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- [00:01]
A
What does don't half asset mean to you?
- [00:03]
B
Ah, if you're going to do it, do it. Say what you can do, do what you say. If you can't do it, don't say you can do it. Don't over leverage yourself. Don't over leverage a decision and then jump in and kind of dip a toe. I think I'll try it out. No, think if you're going to try it out beforehand, but when it's time to go dive, finish it, find out, come out the other side, don't leave it and go. If I just would. That keeps me up at night. I think it keeps a lot of us up at night. When you half ass something, you just don't know whether you failed or succeeded, got what you want or didn't get what you want. Finding out and looking in the mirror and going, I didn't half acid. I went all the way. I found out and that ain't for me. Or I found out, and you damn right that is for me. That's a great place to get to. But the limbo of not knowing if you half ass something, the limbo of going, I hedge my bet.
- [01:01]
A
What could have happened?
- [01:03]
B
You don't know.
- [01:04]
A
Were you surprised when your dad said that to you?
- [01:07]
B
Yeah.
- [01:07]
A
When you were going to take a pivot in life trajectory, I wouldn't have.
- [01:12]
B
Been in the top 100 things. I thought he would have said I was fully stabilizing in that moment. As I said. I called Tuesday night, 7:00, he'll have had a beer. He's already had dinner. Not Monday, because that's the first day of the work week. He'll be a little more stressed. Catch him at Tuesday when I unload this, that I don't want to go to law school, I want to go to film school. And I really thought he was going to go, you want to do what again? The family I grew up in, the idea of me thinking that the idea of going into film, it's like very Saturday idea, a hobby idea, not a job. And when I shared it with him, the pause that he took, you know, another bead of sweat started on my back of my neck before he goes, well, don't half ass it now. I will say this, though I do know now, and I didn't know it then, I've realized it in the last 10 years. The way that I asked him, it's part of the reason he gave me that answer. I really wasn't asking him. I called him, I said, dad, what do you got Monkey man said, I don't want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school. I didn't go. I don't. I'm not feeling. I'm not sure about law school. I think I want to. I mean, I think I may want to go to. If I'd have stuttered into that, I think he would have again heard me half assing what I wanted and gone.
- [02:40]
A
In the process of being told to not half ass it. You didn't half ass it the way.
- [02:45]
B
I asked the asked. And he heard my own conviction. And I think what he had in that moment was what I think every parent wants to hope to have with their kids is that, you know, we raise our kids to go in a structured form, follow this, and you can get most of what you want in life. But what. And that can work. But what do we really want our kids to do? We want them to follow that and then bust out of it one day and not even ask our permission. And that's when we're going, that's my boy. That's my girl. That's my child. We wanted to break out. And I think what he heard then was I was breaking out without really asking his permission. And I was clear. I spoke up. I didn't stutter. My voice was out of my throat a little bit. And I think that was part of why in that moment, he gave me the answer. Don't have asked.
- [03:29]
A
Do you think that sentiment carried forward into how you got the role for days and confused that I'm going to continue to lean in, I'm on the front foot, I'm ten toes down.
- [03:42]
B
Yes. Now, how much that direct sentiment from that night when he told me don't half asset had to do with that? I mean, yeah, it did have something to do with. Look, when he said don't half asset, he was. And I talked about this in the book, he wasn't only giving me permission, he was giving me a responsibility. He was going. I knew. I knew I was. I had his word with me in my future decisions. I was making them for more than myself. I had. I wanted to fail less because I didn't want to embarrass him. And that was extra motivation, extra strength, extra courage, extra sobriety. Extra like. Well, let's find out. Go for it, man. Go for it. He carried on into other stories of other jobs. Time to kill with Joel Schumacher going, I want the lead. That's me going, I want to find out. And dad told me not to half ass it back there. A few years ago, you know, so if I don't go for it, if I embarrass myself, I'm embarrassing him. So that was also some incentive and some. Some weight behind those moves that I made, some of them.
- [04:41]
A
Are you a brave person in that way, do you think?
- [04:49]
B
I don't know. People say that I. I don't think I take enough risk. I'm told that people that. Whose opinion I admire to think that that's my greatest asset that I take. The risk I'll take and the bravery I'll take with.
- [05:02]
A
And you still have a hunger for more.
- [05:05]
B
I think I'm a still chicken shit. I mean, not overall, but I think there's many things that I'm. I'm. I'm not fully asking. I think there's many things that I'm still could take further that there's still many things that more risk I could take and more bravery I could have. Yeah.
- [05:28]
A
Could you tell that story? The days and confused story of leaning in, of taking that risk?
- [05:36]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, the initial one started when I went to. On a Thursday night, went to my favorite bar at the top of the Hyatt. Cause I knew the bartender, he was at film school with me. He'd give me free vodka and tonic. So I went there. I get there that night, he brings me my girlfriend vodka and tonic. Tells me, hey, there's a guy at the end of the bar producing a movie. Let me introduce you to him. I walk over, introduce him to him. Four hours later, that man, Don Phillips, legendary casting director, who was actually a producer on days to confuse. We get kicked out of that bar. I've had as many vodka and tonics as he had since I sat down. So I'm not leaving easily either. And I'm standing up for my new friend who we hadn't done anything to get kicked out of bar. We really hadn't. We were just kind of standing on top of the tables imitating some golf shots. We had played on similar courses in the past. So we get not so. Not so politely escorted out. And he's in a cab, but we're in a cab. He's riding with me to my apartment, gonna drop me off. Before he heads back to his hotel. He pulls out a joint, or I pulled out a joint, starts smoking. He goes, hey, you ever done any acting? And I said, man, I was in a, you know, Trisha Yearwood video for a second. It's kind of more of a modeling job. I was in a middle light commercial for about that Long. I go, I don't know if you call it acting.
- [06:48]
A
Wow.
- [06:49]
B
You might come to this address tomorrow morning, 9:30. You might be right for this part. This character called Wooderson in this movie days confused. I think you might be right for the part. This is three something in the morning. So 9:30 came really quickly and I was on time, probably five minutes early. And we were already pretty tuned at this time. Now mind you, I get there, there. I walk in, they go, Matthew, I go, yes. They go, don left the script for you. I open it up, it's signed by him. Hey, here's the part, Wooderson. I got three scenes in there, three lines, they're all marked. Check them out. I think you might be right for good luck. Let me know, we'll call you in for an audition. I go away, I go, look at this. These three lines. One of them was what I like to call these days, a launch pad line, which is a line that sometimes they'll have in a script where if that character means that line and that character's not playing that line as an attitude or a wink or a joke, if that character means that line, it can, you could write a book on it. You could write a book based on that reality. And that line in days confused from the character Wooderson was a line when he's leaning against the wall outside the pool hall, high school girls walk by, he checks one of them's backside as they go by and his buddy says, wooderson, you got to cut that out, man. You're going to end up in jail. Woodardson says, no, man, that's what I love about those high school girls, man. I get older, they say the same age. That line, I went, who is that? There's a book on somebody, if that's not trying to be cute, if that guy's not trying to say something coy and clever, if he believes, I've got life figured out, man, this is my North Star. So that line informed who the character was. I go, I read for it. I remember the first time I got called back because they said the sound was bad. And now I come back, I don't know if the sound was bad or the fact that I just need to come back. It was an excuse to come back and read for Richard Linklater, the director, who I did read for and I got the part. Now the role was also based on, as I wrote about in the book, who I thought my brother was. When I was 11, my 17 year old brother was already my hero. He was cooler than James Dean. And we had one day where his car was broke down and my mom when I were supposed to pick him up from school and he wasn't where he was supposed to be. We're looking for him. I'm looking at the back of our station wagon and there I see this silhouette of this guy leaning against a brick wall, left boot heel against the brick wall, leaning back, lazy Sig in the right hand, smoking. And it was my brother. And in that silhouette, he was 13ft tall, coolest dude in the world. And just as I went to go, wait, there's Pat, I remembered always going to get big trouble for smoking. So I won't say it's him. My mom goes, who? I go, nothing. But that Image in my 11 year old eyes went, that was Waterson. So we get to the set one night and I just go in for what's supposed to be a makeup wardrobe test, meaning put on makeup. Put on wardrobe. When the director, Link Letter can leave the set and gets a minute, he comes, checks you out, eyeballs, gives a few notes, and you say, goodbye, I'll see you when I come back for work. Well, on this night, I come out of the trailer, Link Letter shows up, has a look as he's walking up, his hands go out. He's just going, yeah, yeah, Wooderson. It was like peach pants. Is that a nude T shirt? I like that. What's that over there, that tattoo? That's a Black Panther tattoo. Yeah, yeah, look at the hair, the comb over. I like it, I like it. I said, cool. About to say goodbye, I think. And he goes, say, man. He goes, you think? You know, Waterson's been with the typical hot chicks in school, the cheerleaders and stuff. I'm like, yeah. He goes, you think Wooderson would be interested in the redheaded intellectual? And I'm like, yeah, man, Wooderson loves all types of chicks. And he goes, well, listen, the actress Marissa Ribisi is over here in her car. She's got her nerd friends in the back. It's the last day of school. You think maybe want to pull up and try and pick her up? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, okay, you can do it now. I said, Give me 30 minutes. I took a walk. Now I'm about to be in my first scene. There's nothing written. I've not done this before, but I'm going over scenarios. Where are we? Last day of school, I got some change in my pocket. I'm working for the city. Sure, Red hands. When we're Gonna go out. I'd probably speak a little Spanish. Next thing I know, I'm in the car getting a Lavalier mic put on me. I'm getting a little anxious, but I'm going, who is my man? Who is Wooderson? What do I love? What do I love? What I love? As this mic's getting put on me, I'm like, I love my car. Said, bam. I'm in my 70s Chevelle right now. There's one thing I got going for me. I said, I love rock and roll, man. I said, shit, man. I got Ted News at Stranglehold rocking in the eight track. There's two. I said, I love getting high. I said, well, man, Slater's riding shotgun. He's always got a doobie rolled up. There's three. And that's when I heard action. And as I looked up, dropped it into drive. Thought of the three things I had while I was going to get the fourth. And I said to myself, and I love picking up chicks in drive. Pull out three affirmations of the three things I did have on the way to get the fourth. All right, all right, all right. Pull in, have the scene, try and pick her up. Ditch the geeks in the back. Gonna be a, you know, fiesta in the making, whatever it was. Kind of spoke a little Spanglish, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden it was over. And a lot of people laughing. And Rick comes up, goes, oh, that's great, that's great. We'll try it one more time. Do this. That did the scene two, maybe two times, three times, I don't remember. And finish it. I get out, people are laughing. I just had fun. I think Cochran in the seats, in the. Rory Cochran, the actor who played Slaters. And the shotgun seat, he's giggling. I was like. He was like, that was good, man. That was good. I'm like, cool. And all of a sudden I'm about to leave and Rick invites me back the next night. Got put in some other scene. Anyway, he invited me back every night for three weeks. And I worked three weeks. Now. What I found out two years ago was Rick also asked me that night on the sidewalk, hey, you'd think you'd be interested in redheaded intellectual girl is because Rick had a. He had just noticed that night that they had a story hole. They didn't know what car they were going to go, I think, pick up the Aerosmith tickets in and who. And who else had a car. Pickford had a car. And I was the only one who had A car and had a little. A guy who had a job. And he was trying to start to fill a story hole. He didn't tell me this till like a year ago. And that's why he invited me into that first scene at the Top Notch barbecue, where I said those three words, which were the first words I said on screen, which were the three affirmations for the three things my guy did have. And I think they came from. Not intentionally, but leading up to that role, I was listening to a lot of Doors, and there's a live track of Morrison at some Doors concert. I don't know where. I think he's in Europe somewhere, where he barks out, all right, all right, all right, all right. Very aggressively, not Wooderson style, but like four or five. All right, all right, all right, all right. And somehow that pop. I had no plans, but it popped them ahead in that moment as being. Let me take that version. Just give three of them for the three things I've got for myself, but in a more laid back, cool way. All right, all right, all right. Pulled up.
