Matthew McConaughey on How to Fall Back in Love with Your Life | A Bit Of Optimism

I found a journal entry I wrote the other day that I said, my life has been more getting comfortable with what I was getting comfortable today with what I was uncomfortable with yesterday than changing what I was uncomfortable with yesterday.

Let's. Let's double click that, because that's great. It's about getting comfortable with what you were uncomfortable with rather than changing the thing that makes you uncomfortable.

Yeah. When you have that sort of resilience, you're a repeat offender. You keep stepping in the same pile of shit, and you get up and dust yourself off instead of ever stopping to go, why do I keep stepping in that same pile?

What do you do when you're really good at something and your career is thriving as a result, except you're really bored or have completely fallen out of love with it? That was Matthew McConaughey's challenge. He was Mr. Rom com for years, and as much as he wanted to change, both his agent and audiences couldn't imagine him doing anything else. And so the offers never came. Instead of doing what most of us would have done, continuing to make the money and enjoying the success, he had the courage to simply stop. He started to say no to all the wrong offers, and he was determined to wait for the right one, no matter how long it took. How did he find that courage? The secret is, McConaughey knows himself so well that the pivot was an easy choice. The question I wanted answered is, how can the rest of us have that same clarity? And the answer may surprise you. McConaughey has actually been journaling since he was a teenager. And all those private pages that he wrote eventually became public in his first book, Green Lights, and again in his new book, Poems and Prayers. And the lesson all of his work teaches us is that when we have to make a hard pivot in our lives, it's actually much harder to do in the moment. And instead of waiting for them to happen, we can start preparing for them today. This is a bit of optimism. One of the things that fascinates me about you so much is a couple things. One, in an industry where you're only as popular as your last thing you did, you know, products on a shelf that everybody loves you while your product is selling, and then you sort of. You disappear. Your ability to sustain a career for as long as you have is incredible. But also, you have a curiosity that takes you in different directions, and you sort of. You're doing all these different things, and people are still interested in what you're doing, and you have something to share. Is that your personality or is that a strategy?

Oh, God, I think both. Subjectively. Yeah, it's my. It's my personality. I'm. I'm telling the same story in different ways. I mean, there's a through line to. To. To all the things I do. They are definitely under some form of just keep living. What the hell else we're going to do? Is it a strategy? Sure. Am I objective enough to look at myself at times and go, hey, what are you doing? What do you want to do? How's it is what you're doing is how it's being perceived is what you thought was going to translate. Translate. And those. Those don't always add up. So as much as I strategize and make plans, I mean, I've had hits that I thought were not going to be. I've got, you know, my. My favorite poem or favorite song, whatever thing that movie. Not necessarily always everyone else's favorite. You know, if I'm more popular or less popular now. But I will say this. I admire the people that like my shit more now than I used to. You know what I mean? Like, the people who go, ah, dig that, McConaughey. I have great respect. More respect for more of them now in my life than, say, I did earlier when maybe I was even more popular because. Because you.

Because the work is better?

Well, I think. Because I. I think my work's better.

Yeah.

Where maybe it's not giving just what people may want. Some people are going like, oh, no, that's what I want. But that's also. That's a need. There you go. Like that. Okay. I think my work has gotten better, I hope. Yeah.

Does age have something to do with it? You know, I. I think of, like, Hugh Grant, for example, Right. Like, Hugh Grant was the pretty boy.

And all of the romcoms. I took the baton from him in all the romcoms.

But at some point, you age out of that, you know, like, you can't be the cute boy anymore because you're just too old to be the cute boy. And. And now he's like a serious actor.

He's a great bad guy.

You know, he's a. He plays a lot of bad guys now. He plays a lot of complex characters now. And he's like. He plays like real people. He's not just playing the same character over and again. And I wonder if it's just because he aged out of that and. And now he's having fun. Is age a factor for you as well?

Yeah. Interest, confidence. It means More to me, less objectivity, being less objective about, oh, what is it? Maybe I should give them that they want. I've tried that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know that. I don't know the formula on that. So when I have gone, no, no, no. Do I have a real reason for wanting this? Would I do this for not a dollar? Is this going to be the greatest experience of my life? Is this my favorite movie, project, book, whatever I've ever worked on? My life is my last one. Yes. If I'm there, a lot of times it works out. And if it doesn't sort of financially translate into a hit or something, I'm like, so what? The experience I had, it meant to me because it hit. It's on my greatest hits. It's on my, you know, so is it age? I think, you know, you customized look, the 40s, the, the, the decade of the 40s were my favorite. That was a customizing decade, I hear it is for, for, for many men. You know, that's where I was, like, 30s were getting rid of things that didn't feed me. 40s were leaning into the things that did and evolving and, and, and, and helping those get more mature and clear for me. And then Hugh, I don't know Hugh well enough, but I know he's got a crackling sense of humor. He'd probably say something like, well, I don't know. If I grew out of those rom coms, I'd say I'm just playing roles that are more like who I really am now. I would guess he would have some sort of comment like that, you know.

Oh, that was acting, right, Exactly. This is the real you. The reason this line of questioning really fascinates me is because most of us are told to, you know, whether, depending on your point of view, pursue passion, pursue talent, pursue, you know, work hard, whatever the thing is. But at some point, for whatever reason, whatever your initiation is, you get good at something. And that getting good at something opens up more opportunity, gets you a promotion, makes you recognize for that thing. But then at some point, it's not that it Peter principles out, it's that it gets boring. And I see this amongst very successful people, which is they're good at making a movie. They get good at making the deal. They know how to produce.

Yeah.

