The Tim Ferriss Show - #474: Matthew McConaughey — The Power of “No, Thank You,” Key Life Lessons, 30+ Years of Diary Notes, and The Art of Catching Greenlights

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls, lemurs and squirrels, all things under the sun. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, people who are excellent world-class at what they do, to tease out all sorts of things. Frameworks, questions they ask, favorite books, influences, you name it, lessons learned. My guest today is Texas native Matthew McConaughey. He is one of Hollywood's most sought after leading men. A chance meeting in Austin long ago with casting director and producer Don Phillips led him to director Richard Linklater, who launched the actor's career in the cult classic Dazed and Confused. Since then, he has won an Academy

Starting point is 00:00:40 Award for his portrayal of Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club, appeared in more than 40 feature films that have grossed more than $1 billion, and has become a producer, director, and philanthropist with his Just Keep Livin' Foundation. All the while sticking to his Texas roots and JK Livin' philosophy. McConaughey also serves as creative director for Wild Turkey and has co-created his own bourbon, Long Branch. He serves as Minister of Culture, MOC, for the University of Texas Athletic Department and the Austin FC Soccer Club, where he is part owner. McConaughey will launch his first book, Green Lights, on October 20th, 2020. He currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Camilla, and their three kids while

Starting point is 00:01:21 he is a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. You can find him on Facebook, Matthew McConaughey, on Instagram, officially McConaughey, and on Twitter at McConaughey. The book's official website is greenlights.com. Please enjoy this wide-ranging, extremely enjoyable and entertaining conversation with none other than Matthew McConaughey. This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me. In the last few years, I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all, that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it. And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the

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Starting point is 00:02:59 will give you the best sleep of your life. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. They'll even pick it up from you if you don't love it. And now, my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to $200 off of all mattress orders and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash tim. These are not cheap pillows either, so getting two for free is an upgraded deal. So that's up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. That's helixsleep.com slash Tim for up to $200 off. So check it out one more time, helixsleep.com slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is a brand new cereal that I eat just about every day that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. I just ate a huge

Starting point is 00:03:56 bowl of their cocoa flavor about an hour ago after a short workout. Magic Spoon cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included it in their list of best inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it the future of cereal. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal from childhood. Remember that? But it's actually good for you. Each serving has 11 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs, 0 grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. It's also gluten-free, grain-free, keto-friendly, soy-free, and GMO-free. All the things. It's delicious. And I don't say that lightly because most of this healthy version of X stuff is not delicious, but these guys really nail it. Magic Spoon has nailed it. It comes in your favorite traditional cereal flavors like cocoa, frosted,

Starting point is 00:04:41 and blueberry. You can try them all by grabbing a variety pack at magicspoon.com slash Tim, or you can just grab a box or a bunch of boxes. I'm going to order some more today of the cocoa, which is my personal favorite, but there's a new contender for favorite flavor because they just launched two limited edition flavors, honey nut and peanut butter, which are delicious. I am a sucker for peanut butter, and it is outstanding. So I think cocoa and peanut butter are my two new favorite flavors. And fun fact, my friends are also obsessed with Magic Spoon. One of the podcast's most popular guests, Dr. Peter Attia, routinely crushes six to seven servings at a time. That's a lot. With no glycemic response. He's looked at this with a glucometer. He likes it so much, he invested. Other friends, two very fine gentlemen, and also past podcast guests, Kevin Rose and Ryan Holiday, also invested. So check it out. See what the buzz is about. Go to

Starting point is 00:05:36 magicspoon.com slash Tim and grab a variety pack or cocoa, which is my favorite, or anything else. See what strikes your fancy. Why not? Try a variety pack and be sure to use code Tim at checkout. My listeners, that's you. Get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you're not a fan, if you don't love it, they'll give you a full refund, no questions asked. Again, check it out, magicspoon.com forward slash Tim. That's magicspoon.com forward slash Tim. Take a look. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement, and the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics,

Starting point is 00:06:29 and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time.

Starting point is 00:07:12 What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Barris Show. Matthew, welcome to the show. Good to be here, Tim. How are you, sir? I'm doing very well, and I have just an embarrassment of riches in front of me in terms of notes that I would love to take some stab at covering even a portion of. And I thought we could begin with a little backstory for those people who know your work, but perhaps not your personal story. Let's paint a picture of your

Starting point is 00:07:51 parents. Now I was in preparation for this conversation, doing some homework, and I came across a quote of yours. Feel free to fact check this, of course, this is from the guardian, but it says, one of the great images I have of my father is on the phone with a cigarette at the airport on the payphone, always peddling. What was he peddling? Pipe. Pipe. What is that for those who don't know? Pipe and coupling. So he was in the oil business and to drill, you obviously need pipe and the couplings are what connect the pipe to drill for oil. So dad was in the pipe and coupling business and he would call it peddling pipe, peddling pipe, no G on peddling, peddling pipe. And that's what he did on the phone, eight to six. And then he'd hit the road and go make personal appearances, trying to

Starting point is 00:08:35 sell pipe. He started off as a truck driver, then owned a Texaco station down in Uvalde. We moved to Longview, Texas and the oil boom. And within like six months after being in Longview, dad had like 26 employees under him. That's how big of an oil boom it was. And then obviously that business fell through, I think at around 82. And he kind of held on from there. He was always a peddler. Always peddler. His line was great. He was always big and he never did it. He never went bankrupt. And that was a piece of honor for him not to go bankrupt. But he was always after the oil boom sort of busted. He was always like, boys, if I could just hit a lick, if I could just hit a lick. And he never did hit that lick. What is a big sale. A lick is a big account. A lick is, okay, Mr. Jim McConaughey, I want all my pipe from you and we're going to drill 200,000 feet, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it's a huge account. Oh my gosh, I'm going to supply all the pipe to this one large account. That would be a second here and i'd like to have conversation about or description maybe of mink oil i would like to could you can you tell us how how mink oil entered

Starting point is 00:09:54 your life please yeah i would not be here talking to you right now if it wasn't for the oil of mink. Yeah. I think it was about how old was I? 14, 15 years old, ninth grade, adolescence. My mom starts peddling again, peddling my whole family was peddling something. My mom starts peddling this oil of mink product door to door sales. Look here. You put this mink oil on your face and it brings out all the impurities that you have. And once those impurities all come out, you then have clear, glowing skin for the oil on your face. And it brings out all the impurities that you have. And once those impurities all come out, you then have clear glowing skin for the rest of your life. That was sort of the sales pitch, right? Well, I'm 15. I got a few pimples as any 15 year old does. And one night my mom goes, well, you should use this oil of mink. I'm like, great. Jeez,

Starting point is 00:10:40 you're going to let me do that? Sure. So I start putting this oil of mink on my face every night before I go to bed. And after about a week, I wake up and I've got more pimples than I had a week before. And I check in the mirror. I go to mom. I just know she goes, oh, that's exactly what it's supposed to do. Pull out all the impurities. Keep doing it.

Starting point is 00:11:00 Stick with it. Sure. And so I just religiously keep putting it on. Well, after two weeks, I seem to be running into a problem here. I've got a whole face full of pimples and it's getting pretty severe. And I go back to mom. She's like, oh, wow. Well, you've just got more impurities than I thought you'd have. Just keep doing it. We're going to keep bringing out those impurities. I keep it up. Three weeks go by and now I've got full blown acne. And I'm really concerned.

Starting point is 00:11:28 And my mom's just staying on with it. No, stick with it. All the impurities are coming out. Well, I sneak off to a dermatologist on my own. And this was not my mom's recommendation. I sneak out there on my own and I take a bottle of this mink oil. And I go, Doc, look at my face. He goes, what are you putting on your face? And I show him this bottle. He reads the label. He's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Starting point is 00:11:49 This is for someone that's like 40 year old or not a teenage child who's got oily pores. Anyway, this is blocking your pores. Your pores can't breathe. You are 10 days away from having ice pick holes in your face from the acne. We've got to get you off of this. Okay. He goes, we also have to get you on this stuff called Accutane. It's a year's worth of medicine. It will dry you up. There will have its complications, but it'll be better than the acne that you're going to have. So boom, I get on the Accutane, off the oil of mink. And around that time, my dad, who was always, as I said, peddling and looking how to hit a lick, looks at me and says, damn, boy, I think we got a lawsuit against this company. Damn, well, I mean, you're a good looking son. I mean, look at you.

Starting point is 00:12:36 You're all swole up. So he takes me to see his lawyer. I remember his lawyer's name was Jerry Harris. So I'm sitting down with my dad and his lawyer, Jerry Harris, and we think we've got a case. And he asked me like, you know, did your confidence lower, you know, with these pimples you've got, this acne? I'm like, well, yes, sir. I mean, are you doing as good with the girls? And I said, no, sir, not at all. His eyes light up. And I can tell that even at my age of 15 that he's building his case and he goes emotional distress

Starting point is 00:13:06 you were under emotion you are under emotional distress and i look at him and i'm like uh sure yeah emotional distress and jerry's gosh dog we can get 35 to 50 000 dollars off this emotional distress and go a long way jim and my dad's like hot damn that's it that's right 50 000 dollars that's way to go son and so dad's getting, hot damn, that's it. That's right. $50,000. Way to go, son. And so dad's getting all excited about this deal. We're going to make $50,000 off of my emotional distress, his youngest son. So anyway, meanwhile, I'm on Accutane. Accutane takes a year to get clear up and you get scaly, you dandruff and your knees hurt and you get slits in your mouth and everything else, but much better than this acne. And this Accutane starts clearing this acne up on my face. Well, as lawsuits go, you know, they drag on a while.

