#804: Robert Rodriguez, The Wizard of Cinema Returns — The "Fear-Forward" Way of Life, How to Overcome Self-Doubt, Learning to Love Limitations, and Counter-Intuitive Parenting That Works

25:24But we'll give you a format. We'll teach you. I want to train people how to do it so that they know. So it's kind of a film school too. Can you give us just a teaser of some of the ingredients of a good short pitch? A good pitch is anything. If we could sit here right now and I could tell you a story about, you know, there's a guitar player who comes into town. It's all he wants. Music is his life. And that's all he thinks about. All he wants to do is find a place for somebody, you know, to hire him. He goes into a bar in this new town that he walks into. They don't hire musicians. He leaves. Second later, a guy with a guitar case full of weapons comes in, shoots the place up because he's after the main bed honcho to leave a message.

26:05So now the word gets out. Find the guy in black with a guitar case full of weapons. It's a mistaken identity thing. By the end, he'll become the guy with a guitar case full of weapons. And he becomes, every movie is like a ballad, a sad, tragic ballad. He's going to meet somebody. She's going to help him. She's going to die. And he goes to the next town, but no longer can play the guitar because he gets his hand shot. So now he has to become that thing. Yeah, that's it, that's a pitch. But I can tell you that pitch because I already made that movie. I already wrote that script. It was harder when I was first just trying to figure it out.

26:39I was just taking little cards. But a pitch could be something like that where I would see the potential in it and go, this one, we can still work on it. We're gonna hire a writer. It's that seed of an idea that gets people to stop and listen that you wanna find. That's the lightning in the bottle sometimes. It's just the idea. and everyone's got an idea just like everybody wants to get killed in the movie so it's like this is how we're gonna this is how we're gonna make it fun for the fans because who's gonna consume it at the end of the day it's the fans not the zombies in suits that are up there who don't even watch these movies i go up there the disconnect blows my mind you go talk to some not all executives but you go to some studios you can tell they don't pay to go see a movie they don't watch movies they don't love movies yeah it's a business and then you go talk to the fans i was just south by southwest they're losing their minds they tell you about all the movies they've seen about all the things they collect.

27:27They should be sharing in that, not the executives. They're just going to piss it away. So that's the idea. You're very good at hooks. So before we started recording, when we were out on the sidewalk, about to come into the building, you were like, yeah, there's this one line. There's one line at the end that I figured out. What was the line? Oh, at the end. So when I told them all about this investment opportunity, at the end I said so this is how you manifest because I had been talking about manifesting they asked me the question Robert you're very positive but do you have any human doubts and I said no and I told them why and they were all clapping afterwards so at the end I said okay one more thing on manifesting this is how you do it next year it's our goal to come back to South by Southwest with our first brass knuckle film and ask yourself this if you have the opportunity to invest in being part of it and pitch an idea that might be that idea.

28:21Wouldn't you rather be sitting up here with us than down there in the audience? That's how you manifest. They all cheer. Mike drops. Mike drops. Yeah, it's true. You hit it. You set a target. I was talking about my old trainer. I had an old trainer who'd be like, we'd be working now. And you can tell he was just making it up as he went, 200, 200 set up, 200 pushups. And we just go, go, go, go. And, you know, just picking a big number and then just hitting it. That's kind of what you need to do. because if you aim low, you'll hit low. But if you aim high, it might go low. It might go there. And like Mariachi, when you read that book, it went straight up.

28:56But if I hadn't taken the action, it would never have happened. So many people wait. That's the discussion we had about, remember, you were talking about making a short film. Yep. And I said, we just got to commit to making it. We just got to go ready or not. Here we go. Let's set a date. We almost did it, but then both of our schedules got whacked. But you understood the lesson. I understood the lesson. Because I told somebody this whole thing. And he was there right where you were sitting, I think I told you. Somebody was right here and they said, wow, everything you're saying makes sense. You know, I've got a project.

29:29All the pieces are actually pretty much there. I just guess I'm not ready. And I said, that's going to be on your tombstone. Here lies so-and-so. He was never ready. Why is it that art you have to be ready for? In life, you didn't know you're going to get a flat tire. You didn't know you're going to go to work and be fired. You didn't know the fires are going to be raging. Every day you're like this, you know, trying to move with the, you're not ready. You're not ready for anything life is throwing at you, but you make, you become ready on the spot, right? Why is it that we think art and life should not be the same?

29:58Why art has to be, you have to be ready before you can begin. That's no relation. They should be the same. You're not going to be ready until you're almost done with a project. Cause a lot of the answers you need are not going to happen until you're on the journey. And that's what keeps most people from doing it. yeah and so that's why we're i was going to show you that real time but we are going to do it we're going to make a short film you're not going to know what you're going to make it on and it's going to fall in our lap because we start the process yeah that is a huge huge huge lesson you got to start it you just have to start you got to start i mean in a couple weeks you know i have this i don't even know if i've told you about this i have a card game i've been working on kind of secretly for like two years card game yeah card game yeah you always love you're always gifting me card games so you wanted to do your own card games and uh the reason that it happened ultimately is just booking a flight to go spend time with a master game designer and deciding by the time we leave we're either going to have a game or we will have stopped because we did a couple of i would say b minus attempts right where we didn't commit in that type of way and we met in different places around the country and we would play test different options and different concepts and then this final trip was like okay look we're both really busy we've given this a few shots this time we're just gonna pound our heads against the wall you're aiming up there now and we're gonna have a game or this is it and that kicked off the whole process now it's gonna be in thousands of stores that's great that's the way that's you know you used to ask me how do you get so much done.

31:35It's like, you know, I set the bridge on fire and then I run across. Otherwise it's not enough steak. You have a way out. Like the last ones, you had a way out. Y 'all didn't have that goal. You'll take the escape route. Yeah. It's easier. But if you just have, you've burned the bridge, you've got to go. When we have a deadline, it's a blessing. Like today, I even asked you yesterday, I said, do you really need it by tomorrow? Cause we could push it to later. you go, no, let's do it. So when you have a deadline, you said you make it happen. You make it happen. But we tend not to do that with ourselves.

32:07And it's a crippling thing.

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33:38Thinking of the audio book that you just produced and the book, we have spoken over the years about you writing another book yes so what what happened to that one what happened to that one you told me right after we had our talk he says did you finish that book because i sounded like i was almost ready the idea was called the creative life because you know i gave a talk once about pro max or something about creativity they introduced me and they said robert rodriguez cinematographer editor composer screenwriter they went through all my credits. And I got up there and I said, I feel dizzy just hearing all that stuff.

34:17And there's this book out. I always see it in the bookstores at the airport. It's called The One Thing about doing one thing. And I was thinking, well, that doesn't apply to me, obviously. But then I thought, there actually is one thing that I do when I think about it. It's not those jobs. I live a creative life. I apply creativity to everything I do. And that's why anything that touches creativity is open to me. So I can paint, I can draw, I can do anything because 90 % of any one of those jobs is actually the creative part. The technical part about any one of those, whether it's music, say 90 % creative.

34:52Some of the best musicians don't know how to read or write music. That's the technical part. So I realized that that is like, as they did all those jobs, that was the thing. So I want to write a book called The Creative Life where every chapter is about raising your kids, painting, drawing, filmmaking. You're going to see the same lesson over and over because it all applies. So that was the idea. And you asked what happened to it. It's like, I'm going through this whole new chapter that's so massive. I would feel dumb to put out the book now because I know this is going to change all my thinking.

35:23When I turned 50, I thought, I wonder if there's some other job I could have where I don't have to be doing as harder work as filmmaking. With the knowledge I have, there must be some. I don't even know what jobs are out there. This is the first job I ever got was making movies. I was so young. So I literally bought jobs for dummies and was looking through it. No joke, because I have these little icons just to see what's even out there. I was like, I don't want that. I don't want that. It got to filmmaker. And that little icon is a guy with his arms up like this and said, this is the best job.

