Matthew McConaughey on Family, Fame, and Livin' Authentically
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January 29, 2025
TLDR: Matthew McConaughey shares insights on balancing family life and acting, viewing life choices as experiments, and focusing on creating lasting impact over quick wins.

In this episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast, Matthew McConaughey dives deep into his life experiences, balancing fame, family, and authenticity. Through engaging discussions with host Ryan Holiday, McConaughey shares his valuable insights on how to lead a fulfilling life amid the pressures of Hollywood.
The Balance of Fame and Family
Matthew McConaughey emphasizes the importance of family in his life, stating:
- Family commitments take precedence over career opportunities.
- He acknowledges that choosing projects based on family well-being provides a stronger foundation for his children's growth.
- McConaughey has successfully navigated his acting career by involving his family, ensuring they accompany him on his journey, maintaining stability for his children.
Experimenting with Life’s Choices
One of the key takeaways from the episode is McConaughey’s perspective on life:
- He refers to all life choices as experiments, promoting a mindset of flexibility and learning.
- The idea of viewing decisions as temporary experiments allows for less pressure and more freedom to explore.
- By not viewing choices as permanent, one can embrace change and growth without fear.
The Art of Creating Impact
McConaughey speaks about focusing on long-term impact instead of short-term victories:
- He encourages listeners to think about their legacy and the kind of impact they want to leave behind.
- His commitment to philanthropy through the Just Keep Livin Foundation showcases his dedication to influencing younger generations positively.
- Creating enduring values for his children and the community is at the forefront of his priorities.
Authenticity and Self-Expression
A major theme of the podcast is the importance of authenticity:
- McConaughey believes that being one’s true self leads to genuine connections with others.
- He shares advice on overcoming self-consciousness to allow for more authentic artistic expression.
- The discussion highlights that embracing one’s unique qualities is essential to gaining respect and admiration from others.
Engaging in the Moment
Throughout the conversation, McConaughey shares strategies for staying present:
- He emphasizes avoiding self-doubt while performing, stating that true focus enhances performance quality.
- The idea of performing without worrying about the outcome leads to better creativity and less pressure.
- Staying engaged in the moment helps artists create more impactful and resonant work.
Reverse Engineering Your Life
Both McConaughey and Holiday touch on the importance of long-term planning:
- They discuss the concept of reverse engineering life decisions based on desired outcomes.
- Whether it’s career moves or personal choices, aligning them with core values ensures a fulfilling path.
- By considering what kind of eulogy one would want, it can inform decisions made today.
Key Insights and Takeaways
- Fame should not overshadow family commitments. Prioritize relationships that matter most.
- Treat life decisions as experiments. Embrace change and evolution over permanence.
- Authenticity and self-expression are essential for genuine connections.
- Engage fully in the present moment to enhance creativity and fulfillment.
- Reverse engineer life goals by considering the legacy you wish to leave behind.
As listeners, we are reminded of the importance of living authentically and passionately, with family and meaningful legacies at the forefront of our pursuits. Matthew McConaughey encourages everyone to embrace their unique paths and live fully and intentionally.
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily stoic early and ad-free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcast. On January 5th, 2024, an Alaska Airlines doorplug tore away mid-flight, leaving a gaping hole in the side of a plane that carried 171 passengers.
This heart-stopping incident was just the latest in a string of crises surrounding the aviation manufacturing giant Boeing. In the past decade, Boeing has been involved in a series of damning scandals and deadly crashes that have chipped away at its once sterling reputation.
At the center of it all, the 737 MAX, the latest season of Business Wars, explores how Boeing wants the gold standard of aviation engineering, descended into a nightmare of safety concerns and public mistrust, the decisions, denials, and devastating consequences bringing the Titan to its knees, and what, if anything, can save the company's reputation. Now, follow Business Wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can binge business wars, the unraveling of Boeing, early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life.
And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their lives.
Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the daily stoke podcast. Sometimes these intros, I record them long in advance. Sometimes they're basically real time, but I guess 10 recording was on Tuesday. I woke up this morning and there was like a half inch inch of snow on the ground, which is pretty unusual.
For Austin, there's also a raccoon on the porch in the trap we set for last night. Actually, I caught one last night and then one after we went to bed. So I had to rehome two raccoons. I did one before bed last night and then I bundled up the kids, scraped all the snow off the front of the truck. We got in the car, we drove it down about a mile and a half down a road and let the raccoons go. Hopefully they find somewhere else to live other than under our porch.
And then we drove around the ATV, checked on the lakes and the cows and the donkeys. Don't get many snowy mornings. Don't get many fresh tracks in Austin, Texas. We had one in 21, and we actually got to snowboard on a little chunk of the one little hill on her farm. Not quite that severe this morning, all of which feels very far from a warm,
evening back in early December when the one and only Matthew McConaughey came out to the painted porch and did the podcast in person. Matthew's been on the podcast a couple times. We recorded one remotely during the pandemic when green lights was first coming out. And then I think we did it again. When the journal came out remotely, that was a nice two hour interview. But his people had reached out and said, Hey, Matthew's doing some promo for the book.
Would you want to do an event at the bookstore in the podcast? And I said, are you kidding? I've known him now. I guess it's like almost five years, but we never met in person. We just, we text and we chat every once in a while and share books and he was nice enough to blurb the daily dad. And, uh, it's encourages Colin, I think.
Anyway, he's been a nice friend and I'm a big fan of his work, obviously. And I think Greenlight is a really good book and it's been a massive hit. It sold like six or seven million copies, which, you know, celebrity to memoirs don't. I was telling him we sort of did a walk through the bookstore after and I was
given him some different books I thought he would like. And I was telling him that I never know what section of the bookstore to put green lights in because it's self-help. Is it memoir? And depending on it, sometimes I go, I think we should move over here. I've probably moved it three or four times. So it's kind of a book that doesn't really fit in a category, which is the best. You want to kind of invent a category or you want to do your own thing. It's a great book.
And this nice little chat we talked about the things we've talked about on all the different episodes, but it's always unique and interesting talking to the one and only Matthew McConaughey green lights is now available in paperback. I think we sold out of all our signed copies almost immediately. So sorry about that. But you can follow him at officially McConaughey on Instagram.
and check out the Just Keep Living Foundation. And then I'll be bringing you part two of this episode on Saturday because then we went out and did the talk on the back porch. So I asked a few questions and then fans asked a few questions and we'll round it out with that later in the week. If you are in Austin or Texas, I hope to stay warm. We sent all the employees home last night and are trying to keep everyone safe, but
I hope either it's warmer where you are or you're doing well. Almost wore the same jacket. I'm glad I didn't. I finally got to be weather where you can wear them. I know. Last three days have been great. Little crispiness out there. I swam and Barton this morning. And it was like one of the first days where the nice thing about Barton Springs is that in the winter, the water is warmer than it is outside because it's always the same temperature. It was like the first morning where I felt like that was true.
Did you go into town? Yeah. How often? Every morning. You go to Barton Springs every morning? No, not every morning, but I go into town every morning. You drive me into Austin. Enjoyable morning, which shows us like we were waiting for. I mean, you do it for your kids. Yes, you're not like loving. Love it. You're just like, that's just how it is. Okay, so two hours of your day are driving.
