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Action was called the day you were born and cut will be called the day you die.
What are you doing live?
Is that worth the show?
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed.
Today's guest is someone whose life and work have inspired millions around the world.
Also someone that I've had the fortune of talking to digitally, but the first time having him physically in this studio.
We've crossed paths many a time, but I'm so grateful to have in the studio the one and only Matthew McConaughey, an Academy Award-winning actor, author and storyteller who has spent decades exploring what it means to live with intention, courage and heart.
His new book, Poems and Prayers, is a reflection of that journey, an invitation to pause, reflect and reconnect with what truly matters.
Please welcome to On Purpose, Matthew McConaughey.
Good to be here with you, Jay.
Matthew, it's great to be here with you.
I always love our conversations.
Even when I find us at a conference in Texas or at a party, we always seem to find a way or you always seem to find a way to cut right through it.
And then you'll ask me this question of something you've been thinking about, and then I'll share this.
And we just always get into these really profound conversations.
And Today, I was excited.
I was really looking forward to it because I thought, oh, now we get to do it with a bit more time.
Yeah, we've had many conversations we didn't get to finish.
Today, maybe we finished some.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I wanted to ask you, Matthew, when you think about your life right now, you do so much.
You were just talking about all the projects and travel and everything.
If you ever get a day that has no plan, no schedule, no timeline, no phone, no commitments, what does that look like for you?
Oh, I don't... get many of those and I need to, my hunch is I need to learn to get more of those.
And when I get them I can be better at them, because I have a love of accomplishment to even feel a significance for the day.
You know, I sleep better when I have a purpose and I went after something, even if it's just building something.
And I'm still learning.
I've got to remind myself now.
I used to be better at it actually to.
I just go daydream mosey, let's take a mosey.
Everything's gonna swing by.
Today, that's one thing.
I've quit calling appointments appointments.
You can call them swing bys and all of a sudden I find I get just as much done.
But I'm just, it's just in my dance of the day.
But if I have one full day off, I will Get my nine and a half hours sleep, which is preferred, which means maybe I sleep until 930.
I'll get up, take my time, mosey down.
If Camilla was up, my wife was up before me, she'll have left me a matcha tea.
If she wasn't or had to rush out the door, I'll go make that tea.
While the water's boiling, I'll go probably do eight pieces of a puzzle.
Which is a wonderful way.
I love starting my day on that slow, simple, ah, eight little connections.
Ah, you made, you rhymed eight different things.
They're very simple.
Now I'll usually head out to the maybe the front porch, have that first tea catch, hopefully catch 15 minutes of some morning sun and face.
Um, then I'll, uh, um, catch up on the, on the, the, the, the, the world's news, what's happening.
Maybe I'll do my word or a couple of simple things.
I'm going to try and play tennis somewhere in the day.
I'm going to try and break a sweat somewhere during the day.
I'll take some project or something that I'm working on or writing with me maybe to my gym and have one of those lazy little two and a half hour workouts where you kind of stop and write some things and then you kind of get hot back into it.
And then, uh, I'm probably going to cook dinner that night when I don't have anything going on.
So either I'm going to get the ribeyes and and and rub them down in my rub and have everything and and and, or I'm going to do tuna melts for the family that night.
Um, and then, uh, Kids never want to come home.
We'll usually hang.
I'm saying this day that I have off as a school day.
And we'll hang, catch up on days.
After that, maybe the family will all go catch something, one of our favorite shows.
We'll go watch an hour.
And if we start early enough, maybe we get two episodes.
Kids will go down.
Then Camilla and I get to hang for the last couple hours of the evening.
That'd be a mosey through my day to day.
Nice, I love that.
How obviously the mindset of achievement and purpose and growth has served you so well.
But there's a part of you that sounds like I would like more days like this.
Where does that come from?
I love to be on task.
I love to have something that I'm building and reaching to finish and do.
I love the building of that.
I've started a lot of the campfires in my life that I'm still building.
And I have plenty to fill my 24-hour days.
At the same time, I want to keep learning and be inspired by something new.
Pick up something that I didn't, like I just picked up tennis four years ago.
I didn't have, I noticed, I said, you hadn't had a hobby for 25 years, McConaughey.
You found your first hobby.
I thought writing was a hobby.
And I was like no, that's actually not a hobby, you know, but to find, to be open to finding a new hobby, a new, to go somewhere and not I don't know where are we going.
We're just going for a walk.
To no destination in particular, you know, to lose track of time with success and with a busy life.
And I got a full life and got a family and I got a career.
My hunch is that while that can fill my days completely for my own evolution in art, just to make sure I can still have that beginner's mind where I can go daydream for nothing in particular.
Go where your nose takes you.
You know what I mean?
Or go where your ears take you.
Follow that to make sure I'm giving myself time.
To let that happen, I think is a good, I think is a good, it always seems to pay off.
Yes.
And it never is looked at as like time not well spent.
You know what I mean?
But in the time I can get a little bit anxious and be like, let's do, let's get ahead on that thing.
You know, let's, let's bring that thing that you were supposed to have done next Friday.
What if we got that done now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can relate to that.
I can, I can relate to that and I can see it too.
And and how easy it is.
As someone who loves what they do and loves creating and building, and I fully get it.
I mean, there's the upside and I'm not over here bitching about that.
I'm just happy to have things in my life that I love to build and do.
My wife knows it.
She, I'm, I'm probably most happy.
It's probably obvious when I'm When I'm working, when I have a schedule, when I have a day that is this many hours or 12 hours, or I just got through shooting something for two months and then boom, hopped off the next day, went into shooting something for three days.
I love that.
I sleep well.
The food tastes a little better to me that night.
That cocktail, that pantalones on ice tastes better that night.
I'm actually, I think, have more time.
And I'm a better father to my kids, the conversations.
And I'm more present when I have that sense of accomplishment through the day.
Yeah.
You've written so many chapters.
You've lived so many chapters.
What would this chapter of your life be called?
Ooh, that's a great question.
So I just turned 56.
And 40s were my favorite.
Decade.
I think I really customized.
And I found that to be true for a lot of people, especially a lot of the men I talked to.
They go, man, 40s.
You get rid of all that stuff where you're wasting your time and you're honing in on the stuff that turns you on.
Look, 50s, I'm still in it.
The first few years of 50s were a little wobbly for me.
So you go, oh, is this that midlife crisis?
And I go, well, what is that?
I don't like the word crisis on that.
Sounds like a midlife, for lack of a better word, opportunity.
It's a time where for whatever reason, man looks back and goes, what have I done?
And now where am I going?
And I think my hunch is that most people go through what they call a midlife crisis.
And if it's hard for them or not healthy for them, it's because maybe they're not given enough credit to what they actually have done to get there.
It's like, oh, no, I did that.
Done.
Next.
Like we're talking about, you need more accomplishment.
Wait a minute.
Sometimes it's all right to go, what did you do back there that actually you're still building?
What if we take that to another level?
Put another log on that fire.
Yeah.
My goal when I hit the 50s, my goal that came to me was like, hey, you're an actor.
You play a character in someone else's script that someone else wrote, directed by someone else, lensed in a camera from someone else and edited by someone else.
Before your performance is shared
And I love acting, but I go, there's four filters.
Of my raw expression before it's getting to you.
We were talking about this before we got on camera today.
You go on stage, boom, it's direct.
This is pretty direct, but there's still a filter here.
You know what I mean?
Writing, there's still one filter.
But that's when I headed into writing is I wanted to get rid of three of the filters.
And that's when I said, oh, what if I write the word?
Can I pull off writing and give someone translate the human experience where people can see themselves through words?
Can I paint a picture of my own experiences, which someone else can go, oh, I've been there.
I know what you're talking about.
But that's still a filter.
So the challenge I've been that keeps just gnawing at me since I've turned 50 is like what's your documentary?
What are you doing?
Are you a character in life?
In the big show, the one that our action was called the day you were born and cut will be called the day you die.
What are you doing live?
Is that worth a show?
Is it entertaining?
Is it educational?
Is it fulfilling?
Does it turn you on?
Could it turn other people on?
What's happened?
Now we're talking no filters.
And so I've started to question myself.
Let's think about it.
Is there other avenues for you to live live instead of doing someone else's script?
What's your script now?
That's led me to think about different ways of leadership.
It's led me to write more.
It's also led me to go on the hard days to give myself a little amnesty and go dude.
Take a little wisdom from Bob Dylan.
You are what you create yourself to be.
Maybe if you feel more alive acting in a show through a character, well, bravo.
That's still you.
Don't act like that's not you.
You didn't get to your real self.
I mean, you are to be the creation.
And it's okay if I'm going to go play a part.