Starting point is 00:13:53 So come two years later, I'm back in Jerry Harris's law office sitting across the table from the from the defense attorney. And now my acne is cleared up. Okay. And this lawyer sits there and starts off the conversation with me and he goes, oh my gosh, it must've been so emotionally distressful. And I'm like, he's lobbing me a softball here. I'm going to knock this out of the park. Yes, sir. It was highly emotional, distressful. And he's like, I bet your confidence was down. I was like, he did it again. What's this guy doing? He's a horrible lawyer. He's teeing me up and just knock it out of the park again. I guess it was so emotionally stressful. My confidence was low.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Wasn't doing well with the girls. I mean, man, it was bad stuff, sir. And I'm sitting there thinking we've got this case. Well, this old boy gets his chest shivered out, grin on his face, reaches under the desk and pulls out this green yearbook. And it's got a page marked on it. And he puts it over in front of me, turns it around and opens it to a specific, that specific earmark page and points to a picture. Now, this was the 1988 yearbook for Longview High School, which now I was a senior. And mind you, this lawsuit started back when I was a sophomore. In this picture, my senior year, he points to it and said, who's that?

Starting point is 00:15:18 And there's a picture of Camisa Springs, really beautiful lady, girl, 18-year-old with a sash across her chest that says, most beautiful. Well, arm in arm with her and next to her is a young man named Matthew McConaughey with a sash across his chest that says, most handsome. As soon as I see that, I squint my eyes. I'm like, oh, we just lost the case. I look up at him. The boy smiles and he goes, so emotionally distressful. We had lost the case and it was over. And I remember my dad, him and hauled for four months. Gosh, damn you, boy.

Starting point is 00:15:59 I mean, we were going to win fifty thousand dollars and you got to go off and win most handsome. You screwed up the whole deal, man. Oil of mink. And the McConaughey's who chase litigations, but never quite win them. That was another way of my dad trying to hit a lick. And I screwed it up by winning most handsome. Was it true in your family? I read this, of course, you can't believe everything that you read. Two things. Number one, that your parents were divorced twice, married three times,

Starting point is 00:16:28 so they ended up getting up one more time, then they got knocked down. True. Number two, that saying I can't was forbidden or highly advised against. Very heavily, heavily, heavily. I remember cuss words. You could say shit and fuck and damn, and even occasionally maybe get away with the Lord's name in vain, but you weren't really, that was on the line. But the real words that we got either punished for or were forbidden were hate and can't. And I remember my dad, I remember one Saturday morning when I was about 12, my Saturday morning chores were mow the lawn, weed eat, shine his shoes and sweep the porches and get the cobwebs out of the corners. Well, I'd get up very early on a Saturday morning

Starting point is 00:17:17 to do that. So I could have my Saturday afternoon to play. And I went out to try and start our push lawnmower and it wouldn't start. Pull again, wouldn't start. Pull again, wouldn't start. Check the gas. Yeah, it's got gas. What the heck is going on? Damn it, it won't start. And I remember going into my dad inside and I go,

Starting point is 00:17:33 Dad, I can't get the lawnmower started. And he kind of slowly turned his head to me and I saw his molars meet and kind of start to grit his teeth. And he goes, you what? And I knew enough right then to not say the word again. And I said, I, I, I, I, I, and he got up and I didn't finish my sentence. He slowly walked with me out of his bedroom, through the kitchen, through the garage, around the back to the shed where this lawnmower was that I was not getting started. He, without saying a word,

Starting point is 00:18:05 he knelt down, looked at it, checked the gas. Anyway, he found the little tube where the gas was not transferring and it had been disconnected. So he reconnected that, pulled a few times, and it started. And there over a new, now running push lawnmower, he looked at me, put his hands on my shoulders. And for the first time since I said, I can't get it started. He put his hands on my shoulders, looked at me and very sternly said, he goes, you see Simon, you were just having trouble running this lawnmower. And boom, you know, and I remember from that day, I was that lesson was like, oh, even if you're unable to do something on your own, you can still go seek help or get assistance. So you're still only having trouble even if you on your own cannot do so.

Starting point is 00:18:53 That was a saying those words still to this day. If I let him slip, I kind of have to look over my shoulder like, oh, is that going to get me? So there are many different forms of influences. I'd like to ask you about one that is not your parents. It's not your siblings. It's a book that I've read you came across that had an impact in your life. And that is The Greatest Salesman in the World by Augment Dino. Could you explain for people listening why that book was impactful

Starting point is 00:19:27 or what impact it had? Yeah. So I've never been a big reader and growing up, didn't read much and never really liked even in school being told, Hey, you got to read this book. You got to read this. Just the fact of being told I had to read something in school or by someone else sort of made it feel like it wasn't mine. And I was not going to have a subjective view of it. And plus, I just don't really like being told what to do. But this came to me, this book, and I always say this, I didn't find it. It found me. And I'll tell you how and why. It was between my sophomore and junior year in college at University of Texas at Austin. Now, at this point, I was always on the track to become a lawyer. I was going to become that defense attorney. I was going to become that defense

Starting point is 00:20:12 attorney and get us some oil and make money. You know what I mean? Get the family some oil and make money. I was a good leader. I took good stances. It started off in the family. They're like, geez, man, I would take the table and win arguments with the family. And they'd be like, ah, damn it. You got to become a lawyer. You got to become the family lawyer. So that was always the plan. But between my sophomore and junior year in college, which is about the time when all those general liberal arts credits that you're getting need to start having some focus or you're going to lose them. You know what I mean? Right. So I start not sleeping well with the idea of becoming a lawyer,

Starting point is 00:20:47 but I'm doing the math. I'm like, I'm not sure it's what I want to do. I get out of here. I go to law school. Then I get out. Then I'd start maybe get an intern. I'm really not going to be rolling in my vocation until I'm in my thirties.

Starting point is 00:20:58 And I was like, do I want, I don't really want to spend my twenties just learning or some, my twenties just in school. Now I've been writing a lot. I've been keeping a lot of short stories in my diaries and a lot of them which are in this in this book green lights but i didn't have the confidence to think that maybe i wanted to get in the storytelling business until a good friend of mine rob bindler who i think at the time was nyu film school who i'd been sharing some of these short stories with you you know, one night on the phone goes, Hey,

Starting point is 00:21:26 you should think about, you know, getting in front or behind the camera. You know, you, you tell great stories. You got good character yourself. You know, you're a good writer to try this out. And I was always like, Oh no, no, no. I don't, I mean, that's, that's like too avant-garde. It's too European. It's the artsy. I can't do that. But he gave me the confidence to really consider it. Now, I go to my fraternity house, the Dell house, the end of that sophomore year, first sophomore exams. I'm a studier. I got a 3.82 GPA. I like making my A's. And any amount

Starting point is 00:22:03 of time I've got to study, I will use it every single minute. There's never enough time for me to study. I go to the Delt House and right behind it in a little bungalow is one of my Delt brothers. And I eat lunch and I sit on his couch and I've got three hours before my exam. And I open up my book, study for my psychology exam. For whatever reason, for the first time in my life, I shut them. And I go, McConaughey, to myself, I go, you got this. You don't need to study anymore. First time I'd done that. I got three hours to kill.

Starting point is 00:22:34 I then put on the TV. I love sports, ESPN. I'll watch cricket, the strongest man competition. I'll watch, you know, two grasshoppers race. For whatever reason, I just, I'm not interested. I turn off the TV. I look over to my left. There's a stack of magazines.

Starting point is 00:22:53 There's Sports Illustrated, some Playboys. And I'm like, geez, I like sports. I like checking out naked ladies in the Playboy. Let's check that out. I pick up a Playboy, flip their thumb through that, half-assedly, and all of a sudden lose interest in that. And I'm sitting there going, okay, what am I supposed to do here? I've got two and a half, about three hours to kill. Well, I start peeling back those magazines, Playboys and Sports Illustrated and everything else.

Starting point is 00:23:18 And about seven deep in that stack of magazines to the left of the couch where I was sitting, I see this white paperback with this beautiful red cursive writing on it. And it says the greatest salesman in the world. And I remember reaching for it and allowed to myself saying, who is that? And I pick up the book and I start reading it again. I'm not, I'm not a reader, but I start reading this book and all of a sudden I lose track of time and I've gotten past the whole prologue to the beginning of this first scroll in this book, which is I will form good habits and become their slave. Now, what this book had just told me, it had just taken me on a journey and said, you will read each scroll. There's 10 scrolls in this book.

Starting point is 00:24:02 Each scroll three times a day for 30 days until you move on to the next scroll. So it's basically a 10 month read. And I had gotten to the first scroll and had been now understood. I now understood that the greatest salesman in the world. Was whoever's going to read that book. So I was like, oh, that's me. He's talking to me. Well, bam, I look up. Oh, my exam's in 15 minutes. I got to go. I head out, go to my exam, my psychology exam. I ripped through that exam. I didn't care if I failed it. Something in this

Starting point is 00:24:37 book had told me, no, this book is what you need to be into right now. This book is going to give you confidence to go do what you need to do. I ripped through that psychology exam and immediately go, I'm going to film school. I'm calling dad tonight. I'm not going to go to law school anymore. I've got the confidence. This book found me. This is a seminal moment in my life. I don't know how or why, but it is. And I'm going to get the courage to call my dad and go. And that night, I remember thinking about it. I'm going to call my dad at 730. He'll have sat down, maybe had his first cocktail, already had dinner. And he'll be in a good mood for me to say, you know, dad, I want to go to film school.