35:56get to be creative with your friends make stuff and then just sit back and let the money roll in said but it says but 99 of film students don't get this job so forget that dream oh clearly i got the best job but i used to think well i guess i could keep making movies i guess that's been good to me i guess i could just keep making more but then i had to work with my kids for that red 11 project. Remember, it was one where we had to do another Mariachi, another$7 ,000 movie, but with digital cameras and show people how it's done today. We're going to make one. And I made all the other filmmakers that were in our group for this TV show I was doing called Rebel Without a Crew.

36:36You could only bring one person, just like I had Carlos Galladillo, the main actor from Mariachi. Only one person. You got to do everything. He can be your sound man or he can be your cameraman, but you got to do everything. You got to edit it. You got to shoot it. You got to write it. And you got two weeks. Like I had only two weeks to do Mariachi. And I saw the filmmakers, just like that thing I was saying about the kids pushing them. They'd only done short films. None of them had done a feature. This is your first feature. And we're going to document it. The documentary camera is going to be on you, like reality TV.

37:02I saw them turn superhuman between the first week and the second week. Once they started shooting, they had no idea how they were going to do it. They were like, oh, my God, this is just so hard. By the second week, I go to ask them how it's going. They're already talking about their next three films. Suddenly their idea of what impossible was went from that to that. Yeah. And so I did that as well. I wanted to do that. But with my kid, Racer, I picked one kid, my son, Racer, who hadn't been working with me in film at all for a while. I brought him to be my co-writer, my co-lighter, my sound guy.

37:31And I didn't show him how to use the sound equipment. I waited till we're about to start filming. Then I was like, OK, this is how it works. Go. And because we're documented. And I wanted to show people that even without any experience, you can go make a movie in two weeks with no money. And we did. And that thing ended up going to festivals, even getting over to Director's Fortnight at Cannes. And people were flying us and paying us to go speak about our masterclass on how we made that movie and show clips from the making of. We're making money from this little no money movie. The only reason we had to stop doing a tour, we went to Colombia, we went to Sweden, we went to Paris.

38:08I mean, we were doing really well. My kids were like, dad, you're right. This is really, this is really where I said, yeah, better than I thought. We only had to stop because we're shooting We Can Be Heroes. But the reason I'm talking about this label, what blew my mind about it is my kids, I thought things were going to - Labels you apply to yourself. Yeah. Labels you apply to yourself and to just a label like a company, a fake company within your realm, like brass knuckle. I would call that a label. I still do other things, but that has a very specific target and I'm getting all kinds of ideas just popping in my head because I started that.

38:37It's just this phenomenon, like ideas I never would have thought of before because now it's got a place to go. Just like with yourself, there's a label I'll tell you about, I came about that with yourself that really transformed. But my kids, I thought, they're going to resent me again. I'm afraid they might resent me for having to do this$7 ,000 movie for two weeks and see how much hard work it is. Because they had their own interests. They weren't going to want to make movies. But I said, I need him to be in it because he'll be a good example. And I made my other son act in it because he made those knives.

39:05I was inspired to make one of the characters a knife guy. And I asked them to do the score, too, with me, write the score. And I thought, they have their own interests. They're going to work on this one day and hate it. I'm prepared for that. Instead, they came at the end of the day all excited, their eyes all bugging out of their head. And they were like, Dad, the actor didn't show up. The script didn't match the location at all. And when we asked you in the morning what we were going to do, you said, I don't know. We'll figure it out. And we thought, just finally, the movie that stumped my dad.

39:39But then by the end, we figured it out. They're all excited. I went, oh, they don't realize that's the creative process. That's every day on a movie. But it's also every day in life. It's the same. And I realized on the making of that movie, so little of what I was teaching them was filmmaking. It was all life lessons. How to take on this impossible challenge. Two-man crew making a feature. I didn't know we were going to go to Cannes. I actually didn't predict any of that. I just wanted to finish for the project. But you get blessed because of that. and the label we created is because my son had come to me and said i wanted to draw comics but i'm not i wasn't born in the golden age of comics but i am born in the golden age technology so i'm thinking maybe instead of doing storytelling through comics give up the drawing thing and do it like with vr so let's start a vr company let's start a company i'll show you how this works all these vr companies need people to buy their helmets they need product if i call them up and say, I have a VR company.

40:37They'll give us money to go make them a short film. Sure enough, I just said, here, we all have double R names, all the kids. Let's start a company called Double R. It's the label we made. We're going to make t-shirts. We're going to make notepads. And they loved them. They were looking at them. Because now any project, any of you have, if Rhiannon has an album she wants to do or Rebel wants to put out a knife, then we can do it through Double R. It's our company. Now, when you have a company, you have a label, it's now manifested. Now you got to do stuff to fill that you have to do stuff to put into it right yeah you get all these ideas michelle rodriguez and norman reedis are in this movie called the limit remember that one they made us a logo double r logo big logo it went in front of our seven thousand dollar movie also it went around the world that same year three projects in one year i went to netflix to ask what they needed any movies and they said we need family spy kids type thing can you come up with something I kind of came up with it in the room.

41:34People are always ripping off spy kids. I should just rip off myself. Little kids have to save their parents. Only what if there are superheroes and the parents are superheroes that get captured like the Avengers get captured. Little kids with superpowers, they don't know how to use them yet. And the little girl who has no powers has to wrangle them together to work together to go save the day. Simple pitch, right? I wrote it out, wrote it with my kids. We came up with all these fun, special powers we've never seen in any movie. We took it. We sold it. It's the biggest movie on Netflix, most watched and rewatched movie in their history.

42:08Nothing can touch it because kids watch it over and over and over. And that has a big, glorious, the same double R logo in front of it. And my kids were just like, Dad, this really works. I was like, better than I thought. I was just doing it as an example. I did not know it was going to put food on the table in that way. So I'm going to do that again with Brass Knuckle, but with the fans, because we've done that before. because I told them, come be a part of it because proximity is everything. Remember I showed you that painter I went and watched and how my painting changed? Even though he didn't teach me one thing, except I saw that he just had a regular brush, regular paint.

42:47He didn't know how he was going to attack it each time. It made you go like, oh, I thought I needed to know something. I had a mental block and I went and did it again. And it was like, there it was. It was unbelievable. The proximity sometimes teaches you a lot. So I tell people, you come and be a part of the company. The proximity to us as filmmakers making this stuff, you're going to get 10 ideas, 20 ideas on your own. You're going to see your own thing. You'll be part of this, but it's almost like a masterclass without me even trying to teach you. That's just what I found by being proximity, by being around James Cameron, by being around George Lucas, by being around Spielberg.

43:22They didn't necessarily give me lessons, but just seeing how they move through the world, even for just a moment in time, transforms you completely. So let's say somebody's listening to this, and those are big names, out of reach for most folks. But they're equivalent in their world. Yeah. They're equivalents of people that they really admire, that if they just had proximity to them, they didn't even have to get a lesson from them, and it would just change. Because your parents used to tell you this, be careful who your peers are. That meant one thing when you were younger. It means even more now when you're older.

43:54Surround yourself with people who are heavy hitters. We talk to each other all the time because it just raises our game. Remember you coming over to my house and seeing, hey, what chopper is that? You're seeing upgrades that you can have just by proximity. You pick stuff up. Can you say more about labels? So label, I'm going to give you my favorite label example. And it's a thing I've realized now when I did the audio book that I already knew and had forgot. People would come up to me sometimes and tell me some quote from my book, and I'd be like, that was from my book? I was smart back then. What happened?

44:27But there was something I said in the book saying, stop aspiring. Stop saying you're an aspiring filmmaker. People come up to you, I'm an aspiring filmmaker. The words we use are really strong. You're always going to be aspiring. You're never going to get there if you call yourself somebody who's on the journey. Say you're a filmmaker. Make a card. I said, make a business card that says, I did, director, cinematographer, editor. Then what do you have to do? Just like the label, you have to conform to your identity. You have to go do that stuff now. And suddenly I have movies out. You go make movies because that's what a filmmaker does.

