The Daily Stoic - Matthew McConaughey On His Greenlights Philosophy, His Roadtrip Course And Feeling Gratitude For Life

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Ryan speaks with Matthew McConaughey in the first of a two-part interview about the philosophy behind his bestselling memoir Greenlights, how he aims to help teach people unique ways improve their lives with his new course: Roadtrip – the Highway to More, what he learned from his recent terrifying flight experience, why being truly selfish is actually selfless, how he strikes a balance between living an exciting life and spending quality time with family, and more.Matthew McConaughey has been working in Hollywood for over 25 years, appearing in acclaimed films, including Interstellar, A Time to Kill, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Dallas Buyers Club. His work in the latter film won him the 2013 Academy Award for Best Actor. McConaughey also works as a producer and spokesperson, and recently released his first book, the bestselling memoir Greenlights. He also founded and runs the Just Keep Livin Foundation to help kids lead active and healthy lifestyles. You can follow his work on Twitter @McConaughey, Instagram @officiallymcconaughey, and YouTube at Matthew Mcconaughey, and you can find his Roadtrip course at artoflivinevent.com/roadtrip.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Steal of Podcast. I was driving the other day. My phone was plugged in to the car and this text comes up on the screen and the center console, the Apple CarPlayer, whatever. And it's like, you have a text from Matthew McConaughey. And I was like, is this real life as this person, maybe one of the greatest actors in the world, person whose work I very much enjoy, is just shooting me a text. And as it happens, he was,

and he had a question about this course he was launching, which is actually really cool. It's called Road Trip, The Highway to More. And he'd never done anything like that. I think it's actually been cool. I saw an interview, actually. I think Richard Lincolayter was talking about one of the reasons he thinks Matthew wrote his book. And then, you know, I would add to this why he's doing stuff like this. Of course, is that so much of an actor's life is outside of their control. Actually, when I interviewed Matthew on the Daily Smoke Podcast back in 2020, we were talking about this line from Epic Titus, where Epic Titus says,

we're actors in a play. Like, so much of what we do is not on our control. We don't control the material, we don't control what the audience does, we don't control what the director does, we don't control which part we get, we're just reacting. And then an actor has to act well, play the role well. But it's also wonderfully fulfilling when you do get to be more creatively in control and you get to make your own stuff. That's what I like about writing books is like, it's my book, it's published more or less how I want it to be published. There's less intermediaries than there are in Hollywood or television or radio or whatever. So get the text from Matthew, talk about this course.

And then I asked him if you wanted to come on the podcast and have a real in-depth convo about this idea of more, but also how less can get you more, which is what I've been thinking about sort of my mantra for the year as I've been talking about. You've seen Matthew and everything from Interstellar, the gentleman's Dallas-Bier's club, the Wolf Wall Street. He not only has one best actor, but I think even more impressively in the weeks and months after the terrible tragedy at Yvaldi where Matthew is actually from, he helped bring both parties together to pass.

While not nearly sufficient, one of the first bits of progress we have had in this country about dealing with this terrible scourge of gun violence. And I texted him while that was all happening, just how amazingly impressed I was by all of it. Matthew also has this Just Keep Living Foundation, which is dedicated to helping teenage kids leave lead active lives and make healthy choices to become great men and women. So we got a bunch in common, a bunch to talk about. And in today's episode, we talked for nearly two hours. I'm going to split this up into a part one and a part two. You can follow him on at officially Maconahe

on Instagram, at Maconahe on Twitter, at Matthew Maconahe on YouTube. And then you can check out this really cool course that he did. I went through all of it. There's a bunch of themes in there that really struck closely with me and we dig deep into them in our conversation. You're going to artoflivanvent.com slash roadtrip. I'll link to that in

today's show notes, but I'm pretty sure if you just search Matthew, Mekanae, roadtrip, it just, it comes up, it's like the first Google results. So you can grab that and then check out his book Green Lights, which is also extremely good. And I quite enjoyed him. My blurbs there on the back. So I am excited to bring you one and only Matthew McConaughey. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up, I'm struggling to deal with something. Obviously, I use my journal, obviously I turn to stochism, but

I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff. And because I'm so busy and I live out in the country, I do therapy remote, so I don't have to drive somewhere. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Toxbase makes it easy to find a therapist that you like. It's convenient, it's affordable. By doing everything online, Toxbase makes getting the help you want easy and affordable. So why wait? And Toxbase can help with any specific challenge you might be facing.

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It's funny. I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it and I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading. They're reading more than ever and I go, let me guess you listen audiobooks don't you? And it's true and almost invariably they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, and of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app, you'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to

discover, and as an Audible member you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the key, the daily dad. I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books. So all those are available. And new members can try Audible for free for 30 days.

Visit audible.com slash daily stoke. A text daily stoke to 500 500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke. A text daily stoke to 500 500. So look, I want to start kind of at the end in the sense of you had a little experience on an airplane recently. What flashes through your mind of you had a little experience on an airplane recently. What flashes through your mind when the thing you're taking for granted,

which is getting safely from point A to point B, suddenly changes. Um, first thing, let me get an island line on the flight attendant. Yeah. Because I know they're trained to look calm and... Sure. Yeah, they're. And I've hit turbulence before where I'm like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, but then you look at the flight attendant and like, and you kind of measure. And you're looking for their sort of, their indirect wink, like it's okay or, oh shit, right? Yes. Well, there was no, no, no, no, there was no wink. Everyone was like, and the flat attendance

were somewhere, you know, down, getting themself back up together and we're really scared. You saw the fear in their eyes. I immediately, with that thinking about it, put a hand out to my wife, Camilla. And we held each other here, my left arm, her right. Kind of hold your breath. Some people were laughing.