We're all playing a part.
Are we playing – if we can get to a part that is –
It's essentially close to essentially who we are.
Bravo for us.
If we can't, we're having trouble doing that.
If we can play a part that we're good at and shows a piece and translates to show a piece.
Of humanity turns other people and us on, even though it may not be poorly who we are.
Well, bravo for getting away with that one too.
You know, but play one at a time is another thing.
There's another little tip I have to remind myself, because the great performers, whether I think, in life or in acting, they can play any part.
They can be any creation, but they're always one at a time.
And that's where some patience has come in.
That's where a bit of that, hey, don't rush to accomplish.
Play one part at a time.
But as life gets big and you've got a career and you've got a family, there's many parts to play.
Father, husband, performer, writer, whatever those are.
But you know with practice, those all that, instead of feeling like five different hats you got to wear one day, you go.
That's all part of the same story.
That's all part of the same man i am.
So the chapter would be called one.
One at a time.
The chapter would be called oh, i wish it was god.
Sometimes i think it should be called one at a time.
Along my long answer to what would the chapter be would be uh, i loved your answer.
We've got a um.
I opened up eight lanes to about 12 lanes.
When you open up to more lanes and you've been comfortable on these eight and you know them well.
Well, there's a little growing pains with getting comfortable in those other new lanes, without disregarding my eight that I've built, that I'm comfortable in.
So I would say four more lanes.
Let's call that chapter, let's call it four more lanes.
Four more lanes, yeah.
It's interesting listening to you because I think you've highlighted a really interesting human trait that we all possess where, when we achieve something and it's no longer useful, we start to denigrate it.
So, for example, if I think a certain mindset is going to help me at this point in my life, I'll use it.
It will get me to where I want to get to.
And then when I get there, I'll go, I didn't like that mindset.
I wish I was this way.
And we kind of do that time and time again.
And I assume decade by decade, where we reject the thing that got us here and don't value it because now it isn't what the new world looks like.
And making it very basic, a crude example is, oh, I thought that was cool to wear.
And now 10 years later, I look back and I think, why was I wearing that?
Like, I'm crazy.
But think about that on an internal soul level, of the mindsets we wear and the behaviors we wear, and like taking a moment, as you said, to give yourself that amnesty, to say
Well, yeah.
And to And to make sense of you with the default emotion when you look back and you're embarrassed of something you did that actually got you what you wanted to go, you know to go.
Instead of judging it, at least start off giggling at it.
It helps with the amnesty.
It also helps change your gear and go Oh, the realization of oh.
I wouldn't have learned that lesson if I wouldn't have been such an egotistical prick at the time, because I wouldn't have had the confidence to put myself in the situation to get humbled.
You know what I mean?
You can look at all the piles of SHIT we step in.
They lead to.
You know the clean water we get to drink from the well down the line, or the truth we figure out.
I mean, it's, you know, I say that to mystery going forward, it's science looking back.
You know, because we can all connect the dots to exactly where we are right now.
And there's a science to it.
And that science has to do with when we face-planted and tripped ourselves and messed up or went about it the wrong way but maybe got the outcome we wanted, or went about it the wrong way and didn't get the outcome we wanted.
I think that has a lot to do with our – and I don't know.
Do you think this is a Western thing, our relationship with failure?
In some ways, I wish we were more embarrassed.
All right?
But in other ways, I'm like we have to get a –
With children, you know, it's like they're afraid to fail.
And it's like, no, no, no.
If anything, if I look back, I always answer the question, what would you do different?
I wish I would have taken more risk and failed more.
And I'm still trying to challenge myself to that today.
But we have this relationship with failure.
It's like an embarrassing thing to do instead of shaking hands and going, no, failure will happen.
And if it doesn't happen, you're probably not taking enough risk.
Or you're not getting out of your comfort zone.
So no, failure is part of the successful path.
It's necessary.
And we don't have a good relationship with it.
Is that a...
Western thinking?
I think it comes from the Western versus Eastern ideology of time.
So in Eastern traditions, time is cyclical.
And in Western traditions, time is linear.
And as soon as you make time linear, failure means a step behind.
But as soon as time is cyclical, well, then it's just repeating itself.
So that concept... transforms how you view failure because failure then becomes a part of a cycle.
Whereas failure in a linear journey is bad because it means I'm going backwards.
Is success in the same way in the Western world vertical?
As in, oh, two steps up the ladder of failure, oh, you step back down the ring.
Whereas in the Eastern philosophy, it's not necessarily so vertical quantity wise.
Yeah, I would say if the Western is outwards and upwards, then the Eastern is inwards.
Okay.
And so the inner journey, for example the quest to understand outer space, would not be as interesting as the inner sky.
The inner sky would be more of a magnetic pull to understand.
Heard.
If that helps.
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so these little mindsets I feel it's what you said earlier you change your language about midlife crisis to midlife opportunity.
That language shift is revolutionary for the mind.
It's wild, isn't it?
The vernacular, the prescriptions definition are just a word.
I've had the hardest time for 40 years dealing with the word humility.
Come on, gotta be humble.
You gotta be humble, gotta be humble.
My shoulders would start to cave.
My head would start to go down.
I became passive.
I had the moment where it was my turn and I didn't take the opportunity.
I had a false sense of modesty.
No, no, no, you go.
Or it's that person that's in front of you at the stop sign that says, no, you can go.
And now it's your turn to go.
No, you can go.
No, it's your turn to go.
It's like, don't sit there and keep telling everything.
That's a false modesty.
It's like, they went, now you can go.
Don't let them all go through or I'm going to start honking the horn.
You know what I mean?
Until I heard a definition that was humility is admitting you have more to learn.
And as soon as I heard that, Oh, oh, I'm in.
I purchase.
Now my chin's up, my heart's high, my shoulders are back.
And I admit I've got a lot more to learn, but now I've got the confidence to move forward.
And I didn't get that click.
It was just a definition.
Vulnerability is another word that kind of has a mingling definition that some people are hard to take it eh, or you know, sentimentality.
Mm-hmm.
It's different between sentiment and sentimentality.
And we all want to be humble, but nobody wants to be humiliated.
Well, aren't they of the same word?
I mean, yeah, one little flick of a definition.
We found, you know what?
Camilla and I, when we went to DC with the gun control after the shooting, we said, instead of calling it gun control and we're talking to especially some people on the far right The word they love, which is true, not control.
Nobody wants a mandate, but we call it gun responsibility.
Oh, oh, they're raising their hand, go, I'm all for responsibility.
What do you mean?
But the word control, they're, uh-uh, I'm not listening to another word.
Control is what I don't want.
But you say, call it responsibility.
Oh, now I'll talk to you.
Mm-hmm.
It's amazing how a word sometimes, and you don't know what someone else's definition is.
They may have a completely different definition of that, by how they grew up, what they experienced, what their parents taught them, what school how, that word, what that gave them in their life when they thought they were acting that way or living that way.
It's so true.
It's so true.
And that's such a great example with humility.
My favorite definition that I learned about humility was always being honest with yourself.
And so it's like humility is being honest with yourself.
So I'm good at this and I'm not so good at this.
I'm great at this and I can be confident about it.
And this needs a bit of work, you know?
And so if I can be honest with myself, then that's humility, because I'm accepting that there's more I need to learn, but there is something that I have to offer.
I love the word, you know, I love to be certain.
Sometimes I mistake.
I love to be, I'm a big fan of the word selfish.
I mean, I'm still into redefining this.
And my pastor told me, God, hey, you're pushing a large square rock up a very steep hill.
But, you know, even biblically speaking, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
That seems to me purely selfish.
I believe it seems to me that Real religion is extremely selfish.
Living away now, if we believe that you will, whether it's karma-wise in life or whether it's life after this life, that you will be rewarded later.
That projection, that delayed gratification, sacrifices and consequences we make.
Maybe it's when we make now to give our children a better life.
Two decades from now.
Isn't that the most?
Isn't that more selfish than doing only for I at the sake of my neighbor or my loved one's future?
Seems to me.
Yeah.
And maybe I'm using the wrong, maybe I'm using the wrong word, I'm told sometimes.
But I'm sticking with it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, the certainty.
I like to know.
I want to be in the know.
I also want to damn well be in the know about what I don't know.
Yeah.
Is that even possible?
That's part of that humility.
Is that what I mean?
Like, I mean, you know, they say, don't take yourself seriously.
No, take yourself real seriously.
Yeah.
And also take sense of humor seriously.
Yes.
And also take comedy very seriously.
Yeah.
Take guffaws very seriously.
Yeah.
They happen.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
I loved your, you just referenced it.
You were talking about karma.
I loved your redefinition. of how karma works.
