Revisited: The Power of Saying "Screw It" with Rob Lowe

Hello from Team Simon! We're taking a few weeks off and will be back with brand-new episodes of A Bit of Optimism on Tuesday, October 27. Until then, we're revisiting some of our favorite conversations, starting with one of the most fun we've ever had: Rob Lowe. Maybe you know the feeling: you've got an idea, a joke, a risk you want to take… and you talk yourself out of it before anyone else gets the chance. Rob Lowe has spent four decades doing the opposite. He calls it a healthy case of the "screw-its." It's how he survived an industry famous for chewing people up. He went from movies to The West Wing when movie stars didn't do TV, and from TV to hosting a game show when that was supposed to be career death. His secret isn't avoiding failure. It's never letting failure decide what he tries next. Rob is an actor, producer, and bestselling author whose career runs from The Outsiders and St. Elmo's Fire to The West Wing and Parks and Recreation. He hosts FOX's The Floor and the podcast Literally! with Rob Lowe, and stars alongside his son John Owen Lowe in Netflix's Unstable. In this conversation, Rob tells the story of his infamous Oscars song-and-dance number (and the open letter from Hollywood legends that followed it). He also shares the Letterman appearance that taught him to trust his instincts for good, and explains why authenticity has become the only currency that matters. And I push him on the question under all of it: can the rest of us learn to take a punch the way he does? In this episode you'll learn: ➡️ Why a healthy case of the "screw-its" is a career strategy, not a character flaw ➡️ What the world's top tennis players can teach us about bouncing back ➡️ The one practical rule for being more authentic: stop self-editing ➡️ Why the thing you least want to talk about is the thing that makes you relatable ➡️ Why "availability" might be a better word than "vulnerability" ➡️ How to spot performative authenticity (+ Rob's three red-carpet poses) ➡️ Why you can meet your heroes, but shouldn't get to know them ➡️ How humor makes even the hardest subjects easier to talk about Rob's lesson is a freeing one: take the work seriously, laugh at the absurd parts, and trust your gut on the next big swing. Worst case, you get a great story. This… is A Bit of Optimism. + + + If you want to listen to Rob’s podcast, Literally! with Rob Lowe, head to: https://teamcoco.com/podcasts/literally-with-rob-lowe Find out where you can watch Rob as host of GSN’s The Floor, weekends at 8pm ET: https://www.gameshownetwork.com/the-floor + + + Chapters Chapters 00:00:00 The Oscars Disaster: When Rob Lowe Bombed on Stage 00:01:59 From Teen Beat Cover Boy to Career Crisis at 17 00:03:33 The Fame Freeze: Why Celebrities Stop Growing 00:05:29 The Secret to Staying Relevant for Decades 00:06:55 Breaking the Rules: From Movies to TV When No One Did 00:12:45 The Comedy Central Roast and the Price of Humiliation 00:14:39 Learning to Trust Your Instincts After Letterman 00:21:05 What Authenticity Actually Means in Hollywood 00:31:30 The Art of Self-Deprecation Without Losing Respect 00:38:00 Red Carpet Secrets: Man of the People, Blue Steel, and Iconic 00:51:29 Don't Meet Your Heroes - Or At Least Don't Get to Know Them 00:53:26 Finding Humor in the Darkest Moments 00:57:01 Why Game Shows Are Actually the Hardest Thing He's Done 01:01:18 Live in Gratitude and Manage Your Expectations + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Leaderful: https://simonsinek.com/leaderful Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  So you decide to do a sock and dance for the opening of the Oscars.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Can't dance, really.

• 0:05Simon Sinek?

  Okay, okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  I mean, I didn't get footloose for a reason.

• 0:09Simon Sinek?

  For a reason, right. And it doesn't go well, is what you're saying?

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Doesn't go well. Doesn't go well. There was an open letter to the Academy the next day, signed by like Paul Newman and Gregory Peck and like, this was an affront to our sensibility. How dare you. I mean, I looked, I looked out in the audience and I saw, it was the night Barry Levinson won 10 Academy Awards for Rain Man.

• 0:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  And I literally saw him mouth, what the fuck?

• 0:45Speaker 01

  Didn't go well.

• 0:47Simon Sinek?

  To borrow a line from Heidi Klum, in Hollywood, one day you're in and the next you're out. But not for Rob Lowe. He has been a fixture since the 1980s and has had decades worth of iconic roles. From St. Elmo's Fire, to The Outsiders, to The West Wing, to Parks and Rec. In an industry that chews him up and spits him out, how has Rob Lowe stayed relevant for so long? It's not just his good looks, and yes, he is very good looking. It's something else. The real secret to Rob's longevity is something more powerful. As he puts it, he's got a serious case of the fuckits. He likes taking risks, knowing full well that they don't always work out.

• 1:31Simon Sinek?

  But the thrill of doing something new is exactly the thing that has helped him find opportunities where others don't. In addition to the movies and TV shows, he's also the host of the podcast Literally with Rob Lowe, and is host of The Floor, which airs its fourth season on September 24th on Fox. This is a bit of optimism.

• 1:59Simon Sinek?

  How old were you when you got famous? Young, very young.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  I, the first time, because then it came and then went.

• 2:09Simon Sinek?

  Oh, really?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I got famous as a teen idol.

• 2:13Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  And then it didn't work. And.

• 2:18Simon Sinek?

  What was the thing that put you on the map?

• 2:20Speaker 01

  It was a sitcom called A New Kind of Family, and I was 15. And so, you know, you're the, you're like the.

• 2:28Simon Sinek?

  You were on the cover of Teen Beat?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, all that, all that stuff. Bop.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Teen Beat. Something about, like, maybe just because I'm just a fucking old pervert. There's something about.

• 2:39Simon Sinek?

  Oh, wait, I just put it together. I never, wait, I just put that together in this moment. The minute you said pervert, immediately I understood. I had never made that association.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Teen Beat?

• 2:51Simon Sinek?

  You've just.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Are they kidding with that? Bop?

• 2:56Simon Sinek?

  But you were on the cover, that's worse.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Teen Bop.

• 2:58Simon Sinek?

