#625 - Matthew McConaughey
96 min
•Nov 20, 20256 months agoSummary
Matthew McConaughey discusses his new book 'Poems and Prayers,' reflecting on faith, identity, ego, humility, and personal transformation. The conversation spans topics from college football culture and coaching psychology to family values, spiritual practices, and the importance of non-negotiable life commitments like marriage and fatherhood.
Insights
- Healthy ego rooted in self-knowledge and capability differs fundamentally from narcissistic ego focused on external validation; confidence should come from subjective preparation, not objective observation of oneself
- Humility redefined as 'admitting we have more to learn' is empowering rather than diminishing, enabling forward momentum while maintaining grace and receptivity
- Modern dopamine reward systems have shifted from experiencing moments to recording them to sharing them, creating a third-person relationship with our own lives that undermines authentic presence
- Non-negotiable life projects (family, marriage, fatherhood) serve as psychological anchors during uncertainty and should be maintained even when success makes them feel less urgent
- Transformation requires sacrifice and willingness to 'die a little'—purely transactional living prevents genuine growth and spiritual connection
Trends
College football's transfer portal and mid-season player movement are eroding traditional team identity and brand consistency, forcing coaches to adapt systems rather than maintain philosophySEC conference tribalism represents one of the last authentic forms of community-based sports fandom, contrasting with increasingly corporate professional sports cultureCoaching leadership styles are evolving from authoritarian silence (Belichick model) to transparent communication about external noise (Lane Kiffin model), reflecting generational player expectationsSpiritual and contemplative practices (ayahuasca, meditation, solitude journeys) are gaining mainstream adoption among high-performing individuals as tools for ego dissolution and trauma processingFaith-based content and spiritual philosophy are being repackaged as accessible, non-dogmatic wisdom literature for secular audiences seeking meaning beyond materialism
Topics
Ego vs. Confidence in Personal DevelopmentHumility as Active Learning PostureCollege Football Team Identity and Brand ConsistencyCoaching Psychology and Player MotivationTransfer Portal Impact on Team CohesionFaith and Spirituality in Modern LifeFamily Rituals and Bonfire MetaphorParenting and Emotional Intelligence DevelopmentDopamine Reward System Shifts in Digital AgeNon-Negotiable Life CommitmentsTransformation Through SacrificePrayer as Physical and Spiritual PracticeAuthenticity in Public PerformanceSEC Conference Culture and TribalismSolitude and Self-Discovery Journeys
Companies
Austin FC
McConaughey discussed building team brand and organizational identity in soccer, paralleling college football challenges
Caesars Entertainment
Referenced in Evel Knievel story about how Knievel created the Caesars Palace fountain jump through creative phone calls
People
Matthew McConaughey
Actor, author, and thought leader discussing new book 'Poems and Prayers' and personal philosophy on faith, family, a...
Theo Von
Podcast host conducting interview and sharing personal experiences with college football, family, and spiritual pract...
Lane Kiffin
Ole Miss football coach discussed for transparent leadership style and colorful personality in managing player expect...
Evel Knievel
Legendary stuntman whose life philosophy and approach to risk McConaughey discussed as example of non-negotiable comm...
Darrell K. Royal
Legendary Texas football coach who taught McConaughey about peak performance psychology and team motivation
Bill Belichick
Referenced as example of coaching leadership style that maintains organizational identity through minimal communication
Gregg Popovich
San Antonio Spurs coach cited as example of maintaining team brand through selective media engagement
Nick Saban
Former Alabama coach discussed for establishing consistent team identity and culture expectations
Steve Sarkisian
Texas football coach noted for clear leadership style and organizational control
Camila Alves
McConaughey's wife credited with establishing family rituals and maintaining non-negotiable family commitments
Mike Leach
Former Texas Tech and Oklahoma State coach referenced for colorful, authentic coaching personality
Jim Mora
Former Saints coach cited for honest, unfiltered communication style in post-game interviews
Bum Phillips
Former Houston Oilers coach referenced for memorable quotes about player management and work ethic
Diego Pavia
Vanderbilt quarterback discussed as underdog success story and example of overlooked talent
Red Dawson
Marshall football survivor whose story was honored in 'We Are Marshall' film, showing art's healing potential
Penny Allen
Film producer and McConaughey's mentor who taught him about unified creative vision on set
Thomas Merton
Benedictine monk whose quote about pleasing God through effort McConaughey uses as personal grace practice
Quotes
"Humility is admitting that we have more to learn. Now that definition, all of a sudden my shoulders backed up, my head went up, I said, 'Oh, I can dig that. I'm in.'"
Matthew McConaughey•Mid-episode
"The biggest dopamine hit that we get as humans is not the doing of the deed. It's not the recording of the deed. It is when we press share."
Matthew McConaughey•Early-mid episode
"Courage is often one more step in the right direction."
Matthew McConaughey•Mid-episode
"Prayer comes from worship, which means to literally bow down so we can put our heart above our head."
Matthew McConaughey•Late episode
"If I concentrate on family, fatherhood, and marriage, I can't go wrong. You may not eagle the whole thing, but you're not gonna bogey and you definitely ain't gonna hit one out of bounds."
Matthew McConaughey•Mid-episode
Full Transcript
Today's guest is a legendary actor, author, thought leader, just a just a real vibe curator. He has a new book out called Poems and Prayers. We had a great time down here in Austin getting to know each other. Today's guest is Mr. Matthew McConaughey. Glad to be here. Yeah, thank you so much, Matthew. Nice to meet you, man. You too, bud. Where are you from? I'm from Louisiana. Which part? I'm from Covington, Louisiana down there about 40 miles north of New Orleans. Okay, I gotta, I love Louisiana, where the weeds grow a little taller and the chassis is just a touch looser. But my family, my dad's mother, the Maitland's had a school in Morgan City, so we would go to Morgan City every year for the shrimp festival. My dad grew up later, lived in a city park outside of New Orleans. And my best friend who's since passed away was from Zachary, Louisiana. And I've always, I was raised in East Texas so that Louisiana humidity bleeds over a little bit over the border there, you know. Oh yeah, it's like somebody just exhaling a big hit of cigarette smoke over there. We used to hit the Hirsch Coliseum, man, because you could, you could drink at 18, get over there for my first concert, was Ratt. Yeah. Remember that? R-A-T-T? R-A-T-T, man. Laying down, round and round. Yeah. And I go to WWE matches over there. Bro, you were in the best place for wrestling. Yeah. I got kicked out of Hirsch Coliseum twice. You got kicked out of it two times? Two times, which is tough to do. Yeah. But if you spit a luge on King Kong Bundy, when he's coming to the ring, yes, they will try to kick you out, but then you get put, you get kicked out and there is a window on the exterior of Hirsch here that goes to one of the bathrooms from which I snuck back in. And then I had a hidden, a bag of rotten tomatoes. And I pelted Scandar Akbar from the stands and got kicked out of it. That was awesome, dude. Bro, they should have paid you for being there. That's, bro, you're helping from the crowd. Bring up Scandar Akbar. There he is. Yeah. God. Remember, he was, that was the bad guy at that time. Always, dude. They always had that little kind of cheeky bad guy, you know. Yeah. We had Kevin Von Erick on here. Oh, there we go. And that was pretty special, man. Yeah, that's cool. I loved wrestling at that time. It was so fun, man. Hacksaw Jim Dougum was my guy. Yeah. Yeah, he was thinking, I'm out with a two by four. Yeah, I saw him. I went to Terry, I went to Hulk Hogan's funeral and Hacksaw was there. Yeah, there we go. It was pretty cool, man. All my heroes were there. Like I had figurines of them at home and the figurines are taller these days and half of them are a lot of guys like in wheelchairs. It was kind of tough to see because you see like just the remnants of these heroes, kind of like the stained statues in a way, you know. It was pretty, it was magnificent and weird, you know. It's like, it was beautiful and sad. It's like, you almost want to pretend that things are just in a certain place and time, you know. Your book kind of goes into some stuff like that. Yeah. Were you an evil Knievel fan? I didn't get into him much. We'd see him like, I think I saw him do one jump, but that might have been just a touch before I was like kind of awake to the world. I got into it because my brother turned me on to my older brother, Pat. Anyway, he was just thinking about, you know, following heroes and icons that, you know, I got to know him later in his life when. Evil? Yeah, got to know him pretty good dog all well, man. I was trying to, you know, there's still a story out there to be told on him a movie to be made. And I was around it and developing it for 25 years. And yeah, there we are, spoken as at his funeral. No way. That's so cool. Yeah. What kind of guy was he? Oh man, you know, he did not, people, the misconception of like he had a death, he didn't have a death, he had a life wish, dude. He was, as he said, he needed to jump because he needed to sweat in his boots. It was almost like I think is when he got on the bike and put his hands on the handlebar, I think his pulse went down. Meaning, you know, you know, the certain boxers that get the shit beat out of him and they're like, dude, you're taking four or five years too many. And they're like, tell you, no, I have to, my life outside when I don't have train or get ready for fights, tougher on me. It's too scary. A lot of guys say that, you know. And I think he would always say like, hey, he wouldn't postpone any jump, even if it was impractical, even if his engineers like, dude, you're not going to make it. He was like, well, they're American people want and they paid their tickets and they're going to show up on time. We're going to do this. I mean, I think part of that for him, my opinion is that he was like, no, I got it. I have to jump. Right. I can't postpone these things. We also have that level of integrity with time itself with the clock of life, right? To be like, because I've postponed things. I'll feed you. I'll be 10 minutes late. I'm going to be 15, 20, but to say, to tell time, to tell like existence, I'm going to be there and meet existence right there. That's pretty ballsy. I mean, these days it's super ballsy, but yeah, I mean, it's just, I think it's a ballsy thing for anybody to do. But he was like red bull before they made a damn liquid. Remember, I mean, he was hell, yeah, people would tune in to field sports. I remember people just in the yard, if he was going to jump on, they'd have people out in the yard fucking drinking Dr. Pepper and fucking just massaging each other's shoulders. Oh yeah. And the thing, you know what happened, what got kind of sad, but it's just true towards end of his career. And I saw this happen with his son as a jump too, is people started, first came, wow, he made the jump. Wow. Then it became like I'm coming for the wreck. I'm coming for the crash. And I've been to jumps where, you know, because he always come out