So in the book you write when you don't do good to others, it's guaranteed basically, that they won't do good to you.
But if you do good to others- It's not a guarantee.
It's not a guarantee that they'll do good to you, but- The universe will respond along those lines.
And I'm doing it from memory.
Talking about redefinitions.
It stayed with me because I thought you've just- pierced the veil of our false understanding with karma, which is, if I do good to people, they do good to me.
And if I do bad to people, they do bad to me.
So I'm expecting that when I do good to you, you'll do good to me.
And we all know that doesn't work like that.
And I thought, wow, this really pierces karma.
The point, because now I can still choose to be good to others, knowing that good comes to me in other ways.
Right.
But I don't have to find it through that person.
Can we trust that?
Can we trust that unconditionally for ourselves?
Again, that goes back to selfish for me, for ourselves.
Again, the projection, it seems like delayed gratification.
The thing that we really try to teach our children is what we still have the most to learn about as adults.
What are the consequences?
Can we believe more in the consequences of our choices today?
Can we have more trust and belief in you know that the choice I make today, If I make the better choice, it's going to reap rewards on others, including myself, down the line.
But we don't like to think past now.
If you're successful and you're fluent in life, you have the luxury of long-term thinking.
Some people in misery, which this would be fun to talk about.
Some of the misery is There.
Ain't delayed gratification, my ass.
What you talking about?
I'm trying to, I'm hoping, I'm trying to get something tonight.
I hope we can wake up tomorrow and put some food on the table.
Yeah.
Is it a luxurious thing to talk about delayed gratification?
Is it a luxurious thing to talk about making sacrifices and doing what's well for yourself, but also well for the most amount of others?
Is that a luxury?
Hmm.
To someone in misery?
Because they sure as hell have a hard time understanding it.
And I'm with you going, I understand.
You want me to talk about it, what we can do to get peace in the world, and you're trying to pay your rent.
I don't want to hear about that.
I've got a household here.
I've got two bedrooms.
I've got five kids.
I just got fired.
And you want to talk to me about what the best idea would be for the most amount of people right here.
Yeah uh, you know what i mean.
I understand that.
Yes absolutely, i fully agree.
And then what do you do about that then?
So, you understand it, but well, i i try to be humble with it and go.
You can't just, you know speak, trying to come across as speaking from on high.
I think you know you talk about someone in a position who's lost or in pain.
Again, you talk to them about projection and projecting further in life.
They're like what are you talking about?
But to those people and when i myself have been there and trying to, and confused and frustrated and don't have the luxury or the bandwidth to think that far ahead and try to go what?
All right, so what's the next?
That's the right decision.
And you don't know what that is.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
That's one of the problems.
All right.
What are you most faithful to?
Do that one.
Just one.
Let's just go one in a row.
What are you thinking about?
And if then, no, just do one in a row.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
And just start with one and just stop there.
I remember being down after Katrina.
We were in Gulf and Mississippi and we were on these properties where all these houses were wiped out.
And we were in this one place and this lady's house was just a slate of cement with some rubbish and stuff.
It had been completely knocked down.
And she came back, and she was about 80 years old, and she was still in her nightgown.
And she saw it for the first time and she was just like, And we asked her what are you looking for?
She goes, well, I just want to find a picture, maybe in a scrapbook.
So my grandchildren say I don't live here, but that will help me.
And then I was sitting there talking to her, and I was like, what are you feeling right now?
She goes, I just – can you tell me where to put my right foot if I take a step?
Yeah.
I just need –
Is it solid?
Is it going to cave?
Am I going to trip?
Can you just tell me?
I don't even want to look right now.
Can I trust you to tell me that if I step this way, one step, my foot will be solid and flat and I won't slip and it won't be dangerous?
I don't want to step on a piece of glass.
And that's just one step.
That's a person in misery. going, just show me one solid step.
I don't want to know what's going on.
No, not what's happening in an hour, not what's happening in 30 minutes.
Just give me one solid step.
Yeah.
That seems to be a place to start for someone in misery.
Yeah, that doesn't have the ability to project or is so confused and it's got too much coming down on you, too much pain to think down the line.
And if you do that once, then you reset.
And you bring up the same question.
All right, what's the next one step?
If one in a row over and over instead of, oh, I'm going to put a string together.
No, do one in a row over and over and look up and maybe you can go, look at that.
Yeah.
10 in a row.
We got somewhere.
Yeah.
But that's easier said than done, you know?
No.
What do you think?
No, I love that.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
It's how we teach children to take one step at a time.
It's how...
We build new habits as people.
We do one day at a time.
I think as soon as we start thinking, it's why New Year's resolutions fail.
It's why these big claims of I'm going to do this for the rest of my life or I'm going to do this for the rest of the year, why people struggle with vows and commitments or whatever it may be.
It's because you're making this long-term decision based on small amounts of information.
And you're spot on that.
I think it's not compassionate to challenge someone beyond that.
One step, that footing, that they're just.
I love that answer.
I think it's the most empathetic, compassionate and loving thing you can do is to teach someone how to take the next step without any pressure to climb the whole mountain.
So what then, would you say, is the balance Between keeping the big picture in mind but taking one step at a time, the urge, the will, the incentive, the being to go.
No, I'm chasing my transcendent self.
I'm trying to be more God-like, whatever that is, which is a big, big picture.
Mm-hmm.
I'm trying living as if I want to get to heaven or whatever.
I want to act in a way that I have good comfort.
Those are big ideas.
So how do you?
What's the what's in your mind, what's the dance between that and yes, but put your head down one step at a time.
As you're saying that, I'm reminded of a beautiful line in scripture.
This comes from the Bhagavad Gita, the Eastern text.
And the text is not a rule book or a principle book.
It's based on a battlefield.
And the character is the greatest archer of his time.
And he's having a crisis of faith.
And the bow's slipping from his hands.
He's gonna have to fight his family who are the bad side and he's the good side.
And he doesn't feel capable of taking the lives of people that he grew up with.
And that's the scene.
And he's talking to God who happens to be his charioteer.
So God's actually riding his chariot and he pauses in between the two armies.
And they have this dialogue, which is 700 verses, 45 minutes long in time.
And God's number one instruction is think of me and fight.
It's like, think of me and fight.
It's like, I want you to think of me and then do your duty and take that step.
And so you know talking about what you're saying.
It's like this paradox where we think we have to choose, but actually the instruction in and of itself.
He repeats that twice.
God repeats that twice in the text.
It's like, think of me and fight.
So think of me and do your duty.
Think of me and take the step.
Because if you think of me and take the step, you'll have faith and trust, but you'll also feel your action and the confidence
But if you only think of me and you just sit there, that's not going to work.
Yeah.
Like let's, let's explore those two extremes that where we're, where we don't get it.
Yeah.
One are the fatalist.
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Inshallah.
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
We got to have our hands on wheel.
Yes.
You know what I mean?
You know, we it is.
We have our freedom of choice and the you know our.
So where is it that we go rely on fate too much?
Yes.
And where is it we're like, no, I am fully responsible for everything.
The next step is all that matters.
Head down.
You don't see any horizon.
Exactly.
You don't see any.
You're not pursuing anything.
You're just, you know, not Air Force, Navy, Marines.
You're Army.
You're dealing with the ground only.
Yeah.
Talk about space.
That's the two extremes when it feels like they can be out of balance.
But that paradox in the middle is what so many of us are seeking and pursue and try to live it.
But what are practical ways to keep that balance?
In the middle where we're feeling both at the same time.
Where we're thinking of God and fighting.
You know, the old, what's that old Southern adage?
The old man and the boy walking, here comes the tornado.
And the boy drops on his knees to pray.
And he says, get your butt up, boy.
Scared prayer ain't worth a damn right now.
We got to go get shelter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, and then other times.
And I've had my Nietzschean agnostic years where I was like, it's all me.
Yes, yes.
It is all about my hands on the damn wheel.
Now, I don't regret those.
And as a believer, I didn't feel spiritually.
God was mad at me for that.
I thought he had a wry smile on his face when he was like... way to get your hands on the wheel.
I could use some more of that from some more y'all.
But at the same time, you thought you had it.
I thought it was all up to you.
But I appreciate the effort.
But it was.
I remember the feeling of appreciation and I needed it at the time because I was giving myself too much.
Yes amnesty, in places and i was getting my chassis was a little loose on the edges and i was like look, you gotta look in the mirror mcconaughey, grab the damn wheel man, like just let it, let it all slide on fate.
Yeah, you know what i mean.
Yes yes, absolutely it's.
I think there's a reason why so many spiritual and faith traditions you, you went to church on sunday or temple or whatever it's like.