- [14:03]
A
How did it feel to have that positive reinforcement so quickly, out of nowhere, both privately and then publicly after.
- [14:12]
B
Well, I mean, it felt fun in the moment. It felt good. And then it became public right there with the crew and the cast. Now publicly became a year and a half later. I mean, look privately on that. I remember going, that was so much fun. I think. I think. I think I was good at it. People are telling me I'm good at it. I'm getting invited back. And then the other thing was, I'm getting scale. I'm getting 330 bucks a day. And I'm working a job at Catfish Station waiting tables. And the most I've made there in one night is $73. And now I'm getting 340 or whatever it was for doing this. I was honestly. I remember going, is this illegal? Is this real? What am I getting away with here, man? Yes, I'll come back for the pay and because I'm. And because this is so much fun. Um, and then you've probably known the story five days in, my dad moved on. Uh, Rick and I were just talking about this the other day. Cause his. His father just moved on a few days ago. Um, we were talking about yesterday. Um, I went home, came back to work. Still had going through morning with my dad, but had that. Had that sobriety that comes when you lose a loved one. Death. You talk about sobering up in courage of the World even more than My dad tell me, don't half ass it. Him passing gave me some real courage, man. I mean, of looking at the world straight at, straight in the eye and not being intimidated by mortal shit anymore. And so it really helped me stay and focus on the role. Had a great time. Probably a little quieter than I was in the first five days. More to myself a little bit, Rick and I, because Rick and I kind of became more friends than just director actor at that time because he was, he was the person I was talking to about how it was feeling, how to deal with my dad's death. I finished that, I go back to University of Texas graduate film school. On the way out, already packed up at the U Haul, get the Texas Chainsaw Massacre job for like five weeks, which is super fun. Another under the table, cash for play, that part. Unloaded the air U Haul and drove out to Hollywood. And a year after that, I would say when time to kill is when all of a sudden I noticed, oh, wow, I'm. I'm famous life. I've cast a new check that I didn't know about where I say the world become a mirror. There was no more an anonymity. That's. That was a whole new drug.
- [16:50]
A
I think one of the themes of your worldview that I've become familiar with is alchemizing bad times into good ones. A reminder that things that seem bad can end up being good. And in retrospect, I think it's obvious and almost romantic to think about that alchemy in that way, but in the moment, it's basically impossible. How can people, or how do you have more of that perspective during a hard time?
- [17:20]
B
Yeah, well, a couple things. First off, you know, I'm. I probably start off intellectualizing something that I know I probably should believe in, but don't believe in it and convince myself even to an extent, to trick myself that, you know, sit here and go, well, you just tell yourself, this too shall pass. Okay, great. Well, what the hell's that? Me. Even if it's true, in the moment you're like, what are you talking about, man? I'm in the debit section. I'm in. I'm. I'm in a warning section. I'm. I'm. It. This. This sucks. Um, I. I think that how much I'm conscious of it or not, my undeniable optimism and faith that this isn't all it is. And if it is, so what? That, that, that's okay. Well then, really, so what? You know what I mean? What's the Big deal. Two, it minimizes. I don't. I seem to have a tendency not to make a bigger deal out of things that other people make a bigger deal. Dramas. I don't like to create false drama when it comes to tard. I am affected. I get the blues, I get sad, I get mad. I'm a shit to be around. I can't get to sleep. I got demons in my own head trying to work. Trying to work the riddle out, why did this happen? That's the other thing that's tough for me is I think that any bad thing that happens to me. My initial reaction is what'd you do wrong to lead to this? Like in a relationship, Camilla and I get in an argument, my mind immediately goes, well, what'd you do in the last two weeks to let this get to a point where you just had to raise your voice or she had to raise your voice, her voice at you evidently. Usually there's some P's and Q's that were not handled to get to that point. So I like it when things are running like this. The challenge when things are running great is we all tend to think, aha, this is it, I've found it. Bottle it. If I, if I realize this, I can maintain this forever. And the truth is bullshit. No we can't. But we can minimize it. There are habits that I notice of things I take care of in my life. Health wise, faith wise, father wise, husband wise. That I'm know that if I'm doing that consistently, there's less valleys, there's less stress, there's less warning signs, there's less problematic. Oh shit, how'd we get in this? So there. There's consistently behaviors that I know I can, I can act upon that have worked in the past.
- [19:54]
A
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- [21:16]
B
It's an arrogant note. It's an arrogant notion. Yeah.
- [21:18]
A
Look at how I. If only. Yeah, I could have stepped in. Yeah, you make yourself.
- [21:23]
B
But also the first side, I'm the reason that I stepped in shit. Which is also an asset. Even if someone go, why are you giving yourself so much credit for screwing that up?
- [21:35]
A
Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.
- [21:38]
B
I mean, look, I think part of this for me comes from we didn't get in trouble in my family for the bad deed, we got in trouble for getting caught. So times where I can screw up and get away with it, I feel better than times that maybe I didn't screw up as bad but. But got busted because I got caught because I got busted, because I got myself in the pickle, because things didn't go how I wanted it to go or how I believed it could go.
- [22:10]
A
Is there something that you try to remember about the upside of a crisis, during a crisis, or do we just need to ride that out? Because I think that that's a good question.
- [22:19]
B
Yeah. Right.
- [22:20]
A
Zooming out would be so beautiful and in retrospect, if only you could give yourself the gift of distance, of time.
- [22:28]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [22:29]
A
And yet, you know, something hard is going to come again and you're going to be swept away by the wave.
- [22:34]
B
I mean, for me, I think it's an obvious dance to the both. Because you can't jump to the objective right away and go, inshallah, oh, fatal habit, this too shall pass. I'm all, I'm fine. No, because then you don't deal with the crisis. I do have a good. I do have a pretty quick threshold for being able to laugh. Like honestly start giggling when I'm in the shit. Because I've Found that I'm able to handle the shit better if I just start quick cross start going, are you kidding me? And I will. And I also my. I'll get objective and remind myself things like you going die, McConaughey, which gives me that, ah, so what? This is not as big of a deal as I thought. I also quickly somehow comes in my head, not right now, but one day this is going to be a great fucking story. I quickly go to that. I'll, I'll, I'll get. I'll project forward into those places that ease me a little bit, at least maybe look at it with a good eye.
- [23:34]
A
You're almost imagining being that future you laughing back at this present you.
- [23:37]
B
Yeah. And I think that goes back to the faith and belief that, you know, again, I'm nervous for. I'm going to go speak or something. I got a little thing in my wallet. You're going to die one day, Makani. And I'm like, oh, that relaxes me. If I'm going in, you know, complacent. I got another note and tell myself what you're about to say and do will outlive you, so you better fucking do it well, you know, to get me more on edge.
- [24:02]
A
This balance is so fascinating, you know, being able to thread that needle, being able to find the golden mean as Aristotle talked about. But yeah, I've heard you say that you should make a sense of humor your default emotion.
- [24:17]
B
Yeah. Link later. And I came up with that in a conversation about 12 years ago, Richard Lincoln. And we just talking about how mad and angry and upset and offended people get if they don't know how to react, if they don't have an opinion on something. I mean, we're like, yeah, man, what if it wouldn't be. Wouldn't the world be a better place, easier to get along with everybody? If the default emotion, if you're not sure how to respond was okay. Now, most people think they go, well, that's insensitive. But that's. It's not insensitive. Do you usually think that means you're not giving the crisis credit if you can laugh at it? And I wholeheartedly disagree.
- [25:10]
A
Oh, that there's some sort of tribute in solemnity.
- [25:14]
B
Yeah, that, that, that, that you're not core enough about it, man, whatever. That. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, you're not taking it seriously. You're actually putting me down. And, and, and just because you're saying you're not, you don't feel victimized and you laugh in this situation, you're telling me making life, making fun of me, being a victim. No, no, no, no. I'm de. I'm trying to deal. Because especially when we talk about the book, if it's inevitable, too, that's. I laugh a lot quicker when I know I'm in an inevitable pickle. I have no other resource to get out of it that I know of. So I'm going to start giggling a little quicker. So I keep my eyes open and figure my way. Maybe because sometimes the hard work and the endurance and the elbow grease, the work harder. We were talking about that hustle is not the way out. Sometimes it's, I need to back up, laugh, have a sip of my favorite whatever, and dance my way through the raindrops out of this. Some bitch. Maybe it's not banging your head on the wall. Maybe it's backing up and seeing, oh, I got a key in my pocket that unlocks the door. I'm trying. I've been bloody in my skull over banging, banging into.
- [26:16]
A
I do wonder why I like being serious and serious about the things I do. I'm serious about this podcast, as you might be able to tell by the fact we've renovated in Taiban. But there is something that you can take that too far. The seriousness can become a kind of rigidity as opposed to being dynamically persistent, you know, taking things too seriously, not swaying in the breeze.
- [26:40]
B
Right.
- [26:41]
A
Presuming that you like the things you do and you want to keep doing them. The less robust and flexible you are, the more likely you are to break in those ways. And I think that humor is a lovely bit of ballast that helps to balance that out.