  No, no, I get it, but you were on the cover, that's the worst part.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, yeah.

• 3:03Simon Sinek?

  You were the Teen Beat.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  I was a cover boy at 15.

• 3:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  And then had a early midlife crisis at 17, 16 and 17, didn't work. Because they hired only 18 year olds to play younger because of child labor.

• 3:20Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Loss and how long you could work on a set. And I just didn't work for two and a half years and I thought my career was over. And then I got The Outsiders and that was a whole other level of fame.

• 3:28Simon Sinek?

  That's movie, that's movie.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  That started it, yeah.

• 3:31Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 3:34Simon Sinek?

  Because you, there's, I have a friend, you're, you're relatively grounded.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Like, relatively. I'll go with relatively.

• 3:41Simon Sinek?

  It's relatively.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yes, relatively.

• 3:45Simon Sinek?

  Because I, there's, I have a friend who has a theory that when people achieve fame, any kind of growth that they have ceases.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I have that theory. It's true.

• 3:54Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. And so like child actors are screwed because they stop growing and they think, they think everybody says yes to you is normal.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yes, whenever, I, that's 100% true. Unless you do a ton of work on yourself, you're frozen in amber.

• 4:11Simon Sinek?

  Right. The minute you get famous.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true. Absolutely true.

• 4:15Simon Sinek?

  So when people achieve adult fame, they're a little more grounded because they know where they came from, hopefully. Some forget it.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  And they've, well, and they also have experienced, just by virtue of the, of, of time, they've experienced more life.

• 4:29Simon Sinek?

  But your career is kind of amazing because you have, and this is a credit to you, you have been able to remain relevant for, for, forever. I mean, you were part of the Brat Pack back in the day.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Yep, mid 80s.

• 4:42Simon Sinek?

  Mid 80s.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Early 80s, yeah.

• 4:44Simon Sinek?

  You know, John Hughes and that crew.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:48Simon Sinek?

  I mean, that's my childhood. I grew up watching all of your movies.

• 4:52Simon Sinek?

  And, and I think I watched the documentary, I watched.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Brat Pack Doc, that Andrew McCarthy did.

• 4:59Simon Sinek?

  With Andrew McCarthy. And to your credit and Demi's credit, like you guys, like, didn't get sucked into it, it wasn't, you've maintained careers and relevance up until now.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  We didn't let that define us.

• 5:13Simon Sinek?

  Didn't define you. What, like, was there a strategy to remain current? Like, what, what is it that makes one actor be able to survive for decades? And another actor be a blip in time, no fault of their own, just like they're super hot for a while and then they're just not.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:29Simon Sinek?

  It's not, it's not that they're not talented, it's not that they're not good, it's not that they're bad people, it's not that they're hard to work with. It's just that they have their moment and then they don't.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37Simon Sinek?

  It's, they're, I mean, actors are products, you know, to some degree.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Same with singers, same with.

• 5:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. So what is it, was it, was it luck? Was it something you did differently than other actors that helped you? That you're still working and people still love you and stop you on the streets and all the rest of it? And not nostalgically?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  No, not nostalgic. In fact, the thing that I love the most is when like a group of 14 year olds come up.

• 6:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Because they've seen The Outsiders and like, or they've watched Parks and Rec.

• 6:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Or, you know, whatever. Being relevant is.

• 6:12Simon Sinek?

  So was it, was it something you did or was it, are you just like thanking your lucky stars every day that it kind of worked out?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  You, it's like anything else, you put yourself in a position to get lucky, right? So one of the things is that I've, I've, I've always been a risk taker. And so if something's interesting to me, I'll do it. And, and so, for example, when I did The West Wing, that was at a time when if you had come from movies, and God forbid you'd been in movies, but maybe you were in a sort of mini downturn, which I was. You definitely, if you did a TV series, you were admitting.

• 6:53Simon Sinek?

  Defeat.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Defeat.

• 6:55Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  And, and there were, I mean, I've talked to people.

• 6:59Simon Sinek?

  You could go from TV to movies, but you would never go to movies to TV.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Never.

• 7:01Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  And then, and I remember, you know, when, after I did it, guys like William Peterson, big movie crew to Live and Die in L.A., he did CSI and Kiefer. We said, I saw you on West Wing, I was like, okay, maybe I'll do television, you did 24. So I'm not saying I blazed any trail, but when people see somebody do it, all of a sudden the stigma comes off of it. But I was, I was able to do it because I just didn't care. And I, I was like, I've always had a healthy case of the fuckits.

• 7:32Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And that really helps. And then the other thing is I'm naturally curious. So.

• 7:42Simon Sinek?

  You want to do different things.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I want to do different things, like.

• 7:44Simon Sinek?

  I've never done TV, kind of thing.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Never done a podcast.

• 7:46Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  You know, right, never, a book, you know, like, when I wrote my first book, people were like, well, you can't write a memoir because that's another thing people do when it's over.

• 7:57Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Or when they need money.

• 7:59Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And I was like, well, it's neither for me.

• 8:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  And I don't care what people think because I think I have something to say. And now I'm on my third book.

• 8:09Simon Sinek?

  When, where, how did you develop the case of the fuckits? Like, where did it come from? Like, was it instilled in you and your parents or did you like, did you survive the, the career near death experience and realize you survived so you'll be okay, kind of thing?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  If you talk to my family, particularly my brothers, they say, they'll tell you I always had it.

• 8:27Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Where are you in the pecking order?

• 8:29Speaker 01

  I'm the oldest.

• 8:29Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think, I think I've always had.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  A lack of fear around like sort of ambition, audaciousness, lack of fear, how whatever flavor you want to describe, it's that same ingredient. I think I've, I kind of was born with.

• 8:51Simon Sinek?

  So what, so give me an example of something that a risk you took and it didn't work out. And it was like, oh, well, give me one, just give me one.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I got a bad one.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Agreeing to do a song and dance number to open the Academy Awards. Disaster.

• 9:07Simon Sinek?

  I, I wish you had talked to me before that. I could have advised you against that.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  What would you have said, other than it's a horrible idea?

• 9:15Simon Sinek?