That was the day where you were fully dedicated in faith, aligned in trust, and then you went and worked six days yeah, And you carried that with you and you tried to practice it as a reminder.
But then you went back and then you got reminded and then you did six days of yourself.
By about Thursday evening, you were like, I need Sunday to come.
Yeah, exactly.
And I feel like that's where that third space has been lost.
It's like, you know, a hundred years ago, third space theory, we had three spaces.
We had church, work, and home.
And then fast forward as time went on, you had work and home.
And then fast forward after the pandemic and you just have home.
And they all had a purpose.
It was like church or temple or community or whatever it was.
It was a place that gave you the space to look back on your life and take a step back, because at home you have to be dad or mom.
It was a physical place.
It was a physical place that gave you space to ask different questions.
Because at work, you're just asking, how do I make more money?
At home, you're asking, how do I be a better mom or dad?
But then what about, how do I do all the other things?
Where's the space for that question?
So in this age where most people are going to church less, they're going to the temples less, Is it possible, do you think, or how can we improve, if you do think it's possible, without the ritual of that third space?
Because I understand the concept, man.
When I feel most spiritually strong, I'm all days of prayer.
Yes, yes, for sure.
My every interaction is a give and take and a rhythm of, oh, I didn't have to close my eyes.
Now, but that Sunday ritual where I did need to get my heart above my head in humility and bow in humility, I saw – I got objective and saw myself from an eye in the sky.
I was like oh, are you doing – you're not quite doing – or you could do this thing that you think you're doing a little more truly.
You could have been more benevolent in that.
Oh, that was –
But I needed that.
But then a lot of times I mean without the ritual, and so many people now go.
I'm not religious, I'm spiritual.
I'm not religious, I'm spiritual.
I think there's people that are a lot more religious than they think they are.
I think a lot of that is that term that's coming from what mankind has done with religion which, in the Bible, Jesus fought against.
He was like, ah, that's not what I'm talking about, guys.
This is not, it's not, it's not, religion isn't a capitalist thing.
It's not a material, it's what we've done with it that I think a lot of people are fighting against.
But religion the word means from re legare, the Latin root.
Legare means to bind together and re means again
So a lot of people that I hear saying I'm spiritual and I'm for unity, I'm like going.
That's religion.
Yeah.
To bind together again.
That's to unify.
Yeah.
But going back to our earlier thought, language is limiting.
And once a word is scarred and wounded with battle wounds of the past, it becomes less prominent today.
I'm a prescriptionist.
I keep going back like, let's not, I'm not ready to give up on original language.
Yes.
Definitions so quickly.
Yes.
And I can get, sometimes I'm pushing that square rock up the hill.
Other times they just go adapt.
Don't want to be called as a dinosaur, right?
So how do we again, where do we hold on to time and tested truths spiritual ones in this sense and still say no, but let's adapt and evolve.
People move around in society differently now.
Maybe we don't need the third space on a Sunday, but we take the time every day to meditate, to pray.
And church is where you are.
It's in nature.
That's where I find my church.
Are those, do you think these are good supplements?
What do you think?
I want to know what you think.
I'd like to say they are, but I'm not sure where that evolved.
I still think we need and want the responsibility, the hand, the hold.
Oh, this is the day.
This is the place.
This is where I go.
This is what we do.
I try to short sheet that bet all the time myself.
Might I know better?
And I've never followed through on go forward with the ritual.
Go forward.
I've never followed through on it and come away going, ah, six or that.
I'm always like, yeah, yeah, got to keep doing that, man.
And I'm trying to do that more as a father and, you know, head of the family.
And I'm not doing the best job of it.
And I'm understanding this thing about, yeah, it's where we are.
It's how we think.
It's how we're gracious.
It's how we're thankful.
Before meals, we talk about our day or we talk about philosophy or stoicism.
And I'm like, yeah, these are some of the same thing.
But are they?
I'm kind of making an excuse, I think, because philosophy is different than religion.
Although my favorite parts of what I've studied as religion is the stuff I can go oh, I can take that into the week.
Oh, I can use that practically.
Yeah.
And I still have trouble with burning bushes and parted seas and stuff like that.
But that may be a failure of my own true faith.
That seems to be.
Maybe that's my own pride, or my own pragmatism, or my own belief in philosophy and the way we live life, which I'm eternally interested in.
But I don't believe I'm going far enough.
I think I'm short-sheeting myself.
I think there's a gap there.
And I think God's going, I appreciate you trying.
You had too much pride.
You're not going far enough yet.
You haven't fully surrendered to the faith, to belief in faith.
And I think you do need that.
My hunch is I don't care how tired you are Sunday morning.
That's where you should be. and you know it, go.
For that reason.
So that's my hunch.
Yeah.
We're aligned.
I think that what we have available today are poor conduits of a far greater depth that you get from the physical community the connection, the communion of a direct message that feels really clear and is from source.
There's a power in that that I've personally experienced too.
And I've dabbled in both.
By the way, I'm the same.
I'm the same as you.
I live in a place where I don't have that community as I've had in other places that I've lived.
I
I constantly make excuses and find other ways to justify my practice, because I can't fully be at the depth that I'd like to be.
And so I'm doing it too to survive and to stay connected.
But there's a difference between surviving and thriving.
And I know that when I'm thriving in my practice and my faith- it's when I'm doing it the way it was done.
Now this doesn't going back, and just to add the caveat I think we all know it is that I'm not saying that the way it was done, in all ways, was done well.
I'm saying that the form of connecting communion, reflecting connection, that you can't substitute that with anything else.
But we're living in a world today where we need new tools and we need things that are more accessible and people need them and are available to them.
And I see them as a beginning of the journey and a bridge, not the destination.
So I think if we're building a longer bridge, then that's healthy, because if someone never starts the journey on the bridge, will they ever make it to the place.
What are we building the bridge with?
So, for example, I guess what I mean like, if people are trying to do their daily meditation, they're trying to, maybe they're meditating through an app.
Maybe they are trying to work out with an online workout, right?
Yeah.
Like if they were in the gym at a class, maybe that would be a more fun atmosphere for them, right?
Maybe people are reading a book about poems and prayers inspired by, but not directly from the source, but that's their beginning bridge of their journey to that direction, in their own pace, at their own time whenever, if and when they want to go.
And I feel like that's what what you do and what I try and do and what so many do is we're trying to build bridges.
Hopefully that are not the home.
I think the problem is when the bridge becomes the home, you don't want to live on the bridge.
I can't remember who said it.
There's a famous quote that says the world is like a bridge.
Don't build your house on it, cross over it.
And that I don't know who said it, but it's that idea of, I think, all of these platforms and apps and tools.
They're all bridges, but don't live there.
Yeah.
Don't live there.
Don't feel that that's home.
That's it.
I mean.
Let me ask you this though because, like in the Bible it talks about we're all you know, we're strangers here.
We don't find a home here.
In some version, and I may be theologically messing this up, but what I get from it is you know, but you try your pursuit to try and make heaven on earth, which you will not because you will never find it here.
That's as good as you can do.
But you will always be a stranger.
You will always be an immigrant.
You will always be looking for a home here on earth.
Yes.
Now, how does that necessarily mean that that doesn't mean we're living on a bridge?
Yeah.
Or does it?
I believe so.
I feel like it's like an airport terminal.
It just feels like home, because we feel like it's a long time, but because it's not eternal, it can't possibly be the destination.
Right.
From a religious, spiritual sense.
But you're trying to make home.
Or the pursuit of home.
Yeah.
What you see home.
Trying to bring it here.
Yes, yes.
Trying to emulate it as much as possible.
Yes, you're trying to practice.
Live in the light of that.
It's like I'm going to France next year, so I'm going to practice French now.
Right.
Like that, I think, is the big picture and the daily step at a time.
It's like I'm trying to... Yeah.
I'm trying to aspire to live.
I'm going to move country next year, but I'm going to practice the rules, the rituals, the language of that country this year, because then I'll be prepared.
So I don't not have a great life now.
I'm not postponing joy.
I'm not postponing happiness or love.
I'm practicing that culture that I believe is better for me now, if that makes any sense.
Yes, it does.
I feel like you're such a I feel like your mind is, like you're constantly observing patterns, and observing even like languages we've been talking.
What's something that you've observed about humans that fascinates you, that surprises you?
Maybe, um one, our ability to adapt when there's not another option.
Wow, that's a good one.
We're elastic man, we are elastic, more elastic than i like to practically think but boy, when we're put to it, i'm amazed how quickly we can change Adapt evolve, come to understand the other side.
When we're put to it, you give us the option.
We take the out, man.
And we argue and I ain't budging.
Nuh-uh.