first, right? There's the ramp. Here we go. He's just bypassing. You got a little tease. You got a couple of run arounds. Get the bra off a little. And then he's getting a crowd going up and they're on just, you know, pulling, and you're going in and he does it. Boom. And soon as lands and makes it, it's almost like I saw so many people like, oh shit. Yeah. Stomp the cigarette out. Throw that Dr. Pepper in the trash can to leave. Yeah. Dang it. You know, good for him. But yeah. Now, but he made a, he was, he was a legendary cowboy, man. Let's look at one of these. This is Caesar's policy. Oh, he, and he created this. He called, he was in a motel and called the head of Caesars. All right. And said, Hey, my name is, you know, Bobby Bernstein. I'm with ABC, Wide World of Sports. I hear this guy, Evel Neville is going to jump your fountain. And they're like, what are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. Hung up the phone, call back. Another voice impersonated. I'm with the Wide World of Sports. His name is Bob Knight. I hear this Evel Neville is going to, he did it like three times. And finally the guy on the other end of Caesars was like, who the hell is this Evel Neville, Evel Neville got? Find him. Right. And they ended up calling back evil answers. And so on his evil and goes, yeah, I'll do it and worked out the deal. But he created that jump. And this jump is look at the violence after it. I mean, jumps found and look at the crash, man. Boom. Here we go. Oh, shit. Oh, can we talk impact? Bro, that's yeah. There ain't no smoking mirrors with that, man. There ain't no mattress that's going to fix that. No, sir. They ain't no posture. They didn't fix that in post to make it look worse. Oh, Evel. Oh, dude. Yeah, there was just something like, there was something special about that time where it was like, I don't know, the moment meant so much more. You know, there was something, there used to be something about the past at the moment you couldn't copy, you couldn't record it. Like, I think that's why those times you talk about some of this in your book, man. And it's like about time and like God, like the moment of when I was a kid or sitting there and laughing with my friends, like the moment was so much more real because you were never going to get it again. Right. And you didn't, you couldn't necessarily record it and you sure as hell they couldn't share it. There's a study on this, man. I don't know if I'm going to say it's like 20 years ago, but 25. The moment was the biggest dopamine rush. The jump, the cresting of the mountain, the pulling off, whatever you tried to pull off. Yeah. Scientifically measured, the biggest dopamine hit cameras and you know, mobile devices and stuff come out. It slowly turned to the recording of the moment, the snapshot. Okay. Not the cresting of the hill, but we just recorded it. The ownership of the moment. The ownership of the moment, right. And then what has happened now and has been around for 25 years, the biggest scientific dopamine hit that we get as humans is not the doing of the deed. It's not the recording of the deed. It is when we press share. Really? Now that's a little bit like living in third person. Like we're all running around going, my rush is not when I run for a touchdown. My rush is when I see myself on the jumbo tron running for the touchdown. And that's a, that's a slippery slope, man. You know what I mean? Well, it's slippery, but it also seems hard to even conceptualize who I am then, you know? Yeah. Am I myself? Am I just a viewer of myself now? That's it. We're much more, much more voyeurs now. Right. And our identity comes from being objective, trying to look at ourself from outside and now comes from, well, what did you think of what I did and how? Yeah. And that's the worst. What did you think of what I did? Because then that will be, that will be my definition of who I am. Yeah. That we got to watch that. Dude, my sponsor tells me he's like, you're not who they think you are. You're not who you are. And you're not who you think they think you are. Yeah. I think I might, I don't know if I messed it up or not. No, but I hear you saying, yeah. He's like, but yeah, it's just interesting how that, especially for these kids these days, man, it's hard enough as adults. But I think as adults, we put our thought process onto them. And I think they live in a different world and realm that we kind of can't conceptualize because they don't seem as affected as, you know what I'm saying? And it's hard to even know. No, I hear you. I hear you. But I hear what you're saying too. It's like, I'm not trying to be a dinosaur either. No, you don't sound like one. I don't want to be one of those when my kids are going, oh, geez. Yeah, it sounds like, you know, give it another Ted talk from back in the year. Yeah. But I hear you because there's some things that they're just with. It's just part of their vernacular. This thing's an extension of their arm, that kind of sharing and socializing. What do you mean? That's like having a conversation. And we're going, I could say what I was, you and I were just talking about because they could understand it. They would go, okay, but that's not how it is. Yeah. You know, right. I mean, it's all kind of, I mean, it's all fascinating. I mean, even when we were talking about like, I just got back from the old Miss game. I know you were at, it was fun. You guys were rolling, man. And Lane's doing a great job of keeping y'all mentally in the right spot with all this noise about him going to Florida or elsewhere. Yeah. He big boyed it. He big boyed it. Look what you mean. Meaning he didn't go the traditional, no, it's not true when keep it, keep the noise out. He went, we got this, I got this noise. Y'all got this noise because we're winning. Yeah. This is the noise that's out there. He talk, he's talking to those young men like an adult who's up with the times. Yeah. He's going, this is part of it, man. Right. This is part of it. And you're doing it because we're doing good. So let's do as well as we can right now and keep winning. It's a great message because your players are going, they get it now. I think these players get the portals, the, the, the, the, the, the, you've been probably not going to be playing with the same guys for three years straight. Yeah. Four years straight. There's, you can transfer in season. You can go here. I mean, yeah, there's two portals now, I think, aren't there? Aren't there two portals during the season? And I'm actually a van, I'm a Vanderbilt fan, but my, but I'm friends with Lane. Yeah. And I grew up as a LSU fan, right? And, and, and sometimes people are like, sometimes it'll be like, well, you're a fair weather fan or something. I'm like, but now like you're seeing this, there's kind of like, it's like, there's kind of like fair weather franchises in some way. It's like, they're changing players so much and things and that, and they expect you to lock in like, like my dad did, or like I did when we were kids. It's like, if you buy a jersey, the guy's gone and you know, things change so much. So I think it's interesting, some of the expectations sometimes out of fans, you know, um, well, it's harder to create as an organization, as a team, as a school, uh, as that, that, oh, this is our brand of football. Last one to do it pros is what? New England. No matter who came and went, it was Belichick, it's way of football. It was Tom Brady, quarterback, Robert Kraft, his own. There was a certain way. Remember people come to, studs would come to, big names would come to New England and there wasn't a lot of press about them. And all of a sudden next week, you're like, oh, they got dropped. And you wasn't in big, no big fanfare. It was like, you didn't play our way. That's, you're kind of gone. Right. We're good. If you're not our way, we, our way is our way. Yeah. So now when you're plugging in so many players, and we're going to do this with Austin FC, our soccer club, do we have a brand of what they call fuchbo soccer that you, this is how we play coaches and players can be plugged into our system. It's harder to do because players are moving around. You get a, we got a chance to get this stud player. Well, if he's a running option quarterback and we've been running traditional offense, which is dropback, be dumb not to update the way we play offense, you know what I mean? Or whatever that is. But you, you have X, yeah, how much are the expectations for the brand of how people play football at certain schools? Yeah. You know, I don't know. What's the brand, who has a brand of this is how you play? It's a great question. I mean, in college football, this is how we play the expectations of how maybe the brand, maybe the ex, maybe the cultures are similar. And you have this is, this is an understood whether to aggressive violin or, or, or for Ness, whatever, whatever that is, or we're going to have a great defense, right? No matter what. Well, Saban had one kind of Saban felt like he had it. He did. I feel like Sarkisian is a guy that is very much, he is the boss there. You know, there's an energy there with him that is very cut and dried. Yeah. You know, but yeah, when I was growing up, it was like Pittsburgh kind of had the defense, you know, Baltimore had a defense. There was a toughness about those places. You had San Francisco that was always a great passing attack. Yeah, I don't know. I guess like Yeah, if you have Earl Campbell back there for Houston or you have, what's the guy for big boy out of Alabama for Baltimore? Oh, Derek Henry. There, if you have them, you've gone, okay, we're going to be a running team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know what I mean? Are you ever hear that bum Phillips quote on Earl Campbell? I don't know what this is. Y'all remember Earl Campbell out of the Tyler Rose. Oh yeah. He played, he played for Dallas two to near now. No, Houston. He played for Houston. Yeah. The Oilers at that time. Oh yeah. The Oilers ended up in Tennessee. That's where I live now. They ended up in Nashville. So they would give bum Phillips coach and he would give Earl the ball like 35 times a game. Yeah. And if sports started coming out, go men, are you worried about the wear and tear on, on Earl giving him the ball that often? Bum says, no, not really. That ball ain't that heavy. That's awesome, dude. We used to have just so many good personalities. We, there's a Jim Mora talking to reporters. Will you look it up? Saints, Jim Mora. Playoffs. This is even before that. Oh it is. Oh yeah, bro. Wait till you see this. He's talking about his team. But yeah, playoffs. He was great, man. Watch this. Listen to this. This is crazy. Jim, obviously you're not happy. Oh, we got our ass kicked. We got our ass kicked. It was, it was, it was sickening. First three, we have 18 plays on offense. First 18 plays, we turn the ball over one for a touchdown. The other one's going to set up a touchdown. We can't, you know, we got backs that can't hang onto the ball. They out hit us. They out toughed us. You know, we, we stunk today. We're, we're, not even close between that football team and our football team. Not even close. Ridiculous. We run two screens. We don't block anybody. We get a back, gets his knee blown out on one of them. Can't block anybody. We stunk. Just stunk. Jim injuries, uh, being good. Dean told me he blew his knee out. You know, you gotta block people on a screen. Shit, he gets the ball out there and two guys, big old animals nail his ass. Shit. It's ridiculous. We run a screen before that. We get our ass nailed. I don't know. I don't know. You know, Dean said he couldn't put any weight on his leg. That didn't sound too good to me. We're down, you know, we're down in back. We're down and everything. We, we, we, you know, shit, we don't have enough people right now. It'll be hard to practice next week. There you go. There's not many of them