  Horrible idea. Okay. So can you sing and dance? Let's start there.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  I can, I'm an actor who sings.

• 9:22Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So you're a double threat.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  I can, I can sing as well as Russell Crowe. Let's put it that way.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  No, no disrespect to Russell Crowe at all.

• 9:33Simon Sinek?

  But not.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think I, I mean, Kiefer Sutherland tours a band. I think I could go up and do a duet with him.

• 9:38Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So you decide.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm no Bacon Brothers.

• 9:40Simon Sinek?

  So, so you decide to do a song and dance for the opening of the Oscars.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Can't dance, really.

• 9:46Simon Sinek?

  Okay, okay.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I didn't get footloose for a reason.

• 9:49Simon Sinek?

  For a reason, right. And it doesn't go well, is what you're saying?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Doesn't go well. Doesn't go well.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  There was an open letter to the Academy the next day, signed by like Paul Newman and Gregory Peck. And like, this was an affront to our sensibility. How dare, I, I mean, I looked, I looked out in the audience and I saw. It was the night Barry Levinson won 10 Academy Awards for Rain Man.

• 10:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  And I literally saw him mouth, what the fuck? Didn't go well.

• 10:28Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So you come off stage, you're fully aware of what happened.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Here's the other part. You gotta have.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  There's a reason why a lot of actors are egomaniacs and self-centered narcissists. Because you have to have a little bit of that to inoculate yourself to the indignities that happen daily in a career where you're marked to market every single day.

• 10:54Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  So that part of me was like, fuck Barry Levinson. What does he know?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean? And then so you go, you go backstage and then you, you sit there and you're in the green room.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  And there's Lucille Ball telling you that you're a wonderful dancer and singer.

• 11:13Simon Sinek?

  She's making fun of you.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  No, she loved it.

• 11:16Simon Sinek?

  Oh, really?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  She, no, she legitimately.

• 11:18Simon Sinek?

  She's also a comedy genius.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  God damn it. I always thought she liked it. Fuck.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  You've totally rewritten my own history, Simon. This, the, the, the, the history I tell myself is that.

• 11:31Simon Sinek?

  Lucille Ball loved me.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Everybody hated it except Lucille Ball.

• 11:34Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Now it's just, everybody hated it, including Lucille Ball.

• 11:36Simon Sinek?

  No, she loved it. Cause she's a comedy genius.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  God damn it.

• 11:40Simon Sinek?

  She legitimately loved it.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Young man.

• 11:43Simon Sinek?

  Um, so Lucille Ball loved it, but okay. So once you, and then, then you read the open letter that it's an affront to the Academy and all our sensibilities. So is, is that a humbling or do you have a sense of humor about it? Like, this is what I want to understand. Which is, I wanted to stand like, if there are these peaks and valleys and you know, you have a healthy narcissism or unhealthy, that.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I've been diagnosed as a benevolent narcissist.

• 12:07Simon Sinek?

  Is that a diagnosis?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Well, that's what Rashida Jones says. And I think she's actually a learned woman.

• 12:14Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So you're a benevolent narcissist, which means that you can take these situations and do you, do you actually, does it hurt or is it funny?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Both.

• 12:23Simon Sinek?

  Simultaneously?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:26Simon Sinek?

  So is that the reason that you've been able to maintain a career for so long? Is because you have a, as, as, as, as, as healthy as your ego is, you also get that it's a, it's a, it's a joke. It's a game.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  100%.

• 12:39Simon Sinek?

  Like you're a caricature of yourself at times.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Well, that's why when, um,

• 12:45Speaker 01

  like, one of my favorite things that I've ever done was the Comedy Central roast of myself.

• 12:51Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  It's brutal.

• 12:52Simon Sinek?

  Why do people agree to that?

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Well, see, that's just the thing is like.

• 12:56Simon Sinek?

  Like, why would you?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  So I told Cheryl, I said, they've come to me.

• 12:59Simon Sinek?

  Your wife Cheryl, yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  My wife Cheryl, they've cut, they came to me like four years in a row. And I was like, I'm not doing that. And then I remember Justin Bieber did it and he is a huge star. I was like, you know what? If Justin Bieber can do it, I can do it. And competition.

• 13:14Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  And fear of being public, right? It's everything you, you, right? You've said about me. And, and Cheryl goes, you can't, I won't let you do it. They're gonna, they're gonna, you could, you're gonna be humiliated. Nationalized. That ship has sailed.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  That's what I said, I remember said to her. And, and she goes, well, are they at least gonna pay you? And I go, yeah, they're gonna pay me over a million dollars. She goes, oh, you're doing it.

• 13:42Simon Sinek?

  Everybody's got a price.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Everyone has a price.

• 13:43Simon Sinek?

  What's the price of, of humiliation? Turns out it's about a million.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  It's about a million dollars for about five hours work.

• 13:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. I would put up with a lot for that.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, who among us? So, um, but that said.

• 13:56Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  I've never had more fun. Never, never. It was so fun. And they eviscerated. They, our good friend Maria Shriver I invited. And she sat there and the, there's a look, if you, you can, you can watch it on Netflix to this day or wherever the hell it is. The, the look of horror on Maria Shriver's face as I'm getting.

• 14:21Simon Sinek?

  I'm so gonna.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Dissected.

• 14:23Simon Sinek?

  I wish I'd watched this as prep.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  It's so brutal, but it's.

• 14:29Simon Sinek?

  So where did you learn that? Was that, did that come from being punched in the face a few times and learning, like, was that natural or did you, what I'm getting at?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what is.

• 14:36Simon Sinek?

  What I'm getting at is can the rest of us learn, you, you, you are, you are, you know, black belt, jujitsu, you know,

• 14:45Simon Sinek?

  your ability to weather the punches. And the question I'm asking, the reason I'm going down this path is can the rest of us learn to withstand humiliation and I don't want to say, you know, failures, but sort of like.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Failures.

• 14:59Simon Sinek?

  Fail, humiliations and failures.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Failures. They wrote an open letter, Simon. Paul Newman wrote an open letter.

• 15:04Simon Sinek?

  Okay. So how, how did the rest of us learn to build the muscle?

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 15:07Simon Sinek?

