Matthew McConaughey: The Silent Crisis No One Is Talking About! The Harsh Truth About Living Without Faith

26:43That's not good habit for you. You might be missing out on something. You better create a new habit of just doing what you think you were expected to do that was thinking in my mind and I said all right well I'm gonna I want to go to film school. I don't want to go to law school, I want to go to film school. Simply because the book mentioned that having the habit of doing something just because you think you should or can. I even that part I I verbalized that didn't see you say that directly Just saying, I will form good habits and become their slave. And I was like, if I go to law school, that's making me a slave to a bad habit.

27:22And the bad habit being bad habit being, it should be good at it. It's kind of what you're supposed to do. It's all you've ever kind of thought you were doing, it's whatever one expects you to do in the family. But remember, it's keeping me up at night, I love school all the 20s, I don't know. I've also got this other thing, I've got a friend telling me, your short stories are good man. You can tell a good story. Well, when we film making, you can tell me, that sounds fun. Then I go, my dad's paying for school. I gotta get permission from man first. So I go, okay, what's a good time to call him?

27:58I remember I planted out. I said, it was Monday and I saw a column now. I said, no, no, no, no, no, he's at work. Don't call him now at work. He's, he doesn't, he won't be able to compartmentalize. This is gonna come out of that field for him. He's in the middle of pipe sales, right? I saw a column tonight and said, no, no, no, Monday, back from work, it's a stressful day. Tuesday night, 7 .30. Second day of the week, he's into the work week, he'll have eaten dinner, he's on the couch, having a beer with mom, calling it 7 .36 pm. I remember the number. Hey, Pop, hey, what's up, monkey man? So this guy talked about something, sure.

28:32I said, Dad, I don't want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school.

28:40I'm like, it'll be to sweat. So let's go down the back of my neck. I'm like, here it comes. You want to what? I thought he was gonna go and know his stuff about my ass. You think I'm making my life, that can be a hobby. But yeah, that's not a drill job. I thought all this was coming. And after about a five second pause, he goes, I hear this. Well, you sure that's what you wanna do? Yes, sir. Now the long pause. Then I hear, well, Don't have acid. I remember just beaming, hopping up. It's like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, yes. Launch pad, man. My dad not only said, okay, in the way he said, don't have acid was also, okay.

29:29Let's go, big boy, own that shit. Get some leverage, get some horsepower behind where you're going. Go do it. Now remember to this day, and I've learned this later, I think, from becoming a father. Part of what I believe happened to him and why he said that to me, that way, on that call, was the way that I asked him, how I just, I wasn't really asking, was I? I don't want to go to law school, dad, I want to go to film school. I didn't stutter. He heard his son saying this is what I want to do. And what I think happened in that moment is what I think any father or any parent loves is you raise your kids It's a certain way and you give them a guideline a ladder to climb and here's the guidelines If you do it this way you're most likely going to have some success in life and it'll work out for you And then when we do it that way we can be proud parents, but what do we really want to happen?

30:23When our parents when our kids are out of the house and on their own We kind of want them to call one day and go I'm breaking out I'm going my own way. I'm going my own way. And as a parent, we go, as much as it may scare us, we're going, yes, I gave my kid the confidence and the courage and the foundation to say, they're going to go their own way. And in a way, I think every parent honors and loves that moment. And I heard my dad when he didn't hear me stutter when he heard me directly say what I said and I wasn't really asking him. Even though I was out of respect to asking him. the way I said that I wasn't asking him.

31:01And I think he felt that and don't have acid. Don't have acid. As a philosophy for life, how important has that proven to be since then? Because you've remembered it and I've heard you, yep, reference that's being important. Look, it's become quite. And again, it's become more than intellectually important or more than something. I don't need to put it on my fridge to remind me. It has become important in relationships. It has become important in work. It has become important in self -health. It has become important for my own spirituality. It's become important for me as a father, as a husband.

31:44Relationship -wise, don't have asset. What's that's turned into? Me is another sort of theory I have, and I call it own, don't rent. Going with an owner's mindset into relationships. Most relationships that we make, higher and assistant or girlfriend and boyfriend, most of them don't last the whole life. But I believe that if you go into those with the idea that I wanted to be a lifer, it just works out. Hopefully this is forever. Usually they don't need to be in that. But the owner's mentality will give you that, you end that person, the dignity and the power to go, we can be everything we can be in this relationship.

32:24And if it doesn't work out, we say it didn't work out. But if I'm going into the renters mentality, flip it. Yeah. I'll do this for a few weeks. Yeah, I don't know if this kid's going to make it, maybe a couple of months. You're not going to get the most out of that person. Well, it was like you and Australia, you went in committed to owning that full experience and believing. There's something really people tell me all the time, especially married people, because I asked them, I said, what's, why do people get married? Why don't you just, you know, what do you do? Why do you need the contract?

32:51And they talked to me about how going in with, Kim and Min itself, changes how you deal with the inevitability of the messiness, the messiness that you saw in your parents' relationships and challenge itself. Like challenge as you saw in Australia, but also in your parents' marriage is like, inbuilt into all things meaningful. And if you go in with that rent and mentality, the first red light, you're out. You know what you do? Something happens, you're like, oh, this is sign of the things to come. Oh, this is only gonna get work. No, when you get married, you're like, we're owning this. Oh, my alarm's to the spider since my alarm didn't start going off.

33:26Because we're going to work through this. And if it does become a habit, we'll work through it. Or it's a one off and it's got to put up with it. Because they like to do what they're doing more than I don't like them doing that. It's another good measurement, you know? I guess it gets the question about the role of the benefit of having plan Bs. because we're increasingly told to have plan B in a relationship or plan C, D and E, and I didn't work a plan C, D and E, and options. Can make us a tyrant. Too many options can make a tyrant of any of us, man. You know what I mean? So can conveniences, you know what I mean?

34:05And when you don't give yourself that option, and mind you, there's plenty of divorces out there that were necessary and were good for both of them. Problem. But I think there's more divorces because someone had a little cave themselves the out had the renters mentality who first son of smoke I'm gonna say there's fire be easier to get out of here pathless resistance sorry I think to me people quit I think that's that that's more a problem than the the divorces that are ones that turned out to be good. So many people are at that stage in their life whether they might have that bad habit that you described.

34:49They might know that they're in a situation which isn't for them. Maybe their parents gave them this idea, society pushed them into that position. And I think it's the uncertainty that keeps them trapped. Like the certain misery is often much more appealing than the uncertainty. Yeah. And I just want you you managed to make that change which is quite rare. Well, what that reminds me of is I started to become a little cynical, which is different than being skeptical. I believe it. We go from innocence when we're born to naivete to skepticism where we're discerning and discriminate on choices. We have judgment.

35:28And then the next one is off the cliff, what I think is cynicism. The misery of cynicism is a hell of a lot easier. then the optimism and belief of skepticism. Hell a lot easier. It's a, ah, easy. Bam, put it down. Oh, that's hard. Bam, I'm out. The individuality. Bam. Nah, man, it's hard if I sweat. Don't do it. Bam, you should put him down. Hey, everyone just laughed at my joke. Ha, ha, ha. See, it was easy. I was at Life the Party. I think less respected once you leave that situation. But now you're living in doubt and you're also doubting yourself that I don't want to work that hard I don't want to see if I can make that work anymore.

36:14I don't want to give that person the benefit of the doubt Because it can be a lot of work and they're gonna fucking screw up and I'm gonna go told you so Nah, so let's not even try it or if I do try it. Let's just rant Let's do more than just sign that prenup up. Wait, you know what I mean? There's there's there's perish we give ourselves the options and the parachutes in too many places we pull it early when we can still be flying even though maybe you're rocky flight pull that some bitch. Okay, it's a safe move. Got down the ground. What I was building didn't last. Sometimes maybe it shouldn't.

36:57I think most of the time it could if to you to hang in there, both of you. Before we started recording, we were having a little bit of a chat about a thought that's been on my mind recently about how independence, and I guess an abundance of choice kind of links to that might be leading people astray, because it appears to me the most fulfilled people that I know generally have a lot of dependence. The culture we live in tells us to be our own boss stand on your own two feet, more people are lonely than ever, less friends than ever, less likely to have kids, less likely to get married, and it feels like independence.