out there. I mean, you know, I miss my friend, Mike Leach watching that. Yeah. You know, that guy, what, what, what was he at Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas Tech, Cliff Kingsbury country. Have you heard the one amount day after they went to the players sitting out there and I don't know in the river on a blank, fat little girl friends. Oh, bring up Mike Leach, fat little girl friends. Listen to this. Tell them how great they are. This guy is classic. As coaches, we failed to get through to them as, as coaches, we failed to make our coaching points and our points more compelling than their fat little girlfriends. Now their fat little girlfriends have some obvious advantages. For one thing, their fat little girlfriends are telling them what they want to hear, which is how great you are and how, how easy it's going to be and how, you know, uh, you know, we, we, you know, we had a whole bunch of people, everybody wanted to win the football game, but nobody wanted to play the football game. Well, I mean, that defies every level of work ethic that exists with regard to football and, uh, as coaches, we have to solve our failure on, on reaching them and, uh, the players have to listen and I'm willing to go to, uh, fairly amazing lengths to try to make that happen. I don't know if I'll be successful this week or not, but, but you know, I am going to try and there will be some people inconvenienced. And if it happens, be their fat little girlfriends too bad. That's awesome. That's what we need. I'll just, just people to be brave enough to have a personality these days. It's kind of interesting, you know, but check this out because I'm with you. That's entertaining. It's smart. It's an inside look. It's Frank. It's open. You know, uh, people call it politically incredible, whatever, forget all that. It's, it's, it's in the moment. You, it's great hearing somebody be honest in the moment with some color. Um, but I also look at people like a great franchise, Bill Billichick. Says nothing. Do your job. Do your job. That's it. Uh, um, great coach of the spurs. Oh, uh, pop of it. Yeah. Pop. Uh, cuts off interview. Uh, uh, yep. No, you saw it. Thank you. Bam. So there is something that they keep noise out because they don't give any color commentation. Yeah. And is there something about that that is a stability within a franchise that your head coach is going to handle all that color behind closed doors or just stay on that line, keep it super simple. Do your job. Do your job. You didn't do your job. Yeah. Going to get someone that can do your job. I know it's much more complicated than that. They're running X's and O's and everything. But this is another question. And looking college football, which is why I like college more than pro so much. So our great, great legendary Texas coach, Darrell K. Royal told me one time he goes, Matthew, you can get the maximum potential out of your team three Saturdays a season. I believe it was number three Saturdays out of a seat. At that time, you had 10, so you got 12 now. So now maybe you say you can get four. Boy, there's an awesome black hole there to fill for the psychology. That's all psychology. Yeah, you hope you have, you coach to have your team at peak for one of those peak three weekends against the best teams. And then you hope they're just play kind of all right against the all right competition and then have their worst days against competition. They should beat anyway. Yeah, they should just roll. But boy, if three, I'm still curious. I think the, what if you got a coach right now, if you could get six top peak performance Saturdays, seven, I mean, because you got, I'm asking for three hours. I'm asking for 36 hours a season for you to be mentally and physically inspired right there on the edge and locked in. And there's an opportunity there is that what I'm saying. And for somebody to even see that there is an opportunity there, right? Because sometimes you might just look at life and be like, well, there's going to be highs and lows, right? Like you can have a great team. But yeah, you're only get you, you're not going to win every single time. So it's like those moments where you've had two great weeks in a row. And like now the spread is 17, but it's like, no, you did that's not the laws of life. Right. So how do you, how do you adjust what's realistically possible to weather that storm of that third weekend where it's just, just the laws of the universe are not going to allow it to be as perfect and balance how much look sometimes you need your team needs confidence. You know, I remember talking to Mike Brown at practice after we, I don't know, 20 something years ago, we'd just come off like, I don't know, 45, nothing route to UCLA. Beat them? No, they routed us. We were not good. And that Tuesday practice or that Monday practice, it was like a completion for two yards, a clean handoff that went for two yards. We got applauded that was like, applaud that. It was like, man, I've got the teams, we're, we're, we need good clean handoffs and a reception, right? And a clean pass that wasn't intercept. We have to build the confidence back up. So sometimes you're there. Other times you have such talent and they're so confident. How do you keep them playing? No, I'm not worried about your confidence. I need to make sure you feel like an underdog against yourself, right? Against your, the ability that you can play to, because a great, a great teams are essentially playing against themselves and how great they think they can be. And that opponent is nothing but in my way, right? To me, being as great as I can be. And that's, if you got that working, if you can flick that switch in, yeah. Howdy. In your own life, because this is something I think about a lot. I think about confidence and ego, right? And I've always had a tough time kind of, I've always had a tough time knowing what my feelings are. Like when I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of feelings, I think. And so I didn't know what a lot of them were. And then as I've gotten older, it's like, you didn't have feelings or when you had feelings, you just didn't know what they were. I didn't know what they were. So I couldn't tell if I was like, have like instincts or uncertain, like, like what was like, like when it was making decisions, I couldn't tell what was instinctual or what was me making a choice. Just, I just had a, like, I just didn't have a lot of feelings when I was young. And so it was kind of like a late bloomer in some of those worlds. But one of the things I struggle with sometimes still is just like ego and confidence, you know, how do you know, you know what I'm saying? Because one can be super dangerous. One is healthy. Well, look, man, I think ego's gotten a bad rap. This, you know, elimination of the ego, you know, there's a difference to believe, to going, I have confidence, I have confidence. Then there is, oh, look at me. The difference is I am me. Me is the objective one, right? Me is that jumbotron. The warrior one, where you're going like, oh, yeah, how do I look? I look good. There's where I get my confidence from something I saw myself outside of myself. Confidence with the eye, which I think is true ego when we handle it right, is I think extremely healthy. It mean, man, it's like, it's like, judgment. You got to have judgment where you have no identity. And where do you get judgment from? Well, part of that, I believe is part of the ego of I am discerning because I prefer this over that. I expect this more than I expect that. Experiences, you know, for myself or from others. Now, ego can get out of check when it gets into the look at me. Yeah. But when it's coming from the subjective place of like, no, I'm prepared for this. This is what I'm fashion to do. I have the ability, I'm capable and I'm willing, I'm going to go do that. And no one's going to judge myself harder than I'm going to judge myself because I believe what I am capable of doing. I mean, look, I wrote about this in green lights since a little bit in poems and prayers. These man, these roofs, these limitations we put on ourselves, we make those up. And that's a cocky ass thing to do. Who do we think we are? To put limitations. To put these roofs on our ability if we have that ability. Now, now we get into what humility, humility, which is a word I had trouble with because growing up, especially in religion, humility, I always, always kind of cowered. My head kind of, my, my, my shoulders came forward, my head kind of got down and I, and I didn't know how to have confidence with humility. How do you have confidence and be humble? And then I heard a new definition of humility or being humble, admitting that we have more to learn. Now that definition, all of a sudden my shoulders backed up, my head went, I said, Oh, I can dig that. I'm in. I have more to learn. Because that's an active humility kind of. Now I'm, now I'm going forward. It's affirmative. I can still be graceful, still be empathetic and listen, but I, but I'm not. In this retreating, like, yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not being passive, necessarily. I think we've got to have a healthy. An empowering taking on of knowledge and admitting you have more to learn. Yeah. Yeah. It was a freeing, you know, sometimes a definition of a word for meal, like, Oh, I never thought of it that way. Now, now, now I understand it. Sometimes it takes 40, I didn't learn that one until it's 45. Yeah. So for 45 years, hey, hey, hey, get off your toes. You better, better be humble. I was like, yeah, I'd cow down and miss opportunities, you know, and not be the first to speak up if I knew the answer or something or pass the buck too often. And that's a false. That's like a false modesty. Oh, shoot. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's really pretending to, it's like, Oh, let me let you see me be modest. Yeah. And it's bull, it's bullshit. 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It's a unified suite that brings your financials inventory commerce HR and CRM into a single source of truth. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. If I needed this product for my business, it's what I'd use right now. Get our free business guide, demystifyingai at net suite.com slash theo. The guide is free for you at net suite.com slash th e o. That's N E T S U I T E dot com slash theo. Yeah, I mean, it's all like having some awareness about yourself, but try not to be too crazy where you're sitting there just thinking about yourself all the time. Yeah, it's all like, it's all pretty fascinating, man. I mean, and there's a lot of good stuff in this book. I'm trying to think of some of the parts that I really liked. You write that courage is often one more step in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about that in marriage, faith and character. Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, I thought that that was pretty interesting because, um, yeah, there's times where I stall. Yeah. That's where I stall sometimes. I stall with that like, I don't know what this is going to be like. I don't know what this is going to feel like. I already don't like the feeling of this, right? It happens to me a lot with like commitment and relationships and stuff. It happens to me a lot and like try not to control the outcome of, of like even a moment, right? Like, God, I just, you know, to have a little bit of courage there to be like, well, let's see what this, right? What would one step more take me deeper into debt? Or am I going to, or is it going to, am I going to power through and get to the other side and go, oh, okay, I stuck with it. Now I see it. Now I see the light. I like this. I'm, it's a, it's a, it's a really interesting measurement. I think we always got to do, man. I mean, I try to measure like there's like, remember, no fear. I was always like, what do you mean no fear? Oh yeah. There's a lot of stuff I fear. There's a lot of stuff I think we all should fear. It's what things do we go? No, I'm, but I'm going to have the courage to go. I'm overcoming that fear, but there's goodness, bad fears, meaning like if I'm reading a script and I kind of like the script, but man, I'm not sure about the director and there's financing doesn't have enough money behind it. Can we really make this good movie? And I'm not going to be, I'm kind of scared of that. I think maybe okay. Maybe that's a healthy fear you got there, McConaughey, because the pedigree around that may not be as excellent as you want it to be. There's other times I don't see where you script see a character and man, all everything. I like the directors on it, man. We got good financing behind us, production value is going to be good. The script's damn good. And I'm looking at this character when I am scared of shitless about how am I going to pull this off? Well, okay. I would subscribe that maybe that's a good fear that I need to dive in and go, well, let's go find out, but don't back off of that one because that one, and then I'll see the movie two years later, I'm like, oh, it was great. And look at that part that that other guy got to play. And then I'm kicking myself going, you didn't have the wave us in the will to go sit there and go find out McConaughey, come on, man. You know what I mean? So it's measuring the good ones and about you say you got a bad feeling if you already have a bad feeling. Look, I do think this man, my brother Rooster says this, he goes, man, if everybody only did what they love to do, there'd be a whole lot of unemployment. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, it's sometimes it does suck. And you got to do some hard things. You're like, man, I'm not, I'm not, this doesn't feel right. Now, does it not feel right? Or do we just not like it? A lot of things I got to do that we got to do that we don't like to do to get to the other side and go, well, you know, especially as we get older, we got things that we've invested in family and friends and relationships or own self. Those are some fires that we've been putting logs on for a while. And it can be hard sometimes to sit there and keep tending those fires or keep tending those gardens we're talking about, right? On our own. So, but you sit there and you go, I believe that if I do the hard work now and break this sweat and draw some blood to make this work, which sucks, I'm going to get to the other side. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to take to get to the other side and go, oh, there we go. All right, there we go. Now, I can sleep better. Now I can wake up going, yep, I'm still connected to what I was, what I created in the past for myself. I did the next right thing for myself and it sucked. But damn it, that's right there where I could have backed off from retreated. I could have said, oh, I smell smoke, gonna be fire. Well, sometimes it's like, no, it's smoke. Maybe go put out the damn fire before it turns into one. Yeah, that's what I mean. Or let's procure this fire a little bit, make a little bit of barbecue for the future. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Well, I think also it's like it creates linchpins in your life. Like some of those things you're saying, like, even like with family and stuff and being willing to do that, right? And be like, okay, this is a, this is a project that my wife and I, my partner and I are going to create together. You know, where did you have fears about like that at certain points in your life of like starting a family and committing to that and doing that? Was that kind of tough? So, look, the one thing I always knew I wanted to be was a dad, eight years old. Okay, good story. So, you know, dad had introduced a lot of his male friends through life and, you know, it's, I'm shook, shake their hand, look them in the eye and nice to meet you, sir. Sir, sir, was a big thing in our family. And I remember I was eight years old, we were in an oak forest country club park and I had a hello along with you, Texas. And I was met these, these two men, they were both in black slacks, white shirts and black jackets. And I want them had shades on. And as I was shaking their hands, I remember the sunlight was behind me. It's kind of in my eyes. I was like, nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir. It hit me in my eight-year-old mind at that time that, oh, and they, and they were talking about their, they started talking about their own children. And it hit me in my eight-year-old mind that, oh, all the people I've shaken, all of them, and dads introduced to that I shook their hands and said, sir, to were fathers. And in my eight-year-old mind, I went, oh, that's how you succeed in life. And it, you know, whether I'm malopropter, that was the meaning I gave it. It was, it stuck with me. And it was, it was always been my measurement of what successful life would be as a man to become a father and to then help raise kids. So I knew I was going to be a father. Now, then you get to, can you, you know, meet a woman that you're in love with and that, you know, is going to be a great mother, you know, to them. I fortunately met that woman in Camilla. So, but, but we didn't get married right off the bat. We were, and maybe this is because my mom and dad were married three times, divorced twice. And her mom and dad were married two times and divorced three times. So we had a track record for reason to go like, it's a lot of math and jewelry. Yeah. Yeah. A whole lot. So we're rolling along, man, and saying it's going great. And we don't want to get married because that's just what you're supposed to do. I don't want to back into it because someone goes legally, it's wrong with you, but no bullshit. I want to want to. And I didn't really want to. I wasn't against it, but her and I were like, we're doing good. We have our first child. Or let me go back to nine months before we have a first child. I come home and there's cheeseburgers. She's cooking on the grill. I smell them. She pours me a double in my favorite tequila. I sit down and she gives me a gift. I open it up. It's the, what do you call it, the sonogram, whatever gram that is, where you see in the, in the belly, you got a baby in fetus. It's pregnant. Oh my gosh. Oh, cry tears. We hug it out. Oh my God. This is, this is so awesome. Etc. Etc. Let's call my mom. Tell her the good news. Now get my phone out. Call mom. Camilla's sitting next to me. Mom, you there. We've got some great news to tell you. Got you on speakerphone. Can you hear? Camilla is here. Hi, Camilla. Hi, Miss McConaughey. How are you there? You got to meet? Yeah. Yeah. I'm listening. I can't wait. Tell me, tell me, tell me, mom. Camilla's pregnant. Crickets. Our next thing here is, no, no, no, no, no, Matthew. This is out of order. I didn't raise you to do this, but no, Matthew, you're supposed to be married and went on and on and on in a five minute monologue and then hung up. I stopped. I look over at Camilla and she looks at me and we're like, oh, shit, that didn't go the way it. I hoped it would. And so, you know, let's stop off that drink. You know what I mean? Okay. 10 minutes say the phone rings. It's my mom. Yeah. I have mom. She goes, hi, Matthew. Yeah, mom, speak phone. I go, I put you on speakerphone. Okay. It's Camilla there. Yeah, she's right at Hamish County. Okay. Can you all both hear me? Yeah, we hear you, mom. We hear you, Miss. Okay. I would like to put some white out over that last. I was being selfish thinking about myself. If you two are happy about it, I should be happy for you. It's not my place to be unhappy. So we had two children before we got married. But yeah, I mean, look, the big project, you know, as far as I can tell, the one that's non-negotiable. That's the thing. Can we find non-negotiable projects? There we go. Nope. When I'm lost and don't know what the hell I'm doing, or I'm looking for my North Star, what are some things in our life that we can look at and go, if I concentrate on that, I can't go wrong. Sometimes that's just it. Like, I still have it now. Maybe I don't know what new things I want to do. And then when I'm kind of lost and wobbly, I'll try to look at the things that I go like family, like fatherhood, like the marriage and go, if you work on that, McConaughey, you can't bogey. You may not, you may not eagle the whole, but you're not gonna bogey and you definitely ain't gonna hit one out of bounds. You can't spend too much time on that in your spare time. And then that'll help you spiritually, heart and head. And so I try to go to the non-negotiables when I'm a little, when I'm like, and then when things are going well, that's another thing. I love to accomplish it, man. I love to go work and I'm going off. And I'm hitting the road. I'm all over the place. How do I keep my marriage and my fatherhood out of the debit section? How do I, you know, cause I'm don't have the time as much time. That's another challenge when things are going well personally, you know, to take care of those non-negotiables. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot, like if I don't know what to do, I try and, yeah, like it's always like help others, you know, like that's the thing. Like that's probably been the thing that's been most helpful in my life. If I don't know what to do whenever, you know, it's trying to help others think of somebody else, call somebody else, see what they're doing, get out of myself and hurt. There's like that prayer. It's like, God, I offer myself to the deal with me and do with me as that will relieve me of the bondage of self and take away my difficulties so that, like, I don't remember the end of it. Leave me of the bondage to myself. Leave me of it. Off it. Third step. Yeah. Offer myself to the deal with me and do with me as that will relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do that. Well, that's it. There we go. So it's just like, yeah, God, my problem is me right now. I'm just so I'm sitting here. I'm just, I'm breaking myself up and putting myself into a joint and smoking myself. Right. I'm just getting high. You know, something here and it can be a low point or a high point though. Yeah. That's the thing. Sometimes I think it's like, you know, I've thought it's just the hot, just the lows, but it's like, even if I get too high on myself, it's like, that's not good either, you know. Well, it keeps our pursuit not about the, it's talking to the God, godliness within us, the more God likeness in us that we can be that it's a lot of us are striving to be that pursuit is such a valuable pursuit, you know, religious or not. Yeah. Have a connection to a creator. Yeah. To not feel higher, right. That you're not going to reach, but you're going, I mean, otherwise I would feel so homeless. If I don't want my soul to feel homeless, you know, there's a lot of people's that feel very homeless. Will you talk about just like your own like times of faith and like how hard it, you know, it's tough to, um, to keep that connection going, you know, and to work on it more. It takes maintenance, doesn't it? Yeah. It takes a lot of maintenance, man. That's probably my biggest. That's where my ego will get out of control. Where all of a sudden I start, I take for granted that I didn't just pull it all off of my own. And I start thinking I did and I do the math and go, like, I mean, I did. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, here comes humble pie pretty soon. Oh yeah. I mean, that's a tough thing. I mean, having a relationship with, um, having a relationship with our creator and giving ourselves like saying, God, you know, giving thanks, getting a good perspective for ourselves. Has there been practices that you've used realistically over the years? I'm sure once you have a family and stuff like that, some of that starts to maybe get more built into you. But just because it's, there's a vision, there's a, there's an actual component that's right there alive. But have you noticed for yourself? Um, uh, there's a having having kiddos is in some ways are how we become immortal. If we're fortunate enough for them to outlive us. Yeah. And if we're fortunate for them to have kids in crep pastoral lineage, it's like, you first have a kid, you're like, I have helped create a being that is outside of myself, but my blood and so is in them. It's a, it's, it's, it's a certain way to immortality. Um, and I don't mean in the religious sense of, oh, if you live this way, you live forever, that could you get to the gates and the kingdom of heaven? Yeah. But it is a mortal way of going, no, just kind of signed to evolutionary wise. It's a way to become immortal. And I find there's a great power in that and a great freedom and responsibility that comes with that. Because you're shepherding your future self through your child or what you're, what you're, you know, for 18 years, so to speak, generally in the household before they go off into the world. Um, so you're taking care of yourself. Right. In a weird way, by taking, like a chunk of yourself, by taking care of your, it's our greatest children. I mean, it's the greatest export and it is the most closest thing pieces of art in the world that we'll ever put out. Yeah. You know. Yeah, that's pretty fascinating. Yeah. Do you and your family, do you have any traditions that really mean a lot to you guys that you have felt like, um, have helped you establish more of a sense, like a familiar sense, like a team sense kind of? Yeah. I mean, my wife's better than my family ever was on the actual rituals. I mean, my family's like, everyone come over for Thanksgiving, we're going and it's like swing by the pit and get some food while you're doing it. And we're going to sit down. Well, not even unless everybody wants to sit down. Yeah. My wife's like, no, we are, I'm setting the table. Right. And we're sitting down and doing this. And we're going to say prayers before and everyone's going to go around. That's one of the things we like to do. Call it around the horn. Everybody, before we share something out loud, something to thank for. Share it up. And at very least out there, it at least makes the food taste better. Yeah. At least, but it also is a great conversation starter because you'll say things and a lot of people don't like to share them out loud. And it'll start a conversation with somebody that you didn't know. Why do you say you're thankful for that thing? Oh, I didn't know your grandmother just got out of the hospital. Oh, I didn't know that you did good on that test last Tuesday and you're thankful for that. And it's a great way to get a conversation started. We do, we'd practice that. We are, we have dinner each night. It's a small ritual, but in our busy worlds of today, it's huge. To have that down and everyone comes in and you hear a little bit about the day. And we kind of, it's kind of like the team gets together. And I was talking to my kids, we were talking to kids about it the other day, you know, I was like, look, this, these, talk about these bonfires we have, our family, we're calling it a bonfire, not a campfire, bonfire boys and girls. Let's go, man. We, this is non-negotiable. We got to, we created it. We're on our way. We think we're doing all right. Let's keep putting logwood on this fire. But you, three kiddos, you're responsible for going and chopping wood here too and bringing the log back to the fire. It's not just me and your mama that are doing that. It takes, it's talking about back to sports. We were in the very beginning. It's a team effort here. You all got to start adding that. And take the, and take the, have the confidence yourself that you do have a log to add to this fire. Right. I think encouraging or like encouraging kids to think and feel like that, it's important, you know, because kids don't know how to think and feel. I think there's like this understanding that people just know what feelings are and what's happening and like what their responsibility is as a brother or a son. It's like a lot of that stuff has to really be kind of instilled, I think. I think you're right because I'm guilty of giving the Cliff Notes version of things to my kids sometimes where they're like, I think it's like, well, duh, you understand that, you know what I mean? Like little things, man. How do you wipe your butt? You know what I mean? What's the odorant for? You know what I mean? Little things like, well, duh. And like, no, I know. You wipe your butt with deodorant and it's going to burn. How would I know? You know, things you've got to let them know. Yeah, there's that extra step a lot of times. And I think we think that kids are just adults and sometimes, you know, or they saw it somewhere, they picked it up. Yes, they don't know. Because that's the other thing. You do find out a lot of things that they did pick up that you didn't know they knew. Right. And then you start to be like, oh, well, and you try to help many when they're like, I already know this. So it's like, probably a little catch of little. But there's a whole lot of things that, yeah, they don't know. You know, we, it's in our frame, one of the things is winter the kids ready for this type of movie. Yeah, or an R or something. I'm just, in what content is in there? I just don't want, there's some certain things in life about, about love, about, about, about violence, about all the ways of the world that I don't necessarily want my kids to get it from an outside piece of entertainment before they have a context of understanding it from me and their mother. For sure. Like let them understand it first before seeing it for the first time. And their emotions are going all over the place for pleasure or pain, but they don't know what it all means. Right. Or does that happen? Well, you know, I want the context coming from their mom and dad first so they can then see it and go, I understand that was realistically, however realistically that was done and how that affected me. But I understand the context of what that scene I just saw. Or, and that's why I try to hold back certain content, you know, from the kids to have it, just an understanding of the reality. So you can at least appreciate it, but know that that's fiction. Right. Yeah, you got to be a keeper. You got to be a keeper. You know, you're, you're, you're the, you're running the kennel, you know, when you're doing that, you know, if I could go back in time, one thing I would start to do would be to start saving my money a little bit earlier, even if it was just a little at a time, just a little here, a little there, just give it a chance to grow. That's what acorns does. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. Acorns is easy. 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I was in, I was at Ole Miss, dude. Lane Kiffin's crazy. That guy's absolutely crazy, dude. He took me to yoga class, right? He goes to this yoga class. I'm in there, right? And he, I think he's, he has the heat on his phone. He's hijacked the heat system and like this. So he's sitting over there. Pumping up the heat? Yeah. I mean, just like pot yoga, like Putin over there. Yeah. He's got it way hot though. And he's, he's even holding a lighter in there, like adding a little bit of heat to the room. But at one point he's like wandering around and just like saying things to people and whispering like affirmations. Wait, is he, is he in the class or is he teaching the class? He's in it. He's not the teacher. Okay. And the teacher has like the microphone thing on and she's kind of pointing at him every now and then. There's a picture that we just put up yesterday from and I don't know if you can even see it. It might be out there somewhere. Can you raise it up a little bit? I can only see his head and this seems like a shot you got to see out. Okay. That's lame. But find the other photo too if you can, Nick. But he's, dude, he comes in, he puts a peppermint in my mouth, dude. And his, his hand kind of even touched my lips a little bit and I don't even, I mean, we're both straight males, you know? I mean, he has a family. I hope to have a family, but he just like, I'm like, and I'm in there sweating and dying, basically trying to look okay, you know? And sorry, I wear a towel like that. I was raised by a single mom. Are you over on the right? Yeah. Is this post peppermint? It's post peppermint. Yeah. But I mean, Lane is crazy though, dude. He does these weird rituals and stuff in there and he'll like bounce a golf ball in. It's like people, it's like dead and he'll bounce a golf ball across the, he's just doing bizarre stuff in there. Does he have a method to it? Is he doing it for? It is. It's just, we, I can't, it's like he's a, some sweat mullier or something, you know? I don't know what he's going, but it's, it's just amazing over there. But he's just always likes to be involved and causing, having an effect, right? So that's what I noticed about him and it's interesting and it's fascinating in the same way. Is he a trickster or is he a sort of, as you said, he's just going to throw in some color commentary on the situation. He's going to give a different color. He's very colorful. Okay. And so, but he's got a big hearty, like he'll make sure that everything's taken care of. He's on top of everything, right? But I think he likes to be very colorful and stuff, but we had a great time over there. Anyway, this was just an experience that we had where he goes to this yoga class every single day and, and he never misses. And it was just, yeah, it was a great experience. I mean, I had to lay down for a little while and some girl was like, do you need CPR? And I'm like, no, I don't fucking need CPR. Okay. Just taking a rest. I'm just taking a rest with my eyes closed. You look like you went through it, man. You look like... I was laying there like this for a little while because I wasn't doing really good. And yeah, I didn't black out, but I like light browned out or whatever, but it was like, I'm fine. But anyway, yeah, but it was just fascinating over there, man, just to be over there. And we got to walk through the, like the walk that they do up to the stadium. And that was pretty crazy. I mean, yeah, they're just, that fan base is pretty rabid. I didn't realize how special it was over there in Oxford. I didn't realize. What's going on right now, man? Yeah, they got it going on. I think they're going to make the CFP. I'm hoping Vanderbilt makes it in. I don't think that they're going to. Well, what did y'all, y'all lost to? We lost to, yeah. To us and to... Alabama. Alabama. All right. That ain't, that's... But they need a big win, you know, we need a big win. Who do you got left? We still have Tennessee and we have Kentucky next weekend and then we have Tennessee. All right. You clear those two with the two-law season you're most likely in. Well, look, like we just came, we just have Sanford Stadium down in Georgia. Got it handed to us. You were down there at the UGA. What's that like over there that that happens? Good. I never remember between the hedges. It was. I had never heard Sanford Stadium between the hedges as being like one of the plate. Whoa, it's really hard. Oh yeah, man. Was it 90,000? And those fans are in unison, man. And they had, I tell you what, I get to measure stadiums, right? When I go to them, like, what's the fan base? Oh yeah, it's amazing. How happy are they that I'm there compared to how much did they like F you, McConaughey, we're going to get it, you know what I mean? And this crowd was loud from the beginning, especially that first half. And then the second half when they started to boat roll, they were still really that. But they were one of the higher decibels that I've heard. But they were continuous is the