← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
Matthew McConaughey On: His Morning Routine; When To Take Risks; How To Bounce Back From Fuckups; And the Dangers of Cynicism
01:07:34
A guide to navigating “the rodeo of life”. Academy Award–winning actor and #1 New York Times bestselling author Matthew McConaughey is a husband and a father, an eternal optimist, a hopeful skeptic, and a man of faith who believes that we...
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- [00:00]
A
Staying connected matters. That's why AT and T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right. That's the AT&T guarantee. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com guarantee for details. @ and T connecting changes everything. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang. One of the One of the very cool parts of my job is that once in a while I get to talk to people whose work I really admire. I'm talking about public figures who I've been watching or listening to for decades. Today, it's Matthew McConaughey, who I've loved in movies like the Wolf of Wall street, the Dallas Buyers Club, etc, and also the TV show True Detective and and much more. Side note, I sometimes laugh and I was actually thinking about this during the interview, but I didn't bring it up. I sometimes laugh about the that grateful, confrontational interview between Zach Galifianakis and Matthew McConaughey on Zach's web show Between Two Ferns, where Zach turns to Matthew and says something like do you ever worry when you and Woody Harrelson are on set that somewhere there's a sack not being hacked? Anyway, it was kind of surreal to talk to Matthew, and he did not disappoint. He was full on. Matthew McConaughey. This interview centers on his new book, which is called Poems and Prayers. We talk about Matthew's morning ritual, what he means by prayer, and how he does it. He gets pretty granular on that. His relationship with doubt and humility, how to reframe your relationship with failure, risk and embarrassment. Why he's so worried about growing cynicism in the culture, the difference between hope and belief, why he says belief is punk rock and much more. Before we dive in, just a quick plug. Don't forget to check out what we're doing over on danharris.com paid subscribers now get guided meditations with all of our Monday Wednesday episodes. Plus we are now doing weekly live video meditation and Q and A sessions. We do these every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. I'm doing the next one solo, but sometimes I do it with our Teacher of the Month or the Teacher of the Month does it solo. Also, if you want to meditate with me in person, I've got a couple of events coming up. The first is on September 21st. I'll be doing a workshop at the New York Insight Meditation center on the Dharma of Anxiety and Depression with the Great Leslie Booker. You can do that one online or in person, and I will be Back at the Omega Institute for another edition of meditation party with 7A Selassie, Jeff Warren and this time Afosu Jones Corte. That's the weekend of October 24th at Omega Links to both in the show notes. Okay, we'll get started with Matthew McConaughey right after this. Depending on where you live, the cooler temperatures are rolling in and if it's not happening right now, it's going to happen soon. It always does. And quints is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last. From cashmere to denim to boots. The quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quince has the kind of fall staples you will wear nonstop, like super soft 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. I've got like four of those and bring those out of the back of the closet to start wearing again now that fall is here. Their denim is durable and fits right and their real leather jackets bring that clean, classic edge without the elevated price tag. What makes quints different? They partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen so you get the top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. I was at a party last night. I was wearing my Quince pants which fit really well. They look good, not too tight, just the kind of thing a man of my age craves. I've got many, many Quint's go to's. Aside from the aforementioned cashmere sweaters. I also wear Quint's sweatpants on the regular often while I'm doing interviews for this podcast. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from quince go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 days returns. That's quince.com happier free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com happier. You know those moments when someone just takes care of something for you? That's what AT&T is doing with the AT guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT&T guarantee. Because staying connected isn't optional, it's essential. And AT and T wants you to feel that somebody's got your back. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com guarantee for details. @&t connecting changes everything Matthew McConaughey, welcome to the show.
- [05:01]
B
Good to be here Dan.
- [05:02]
A
It's awesome to talk to you. I'm really glad you made time for this. Congratulations on the new book it's called poems and prayers. So I thought, and this is not particularly original on my part, but I thought we'd start with poems and prayers. What is the role of poetry in your life? Is that a sanity inducing mechanism for you?
- [05:21]
B
Sanity inducing. It's a good way to put it. Sometimes it is, sure. When the logic and the math and the evidence and the facts aren't adding up to an outcome that I can appreciate or want to strive to. Poetry is, you know, like prayers. There are dreams and aspirations and pursuits to believe in beauty and divinity and the world and in ourselves. And sometimes I go to poetry when I'm like, you know what? Enough with the academia, enough with the damn logic. I'm looking around a reality. I'm not finding the things that I want to believe in or that are building me up to have belief in others and myself. So I'll go to poetry, like music, like prayers and those aspirations of the ideals in life to make sense of the world or to remind myself that there's higher ground to strive for.
- [06:09]
A
In the introduction of your book, you talk about many of the things you just mentioned there that at times it's like hard to know what's true as we look around at the world. And so for you, poetry or art, rhythm, mysticism can be a refuge in a world where objective truth is often obscured or weaponized.
- [06:29]
B
Yeah. And it can be a beautiful and musical and way to access again those ideals when, look, logic and the truth. And I love logic. That's why I've always gone, I go to nonfiction to create the fiction. I believe art emulates life. That's what just keep living. My model's been forever that I look around and see reality. And I'm like, that's as good as it can get. You know, let's let that inspire me and us to create art. And I still believe that. But I was finding that harder to do here in the last few years. For whatever reason, logic, the numbers, the math, the facts, they're all so tacit. They're, they're very. Almost can become acidic. They're academic. It's very conscientious work to try and sift through it all and, and, and work out the digits that you want to believe in or what the hell the fact. So a relaxing but beautiful place to go to sometime. Make sense for what's between the lines or what the overall story or theme could be is poetry and prayers for me.
- [07:30]
A
Let's talk about prayer. You get pretty detailed in the book about exactly how you pray. And I'll be honest, I'm. I was raised by atheist scientists in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, so I don't have like a rich prayer life. I'm a pretty dedicated meditator and I think there's overlap there, but I. I don't pray per se, and I don't know if you'd be willing to recapitulate it here, but I was really intrigued by your sort of walking the reader through your prayer process, which, if I understand correctly, kind of starts with some gratitude.
- [08:02]
B
Yeah, starts with the baseline gratitude. I get asked all the time, or I just have conversations with people all the time. My agnostic and atheist friends as well. Like, I mean, I got things to pray for, but how do you do it? What's the rules? You know, or kids ask me that. There really are no rules. Find a space to get quiet with yourself, have a listen, and if your mind doesn't go somewhere, pick out somebody or something you're thankful for, think of what that is in them, why you're thankful for it, why it turns you on, why it just maybe doesn't do anything for you, but you just love what it does for them. Well, pray for more of that in them and maybe in you as well. So the way I just started that. Of what prayer is very much an overlap, if I suppose what you do with meditation. Find that quiet space, listen for a minute, try not to be hung up on the. The ideas and the aspirations or the. The plans that we have for our future, and just be still for a moment. Listen to yourself. So prayer could start off. I started with gratitude. What I do is I try to go through the Rolodex of all the people in my life that I love and care for. And I try to Rolodex through my memories lane of an image of them when they're most truly themselves, not Instagram happy cheese, perfect light and not doubtful and mournful, but just when they were themselves and you saw grace on them and you see their light shining bright because they are just who they are in that contentment of that moment. And I lock in on that picture of them in my mind and I pray for more of that in them and pray to see them, for them to feel that more. And I roll through that, however long that takes. And then I get to. What I talk about is the hardest part now I get to me and I got to roll through the Rolodex of trying to see myself in that space. And that can take a mighty long time sometimes to Find that vision of myself and that picture of myself, but I stick with it until I do. And then I sit with that for a minute and I think about what made me feel that way, why I was in that space where I was, where I wasn't ahead or behind, but I wasn't advertising and I wasn't performing and I wasn't exaggerating the goodness and I wasn't dwelling in the pain, and I was right there, level, and the world seemed flat and my eyes were high. And I could tell by the look of myself that I was honest across the board with who I was. And I'll concentrate on that and I'll pray for more of that myself. And then after I'm done with that, that's when I say amen.