  Of humiliation, to withstand humiliation and failure, because ultimately it's good for.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Growth.

• 15:13Simon Sinek?

  Growth, mental health and, and, and career longevity. So I want to know where it came from.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it's competitiveness, like I'm down, but I'm not out. Right? You see it with athletes all the time. Literally they're down by X amount of points or.

• 15:31Simon Sinek?

  But what's going through your head when you're down? Cause, because the difference between a great athlete and a, and a, just a very talented athlete is the mental game, not the physical game.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Well, it's like somebody and shoot, they say what makes great shooters is they forget the last bad shot.

• 15:43Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  So, I mean, they literally are impervious to the fact that they've gone 0 for 18.

• 15:48Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  They get the ball, they're not going, oh, I, I, I, what if I go over 19? They're not. I mean, that's, that's a real thing.

• 15:55Simon Sinek?

  I've been talking, I've been talking about this thing recently. I heard this guy talking about, he wanted to understand what makes the best tennis players, the best tennis players. And what he discovered is the top five are always in the top five. And like the next 20, 25 or like circulating the 20, 25. So what he's asking is like, what distinguishes the top five from everybody else? It's not diet. It's not, it's not discipline. It's not training. All those things are equals. What he discovered was the top five tennis players love the game. They love the game. So when they have a great shot, like they'll, they'll, they'll win the point and they'll say to themselves, oh, I love this game. And if they miss the point, they go, missed it this time, but just you wait.

• 16:34Simon Sinek?

  And what that does is it reduces stress and saves energy. And so individually, it doesn't do very much, but over the course of an entire game, what it does by the end, they have more energy and they have lower stress. And so they can win at the end because they're just so much more relaxed and have much more physical energy than their opponent who's stressed out and, and, and tense and all the rest of it.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Tight.

• 16:56Simon Sinek?

  And so I'm wondering if it's something similar to that, which is when you get, when you, when you get on your heels, when you win, you're like, oh, I fricking love my life. I love my career. I love this crazy business. And when you get hit on your heels, you go like, oh, that sucked, but I'm coming, like, is it the same?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  That's what I feel.

• 17:13Simon Sinek?

  Do you have the same joy?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  That's what it feels like. That's exactly what it feels like. That's what goes through my mind, what you just described.

• 17:20Simon Sinek?

  So that to me is learnable, but that to me is also to see it done in a career that's not athletics. Cause athletics, it's immediate, point, point, point, point, game done, right? I find it more interesting in what you're doing because it's less immediate and you have to actually, because that, those down periods can last weeks, months.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Years.

• 17:42Simon Sinek?

  Years.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Years.

• 17:43Simon Sinek?

  And to be able to maintain that attitude of I'm coming back and be able to look past the fact that it's been a year and you've been out of work.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  There was a time in my career where I hadn't been, do you remember these things called magazines? Do you remember those when those were out?

• 17:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  So there, there was a, there was a time when I hadn't been on the cover of a magazine, which is, you know, as silly as it sounds, a great barometer of your cachet and your industry.

• 18:05Simon Sinek?

  Popularity.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I had been on a magazine cover and. Ten years, maybe. And I was like, I'm back, I'll be back. And then it was, and then there was another five or six year period, not, and then back again. And I always wanted to be on the cover of Vanity Fair because that really meant something. That was when I came up, like that was only the biggest stars.

• 18:31Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Got on the cover of Vanity Fair. And I never got it. Never, never, never, never got it. And not only did I not get that, I didn't get very many at all. And then I ended up getting the cover of Vanity Fair. And it wasn't for acting, it was for my writing. It was that they excerpted my first book. And that, which I always took kind of, talk about, you can have all your plans, but the universe has something else. Like, if you'd have told me, you're never going to get the cover of Vanity Fair as an actor, but you're going to get it as an author, I'd have been like, what?

• 19:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  But that's what happened.

• 19:02Simon Sinek?

  So, but, but it was still the attitude of, I'll be back.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  I'll be back.

• 19:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  As Arnold would say.

• 19:07Simon Sinek?

  But I am fascinated by this, this, because you come from an industry where the egos are fascinating.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Fascinating.

• 19:15Simon Sinek?

  Fascinating. My point is, is you have, you, you could make a study, you, you're, you're one of the very few actors who's had a career across so many, so many decades, that you, I'm very curious how the industry has changed.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 19:29Simon Sinek?

  When you were an A-lister with all the magazines and paparazzi following you around then versus now, like, what, what has changed of the personalities? What does it take to stay in this business? What does it take to get into this business? Has anything changed? The people who made it then, could they make it now?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 19:43Simon Sinek?

  The people who made it now, could they have made it then?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  This is a, this is not, this is a five hour podcast question. And I'm happy to go into it, because.

• 19:51Simon Sinek?

  I'm fascinated by it.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  It's, it, okay, well.

• 19:53Simon Sinek?

  For me, I'm a culture guy, and I'm so curious how the culture has changed of, of, of, of show business.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  So in no particular order, because I'm not sure of the things I'm going to talk about, which is more important.

• 20:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  So I'm just gonna start talking.

• 20:05Simon Sinek?

  Go.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Today, the audience is interest, interested in you to the extent that they like you and are invested in who you are.

• 20:25Simon Sinek?

  As a person.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  As.

• 20:27Simon Sinek?

  Behind, off screen.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  As a, as a person, as a brand, as your, your thing. So compare that to when people loved Paul Newman.

• 20:38Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Or Marlon Brando.

• 20:39Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Or Lillian Gish. They didn't know fuck all about any of those people.

• 20:44Simon Sinek?

  No parasocial relationships.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 20:46Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  By the way, if you wanted to see them outside of what you paid in a movie or a TV show, maybe, maybe you saw them at the Oscars or the Emmys. Today, they, if you're not,

• 21:05Speaker 01

  and, and really what it is, is it's, audiences need, audiences need authenticity today. They value authenticity above all else. All else.

• 21:14Simon Sinek?

  So before, they were, they were actors, they had a job. Now, you have, you have a brand you're managing.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  And that makes, that makes it sound.

• 21:21Simon Sinek?