thing, especially anytime that we were on offense. And but the, could you get crowds that are in unison? They know the chance. Auburn does a good job of that. Being in unison, they have their chance. You can have 30,000 more people, but if the rituals and the cheers aren't in unison, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's not as intimidating at all. And yeah, they were happy I was there, but they were also giving me straight horns down and going, we're going to whip your tonight. You know, so it was a good, it was a good, it was a healthy, healthy hate there. I love that. You know what I mean? Because I've been to some, some visiting. And they get a little edgy. Oh no, I got some and I won't say their names on that. I got some that dude, I'm dodging, I'm dodging Lugies. You're dodging those tomatoes you were throwing at her. And they're like, yeah, there we go. Okay. And I've been to others. They're like, a time to kill us now, buddy. Whatever. You know, and then I've been to somewhere it's like, they're too happy to, they're too nice to me. I'm like, uh-oh, you're in trouble. Yeah. Dude, how great is it though? Is there anything better than being a college football fan? I don't know if there is. It's great. And the SEC is one of the best forms of tribalism in the world. I love hearing that. I think I agree with you. I didn't know. I toured so much, I'd never gotten to have the fall off. So the past, I've been in nine games this year, I think, from different stadiums, probably five of them were at Vanderbilt Stadium, but but it's just been amazing, dude. Like to go to Alabama, to go to Virginia Tech, to go, we're going to go to Neal and in a week or two to be at Ole Miss yesterday. You had us to see some of it and just that like, what it's about for them in those places. Yeah. Well, and, you know, Athens, that's basically just college town and they were just, they, the fans, the fans are great and they were loud and they were rabid. But to go, one of the things I love about being in the SEC, I can't wait to go, you know, been in Tuscaloosa. I've been, I can't wait to go to Death Valley LSU in a night game when we go there. Because I've only been there once and they played Vanderbilt when Vanderbilt was a doormat, not the Vanderbilt now. Yeah. And so that was a good experience, but that wasn't a great Death Valley experience. I still, I can't wait to get over to Tennessee. That's a beautiful place to, that I think might be the most beautiful place to see a game is that Neal and Stadium. But I haven't been to see a game at Austin. I want to go see that. I know that Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe went one time. You might have went to that same game that they went to. I've been to most of them, I'm over there on the sidelines. That's so cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I just feel lucky to, first of all, even just get to be around some of the teams to be that close to like that energy that young, if you stay around young people, it just keeps you young. It's like, there's something that's like, I don't know. It's just, it's energy. That's how energy works. And I still have to remind myself how young these young men are. You know? And that, you know, it's like, because they're so damn big, you know? And then you look and you go, oh, you're 18. Yeah. 18. When was that? You know, gotta go back and do the math. You know what I mean? Yeah. You can't even figure it out sometimes. Because I'm down there and I'm feeling like I was at college, UT, just a few years ago. Well, a few multiplied times are a nice size number. Yeah. But it seems like it was the other day, you know? I know it does, man. But that's what's kind of nice about it too, is the connectivity of that, that there's something special about when you get around certain things, that it's undeniable that it's nice that it feels not that long ago in a way. Yeah. Yeah. And again, on the SEC, man, I was talking to Sanky about this the other night. They're the only conference that wants to fight, absolutely draw blood like brothers on a Saturday night when you're in the game. But after the game, we're the SEC. Yeah. And the only conference that you go to and if you beat, an SEC team beats another team that's outside of the SEC comes. Yeah, they may chant their name, tag, LSU, or tag. But they also chant SEC, SEC. Nobody else does that, man. I used to get upset with my friends that would cheer on other SEC teams if our team was out of it, right? But now I get it. Now I get it. It's like this is the conference. That's why I'm kind of, you look, I backhanded, you know, I got it when OU beats Alabama like they did. I get a little, oh, there we go. When I, even when A&M came back from down 33 against South Carolina, I'm like, there we go. Because we're the old Southwest Congress, the old Big 12. I'm rooting for them to go like, and I also, I'm a Texas fan who wants our two biggest rivals, those Aggies and OU, traditionally. I want them to be undefeated when we play them. You know what I mean? We usually play OU around the, I don't know, fifth game this season, fourth, fifth. I always want OU to be undefeated and I want us to be undefeated and then I want to beat them. Yeah. And I want A&M. We play A&M the last game of the year. So it's still coming up. It's two weeks, you know, from now or saying whatever weekend is, I don't know when this comes out. But you know, I want them to be undefeated. Hell yeah. When we beat them is what I wanted. You know what I mean? That's, that's, yeah. Well, I always cheer for the underdog, man. I find I always cheer for the underdog. That's one thing I loved about Vanderbilt this year. They've always been underdog. Pavi is great. They have so many great guys. Every guy over there has been. Pavi, he came up said, howdy after the game. Oh, he did? And Austin. Oh, that's awesome. He's a great guy, man. He's a great man. And he's an underdog. He's just been the underdog the whole time. And I was like, man, congratulations on what you've done. Keep doing it, man. You know, I got it rolling. And yeah. And what Lee's done with that. Yeah. Because look, there's a lot of players on there that a lot of these teams were talking about. Didn't necessarily sniff them. Oh yeah. Because they've been on a different team. Yeah. But look what they've done. It's again, back to psychology. Yeah. That's, that's a mental edge and, and, and the power you can get from believing you're an underdog or that the world saying you're an underdog fuels you instead of right makes you cower going, Oh yeah, watch this. But to believe that is different than to say that. Like we've, we've seen plenty of teams that are cocky. Right. Yeah. And you're like, not to get into the ego side of it. You ain't got to, you know, oh, you just laid, you laid a big hit on that running back and there's three minutes left in the fourth and you're 17 down. I wouldn't be doing a dance here. Ponce. Yeah. Did you see the scoreboard? You know what I mean? Or the want to, the come out is what more was saying, or who was it Mike saying? Well, I got one to win the game, do one playoff. You can see, you know, you want, there's a certain swagger that you're like, are you playing the part or do, or do you believe right again? Are you looking at the jumbo tron and acting like what you think you should act like? Or do you believe that? And is that dance you're doing coming from? Yeah, from you. That's me. That's how I feel. Different. Dude, we had, there was a funny, the other night I was somewhere and there was like a, I think a Titans, one of the Titans kind of brass and they had a burp, like one of their upper people was in and Pavi was there. We were in some dinner thing we were at and, and I said, Oh, have you guys thought about draft in Diego? You know, and the guy goes, well, he's a little small for us. You know, we kind of, we like, like this is one of our guys was a player there and he pointed a guy and he's like, that guy's six, seven. Yeah. And I was like, that guy's one in seven. Right. I was like, Diego Pavi is eight and two right now. And I know it's different. No, I hear you. But for me, it's like, if I'm a team in a city, I would get a player that everybody loves that played in that college. I don't understand why pro teams don't do that a little bit more. Well, they do. The Saints have been the best at it. Historically, draft in local, keeping it in Louisiana. So that's super Dome's full of people going, that's our guy draws my cut. You know, oh, that's a good point. You know, look, I don't know how much that really works in the pros because it's a new singular brand business. I with you, I like the sentiment of let's keep the home cook, I'm going to go on. I think that's how I think, you know, I like that kind of stuff. Are you still teaching? Were you teaching classes at UT? Yeah, I visit the, I got, there's a guy, there's a professor that's in there daily, but then I swing in and, you know, we'll talk going for three hours at a time. And because what we do is we break down films and ads that I've done, called from script to screen, meaning let's see the journey that this book that turned into the first script that turned into a shooting script that turned into the movie. Let's see the journey it took to get there because the original screenplay is very different than the final package you see. And so let's show these students, these serious filmmakers about how there's many ways to skin the cat. And so I'll go in and we just break down, we broke down most of my films. And then I have the director come in and talk about certain scenes and it's a, it's a badass class. Dude, I've loved, I used to go perform up at in Huntington West, Virginia all the time. Were you guys at Marshall movie? Yeah. And that was awesome, man. And one time the guy that survived read, he was speaking at the hotel that I was staying at in the, he was speaking there. When was this? How many years ago? More, but more or less 16 years ago, 12, 10. So we had done, we are Marshall, which is probably 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So look, I don't want to speak on, on, on Red's behalf, but these are the story I heard and I hope I'm getting this correct if I'm not, excuse me, but that, you know, that crash in 1971 with that thundering herd team, everyone in Huntington was somehow related to that. Yeah. All right. Whether by blood or by family or by that was the identity of the, of the town, the college at that time. And a lot of people retreated. We showed up to go tell that story. And they were skeptical of Hollywood coming to tell their story for good reason. For sure. Like which version you, you know, right? You're telling, right? You're going to add some elements that are just going to make us look bad. That's what makes it look like that. Well, our director, McGinty McGee did a really cool thing. He let the whole town know on the paper, hey, anybody can come by the set. Anybody wants a script, I'll give you the script. Slowly people started to come around, script was good. They were like, okay, and then the movie comes out. And I think there was a bit of catharsis that can happen, meaning I heard that, you know, Red Dawson had been very reclusive and that the time around the film coming out and the story and for other reasons, he started to come back out, watch a game, maybe a little from maybe, maybe it started behind the fence, then it moved into a bleacher, then it moved into talk. Anyway, you hear stories like that. And not that the film we did was responsible for that, but a part of that, that you go, ah, what a, what a cool thing to be a part of and see that can happen, you know? Well, Art, that's an interesting thing about Art is that something can come out of something that's nice can come out of this, right? Something that still honors it, even if it didn't do the best job, something that earnestly tried to