- [10:28]
A
To me, coming at this, from a Buddhist lens, this sounds similar, if not identical to loving kindness meditation. Are you familiar with that practice?
- [10:39]
B
I'm not, but I've heard about that and I have friends that do. And it, I think it sounds quite similar. You know, I'm curious, you know, what's the real difference in that?
- [10:48]
A
Well, so the basics of loving kindness meditation, are you. This is going to sound very similar. You sit, bring to mind, usually you start with an easy person, could be a cat, dog, could be a kid. And then you repeat four phrases, maybe happy, safe, healthy, live with ease. Then you move to yourself. Then a neutral person. Sorry, before the neutral person, there's a mentor. After the neutral person, there's a difficult person. And then everybody, everywhere. I would say the primary difference, and actually this is a point of curiosity, it's basically a question for you. The potential difference is in the Buddhist schema, there's no creator God. You're not petitioning anybody for help, Right?
- [11:32]
B
I do believe. I don't know this, but I do believe that when I am praying to God, when I am seeking to imitate and proclivate the divinity of God and be more godlike, that I'm talking to, and I think we all are talking to our sacred selves. Somebody may hear that and go, that's a blasphemous thing to say. I hope it's not. I believe we all have it in us. And whether I call that God or you don't have a destination of who you're talking to or what, or what entity you're talking to or reaching out to, it's another way to get to a very similar place. And so, as I've said, you know, early on in this book, and I wanted to make clear, I'M a believer. So for me, this. I wrote this book as part of a spiritual therapy for my own relationship and doubts that I have and have had with my own belief in God. But it's also for anyone who wants to believe more in themselves, wants to believe more in others, wants to believe more in tomorrow or yesterday. And I would say when people go, where do you go for belief? It seems to me the best place to start is to ask yourself, who or what would you die for? And everyone can answer that question. Start there and why. That's a great place to start with who you die for. And figuring out who that is and admitting that is a great place to look. That's where your belief is. And that's also a great signal to what to start living for. In a time when it's very confusing to many of us, it's like, well, what is the purpose? What am I supposed to start living for? I'm confused. I'm not sure. My attention spans all over the place. What do I give a damn about what I really value? What do I care for? And those are baseline things that matter to us that should stand the test of any kind of weather that we're in and change around us politically, AI, whatever, all the tension and confusion and stimulus. Those are things that can keep us a baseline of a truth for us. Through all the noise, when you ask.
- [13:33]
A
Yourself that question, what would you die for? What's your answer?
- [13:36]
B
Well, I'll tell you this. I have a hunch that this answer means that I have some more, A lot more work to do with my faith than I do. I have a hunch this answer means I have more doubt than I need to have. And that answer is, the list used to be longer, Dan. The list used to be longer. But then I look back and when was that list longer? When was that list up to 40 years old that I could have honestly said I will die. I would easily sacrifice my life for any human being around 40. I started to change. Now, that's about when I started to have children. I've got a wife. I'm in love. We built a family. Oh, that number starts shrinking because now I've got dependents, and I'm like, oh, I'm an artist with them, trying to raise them as a father, the most reverential position that I know in life. And, oh, I don't know if I necessarily want to give up my life or a stranger across the world that I don't know. I think I'm building something here. And I Believe in it. And I don't want to if I'm not here for that. Will those children have the best chance of becoming the best of themselves if I'm not here? So I have those quite selfish references now in my life. The list I would say is longer than my immediate family, but it's not near as long as it used to be.
- [15:00]
A
Yes, I've heard you a couple times talk about your wrestling with doubt so far in this, in the early stages of this conversation. Is that like.
- [15:08]
B
Yeah.
- [15:09]
A
Are you beating yourself up for having doubt in, in the existence of God?
- [15:12]
B
Where, where are.
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A
What am I hearing?
- [15:15]
B
So I'll throw a few jabs. I used to throw right hooks at myself. I'll throw three jabs at myself. Now I'll get myself in a bit of a headlock because I fall out of the rituals that I believe that helped me feel so full of belief and faith. Now I've shaking hands and I believe this is more than amnesty for myself. But I've shaken hands with that doubt's part of the process and that God at least is happy I'm trying. I've had my agnostic years, years where I said self reliance, it's on me. Hands on the wheel. Fate my ass. Nuh. This is it. I'm responsible. We're each responsible for what we do for ourselves. Those are very valuable years. And when I came out of those back to faith and belief and strong belief in God, I heard God applauding, going, thank you for the courage to believe that you could do it all yourself. I need more like you put your hands on the wheel. Cause I got too many out there just relying on fate. Inshallah. Hey, whatever. Good Lord willing. No, I need you. Self reliance and faith go together. They're not contradictory. So thank you for having the courage to feel like you could do it yourself. And welcome back. Those were wonderful exercises in that. But I did come back and it's always there. Sometimes it's a bit hazy. Sometimes I have to even sell myself on the habit, the rituals to stay in tune with my own spirit and belief in God. I can get away from it when it's ideal for me. And this doesn't happen that often. But every day is a walking prayer with eyes open. Every interaction is a gift and a prayer that doesn't always happen. So follow the rituals of how to start my day with a prayer before a meal or to end my day or to what I do on Sunday. Those rituals help me with humility, they help me with confidence. Most the time sometimes. But I had a real struggle with the relationship with humility for decades until I heard the definition that it's admitting we have more to know, admitting we have more to learn. And once I heard that definition, I was like, oh, I'm in. And I was able to seek humility and find it, yet still be confident. But I go through doubt. Not saying all the time, but I have seasons of doubt. And one of them was here about a couple of years ago, was part of the reason I wrote this book and part of the reason I started looking back to my own poems and prayers and writing more of them and then put them on the page for me and then saying, hey, maybe these are worth sharing, because I'm hearing a lot of other people have the same feelings.
- [17:53]
A
On this note of humility, there's a really nice. I think this is a poem or either a poem or just a brief reflection in the book that Eleanor, who's producing this episode, Eleanor and I really honed in on. And I'll quote it to you, and then maybe you can talk about it on the backside. Every time we stand to be corrected, we also stand to be correct.
- [18:12]
B
Be correct, right? Yeah. That part and parcel goes along with that other little maxim I had in there, is like, anytime you're asking for something, forget the rhyme, but the answer is no until it's yes. You know, it also has to do with how we look at consequences. You tell anyone, well, you know, you make that choice, just tell me there's gonna be consequences. 95% of our head goes, oh. And we forget that. No, it's 50. 50 could be great consequences. We don't give credit to the great consequence. We just think, oh, that means trouble. And so I want to flip, like, flipping some things on their head sometimes about going, look, you know, I have another one in there. I'm not sure how to do it right, but I'm. I'm not sure how to do it wrong, but I'm pretty damn sure I didn't do it right. Every time you're incorrect, you stand the chance of being correct. So take the chance. You know, we have a culture that sort of really hammers you if you fail or if you're wrong. We love to hammer the person who missed the shot more than we like to cheer for the one who made the shot. And so just throwing that in there to say, look, let's admit it's 50, 50. Even if you don't know how to do it, you try to do it wrong, you might pull it off and do it right, you might actually be correct. So don't stop taking chances.