Starting point is 00:25:12 I think. Well, I call him. 736 p.m. Hey, dad. Hey, what's up, son? Listen, I don't really. And I was nervous. And I said, I don't think I want to go to law school anymore.

Starting point is 00:25:23 I want to go to film school. That was hard for me to say because I thought he was going to go. You want to do what, boy? What the hell? I said, I don't want to go to film school. It was a long pause on the phone, about five seconds. And he says, are you sure that's what you want to do, son? And I said, yes, sir. There's another five second pause. Then he said. Three of the greatest words I've ever been told. Don't half ass it. I remember going, don't half ass it. And I remember my eyes just I lit up and I was like, oh, my gosh. One, my dad not only approved, he gave me a responsibility. He gave me freedom. He gave me more than a

Starting point is 00:26:05 privilege. He like sent me a flight and ending it with like, not only do I agree and say, that's okay, son. I'm saying, if you're going to do it, you better damn well go do it well and don't half-ass it. And I went down the next day, changed my course schedule. My GPA got me into film school because I had a 3.82. I didn't have any sort of art to show them. And I started off behind the camera and then ended up as I am now in front of the camera as well. But that book, that day, that book finding me and me feeling like it was my secret and it came to me and no one told me, here, you need to read this book. It'll be good for you. Hey, you're supposed to read this. This

Starting point is 00:26:42 is your, for school or even a recommendation. It was not rec, it found me. And I read that book every, I did exactly what it said, morning, noon and night. And I read, I've read it three times now that way. But the first time I didn't miss one reading of that. I mean, and I had many a day where I went out in the morning on a Saturday and my day of whimsy took me to a place where all of a sudden it was 10 o'clock at night and I was like an hour and a half from my house. And the book was back at my house. And I'd be like hanging out, partying and going like, oh, geez. And I would stop, eat something, get some coffee, drink a bunch of water, wait till whatever, 1.30 in the morning when I was time to drive, and I would drive back to my place, grab that book, and either read it and go to sleep in my bed or drive back to where I was hanging out with the book and read it. I didn't miss one single read for 10 straight months. And that book is

Starting point is 00:27:43 the most instrumental piece of literature and motivation I've ever read for me in my life. And now you've produced Greenlights, this book, which as you've described it, is not a traditional memoir or an advice book, but rather a playbook based on adventures in my life. I want to hop to a particular portion of this book, which is also a scrapbook of sorts. It's very multimedia in that respect, even though it's in 2D in book format. I want to ask you about a note, and this will segue into the practice of writing, since you've kept a diary for somewhere between 35, 40 years at this point, I believe. There's a note towards the end of Greenlights from 9-1-92. So 10 goals in life. This blew my mind. So I want to read these 10, and then I want you to kind of place us in your life when you wrote these 10. And then I want to

Starting point is 00:28:43 zoom in on a few of them, but let me just read these 10 first. So 10 goals in life. This is in 1992. One, become a father. Two, find and keep the woman for me. Three, keep my relationship with God. Four, chase my best self. Five, be an egotistical utilitarian. That's going to be my first follow-up question. Six, take more risks. Seven, stay close to mom and family. Eight, win an Oscar for best actor. Nine, look back and enjoy the view. Ten, just keep living. Where were you and when were you when you wrote these 10 goals? I was in a top bunk in the Delta Delta house.

Starting point is 00:29:27 I believe my roommate was Monty Wills. I'm still friends with today from Montgomery, Alabama. I was in the top bunk. I think I just probably, it was the end. It was the end of the night. It was about nine 30. I was just getting nestled in for, for a good night's sleep. So I just started.

Starting point is 00:29:42 What was the date? 93. What was the month in the month in the day? That was September 1st, 1992. First. OK, yes. So I just done. I just finished days confused.

Starting point is 00:29:55 That's right. Yes. Two days, two days after finishing. Yeah, I just finished it. A job, a summer hobby, a thing that there were three lines written in a script that I got cast in because I went to the right bar at the right time, met the right guy, read for it. Richard Linkletter said, come on, and started throwing me in scenes. So three lines turned into three weeks work. I loved it. It was getting paid $320 a day. People were telling me I was good at it. And I was running around going like, is this legal? It's so fun. And I finish it. My father had just passed away like two weeks

Starting point is 00:30:31 earlier. Yeah. August 17th of that year. So I just finished a job that was a hobby that now that became a career. I had just finished that. Think about it. If you do the math, I didn't think about it till now. I just finished that Ogma and Dino, 10 months of reading that book. Wow. My father had just passed away. I was just going through what that meant to me and what that, what I felt like that should mean to me.

Starting point is 00:30:56 And that's where the just keep living comes from to keep his spirit alive, even though he's physically not here, keep things alive that he taught me to keep me incentivized throughout my life, even though I couldn't rely on him personally being me to keep me incentivized throughout my life, even though I couldn't rely on him personally being here to back me up with him. And so I remember writing those goals down. And the thing is that when you start off this conversation going, I don't know what your adjective or adverb was about it, but I found that just less than a year ago in my diaries. And I'd never looked at it or remembered that I had

Starting point is 00:31:27 written it since the day I did. That date on that list, I never looked at that list again. I wrote it that night and forgot about it, or at least I thought I forgot about it. I didn't. And that's the wild part because somewhere subconsciously, I obviously did remember it because so far I've accomplished those goals. And there's some very specific ones on there that I'm like, what? You know, I always thought even the acting part, win an Oscar for best actor. This is a time I just finished days confused. I didn't know I was going to end up being an actor. I still thought I didn't have the courage to even think I could pursue it as a career. At that time, I thought

Starting point is 00:32:07 it might just be a hobby. I had a hobby for a summer. But obviously, when I look back, I'm like, oh, you did want to be. You did want to be an actor and you wanted to be a damn good one. So I could admit it on my journal page, but I couldn't admit it to myself. Hell, I couldn't even admit it in my dreams, but I could admit it on my journal pages. So that's where I was. Those are three big things going on in my life. And I'd say the biggest shapeshifter was father moving on. But that, with finishing dazed and with finishing the greatest salesman, that's when I wrote that. That's quite a Venn diagram as far as a snapshot in time goes with those three momentous changes, those transitions. If we zoom in on number five, be an egotistical utilitarian.

Starting point is 00:32:55 Do you recall what you meant when you wrote that? A hundred percent. I'd written a, I later that next year, maybe it was my junior year. I wrote a law of paper, an essay. John Wayne goes West, maybe it was my junior year. I wrote a law paper, an essay. John Wayne goes west, the egotistical utilitarian. And I guess it was me writing a story about a fictional character that I guess was based on me going west to Hollywood. But the egotistical utilitarian was always like, boy, that's it. That's what the real prophets are.

Starting point is 00:33:24 That's what Jesus was up to making decisions. That's that's the honey hole of when we are really can succeed or have satisfaction or live life the most truest, where the decisions we make for the eye, for ourselves, the selfish decisions. Are actually what's best for the most amount of people, utilitarian, are the I where the I meets the we, where the selfish is the self less, where what I need is what I want. And what I want is the ego. What I need is the utilitarian. What I want is freedom. What I need is the responsibility and the interplay of those things. What I is the ego and utilitarian is the objective utilitarian we. That I was already starting to work in a lot of that. These thematics are through the book because they're inherently how I see life and

Starting point is 00:34:18 have for a long time. But that was I was like, oh, that's the ultimate human, the egotistical utilitarian, where the decision one makes for themselves most selfishly happen to be the most selfless decisions as well at the same time and where those two overlap and are one that's the ultimate human that was a pursuit that was my belief that and why take more risks we might come back to egotistical utilitarianism why take more risks did you feel like at the time you weren't taking enough risks? Was it something you had learned about risks from your parents or other people? Why take more risks? the risk to in the bar at the top of the high at that night to go down and introduce myself to Don Phillips, who ended up being a casting director for days confused who four hours later at

Starting point is 00:35:10 the end of the night, after we got kicked out of the bar, says, Hey, you ever done any acting? You might be right for this part. Taking that risk, the, the, the risk to go and read for that part, the risk for Richard Linklater to say, there's nothing, you're not supposed to be in this scene. You're not written in this scene, but you think Wooderson would be in it? The risk for me to go, oh yeah, and just hop in the middle of the scene and improvise and play. Those risks were paying off. I was also beginning to feel the risk that I took reading that damn book, The Greatest Salesman. It was the first book I ever read cover to cover.

Starting point is 00:35:46 And it's a thin paperback. Mind you, it takes 10 months to read, but that was a risk for me. And I was feeling very confident with who I was. I was also thrown upside down by my dad moving on. Now, I don't know if you've lost a parent, but as a son losing a dad, you want to talk about forced into identity? You know, my dad being this sort of crutch just because he was alive and above government and above law was now gone. I had no crutch. I had no safety net. All of a sudden, I remember this very clearly is coming to me. And besides the just keep living with keeping his spirit alive. I remember one of the first lessons of him moving on was I was, and I carved this in a tree.