But they've kind of seen it all and done it all. And though they're good at it, if you dig down deep, they're actually incredibly bored. And they either have golden handcuffs and the money is too good or the power is too good for them to make a shift. Or what's more common is just fear, which is I can't start again. And this is again where I find you fascinating. And I don't know if it's courage or foolhardiness or boredom or curiosity, but I think we have a lot to learn from you because you have reinvented yourself or added more arrows to the quiver as you've gone, which a lot of people can't do. Not even don't do, but can't do.

Right. Look, I will say this. I know I have a instinct to. If I put something out there and if it becomes a hit, if it becomes popular, if it becomes like, oh, that's a part of the vernacular. I'm, I'm. My instinct is to weave. Let, let's.

Oh, so when all right, all right, all right. Becomes a thing, you're like, goodbye.

Well I'm goodbye, like. But I also understand, like Bruce Springsteen, I'm going to give you Born in the USA in the encore, bro. I'm going to give you the hit. I understand the hit for what it is. Some of my hits like that, I'll go, I'm not going to be arrogant enough to steal that low hanging fruit from somebody if they want to say that. Because personally, it's the first three words ever said in film. When I thought I was going to be working on a hobby on a film set in Austin, Texas in 1992, it turned out to be a career 37 years later. So I'm not going to boo hoo that damn thing right, unless I know the author, you know what I mean? So when I go work with somebody else creatively, they'll want to go, hey, can you do. Or someone writes a script for me to go, hey, can you introduce them? They'll always put all right, all right, all right in front of it. Or they'll go like, hey, maybe in this skit you could do that. Uh huh. And I'll I'm constant to go, no, no, no, I got new, I got new, I'm not going to rely on I got new stuff or I got original stuff that's not a hit and I'm just going to try some of that out rather than go rely on those where I don't really need to. But if it's coming from somebody else first, I'll play right into it and, and, and add onto it.

It's a tricky thing. Cause like I remember in my career, like, so start with why was the thing and everybody just wanted me to do, start with Y. And I loved it, and I believed in it, and I was passionate about it, and I was happy to do it. Then at some point, it's not that I got bored, it's that I started to feel very disconnected from the work because I've been giving the same talk for so long. But it was not an authentic passion on the stage. Even though I believed desperately in the idea, I couldn't talk about it anymore. And besides, I had new ideas. And I remember I started to say, I won't do this anymore. I have new stuff. And people were so afraid of me doing new stuff because they're paying money, they want the hit.

Yep.

And so I'd say I'd like new stuff, and people would say no.

And did you start just answering the question they should have asked?

I. It was a combination of ignoring people because once you're on the stage and you have a microphone, it's too late now, right?

Yeah.

And it turns out that the new stuff was really good so that they were happy. And it was also finding a couple of people who were like, all right, we're entrepreneurial. We'll let you try something new. And the first pivot was the most difficult because other people felt the risk more than I did because they wanted me to play to the thing that they knew me for, and they had the risk. I was fine with making a pivot, and if I bomb, that's on me. But once I did it once, people were much more comfortable with me trying new stuff in the future. So I guess the question is, is what was the first one that gave people comfort that you can pivot? Like, the fear that they had of. Of doing something new with you was excruciating. And they couldn't do it right because they wanted the thing they knew that would work. And you were offering them something that there was no data. You're a rom com guy.

Yeah.

You fit a box.

Ring of Fire. It's a great, fun story. I'll tell you. So I'm. I'm rom com king and I get hard. Reign of Fire. Play the Dragon Slayer. Post apocalyptic London. Okay. Well, I decide 4:00am that, you know what dragon slayers wouldn't have? I had good long locks and everything. Wouldn't have long locks. You know, you won't catch on fire. So I'm gonna shave my head. Well, I shaved my head the next day. This is back before phones and people just taking pictures the next day. Paparazzi got me on the street in New York with a shaved head. And I don't have shaved your head but it's kind of can be ugly. The first re shave, it's stark white and it's got lumps and divots and stuff. I get a note from the financer two days later, says they saw the picture. He goes, I'm going see this picture where it looks seems as though you, you have a shaved dead eye. I'm assuming this is a bald cap and just a prank you're pulling because if you didn't fact shave your head for this role, that would be bad karma. I'm like, oh, but I'm about to lose the job. How can I save this thing? I go tan my head out by the pool for a week. I buy a three piece blue suit and I go to this pop in Hollywood party that next Monday night, man. And I'm getting in all the pictures and taking pictures with everybody on purpose, looking sharp. Two days later those pictures come out in the trades. I look sharp with a bald head. It's tan beards, kind of got gold locks in it. All of a sudden get a call. Love the creative choice of the shaved head. Perfect. Well, what happened? Somebody, I don't know, some secretary to someone go, I think he looks kind of hot. And he went, you do? Okay. I was in. They wanted, they wanted the locks of romantic McConaughey comedy McConaughey. That was it. And I just bucked it and then kind of out hustled the hustle by going, well I want to keep the job. And I'm going to. If I can make them think I look, you know, h o t to to somebody, their eyes, then I'll keep the job. And it worked. Yeah. Look in now speaking engagements I get, you know, I do speak engagement where I go talk to companies. They're going into a new year. Here's their theme and they would love to talk about green lights. Well, I put out poems and prayers and I'm going, okay, I like talk about a lot of stuff about green lights and they're true stories. I can tell them for, for days. The same time I got other stories and I've even since then I've got new ones and I've got new philosophies on life that I'm trying to test and find patterns in for the next book and just philosophy. Well again, when I said earlier, do you answer questions that they should have asked? I'll, I'll come off of the typical green light answer that they love and give them something new. And it is maybe a little shocking the first time, but I'll test it. You know, you can tell in the audience did it translate, even though it's the first time they've ever heard it or not, what the moderator expected. And if I pull it off, I start to incorporate that. And now all of a sudden, I'm building a new narrative for what I will talk about and how I will talk about things that are different than they were four years ago. But when.

