The School of Greatness - 868 Brian Grazer: The Art of Human Connection

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN WIFI Often, we have talent. We work hard and practice our craft. But something holds us back from reaching our highest potential. Often the things holding us back are fear, doubt, and a lack of self-confidence. Do you have trouble talking to new people in crowded rooms? Are you able to make eye contact when speaking to your peers? Those are some of the things we need to do to improve our relationships. If not, we could be limiting our growth potential. Making better connections is possible, and the rewards are tremendous. It’s up to you. Become more than the work, be the story behind the work. Allow people to connect with that, and there are no limits to what you can accomplish. In today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about how the importance of making personal connections with the author, film producer, and movie legend: Brian Grazer. Brian Grazer is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning producer and New York Times bestselling. His films and television shows have been nominated for 43 Oscars® and 195 Emmys, and he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. In addition to A Beautiful Mind, Grazer produced the films American Gangster, 8 Mile, Liar Liar, Parenthood and Splash, and the television series Genius, Empire, 24, Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights and Felicity to name a few. He also produced the documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, which was a global hit both commercially and critically, having won multiple awards, including the 2017 Grammy for Best Music Film. So, get ready to learn about why personal connections will benefit your life on Episode 868. Some Questions I Ask: What was the movie you learned from the most? (8:00) What did you learn about yourself while making 8 Mile? (14:00) When did you build your self-confidence? (30:00) What are the greatest lessons you’ve learned in Hollywood? (50:00) What’s it like being partners with Ron Howard? (53:00) Who are the top three (3) actors you’ve worked with? (54:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why you should learn to trust your intuition. (11:45) The power of thinking big. (20:45) How being face to face is the Wifi of human connections. (23:50) The power of nicknames and why they empower you. (44:00) The importance of being present and interesting. (50:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes, more at http://lewishowes.com/868, and follow me on http://instagram.com/lewishowes

This is episode number 868 with Academy Award winning and New York Times best-selling author Brian Grazer Welcome to the school of greatness My name is Lewis Howes a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week We bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Martin Luther King Jr. said, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.

This is the interrelated structure of reality. Welcome to this episode. I'm so happy that you are here because you are about to learn some powerful stories, some powerful techniques to help you master the art of human connection, to learn how to connect with other people, no matter where you're from, what type of experience, what type of education you have, how well you had it off as a kid, how much money your parents had or how little they had. It doesn't matter who you are. The art of human connection is something that I have learned to study my entire life. As a young kid, I felt like I had zero friends. I felt super alone. I felt very insecure. And I really didn't think I would ever have friends. Then I started to study the art of human connection myself as a very young kid. And Brian has mastered this. If

you don't know who Brian is, he's an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning producer, New York Times bestselling author, and named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Yeah, he's that inspiring. His films and TV shows have been nominated for 43 Oscars, 195 Emmys, and he won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. He co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 with longtime friend Ron Howard. The films they produce have grossed over $13 billion. And his newest book, Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection, is out right now, and I highly recommend you get it. And in this interview, we talk about Brian's greatest lessons he learned in producing some of the biggest hits in Hollywood.

How Brian built his self-confidence through unlikely odds in high school and college. The importance of looking people in the eye and being present. The inspiration behind his new book. A lot of people don't feel comfortable looking others in the eye, and we talk about how to do this. What happens when you actually face your fears? How to take advantage of what makes you unique to stand out in any industry? And so many more powerful stories from some of the biggest actors

he worked with in the world and other case studies that I think you're going to really enjoy. I am so excited about this. For me, this has been the skill set that has differentiated me from the rest of people in my space and in my industry is the ability to connect, is the ability to listen,

is the ability to do the things that Brian's talking about here. He just does a much better job in explaining how he's done it and how he's created it in his book. So I really hope you get value out of this. Make sure to share it with one friend and ask a friend to connect with you

and reflect on this episode as well. Say, hey, let's go over some of this stuff together. Let's talk about this. Let's grow and become better people together. Just send them the link, lewishouse.com slash 868 or copy and paste the link in the podcast app on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you are listening to this right now, and have an accountability partner or be a champion to someone in your life,

someone you care about. Send them this link so you guys can both grow together. And I'm excited to bring you the one and only Brian Grazer welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast we've got the legendary producer Brian Grazer in the house good to see you man thank you for being here I was just I was just talking about when you walked in here that you did three movies with Jim Carrey and I said I have a painting, an original painting of Jim Carrey, because I saw a video of his a couple years ago of him doing his painting that really inspired me because I didn't know he was a creative on that side of things as well.

And I was curious, what was it like, because all the movies you did with him were huge hits, but what was it like working with him as a creative? Well, he's really brilliant, so he doesn't have to, he doesn't need much direction. He kind of knows what he's going to do. He can improve upon what he's doing, but he can almost just self-improve. I mean, directors are imperative for staging and everything else, but he's pretty self-aware of what he's doing. So he's incredibly gifted, and I had three movies that were very successful,

but each time I felt like, I don't know if I could do this again, because he's very intense and kind of challenging. But I think the first one was Liar, Liar. It was, which was really successful. Huge hit. Legendary comedy. And then the second one was How the Grinch Sold Christmas.

Everyone watches every year. And the third one, which I which i again i thought i just this is so hard i don't know if i could do this we did was called fun with dick and jane and it made a hundred million dollars which was a threshold number but i don't think we liked it very much really yeah but on the grinch it was very interesting because he was the most perfect guy for it. And in fact, the Seuss estate, which was represented by Audrey Geisel, the widow of Theodore Geisel, said the only way I could have the rights is if I do it with Jim Carrey. No way. Yeah.

So you had to do it. So I kind of had to, but I wanted to anyways. Right, right. No way. Yeah. And so I said, well, that's it. So you had to do it. So I kind of had to, but I wanted to anyways. Right, right. So that was fine, but he had to, he had to encase himself in a prosthetic

so that all of his pores were essentially sealed off. So he was exhausting. And it took five and a half hours to put on his hair and makeup and everything else, and face. And the final straw that just made it unbearable for him was that was further suffocating to him were these huge

contact lenses, the size of Frisbees almost, you know, they were huge in his eyes and he would go crazy. And he eventually said, it was a week before we were shooting he's laying down getting his prosthetic put all put on his you know epoxy all over his body he says I have to quit I'm quitting oh my gosh and so Ron and I go well you can't quit we're starting next week and he said I'm to quit. I'm going to pay you back the money. I'm going to pay you back the bonus and the money and the interest. I can't take it any longer. And he got a big check for that. He got a $20 million check plus a bonus plus at this point he'd received it. So it was interest

on the money. He said, I can't take it any longer. I quit. And I tried along the way for the previous couple of weeks to like, you know, I got Don Rickles to come to the set. I got people to come to the set that he admired that would entertain him, you know, keep him off of the pain that he was suffering from. So none of that worked. So now it's like, again, said thursday and he's gonna quit i said look would you meet somebody friday and and through the weekend and if monday you want to quit you can quit and what had happened is because i had this discipline of doing curiosity conversations once a week with experts that were renowned for doing something that other people weren't succeeding at. It could be architecture. It could be science, medicine, politics, religion,

government, anything to do with government. But I'd also met a guy that taught soldiers, CIA, FBI, and soldiers themselves, black ops, how to survive torture if they're being tortured. And it fascinated me, just like, how do people survive torture? And I thought, well, there was this guy who lived, of course, right outside Langley, Virginia, where the CIA is. And I called him up and I said, would you meet Jim Carrey and spend a weekend? I'll pay for you to do that. To fly out, spend a weekend with him. Because he feels as though he's being tortured.