Starting point is 00:36:29 I remember carving this deeply in a tree for about three hours one night. Less impressed, more involved. And that leans into taking more risk. Because I was like, after dad moved on, I was like, oh, all of these mortal things in life that I have a reverence for, even this point of just finishing acting and maybe having dreams of fame. Wow. All these things that I revered that were mortal, lower down to eye level. And at the same time, everything that I noticed that I was condescending or looking down upon or snubbing my nose at or going, oh, that's crap or, oh, they're no good. I was like, they raised up to eye level. And I remember going, oh, the world is flat.

Starting point is 00:37:20 Your dad's moved on. You better look the world in the eye. And by seeing the world flat, I saw further. I saw wider. I saw more clearly. I had more courage. I lost reverence for the mortal things that I had reverence for. I still respected them, but I lost reverence for them. So that gave me courage. And I lost this sort of a snub nose look at things that I thought were beneath me. And I empowered them and they raised up to eye level. So all of a sudden, you know, that was a version where the eye met the we for me. That was a version where what I looked up to maybe too much met what I was looking down on. And it was right in front of me. And that was how I was also taking more risk. I lost a lot of fear. I still had fear, but I gained a lot of courage to go meet my fears. And I didn't give enough credence to things that I probably shouldn't fear or have too much

Starting point is 00:38:11 reverence for because they were mortal. And I was like, well, what's that? That's reverence for fame or not taking a chance to go get what you want. That's a mortal fear. That's like putting a limit on yourself. Why would you do that? I even called it a sin at that time not to take certain risks and would feel guilty if I didn't and feel like I didn't do my due diligence. I didn't meet my quote that day in God's eyes. sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. Did you know if you missed 10 of the best performing days after the 2008 crisis, you would have missed out on 50%, 5-0% of your returns. Don't miss out on the best days in the market. Stay invested in a long-term automated investment portfolio. Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as robo-advising, and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. Wealthfront can help you

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Starting point is 00:40:14 Why did you start using a diary or what has that helped you to do or given you over your decades of doing it? Because I've spoken to many people on this podcast who journal. Often they have different forms of journaling, including a name we talked about very briefly before recording, Josh Waitzkin. Very different approaches, very different reasons. What is it that you've gotten from having a diary? And maybe it's changed over time. Yeah, it's evolved. I mean, my diary started off like I think most people's diaries do. You write things down when you're not in a good place or you're lost. And my early diary entries were the why, what, where, when, hows, the existential questions of what is going on? Does it matter who am I? Oh my God, this shit. So my girlfriend broke up with me. I lost it. Started off with that. So I noticed that I started writing down when I was in times of distress or disillusion.

Starting point is 00:41:05 And then I started to say, well, wait a minute. You got it just like that Augmentino book by hook or by crook. You read it three times a day. I was like, well, we're going to write my diary every day, McConaughey. And so when do I when do when do most of us, including me, not write in our diary? When things are going great. Oh, I got it figured out. I don't need to take time to go be introspective and write down my thoughts. Everything's a green light. It's great.

Starting point is 00:41:34 Well, no, I said, hang on a second. We're going to spend our life. A diary, the original use of a diary is to dissect failure or disillusion. I think there's some prudence and let's dissect success. Let's dissect what's going on when things are going well. Let's write in this diary when you feel like everything's clear and you feel strong and confident and significant and you feel like yourself. So I started writing in my diary when things were going well and then started to map out certain things about

Starting point is 00:42:05 found that what that did is when I would get in a proverbial rut later, I could go back to that diary and look at what was I writing and what was I doing when I felt like everything was lickety split and I had it, everything handled. And I found consistencies. I found it from what I was eating to who I was hanging out with, how much sleep I was getting to beauties in the world that I was noticing and really were affecting me, how I approach people, how I was approaching the day, how I was approaching conflict, how I was approaching and taking in things that work, success. And I found consistencies. So sometimes going back in those diaries, reading what I was writing when things were going well would help get me out of a rut later on in life when I wasn't doing so well.

Starting point is 00:42:49 And I remember this early on in college. It's a reason that my buddy, as I mentioned earlier, Rob Billner said, you should go into storytelling business. As I was writing short stories, but I was also writing things down, idiosyncrasies of myself. I was really trying to get to know myself. I would always, when I'd be in a movie theater, I always laughed. I thought the funniest jokes, I'd laugh. I'd be the only one laughing in the theater. And I'd never thought the stuff that everybody laughed at was funny. The collective laugh, I never even giggled at. I was like, I don't know, it wasn't very funny, but I'd laugh. And no one else would laugh. I was like, no one else thinks that's funny? I'd say that in the theater.

Starting point is 00:43:26 I found that I cried at things that other people didn't cry at. Like I've never really cried at death. I weep at birth. Beginnings always have made me cry more than proverbial ends. So I started writing these things down. And at first was feeling like, are you weird? I'm kind of, hey, is this odd? Is this okay?

Starting point is 00:43:46 Can you be this kind of a person? And got the confidence to go, yes, you can. It's okay. But let's write down those things. Let's write down what makes you laugh, what makes you happiest, what makes you sad, what makes you angry. And don't worry if it's the collective choice of the majority. Just what does it mean to you? And write those things down.

Starting point is 00:44:12 And so that led to character, I believe. It led to my own character. It led to me being able to maybe go play different characters to understand and empathize with different people and how different people have different things that turn them on and turn them off at different times. Why green lights? What is the concept or the intent behind using that word? What does it represent for you? Well, one, it's just a pretty cool title. You know, I mean, I went through the very earnest, but not very good student independent films of a freshman or sophomore student like I was, you know, where you're trying to work out something as extensional or you want to sound really cool. Like, you know, I went through forced winters, you know what I mean? Because I have in the book what I would call a lot of forced winters. Mind you, I call this COVID time we're in right now a forced winter. I had, you know, my most creative times came in my forced winters mind you i call this cove and time we're in right now a forced winter um i had a you know my most creative times came in my forced winters of life my year in australia abroad on

Starting point is 00:45:10 my own but forced winter is kind of a double negative i mean who wants to go open a book called forced winners you know what i mean so much more affirmative and and and i love verbs i love words that that are verbs verb is the holy word as as I'm sure you know, and that it has affirmation. It's alive. And so green lights, I noticed, became a theme to the book because the metaphor of the yellow and things that were definite red lights in my life, hard times, yellow lights in my life, interruptions, interventions, things that stopped my flow and got in my way, that at some point, either sometimes immediately or decades down the line, revealed their green light assets in my life. I would argue my dad's passing was a green light. Now, his dying was a literal red light. But as I mentioned earlier, I would not be the man I am

Starting point is 00:46:16 right now if he did not move on. I would have stayed lazy. I would have stayed more impressed and less involved. I would have not put myself to task and held myself and called myself to arms to man up and be more honest with myself and look at the world more honestly and have more courage if he had not passed on, because I would have had him as a crutch. I would have had this sort of subconscious reliance that, oh, if I really get in a bind, I still got that. I still got pop. He's my safety net. So his passing revealed green lights for me. So green lights became a theme and it became, I noticed that sometimes it's about persisting through something, enduring something. Other times it's about pivoting. Wait a

Starting point is 00:46:57 minute. I'm banging my head on the wall here. I'm basically living out the definition of insanity, trying to change something the same way over and over again. It's not changing. So I need to re-approach this. I need to back up and maybe dance around the situation, dance around the problem to get what I want. And then other times I notice it's just you raise the white flag and go, you know what? I'm fighting for the wrong thing here. This is going against my grain. This is not really what I want and need. So I'm going to live to fight another day and go find something else to challenge to overcome. And so in those are methods in which I've been able to find green lights. Sometimes I've gotten green lights. I think we all do by just sheer straight ass denial.

Starting point is 00:47:37 I mean, I write that line in that great lesson. It's wisdom. I heard from a very old man one time. You know, I've had many crises. I've had thousands of crises in my life. Hell, most of them never happened. I mean, that's partially you can get through by just denying that there is a crisis. Not being foolish with it, but some things I've just said, like, I'm not even going to give that crisis credit. Therefore, it doesn't exist. That dart can't stick to me if you throw it at me, if I don't even give credit that it's a dart. You know what I mean? So that's the green lights. I mean, ultimately, I believe that in the

Starting point is 00:48:14 rear view mirror of our life, every red and yellow light will turn green. And that may not even be in this life, Tim. I think a lot of people, it happens for people in this life tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, 10 years from now on our deathbed. But I, if it doesn't happen then, I think it can happen in the next life for our kids or for our kids' kids, our grandkids. It's a lesson maybe realized three, five, 10 generations from now, it may become a green light for some hardship that we go through in this life now. Well, there are a million directions we can go. I have eight options.

Starting point is 00:48:55 That'll make sense. That's my favorite. Yeah, well, that would make sense as soon as you hear where I'm going with it. So there are a number of themes that emerge in this book, which I take to be, as you've mentioned, a playbook of sorts and helping you to either change your reality or change how you see that reality in the service of engineering or recognizing green lights of different types. And the eight themes that I've written down here, I'm going to let you take dealer's choice on. So I'd like to pick one and explore. So one, outlaw logic.