  Is that right?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it makes, yes, but, but that phrase theology, through no fault of your own, makes it sound more icky than it is. Because when, when you realize that what is it, what's underneath it, is people in, in a world where literally you don't even know what the truth is anymore. If you get a whiff of authenticity, that is huge to people.

• 21:45Simon Sinek?

  Because you're the same on, on camera than you are off camera.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Don't you, I mean.

• 21:49Simon Sinek?

  This, talking to you now, like, you and I should have shooting the shit before we turned the camera. It's the same, the same cadence, it's the same personality. You don't turn it on for the cameras. I mean, this is, what you see is what you get. Is that what you mean?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  100%. And that has always been my, a little bit of my secret sauce. It hasn't always worked in my favor. I won't name names, but people can do the math. I came up with a bunch of guys, all about the same time, same looks, same level of talent. And one became a gigantic, gigantic, iconic movie star. But the way that that person did it is they were a different person in private than they were in public. And I've just.

• 22:35Simon Sinek?

  Which works for a while.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Which, I just can't, first of all, I don't want to live like that.

• 22:38Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  But, but, but like, I just couldn't, I just couldn't do it. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

• 22:45Simon Sinek?

  The reason I keep scraping this, why I'm fascinated by this, is, is less about Hollywood, but more that I see that Hollywood and sort of show business is an exaggeration for real life.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:54Simon Sinek?

  Everything's exaggerated.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:55Simon Sinek?

  And I think lots of people live lives where who they are publicly and who they are privately, and who they are at work, and who they are at home, are, we're all slightly different, of course.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:05Simon Sinek?

  You have to be. But, but there are some who are very different. And, and I think the concept of authenticity is something that we want at work, we want from our friends, we want from our companies, and it's, and we're, we're pushing it. And so, I like looking at Hollywood for the lessons, because everything is so exaggerated, it makes the lessons easier to see.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:25Simon Sinek?

  So you see somebody who's so diametrically different publicly than they are privately, like, what happens here? And how does it, why does it crash? And, and what kind of, what kind of skills does it take to live an authentic life? And so, is it just flexing the muscle of learning to withstand humiliation? Is it what we were saying before, which is love of life, joie de vivre, like, I love this, and don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow? Is it that kind of grit? Like, I'm trying to discern the lessons.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It's, it's all of that. And then the other part is owning your flaws, and, and being aware of what your blind spots are, and, and, and realizing that those can also be your superpowers.

• 24:05Simon Sinek?

  How do you define authenticity? When you say authen, you say that, that the audience these days, the people are looking for an authentic personality. What does that even mean? The, the term is so overused.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  You know what it is? It's like, what's the classic thing is, what is, what is, what is porn? How do you describe it?

• 24:20Simon Sinek?

  I don't know.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  You know, you know it when you see it?

• 24:23Simon Sinek?

  That's not enough.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Or like, what is modern art? You know it when you see it.

• 24:26Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, but that's, that's, that's, that, that, that is an answer people give because they are struggling to find the words to find it. If you can see something, you can define it. If we know what it is and we know what it isn't, then we, then we should be able to, like, like, is the Sistine Chapel modern art? Clearly not.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  But what if it's a feeling? Because it's a feel. It is a feel. It's a feel. Like, when you're with somebody.

• 24:47Simon Sinek?

  How do you know a dog's a dog? You know it when you see it? No. It's furry.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  But you're not getting, but you're not getting a feeling off the dog. You don't get a feeling off the dog. What we're talking about is a, a feel.

• 24:58Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so what's the feeling? Like, I, I, how can we tell people be authentic if we can't tell them what to do?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I can tell you exactly. Do not self-edit. Which is practical shit that, that I have had to learn.

• 25:11Simon Sinek?

  So what does self-editing mean?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  So if I have an, like, in this conversation, if I have an instinct, something funny, I'm saying it, I'm thinking it and saying it before I've even registered that it's gonna happen. As opposed to, like, I haven't even thought about it. It came from somewhere, and I just blurted it out. I've lived parts of my life where, in a talk show format, I wouldn't say anything until I had thought of it. How's that gonna play? Is that on, is it on, is that off the topic we're on? Is it too mean? Is it make me, all of those things? I, I don't have any of them anymore.

• 25:47Simon Sinek?

  When did that go away?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  When David Letterman fucked me.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I, when I did an appearance on David Letterman, and he fucked me. He, he, there's a thing called a pre-interview, right? Do you know what a pre-interview is? Where you, and, and I get it. I have, now being a podcast host, I, I don't have this because I invite really good people. I don't have to, I don't have a machine where I have to have, fill time. But if you do, you, you're gonna run up against people who have nothing to say.

• 26:16Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  And so, as, as a protection mechanism, these talk shows have a pre-interview process. You get some actors, it's another ass from a hole in the ground. They've, you know, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. They've got to promote a movie, they're boring. They can only, they're funny if somebody writes for them.

• 26:30Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  And now you gotta be out. So they have a pre-interview where you kind of agree on what the stories are gonna be. And if they say this, you're gonna say that, and they do.

• 26:37Simon Sinek?

  A little bit canned.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Totally canned.

• 26:39Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, totally canned. Yeah. And we can tell.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  100%.

• 26:42Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it's like comedians doing bits instead of answering questions.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  So, I, and, and, and we did it. And Letterman's public producer was, like, obsessed with a story that I told them that I knew was stupid.

• 26:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  But they were like, say that story. Make sure you tell that story. Dave loves that story. I'm like, I mean, I'm thinking to myself, I'm having this instinct, this is not a good story.

• 27:06Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  I don't even get it. I don't, the only reason I mentioned this story is because they put me through a two and a half hour pre-interview for an interview that might be three minutes long.

• 27:20Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  And by the way, the message of that is, you're boring. You have nothing to say. Keep talking. Eventually, we're gonna get to a story that's worthy of the great David Letterman.