- [19:24]
A
I. I completely agree with everything you're saying. Would you say this is kind of the spirit of your prior book or one of your prior books, Green Lights?
- [19:33]
B
It's definitely Ken. This here's the pools of prayers and meditations and songs that inspired a lot of my actions and a lot of the stories that I told in Greenlight. So this is more the spiritual side, the secrets that we all have that we'd like to try and turn into habits and behaviors in our life. And these are ones that have worked for me. As you know, there's chapters in here called Wobbly, Lost and Looking. Times of great doubt and confusion. Some brought on by myself, some just by the ways of the world. Me looking up and going, what the hell, man, I need a compass. And digging out of some of those and finding my way again. And a lot of things in here help me and others, you know, that I've even heard has given us a rudder again. To get out of trouble, to get out of doubt, to get out of the haze and back into the dream, to get out of indifference and doubt and get back into belief, which is more than hope, but to get back into doubling down, tending the garden of putting more wood on the fire of the things that we value in our life and care for and believing in those.
- [20:37]
A
The reason why I brought up Green Lights is my understanding. One of the central arguments in that book is you should try because you might hit a green light where most of us are braced for the red light. We don't want to fail because we live in the panopticon of social media where everybody is shamed all the time or we're always in performative mode. But why not take the risk and be slightly optimistic?
- [20:59]
B
I agree. Why not? The failures don't, you know, we think they're perceived to carry so much more weight than they actually do. And I'm not saying go out there and be foolish. I believe in the merit of understanding a craft, hustling, getting educated at and trying to be good at something before you just go, hey, I can do it because I feel like it. No, I'm not talking about that half assured bs. But every time I've failed, most every time I've failed, when I fessed up to the failure and dusted myself off, the people I gave a damn about, the people I looked up to, the people I was pursuing to be more like, looked at me and were like, yeah, me too. There you go. They were very affirmative to go. Yeah. Thank you for being on the playing field. Thank you for taking the shot and thank you for getting up and saying, yeah, my bad, I missed, ready to go again. Thanks for staying in the game. And most people I think, do that, at least the ones that we care about or should care about. And I just, I see, especially with children these days, look, in some ways I wish we brought more embarrassment back. I sometimes, like, I wish people would be more embarrassed. What happened to embarrassment, man? Or a little bit of guilt? I mean, come on, you're okay, you sleep well. With that being how you handled that situation or how you handle your day, I'd be ashamed. And I'm glad I am because I've got a measure of what I'm holding expectation myself. But at the same time, there's stuff we shouldn't be embarrassed about a failure. There's, there's stuff that I see young people going, oh, I don't try that for fear of the failure. I'm like, what's the big deal? What would happen if you did fail? I don't, I don't want to find out for something that is just going to be some of that social pressure, that someone else is going to make a much bigger deal out of it than it actually is.
- [22:46]
A
Yes, I see this in my own son. I have a 10 year old. I know you have kids and this isn't always true of him, but sometimes he doesn't want to try because he doesn't want to fail. The way I see this playing out in the culture, in my own experience, is if you try something publicly and fail, in your case maybe it's a movie or a TV show, in my case, maybe it's a book that doesn't work or whatever, you might take some shit in the moment, but there's that second opportunity later. And it doesn't even have to be that much later to do what you were describing a few moments ago, which is to get up and say, you know what, I tried something, it didn't work, I screwed up. People usually applaud that.
- [23:25]
B
And you see it, it's prevalent in the Silicon Valley. Yes, those guys get up and just take swings all the time. And yes, 300 million dollar valuation, whoop, didn't work. Okay, next, boom. I mean, they do it all the time. I'm sit back and I'm gotten in business and started to learn a little bit about that. I was amazed. Looking into that industry, baseball is a lot better percentage than you guys, you know, What? I mean, yes, but they're like, no, that's, that's just how it goes. We took a swing. I'd say one of my greatest. I've been told this by people that I admire. One of my greatest attributes and brands is risk. It's also the thing that I believe I need to take more of that I don't take enough of now as part of that. Go back to the same reason of my list is shorter for how many people I die for because I got a family and I've built this and it's non negotiable and I'm going to continue to build this for my life. So I don't want to be foolish with risking that. Do I have a career that I've built over 36 years that I don't want to just be haphazard and be silly with? Yeah. At the same time measuring what the right risks are and not settling into a successful sort of complacency of just saying, well, put up the walls, let's maintain. Put up the walls, let's maintain. I don't, I don't, I don't want to sit there either. Although I do love to prepare and I do, I do love to measure, you know, and preparation has been one of my greatest assets. I also, on the flip side of that, don't want to prepare myself until death, you know, for a lot of things.
- [24:54]
A
Right.
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B
Yeah.
- [24:56]
A
If there's been a decline in risk tolerance post babies.
- [25:02]
B
Yeah.
- [25:02]
A
Where do you find that showing up in like, oh, well, I'm not gonna. Maybe I don't do Dallas Buyers Club this time. Maybe I go for something safer. Is it artistic choices? Is it something else?
- [25:18]
B
It's not really artistic choices. I don't think unless it's dealing with amount of time I'm going to need to go be solo. For instance, writing. That's a solo experience for me. I'm not any good at going, oh, after this, Dan, I've got three hours in the afternoon before my next appointment. I'll go. Right. I don't know how to do that. I have to have no curfew on the backside, at least eight to 10 days on the backside of knowing there is no clock. I don't have to have a return ticket back at all to step out if I'm creatively turned on. So time is some. But I'm also very fortunate. When I go to work for over more than three weeks, the kids and the family come with me. So I'm not missing out on them. The risk of roles. No, it would be no problem. Like a Dallas Buyers Club to go, hey, we're going to do this. It's going to be five months. I'm going to be on a militant diet. I'm going to be. That's not a problem. It's a good question. What is the answer of that? Where I take risk of who to bring into my life, who to share our life with, what areas to expose the kids to as since they're usually with me and Camilla, I think it's those because when you have more to protect, I try to watch that. I don't want to lose trust. But I also with success, you got a lot of people coming for you. And some of them are very good at hiding their transactional motives and try to be as wise to that as possible. But at the same time, to measure those things stunts a creative process. Because a creative process works on yes, embrace, carry on. Yes, come on, have another. And so balancing that out. And my wife has probably a more skeptical, watchful eye than I do, but it's how much to share. And then in 24 hours, not to some of the taking the risk is about obviously bringing on new things, but it's also on the other side, a greater risk to go, no, don't bring on new things. Put more logs on the fires you've already got going. And don't let those just be. Oh, that was a fad. Oh, I worked on that for a couple of years. No, keep building the fires that are already built and see how high they can go, how wide those flames can go. And so it's measuring those. And plus without I can have a tendency to over leverage myself and look up and go, damn it, I got eight campfires on my desk. Again, I'd rather have two bonfires. I'm feeling pulled left and right. I kind of feel like I'm not able to give 100%. I'm half assing this over here. I'm half assing that over there. I'm feeling quite incomplete. Can I get six more hours in a day? Nope, they're not giving them. Okay, what do I need to do? I need to pull a few campfires off. And that's probably the greater risk for me now is to probably pull some campfires off and use that wood to put in the one the bonfires that I've got going.