It was almost a nervous sort of shock laughter that I wasn't understood afterwards. And when it happened, there was no, I don't believe there was no seatbelt warning prequel. There was no warning before it happened. I luckily I had the Camilla and I both had our dinner tray tables over our waist and when we went up, that was the hinge that helped my feet went up and my torso went up, that was the hinge that helped my feet went up and my torso went up.

And that was the hinge that helped me at my waist. And then I remember looking up and seeing, there was a glass of red wine just floating in this beautiful shape in the air, standing steel. And I was an inception for a second. All these plates and everything just slowed down. So, you know, about 300 frames a second, and all of a sudden it just voted one, two, three, four.

Bam! And on the slam downs when everything just gravity came and everything dropped. And it was a lot of though, you could hear a lot of steel on steel, a lot of those, they had just gotten the service cart out, which weigh a lot. And when those came down behind us, you could hear a lot of steel on steel, a lot of those, they just got in the service cartet, which weigh a lot. And when those came down behind us, you had heard some, then you started to hear some a little bit of some screaming.

Again, look at those fight attendance, what's the look on their face? Another, another like the third, I guess the third in charge of, if one of the pilots went out, came out and he was very discombobulated. That's what I knew was serious. Then it was, oh geez, our friends tell us all the time if you can fly separate as a husband and wife if you can.

Yes, we did that. We were like, you know, maybe we ought to say that. We'll talk about that later. Just to see if there's another one coming. Let's see if there's another one coming. Let's see if there's another hit coming. I didn't start to go down a list of like prayers, it was more deal with the immediate moment. What do I got to, I didn't go like, say,

hell marries or anything like that. Like this is the end, so now let me, you know, what I say on the way down, it wasn't that. I look, I was fortunate, I had a friend, Matthew, a hair right into the right of me with a pilot, and he had the radar on his iPhone. It was like, yeah, we're just on the left edge of this thing. I don't know why we didn't get further left.

We got to get off the berm of this storm, it's right here. And we're still not out of way from it and right about the end, bam, another one hit. Now, seat belts are on, so it's a little more secure. And then, you know, being a beginner, intermediate engineer, my question is, is there structural damage to this plane? Because that was as big of a jolt by Mother Nature's, I've ever felt on a piece of steel flying through the air.

And enough was like, I don't know what could withstand, at least not being bent in my mind. And he goes, oh, none of the don't worry about that. These planes are tested to such a great strength that there's no structural damage. I was like, okay. And then things, the dust settles we see on the radar that were out away from the storm.

Some of that laughter I heard in the back turns to tears and moaning and crying. People start to tend to their wounds, kind of come out of the shock to, you know, people start to measure how am I really injured? And there were quite a few injuries. And then, and this is all, everything I've just said in the last three minutes goes through my mind in about the first 20 seconds. Yeah. Because after 20 seconds, I then got pissed off.

I didn't get to meet that. I didn't get to meet it mad and was cussing and going, man, and I got another pilot to my right with the radar going, we could have just had it off west and taken ten more minutes and missed it. So now I'm like that was avoidable. Why were with the hell? So now I'm pissed off. And around the time I'm getting pissed off or settling back down, there's no more service

everyone's just trying to clean up, clean up broken glass and tend to people. Obviously they go, we're going to have to we're gonna have to, we're gonna, we're gonna make it to New York, which was not the ultimate destination, but instead we had to cut back, back to Washington, Dallas. And then you land and there's seven amulets that's on the ground. But, fear, oh my gosh, complete no control.

This could be it. Let me hold the one I love to the left of me. Yes, if this is it, it's been written. We, I love you. Here we go, I got you. Wait a minute. This is bullshit. That's the kind of way that was it.

That was about the real time emotions. Yeah, so there's a moment of acceptance where you're like, I'm just a passenger on this plane, if it goes, it goes. Yeah, there's a moment of, I mean, look, I've said that about planes before and why, I'm not nervous flying. Why I'm still not nervous and I'm flown since

and why I'm not nervous. I'm just like, I know that if the shit does hit the fan, I'm not next in line as the best pilot. So therefore, I'm out of control, therefore I'm gonna relax. Now, I was a decent pilot. I'd probably be a lot more nervous on planes for thinking at a moment like that.

Oh, am I up? Yeah, it's time to put me in coach. Now I've got a reason to have some nerves, but now there's a moment when that happened, and I'm like, yeah, seat belt, no seat belt, that you know, I'm not, if this crash is, you don't hear many where you go, well, the 100 of the seat belts vibed

and playing crash. Less injuries in the cabin for sure. But this is one of those, oh, if this, if this goes down, let's just, I immediately, my mind immediately goes, what's this written? Yes. What's this written or is this random?

And I pretty much go quickly into with that situation. I had a moment of, okay, this was written. This was the narrative of my life. This is it. It's a narrative that everyone in here is like, could be it, this is what happened. If we go down, okay.

And then within that 30 seconds, I didn't go back and deconstruct 53 years of Ode, did I do this, what would I do different? Oh my God, it wasn't a deathbed deal. What do I regret? And no, it was just like, whoa, this could be interrupt. Exit. This is completely out of my control.

What will happen is going to deem what happens to me and everyone else on this planet. Yeah. And we may be exiting this life. That understanding did go through head and body. It's an interesting metaphor. There's a line in towards the end of meditations, which Marcus really is probably writing

as he's getting close to death, he goes, look, the curtains coming down and he goes, but wait, wait, wait, and he goes, hey man, this place only got three acts. That's it for you. And there is something about that, I think, where you can go, hey, it was a pretty good script. I had a good part, I played the shit out of my part.

If you can't, maybe something different flashes through your mind in one of those moments. Yeah, I wonder, because it's not, it's not like, we're just, the circumstance we're talking about, very different than someone fading out. Yeah, sure. The last 10 years we're knowing the curtain

is being called on their death, and there's a lot of room for deconstructing where you've been and memory to catch up and judgment, and a lot of people find faith in those last years, so maybe they didn't have it before. And my circumstances, obviously, there's no time for that kind of abrupt realization. There's no time to go back and like do the grade. There's no time to go. It would have been very arrogant to say, oh, you know what, I regret, honey. It was like, you put your soul a bit of that, you know, a quick pray and get your ass up.