37:29And those people often, I think, are struggling. I think of so many of my friends, one in particular, that I've mentioned a few times, who 38 is old, living the life of independence, like a picture of independence. Scarra is apartment, single, no kids, free -lancer, so not going to a team working from his home. And then, one of my best friends, six months later, I see him in person, and he's flown to America, been baptized, and tells me that for three or four months, he just couldn't get out of bed. There was no meeting in his life. And so now he's a... Interesting. You know, strongly Christian man.

38:04And we're seeing this, especially with young men in particular, we're seeing more and more of them turn to religion. Yeah. And I'm wondering what's going on there? Yeah. Let's stay on young men for a while. And this does not exclude young women, but for the sake of this conversation, we're gonna block it over here and say, Yeah, man.

38:26We want and need to be relied on. We want and need to be dependent on. And a sheer independent individual lifestyle with nothing that you're responsible for outside of what you only need. Nothing, no other gardens you to tend to career relationally, no other collective communal. Oh, thank you. I need to that.

38:59Who lies on us? How much do we need to rely on others? There's another question. And I don't know that answer. Be fun to discuss it. How much do we need to be? How much do we need to depend on others. I, I, one of my self -reliances at the top of my value system and I don't think it is contradictory to faith. I actually think that free will and fate, again, are here. As a believer, I believe that it's all been written at the same time. I believe God's going, I need your hands on wheel man. You're steering this, okay? Don't just rely on fate. Too many people doing that, man. I've had my agnostic years where I was not believe it at all fully in self -reliance.

39:53It's on me, everything. And I think it was such a valuable few years because I did need to call myself on some shit. I did need to say the buck stops here with you, Mokhani. I did need to become a, quit becoming such a repeat offender. You know, I was sending, which means to miss the mark, miss have bad aim, literally, when it comes from an archery term, to send means to miss the mark. When you think about it like that, it becomes more practical, especially for us, agnostics and stuff. I was missing the mark, and it was time for me. I didn't want to keep forgiving myself on Sunday. And then repeat and do the same shit again, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and then go, oh, now I can be forgiven.

40:41I was like, no, man, forgive me, Father. I know what I'm doing. And I'm keep doing it. Cut the shit, my God, eh? Quick, give it yourself that out, that parachute, even though you may have it. Even though Word says, grace of God, we'll forgive you. You need to do strong one myself. Put my damn hands on the wheel. Look in the mirror and go, it's on you. Cause it is. The same time when I came out of that, I was like, oh, those two aren't mutually exclusive to sell for a lion's, I believe. I heard God applauding going, thank you. I need more, more like you that go, yes, I'm responsible. The choices I make today have to do with where I'll be tomorrow.

41:23Yes, they have consequences. My choices matter. Thank you. I mean, that's what I heard, but it wasn't exclusive of having faith and belief. Again. What caused that period of your life in your late 20s where you started to drift? Because at that time you had your first success as an actor? I think I was living, I gave myself the luxury of living that fully independent top of the penthouse. I got money. I decided to go check in at the chat room, Armour. I laid down a hundred and twenty thousand dollar tap and said, let me know when that's out. Me and my dog. A couple years. I bought a pair of leather pants and motorcycle.

42:09Told myself, next two years, if you ever think you've had too many, order another one. Next two years, you ever go,

42:22oh, I Exercise it in his healthy way as I could But I was cheerly independent and I did not I was swimming I was transient It was fun, but when every day he's a Saturday and Every nice a Saturday night Started looking for a little I need to break a sweat. I need I where's the resistance? Where's my I need my Monday morning and literally, and I needed it here, and I needed faith wise. Did the loss of your father around in your 20s have a big impact on this sort of unankering? No, loss of the father dropped the anchor deeper and got more secure. That was 92, that was five days in the shoot in my first film, Daisy Views.

43:13The loss of him won, which was, I didn't think he could die. Obviously he could and he did. And it was, took my mother to kill him, as you know from the story. They made love on the Monday morning. He had a heart attack. It's not a bad way to go. He called it. He told me in my brother's boys, when I'm going to go, when I go, I'm going to be making love to your mother. And Damien, if he didn't do it. But him passing away, after the shock in the morning,

43:47really woke me up to go, oh, you don't have that, talk to Pat Parachutes again, you don't have that one being in your life that has your back. That in my mind was above government, above religion, everything. Oh, if I'm really in a pinch, dad's got my back. You don't have that anymore, Matthew. You sow all the things he taught you that you kind of been acting like. It's time to become those. And put your ass on the line. Me. I remember that's around the time I carved into a tree. In the middle of the night I woke up and these words were just stuck and I went and I was like, I'd be less impressed and more involved.

44:30And my father passing on the world got flat. Things that I revered. Wow, mortal things that I've revered, people, places, all of a sudden, my eye got level. Things that I was patronizing and condescending and looking down my nose at, rose up to eye level. And I was like, time to become a man. Walk forward, peripheral vision. Get it. Own yourself. Walk forward with more courage. And start becoming the man you want to be instead of acting like it and putting it off. Be less impressed and more involved. Moves off. Yeah. What did you mean by that? And why did that come from? It came from, we grew up hardcore on gratitude.

45:12I'm a very thankful guy. And then being thankful and having gratitude is very important, but you can't stop there. Because too much just, oh, I'm so happy to be here. You're so impressed to be here. Thank you for having me, which we should have. But if you live only there, I can't represent and be involved in whatever we're doing and do it as well as we want to do it. You got to go, nope, thank you for letting me be here and I'm supposed to be here. Now let's go. If I'm even talking to you, if I'm here, I'm so happy to be here. If I'm just happy to be here and go no further than that, I can't have, we can't have this conversation.

45:53I'm not, I'm not, I won't be there yet. I can't be grounded enough to have it right here. I'd be like, I'd anticipate my thoughts. I'd say something that may be, He's only the pretty stuff and not the ugly stuff or, oh, don't want to be me. So to be involved, let me be more honest and have more courage when we're involved, when we're honest and have more courage to do what we're fashion to do, how we're fashion to do it. But if we're only impressed, you know, and I've had these moments when I met the colon brothers, they were my favorite directors. I revered them, I dinner with them, I blew it, and I fumbled over my wife, the biblical, oh, damn it.

46:31I'd get back up with that because I was nervous. I was so happy to be there. I was so impressed to be sitting down with the co -unbrothers and not involved enough to sit there and have a conversation. And I look back that night and I go, that's about it, never cast me anything. I blew it that night and I've said, see them. And I was like, that night we met, I want to do over. Co -unbrothers, if we out there, I want to do it. This is really transferable advice to both me as a podcaster because I get to meet so many of the people that I've admired for so long, especially being a kid from the UK.

46:57But also generally for people just going to job interviews and trying out for things that you really kind of inadvertently, like lower your perceived value just by being impressed and not involved. Probably won't get hired that way either. Yeah. What's the hiring person want to see? Someone who's respectful. But if you hold them in reverence, they're like, there's so many ways to say it. I don't need my ask, man. I want to hear, I want to meet you. I don't agree with me on everything. You know, I want to hear you. Ah, ah, butt back and they had a reason behind it. They weren't, you know, being negative for their cynical or they weren't just trying to be contraint, contraint, contraint, contraint.

47:38These days they actually thought about that and was challenging. Huh. Look at relationships. Girls, guys, what do we like? Not the one that's like, yeah, whatever you want to do. One of those girls is like, oh, how about this? I got this other idea. Oh. Oh, interesting. You just reminded me of a guy interview the other day called Jonah. And Jonah at the very end of the call, young guy turned around to me and said, you know, by the way, I think you should completely change this particular company was going to be joining with mine, completely change the branding. I don't think it's good enough. And I paused and I said to him on the forget what I said, I said, I want to say two things to you, Jonah.

48:14First, I joking went, how dare you? And secondly, that is the best thing you have said in the last hour. Because for me, he did exactly what you did. He wasn't impressed. He was involved. And he challenged. He told me that basically our entire brand for this particular company needed to be changed and redone So like how dare you and that is the best thing you've said Because it did exactly what we said it made me think oh okay interesting. This is who he is and he's a value Yeah, because people that are impressed are much less value than those yes, but yes, they're able to you know well Picture here.

48:47I mean this picture said a lot to me. Maybe it's just the way that you're all gathered around Oh, yeah And those pictures so that's my older brother Rooster on the right That's Pat Rooster's ten year old birthday present adopted When it will meet his parents one time when he was 17 checks dad's hair line

49:08That's me Revourentially looking down on my father who's holding court at the bar in the house Quill Valley Houston, Texas Looks like you just cut off the golf course I have a t -shirt on, they have golf shirts on, looks like I didn't play with them at that time. But there were stories probably going on right there about something that they had just experienced. And I'm probably a little, I'm trying to, you know, I'm probably, this conversation's probably more between those two and I'm going like, oh, I wish I was there in the stories. Which only happened for me once it turned 18. I had some stories before them, but that's what that, look at the reverence with which I'm looking on to my dad.