show up and honor this thing or have some spend time with it, right? To spend time. Spend time, spend on it, well intended, try to tell the truth on it. Ah, they get to them see a representation of some of their experiences on the proverbial jumbo tron, but also that can help us get to know ourselves better, especially if you've been locked up and covering that, you know what I mean? Holding those things. Yeah. It's crazy some of the things that we hold, you know, I got into doing like ayahuasca experiences over the past like, yeah, maybe five, six years. And that's helped like bring up a lot of old stuff and process it, you know? Yeah. That's has been pretty good for me. Now, a lot of that's talking about going back, we were talking about ego earlier, a lot of that's about get rid of the ego in a way when that's what's been your, your, what would you say has been the best thing, most healthy thing for you that those ayahuasca journeys have done for you? I would say it's helped me process a lot of old pain, things that were like kind of weights, kind of things that were just like clumped up roots of my past, hard mud around them, just helped that stuff break up. So it's easy for me to be up here a little bit in my own soil and have an experience to grow, not be locked. We more receptive, maybe? Yeah. And not stuck in like a lot of, like kind of burned off a lot of like old, like low self-worth stuff. Some of this started to kind of disappear, you know? Have you had any experiences like that? Not with ayahuasca. I mean, I've had, you know, my own, most of my big sort of breakthroughs, spiritually have come on singular journeys that I took by myself to places where they didn't know my name and put myself in those places, whether it be in Africa or the Amazon and Peru, where everything that I relied on was stripped away or the year I spent in Australia as an exchange student, where all of my conveniences and my talismans of identity, whether it was my name or my nation or my state or my family, they're all stripped away. And I was forced to rely on myself and forced to kind of look up and go, I'm listening. And you know, when that truth comes on, you man, it's like a gentleness of butterfly that's strong as a lightning bolt. And you've got some things that hit you sometimes, you go, remember this. When you go back into the world and all that onion starts to get pre-peeled again, you start to take on all these things and play these different parts and get these ideas, remember this to be what you understand now, to be a non-negotiable truth. It's like, there's an Emerson line about the truth that comes to us in quiet solitude. It makes so much sense, but can we take that amongst the masses? Can we walk into the cathedral of stadium with 500 million people and still hold that truth to be ours and true for all time? Wow. Yeah, I think that's something as I get older, that's the thing I admire somebody, something the most, somebody that can have just like a quiet self-confidence, you know, an integrity, you know, that's, that you can tell that that's kind of unshakable for them, you know? Well, and it's tough, man, because the world changes. And a lot of times we change by changing with it and adapting. A lot of times we change by staying exactly the same. And all of a sudden we look like an original and you're like, I'm doing the same thing I was doing. I just didn't, I didn't, I just jived when everyone else juked, you know what I mean? Or I just stayed the same while everyone else was juking and jiving. Do you ever feel like that? Like there was a, there was a comedy manager one time I was on a plane with him and he said, your audience will evolve, right? Because they'll grow up. But so you have to evolve somewhat, right? But there's a fear, I think, especially with comedian stuff, well, this worked. Yeah, I gotta stay, I gotta be that person for it, you know, that's what I have to be a lot, you know? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's like that for actors, I guess it's probably different. No, no, sure. Or you think like this movie style worked for me, that's what I, or these choices I made, oh, everyone likes that when I do that. Yeah. That got me, and or that got, you know what I mean? I'm not, doesn't mean I'm gonna, you know, not, I'm not saying I'm gonna, hey, I didn't ever go, well, make sure you say, all right, all right, all right, every scene, every movie. I'm not saying that, you know what I mean? I'm saying there's certain things. Especially for your character's deaf or whatever. Or he's like just in a coma and at the very end, he's like, all right, all right. Or just a pessimist. So that was something. He's like such a jack nickel. So who's that jack? And that, uh, in that movie, we were just that pessimist anger management is that it? And then at the end, you just say it. Here's your bumper sticker. No, there's certain things that, you know, you know, you get to, I think we all do rock band knows what their, what their on core is, you know, Bruce knows they want to hear born in the USA. How do you sing that your proverbial fastball, you know, Clemens, those are 100 mile fastball. Don't mean does he need to know curves and sinkers? Yeah. But do you forgive your fastball? No, you don't forget your fastball. Of course not. I think you go, but how do you do it? What I try to remind myself is if I know I'm going with something that's a fastball go, okay, how do I do it? Like it's the first time each time. I've always wanted that with, with, uh, well, probably with comedians. You've got something, you know, man, bam, it works. How do you do? Do you, how do you do it? Like, that's the first time. How does it, has a, how's a band go out and play that song? They played 2000 times meant like, how do they get off to it that night? What I've heard is that, oh, you've got a new audience each night. So you're feeding off of them. And it's their first time. So you can give it to them like it's first time. I tend to never even thought about it like that. Yeah, for me, it's just always tricking myself. Um, laughing sometimes laughing seems very present. Yeah. And so things like that, uh, some modalities I'll do before, like ice bass, yo, sauna, those types of things to just get your energy. So like at a fun level of being alive and existing that no matter what you're doing seems fun. Yeah. Yeah. So I think a lot of is having fun. How much of that let's talk about that. How much of, uh, doing that six being successful is do you think is enjoying what you're doing when you're doing it? Oh, like how much, if you laugh at a joke, and I, and I think I'm agreeing with you here is that I've done things where I'm like going, I feel confident enough in it where if it makes me laugh and no one else laughs, I'm going to then think that's funny. Yeah. And that will then probably in turn be funny. Well, that might just be a good act. I mean, yeah, that's probably just a really good way to as an actor to be able to like have that shift. Like, okay, if this didn't even land the right way, then that part of it is then funny. Um, yeah, I think as a comedian, I don't, if I'm taking care of myself and I'm in a good way, then it's going to go good. I know. I just think it's like, they just want to see you having a good time, especially these days, people are just so like with podcasting and stuff, people will get to know you so much. They just want to be in the room with you. Right? Right. They want the material to be good and you want it to be good. I don't want you to just come. Yeah, you're all there wanting it to be good. Right. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't show if I didn't think it was at least good enough to bring to you to trade for a fair, but, uh, but a lot of it is just people want to spend time around each other. My, my greatest mentor, a lady named Penny Allen, who's since moved on, would always say this, you know, and you got a crew making a film, you got 120 people, you got directors, producers, not everyone agrees on everything, right? And you can get arguments and does that. And she was like, just remember this, Matthew. She goes, one thing everyone is there for and wants is a good show. You know what I mean? Right. Like, that's a unifying way. He's a good, but everyone, no one's there going, I don't want this big of a show. You all, everyone wants it to be a good show. Dude, in my head, sometimes I'll get in that thing like, Oh, I know how to make this. You know, like that's a part of it. Get stuck sometimes. I want to talk a few minutes more about writing and stuff before you go. Thank you for your time. Sure. Palms and prayers. That's your new book that's out. When did you start writing and who kind of got you into it? I know there's stuff in here from when you were 18, from when you were in high school. That's probably when I started writing longer form poems. And that was a year in Australia where I was one of those times I was lost and wildly and looking and trying to figure, I didn't have friends to rely on, didn't have family to rely on. So I started, you know, dude, I was losing my mind in a good way. I was writing 16 page letters to myself and returning them with a 17 page letter. Yeah, bro. It's a cratic dialogue. I was going, Hey, man, we got to entertain ourselves. I ain't got no one else to go to. So let's have this out. And so I, you know, strange. I mean, it's, it's cool. It's strange. It's strange. And it's unique. Sorry. It was hard. No, it's that's strange. So what were the letters were you saying like, trying to work shit out? Yeah, I was losing my mind. I didn't know what I didn't have a I didn't have a, I didn't have a compass, man. Everything around me was, was odd. And I didn't know if I agreed with it or disagreed with it, or if it was just a cultural difference, or if it was bullshit or if it didn't know yourself. And I didn't, I didn't know where to stand until I got pushed to where I had to make a stand. And boy, when I had to make a stand, you know, when this host family wanted me to call a mom and pup and I went, no, that's that I'm not going to do that. I appreciate you thinking of me that way, but I still have my mom and dad. And I remember at the time why I said this part, I do not know, but it was like, I thought it would ease the blow a little bit. I remember saying this. I was like, no, I have a mom and dad and they're still alive. Yeah. I gave them this little context like, oh, just in case. Like what the hell does that matter? Anyway, you know, and to make that stand and go, no, and then call them, say good night and call them by their first names and then wake up the next morning. My alarm clock was a screaming woman going, he won't call me mom. And then going to her and going, no, I won't, but I put an arm around and going, you know, creating some boundaries for yourself, figuring, I had to create a boundary. That's it. I was, look, I didn't, I was trying. And so to do that is part of, I think a big part of identity. And so I started writing, I'd always, I'd written since I was probably 12, but I started writing poems and jotting down prayers and things when I was, like I said, lost, wobbly and looking, but also times where things were going well and I felt, felt spiritually strong and going like, well, what are some habits I got right now? What are some ways I'm seeing the world, where the world seems to be, I'm putting this out of my soul and it's music and they're, the world's kind of throwing back to the next beat right at me. And we got a tune going. And then I stepped in and said, well, that's part of the tune. They laughed at my joke, hey, that's part of the tune too. Oh, they were crickets. They didn't laugh. That's still part of the same song. So it's all part of the same song. Yeah. Instead of trying to get this old, this song, like just, just the perfect song, you know, just recognize it's a long song. It's