- [28:16]
A
That is a huge problem for me personally. I know what drives my over commitment. It's usually fear. Like a fear of missing out, fear of not making enough money. What Drives it for you finding out.
- [28:28]
B
I love to find out. Most times of my life when I thought, oh, I don't have time for that. Yeah you do, go do it. And I found more time and I found more energy to go. Think I can handle it and handle it and actually handle it. But can I do that while keeping my health intact by keeping my husbandry intact, by keeping my fatherhood intact, by keeping my faith intact, by keeping those relationships intact? Sometimes one of those goes into the debit section if I'm going to take on too much. And I've found that as much as you may say, hey, no, just need your name on the board, just need your name on the invitation. I don't know how to just be the name. If I'm going to do it, I'll look up and if you ask me to read a script, you say Dan, you say matthew, I got the script, I want you to read it for me. Give me some notes. I'm going to say, dan, are you sure this is the one? Because I know it's the 120 pages. Think it's gonna be an hour and a half read? No, it's not. It's gonna be an hour and a half read, but it's gonna take me eight and a half hours. Cause I'm gonna be taking notes along the way and then I'm gonna assemble em, then I'm gonna get them to get back. That's gonna be my whole day. So you sure this is the one you want me to read? I'm not good at. And I guess I'm glad I'm not good at. I'm not good at just dipping a toe or going, yeah, I'll be affiliated with that. Yeah, you can put my name on it. Because I'll end up getting into it. And once I'm into it, I will exceed all of my contractual obligations and all of my relations.
- [29:55]
A
The other thing you mentioned a couple minutes ago that, that intrigued me was knowing when to trust people. You're a very well known person. Public figure, you said. And I really like the way you put this. Some people are really good at hiding their transactional agenda. How do you know when to trust people?
- [30:13]
B
I go in with a pretty high measure of openness, of trust on howdy. I go in with a great reverence for most everybody I meet. Nobody, including myself, ever really lives up to the reverence that I give them. And I know some exceptionally exceptional people. But in the same way, no movie, no character I've ever done, I've Lived up to the divinity that I dreamed it to be. And I've done some excellent stuff and been a part of some excellent movies. And I'm not over here boohooing them. I'm saying they were pieces of art or they end up being people end up being more mortal than maybe I on Howdy was believing they could be. So I go in with a lot of trust. I am not foolish with that. I don't share numbers and open up my account and books. That's usually what snakes are after. And I've been burned many times. On the first chance I was like, oh, okay. I didn't get the reciprocity that I thought. I see with that. That was a singular transaction. Okay, okay. Measured, not repeating that. So I don't give it all on the first chance where I can squander what I have I'm not foolish with, but I will. I've got many times where I've given my time and gone, oh, that was way oversold to me. And that actually benefited them, but didn't benefit me at all. Let's mark that. I've got people around me that help. If I'm going to engage with something, I'm like, yeah, this guy's great, or she's great. Or let's go into this project I've been before. I say, yes, allow my team around me to go, let us do some work here and study and see if everything's what's being said, if everything you're being sold is actually what the facts are. Then we assemble and I tell that person, I get back to you, I've got to do some diligence. That sounds great. And then I assemble. I get my facts together, measured against time, what I've got to do. And sometimes I'll come back and go, I just did this yesterday. Not going to do a deal. But I tell you what, you wanted 10, I'm going to give you two for free. I don't want being part of the deal. I like what you're doing. You got two for free. Do what you want with them, Market. You can use my name and my voice for that. Go, Market. See if you can get more. We're great. That's all I can do right now.
- [32:26]
A
Coming up, Matthew talks about his morning ritual, his morning routine, how he prepares for the day. We also talk about sins, cynicism and what to do when things get shitty. Matthew's take on the current state of the world. Misconceptions about good and evil and why belief is punk rock. Look, we talk about it a lot on this show. There is a connection, a real connection between your finances, your money and your personal well being, your mental health. There's now a very interesting new option if you want to feel organized and confident in your finances. It's called Monarch Money. It's an all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or on your phone. And right now, just for our listeners, Monarch is offering 50% off your first year. I downloaded the app and started playing with it. It's quite impressive and really powerful to have all of my information right there in one place on a clean, attractive, very clear interface so I can see everything and then manage it all. I'm just one of those people. I need to have all the information in front of me. Otherwise it takes on a vague, miasmatic sense of dread and fear. But when I have it all in front of me, then it's all workable. And that's what Monarch does for you. Monarch is built for people with busy lives. If you've put off organizing your finances, Monarch is for you. They do all the heavy lifting. They link all of your accounts in minutes and get clear data, smart categorization of your spending and real control over your money. You will never need to touch a spreadsheet again. Monarch is not just a finance app. It's a tool that real professionals and experts actually love. It was named the best budgeting app of 2025 by the Wall Street Journal. Check it out. Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use code happier@monimalmoney.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monimalmoney.com with code HAPPIER. Depending on where you live, the cooler temperatures are rolling in and if it's not happening right now, it's going to happen soon. It always does. And quince is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last from cashmere to denim to boots. The quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quince has the kind of fall staples you will wear non stop, like super soft 100 Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. I've got like four of those. Gonna bring those out of the back of the closet to start wearing again now that fall is here. Their denim is durable and fits right and their real leather jackets bring that clean, classic edge without the elevated price tag. What makes quints different? They partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you get the top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. I was at a party last night. I was wearing my quince pants which fit really well. They look good, not too tight, just the kind of thing a man of my age craves. I've got many, many quince go to's. Aside from the aforementioned cashmere sweaters, I also wear quince sweatpants on the right regular often while I'm doing interviews for this podcast. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from quince go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 days returns. That's quince.com happier free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com happier again the book's called Poems and Prayers. And one of the things that Eleanor and I again, Eleanor, the producer of this episode that we honed in on is your morning routine. There's a bunch of parts to this, but I'm going to read one, one little passage and hopefully get you to unpack it a little bit. Okay, then there are other aspects of your morning routine I want to talk about, but here, here's the first one. It's called Living Life to Attune. Some mornings I wake up with a certain musical meter in my mind. If I like the sound of it, I'll do my best to move to the pace of that rhythm throughout the day to exchange the cadence with everything I see and do. If I keep that meter in the way I think, see and move, the world around me often responds in kind to my calling, making every interaction. I have a rhyming verse in the song that is my day. Can you say a little bit more about that?
- [36:59]
B
Yeah. A lot of my writing comes from a musical meter. There's quite a few poems in the book that I woke up with a and I woke up and I had it and the line was in my head and it fit that meter. And I slowly walked to my laptop and I started writing to that meter and all of a sudden, six hours later have 40 pages. And now I go back and go look and go, let's see if any of that's worth a shit. And you know, do some editing. Look, I go, hey, some of that is, some of that's not. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not the same way of starting my day. Do you drink coffee in the morning?
- [37:38]
A
I have panic disorder, so I can't have caffeine.