49:52He was a, he was old and core. He was a ham, man. Him and him and Rousseau were best friends, um, Pat worked for him. I've got to have a couple of years with him before I went to, uh, Australia, or year with him. Yeah, I remember I had more than a full, had a full summer with him, which later on I found out was their second divorce. I didn't know it was. I thought mom was on an extended vacation in Florida. So he and I had a summer where we got to hang out and I got a story in Greenlight about a night when I jumped the bouncer Big right of passage to me. Do you miss him? Yeah, I miss him creatively the most because he I I had found out later, and I didn't know who's doing this.

50:48I found out later in life years after we passed away, we found out these old paintings in the garage, and we found this pottery that he made, and he loved, he had collected art, and he loved charcoal paintings in pencil, black, and whites. I had no idea. He practiced art or liked it. And so, when I'm reading a script or I'm interested in doing a film, I still think, I would love to, I would love to have sent this to Dan, and what do you think and talked about? Hey, you know anybody like this? What do you think of this character? What do you think of this scenario? Hey, you know what I mean like this?

51:25Because I base a lot of my characters off of people that I met through him I basically behold a lot There's been many characters that are based on parts of my brother Pat It was my hero growing up and there's a lot of characters I've met through my older brother rooster But all those came through dad and I loved I miss having those I wish I could have those conversations with him. He would have loved the other night where Toronto Film Festival premiering lost bus. My mom was in it. She's 93, my son's in it. That could have been for, he would have come to Santa Fe with mom. You know, he didn't, mom wanted, mom wants to be on the stage.

52:06Mom, every performance I've ever done, she's like, you did great, Matthew. I see where you get from. All right, that did want to be on the stage. He could take the stage, but he would have, he would have seen from the beginning me doing my thing from the front row and been like, there you go, buddy. So I miss him as a creative partner and in sharing the declarations when you have a red carpet and in here and what's your pin on that? Hey, well, watch a movie. movies with, we never watched movies. I missed that.

52:46In his hands, man, he had these healing hands and we would have been buddies by now, right? Out of philosophically wherever we had our differences, he would have enjoyed the debates instead of looking at me at 16 -gillin', who the hell do you think you are? talking, bucking like that, which is what led him to go, you're great debater. I want to be a family lawyer, but we'd have been buddies because at 18 was the freedom right passage. That's when he goes, he learned about now, he ain't going to learn it. So we would have, I wouldn't have had to hear. This is a time when I'm still hearing about the experiences of yesterday and last night, yearning to one day be able to be there and be part of this story.

53:31And we did get a year together where we got to be part of the same stories, which meant so much to me. But I would have had years of that. Do you think he would have been surprised by the life he lives subsequently?

53:47No. My family's got an odd thing. They aren't surprised by shit, man. Especially any of my success.

54:03I mean, my brothers hadn't even seen all my movies. If I invited them to the premiere and Toronto, they'd have found every excuse they could not to go. It wouldn't have come. No, disrespect or love any last words, just like, man, we know you little brother. There's something beautiful in that. Do you remember these? Yes. Yes. You wrote this roughly around the same time in 92. Roughly actually when I was born funnily enough, I saw the date on the top and thought, I was a few days off after my birthday. Yeah. And again, you put Father Hidden Number One, but there's a series of other things on this list of your 10 goals in life.

54:42Yeah. Which you wrote in 1992. As you reflect on those goals, do you wish you hadn't written any of them? And is there anything else you wish you had written? No, that, that, that, that, I wouldn't change the thing about it. 10 goals in life. become a father, find and keep a woman for me. Keep my relationship with God, chase my best self, be an egotistical utilitarian. Take more risks, stay close to a woman family, want an Oscar for best actor. Look back and enjoy the view. Just keep living. I don't know what I'd add to that. One of the things that you talk to a few times about, it's this idea of like needing resistance.

55:20Yeah. You've said it two or three times. And we're going back to what it is to be a man and what it is to be a well -irontated stable man, meeting resistance. Is that a goal to aim for? Is that... I think it's just a necessary necessity for having more than just an individual life, the top of the high rise with money. If you're successful, do that. I mean, I'm supposing that whether it's different words, your friend went to Christianity for this very very similar reason. It's like certain amount of guilt is very healthy. It helps us keep us, it's boundaries. Without any shame, without any embarrassment, without any guilt, tell me it's all just four -dimensional.

56:16Where's the form? where's the art? It's four dimensional. It has no form. You got to have gravity to have form. You got to have some resistance to have some form. You got to push off of something to go somewhere. You got to be, it's very hard when you're just floating in no gravity and no resistance to actually pursue a North Star. You have no leverage. You're floating. Where's the art? Probably more anarchy than art. So resistance gives form. I heard a great artist say this, limitations. Reveal style.

57:02Hmm. Resistance. Something to go or else it's like in green lights. If life's just nothing but green lights. If you got no yellows and reds and no reasons to pause or crises that stop you. resistance? This is what are you just going to go in circles to be running a gas and get dizzy? I don't see that how do we evolve or devolve without resistance. Now picking the right resistance is an art in itself. It's challenging. I've been clumsy with it in my life when especially when I got famous and got success. And enough people telling me I love you and the caviar and the champagne. I was like, the shit, why me?

57:52I don't deserve any of this. What did I do? And I fuck things up on purpose just to say like, I trip myself running down hills like a bloody my own nose and go, oh, now I can feel okay, okay now my heels are on the ground. I need, it's clumsy. So I don't think we need the kind of resistance that we create that can harm us or get in our way for getting in our way safe because I've come to learn. I think we all are. No, when things are going really well, resistance is going to come if you stay with, if you're if you have any ambition, resistance is going to come. We often see resistance as a form of failure and something that we should endeavor to avoid.

58:34You think about the avoidance of people building families or even... You know, many people consider that we're living in a bit of a comfort crisis. This is slightly a different sort of analogy, but most of the diseases that we have today, whether the diseases of, I don't know, the mind, like, you know, people feeling lowly and isolated, all physical diseases, 80 % of Americans getting back pain, but no one in the had to try the Africa getting back pain. They're all a consequence of us continually choosing comfort. Yeah. She's just a short -term friend, but long -term enemy. And the resistance, I think, is something increasingly we can choose opt out of.

59:10It's a choice, too. I mean, can I hit a point on this subject? It's called tips included. And that wrote this based on participation trophies, entitlement. How too much of something can be just as harmful is not enough. How we all need good fortune, good fate, and charity sometimes. times, but we shouldn't rely on that. Okay? called tips included. When extra credits included, credit doesn't get as due. When more gives us less, the exchange rate's gone as skew. When amnesty is offered, going into the crime, we're more bound to commit it, because there's no fine. We start playing to tie and said, going for the win.

59:59when participation is the trophy for every cow in the pit. If I stay on the porch because you picked up the slack, when you look over your shoulder, I can't have your back. If there is no curfew, we're going to stay out all night. No tab at our bar, we're going to get drunk and start a fight. All these long lenses got us losing our sight. You keep lifting it for me, I'm going to lose all my mind. When a four -star duty suits a six -star rate, we take our hands off the wheel and rely on fate. Eating all we can at the all we can eat buffet gives us a 3 .8 education and a 4 .2 GPA. We steal from ourselves and get away with the scam.

1:00:45What's the measure of merit with less give a damn? These unlimited options, sheer having confused, while all the conveniences are keeping me properly lived. In this red light district with the horror of inflation, the ROI's math don't pay for vacation. So let's just admit it, this extra credit is quite a fluffer, because when the tips included, the service will suffer. That's so good. But it's about that. The convenience is the long lenses, everything's like, oh, and we've outconvenient to ourselves. What's AI going to do to us? Talk about convenience. How much, and I want to keep here and study, so I wonder if you have an opinion on this.

1:01:34How much of you coming up with an idea and then writing and rewriting it? Thinking about it. No, no, no, no, no, it's not our expert. but oh, no, this is what I really mean and how to get to. How much of that is really valuable to get it beyond just an intellectual idea, more valuable than just going, ah, there it is. Cause what comes out of it? Incredibly impressive. Our gauntch is that, yeah, we can use it for like, signpost to help us, oh, that's good. Thank you for helping me organize, but there's a value to us going through the sweat equity of learning something. How do you feel about it?