- [26:56]
B
I've. I would frame it this way. Be very serious about sense humor. Be very serious about comedy. I'm extremely serious about comedy. And I, you know, do I take myself seriously? Yes. But also take serious seriously the shit I don't do. I want to know everything yet, but I also take seriously the shit that I don't know and go, be serious about that. You don't know that. Be serious about that. This is fricking funny. Or at least it's going to be. So I try to take the comedy seriously. So I think we can take sense of humor seriously and we don't have to create a new category of going, oh, I need to be light hearted or care more careless and carefree. We can just care more maybe about the validity, the good sense of humor.
- [27:43]
A
Yeah.
- [27:43]
B
You know, instead of it being a.
- [27:45]
A
A relief.
- [27:47]
B
Oh, so let Me. Let me let go of the pressure here. Oh, let me. It's not. It's almost like it's not. It's not another bucket. It's in the same bucket of commitment and persistence and endurance and talking about.
- [28:01]
A
That balance between good times and bad times, the lessons that we take from each. Heard a quote recently that said, every man knows reflection and introspection when he's at his lowest bad times. You can't do anything other than wallow in retrospective assessment. But one of my favorite things I've learned from you is when things are going well, given that that's presumably what you want to have more of, maybe worth deconstructing that.
- [28:34]
B
Yes, I. I wish I could more, and I think more of us could all deconstruct our assets. There's a. There's a we happiness. You can't guarantee it, but there is a science to satisfaction there. You can look at habits that engineered less pain in your life, maybe more pleasure, but at least less pain. And that's. That's a win. I. I try to deconstruct. Look, I don't. Do I write it? Did I used to write as much? Look at anybody who's ever kept a diary when. What's the old sort of nostalgic idea of a diary? You go there when you're in pain and you share thoughts that you don't want to share with anyone else of those reflection. And I did used, for some reason, I don't know why, but would force myself to write every day, no matter how happy I happy I was. And I didn't a lot of times want to go write when I was happy because I was like, no, I don't need to write it. I don't need to become conscious of it.
- [29:34]
A
I'm having too much fun. It's getting in the way.
- [29:36]
B
Come on. I'm doing it. It's living, it's happening. But. And in writing, Greenlights, when I went back, that's a lot of the consistencies that I found that I wrote when things were going well, that I was taking some, for some reason, taking time to go, can I buy. Can I try and bottle some science here to why things are going well. And I did find consistencies. Who I was hanging out with at night, what I was drinking, what bar I was at, what food I was drinking, how exercise, preparation for work, for school. And I found things. I was like, you were really happy in this segment of your life. Let's go back and look at what you were doing. Oh, man, I I had this. I had Augmentino scrolls. I was on them every day. I had some discipline where I was checking in with myself. Oh, you were going to church on Sundays. You were, you were given. You. You were, you were, you were. You were saying thank you, God, before you went to bed each night. You were appreciating more. You were pointing out beautiful things and not taking them for granted. And so I found a list of things I'm like. And when I get off track, I try to remind myself, you've been slacking on some of those. And I could pull it off. I've evolved. I got different ways. I get away with some now. But, you know, I've definitely found consistencies. And I think we all have them. If we just notate them along the way, that they're not by accident. Because we sure as hell deconstruct the reasons when we're in the funk and we don't believe they're by accident. We can take ourselves to behind the woodshed and show ourselves exactly why we're guilty for every reason and condemn ourselves for every damn reason we got to that spot. Yeah, well, let's. If we're going to do that, I just say let's, let's. Cheers. Let's have a cheers on the way for all the things that will work for when we have shit going. Right. Also knowing that it's not forever, that it will. We will have a mountain to climb here shortly.
- [31:37]
A
Isn't it interesting? So much of content that people like to consume, books, podcasts, autobiographies, memoirs. Is deconstructing the success of others. So we'll happily dissect success in other people.
- [31:53]
B
Right.
- [31:54]
A
And yet only dissect failure in ourselves. This odd asymmetry where we bestow all of the glory right on those people. Well done. And I must find out how to do it more, even if it doesn't fit me, even if they're a different constitution, different background, different time for me. I'll focus on the negatives.
- [32:13]
B
Right.
- [32:13]
A
There's a really interesting stat around. The likelihood of you ensuring that your dog completes a course of antibiotics is about 95%. The likelihood that you ensure that you'll keep complete a course of antibiotics, it's about 50%. So we're prepared to look after an animal twice as well as ourselves.
- [32:32]
B
I was. Wrote a note the other day, man.
- [32:37]
A
What does that say on the back of your phone? The sticker? Oh, choose to shine. Very cool.
- [32:42]
B
My daughter gave me that. Yeah, I wrote the other day. And then most of What I do is I use this notes app, right? And I did. I wrote the other day, where is it? It was on that note. I was like, what, What's. What's my best advice I need to give myself right now is listen to my own damn advice.
- [33:03]
A
Yeah.
- [33:04]
B
And it followed that up with, where is it? Yeah. Trying to live with less gravity and more backbone is a salty task.
- [33:16]
A
What's that mean to you?
- [33:18]
B
Trying to live lighter with less gravity. Live lighter. Not take certain things so seriously, but still have the principled backbone. Because I'm getting older. We get older, and the black and whites turn to gray. And then there's a great word, compromise, we all say, which is such a mature thing to do. And then all of a sudden, we let things slide. And then when we start going, well, change will happen. Hey, change is inevitable. Let change. And I'm not ready. That's part of getting old, I think, not just getting older. Same with cynicism. It's a disease of getting too old. And I'm not ready to. I don't want to be ready to give up certain things. I'm going, no, man. The beauty of ignorance, those things that we believed in. I've gotten away with so many things because of my ignorance. I'm. I'd be dead 14 times in this life if I wouldn't have been ignorant of the situation I was in. And so, yeah, I, you know, not. Not knowing or knowing what we know, it's anyway, yeah, it's more backbone to hold on and be principled. What I stand for, what I stand against. When it becomes easier and easier to just go with the flow, and I'm not ready to go just go with the flow. I just want to. I want to. I don't want to pick the wrong battles. I'm trying. Trying to be discerning and not picking the wrong fights, because I like picking fights and going after challenges. But I'm in a plank. I'm kind of like, man, it's tough duty to win the fair fights, and there's a lot of unfair fights out there. And why do I want to spend my time, If I got 24 hours a day, picking unfair fights when I'm busting my ass to win the fair ones?
- [35:10]
A
Well, also picking fights with yourself. Know, you hinted just there at the difficulty of a negative inner voice. You know, you take things seriously. You care about what you're doing. You want to achieve things in this world, which means that you need to have high standards. You need to posit an ideal. But as soon as you posit an ideal, you then begin to compare yourself to that ideal, and often you find yourself lacking. Because it's a fucking ideal.
- [35:34]
B
Yep. I think it's why a lot of relationships don't work. We make her Wonder Woman, and she makes us Superman, and neither one of us can live up to it. And that. We've got that bulb, that honeymoon bulb, turned up to a hundred watts, and the honeymoon's over. We're trying to deal with some real. Just some real base stuff. Let's leave it at 20 watts. We're just lit, but we're not just feverishly, you know, superhuman. And I think a lot of us just purport that on someone else, and they can't live up to it. It ends up not being fair to them. And then they do the same to us and who both walk away going, I under. I underwhelmed.
- [36:09]
A
Do you know the idea of the Michelangelo effect? Have you heard of this? Awesome. So the Michelangelo effect describes a situation in a relationship, friendship, or intimate partnership where each partner sees the best in the other and tries to help bring that out. So the sum of the parts is greater than it is individually. The reason I love it is why it's called the Michelangelo effect. So the block of marble that David was carved from had been attempted by a number of other sculptors previously. Huge, monstrous thing. If you've ever seen David in person, ginormous people can't. And when you're looking up as well, with that angle on the plinth, it's even bigger. Previous sculptures had attempted and failed, but Michelangelo saw inside of the marble. What was David right? He just needed to get away all of the things that weren't. I love that idea.
- [37:04]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [37:05]
A
I think in life, you want to be finding people that believe in you more than you believe in you, that hold you to higher standards.
- [37:12]
B
I think that's the definition of a good friend. I think that's definition of a good. Of a good partner. It's a good definition of a good husband, wife, you know, that they remind us of the best of ourselves. They shine that light and remind us because we do. I know I do. It gets. I put. Put the blinds on it, and I don't see it a lot of times. And I'll be reminded. I. This is. This has always been a thing for me, and I don't know how this correlates, but I've never been as good in my dreams as I am in real life. I never win the day. Get the girl ace. The test I can perform in my dreams, I never have, never have as well as I will in. In real life.
- [38:03]
A
Think I'm the same.
- [38:04]
B
And I'll get. And I'll be. I guess what I'm saying is I'll be. I'll pull something off. I'm like, everyone see that. And my friends are like, no, it's. That's you, bro. What's the biggie? You know what I mean? Kind of what I like about living in Austin, Texas. They're not really impressed with shit that I pull off. They were. Thought it was cool I won an Oscar. But they were like, well, no shit, you know, And I was kind of like, oh, all right. Yeah, yeah, thank you, man. That's, you know, and that's what. That's what friends will do in a way. Loved ones will do that and be.
- [38:40]
A
Like, yeah, there you are again. Comes back to that. It's so much easier to be supportive and gentle of other people than of ourselves, you know? You will happily bestow this sort of gentle, reassuring pat on the shoulder when somebody succeeds or falls short when they tried their best.
- [39:01]
B
Right.
- [39:01]
A
Yet given the fact that you tried your best, you give yourself a kick in the dick on the way out of the door and a harsh word to follow you.
- [39:08]
B
Yep. What do you think about when you do succeed? And a lot of people go, nope, that's nothing. I prescribed it. I think we should take some time to be able to look in the mirror and own that thing that we pulled off and go, good job. That's what you wanted. It's what you got. At the same time, be able to, as we do more often, look in the mirror when we fail and go, bogey. You pull that off, you know what I mean? But I. I mean, it's. It's kind of. I'm big into the ownership idea, the failure or the gain ownership being really important. And I don't. I'm a fan of the. Of the ego. I wish people that. Someone said this to me before. Look, ah, this acquaintance said this. It came off the cub I didn't think about. She was like, ah, tell me, Matthew, you're so full of yourself. And I, without thinking, I was like, well, who else am I supposed to be full of?
- [40:20]
A
That's a good line.