- [37:40]
B
Okay, so no caffeine. So if you did, you would be sped up ahead of time, right?
- [37:46]
A
Yes.
- [37:47]
B
Okay. And your discussion with me or the one you'd be ahead. Maybe you wouldn't listen as well. Maybe you'd be over anticipating what the next answer and you wouldn't be able to be present all of a sudden this thing we would kind of be off musically, right. Well same with me. If I don't have anything I'm going to be maybe a little bit slow and I don't know, not using the right amount of words and then feeling anticipation because I'm going like geez, sharpen up. I wake up with a certain meter in my head of an exchange short of dance that I'm going to have through the day with how my day's going to start. That starts with though the night before having a look at kind of what my day's laid out. I've got got six destinations that I've agreed to be at. I've got this breakfast with my wife, I've got this 10am meeting I got this one, I got this two, I got this three, I got this four. And then I'm going to my son's football game at 7. Let's lay that out. All right, what do I need to be prepared for what? Well to start off the day the first one's going to be easy. Let's ease into the day. Hell, maybe I'll meet my wife over a cup of tea and we'll do a few pieces of a puzzle just to catch up on the day. But then I'm going to start getting cranked up for the 9 and the 10 because I got to be on their hour, I got to compartmentalize, I got to be sharp and then by the end of the day when can I take the big exhale? Right before I'm going to leave the last being to go to my son's football game. It's another meeting but it's not. I don't have to be on that's already now I've got three acts of a song of where my energy is going to go through the day and that started with looking at my plan from the day four. I'm also going to run into a few things I didn't expect. I'm going to hit the traffic jam so I'm going to be late for the 2 o' clock which is going to make me late for the 3 o' clock which is going to then up can't make me late for the Sun's football game because that's non negotiable. I have to leave the 4 o' clock early to get to that one. So I'm pinching, but I'm still. I like to leave on time so I can take my time. I don't like to be in a hurry. I don't like to be in a rush. I like to have it sorted so I can saunter in, be on time, be present and saunter right out. I don't want to get there early and hang out too long in your green room. I don't want to get there late. And let's try to hurry up and rush and get what questions in we can in 40 minutes when we really needed an hour. That's a meter. That's a meter of how I'm planning my day. That's a meter of how I'm going to move. That's a meter of how I'm going to talk to some people in passing because I'm on my way to where I need to go. No, I can't stop every single time because I've got this thing, I've got this plan, I've got a dance I'm doing. And where I'm going that's also. Hey, Happened to get there early, Ran into Eleanor outside, got in a conversation with her for 10 minutes before you and I started to talk because I was there early. It's all in the same rhythm, but it's from the rhythm that the plan I looked at the night before. And if I can keep that cadence, There's a rhythm to the day, there's a rhythm to the work. It starts to rhyme. Or in the words of T Bone Burnett, like a song, if you just keep at it, you'll eventually write a song. And it's also realizing that the bumps that the traffic jams that the f ups and the things that didn't go as planned. That's part of the same song. Don't lose your rhythm there. That's part of the same song. Don't let that throw you out of rhythm like you got. That's a new song. It's part of the same song.
- [40:55]
A
I really honed in on in your book, this balance that you've just been talking about between wanting to have a kind of smooth, laid back saunter through your day.
- [41:06]
B
Yeah.
- [41:07]
A
But also to get all the done. And it sounds like to me what part of that for you is as you referenced preparation.
- [41:15]
B
Preparation we all feel when we feel stress, Right. What is it usually the things we have to do in front of us, the amount of unresponded Unreturned emails, that number gets bigger. They start to mount vertically on our shoulders. It's a vertical mount. How am I going to get all that done when in reality, usually we go do it and you're like, oh, geez, it wasn't as much weight on my shoulders as I thought. But what happens when we're prepared? All those things aren't as on our shoulders. They're actually laid out in front of us laterally. And when they're laid out laterally and you're like, I'm not looking at these as all these appointments I got to make. I've see it. And they're lily pads that I'm going to saunter and dance to each one. And I'm calling each one a swing by. Just sometimes I even that idea of looking at my busy day and go, these are swing bys, not appointments. All of a sudden I'm like, oh, okay. And I'm better in the appointments because I've been like, you're swinging by, man. And that's because I see him laterally in front of us. And it gets off that vertical stack that we put on herself that puts the pressure because you can't see them, they're stacked on top of you. And after the pup on your shoulders, the ones up top, you can't see the damn things and you're intimidated by them and the weight gets heavy. But when they're laid down in front of us and you go, oh, I see, I got there. Then I'm going to go there. Then I'm going to swing by over there. Oh, yeah. Then I'm coming back over here and pop over. Yeah, It's a great way of looking at it. That takes the pressure off and takes the weight off because you can see it and it's not on your shoulders. So it's a lateral way of looking at all the plans that we have or all the appointments or responsibilities that we have. And you can see him.
- [42:55]
A
I like that. Another key part for you seems to be like, you don't leap out of bed in the morning. Like there. You take a beat and check in.
- [43:04]
B
Try to. Yeah, you know the old. Trying to go through the house. There's a, a big cardboard, very artfully drawn message in the kitchen. No devices or mobile devices for the first hour you are awake. And at the bottom it says, that includes you, Popeye. That's me. Oh, geez, I get it. And my day does start better if I give myself enough time to not check in with what's happening in the rest of the world and to just stay in my cocoon of. Hey, how am I feeling? Oh, good, good. I hear the kids down there laughing. Good. I'm going to catch them before they hop out to school. Let me go down and hang out with them. Like I said, make a cup of tea, check in with my wife, talk about the day if I've got the time. A real luxury to do a few pieces of a puzzle. Simple. You know, it's like I think what Wordle does for people just to get the brain active in a slow way before I'm going to engage and get in too much of a. Of a rush or have to move quickly as sometimes I have to do. That's how I like to start my day. Sometimes I have wake up with an idea and I'm going to go put it down in my notes and my notes are in my phone. Pretty damn hard to put a note in your phone when you see. And you also cross those extra numbers in your email box and you. How do you keep from checking those but actually going into the phone to use your notes and that takes a bit of discipline and I don't always pull it off. But I do like when I start my day that way. Much better than when I've come down stairs to greet the family and start my day when I'm already thinking about if I've checked my message, I'm already thinking about everything I've got to take care of that day. And now I'm not, not. I'm not as relaxed with them, I'm not as present with them. I'm a little bit in a rush. What I've got to do later on is more important than what I'm doing right now. So let me just second. No, I'm listening. No, I know. Yeah, yeah, just a second. Yeah, I know, I hear. I'm listening. No, you're not. Put it down. So I try to buy that time in the morning for myself and for the most part pull it off. And I'm happy when I do.
- [45:07]
A
I've done something similar and I found it to be really helpful. And it also sounds to me like you have some flexibility, some grace to it up.
- [45:18]
B
Yeah, look, there's some times where it's all hands on deck. I need it, it's timely, it's now. And they don't have to put an exclamation mark and all caps all red to let me know that I know now this is something I gotta go and I'll let her and Go. This is something I gotta handle. Let me get a quick kiss hello. Love you too. Have a great disco. I gotta go handle this. I'll see you this afternoon. I don't give a about it. I will laugh about later. I'm gonna do this. I'll trust me. I gotta handle it. Bam. Gotta get into it. Yeah, there's some grace in there and I gotta allow that grace with my wife and she allows it with me and the kids allow with me. And what's my excuse when they go like, well, I didn't do it. I was like, yeah. With the message you gotta return ain't paying the rent. Mine is. But that is. That can be my excuse.