• 27:30Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  So, I come out, and I'm, and they've got me, do you remember the Warner Brothers cartoons when, like, Bugs Bunny would fuck Porky Pig's head up so much, that he'd pack different suitcases on top of him and spin him around, and then he'd walk right off of a, out of a window of a hotel and fall to his death? That was me. They're like, here, do this, take that, and remember this. If Dave says this, you say that. And remember the one story about that, and then I'm out there. I tell the story. It's a long story. And they're like, really tell the story. I tell the story. And by the way, the story was about going camping with my dad, and we had to fly on a plane, and, a Bush plane, and they let me fly it, and I put us in a, in a loop, and that was it. There was no end, there was

• 28:16Speaker 01

  nothing. I finished the story. To crickets, which I kinda knew were coming. Dead, long, dead air silence. And Letterman looks at me and goes, you know what? You seem like a good kid. After the show, you'll come up in my office and we're gonna work on that story. Fuck me.

• 28:36Simon Sinek?

  Wow.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  And so was it? What I learned from that.

• 28:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Is I'm going to trust my instincts. I'm gonna say what I want.

• 28:49Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  When I want.

• 28:51Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Cause it couldn't have gone worse.

• 28:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Checking the boxes.

• 28:56Simon Sinek?

  Right, so even if you trust your own instincts and it fails, you're still at ground zero.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  And it turns out, guess what? I've got good instincts.

• 29:03Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Because guess what? You can't be a good actor without good instincts.

• 29:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Can't. Can't, cannot. It's what we work with.

• 29:12Simon Sinek?

  So you, you, you learn from the humiliation to say, you know what? I'm, I'm gonna trust my instincts and tell my own stories.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 29:22Simon Sinek?

  And so how do we teach someone to trust their gut? Without having to get to the point where they get? So have you been able to teach your kids? Have you been able to teach your friends? How to develop this muscle other than trust me? This is what happened to me. Don't make the same mistake.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  I mean, it's like, for example, if I were talking to a CEO of a company.

• 29:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  And it was about like, uh, how can I be better talking at a retreat? Or how can I be better in interviews? Right, which, um, I would say, highlight your fears, your flaws, what you, like, the very thing that you don't wanna talk about is the very thing that you need to talk about. That makes you interesting and makes you relatable. And, you know, I, I, I think that

• 30:20Speaker 01

  get off script, do something unexpected. Do something unexpected.

• 30:30Simon Sinek?

  By telling, first of all, it takes courage. I, I, a friend of mine. So the word vulnerability and being vulnerable has, is, is now overused. To the point where I'm not even sure anybody knows what it means. And worse, to, to many people, the word vulnerable is equated with weakness.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 30:48Simon Sinek?

  My friend, I love this. She doesn't use the word vulnerable. She, for all the reasons, she hates the word. She uses the word available.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:56Simon Sinek?

  Which I've really taken to, which is make yourself available. Right? Like, make yourself available. Show people that you're, that you're available to, to, to talk about your mistakes. That you're available emotionally, that you're available, you know, to show your humility. And the courage it takes to be available, to make yourself available. Cause to be unavailable is nothing but walls and smokescreens.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Okay, so let's talk about something that's adjacent to that. Like, people always say, the thing I like about Rob is he doesn't take himself seriously. I hate that as much as I hate the vulnerable thing. Because I do take myself, if I'm not gonna take myself seriously, who the fuck is gonna take me seriously?

• 31:41Simon Sinek?

  You're not a caricature.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  No, but you know what I mean? But they use it all the time. But what they're saying is,

• 31:47Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm willing to discuss

• 31:53Speaker 01

  and not hide my flaws.

• 31:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  I hate the phrase, he doesn't take himself seriously.

• 32:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  To the contrary, bro. Take myself really, I mean, I've worked on myself. I, I, I'm not running nilly willy around the fucking world. But, but the notion of self, being self-deprecating, let's talk about that too. Cause again, if you watch, all, all that my heroes would go on talk shows and be so funny about themselves. Burt Reynolds, um, fucking Kennedy's press, you ever see John Kennedy's press conferences? Oh, they're amazing. They're like one man shows. He gets up there and he's making, he's, he's taking the pit, like the English would say, taking the piss out of himself.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  That to me is so much more attractive than someone is trying to show you how cool they are.

• 32:42Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 32:43Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. And, and I think it's relatable. I mean, because we're all bundled, it's, it's much more relatable when people are self-deprecating or at least willing to point out their flaws. Because we're all bundles of insecurity. We're all imperfect. And when somebody presents themselves as perfect, it actually makes them very difficult to relate to.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:01Simon Sinek?

  You know, uh, where when somebody shows us.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Well, cause we also know.

• 33:05Simon Sinek?

  We also know it's not true.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Going back to, yeah, so you know it's not authentic.

• 33:08Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  You immediately know, well, they're not authentic.

• 33:10Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so going back to what it takes to be authentic. So being authentic means willing to make yourself available, willing to show who the real you is. And that, and, and that means talking about mistakes, fears, anxieties. I mean, you, and I think having a healthy sense of humor about oneself is a sign of great self-confidence, not the opposite. It's, remember, we all went to school with the kid who could dish it out but couldn't take it.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:35Simon Sinek?

  And I have great respect for the kids who can dish it out and who can take it.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Same.

• 33:39Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  And that's right, when you see, I'm just thinking of some like, uh, Peyton Manning.

• 33:44Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Or you see these athletes, you see certain athletes who get into a broadcast booth. And they're just kind of, cause they're, they're, they're scared and they're trying to be perfect. They have an image to maintain and whatever. And then you get a guy like Peyton Manning, you just like.

• 33:58Simon Sinek?

  Making fun of his forehead.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Making fun of himself and like, he's, well, I wasn't exactly the most nimble guy in the pocket, but this guy over here, like, that's, you, you, you, we love that. We love that kind of stuff. And I think that the great entertainers and the great public figures always knew that. And my guess is that's something that everybody could, could learn from a little bit.

• 34:18Simon Sinek?

  Is there, is there a line though? Because we live in a world where authenticity, and I now, now I'm putting it in air quotes,

• 34:28Simon Sinek?

  is performative. Right? Where there's some social media influencer or just somebody on social media.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  The fake man of the people stuff.

• 34:36Simon Sinek?

  The fake, not just fake, fake man of the people, but like, but just the, just the like, how many takes do I take talking about I'm struggling with my dot, dot, dot? You know?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:47Simon Sinek?