When did the market become comfortable with you doing things that were different and not what they had hoped for or expected?

Well, I forced my own hand and thankfully forced theirs. And they played into it literally when I took the time off from the rom coms to go do the dramas and I didn't know how long I'm not going to get offered. And it went for two years. Right. And then they came back and thought I was a new bright idea for something like a Killer Joe, which was an independent hard R, almost NC17 show, but it was an independent that it popped above the level, the waterline.

But the point is, you had to start with an independent. Yes, you had. You had. So this, this makes sense. So there was somebody where they could pay less money to get a McConaughey. They were willing to take a risk because they'd rather have your name in the trailer than you play a rom com guy like Big Hollywood wouldn't take the risk on you.

No, they let me back in the independent world. And we're like, yeah, and you know what? We'll pay a fourth of your quote. You want to do that drama, but we ain't touching your quote for the rom com. Right. All right. And then it was, we're not paying your quote at nothing. Doesn't matter how little you take. So then the independent comes in. I happen to be in an interesting story that pops its head a little bit and I go. And I kind of like a. Like a. It was. It was a rapid fire. One, two, three. I had that and two others kind of came out at the same time. They weren't all big successes. They were independent, but they sort of got their head above the waterline. The performance and the movies, they were either. They were just radical. Yeah. They were wild little indies that kind of got me in the spirit award sort of area. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And so with that success, I kept going. Then we get some that. Well, mud wasn't. Mud was still not a big studio thing. That was like a $10 million thing. Dallas buyers Club was something we had had that we shot for 5 million. So, yeah, they continued to be independent, As a matter of fact.

Yeah.

Even in True Detective went back into tv. I mean, I don't know if I'm counting this correctly, but there wasn't a big studio film that came back to me. What, Interstellar?

I mean, you tell me. I mean, I think that may have.

Been the first big.

So now this is really interesting, right? I. This is. This is really interesting, so. Which is if somebody has the confidence to pivot a career that the market, Your boss, whoever it is, is afraid to put you in the new job, instead of trying to convince the market that they're wrong, you have to be willing to bear some of the cost of their risk.

I think so.

And in your case, you bore the risk by going off the market for a while. You bore the risk by dramatically dropping your fee because you knew you couldn't command your old salary for new stuff. Because no one will take the risk. No one's gonna pay your big salary on something they've never seen you do before. But an independent film that wants your name more than anything else will. And then you said it was a bunch of indies. And then the first big Hollywood director to pick you up is kind of known for being a risk taker.

Yeah. And he did it off of. He said off of performance, in mud and. And a risk taker, but on a very large budget. But a director who's got his. Got the. Got the power to go. This is my choice.

And again, my head immediately goes to, like Quentin Tarantino choosing John Travolta.

Right.

Basically gave him his career back. And we'd never seen Travolta do a role like that.

Right.

But you're right, he saw you in mud. And you know what's so funny? This is part of bearing. This is. I love this. And this is what happened in the. The Dragon Slayer film. It's what happened here, which is. It's. People have no imagination. Right. There's a reason why we stage a house, which is. If you walk into a house, an apartment that you want to buy, and it's empty, nobody buys it. So they put fake furniture in and they put fake pictures on the wall. So because you have. People have no imagination, you have to do the work for them so that they can see the thing that they think that they're looking for. And like, I got in trouble when. When I was selling because I love art and I've got art everywhere. Every empty space has something in it. And I was told when I was selling my apartment, I had to take stuff off the walls because some of the art was too esoteric and people wouldn't be able to imagine themselves. That's not their art. Okay, so what you're doing is you allow the independent filmmaker to take the risk on you and you're willing to bear the cost, taking less money, doing something that's quote unquote, less prestigious. You. And then you're allowing somebody, you're staging the house. You're allowing somebody to see you in a way they've never seen you. And then you get picked up because he saw you in mud.

Right. And I'm also. This time, though, Camilla just had her first child.

Yeah.

And I believe never is man more masculine than right after their first child. I mean, my head and my heart and my loins and instinct were so synchronized where if I thought about it, any of my investments at that time in business and relationships, my choices for films, my instincts were, bam. I was just going with them. And I was not asking permission. I had an fu. Attitude about, oh yeah, watch this. I, I, I, I was like. So part of it was I, eh. To the studios that would. No, it wasn't that. I was just like, watch this. I'm gonna make you go tap out. Got it? Kind of got it. Got it. Okay. You know, we got, we got it. Geez. Another one. Oh, shit. Okay, stop it. No. Okay, I tap out. I'm gonna make them tap out.

What's the balance between confidence and arrogance?

I like the balance between certainty and selfishness. I'll say this. I had a, I've always had a, I've had a lifelong wrestling match with understanding humility. Because as I was raised, maybe it was how humble came across, how I heard it coming across, maybe through the church, that there was a sense of humility. For 45 years would. My shoulders would draw and my head would get down when I would be humble or if I was too high. We were always brought down the ground in our family. But don't be on your toes. You ever pulled up to a stop sign and, and it's, you pull up and it's, it's their turn. They were there before you. And you pull up and they wait like, go. And you're like, you go. And all of a sudden you're action. You're like, your false humility of saying, I'm just going to let everyone go today. You're stopping traffic. You've just taken. Given it cost us more time by just it's kind of a false modesty. And I lost. I would lose confidence in my understanding of humility for 41st, 40 something years. So to battle that, I would come out and overcompensate by confidence into some arrogance to where, I mean, I was more than. More than ego. I was, I, I, I. And I'm responsible. And I'm doing this to comp over, compensate for that false understanding of humility. Until I heard the definition of humility being admitting we have more to learn. Or someone told me the other day, being, being extremely honest. And I was like, oh, now I can grab a hold of that. My shoulders are still back. I understand to be humble, my chin's up. And I admit I got a whole lot more learned. And yes, do I love to be in the know. You damn right I love being in the know. I also want to be in the know about what I don't know. Now I'm understanding humility where I'm walking and I'm seeing an opportunity. There's the gap. Get it? Bam. Took it. Introduce myself. Oh, that person meant to this. Two years later, we've written a movie, we're making it together. That's because of that moment that night where I saw that gap and they were walking out the door and I said, I want to talk to Simon about this bamboo where. If I'd have been that understanding of prior humility, I'd have. No, no, no, let me go ahead. Maybe we'll cross again.