That's so extreme. They give away the money. You give back the money, yeah. Monday comes and Jim says, okay, I can make it. I can do it. Really? And he made the whole movie. Because he, this guy, Dick, his name is Dick, Richard.

And Dick said, turned him on to certain mechanisms that he could put into place and issue himself when he felt tortured. And that would alleviate the torture and stabilize him. And so he would institute these methods upon himself, Jim. Every day. Every day. Constantly throughout the day, unpredictably through the day, to get through each day. And the movie was hugely successful. And it's a perennial.

And it has generated over a long term, I think, the most amount of money, I think, of all my movies. Really? Well, over the long term. Right over the long term, I think the most amount of money, I think, of all my movies. Really? Well, over the long term. Right over the long term. Yeah. I mean, of course, The Da Vinci Code was really huge. And some of these inexpensive movies, Liar Liar was inexpensive. And so therefore, I really made a lot of money.

Or even 8 Mile was quite inexpensive and profited quite a bit. But The Grinch, people keep watching it every year. But the Grinch just keeps going and going. My closest friend, Bob Iger, who's CEO of Disney, said, I'm buying the Grinch for 10 years. And I thought, wow. And we got a really big check for that. And I thought, this is so lucky.

But then the 10 years expired and they've continued to do that. They bought it again. Yeah. It's amazing. It's pretty phenomenal, that. They bought it again. Yeah. It's amazing. It's pretty phenomenal, yeah. They're doing incredible. So anyway,

that's the story of the Grinch and Jim Carrey. I want to take a quick moment from this podcast with Brian and talk about Paul Frederick. Now, Paul Frederick has been making dress shirts for over 30 years and those shirts are pretty darn good looking. I'm telling you, you look so sharp as a guy putting one of these shirts on. They have so

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let's get back into this interview with Brian Grazer. What was the techniques or any of the practices that he taught him on how to deal with those torturous feelings for an hour or two or ten hours or days? I don't really want to go through all those, quite frankly, but a couple of them were just bands, you know, bands that had some sharp, like a spike in them, and he'd pull the band, and it would distract, it would inflict pain upon his, you know,

right above his wrist or under his armpit, and then that would distract the pain, or it would relocate feeling. Yeah, yeah. Wow. What was the movie you worked on that you learned the most about yourself? eight mile

Really? Well splat first Because was splash For six years. I'd written the story. I wrote wrote the script for splash, but the script wasn't really good I got great writers to write it little Jensen Bob Lou Mantel But see what a draft and they kind of helped flesh it out more. I wrote two drafts. But I'm good at writing scenes but not dialogue. Because the dialogue, well, first of all, to leave it at it, it's a skill.

And Lowell and Bob Lou are expert at that. They wrote also Night Shift and they worked on like six or seven movies that I produced. And they even worked on some Jim Carrey movies. Wow. Did some rewrites on The Grinch and on Liar Liar. Wow. So they were my go-to guys. But anyway, so on the movie Splash,

I finally get Splash made, the mermaid movie. But I knew it was much more than a mermaid movie. It was a love story. And it was a heightened love story because essentially it was about me trying to find love in the city of Los Angeles, which I found would be impossible. In writing, I assault a question repeatedly over and over again to, you know, like, why do I need to fall in love? Then I have a reason for why I want to fall in love. And then where would that, how would I find love? And what does love do?

You know, we just continue to ask these questions. And when you continually answer these questions that essentially are the heartbeat thesis of, in this case, this romantic comedy, you start creating scenes out of that. Sure. Okay. At some point I thought, I have to make the girl even more unattainable, like in the third act. I have to accelerate our third act and make it so the scenes are not repetitive. And I thought it would also be interesting to make it a fantasy. And so I was able to achieve a lot by making her a mermaid. It made her unattainable. Right. It gave a woman power.

And, like, you see that the girl has power. Like, when she jumps in the ocean, we sort of cut these scenes, but she's able to shoot. We shot her out of a cannon out in the ocean. Wow. In the Bahamas. It showed that she could leap in the air and swim underwater and do things, you know, with power and agility. And so that was a great trait.

So it was unattainability, a fantasy, because mermaids always have a fantasy dimension. They're always thought of as pretty. They're mythic. And she had power. And I eventually get a maid. And John Candy's in it. He's really funny, super funny. And Tom is great.

And so I started to think to myself, I started to assault the success of the movie. Similarly, I said, I started asking people like, why is it successful? Because I thought it was successful because it was, because it was funny. And somebody that knew me really well put their hand on my heart and said, because it's about you. So I thought that was really revealing and it changed the way I approach storytelling. It made me feel like I have to constantly

just inform myself with information, bombard myself with information of all types of information, but really rely upon informed intuition, the truth of that intuition, to birth ideas for movies or television shows. And just definitely don't prognosticate with something, some new trend. Or don't prognosticate with the audience.

I don't ever go like, well, the audience will feel this. Or I know the audience will do, I don't know the audience will do anything. But I do know how I will feel. If I'm focused on the, if I have clarity on how I feel and what I think and my truths and my authenticity, I try to represent that. And that becomes the sort of metric for what I think is funny or real or emotional or has feeling. And so that trust is the thing that's my compass to everything. To all the things you work on from books to movies to any project. Yeah. I mean, these books are, the two books, this one, Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection,

is the second book to my first one, which was, you know, lived in the same space, but it was called A Curious Mind, The Secret to a Bigger Life. But they're both just basically about what I do for in my life itself. You know, I execute with deliberation, militaristic deliberation. I go out and meet a new person every week for 35 years. Really? And then I learn a lot from it. And I have faith that I don't ask for anything. You can't have an ambition for I'm going to try to get some secret thing from somebody. I met Jeff Bezos 18 years ago, Reed Hastings, 17 or 18, who created Netflix. So I don't think, I don't go with

the ask. You just go with the curious mind to learn. Yeah, just be pure about it. And good things usually come out of it. Some insight that will be valuable to the next thing you're doing. Sure. Or to a life choice. I've been doing that for about 11 years now. And for the past 7

years, I decided I'm going to start recording them and do the podcast and it's been powerful for me but also powerful to share this wisdom with with an audience which has been a lot of fun to not just get it for me only but to continue to share it to others you said eight mile was another movie where you learned the most about yourself what did you learn in that movie about yourself that identifying all of the things that you're afraid of, all of your weaknesses, that are usually, your weaknesses,

the things you are afraid of are usually kind of birthed out of the earliest part of your life and become kind of traumatic. And they live like somewhere in your subconscious or primitive brain. And those are the things that make you scared when you walk into a party or do public speaking or afraid of love or afraid of intimacy

or whatever your things are or afraid of the way you grew up because you didn't grow up from a fancy family in the case of Eminem. He grew up in a white trash trailer park. So when Eminem, it's not just succeeding at the rap battle, it's what happens after the rap battle where he says, yeah, I am white trash, yeah, you did fuck my girl.

