share about false peaks and points in his own career—times when he felt like he couldn’t continue moving forward. Matthew shares about the importance of a balanced understanding of gratitude, and how complacency can lead to people living off the ‘glory days’ and looking in the rear view mirror for too long. Looking at a story Matthew shares in Green Lights, Nick asks him to chat about what roots him as a man with so much success. Listen in on having a value based life and taking a look at the history of time to see how nothing matters—and everything matters—all at the same time! Through belief, trust, and faith, Matthew works to perform his very best at the one shot he gets in this life! Having faith in yourself is important, but some level of doubt also proves helpful. Matthew tells us about moments where he doubted himself and why he works to process an understanding of why something succeeded or failed. Nick and Matthew both enjoy movement and running to freely process. Turning the conversation towards Hollywood, Nick asks Matthew about his view on expectations. Matthew’s surprising perspective of compartmentalization and going into everything with high expectations has helped him to trick himself to successfully stay in the chase. Why does Matthew dislike the term “unbelievable”? Diving deeper into this word, Matthew says we ought to give more credit to both the good and the bad when they occur—extending the bandwidth of what is believable and giving credit where it’s due. People have more capacity and internal power to self-determine than we give the credit for. In considering risk, Matthew says that the crucial denominator of going all in, and the importance of over-committing. Learn about the largest career risk he ever took and how he worked to challenge the vitality of his own life by un-branding. Nick asks about the most challenging role Matthew has held and how his need to be obsessed with every role he plays has impacted his family. They discuss the challenges of different genres and how he battles to keep integrity in his roles. As this episode draws to a close, listeners hear about Matthew’s ‘Less impressed, more involved’ motto and the unique community in Austin, Texas. Learn about the persona that Austin has and how they work to be trailblazers, marked by optimism and hospitality. Growth and change are happening, but the basic value systems are not changing. You can be who you want to be in Austin, TX! Thanks for tuning in and please remember to leave a review and share with a friend! Timestamps: 1:01 - Podcast introduction 1:43 - Matthew McConaughey welcomed on

Hello, everyone. In today's episode, I sit down with Matthew McConaughey. And I'm sure Matthew McConnor hey does not need much of an intro. You have probably seen his movies and hopefully read his book, Green Lights. And if you haven't yet, I highly, highly recommend it. In this episode, we dive into his career through Hollywood, why nothing is unbelievable, taking risk in life. and then we dive into some of the craziest things he has done for a movie role in terms of physical and mental preparation. And we wrap up the podcast talking about community and being less impressed and more involved. So that being said, let's dive into today's episode with Mr. Matthew McConaughey.

You were listening to the Bear Performance Podcast, where we discuss topics on fitness, nutrition, business, and leadership to help you perform at your highest level and go on more. I'm your host, Nick Baer, founder of Bear Performance Nutrition and Prior U.S. Army Infantry Officer. We've scaled our brand through our core pillars of transparency, service, and integrity, and now I want to share with you through our experience and our guests, how you can optimize your life. Welcome to the show. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back with another episode in today's guest. is Mr. Matthew McConaughey.

Matthew, thank you for the time today. Good to be here with you, sir. How are you? I'm good. You know, I wanted to kick it off with this quote, and this quote is something I've been saying for the last decade of my life. And when I think of this quote,

I think of you, right? And it's as cool as the other side of the pillow. And where this came from was I was in Fort Benning, Georgia. I was preparing to be an infantry platoon leader in the army and my commander pointed to this guy across the room and he said you see that guy over there when the shit hits a fan when it gets wild that guy is as cool as the other side of the pillow he's calm collected and decisive and when i see you when i think of and hear matthew mcconi i think cool is the other side of the pillow well thank you i take that as a compliment i'm a big fan of the word cool

and not in the traditional sense of, you know, act cool. Because as we all know, and I write about it in the book, acting cool is not cool. Cool. I think cool is a whole lot of things about integrity, about a lot of those things, calm, collective, decisive in certain positions. I try to be. I don't try to be. I mean, I've sometimes I find that I've been told I'm cool under pressure in times when,

I tell you what I think if what you may be seeing, part of what you may be seeing, if that's your point of your definitions of me, is that when shit does hit the fan or has in my life or if there was a problem in front of me, I happen to, for whatever reason, very quickly get into what's the practical, constructive next move, whatever that may be. And I've been told I act quickly on that, if there's a time of strife or crisis. Other than that, man, just going through my day, I'm just, I think it's that I try and go through life like a song. I mean, I prepare for what I'm doing, which allows me to be cooler when I'm doing it so you don't see the preparation, so you maybe don't see me sweat when I'm doing it. But preparation has a lot to do with maybe what people see or you would define as me being cool because I'm prepared for what I'm doing before I go into it.

And I'm also, as you know, as you know, our mindset's got to be, I'm expecting the unexpected. And when change comes, I'm pretty quickly go, well, it is as it is. Let's see what we got to do about it. Maybe that's what you see. Yeah, yeah. And I want to dive in right away talking about your book, Green Lights. And the first time I read that book, I was sitting on a beach in Florida with my wife after finishing a triathlon. And a lot of books come into my life at me at really good times.

And at this time of my life, I was sitting on this beach in Florida with my wife and I realized I couldn't soak up the moment. I was thinking about the next thing. I wasn't being present. And as I was reading your book, it made me think it took me away. And you had a quote in there of, in the joy of doing and being present in what you're currently doing. And I guess my first question is, how is the ability to be present in the moment evolved throughout your life, especially in the accomplishments that you are, you have achieved

and you're trying to achieve? Yeah. Okay. So starting off, growing up, I know, like every kid, I wanted to be old. I wanted to be like my older brother. Why? Because they were cooler. They had more access to things, life, more freedoms.