a long song. Yeah. And so poems and prayers, look, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to sell Sunday morning like a Saturday night, meaning there's a lot of good stuff, whether it's you, you're ringing up stuff in the Bible that has a lot of good stuff for living. There's a lot of good things we've learned from mentors and other philosophers and great books and wisdoms of the past that we were told to do. And I know this, no one really likes to be told what to do most of the time. And we also don't really like to get advice. I don't like getting advice. I tell every director I work with, I tell them right off the bat, I'm easy to work with. Just don't tell me what to do. Right. Yeah. I mean, or, or, and I tell them, even like, you find a way to make me think it was my idea. There you go. That's, that's the trick. I don't even know you did it, but don't tell me. And I'll just, well, there you go. That's right. You know what I mean? But if you can put it in a rhyme, if it can have a bit of a diddy to it, if you can dance to it, and it's a good word, it's more fun to digest it. It makes the broccoli taste like candy. Yeah. You know, and you go like, oh, okay, I can have a beer on the way to the temple. Thank you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. I mean, I'd rather have a beer on the way to the temple and be headed to the temple than abstain, say I'm abstaining from having a beer, but headed to the, headed the wrong direction to the desert. Right. Yeah. I've never liked taking suggestions. It's always been hard for me, I think. Well, it's tough in your life when things go pretty good sometimes to like, want to relinquish the wheel, you know? Yeah. But, but, but at the same time, things are going well. You're responsible for that. Don't give up the right to believe in that you got, you had your hands on the wheel. When we're, when we're things are going, well, we should not be so humble to believe that, oh, it's all just fate. Yeah. I think God wants our hands on the wheel. And I think God's, my hunch is God's going, I got too many people relying on fate. Hmm. Yeah, that's a good point. Take control of things. You know, when things are going, give yourself the ownership of going, I did that. Wouldn't cause all me, right? Other things in the world happen that I'll never understand for timing and unfortunately and everything, but give our self credit when we look at the man and go, you're partially, you're, you're partially responsible for that, but all right, we go. Yeah. Yeah. You had to build some sort of gravity within yourself, you know, and understanding. Yeah. Because there's plenty, because it doesn't make you and understand that there's good. The other, the hard part about when we're, when we're succeeding, I think, catching green lights, got our handle on the wheel and we're just smooth and through traffic and life's like that. The hard part is believing, oh, this is how it's going to always be. Oh, yeah. Cause it ain't there. Come, you'll have blow us blow a tire, man. Some goofball is going to run a red light and hit you. You're going to run out of gas. Something's going to go wrong. So there'll be times you don't have your hands on the wheel or you don't know where you're going. So knowing that those times are coming, I think it's another reason to go, well, when my hands are on the wheel and just working out, let's look in the mirror and give myself a little bit of a wink here, boss. There you go. Let's turn our favorite music up a little bit. Yeah. Drop the top. Yeah. At Betway Casino, stake 20 pounds and get 150 free spins for new customers. 18 plus, T's and C's apply. Bet the responsible way. Gamble aware.org. Yeah. And there's one point he talked about prayer too that I thought was pretty cool. Prayer is worship, putting our head, putting our heart above our head. It's a beautiful sentiment, man. Prayer comes from worship, which means to literally bow down so we can put our heart above our head. So it's a physical engineered act to listen to our heart, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, peace above our head. And we live in a world that is all we're told, head above heart, man. Yeah. Make it more quantity, win, however you do it. Head up, look at the jump of a tron. Right. And the humility of putting your heart above your head, literally just physiologically is such a cool image for what that's for. And I don't think a lot of people, I didn't know that that is what prayer is actually engineered for. That's why you bow. You bend an knee and you bow, put your head below your heart and your heart above your head so you can hear the sacred within you. Now the sacred's coming from the heart and the soul. I'm all for knowledge that we gain in our head and we need knowledge to understand reason. Yeah. But there's a lot of stuff that we don't, the math doesn't add up and that's languages of the soul. And it's not supposed to add up. And I think that's part of the pursuit of God. That's why I've always, I think God loves the scientists because that's scientists are the practical pursuit of God. Well, there's some spiritual stuff that we're not supposed to be able to make sense of. I agree. That's what faith comes from. Everything doesn't have a balance sheet. Everything you can't figure out. Everything, like especially emotions, you can't, you can't, like there's not a lot of math on them. No. Yeah. No. Like instincts, all of that kind of stuff. I think, like that's something I want to lean even more into in my life is just like believing like, there's not, I just have to know. I have to know that what this feeling I have inside of me is real. I don't need to read an article to tell me. I don't need to read this or know this. Even if somebody shows me some fool's goal that they believe in, I have to know that this, this God created compass inside of me has some semblance of, of direction and factuality, you know? And it takes a lot of trust and faith to do that. And it ain't easy. And I, you know, one that I always give myself a little amnesty on is from this Benedictine monk named Thomas Marathon. And he said, God, I believe that trying to please you, pleases you. So sometimes when we don't know, I think it's okay to give yourself a little pat on the back and go, at least I'm trying. And I kind of trust that that pleases God that I'm, I'm giving an effort. Yeah. Some grace, huh? Yeah. Grace. Yes. Give ourselves some grace. Well, thank you, Matthew. I'll just pray. Yeah. Thanks for taking time to even contribute this to the world. Help people think. There's a lot of neat things to think about in here, like leadership, courage, little avenues. Yeah. I think it's something that I wrote down here. Carven Byrne was one that I wrote. Carven Byrne, the wheat from the chafe, the fat. From the meat. Yeah, man. We got a, in the name of transformation. That's that weed pull. And we were talking about the top of the show. We got to tend our own garden, man, around our soul, make sure we're pulling the weeds. Cause you can look down, you can go, where's that diamond? Yeah. Where'd it go? Oh, it's covered on the weeds I let go. In the name of transformation, die a little instead of completely. I really like that. Yeah. That's really about like having that extra beat of courage, that extra, that, you know, just believe in that there's, that the, you know, that there's something here if you just stay in the space, you know, transformation comes with sacrifice. And that's part of dying a little bit. If you're nothing but transactional all the way through life, not transform, if you're only transactional relationships, if you're only seeking work or things that can only pay your, your bank account. Or things that you know, that are definitely, that are, that are quantifiable, right? That you know the outcome, right? There's not a lot of faith in that definitiveness. No. And that transaction, if it's purely for transaction, if our life is purely transactional, then I think, then you die in the end, you die all the way. You die a lot. You're dead. All right. Transformational, you will die a little because you make the sacrifice to live forever. Yeah, it's cool, man. There's a lot of neat stuff to think about in here. A lot of prayer, too. Do you ever kind of a prayer practice or what's that been like in your life? Or what did you even learn when you were a kid? Do you remember the first time that you ever prayed? Yeah, we can finish on that conversation. First prayers. My mom was a big baseline gratitude and we grew up Methodist, which is, you know, wasn't a lot of fire and brimstone. It was more be thankful for what you have and try and multiply that with yourself and others. And I remember if we come to the breakfast table, like kind of grumpy or something, the mom would be in there cooking breakfast and she'd grab us by the arm and walk us back down to our bedroom and go, you getting in bed and you you getting bitchy because no, no, back under the cover. She already dressed, getting back over there. She goes, don't you come to my breakfast table where I'm cooking you out breakfast until you're ready to see the rose in the vase instead of the dust on the damn table. And you know, oh, geez, I'm coming back. So you came back, hey, good morning mom. There we go. Good morning, Jack. Like never happened. Or you know, we are arguing about, man, I got this one pair of caper shoes and they got holes in them and I need another pair of shoes, you know, you better quit bitching about having no shoes. I'm going to introduce you to give it no feet. Whoa, geez. So she would all she was big on baseline gratitude. Yeah. And going before you get into, you know, being upset or pouty about anything today, look outside this curtain. Do you see the sun rose again? That was not a guarantee. Amen. Yeah. Before you get how you feel about it, let's look at the facts. Let's look at, let's look at what gift was given. Now we may have a hard day. We may have something we got to work with, but that's baseline gratuities that you cannot do not take for granted. And now I have a tool to work with it with. You show some gratitude, it makes everything, it certainly makes things smoother. Do you think, last question, do you think that, and this is back to football, because do you think that the, the Oklahoma, Texas, do you think those teams like being in the SEC now? Yes. You do. Yeah. Well, I know, I know Texas does and I think, look, I think Oklahoma does too and I think A&M did when they did. I don't think, you know, there were, there were rumblings that A&M didn't want us coming over there, but I think in their heart of hearts, they got, they got enough football, they wanted us to come there. They wanted to get that rivalry going again. I know Texas wants to be there. Yeah. We want the greatest competition. We want to be in the greatest conference and we want the greatest competition and we want to push ourselves to, to compete at that highest level. Yeah. It is exciting. Yeah, I just, I wondered that a little bit because you know, you just get so used to things being a certain way, you know, and then you're like, and then something else comes in and I was like, do they really love it? You know? So yeah, I was just curious. Thanks for helping me think, man. Good to see you today, bro. See you there. Yeah. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing so many creative things with us over the years and helping us have thoughts and feelings. Like I've had a lot of emotion to your movies and been inspired and felt things and, and unfelt things, you know, right? By watching your art over the years. And so thank you so much. Thank you for green lights. Thank you for this new book. It's out now, Poems and Prayers. Yeah. Just a lot of good stuff to fodder, to think about and feel about. So thank you so much, man. You're welcome. Good to be here, man. Yes, sir. In my bones.