Well, let's run from the tornado. It was like, what do we do? What should we do? I got, let's run from the tornado. It was like, what do we do? What should we do? I got you, I'm holding the hand. It wasn't much time to get objective about the situation. From sure, yeah. Sure. How quickly you land on the ground,

you've got all your arms and legs, fingers and toes. It's the least bad version of what could have happened. Do you have a moment of gratitude or does the anger prevent the gratitude? Do you feel like a second lease or no? Yeah, right, right, right, right. Well, I'm sort of parlaying gratitude and I'm still pissed. I'm still going. Now, not pissed at the inconvenience that our whole trips and plans are throwing off, and we had to land, we're gonna go figure out

where we're gonna have to, just like, damn it, that was freaking unavoidable. So I start going through stereotypical scenarios that are, you know, in my own head about, why would you want me to do that? And I'll go back and I remember before we took off, the pie, come on, I'm going, sorry, we're really in 15 minutes late,

I'll try and make as much time up as we can get to it about about about and I'm like ah These are they running on a protocol? They run it on a time the pilot note was avoidable and said no I'll just skirt the left berm of the instead of losing 10 more minutes and getting clear away from it I don't know you go through these Yes, because it was unavoidable and I'm pissed because my buddy told him the radar who's a pilot next to me going, we're down close to this thing. Before it happens. So I'm mad and then I'm like,

look, come here and I sat there, the end of the night and we and I, and when we got that little room in the motel and put a little food in our belly and took a few deep breaths,, called the kids and had a little, didn't say, oh my god, how are y'all doing, over doing an exaggerate and get sentimental. But we were like, boy, your mother and I just had an event happen tonight that shook us

to the core. We are playing almost in there. Like we saw that on the news, y'all were on that. Yeah, that was out, yeah. And then we went to them and I think through teaching them and reminding them, let's make, you know, you know what came, you know what did come through my head the old and it's been set a million times the old hey, when you say goodbye, make sure you say hello. You, yes. That did go through my head the old and it's been set a million times. The old hey, when you say goodbye, make sure you say I love you. Yes. That did go through my head. And I remember the next week,

one of our children was going to school and he was going to grumpy mood. And we didn't get the we didn't get the hug goodbye and they I love you and they didn't say they I love you back. And it was it you know, some people out there were going, oh, that's the after school special. Yeah, whatever, it's loving and proven. It's great. It really went through my head to go, oh, watch leaving on a bad note.

If it's just a mood, you're in with people that you give a name about and your love. Because you really don't, you don't know in the lie that exit, that last moment, we'll, we'll, some people I've heard will, you know, regret that, the ones that live on the, on the, on the, on the side of losing someone where it didn't end up, they regret that that last moment was that. Every time could be the last time. Yeah. Now, you know, again, not to get sent a medal on it, it's just fact every time could be the last time.

At the same time, I'm not really interested in, you can get, you can get, you can become hypochalmontiophac your article and that's a word. You can become, we're really kind of paranoid and kind of hovering in cocoon yourself and your loved ones for that. And kind of all of a sudden, you don't want to go out there. I've seen people do it. You don't want to go out to door in the morning for fear of this could be the last time. Sure. Or no, no, no, no, don't go out there.

And you see children get sheltered. Sure. Not have experiences because they're never skinned their knee or break, you know no, no, no, no, no, don't go out there. And you see children get sheltered. So not have experiences because they're never skinned their knee or break, you know, get a bruise or what have you to go out and figure it out on their own or come home scared, you know. Yeah. But it's true, yeah, every time to risk.

Yeah, especially I think coming out of COVID where you had all this time where you kept your kids very, very close. I know I did the acceptance of bringing risk back into your life, right? Because every time you get in a plane, every time you get in a car, every time you do anything, there's a risk.

And you can't live your life that way. But I do think you have to, because it could happen, it doesn't mean you shouldn't do things, but you probably shouldn't leave any loose ends untied. Are the risks higher? Because they sure feel like it, or are we just sort of coming out with virgin wings again, engaging with risk? And it feels brand new, and it feels exaggerated again. I mean, it does feel like,

I certainly think a media environment where you can see real-time images of every horrible thing that's happening anywhere in the world, exacerbates or perhaps brings to the forefront risks that maybe otherwise you wouldn't be considering. But there's a war raging in Europe. There's a great power struggle between the US and China. We live in a country flooded with assault rifles. We're just coming out of a pandemic.

Life's scary man. I was scared. That should be, that stuff's on the scoreboard for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You can't let that paralyze you, but it should the reality of those things, I think, or a lesson from what you went through is, yeah, don't leave things hanging, don't leave things undone, don't put things off to the future. Take the opportunities while you have them because you never know. Yeah. And things like that event, you what happens on the thing, you just sober you up in

a way, in a way sober then you maybe what or before And you do, because it becomes directly personal. And look around you and the things you love and care about are in 8K. Maybe they were, they were just, you know, they were HD before. I mean, they become, they're, whoa, it becomes more personal. And you, you do care for it more. It has more meaning. You have more gratitude. I saw this thing that Scott was sitting in his living room and stray bullet comes through the window, buries in a book behind his head.

Actually, in Tim Ferriss's tools for Titans, I think, just right behind his head, just sitting there, bullet gets buried, you know, Mrs. M. by a couple inches. He's not in a war zone, he's in his freaking house. And so on the one hand, like you said, you're angry at things that are totally senseless, preventable, didn't need to happen. At the same time, I got to think you get up off the couch after that happens and you go, I got a second chance, I was spared. How am I going to use this gift that, you know, maybe somebody was looking out for me

or the odds were in my favor, one of my nine lives is still with me. How am I going to spend that? To me, that's the question you take from those kind of, those great, you're missing. And how long, for how long? And how much is that, just a New Year's resolution that by February,

we've forgotten? Yes. And how much does it go? No, it's open up a truer, more glorious and beautiful perspective. That is real. That is real. I'm going to make sure I remember when the line's going to get fuzzy again.