45:02What does an aspiring filmmaker do? Aspires. Aspires. Yeah, you aspire. I knew that back then, but I'd forgotten it. The reason I remember it is, okay, you always remark, hey, Robert, you're always in good shape. Did I ever tell you I hate sports? I hate working out. Did I ever tell you that? I'm not sure you told me. All through high school, they would want me to be on the team. Small school, I was so tall. Please, come be on our team. I was like, I don't know. Which sport? Football? Any of them. Basketball, football. We need players. And you're so big. Come be on the team. I was like, I don't even know how these games are played.

45:35I've never followed sports. I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I'm a musician. And there's a line in the faculty, Elijah Wood says. That's my line I used to tell people. I don't think you should run unless you're being chased. I just did not love exercise at all. But then later when I was making movies, my back kept going out because I was doing Steadicam, because I was sitting drawing for long hours. My back every year would go out really bad where I needed like a walker and a quarter sun shot, you know, quarter sun shots on my back. I remember Ricardo Montalban and his wheelchair at 84, and I had a walker when Spike gets two of my back.

46:05And he goes, Robert, I'm 84. What's your excuse? You have to work out. I was like, I know, I know, but I don't know how. I hate sports. I hate working out. The next year, I worked with Stallone on Spy Kids 3. And I said, how can I get better shape so my back doesn't keep going out? He goes, get thee a trainer. Anyone who ever got anywhere physically had a trainer. I said, even you? Don't you just go train? No. He said, no. No. I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than go work out. I was like, well, even if you even need a trainer, what chance do us mortal men have? So I got a trainer. And I would hide from him.

46:42I would pay him not to show up. I hated it. I hated working out. I would feel sick when he's coming over. And I would half-ass the workouts, you know, because I hate it. So this woman, a friend of mine from Mexico, older woman, my doctor told me I have to stop smoking, so I'm not smoking right now. I said, you're going to go back to smoking because your identity is a smoker. You're saying you're a smoker. You're going to go back. You have to change your identity. You have to say, I'm a non-smoker. I'm a non-smoker. because then if you just identify yourself as that, you're going to then conform to your identity.

47:16And you're going to, what does a non-smoker do? They hate smoke. It makes them sick. Stay away from cigarettes. All right, I'll try that. I don't know if it worked because I didn't follow up, but right away I thought, hey, I should apply that to myself. It's a good thing to go checklist yourself every few years. Where are some places that I'm not doing that, that I can change the label? So you know what I did? And you got to go 180. If you go by degrees, you're going to get anywhere. 20%, 30 % bullshit. 180. Of course I hate working out. What do I say to myself all the time? I hate sports. I hate working out.

47:47I hate exercise. I love food. I have to change my identity. You know what I said? I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete. By the next day, everything changed. What does an athlete do? Loves to work out. Makes time to work out. There is no time, but you make time when you love something. You eat right because you're an athlete. As soon as your identity changes, your label, you conform to that. So that's the power of identity and the words we choose to describe ourselves. I catch people all the time describing themselves and I go, you got to change that. You're already out of the gate. You're talking about yourself in a way that's not going to help you.

48:28Besides the aspiring, which you mentioned, where people are handicapping themselves by labeling, using that term. within, say, filmmaking? Are there other ways that you see people handicap themselves just in terms of how they view themselves or their situation or what they have or don't have? Are there any other common patterns that come up? Common ones? I don't know. It just kind of seems that anything that kind of takes you out of the game early by a belief you have. I don't have access. Everyone has access. You have a phone. You can make actually a story on a phone or you can write. I just say whenever I hear anyone use some kind of negative connotation to something like, well, I want to make something, but I just don't have the time.

49:13It's like, there's no time. If you're waiting for time to have, it's not going to happen. All the time is gone. There's no time. But we can make time. We can make time for anything that we put our mind to. So don't give me that shit. That's like taking a hatchet and chopping off your left leg before the race. You literally did this to yourself. You just hobbled yourself for no reason with these beliefs. And it's all you. You're your own worst enemy. You're like the one in the audience in your way. The biggest obstacle in your life is you. Always. I asked you this question outside because I was curious what your answer was.

49:47But one of the questions that came up was, so Robert, you're real positive. Do you have any human doubts? I wanted to come back to that. Yeah. And your answer was no. Yeah. We'll come back to it. I just didn't want to forget it. It seemed like I could work it in here. Yeah. No, don't get after it. But I wanted to, because I'm sure a lot of people are like, what? No doubts. Yeah. Okay. So walk us through that. Yeah. So they said, Robert, you're real positive. Do you have any human doubts? And I said, just to give me a chance to think, because I had never heard it that way, human doubts. But I said, what do you all think?

50:18And then I see people going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because that's the real answer you would probably give. But I like to do counterintuitive for everything. So I went, no. Why? because that's a manifestation, isn't it? I have no human doubts because I know the process too. You can't wait to be ready. They say knowing is half the battle. What's the other half? Not knowing. I think that's more important because that's where the magic is. You don't know what the other half is. Not knowing is half the battle. Yeah, not knowing is the major part of the battle. I got there to the set. I didn't know I was going to do any of it.

50:53But as soon as I saw how limited the options were, suddenly it became very clear. There was only one way to do it. And if you have that confidence going into each day, you shouldn't have any doubt. You shouldn't have any fear. A failure, my biggest successes came from my failure. So why would I fear that? What doubts? I couldn't think of any. Can you think of a doubt I should have? Like, give me an example of one that doubt you think, or even you, what doubts would you have? I think I need to basically take the last four minutes and just listen to it every morning. I just need to replay that every morning.

51:23I think it's a good reminder. Okay, but what doubts do you have? Well, I'll tell you, I mean, and this is, you know. It's a good question. Hopefully my parents aren't listening to this. But I grew up in a household where there's a lot of negativity. And there's a lot of, we don't have X because. We're never going to have Y because. We can't ever have Z because. Did you already prove that wrong, though? Yeah. No, exactly. That's all right. Now you go off your own history now instead of that history. No, totally. So there's software to overwrite. Yeah. Those are formative years. So yeah, that's hard.

51:57I can't think of any excuses that you should have. Just you even. What doubts would you think you would have? Just so I can hear it because then I go, okay, I agree with that. I just hadn't thought of any. It was so on the spot. I was wondering what you would answer on the spot. You know what I appreciate about the question is how effective it is at making you stumble because of the human doubts. Do I have inhuman doubts? Do I have animal doubts? Let's just drop human doubts. No, I know. I just love that. I'm like, wow, that's masterful. Have you dropped that? Judo move. Doubts. What doubts do you have?

52:30They wanted to humanize you because you sound like Superman when you talk. You know, a lot of times when we give these talks, everyone thinks you're Superman. But we know each other. We know that we all have weaknesses and this and that. But we don't want that, and we don't want to manifest that so we don't dwell on it. Yeah, totally. I would say that my inclination would be if I were on stage in your place, I probably would have said yes. But then if we dug a little deeper into what that means to me, I think it would differ from probably how a lot of people would use it. Right. So I would have doubts in the sense that I don't know how something is going to turn out.

53:00But that doesn't mean that I don't get started. And that doesn't mean that I stop experimenting. Because my whole thing is like, look, for instance, I'm launching this game. People are like, what? A game? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't connect to the other things that you're doing. I'm like, exactly. Because I want to see what's behind door number three. And I'm not going to know unless I do this thing that's off menu. So what are you going to do with it? What's next? I have no idea. Because anything I could plan now is not going to be as interesting as a lot that is going to surface if I do well with whatever the next step is in front of me.

53:39That's it. That's all I need to figure out. And a lot of the time, as you said, you're going to get there and circumstances will have changed. The thing that was supposed to get shipped from the warehouse isn't there. And you're like, okay. Okay. And actually, you know, side story, I'll keep it super short. And then I want to actually ask you about a name that came to mind when you said the creative life, because then I thought the creative act and I thought Rick Rubin, and I know you've met Rick Rubin. So I want to ask that. But when I had my very first presentation at South by Southwest, 2007, it was the launch of the four hour work week.