We trade my wife's to and pick up today. We trade. Yeah. It's a lot. You design your life and then, you know, life blows it and things blow up. Yeah. I got good to go. Yeah. Look, we moved into town. I got nine acres. I'm looking at that other eight acres and someone's going, you need to build a barn on the cabin. I need to build a barn. And I'm like,
The fuck do I need a barn for? Yeah. Her man, you need to get an idea of man cave over here. I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, to get away from who? Right. But you need horses when you come in, man, you got horses throwing down. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All these bright ideas that then I'm on my own for all. I'm like,
bar. Right. So I was like, smaller space, got everything compact. And we are eight to 12 minutes for everything now. We got the electric bikes. That's very nice. Well, so we did the opposite as Austin's grown. We said, let's go get in it, raise the kids on black tops and dirt roads for the first 12 years of life. Right. So now let's go negotiate and hustle.
It's easier if you go through life thinking about all your decisions as temporary, you know, like, you know, Tim Ferris. He talks about it. It's like, it's an experiment. We're going to do it for a couple of years. Yeah. So I'm trying to think like we love where we are. We've moved out in the country. We live on dirt road. We have cows. It's like the whole Texas thing. But yeah, I'm not sure how sustainable is driving us every day. It's nice. But then like we moved out here.
because it was close to Austin because nobody lived out here, but now everyone and everything has moved out here. So now there's traffic going in every morning. How old are you? My son's eight. So what's that? What is it? That's not middle school. Yes. In second grade. All right. So you get third, fourth, fifth. You got three more years there. Is there a middle school you might be able to go to that here?
The school is out as one through eight. But then my other son, he goes to school out here. He is an outdoor nature school thing. It's like amazing. But now I got two kids in two different cities at two different schools. So it's like, I'm like a full-time Uber driver. Two different sets of friends.
Yeah, so then all the parties every weekend or a different, you know, yeah, it's a lot. I understand that. Yeah, yeah, you have to travel for your job a lot, but not and not like like me. I travel up and I'm like Miami on Thursday, but I'm I leave it seven and I get back at
midnight, but you have to leave and go set up shop for a while. How have you kind of got that down? One before we had kids Camilla said, I'll have kids on one condition. You go, we all go. So every there's never been a film I did where they did not come with.
Right. Now that has meant Camilla had to work with the schools. Yeah. We want to go to school here, but we're going to have to pull them. Yeah. So we have a teacher that goes with us that gets, that goes and works with that school that they're in for a couple of weeks, learns what it has a contact. So when we go on the road, whether there's room in the house or like last time in Santa Fe, we got an office based downtown with the kids. Eight, nine a.m. went to school to make it. Tutor was there tutors up to date with the school of what they need to do. They go from nine to three, come on like a normal school day.
didn't leave. I got a job on set in the camera department. So he's only doing school in the morning and working half days every day. And then sometimes we, you know, when they were younger, we got a new ones. We put them in Newman, right? Put them in school. We were in Cleveland. We put them in school. We were in London. We put them in school in London. Wow. They had to wear the three-piece suit to take the scooters. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, that's just been a we've experienced. We've been experimenting because Camila's kind of one that
worked that up with the schools, how to make that happen. Yeah. They tried things like had a robot in class that would, you know, would follow the teacher and basically was an iPad in a robot's body, but Levi or the kids could come into the class and be in the classroom through a screen and the teacher's talking to class and go, do you think Levi and would discuss things with him? So.
And that kind of worked. You've talked about not taking jobs because they weren't creatively interesting and turned out a lot of money to do it. Have you not taken stuff because it would be disruptive to family and life? Did the opposite of that what I just did film series that was going to be.
Georgia. Yeah. All right. Well, no, it needs to be in Texas. Well, quite a few million dollars difference. Yeah. I needed to be. I wanted to be in Texas because my kids now ninth grade, 10th grade, right? Livingston down in whatever grade he's in fourth, fifth. They're on the teams. We're in that cycle now. They're doing that. They have a life. They've got soccer practice in the morning. They got drama in the afternoon. They got freak dance and I'm going.
We've been away, work a mobile for so long. Right now, I want to give them that consistency. Sure. So I'm going to give money back. Pretty gracious poem for them for the studio. And I want to go, OK, we'll make it work in Texas. We're going to shoot in Austin. That was my main reasoning. And I looked at the amount of money I was giving back, which was a sizable amount. And I was like,
Dude, quality versus quantity on this, the quality that, that I want my, you know, but I still want to see the kids and I want to keep them in school for that four months. Sure. Here in my hometown, I'll take that hickey down on the, on the paycheck. Right. If you're going to spend money on something, that's a pretty valuable thing. I feel we get it once. I think so. Yeah. So it's gotten out. So what I'm saying is it's harder now for me to go before we was like, dude, sure, tough. Yeah. And they were cool with it. Yeah. And they just, we just did Santa Fe. They were cool with it.
But boy, I see him and they've all been kind of yearning for like, can I get some consistency in my social circles and my sports and my drama? Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, you're in a flow now stick to that. So it gets harder as they get older, right? Because they are involved with things that are more than just a whim. Sure. You know what I mean? And, you know, you are making more consistent friends that you'll be friends with next year and the year after where younger friends kind of change a little bit quicker and their interests change sooner, quicker, you know?
What's like experiences are great, but at some point kids or adults, you're like, I just want to be in my place. Like I want to have my rhythm. I want to have my routine. I want to have my, I want normal life, not experience, experience, experience, experience. Exhausted. At the same time, our family, I think got so adept at.
the travel, we all go pick up and go, have someone now, we know what we need, we know we need a house that I don't get hired unless it's like a studio, I go my whole family goes, the dogs come, we need a nanny, we got somebody, you know, we're going, we need a house on the outskirts down. And that's how it's going to be. And that's part of my package. We've gotten so good at that, though, that like we all laugh about we laugh at last night. That's where we're the most relaxed.
is when you're somewhere else. Sure. And part of that is I'm probably more relaxed because when I go to act, it's a vacation for me. So you're not talking. Yeah, singular focus. Sure. I have a reverence for my craft enough where that's all I focus on for three months.
I feel like that's a worthy day every day. I get to see my kids at the end of the day. My wife goes to go out the door, do not let go of your shoulder, go conquer, kick ass. I got this stuff handled. So I'm really relaxed. I got one thing. And all my other work, all the other peripherals I have, my team knows the month and a half leading up for where I go to work. Let's get those off the table. Let's anticipate. So you're not getting, I'm getting three emails a day.
You also feel no pressure to reply to them. I think that's like you're like, I'm here. This is the thing. I think about like travel days. Like if I know I'm flying somewhere, I don't feel like I have to do anything else that day. Like I know my job is to get to point B and if I get anything else done, it's extra bonus. But if I wake up at home, I'm like, I got to do all, I got to do all this stuff. Yeah. And then how much stuff at home, if you're upstairs or at the other house and you want to go to the kitchen,
to get the mustard you forgot. You're running into two other things that you didn't plan on that you're going to need to handle on the way. Someone's going to interrupt you to go, hey, can you check this out? Oh, or you're going to see a busted sprinkler hat and you're going to run into two more things. There's never it's never a.
one, one, it's never a single destination in back when you're on the home, home property. So I think also, you know, it's that freedom that comes with the, you said it, a renter's mentality. Yeah. Like I don't own any of this. Let's take care of it. I don't own it. And if something's broke, I'm not going, man, don't I pay so and so to handle that? Or I bought that and didn't we get a warranty on that then? So I don't think about when I'm in a rental car.