You know what I mean?
And then, on the flip side of that somewhat, is how we seem to find – in this pursuit of the ideal we seem to almost say well, that is our home.
That is who we are.
And then go, okay.
So therefore, and then we, our practice is not as evolved as we think it is, but we keep saying and I love the we can tap into the 11th percent of our mind which we don't tap into.
We can be greater.
We can transcend.
But practically every day, I think there's some great wisdom and going.
We're not as evolved as we think we are.
Let's quit acting like we are.
I love the pursuit.
It's like rehabilitation and justice.
I'm for rehabilitation, man.
I mean, I love the New Testament.
You know what I mean?
At the same time, we are repeat offending son of a guns over and over and over.
And if I've done you wrong, And you've allowed me to come to you and ask for forgiveness.
The first order on the docket should be me.
If you choose to forgive me, the first order on the docket should be me, from now on, doing anything I can to not have to come apologize to you again.
It's not just that you forgave and gave me the chance to be forgiven.
I got some sweat equity on my side to quit doing the actions that caused me to have you.
Forgive me, to have me apologize again.
And we seem to not forget that side.
I love Kumbaya.
This is the ideal place we can go.
I feel like we relax and kind of almost take for granted thinking we're that evolved.
No, we're not.
That's the constant pursuit.
We ain't there.
So let's deal with the hard math right here.
And one thing we can depend on people being is people.
Nothing we do is unbelievable.
We do stupid shit all the time.
We...
Break our own noses because we tripped ourselves running downhill.
We steal.
We're jealous.
We covet.
We talk blue and vote red.
We talk New Testament and act old.
We're entrenched in some ideas.
Now, go back to the first half of what surprised me about people.
When I was talking about the flexibility of adaptation, I remember it was probably 12 years ago.
I was in Alabama.
I was doing research for a film down there, Free State of Jones.
And in Mobile Alabama, on the docket that night, the next morning the vote had gone through about whether Alabama was going to allow gay marriage.
And I'm sitting there.
I'm in Alabama.
And I was like, I don't think this is going to pass. deep South Alabama.
I mean, it sounds like that's a very progressive idea to them.
I'm judging it.
I'm just saying as an anthropologist and sociologist, I'm like oh, the next morning it passed 53 to 47.
I was like, wow.
I talked to my friends.
A lot of them on the left were abhorred.
I can't believe that.
Those bigots, only 53%.
And I was like, Only 53.
I thought it was going to be 80-20.
The other way, that was a massive, talking about meeting people where they are.
Yes, yes, yes.
It was a massive flexibility that surprised me.
And that was just 12 years ago.
So we have to understand where people have come from.
I write about it in the book about I wish more crimes were from ignorance.
And what I mean by that is, if I know the right thing to do and I know the wrong thing to do and I still do the wrong crime, Shame on me.
I knew better.
But there's certain crimes we commit daily that someone just goes, I didn't know.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now let's talk about some real rehab because you didn't make the wrong choice.
You just didn't know.
Yeah.
Now talk about some amnesty.
Yeah.
I've got to meet you in a different place.
We have to deal with solving the problem differently than I do with the guy that knew better and did it anyway.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Do we expect too much from people?
Practically speaking, yes.
Yes.
I mean, we underwhelm and underserve and undershow a lot.
But we all have different expectations of ourselves and of others.
I mean, so again, part of that, hey, just expect it.
That old expect the worst, worst the best.
I don't like that.
I like actually expect the absolute best.
And when it comes in under that, you know, shoot for the A, make a C is better than shoot for C.
Make an F.
How quickly when you deal with reality and go, okay, well, that's a hell of a lot better outcome.
And I got more out of you and you got more out of me than we would have if we did come in going like let's just make a C.
You know what I mean.
We maybe, you know what I mean?
We went for the perfection and we came in under it, but it was still pretty doggone good.
Well done.
That's where I call it an overshow theory.
How do you deal with when someone disappoints you based on your expectation?
I'm quicker to say, yep, that was reality.
That's what they're able to do, whether it's forgiveness or amnesty or whatever you want to call it, with others than I am for myself.
Explain.
I expect perfection for myself a lot and I don't reach it.
And I know I can, or I believe I can.
That's a better word.
I believe I can.
And I don't want to quit believing I can.
That's sort of where I find myself in approaching life.
Keep going for perfection.
Keep finding that reality comes in under that and you will have climbed more stairs.
If we're gonna have a vertical by the end.
You will have had more quality.
Your roots will have been deeper and wider inside and out vertically and to the south, than if you didn't chase that perfection.
The challenge for me is, When reality comes in and it's served and the bell's rung and there's no more time to take the test, when you see that you didn't make 100 and you made an 88, how quickly can you go, instead of going, oh, dude, or how quickly can you go, all right?
Yay, not bad.
So again, that pursuit of an ideal plus the practical, what's the next solid step?
And I work to try and remain as much as I can to feel satisfaction in that reality.
But that's the hard part is how quickly can you go from like I've never.
I say this all the time and I don't like it to be misconstrued.
I've never made a film that lived up to my expectations.
I've never given a performance that lived up to my expectations.
I've done films that I think, it's a lot better than I could have done.
And I'm not saying, oh, I should have directed.
I'm saying, no, that was, it's awesome.
That's a really great piece of art.
Not just a transcendent.
It didn't change the world or tap into a piece of humanity that enlightened myself and everyone else on a unanimous level.
That's what I'm going for, but I had never done it.
So why?
And again, I've worked and people have made films.
I think are, And better than they would have been if I would have been the director, for sure.
But that's part of, I think, maybe why, when I do do good work or make good creations or good art I think that was part of it that I was going for the infinite, pure spot in space that was immaculate.
Believing I could achieve perfection, but knowing I couldn't. but I still like to believe.
I mean, my favorite word in the world is unanimous.
What?
I mean, unanimous.
We don't have as many black and whites today, man.
Maybe something unanimous that we can all agree on.
Maybe it's a value.
Maybe it's a way of making a living.
Maybe it's a piece of art.
You just unanimously go, no, that's just, that's great.
It's a one of one.
But you seek unanimous.
Sammy Davis Jr., I don't know what success is.
I don't know what failure is.
That's trying to please everybody.
You know what I mean?
You seek – you ain't going to get it.
Yeah.
There's no way.
But – You still believe you can.
Come on.
To keep believing.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I feel like it keeps me in the chase.
It keeps me in the race.
Yeah.
It keeps me going, ooh, ooh, almost.
Okay, okay, you know.
Yeah, I like that.
You have to live like that.
There's a joy to live like that.
And it's a joy again, it's been the theme of our discussion today.
It's almost like being able to accept both.
Like you said, you believe you can knowing you won't.
And it's that what makes it beautiful, because if you only believe you can, then you'll be really disappointed when it doesn't happen.
And if you only know you'll never get there, then, well, you'll never do anything.
So it goes back to that same piece.
So on your ranking score, where is Interstellar of your performance?
Where do you go in Interstellar?
Where is it?
Yeah, where are you?
Like your performance, like that's not... To us, it's perfect.
To you, it's not.
So what is the...
Yeah, no, I think it's very good.
And I think the movie's really good.
I think the character's really good.
I think my performance is really good.
I have appreciation for it.
And I know if I'm bogeying or if I'm birdieing, I know when I'm like.
I've seen myself on screen going oh you kind of bullshit in there, McConaughey.
And then I've seen it, I'm like, bam, okay.
It's still 88.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, but I'm also, as you know from the book, I'm not into extra credit.
I don't like 4.2 GPAs.
That tells me like, well, what happened?
Then we're not giving the right test.
If four was the pinnacle, you know, that means not many people should be getting it.
If anybody.
Yeah.
So now we're getting four twos, four fours.
That tells me we've over leveraged the original task or we've added amnesty or too many places to not have the real competence and merit at the task that you're supposed to give.
Because especially I think in the West, because we want everyone to feel really great.
Participation trophies, 4.2 GPA.
Well, I feel better.
If you got the 4.D GPA, start getting a 3.8 education.
The credit, the extra credit we give is sort of balanced with the debit of the actual what we learn from it.
Sometimes if we give too much extra credit.
What validation do you pursue?
My wife's, my children.
I have a council in the sky of three people that are extremely important to me in my life.
My dad, Penny Allen and John Chaney.
See them wink at them, talk with them, listen to them seeing run ideas by them, run decisions by them.
And then I look up and see what their reaction is.
And it's been a very trusted counsel for me.
It's sort of my way to give people practical people, physical bodies and souls that are no longer with us here on earth physically, Put them in a heaven sense, and it's a connection.
They're a conduit from God to me.
And I have no expectations of them.