Bob Gaylor, who is the chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, many years ago, he said, and I love this definition and it's very consistent with what you said, which is don't confuse humility with meekness. Humility is being open to the ideas of others. Yep.

Yeah.

And where did you learn that humility was. You have always more to learn. Where did that come from?

So much I know in my life, and I think maybe for a lot of people is our own definition of the word.

Yeah.

You know, I always was like, wait a minute, everyone's preaching be humble, but no one likes to be humiliated. There's just words that we malaprop or each one of us have a different prescriptionist definition or our experience of how he grew up with that word meaning, you know, takes on a different definition. And sometimes I know for me, it's just a click. If I can get the right definition of click. Oh. And that's not a false definition. That's actually one I can constructively use and go forward. Oh, oh, I get it. I can Battle over something for years and be confused and confounded in one little click. What'd you say? Say that again. Ah, now I get the whole equation. Thank you.

This is a great example. These words.

You're right.

You know, the problem is, like, we're constantly being told by teachers, parents, you know, colleagues, bosses, be humble. You know, be confident, be humble, be confident, be humble. But those words, as you said, they mean shoulders up, shoulders down, shoulders up, shoulders down. And you find yourself playing this silly game. But when you find a definition that just allows you to manage your behavior appropriately, which is be open to the ideas of others, you always have more to learn. Instantly you show up, shoulders up and ears out. It's not arrogance. It is confidence.

Right.

And it is humble because you're like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more of that. Yeah, I think. I think you're right.

And boomerang back to be able to look in the mirror and go, you're right. Yeah, that part we like to forget in our definition of humility or selflessness.

Yeah.

You know, I think that's where we bastardize the definition of selfish. True selfishness, I don't think, means do whatever you want at, you know, at your neighbor's peril. That's not selfish. It's actually not most selfish. Because if it's at your neighbor's peril, when you're out of town, someone's robbing your house, your neighbor's less. Less intended to go, hey, I'm going to call the cops for my neighbor. I'd say that's more selfish to take care of your neighbor with your choice as well as taking care of your own. Is. Is investing in doing, making sacrifices today for our children's future more selfish or is to absolutely rampage all our resources today so they'll be left to nothing? That. Which one's more selfish? I would say the first is more selfish if you love your kids. I mean, again, you talk about Infinite Game. So much of it's based on how can we. How far out can we project?

Say more about how it's more selfish.

Like kids in the love. Right? You give a damn about your kids. If you're going to make a sacrifice today of some resources you have or maybe sacrifice some time of something that you want to do, you could do it another time, even though you really want to do it right now, Just maybe spend time okay with your kid. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's that practical. If you're gonna sacrifice that and hence in hope, spending that time more Time with them will help them become more healthy adults as they go out into the world on their own in the future because of the time they got quality time they got to spend with their father. Or if it's more magnanimous, you get your, a resource that we have right now in our life that we're using up to go, man, you know, we're getting ours now, but boy, we're depleting the future for, for my daughter's generation when she becomes or her kids generation. But if I sacrifice some now, they'll have more later. So which one's more selfish is what I'm saying.

There's data on this that when people invoke, you hear politicians do it all the time. You know, when we invoke it's the right thing to do for our children. What would you do for our children? What about the future? Preserving the future. And nobody ever makes the right decision with that framework. Right. Because we always think about the here and now. But there's data on this that when people have a sense of where they come from, you're actually better at making long term decisions because you don't want to let down those that came before you. You don't want to make their sacrifices go in vain. So if you know about the sacrifices your parents, your parents, parents made on your behalf or that benefited you, you want to uphold that legacy and that actually makes you a better decision making. So actually seeing yourself in a continuum.

And in the continuum, yes. If you do that, isn't that ultimately more selfish? Or, or I ask you this because my, my pastor thinks I'm pushing a big square rock up a big steep hill with this redefinition of selfishness. I'm trying to reclaim it to go, no way. Everything we do should be more selfish. We should be more full of ourselves. We should project further if we can just believe that the rewards of our, what we do now, if we can project further out for when we may get them and we may not even get them in this lifetime. Yeah, maybe it's our kids, maybe it's the next generation, maybe it's four generations, not. Isn't that delayed gratification a more selfish act?

If I play the role of your pastor, I think that you are playing with the paradox.

Yep.

You can't choose a side because it's a paradox. Right. So every moment of every day, you are both an individual and a member of a group. You're you and you're a member of a team, a family, a church, whatever it is and every day you're confronted with small or big decisions. Do I put myself first at the sacrifice. Sacrifice of the group, or do I put the group first at the sacrifice of myself? And there's two schools of thought. Protect yourself so you can help the group. Protect the group so they can help you. You made the neighbor analogy. But the reality is it's both and it's sometimes paradoxical and it doesn't always line up. And this is part of the difficulty of being human. So I think to say that's more selfish or that's more selfless, the answer is yes. Like selfless acts will benefit you and selfish acts may benefit them. And I think it's the paradox of the juggle. And the goal is not to let the scale tip too far in either direction. Because there's also a difference between being selfless and martyring yourself. Where you're giving and giving and giving so much of yourself, where you get no sleep, all you have is stress because you want to be the best person in the world. That's self destructive and that's just stupid. And so saying no sometime is the best, the best thing you can do for the greater good.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love yourself as your neighbor. That's directly just going back to the selfish.