- [40:21]
B
And I stopped that. I was like, that's exactly what I meant. And I went and wrote that down. I wish more people were more full of themselves. Not in the arrogant way, but I'm talking about a healthy ego to understand. And I Understand ego's difference between I and me. Me is the objective, but to know the. I wish more people. I wish we were more full of ourselves. I wish more people in the world were more full of themselves. I think part of the challenges in life is a lot of us are running around half ass in ourselves, half fooling ourselves, not full of ourselves, not studying ourself enough, not holding ourself to task enough. Not patting our own self on the back when we do get what we want enough. Not cracking our own whip on our backside when we do get out of line even though we knew better. I wish we were more full of ourselves that way.
- [41:08]
A
The guy that was sat there yesterday, Dwayne, I asked him something not too dissimilar about self esteem. He took a little while. He said, I like me, I'd buy me a beer. I just thought, that's so fucking great. Yeah, man, I'd buy me a beer.
- [41:26]
B
Buy me a beer. Hey, he's shaking hands with himself, you know. And shoot, man, I got plenty of times where I sure as I'm the last guy I want to have a beer with. I'm happy to say I've got some times where I'm like, I appreciate drinking alone. You know what I mean? I mean it. Yeah, it'd be nice. Would that be. Not more than nice is a better word than nice. But if Go. Go try to be today someone you want to have a beer with. It's pretty good. Easy way. Pretty good bumper sticker, you know what I mean?
- [42:04]
A
Could have been in the book.
- [42:05]
B
Yeah.
- [42:06]
A
Talk to me about the non deserving complex. Yeah, it feels similar.
- [42:09]
B
Yeah. So it definitely. And I think it's called in their term imposter syndrome or something like that. When I got famous off of Time to Kill, I had more people saying I love you. And I'd only said that like four times in my life to four different people. And I was like, wow, this is. They mean it, you know, the ca. The red carpeting, caviar. I started to get that feel. Why me? Why me? There's other people that deserve this more than me. And that's back when I had. I was using the word deserve, which I'm not the biggest fan of now. I prefer earn. But I didn't feel like I deserved it in the big scheme of things. It was a. I think it's a We have to. What's. What's dangerous about it? I think at its core it's a. It's a. It's a coping mechanism, but it's a false humility.
- [43:17]
A
Yep, yep, I understand.
- [43:19]
B
It's like, it's almost arrogant. Think that you're. You did all that even you know, it's almost like guilt is an arrogant thing. Like, who makes you the judge and jury of you on that? Who you know, it's. It's like saying being very arrogant to go, oh no, no, no, not me. I shouldn't have that. It does help you. You deal when the stimulus of the world's brand new and coming on you. It helps you back up because you can't. You don't want to take any more arrows because you're feeling it all as arrows. I sure felt that when I first got famous. Talk about all the options and yeses. Brand new yeses for me in the world. I pushed against it and I even had clumsy times where I got ugly just to counter it. Like I said, I write the book. Tripping myself, running downhill. I tripped myself because I felt like, man, things are going too well. I need a bloody nose. Bam. I give myself one. Now I feel more okay, now I'm where I'm supposed to be. Does part of that come with the fact that I grew up in a middle class, blue collar family? Any validity text out of 12,000 people from a dad who's like, you get out there and you earn, you break a sweat probably. I don't know, I wouldn't. So much stuff was coming at me and I didn't feel like I'd broken a sweat to get it. I was having fun, what I did and I was. Couldn't give myself enough credit for maybe he's going, you're good at what you're doing. And I was like. And I was looking for the proverbial sweat. I was looking for the where's the exhaustion of a full working day where I actually. I drew blood, man. I did it. I made it through, dude.
- [44:55]
A
The puritan work ethic runs strong. I used to struggle. I ran nightclubs for a long time and there was a period where I didn't miss a single Saturday, which was our big event for 204 Saturdays in a row. And I would go on holiday, the holidays I was having. You know, I'm 20, 22 to 26, something like that. So prime young guy territory. And I would go on holiday from a Sunday morning until a Thursday evening and then make sure that I was back in the northeast of the uk.
- [45:23]
B
Why? Why'd you make sure you got back on the Saturday night?
- [45:26]
A
Because I couldn't bear to have success without having Bled for it.
- [45:30]
B
Okay.
- [45:31]
A
Because if it. There was so many hoops I had to jump through in order for things for me to get a pat on the back. Had to go well. Because if it went badly, I was less. But not only did it have to go well, I had to suffer in service of it going well.
- [45:47]
B
Yeah.
- [45:47]
A
Because if it went well but came easily, that was also somehow lesser.
- [45:53]
B
Like, for me, I felt like a sin, almost.
- [45:55]
A
Yes.
- [45:56]
B
Not a disease, more of a sin. I was like, I didn't pay a penance there, man. I didn't. I hadn't given enough tithe. I didn't. Like I said, break the proverbial sweat, draw the blood to earn that thing. And yet I'm getting all this. Didn't. Wasn't able to look it in the eye. Didn't feel it. Needed things to feel. I also needed at that time, anonymity, which I lost. Yeah. And I think everyone needs an anonymous soul. And I had lost mine. And I didn't know what was up, down, left or right. I got through stuff. If I look back at my interviews the first two years I got famous, I bet you they're so damn boring because I was. My two rules were, be a gentleman and don't lie. Two pretty boring rules if that's only what you're going in for and you're creative and you got a colorful life. But I was. Just repeat it. Stay down the line. It wasn't until later on that I was like, oh, man, I trust myself enough. I believe myself enough to share how I feel about things.
- [46:54]
A
Yeah. Privacy is one of the privileges that people are born with that they don't realize until they've lost it.
- [46:59]
B
Right.
- [47:00]
A
And this has been a little bit of a trajectory that I'm starting to dip my toe into over the last few years as well, of loss of privacy. Loss of privacy, increased scrutiny, a sense of eyeballs, and even, you know, it's a micro niche, degenerate version of proper fame, but still this sort of sense of vigilance, being watched in some way or another. And yeah, it's one of those odd inverted privileges. Most people think about privilege as something that is bestowed upon you after you have done X, Y and Z. But this is one of those things that as you tend to go on the trajectory most people want to go on. Yeah, it's something that gets derogated, something that you lose.
- [47:45]
B
Sure. And you people, have you skipped the salutations of hi, how you doing? What's your name? People have bio on you. They have an idea an opinion for you before you ask for it. Sometimes it's hyperbole to the awesome too. Overly awesome, exaggerated awesome. Sometimes it's well below and you walk outside, you don't even have to talk to the world. You know, you feel eyes. You see how people move towards you or move away from you or what you catch it all in your periphery and you start going they I know what I know what I know what they think and maybe that's false. Feels a lot better when it's maybe false. But to the oh they even think I'm better than I'm than I they think I even did. Think I did better than I did.
- [48:37]
A
But still disconcerting either way, either way.
- [48:39]
B
It'S all bounce because it's not on. It's not on parts why I headed out to Peru after I got famous. Took the 22 day backpack trip I and, and I remember writing down I said I need. I need to go test my who I am, my character on people who know me as a stranger. And when I left the hugs and after 22 days the hugs and the tears of the strange. No longer strangers after 22 days. But the hugs and the tears were coming from people that only knew me as a guy named Matthew. And that's it. Who showed up and met me from there. No biography on me, had no idea I was famous, no idea was in the movies. And 22 years later, 22 days later, their weeping tears of GL gladness and sadness saying goodbye to me that gave me trust Mag. I was like, I got it. I did this.
- [49:27]
A
I'm still there.
- [49:28]
B
I got it. I can still fix a tire. I don't have to, I don't have. This whole thing isn't just AAA coming to fix the car. You know what I mean? Okay. It was a. It was a. That was a. I needed that. It gave me a lot of confidence to come back to Hollywood and look a lot of the what I was deeming excess. Look it in the eye and go, I get it. I get it. I know I earned getting here. I got the goods. All of this, I may not have earned that. I didn't even ask for a lot of this. But I know I got myself here. Okay.
- [49:55]
A
In other news, this episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify powers 10% of all E commerce in the United States. And they're the global force behind gymshark, skims. Allo and nutonic. Look, you're not going into business to learn how to code or build a website or do Backend inventory management. Shopify takes all of that off your hands and allows you to focus on the job that you came here to do, which is designing and selling an awesome product. And when it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they are best in class. Their checkout is 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms and with Shop Pay you can boost conversions up to 50%. Best of all, their award winning support is there to help you every step of the way upgrade your business and get the same checkout that we use at Nutonic with Shopify right now. You can sign up for a $1 per month trial period by going to the link in the description below or heading to shopify.com modern wisdom or lowercase, that's shopify.com modern wisdom to upgrade your selling today did you ever have a lonely chapter during your trajectory?
- [51:02]
B
Looking back, I would say I did. I mean look, I had some wonderfully fun and healthy and honest single years that were became sort of revolutions, that became sort of structurally tangent and it was fun, stayed on the surface purposefully. I kept it there, they kept it there. But I would still, you know, have many lonely nights when a man lays his head on the pillow. No matter who was in the bed, I was sleeping with me and felt like many times I was in neutral, didn't have something that I was building towards and chasing, relationship wise, even career wise at that time. I got through it fine. I didn't, I didn't go overboard and overindulge and didn't get dangerous with my health or anyone else's. Mainly because if I did get to, if I'd get the blues, I'd be like, open your eyes bro. Look around man. You kidding me? Take your time. And so, you know, I would say ultimately I was lonely in that time because I knew, I knew it was a stop, not a stay and I knew I wanted more career, relationships, et cetera. But I wasn't really fully committed. I wouldn't, didn't have maybe the wherewithal or the identity to go actually chase it and go. I know what I want. I want to, I want to live a way to attract that. I did try and go, did have time where I tried to go find it. But as I talked about in the book, I mean I had a time where I was every red light, who's over there? Produce section. Who's over there? Every party. Who's over there, you know, looking for the one. And once I was like, had that great dream of the 88 year old bachelor that I was with all the kids showing up, that dream gave me grace, man, because I quit looking for that one. I did start acting like someone, though. My target drew the arrow I was. I started acting like someone who had a wherewithal and a peace of mind with myself. Not needing someone to fulfill that drew her to me that I didn't have before. That dream.
- [53:37]
A
You've had a front row seat to some. A variety of rhythms of marriages. Your parents, yours. What have you learned about choosing a good partner?
- [53:51]
B
Oh, well, I'm. And I'm still learning, but friends first. I mean, did Camille and I become friends first? No. We would have became lovers pretty quickly, but I. The things I respected about her and saw that she had were things that I valued in a close friend. Someone who respected their past. Someone who had a great sense of humor but was never going to lie to put themselves to get what they wanted in front of me or take advantage of me. Someone who, you know, was impressed with who I was much more than they were impressed with what I did. Someone who very quickly saw the best in me and was like, I like that. Let's see some more of that. You know, and what. And watered that side of me. So we talked about earlier. See some more of that. Let me set things. Let me put some more fuel on that fire so you can even be more of that. Why not be all of that, you know, then if you're going to get together. I think this was a Susan Sarandon line when she was married to what's his name, Tim, who was Susan Sarandon.