Starting point is 00:49:34 Two, find your frequency. Three, dirt roads and autobahns. Four, I like the sound of this one, the art of running downhill. Five, turn the page. Six, the arrow doesn't seek the target, the target seeks the arrow. Seven, be brave, turn the page. Six, the arrow doesn't seek the target. The target seeks the arrow. Seven, be brave, comma, take the hill. Eight, live your legacy now. Where should we go

Starting point is 00:49:51 first? Good, sir. Oh, geez. These are fun. Look, let's start. I want to get to Art of Running Downhill because that one I know tickled you. So maybe we should just, we can start with that one and we should maybe hit Dirt Roads as well. Dirt roads and autobahns. Let's do dirt roads and autobahns real quick. Just because it's, it's a simple, it's a simple flip on the, I think it's Robert Frost. You know,

Starting point is 00:50:12 the road less taken has made all the difference. Yeah. Is that Robert Frost? You know, I'm sure that my listeners or my team will tell us. If it's not, forgive the malaprop, but you know,

Starting point is 00:50:22 the quote, the road less traveled, the road less travel the road less travel has made all the difference right well that always has been like take the dirt road don't go where the majority goes you know and i remember in film school i was the frat boy button down shirt jeans and boots handshaker non-cynical, love the sunshine. And I was in a class with a bunch of all the filmmakers. It was the gothic group.

Starting point is 00:50:51 They all wore black T-shirts. They stayed in the shadows. They wore their shades. They kind of huddled in the back. I remember one of our classes was one of the things was, hey, everyone go see a movie this weekend. Come back Monday, talk about your movie. I'd come back and talk about, you know, Die Hard. And as soon as I started talking about what I liked about it,

Starting point is 00:51:12 they'd be like, ah, that's tough shit, man. That's corporate sellout crap. And I'd be like, oh, geez. And I remember they'd all gone to the Eisenstein revival that weekend and would talk about that. And I remember being really intimidated going like, wow, they're artists. I'm not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta untuck my shirt here a little bit. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta quit going outside. I gotta not appreciate the sunshine. I gotta, I gotta quit singing out loud. I got to get more Hamletian here.

Starting point is 00:51:48 You know, and just as I was going through that mental meditation on myself, I remember coming back again another week after a weekend of seeing the movies. And I had gone to the multiplex again and seen a popular movie and brought it up. And, of course, the catcalls from all the other filmmakers in the class, all in black, huddled up, sort of going, ah, that's corporate shit. Nobody sees that. That's a sellout. And I remember instead of backing down this time, I went, wait a minute. Did you see?

Starting point is 00:52:15 How do you know it's corporate shit? How do you know it is? What makes you say that? And they all stopped and kind of started looking at each other and started stuttering. And then finally one of them goes well i mean we didn't see it i mean we don't know but i mean we just you know and i went ah fuck you man i said after this time i thought y'all been seeing it and you've got this but

Starting point is 00:52:38 you haven't even gone to see it so that was where it hit me i I was like, oh, there I was thinking that the road less taken. You know, sometimes a dirt road, my dirt road was the Autobahn of the multiplex. You know, their dirt road, you know, would have been the same. They needed to go see a popular studio movie before just calling it off as nothing. Sometimes, you know, if there were two, and I've had it in my life, someone say someone's an agoraphobic,

Starting point is 00:53:14 their dirt road is getting out. You know, someone who's a bit of a hermit or socially uncomfortable, their dirt road is being an extrovert. Go out, engage, practice it. So it's a flip on that, that sometimes it's, you know, the road less taken can be a dirt road. Yes. Many times the path less taken and other times for some people, some of us in our times in our life, it's an auto bond. And sometimes, you know, I've used to be so extroverted, I never would spend time with myself reading a book or doing introspection.

Starting point is 00:53:49 Well, that was a dirt road for me to take some introspective. Now, shoot, sometimes I love being introspective so much. I like being in my dark room writing more than I like engaging with people. Well, my dirt road sometimes now is like, put the pen down, McConaughey. Get your ass out in the world and go engage in the daylight and get out there. So it changes for us. And sometimes the dirt road, sometimes it's an Autobahn. And it is Robert Frost.

Starting point is 00:54:12 I can confirm. Ah, thank you, Robert. Yeah. The other one that tickled you on the way down is the art of running downhill. Now, may I actually ask a follow-up to the dirt roads and Autobahn? So it seems like, if I'm hearing you correctly and understanding, that it is a proactive approach to facing the discomforts that you may have or the hesitation that you may need to face, at least in part, it seems like that is part of the lesson. And the person who introduced us, Ryan Holiday, had encouraged me to ask you about Stoicism, which seems to, in some respect,

Starting point is 00:54:53 tie into that since many Stoics, at least historically, those people we've read about would take periods of time to do the things that would lead them to discomfort. Do you have any, just as a side avenue here, do you have any perspectives on stoicism? I mean, I think I do, but I'm probably going to botch this up because I don't exactly know the vernacular of the Stoics near as well as you and Ryan do.

Starting point is 00:55:16 I will say this, you know, his other book, Obstacles, is the way, and I touch on this in my book a lot in my own way. Look, the need for resistance, the need to choose the right harder challenge, the need to choose the harder decision for the right reasons, the need to choose the obstacles for which to overcome, or at least attempt to overcome, is very, very wise engagement. The need, as I talk about in my book quite a few times, to get away and go off on your own and be stuck with yourself, even if it's the worst

Starting point is 00:55:53 fucking company you've ever had. That is a good thing to do. There is a good, valuable penance. There are green lights in that, forcing yourself into the red light of being stuck with the only person you can't get rid of, even though you hate him. And yes, I use that word. And I've had those times and in those times of groveling and discomfort. And I can't sleep and I'm throwing up and I can't get the monkeys off my back and I got the guilt. And oh, my God, I'm lost. But I've got nowhere to go. I got no one to reach out to. I don't have a phone. I don't have a car. I ain't got a friend. Well, going through that, those sleepless nights and going, when is this going to end? And going through, well, all right, McConaughey, what are we going to forgive? And what are we going to say? Enough's a fucking enough. And we're changing that in our lives. And let's shake hands on this because you're the only son of a bitch I can't get

Starting point is 00:56:49 rid of. If you don't mind, I want to take it, and this is just the nature of my perhaps unfocused, perhaps nonlinear mind. We're going to come back to the art of running downhill. I will not forget, but you were talking about paying the penance of spending time with yourself, the red light of solitude that can create green lights. Why did you write this book, as I understand it, or you went away to the desert by yourself for 52 days without electricity? Is this true? The first 12 days were no electricity. The other 40 were limited electricity in places, but it was five different trips I took to solitary confinement each time. So I spread them out. I had to come home and take care of some honeydews and check in with the family, make sure everything was running good

Starting point is 00:57:39 at the homestead before my wife sent me off again and said, get out of here and don't come back until you got something. So solitude seems to be also a through line, at least a practice of sorts. Yeah. Any other commentary on solitude and in those moments when you were spending time with yourself, which I guess is all the time, but I want to know, do you have in your inner monologue a difference between when you say your last name to yourself and your first name? Or do you ever use your first name when you're talking to yourself? I know. You know what?

Starting point is 00:58:12 Good question. Well, let me tell you what the best thing for Mike Tyson in the future is what Mike Tyson wants to say. I've thought about that. It's a fun thing to talk about to yourself in the third person. But when you're in a Socratic dialogue, you got to give your other self a name. And I guess I'll call myself McConaughey.

Starting point is 00:58:35 And, you know, these dialogues, let's talk about those. You know, that old adage, oh, don't talk to yourself. What? Bullshit. Do talk to yourself. What I think we need to remember to do is when we're asking ourselves these questions, just make sure we answer. If all we're doing is asking ourselves questions, but never coming up with an answer,

Starting point is 00:58:58 well, that can lead to some very imbalanced insanity at times. That's a really, really important point. I just want to pause to let that sink in for people. So please continue. But that is so, so important. Just looking back at my depressive periods that I've experienced, it's when I'm asking a lot of questions and not actually taking the time to sit down and write down the answers or think about answers.

Starting point is 00:59:20 Yeah. Or force yourself to remain in the discomfort of the questions instead of going, I give. Where's the bottle? Or where's some attention? Or where's something, some entertainment? Where's the TV? You know what I mean? So I can get my mind off of it. Don't abort the situation. Don't abort the times when we got the questions. Now, mind you, you know, I've had to, you know, in some of those times when I'm going off and I know it's going to be a we're going to I'm going to don't know how long it was going to be a wrestling match with the me and the me. So, and I've checked the floor before I go. It's nice when you go off to do these things to go, let's check the floor, make sure there's no broken glass where let's remove the sharp objects.

Starting point is 01:00:19 Because this is going to get four dimensional. And, you know, so, but to stick in there with it and to go through the withdrawal of the not knowing to go through the draw of the questions. And I don't mean withdrawal from a from a substance. Go through withdrawal of not getting along with yourself is, I mean, a great thing to do. And it's hard for a reason. But again, that goes back to what you said. It stay there till you answer it. Wait till you get an answer. Wait till you either figure out what you're forgiving and figure out what you're going to, what you've had enough of, what you're like, no, no, I'm not putting up with that part of myself anymore. We're not going to keep being a repeat, repeat offender on that. McConaughey or

Starting point is 01:01:00 Tim, you know what I mean? And we're going to change that. And then all of a sudden there comes some grace. You come out the other side and like, oh, okay, now I'm stuck with my buddy, the one I can't get rid of. If we're going to do this, at least we shook hands and you're not perfect, but we're moving forward and we've evolved a little bit because of this time that we forced to spend with ourselves. But yeah, to answer those or stick with it or, you know, to evolve the conversation from where it was when you first went into solitude, at least, you know. So I'm a fan of people talking to themselves and say, remember to answer yourself, you know. Don't just have it one way. It's not a Socratic dialogue unless you can respond.