  And it's like, how, like where?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  By the way, if I were, if I were running straight inauthentic man of the people game on you.

• 34:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Which is, is the thing, I would have showed up not only without the makeup and hair people, but I would have showed up making sure you are very well aware that I'm, I'm such, dude, I'm just a regular guy, man. I'm, I'm a man of the people, dude. I'm, I didn't, I'm not even sure I brushed my teeth today. I could have run that one on you.

• 35:16Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  It's all, it's complete bullshit.

• 35:20Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  It's just a different type of bullshit.

• 35:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Has social media kinda lost the plot? Has it just become our new entertainment? Is it just a new theater? Where it started off as people telling their real stories? And now it's people telling their real stories ish, but it's scripted, it's lit, it's angled, it's, you know, I know where to put the, is it like, everybody like, everybody knows what their angles are. Everybody knows to lift the camera a little high. Everybody knows to put the light behind the photographer. Like, everybody knows the basics. Some people know more than the basics.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  My favorite is watching people pose for selfies on the street. And like, every single person now knows what only we used to know.

• 35:59Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  You know, like the, the Olsen twins, when they, you know, they did, what they did famously, they created the prune. Do you know what prune? Men don't have to do it, but when, but gals, if you're getting your picture taken, you, it's, people say, say cheese. I don't get that, never met, he, that doesn't, but if you go prune, if you say prune, you get, you get cheekbones.

• 36:18Simon Sinek?

  The perfect.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  You get trout pout and cheekbones.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  See, the fact that I know this and I'm willing to share it openly.

• 36:27Simon Sinek?

  You're like, you're like the magician revealing the, the secrets.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Well, I have, I have, I, I, and you know, I have red carpet looks. I've got man of the people, I've got blue steel, and I've got iconic.

• 36:39Simon Sinek?

  You, you have names for them?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:40Simon Sinek?

  Can you?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Right now?

• 36:42Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, man of, man of the people, please.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Man of the people is when you see like Tom Cruise at the rope line, at the, at the line, like reaching out to sign thousands of autographs. That's, he's doing man of the people.

• 36:55Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  And then, and then, and then, and then blue steel is.

• 37:01Simon Sinek?

  Like, red carpet.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  You've got your angles. You're doing your angles.

• 37:04Simon Sinek?

  Step and repeat.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're, you've got.

• 37:06Simon Sinek?

  Rob over here, Rob over here.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you wanna show the watch that they've lent you.

• 37:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, you, you need to show that, cause otherwise you're not getting a watch lent. So the question is, how do you get your hand up here? So it has to be you're caught mid, mid move like this. That's a good, that's, that's, that's iconic.

• 37:23Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Also, looking up and off is always, the presidential photographs are always hopefully looking off to the horizon. But the horizon's not down here. Horizon's up there, so you're looking up to the horizon. And, um, so yeah, those, those are the three. The best is I, I, I told Chris Pratt that with mutual friends of Pratt. And early on, when he was just becoming a movie star, he literally called me, calls me Rollo. Rollo, I'm in the car, I'm on the way to the red carpet. What are the three, what are the three again? Man of the people, iconic, and what's the other? I got blue, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, thanks, Rollo.

• 38:00Simon Sinek?

  But this is the point, which is you understand it's an industry, it's a game.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  It's a game.

• 38:05Simon Sinek?

  There's a, there's a.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  It's a goof.

• 38:06Simon Sinek?

  There's a role, role to play.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:08Simon Sinek?

  And if you play a role with a nudge and a wink, this is the secret to longevity, which is take it, you take it seriously.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Really seriously.

• 38:15Simon Sinek?

  But not, but not too seriously.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's not self-important.

• 38:19Simon Sinek?

  It's not self-important.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  And the other thing is like, I see, there's another, there's another thing that actors do where they go, they want you to think like,

• 38:27Speaker 01

  you know, I didn't do up this tie because you know, I'm, I'm above all this.

• 38:31Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  You know, this, this, this premiere that I've flown to France to do.

• 38:37Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  And this tux.

• 38:39Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  That I've either bought or rented or had fitted.

• 38:43Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Simon Sinek?

  But I'm above all this.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  I'm kind of above it.

• 38:46Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And, and you can tell, you know, why?

• 38:48Simon Sinek?

  Cause my ties lose.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Cause I, cause my ties lose. See? Just so you know. It's all bullshit. It's more bullshitty than doing your fucking tie up.

• 38:58Simon Sinek?

  You, you are going back to that tennis.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Now everybody's out there Googling.

• 39:02Simon Sinek?

  That tennis.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get a phone call from Joaquin Phoenix immediately.

• 39:07Simon Sinek?

  That tennis analogy is.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Premiere, bro. You know, you're there. You know, you're there. I know you're there. Everybody knows you're there.

• 39:16Simon Sinek?

  You don't mind pissing people off. You don't mind pissing people off? Or do they, or do they just know that you're having fun?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  They have to, listen, if somebody, if the shoe were on the other foot, I'd be like, I fucking love, dude.

• 39:29Simon Sinek?

  If you're being made fun of, you're relevant.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Bro, I'm, I'm watching Family Guy.

• 39:31Simon Sinek?

  Cause we can't make fun of Lilian Gish.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  She's dead. Can't make fun of dead people.

• 39:37Simon Sinek?

  Okay, fine. Bad example.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 39:38Simon Sinek?

  Well, I'm trying to.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Okay, well, I gotta surface. So I'm, I'm watching Family Guy with my boys. They're probably 10 and 11. Dad, you gotta watch Family Guy. You gotta watch Family Guy. Funniest show ever I watched. It's not the first episode I watched, but I, it's funny. It's a really funny show. And I'm watching it and then there's a, an episode where Stewie, the crazy little baby, goes to Hollywood. And he's in a makeup chair and this flamboyant man is doing his makeup. And the scene begins with Stewie going, oh, please, just let me do one more. Can I do one more? And the makeup guy goes, of course, you can do one more. And he goes, Rob Lowe. And he goes, straight? And so he goes, no.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  I never would have known it to look at him. And I thought it was the great, it may, it's amazing. And I called Seth MacFarlane.