And sometimes when I'm so excited, like in this grade, I look up and they're not dancing.
I'm like, why aren't you dancing?
Got other times where two of them would be dancing and one of them isn't.
And I have to go through, oh, why?
Is that something they don't understand?
Or are they the underdog and I need to be listening to them because that's why they're going?
Mm-mm, you know better than that.
I don't agree with that.
And then sometimes all three of them are.
My dad's got a you know, dancing in his underwear with a Miller Lite and a piece of lemon meringue pie, pennies up on a chair, screaming out loud.
My buddy John Change is leaning back.
There's old cotton yellow shorts as you do with the shoulders back on.
There you go, bud.
Yeah.
So I think their validation and that's a conduit to a practical conduit in my imagination, because I don't have a picture in my mind of God.
And I don't, I don't, I don't think we can or should.
I think that minimalized.
You know, we have pictures of, of physical beings that have walked the earth, that we can call prophets and stuff, but of god i don't have a picture.
I don't think it's an it, i don't think it's a mr or mrs or anything like that.
Um so, and then i mean look then inherently, that all brings me back to seeking my own, my own validation.
Um, you know, i try to measure how I counsel and referee myself off of some of the people I just brought up to you.
So that's where I pretty well stick.
That's where I I don't.
I don't really look outside that much further outside my circumference, just because I can't.
It's too fickle.
Yeah.
It's too, I can't really, I don't have a trust.
Again, that goes to that Sammy Davis, you know, I look around and go, does everyone approve?
Yeah.
Yeah uh, it's gonna be.
It's gonna gonna be lonely and hard and not necessarily best for you.
You know what i mean and i know i've pulled some things off my life where i People thought I changed and made it a bit wow, what a recreation.
I'm like, I'm doing the same thing.
You just put it in bold print now.
I was doing the same thing 15 years ago.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes we change by saying the same.
And then other times again, as we talked about at the beginning of the conversation.
You give yourself time to daydream.
You pick out a new tact about how to maybe go about something, a new way of uncovering something, a new way of solving something, a new way of finding satisfaction in the situation, a new way of dealing with a crisis, a new way of dealing with success.
You know, looking at it from a different point of view, just to have another some almost ammo arrow in the quiver in this hunt is life.
How does someone like you, who built their career on control, grasp the concept of trust?
I'm a trust-first guy.
I come here today whether we had never talked before.
I have nothing in my head going into anyone's situation.
I wonder if they're trying to get me.
Oh, is he going to ask a tricky question?
Oh, is he trying to play a guy?
I don't, uh-uh.
Because that'll hang me up.
I won't be able to freely think and go.
Now, at the same time, have I been doing this long enough where, before I'm about to say something, or as I'm saying it, I can go oh, if you don't finish this sentence right, that's going to be a headline in a rag bag, or something.
You know what I mean?
Oh, that's not going to be the headline you want.
I'm conscious enough of that.
But I'm a trust first guy and I've been burned.
And I'm like, I'll make that bet again.
Because I know that if I put more trust on Howdy, it's going to do something to you where maybe you aren't the most trustworthy.
I've seen people become more trustworthy.
I've seen people give more because they go, oh, this guy's given me a massive amount of trust.
He just empowered me, dude.
He just gave me, he saw a dignity in me that I didn't see.
He's given me a license, a privilege, some chutzpah to go, oh, okay.
And I believe in that.
And I see that in people.
And it's a bit of that, you know, may what we give from our soul get a like response from others.
I believe in that.
I'm a trust first guy.
I don't.
The residuals for going through life without trust.
Oh, shit.
That sucks.
Yeah.
I mean, I also, you know, I trust myself more now than maybe I used to.
And that thing has just come from growth and evolution.
And, you know, I used to always be a guy who, and I'm still a guy who, I don't like drawers.
I like my stuff laid out.
I want to see it.
Because if it's in the drawer, I'll forget I even needed it.
I want to see it.
I was always a guy who was like, if I'm going to come in this room, I'll make sure that my keys to the door in the other room on the kitchen table leave that door cracked.
I have more confidence now to go, you can shut the door.
I know where I left the keys.
I don't have to look over my shoulder again.
I had this spiritually when I went into True Detective.
I was in a really strong spiritual place.
And that character, my relationship with God at that time was really strong.
That character went into some philosophical nihilism and things that are like away from faith.
I was able to go, I'm locking in and not looking back for five months.
Wow.
And I don't need to look over my shoulder because I know when I come out of this, my relationship's good back there.
I don't need to peek over my shoulder to make sure.
I had the trust.
Earlier and many other times in my life, I wouldn't have the trust to go that far, because I'm like is this okay?
Yeah.
And I'm about to get struck by lightning here.
Is this blasphemous?
You know what I mean?
Are we good?
Okay, I'm just acting.
You know what I mean?
So I had a great amount of trust.
I'm a strong spiritual then to go.
And when I feel stronger... spiritually is that, you know, the foundation's strong.
We can jump higher.
We can go further.
We can not look over our back as much and trust.
And, you know, and we travel and trust in relationships and away from the kids.
I'm away from the kids right now.
It's been a week.
Okay.
But we check in.
Yeah.
Does FaceTime help the trust?
Yeah.
Because you get to just more.
There's a phone call, but the idea of the very simple, natural ideas of going Hey, It's 10 o'clock.
We're on the phone.
I'm on one side of the world, you're on the other.
But we're both under the same moon.
We're both under the same sun.
The sun you're under right now just hasn't got to me yet, but it'll be the same one.
And the moon that I'm under right now just hasn't got to you, but it's coming.
There's a, again, that time.
Now we're getting into the cyclical time you're talking about and not the linear, where we feel like oh, I'm losing.
Yeah.
No, it's coming around.
It's all about, there's a trust I get from that.
And then another trust I get is if I'm you know it's in between that it means everything, means everything and nothing matters at all.
Yeah.
In between there.
Yeah.
I love that.
How do we live like that?
So, again, trust.
If I'm going to go to the fatalist side of what I do, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
I'm going to die, dude.
What's it matter?
I used to not have the trust to go oh, but I'm going to still do every bit of the work to make sure.
And I put my hands on the wheel.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
So to go, oh, it doesn't matter.
It's what I'll tell myself if I'm nervous.
I'm going to go give a speech or something.
I'm prepared.
I busted my tail and broke the sweat to get prepared.
Now, if I trust that, and I know I did that, now I need to tell myself, dude, this doesn't matter.
You're going to die.
What the hell does this matter?
Because I know I'm not going to go be lazy and unprepared and F off.
So, now that I trust that I'm prepared and I take it very seriously now, I like to end it with well, now None of this matters.
To relax.
If I go too much the other side, I'm tight.
I'm trying too hard.
I'm not giving myself the freedom to listen and riff and take somebody's answer and go with it.
You know what I mean?
So...
That's how I try to balance the two.
But that took, but I didn't, 20 years ago, if I'd have said, and with some of us in life, if you tell them, dude, none of it matters.
It's all fate.
It's all going to happen.
It's all just going to happen.
People just F off and go like, well, it doesn't matter how I treat you or treat me.
And you're like, no, it does.
But can you trust that you're not going to be a tyrant when you let yourself off?
Yes.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, well said, well said.
That balancing act in everything we're talking about, everything, we just keep coming back to that.
To be able to believe that what I'm about to do is important and then have the ability to embrace my own insignificance at the same time, is beautiful.
There's a quote I always remember hearing as a kid.
It's like, you're the smallest grain of sand in the palm.
And for whatever reason, very early on in my childhood when I heard that, that felt power from that.
I didn't feel smart.
I felt like, wow, how cool, how awesome.
Yeah.
And in that is the idea of like, it all means something and none of it matters at all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's very easy to think that analogy and go oh well, so I don't matter.
Can that grain of sand and palm make you go?
Oh no, I matter more than I thought.
Yeah.
And, and it's both.
Yeah.
And it's both.
And it's, yeah.
I remember we were on a beach in South India.
I was with my my monk teacher and we were on a walk and it was a bunch of young monks with my teacher and it's a big fishing town.
So South India is very known for being a fishing community, and there'd be loads of fishnets full of fishes, and then there'd be the few that had fallen out on the beach as we were walking.
And whenever we'd walk past one, my teacher would pick it up and put it back in the water.
It was still, you know, tossing up and down on the beach.
And we were just looking at the whole beach in front of us.
And there were like hundreds, maybe thousands of fish that had fallen out of the nets, that won't go to be cooked in a restaurant but won't make it back to the ocean and probably die in between.
And he was just, every time we'd walk past, we'd pick one.
And we'd be like we said to him.
We were like we're not going to be here all day and there's no chance we're going to get to all of these.