When everything seems like easy street. I've got nothing to defend and it doesn't seem so personal in life, just a song. Right. It does fade quickly. It does fade very quickly. You get the reminder of memento mori that life is short, that you're not in control, that you're a passenger, someone could write you out of the play any moment, but then our sort of natural ego and self-centeredness and comfort, it creeps back in pretty fast. Yeah, I mean, you know, we and I've talked about it. I'm working on defining and understanding and believing

and trying to communicate that I think that that, when we do have that sobriety we're talking about, that of what's important in our life and how to take care of it and what are we gonna to do going for that that is actually more self centered. Yeah, that is actually really set. Now we're talking self centered. Yes, that's what we're talking about because what you're talking about, we do we live that way and care for those things that we love that much more. Take those certain risks to maybe come what we're like,

we're just a little afraid to do that, we're ultimately serving ourselves in the future. We've talked about that in the late, which is a religious experience, religion. Right, me, right? And ultimately that would be inversely, yeah, from the inside, how can those self-centered things do?

The most selfish thing you could do for yourself and others. And I'm really working on, my pastor says I pushed a big rock up a steep hill on this one. I'm really working on a pastor says I pushed a big rock up a steep hill on this one. I really work it on. I just I believe there's a truth that actually the most selfish, truly selfish, not in the definition, the websters we were on around with it today. Yeah. The most truly selfish acts and people we can be are actually some things to be in the most self less.

And then the rest of the process starts and it starts to feed us back and serve ourselves. And again, I don't think you get rid of that ego. I think you actually, the really healthy ego is part and parcel with that service, with that caring for that, which love the most, including ourselves. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like.

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to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondering App. Yeah, I mean, you talk about this in the course of life, basically, the virtue of selfishness in that. You can't take care of other people if you're not taking care of yourself. If you don't know what you want,

if you don't know what's important to you, if you don't know what has you at your best, you know, you're not going to be what you can be for the world, for other people, you know, for the stranger you bump into on the street. Yeah, I don't believe we are. I think you know the parable of the talents in the Bible. No, what is it? The parable of the talents is basically the way he came back, he even won buried, won lost, damned one that buried it, damned the brother that buried it. But the one that does the right thing

is the one who turns the money or the gift into more, right? To whom much is given, much is expected. And I do think all of us are born with a kind of a unique potential or a capacity and to not realize that potential or that capacity because you're scared, because you're intimidated, because you're codependent, because you're intimidated, because you're codependent, because you make it about everyone else.

I mean, that does deprive the world of things, like people who realize their potential employ other people, they inspire other people, they make things that other people enjoy, they invent things, you know, they make art that stands the test of time, I think realizing your potential is both selfish and selfless along the sort of dichotomy that you set up. Is it, it's also I think a part of, if I'm going to redefine selfish in this way, and I'm supposing ears are going, okay, that which I do for me, and damn be the world, that expense of my neighbor,

I'm going after what I want more of, I start to now to go, okay, so I can be successful. Maybe we gotta get in there and start redefining what that word is. Success. What is it? What would we be doing if we're doing all for ourselves? That's part

of what my redefinition of selfishness is, okay, what are you doing? Our definition of what we call selfish today when we say, oh, that's the selfish thing you're doing. Yeah. I argue most of them, no, it's not. It's not a self-less thing they're doing, but it sure is hell ain't the best thing for them. Yeah, sure. They're not doing, they're not serving themselves with that idea, with that immediate gratification or that burn bridge or that light-cheat steel to get what they want and they got it. Yeah, you got the trophy. Okay, but man, that's like transient.

That's not selfish. That was like kind of foolish. You kind of put yourself in a corner, bro. Tomorrow, you didn't buy yourself any equity for freedom in your own future. So that's not truly selfish. There's another word for it, but it ain't selfish if you ask me.

I mean, so redefining what we call success. Redefining, right now what? It's a success seems to be this lengthing that we're taught to chase and you brought it up earlier from this stimulus that we're being fed in the world and every add and what the world tells us how you succeed, how you become happy. It's a one lane highway going vertical. Directly vertical. And that highway is packed. And horns are honking and people are...

Everyone wants on that highway. Quantity. More, more, more, quantity. Highest number wins. Highest building wins. And a lot of that becomes, can become at the sacrifice of quality. And so what is success, if it's all quantity

at the lack of bringing more quality and qualification to our life, our personal life selfishly, if it's not bringing that, if the quantity's not bringing that quality, then we're on the wrong highway. We're using the wrong calculator for what we're deeming to be successful and what and how we're defining how we're truly being selfish to ourselves or not with ourselves. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of people that have won a lot of championships, a lot of people

that have made a lot of money, started big companies, won a lot of awards, had what seems like a glamorous, wonderful life. But how many of those people are happy? For how many of those people did it do for them what they thought it would do for them? And then there is, you could argue a rarer feat, which is the person who has great at what they do and has enough or and feels good about themselves or and is a good person right and that's the honey oh you're that's the spot right there that's that's the that's the man that's the woman that's the person right there yeah and which one of those are you aiming at or are you unthinkingly going, Steve Jobs greatest, most famous CEO of all time,

that's who I'm modeling my life after, and you're not asking, well, what was it like to be Steve Jobs? Would I be happy living in that guy's brain body house? You can't just think, oh, I'm sure it's a nice fancy house. You have to go, is this what I want? Is this what I'm meant for? You have to go, is this what I want? Is this what I meant for? Is it even possible to be a happier, good person at that level, living that way, having made those choices? No judgment on him specifically, I'm just saying. That's it.