And he addresses those things that are embarrassing to him, those that cause him shame. But he liberates himself, and that's powerful. cause him shame, but he liberates himself and that's powerful. He's not hiding behind something that he thinks he's embarrassed of. He says to the rich kid that's good looking, rich black kid, he says, you went to that good school and I didn't, but a version of like, fuck you. Right, right. I'm still better than you. Yeah, yeah.

And what did you learn about yourself personally from that? Were you holding on to shame or embarrassment in your personal life that you hadn't let go of yet? I didn't have a specific thing, but you definitely, we all have them. What's yours? Biggest embarrassment or shame? Yeah, what is yours?

What are you sitting on that you don't talk about or now are willing to talk about? Well, I used to be very shameful of being sexually abused as a kid. And then I opened up about it about five, six years ago for the first time in 25 years to some friends, family members. And then I started actually sharing more publicly on my podcast. I wrote a book about masculine vulnerability and the power of being vulnerable as a man and how it brings us closer together as human beings when we share those things that we're ashamed of. So that was something that I was ashamed of for a long time. How old were you? Five. Yeah. Who did it?

A babysitter's son. He was about a 16-year-old boy. And how did he do it or what happened? Well, he kind of tricked me. He kind of tricked me. I was at the babysitter's house and he was playing video games and I wanted to play video games and he said, you've got to do something for me first if you want to play games." And he took me in the bathroom and that's when it happened. Did you know it was wrong? I remember when I was five, so I didn't really know what was going on, but I knew it wasn't right. I knew it wasn't right, but I wasn't really sure. Something weird, but you didn't realize how serious the violation was.

Didn't realize and didn't realize how it actually shaped me in a lot of ways. I mean, that plus a number of other, I guess, traumatic experiences shaped. That are in that same category? Different stuff. My brother went to prison for four and a half years when I was eight. Wow. I was in kind of the special needs classes all through elementary school, middle school, high school, college. I had a second grade reading level in eighth grade.

So I was just kind of always felt picked on, made fun of for my ability in school. Yeah. Were you big at that time like you are now? I became bigger when I hit like 12. Then I was almost this tall, but I was very skinny, so I was goofy looking, awkward, and had a lot of acne, and was awkward in class. What city is that? I was in Delaware, Ohio, a small town in Ohio.

Interesting. Okay. When I started to finally open up about it is when I felt a lot of fear and terror, but then eventually more and more I felt like as people started to accept me, I started to feel at peace when I started to share that shame. So it was something that I held onto for a long time. Scary. Yeah, that would be.

I didn't have a dream like that. But I think men in general, or at least from my perspective, there wasn't a place to talk about it growing up as a kid. Yeah, of course. In the school they never said, hey, if someone ever does this to you, here's what you do. Yeah. My parents never really talked about it. So I never really knew it was safe to talk about it.

Yeah. So I'm not making any excuse. I just had no clue how to really process it. It wasn't until later in my life where I was like, I need to figure out what's holding me back emotionally. I still felt this sense of anger or resentment towards something and I didn't know what it was. And so I started going down a journey of self-discovery with that. Yeah.

Wow. Is there anything you're holding on to still? No. Not that I can think. Well, probably. But not really. Nothing that's fun. Not fun.

Nothing hooky. Hooky. That wasn't fun. Just because it's hooky doesn't mean it's not valuable. Yeah. Well, I just grew up in a very chaotic kind of terrorizing household. Were you the youngest or? No, the oldest.

Oh. But they fought. My parents fought every day. Same here. About like, we're getting divorced, we're screaming. It was always screaming at each other. Slamming up doors, all that stuff. All that stuff was constant and it always went on late at night.

So my dad was a criminal lawyer and you try to live the life of a criminal when you're a criminal lawyer. Hard to go to sleep at night, probably. It's hard to go to sleep and he drank a lot and smoked a lot and caught the house on fire and smoke seeped into my bedroom and that scared everybody in the house

because the house was burnt down. It was sort of endless stuff like that. It's like a constant trauma. Like everyday little traumas. But I wasn't abused in a conventional way. It was just that. Just emotional. Just ongoing state of uncertainty.

Feeling unsafe. That's a sense of abuse, right? It is. It's sort of a sense of abuse. Who was more influential in your life growing up? Your mom or your dad? My grandmother. What was the greatest lesson she taught you think big be big really

she was a she's jewish my dad wasn't okay my mom's jewish my dad was catholic the grandmother's jewish sure she was one of those classic jewish grandmothers that are like significantly under five feet tall um and but tough, you know, really like, think big, be big, you're going all the way, you know. She had all these adages. Got any problems? Wash it down with a bowl of chicken soup. I mean, she had endless things like that.

Actually, when I wrote Splash and created this funny, the funny brother that was later played by john candy i gave all the jewish those jewish things isms that my grandmother used to say you got a gift for gab all those things i gave them to john cab. Yeah. So I gave all the Jewish funny stuff to the, my grandmother called the goys. That's the Catholics. Yeah. So the Jewish words with the goys.

And I found, by the way, because I wrote and produced comedies for 17 years, only comedies. Wow. You know, Night Shift, Splash, Parenthood, House Sitter, Liar Liar, Nutty Professor, One and Two, Kindergarten Cop. I could just name, I know I missed Life, a bunch of movies with Eddie Murphy. What I learned for sure that the ingredients are always counterpoint. The Jewish words with Tom Hanks.

The Jewish words with Steve Martin. Jewish with John Candy. Jewish with Eddie. Always that. No Jew on Jew. Really? No Catholic on Catholic. So I'm not against anybody here.

I love everybody. Sure, sure. But it's just that that was the way to go. Why did that work? Well, why do you think it worked? Right. Not sure. Well, Jewish writers are funnier than the other guys.