That was the definition of cool for me when you have more freedom and you got your own car and you don't have a curfew, those kind of things, you know. And then I got into business of being a storyteller and an actor. You know, I loved acting, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I didn't ever take acting classes until I was acting for nine years. I had good instincts for it, but I didn't really know what I was. was doing. I then went and started studying my craft. As you know, scary proposition, when you have great instincts or something, and then you start to learn in your nugget what the hell it is you're doing. There's a bridge of awkwardness because what you were just doing without thinking

before, now you're starting to like get details and deconstruct it and define it. And so I had a couple of year awkward period there where I wasn't doing good acting. I wasn't getting the auditions because I was actually becoming conscious of what the hell I was doing. Well, I stayed on the path, crossed that bridge, learned what I was doing, and then came out of it on the other side of better actor. I'd lowered my handicapped using golf term. Did I, you know, I chased results? Sure. Was I happy to be there sometimes? Yeah. Was I overly impressed maybe with where I was and going like, man, I mean, a small town kid from Evaldi, Texas. I mean, I'm ending up in Hollywood. I'm famous. I'm making this kind of paycheck for going to work on this kind of movie. What do I got to grab about it? Thank you. Yeah, I add some of that. And that's good to an extent. But what hit me later on, which was about 15 years ago, was, hey, you got to be, and I write about the book, you got to be less impressed and more involved. We have to be more than just happy to be here at whatever level of success we've gotten to.

And in the last 15 years, I really started practicing, hey, head down, process, forget the result, do the process out, minute by minute, just behave minute by minute. and with your head down and don't worry about the result. And what I found is I got more results than I ever had before. I got more adulation. I got more trophies, so to speak. I got more of what I wanted in life when I put my head down and quit worrying about the so-said result. Now I'm trying to keep practicing that same thing. That's how it's evolved if that answers your question, though.

Joy in the doing. I mean, best rounds of golf I've ever had or when I walked off the 18 green and was headed to the next tea. and had to get reminded, no, you finish your round, bro. We all know if we play golf, you look at your scorecard. Ooh, I'm three over going into 16T box. You're asking for a bogey or a double if you're getting conscious of it, right? The best work I've done in acting or when it's the last day of shooting, we rap, I'm like, all right, everyone, I'll see you tomorrow, and they got to come remind me.

No, there is no tomorrow. We're done. That's a film wrap. And then I'm like, oh, really? To be unconscious of the finish line. I talk about it about Bo Jackson. He didn't get choked the go line because he ran across the goal line through the end zone up the tunnel. The best snipers don't aim at the target.

They aim on the other side of the target. And so that's the part of the joy in doing is having that sort of an idea of an immortal finish line. And let the world come tell you when the game's over, the proverbial game's over, or when your job's done. You know, I'd say it's helped me this last two years with COVID and Delta. I early on tried to get in my mind that this is going to go on for years. True or not, hopefully it's false. That heightened my survival skills. You know about anticipation fatigue.

If you're sitting there thinking like, this is going to be over next week, and then next week comes not over. Oh, it's going to be over next week. Oh, in the next week, and the next week. You waste a lot of energy anticipating the end of something. When it's a false ending, you end up looking back on, I wasted 30% of my energy, anticipating something to be over along the way. So if I find if I get in my mind, hey, it's going to be a long time.

So let's settle in and get in for the endurance right here. I find that I'm dealing with COVID better. I find my family's dealing with it better with the frustrations of it. When we are locked into, hey, this could go on for a long time, gang. Hopefully it doesn't. And hopefully it won't. And then someone will come up and go, hey, man, it's over. You can move freely.

And then I go, oh, I was ready for another round. So that's part of the joy in doing if that answers your question. No, that does. And happiness, as I'm talking about happiness is usually a result. If I get this then, if I get to the top of that mountain, then I'll have the ta-da moment of, oh, I've got it. Oh, I figured it out, which is all BS because they're all false peaks. They're not false peaks, but they're never the peak. And so, yeah, I've learned that.

That every time you get, I've got to achieve something, got to stop thinking that, oh, that's going to be the answer. It never is. It's an accomplishment. I've learned a little more, but there's a thousand, there's millions, infinite number of peaks on the other side. So, oh, here we go. Let's keep, let's keep hiking. Let's keep climbing. Do you think that comes with maturity and wisdom? Because, you know, me and Wyatt, we recently did this podcast together and we talked about how we think perspective and experience over time and being patient builds maturity and builds wisdom. Do you think that's part of that? You 100%. Yeah. I mean, look, it's wisdom to the fact.

I mean, it's a, it's a, I've found that it's just also factual. I've chased Tata moments of, oh, I'm going to have the bliss of all knowing at this point and felt like I did at certain points. Very quickly after that, I was like, oh, you, you, you weren't even, you were just, you you weren't even tapping into a big major truth. You may have, you may have been circling around it. And bravo, good for you, but you didn't find it. So the joy of doing is that the fact that we don't.

And we, if we can get that in our mind, but we're so addicted to immediate result as people. We're so in an immediate gratification. I've got to own this accomplishment and gratification and the fact that I'm secure in my being right now have to own that. And then we are default to motion then is, so how does, so this right here, when I'm feeling great and succeeding and all knowing,

this is how my life is supposed to be. be. I can maintain this forever. No, you can't. And then you're not supposed to be able to. If you do maintain that forever, you're at least going to be guilty of being complacent because you didn't charge forward and go learn something else off of what you just learned. So if we get in our mind that it's, you know, that people say it's the journey, not the result. If you unpack that, it's very true. I don't think we can get these certain results in our life and that we get to a point, then we go, oh, I figured it out. It doesn't happen, but we're addicted to that idea.

And so we're chasing actually a false summit. And that's actually what I think happiness is for a lot of people. It's a result-oriented thing. And it's vacant once you get there because it has no endurance. It can't really last. So the wisdom, I would say, comes from just realizing that's a fact of life. As good as it gets is, can we get a little better? How many staircases can we climb in the time we're given in this life?

because we never get to the top, the ultimate top. You know, talking about false peaks, were there points in your career where you thought this is the top, I'm not going to go any further than this? Or was it the mindset of I can always go further? Well, yeah, there was. Times where I was like, are you kidding me? Like I was talking about earlier, that imposter syndrome or the idea of just being so thankful. I'm big on gratitude and I believe everyone should have more of it.

But we shouldn't have so much gratitude to the extent that we are so, thankful and impressed with our existence that we're complacent and we don't keep grinding. I've had times of that where I'm like, are you kidding me? How did I end up here with this success? Well, that's great to have that gratitude. But then I also had times where I had that gratitude, and I got complacent. I laid back and was like, I mean, who would I be to ask for any more than this? Of myself, of the world, of my work. And that was not a great place to be. It worked at the time. I gave myself a little amnesty, but it wasn't, it wasn't a place to keep growing. So, yeah, I've had time to that where I'm very, where I've got hung up in the appreciation

and the gratitude of a certain position or something I accomplished, maybe for too long. And I'm all for giving ourselves time to give us an out-of-boy or give someone else an out-a-boy or add-a-girl or pat on the back and, hey, let's have a look at what you've done, because it's something. I'm all for that. but I myself, like others, can get hung up in that and sit there and walk around and catch myself looking in the damn mirror too often and still going, hey, remember what you did? And, you know, when it gets too far in the rearview mirror, remember what you did?