1:02:15Exactly what you've said, but the studies have just come out using different things like chat to be true. You've actually proven what you've just said to be true. When people use AI to produce a piece of work, not only can't they recall what they've made, but they also start speaking in language more like the AI, so they start to lose their own voice. But I mean, yeah, I mean, through history, people at Richard Fryman, the physicist, to say the best way to learn something is to learn it and then to go through the pain of writing it, condensing it down to a simple truth like you do so often in your new book poems and prayers and then sharing it with the world and then getting the feedback and if the world understood it like you meant it like that poem you just shared you understand it that's evidence that you get it right so I think AI is going to be great for me saying something to you but not learning something myself.

1:03:06And I think if you want to defend creativity and innovation and the ability to think, you actually have a huge opportunity, which is to go left when everyone's going right. And it goes to what you were saying now, you were talking about, be careful when you mess with incentives. Like be careful when you choose the easier road, be careful of the unintended consequences. And AI is the prime example of an unintended consequence of you taking the easier road today. And I just actually made a video about this fun enough, just warning my audience about when something appears to be like a short -term friend, it's usually a long -term enemy.

1:03:44When you choose easy, today you choose hard tomorrow and there's always a trade -off. But you think if you choose hard today, usually get easy tomorrow.

1:04:01I mean, there's obviously a ton of nuance to this, but um...

1:04:08In many contexts, yes. So for example, when I think of what I was thinking my father, my father would never have... He would avoid conflict at all costs. He would avoid the difficult conversation. And when I zoom out over the decades of his life and marriage, I get, man, that costs you big time. He caught up with him. Oh my god. And me inverting that in my head life and continually just confronting it head on has had the complete opposite effect. You never... You know like when you were talking about being a young man and making that decision because you had that voice and you had saying, you know, it might not be my thing and you made that phone call to your father.

1:04:45Yeah. Like what I hear you did is like you realigned yourself to you. Now if you hadn't made that call and you would let a couple more of those bad habits, You would have got to 40 and been like, who the fuck is this guy? What is this life? You would have looked around and said, who is she? Who are they? What is this job? And that's that course correction that I think it requires you to do the slightly harder thing today. What do you think? I agree with you. That's the resistance. Do you choose and look, I still gotta learn how to take a vacation. Because, you know, there's sometimes when the winds are back and we've earned it.

1:05:29Sometimes when it's easy to treat and it's like, yeah, don't interrupt this man. This is a sweet ass song. Trust that the hill's coming. Again, don't be so impressed with this and don't, what I have to do is so fall into when things are going really well. I go, ah, there it is. That's the main. That was not. Not with any ambition. It's not. Or not with life happening. It's not. But my hunch, I want to see what you think about this theory is, you gotta shoot for an A and make a C rather better than shooting for C and making an F. Now, so go for perfection. Reality always comes in under it. But in that moment, when you see the inevitable reality, the outcome, the result, how quickly can we go, okay, but I got so much more out of it.

1:06:39Job, the person myself because I went perfect for perfection. Then if I'd have just gone for, no, do just, I mean, you know, just past class. It's again that little bit of the owner's renters mentality. And what can be hard for me sometimes is it takes, can take me too long to come down from, oh, it didn't hit perfection. And maybe it takes me a week to go, dude, now do you finally realize that of course you weren't gonna get perfection, but you got so much more out of it because you went for perfection. So be pleased with reality, because you got a good grade on it, man. That was good. That piece of art wouldn't have been that true.

1:07:24If you wouldn't have been, I don't like, I obviously saw the time and I never mean this in a disrespectful way. I've never done a movie or a performance that lived up to what I thought it could be. Because I'm thinking it can be divine.

1:07:41It comes out, maybe majorly inspiring, may speak to masses. Even have some magic to it, but I am just divine. That's resist, that's tension. Yeah, yeah. Unclosed gap. And I think everything that's ever been built, that's great, or creatively brilliant, has come from someone who has a big, a big expectation gap. And of course, they're very definition of that. You're never going to close it. And actually, the probably the reason you then are motivated to move to the next thing and pursue divine again is because it wasn't divine last time. Maybe there's still something left on the table and that's, means you never arrive.

1:08:24Right. You talk about a right lot in the poems and prayers as well. I also was reflecting on your mother's words where she had a very young age to you, position life as a dichotomy of being humble but like know that you're the shit and all those things you went through and this is the same thing it's like strive for protection, perfection but also know that nothing will ever get there. Can you be okay with that dissonance? Right. And there's a moment. And I think it's where the, one of the arts of living is, if you are going to prescribe to go to perfection, there's that moment when reality comes in, when you had to declare, and the cards speak for themselves.

1:09:06And it's under. But you, because you oversaw it, there I got called Oversey, because you oversee, expect the best, this divinity out of people and in art and of yourself. And then it always comes in under. How quickly can you go, ah, nice reality. I've watched so many entrepreneurs, treat sales like a performance problem when it's often down to visibility because when you can't see what's happening in your pipeline, what stage each conversation is at, what's stored, what's moving, you can't improve anything and you can't close the deal. Our sponsor, PypeDrive, is the number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses.

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1:10:26And if you use this link, you'll get a 30 -day free trial. Can I ask you a question about that, then? If you had aimed for something to be perfect, and then it delivered itself is perfect, exactly how you would imagine if it all possible. So without have made you happy, would you have been? I don't know. You're right. I'm going to meet you scared. Both probably because look, I've had moments. Let me tell you one in Africa. I'm in Mali, Africa. Dog on country. Me and my guide, who's a buddy in Aisa, we're hiking from village to village in the Bonsigarh, each village is 10 to 15 miles away. I went over there, meeting my anonymity under the name of David, and I said, I was a writer and a boxer.

1:11:21Well, they called me Douda. Anyway, they didn't give them back the writing part, but they were very interested in the wrestling part. So each village, I would go to, it was to catch up to me, the strong white man named Douda. And they loved the wrestle over there. They loved the wrestle. It's kind of a form of entertainment. The boy just walked up into Tart wrestling. I get to this one village when I binge him on two. And I'm laying there to 40 miles. I get there on the lane on the ground stretching. Village is all kind of come up around. They're talking in chatter and all of a sudden, I hear this chatter and that's sort of at me.

1:11:54I can hear it and I look up and it sees two boys they're about 18 and they're boom, boom, boom, poppin at me. And I can be like, no enough in the tone. I don't know what they're saying because they're speaking in bombada. I'm like, are they talking to me? And he goes, yes. He goes, they are the resters of the village. They say they are the best resters of the village and they are challenging you to rest, they might. So I'm like, oh, they are. I was like, well, you sure are talking a lot. I go, I don't know if they mean it. Y 'all have this thing over here. We have a thing in America where if someone talks too much, they really don't mean he goes, yes, we have this.

1:12:30We have this. And just as that happens, you hear the crowd, Waaah! Scream! And I look up in the two boys' band run -off. Why? Because the real champion wrestler of the village, Michelle, five -foot -nine tree trunk legs, about 220 burlap bag wrapped with the rope -runs -ways, he showed up. He doesn't say a word. He just stands over me, points to me, points to himself, and points over here. I look over where he's pointing and there's a big dirt pit. My heart starts racing. There's the challenge. As my heart's beating going, oh no, I start to get up. Because as this year's saying, oh no, I'm hearing in this order here, if you don't, you will regret this.

1:13:18Forrest your life. You've got to go do it. This would at least be a great story to tell. So I get up, village goes crazy. Well, I'm about 80 people have gathered now. The chief comes out, I'm standing in the middle of a pit going, I'm not sure how this is supposed to go, where are the rules? Chief puts his hands on her heads. Michelle grabs me by the waist, mimics to me, I grab him by the waist, then he burls his forehead down into my clavicle here, and I burrow him on into his. So now we're like two bulls like this. And the chief puts his hands on our head, and then raises him and goes, stop!

1:13:48And the crowd goes wild. Ding ding is what? Doc, man. So we start going around, man. And I'm thinking, okay, I get some leverage on this guy. The legs are like tree chunks. I'm like, oh, I ain't getting them down low. Through a scrap and grapple, boom. And I get him over, bam, flip him on his back. He flips me back over. I backflip him off my back at summer salt. And he comes in, gets me in a freaking leg lock that I can barely breathe. I'm almost got to tap out from my shimmy, that thing. All of a sudden, chief comes in, separates us. I'm hyperventilating, man. Crowd's going crazy. He's got a split, Michelle, and this side of me on this side.