Like I'm not even looking at the gas. I'm not looking at the miles. I'm not looking if it's clean or dirty. I don't care if it's a nice car and not nice car. I'm like, this is the car I have. All I got to do is use it to get over here. Right. But when you're in your own car, you're like, Oh, wait, I got it. How's this? Do I like this car? You know, you have like opinions about and I think there's something about happiness and peace. I think that is rooted fundamentally. This is a very stoic thing about just not having so many opinions.
when you're just like, Hey, my job, I'm acting right now. I'm in this place to do this thing. Nothing else really matters. So I don't have an opinion about what's happening back home. And everyone understands that they don't need my opinion or if they need to figure it out yourself. And then I finish, you finish after three months and I'm like, okay, I'm about to go sit down with my laptop and catch up on all that stuff. And then my blood pressure's going up. And I'm like, Oh man, this is going to be a slog. This is going to take a two weeks. Yeah. And it takes a day.
Unless you you know what email bankruptcy is what email bankruptcy is you just go I declare email bankruptcy mark everything as red and I know people I wish I wish I had the confidence and the security as a human being to do that I'm too worried about what I'm missing I still have stuff flagged from nine years ago of course I have shit I was like I'll deal with this after the pandemic you know it's like so there
I have a thing of notes on next to my dad's, I'll show you when I go in there. I went to this like little conference like right before, like the first week of March, 2020, I took all these notes of all the things I was going to do. That pad is just sitting there and I keep, this is going to be the week. I'll get into it. Yeah. Not even, I don't even know why I went to the conference because I never even looked at the notes. Right. Here we are four years later, four, five years later. Now, would you look up and find if you don't look at that, if that gets, if that gets to the bottom of the debt over the next year, how many of those things do you think you've done a year?
I mean, if someone threw it away, I don't think I even remember that I had the pen. But how many do you think you would do subconsciously?
I don't know. I think I've done some, I guess I've probably done the important stuff and the rest of it's not important, but it's the, it's like why we, you know, it's like you get something from Apple and you're like, this is a nice box. I should keep this box. It's like a symphony. I got, I got like a six year old iPhone box somewhere. I'm sure. But you actually don't need it. You just don't have the, there's something about us as like hunter gatherers that is like, I can't throw away this box. So could you use this box? Yeah.
Another version of that is when I'm working on a script, I get an idea when I get the idea going. I'm writing that down because it's so particular and so genius. Yeah. And there's hundreds of pages. The next week, the next two weeks, the next three, the next month, by the time I'm shooting, all those things that I thought were genius, I can throw away because they're so obvious. Yeah.
Now that I'm like, that was not a novel. Well, it was a novel idea two months ago. Right. So I'm like, well, did you even need to work all that? Do you need to take those? And I'm remind myself, yes, you did. Because at the moment you're right, it's just been ingrained now because you've been preparing and working that that's obvious. And boy, I'm like, make sure that's in bold print. And I start thinking all that, all of my ideas should be in bold print. And you get to be like, no, they shouldn't. I don't even need don't even need them throwing them away. I forget which Hemingway book it was, but there's one of them where he just got rid of the first two chapters.
And you go, Oh, is that a loss? And it's like, no, because the, the stuff that got started in the first two chapters informed all the other chapters. You just didn't need the, what became superfluous. It was like wheel spinning. So you get rid of it and you start in the shit and it's, it's assumed. Right. Like that's one of the humbling things about creative stuff. Like I, I just went through this. I was looking for an old document that I had somewhere and I came across another document in a folder. So when, when you're cutting, I'm sure you went through this with your book, when you're cutting.
I can't cut this. What I'll do is I'll take it out and I'll put it over here. I'll use it for something later. So I found the document of things that I'd cut from the book telling myself I would go back to later and use. And I'd forgotten that it even existed. Yeah. Yeah. And it would bet you there was nothing there that you're like, oh my gosh, I left that out. The book was not as complete as it would have been to try to add that.
Yes. And there was nothing else that that stuff would ever work for. It's just prologue to the thing I was making, but it's hard. You got to have the discipline to be able to do that. I'm fascinated with actors where it's like, you got to make up this story about the character, but nobody ever hears the story. It's just for you. And it's just in a hand movement. It's just in a famous line. All right. All right. All right. You know, like what all that is,
It's all invisible to the audience, but it's it should be invisible, but it's actually not invisible. It's just not. It's obvious. Yes. Because you're like, well, that's who the character is. Yeah. Or the best compliment an actor can get is after you're done, people on production go, dude, that's you. And you do another role that's completely opposite. Yeah.
That's you. You didn't see the work as they say with athletes. You don't see the work. You didn't see the prep. You didn't see, oh, I got a plan move. Oh, I got a little thing I'm going to do. Yeah. No, you don't see any of that. I've talked to you about this before launch pad lines. You know, what are some days confused? That's a love about those high school girls, man. I get older, but they stay the same age. That's a launch pad line. Yeah.
Look at that line. And that's when I looked at that and I went, who is that? That if that line's not an attitude, that line's not a joke. If there's nothing, he's not going to be cool. Claire, if that's his MO on how he sees life, there's a way that guy walks.
That guy's walking, he walking head first, chest first or midsection first. He's kind of leading. Yeah. You know, shoulder, our shoulders here. Is he this guy or is he, is he this guy? He's, he tells you how they sit. It tells you what he would buy in 7 11. If he's got kids at home, what kind of music he listens to.
So you could theoretically cut that line and still get the essence of the character. Yeah. So it informed the acting of all the lines. And then if at some point the director, the editors like, Hey, we got to cut that line for whatever reason. It's still informed and shaped every other scene in the movie. It did much more much more work than the line did. Yeah.
It informed how type of dog gone pants were informed. You know, there's a pinch of one necklace around the, it's a, that's a newgent t-shirt. It informed delayed blanks. It informed where he was, where he should not be, where he would not be informed. You know, those people that, that's a character with that line with that sort of perspective and philosophy online is not one of those people that intrude in your space. They're not soliciting. They're not looking to gather more to their way. They just are.
Yeah. And if you want to come hang, yeah, there's general admission, he might can hang, but I'm not looking to like talk someone into that guy's not looking to talk someone into understanding his way of life or looking for soldiers. Right. He's not soliciting his way. He's an island unto himself, which becomes one of the things that become very attractive about people. I love people that like don't intrude a lot. They're like, or who they are. And you're attracted to me like, dude, you got, you got your own thing going on, man. Whether I agree with it or not, I really dig, but you're not needing me.
or you're not needing my affirmation to have more confidence in who the hell you are. Bravo. Now I'm even more behind you because people who are uniquely themselves love that. Yeah, there's this stoic. His name was Agrippenus and he lived in the time of Nero. So this would have been a time where you're like, you don't want to upset the unstable, you know, vindictive tyrant, but he's a sort of just uniquely himself. You get invited to stuff and he would say, no, and he was just himself.
which sort of put him in the crosshairs and someone asks, they go, you know, why, why don't you just go along? Why can't you just be like everyone else? And he said, um,
He's like, look, a garment is you take a sweater. He's like, there's all the white threads. And then he's like, there's the red thread in the stripe that makes it beautiful. And he's like, I'm the red thread. You're the white thread on the red thread. And I like that idea of like, you got to be yeah, we all have a part. But some of our parts is to be is to be our unique selves.
New year, new resolutions. And this year on the Best Idea Yet Podcast, we're revealing the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And we promise you have never heard these before. Ever wonder how the iconic Reese's peanut butter cup was invented? Because it was by accident. HB Reese, a former frog salesman, true story, stumbled upon the idea after accidentally burning a batch of peanut. Classic. Proving that sometimes our best ideas arise from what seemed like our biggest mistakes.