It becomes like, it gets nostalgic and then it gets like, what are you doing? Are you freaking retired? You're still living off of that old glory. You know, we know people. We know people. You were the stud in high school. And you're still living off the old high school glory days. You're 45.

You're 50. You still, you know, you succeed something in college. You see something in life and you keep, we have to watch. I think people, how long do we look in the rearview mirror and sort of feel significant by a past accomplishment? So I've had about to that, but I've tried and I've learned, I think, wizened up to the fact that, no, you keep their little moments. Yes, clock it. That was good. That was success.

That was a blue ribbon. That was a gold medal. That was a trophy. That was the best you could do. It translated. That was art. But now let's move on. This is all just part of it.

don't hang out in the success too long. In the book and in Greenlights, you talk about this story. One of the things I picked up, and I believe this is just, you know, I'm not trying to speak on your behalf, but I believe it's just part of your life, but these stories you tell in Green Lights

are super relatable. And I think everyone that reads it can relate to it where it's, I experience something similar to this. So like your story when you traded in your truck and you got your red sports car. I was reading this story and I was thinking, you know, I did something similar where I had this truck in Pennsylvania.

I drew it from Pennsylvania to Georgia and then Georgia to Texas when I got to Texas. And when I got to Texas, so I'm going to trade this thing in. And this truck, it took me everywhere I needed to go and I traded it in for a BMW coop. And I thought I was the coolest thing ever. And I realized this was the most impractical vehicle in Texas and building in business, especially in the Army. I'm driving into Fort Hood military installation.

Dirt's flying everywhere. this BMW coop. And I love that story because it's, it's relatable. And then you tell another story in 1996 after a time to kill when you, you realized,

I'm famous. Yeah. You know, like there's all these people looking at me. Yeah. And I think all these stories come together. And my question is, for someone who has reached so much success,

it seems like your, your values are still so strongly rooted. and is that the basis for all your decisions you make? Like in the beginning of the conversation, I said, cool is the other side of the pillow in terms of making these deliberate, decisive decisions rather than emotional.

Is that value-based? Well, if trust is a value, if faith is a value, if belief is a value, which I think they are, then yeah. Meaning, I would argue,

that anyone who, and we all do, I know I do, but I would argue that anyone, anytime we get nervous or anxious or over a mortal situation, that it's proof that our faith is not as strong as it can be. Whether that's a faith in our God, whether that's a faith in belief in ourselves, whether that's a faith and belief in other people. What are we doing, worrying about these mortal things? We're here for this little blip. I was just, you know, timelines and history, I was just looking about, I was just reading through some old notes.

And I came across this fact that I thought was super cool. That is very relaxing to me and makes me feel very insignificant. And in that insignificance, makes me feel very powerful, which is if the history of time was one day, all right, and it started at 12 a.m., at the beginning of time, up until now, and it's 12 a.m., the next day right now, 24 hours. Humans came into existence at 1140 p.m. America came into existence

at 1159 and 42 seconds. Now, you look at that and you go, whoa, we're here with this little bitty blip. Oh, it doesn't matter. It's what I talk about the book. What I say in that place where we go, oh, nothing matters is right there where we go, oh, well, then it all does. So anxiety or being comfortable in situations, that comes a lot, I think, inherently from my belief, whether it's in my faith and my God and myself and others that, oh, this is nothing right now. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, this is, this is small potatoes. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, so let's go be ourselves. Let's go be the best we can be in this moment. It's a mortal, it's a mortal thing.

If you fail, so what? If you're embarrassed because you're failure and you make it ask yourself, so what? But when I realized that perspective, it's usually when I performed my best in the situation. When I gave myself the out to go, dude, it doesn't matter. This is like in the history of time, no one will even know. It's usually when I rank up in the situation because I took that pressure off myself. You know, so comfort or cool, that's part of it is belief and trust and faith. And as I said, not only in someone's God, but also ourselves and others, that it's a long road. And we're this little blip in it.

And that feeling is where I feel the smallest. It's where I feel very mortal. But at the same time, when I feel the smallest and the most mortal is when I feel the most powerful and immortal. Because it's like, well, F it then. You know what a great example? Here's a great example. I work with this film on Killer Joe. William Freakin did something.

He was the director. Did something I've never heard, never been done. before as an actor. Day one, he goes, one roll on the set. Everyone gets one take. Everyone goes, oh, one take. Well, so everyone tightened up. First move was to constrict. Like, holy yes, what am I going to do? Well, some people stayed in that constriction the entire time. What happened to me after about an hour? So I was like, okay, well, dude, if it's one take, effort. Here we go. I'm going to let it rip out of the gate because there's no rehearsal. I had one of the more comfortable performances I've ever had because I knew there was only one take.

I didn't have the safety net of thinking there's a take too if I screw up. And that's a good metaphor for life in the vein that you and I are talking about it. You got one take. Yeah, in terms of values, you know, believe it in yourself. I have this door. that's in front of me right now. And I have a whiteboard to the left of me. Doors in front of me on the whiteboard. I have like my to-do list. I can write things down and what I'm working on. On my door,

I write certain things in Sharpie marker that can't be ever be erased. And I only just started doing this like two weeks ago. And I recently wrote doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. Because. Right. And I think that goes back to like having faith in yourself is for a long time

if people are doubting you, that's going to happen and that's fine. But when that doubt starts turning onto yourself and you start doubting yourself, you got nothing left. Were there any moments where you actually start doubting yourself to get to where you wanted to be? Sure. And look, I would say I hear that quote and I like it. I would go, I think some doubt's good.