Right, right. They're just funnier. Jews are funny people. Sure, sure. They feel tortured. They're in pain. They got all those words for, you know, what's the word? Famished. They got these words. Sure, sure. I feel tortured. They're in pain. They got all those words for, you know, what's the word? Famished.

They got these words. Sure, sure. I don't even know them. My grandmother spoke them. She spoke Yiddish. Not Hebrew, but Yiddish. And you'd get all that stuff. And she called me, what's Shana Kindle of?

Like, she gave me a baby, you know, like that kind of stuff. All that stuff. It was very sweet. Yeah. But when I was getting straight Fs on my report card in elementary school because I couldn't read a word, not even a word, similarly to you, she'd look over the report card, see the straight Fs, and go, you're going all the way. Wow. And I'd go, Grandma, there's, like, no evidence that suggests that, you know? And so, but, you know, things worked.

Yeah. Because I employed the skill of curiosity. Actually, I should bring this up. these micro techniques to succeed, to connect with people, to evangelize your startup, or in my case, a story. Or, you know, you have to connect to people's hearts to give the, or they're going to give you hundreds of millions of dollars, which I'm asking for. Some of my movies cost, you know, well over $100 million. And it's an idea. So you have to evangelize your idea and mission. And to do that, you have to look at people.

You can't be looking at your phone. You can't fractionalize your attention at all. People have to feel your sincerity. They have to feel your heart. They have to be captivated by you in a real way. And the way to do that is you have to actually look at them. The whole book is basically, I mean, one aspect of the book is just that face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball connection is the Wi-Fi to human connection. It's the Wi-Fi to human connection then you're on Wi-Fi then you

can really move speed yeah then you can communicate then they're in with you and you're in with them and they don't like your idea they do like your idea but at least you're expressing it with clarity and authenticity and with heart why do so many people why are they afraid why are they blow it look in the eyes with someone a lot of people are just you go to the event I'm assuming here in Why do so many people, why are they afraid to look in the eyes with someone? A lot of people are just, you go to an event, I'm assuming here in Hollywood, you see it all the time where someone just looks at you for a second and they're always looking around.

Why do people not have the ability or the skill set to just connect and stare, not stare in a weird, creepy way, but to really look at someone's eyes? Currently, this moment where they're just losing the habit. It's hard for people to look people right in the eyes anyway. Probably if you split the population in half. Half people can, half people can't. Now, because of smartphones,

and our addiction to social media and smartphones, every social media site is gamified. It makes you want to be on that game every second. I want to be. So I discipline myself. Actually, I'm already making a mistake. I never use my look at my phone, you know, when I'm with somebody, but you shouldn't even have your phone out because as you know, just the basic physics of that, yeah, it's living some, it's eating up energy. It's occupying energy in your being,

up energy. It's occupying energy in your being, in your brain, seeing the phone because you have to exercise some discipline. And if you think you're not, you are anyway. So there is no condition that it's not occupying some space and deflecting your communication. So why do people do it? They do it for multiple reasons, but that is the biggest reason is that the phones are just, there's so much going on on your phone. Your whole life is on the phone, but you're not, when you're not looking at people and you're not connecting with people and you're not reaching out to them, you're not going to get, you're going to lose insights. You're going to lose moments, you're not, we're living in a culture where it's kind of symptomatic to not have empathy now. I mean like young kids, I have young kids and you're young yourself, but like kids just

date, they date, then they ghost a chick or they ghost a guy, it's like they don't even care to say bye. But there's way worse than that, of course. You know, it's just like no one is really thinking about, seldom are people really thinking about your feelings. And they're probably not even thinking about their feelings. What are they thinking about? They're thinking about their phone and how many likes they got on their Instagram. And I care about it, too, but I don't want it to overpower human

connection. It's obsessed, yeah. Well, because it's not getting me anywhere, really. I do these fun videos. My eating breakfast burritos. I love breakfast burritos. Me too. I have all my little food videos. I mean, that was most of the things that I

start doing, they're accidents. I did one and my kids go, oh, that's so funny, Dad. And I thought, oh, really? It's funny. So I just keep doing them until they're not funny. Right. You said maybe there's half the people that are good at looking in the eye, half the people maybe aren't.

And then less now because everyone's on their phone. For the people who say they don't have phones, but they aren't good at looking people in the eyes. What do you think it is that holds them back from that face-to-face connection? Is it their own insecurities? Is it shame? Is it a lack of confidence? Is it skill?

What do you think it is? Well, those would be sort of all. I can only pick like a surface reason because I'm not, you know, I'm not equipped to diagnose that, but probably some form of insecurity or lack of confidence that you matter and that it would matter for you to look at someone. In other words, when I look at you, I'm telling you. That's like saying I see you as a human being. You matter. But if you don't feel it yourself, have the confidence to feel it,

you're not going to look at you. So if I don't feel really confident that that even really means anything, then I'm not going to choose to do it because I don't put it very high on a value system. Wow. You might think a good handshake is plenty. Or you might think if I'm really smart. Or, you know, there was a moment that I thought I was so smart, you know.

And I guess I did look at people in the eyes. But there was a moment, and it was, I think, in I forget which, my first or second book, one of them, but where I was working with Lola Bablu and Ron Howard. And Ron Howard said, you know, you don't look at the guys when we're doing the story meetings. And I said, well, I thought I did. He said, no, no, you really don't. And I said, but I've got all the answers. I mean, I'm like right there with you guys. He said, yeah, but it makes them feel bad. Wow. Just the simplicity of that had a gravitational force that made me change.

Huh. Did you always have a sense of confidence in yourself or belief in yourself? No. When did you learn how to have confidence and belief in yourself? I started, my first win in life basically was, there was a bully in my elementary school, Riverside Drive Elementary School, which I'm going to be like three blocks from later today to watch my kid play at Notre Dame High School football.

So I'm Patrick, his name is. Shout out to Patrick. The bully? No, Patrick's my kid. Playing another name. No, the bully was Richard Gaynor. Oh. So Richard Gaynor was three years older than me.