It's, it's, it's accepting. It's accepting that even when I'm a part of a group, a community, a society, a church, a team, even in those moments that I'm a part of a whole, I am also me. And I think to try and reconcile the paradox, people can write whole books about one side versus the other. And I think it's a fruitless exercise. The answer is both. And the only way you know you're doing a good job is you can only check in on your selfishness by checking in with yourself. You can only know if you're doing a good job on selflessness by checking in with others. And I think the way you reconcile the paradox is by constantly checking in with others and constantly checking in with yourself that you get feedback from others. Are you okay? Thank you for being there for me versus you selfish asshole.

Right.

Because if you only check in with yourself and never check in with others, you run the risk of being caustically toxically selfish.

Yep.

Versus toxically selfless.

Yep.

Which is toxic to yourself. So I think that as social animals, we forget that we have feedback mechanisms. And I think perhaps this is why you're, you've become a, an advocate for the, for Positive selfishness is it? I think you have a practice of checking in with yourself more than most.

Okay, I've been, I've been. I've been told that many times.

And I would guess that where you've over indexed on arrogance by accident is because you were checking with yourself and forgot to check in with others.

Yeah, that's when my selfish can turn into certainty.

Right, where you humbled yourself excessively. It's because you took the counsel of your dad or others too much at the loss of checking in with self. Which I would. Which at the most basic level is, you know, gut check. The most basic levels. Does this feel right?

Yeah.

Did you cultivate checking in with yourself? Like what age did you start journaling for example?

Start journaling at sincerely journaling at 17.

Okay. What happened at the age of 17 that you said I'm going to start writing it down my life.

Well.

Which is a. Checking in practice. That's what it is.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So things are going really well. And.

I was.

You know, I was the guy in high school who was. Yeah, I was popular. Yeah, I won most handsome. I had a four handicap in golf. I had a job with some cash in my pocket. I was dating this girl my school. But I was also, you know, best friend, good friends with the quarterback of the football team. But I was also one of the only guys that was friends with. With Betty Rice who was everyone thought was the. The only class gothic lesbian. You know, I was also the guy that got in fight because the, the gang tried to pick on Ernie, the short little black kid with the big afro and they kept thumping him and I just was kind of. He was the underdog. But I noticed that things were going well for me for some reason. I think it partially had to do with my buddy Rob Bendler who because I was such an extrovert and on the weekends would love to just go party and chase girls. And he was my first friend that I met in art class and he was 120 pound wet Jewish kid who he introduced me to. Hey, you ever watch movies on a weekend night? You ever read a book? So we became buddies. I. It was great because my mom would call salt and pepper. I would bring him on Friday night to our tailgates in the country where we drink beer at the kegger and dance and taste girls, listen loud music. And then on Saturday night, night we go to his house and watch a movie or two and talk about. He introduced me to a philosopher book or something. We play ping pong and just hang out. And so he invited an introspection that I didn't know was there, but I had already. So I start writing things down about, like, why are things going well? I noticed in ways that I was handling preparation for my grades so I could make mom and dad happy. I didn't give a damn. My grade, that's he'd make A's, make Mom and dad, if they're happy, then my life's easier. Then I'm getting more of what I want. My curfew gets extended. I can go play more. I got more freedom, so I got that game. I don't remember how the Liberty Bell cracked, but I passed that test, you know what I mean? So I'm figuring this out. I'm also noticing at this time, oh, this high school GED don't mean nothing, bro. Just got to make some good enough grade to get into a college. And I also noticed at that time, at 17, college don't mean nothing either, bro. So I started to kind of think past that, even at 17, and write things down in my life. I was like, these are working. And these will. I believe these will continue to work. Now cut to a year later. I'm exchange shoot in Australia. I'm lost, lonely. That handicap, the girl, the 45 bucks in my pocket, the no curfew, the straight aids, red light, stop. I'm in the middle of the country and bump nowhere with a very odd family, and I'm all alone. I don't have my buddy Rob to hang out with, talk about on Saturday night, Although he was one of the only people I wrote. I don't have my friend or that girlfriend or my affluence that I had on Friday night for my confidence to bounce things off. I ain't even got my parents to bounce things off. So while I'm losing my mind over there, I'm alone. Basically, I'm going mad, but something in me is telling me, this is good. The harder this gets. I was finding a certain pride and honor, independence. I felt like I was paying because I was like, boy, this. Every day I go through this. It's a better reward on the other side. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to keep believing that. Now, was I tricking myself for partial sanity? Yes. Was I surviving on a certain optimism? Was it delusional? To an extent, yes. But I would say in hindsight, it happened because I don't think I'd be here with the lab if I didn't have that year. I Wrote in earnest in that year because I was my only friend I could talk to. So I wrote 14 page letters to me. I returned 16 page letters to me. I was in a Socratic dialogue. That was awesome. But I look back at it now. They're hilarious. Simon. Talk about too many adjectives and adverbs. With kid who's lost, it was like 19 line run on sentences with more lys on more words. It was like, oh, you're. You've lost your grease. But I stuck with it. Yeah. I was forced to figure out who the hell I was. I was forced to talk to myself without having any exterior stimulus or that I could trust coming to me. And it was a full year, which is a long enough time to get through the other side of it. Yeah, I stayed in hell and I didn't have a parachute to pull, as you know, if we stay in it long enough, sometimes you come out the other side. The shit. I had this experience with riding green lights.