I think it's a check. I think it's our Jiminy Cricket checking ourselves, you know, going, hey, hey, buddy, you really up to this? can you do more? I think some of that doubts healthy. It's why best performances I know I've ever had and I've talked to many people who go perform life. It's those butterflies that are good. It's like to have a certain amount of fear is good. To be scared and afraid, I would argue, is not as good, but to have a certain amount of fear or a little bit of doubt can be healthy. But yeah, it can be unhealthy when it starts to paralyze us or keep us from going,

And I'm not going to go, say, I'm not going to go introduce myself to her because what she says no. Well, I look back and I go, well, she turned out to be mother of my children and my wife. I'm so damn glad I got over that doubt of going, then I went and did it. So we have to overcome that thing. But I've had plenty of times where I've had doubt. I have plenty of times in my life still where I have times of feeling insignificant, not confident. My heart and my head are out of line. I'm frustrated and confused. What the hell am I doing? I think I've done a pretty good job of not letting it paralyze me and not letting it immobilize me because I'll at some point get sick and tired of the feeling and go, hey, cut it out, McCona. Hey, I'm sick of it. Quit making a shoes. Let's go find out. Let's go fail. Come on. Go ahead. Get your ass out the door. Put your shoes on and then let's just go see and go fail. Let's go greet the monster that you're feeling doubt about encountering. And I go greet the monster. And it's usually like,

Like, oh, look the monster in the eye, it's okay. Wasn't the big of a boogeyman as I thought, which I think is true for all of us in so much of a life when we have doubts. Reality turns out to be not as much of a boogeyman as we give it credit for being sometimes. The future turns out to be less of a boogeyman than we give it credit for being sometimes. Do I trick myself into taking action like that? Sometimes you're damn right, I do. Sometimes I just go, by hook or by crook, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to go find out. Let's play the game. Hell, I don't know. Get out the door and find out. I just don't want it to. I found that I at some point, don't let it immobilize me and keep me because of this. Here's the nut of that, Nick. I like to know. I also like to know what I don't know.

If I succeed at something, I want to be able to look in the mirror and go, you got a large responsibility in that, McConaughey. Good job. If I fail, I like looking at the mirror and going, you got a large responsibility for that McConaughey. Either way I know, what I do. keeps me up at night is not knowing. Why the hell did that work? Why the hell did that fail? I don't know. I lost traction. I got a blind spot and understanding why something succeeded or failed that I was a part of. The not knowing is what keeps me up at night. That's what makes me doubt and

fear of going, I don't even know what I don't know. That's what I don't like. So I'd rather know why I succeeded and know why something failed either way. And I can sleep okay with that. You know, but that that eliminates doubt. Then I got no doubt. Then I understand. I have no doubt why it didn't work. I'm clear why it didn't work. I have no doubt why it worked.

I'm clear why it worked. The doubt of not knowing sucks. Do you spend a lot of time in solitude to break this down? Because like for me, when I'm trying to figure out why I failed at something or why I succeeded at something or why I let someone down, I'm in my head really digesting that. Like my wife will say, why are you being quiet tonight? And my brain is just, you know, it's cooking. Do you spend a lot of time in solitude to break this kind of stuff down?

Not like intentional solitude. I'm never been good at like, okay, from two to four today, I'm going to go to my office and think. That's a paralyzing feeling to me. I do find that I'm better. I process things in movement. I really love processed things on the road. Talk about driving.

The simple motor skill of foot on the pedal, you're doing 55, you hadn't thought about the pressure on the pedal, that you're in the same lane, but you hadn't thought about keeping yourself thing. The simple motor skills release my mind to think freely and process a lot of that stuff. And then I may not notice certain things I probably need to be thinking about, but if they keep returning and showing up to my mind the next day and the day after that and the day after that, I try to go, why does this keep coming across my mind? There's some unfinished business I've got with this situation or this. person or this something that I did or didn't do. I'll write these things down. I'll put them on my

damn to-do list. This week, let's get into that. This week, let's call that person back and repair that situation that you burned a bridge there. You let that situation or that relationship in a less valuable position than when you entered it. I don't like that. Okay, can we go back and maybe at least come out of even money? You know what I mean? I try to go back and pick up debits before they're too late. And trust me, I've got a few. in my past that I still, even 20, 30 years in the past, I go, you still need to repair those. They probably bug me more than they bug the person that I'm talking about. I need to repair it with. But they're still on my mind and I still put them on my to-do list.

And I try to get to them, though, because you pack up too many of those. Shit, you know how it is. You know, they say a lie is harder to remember than the truth. Well, you know, people that run around, you lie, cheat, and steal and burn somebody or treat somebody unfairly, you start to work up a quiver of people. in your past and situations in your past, the world gets real small, man. I mean, you got to go, go places. I talk about it, the book with Don't Leave Crumbs.

You start having to go. You get enough of those in your past. You've got to head out into the world looking over your shoulder. And looking over your shoulder stealing your time. I don't like having my time stolen. So I try to handle things where I can move freely without having to look over my shoulder. Yeah, for me, it's running where I run in the morning. And I don't go out in my run trying to think of something.

it is that the things that I it comes to me where if there's something that's bothering me it'll it'll keep up on my head until I take care of it on a run and I can't get out of my head and I know you used to run do you still run I haven't gotten back and running two years I blew my both meniscus out which I'm still in reparation on those but I like running for that same reason you know fatigue is great for the mental process man you know when the body's like I've got it cuts out all the treble, all that extra stimulus and that BS that we don't need to be thinking about and gets down to a baseline and you start thinking about what you need to or what you said it, you don't think about it comes to you and lands and dealing with that one thing is enough on your plate when you're fatigued. And that's a great thing about exercise and running. Yeah, I have this race next weekend.

It's called Leadville 100. Yeah. Know about it. Put my name in the lottery. The last like four years. This year, my lottery ticket was pulled. so I'm heading down to Leadville to do that 100 mile ultramarathon in the Rocky Mountains. And I'm so excited to see what pops in my head during these 100 miles.

And when you talked about Hollywood and, you know, building something up to be bigger than it really is, I'm curious about this one because I recently had, you know, an NFL football player on the podcast. And I asked, when you got to the NFL and you built it up over these years, when you got there, Was it the quote-unquote boogeyman you thought it was? Or like when I was in the military, I built up Ranger School to be this thing for years and years and years. And I got there and I said, this is this is Ranger School.

Was Hollywood and being on a set of a movie this boogeyman? Or was it smaller than you thought? Even bigger than I thought. Even more intimidating? No, not more intimidating, more awesome. And I say this. And it's sort of a catch and release idea. goes back to that lesson press more involved we were talking about earlier.