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UFO lands in Suffolk, and that's official, said the news of the world. But what really happened across two nights in December 1980, when US servicemen saw mischievous lights in the forest near RAF Woodbridge and claimed to have had a close encounter with an actual craft.
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I feel like you're somebody, you kind of let your freak flag fly a little bit. You're like you. Try to. Yeah. No, I don't try to. Yeah. Right. You know, you don't try not to. Right. Don't try not to. I'm not trying to hide it. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's more relaxing that way. It's also, I think I get more done. One more things that I want in life. Sure. It's clear what I don't want. It's clear my relationships. It's kind of like, if I'm not hedging my bet, play acting, then I can read. Someone can read if they want.
My time and my relationship or not and I can read if they want, if I want theirs or not. I think this point was like beautiful things stand out, you know? Like it is weird that we all are totally unique. A unique DNA would never exist before again. And then we're like, well, what's everyone else doing? I should do that. Do you know, like there is something about, there's something kind of sad about the way we deliberately mute our colors or mimic other people's colors.
Yeah, but we also, it's wise, I think, to understand the machinations of how populous works, how being in with the group works, to understand the rules of each game, knowing your zone and still being able to be.
yourself or you're still being yourself if you're playing a role to get what you want. It's like the Dylan thing. He was like, what is it? Like, no, don't go. I don't know what all this be yourselves about, man. It's like, well, you are what you create, man. We're all our creations. Yeah. That's a form of being yourself. I'm a new creation every day. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Which you are. Right. If you want to be, you know, whatever part that is you're playing.
The best ones you don't see him playing a part, like going back to acting in real life or an acting or athletics. You don't see the work. You don't see the, oh, there's a tell. Oh, I saw him do a thing. He played an attitude. He didn't play himself. You don't see those. You don't see those things. It's seamless. That person is kind of in a way, everything to everybody or almost everything to everybody.
Well, to me, it's like, do you want to be the actor that gets the parts that Matthew McConaughey turns down? Or do you want to get the parts that they're offering to you because they want you? You know, it's like, it's better to be a category of one, to be a monopoly of yourself. But most of us go, I don't know, I'd rather just kind of get somebody else's left. Right. Right. Right. And sometimes those leftovers are damn worth kidding. But I hear you when you are
when you're living and you're like your one-on-one. Yeah, you want to be the first person they ask because that's what they wanted, not like the third, fourth, fifth unlimited. But there's something safer about it, right? It's like, you know, hey, if I open a donut shop, like people like donuts, I'll have the donuts. You know, like there's something about just doing another version of a thing that a lot of people do. It's safer in one sense, but the ceiling is capped.
because you're never going to, but you've, I've been in positions where I was the third pick. Yeah. And I saw, I was like, I'm going to show them why it should have been the first pick. Yes. Yes. For the next. Sure. I'm going to make sure I don't just dial this in, which I could connect all the dots and do it really well. Yeah. I'm going to do something, make some go.
Who's that guy? Yes. I went in for first pick next time. Yeah. So it can be a ramp to a higher ceiling. Totally. But I think what you're saying is, I'm saying it's a lot easier to just sit there and go, yeah, let me get the leftovers and do what I can with it. Yeah. And mimic what the status quo would be for that.
Well, in business, they have this idea. There's red oceans and there's blue oceans. Red ocean is where there's lots of competition. The water's all chummed up. And then you want to go to the blue ocean where there's no other boats. It's just you. And when I went to my publisher, I was like, hey, I want to write a book about an obscure school of ancient philosophy. They were not like, that sounds cute.
But then when it works, then somebody else, like I just saw the other day, so I wrote a book called Everyday Stoic. It's the same fucking book. And so I'm sure it'll do okay because some people will accidentally think it's the book that I wrote.
right or like I remember one time I went on Instagram and my mom was following like stoic daily or something like like she was following the she was like oh I heard what you're doing I was trying to follow it and she just got confused and she got like a copycat right when you're a copycat is a big target and you you can get you know if directionally you're right it works right but ideally you want you want to do the scarier thing that didn't think that would work and then you are the main thing you got the monopoly
Creating Roy Spence, who's a friend of mine, you know, Roy, GST&M, great advertising mind, marketing mind. He, GST&M in Austin. They had the seven up account. Okay. And I think the story goes, they were fighting against Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They couldn't get past, and I think it made me even RC. They couldn't get past the four hole. Yeah.
And he said, wait a minute, we're fighting to be in the Cola category. Let's create a new category and be the Uncola, which became the ad campaign. And then they were number one in a new category, a new ladder that they created.
Yeah, if you can't be first just invent a new way that you are first, or the only. That's what you want to be at. Instead of, hey, these things are popular, let's make more of those things. It's like why there's scenes in music, because like a band comes out and they're singular.
And then they're like, let's go get all the other similar bands. And then it feels like they were all part of this thing, but really it's kind of this copycat thing. It's boring. It's hard to break through. So you get it, but ideally you want to do your own thing. Life's too short to be someone other than yourself. I feel like, I mean, you can pull it off. I just think you're going to get there going, what if? Yeah, I didn't find out. Yeah.
I didn't, I didn't take the chance for the, to absolutely get booed by the masses on a complete failure. All right. I didn't get the chance to absolutely find out and show up on the other side and they go, you did it. Yeah. How'd you do that? What is that? What is that thing you're doing? Never seen it before. I mean, I've got a, you know, I'm, I'm working on certain things, ideas I'll have or things. I'll say that'll be very, like I work in the tech world, but like,
It's like Salesforce in their tech talk, right? And I work in an advisor over there and I work with the marketing team. And I think what I bring to them is I could colloquialize and familiarize and personalize all the techy data into a bit of a poem, can speak to the heart a little bit instead of just the head and go, oh, I understand what that is. I didn't know what all the dots and nexts and CRMs and acronyms were, but I understand that. And it's like obvious to me, but a lot of those minds are going, wow.
How'd you do that? I'm like, I don't understand what you're saying, but this is what I summated in a way that sort of modern, natural, vernacular, you put your spin on it. You got a few things that sometimes you got to watch that too with our cliff notes, you know, when you have something, we may process it many times and it becomes obvious to us. Yeah. And then you project it or you play it out there for the first time or share it and they're going, wow. And you're like, come on, wow, that's an obvious one.
And you're like, no, that's the one. Don't cut that. Don't edit that one out. That's brand new. It's like the, it's like the joke script writers do this in Hollywood. Early script is a great joke. Everyone loves, but they still have to go back and rewrite the script. Give them a couple passes. They'll remove that joke. And you're like, dude, you're tired of it. Yeah.
because you wrote it a year ago and you've rewritten it twice. Remember, we're giving it to an audience for the first time. Right. We love that one from the beginning. Don't make a straight line crooked, man. That was a winner. Keep that winner there. Don't get a new bright idea. That is great. Even though you got bored with it because you've written it, you've done the rewrite 10 times.
No, the lowest point for me on a book is when I cut to come in here and record the audio book and I have to read it all out loud. And it's such a painstakingly awkward, weird process. I'm like, at the end of it, I'm like, I'm not sure this is good at all. Yeah. And just because the process of reading a book out loud to audio, it's so painful and exhausting and weird and not a natural thing at all. You never just read a book out loud in an empty room. You're not getting any feedback from the audience. And so it makes you question the whole
thing. I'm curious how you think about it as an actor because you have to be kind of uniquely uninhibited. I feel like self-consciousness is the enemy of most authentic artistic expression. Like if I'm thinking about what other people are going to think about this, that's when I do something that sucks. That's when I pull my punches or I make it awkward or weird. You kind of have to be free-flowing in the moment about it.