1:14:26These talismans that were in my beard, they got two of them that torn out during the rest of the match. You got blood running down me here. My knees are bleeding, my ankles are bleeding. I'm hyperventilating, covered in sweat. I look over at Michelle who just staring at me going. Barely glistening on him. And that's when the chief goes, nope! And I go, oh shit, here we go. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Grass my waist, pop, pop, curls his head. I burrow my head. We're off. Goes around again. Pretty damn good match. Strong, I flipped in, me pinned me. I could, we got up, got moving. All of a sudden, she comes in, separates us.

1:15:04Raises both our hands. The crowd goes crazy. Ah, as soon as he loads our hands, Michelle runs off. Everyone sees him go and they come in and grab me and put them on their shoulders. Da -da -da -da -da -da -da. I go over now on a big man in the village, which means they give me the best chair that has the least broken sort of, you know, a straw on the seat, which means the village boy finds me the biggest chicken and plucks it and they cook it for dinner for me, which means they take me to the cleanest spot in the river. And I come back that night, I eat, I get on the roof of the hut, what a magical day.

1:15:43I lay back.

1:15:47I see the Southern Cross for the first time in this guy. Like it was in neon lights on a black backdrop. It was, you could not see it. It was so bright, staring me right at the face. I laid there 30 minutes, all 29 shooting stars. I'm going. I might have a direct line. I might be the chosen one. Wow. Just as I'm about to shut my eyes, I got a little... In my throat. So I sit up, go to spit out over the... off into the top of the roof.

1:16:31Lugie plastered into my face. I forgot I had put my mosquito net on.

1:16:43I'm like, oh, perfect. Just when I was thinking, I might have the direct line. I just bit a lugium on face and there became the humor. Now, to finish off that story, the next morning, when I left the village, I remember Michelle who ran away, I got to the edge of the village about to make the 14 mile walk to the next village. And there behind the first, first tree passed off the property, popped out Michelle. Not a word, looked at me, bowed, grabbed my hand. He walked me the 14 miles to the next village, got to the village border, the next tribe, and walked home. I went back, unannounced six years later.

1:17:24Did the same trip, ran into the same people, the kids had grown six years older, everybody. We get to Benji Amato, there's Michelle. Well, he's had five kids and he broke his hip. So he's got a limp, right? So we all agree, not another wrestling match. We have a great dinner that night. We talk, we tell stories. They're speaking mombata, I'm speaking English, but we just understand each other sort of charades now. Get up next morning. We go to leave. Find that same tree. Out pops Michelle. Bows reaches that his hand holds my hand and 14 miles to the next village. Stop. Bows. Turn around.

1:18:19I asked Ease back then the first time in 99 after that night when I wrestled Michelle and he walked me the first time. I was like, what, tell me about what happened last night? That door already was, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. You do very well. You say, when you accept the challenge, that is when you were big men in this trial. It was not about the win or the lose. You accept the challenge and then you wrestle Michelle, who's not only champion of this village, but of this village and tree village back. And you handle Michelle. Yeah, handled was the word. And when we lose it's handled. He goes, you come back.

1:19:04We make money.

1:19:11And we went back six years later and had that experience. And that experience with Michelle, the respect we had him for you to, he walked me, broken hip and all, 14 miles to the next village. You accept the challenge. Accept the challenge. That is when you were a big man in this village. Because I was like, I put me on the shoulders, man. What was it? You were a big man when you accepted the challenge. He said, whole village stink. Michelle going to have strong white men named out a on back in 10 seconds over. What you handled, Michelle, not when I lose. Handled. But you were a big man when you accepted the challenge.

1:19:57beautiful. And then he's there six years later and walks me the same way. I mean, I think your question was on, you know, when we, when we know or how confident we're feeling like we're on the right path, which that was a time when I thought I was so much I was like, I think I might be the, you know, logi in my face for a nap to me was God going, you're doing good, but not that good, but. There's so many young men that are struggling. When I looked at the stats around suicide radiation and suicide reality, the biggest kid of men under I think we age of 45 is themselves. And it's funny, you said earlier on about, to be a young man, you have to feel like someone depends on you.

1:20:42And it reminded me of someone on the show that told me when they analyzed suicide letters, the prevailing sentiment across all of these suicide letters, I think it was an Australian study, was feeling like people didn't need you, or even worse, they were better off without you. In suicide letters from... Yeah, Japanese almost. And it goes... So when you said earlier that this, you know, we need someone to depend upon us, it made me think about that. And then you talked about challenge. We need a resistance and challenge to aim for. And life is removing that challenge. It's removing the... Yeah, what are the new challenges?

1:21:22Being on the internet, TikTok, social media... So, those challenges, though, for now, and I'm just paraphrased this, if those challenges may not be the ones that, and hopefully we find a way that they can actually pay us back in a qualitative way, don't we need a challenge that's immortal?

1:21:46Like belief in God or belief in our better self and how we are as human and our own character and our own dignity and our relationships. And tomorrow in our past and our kids that are not measured and paid for with a local mortal currency, but our pursuit that keep us having qualitative and valuable experiences is that mean something to us and give our life meaning. While we're doing whatever it is, we're doing in life that may not be giving us the meaning or making us feel. I want to ask you something, because as I started to read poems and prayers, you sort of confront a lot of my previous rebuttals to faith, which I imagine a lot of young people have, which is around like the science of it.

1:22:31Like what about the science? What about proof and evidence? You confront this head on, and how do you think about that? Because you're someone that understands the science and the studies and all those kinds of things. But I think one I think science is the practical pursuit of God. And like we're talking about perfection, it ain't going to get there. But bravo for it. Believe God loves the scientists. I believe he does. Go and thank you again, like hands on the wheel. Thank you for being gnostic and going, you can only believe in your science. Thank you for churning your way towards me. I'm not going to get here, but thank you for that pursuit, that independence to bring up the word again.

1:23:08It's, I don't know, that's the point. I can't not conclude. Those are nouns. Belief is a verb. Faith is a verb. In God or any of those other things that we were talking about, our better selves each other. Those are, a scientist doesn't necessarily doubt. science just says, I can't believe in something that until it's proven. And if it's unproven, my craft says I cannot believe it. I believe that's what a scientist looks at it. So I cannot believe in, or maybe I must doubt that which cannot be proven. I understand that. That does not again contradict a scientist, or if that's your vocation, if that is your philosophy in your life creed of how you behave and believe that does not contradict belief in God, even though you can't conclude that God exists.

1:24:14I know plenty of scientists that are also believers.

1:24:20I don't know. You know, it's, it's, it's, I got a poem in here and this is, this is not a lowest common denominator, but also just another practical way of thinking about it. If you're like, man, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not for it. Let's just go practical for a second. Heaven or not, all right? Tomorrow is not today's measurement when the misery is bad enough. To the suffering, consideration is a privilege. And that's part of what faith and religion to help those in misery hang on to a hope that will most likely not be served them in this life, to sell them belief and faith that they will be served in the next.

1:25:09And what if there's nothing there, man? What if there's nothing to hope for? No next.

1:25:19Ah, either way, in misery, here or without a heaven there, not having any hope or faith in anything is a certain way to remain where you are forever. But if you can find something that can keep you going, something no matter how small to look forward to and continually have faith in and chase, well, then your life here will be better than it is now, heaven or not.

1:26:00It's not an argument for faith. It is saying, though, what I think is true, what I believe is true is that to pursue that that divinity, even if you don't believe in the author. It's not anonymous. But if you say, no, when you say that's God, I don't believe in that author. Fine. Okay. Find principles, ways of living, and approaching life yourself, others, neighbor and self. This is, call them ethics, whatever, morals, whatever you want to call them, paradigms, and sort of law markers out there. That's gonna help in this life. Now.

1:26:46You know what I mean? That's what the science and the study showed you, that people that, oh, I do have a faith, are happier, healthier. And people can argue as to why that is, you know. Hey, I said, I'm, oh, I try to be clear in this, that I'm not trying to convert people to go, no, you should believe in God, no, no, no, no. There's plenty enough to go. I get it with religion that excludes a certain amount of people that I cannot go there. I cannot go, I cannot purchase the belief that some people faith have, which is, well, if you don't believe Jesus is the only son of God and that's it, then you're going to hell.