We got to be more than just happy to be there. You go to a ranger school. You're like, whoa, there who we go. This is it. I made it here. If you go, we have to watch at what time do we go, this isn't the end all, be all. You don't want to say that too early because you'll nip off 15% of your ambition and be a little complacent

and maybe not do that extra 10, 15% that you could act. I love getting obsessed. And every, look, I do it. Everybody I meet. I'm, everybody I meet upon entrance, my default to motion is this person is awesome. They are going to be amazing. Do they ever live up to that? Very seldom. But boy, if I, when I start there, they come back, they're still making, most of people are still making A's in my, in my perspective. I go to Hollywood. Are you kidding me? Wow. I'm, every job, I'm going into the job. It's like this. I work on my paycheck to, I work with my lawyer.

as an agent to make sure I'm getting what I've earned for my paycheck to go to a do a work. And I pound the pavement on that. And I work and we go back and forth. And I'm a hard dealmaker. But right after the deal's done, I then admit, I'd do this for free, bro. I'm giving everything to this. It wasn't about the money. So it's a compartmentalization, I think. Because if too early in the deal negotiation, I go, I do this for free. Well, I've played my hand and I'm a dumb ass. because I've just played my bluff and they're going to go, oh, we do it for free. Geez, let's just sign the deal. He'll take this and he could have got more.

No, we want to get everything out of it. And I think I love being obsessed. I think we should be absolutely obsessed and have absolute reverence going in to whatever it is endeavor we're heading into. Our relationships, people, jobs, endeavors, have that absolute reverence. And don't be let down when you do realize. It's not a letdown when you realize, well, this isn't actually the end-all, be-all. Because none of it is.

But at least I know if when we have a reverence for it, we're going to give it the justice it deserves and maybe even coach it up a little bit. And maybe even make it a little something, make it a little bit more amazing than everyone else in the same field would have made it. But then it's coming back and going, how do you not relax when you go, I do it for free? Or how do you not relax when you go, this is who I'm going to be for the rest of my life? This doesn't answer all my my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

go into it like, it could. And you're not going to, it's that reach exceed grasp. It's, it's, it's not a false summit. It's just not the summit that you thought was going to be the golden chalice of, of, of, of truth, and understanding. But if you go in it that way, you get a hell of a lot higher and a lot closer to it than you would if you go into it going like, ah, I'm, it's okay. Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

You won't get near it that way. It won't get as much out of it that way. So it's a bit of a compartmentalization and those things happen almost at the same time. But you got to watch how quickly do you go, this isn't it. It's what I was talking about earlier about going when I look at the timeline of our of history and how nothing we're doing right now matters. Well, when I even notice that nothing else matters and nothing really matters is when you go, oh, it all matters, man.

That's exactly why. I got one take. Do you go, I got one take? So F it. I'm not going to do my best. Or do you go, I got one take. Watch this. laying it down. And you underperform. Yeah. My favorite word in the world is unanimous. I'm chasing

unanimous. I'm chasing a singular truth that I know isn't there, but I believe is there. I know it ain't there, but I'm going to keep believing that it's there. That'll have me chase further. That'll have me get further when my time's over in this life. I believe it's possible. I believe that there can be that there can be unanimous truths and understanding across all people. I know it ain't possible, but I believe it. So that'll keep me in the chase longer. So it's a bit of a trick. I'm kind of playing a trick of myself, but I'll keep playing it.

And I'll just find out what my score is when I'm leaving this life. You say that's your favorite word. And I know you said this before, but you think the stupidest word is unbelievable. You talked about this in the book and I read some articles you talking about this. And the reason I bring up underperformance is you said the other side of unbelievable

is underperformance. When I was reading this part of the book, it really made me think where I think a lot of people confuse underperformance with other things that they're doing. And a lot of people are underperforming. And you really put it in perspective

when you say showing up and something isn't what you thought it was supposed to be and pulling back a little bit. Can you dive deeper into your hate or why you don't like unbelievable? Because unbelievable, it doesn't give justice to the awesomeness of a situation or the degradation of the situation. It's a default word that nips off how high the ceiling can be and nips off how low the basement to be. Unbelievable. Someone would fly plane into our tallest towers, 9-11. Unbelievable. Maybe we need to give

the evil mankind can possess a little more credit. And we'd look at the eye and look around the world and go, boy, we got a world full of some bad guys and good guys. It's both. And boy, some people can trump our ideas of evil. Wow, look at that sunset. Look at that accomplishment. Look at that game. Unbelievable performance. Wait a minute. They just did it.

It was awesome. We just saw it. You just witnessed it. Give more credit to the awesome things and beauties in life and achievements. What Tom Brady just did last year. Unbelievable? No, it just happened. Hadn't happened before.

Let's keep trumping when we see someone excel like we haven't seen before. Instead of saying, unbelievable, go, wow, no, they took it up a notch that I didn't even conceive of for. Now they've made me believe in myself and mankind even more in the possibilities and the capacity of mankind more. Not unbelievable. It's awesome. It's extraordinary. Incredible. Not unbelievable. Unbelievable takes away that credit. On the downside, the ugliness and the horrors in life. don't look at them and say unbelievable. They're not.

They're right there. They happen. Let's give that evil a little more credit and understand that people can possess it, that life can have it, that natural disasters happen, that are out of our control or in our control. And when they happen,

don't go unbelievable. Some of the things we can trace back and go, actually if you trace it back, we see exactly why it happened. We're responsible as people for a lot of them. Other things we're not responsible. We're responsible for an earthquake that a lot of people die? No, not as far as I can tell, but is it unbelievable?

Uh-uh. I'm a proponent of extending the bandwidth of giving credit to things that are absolutely awe-inspiring and incredible in life and extending the bandwidth down low to the things that are ugly in life, but true in life, whether they're from Mother Nature or whether they're from mankind. And so many of the things that we do ourselves, that humans do, that are awesome or absolutely ugly and evil, we should give those credit and look them in the eye and not sluff them off as being unbelievable.