54:18And I had put together the most incredible presentation of my life. I I had rehearsed at a friend's garage to his chihuahuas. That was the only test audience I had. And if they got bored and walked away, I had to change my presentation. That was the only fine tuning. But I was so proud of this huge deck that I put together. PowerPoint. I get to the venue, my computer crashes. And it's like, well, here we are. Now what? You got to roll up the sleeves now. And it ended up being so much better than if I had used the slides. It ended up being so much better because I'd rehearsed enough that I knew the material.

54:54I didn't need the visual references. That was a self-doubt that I had, that I wouldn't be able to give it without the slides. Yes. And then the slides went away, and it was better than I could have felt. So you might have it. So you can have a doubt, but you're not going to live and breathe by that. You're going to push past it really quickly. Because you should have fear. You should have some fear going into something. Yeah. I call it fear forward. Fear forward. Yeah, fear forward. Yeah. Like, have the fear, but don't let it cripple you. Just go forward knowing you're doing something that's outside of your comfort zone, and you're going to reap great benefits.

55:23Yeah. You might slip on the first two rocks. It might be four rooms. But if you don't look at it with a negative point of view, you turn it into a spy. I think that's an RR merch t-shirt opportunity. Yeah, that's an RR merch t-shirt. I told somebody that years ago. They went, fear for it. I like this. I guess that's kind of catchy. But I tell you, I got to tell my kids this after we did this project together. I said, now you really know how it works. Because my son raised there. I said he was helping me with a film, right? By the end of the two weeks, they interviewed him about it. he's waxing philosophical about the creative process like he's been doing it for a decade yeah he said i never knew how my dad did el mariachi i mean every day was everything was just falling apart but we'd figure it out every day was figuring out i never knew how he did that movie for no money but now i do because we just did it yeah he didn't know either he just started most people never start he figured it out day by day and now he knew it in his blood because he had just done it.

56:20So I got them together and said, this was the greatest project we could have done together when you work with your kids. Because they get to be in the boat with you figuring stuff out. They see you trying to figure it out. They're part of the solution. We're going to get into this. I'm going to talk about nepotism. Why anyone who says anything negative on nepotism, you just get slapped in the face and kicked in the balls by their kids. It'll blow your mind. All right, we're going to come back to it. But this is the main thing. This is the main thing about this is that I told them, if I ever get hit by a bus, you all know what to do now because we just did it.

56:55It's all life lessons. You get together. You make your plan, which is like your script. You make it as bulletproof as possible so then you can go do your film shoot so you can go take action. Watch it all fucking fall apart. It's like your projector thing. And then that's when you roll up your sleeves and go, now let's take this chicken shit and make chicken salad. And it always comes out better. It always comes out better than your original plan. Every time. Wash, rinse, repeat. That's life. You just learn the most valuable lesson of life on this little microcosm of what life is, which is a movie.

57:32Because remember, life and art should be the same. You're writing a story and you're writing your own story while you're doing it. the story of who you are and who you're going to become and what you're going to achieve. As you're writing a fake story, that's why they go together. That's why people identify with stories. You're literally, we're writing our own story. So do you have doubts? Yeah, but I'm going to write past it. I'm going to write my story to where I'm not the guy that has doubts. So that's the power of creativity and labeling. And that's a label. Am I going to say I'm a guy who has doubt?

58:01No, because then guess what? Now I have doubts. And if there is a doubt, I can identify. I'm sure, like you just did, figure out a way past it right away. So that's why I would just say blanket. I don't have any doubts because I don't want to be the guy that has doubts. And I'm going to figure out, you know, it's kind of like you have to make your business card first that says a guy with no doubts. I'll add that to it. I have no doubts. I remember Kevin Smith, filmmaker, clerks and all that. He sent me a script called Dogma. He said, I wrote this script. It's got special effects. It's all out of my wheelhouse.

58:32I said, but you wrote it. And he goes, yeah, but it's definitely a Robert Rodriguez movie. You direct it. I go, why didn't you want to direct it? It's too big for me. Well, now you have to make it. You fear forward. You're doing something that pulls you out of your wheelhouse. And he was so thankful that I told him that and that he did it. Gave him the permission to go do it. And it transformed his career. Because now he wasn't doing the comfort zone. He was now reaching way beyond. So fear forward. Get out of the comfort zone. That means you're on the right track. If you don't have fear on something you're going to do that day, probably fucking wasting your time.

59:06You're doing something that you're just spinning your wheels. So you want to put yourself out there. That's not the same as having doubt. I don't think. I think it's just, it's a good litmus test. I have a little bit of doubt that this is, my daughter's going to be able to perform tomorrow because it's the first time in front of a crowd. She may get nervous. I don't know. She's never seen a crowd. She might step out and see the crowd and freeze. Who knows? But I don't want to put that out there because I don't want to manifest that. I want to manifest, and we're going to have cameras filming. We're going to make this a big moment.

59:32and she rose to the occasion because that's what happens. She looked like a seasoned vet. So Rick Rubin, his very first podcast as far as I'm aware, was on this podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. All right. Ages ago. It was in his sauna. He actually didn't think I was going to say yes because he had a barrel sauna at what was Shangri-La in Malibu. It ended up burning down. Sadly, this is quite a few years ago now, but he said, okay, okay, we'll do the podcast. At that time he basically did next to no media. And he said, we'll do the podcast, but it has to be in the sauna and we're going to do the sauna and then cold plunging and sauna.

1:00:11And I was like, all right, just sweating it out. So we did it in the sauna. Now, the one thing we neglected to consider was not the temperature of the recorder, because I could put that on the floor and it was fine. It was the mics. So we had to wrap those in towels as we did the interview. But you got to meet Rick a handful of years ago. Yeah. What was that like? I don't want to even speculate. I mean, I have my own guesses as to how you guys might mesh or interact. But what was that like? Oh, it was wonderful. He showed up at my house. Okay. You know, he was in town producing a band. I heard he wanted to meet me.

1:00:49So I said, yeah, he can just come to the house. So he shows up at my house. So I figured, oh, he's probably heard some of my podcast stuff very similar to his creativity. We all approach it differently. We all have our own theories. So he shows up and he goes, I don't know who you are or what you do or anything about you, but I had a feeling I was supposed to come meet you. So I said, you came to the right place. I'm going to show you my house. You know, you see my crazy house. I'm going to talk about my house. I'm talking about how I drew it first, envisioned it, built it. By the time I finish telling you about my house, you'll know who I am.

1:01:22So I go out and I give him the whole tour and he's like, okay, okay, yeah. That's just like my house. It might've been the one in Malibu. And that's just like my house in somewhere. And he goes, we're the same guy. So we go outside to where my waterfall is. And I pull him. We sit. He puts his feet up. And we just start talking. He just wants to hear about it. So I start telling him what we're talking about. All his creativity. My whole spiel on it. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going on and going on and going on and going on. I'm doing most of the talking. And then as he was leaving, he said, I want to give you my book.

1:01:53I'm about to put out a book. This book wasn't out yet. So he ran to the car. I came back out and it was just like a galley version of the book. Yeah. I said, what is this? And he goes, ... Actually, pretty much everything we were just talking about is in there. I was like really okay I'll give you my book so I gave my books the picture I have I'll show you it was him with my book in front of my house oh that's and then he left and then when he left I'm reading I'm like oh my god I read the book it's so similar but different to things that I because we all come at it from a different area but his solutions were similar but different because it's from a different world than mine same question same kind of things it's that hive brain I don't And you said this before.

1:02:33You said, because you're a creative, I know other creatives like this, you have one foot in the magic realm. And it's like when your foot's in there, you pick up the signal from the other. So you all kind of get ideas from each other. Before you even met, it's why you knew to show up. And I've had people just show up drawn there, knowing they're supposed to be there, not knowing why. It's this kind of magical thing that when you get into the creativity world, you really are tapping into the universe in a way to get your ideas. Because your brain's not smart enough. I'm not smart enough to come up with these ideas.