Yeah.

I looked at my past. I had shame, I had guilt, I had embarrassment. The first two weeks of sitting down with my journals since I was 18 years old were hell to look at. And then on the 12th day, all of a sudden, I got. I'd read some shit I did, and I went and I laughed. And all of a sudden I started looking at all the other shit and I started giggling and I started noticing all the other shit I did. I was like, oh, it got you here. You. That time when you were extremely arrogant, you got hump. Look, look. Six months later, you got humbled in front of a bunch of people. Bam. You got brought down to the ground. Oh, you learned a lesson there. Oh, that. And I started to notice it was a science to get me to where I am. So I started to laugh at those things that I was embarrassed, shamed, and guilty about in earnest. Journaling started at 17, continued through a hard, hard year at 18, and since then has been. I write when I'm in trouble. And I've learned. And I always said early on, don't just pick up the damn pen when things are going shitty. Pick up the pen when things are going well. Because there's a. There's a. There's an engineering, there's science to it.

You have a remarkable relationship with discomfort and the idea that the things you do in your life are a mechanism to live a life you want to live. Right. So, for example, you weren't necessarily motivated by grades, but by getting good grades. You recognize that your curfew goes up and your parents Leave you alone.

Yep.

So you go through the discomfort of studying not for the grade, but for what the grade provides. And you're in Australia in a very uncomfortable situation, and you could have shut down, you could have acted out. But this relationship you have with discomfort and your ability to project the life you want to have and that you dealt with it in a fascinating way that, remember, you're only 17.

Right.

And I find it so fascinating that in this period of discomfort, you say, how do I lean into uncomfortable? Here I'm going to write it down and put my discomfort right on the page in front of me.

There's two things I want to bring up on that. One is I found a journal entry I wrote the other day that I said I've. My life has been more getting comfortable with what I was uncomfortable with yesterday than changing what I was uncomfortable with yesterday.

Let's double click that, because that's great. It's about getting comfortable with what you were uncomfortable with rather than changing the thing that makes you uncomfortable.

Yeah. Now here's the challenge with that, that I noticed when I was 35 and I'm still working on it. When you have that sort of resilience, your repeat offender, you keep stepping in the same pile of shit and you get up and dust yourself off instead of ever stopping to go, why do I keep stepping in that same pile? Oh, maybe when I turn the corner of this red part of the race in my life, I'll weave to the right for the first time. No, I'll step in it over and over and over and go get back up. And part of that, as I think with most of us, our upfalls are actually our downfalls too. You know, what we're the best at is actually where we can work on the other side of the coin just as much or more in our life.

So good.

I. I can be a repeat offender.

Your grit becomes destructive and.

And part of that creatively is what I have to watch.

Yeah.

My upfall creative is I think I can make anything work. Simon. Yep. I got a theory that. I think it's a term rather than a theory. I think more. But it goes along with your infinite game and our talk about projection and playing through the immortal, immortal finish line. And I've noticed that I do this and I'm. And I've been practicing it and sort of find it working on this pattern for a few years called oversight. I oversee everything, relationships. I come into this. I don't know you that well, but I come into this with a great reverence for you. I go into projects with a great, incredible reverence for them. Even myself and the world, the art, most people, myself included, underperform. But the reverence that I went into them with, I find that I got so much more out of them and for me and out of the project because I thought it could be perfect and, and, and transcendental. It got close to genius, maybe even touched in the prophetic areas, but never became divine. But, oh, I wouldn't have got there if I wouldn't have come in with such reference. And then going, ah, you went for the A, you got the C instead of going for the C and getting the F. Ah, great. There we go.

I think it's, it's a nice way to approach life, which is to give people the benefit of the doubt and have such reverence and respect. When you walk in the room and you say, prove to me why you are not deserving of this reverence versus coming in with a cynical attitude and be like, prove to me why I should like you more, respect you more, and because you'll find the evidence, right? Which is if you're looking for someone to be great, you'll find all the evidence of their greatness. If you, if you come in cynical, you'll find all the evidence of them letting you down. And what it does is it boosts other people up. They want to, they want to, they want to make you proud. Where rather than prove you wrong. Slight change of tack here, which is, can you tell me something specific that you've done in your career? It doesn't matter if it's commercially successful or not, but any project that you've been a part of at any point in your career where if every project were like this one, you'd be the happiest person alive.

The latest one, and I, without knowing it, now that I'm saying, of course I'm saying the latest one, because the last thing I'm doing is always my favorite one I've done. Last project I've done besides one. I had, one of my first ones. I'm not going to say the name of it, but I just had. I had a project here in the last couple years that I finished that was not my. That into doing it. It was not my favorite one I've ever done. Every other project I've done. The one I was doing last was like, this is my favorite one ever.

Okay, so what was it about the last project that you just did that you would say if every project was like this one, moving forward, literally I'm living the perfect life.