And he just beat everybody up all the time. He'd pick somebody to beat up. But he never really picked on me. But then one day he decided to. It's so classic. I was at the jungle gym as our little jungle gym that had a padding under the jungle gym and he threw me down and i somehow like came alive and got him in a headlock and got on top of him started beating the shit out of it

yeah and it changed my whole life because i didn't know. I was a good wrestler. There's a few things that I was just inherently good at, but I didn't think of them as superpowers at all. I didn't. Or it's not like I think my skill and I am curious and I think it is a superpower. I think I've honed it to become a superpower that gives me a competitive advantage over others. But going back to Richard Gaynor and beating him up, all of a sudden I'm on top of him and I'm realizing, wow, this is amazing. I'm beating up the bully. You had this realization. Yeah, I was just like totally kicking this guy's ass. Well, also there was a chorus of kids around me going, yay, you know, like Just little kids cheering seconds. They'd all

been beaten up or bullied by him or certainly intimidated by Richard Gaynor. Actually, Richard Gaynor kind of was mean to my sister, Nora, in fact, once. He didn't hit her, but he was really disrespectful. Nonetheless, I beat

him up. Then I became like Robin Hood in the school. Like, he was scared of me. There was no more bullies. You were the hero. I was kind of the hero of the elementary school.

no, it was like, you know, I'm the law of the land now. I didn't say that, but it was kind of like, I was the, I was going to,

I just felt like I wanted something and people were like like extremely respectful. Like, hey, man, how are you? Like the little eight-year-old. Yeah. What's up? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that was good. That was the start of your self-confidence. That was the start of self-confidence. And then I had this very fascinating moment when I went up for high school football at Chatsworth High School. Because I was also like Patrick, my young 16-year-old. I was a really tough kid. I mean, because I was able to win that fight. They gave me a lot of confidence. And I really learned to fight. I became a pretty good martial artist, actually, in high school. All my friends, I had a group of five or six guys, but they all, like you, popped well above

six feet. I mean, one guy was named Chris Parkinson. We called him Gramps. He went to 6'5". Richard Cox was 6'3". He became the quarterback and the pitcher. I mean, he was that guy. He was everything. Perry Schellmeyer was the cool guy. He went to 6'2". He was the wide receiver. Anyway, so the point is they all got really big. And I stayed at 5'5", but popped to 5'8". But that wasn't 6'2". Anyway, I went out for football.

Now I do the Hell Week, which I just hated Hell Week in the San Fernando Valley. Three days, yeah. It's five days. No, it's five days a week. No, but like three a day. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm sorry. Yes, because you play football.

It's miserable. Yeah. So it's terrible. It's really hot out in the San Fernando Valley. I'm doing Hell Week. I get through it. Now we're all supposed to go to the auditorium. Everybody in Chatsworth High, all the football players.

So you had freshmen, sophomore, juniors, seniors. The whole audit term is filled with like 200 of these kids that got through Hell Week. And so Coach Ogawa is right there. And Coach Ogawa says, okay, name and status. I wasn't sure what he meant, but then there were people that preceded me. Perry Schellmeyer, wide receiver. Richard Cox, quarterback. Tony Cuvillier, wide receiver.

Brian Grazer, tailback. Incorrect, he says. Screams in front of everybody. He goes, says, incorrect. He looks at me in the eyes. He goes, cut. So he cut me in front of 200. He goes, says, incorrect. He looks at me in the eyes. He goes, cut. So he cut me in front of 200 kids. What?

So I thought, wow, that was really brutal. And it was super embarrassing, like super, super, super embarrassing. And I really examined that moment. I brought it down to like I was once a human being, and then it got to me. I was no longer a human being anymore. I was out of, I'm out of the room.

Yeah. And so it actually gave me that, I was able to like isolate the micro moments of that and transported that feeling into what became the movie Friday Night Lights and the series. Massive. Because I could have made those movies,

the movie and TV show, about small town living, or I could have made it solely about football, but really it was focused on kids' identities and how they get formed. So that was the primary focus. And when directors didn't want to do that, I would ding them out. I mean, nicely.

I'd just go like, I don't think so, you know. Because a lot of guys just wanted to relive their high school career. But when people were, so when Pete Berg came along, he was sensitive to the thing I was sensitive to, like these imperceptible moments that become seismic to that one kid and forming their identity. And so that became the essence of, of what Friday Night Lights was, the movie and the TV show. And that's why it exists. of what Friday Night Lights was, the movie, and the TV show. And that's why it exists. And so I get fired.

They kick me off the football team in front of everybody. It's embarrassing. And I don't know what to do. I go off a track, and I can only do one thing, but I do it well. I can sprint and do a 100-yard dash. What was your best time? Do you remember? I don't remember. But then I, more importantly,

what happened to me was well, being under 10 seconds then was good. So I was under 10 seconds. Wow. I'm sure you have a time. I was 11.3. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh. 100 meters? Yeah. Oh, this was 100 yards. Okay, different. Gotcha.

It is different. I think I said, what, 10 more yards or something. Yeah, but that makes it different. Okay, different. Yes, it is different. I think I said, what, 10 more yards or something? Yeah, but that makes it different. Okay, so anyway, so we were on the yards, not on the metric system. Right, right, right. But the private schools are a metric system here in LA district. There's 65 high schools in the Los Angeles City District. So I then thought, I don't know, you know, just feeling really bad about myself. So someone says, why don't you go out for swimming?

It's really easy and you can get out of first period. So I go out for swimming. And to make a long story short, I'm not a very good swimmer. I'm just mostly goofing off. I'm holding on to the side and stuff and bouncing around, splashing. So we have a pre-meet at Granada Hills High School. And it's an L.A. City meet, but it's a pre-meet. And Coach Wiley says, Grazer, lane eight.

So lane eight's the shittiest lane. Do you swim, too, or no? Okay, so you know that the outside lanes are the shittiest because, you know, all the, you know, you get all the water. Yeah, all the water's slopping into your mouth and everything from all the, anyway. Waves are coming over there. The whole thing. So I go in lane eight to swim a hundred yard butterfly. That's hard.

Which I hadn't done. That's hard. You're freaking flopping. But I watch it. And the point, and I go, I swim this hundred yard butterfly. And I look behind me right before i touch down and wiley's there with his stopwatch and i look behind me i don't see anybody i'm thinking everyone's out of the pool this is again embarrassing well what happened was i beat

everybody i couldn't see them. They're so far behind you? Yes. Wow. So it's actually very emotional to me because it's palpable. So I ended up breaking the L.A. City record. What? That moment.

The first time you tried it? The first time I tried it. And I know. Your machine. So it was just that I just had this weird knack. And as you know, the butterfly, you either have that or you don't. So hard, no. Your machine. So it was just that I just had this weird knack. And as you know, the butterfly, you either have that or you don't. So hard, yeah. And if you have it, you can get better at it or not.

But, I mean, it's just that your body has to contort like that. And my body naturally contorted like that when I threw myself into the water. Wow. And I was really like a machine. I was really good at it. And I broke the city record right at that moment. And, you know. How old were you?

I guess 16. So you had a moment where you thought to yourself, wow, this is really embarrassing because everyone's already out of the pool. I'm that slow. But then. I popped out. And you're like, wow, I'm that slow. But then. I popped out. And you're like, wow, I'm the man. I was. You're like, actually, now I have a lot of confidence in myself.

Yeah. Wow. So it was really amazing. And then I got a nickname immediately that morning. What was that? It was just like, where's the great grazer going? That's a good name. Everybody would just go like, where's the great grazer?