Yeah. And then along the way, while you're, that's your aspiration, and again, I've been accused of this, and I want to throw this out there for any years on it. And Ryan just said it, I'm not saying it, and I don't hear him saying it all. Chasing the quantity, nothing wrong with chasing the quantity. Go for it.

Get it. Amen. But if your aspiration is to be like that mogul, or to be, I know I got friends. You know what their ambition is? I don't wanna be the richest man in the world. I wanna be the richest person in the world. I'm like, wow.

That's okay. That's good. That's a bad, I said, ambition. Now, along the way. And I look at, and they've told me, no, no, no. I don't care about the highest number. I want to be on the top four of the world. Rich is personally, I'm like, wow. All right no. I don't care about the highest number. I want to be on the top four of the budget, Rich's personal one, like, oh, wow.

All right, and they're not qualifying. They're not bringing in along the way measurements of like, necessarily an ethics measurement. They're going, whatever it takes. That's the right answer, right? Right, some rope. Yeah. I know some people like that.

Now, if you ring up the Steve Jobs or whoever it's gonna be, and you say, yeah, what's their house? Well, you gotta, how do I wanna be like them? Great for the aspiration, but whoever that is chasing that, make sure that you're asking, what's my house look like? How am I different than Steve Jobs?

Where do he and I differ a little bit? Where, man, if I'm trying to mimic him, we know that. That never happens, right? I mean, you can't mimic anybody, even if you'd try to exact same words, make the exact same moves. It's a different time. It's a different way. It's a different choice.

But I've got some friends to do that too that are going after to be some just like someone or try to imitate and they are completely blind along the way to to they are to what they feel, to what matters to them, to they're so objectively, I guess, chasing something that they want to be, that they never really subjectively go, oh yeah. Who am I? What am I doing?

What do I like? What I give a shit about? And I think what we're saying is that the two don't have to contradict each other. And that goes back to the selfish can be the selfless. The two are not conscious. You can chase an aspiration, write that billboard, play it first, that headline out there

that you're chasing, that you want, that eulogy or whatever it is just being read, that legacy that you will leave the shadow across this earth, this globe when you go chase that. Great. Along the way. Sure. How's the past personal? How are you, what words to use, more healthy? Do you care if not at the expense?

Did you get there? Not at the expense of harm and people you loved or not being around as a husband, a father, for lover or friends or whatever those things are. Did you, did you, did you, did you, did you, if you love food, but then, on the other side, you have to expense,

you quit and join a meal on the way to get there. Ah, you can do both. Yeah, because what if you get in a plane crash, halfway there? Did you like that ride, you know, or was, was the sacrifice and the struggle and the compromises and everything you made along the way, was it only worthwhile if you get the outcome, right?

Which you don't control, right? You don't control whether you don't control who gives the Academy Award at the end of the award season. You don't control where you saw this with your book. You don't control the New York Times decides who the number one book is, not what the objective sales are. Just like you don't conch Forbes decides who the richest person in the world is. The audience decides who the best musician of all time is.

The market decides who the best baseball player in the world is. All that stuff is outside of your control. So I'm not saying you never delay or defer gratification, you never sacrifice so you can get something. But I'm trying to get to a place in my work where actually doing the work is itself enjoyable and rewarding. And then the sales and the reception is a bonus on top. Right. yeah. It's a great place to get if you can get there. I've been there.

It's hard though. It's hard. I've been there a few times. And I still got some of the DNA in me, but I'm working on it too, man. I'm trying to try, I'm just a little shot. I have a cake and eat it too. I'm still like, well, what the heck?

The result does matter to me here. I'm like, I know. Well, if you don't care about the results at all, nobody will pay for you to do it anymore, right? So I, we live in the world where you've got buzzers saying to be present. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, let's admit this though, does any, well, yeah, I can even say that's for me, but how? At least, this is true. I think the amount of time that the result of the getting of what it is that you wanted the actual capture proof,

being what you thought it was going to be, or giving you what you thought it would give you It doesn't happen that often Now I'm not saying it doesn't happen Sure Because I've had a couple experiences in my life where actually When I got to the top of that mountain or through that proverbial door and got that prize that I was after, I had whoever gave it to me, recite to me exactly what I had written

down and planned. And when I get there, this is what Kenby said. This is what I'll get. And I was like, did you get my mail? And they didn't get my mail. I'm like, that's exactly what I was trying to do. So I've had to happen a couple of times and call it, I don't know what you call it, but it,

but the other 99 point, I'm assuming the times, times I know for me and before I get from others is that You never it's not ever Let me do well, let me say this for fact. I think it is fact that you land there. You never go tada Yes, you land there. You never go I did it that That never happened. And I think a lot of us think that that's gonna happen. Yeah. And that I've never heard of actually happening.

Yes. And I don't believe does. You know, you immediately go, oh, well, I just handed the baton off to my higher self. And I'm still got, I can't even see the ceiling. I've got, I'm just getting started here. I remember the first time I hit the New York Times bestseller list, I was mowing my lawn

when my agent called and he goes, you hit it. And I was like, cool. Now I got to finish mowing my lawn. You know, like the ticker tape doesn't come pouring out from the ceiling. Nobody throws you a parade. The thing you needed from your dad that you didn't get the pain that you felt from your childhood, the hole is not magically filled. And I've got to imagine you're hoisting the Oscar over your head. It isn't to DAW and it doesn't magically do everything that you dreamed or hoped it

would do for you. It's nice. Well, or did I have, oh yeah, it was nice, it was a wonderful accomplishment. I love achievement and accomplishment and I got with my peers telling me, hey, you did excellent. That gave me a certain sense of validation and all kinds of wonderful things. But I don't think I honestly didn't have,

I didn't have goofy expectations of what it would do if. I never really got, I never really, I never had an objective. You know why? Because I felt like that would be like, you know, kissing Peter just deal from Paul. I felt like that would be kind of a coup d'état. If you dare have the arrogance to get objective and think, what would my life be like if I won the Oscar? Boy, you even got that son of a bitch? Who the hell do you think you are? You ain't getting it. You got it mean, so again, whoop, I mowed the lawn. I just mowed the lawn and all of a sudden I got done and I got lawn of the year and they handed me a trophy

and I'm on an Oscar and I was like, oh wow, cool. Sure, sure. But I never stopped out to go, oh buddy, if I get lawn of the year, if I win this Oscar, what if? You know, I never, I never had the, I never had the arrogance or confidence to be that objective.