The book tour that I took with poems and prayers. And I'm not just saying that because that's the book that I've got out there right now. Instead of going to bookstores and signing, I said, let's have some more fun here. And I said, a lot of these poems are musical. They're poetry, they're fun. I like orating them, I like saying them. What if I go? And I remember I was like, oh, my friend John Mellencamp went to unannounced to state parks with a guitar and stood up on picnic tables and just started playing. Salho would gather. I was like, oh, that's a great idea. And I stuck on that for a couple weeks. I was like, well, let's organize myself a little bit more than that. What if I get theaters? I was like, yeah, I'll go to theaters. See if we see what size I can get some people in. I'll do, I'll do some poetry reads. And I was like, wait a minute, what if I invite a musical guest? So within a week I worked up, boom. I got a 22 minute opening sermon and then I invite the musical guest out. We talk about some themes about in life, about a certain prayer they play, they accompany. I do 12, 12 song playlist and it's, it's, it's spoken word prayers that are songs. I did eight stops with eight incredible musicians. I do a show New York, fly to Nashville, sleep, wake up that morning, Nashville, 11 o', clock, show at 6 o', clock from 11 to 4:30, work on the next day's show which was going to be in Tulsa. I was always just working on one day head one day, had one day the playlist and what I was going to write. That a lie. It was, it was like a documentary. So I was only a day, I was only a day ahead of preparation, not months a day. It was live. It was vital, I think, getting on stage and not having the, the demarcation or the border between communication, which there's four borders in film, right? I'm doing someone else's script, someone else's character going through someone else's camera eye and edited by someone else. So there's four filters from my raw expression before it gets to you. All right, Even writing, that's one filter. But boy, the direct line, I've never, and I've never done stage before. The direct line of being on stage and that each night and then slowly getting the confidence to go, oh, on the fly. I'm going to update how I communicate with what I'm getting back.

But what specifically was it about this tour, specifically about this tour that stands? I mean, you've had a remarkable career, you've done remarkable films, you've had incredible collaborations. You've done collaborations before. You've done all of this. What was it about this tour that outstrips everything else you've ever done?

I wrote it, I believed everything I said. And I had so much fun presenting it and sharing with directly. No Memorex, no record. This is it live. It's not to bank away and as an asset to put out later. It's one of the best natural drugs I've ever had. Okay, And I was high.

Tell me an early, specific, happy childhood memory. Not like we went to my grandparents every weekend. Something specific that I can relive with you.

Okay. Front yard, Getty Street. Busiest street in Uvalde, Texas. Five lanes, two going each way and one turn in the middle. We lived right on it with no fence to the street, but there was a sidewalk, asphalt sidewalk. And we had St. Augustine grass in that yard and one pecan tree. And in the hot summer I remember being out, I could. I was allowed to play in the front, even though there was no. I knew not to go past the sidewalk right in my diet. Well, I remember being there and under that tree and it being hot. And me finding for the first time that, oh, the roots of Saint. Saint Augustine's A longer, thicker grass with a deeper root needs more water. No matter how hot the day is, the roots of the St. Augustine are always cool. And I remember that being a coolant for me. Besides being in the shade, I could find shade starting in the middle of the sun on my feet by nestling my bare feet into the roots of the St. Augustine. And it would cool my feet, which would then cool my body. I remember thinking that was really cool.

So of all of the amazing experiences you had as a kid. Good, bad, an amazing mother. Sounds like a fantastic experience in school. What was it about this memory that is the reason you chose to tell it to me over all the others?

Probably because that same afternoon I heard this sound coming from down the street in Getty street about quarter a mile away. It was going and it grew louder as it neared me. No. Nana. And I looked up and I already had a rock in my hand. Cuz right when it got in front of the house, there's a car and there were four guys in it, one of them being my oldest brother. And they had the windows down and Their asses out the window. And just as it got in front of me, na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na. Fat. Throw that rock out there. And they laugh and it fade off down the street. And as much as that drove me and my little pudgy, pudgy diaper self crazy. How cool is that? My big brother, my oldest brother. Yeah. And his friends took time to pick on me.

Yeah.

While I was playing in a diaper in the front yard. I knew, I knew that was a love letter. Even then, as much as it made me.

There's something really interesting between those two stories. I'm not sure how to reconcile it, but when you told those two stories of the tour and then the front yard, there's a lot of connection. There's discovery and self discovery. Like standing in the grass and discovering for the first time these routes that can keep you cool. The discovery of you on stage, never done stage before. The newness. And then there's also the reaction, which is you get the reaction of the audience, you know, which you said was intoxicating. And hearing that's the outside world that sort of like, you know that, that my. My big brother that I look up to. And this is your point about you show up with reverence. You know that they take time out of their day. Like, that's a very different perspective than most people have, which is. Oh, my God, he. He's thinking about me with his friends.

I wouldn't have been able to verbalize that then, but I knew it then, like as much as I threw the rock at him and wanted to hit.

That car, it was part of the fun rather than anger, it sounds like.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't go sulk about it for long afterwards.

Right. I mean, if I had to draw sort of a pattern here, which is. Which is there is a self discovery about you, which is you are very curious about the thing that is you.

Yes.

And I think that a lot of people go through the world, even if they're curious about the world. I don't think a lot of people are curious about themselves. And when they are, it's when they have to work on something or deal with something because something went wrong. You got trouble at work, you have relationship issues. And now I got to deal with this thing that I've got a temper. But I wouldn't call that curiosity. I'd call that reaction or triage. And you have an ongoing curiosity about yourself. The story you tell about you in high school, like you're this really popular kid. But you want to know why you're popular. You're in Australia and you want to know why you're struggling and your comfort with all of these themes that we've been talking about, your comfort with discomfort. And I think it all boils down to this common root which is you are insatiably curious about yourself. Even the discussion about trying to give selfishness a better brand. There's this pattern that is this a book of prayer, a book of poetry, which is really an exploration of self. All of these things, the journaling, you can see the boredom when you're the rom com guy and you're saying yes to shit films until you stop saying yes to shit films. Not because the market doesn't want it. It's because there's nothing to learn for you.

For you. Amen.