- [46:00]
A
Yeah, I've tried that and I've gotten some harsh looks in response.
- [46:05]
B
Yeah, I haven't gotten a good response to that one either.
- [46:09]
A
Just on this, on this note of fuck ups, there's another Matthew McConaughey quote here. I like, if we're not missing coming up short or sinning enough, maybe we aren't trying hard enough.
- [46:25]
B
To sin. It comes from. It's an archery term to miss the mark. And I love, I'm a prescriptionist. I love going back to the original meaning of words. And that just opens that up for a lot of people who may not, may not believe in sin or may not believe in God or what have you. So which, which the word sin is usually connected to. Yeah. You know, I'm curious as a believer when and if I get to. If there is that so called pearly gates and Judgment Day or whatever, what's better to have shown up taking eight great risk and pulling off seven or have taken a hundred great risk and pulling off eight. My hunch is that if there's a God, he's going to. I'll take the hunt. Eight out of 100. Way to go. That's my hunch. No, I don't mean being reckless with those things and just being a repeat offender of bad things. But I believe that to take the effort, to try and try again, to take the risk is in my belief God saying, yeah, I didn't, I didn't want you coming back here with even money. But there's a great story in the Bible about that, about the two sons. The father gives him money and one buries it in the backyard and the other one goes away to the city and spends it on gambling and whores and everything else and comes back broke and crying. The one who buried it is like, see, I'm the good one. I'm the good One. And he throws the party for the one that came back. He goes, yeah, you just buried yours in the backyard. At least this one went out and tried.
- [47:53]
A
You know, that leads to me, to another thing I wanted to talk to you about from your book, which is courage, which seems to be a real theme that I want to read you another passage and let you talk about it. On the back side there's a passage called man up. So much of life seems to come back to courage, doesn't it? Being willing to go one more step before you quit, one step deeper into your relationships, one step further in being faithful to yourself, to your God. What if everybody took one more step to salvage their marriage, to secure their own character, to not sell themselves short. One more step by enough of us can change the world.
- [48:28]
B
Yeah, I believe that. And I know I'm. As my, A lot of my friends tell me, boy, you're trying to change behavior. That's a big square rock up a hill. Well, I don't, I don't care. I think that. I think that's where it is. I think that is the way forward. You know, are there times and how we learned in times and I suppose this is a very Buddhist quality to let go, you know? No, it is what it is. Let it. Let the wind blow where it is. And hey, that's how it is. Yes, there are definitely times for that kind of grace, forgiveness and letting go, pivoting, moving on, changing direction. But I also believe that the larger problem we could solve is quitting too early. Not only with. When things get hard, even when things are going really well, you know, Icarus in reverse is what I think we need more of. I think a lot of us turn back because we think it's getting. We're flying too close to the sun. It's going to melt our wax on our wings. And it's 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Man, you still got a beanie on. It's not even close to melting the wings. Keep going. Who do you think. You arrogant son of a bitch. You thought you were kid. You thought it was getting hot. There's a lot more room to go. So on both ends of the spectrum, when things get hard, I've done it. I know a lot of people that do it. I got friends that do it. Responsibility adds up. Path, least resistance. Sneaking out the back door. Oh, that's not going. That's stuff that you didn't finish. It didn't go, it didn't disappear. Now it's getting double wide for tomorrow and it Builds up and people end up going, I'm out. And I see it in relationships, I see it in marriages. And I believe there are some divorces that are absolutely necessary that were good for both people, 100%. I'm not saying every one of them, but I do see some divorces from the male and the female going, it's got kind of hard. So we checked out. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now what? No, no, wait a minute. Or. Yeah, it's just how the world goes. I just go along with it. Whoa. That completely goes against your character. Stand up for that. Don't quit. Partially what I'm trying to do with this, you know, believe. I don't want to quit believing in my God, in myself and others. And I felt myself getting a bit cynical. And I swore to myself a long time ago that cynicism is a disease that we choose in life, and it's a way of dying early while we're still walking on two legs. And I'm not going there. And I see other people asking that same question. And in that same battle.
- [51:11]
A
In moments when you're feeling cynical, is there a go to move that helps?
- [51:18]
B
Humor. Humor. Because the doubt that comes with cynicism and the disbelief that comes with it, I'll let myself sometimes have the. Okay, put a period on into that. Clever, smart, Right on. Fact, maybe, but it doesn't end there. Now, hang on. We're not going to say that's just how the world is. We're not going to apply that to everybody. You're going to apply that to everybody. That kind of disbelief starts to come back at you in the mirror. Now, hang on. So humor to go. Clever. McConaughey. Good one. You got my laugh at the cocktail party, but I don't respect you as much as I did before. Ah, okay, okay. It's an easy way out. That's the thing. It's such a cop out, and it's too easy, and it's clever and snark and it can, like I said, can get the chuckle at the cocktail party. But I. But I. It's definitely not a way forward as far as I can see.
- [52:24]
A
What's your take on the state of America and the world right now?
- [52:29]
B
Wow. Well, that's a big question. Seems I was talking to a friend the other day, and he used a really cool word, which I think is a good one for this answer. We're in a great time of disorientation. Where do we fit in? How do we fit in? AI. Oh, I took my job oh yeah, go to college, learn this, guarantee that's the best way of the future. Oh, they're not hiring for that anymore. That's not needed. Oh, where are we oriented in this? Where are we humans oriented in this? Where are we oriented with this? And is a. You know, and the AI atheists are like, well, no, this is evolution. This is the next link. We're going to be extinct. That's great. I'm not ready to go there and I don't. And I hope that's not where we're going. The way we. I was reading something this morning, the way we label people. I've got a poem in there about condemn the act, don't condemn the person, condemn what they did. But don't label them the liar, cheater, stealer. If they happen to just get caught one time lying, cheating or stealing, give them the chance to go, no, that's not who I am. That was an aberration. I hit it out of bounds. My bad, let me come back. But we label someone completely. If we disagree with their politics or we disagree with their pointers, we label them as a bad person. And we've gotten into a place even politically where we're not talking about good and bad, we're like talking about good and evil. I don't know that that's always our place to be labeling people good or evil. Sometimes I'm like, I have it in that poem. Blessed are the peacemakers. I don't know. Sometimes there's times today let's let God deal with that. There are good and bad. We should have judgment, we should have discernment to say I choose this over that, but not condemn an act. But don't condemn the person or label a person as evil if they don't subscribe to your own personal politics, so to speak. Again, I think it's an easy way to go. I think politically our far extreme rights and left are much closer than they realize. I think there's a massive majority in the middle that just needs to take the mic back because they let the pirates of the extremes on the right left come over the edges and kind of take over the ship. But that place is not going to reveal itself. All right? If it is sold or understood to be a passive meet in the middle, that place the masses are going to have to understand and behave, I think like it's a punk rock rebellion. Moderation is becoming punk rock. Belief is punk rock. I believe right now it's not old school, gray haired white man at the pulpit saying this is what you should do. No, I think it's absolutely. When I say in the beginning, let's sell Sunday morning like a Saturday night, this is, it's a rebellious thing right now. I see so much distrust. I see so many transactional relationships, so many so that people aren't even that good at hiding them that more that much anymore. I'm like, dude, you could have like tried a little harder to get away with that. It was very apparent you're trying to pick my pocket. I mean you gotta, you're have to be better than that. I almost want to help them out going, no, I mean that was bad acting even, you know, but it just seems to be part of, oh well, you called me cool. That's just what we do. No, in the name of progress, which is not a bad word, it's a great word. And the right's got to shake hands with that. Progress is what we all want. Just what's the definition of that? Now we all have to understand, the youth in us has to understand that that does not mean casting out everything that was in the past and saying yes to everything in the future. That's not progress. There are certain things, truths and traditions that have worked over time and no matter what happens in the world need to still be maintained. And there's certain values that need to be maintained. Carrying on those and being open to changes, but not accepting every single change is a battle I go through every day. I think most people do. But carrying on, taking those from the past, that are non negotiable into the future, that are adaptable to changing times, that's where true progress lives.