1:03:02They're out there. And everyone in every discipline has a different line for that. Like Keith Richards says, I don't come up with these riffs. They're all floating around. I was just the first one to pull it down and use it. They all have their version of that, that it's not from them. And that's the best way to think, because then there's no ego evolved. And if you have no ego, that it's just you're a conduit for this creative spirit to come through you, well, then you can do anything. I can be a good pipe. I just get my ego out of the way and let it come through. Because when you're in a flow, you start, I don't want to write this book.

1:03:30and then you start writing. The first few lines come out, then it starts going and you can't even believe what's coming out. It's because creative spirit, in my theory is, doesn't have hands. It's waiting for you to get off your ass and pick up the pen and then it can help take over. And so always take action. That's why I say always take action. Don't wait to be inspired. Action first, inspiration second. Because if you wait to be inspired, like to make your short film, good luck. They ain't ever coming. But if you just start making the film, ideas you never in a million years would have come up with come into your head because it's not you it's coming through you now it's like finally you're gonna go make that film we've been wanting to make creative spirit must be very disappointed in people who don't take action who sit there and i tell you where i figured this out when i was a cartoonist at 19 i had a daily cartoon strip it'd have to take me hours to draw it i would have to draw a little bit try to figure out a joke and I'd have a deadline every day.

1:04:28I wouldn't get paid. And I needed the money. I already had two jobs. So one day I thought, I've got to figure out a better, easier way. I wonder if I could just come up with a method where I go home, sit, and just try and picture it. Just picture it and then go draw it. And I'd sit there for hours and be like, deadlines. Oh, shit, I've got to go do this. I'd have to pick up the pen and draw. And as soon as I started drawing, I would draw one drawing, three others. And then I was kind of, oh, this kind of drawing kind of goes with that. I put that there, and then that would be formulated. That's the process.

1:05:00It's not going to come to you if you're just sitting on your ass waiting for it to make magic. You have to physically pick up the pen or pick up the camera or pick up the guitar. And then it's like, thank God, because it doesn't have hands. Now I can come through. Now let me take over. And that's the whole magic of creativity. So you shouldn't have any doubts if you could do it. As soon as you say, wow, I don't know how I did that. I wonder if I can do it again. You just shut the pipe because your ego got in the way. he thought it was you. It's not you. It's coming through you. So just be a clear pipe.

1:05:30I know that works because I taught that to my kids in a class when they were younger. And right away, they each wrote a book. It was unbelievable because they didn't have anything to unlearn. They didn't have any experience yet where we all have more doubts now because we're older. It's like that thing where you teach a class full of grade school kids. Who can write a novel? who can be the president, who can do an opera, who can dance ballet. They all put their hands up because they don't know better. You keep asking them as the years go on, hands start going down. Even with no life experience, they just all stop believing they're that person without any evidence that they're not.

1:06:09I always wanted to be that kid who had his hands up. No matter what. Even if it was something I didn't know how to do. Put your hand up because you'll figure it out as you go. Don't have a doubt. Just go do it. Just go do it. Seems to be working for you. It's been working for you. Do you ever see that movie, Being There with Peter Sellers? No. He's so naive. Yeah. He's just a gardener. Yeah. But he gets hit by a car and he ends up in Washington. And everyone thinks he's so smart because he's just talking about the garden. And they all read into him. And by the end, he walks across the lake. Oh.

1:06:45Because he doesn't know you can't. Doesn't know you can't do it. It's the most beautiful movie you can see. Peter Sellers, I think, got an Oscar for it or a nomination at least. And it's amazing. And you're just like, oh, my God. They all think he's this prophet. And everyone's quoting him and doing their own version of what he's saying. But he's just saying, when the roots are strong, the garden will flourish. And everybody's like, whoa. But that naive quality. You want to keep that naive quality. That's what got me to do Mariachi. I didn't know it couldn't be done. It was only until later when people said, how'd you make that movie for$7 ,000?

1:07:18You know that's impossible. I was like, really? It didn't seem that hard. But if you're telling me, I guess I just followed my nose and I ended up at the top of Mount Everest somehow. I wasn't trying to do that. But to some people, it was impossible. But to me, it was just solutions I came up with to make up for what I didn't have. Yeah. What does your journaling look like these days? Or what insights have you had? I hope I can inspire everybody to journal. Because it's really weird. I go do a talk and I say, how many people keep a diary or journal? it could be like a group of 400 people i'll see two hands yeah three hands i'm like oh my god if i can leave you with any impression my big thing now i tell people this is my theory living is reliving because you know you go to like a concert and people have their video cameras up and everybody says put it away live in the moment counterintuitive i say the moment fleets yeah You're not going to even remember it tomorrow.

1:08:17Do you even remember who was standing next to you tomorrow? Yesterday? You know, like from day to day, it just goes by. Because we see life at 96 frames per second, 20K resolution, surround sound. Like right now I'm looking at you, but I can see there's a glass here. I can see in the peripheral, there's someone over here operating this thing. A year from now, five and then 10, all our three-pound meat computer can process. It might have a file photo of you in a T-shirt and me in a T-shirt because we kind of remember each other that way. But the metadata will be some kind of narrative that we spoke and had a good time.

1:08:53Yep. That's it. That's all you're going to have. And when you journal, I'm shocked. I was trying to figure out when I had bought certain guitars. I couldn't remember. I knew some were gifted, but I couldn't remember. I just did a word search in my journals because I have a year-by-year journal. Guitar, guitar, guitar. So I'd read and it shocked me that, oh, wow, I thought I bought this one. It was a gift from this person. How can I not remember that? This is a big guitar. This is like a$10 ,000 guitar. How would I not remember that? And I would read a little bit of the diary around it. I was floored.

1:09:23Have you go back 10 years, even 15 years? It's like you're reading someone else's journal. You're reading someone else's journal. And it's like, I guess I just have to take it for what it's there. Well, my mom actually gave me a box of papers that was sitting in one of the rooms in my childhood home. She said, what do you want to do with this? And I opened it up and in that box were printed out emails that I had sent my mom when I was 15 from Japan to tell her what I was up to. And I did not remember. That was one of the most formative experiences of my life. I have a lot of memories from that period.

1:10:00I did not remember 99 % of what I put in those emails. It's like a dehydrated version that you have to put water on to reconstruct. But even then, it mostly just fades away. You don't even recognize it. But so it's so important to keep to your history. But imagine what's your favorite jokes and your favorite things about life that you share with your brothers, your family, your, you know, it's all past stuff. So living is reliving. My kids now love watching the movies of them growing. I shot so much video and kept journals of all their childhood. They all journal now, but they have their whole childhood because I gave them the journals of their childhood.

1:10:33They got their whole life journaled. But I've been showing them home movies recently because I've been digitizing all the old tapes. And I thought, they're not going to dig this. Some of this shit looks like VHS. It's so cruddy compared to today's HD stuff. I was showing them footage of them younger, and I have tons of it. I thought later in life, I could rewatch and relive their wonderful childhood, right? Forget it. I don't remember even filming this stuff. It's like New Adventures of. We're watching it not knowing what's going to happen next, and they're watching it. I saw my son leaning into the screen to see what was around the corner.

1:11:06I said, you just leaned into the screen. He said, oh, wow, I left the living room. This is like virtual reality to me. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. Then I realized why. Compared to our memory, that's virtual reality. Even the crappiest VHS tape. You hear the sounds, you see the place, you start reformulating. They cannot stop watching it. Every time they come over, we watch new fun tape. And we find classic new things that become benchmarks of humor and jokes that become iconic. Reliving is living. Like my mom turned 75. And I said, we got to do something for your 75th birthday. And she said, no, no, no, no, no.