Yes. Yes. When, because I felt like you would be throwing me from ever getting it. As a cherry on top, that's, you want it to be the cherry on top, not the whole reason you're doing it, because it won't do it for you. It won't. And, and, and I think the other thing that happens, right, you win the award, you do the thing, you pull it off.

There's that voice inside you that can go, this isn't what I thought it would be. It's probably because I need to do it again first, right? Like, I got to prove it's not a freak. I got to do it again. If I get it, just do it twice, that can be no argument. Yes. It was not folly or fad.

Yeah. That's what keeps us going. You know, three times, though. I'm dead. I'm on my way to unanimous now. Mm-hmm. You know, if I just had, do you ever got four? Four.

And four of them? Nah. Almost. What's the most? I need one more than the most. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What a great face. I'm gonna dig it. So I love the course, by the way. I thought it was awesome. And one of the things that struck me, so we talked about New Year's resolutions earlier. My New Year's resolution this year with my wife,

we sat down and we're like, the word of the year is less, less, just across the board, less. So it's funny because your course is all about more this, more that, more this, but you are also saying less at the same time. Like it was interesting to think my mantra for the year was less and yet you're talking about more balance, more joy. You're talking about less of things that are not those things so you can have room for more of the things that matter. Right. Process of elimination. Yeah.

Addition by subtraction. Mingo. Yeah, you know, less, we know, less options sometimes, we've talked about, we're living too many yeses to make a tie-in out of anybody. Yeah. Too many options. Oh my gosh, what was that? Paralysis of analysis, just make a frickin decision. You got a pointy shirt, you got a black one,

take the damn thing, I'll go, it doesn't matter. Oh yeah, right? Less convenience is certain times. Oh man, I'm going to be like, the convenience is causing me anxiety, bro. My car, I can't even, I'm afraid to touch anything, my damn car. Why is my phone keep switching over? You just were in my conversation because you were sitting in the car and I walked on the driveway. I don't want, why didn't you switch over to the speaker in the car? This is a private, what the hell's go? No, I should, I want to be able to the speaker in the car? This is a private, what the hell's, no, I should, I want to be able to manually put that back like,

when Iron Maiden was on, and I don't want to be nostalgic about it, but I want to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, your things are getting, I'm a little, I'm over-engineering my life for convenience. I've got to complete things. And actually, I got too many, I'm having this conversation with a friend the other day, and he and his wife were talking about, they're very successful and they have a lot of staff. And they go to counseling and these things and they said they come to dinner and when they do sit down for dinner, they go, so how are you feeling today?

And also they said we started sounding like our counselors, our therapist. And also they look at each other and they notice, you know what, we've lost dependency on each other. We have so many people doing so many things and we go that we have no dependency. Whoa, I married you, I love you. I want to be dependent on you and she's like, I want to be dependent on you. We're like, we got to get rid of

some of this stuff because everyone's doing so much for us. We're starting to sound like them. Right. Dependency can be about, you know, more dependency and reliability and more love and that joy can be about having less of a lot of the things around this can be about saying no No is as important and more important than yes and in in relationships and in in life and career a lot of times. Yeah, yeah, you you say no to some things and Yeah, yeah, you say no to some things. And by extension, you are saying yes to other things, right? And when you're saying yes to everything, you're also saying no to a lot of invisible stuff,

stuff up the road, stuff you haven't considered. You don't even realize the stuff you're pushing out because of all the yeses that you're saying. What's this great, the great no, you share with me a couple of few weeks ago. Which I've gone out and quoted you. By the way, I didn't know what it is. I just feel it.

I said, I've had to say certain acquaintances come in the bookstore, what have you. And they'll want to talk. And I have a certain limit I can talk. And I have to tell them, look, no, I have to go because I have some really good friends that are here or my family's here and if I spend this time with you, I'm going in the debit.

I'm getting less of them and giving less of myself to them the want and I need to nurture those relationships. So great to meet you. I'm not going to be rude. I know you're thinking I'm being rude maybe, but I got to go tend to what what get more to what I really care about Yeah, because I feel like who who is first on the chopping block when I say yes to stuff It's my kids my wife and then it's usually something pertaining to my work or my health, right? So

When you end up saying yes to this random stranger who doesn't know how to exit a conversation or you say yes to getting sucked down some social media argument that you don't need to be in, you're saying no to the six-year-old who's not going to be a six-year-old that much longer. I mean, yeah. I was going to ask your advice on something pertaining to kid stuff, because I was thinking about it. You know, you have a cool life, right? You could accept jobs all over the world. They're usually in exotic or cool or interesting locations.

You could take trips, you could afford to go stuff. How do you strike the balance between a cool life and a stable, consistent, balanced life. Yeah. Well, we did the definition of what your values change and what's cool changes, different minds are different than now than before I had

you at kids. Sure. You know, it was it cool before Camila and I started a family that I could have a dream of Africa the last night and head out there today with the backpack with the one-way ticket and say I'll be back when I get back. That was cool. Yeah. Can I do that anymore? No, I'll be back when I get back. That was cool. Yeah. Can I do that anymore? No, I can't do that anymore. No. I have dependents.