- [56:48]
A
Much more with Matthew McConaughey coming up after this. You know those moments when someone just takes care of something for you? That's what AT T is doing. With the AT T guarantee, staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on or they will proactively make it right. That's the AT T guarantee. Because staying connected isn't optional, it's essential. And ATT wants you to feel that somebody's got your back. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com guaranty for details. AT&T connecting changes everything depending on where you live. The cooler temperatures are rolling in and if it's not happening right now, it's going to happen soon. It always does. And Quint is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last. From cashmere to denim to boots. The quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quint has the kind of fall staples you will wear non stop, like super soft 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. I've got like four of those going to bring those out of the back of the closet to start wearing again now that fall is here. Their denim is durable and fits right and their real leather jackets bring that clean classic edge without the elevated price tag. What makes quints different? They partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you get the top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. I was at a party last night. I was wearing my quint pants which fit really well. They look good, not too tight. Just the kind of thing a man of my age craves. I've got many, many quince go to's. Aside from the aforementioned cashmere sweaters, I also wear quint sweatpants on the regular often while I'm doing interviews for this podcast. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from quince go to quince.com/happier for free shipping on your order and 365 days returns. That's quincee.com/happier free shipping and 365 day returns. Quinn stock happier. When you say belief is punk rock, which I think is an awesome formulation, what do you mean specifically by belief?
- [59:26]
B
Okay, difference between hope and belief. Hope. I hope I win this. If it happens somehow kind of got lucky because I just hope for it. It's like relying on fate. Well, if I hope, if I just think about it, I'll manifest it. If I just say it out loud, it means it can happen. Dream it, you can do it. Bullshit. What a horrible thing to tell somebody or for someone to believe. That's the first part. To have at least something that you want to achieve or get to or see. But you got to deal your way to that. Belief comes with the engine to deal your way there. So I call belief the original dream. You can see it, there's a way to get it. That's why we got to work on the American dream. The path there. People are very confused of what is that. Well, I thought if I did this was responsible, got a job, did my work and did my work well. That that would be a path to that. Well, people are saying no, maybe not rewarded for that. Is that changing? Is that how much of the American dream illusion? We gotta make sure we're defining that and that there's rules and sort of regulations for how you can pull it off if you do it that way. Belief though, you see the path the path is there now. You gotta put in the sweat equity to go get it and make it happen. Yeah, you hopefully probably gotta get fortunate along the way because there's no guarantee. The only guarantee with the American dream or believe is that you have the opportunity to fail at it. But you can be in the game and you see how to do it. You see how you can pull it off. You're going to run into adversary, you're going to run into major obstacles that you didn't expect. Well, it all played well. You, you, you won while you were on PlayStation, didn't you? Now you got in real life, oh, it's a little bit harder. But belief, you can still see the path there. And if you don't get it, you can still believe in that path and go, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna dust off, I'm gonna try it again or I'm gonna back up, I'm gonna learn a little something. I got a new tact here. But you can see the path to it. I don't think people see that path right now. I think, don't think people are looking around and kids are looking around and going, this is who I look up to because these are people that I look up to because I think they're confused. Where it is when we see liars, cheaters and Steelers winning the jackpot, where you get success rewarded minus the profit, where quantity is the only measure. Forget the quality, bro. Quantity is the measure. Ah, that's success, but that's not profit. So success have to meet profit. What that starts with going, do I want to make warning you? Damn right. Well, how do I want to make it? How I make it has something to do with it. And I don't think we should just be giving the gold medal to anybody just because they cross the finish line first and they got picked up in a car at mile two and driven the next 20 miles and got out and ran the last four we should get. Okay, you cross the finish line first, you're not getting the medal. Bro cheated. And we do that, we reward that quite a bit. We even say, or starting to say, or we have been saying, but we even are saying, so what are the ethics of life? What are our expectations of each other ethically and morally? Well, I don't know what the winner do. The winner cheated and pillaged on the way here and lied, cheat, stole. You saying that's it, they won. There's your ethics. That's dangerous. I'm not ready to say that's how it is. And I don't think most of us are ready to say, well, that's how it is. So belief. Belief, though, is. Is very different than hope and belief. And I say this punk rock boy, find something to believe in right now and grab a hold of it and go, that's a North Star for me. Religious or not, yourself, each other, something to believe in. What you would die for believing in that, living for that. I think it's in short supply. And I think if people grab off, that is punk rock. That's Saturday night at the rave. That place is going off also, that lane on the highway. There's not a lot of traffic on it, and it's a beautiful autobahn. There's room to get after it, and it's right there waiting for us.
- [63:29]
A
Let me say this back to you just to make sure I. I've got it. Here's how I would put it back to you. But you'll correct me where I go wrong here. Just when I think specifically about America, and you and I are of a similar age, I think both quite patriotic. I'm just making an assumption.
- [63:46]
B
Yes.
- [63:46]
A
And this is a tough time in the country. I'm interviewing you the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
- [63:51]
B
Yeah.
- [63:52]
A
You're interesting to me for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that as far as I can tell, you seem to have equal appeal and red America and blue America. And when I ask you, like, how do things look and what can we do to make things better, it seems to me your answer is like, hey, why not turn the volume down on the cynicism. Turn the volume up on the risky, sometimes embarrassing move of earnestly, wholeheartedly believing in something and committing to it.
- [64:21]
B
Yeah, I would subscribe to that. Now, I'd also say this, Dan. I hear this the other day. You may know more about this than I do. Is there some term that the new young generation. There's a term about the distaste for any earnest or saying, oh, you meant to do it. There's a term going out that. That is out of fashion to be earnest and, like, really mean it and try hard. That. That's like.
- [64:46]
A
That's the term. It's a try hard.
- [64:49]
B
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm gonna go online here and saying. I'm not being a dinosaur for saying, I think that's. Now it does illuminate something. They're not seeing what's clear to believe in. If you disdain for someone trying hard for something, it looks like, well, you don't. You don't believe in what they're trying for. So therefore you don't believe they don't. If you don't have anything that you're trying for that you seeking meaning for, to expand the value of in your own life, you're not seeing things in your life to believe in and mean it for it and try for that. So it does illuminate, maybe somewhat indirectly, what I'm talking about. And a lack of belief or knowing what to believe in. Sounds like that's where that comes from. Well, I don't think that's a recipe and it's a sad one, but I don't think that's a solution, if it's fair to say that. I think everyone would like to look for some solutions in their own lives and collectively. But I don't believe that saying, trying for something and putting an effort and seeking meaning and meaning and believing in something to be in earnest. Yeah, I don't believe that not having any of that is a solution for. What is it? Denialism? Is that what they're saying? Is that what they're saying, that nothing matters? I'm not going to argue with them. I'd rather spend time on going, why do they feel that way? Huh? What are they not getting? What are we not giving them as adults, as leaders, Whether they not seeing.