1:11:45I don't want anything done. Why not? Because nothing can top my 65th birthday. 65th? What happened then? Oh, you gave me a car and you flew in everybody from out of town. I was like, really? I don't remember that. It was only 10 years before. I must have tape. I looked it up, found the tape, put it in. Oh, my God, I didn't remember anything. So I recut the tape, took it to her. And we had a big party. And I showed the tape. She was crying more. Now she knows when she gets the key what it means. She's like, oh my God. I was like, I don't have to do anything anymore. We'll just play the old tapes.

1:12:16It was more appreciated. The second living is reliving because that's when it becomes iconic. And in the moment, this is all just flying by and we don't know what's important. It's only by journaling that you go, this person's no longer with us. What he said changed my life and I didn't know. And I forgot that he told me this at this time. If I had not journaled that. So if your life is worth anything, write it down. Because then you'll be surprised how much of it is more valuable than you think. And you're only going to know that by journaling. What's your process? Is it like end of day? Word document?

1:12:48At 12, 12 a.m. an alarm goes off. It says journal. Because I figure by 12 at night, I will finish with most bullshit that I can actually sit and do it. I've actually got my partner writing journal now. Never kept a journal before. But because of the stuff I just said, you're starting to see the value in it. And they send me their journal, too. That's always the best. If you're a partner, also a journal. Seeing someone else's perspective on a big event. You have to journal every day if you don't want. But at least the big events. Valentine's, Christmas, birthday, special trip. Journal. I'm going to take you on a trip, but journal for me and give me that as a gift.

1:13:25And it's wonderful. Is it bullet points? Tell you what. I used to sometimes just do bullets. Just like I try to make more now. Because I've gone back. I try to write more, just more detail about what happened, just because it's going to be gone. Now I know it goes away. It's not going to trigger your memory. In the earlier days, if I only had time to write some bullet point type stuff, I would just do that. Because I thought my memory, you know, human. No. Gone. Yeah. Gone. It's someone else's journal. Yeah. Just know that. Even like seven years ago, before my son started writing music for me, he had told me, I found a diary.

1:14:01and she said, Rebel told me his one year, five year and 10 year plan. It was great. And I was like, what did he, what did he tell me? I don't remember. And I asked him, did you have it somewhere? He goes, oh yeah, I have it on my phone. Oh shit. It's not on my phone. It's in my diary. Oh, please find it and send it because now I want to know now because your whole life changed after that. I really want to know now with more interest than when you first told me, because now we know that whatever you said is not the path that ended up. And so, yeah, journaling is so powerful and so needed because you think you're going to remember.

1:14:35It's just a meat computer. It's not going to remember it at all. And now I just find myself having to leave myself breadcrumbs all day because my memory is fading anyway just to know what I'm doing, much less what I already did. But it does become iconic, and you find some really fun stuff. And if we find a video, oh, my God, this is the best thing. We find a video of us playing, having a great time, like 2003. And the weird thing you'll find, if you videotape your kids and journal, you find these weird 20-year full circle moments. You know, full circle moments. Like, we just started working with a studio, their favorite animation studio in Japan.

1:15:15They love Japan. They love Japan. They're all about Japan. Japanese knife making. They build houses with no nails, my kids. Oh, yeah. The joiner is amazing. I found the videotape. First time I told them about Japan. Me telling them, and I taped it because I wanted to see their reaction because it was like, you're going to love this place. And you see their eyes light up and they watch it now and go, that was the moment of inception. That was the moment we never forgot and we built upon. And to see that is amazing. But then you go back to the journal because there's stuff in the journal that's not on video and vice versa.

1:15:47And I go, wow, you know what we were doing, what I was doing while we were playing all those games? I was wheeling and dealing big deals in LA for Once Upon a Time Mexico and Cincinnati. And they see the context of what was happening in between those moments. And you get this clear picture of, oh my God, you can totally be all in as a dad and all in as a businessman. And that teaches them about life. Like, wow, you can have it all. You really can. You know, it just helps in so many ways to document your life. Do you have any other parenting hacks? The biggest life hacks is just working with your kids.

1:16:21Like I said, I stumbled upon it. But then when I saw Racer being so excited about what he learned about the creative process, and then I realized everything I was teaching them was life lessons. I went from fearing that they were going to resent me to realizing I'm going to make all of them work on a film with me. That's just going to be, this is what you got to do. Part of the deal. Part of the deal. Not so that you can become a filmmaker, because you're going to learn more about life. These are life lessons. And it's the best way to do it. It's project-based. It's challenging. So my son, when we did We Can Be Heroes, I thought, okay, he's done a few scores for me.

1:16:58Because he'd been playing piano since he was four. They all played piano. And it was just to connect right to left side of the brain. That's all we gave them that for. But he was our best piano player. And at the end, he did his last recital. The high school was finished. And he was already doing knives, Japanese knives making. And he won Forged in Fire. Oh, my God. Did I tell you he won Forged in Fire? My son, when he was 18, got on Forged in Fire and won that TV show. out doing all these other blacksmiths because he'd been teaching himself Japanese knife making. And I asked him, how did you win?

1:17:27You won$10 ,000. How did you, what was your mindset? You were using tools you'd never even used before. They were just throwing stuff at you and problem solving, creative problem solving. And he gives me this samurai answer that I love. He said, I convinced myself that I'd already won. Somehow I won. And so when I'd come up against the challenge, instead of thinking what I had to do to get past the challenge, I just needed to remember what I did to get there. I was just like, whoa! Some Musashi samurai stuff. I was like, wow! But again, you'll come up with innovations when you're thrown into the fire.

1:18:04And so he was doing so good with the music. He composed a couple of scores for me. But they were just all synth-based for Red 11, for that short film that was a VR film. We can be heroes, though. That's my bag. I do orchestral stuff. We'll do the score for that together. That way I can teach him orchestral scoring because that'll be the next stage. He writes the first piece, not even a picture. He saw what picture I was editing. He went and wrote it to me. It's like John Williams. It was huge. It was massive. And I was like, okay, yeah, sure. Let me check it out. I'll try the picture. I didn't want him to see me try it to picture.

1:18:35I put it to picture. It matched. I doubled it, tripled it. It fit this whole five-minute sequence. I called him up 10 minutes later. Come back up here and watch. It hits everything perfectly. If you could do more of this there, more of that there. He was stunned. I said, good news and bad news. Good news is it's awesome. Bad news is I can't help you at all. I don't know how you did this. Where did you learn music theory? They don't teach you that on piano because I never learned theory. And I was always proud of that. That's the 10 % I thought you didn't need to know. No, I learned a different.

1:19:07Now he can manipulate music because he knows theory. He goes, oh, I learned it on YouTube. I was like, well, I'll tell you what. You're going to have to write the whole score, but I'll help you. I'll be your assistant. I'll edit it. I'll show you how you can repeat themes. And he sat there and he did it. And he was just, I could just see he was just under the gauntlet. I said, dude, this is the only way to learn. Throw you in the deep end. If you get a lung full of water, we'll fish you out. And his eyes were like this big. But years later, he came back to me and said, I'm so thankful you did that.

1:19:35My whole life changed because you put, I didn't know I could do it, but I had no choice. He knew I could not help him. I wasn't doing it as some kind of weird teaching exercise. I said, let me see your charts. The thing you have going on in the baseline only, I would do a whole score with that. How'd you come up with all this? I can't help you. And I remember the conductor said, we recorded in Vienna, stopped midway. I think you sent me a video. Of him conducting. Yes. I said, go learn on YouTube real quick how to conduct. I want you to conduct one of them because I want video of you with a James Bond orchestra conducting your own piece because I never got to do that.

1:20:13Yeah. And you're so proud when your kids can take on the challenge. And you see it just transforms their life. But the Vienna conductor stopped the score and said, this is a magnificent score. I can't believe you're 20. He was 20 at the time. But again, you throw your kids in the deep end. And I tell this to all the parents I can because it's counterintuitive. A lot of parents would say, I don't want to push. But I tell you, if you have the opportunity to work with your kids, do it. Because it enriches your life. because you are mentoring them. They're mentoring you because they're figuring out shit like that that you never would have thought of.