So I'm a prescriptionist on the word, but I do think it's a silly habit for us to throw unbelievable around so much because it just doesn't give enough credit to where credit needs to be given. Do you think you've gone through life with the idea, the belief, like believing yourself that you can do whatever you want to do,

that people have more internal power than they truly believe? Yes. Yes. That's one of the fully true things I do believe is that we each have more capacity to self-determine, taking care of our minds, hearts, spirits, and bodies than we give our self-credit for. Are there injustices in the world that do unto us at different levels? Absolutely. But even in every circumstance, I believe we can all do more. We can all do a little be better than we give ourselves. We have more capacity to be better at taking care of ourselves than we do. 100%. And then within that comes risk and taking these large risks. In your book, you say it's not a risk unless you can lose the fight. And it seems like reading your book and hearing your stories,

The common denominator is that you consistently go all in on, you obsess. You obsess and overcommit on the things that you want to do. Is there a moment that you can think back to over the course of your career or maybe a few of, like, the largest risks that you had to take by going all in on something? I mean, look, the biggest risk I ever took in my career was 14 years ago when I was successful at romantic comedies was making a heaven of a paycheck. but my life, the man I was in my life, felt more vital and more of a risk taker than my work was feeling. It was one of those moments where we're talking about less impressed, less impressed, more involved. I look back and it was like, your life's more alive than you are in your work. And I said, I want to find work that can challenge the vitality of my life I'm living.

And it ain't the work I've been doing. So I know what it is. I want to do. I want to do these dramas over here. Industry says, no, thank you. Not you, McCona. Hey, you're not, I don't care how much of a pay cut you'll take. We're not hiring you for those.

So I said, all right, well, if I can't do what I want to do, I'm to quit doing what I've been doing. So I cut out the romantic comedies and the adventure comedies. And it was a huge risk because that was my lane, man. That was a lane that was a lane that fed me. That was a lane that I was feeling that fed Hollywood. I was getting box office hits with those things. The studios, I was the go-to rom-com guy.

I actually liked doing them. I enjoyed them, but they weren't scared me. They weren't a fight I could lose. They were a fight I was getting out in, and I was going like the worst that could happen as someone could get me, you know, even in one of the rounds. I keep winning all these rounds, but I'm fighting a foe that's not really challenged me enough with that work.

So I decided to call full stop. Call my agent, said, no more rom-coms. I called my money, man. Said, have I saved my money well. He said, you have. I said, because I'm stepping out of Hollywood. I'm not going to work for a while. I don't know how long it will be.

So I was taking a one-way ticket into the limbo of not knowing. And I didn't know how long it would go on. After a year, I thought, man, I may have written my one-way ticket out of Hollywood. Hollywood may have just given me the middle finger and said, who do you think you are not doing what fed you? And you fed us. You're trying to change lanes. You should have stayed in your lane.

See you later, McCona. Hey, nice run while you were here. I didn't know. I started to really think about it. Do I need to find another career, another job? outside of the entertainment industry. I held the course. I was never going to,

I never questioned going back and going after a year and a half even of no work, no calls. I'm calling my agent during that time, going, man, anything, he goes, McConae,

no one's even mentioned your name. I haven't heard your name in three months. I haven't heard your name in five months. I haven't heard your name in six months. I'm going, they forgot about me. I'm done. It was wobbly.

You know, I, I just have my wife there to help keep me stable, but those were long days, feelings of insignificance and non-accomplishment. And that old bottle of whatever started to look better to have a little sip of earlier in the day. You know, and I was like, hang on, stick to this, stick to this, out and juror. And pay the penance, whatever it is, sacchar.

19 months go by, I'm not even thinking about Hollywood anymore. I'm like ready to go start coaching a middle school football team and maybe work. my way up to a high school coach or something. I'm thinking I'm going to do this for something else for life. Bering, phone rings. Well, guess who's now a good idea? A new novel idea for those dramas you want to do. You, McConaughey, why?

They didn't say this, but this is my realization. Because I found anonymity again. I was gone. It was like, where the hell is McConaughey? We haven't seen him in a rom-com in a theater. We haven't seen a rom-com in our house on our TV. We hadn't seen him shirtless on the beach. Where the hell is he?

Where'd he go? So I quit feeding and what they were getting and consuming, and it became sort of, I unbranded. It was like I was gone. And when I unbranded and was gone for long enough, all of a sudden I became a new, bright, good idea for the roles that I wanted to do. But that was a huge gamble. And it was a sacrifice because my career I had found in Hollywood, which I dearly loved,

was feeding me. I enjoyed doing the rom-coms. They were easy. They were supposed to be easy. But I was like, I want to do some work that scares me. I want to do some work that challenges the man I'm becoming in my life. I just had a newborn. You got children?

Not yet. Okay. When you have your first child or write about this in the book, any father out there knows. After your first child is when you're more masculine than ever, the head, the heart, and the spirit are more aligned. You're more courageous because now you're going forward. You're living for the future. and you got dependence. And it's a freeing moment.

Well, I just had a newborn. So I was doubling down on like, look at this, man. I'm now immortal. I got a newborn, which is what I always like to say, we become when we're parents, biologically immortal. So I was, my life was feeding me. I was happier. I laughed louder.

I cried harder. I hated more. My emotions, the bandwidth, were vicious and vital. My work was sort of this, we kind of compressed into a bandwidth of like, well, let's just bounce along in these romantic comedies. And you don't get too happy. You don't get too sad. They're fairy tales.

There were fairy tales. And then my life was not a fairy tale. My life was hardcore. And I wanted to find work that challenged the hardcoreness of my life and was not just the fairy tale. But it took two years. And I didn't know how long was that take? Like I said, I thought I was, I might have written my ticket out of Hollywood.

But that was a huge risk. When you transitioned from rom-com to other, categories, movies. You're obviously a very deep philosophical person. Did that change the depth of the way you thought because of that challenge in the way your mind and body had to work for a different category? No. I had belief. I had, look, I had moments of doubt, but underneath it all, I had true belief that, hey, I've got the goods to do the work that I want to do. I didn't become a deeper thinker. I didn't become a more serious person.

Hell, if anything, I'd say my sense of humor got better when I started doing the work and the dramas that I wouldn't do. Because the dramas were an exercise in real humanity and real life and pain and loss and glory. So, Ted, I was actually, I'd say I was more, my sense of humor, I got lighter in a lot of ways because I was able to live out some things through my work. So, no, I didn't change and become a new. That was always an odd narrative to me from me is that people were like, oh, There was then McConaughey and then there's the now. And after I had, you know, gone through what was called the McConaissance and I'd done those dramas that a lot of them did well and I was getting notoriety for him.