All right. So if self-conscious is being, can we say that's being objective? You hop into your eye in the sky and you have a look down at yourself and the third person. How am I doing? How does this translate? How is it? I think I would say being objective is positive. Self-consciousness to me has an element of kind of shame. You're like anticipating what other people are going to think. And you're, you're looking at how awkward you are. Okay. Okay. That form of self-con. Because I do think, yeah, you're going to, you're tripping yourself.
Yeah. You're thinking about how this is going to be like, if you're trying to win an Oscar, you're probably not going to win an Oscar because now you're characterizing the performance. No, you got to watch other people. When you play anticipation, you get ahead of yourself. You put cherries on top of the icing and the icing was enough. Yes. And you go, you put a little.
as my great mentor in life, Penny Allen, the act teacher, certain performance of mine, she was like, no, it's good, honey. But you have to understand, you don't have to try to hit a home run every time you're at the plate. Sometimes you could buy it, sometimes a single's good, not every scene needs to be, oh.
The big, you know, if the kids, it's the old Paul Newman thing, man. So I'm just like, show him some of those baby blues and smile. I'm no more than twice a film, man. If you do it every scene, that doesn't mean as much, right? Every scene. So monumental. It's like, well, what did anything? It's like a coach that yells all the time. You're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to really be listened to, what he really means or not, because he yells everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Objective, though, I think if you don't get hung up,
in that objective. I think I think it's, I think it's important. I think the subject of is the place, the home base, start at. And if you're confident enough with that, you can hop to the objective and say, how am I looking? Yeah. Without getting self conscious.
just to see the landscape because I've had, I'm here, I'm solo man, but I've hopped out to have a look. What's the landscape? Oh yeah, it still looks smooth up there. There's no cliffs. If your head's down, you don't run off it. It looks like, yeah, I'm doing, I'm actually, it looks like I'm doing what I intended to do. Oh, it actually looks like it's getting received as I was hoping it would be, but you got to hop back and you can get back into the subjective because you can get caught looking at the jumbo trying of your life.
and use another sports analogy. That's what happens to players. They're having plays. Leon Lett, you're running back the kickoff. You look at the jumbo job. I'm going to be in the top 10 sports center tonight. That's when you get caught. It's like a call when you look up to see where your ball went. That's when you fuck it up.
In golf, any golfers out there, I bet you would tell you my best rounds. Well, when I walked off the 18th green and didn't know it was my last hole. Yes. Yes. Cause you were whole headed to the next. Yes. Best performances I've given or when I'm done and they go, that's it. That's a wrap. I go, okay, see you tomorrow. And they go, no, no, no. That's a film wrap word. Right. Right. No tomorrow. And you're like,
Oh, really? Right. How'd I do? Yeah. Show me the scorecard. Yes. Yes. Right. If you're aware that you are playing your best game ever as you're playing it, that's when you fuck it up. That's when you bogey the 17. Yeah. And bogey in three plus the 18th to lose by one. It's choking at the finish line. It's realizing
You know, I've talked about that before. I had those immortal finish lines that just go in as long as you trust that it's being recorded. Yeah. And that the strokes are played. And yes, I counted my strokes right on that hole and I signed it. Let me find out how many under I was or how I played after I'm done. Come tell me it. It's the proof. The proof's there. Yeah. But if I see it coming and I see that end zone coming. Yeah. What do we do? It will tight little self-conscious. Do I deserve to be here? I think I'm doing really
good. All of a sudden you're out of the moment. You're not your body's not behaving. You're not performing the act that you've just been naturally performing one at a time, one in a row every moment, every day. I think that's the sophomore slump too. If you're like, yeah, you record the first album. You're in it.
And then you're, if you're on the next one, you're like, I have to top what I did last year. I feel like I got really lucky. So the obstacles away came out and didn't do that well. So I had the next book. So I was in the middle of the next book well into the middle by the time it really started to do well. And so.
I was just busy both ways. Like I was too busy to be depressed that it wasn't doing well. And then too busy to be elated that it was doing well. I was busy. I've known a bunch of people. Their first book was this huge hit. And it's been really hard to do two and three and four because now there's an expectation. Yeah. I'm been working on my second one for a while. Up to this. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard because this was unexpectedly good, I think, to people. And it was
An original idea and a thought and a green light was a philosophy that was a prism that once it clicked with me for the months or year or whatever, it took me to write it, I was seeing everything through that lens. Measuring every, oh, we just had him that as a green light moment. Everywhere. My dance with life, I was just, that was the music. It was through that lens.
My new book, what I think is a really solid lens and philosophy to look through, but I'm not without trying looking at life through that lens. So when you start looking through the lens, I could not not write that.
Yeah. It had me. Sure. Nothing else I could do. I had to. Yeah. And it was not hard because it was all encompassing 24-7. And I was seeing it everywhere. So I haven't got there in my next book where the philosophy that I'm purporting is how I'm seeing life in its writing itself.
Yeah. Well, also, you know, and you say something in the new forward, or I guess it's afterward, where you were saying that, like, this is a really specific book. Like, it's a book only you could have written because it's only about you. And it is not like your normal sort of self. It's not really a self-help book. It's not really a memoir. It's kind of a new thing, right? It's like we're saying, it's a new category. So it was really specific and it happened to be general. The downside of that success is you now know there's a general audience. Right.
Right. So you're, you're like, well, what do they want? What are the, what are the people that read the first book want? Right. Instead of the more natural, less self-conscious way, which is like, what do I want to say? Right. And you got to get out of that and just make what is exciting and interesting to you and true to you. Yeah. And also then there's the, the reality of like, when's it supposed to come out? When's our slot? And now you're, you don't have the same time and freedom that you would. I mean, the first one is what you said.
Yeah, the first one's 50 years in the making. Right. The other one. I don't have five years. I don't have it's many stories. It's 50 stories. You use your best five years, five years later. Yeah, I mean, I tried to share my greatest stuff. And plus, if you do, people smell, even if it's pulled off well, if I study and I know I'm pretty feel like I'm pretty conscious of what people what tapped a nerve at that moment. Yeah.
But if I played into that, unless I did it so definitely that you couldn't smell it again, seeing the work, you smell the pander. Yeah, that's self-consciousness. You're like, you want this for me. So I'm going to do anything. And I can tell that you cooked another souffle on your different name, because that's what we loved about the last one. But I could, you didn't, you didn't, it didn't start, you know, the egg came before your chicken. Yes.
Well, that's what I think so weird about meditations, right? This, this should be a weird, this should be an unreadable book, right? You have the most powerful guy in the world 2000 years ago, worshiped as a guy. His life is incomprehensibly unfathomably distant from ours. And every night he would write these little notes to himself, not thinking of an audience, right? There's stuff he's like, remember with that customs officer in some, you know, province of the room. He's clearly not thinking of us because he's not even explaining. There's like a shorthand to it.
So it shouldn't, the idea that 2000 years later, it's relevant to athletes and to college students and stay-at-home moms, like it shouldn't make any sense, but part of the reason it works, the universality of it is inseparable from the specificity of it. He's talking about what it's like to be him, a human being, without any pretense, without any self-consciousness, without any performativeness, and thus it becomes totally relatable
in little individual slices because you see yourself not in all of it, but in that specific thing he's talking about. You're like, Oh, I, yes, this morning I didn't want to get out a bed in the morning or this morning. Yeah, I lost my temper. I thought about this. So it, it's, it's, there's something in all great art that is, that is specific and then becomes universal. And when you try to go the opposite direction,
It ends up being for no one. Yep. Look, I started off writing reading the first two weeks. I was trying to write impressively. Yeah. I remember going back and going, whoa. You just turn a phrase. Whoa.