1:20:49You're doing a project-based thing together that's impossible, that you're all going to overcome together. How many parents do you know try to give their kids advice on their job and the kid's just like, you don't know, you're not in my shoes. You're in their shoes. You're all trying to figure it out together. So you're actually useful. You're not just some Geppetto who's worried about their kid all the time. I always say, don't just parent. Partner. Because after a certain age, as soon as they're teenagers, they replace you with their peers because you become useless to them. If you're in a relationship last long time, partner.

1:21:20Don't parent anymore. They don't need a parent anymore. They need a partner. They need a mentor. They need an Obi-Wan. Because that's what they look for in their life. Mentors. Be their mentor. Their confidence grows when they're mentoring you back and they're seeing their confidence soars. And it's family time. You're checking all the boxes. I don't even do anything anymore. I don't take any job, any assignment, unless it's going to involve my children. Because life is so good that way. You're checking all the boxes. You're preparing them for life. You're learning from them. They're learning from you.

1:21:49And it's family time. I was telling this to Stallone. I was having dinner with Stallone and his wife. It was pre-COVID, right after COVID, something. I had just done We Can Be Heroes, this movie, the biggest movie on Netflix. And I was telling my son did score. I wrote it with my kids and all this. and Jennifer was like, her eyes were just wide. Like, whoa, she hits Stallone. She goes, you don't work with your daughters. You don't work with your daughters. I was like, I was like, well, man, I don't want to get anybody in trouble here. You know, maybe I should reel it back a little bit. But sure enough, next year, his daughters have podcasts.

1:22:27He would show up every once in a while to help, you know, boost some ratings and stuff. Now they have a TV show, Family Stallone. All of them together, working together, they live that dream. And they're just so happy. So I tell people, because people can't unhear it when they hear it. They just need to know someone did it and that it worked to know, oh, I have a way to try that with my kids. Because I didn't know my kids would have wanted it to work with me. You know what happened was my kid's teacher told me, you know your son Racer, when he was like 15, he loves knights. We're studying knights and we're talking about squires.

1:22:58And I asked, well, who would you want to apprentice under? And he said, my dad. I was like, really? He's never told me that. Did he say that? He goes, yeah, he said it to your dad. I was like, wow. How'd that feel here? It was wild. It made you, see, kids have egos too. Yeah. They don't want to go and just tell you that. They might tell someone else, but they're not going to tell you. So don't assume. Don't assume they don't want to be part of your life or be part of your work. Since I've been working with my kids since they were very young, I didn't know it would keep going for 20 years, you know.

1:23:30and now it's just become the thing that we do. And they endlessly inspire me because they just have that confidence built in, but we're building a go-kart together. So I tell, I know some parents would dismiss it as an opportunity like that and call it entitlement, but wow, you're so wrong, so wrong, let me set you straight because this would be a curse on your life if you don't at least know this. I would say, and I'm curious if you agree or not or if you have your own position on it, I would say that if you have an opportunity to work with your children, if you're in that position, because I don't know, maybe not all jobs adapt to that, but take it.

1:24:05It's a tremendous gift to everyone involved and beyond. Because if you refuse to do so, because you're afraid other people will call it nepotism, you are missing out the most important opportunity of your collective lives. Because look, what happens as parents when we pass away? don't we just give everything that we created to our children is that not entitlement they had no part in building there was an opportunity to build this with them so that when they inherited they could go i made this with my dad right right so it's like oh thanks dad for all this shit that i had no part of that you went made without me being involved at all, getting that chance to have that mentorship go both ways, to build something together, to have that family time together, because you were afraid someone would call you up for nepotism.

1:25:09Thanks. I'm having a ball, and it's inspiring everyone who's a parent to go partner instead of parent their child and have a relationship to last your whole life. Yeah. I mean, what strikes me about it also, So, I mean, there's trust fund kids or trustafarians have a new term. Well, it's not exactly the same, but it gets used similarly. Nepo babies, right? But the connotation of that word I don't think applies to you at all because at least, and this is not the Merriam-Webster definition, but when I think of nepotism, there is a sort of unearned giving implied. Right. Right? There's an unearned giving implied.

1:25:50And then there is teaching, which you do. And then there is another thing, I would say a step above that, which is enabling someone specifically to have the confidence that they can figure it out, that they can learn, right? You didn't tell your son to go to YouTube and learn music theory, but you put him in situations or you hinted at forthcoming situations that would require a lot of tap dancing and figuring things out. And if we were to create some type of like Maslow's hierarchy of working with your kids, there are different things you can impart or give. And I would say the lowest level is giving someone a fish, right?

1:26:40Instead of teaching them a fish. but then above teaching someone to fish, teaching your kids to fish is saying, Hey, whether it's piano, fishing, music theory, or something that you are going to come up with on your own as a solution to a problem or a challenge or a dream that I can't even think of. I'm going to put you into enough circumstances that you have the confidence you can fear forward. You have the confidence that not knowing is half the battle, but you will get there. You can tell them that stuff all you want, but when they're doing it with you, they learn so much better. I mean, that's why I said - Well, it's like you sitting on the couch with your head behind you trying to come up with the comic strip.

1:27:20It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. But you can tell them all that, but it's different when they've lived it too. That's why I did the whole, if I get hit by a bus, you know what to do because now they know it in their bones. When we did a talk in Columbia with a$7 ,000 movie that we did together, I mean, the boys, we went, they flew us down there to go talk. And everyone was in Columbia. These guys live in poverty. They were leaning forward to find out how to make a movie with no money so they could get out of there. And we were talking, and one woman was asking a question about screenwriting, and I was giving my answer.

1:27:51And Racer said, because he had written the script with me now, he wanted to stand up and say, what he's saying is really true because he had lived it already. But it wasn't, this is stuff he'd heard before, but now it really sank in because he was there. Yeah. And what's cool is if you build your family up, like your team like that, you know what I hear so much now that I hadn't, probably because I'm older and I've been around longer, a lot of people will just assume I'm too busy to do whatever project I'm doing alone. Yeah. So they say, yeah, we can't wait to work with you and your team. Yeah.

1:28:19Most people have a team. Yeah. My team is my kids. Yeah. And it's got just more jobs. Like a video game company wanted to be in partnership with me and said, well, let me tell you who my team is. All my kids are gamers. I got them into games when they were really little. They know this world inside out. One of them is even a game designer. That's my team and they're in my house. We love this. We want to work with you and we're going to take it to the next level because we've done this other project and this other project. And this was the process we did. They've done deal. We're doing it now. Now my kids get to make a game, a real game, like a big ass game.

1:28:52And you get to do it together because you've already trained them to be. And it used to be a joke when I had so many kids, I had five kids. I would say, oh, yes, my future cast and crew. I would just say it as a joke. Hey, it turned out to be true. They're my cast and crew. So is there anything to the story of the double R's besides the fact that you have the double R's? Is there more to it? Yeah, double R's was just from a family of 10 kids. My mom's name is Rebecca and my sister's name is Rebecca. We're the only double R's, my mom, my sister, me. and I always just loved the alliteration of that.

1:29:25You know, like the double R's, it was really powerful. R, R, Rebecca Rodriguez, you know, Robert Rodriguez. So once you name the first kid with an R name, well, then the second one and then the third one, and I gave them regular middle names so they didn't have to be, you know, so like there's Rocket, Valentin, Rodriguez, Avellan. He can be Valentin Avellan or he can be Rocket Rodriguez or Racer Rodriguez or Maximiliano Avellan. They want to go into politics and not be pro wrestlers. They can change their name. But I didn't know they were going to keep those names past childhood. I thought it was just fun kid names.

1:29:58Everybody has five names. One is Ro, Joaquin, Cecilio, Rodrigo. One has five names. So he can pick his identity. I wanted him to just use it as a little. Every time he has to fill out a government form, he's like, oh, god damn it. I'm not going to use that. But they didn't want to get rid of their first names. They love their first names. So I thought, if everyone's keeping their first name, let's own it. Double R is kind of a cool logo. So what's fun was that it just looks cool, double R. And it means all of us. And it makes us like a tribe. And it makes us all. And it gave them a lot of pride.