- [55:14]
A
Married to years ago, an entire room of people shaking their heads.
- [55:20]
B
Great actor, Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins. They had a line that said that we have similar moral bottom line. It's always stuck with me. When you're going to partner with someone, especially if you're going to have family, I think make sure you got a similar moral bottom line because. And look, Camilla and I are going through new challenges now because we have teenagers, our moral bottom line and do's and don'ts and what's accepted and what we wouldn't accept has been pretty part and parcel up until now. Teens are getting like, well, I'm a little loose over here. Yeah, let them go. Let them go get that scar. Let her go get their heart broke, whatever that is. Let them go try it out and fail or succeed. Let them go negotiate free play. She's a little more. And so we're. Her and I are working on that balance right now and it's a New balance. Having teenagers as they're getting their independence, but having a similar moral bottom line, you know, connected to bringing out the best in the partners is having somebody you're a fan of and that they're a fan of you. You call each other on your. Or you don't have to call it because a look says enough and you're like, yeah, I know. Yeah, that was me Bogey, you know, or yeah, I got away with that one again. No more. Cut that out. And then what I'm learning now, trying to learn is that seems we're essentially always all the. The person that for me now, I think I'm essentially the same person I was. I was 19 years ago. You know, it seems similar to the same person I was when I was 8, 50 or 1. But our value systems reorder as we, as we grow independently and as a couple. Your value system changes for every parent when they become a parent for what's important in their life. So you read, you're moving things different places on the chart in the number one spot, the two spot and three spot. But to understand that it also happens with, with, with us as individuals and going that we do change and how do we even by being essentially the same person that we fell in love with. We still need room to change along the way and go through things that may seem inconsistent with who. The DNA of why we fell in love with that person or what. What we love who someone was. But no, there's still essentially that. But, but give them room to change. Give them room to change. Also the, the, the. I think it's a Springsteen line, you know, you don't. About sometimes you're running and the other one's walking and it's okay to be ahead, but don't, don't lose sight. Don't get so far ahead that you leave your mate lost back there going. You know, sometimes, you know, somebody's real healthy, the other one's on IR or we're still on the same team. That takes patience by the one who's healthy and takes persistence by the one who's on ir. But you got to. Got to wait up to hold that hand to go. We're still doing this together. Even though maybe in this zone right now in my life, I'm flying and you're walking. So certain things that I find, well, she's flying and I'm walking, you know, and so navigating that and how we change as we grow up and measuring that against who we initially fell for in the first place. And seeing. Well, they are still that, of course it changed. Hell, I've changed, I want to say, you know, and a lot of times I know I, we said, I know. I said, well, you've changed. I was like, well, heaven, yeah, I've changed.
- [59:10]
A
I'd hope so. Yeah.
- [59:12]
B
You know, and doing that with a partner is part of the work, I think of a relationship.
- [59:21]
A
Sort of talking about transformations, trajectories, pivots, changes. Let's escape Hollywood and go to South America and see what's going on over there. Let's escape singlehood, pivot into a marriage, pivot into family, from dyads to triad to so on. Yeah, I'm fascinated by the aggressive pivot that you made between different movie categories.
- [59:51]
B
Yep.
- [59:52]
A
And that requires, I think, a lot of courage and hope and self belief and faith in order to do, to let go of something good for the chance at something that you think could be great. I think that's something that a lot of people wish that they had a little bit more fuel for.
- [60:16]
B
It was a big risk, it was a big chance. And it was no guaranteed return ticket. It was a one way ticket possibly to I'm a head coach of high school football to this day.
- [60:25]
A
One way ticket to a dead end.
- [60:27]
B
Or to something new, but one way ticket to a dead end in Hollywood as an actor for sure. Look, it's no coincidence that at that time to have the courage to make that decision, I did have really cool things going on in my life. I'd fall in love with Camila. She'd just become pregnant with her first child. That gave me some significance of like, ah, that's what I've always wanted to be father. Here we go. If I stick with this will give me a home base to feel secure in. Even though I'm stepping away from what has made me give me significance for so many years and decades in my life. Having her to sit there, as much as I knew it was the right decision and it was a 3am decision in my own soul. She's always been very good with me about going. Now say it out loud and we're going to do, here's what we're going to do if we're doing this. She's the one that said you could, this could be dry for who knows how long. You may not get work ever again, but if we're going to do this, I'll be here by your side and we're doing it together. And there's no going back. There's no, we're not Going to get. We're not going to get nerves at the goal line if we don't know where the goal line is. We're not going to get down the line and go, oh, a pulled parachute.
- [61:51]
A
Even if it's a $14 million parachute.
- [61:53]
B
Even if it's $14 million parachute, even if it doesn't work out and you become a teacher or you go become a lawyer again, whatever this. So making that a choice that was inevitable, that there was no pulling the parachute on, sure as hell helped with the endurance of me being away for what was 20 months. I learned a lot of endurance in that year in Australia, though. Same way that gave me a lot, very thick skin for enduring something. So that 20 months was really hard. And I've said it before, that proverbial bottle on the shelf was looking better and better earlier in the day. As time went on, I mean. I mean, how many. How many more times could I work in the damn garden, man? I'm like, I'm not a gardener for life. I like this. But I got to come on, man. Um, but she helped me stay steady. I stayed steady. My faith helped me stay steady. I did have a real belief, whether I was tricking myself or not, that there's. There's a bigger pot of gold for me on the other side of this. If I just out endure it. If I just. I'll out endure this summit. And it became a little like the year in Australia. I started. I got a little. I started to gain pride and honor with the longer the penance went on and being without what I wanted. And I started to be like, well, I'm definitely backing out now, man. I'm six months in.
- [63:05]
A
Turns into momentum all on a year later.
- [63:07]
B
I'm like, I'm a year in, man. This is getting good. Okay, come on. And out of the blue, 20 months later. I'd been gone long enough to become a new good idea. Where's McConaughey? Plus, he said no to that $14.5 million offer three months ago. And I guarantee that tells some people in Hollywood, what's this so much up to? You don't say no to a14.5 million dollars off. It was way the offer is too big to get out. And he said no. Now someone does that, you get a little more attracted to him.
- [63:41]
A
What?
- [63:42]
B
This dude's on to something. He's got his own program. He's playing offense on something. He's not just regressing. And I think that also sent a bit of a signal, was my hunch Through Hollywood. And then the fact that it was just honestly 20 months, almost two years later. Where's Makana? We haven't seen him in a rom com. We haven't seen him on the beach shirtless. Where is he? He hadn't shown up in front of our faces anyway. I don't even know what he's doing. Does anyone know what he's doing?
- [64:11]
A
Do you fear or did you fear not being sufficiently prolific, not being sufficiently sort of front of stage, keeping your name out there? What if somebody else takes that place of me? What if I become irrelevant? What if people forget I didn't have.
- [64:28]
B
Any fear of anyone taking the place because my place at that time was romcom king. And I was sure. I was like, I'm good. I've done enough of those right now. I don't need another one of those right now. I don't want another one of those right now. If someone steps in and take the place, Bravo. I always like to say I took the baton from Hugh Grant and then I had my time. I was like, who do you think.
- [64:46]
A
He threw it to?
- [64:48]
B
I don't know. The rom coms are not. Are not. They're definitely not as healthy of a genre now as they were then. We were rolling in the romcoms. They were like, can't miss, man. They're. They're medium budget. 30, 35 mil. So the studio's not blowing their wad on the budget. They come out, they make good money. Studios make good money on all of them. Kind of worked. Even the ones that didn't work as well. Kind of worked.
- [65:10]
A
Y huge potential audience.
- [65:12]
B
Everybody can go see it repeats on Valentine's Day. Come on. You know, So I don't. I don't know. That did really hand it to. I don't know anyone's really jumped in that lane or if that lanes even got a help wanted sign anymore, you know? Did I feel the irrelevance? Sure. I felt the unease of irrelevance. I mean, but then I got. I became irrelevant. I mean, it got to the point where I knew I was irrelevant. It got to the point where I remember my agent saying, I said, you heard anything? Because, Matthew, I haven't heard your name in over two months. I was like, and you're my agent and you only have five clients. He goes, yeah, I haven't even heard your name. I'm like, that sounds pretty much like irrelevance to me, bro. Okay, all right. But never, like, I was shaky, but never was I going to go okay.
- [66:11]
A
I'll go back, rip culture.
- [66:12]
B
I'll do it. Never was I gonna pull the parachute. And, you know, what if, what if I didn't? What if those calls never came? Would I regret that sitting here now? I don't know, maybe I wouldn't be sitting here now, but I bet everything I got, there's no way I'd regret it. Whatever I'd be doing in my life right now, I would have said this opened up. We started off the conversation with this. The things you don't get have give us more, put us more in places of where we, where we are, where we find our own satisfaction than the things that we do get. In many ways, I mean, like, say it's, you know, life's mystery going forward. The science, looking back, when you look back, we can all connect. Every single.it's mathematical, scientific, how we got to this table right here. We got plans for this afternoon, but we're not sure what's going to happen. But everything looking back, it's, it's, it's all connected. If we go back and look at it and there's a whole lot of. I thought that was the end. Well, it was the end, but it was the beginning of this thing. Or I caught that red light and therefore made me 60 seconds later to get to that cafe where I met that movie producer or that woman who became my wife or whatever that is. It'll make sense at the time, but we're looking back. It's all a science.
- [67:27]
A
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- [68:48]
B
Yeah, ironic tragedy. Who said that? I mean, what do you think about all the life. The ironic tragedy? Life is pain and it just is nothing but pain. But so we if just if we can endure it. Like I, my mom, I can't help. She's worn me down with her endurance of her prescription on life.
- [69:16]
A
How old does she know?
- [69:17]
B
92. And she is the app. She's absolute proof of the value of denial. If you really commit to it. Absolutely.
- [69:26]
A
Committed denialist.
- [69:28]
B
Committed denialist. And it's not an intellectual trick. There's no. Oh, I'll deny. I'll intellectually deny it. So then I'll talk myself in. So now I can fake it until I make it. Bam.