1:27:19I got too many friends, a lot of them over there in Mali and around the whole world. I'm like, oh, I can't go as far to believe that they're all going hell. If there even is one, but it's when religion has become exclusionary along the way, that lets remember, we bastardized it. You know, religion comes from the word, like I was talking about sin earlier to miss the mark. Religion is from the Latin root, relegare. Legare means to bind together, re means again. Religion is about restoration. Got a bunch of spiritual friends who say they're not religious and know what they're telling me is they want unity.

1:28:04That's what religion means. We bastardized it along the way. We made it a business. I don't believe that there are Muslim creators of religion and Muhammad and Jesus and God are going, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Now there's even stories in the Bible about going, no, that ain't fine. But, so we don't throw the baby out of the bathwater, I just pose the question to us to say, Maybe it's not religion or mad at. Maybe we need to restore what that means, restore a original meaning and live that way instead of just accepting what it's become in so many places, in so many ways. Poems and prayers comes to me because I started getting a little cynical myself.

1:28:47I started to, you know, default, objectify, if I'm a self -objectivine people, kind of looking down my nose at them, upon, on hell -o, thinking out there, probably not gonna make the cut at what they do, without any reason to be thinking that way. I started looking, listening to the news and leadership and I'm going, one. Wait a minute now. So we're saying if success is the key, success is the measurement. And you can get it by lying, cheating, and stealing and still be rewarded the gold medal. That's what's happening. Are we ready to say that's okay? Are we ready to say that's just how it is?

1:29:39We have leaders in positions now that are saying, yeah, just win. Well, just just win, just succeed. But yeah, okay, you get there, you did it. Congratulations, come to the front of the line. So what are the ethics? I don't know, what the winner do. Well, but they, what about rules? Oh yeah, by the way, the rules, if you follow them, you're a sucker. I started to find myself going, wait a minute, I'm not ready to say. That's just how it is. I'm not ready to wave that white flag. Are we ready to wave that white flag and go? We can see that's what it is because there's many reasons to do so. And so I'm looking around it, people aren't going, I'm not finding things people to believe in.

1:30:30And I'm finding it harder to believe myself. One of the things that I learned through your writing in poems and prayers, but also in green lights is that although those people might get to the front of the queue and be awarded the medal, the medal that you're awarded or the queue that you get to the front of might not actually give you what you want. And you start by sort of reframing success, which I think is a really important thing, especially for a young generation, especially for men who are, you know, the first to want to get to the top of the pyramid in certain pursuits of life and actually from thinking about what your your goal was of being a father and how that's a lost pursuit if you look at the amount of people that are having children and I think that's a big question and actually that's what your writing does for me.

1:31:15It really confronts me in a way to go, okay, you can get to the top of the depy or you can get the gold medal but be careful what that medal represents in a medal in what. Right. And what relevant for what? We all need relevant. Okay, like relevant for what? We want succeed, but when we succeed, do we act? Is it worth it if we don't profit? Yeah, you see it. Yeah, I mean, if more, we're trained to go the quantity is the goal. That's it. Well, if that's sacrificing quality, or value, what we actually value, what are you really winning? You're winning one of the mortal games, You know, and mind you, I also think it's worth talking about.

1:32:00And I don't know the answers is, I'm sitting over here in a privileged place to be able to say that. Yeah. Someone's a misery. You're gonna talk to them about projecting and sacrificing today so you can have more of them on. Those people are looking at you going, I'm trying to pay my rent, but food on the table, well. Lucky you, Matthew, you get to talk about that. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that I've changed my mind, but I am conscious and I still need, I still have more learn from talking with people that are going like, man, I don't have the luxury to think about tomorrow. The other thing that I is particularly front of mine for me and has been for about three to six months now is just this idea of independence, which has increasingly been sold to people, whether it's B .R .M.

1:32:43Boss, more people are lonely than ever before, less people are choosing to have families than ever before. This idea of independence might have failed us, And like all of my friends that are most happy have the most dependence. And my friends that are struggling now are in therapy are having what I would describe as an existential crisis, have the most independence. No one depends upon them and they depend upon no one. And the other sort of adjacent idea to this is, I'm writing this book at the moment called I Can't Find God, which is kind of a reflection of my own religious curiosity. That maybe we do need to ladder up to something.

1:33:16So me, my family, my community, maybe the planet, then something transcendent, something higher. And people that don't ladder up seem to be lost. Yeah, if you go from who we are and make the North Star God or the proclivity to imitate and be more divine, those things happen naturally through the humility, through the courage, through the sort of piece of mind, wrong or right, that, oh, this didn't all there is. Let's play the immortal game. So therefore, risk are much easier to take, are much more courageous down here because you're like, I'm not looking forward to dying, but I'm not that afraid of it.

1:34:06That's a very life -affirming feeling to have where I think selfishness and self -lessness are in bed together in that place, you know, or humility and confidence are hooking up, you know. They're not this, they're not even this, I think they're that. When the idea of God, or God literally, or that pursuit of just being our more sacred and by themselves. Well, there's a lot of power, I think it comes. If you've ever worked in a startup, you already know it's chaos. It's speed and it is survival. And now with AI accelerating everything, that speed has only increased. Startups are landing enterprise deals even earlier than before, but what comes with those deals is regulatory requirements.

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1:36:47Is there anything transferable? You talked about hard work earlier that people might miss when they see such a remarkable career. Because I look at your career journey on paper and I go, you did it, but then you did it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again at the very, very highest level. And I'm like, is this was this natural talent? Were you given something in your DNA? And I know it's hard to sometimes with self -handlers, but what is it? What is that?

1:37:25So I think that, and what I do try to say some version this to my kids when we talk about their futures is look, and I talked to a lot of young people about this. If you, first, if start with what do you have an innate ability to? What's in your DNA? You know, I wanted to play basketball for years. I wanted to dunk. And I had my DNA, well, I was never gonna dunk. No matter how hard I worked at it, I was never gonna dunk. That's what I wanted to do. So look at what you have an innate ability for. I wanted to be able to watch the redskid running back. Too slow and not powerful enough. One of the innate ability.

1:38:07So what do you have the innate ability for? And then what then are you willing to pursue an education for, work for, hustle for that for which you have an innate ability for? And we're going to talk about making a living. Is that which you have an innate ability for and now I've educated yourself, your talent to have a talent for? Is that and how can that be? something that the world demands because it's supply and demand. Boy, if you can end up doing something you got an innate ability for plus you become really good at it and you learn the craft and the world demands it and you can supply it.

1:38:50There you go. But we don't always, some of us have innate ability but we're not really, we don't work for it. We don't prove our skills. We kind of rely on what we got and it kind of come middle of the field and sometimes I don't know the ability for but I'm going to learn a new craft and I'm going to hustle at it. And actually when we get good at something, when kind of can start to go home. I didn't know I loved it. I didn't like this anymore, but I like it now. It starts to feel good to do over and over. And you aimed at becoming a, you know, it says it here. It says when in Oscar for Best Actor, et cetera, et cetera, you accomplish so many of these goals that you had.

1:39:33And then there comes this point in your life where you seem to step back from being this rom -com star. And it's almost as if a dream you once had failed you and you reorientate yourself once again to something of more substance.

1:39:50So the decision to maybe answer a little more the last question, I...

1:39:58I've, when something's not feeling like I'm completely in the pocket on it, on the skittin' it on the screws, and also maybe I am, but it's not translating. We talked about earlier art that translates and you hear the same thing back, you're like, ah, that's it. That's the communication of good art. Maybe I'm feeling like I'm bustin' my tail at something, but I put it out there and He goes, I don't know, sometimes it's bad timing. Sometimes just chasing the wrong tree. I was chasing something wrong tree there. At least maybe I chased it for me, but no one else gave it to him. That can happen.

1:40:38I've been fortunate to, if something's not sitting well in my soul, even if I'm pulling it off. And I'm like, dude, you're the wrong guy, man. You're the go -to guy, man. You're number one on the call. You took the baton from Hugh Grant and Ryan. There you, you love doing, they're fun. Geez, they pay great too. I can line them up. I was getting quantity, but I wasn't getting the quality. I was like, going, kind of feel like I could do it tomorrow. And I was like, oh, nothing wrong with that. You've worked to get to that point to where you feel like you could do it tomorrow. I was like, yeah, but I don't, I need some resistance.