And so I think the lesson that I'm learning from you is less about confidence, it's less about risk, it's less about discomfort. All of these things that I thought it was. What I'm recognizing is for all of us to cultivate a curiosity about ourselves. We're always told, travel, see the world, read books, watch movies, ask questions. But how many of us are watching our own movie or asking ourselves questions or traveling with ourselves, watching ourselves, we have a lot of sleep and watching ourselves, we don't have a lot of sleep. And being curious and asking ourselves why did I react that way? And being genuinely objective as best as we can to understand ourselves without being self effacing, just curious.

You define something that I is definitely true for me and you and you. And you said it in a way because it is different than those other things of confidence or self. It's not, it's not that it says much. You get that all the time. Oh, you're, you're, you're, you're. You seem so confident. And I got okay, mathematically speaking. Yeah. Because I prepare so I can relax. Okay, I get that. But I go, but I suffer bouts, not bouts. I suffer stages of insignificance all the time because I'm bored. I haven't had a new self discovery or figured a new philosophy that I go, oh, that's, oh, that's mine. Now I'm gonna, I write all day and it'll be a note, it'll be something, it'll be an exchange I had with someone, a malaprop. That'll be funny. A realization about myself or about something that's working in the world for me that is getting a like response or a Healthier positive response. That, that, that worked. I'll try to, I look for those patterns. I don't even know if I look for them. I think I'm inherently just finding them. People go, this is somewhat of a joke, but it's not. You're so self involved here.

People say about people.

I've even been told that. And it, when I got told that once I stopped, I went, well, who else do you, do you think I should be involved with? I wish we were. I think we should be more self involved. I don't, I don't. I. My, my gap between being, you know, the man I want to be and the man I am is because I'm I believe, not self involved enough. And all those self curiosity of myself may be one of my strongest suits.

Of somebody who likes to talk about themselves and is and dissect themselves to those who have no self curiosity comes across as self involvement, which they mean pejoratively. Right. And I think to your point about trying to redefine words and trying to redefine selfishness, I think it's less of trying to correct them or embrace their words and trying to convert these bad words that are good. You're so self involved, but self involved is good. You're so selfish, but selfish is good. Instead of raging against the machine, I think to offer it as a lesson to others and saying, no, what you're witnessing is somebody who is very curious about themselves. And every lesson I have learned about myself is because I'm curious about me. And I wish others were as curious about themselves as I have learned to be.

Yes, again, this may be naivete. Why is. Why would someone not be really curious about themselves? Or are they curious, they just don't know what to be curious about?

I think there's many reasons. I think one, it's scary because I may not like what I see. And if you don't like what you see, you could run away from it versus saying good. Let me learn more about this. Two, I think it's hard to do because shame, embarrassment are around the corner with some of those things. And so, and it goes back to be comfortable with being uncomfortable means I can explore myself even if it's uncomfortable. And I think for people to learn to be uncomfortable is a mechanism for curiosity. And for some, and I wish this weren't the case, but it is. I think just some people aren't curious about the world or themselves and they go through the world, I can't believe with happiness, but they just sort of go through the world, as that happens. It's a beautiful thing to be curious about something. And why not start with yourself? Because it's the easiest thing. You don't need to go anywhere else.

We have to have or understand our own monologue before we can have a dialogue.

I think so too. And we're always so preoccupied with what somebody else said or how they said it, or if there is self curiosity. It's more like self flagellation, which is lying in bed going, why did I do that? Why did I do that? Why did I say it that way? Not with a curious why, but sort of a self effacing why versus I wonder why I said it that way. What is it about me? And why am I carrying such discomfort and upsetness about the way I said that? And what can I learn so that I improve upon it next time? Which is to offer oneself grace in the moment of curiosity. It's not a judgment. It is because, remember, this is what we tell people. Instead of being judgmental, be curious about other people. We're doing the same thing. Which is instead of judging oneself, offer oneself grace and forgiveness. And now be curious about yourself in the same way you wish to be curious about yourself.

Yeah.

And you have learned it for whatever reasons, the way you were raised, you have learned it and it has benefited you. And you have become a model for the rest of us. Is why self curiosity is really a good thing, huh?

Love. Zap that deep. All right, I like that.

That's a good play. All right, we'll do a couple quick fires. As someone who has embraced reinvention throughout your career, what advice would you give to people who feel stuck in a box that they've been in for years and worry they can't break out of it?

Oh, Simon just said it's be more curious about yourself. I would have said take more risk, but as he said, that would have been a. That would have been the backup dancers. For More Curiosity for Yourself.

You've been journaling for over 30 years and describe it as a way to catch the truth. What happens for you on the page that doesn't happen anywhere else?

Well, it's taken a while for me to get my fingers or my pen to keep up with my mind as I'm writing it live and to keep the train of thought going. Or sometimes I'll just. If it's too much, I just gotta record it and then translate it. Memorializing a live feeling that is maybe a moment in time. It speaks a truth across many, many, many things. And if I didn't write it down, as most of us do. When you first start writing or you're trying to get writing when it's hard is, you know, you cross a great truth, you have a great exchange, you hear a great joke, you're always like, that was so good. I'm never gonna forget it. Yeah, you will.

And then you forget it.

So just jot it down. That's why I wrote in the opening grants. I write stuff down so I can forget it. Because I. Because if I don't write it down, I'm playing grab ass with. What was that thing she said? Oh, that thinks I'm so, so good now. Now I'm. Now I'm just on a hamster wheel, right? Glenn Grabass with my thoughts, where if I wrote it down, like, ah, there it is. There it is.

That's good. McConaughey, what a pleasure. This has been very inspiring. I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing wonderful stuff.

My pleasure. Look forward to doing it again and for even longer. And thank you for the insight and teaching me something or a way to at least understand it better. And through your words about myself. Thank you.

A Bit of Optimism is a production of the Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Lindsey Garbinius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devin Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. And if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonsinek.com thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.