- [69:39]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [69:40]
B
Faded completely. No, it didn't happen. No, mom, it didn't. No, it didn't. I've said in. It didn't. And she's not. You don't catch her in between the lines or off by herself realizing like, oh well, it did. No, it's done. Non negotiably done. Her favorite word is yes. Mom, how you think you're living so long? Well, I can't imagine not being here. Geez. Oh man, that's pretty good. I really can't. I honestly cannot imagine not being here. So she, she's beaten two types of cancers on aspirin and we're like, that doesn't make any sense. And we have to tie her up and holler to the doctor, the dermatologist, if you get something in our leg. Because going to a doctor in her mind, recognition is recognition of possible sickness. So you go there, remove a cancer, take some cancer medicine. Do you have cancer? No, I don't. And you wink. And she does not wink. I don't, I don't what. Anyway, if you're gonna. If you, if not, if you're not following suit. You don't believe it. Next question. That's how she is. And she's banned. She's not playing a trick. She does it. It's a full on commitment to denial. And it's. And it's awesome. She would not prescribe to. Life is painful and you have to get through it. She thinks it's now, mind you, she's very anti because she, she's someone who, like I said, I think I touched on the book. She had a horrible motherhood, mother and parental growth. She did not know how to be a mother. How'd she become a great mother by saying, I'm doing the opposite of what that bitch did. There's value to that, of going, well, I, this sucked. I don't know how to do this. But if I just do the opposite.
- [71:25]
A
Dude, I love this idea. So I grew up in a very working class town northeast of the uk, famous only for having the highest teen pregnancy rating in England. And then it lost that, so it didn't even have that anymore. And I think there's that idea of food deserts in America where it's areas in which it's difficult to get good food. And I think that Stockton on tees in the 90s was a role model desert, at least for me. So I wasn't around many people like the person that I wanted to be like. And at the time I think I was desperately looking like a thirsty man, parched for water. For somebody, that would be that. But in retrospect, again, ironic. There were a lot of people around me that were people I didn't want to be and I was able to plant flagpoles in the ground that helped me to avoid the catastrophes and the tragedies that would have awaited me had I have done that. So I don't want his relationship with his family. Yeah, I don't want the way that he drinks in order to be able to deal with his emotions. I don't want the way that he speaks negatively about all situations. I don't like the way that, yeah, I think much of life is avoiding pitfalls, not necessarily expediting successes. The pitfalls can take you out of the game completely in one form or another. And yeah, I, I don't like dwelling on the negatives in that way. But also that's another version of alchemy that we were saying before, hey, here's something that you think is useless or toxic or not. Yeah, not valuable. And you've managed to turn it into something that benefited you. It's the same reason why teaching people lessons that you've gone through from tragedies, traumas, whatever in your life. It's kind of like pointing at the thing that was bad and saying, you didn't get me. I'm going to make sure that you're not going to get them either. Yeah.
- [73:23]
B
And even looking at the things that are bad and going, oh, thank you. Appreciate that. I mean, the push off, you have established leverage rather than the create to, you know, you're going to lean into something, you also need something to push up. The push off is what you're leaning into is that mystery going forward. Right. That ironic chance that you have something to push off. The. Well, I don't know what I do want, but I do know I don't want that you have leverage.
- [73:57]
A
Yes.
- [73:58]
B
You know, it's there. So I don't know. I mean, we can get into a big discussion on victimhood here as well. But I, you know, I wrote about in Greenlights about how, you know, we always say, well, who are you? You know, once you figure out who you are and we ask. I tried to. I tried to ask my kids that. Now, why don't you know who you are now? Part of that who's helped me is Bob Dylan's lines like, I don't know what all this talks about who we are, man. We are all just cre. What we create ourselves to be. And that gives me a little. Oh, that's relaxing. But the. It's so much easier to figure out who you're not. And if you start eliminating the who I'm not by sheer mathematics, you end.
- [74:40]
A
Up moving toward who more of what.
- [74:43]
B
Feeds you and who you are. And it's a hell of a lot easier thing to go, how can I get rid of some bullshit in my life than it is to go, well, how do I go to my true self?
- [74:52]
A
Do I want to press the accelerator more quickly or do I want to take my foot off the fucking brake?
- [74:58]
B
Right? Yeah, yeah. And sit there and. Because I'm. I'm banging my head here and I'm going to eliminate some of that stuff. I want to get some of those things out of the way. That didn't add another hangover. I drank the same amount when I didn't. You don't usually have a hangover. Oh, maybe it was the conversations I was having. Maybe it was, you know, maybe it was the people I was hanging out with, those. Just clocking some of those things and eliminating them. Is it much easier place to start? You know, and maybe, maybe more. Is it maybe more valuable? I mean, I don't know. I always like to think that the. The UFC champ or the boxing heavyweight champ that believes they are the greatest is more empowering than the one who's out for revenge. But, man, the one out for revenge wins a lot of the Times the one who's pushing against.
- [75:53]
A
Yep.
- [75:53]
B
Now I'm gonna get back at you. Rage. Nothing gets more done than that. Emotion of rage. We like to say. No, freedom and light is the one that carries it, man. I don't know. That's maybe too evolved for us to really grab a hold of Rage and anger and revenge are mighty powerful emotions, man.
- [76:11]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:12]
B
Like get a lot of done.
- [76:13]
A
Yep. Especially in the beginning. Especially for a short period of time. I think when you. It's a potent fuel that's toxic in the long term. And I think that it's the sort of thing that you use to overcome the activation energy. Especially the beginning of a thing. Hey, I need something to kick me out. The chip on my shoulder from the kids that didn't believe me in school. The fact that I felt like I was mistreated or victimized or, or in some form, there was something, some limitation placed on me. It's a pretty good fuel. That'll get you a long way.
- [76:45]
B
Yeah.
- [76:45]
A
But you do not want to be using that two, three, four decades down the line.
- [76:50]
B
Well, and you'll, you'll. What do you call yourself? Self implode. Because you can't recognize your allies from your enemies and you start taking it out on your allies. We see it in relationships. You start taking it out on your mate, start taking it out on your wife, your husband, your lover. And like I'm an. I'm, I'm. I'm an ally, man. We're on the same team. But you're. You. You're back to that non deserving. No, I've got to. I gotta bleed. No, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta win. I gotta get angry now. You.
- [77:17]
A
Hey, well, also you've. The lesson that you've taken is enemies are more functional, motivating sources than allies.
- [77:27]
B
Right.
- [77:28]
A
Therefore, if I can make enemies out of allies, I will just find lily pad. Lily pad, lily pad. I'll just keep. Jump, jump, jump, jump jumping.
- [77:36]
B
Yeah, but that, like, I think what you're saying is that, that that trajectory starts to go lateral, but what have you got left?
- [77:43]
A
You've got an entire world filled with enemies or at least no allies.
- [77:46]
B
Right.
- [77:46]
A
And yeah, you know, as someone who used a chip on his shoulder for a good while to get some activation energy, I much prefer the version that I am now. Me and a friend have three versions of ourselves that we think about. So we have dopamine Chris, we have serotonin Chris, we have cortisol Chris.
- [78:06]
B
Okay.
- [78:06]
A
And dopamine Chris is lean in. He's thinking about plays on the show and, and how magnificent big it's going to be in awards and cool money and stuff like that. And cortisol. Chris is seeing threats and anxiety. He's looking out for that, that ambient vigilance that I was saying before. He's on edge. Then Serotonin Chris is taking a microdose of magic mushrooms. He's playing pickle ball with his friends, or he's lying under a tree looking up at the sky. I want to spend as much time in Serotonin Chris as possible.
- [78:35]
B
You do?
- [78:36]
A
Yes. I want to spend as much time in Serotonin Chris as possible.
- [78:39]
B
And I find myself, Tony Chris, Magic mushrooms in a hammock hanging with his buddies.
- [78:43]
A
Exactly. Okay, Yeah. I want to spend as much time in that as possible. But that wouldn't have got me out. That wouldn't have been the escape velocity that I needed to be able to leave whatever atmosphere I was in. I needed to use these other. I needed to run away from a life that I didn't want and run toward one that I did. Needed to escape something that I feared. And I also needed to go towards something. But the real bliss is when you go orthogonal to both of those, which is.
- [79:13]
B
Or let me ask you this. So when you're Serotonin Chris, magic mushrooms with your buddies in the hammock, how long can you lay in that hammock before you get to the imposters? The thing, hey, I gotta, I gotta go accomplish. For me, it's, it's, it's, it's going to accomplish something to have some sort of purpose. I've got, I'm still working on getting better on vacations. I'm much. My wife knows that I'm much easier to get along with on vacation. If I get a couple hours to write in the morning and get a workout in. Dude, I wish I could go two weeks with going, hey, man, whatever. But I get, I get antsy, I get edgy. I'm not present because I need a little. I need a little time to go break a sweat mentally, physically, and then I can be. Then, man, the rest of the day, I'm gray.
- [80:01]
A
I love this topic. I, I've been thinking about it so much recently. Type A people with type B problems. Type B people with type A problems. Okay, so the insecure overachiever needs to learn how to line a hammock.
- [80:15]
B
Yeah.
- [80:16]
A
And the lazy person who's on the verge of bankruptcy needs David Goggin shouting in their face. Right?
- [80:20]
B
Yeah.
- [80:21]
A
Now the Interesting thing is, because of culture and because of the way that people are perceived, a person who is overworked but outwardly very successful will always seem to be in a more preferable position than someone who's on the verge of bankruptcy and needs to get off Xbox.
- [80:37]
B
Right?
- [80:37]
A
So we, we gift more sympathy because it seems charitable. Right? Seems supportive to the person who. You just need to work harder. Think about what you have contributed to the world, which are movies. In every movie, the training montage of the Down Underdog is them working hard and learning to get up on time and be disciplined and so on and so forth. I don't know of any movies where a guy learns to log out of Slack at 6pm and lie on a beach holiday. Right? How. How like opulent and transactional and dopaminergic are you that you need to be taught how to chill out. You not know there's people out there that would kill to be in the position that you are.
- [81:17]
B
That's, that's, that's the dialogue right there. That's interesting. How about. How about a movie about the. A low handicap, moody movie for the type A that needs to learn how to get off slack and go hang in a hammock and pulls that off. And don't. And don't ask permission to tell it. Don't ask for. Don't ask for boohoos for the, For. For the character. Just because no one's, no one's showing that. I mean, look, what do we do today? What are the things going. You probably know better than I do. There's a lot. It's like people have gotten much more into meditation. Successful people got much more into meditation. You brought one up earlier. Psychosilic is now sort of. Sort of an avant garde sort of hair. Hey, man, this is a way to breath work.
- [82:03]
A
Cold plunge, sauna, sound healing.
- [82:06]
B
Yeah. Now how many of those are we going to look at in 10 years and go, that was a fad. How many of those are we going to go? That was a really cool discovery.