Let's do more. For two weeks, I went on and then I got to the two week period. It gained a little confidence that I had some goods to share worth sharing. And then looked at my stuff. I was like, that's bullshit. Yeah. You're waxing the car, man. Yeah. You know, the engine where the talk, let's talk about the engine and the oil and your wax in the car. And I was like, that's good wax, but it's bullshit. Yeah.
compared to what the honest truth is. So then got the confidence to go, dude, don't write impressively. If you write it well, and honestly, it may be impressive, but don't write impressively. And at first two weeks, I was trying to write impressively. And it was superfluous shit, too many adverbs and kinds of stuff that I was like, oh, that's a nice turn. But I was like, yeah, but you're not coming from the inside out. Just come from the outside in the lily or whatever. Yeah, you're you're acting the part rather than beating the part. Yeah.
Yeah, I think if Marx was, it sat down to write a work of philosophy. I'm not. I'm sure he could have done it because clearly a talented writer. And I'm sure there are a lot of philosophical things you could set and maybe even we would sit down and talk about it because lots of ancient philosophy has survived. But there's something uniquely personal and raw and real about it. And I think that the best art is that it's there isn't that element of
performativeness. There is something about something stripped down about it. I say it that's similar and I know that me personally, my greatest success is not mean like most, but just the most qualitative successes I've had in mind. Or when I'm not asking permission. Hmm.
Not in any anti-way. Yeah. Just, no, I'm not apologizing. There's nothing to apologize for. I'm not apologizing and I'm not asking permission. Yeah. And not to go like, I don't think I need to, no, that's one step away. No, I'm not asking permission. Yeah. Not, I don't think I should ask, no, you're not there yet if you're going. I don't think I should ask, that's already two sort of, yeah, gilding the lead to get sent. No, I'm not asking permission.
And I was like, not even me to say it out loud, but just knowing it. Now there's no permission going to be asked from me on this. Cause you were going to, you're going to do it anyway. You don't care. And you're like, you're thrown, you're thrown into isolation and self-reliance. And it goes a little bit deeper because you don't have the atta boys or way to goes or the soft landings. And you're like, dude, it's me on me right now. Here we go. And that's just hell of a charge.
I mean, a good charge of stimulation to get in and getting that subjective place to where you're not even, I think I'm always aware. When I said earlier, like, know your zone, I'm aware. I pop into that objective spot and go, I think I kind of.
No, like I had a... I don't know if I ever showed him. I wrote reviews for this book before it came out. The blurbs are like a New York Times star. No, I wrote your views that I put in the words of other people's mouth. Okay.
And I have them and I was going to put them in the book and it was going to be a comedic twist of a 90% through it. You're going to get to all these reviews. They're like, wait, the book just came out. And I've got them and they're funny. They're pretty spot on. Interesting about what people that did review the book actually said about the book. So I was, I was popping out into awareness going, what would so and so say of this book?
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Parenting can bring up many unexpected challenges. And there's so much advice out there, it can be hard to know where to find real help. I'm Janet Lansbury, host of Unruffled, a podcast that answers to the questions that arise when raising children. I've worked with children and parents for over 25 years and I'm eager to share all that I've learned with you and most of all, encourage you to trust yourself. In each episode, I address listeners' questions through the lens of my respectful parenting approach.
From advice for how to address toddler meltdowns, encourage them to develop their skills naturally and joyfully through self-directed play, for helping when our kids are scared and so much more. I aim to offer you thoughtful advice that will shift your perspective on challenging topics, making them far less intimidating and overwhelming, and free you of the need for scripts and tricks. We can do this. Follow Unruffled on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Unruffled ad free right now on Wondery Plus.
There's something to that like Amazon used to have this thing where maybe they still do, but Amazon had this thing where if you wanted to like launch a product, you had to write the press release first. So like imagine that it's existed. You've gotten all the way to the end. You're writing the thing describing. So it's not, so you're having to think in advance. Like, cause you don't write your own press release. The marketing department is sitting down to write the press release. What are they able to say about this thing? And if, if it's not exciting,
then you've failed. And so let's start from what needs to be exciting and in there at the beginning. And I think that's that kind of objectivity, because oftentimes as a creative person, you get really accepted. There's all the things that are exciting and interesting to me. And then there's where it overlaps with what people might be interested in. And the ideal projects are where those two things overlap. That's where you get some explosive. And so you got to have the objectivity to know, hey, is this a thing that like, just I'm interested in?
Or is this a thing that has a wider resonance outside me? And look, if it was only going to take an afternoon, just do the thing that's interesting to you. But if you're going to spend five years of your life on something, it's got to have some nice check-in on supply and demand. Exactly. Exactly. I do this with movies. Before I get started, I'll go sit down with the director and prove something like, for Chissing Giggles, man, what's the poster? Yeah. Man shot it. Maybe started shooting. What's the poster? Right.
Yeah. It's the, it's the, it's the Calvary coming over and there's a setting sun behind the mountain and you're silhouetted and there's 60 of you coming over the mountain of the setting sun. Okay. It lets me know this is going to be sort of epic storytelling. Now what it is, it's a close up of you.
your face here with that scar that you're going to get from the when the lion cried. Oh, this is character driven. This director is coming from over character driven. Right. Wait, that informs me, yeah, of how I'm going to communicate and work with that director. And we may, you may end up, I know that you end up getting there that original poster idea may completely change. Yes.
But I think it's informative to have an idea of let's project further, it reverses your hair from what you want to have. What's the poster? Yeah. If you had to write your poster right now, what then your goal that you're headed towards, what's going to be said? Yeah, we have that book in the book store. Have you read down the road to character by David Brooks? He says like, there's two basically courses in life. You can be building a resume or you can be building the eulogy.
And I think what happens is if you're not thinking about the end, you're just stacking up resume values, right? You're like, I did this. I accomplished this. I made this. I beat this. I made this amount of money. It's all accomplishments. But that's not what people talk about at a funeral. They're like, they're talking about your character. They're talking about the impact you had on people. They're talking about whether you were happy or not, whether you had a good life or not. And so if you're not reverse engineering for the eulogy you want,
you're defaulting to the building of reservoirs. And that's like, when it comes down to, Hey, should I do this project or this project? Should I move here or there? Should I get married? Should I stay married? You're thinking about these choices. You know, it's going to come down to whether you're reverse engineering from something more significant and meaningful that is a eulogy, or are you just going, what makes the most money? What's easiest? What's easiest to explain, et cetera?
It's what I'm a fan of the value of religion. It's about obedience to death. Yeah. And that's having that in the mind and in the heart. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. That's the end goal. And if there's a belief in something happens after, what's religion's have, okay, does what I do here now, how I live? Oh, it matters. Yeah. Which things matter? Right.
Those things we're talking about, the mortal resumes or that eulogy. And that's what I love, my favorite thing about religion, that you get the out of the values that come with a lot of religious texts is based around an obedience to death.
Yeah, accepting the reality and the in alterability of death. No amount of money or power or fame allows you to to escape this thing. This is a mortal game. Yeah. And there's an immortal game. Yeah. But this is a mortal.