And, and he was like, yeah, but to that one fish, that's their whole life.
Like you know.
So to you it's like we're not going to get to 400 because you it's, and so it's both.
It's like our, our work is insignificant, but it's significant.
And and and that goes back to that that, that that we can get paralyzed, and You know the think globally, act locally is another term.
Yes, yes.
Maybe we can get paralyzed with it, but I can't.
It's too much to enter them out.
I'll just do one in a row.
Yeah, one at a time.
One step.
Just one at a time.
Yeah.
And you know the sun sets and you had to be home by dark and there's still some fish that's flipping.
Well, get on home.
And you didn't get them all, but you got.
You were in the asset section.
Sometimes that, I think, is how I deal with things.
Maybe let myself off trying to figure out a proper balance of forgiveness and say no, the buck stops here.
You know something, that I'm like man.
I'm not.
I don't feel like I'm.
This is magic, or this is absolutely beautiful, or this is absolutely true.
I'll go, okay, not everything in life is going to be that.
But are we in the asset section?
Are we in the black, so to speak?
Is the thing you're doing a proton?
Not an electron.
Is it?
Yeah, it is.
Does it not harm?
You know, sometimes, you know, I mean, I do this in work.
Some scenes are magic.
They come to life.
You just know.
Some scenes you get in, you're like, dude, I'm just connecting the dots.
Let's just get out of here without, you know, I don't have a great truth to tell.
Let me just get out of here without telling a lie.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes I have to let myself off and go.
Not everything's going to be a wow, magical truth.
Sometimes it's just till the soil and don't tell the lie.
Don't trip yourself.
Don't hit the ball out of bounds.
Take one and it's in the rough.
Yeah, you didn't hit it out of bounds.
You're still playing.
Just stay in the game on the upside.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes it's just that.
I remember when I had an acting teacher, I did a performance one time and I was real happy with it.
She came back.
She was like, not bad, but...
Every single scene, it's like you're trying to hit a grand slam.
Matthew, sometimes you need a single.
Sometimes you need to take a ball that was not in the strike zone.
Sometimes you need to lay down a bunt.
Sometimes you need to, and I was like, oh, that's right.
Not everything's a grand slam.
It's not every single thing matters.
If we think, you know it's like if we think every single thing is significant and everything matters, nothing will have significance.
Yeah.
We'll be paralyzed by minutiae and details and stats.
There will be no baseline to any of it.
There'll be no song.
It'll all be notes.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
The idea of significance evaporates if everything was significant.
Yeah.
There is no, there would be nothing that stands out.
Gotta have a negative space.
Or special.
Yeah.
It just wouldn't, it wouldn't hold.
The idea wouldn't hold anymore.
Yeah.
When I asked you the question about validation, the first person that came to you at least what you said out loud was your wife, who's here too.
And I was wondering, what do you feel is the biggest mistake we make about love?
Biggest mistake we make about love.
Groovy, groovy question.
Thank you.
And she's back there probably listening right now going, I can't wait to hear this answer.
I think one of the biggest mistakes that I think I know I could make is taking it for granted.
Again, it's on the same topic we've been on.
You vow to love each other in say, a marriage, for instance, and it's through sickness and health until the death.
And I love you.
My love's not in question.
It doesn't mean it doesn't take maintenance.
To take it for granted that, oh, that's We're fine.
I'll take it for granted.
Oh, we got the kids, the family.
It's all great.
To take that for granted sometimes and not do the maintenance, which shouldn't feel like work, but it's conscious.
It can take work.
It can be a thought and a choice you make to go, that little thing, I'm making my tea.
She's not up.
I really want to get to that puzzle for those eight pieces.
I want to make her one.
Put it in a Yeti and have it covered so when she gets up, it's ready.
A little thoughtful thing like that.
Was that work?
No.
Is that delayed gratification for the relationship?
Yes.
Yes.
You know, that's going to, you know, that'd be a nice thing to do for them.
If I don't do it, it's not going to be missed, as a small example.
I think.
Another one with love and you and I touched on it, I think, before the cameras were recording is the idea that you find the one and that's the one, and wow.
Wow.
I make the male makes them Wonder Woman and they think we're Superman.
Oh, shit.
Don't do that to me.
And don't let me do that to you.
I can't live up to that.
You can't live up to that.
Back to unanimous and seeking perfection.
That's a tough nut to handle when you're like project that on someone that's unfair to project onto them and they project it on you and neither one of you can live up to it.
It's the idea of the and, i and and and this is not a popular statement with my wife, but i think it's for me, it's true and i hope.
Maybe maybe i'm too practical, Maybe I'm not romantic enough about it, but I don't see how the honeymoon period lasts forever.
I just, the honeymoon is all on the hope, the possible.
We don't know each other as well as we're going to know each other before we get married and we make the consecration the covenant of marriage.
And now we're getting into this real stuff.
And we got real pains and real pleasures and real responsibilities and real fatigue and real wins together.
And we're building, we've expanded and they've got a family and, oh man, we're bonfire.
But that's harder.
And it's not, honeymoon's only in the, The perfection stage.
It's only in the up in the air, the youth of it, the beginning, the springtime, the fresh bud.
And I love it.
But if you try to hold on to that 100-watt bulb to be the light all the time, you're Wonder Woman, I'm Superman.
It seems to me humanly impractical to live up to it and unfair to each other.
There's a preacher down in san diego.
My buddy, mark norby, turned me on to him, forgetting his name, but he talks about i don't know.
It loves more like a.
It's a 30 watt bulb.
Dim the light a little bit, it'll last longer.
It'll illuminate longer, not as bright, but it'll last longer.
It's more realistic for you and It's more human and it's still lovely.
It's always stuck with me.
I've never heard that, yeah.
You know?
It is true.
Which honeymoon period lasts as it is and things can go deeper and be more powerful and be more profound, but not be the same.
And that If you just dated someone new for three to six months every year, you'd experience the honeymoon period every year for the rest of your life.
You just keep doing it.
It's fresh.
It's transient.
It was all brand new, but it didn't have all four seasons.
You didn't get into act two, where the conflict comes, where somebody's getting sick, where you didn't get to act three, where you got to land the plane and figure it out and come down and Be on your deathbed going.
Love you too.
Yeah.
We did all right.
You know what I mean?
I always, it's a, I'd always, in my younger years, I'm like, what do you think?
There's a God and you see him.
What do you think he's going to say to you?
And I was always like, I think he's going to say, thank you.
This hit me five years ago.
Five years ago, I was like, no.
That's a bit arrogant there, Pops.
What he's probably going to say, he's going to say, you're welcome.
In that is a way I'm seeing life more now.
And to some extent have before, but in that is an inherent sort of, what are we doing?
You know, is it lifelong?
Is it short?
Is it hard?
Is it easy?
I don't know.
It's hard.
Some ways it's really long.
Some ways it's really short.
And easy sometimes.
But... Yeah, you're welcome.
And I can say thank you.
Yeah.
But I've got to... Yeah, we've talked about it.
I'm happy to... I'm happy to...
And I'm not going to shy away from them, with still being sensitive to people.
Musicians that are like easy for you to say, McConaughey.
You're welcome to me.
You know what I mean?
I'm not living a life.
I want to be open and understand that.
At the same time, I'm very happy and level-eyed with saying and believing that and having a life where, if I meet God he she, it's going to go.
You're welcome.
And that lays into that.
I wrote it in green lights, but I do have a hunch that the world's conspiring to make me happy.
Again, I may be off my rocker.
I may be a conspiracy theory for the upside.
I may be delusionally optimistic and I don't care.
I actually believe it.
It's the trust first thing.
And I actually believe it.
And I believe I'm a part of a lot of other people's army that are there conspiring to make them happy.
And I believe that I've got a lot of army that are going, not consciously.
Just I believe I know I've got a lot of people in my life that believe know that if I'm around I'm looking out for them.
And I have their best interest in mind.
Whether they know it or not. consciously.
And I know I have a lot of people in life.
Some I know, a lot I know, a lot I don't, that are like, I'm looking out for you, my guy.
And I'm very thankful for that.
But I believe that.
And I know it's true.
Do you think we can all build that belief?
Yes.
I do think we can build that belief.
Everything's conspiring.
I don't think we can rely on that belief.
I do think we can build that belief.
I do think that Well, I'm raising, you know, kiddos.
We're going to ACL, kiddos.
We're going in backstage.
Come on.
Me and your mom are here.
Pass the security guard.
Let's just in.
Did y'all say thank you?
Yeah, we did.
Or no, go say thank you.
Why?
I don't know.
Let's think selfishly, bud.