You know what I mean? Sure. Um, here's something, and bless Camilla for this. But here's a real, and this is a way of engineering, the coolness with the stability. Well, before we had children, before she decided to pull the golly, she put her hands on my shoulder, and she said, okay, on one condition. Yes, ma'am, she goes, you go, we go.

Yeah. And I remember what going through my head, is this sort of thinking, you know, is this independent coyote of an artist, who likes to live in his air stream, with maybe just his dog around, and going like, well, wait a minute, I would have my,

I don't know if I can do that. And as I'm saying that, I did a little voice of my mother and my ear comes in because you better nod your head and say, yes, ma'am, because she just gave you a gift. Yes, ma'am. And she goes, okay. And that's been a non-negotiable for our family. Now, my job does take us all over. Is it a family discussion, or at least,

along with many discussions with Camilla before I choose to? And she measures me. There's been ones where I'm like, yeah, I really want to do this. She was like, you're not, you haven't convinced me, Matthew, that creatively, this is going gonna get you off so much that you gotta do this. At the expense of us,

because we're gonna pick everything up, we're coming with, we're moving in, I gotta deal with the schooling, I gotta deal with the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Right. Now, when she hears that and we go back and forth, she knows, she doesn't have to say it. And I don't have to say it. And I don't have to

say it. She was like, yep, got it. We're doing it. She could just tell, you know, I've convicted her or convinced her without trying to be without having to say, okay, but you know, and she's like, yep, got it. She asked me, all of a sudden, was she pressure test it with me? She gets all the right answers. She believes she sees my true self coming up. She's like, yep, then all of a sudden, she put a lot of stuff on hold for to get the family ready to go. Yeah, where we're gonna go and move our life there and their life there and activities and things that where she's gonna have

to continue working on the things that she's working now, mobily. And that takes an incredible amount of preparation. She can't just pop into it tomorrow. It takes weeks, if not months of preparation, but that's what we do. And, you know, in that way, are we gypsies? Yeah, in that way, are we traveling?

Bugaruski's? Yeah. But really not gypsies, because we're going with, we have family everywhere we go. Yeah. And we take the family with us. People are different colors and there's different languages and there's different cultures. But the rhythms all work out to be somewhat the same because we've engineered that this is how we go.

We know that non-negotiably this is what we'll do. We'll program the days from activities and how long we gonna be there. Do we sign the kids up for certain teams? What teacher do we do? Why teacher in to do this? Or how much do this is online? Well, if it's for short about a time,

we'll do this time for three months. Hey, let's go post or zip code there. This is it. And so that has been a engineered something that Camilla engineered for our family that has maintained a stability in the cool adventures that we take. That's beautiful.

I love that. That's my dream too. And I was just thinking about it because, so I had to go to New York for the launch of the Daily Dad. I was, I was going to be gone for a week. They sort of stretched out. I was like, it felt, it felt weird to put out a parenting book and then leave my family for a week, you know?

And so I was like, well, I was like, well, we'll pack up the whole wagon and we'll all go. And it was awesome. You know, we spent a week in New York, we did a bunch of stuff. And then, so they missed a week of school, and then one of them came home sick, and then he got the other one sick, and then it took like, we were gone for a week,

but it took three weeks to get back into the Texas routine, right? And so I was struggling with what you talk about in the course, which is, was that selfish or selfless? Like, my instinct was, I wanna be around my family, I don't wanna miss them, I wanna suspend time together, or was actually the more selfless thing be like, sorry, I gotta be alone in a hotel room for a week,

doing my thing, but they're rooted and they have their life. So it's a tricky balance. It goes to, what else you talk about in the comments? It's a balance. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and there's a consequence of both those choices, you know?

Yes. Look, I had, around that time when we just had kids and Camilla said, this is the mandate going forward, you go, we go. I did sit, I talked with many elder men in my business who had children. Yeah. And asked him, what did you do?

He worked around the world, he had children. Every one of them said, well, it's either dad or friend. And I let him choose, I let him choose friend. They didn't come with me. And every one of them followed that up after a pretty sincere ellipsis with, I wonder if I could do it again.

I wouldn't let him chose friends. I'd have made a, I'd have made a cheese dead. Cause I, cause I didn't have the connection. I had not connected today. I could have been there a win and I have regret. Like if maybe they got into that trouble and if I was there they maybe they wouldn't. I've been guidance and everyone I'm regretted that decision.

Now, look, making that decision, you already talk about, you know, it's already just even engineered, if you're going off, you're the one going to New York, following you, if I'm the one going to my job, it's following me, there's itself, call that self-centered. And I mean, that without judgment, I'm saying, okay, well, I mean, you know, it's, it, and then when you got two people sometimes, that have their own careers that can go,

whoa, that becomes another thing. We have some friends like that that we're watching talk to them about how do they balance that? Because they have two different careers. And they have. And they're going like this sometimes. And that's got other new challenges, even more so, it seems to us

from the outside, on the relationship between them. Yeah. Even more so sometimes than how it is with the children. But we have some friends that do it successfully or seem to be. I, it's obviously a privileged thing, but I saw an interview with Michael Keaton where he was like, I just took a bunch of time off when I had kids. He's like, you'll never regret it. And so the tricky part of the question is, let them have their stable home life with lots of friends or see dad a lot or mom a lot who works a lot. Obviously, the third option is you could just work less, right? That's the harder choice maybe sometimes.

Well, work less. You could also, there's also great merit to children seeing their mother or father or parent have to go away and go to work. And no, I'm not gonna be there. Intertain yourself, you know we've taught you. You know the deal, you know the drill. Set your own alarm. That's right, make your own breakfast.

I'll be calling, hey, hey, face time, thank you. That's very, very, very helpful. Much more than a phone call. Yes. It has, as night when I'm away, where I can just be put on FaceTime on the kitchen island while they're making dinner and in the background walking around, just being like, ah, yes.