1:41:18I need, I want to find something that scares me. Mind you, at that time, I've fallen in love with Camilla and she's pregnant with her first child. What's the thing I always want to be in life? Father. So my life is like, oh yeah. The roof is raised and the basement is lowered and the width is wider, man. I'm feeling more, crying more, laughing louder, feeling more pain to all of it. my motion to life is vital. And I said, okay, what I wanna do is drama, but Hollywood won't offer me, no matter how big it would take. So I said, all right, if I can't do what I wanna do, I'm gonna quit doing what I've been doing.

1:42:01So chose to boom, go to the ranch in Texas, Camilla's pregnant, told me age it, no more rom -com, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, don't know how long that's gonna last. Made that decision with Camilla and we said, look, you know, gonna make this decision, there's no telling how long we're gonna go with that work. But if we're making this decision like Australia, it's not a negotiable. We're not going back on it. You get offered a lot of money in that time. Yeah, there's a great story. So nothing comes in for months. And I'm starting to think like, oh my gosh, I might need to find a teacher, might need to go back to law school.

1:42:38I find a new vocation. I just So offer comes in for this action comedy. $8 million offer. I read it and I said, no thank you. That's the stuff I'm not doing. I come back with a $10 million offer. I'm not reading that again. No thank you. Come back at a $12 million offer. Guys, tell him I said no thanks. Come back at a $14 .5 million offer. I said, let me read that again. I read it again. It's the same words that were in the $8 million offer that I said no to, but it was better written. It was fun in here, man. I could see myself in it. This could be, I could make this work. Okay. Anyway, I ultimately said no.

1:43:28And I think in my theory, don't let me prove of it. But I think that me saying no to that $14 .5 million offer, A year into me leaving and saying, no, more rom -coms, I think me doing that, sent the message got around kind of through Hollywood. Oh, Makana, he's not bluffing. Why the boxy up to? Something about that was like, oh, he didn't just recede. He's got a plan, but he's just, he stepped out of Hollywood. He's turned up 14 -5. Oh, he's not rent. He's not for rent. Which That's interesting. Oh, maybe a little more attractive. Well, you know what'd be a who might be a novel great idea for this drama Lincoln lawyer for this Killer killer Joe for mud for the Housebuyers Club, Magic Mike, Detective.

1:44:35What got me?

1:44:4120 months after I stepped out. I didn't know how long it would go. That's how long it went. All of a sudden those offers came in And I was often I grabbed hold of all of my good and did them and love doing them. And, yeah, would I, would those have come if I'd have never stepped out? I could not even kind of say maybe no, no, they wouldn't have. So interesting how success can become a prison. It goes back to that sort of marginal slow. So, hmm, yeah. I mean, you have to do something drastic to realign. Yeah, turned down $14 .5 million, which... And trust me, my brothers were like, most people go, what is your major malfunction, little brother?

1:45:34You know? But I remembered how I felt that night when it came to me and it settled and it came up and I made the covenant and I prayed and sworn it with Camilla and we said, the decision's made. No matter how long this goes, We're not gonna go back in the decision. So a lot of these stories, I think come out about endurance in a way. The Australian story, this story or two that remind me of like I could have pulled the parachute sensibly at any time after the first three months in Australia. If I tell you the details of that, you'd be like, dude, why didn't you come home? After a year out of the business maybe And my days just tell me, I haven't even heard your name in four months.

1:46:23Shit. Waco's trying to do jobs. Go back. Those jobs are waiting for you. The romcom jobs you were doing. The waitin'. The through line for me as well is just, in these moments, you knew who you were and why not, which a lot of people don't. And you have to kind of know who you are and are not in order to turn things down or to accept things that are for you, right? I'm gonna go one step previous to that. I don't know if I can say I knew who I was.

1:46:59An easier place for us all to begin and I think what's more true for me is that these were times when I go, I knew I was not. And I don't know what the, I kind of know what I want to do. Rolls that can challenge the vitality of my life. You know, stereo tap, we could say we call those a drama. But it wasn't like I had a script written. This is the one I want to do and no one let me do it. You know what I mean? So it's said no to that. When I was straight, I knew that I couldn't be the guy who goes, I'm out of here, man. Because I shook on it. And it was having a sneaky suspicion that the longer this penance went on, the greater the gift would be on the other side.

1:47:44Did I trick myself on that? Probably. Did I, was I telling myself that here? As a, was I posting that on my proverbial fridge and repeating it like a mantra? Yes. It took a while to get down into, no, I actually believe that to be true. You have a good relationship with uncertainty, with not having the branch to swing to. Perfectly. I hope so. My wife's out there, if you're seeing that she's probably like, he needs to work on his relationship with uncertainty. LAUGHTER Ah! At least in a professional context, I mean. Ah! Most people end up stuck because they just wait for 100 % certainty about the escape plan or the next.

1:48:30Maybe that's because there are every role I've ever done. I went into it at some point and felt like I was 100 % certain that this is going to be great and not all of them were great. So I've had been a part of things that had the best laid plans and turned out to be like, oh shit, that's all we do that? I've been part of things that had the best laid plans and turned out to be like damn, all right. I've been a part of things that were under financed and didn't seem to have the foundation, but what we turned them into something. The House Buyers Club, $4 .9 million in 25 days. Shot that movie.

1:49:18The quality on the screen for that much money in that many days. John Mark and all the director, we turned it into that. We turned it into that. We went into it, but even that, that's another fun story. That was never real. I just, we just said the producers of myself, once Jean -Marc came on the director, and the producers of mine, we got in a room and said, we gotta just say we're doing this in October. And so we left out there and started telling me, yep, doing it in October. You want no money? My agent was like, you keep saying you're doing it in October. You're not doing it in October. I was like, yes we are.

1:49:57Yes we are. Dude, there's no money. You're not finest. Yes, you are. Just kept saying it. Other scripts were coming in and it was like, you read this? When did it go on October? I'm not, why read it? I'm not doing, I'm doing dial spars. Dude, you're not doing dial spars club. There's no time, there's not a date set. There's no movie. Would you please read something for that time slot? No, because we're doing dial spars club. Why were you so serious? We just, we just come. I'm not going to say what's the word. We didn't manifest it. We just didn't flinch. We didn't have a fag. We didn't stutter and we were all in the lines and saying the same thing.

1:50:25So all of a sudden people start believing. Is that proven to be really important? To believe what you say and to say it with a conviction? Because it goes back to what you, the phone call with your father. Yeah. You didn't flinch. Something seems to happen when you don't flinch. Yeah, I mean,

1:50:44it's different than fake it to you, make it. You know, words are momentary, intent is momentous, amen on that. Yeah. Intentism and mentism. Yeah. There's a... Who am I here on that same thing? And I think it's where... I write that in response, pushing off of where I think, sort of a woke cancel culture, overcompensated, where we bam, hammered you for the word, and didn't give the people to go. Why do you understand my intent? Intent is such a lust.

1:51:25especially with people who are ignorant and didn't know better. I'm writing here about I wish more, not one more crimes, but I wish more the crimes were about for ignorance. Because it's the bad agents that are going, oh, I know. Good for me, and I'm done to do the evil. Well, that sounds a bit, I'm sorry, maybe we do need to go in an alley and work it out. But the one's going, I didn't know that person needs some amnesty. go, well, okay. Or, given the chance to talk about it, when we've forgotten how to say, sorry, dude, I didn't, that's what I mean, I did not know that tell you, I didn't mean for it to land on you, like that's not how I meant it.

1:52:14If we've forgotten to do that, And aren't we getting told by the lawyers in the world to say just litigate it, dude, too. Whoa, what happened to Heyman? My bad. Stuck my foot, my mouth, man. I bogied. Sorry. Now, if I come back and do it to you next week and the next week after, shame on me. Repeat a fender, man. You can forgive me, but don't trust me. I need some reparations. I need to rehab, all right? But my first job on talking about forgiveness in the words intent, my first job if I've done you wrong and I've come asking for forgiveness, you've opened, if you're gonna, if you're gonna forgive me, you've opened it up first.

1:53:02And if you forgive me and you believe that I mean, I'm truly sorry.

1:53:12I'm do my best not to ever do that again. If you believe that and then you forgive me. First order of business is for me to change the behavior that I have so I don't have to come say sorry to you again. That I think we miss sometimes, that sometimes people go, I'm sorry for you giving. Oh cool, we're even. All right, back to it. And obviously you're like, you did it again. Dude, have a little room. I thought you were gonna course correct, you know? I've got a course correct. The offenders, the first order of business for the offender to go, I'm gonna do what I can not have to say, I'm sorry to you again.