Starting point is 01:01:45 The art of running downhill. What is the art of running downhill? Okay. So I get successful. I got major fame very quickly after A Time to Kill came out the film i did in 96 and i mean from the friday friday afternoon before it came out to the monday after the weekend it came out my whole world was inverted the world all of a sudden was one big mirror i never meet strangers since that day it was inverted i mean that fr Friday afternoon before Time to Kill comes

Starting point is 01:02:25 out, there's a hundred scripts out there. I want to do all of them. Are you kidding me? I'll do any of them. Well, 99, no, you can't. One of them, yes, you can. Well, no matter two days after that film opened that weekend and did well, that hundred scripts, it was yes, you can do 99, one no. So I was like, whoa, two days ago, I would have done any of these and could only do one. And now it's only two days later, but you're telling me I can do 99 of them. Help me, discernment, discrimination.

Starting point is 01:03:00 Can I make a choice? Who am I? Geez, what do I want to do? There's only 24 hours in the day. This is the last I checked. I need more. So I was a little, you know, imbalanced, overwhelmed, didn't have my feet, my soul on the ground. And there were times that, and also remember that same lawyer I talked about in the Oil and Mink story, Jerry Harris. I remember him telling me, he reached out, I hadn't talked to him for years. He reached out and he goes,

Starting point is 01:03:24 hey, Matthew, you're from a small town, Uvalde, Texas. You came in through Longview, Texas. Now you went out there, now you're a famous Hollywood star and you got all these things. He goes, make sure you don't suffer too much from the non-deserving complex. That happens with some people that get real successful from sort of humble beginnings. And it made a lot of sense to me because I was noticing that in the name of obstacles being the way, I was creating obstacles for myself, some of them very unnecessary, meaning here's my life. I'm successful. I'm rolling. I am catching green lights, I am going, I'm rolling downhill. I very less than gracefully handled some of my success. I would become belligerent at times. I didn't become belligerent trying to, you know,

Starting point is 01:04:13 at the end of the day, I always say this, don't, you know, it's okay to have a point to prove. Just don't always be trying to prove a point. Well, I had many times where I would try to prove a point, you know what I mean? And it was my own insecurity. It was my own self trying to find some balance in this. It was me. I was seeing the mendacities of all these people in Hollywood all of a sudden saying, I love you. And I'm like, man, I've said that to four people in my life. And everyone says it out here. They're full of shit. I was taking things personally even and sort of sabotaging some of the red carpet wine and caviar that was being handed to me. You know what I mean? And I was slipping to some of my more banal self at times and doing a proverbial face plant, meaning I'm running downhill. And since this is all easy street, I need resistance. So I think I'm going to trip myself and faceplant and break my right into the

Starting point is 01:05:11 concrete so I can break my nose so I can be like, ah, there I go. Now I'm earning it. Now I feel it. Now I've earned it. Now I deserve it. Well, that can be a little foolish. There's an art to going downhill. And so what I noticed was, oh, hard times are going to come. It's going to get dry. You're not going to be able to do whatever script you want to do. I've had hard times or in a relationship we go through. It doesn't go well or someone gets sick in the family. A real uphill battle enters our life. And so the art of running downhill is about, hey, enjoy it.

Starting point is 01:05:51 When you're going downwind downhill, don't trip yourself because that uphill is coming. It's going to come whether you want it to or not. So don't trip yourself and face plant right now because you're going to have to work your ass off here very shortly anyway. Let's talk about perhaps an uphill, perhaps a pause, perhaps something else, which I'd love for you to comment on, which did come later. And that was a decision, which I'd love to explore, to say no to quite a lot of opportunities for a period of time. It seems like at one point, you're very successful. You became very famous, like you said, practically overnight. You're being offered opportunities you couldn't have imagined a week prior. And you have a string of successes. And then you realize, well, wait a minute here, I might be getting painted into a corner and you start to say no. You start to turn down, say, action film opportunities with big paychecks, things like that. Was that hard to do? Did other

Starting point is 01:06:57 people say that you were doing the right thing and encourage you? Could you walk us through and just tell a story about that experience? Yeah, I'd love to. So this is around, I don't remember the year. I'm guessing it's around 12, 13 years ago. I was rolling with the romantic comedies. I had taken the baton from Hugh Grant and was the male lead rom-com go-to guy. Rom-coms are mid-level budgets, 30, 35 million. They offer a good front-end paycheck to me. They go make $60 million. I mean, the studios don't have to overspend and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make them. You get a good female and a male lead that have good chemistry. People love to go escape to them. My rom-coms are doing well. They were my bank. They were what Hollywood banked on me to be in. At the same time, I'm living in Malibu, learned to surf, got my shirt off. And the pop right to your Discovery Channel is like, I'm just documenting this. And I'm like, you're damn right, document it. This is the life I'm living. I love it. I worked and earned to get this life. And those romantic comedies that I

Starting point is 01:07:58 get paid so handsomely for actually pay the rent at the house on the beach that I live in, in front of this water that I'm surfing in. So I was full on shaking hands with going, yes. At the same time, I did notice that any other dramas I wanted to do, or even the way people sort of, when I said don't meet strangers anymore, even the way this sort of people thought of me or approached me or talked to me or about me, there was no consideration. It was like, you know, I kind of used this shirt as a rom-com guy. And I was like, yeah, I am.

Starting point is 01:08:33 And I'm, but only I could answer that second question of, and I'm, only I could continue that sentence. No one else could. They were like, Hollywood, for sure. It was like, no, nothing else. And so any dramas I wanted to do or other pictures, no one wanted to make them with me. And I remember we had just had Levi. Camilla and I just had our first son. And my life was so vital. Man, I just had a newborn. I've met the woman that I love and want to spend the rest of my life with. I'm laughing harder. I'm crying harder. I'm happier than ever. Life is very

Starting point is 01:09:14 vital and I'm in it. My real life is. But my work feels like, yeah, I could do that tomorrow morning. Just give me the script tonight. Let me look at it. I could do it tomorrow morning. It wasn't really challenging me. And the rom-coms weren't challenging me. And my lifestyle was one big green light. And, you know, too many, if it's all green lights, if it's all sugar and candy, well, that'll make Tyrant out of anybody. So I was saying, oh, I really want my, I wish my work could, I remember saying this, at least, I remember looking in the mirror, actually actually and going, okay, McConaughey, so if your life is more vital and true to who you are than your work, well, it's got to be one or the other. That's a good thing because I know a lot of people that their work is more vital than their life. So I said, that's a good thing. Could I just get some work that might challenge the vitality of my life and the man I am in it, where I can get some work, where I can be more me in it?

Starting point is 01:10:11 Well, those roles were not being offered to me. Nothing. Nope, not a chance. No studio will bank you in this drama role or this other role you want. I had control of Dallas Buyers Club at that time, but no one wanted to make it for me, nor did anyone finance it. So I decided that if I couldn't do what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was not being offered to me, it would be prudent for me to just stop doing what I had been doing and what was in the pipeline continually coming to me, which were the romantic comedies. I called my money manager, said, all right, look, I'm going to stop doing the only

Starting point is 01:10:45 work I'm getting offered. And I don't know how long it's going to be till I work again. How am I doing with my money? He says, you've invested well, conservatively, you're fine. You can take time off. I remember calling my agent, Jim Toth at CAA. Jim, I don't want to do romantic comedies anymore. I remember this conversation. He goes, great. And I go, wait, what do you mean great? He goes, great. And I go, how do you say that so quick? What are you going to say Monday morning when you go into your superiors in the office and say, McConaughey's not doing romantic comedies and McConaughey has been bringing a nice chunk of 10% commission into you guys with these romantic comedies for years now. And he said the coolest thing to me, he goes, I don't work for them.

Starting point is 01:11:20 I work for you. That's a good line. The line. Right. So and then it was I went to Camilla, my wife, and I'd been, you know, I'd shed quite a few tears with her going through this. You know, am I feeling fraudulent in my work? Do I feel a lack of significance in my work? Do I feel like, you know, is it okay to be feeling, you know, this? I mean, like I said, remember, as we said earlier, I'm kind of going running downhill. Why would you sabotage not doing the work you're getting offered when you can get paid so handsomely to do it? But she understood that my soul was shaken and needed some recalibration and that the work I was doing wasn't a true sort of expression of who I was in my life. And I told her, I said, well, I want to hold out for some work that can challenge the vitality of

Starting point is 01:12:11 the life that I'm living with you and our son Levi. And she repeated the lines to me. She goes, okay, you're going to get wobbly. I've been around you. You got to work, Matthew, and you love to accomplish. You're going to get wobbly. You might start reaching for a little sip of something to drink earlier in the day too. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. She's like, she goes, days are going to be longer. We don't know how long this will last, how long we'll be in this. She called it a desert. How long this will be a desert? She goes, but if we're going to do this, if you're going to do this. We're not going to half ass it. She repeated my dad's line to me and I went, yes, ma'am, gave her a hug, put some tears on her shoulder. And we said, starting today, no more rom-coms.