Ten years from now, when you're at the concert and your mom and dad ain't here.
We got you in backstage to the front of the line and you're 20 people back in the line and they're saying no more.
That's it.
There's a chance that security guard may look down and go, hey, Levi, come on up.
Come on in.
Because you said thank you.
I'm not saying be that way for like, oh, then I can get more.
I'll get more privileges.
I'm just saying that.
Where you go, how you interact with people at whatever height, in the back kitchen, to the back door, to the alley, to the homeless, to the billionaire, to the president.
How you interact with people.
You're slowly building an army.
I tell this example.
I was coming home about two years ago, Tulane Highway.
And it was all parked just on kind of a traffic jam.
It was taking, we just moved five miles an hour stop, five miles an hour stop.
And there was a lady in a car here.
And we just moved into this new home.
Lady in a car here.
And everyone's like, you know, get forward as quick as possible.
And she was waiting to get into the turn lane.
And so I was like, we're not going anywhere.
I slowed down, let her in.
15 minutes it takes to get home.
I'm noticing I'm right behind this lady.
As I approach my house, she pulls in the driveway to the first driveway before I get to my house.
I pull in my house.
I get out of my car.
It's my neighbor.
I didn't know it was my neighbor, but I'm like I got somebody inherently watching over my house when I'm not here from now on, because I let her in back there.
And she goes, thank you for letting me in back there.
I'll remember that.
Did I do that?
Because I'm hoping I can get a neighbor and part of an army that can keep an eye out for me.
No.
Did I get an army, someone on my side?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The conspiring point too.
I think if you believe that everything's conspiring for you to be happy, you just start to notice those moments.
And I think noticing is so much more important than thinking, because we all think, but we don't always notice.
It's like, what do we notice every day?
If you notice the security guard who opened the door, if you notice the lady who eventually becomes part of your army at home, it's like what are you noticing?
Because you can notice both.
Like, I think I could sit here with you And I'm sure you could tell me two stories.
One story of everyone who screwed you over, took advantage of you, exploited you where the trust first didn't work.
And I think you're telling me another story today which you're noticing.
Which is you saying, oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So what do we notice?
What are we aware of?
What do we give credit to?
I think that's part of the athleticism of life.
Because That doesn't mean I'm not skeptical.
Correct.
It does mean I'm not cynical.
It doesn't mean I'm not clever and wise and letting my home be just pillaged.
I got a lot to protect and I protect it.
It doesn't mean I'm foolish with myself or with my things and my life and the family and things I've built.
But yeah, what do we notice?
What do we give credit to?
And go, oh, let's tend that garden.
Let's multiply that.
Let's get some compound interest on that ROI.
Let's make that epidemic.
Not the disease, not the wreck, not the harm.
Let's talk about it in points of prayers.
Make the positives plural.
And the negative singular.
Yes.
And don't talk about the negatives in the present tense.
If they happened, talk about them in the past tense.
You stop their path to prophecy.
That's the noticing thing.
And that doesn't mean don't.
Oh, no, I don't see the negative.
No, no, no.
That's childhood.
Hey, Hallmark card.
Dream it.
You can do it.
Positive thinking.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See how far that gets you.
You know what I mean?
You'll be done unto.
So we go from innocence to naivete to skepticism.
And then if we can hold off there from going off the ledge into that fourth one, which is a disease cynicism.
I'm all for skepticism and noticing the negative, seeing the harm, noticing the disease.
But sure like to spend time and notice more and compound the interest on the prevention of those cures or the multiplied factor of the good things that are conspiring to work for us and are just like there we go.
That works not only for me, for you too.
Make those epidemic again.
Flip flip, flip.
The word epidemics always used it's just something like oh no yeah, there's like consequence We all go.
Oh, not the consequence.
No, get consequences with everything.
And the positive side, the pleasure side of consequence is just as valuable as the negative.
You got to, you know.
Epidemic selfish consequence.
Those are the three that you're going to fight for.
Matthew, I could talk to you for hours and hours, and I've been so grateful for your time and energy.
We end every episode with a final five, which you did last time, so we've reconstructed them for you.
These questions have to be answered in one sentence, but I'll probably want you to riff, so feel free.
Don't feel any pressure.
Okay, but try to get them out in one sentence.
You can try, but I would like you to, I want you to free flow, but yeah, you're always the best when you're free flowing.
So I don't want to hamper you.
Okay.
And yeah.
Question number one, what do you believe makes a good dad?
Time.
Being there.
You know, I always say this is, That's what makes a good father.
You know, sometimes we're under the illusion that if we make the baby, we're the father.
No, you're not.
You may be the daddy papa, but it takes time to be a father.
To be there for your children, to balance sharing with them what you already know so they can learn a little quicker, and hold them back and letting them fall from that tree limb and bruise their arm on their own, because that's how they'll remember it.
Because, even though you knew, sometimes there's certain heights I call like tree limbs, there's certain kids go out on limbs.
And if we brush Every limb they go out on.
I mean, they're on the limb and they're five years old and it's five feet above this soft St.
Augustine grass.
If we rush over there and go, get down, get down, get down.
They, no, no, no, no.
You're going to stump their growth and they have fear of heights.
Kids don't fear heights until they die, until they fall.
All right.
Let them go out there.
That's a safe fall.
Make it a bruise.
Now there's certain ones.
If they're 60 feet up and it's a concrete, you might want to go.
Hey bud, I was thinking, come on, just take your time and come on over to the trunk and shimmy on.
Maybe get a help and get them down from that.
But certain limbs, let them get on the end of it.
Let them fall.
Let them get bruised.
They'll remember that from experience.
So, yeah.
I like it.
Question number two, what does it mean to be a real man?
To be a real man.
Well, you know, staying on the fatherhood thing, and this is not just the only definition, but I'll piggyback off the last question.
The only thing I ever knew in life I wanted to be was a father.
And it is because I remember I was eight years old.
My dad was a big yes, sir, no, sir, man.
So he would introduce me to his friends, right?
And I would always, as eight years old looking up from four five six seven, eight years old, shake their hand.
Yes, sir.
Nice to meet you, sir.
And what hit me at eight years old was that all of those men whose hands I was shaking called him sir.
They were dads.
They were fathers.
And in my eight-year-old mind, I went, oh, that's how you make it.
That's success.
Become a father.
That's how you become a man.
That's how you become a king.
So, That's not answer across the board, but that's going to be my answer.
Yeah, I love that.
And I'll only do three because of time.
Last one.
What does it mean to be a good friend?
Yeah.
A good friend reminds a friend of the best in themselves, the truth in themselves, whether it's there to say yeah, just like that, when they are the most themselves, or whether it's there to go hey, you know, you got this other way.
In a situation you handle it like this, and it was so pure man and it kind of didn't Go that way this time.
So it's saying hard things and helping them kind of renegotiate or showing to them objectively hey, I see who you are.
You've shown me who you are.
And then when you're you, I'm over here going on.
And I take great pleasure in seeing you succeed without me.
Wow.
Wow.
That's powerful.
A good friend really takes honest and earnest pleasure in seeing their friends succeed without them.
To end, we got a little note from a good friend of yours who sent it in.
And I think it'd be better if you read it out loud than me because it's for you.
And so I'm going to hand it to you and you can read it out loud.
Oh, what do we got here?
I marvel at how you move.
Through this world.
Amazing actor, best-selling author, innovative entrepreneur, first-rate father, husband, and son.
But more than anything, a brilliant philosopher.
And it is that philosophy that pervades everything you do.
One that intertwines curiosity with poetry.
From the time I met you nearly 30 years ago, I knew you were my brother.
And you continue to inspire me to this day.
Love you, buddy.
Wood.
P.S.
Miss our cuddle time.
Me and Camilla, that is.
Perfect.
Thank you, buddy.
Thank you.
He is a great friend.
He is a great friend.
Boy, he is a good friend to me.
I love the way that he loves me.
It's really, really beautiful to receive.
Well, Matthew, thank you for your time, your energy.
Whether I'm reading your books, whether I'm in your presence or whether I'm listening to you.
As I said to you before the first time I interviewed you, I listened to your acceptance speech from the Oscars every day for 30 days.
Once upon a time in my life,
And there are only two speeches I've done that with.
One is Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford, and one is your acceptance speech.
I listen to it every day for 30 days.
I find, when you do that, it internalizes ideas and concepts and energy in a way that you don't get if you don't repeat.
So very grateful to you for your life, your work.
You're welcome.
And thanks for sharing that with me, man.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
I had a wonderful time.
Appreciate it.
If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more.
I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success and the secret to genuinely loving what you do.
If you're trying to find your passion and your lane Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you.
Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value.
Like as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value.
That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.