1:53:47I think there's a more obvious incentive to misunderstand people now, especially when there's likes and follows and retweets in play, misunderstanding someone that's huge incentive in that. And I think maybe that's create a culture of that being the default is to try and to misunderstand you because - Try and to misunderstand. That's interesting. Because there's an incentive. I think all human behavior can be tracked to incentives. And that's not the resistance we're talking about. No, no, no, no, no, no. You know, that's, come on. Trying to misunderstand people.

1:54:22A real want and need it. Yeah, I think you're right. I'm asking this out to the world and myself. Trying to misinteresting to be controversial, what to be. It makes me so significant. Right, because you own something and you, yeah. So you trumped my gesture. Yes. What about? What about? Yeah. It proves, you know, I'm almost piggybacking. You talked about structure. I'm pushing off your... Right, right, right, right, right. Dude, we've got to compare before we contrast. Double down on somebody's affirmation. Make the point, make the pops this plural and the singular's negative. Black, then you can block evil and the negatives path to prophecy.

1:55:03If we can double down, I'm not saying we foolish and say, There's no negatives in the world, there's no pain, there's no evil. No, let's admit it's all out there and then choose to go. I'm gonna talk about bad shit in my past in the past tense. That's gonna block its path to prophecy. And the positive things that are working the truth in my past, I'm gonna talk about them in the present and the future tense because we're gonna keep that ball going. That's gonna be a verb. Let's make those a verb. What season of life are you in now, Matthew? season of life. Well, the last eight years, I really come to love fall.

1:55:44I grew up I was a summer guy. No shirt, no shoes, bright lights, X -Virt, it's all good, everything. Don't bitch about no shoes, cause somebody out there with no feet. I've come to like fall because I think I need, I don't, I'm interested in so many things that my hunch is to not take on more campfires, but to keep putting logs on the fires that I've built. And to do that, the clouds that come with fall, just nip ambition in the bud, just a little bit. They put a little bit of a roof. I kind of like, I'm not, there's big of a fan of the 30 -foot vault ceiling right now. I like that 10 footer, that eight footer.

1:56:35I feel ambitious looking laterally instead of, oh my god, the four dimensionally. Looking for the dreams and the poems and the prayers to become the reality. And I like a little bit of shade. Matthew, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're gonna be leaving it for. And the question that has been left for you is, what is your greatest weakness? What is your greatest strength? Ooh. Well, let me talk on this one, cause a lot of times they seem to be the same damn thing. A lot of times people are like, dude, your greatest asset is risk.

1:57:19And I'm like, I think that's what I gotta work on more. I think I need to be taking a lot more risks. You think you need to be taking a lot more risks? Yeah. That'll surprise a lot of people. Give me the context there and the color. I'm successful. I got a home. It's got a gate. I got a security guard. I got three kids. They're wife.

1:57:49Alright, secure this. Keep that log on those fires going. That's the main thing, man. If you do that, You do that. Nothing better you can do. My environment. You can do that, but you still need to engage. Are you going to become a live -in father? No. Kids need to see you go to work. They need to come with you. You go to work. They see you and your mom go in places without them.

1:58:18Engage in the world. Go find out some new things, learn some new things. whether that's the physical frontier or the mental frontier. Take more risk there to learn as Mark Waters, director of Ghost Girlfriends, past told me one time, oh, we're gonna hate you, never wrong. I was like, thank you. He goes, but there's more than one way to be right.

1:58:46My greatest one of my greatest assets is that when I am certain on something? I can commit to it and can be an engine and a momentum to take me a long way. At the same time, I can leave unnecessary shrapnel with people I care about from my own certainty because I'm so committed and obsessed with this truth that I've crossed that I can block out an alternative approach to it because I don't have the confidence to go, oh yeah, Let me see that because I still think, oh, but if I see that, I'm going to lose some of this. And I'm still working on that. It was so beautiful to read poems and prayers.

1:59:31It was surprising and beautiful at the same time. And I said to you before we started recording, it's one of the first times that I felt like I went somewhere else in a while. And it's funny because it was three or four days ago that I read the first couple of poems. And then I went back a couple of days later. And I think, in part, because things had changed in my life in those couple of days. The meaning of the poems were different. The meanings of the prayers seem to be entirely different. You also have this incredible work which has been one of those smash hit best sellers of the last decade.

2:00:00Green light. So I know that. One of your good friends, Bill McRaven. Yeah. Admiral Bill. Admiral Bill McRaven. I'm always making a call and bill. But I always go, Admiral Bill McRaven. And he was somewhat part of the inspiration or he inspired or was the catalyst moment you sing him speak? It's a friendship that he and I have started to build and as is at a time when I was seeking out male mentors. After your dad had passed? Well, this is more than the last five years, six years, seven years, and I think I wrote that four years ago, something like that. And he always took my called always took time with me, always just without judgment, shared great wisdom with me.

2:00:49And without even knowing he shared it, I think I've just, if you ever get a chance to speak with him, it's been time. He's really gotta go on. He's got a wonderful perspective. Are you able to share what you were seeking guidance from him about? No, the main thing I would keep private. But then it was also we talked about, you know, fatherhood, husbandry, you know. He's got a great sense of humor of all that stuff too. And how, you know, making plans and seasons of our life and how much to rely on those and how much are they just like, no, that's just an old parable man, didn't really go like that, you know what I mean?

2:01:33And I'd give details, but I wouldn't, I feel like I might be speaking out of school if I did. I actually, um, we reached out to Bill McRaven. Oh, he did? And he wrote this wonderful letter for you. He said, Dear Matthew, I remember clearly the first time we met. I've been told that Matthew McConaughey was going to be in the audience at my talk. I'd long been a fan of your movies, but candidly, I wondered more about the man than the movie star. The man I met that day, the person I've come to know over the past 10 years, has exceeded all my expectations. You are as genuine as any person I know. There are no airs about you.

2:02:10There is no pretense. There is no Hollywood ego. There is just Mokonehei. You treat everyone with respect. I have watched you with your legal fans and never once have you fail to shake your hand, give a hug, take a picture and thank them for their kindness. I have watched you on the sidelines with your beloved lookhorns. When you are there, the entire burnt orange nation feels better than the game. In victory, your enthusiasm is infectious and in defeat. You are gracious and respectful, representing all that is good about the university and about Texas. I have watched you give back to your school, teaching the next generation of actors, writers and poets.

2:02:51I have seen your work as the Minister of Culture, bringing fun and a Texas flood, everything you touch. I have watched you after the tragedy in Yvaldi. It tore your heart out, and while others still on the sidelines wondering how to deal with those unspeakable horrors, you headed straight to Washington. Few people I know could have brought both Democrats and Republicans together to make a difference, but you did. And then you stood in front of the entire nation and pleaded for insanity. Through your compassion, your determination and your love, you have truly made a difference in so so many lives.

2:03:26I have watched you with Camilla and your children. You're as fine a father and a husband as any man I know. Every child should be as lucky as your kids. I know your mother is exceedingly proud of the man you have become. Finally, I want to thank you for your friendship, your unwavering support, and for making my hometown of Austin some place special to live. Take a, go McRaven. Wow.

2:04:01Thank you Bill. Ah, that's something else. You know, I did speak to him before I went to DC after you bounty. and just the wisdom with the context, the setting, do you see politics? But also in that being aware and understand those things.

2:04:44Go your line, man. Go your line.

2:04:52And that's beautiful to hear. You know, I did not know that he thought all those things about me. And that makes me feel good. I like to afford to give him a hug over our next cup of coffee or sip of tequila, that whatever it is. Good man, good, good, good, man, Neil McCraven, thank you. And everything he says in that letter is, what I've had reflected to me by everybody you've met and known, we've got some mutual contacts and those words ring true. And this is why I think you're a great role model for me, but also for young men like me, who are aspiring to figure out all this stuff with all the modern temptations and different paths we can pursue and all the options, more options than ever.

2:05:37and a less clear clarity on why we should pursue resistance and family and faith. And all the things described in this letter of the empathy, the grace and the kindness and the respect of others. But you stand forth as an example for why all those things, the most important things. And thank you for that Matthew. Thank you for being a role model to me and so many young men like me and so many people, not just men like me. And thank you for writing a brilliant book, poems and prayers, which everybody can go and get now. And just like me, when I read it, it might just take you to somewhere else.

2:06:09Somewhere else you might rather be, and somewhere else you need to go. Thank you. We're done. Beautiful. This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53 % of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to this show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, that I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week.

2:06:39We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.