Starting point is 01:12:55 Well, rom-com offers came in to my agent for about the next six months, but nothing but rom-com offers. And I didn't even unless it was a major offer, I just said no. And they just stopped at my agent's desk, Jim Toth, no. And then one of them came through that was like a gargantuan offer for it. And my agent said, it's a pretty damn good script too. And so I said, we'll send it out. Let me read it. And I remember this. The offer was like for. Eight million dollars and the script is pretty good, but it was still a sort of a romcom. And I remember reading it and going. No, thank you. I remember feeling sort of emboldened and strengthened by saying, no, thank you. Great. Sticking to my guns. No rom-coms. Six months into this drought.

Starting point is 01:13:45 Nope. Not caving in now. Don't have fast at McConaughey. So they come back with a $10 million offer. No, thank you. They come back with a $12.5 million offer. Now I go dot, dot, dot, ellipsis, ellipsis. No, thank you. Now they come back with a $15 million offer. Wow. You know what? Let me have another reread of that script. And I reread that script. And you know what?

Starting point is 01:14:18 At $15 million, the same script that I've been offered for $8 million, the $15 million offer script, which was the same exact words as the $8 million offer script. The $15 million script was better. It was funnier. It had possibilities. It had angles. I had ideas.

Starting point is 01:14:37 I could make this work. You know, I mean, this could work. Now, I'm imagining at this point, Jim is like is like man this say no thing is really working out he's in and he's over there teetering like i know what we said you know but 50 million dollars and it's not like it's a pretty good script i know it's rom-com it's pretty good script but i said uh no no thank Well, that got the signal across Hollywood that McConaughey was taking a serious sabbatical. And so don't even send him a rom-com. It got around.

Starting point is 01:15:15 So that was kind of the crucible then. I mean, that was like the crux move in a sense. In a way, that was that was a yeah, I called an audible six months in and had him thinking I might cave. I might just be posturing and come on back, McConaughey. We love you. And I said no. And when they had pumped the money offer up so much and people knew in the industry what that offer was, it became very clear. Oh, oh, shit. OK, McConaughey, I don't know what he's doing, but he ain't doing this stuff. He's not doing any more rom-coms. And it became clear.

Starting point is 01:15:47 So for the next 12, 14 months, nothing came in, not a zilch, not an offer for anything. I mean, I talk to my agent every couple of weeks. It'd just be like nothing came in, nothing. So now we're 20 months into this desert period. I do have my son to raise, which, you know, being a father has always been the most important thing to me. So that's got my compass, at least, directed in a place that I go, just trust in this. If it has something to do with raising your son and being here on the land with your family. Even if you start to wander, just trust that that's always going to be in the asset section, McConaughey. You can't go wrong with that. So I stuck to that and I was now fine with not doing any work. I

Starting point is 01:16:37 didn't know what I was going to be. I didn't know if I was going to change my career, if I was going to become a teacher or coach or go back to being a lawyer. I didn't know. I didn't think so, but I was writing more. I was talking about forced winners. I had put a forced winner on myself and I was pretty content. I wasn't waking up every morning going, did an offer come in? Did something new come in? I was past that. And then all of a sudden, 20 months in, 20, 21 months into this desert, I start getting some offers that are interesting things. William Friedkin, Killer Joe, Lee Daniels, Paperboy, Jeff Nichols wrote Mud for me. Steven Soderbergh called Magic Wine.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Richard Linklater and I go do Bernie together. True Detective comes around. All of a sudden, Dallas Buyers Club no one still wants to you know put a bunch of money up for a 1980s period drama about AIDS but all of a sudden McConaughey all the directors were no directors would do Dallas Buyers Club with me they wanted they wanted the script they loved the script they didn't want to do it with McConaughey all of a sudden we find Jean-Marc Vallee who no, I'd like to do it with McConaughey. So what happened was that 22 months or whatever, that drought, that desert, I unbranded. I didn't rebrand, I unbranded. Me being away, me being in Texas, not being on a beach, getting pictures of me shirtless on a beach, not being in rom-coms.

Starting point is 01:18:06 I was out of the world's view. I was out of the industry's view. I was not in your living room. I was not in your theater. I was not in any of the places that the world had become expectant to see me and how to see me. Where was I? I was gone. Where is McConaughey? Well, you're gone long enough. All of a sudden, I became a new good idea, which I was not a new good idea at any time earlier than that at the end of that 20-month period. And then all of a sudden, the things came to me that I wanted to do. And I remember saying, you know what? Fuck the bucks. I'm going for the experience. If I read a role that shakes me in my boots and challenges the vitality that I feel in my own real life and challenges me,

Starting point is 01:18:51 the man I am in my own real life, that's what I'm going after. And man, they came in. Come in, I looked at each other, shed some more tears, and we said, let's get after it. And I just started hammering them. The family came with me everywhere I went and just started laying down work that really, really turned me on. So I want to dig into a few follow-up questions here. So your wife probably with some sage foresight, although I'm guessing, said you're going to get wobbly. Days are going to seem longer. You might reach for that bottle a little earlier than you would normally. What were some of your practices or some of the inputs that helped you to either stave off getting wobbly or to recover when you did get wobbly? Good question. Look, my family, me and my mom, my brothers supported me. They thought I was plum crazy for turning down that

Starting point is 01:19:44 $15 million offer and sitting there going like, what are you doing? They thought I was plum crazy for turning down that $15 million offer and sitting there going like, what are you doing? They thought I really was face planting while having a downhill ramp to run down. They were like, who in their right mind would, you're not working. Do you like that? I was like, yeah, that works easy. I like it. And they're offering you, what the hell is your problem? But they you know they knew that i was like you know that i was a thinker they've known that since long before that that i took myself you know in those circumstances seriously and then i was doing some soul searching and that and and they thought they they were like that doesn't make sense to us but we get it little

Starting point is 01:20:19 brother you know you're you're all right good luck So they did support me. I'll say this. This helped. We had a very real crisis in the family with someone in my family that needed all of my attention and all of my time, meaning one of those real red lights that entered our life. A real crisis that a real uphill battle entered, which gave me a large sense of purpose, necessary purpose. It's one of those unequivocal things you don't question. It's like if I had gotten any job I wanted in Hollywood of a script to go act at that time, even then I wouldn't have done it during going through this family crisis. This was paramount. It was unequivocally the thing to take care of. So as you probably know, the death of someone in a family or a big family, a real family crisis, that'll sober you up. And I don't mean sober you up from the

Starting point is 01:21:10 bottle. That'll sober you up from missing any sort of, again, the scripts at that time, movies, making movies, that was a mortal thing. Dealing with this family crisis was an immortal thing. So I became very involved with handling this family crisis. And that is where my identity was. That coupled with my son's being raised. He's a brand new day for him every single day. He's getting to know me. How awesome is this that I get to have this time? Because I know I'll go back and do some work somewhere somehow later, and I'm not going to have this time. So let's lean into the assets of being forced here with your son. You're building a home with a woman you love, and you've got this family crisis that you're dealing with,

Starting point is 01:22:01 which is bringing you back even closer to your blood family. So I was finding purpose in all of that. And as it usually happens, as it was getting to the point where, well, I don't care if anything comes in. I'm not even thinking about it. If any work comes in, I don't really care. Of course, that's about the time that the work comes in. I don't really care. Of course, that's about the time that the work comes in. You've traveled a very unorthodox path in many respects. What are some of the biggest misconceptions, if any, what are common misconceptions about you that you hope, or that you could clarify either right now or through the pages of this book? Are there any misconceptions, positive or negative?

Starting point is 01:22:51 Yeah. I mean, look, one misconception, I think, which it used to concern me more so than it does now, is that a lot of people think that I sort of like just wake up in the morning and go roll out of bed and say, all right, where's my mark? What are we doing today? What's this scene about? What's life about? What's the responsibility here today? What is it?

Starting point is 01:23:15 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. A lot of people just think I just wing it. And the truth is, like I was telling you earlier about me being a studier and loving my eyes, I am a preparer. That's I know a lot of my success and satisfaction has come from being majorly prepared. And when I'm majorly prepared, I prepare so it's not work when I get in the game I prepare so that's the work my work is pre-game when I'm in the game I am when I'm best at being in the game I am that guy that looks like I just woke up in the morning just hey what's up to make it look easy comes from the preparation so I daily prepared now whether it's work or trying to be the best man I can or be the best husband or the best father, I'm constantly trying to work on that.

Starting point is 01:24:12 You know, I have the same with, you know, you reading the story of my mom and dad had a very physical and oftentimes violent, loud relationship. Hence, divorced twice, married three times. Me? I don't remember the last time I raised my voice to my wife or kids, because for me, if I even get to the point where I have to raise my voice or I get, you know, start to feel like I'm going to snap, I immediately, my threshold goes to, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you not handle up to this point, McConaughey, to let it get to this? You left some crumbs somewhere in your position as a husband, a father, or a man to get to this point. So let's not stop. Let's go back and deconstruct how we got to this point to even feel like this, because you dropped the ball somewhere along the way to this field. And I have a pretty short threshold for that feeling of, well, let me recalibrate.