But you said the way to escape the moral game is through family. I think you know what I mean? Like people people think about more say I think it's the best one going. Yeah. No, no, I mean, in a good way. It's like people want to have multi-generational impact. So they're going to build this huge company. Right. Meanwhile, like they've got this little person living in their house that they could have like there are things on a day to day basis that affect me.
because of decisions my grandfather made or didn't make, right? And so that's three generations right there. And he was obviously affected by his grandparents. And so it gets real big, real quick. You realize, oh, the things I do or don't do has an enormous impact on these people. Meanwhile, yeah, another movie, another book, another project, it could affect people. But if we're really being honest, it's a pretty ephemeral impact.
Yeah. And you're you can't ever really measure. Yeah. Because you don't know till after the fact. Yeah. Success or failure. Sure. Did it matter that I did three months of press for that or done the same if I would have done anything? You know what I mean? Right. With children to use not the term of them being, you know, collaterally exports, but that's our greatest export. Yes. That.
That's our immortality, that we have 18 years to work on this little epic called our children. And we don't own them to make them be like this. You've got children quickly. For the biggest lesson I got when I first had kids was, oh, I thought it was more, I thought it was a more culture environment than DNA. And I was like, oh no. The DNA, they're who they are. It was more DNA than I thought. It was a first lesson I learned that I got slapped in the face by that, because I thought it was like,
The parent is full sculpting. I was like, no, you're nudging and you're carving here and you're trying to put more with healthy and give it going to turn them on and feed them in front of them. And you want them to get a few bruises. You don't want to take away all the thicket in the broken glass, but you also don't want them to, you know, break their leg every time they go out the door. So you want to give them a little bit, you know, your job is to help your kids become who they are.
not become what you want them to be. Yeah. And I'm going to teenager's now. That's a whole fun game. Yeah. Of which I am happy to say I'm really enjoying. I feel like I'm hitting my honey hole of being a father.
in ways the most challenging, but I didn't know that there was a stop between always like, always thought it was your father early and then later on, you can become a friend. But don't become friend too early. Yeah, because they need a, they need a father. Yeah. What I've realized now is that in between father and friend, there's a bridge called brother. Oh, sure. And I'm able to, especially with my teenagers now,
then be in a tough situation or a great situation. And I'm patting them on the back rather than, hey, come here, here's how you got to. And I'm not just going like, yeah, man, it's like I have a different arm around them. I'm with them going through things. I also don't have to edit my good stories as much anymore.
I can I can keep in the yes in the juicy yes, because they can be like they get it now. I'm like, Oh, really? You're like, yeah, it's funny you meet families and you're like, Oh, you guys like like spending time together. Like that's yeah. And if that wasn't exactly your childhood experience, you're like, Oh, like people go like you just said, you got 18 years together. And then and then you see people and they're like, Oh, no, that
They're spending like I hear from people that come like one of my favorite things of all time is when somebody comes in to the bookstore to get one of my books because their kid told them about it. And I'm like, Oh, you guys are you guys have a mutual relationship that is not.
primarily predicated on the fact that they live in your house. When someone's like, oh, let me text my son about that. I love it. It's not that they're friends, but they have this exchange that surpasses
the legal part of the relationship. And so actually you have their whole life. If you do it right, you have your whole life because ideally their life goes on longer than yours. They have your whole life to be taught and instructed and modeled and that's how it can go if you do it right. I like that spin a term. You have your whole life and they have your whole life but you don't have their whole life. Right. Yeah.
Access, my buddy, Bart Nags, three daughters. You know, Bart. Yeah. And I mean, I'm talking about teenage years coming on until I'm a good man, good father. And I came in, came in, came in, man. He goes, maintain access. Yeah. Keep access. And I've had to watch, again, going into the brother, father to brother, and be different, times where they'll share something and condemn themselves. And I would have not known, and they're wise enough to know that if I don't tell, I'm probably not going to find out. Yeah.
And first reaction, I go to judge and jury and then have to go, no, dude, they're sharing that with you. Yeah. And it has to be some, we got to give some credit and a little bit of amnesty for the fact that they shared something that they knew they could have got away with. Yeah. Right. That's what you want. Yeah. And so Maint and
I mean, learning the things that other parents already know, like you don't get it right here in the one-on-one sit-downs. You get it driving to school for the hour with your music on, whether looking out the window. And it's not the, no, look me in the eye, unconditional attention right now. That's hard for them. But when you get it in passing, going the ball, and you're getting this great stuff, you know? So I'm working on that, is maintaining access. You know the story about George Washington, the cherry tree, chops on the cherry tree, and then he tells us that.
I was reading once that we missed the lesson of the story because it's not real. It didn't actually happen. The lesson was that he told his dad what he did.
and that he trusted and wouldn't get his ass beat before. You know what I mean? Which would have been unique in the 18th century that he told his dad the truth. And his dad took the truth as the important thing, not the I have to inflict punishment upon you for having screwed up in some way. That's what you want. I tell the story about me and my dad in there when he got physical with me for stealing that pizza. He was not hurt because I stole the pizza. He was hurt because I lied to him about it.
Yeah, he'd stolen many freaking pizzas, man. He just want me to go, yeah, I was told the pizza got busted, he'd go, damn it. Why don't you, if you're going to do that, you got to get away with it better. Yeah, right. And I mean, or what? Yeah, what'd you do with your allowance? But he was never, and I didn't know that till after. And I would never forget the pain in his eyes. The fatigue of his jaw dropping was not how am I failing that my son stole a pizza. It was how am I failing that my son wouldn't just tell me the truth about that.
How am I failing that I raise a son that lied to me three times about stealing a goddamn pizza? Come on. The way I would think about it now is what did he do that made you not feel comfortable telling him, right? Why did you lie? Because there's something we do it. We want them to say, you can come to me. That's what we say. But then every day with our actions, we're like, yeah, if you come to me, it's bad for you.
Right? But we're not actually making it, you know, there's what you say, and then there's the case that you make every day. Dude, the night I wrote a little quick blurb on at the beginning about losing my virginity by blackmail when I was 15.
Maybe I was 14. You know what the threat was? No, you come to this hotel and you're going to me, or I'm going to go to your house and tell your parents that you've been drinking beer at your log cabin you built in the woods. Thanks. I tell my mom and dad that, man, I'm getting in trouble.
I know now, my parents would have been like, told I got to get your ass off our porch out there. You try to manipulate your son to come here and come in here and it would be out of it. We'd have hugged it out. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't see it. And I would have not been blackmailed. Right. That night. Right. You know what I mean? I, I, so I've got a couple, if you knew you had saved me a couple of times, I'm sure there's more than that. Right.
You know, so I was, we were miscommunicating or I was misperceiving along the way and some way or not seeing clearly, you know, what was it, what I'd seen with my older brothers and how they were disciplined by rules and stuff like that. Maybe I didn't see it clearly. There's a guy Dave Kerry who lives in Georgia. Or maybe I was just chicken shit.
I was, I was talking to someone the other, I was like, I wish, I wish that my track coach just said, you know, this to me, I would have gotten through. And my friend was like, they said that to you several times. What the fuck are you talking? So there are, there's something about, we can't hear what we're not ready to hear. So they probably told you a thousand times come to me no matter what it is, you won't get in trouble. And then you just refuse to hear.
But anyways, there's this guy named Dave Kerry lives in in Georgetown. He was he went to the Naval Academy. He was in the Hanoy Hilton with Stockdale and McCain prisoner of war for like six or seven years. I asked him one just some Vietnam last year. Oh, wow. He's this amazing guy. And he was saying that one of the things he learned as a parent is like, you always got to remember the goal of every conversation is to get to have the next conversation.