Oh, okay, thank you. Thank you. But it's in the ballpark. It's in the ballpark, in Hells. And when I walk in that door, 10 days later, because of that FaceTime and being around in that ballpark, it's not, oh my God, where have you been? It's, hey, there you are, great to see you.

It's not like you went away and came back and no, you look so different. When did you grow the beard? It's got things going on. Sure, sure. So it helps. And there is value, obviously, to our children seeing their parents go to work. And you actually can't come.

I've got to, you know, whether it's me going to the set, or you going like, no, actually, I need to watch. And what's that doing? What's Mama doing? Well set or you're going like, no, actually, I need to watch and what's that doing? What's Mama doing? Well, what they're doing right there, at very basic levels, what's putting food on your plate. That's what has that place that we have that puts a roof over it. And then you can extend that conversation

to, you know, how else we get rewarded for going and working or doing good work or having a talent at a craft that is in demand and that you can supply. So there's value in that as a child. So I'm not saying, you know, that works. You said, Keaton said, I stayed, I just, boom, didn't work, stayed with my kid. I mean,

oh, that can be, I know I could be a better dad, but even if look, we just, you know, summer just started. We'll have today, I'm not gonna, I won't do every day, I won't spend every daylight hour today we're doing things with my kids. They got some friends over. Sure, we do their things, they might invite me and I'll be around the conversation. It They got some friends over. Sure. Do their things. They might invite me and I'll be around the conversation. It's kind of being around.

Yes. Being around. It's not like I don't feel like, okay, we got to go to six flags today. You know, quality time, quality time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think about that too, right?

Like I feel guilty. It's like, okay, to do this talk, to this co-audience, I gotta get on a plane this afternoon, go to the hotel, do the talk in the morning, fly home in the afternoon. I'm gone less than 24 hours. I feel guilty, okay, I missed a bedtime, missed a school drop off, whatever. Then I go, hey, yesterday, I was home all day,

but I had a meeting, and then I wanted to go work out. And I did this, I was gone most of the day anyway, right? And so here I am kicking myself about this important thing that I did. Meanwhile, when I was with my kids, I wasn't with my kids, right? And so the question is to me, not how much are you gone, but when you're there, are you actually there? And I think question is, to me, not how much are you gone, but when you're there,

are you actually there? And I think that's true for life, for work, relationships, whatever it is. Be where you are when you're there. Yeah. Hey, it's... That's tough to do, that's tough to do too. Look, I've gotta get,

I'm still working on getting better at. If we're going to call that a vacation, we're going to call hanging with the kids. Like, it's tough to go for me to go to my, one of my children, my youngest, for instance, can go, I'm gonna follow you. Yeah, what do you want to do all day, or whatever I'm following your lead in conversation and where you want to go? Oh, that's tough, dude, he meant. Yeah, golly, you break a sweat by 9.30 AM on that drill.

I'm poor. I mean, and then, but then some but some awesome things can happen. It can be awesome, but it can be a bit sporadic. It has no concept of projection of time or well if we did that is their food there and I'm getting hungry, should we go get and do we need

to come back around because mama once does want us to we did we agree we're gonna have dinner together at seven. It can go. It can be a one way ticket. And I'm taking a few with my children, you go like, how do we get out here? I don't know how we like good thing we got a full thing gas, we can get back home. We just followed your bliss all day. It was it was great, but it's. gas when you get back home. We just followed your bliss all day. It was great, but it doesn't have much construct around it, which is I think part of the, the additive of why it's also can be grateful, but you can't do it. I mean, I have trouble doing it. I have trouble doing that for a full day or over and over. I remember I was playing with my youngest once and he was like, he's like, he wanted to do a puzzle. So we got a puzzle down and then he did that for two minutes and then he's like, now I want to go play with this ball.

Then we play with the balls and he's like, now I want to do the dinosaurs. You know, it was just like one thing right after another that I had to do all the setup. I had to do all the stuff. And I remember I was sort of complaining to my wife later. I was like, can we just like pick a thing? Why do we have to go from one thing to the other? And she goes, you're the toy. She's like, do not understand, you are the toy.

She is making you do stuff, and that is the game. It has nothing to do with whether it's dinosaurs or going in the pool or doing the stuff, you are the toy. And now that I can accept that, it actually makes it so much easier to just sort of be bossed around and to let it happen. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, there are also the toys, also the one that has to clean everything

up, all the shit they get out. Of course. I would say this, there have been, there's no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, what's up, buddy? I'm not a tough day today. You did? Well, you're already as a father, there's a parent going. They won, they told me they had a tough day. They shared. They let me see, they gave me access and they shared that.

Oh my gosh. And then, yeah, what's up? And then, I don't know, and all of a sudden, you're in a conversation where even if, forget being away, yeah. If it was 30 minutes later, you might not have got that. Or if you were looking at this thing, yeah, yeah, five minutes later. Or if you were there and doing something else, and then they asked a question.

You know, those beautiful and awesome questions that we get as parents, the ones that go immediately into our ears and through our brain and tell us on a cellular level, this is a great opportunity for a great answer because this is going to, my answer is shaping the lens with which they will see the world through for the rest of life. And mothers do it. Fathers we do it. And when we can pull off that answer in a way, when we can pull off that answer. In a way, it's not that pop up, but they can go, ah, yeah, you, okay. And you know, you know, you got him.

You're like, yes, that's not my favorite sort of parenting moment. And that you gotta go, there's been some, because some of those when they come late at night, you're like, those are pretty lights, man. Talk about your pretty light. Yeah, big ones. And you, and you, and you, because you can tell, there's a lot of times, you know, we're teaching our kids and I can tell it's going in when they're not there.

And there's sometimes where you get access and they have a conversation and they invite you in and the conversation continues. And they follow up on it days later or weeks later or as every other parent says they all follow up on a lot of stuff we didn't think they caught once they're out of the house of 1920 and come back and go, I remember that. But what when it happens in real time, it's... Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members!

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