Starting point is 01:25:14 I mean, let me let me take some stock and how I got to this point because I feel like I'm about to snap or I'm feeling like I'm going to raise my voice. So, you know, that's some recalibrations that I inherently and instinctually, I don't know if I say I practice them, but I just, that's where my head and heart goes. Does that answer your question? It does. It does. I think that, you know, one of the sort of gestalt impressions of the book, which is, I mean, really, really fun and very delightful. I mean, so congratulations on the book. It's not easy to do. And the Gestalt impression is that you take introspection, and maybe this isn't the right

Starting point is 01:25:56 way to phrase it, but you take introspection seriously, and you practiced a lot of introspection. So you've been able to take these moments that otherwise might be lost in the slipstream, those moments of success where things seem to be going well, the lows, and you've trapped them like flies in the amber so that you can look at them later and even look at them like a flip book so you can see the trends that take you in one direction or another. And then that is not common so i'd like to just ask one or two more questions that's yeah that that i mean i'm trying to get what i think we're all trying to get which i actually and let's talk about this because i do think it's

Starting point is 01:26:36 common that we all want more roi yes on ourselves on. And is there any less boring or vital or immediate entertaining and angering and interesting subject than us on ourselves to create? I mean, I'm trying to, I know I'll never do it, but I'm trying to find some themes that support a science to being satisfied. And I think we can all uncover those in our lives by our habits. Like I said earlier, looking at your diaries, when you're writing your diary, when things are going well, dissect success as well as failure. There become certain themes that become like, oh, it's kind of reliable. I have more satisfaction. I am more me. I get more what I want. I am a better man. I'm a better woman when

Starting point is 01:27:30 I am acting and doing these things, going to these places, thinking this way, eating this, spending time with these peoples, thinking these thoughts. There's a science to it. I don't think I'll ever get it, but man, it's an incredibly fun perspective. Maddening, but what a riddle to keep trying to figure out that will be never ending. Right. It's like keeping track of plays in the game of life, right? I mean, you have to have the ability to look back at it. So if you were to have a billboard, metaphorically speaking, to get a message, a question, an image, anything out to billions of people, could have a paragraph, could be a word,

Starting point is 01:28:12 anything non-commercial, what might you put on that billboard? Great question. And it's one that when I, I'd like to say, I think about all the time because I do have a marketeering mind. It'd be two words with a question mark behind them. I value question mark. Tim, I don't know how to make systemic change. I'm not that interested in politics. It doesn't seem like the right, I don't know, category maybe for the kind of leadership that I want to listen to or in some way, in some forms, be myself. It seems to me that the common denominator or the bipartisan, non-denominational, solid stepping stones for us to evolve as a species, as a nation, and as individuals is based on values. They're fundamental principles that we can all agree on.

Starting point is 01:29:05 I don't care what side of politics you're on or what religion you are, but what do we value? What do we really value? We all want to be relevant. Well, let's ask relevant for what? Yeah, before we do that, I want to be relevant. Let's, and what are those values that we can go,

Starting point is 01:29:22 oh, that's, yeah, if I act that way, if I'm kind in that way, if I'm accountable in that way, if I have a sense of humor in that way, how does that, a very selfish act, because it's good for me, good for my ego, fills me up, pays me back, gives me mailbox money, gives me green lights in my future. But it also gives you mailbox money. It gives other people. It gives others residuals. And our future is a compounding asset. And I think we need to work on and have fun understanding that, that the things we do today, the choices we make,

Starting point is 01:30:03 are compounding assets to where we go in the future. And if we make more valuable choices and give more respect to the competence of values, our own personal values, we're buying more ROI. We're creating more green lights in the future for ourselves and others. I value, question mark, very important statement right there and question. And I agree with you about the values and the also for what, right? The, the relevant for what it's such an important focusing modifier to adjectives. They get thrown around very commonly. And yeah, you know that there's another line in there that I have, it's based off that jeans being pressed story is when we can ask ourselves if we want to

Starting point is 01:30:54 before we do. That goes along with, yeah, I want to be relevant. Well, wait, relevant for what? You know what I mean? It's just because we can. And maybe we're getting in a position of influence where we get an option put in front of us that we never had before. You know, like I said, time to kill. 99 scripts I couldn't do yesterday. And now today you're telling me I can do all of them? What? Well, let's be discerning and ask ourselves, do I really want to do that? I know it's the first time I have the ability to or the first time it's been laid in front of me that I have the option to do that.

Starting point is 01:31:26 And I'm sure I'm happy about that. But before I do it, let me ask myself, wait, do I really want to? You know, for me, the story about having my jeans pressed, I was so damn happy. I had a housekeeper for the first time and she pressed my jeans. I was like, wow. And then I had a friend tell me, well, that's great if you like your jeans pressed. And immediately I went, oh, shit. I don't like jeans pressed. And ask yourself if we want to before we do. And yes, we seek relevance. But let's ask relevance for what?

Starting point is 01:31:58 Well, Matthew, you are one hell of a storyteller. You're a fun guy to talk to. At some point, maybe separately, I'll ask you about what they put in the groundwater in Texas for this storytelling. Because you, Mary Carr, I don't know what it is, but that's another conversation for another day. Your book's official website is greenlights.com. Very easy for people to remember. On Facebook, you are Matthew McConaughey. Instagram, official McConaughey.

Starting point is 01:32:30 Twitter, at McConaughey. And I will include links to everything in the show notes for people at tim.blog slash podcast so they can find everything that we've talked about. Is there anything else that you would like to say, share, ask, recommend with those people listening before we come to a close? Sure. This came from a conversation Richard Linklater and I were having some years where, look, it's tough in ways that for ourselves that we understand. Sometimes we don't understand. It's tough in ways for for everybody in ways that maybe even they don't understand.

Starting point is 01:33:16 And we probably don't. So everyone can use a little bit of amnesty right now. And what I mean by that is this. If you're not sure how to respond to a situation, can you just make sense of humor the default emotion? Can we just have a little more humor and give each other a bit of a break right now? It's tough times. Let's be for each other right now instead of against each other. And sense of humor does not get rid of the truth, does not get rid of the problem, does not get rid of the challenge.

Starting point is 01:33:47 It actually reveals it sometimes in the most truthful ways. But we can laugh to have some humor through the tears and humor through the pain and not laugh at someone else's expense. Laugh at our expense, all of our, the human existence expense. Man, we're doing the best we can. And if we're not, let's help somebody try to. Hear, hear. Well, thank you so much, Matthew. This was an incredibly enjoyable conversation. Super fun for me, Tim. I really enjoyed it and love to do it anytime. Yeah. Yeah. So I would love to do a round two sometime. Maybe when we're in proximity in Austin, we can do a 20-foot social distance, so TBD.

Starting point is 01:34:26 But your first book, Greenlights, is so unexpected. It is so fun. It is a romp through your mind, a romp through the turns and twists and learnings of someone who has had an unorthodox path and, on top of that, documented so much for decades. It's a rare combination. So I encourage people to check it out. And for everybody listening, we'll have notes to all things we've discussed in the show notes, Tim.blog.com slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? And would

Starting point is 01:35:10 you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to 4hourworkweek.com. That's 4hourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you

Starting point is 01:35:57 will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is a brand new cereal that I eat just about every day that is low-carb, high-protein, and zero sugar. I just ate a huge bowl of their Cocoa Flavor about an hour ago after a short workout. Magic Spoon cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included it in their list of best inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it the future of cereal. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal from childhood, remember that? But it's actually

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Starting point is 01:37:10 favorite flavor because they just launched two limited edition flavors, honey nut and peanut butter, which are delicious. I am a sucker for peanut butter and it is outstanding. So I think cocoa and peanut butter are my two new favorite flavors. And fun fact, my friends are also obsessed with Magic Spoon. One of the podcast's most popular guests, Dr. Peter Attia, routinely crushes six to seven servings at a time. That's a lot. With no glycemic response. He's looked at this with a glucometer.

Starting point is 01:37:39 He likes it so much, he invested. Other friends, two very fine gentlemen, and also past podcast guests, Kevin Rose and Ryan Holiday, also invested. So check it out. See what the buzz is about. Go to magicspoon.com slash Tim and grab a variety pack or cocoa, which is my favorite, or anything else. But see what strikes your fancy. Why not? Try a variety pack and be sure to use code Tim at checkout. My listeners, that's you. Get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you're not a fan, if you don't love it,

Starting point is 01:38:11 they'll give you a full refund, no questions asked. Again, check it out, magicspoon.com forward slash Tim. That's magicspoon.com forward slash Tim. Take a look. This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me in the last few years. I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all, that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it.

Starting point is 01:38:42 And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the guest bedroom and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something that they comment on. Helix Sleep has a quiz, takes about two minutes to complete, that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you.

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Starting point is 01:39:35 out for 100 nights risk-free. They'll even pick it up from you if you don't love it. And now, my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to $200 off of all mattress orders and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. These are not cheap pillows either, so getting two for free is an upgraded deal. So that's up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slash Tim. That's helixsleep.com slash Tim for up to $200 off. So check it out one more time. Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash Tim.

The Tim Ferriss Show - #474: Matthew McConaughey — The Power of “No, Thank You,” Key Life Lessons, 30+ Years of Diary Notes, and The Art of Catching Greenlights

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