Because I was like the famous kid in the Chester with High now. Wow. Great Grazer going. That's a good name. Everybody would just go like, where's the Great Grazer? Because I was like the famous kid in the Chester High now. Wow. It was a school. It was a record. It was a big school. It was like 2,000 kids. That's a big deal.

Hey, great. I actually, I'm just thinking on your own show, I had a nickname at USC too. What was that? Nicknames are great. They propel you. They do. My nickname at USC, and I got it very quickly, was 26. Because I took 26 units my first semester because I had to catch up.

So I didn't think I was doing something phenomenal. I mean, it was hard because you're supposed to take. 15 or something. Well, you should take 12 or 14. Yeah, yeah. As I remember. Or 12 or 16. I'm sorry. So we're doubling up.

So I was kind of doubling up, but I didn't realize. And so what happened is, this is the day, the superstar athlete, wide receiver, Lin Swan. At USC. At USC. Who, you know, won the Super Bowl playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I think twice. He's amazing. We knew each other independent of school. We were both extras on a TV show called Room 222.

And my cousin Fran, who's still my, I love my cousin Fran, was just a year older than me. She said, you can work on Room 222 and make some money, Brian. I go, great, I'd love that. So now I was on Room 222 with three of the biggest superstars at usc pat hayden john mckay and lynn swan so now i'm at usc and lynn learns he goes hey grazer and i i can't even believe he's a football player he's not that big he's like 5 11 and um anyway the point is, I start telling him, I go, I'm 26.

And he goes, I'm 26. And he tells someone who tells someone who tells someone every day I walk by, it's Tommy Trojan or anything. Hey, there's 26. Hey, 26. So I had this nickname, which got me a long way. Like, it made me popular. Really?

Yeah, because I played with it. You know, it ignited my personality. And so at Chatsworth High, I played with it. You know, it ignited my personality. And so at Chatsworth High, I had a nickname. And then the irony was is then I won, you know, again, I won the city record. I played right here at Beverly Hills. I swam right here at Beverly Hills High. Right that way.

And then the coach, oddly, Coach Ogawa was asked to speak to me because he was like the head coach, but not of swimming. They wanted me to win the state championship. And in order to do that, they thought I should shave my body and head again. Jeez. Because I shaved my head and body, you know, early on. Then he says, Brian, hey, God, you're a good kid, man. He schmoozed me up. And I thought, like, fuck you.

But I didn't say that, of course. He's the head coach. Sure, sure. And I'm respectful to people. I just thought it. And he lobbied me to shave my head again. Did you do it? No.

No. I still swam really well. I didn't win the state championship, but I swam really well. I wasn't going to shave my head. Also, girls didn't like the shaved head because even though I was the great grazer, I remember one hot girl, Karen Flair goes, hey,

she said to me, hey, Baldy. I go, Baldy? I thought, oh my God. That's not a good nickname. That wasn't a good nickname. The great, hey, Baldy. I go, Baldy? I thought, oh, my God. That's not a good nickname. That wasn't a good nickname. No, no. The Great Grazer to Baldy. So I alluded that. I wasn't going to go back to that.

I wanted Karen Flair's attention. And so anyway, and then oddly, as I'm sitting here talking to you, this is actually kind of fun for me now. Sure, sure. I was talking to you, this is actually kind of fun for me now. Sure, sure. When I started my career, I was a law clerk, and then I went, I was a law clerk at Warner Brothers. It was always supposed to be a summer job. I decided not to go to law school.

I stayed for a year and a half. Then they fired me. I thought I was a genius because I did curiosity conversations then every day. And I became pretty smart. Within the company or? Everywhere. I used the company, Warner Brothers. I used the Warner Brothers thing.

To meet people. To meet people. I'd say, hey, my name is Brian Grazer. I work at Warner Brothers Business Affairs. This is not associated with studio business. And I do not want a job from your boss. And I worked that so hard, and every day, everybody said yes. I mean, they didn't say yes that day, but it became a rotation system I could get. Anyway, bottom line is they eventually just fired me for misallocation of Warner Brothers

assets. And so that made sense. I was like 23 and a half, and then I thought I learned I should write to survive. So I started writing and I wrote a bunch of ideas and I met the woman that became my mentor. She was the most powerful woman in show business. Her name was Deanne Barkley. And Deanne Barkley ran all of NBC Entertainment. And I went in to picture two of my ideas at 24. And she smoked pot every day, and she made her office like a New Orleans-style office, because she was like the queen of show business. She could do what she wanted, and she was New Orleans' girl.

And so she has this southern office, and in the southern office is a bird cage, behind her, with two parakeets. Speaking. No, they weren't speaking with two with a pair of two parakeets speaking no they weren't speaking just two little pair of birds and i pitched these ideas and it goes great she loves them and all of a sudden there's like a thump one of the birds had a heart attack and died. Right then. Right then, as I was leaving, like as she was basically saying yes. No way.

Was that a sign not to do the idea? Well, I thought it could be, but she started laughing hysterically. First, she was like in shock, and then she didn't know what her emotions were, and she started laughing. Well, she was smoking weed all day too. So anyway, she starts laughing and then she goes,

this is kismet. And she said, I want to be your mentor as well. So she bought my two ideas and she became my mentor. No way. Yeah. And she decided, well, first of all, buying these two ideas from NBC was a very good thing because I could barter them to get an office and everything from actually

ironically Warner Brothers again. Warner Brothers TV. But she did say, you need a nickname. You need a nickname. And I said, well, why? She goes, look at Swifty Lazar, the most famous guy in show business, Swifty. Do you know who that is? No. No. He was the most famous. He was an agent. Okay. He was the most famous, but he had a nickname, Swifty Lazarin. He was known as Swifty because he got these deals. He could make them happen fast, Swifty. So he got a nickname. And there was a few other nickname people.

And she said, you got to do it. And she gave me a couple nicknames, which I'm not going to share. Don't even ask. And I said, I have not. They weren't Baldy, right? No, they weren't Baldy. That's funny no they weren't kind of equally as not as flattering and so um i said no i'm not doing an idea i'm not doing

those nicknames no so i banned the idea of a nickname so you didn't have a nickname i had no nickname what about but the great nope no no no no I didn't have any nicknames. And then I started to become successful. I made Splash and I made some other hits. And then I started to sort of be one of those, you know, big Hollywood producers. The hit maker. Yeah, I was a hit maker.

But in comedy, and there was also those action hit makers with, you know, the beards and throwing stuff and bad tempers. And I thought, they're well known because they have bad tempers. I didn't have a bad temper, so I couldn't, and I tried it, and I couldn't grow a beard actually either. I thought about that. Or some cool mustache.

I can't grow a mustache. That would be cool. No, no, no. I don't look good. And then by accident, I popped my hair up, but much higher than it is here, actually. If you look at that previous Instagram thing with me and Russell Crowe from Beautiful Mind, my hair is pretty spiked up. I didn't realize it was so crazy.