I think about that a lot. Because you think your job is like, I got to discipline them. I got to get this point across. I got to make them understand this. And it's like, you don't know that this is the conversation where that is supposed to happen. Actually, it might be 15 years from now, they're going to be calling you with some problem or not calling you with some problem because of how you acted in this moment. I mean, yeah, that's a good one to go and remember.
It's good for life too, generally. It also takes some pressure off. Yeah, of course. Yeah. If you think this is the moment, you're probably going to say, I definitely have that that pride and arrogance to feel like, no, I got to make it clear right now. It's black and it's white. Do you understand? Is that clear? Say it back to me. Great period done. Are we done now? Okay. We've got it. Okay. Now let's have ice cream. It's like,
And what they actually were like, no, it's just, it's, you don't have to put a period on the end of it. Yeah. Keep it open and we can still have the screen while we're finishing up the conversation. Right. Which is that it's, hey, we only got 18 years. It says who? Right. You know, you're not going to, can't have any good conversations when they're 22. I hope you could. So it's like kind of, yeah, I think
Whenever I'm extrapolating, I'm usually getting myself in trouble. It's like, I'm worried if you did this and then you don't understand this, then this, this, this, this, and you'll end up living under a bridge somewhere. Or, you know, and works if I let them talk to me this way, in this situation, no one will ever respect me ever again. It's that extrapolation based on, you know, an absurd series of assumptions. But it's also, it's also, I think it's fair to say you and I really like logic. Yeah.
And everything's so logical. Most of these discussions are not about logic. Yeah. They're very passionate and animal want. Yeah. Need reactionary discussions. I mean, I don't, you know, and I want to like two is four. There's the math. What don't we get about this? That's a lot of times that's not the point that they're, yeah, understanding or want to understand and go, oh, oh, I get it. Yeah.
I didn't know that was the math. That's not easy with their asking. Do you want to be right or do you want to be married? You know, I told you that Mark Waters goes to girlfriend's past. Yeah, I got to do my homework on prepare a lot for roles and I go into scenes and I mean, I know my man. Yeah. And I've got clear decisions on what it would do and what if I hear something, what it wouldn't do.
And he's coming up in this one scene and he's saying, like, yeah, well, I do it. And he's like, OK, that's good. He tried this. And I was like, no, no, never do that. Uh, no. Uh, no, that's false. It's false. When did it? No, no. And he's like, after a couple of retorts back, he goes, Oh, you know, Matthew, you are never wrong. And I was like, thank you.
But there's more than one way to be right. And I went, oh shit, too shay, Mark. I'll never forget that moment. Yeah. And he just like, and I went, oh, and it was one of those, you hear certain things along the way. Maybe once a couple years, some moment you'll hear and it'll be branded on you. Yeah. That's it. That's one that stuck with me on that subject. There'd be more than one way to be right. I'm like, I love being right. Of course. You know, I honestly wish more people
Let it be right. Being right is almost gone out of old in a lot of ways. I don't think it's nostalgic to say competence is a real measure. Yeah. Sure. Doing something well, right, as compared to doing something not well and wrong. Yeah. But it's not on the top of the list. I mean, I've talked about before, I wish people need to bring embarrassment back.
No shame. Shame can be helpful also. It can be bad for art, but like if you're not. Yeah. If the only thing that is holding you back is whether something is strictly legal or not. We're in a lot of trouble. Yeah. Why did you do it? Because I could. Yeah. Right. That's, that's, I hear y'all Gus has been cray. Yeah. And I hear you as a kid, but do you know, do you want to? Yeah. Ask yourself if you want to, boy, you can. Yeah. When you can. Yeah. Ask yourself if you want to or if you maybe should. Can we go that far?
I mean, I think we're realizing, oh, wait, the whole American system was based on these norms that we never wrote down. And we just assumed people wouldn't do certain things. And then certain people come along and they go, I'm going to do whatever I want. And we're like, we don't have any checks for that. Like, checkmate, you win. No, that's 100%. It's a big problem. That constitution of normal expectations and decency that were unwritten and understood are
Oh, leak now. There's supposed to be some things that you commit Harry Carey afterwards, because you know what I mean? You're like, I'm out. I lost. It's like, no, sorry. Yeah. Shake hands on it. Got me. Yeah. Exactly. You got me there. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But if we don't have that, we're like a little bit. Oh, shit. We just have to wait for this person to die, I guess. Self. Yeah. We just have to wait for this person to get tired or give up or I don't know. It's crazy. That the final check in our system is like,
Would a human being be shameless enough to do X, Y or something? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's crazy to put a full circle in. And then I want to, I want to take you into the bookstore to show you something, but we were talking about like the prologue. I have two pages of notes of things I want to talk about. I didn't even look at them, but I think I got everything I wanted to set. You know, like you do the eyes and hour, I had this thing about how plans are worthless, but planning is everything. Hey, man, you do all the prep. You do all the thinking about it. And then you probably don't use one fucking bit of it.
saying earlier that I show up when I'm doing my best work, I show up with copious amounts. And I get there and like, well, duh, duh, well, duh, well, duh, not bringing that script to set anymore. That was then do I trust that it is informed me enough? Yeah.
And do I go back and go, oh, you could have done? Yeah. But there, but because I wasn't adhering to that or going back, hang on a second, let me look at my notes. I found another magic trick along the way, because it was in the moment. I wasn't going, hang on a second. Let me check on us to make sure. But I loved prepare and have those.
Have those sign posts there. If you hit these, you will succeed. I don't know if you make magic. If you ask those questions, it will be a good interview. But if you have the basis of those questions and we go where we've been, maybe it's a great interview to be able to relax though into that because I love the word. You love the word.
And then today, I know if I'm going to give a speech or something, there's some speeches everywhere. I'm like, dude, don't change a word of that. Yeah. Don't go off script. Yeah. Yeah. But you're going to be reading instead of going engaging. Yeah. And I've times where I'm like, I don't care. That's going to be printed. And then when it's printed, I want it to be exactly what it said here. So maybe I won't be the best performing or a tour, but what will be what we'll live on after will be exactly what I'm meant to say.
Well, there's different in that case, you're not actually the audience you're performing the thing to is different, right? Because you're you're like, Oh, this is going to be played in different me. Like the Gettysburg Address was somewhat underwhelming as a speech. Like the guy that goes before Lincoln, he speaks for like two and a half hours. The Gettysburg Address was four times shorter than the prayer which opened the ceremony. I heard this the other day on the rest is history.
It's incredible. He gets up there. He gives a speech and people are like, they thought it was a pause before the rest of the speech. It's so short, but that Lincoln wasn't performing for 500 people or 5,000 people at Gettysburg. He's performing for the newspapers, whom he has handed a copy of dress and he's performing for us. He was attempting, as the people don't think about him as this
logical. He was attempting to redefine what America stood for in a series of 270 words. It was almost a contract he was raising. This is what America is about. It wasn't, he wasn't trying to persuade you with his eloquent voice. It was these very tightly wound sentences.
And those have endured, obviously, for, you know, 200 years or 150 years. That's what it's. So, yeah, you got to know who you're performing. What mark are you hitting here? Are you hitting the mark for the live studio audience? Or are you performing past them? Right. For the camera, which is being watched by millions of people. And that's the bit of that objectivity. Yeah. Not necessarily self-conscious, but that's the bit of that objectivity of knowing your zone, who's my audience. I know this is going to live and have a long tail.
Yeah. Where's it going to be reprinted? That's what this performance may not be great. Yeah. But these words will live on and hopefully be changing, life changing. Yeah. Totally. Love it. Want to check out some books? Yeah. Sweet. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.
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