- [66:24]
A
Or what do we have that they.
- [66:26]
B
Don'T feel like they maybe can get? Or what do we have that they don't want? I don't know. That's fertile territory right there. Yeah. I asked kids what it was like being a teenager. Last night. They brought up the Charlie Kirk thing. Police officers shot in Zilker park this morning on the way to school. Charlie Kirk got shot in the throat. Utah State. They were like, it's all over school. We're not supposed to have phones, but yeah, we all have phones. We go show each other. And I didn't want to see it, the Charlie Kirk shooting, but everyone had it. And I couldn't take my eyes away. And I saw it. It made me sick in my stomach all day. Felt like I was walking on glass all day. Everyone's kind of punchy. Everyone's. Everyone's not sure where they're going. The whole school, people were just kind of bumping into each other, kind of. Everyone just had an edge that I could. Confusing. Not just from today, but it's confusing being a teenager. Nobody knows who they really are. We're all trying to figure out who the hell we are. And no one really knows how to get there. Where we're going, that's running parallel to that feeling we're just talking about of the disdain for the tryhard and not having or understanding what's worth believing in. Now, obviously part of that's growing up, right? We try to teach our kids delayed gratification. Shoot, a lot of us adults need to learn about it too. The idea that, no, it takes work and continuous work. It's not immediate gratification for things you believe in. There's certain sacrifices we make today to get more tomorrow. There's things that we believe in that we take care of that are non negotiable in the masses. Well, you're younger. Kids don't have as many of those things. It's easier to say as a father and a husband and a person with a career. But I think it starts with us as parents to show and be examples of those things for our kids, of these things are worth believing in. These things are worth worth standing up for. This is even more dangerous to sometimes worth standing against and being unpopular. Taking one on the chin, proverbially, yeah. Parents, leaders, brothers, sisters, big brothers, big sisters, mentors, teachers. We can do a better job of showing each other and especially our youth what things they're worth believing in.
- [68:50]
A
It kind of leads me to the. The last thing I want to ask you about, and this is personal, so you can take a pass on it if you don't want. But there's a story I read about you, your family of origin, in a profile of you in the Times, a kind of searing early memory of you watching your parents fight and your mother breaking your father's nose with a telephone.
- [69:14]
B
Yeah.
- [69:14]
A
And then they made up and had sex on the kitchen floor. And so I, I read that that definitely meets the qualification of an adverse childhood event. And I wonder how you carry that into your own parenting like. Or, yeah, try not to carry that into your own parenting.
- [69:30]
B
Well, let me prequel this with. Yeah, that's one of the opening stories of my book of green lights. Do I practice the same sort of tough love that they had for each other? Thankfully, no. It's not really for Camilla and I, and we still love each other. You know, I was also. Was that an adverse circumstance for a child? Sure. And I'm not defending this. I'm just telling you the straight truth. Not once was it scary watching it. Did I. Yes. Did I understand very soon when it was completed that that was how my mom and dad loved each other, that while it was bloody, while there was a knife pulled, while there was A phone across the nose. That was the way they loved each other that night in that moment. That was a wild ass story that I put in up. It's true. That eyewitness, that was. That didn't. When people hear that I had a lot of people come to me after the book and I'm so sorry about your child. I was like, don't. What are you. You're trespassing there. Don't apologize. I didn't have a bad childhood at a wonderful childhood. That story wasn't like that happened weekly, monthly, yearly or ever again. I mean the amount of love that we had in our family, the hands in the family were the hands that healed 99% of the time. That was one where it was much more awkward and corporal and physical. The love is never in question in our family. I just want to make that extremely clear. And that's not me defending my family. That's even in my five year old mind. It was never in question. It was dramatic. It was a fricking circus sometimes. But the love was never questioned my way. Parenting. If I have to raise my voice, I'm automatically backlogging trying to figure out what did I not handle to get to this point. And I think usually that's probably not fair of me to put on myself because it's not just me. What do they. I couldn't have been there for everything they were going through and what they didn't say, I didn't say. I can't read their minds. I mean sometimes it just gets to that point. But I'm already backlogging going why did we get to this point? We talk out a lot more things like I think a lot of more parents do today. You know the old adage of. I was raised on if you got into the argument of why the answer that stopped the conversation was because I said so and that ended the conversation. That one doesn't really fly as well anymore. That one doesn't fly anymore. Okay, but why? And I feel obligated and Camilla does. Okay, well here's why and we will explain. And so we have much more discussions. You do have to watch. When the kids know that you'll discuss it, they start working you. But they're. They're already wise to why. They just want to keep on, see if they can kind of noodle it. You got to go. Stop it. You know exactly why. Quit playing dumb now. You know what I mean? My parents had a really interesting read and I think it was a great one. Now, whether you agree with how it was done or not is still open for discussion. And most people today would not be in agreements with it. Their point was the reason we got, you know, we got in trouble. Mind you this, every time we got in trouble, we were guilty. Yep, I tried to get away with that. I didn't. Yep, that was me. There was never a time where we got in trouble. It was like. But I didn't. No, we knew it and we did it and we admitted it and we got in trouble.
- [73:03]
A
It's been so fun to talk to you. I'm just gonna sneak in two last questions here. One is, is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't get to?
- [73:13]
B
Nothing sticks out to me, Dan.
- [73:16]
A
Final question then. Can you just remind everybody of the name of the book and any other books that you've written that we should know about?
- [73:22]
B
Yeah, well, I wrote Green Lights a few years ago. Drew happy how that translated. And then I've written now my latest one's Poems and Prayers. It's basically selling belief. And that's not just a belief in God, but that's belief in ourselves, others, and tomorrow, whatever it is, our better selves. And I think beliefs in short supply these days. And as far as I can tell and what I hear from others, we could use more of it. Because if the doubt wins, we all lose, right? This is some of those poems and prayers of mine. Some of it's serious, some of it's not serious at all. Some of it's real fun to read. Some of it may get you thinking either way, whether you sit down and read it all or just have it next to your bed or, well, than any other place, you sit down and just open up a page or two over time. Hopefully it'll be an enjoyable ride.
- [74:07]
A
Well, it was an enjoyable ride to talk to you, Matthew. Really appreciate your time.
- [74:11]
B
Thank you, Dan as well.
- [74:16]
A
Thanks again to Matthew. Check out his book Poems and Prayers. Don't forget to check out what we're doing over on danharris.com. our Monday and Wednesday episodes now come with custom guided meditations to help you pound the learnings from the conversation into your neurons in a much deeper way. Paid subscribers also get live weekly video guided meditations and Q and A sessions every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. The next one is on Tuesday, September 23rd. I'll be doing that one solo. Sometimes the teacher of the month does it with me. Also, if you want to meditate with me in person, don't forget what I mentioned earlier about the events I'm doing first on September 21st at the New York Insight Meditation center and then later in October, a meditation party. Links to both in the show notes. Finally, thank you very much to everybody who works so hard on the show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.