And I was like, no, I didn't really change much. I was ready to do these then. I just didn't have a chance to do them. But there's a lot of stories like that in Hollywood. And in many jobs, a lot of people out there go, man, I'm ready for this job or I'm ready for this promotion, you know, and we don't get them sometimes. or sometimes we do get them and then we prove, see, I told you. So, I mean, I had a deep belief that I had the goods to do what I need to do.

And I've always thought about life and humor very seriously. I mean, I've always been an existentialist mind asking those questions since I was 15 years old. What are we doing here? The hell is this all about, man? What's it not about? I mean, I love that. I've always said this. Who better to investigate in life than ourselves?

And I've found that when we know ourselves better and we're able to know other people better, when we respect ourselves more, we're able to respect other people better. I think it's very personal. And, you know, I've taken trips with myself throughout my life, throwing a backpack on, headed out for months at a time. Those have been incredibly valuable for me. I know I'm privileged to be able to do them too because not everyone can just hop up and go, I need a walk about.

I've been able to find areas in my life where I took them. And I've gone off and asked that. harder and deeper questions of myself and about life. And hopefully I'll continue. My plan is to continue to do that. Of all the roles you've held over the years, which one would you say has been the most in terms of transformational,

the most difficult, or the most challenging in terms of mental and physical? Physical, the most challenge. I mean, physical, it wasn't easy. it was kind of easy, but it wasn't really easy to lose 47 pounds for Dallas Buyers Club. It was easy in that I was militant about it. I made my mind up. This is what I got to do.

If I don't lose the weight, I'm not going to look like a guy who has stage 4 HIV. Therefore, I'm not doing my job. Therefore, if I don't do my job, I would be embarrassed. I don't want to be embarrassed. Lose the damn weight. This is not a negotiation. So it was easy in that my mind was made up. It was hard in that it took five months.

And I was not a social and I sure as hell wasn't going out to my favorite pizza joint and looking at pizza or cheeseburgers and ordering a salad. You know, I was staying in and saying, I'm not putting temptation from a damn face. How'd your family handle that transformation? Man, they were great. It became, you know, Camille and I worked a plan where she made my meals. She knew the amount. I stayed in. I was just studying, obsessed with the role, studying and working on the role, the performance daily.

and then, you know, in between the small meals, I was in solitude a lot. The family, you know, got to see that this was, their kids got to see this is what their dad's doing to prepare for work. It's what he's got to do. You know, they make comments like, why do you look like a giraffe?

Your neck so long. You know, they make comments like that. I was like, you'll see one day when you're old enough to see the movie. I'm about to go make, you know what I mean? found me handles it well. They know, and Camilla knows, especially, the kids can come along and they'll make it anyway, but Camilla knows that I need to go get obsessed with whatever the role is.

And she says, look, she goes, you're always the same, you're a little bit of a different man I'm sleeping with in every single role. I change a little bit. I don't change a lot, but I change a little bit with every role that I play. Some are probably easier to be around and hang out with than others, you know, living with Rustin' Cole from True Detective for six months probably wasn't that easy. You know, I was cutting. I was clinical, you know, about things.

And it could be hard on people. But that's the part of me that I was exercising through the role as well. You know, people think it's easy to say like, oh, dramas are harder. No, they're not. And here's why. Dramas, you can hang your hat on humanity. Dramas to the certain actor, like, how do you feel about that? How pissed off does that make you, Matthew?

How much do you love? How much do you want to survive? How long will you fight to keep from dying? You ask yourself that. And as deep as you want to go, press record, show me. It's not that way with like a romantic comedy, which can be more difficult. Because romantic comedies, you don't hang your hat on humanity. You don't ask yourself those questions.

As I said, they're built to be an buoyancy of a fairy tale. Don't hate too hard. Don't yell too loud. Don't love so hard. Let's bounce along the clouds. They're like a Saturday afternoon. And so, you know, the challenge with those for me was trying to keep the integrity of the guy in the romantic comedy. The romantic comedy, the same story is told many different ways.

Guy meets girl. They get together. One of them does the other one wrong. You find out you're one playing a snafu on the other. They break up. At the end of the movie, guy chases a girl, gets a girl credit role. It's the same story. So I was always like, well, how in that third act do I come back to the girl and say, look, I'm sorry, but come back with my integrity?

And those things were usually written, like a guy comes back and is basically laying on the ground going, oh, my God, I would be nothing without you. If you don't take me back, I'm a nothing. And I was always like, I can't do that. And the director would be like, a lot of times the jerk would be like, wait a bit, but that's what's in the script. I was like, let me ask you this. What woman really wants that guy that's coming back? going, I'm nothing without you. I will never, you know, I was like, I got to come back standing up with at least a straight back and come back and go, look, I'm sorry. I screwed up.

You know, if you'll forgive me and I let's let's give this a chance. I really want you. Yeah, but I had to come back. I was battling to come back with some integrity and not immaculate the male role in those in those roles. So sometimes those were much harder for me than some of the dramas that you would go, oh, that looks so much more difficult. That's amazing. I know you talk about some of the transformations and the journeys in the book. And then there's some articles online about losing nearly 50 pounds for Dallas Biers Club. Last thing I really want to dive into in this episode.

And you've kind of talked about it a few times throughout the episode, but I saved it for the last because I feel like it's one of the most important is less impressed, more involved. Yeah. And from me being right outside of here, Austin, Texas, and watching you getting involved with Austin, Texas, I want to know kind of is that the less impressed, more involved, is part of that meaning being community and your involvement in community with the people here? Well, me particular, but also Austin has an entire community. Austin needs to make sure we give ourselves credit for having a really original identity. I love to personify places. Austin has an identity. It's like to personalize a place, a city.

Austin's one of those places that has a real identity. It has a persona. We should think about Austin like an individual that we're all part of. In our new affluence and growth and money coming in, We're most popular. We're getting best looking. We've got to watch for not looking in the mirror. That would be being too impressed and not involved.

One of the great things about Austin is Austin's never looked outside of itself for the world to say, hey, way to go, Austin. Austin's never looked outside of itself to go, hey, are we doing good? No, Austin's been trailblazers. But we've always been trailblazers sort of within our own county, within our own demography or geography. Well, now we're on a world stage. Well, that doesn't mean we need to be acting like somebody else.