- [82:15]
A
Well, here's the vicious thing about those modalities that a lot of people. I call it productivity purgatory, which is the things that you do for fun you only do in order to be able to service. More productivity when you get back to it, Right? So why do you do your breath work? Not because it makes me feel good and I like to do breath work, but because I watched an Andrew Huberman podcast episode that said that it allows me to work 15% harder the next day. And you go no, no, no. Like your recovery modalities should be in service of themselves.
- [82:47]
B
Do you think this is a. If we're going to call it a sin or disease, I'm going to do that for stereotype. Typical words. You think this is a sin or disease of the West? Because, for instance, I'm in. I'm in. I'm in Italy, and we're at this wonderful couple, older couple, and they're both like 80, and they were. Just had their together, man. And the lady was a great. She was. I get great shape. She goes, oh, I swim around this island each day. And then he swim there. And my question was, how far do you swim? And she was like, what? I swim until I don't want to swim anymore. I was like, it's a very Western idea. How far, how much time? She was like, I swim until I don't want to swim anymore.
- [83:31]
A
You wanted to quantify it.
- [83:32]
B
I was quantifying.
- [83:33]
A
Tracked it on Strava.
- [83:34]
B
Right.
- [83:35]
A
You've got a spreadsheet for this.
- [83:36]
B
Do you have your ring on it? She was like, what? She was confused at my question. And I was like, ah, the beautiful stereotypical difference in a European thought and a Western thought. But it's similar to that.
- [83:49]
A
It is very much. I mean, we were playing Friend's Birthday earlier this year in Miami, and there was a pickleball court, but we were playing. I like good British blokes, we were playing sort of foot tennis instead. And I realized that we were playing to win, and I didn't want to play to win. That wasn't the energy I want. I was in dopamine Chris, and I wanted to be in serotonin Chris. So I said, why don't we change the rules of the game and work both teams separately but together to try and make the most beautiful game that we can. I want everyone to be doing trick shots. You want to set up the other side to do trick shots. Some of the guys were good football, freestylers, stuff like that. And the first response from my friend that came up with the serotonin, dopamine, cortisol thing, George, his first response was, yeah, and we can count them. And.
- [84:33]
B
No, no, let's keep the mathematics out of this.
- [84:36]
A
And that's your lady swimming around. How long, how far? How many times?
- [84:39]
B
Yeah, yeah, what? Yeah, I'm taking this thought to my. I'm going to play tennis for two hours when I leave here, and the girl I'm going to hit with as much as I can. I'll see if I could do It, I bet. I doubt I can do it for two hours, but I'll see how long I could do it.
- [84:53]
A
Little bit.
- [84:54]
B
Let me try and set her up for great shots and see, see, See how the rallies go?
- [84:58]
A
Yeah. But even then within that. Well, was that shot better than the last one? Was that more beautiful? I'm like, you know, it's this infinite regress of performance metrics and all the rest of it. Speaking of which, in other news, this episode is brought to you by Skims. If you've ever wondered how McConaughey makes everything look so effortless, here's a tip. Start with being comfortable with Skims. New box of briefs. That's exactly what you get. No awkward adjustments, no bunching. Just a perfect fit that moves with you every step of the day. As you may have guessed from the fact that I wear shorts all the time, I'm a massive fan of being as comfortable as possible, which is why skims are the perfect choice to wear every day. So if you're still holding on to that old pair of briefs from five Christmases ago that frankly need to go in the bin, do yourself a favor and upgrade to skims Right now. You can shop Skims menswear by going to the link in the description below or heading to skims.com that's skims.com fastball in six weeks time. It's the 10th anniversary of Interstellar. I think it's being re released in theaters in 70 mil IMAX.
- [86:09]
B
In IMAX, yeah. Okay.
- [86:12]
A
How did that movie change you? It's my favorite movie of all time. So thank you for.
- [86:16]
B
I have a lot of people tell me that that that's their favorite movie of all time. And that's another that a lot of people go. Had to go watch four times.
- [86:23]
A
There's a lot to take in.
- [86:24]
B
There's a lot to take in.
- [86:26]
A
Classic Nolan.
- [86:27]
B
Yeah. How did it change me? And you're not talking about, like, the success of the movie, like the subject material, everything else either.
- [86:34]
A
Working with Christopher, learning about, I mean, you know, Kip Thorne fucking the consultant physicist on that show. So much stuff.
- [86:44]
B
Also, you know, it was in that. In that sense, it was similar to when I did a movie called Contact and I got to sit with Carl Sagan for three and a half hours and he went through. And I remember walking away from that going, oh, my gosh. As a believer, God's backyard is a whole lot bigger than I thought it was, which is a very humbling and empowering thought. I mean, look, the main thing was I think on the. On the human side of the real me personally, I was like, oh, you don't leave your kids to go do what your dream is. And then when I change dream what your dream is, to go do what you were meant to do, what you were born to do, that you have an ability to do like nobody else. I'm just like, ooh, well, maybe you do leave your kid that argument. And that leaving which is that countdown. That's. I remember that's where I was. So that's the scene I'm remembering is the price you pay, the cost, the consequence of chasing down. And I had. My initial thought was, oh, Cooper's being selfish in the wrong way. You know, don't. And then. It's a good argument, though I don't think you can easily say that there's a major consequence with that. But look at what. And I Look. I deal with it now. I got three kids doing my favorite job, but I think I was. I find extreme and endless purpose in parenting, but I'm dabbling in different versions of leadership that have to do with the betterment, maybe I hope, of more people and. But it would become a consequence of being there and being present like I want to be. From my three children and my wife is our family. I haven't found anything that I believe is worth that at the sacrifice of this yet. And my argument with myself, there is the best exports we can have if we do it well as our children. No better export. You can put out a better extension of yourself. No better way to, you know, affect.
- [89:03]
A
The world.
- [89:07]
B
Than doing then hopefully. Hopefully having some healthy children that can go be independent enough and of. You know, and you. And you taught them when they see. They see the world in the right way and can chase down things that they love and they hopefully love the right things.
- [89:19]
A
So contributing to anything in place of that is a net negative.
- [89:23]
B
Well, that'd be my argument at the sacrifice of fewer that I feel like, oh, that's. That's millenniage. I've really got to. I've got it. That's. I'm helping give them the palette to paint on, and I'm. I'm handing the right colors to them and letting them fall from the right heights to the wrong. The right trees, you know, to where they get bruised but hopefully don't break a neck. You know what I mean? So. But I don't. But it's a. But it's a good argument. One that I understand on the other side. And I have friends that go have Sacrificed that. I have friends that have been very successful even in the career of being an actor in Hollywood, and a successful actor in Hollywood. You know, this brings me back to when we first had kids, before Camila pulled the goalie to get pregnant. She goes, one condition, you go, we go. And my first reaction was, hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm lone wolf artist here, man. I go off my Airstream with my dog. I'm a solo, you know, coyote here, man. And while I'm saying that, I heard my mother's voice go, you better nod your head and say, she's giving you a gift. Say, yes, ma'am. And I did. Yes, ma'am. And that we've done that. I have a 16 year old, a 14 year old, an 11 year old, no doubt that has a major contribution to how, to whatever strength our family is. And I think our family is very strong. And the security that my kids have and the courage that they have, that because we've never been away from each other that long, they picked up, came with there's another side. I understand you go got opportunities that can do great things, like it's your art or leadership in the world that, hey, I'm going to be away. And maybe that's even there's argument that that could be better for your children later on or maybe better for their children.
- [91:27]
A
But this is the, you know, we were talking about that infinite regress of being mean to yourself or it's emotions about emotions and stuff. Thinking about the decision that Cooper needs to make and also the decision that you need to make. It's. You can always continue to kid yourself a little bit more. Is it more virtuous to stay at home.
- [91:44]
B
Yeah.
- [91:45]
A
With your children, to raise your children, despite the fact that the likelihood of them surviving into the future and their kids surviving into the future is lessened by that. Okay. But then if you go and do the thing, you leave them, you're making that sacrifice. But are you doing it because you want to save the world or are you doing it because it's your dream? Or the fact that you can get something virtuous out of something that's also your dream? Is that fucking puritan work ethic we were talking about before, which is I. The only way that this can be a virtuous decision is if I suffer.
- [92:14]
B
Yeah.
- [92:15]
A
More I. It's only suffering. Not just that it's good for the future, but also that I don't want to do it. Because if I don't want to do it, then I know that it's really, really true because it's a high price.
- [92:23]
B
That I pay because go pull it off.
- [92:25]
A
And this is the. As far as I can see, the curse of the deep thinker.
- [92:30]
B
Amen. Amen. Amen. A curse and gift because. Because it does do one thing that we hadn't brought up at a very base level. And I think this goes along with stress anxiety at the very base. It means in something that we can't take for granted because not everyone has it, it means you give a damn.
- [92:56]
A
Yes.
- [92:56]
B
And let's not throw, let's not throw that out like oh, of course, no. And like, because not everybody does, it means you give a damn about more. About more than just yourself. And that is a high, that's a high end value and not an old fashioned nostalgic thing to go, oh, it's so 1950s bullshit. That's a real thing.
- [93:14]
A
So some people can't care or some people struggle to care about things. Yeah. There are entire people that go through their lives. It's odd, especially in the uk, loving things, being too keen.
- [93:26]
B
Right.
- [93:26]
A
Americans kind of have permanent first line cocaine energy. Yeah, Very excited.
- [93:30]
B
Yeah.
- [93:30]
A
And I like it like excitable people. I like enthusiasm. However, the UK doesn't necessarily have that quite so much and I always think how much more I would. How much I wish I could gift that back to the UK about how much that positive reinforcement. We were saying it before that first scene that you do and the guy next to you goes, hey, that was pretty good.
- [93:57]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [93:59]
A
The right encouraging word, the right time. Where would that push people to and okay, if that's what you want for you in the world, right, you have the opportunity to be that for other people and maybe it's going to start to come back around and maybe we can begin to change culture a little bit by doing this.
- [94:19]
B
When will that English or, or does it, does it have someone though that is constantly like ah, bollocks that goes and succeeds that the English culture goes fucking bravo.
- [94:33]
A
Is it ever really so interesting stat around the UK globally so far in 2024, the UK has the second highest number of millionaire exits on earth.
- [94:45]
B
What's a millionaire exit?