But the point is, my daughter liked it. We were in a swimming pool. I popped it up. She goes, do it that way, Dad. Sage, who's now a psychotherapist in the city of Los Angeles. Sage Griser. She's busy. She is busy.

She's got a lot of work in this city. Flooding over with work. She said, keep it up. I like it. She liked it and I thought, I'm going to do it. That became a signature thing. It wasn't a nickname. I couldn't grow hair on my face, but I could grow it on my head. It was a

look. It was an image. It was like my way of finding a signature. That's cool. Accidenting. Did you ever get a nickname over the last 20 plus years? No, no nickname. I try to live a really good life, but I

try to, in order to survive in this, it's like, you know, it's like platoon. It's like living in a war zone here in Los Angeles. What's some of the greatest lessons you've learned of just being in Hollywood and show business? Don't be a show-off, speaking of show. I mean, you have to promote yourself. Like, I'm promoting myself by being on your show. I'm promoting my book because I want people to buy the book because I think it's really

a helpful tool and I know it works. I know that if I can do it with the straight Fs and only do one person, Grandma Sonia, I know that it could work for anybody. I know these techniques will 100% work.

Yeah. Or your money back, ladies and gentlemen. So anyway, so Hollywood. Well, I guess my secret, well, I think the secrets or techniques would be in this book, quite frankly. You do have to look at people. You have to be present.

Be present. The other thing that you really have to look at people. You have to be present. Be present. The other thing you really have to be, which I don't, I say it in certain, you have to be interesting. You have to be interesting. Interesting. You have to be interested, of course, but more importantly, you have to be interesting. How do you become interesting if you're not? Get out of this. I always say. You have to be interesting because you can't captivate people by just asking questions.

That's dopey. I mean, no, when people just go, I want to meet you, and they just ask questions, I go, no, it's a conversation. We're hanging out. We're knowing each other. We're sharing. We're building to our best date. Collaborating together. Yeah.

It's like I'm not going to just like sit and, I mean, I'm on your show right now, but I wouldn't normally do that. You know, I want other people to talk. Yeah. I want people to be, people have to be interesting. Writers have to have, when I'm, well, I'm in the story business. So if a writer's not interesting, it's scary a little bit, you know. Or if they're not, if they don't say one interesting thing

or they don't have one original article of clothing on, you know, like if no choice is original, I don't do it. When directors, by the way, I had this early thing at 25, during Splash, because I had many directors that preceded Ron. And any director that is too concerned with how they look, meaning they dress really impeccably, I don't hire them. impeccably, I don't hire them. The director's job is to be the ultimate empathist. The director's job is to think about how everybody else feels and how everybody else looks. And if they're self-consumed with how they look, it scares me. Wow. That's good. It's not a thousand percent true or, you know, there's

exceptions, of course, but it's just a, you know, it's an easy, convenient metric if you're busy. What's the partnership with Ron been like for you? What changed when you started to partner with him more than having a lot of different people working with before? Well, he's very compassionate. He's very easy to be with. He's, these characteristics, he embodies them all. He's very present. He's not fidgety.

He's with you, he's listening. He's very unpretentious but equally smart he's incredibly smart he has so much kind of cinematic wisdom because he was incredibly attentive to what was going on his whole life but you know he is an early actor you know with John Wayne and Henry Fonda and all these greats. Met Jack Lemmon, I might have worked with him, I'm not sure I remember that, but he asked questions and he's dialed in. He's talented, really special in that way. What actors that you worked with were, in your mind,

who were the top two or three that you were just like, I can't believe what they're creating right now. They're so brilliant. They're so talented. That just wowed you. I have a lot. Well, I don't want to, I have so many. I don't know if I, I don't want to say the most.

Say a few. But a couple. Denzel Washington. He's amazing. Eddie Murphy is probably, he's just magical, really. He's magical. He reads a script, by the way, one time and never reads it again. What?

He reads it, not just remembers it, but processes it. He knows exactly how he's going to play it from one reading. And it could be like six months ago. And he remembers it? He remembers it. More than remembers it, he's integrated it. He integrated it. He can do it. He surprises people periodically because he's a

classical pianist. And it's beautiful. He's not Rachmaninoff, but he's amazing. He's amazing. And I love him. I respect him., but he's amazing. He's amazing. And I love him. I respect him. I think he's magical as an artist, and I

love him. We still text each other, and we still talk. He spoke at my wedding. I think he's a stand-up guy. Wow. So I love him. Tom Hanks, I think I've worked with eight times-up guy. So I love him.

Tom Hanks, I think I've worked with eight times. That guy's brilliant. He delivers every single time. He is brilliant. Yeah, he's brilliant. He just seems like a good guy. He is a good guy, but he's an incredibly smart guy and doesn't show that off.

I would put him in terms of just overall intelligence. you know, like fielding, hitting, pitching. He's that guy. Wow. He can do everything. He can pick the right things. He's got incredible intuition on choice, on learning, on public speaking, what to say, what not to say, where to say it, what to do. You know, somebody said, put him up to like, my partner, Ron Howard says, run for president.

You'll win. And, you know, he probably could. He's pretty amazing. He's very smart and tough and buoyant and he can do it all. He says to Ron, f*** you, you run. Which I think is funny and appropriate like he doesn't want to ruin his life right he's got a good life yeah what do you want to do that for but we all started thinking i'm amazing run you and oprah you know he can do everything and then so i said

denzel i mean he's he's just Denzel. He can, unbelievably intense, doesn't have to say a lot of words. You're always interested in what he's thinking, what he's going to do. You're captivated by him. Mm-hmm. Russell Crowe has that too, by the way. Really? Russell Crowe is very, like, you never want to say the most, but he's so well-researched.

So any of the two movies or three movies I made with him, actually, Beautiful Mind, Robin Hood, and American Gangster. He just reads

thousands of pages. He can ingest thousands of pages of information. On the character or the time. Everything. All of that stuff

and the environment, everything to do with it. So, history. So he's, the time, the setting. Everything. All of that stuff. And the environment, everything to do with it. So, history. So he's pretty, he's very gifted. Steve Martin is, he teaches himself mastery. The banjo. He didn't wake up in the morning and go like, I can play the banjo. He just made it happen.

Wow. He's a brilliant art collector. He's an unbelievable writer. Wrote a couple novels that were very engaging. He wrote the script Bowfinger for me, sorry. I did Boomerang too. I produced Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. But he did Bowfinger with Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy was in and he was the lead. They're both leads together. And so he can do, and he's a comedian. I just saw him two months ago at that Aspen conference. He and Marty Short, they're hilarious. I sat in the front row because I was at a table that was in the front, and I couldn't stop laughing. They're hilarious, yeah.