There are things that we value in Austin. And in the words of Roy Spence, a city that's, you know, where nobody's too good, nobody's good enough. There's a, you know, people, someone else who said, Austin's a general admission town, to GA town. It still is the DNA of it is that that's why people work. I just had a friend yesterday who was from L.A. He said he went to Austin.

He said there one night, the Fairmont comes out and goes, he's from LA. He goes, I was in the elevator last night coming down. And a guy gets in and goes, hey, how are you doing? How's your day going? And he goes, my first reaction was like, what did you say? And he was all of a sudden he was like, oh my gosh, this guy's being sincere. And I asked him, I told him, I was going. And then I asked him, I said, hey, man, where are you from? He goes, oh, I'm from here. I just came home for lunch. And he said, it threw him off. And I was like, yeah, well, optimism and hospitality, that's part of Austin. I would argue that inherently it's even a lot of part of Texas, but definitely in Austin.

So we've got to watch and remember that while we're saying Austin will open up their rolodex to people quicker than any place I've ever seen. And that's beautiful. We don't want to lose that. Austin will share IP a good idea and say, yeah, take it, scale it for free, quicker than anybody. We don't want to lose that, but we've got to be wise because not everybody coming in is playing fair. Not everyone coming in wants to say, I want to honor this city. I want to honor this place.

Some people are coming in. I get a tax break. That's it. I'm going to leverage this place, man. I'm going to use it. This city's going to honor me. And yeah, yeah, I'll walk around. Hey, how are you doing it?

Be hospitable and I'll say all the right things. These guys, I'm rolling over them. I'm stealing that IP. We have to watch that because there are, we got to admit it. There's foxes. We got to give credit to these things that people can come in and be a foxes. in the hen house. I'm not saying we're a hen house, but we have some village values that we need to maintain and remember what we love about Austin. So we don't look up in 10 years and go.

Who the hell are we? Austin's never been a place where the DNA is more money wins. That's it. There's plenty of places in the world to go for that. Well, you got some people that may be coming with that certain mentality. We need to initiate them. We need to believe in ourselves, be involved enough and not impressed so much that we need to initiate newcomers. Hey, don't be trying to turn here into why you left there. That's not how we do. It's not how we roll here. Austin's got to work.

We're going through our growing pains. We've got to work on our relationship with the community and the police force. We've got to work on our relationship, constant relationship with the university and the city. We've got to work on our relationship with East Austin and West Austin. We've got to work on a lot of constant thing, the environment and business. We can do it. We just have to watch. It's happening fast and it's happening quick.

and I'm for growth, for the change. And anyone who's not for the growth and the change, come on, gang, let's get on board because it's happening. That check has been cashed. It's happening. We're not going back. Let's just do it with quality. Let's do it with our style.

Let's, yes, open ourselves up to learning new things. We have great minds coming to town. Let's learn new things. But our basic value system doesn't have to change. And so we do need to be involved with ourselves and make sure that the people that come understand that there's a bit of a tithe and a duty and an honor that you give to the city what's already been built upon the shoulders of the giants that have already built what Austin is. Because instead of just coming in and going, yeah, this is anywhere USA, I get a tax break.

I'm here. I'm going to do it my way. We don't want, you know, we're no longer a little hippie weed town. We know that. We're a banker town. We're a tech town. We're a lawyer town. We're a professional soccer city town now. Thank you very much. F.C. as well as Longwood Town, et cetera, but there's a way to go about things and a bit of a tide that people have to say, and how can I honor this place? And we have to be the protectors, though, of it. And that's what I mean when I use the word initiation. We can't just go, Austin is the blueberry and the tomato soup of Texas. Yes, we're progressive. But Austin's never been built on being progressive to the extent of just saying yes to everything. We're not a yes to

everything city. We're for progress, but we're not going to be yes for everything. We're going to be yes for everything. We'll be about nothing. And Austin stands for something. And the people that are from Austin don't need to be nostalgic about it, but the people that are from Austin need to stand up for it and say, hey, this is, this is who we are. I understand things are changing, but we're not changing these values. And if you newcomers are coming no matter how much money you're bringing, we want you to sign the proverbial dotted line on that as well. So we don't turn this place into why you left that place. And we're not looking up in 10 years going,

oh shit, we over leveraged ourselves. We didn't tend our garden. We didn't take care of our DNA. And we just said yes to everything and spent, spin, spin, spent, and over leveraged ourselves and looked up. And now we tried to be about everything. We ended up being about nothing.

That's what we don't want to do. Yeah, I got here in 2014. And I left Pennsylvania to go down to Fort Benning, Georgia. from Fort Bedding, Georgia, I got here at Texas, I was stationed at Fort Hood, and I remember going into the city of Austin my first time,

and you say in your book, and it resonated with me, all you have to be in Austin, Texas, is you. And that's how I felt the first time I was in Austin. I said, you know, because going back to when you're doing rom-coms and people kind of put you in that box, that's how I kind of felt in other places.

that I've lived where people wanted to put me in this box. When I got to Austin, I feel like there's no box. I could be who I wanted to be. And that's why I fell in love with the city. Yep. It's true. And then when a place gets popular, which Austin got popular even over 20 years ago,

a lot of people came to Austin and tried to be act like what they thought Austin was. And they were like going, no, no, no, no, no. All you've got to be is you. Don't be like what you think we want you to be. That's what's great about Austin. It doesn't matter your shape, size, color, creed, or sexual preference. Hey, man, if we're all going along and, you know, we don't trespass on other people's territory, we don't litter, we take care, we're hospitable. We believe that we can succeed, walk inside by side.

We have great ideas. We value imagination. We value the environment. We also want to grow in business. We have a relationship with a great university. We want to extend our backyard to that university and our youth. And we want that university to extend their backyard into our society. city for opportunities. We got a great village here and it's growing. We don't want to lose us.

That's part of being yourself. It's a hospitable town. It's got a sense of fairness about it too. We're not always right. Not everyone's happy. There's going to be continuous struggles, but it's got a real sense of decency about how people treat each other. And that's never going out of style. And we shouldn't let it go out of style. Well, Matthew, I appreciate the time today. I really do. I've loved the book, the multiple times I've read it and listened to it, the all audio book was absolutely amazing. I appreciate it. So thank you for the time. Nick, thank you. Enjoy talking to you, man. Tell Wyatt Howdy. I will. Okay. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Bear Performance Podcast. If you enjoyed it,

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