- [94:47]
A
A millionaire that has left the country and is now living in a different. A different nation. China first 15,000. UK second nine and a half thousand. But the UK is 3% of the population of China. So pro rata, we have got by far the most millionaires leaving by far. We do not have a good culture around supporting success around people doing different things. Another great example of this, the UK has got three universities in the two or three universities in the top 10 in the world, as does America. So it'll be Oxford, Cambridge, maybe King's or Durham in the uk and there'll be Yale, Princeton, Harvard, something else in the US and a couple of others. And we have 20% the number of startup founders, despite the fact that we have the same number of university graduates going from top flight universities. Why? Culture. But speaking of that, what did you learn? You did the gentleman with guy.
- [95:46]
B
Yeah.
- [95:47]
A
You spent a good bit of time presumably enmeshing yourself into British culture. What did you learn while you were there?
- [95:55]
B
Well, so there is still a royal dance to play the part and do and that. I found that interesting and quite entertaining. I remember, you know that everything has, there's a costume and a. And a timing and who goes here when. And here's how you sit there and this is how we do this. And I found it very interesting.
- [96:20]
A
And Pump and Circumstance.
- [96:21]
B
Yeah, it was all there and, and I never. And I, and I indulged and played that part and enjoyed bit of whimsy. Now when I went out and they saw that I was actually a very good shot at pheasants. I got a few. Hey, I got a few attaboys.
- [96:36]
A
Bring the American over here.
- [96:37]
B
Hey, we like you now, right?
- [96:38]
A
It's good with guns.
- [96:39]
B
And then I remember this one though, where the, I think the term is where the posh went overboard but nobody seemed to notice it but me. And we were at this dinner and it was one of those dinners where 24 people on this side, 24 people on this side. Mrs. Is down there and Mr. 's down here. Mrs. Has a 24 foot by 18 foot oil painting of herself over her chair. And Mr. Has an 8, 24 foot by 18 foot over his chair. And it was just absolutely. This is all this fucking great. Everyone had their own waiter, they saw ding on time. And this is just absolutely great. Well, after the dinner, the youngsters, the sons and the daughters had come over with their friends and they were all also posh to smoke a cigarette. Yes. And I remember this one. Get flick in the ash. There's an ash tree right there on the table. Boom. On the carpet. I was like, dude. And without even saying, he's like, no, man, it's, it's more posh. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a. I'm posturing. It's, it's, it's cooler to go. I'm. I can drop my ash on your $550,000 Persian rug than it is to put it in the ashtray. And I was like, well that one, I think y'all went overboard. I think you went out of bounds on that one. But the fact that that was, it was a big gave his games. But they, but they were doing it inconsistently.
- [98:02]
A
Isn't it fascinating? The Americans are basically blind to class. You've had to use the word posh almost in speech marks there, right? It's like a word that.
- [98:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [98:12]
A
There is not a single school child that doesn't use the word posh in primary school. Once a day in England, everybody.
- [98:20]
B
And it means class.
- [98:21]
A
It means this person is well to do from a well to do background.
- [98:24]
B
Okay.
- [98:25]
A
And there's, you know, I remember there was a guy that I played cricket with. Cricket's still a working class sport in the uk. It's not necessarily upper class. It's very working class town. There's a kid who got a class Mercedes used for his 17th birthday, which is when you can drive in the UK. I was like, wow, Danny's from a posh family. I never really knew that much, but I knew he had money. He always had nice kid. He always had new new boots at the start of each season. But I was like, wow, he got him a stadium. In retrospect, it's maybe it's seven grand car, ten grand car, something like that. For me I'm like, oh, posh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [99:04]
B
Is there something though going on with the. As. As the royal family and the King and the Queen are losing power and that's becoming. Is, is these, these millionaire exits. Is this still a bit of a. How dare you become that wealthy in the private sector. You're not a royal or.
- [99:25]
A
No, I certainly don't think with regards to that. But there is definitely skepticism around the monarchy at the moment. And I'm really not sure where I stand on that. One of my friends has a very compelling argument that we should do away with it. Doesn't like the word your highness higher than what? But also, what was it that you were just saying? Like, what have we got if we don't hold on to the culture and the things that people know us for? And I like the pomp and circumstance. When I graduated from Newcastle University, there's this 10 minute procession of different mace bearers literally wielding medieval weapons, doffing their caps to different people in different sequences in order to show who and where and why. And it's like, this is fucking cool.
- [100:15]
B
Whatever it is, it's still. Because America, we're, whether we know it or not, we're hungry for ritual.
- [100:22]
A
Yes.
- [100:22]
B
And we don't have near as much ritual.
- [100:24]
A
It's not established.
- [100:25]
B
Right.
- [100:25]
A
There's trees that are older than your country. Yeah.
- [100:27]
B
We're just. Just puppies. I hope that you don't get watered down to where. Yeah. Because y'all have amazing ritual.
- [100:36]
A
Laugh.
- [100:36]
B
Giggle at it or not. Do it and appreciate it and go. This is a different place. And it's been around. It's been around a while. Yeah. Posh. It's class. Okay.
- [100:49]
A
Yeah, a little bit. Well to do.
- [100:51]
B
Okay.
- [100:53]
A
You mentioned there about some of the prices that people need to pay in order to be who they are.
- [101:01]
B
Yeah.
- [101:01]
A
I'm fascinated by this question. I'm fascinated by the cost of entry price of doing business to be a person that other people admire because I think that it helps to humanize others success and it helps to mitigate jealousy and envy because you see what someone has had to go through in order to be in a position that you think you want to be. And they go, oh, you get to see this much, by the way. There's this monster hiding behind. What do you wish more people knew about the price of success in life?
- [101:44]
B
Well, success has taken on different definitions over time. It used to have to do. And some people listen to this will be like, ah, come on, mak. These have to do with integrity or that actually I think was a word that was in the definition in 1901 or 11. And now, you know, money, fame, that's your definition of success. So it seems to be that and always has been to some extent, whoever has more is the most successful. More access, more money. You're the winner, the last for a lot. That is. I'm not saying it's a. It's. It's a race to the red light, but I am saying the fourth quarter of that being your goal, the it has the residuals decline on quality of life. I've met many more very rich men who've chased that dollar to be successful and to be relevant for having the most money that the last 15, 20, even younger years were bewildered, lost, had no relationships, didn't have purpose chasing the dollar, they just did it. They were good at it and made it happen, but they didn't feel what they were doing. They couldn't even necessarily say what they were really good at, just good deal makers or made the right calls in certain mathematics. That's. But that's definition. It's also why I wasn't surprised when Trump first got elected at fame had money. We sell that every day in the west as this is how you make it America. That's America. Yeah. So I was not surprised because that's what we're getting fed. What a success. I just, let me, let me pre phrase it with this. We all want to be relevant, but I think we all forget to ask ourselves, relevant for what? Before we chase our relevance or chase success. I think there's a difference between success and profit. Meaning profit does pay you back, can you do things? And I love money, I'm all for it, but there I see a lot of one way tickets that are, you can get successful, win, have more money, but not be making a profit in your life. How many times we sacrifice quality for quantity? The two don't have to be separate. Now you may have to make some sacrifices of quantity to have more quality, but I think we should give quality more credit than we do.
- [104:29]
A
Well, are we not ultimately having more quantity in the hopes of more quality?
- [104:33]
B
You're sacrificing, but that's not a quid pro quo. It doesn't equal out to that. We believe it, it will. And hey, it can access. I mean, I got a lot of things now for money. I've made that. I'm like, damn right, man. I'm glad I have that. That makes my life not even more convenient. I actually like that more. I like what I can do with my family more with that. I like what Camille and I can do as a husband, wife. I like what I can do solo even more with that. Enjoy it. And again, it feeds me. But would I be any less, would I be any less happy If I had a 30, a 40, 50th of what I have right now? No, I know that there's no. I know I'd be any less happy. No way I'd be less happy. Do I want to give all that away and say, well, make me poor? Sometimes I'm like, yeah, you need to be more poor. Other times like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't be getting the imposter syndrome on this one. You're using it for. You use it pretty good. You could use it even better. But don't be, don't get mad at it. You know what I mean? I think we just need to ask ourselves that question. Relevant for what? And also in the pursuit of quantity, which is what the world rewards, ask ourselves, read, watch out, just drinking the Kool Aid and go, what is the quality? What do I want? And Again, that's a hard question of what I value the most, what I really value the most. And it's a hard question to answer but if we can answer that, make sure you're, you're, it'll make you, it makes us answer the quality question of what we want more of and not just the quantity question because a lot of us, I've done it too. Been blind as could be chasing the quantity to see. Let me see if I can get the biggest number.
- [106:21]
A
That's dopamine Matthew.
- [106:22]
B
Dopamine Matthew. And I'm pretty damn good at it. If I want to put on my business hat and go, that's all I'm going to be right here found out I'm pretty good at it. But I don't want to stay in that dopamine Matthew on that, on that because I don't get the reward. I get the reward of the acquisition. But the acquisition does not equally pay back the dopamine of the getting. It's the conquering, that's the, that's the hit. You know, redefine. Everyone can have their own definition of success and ask yourself can I have quality with the quantity and can I have profit with my success? And profit goes into, leans into relationships. I think profit ends up to be a spiritual question too and how we treat ourselves and others. I think it's a longer game this chase for just success if that's money and quantity is a short sighted game. If that's all, if that's all you're after. Now I understand some people out there who can't pay their rent or are sick and trying to make till the next day or listen would listen to this and go easy for you to say. And I say you are correct. I'm speaking from where, from my position because you asked me. Because you got some people that are going. I'm not. This is a high, this hyperbolic conversation you're having. I'm trying to make it to the next day.
- [107:36]
A
Type B. Person with a type A problem thinks what a champagne issue that is.
- [107:39]
B
Yeah, it's, but it's, it's, it's, it's a real one and I'm apologizing for it. But I understand the difference. But I would just, I would say that if more people that are type A and, or maybe things are working out. Just check your quality as you're, as you're chasing your quantities. Make sure that whatever you're succeeding at is giving you actual profit and actually paying you back.
- [108:02]
A
Matthew McConaughey, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I really appreciate you. I love the way that you think. I love your insights about life. Congratulations on the new book. Congratulations on the tequila. And thank you. Thank you for coming today. I really, really enjoyed this.
- [108:17]
B
I did, too, Chris. Very much. Glad to be here, man. Met up top in a barn somewhere in Austin where I was looking down, didn't even know where I was going. Showed at a barn. I was like, oh, this is where we are. Yes, it is.
- [108:26]
A
Seems on brand for you.
- [108:28]
B
I like it.
- [108:29]
A
Heck yeah, dude. Until next time.
- [108:31]
B
Until.
- [108:32]
A
Thank you very much for tuning in. Look, we went to a lot of effort to get Mr. McConaughey here and convert an old barn that's from the 1800s in Texas. So I really hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time.