They're just, both of them gifted. So I've worked with really great people in my life, and I feel really lucky. There's some great women. I mean, I love Jodie Foster. I worked with her back to back. She had a role in a movie. The lead in this movie was a guy.

It was supposed to be a guy called Flight Plan. It was like Ransom in the Sky. I produced Ransom, too, with Mel Gibson. was a guy it was supposed to be a guy called flight plan it was like ransom in the sky i'd produce ransom too with mel gibson and i told the studio i said i'm gonna make it a woman that's gonna make it she's more powerful than any dude and impactful you know what i mean that way and uh they didn't like that idea but i did it anyway and made a jody foster and it was a huge hit yeah flight plan And then she was in Inside Man, Spike Lee's Inside Man with Denzel and Jodie

and Clive Owen and we had some great actors in that. I've worked with really good actors. I feel really fortunate. I really think a lot of it's due,

I think I have a competitive advantage by being, I hope, interesting. Well, I think they think this guy knows by being, I hope, interesting. Well, I think they think this guy knows a lot about a lot of things. He's pretty resourceful. There's always foxholes when you make a movie or TV show. There's always a problem.

A breakdown. And someone's got to get us out of that foxhole alive, and I'm pretty good at that. The Great Grazer. He's pretty good at that. I wouldn't say I'm the Great Grazer, but I would say I'm good good at that. The Great Grazer. He's pretty good at that. I wouldn't say I'm the Great Grazer, but I would say I'm good at solving problems. I'm really good at solving creative puzzles. Yeah.

You've had so much success with all these movies. What's something you're most proud of that most people maybe don't know about you? Well, some people know this. I'm a pretty good dad. I really, really, really care a lot. And I don't know if you can do much more than that. But once in a while I have to do tough love, which is really hard for me. But

I know it's right. I mean, I just know it's right. And it's been great on my daughter Sage because she had a jujitsu injury and I kept telling her, you'll get through it. And she got through it much sooner than she would have normally. Because she was like really feeling bad about herself, you know. And then she just toughed it out and went back to jujitsu one-on-one after she had a very bad neck injury. And she's tough. She stays on it. She always had a very bad neck injury. And she's like, she's tough. She stays on it. She always had a really good work ethic. Anyway, I think, Pete, because back to your question,

I think I'm a good dad. Could I be better? Sure. Could I be worse? Definitely. But I think I'm good. I care a lot. It means a lot to me.

And I think they feel that I love a lot. And so that. And then it's very easy for me to be means a lot to me. And I think they feel that I love a lot. And so that. And then it's very easy for me to be a good husband to Veronica because she's amazing. Yeah. That's powerful. I've got a final question for you. Make sure you guys get the book, Face to Face, The Art of Human Connection. It's going to be powerful for you to help you have a competitive advantage in your life, in your career, and everything. It's going to be powerful for you to help you have a competitive advantage in your life, in your career, in everything.

So make sure to check this out. Very powerful. This question is called The Three Truths. Okay, let's give it a shot. So it's not a question. It's three. It's one question

for three responses. Oh, boy. Three responses. All right, fire it up. So imagine it's your last day on Earth many years from now and you've achieved all of your dreams.

Yeah. But for whatever reason, you've achieved all of your dreams. Yeah. But for whatever reason, you've got to take your entire body of work with you. All the movies you've made, all the books you've written, they've got to go with you to the next world or wherever you go after you pass away. Okay. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true about your life and all of the experiences you've had, the lessons you would leave behind to the rest of the world, if you could only choose three things to share with us, what would those three things be? Don't worry. Stop worrying.

It's a huge waste of time. It doesn't improve results. Don't worry. Find your truth. That's your most valuable component is that locating your authentic self be in some way spiritual

it enriches your conscience sense of conscience yeah powerful okay those are the three thanks so much alright thanks that was a hard

good fun interesting challenging question. Thank you. All right. For sure. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I'm so passionate about this topic, the art of human connection, really learning about what makes people think, how to really connect with people,

how to help and serve people at a greater level. And when you learn about people and when you learn about others and have compassion and understanding for their needs, not yours, but theirs, you can truly make an impact in their life. And when you make an impact in their life, you have a deeper bond and relationship

and you can do magical things together with that bond and relationship. When you don't have a relationship, you're disconnected. You're unable to really move ideas forward together. I'm not talking about influencing someone so you get everything you want and they suffer. This is about doing things together, creating a collaborative experience and environment. So all parties win together. All parties move their dreams forward. And that's what this interview is all about. If you enjoyed this, do me a favor and message Brian on Instagram.

Message Brian Grazer and share this with one friend. Text a friend today, lewishouse.com slash 868. You can copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and send it to one friend today, lewishouse.com slash 868. You can copy and paste the link on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and send it to one friend today and say, hey, I was thinking about you. I know how much you're trying to grow right now. I really think this episode with Brian Grazer will inspire you to connect deeper in relationships

and really take your career or your ideas or your business or your invention to a new height. So send this to them. Be a hero, be a champion in a friend's life today and reach out to someone new. You can message a friend who's been commenting on your social media and send them a direct message or a WhatsApp group message, Facebook group message, whatever it is, reach out to someone new and build a relationship through this episode and with this interview. I think that'd be really powerful. Let me know what you think about it. I'm Lewis Howes on Instagram. You can message me there. You can put it in your Instagram stories and tag me and tag Brian. I like

to reshare a lot of those. And as always, if this is your first time here, please subscribe to the School of Greatness on Apple podcast and leave us a review. I don't care if you leave a one-star or five-star review. I just want to hear from you. I want to hear how this impacted you. We like to share this with our internal team because our team works so hard to impact people in the world. And those reviews really mean a lot to us.

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and open their heart to share with you exactly how they got to where they are. I'm so grateful for you. You have no idea how grateful I am that you take time to show up every single day to listen, to improve your mind, to go back to school in the way that I wish I had school growing up. I wish I would have had this type of information. That's why I created it because there was such a need for me. And I'm just so grateful that you continue to show up

every single week to learn with me because I'm learning with you. You were born to do amazing things, but sometimes situations, experiences, people, environments limit us, hold us back to believing we aren't capable of doing those great things. And Martin Luther King Jr. said, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. We create our own reality,

but sometimes other people's opinions, words, energy, lack of connection and human interaction affects us deeper and deeper and traumatizes over the years. And it's unfortunate, but it's our responsibility to notice it and consistently, consistently do the work, to think about the things we say, think about the things we think about and the things we act on and make sure we're protecting our mind and standing portal at the door of thought as consistently as possible to reject any negativity that comes our way and lift ourselves with positive, loving energy because you are the light, my friend. You are born with a golden light that should radiate and be felt by the world. But it's your responsibility to make sure you take care of that inner light and let it shine. I love you so very much. I'm so grateful that you're here.

I hope to see you very soon on the next episode of the School of Greatness podcast. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music you