1:30:25I was surprised how much pride they had in it. And they all started coming up with ideas. Rick Rubin comes over and he saw them holding a picture up. And he goes, hey, double R. That was my artist's name when he was a DJ. He was double R. I was like. That's amazing. This is one of my favorite things that when I've told parents, they go, I want to try that with my kids. It was something I stumbled upon. or is having some kind of family talk with the kids. We usually have these things we call tribe talks where you talk about anything. It's like we're a tribe, like we help each other out. They get so excited about tribe talk.

1:30:58Let's have a tribe talk. And the tribe talk is like asking one another for help? I have a new thing I want to talk about that's going to affect their lives later. Let's have a tribe talk about this. They're so excited because they learn about something that I want to share with them to prepare them for life, something that I might have just learned that I wish I could take a time machine and tell myself, You can't. The closest thing to it is telling your children. Because I used to think any advice I'd give them, I'm afraid, might probably just go in one ear and out the other because it's not real to them yet.

1:31:26They probably have to live through it and find their own mistakes. No, they would process it and give it back to me. And I would be like, where'd you get that philosophy? You told me that. I didn't tell it to you like that. I might have said glass is half empty or half full. Oh, yeah, well, we built upon it. Well, they take what you tell them and build upon it, right? So this one was, I thought, I'm going to be very honest with him and tell him all the major decisions I made in the life. Walk him through, because there's a funny scene. It came out because of a movie. We did another Spike Kids.

1:31:57There's a scene where the parents are talking about Operation Fireball with such memories about it. And the little girl asks, what is that exactly? Oh, we beat up the bad guy. We blew up his lair and all this stuff. And she's just like, you could have done it a better way. You could have gone to him nicely. You could have talked to him, seen his aesthetic. And it plays it out, right? So I thought, I'm going to try that with my kids. I bet if I told them all the decisions I was faced with that a lot of times are lose-lose. There's no clear way to go. And as you think 10 years later, you'll see what the real answer should have been, nothing.

1:32:28There's never clarity sometimes. I'm curious to see what they would have done with the knowledge more evolved. So I walk them through. It was fascinating. It was fascinating. At every turn, okay. Okay. A or B? Which way would you go? I'm not going to tell you what I did. They both suck. And do you know what they say? I don't want to have to pick. No, you have to pick. I had to pick. You have to pick. They picked every time it was the same until one. They go, it's a big one. They go, well, if that's the circumstances, that's the knowledge you have, we go, yeah, that's all the knowledge you have.

1:33:07I would have done what you did too. I would have left. I should have what happened because I stayed. I should have done that. I knew I should have done that. But I went ahead and stayed because that's the right thing to do. I did the right thing and it blew up in my face. Watch. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The right thing by external. Right thing, external. External status. Anyone else counterintuitive though would say with the evidence you have, counterintuitive as it sounds, you should go that way. So you picked the right thing. I should have done that, but because I decided to do the right thing, you just felt so good after.

1:33:41And they were so excited knowing now what life really is like. It's going to throw shit at you that's no clear answer. Even with all this time, no clarity. They know that it's a lot tougher and they're invested because it's you and them in a way. So I tell parents, I told, I won't tell you, but several hours were like, I'm going to try that with my kids for sure. I'm curious to see what they say. You want to see if they remix a better version of you, but you might be surprised that it's just as unfathomable to them to have an answer as you did. Okay. Life hack, my favorite life hack. Have you seen, I showed you that little spark amp, right?

1:34:20That I can play guitar. Okay. Okay. So, you know, no time, even when you try to make time, you can't make consistent time. You're supposed to walk 10 ,000 steps, you know, for your health, especially after 50 or whatever. Time for that takes an hour, an hour and a half. I don't have enough things to listen to or phone calls to make to go do that. Then I love guitar. I can't be playing guitar for a freaking hour. You know, we listen to Tom Morello on this masterclass. You want to get better at guitar? Play for an hour a day. If you want to get better than that, more. So I started trying to do an hour a day.

1:34:51I couldn't do it consistently. So I'd be like, God, I want to play guitar. I haven't time to walk. So I put them together. The Spark Amps, they have some that are really small. Now they just came out with the headphones that you just put it on. It's the amp is built in and you plug in your guitar wireless. And I used to have just the one in my pocket, their older one. And I put a playlist on the backing tracks, drums and bass for songs, my favorite songs that I play to. And I walk just around my house and you forget you're even there. It's like the Angus Young workout. You know, he's always doing that.

1:35:20Or Eddie Van Halen running around. The music drives you. You don't even, the room is gone. You're in a stadium. You're walking across the stage. Your house is bigger than most stages. Walking across. I put on like an hour to an hour and a half playlist. This was like 10 or 12 songs. Easy. 15 ,000 steps. 17 ,000 steps. Easy. You don't even know you did it. You don't even remember walking. You're so transported. You're so busy doing this that I'll be at the end of my playlist going, I'm going to keep playing. And you just keep walking. That's why you saw me in the crowd, walking through the crowd.

1:35:57I'm so used to playing walking. You're so used to walking. I went walking through the crowd, greeting everybody that I knew instead of, I said, Oh, shit, I can play and walk and not have some looking. Because I got that training. But anyway, anyone who's a guitarist, the best life hack. You get an hour plus practice every day. I got so much better on guitar because of it. And you're walking. And you're not even feeling it. I don't even remember doing it. Biggest life hack there. I couldn't wait to tell you. I call it the rock walk. The rock walk. Got to do the rock walk. My friend goes out in the neighborhood with his thing.

1:36:30He just walks around the neighborhood. When I saw you on stage with your daughter, that's the most I've seen you play guitar. Wow. I've only seen your guitars in the house. Right. But that was the most actual playtime I have seen. Wow. Yeah, yeah. That's so funny too. That's right. Because I don't go just play songs with you. With the Hello Kitty guitar. Rocking the Hello Kitty. It's a good guitar. And it looks great. Yeah. Robert, we'll have to do this more than once a decade. Yeah. Thank you so much for all the stories. Sure. I took a ton of notes. How can people learn more about Brass Knuckle Films?

1:37:04Where should they go? Should they check out? There's a Brass Knuckle Films website where you can learn all about it, get all the updates, show you how you can invest. You'll see all the perks and things for the different levels. Get a part of it. It's a community. I think it's really going to appeal to anyone who's a fan of action movies, but also filmmakers, but just people who are interested and people who consume. don't just be a consumer make the money back i want you to make the money so that you're not just consuming and watching a movie if you like movies this is the best way you it's i try to figure out ever since i was a kid how can i get paid to watch movies because i watch movies all the time it's the closest thing yeah brass knuckle films beautiful all right folks we're going to link in the show notes to everything tuned up blog slash podcast thank you robert thank you for giving me a forum to tell people there are no people we're here because everyone listens to your thing because i just just like with my book i always wanted as soon as i made mariachi i wanted to share it with people because i knew i would have appreciated hearing that as a filmmaker who had no money from a family of 10 that it was possible because everyone made it sound like it was not so i just wanted to shout it from the mountaintop and it still feel that same way as i discover things i want i want to tell people because it the feedback loop is amazing you know when people come back and tell you how they worked it into their life in their own way It inspires you all over again.

1:38:25Inspires you even, you're like, well, you just inspired me now to go try it that way. So yeah, I love sharing that. Yeah, incredibly energizing. It's a virtuous circle. And for everybody listening and watching, until next time, be just a little bit kinder than is necessary to others and to yourself. Thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend. Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

1:39:00Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about.

1:39:40If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Way back in the day, in 2010, I published a book called The 4-Hour Body, which I probably started writing in 2008. And in that book, I recommended many, many, many things. First generation continuous glucose monitor and cold exposure and all sorts of things that have been tested by people from NASA and all over the place. And one thing in that book was athletic greens. I did not get paid to include it. I was using it.

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