• 40:32Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  And I go, dude, that's the fun. And we became friends and I've done a bunch of Family Guys and we've worked together a bunch, but he's gotten a lot of phone calls that were.

• 40:40Simon Sinek?

  How dare you?

• 40:41Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 40:42Simon Sinek?

  But to, to be made fun of means you're, you're relevant. You're in the zeitgeist because nobody makes fun of people unless they're, you're making fun of the has-been-ness of them. You know?

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not taking.

• 40:52Simon Sinek?

  Which is, which is, which is mean spirited.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  I could take a fake ass shot at Joaquin Phoenix because he's one of my favorite actors.

• 40:57Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  He's one of my favorite actors. He's one of the greatest actors we've ever had.

• 41:00Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  He can still do his tie up, but he's a great actor.

• 41:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. If you weren't in show business, what would you be doing?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I may not be in show business after this interview comes.

• 41:08Simon Sinek?

  That's, that's true. You didn't go to college.

• 41:12Simon Sinek?

  You, like.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  That could not be more clear. He clearly did not go to college.

• 41:16Simon Sinek?

  No, no, you.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, he didn't.

• 41:17Simon Sinek?

  Oh, oh, yeah. But the, the, I don't mean it in a, in a mean way.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  I know.

• 41:21Simon Sinek?

  I'd be just like, I'm like, serious. Like you have been an actor your whole life. Like what else could you do?

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 41:28Simon Sinek?

  Nothing. Like if this doesn't work out.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Oh, bro. I can't change a light bulb.

• 41:33Simon Sinek?

  If this doesn't work out.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  This is it for me.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  My dad used to say, when I was 12, he used to say tons of supportive shit like this. You either better grow up to be a movie star or a prince.

• 41:53Simon Sinek?

  And royal family wasn't available.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I tried.

• 41:57Simon Sinek?

  Go on.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Princess Stephanie. I dated her for like five years, five months, whatever felt like five years. I tried. I was like.

• 42:05Simon Sinek?

  You tried Prince.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I tried. It wasn't, I'm not cut out for it.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  I would have liked the diplomatic immunity.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  That would have been great. Like to have the pouch that you can put shit in all over the world and park wherever you want. Just like in a red light, just get out.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Not built for it.

• 42:22Simon Sinek?

  What, what was it about?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  A lot of long, late dinners with people.

• 42:26Simon Sinek?

  You don't want to be with.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  That you don't want to be with.

• 42:28Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  And nobody works.

• 42:31Simon Sinek?

  But you have long, late dinners with people you don't want to be with.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Is there anybody else I can trash in this podcast?

• 42:35Simon Sinek?

  I mean, we, this is like, we, this is the episode, we can call it, the one where Rob Lowe trashes everybody who ever, yeah.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Am I trashing?

• 42:43Simon Sinek?

  No, you're not. We're having fun.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:45Simon Sinek?

  And we're pointing, we're doing authenticity. We're doing authenticity. We're pointing out the obvious. We're pointing out the things that everybody already knows.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  That's the thing.

• 42:52Simon Sinek?

  I think that's what authenticity is, right?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:54Simon Sinek?

  Which is like, why are you presenting to be perfect? We all know you're not.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:58Simon Sinek?

  Like we.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Because we're not.

• 43:00Simon Sinek?

  Like we all know, we all know that everybody else tied the tie for their tuxedo. We all know that you didn't. Like it's, it's a, like either a stylist told you that would look cool. You decided it would look cool or it's an affectation. Or maybe it's really your personality and you don't want to be at the thing and you're begrudgingly there.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Which is a thing.

• 43:19Simon Sinek?

  Which is a thing.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  I get that. I get that. I do get that.

• 43:21Simon Sinek?

  And, and all you want to be is an actor, but your contract says you gotta go.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And that's real, that's real for people.

• 43:26Simon Sinek?

  You gotta go do the press.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  I have, I have, I have, I have respect and empathy for that.

• 43:30Simon Sinek?

  There's a lot of actors.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  I really, really, I just want to be really good. I have.

• 43:32Simon Sinek?

  They begrudgingly go on the talk shows.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  I have total respect and empathy for people who are not.

• 43:38Simon Sinek?

  They're not marketers.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  They're, well, and they're not, they're not comfortable in that lane. And I, I, I understand that. I really, really do. But, but I also understand it's a part of the job. So for me, it's, it's way like meeting people on the street. I love people. I love meeting them. I love talking to them. It's way easier for me to take a picture, to say hello than to say.

• 44:02Simon Sinek?

  I'm sorry, I don't take pictures. Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Yes. I've seen people do that to kids in a wheelchair.

• 44:06Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  I've seen it with my own eyes. And when I go, what's that about? They say, if I make an exception here, I have to make an exception for everybody. And I've just made a rule. I am not taking pictures with people. I'll say hello to them.

• 44:21Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Have a conversation with them.

• 44:23Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  And like at the end of the day, take the fucking picture and move on.

• 44:26Simon Sinek?

  Do you want to hear the best story I heard? I just heard this last night. So Paul McCartney, arguably one of the most famous people in the world, right?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 44:33Simon Sinek?

  No one's Beatles proof, as he said, right?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 44:36Simon Sinek?

  That's what he said. Yeah. No one's Beatles proof. And people come up to him. They muster up the courage to come up to him. And back in the day, before there were cell phones, you know, can I, can I take a picture with you? Can I take a picture of you? And he would always say the same thing. I'm terribly sorry. I'm happy to talk to you. I'm happy to chat, but I'm, I don't take pictures. If I take one, it, it'll, it'll be madness. It'll be a feeding frenzy.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:00Simon Sinek?

  And.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Totally understand that.

• 45:02Simon Sinek?

  Right. And he just, as a rule, Paul McCartney doesn't take pictures. September 11th happens and he's, he's down there and there's some firemen. And he goes down to them and says, thank you to them. And they say, can we have a picture? And he says, of course. Right? And he's, there's a restaurant that wanted his picture and he, they, he wouldn't take a picture, but he gave them the picture of him with the firemen. Right? He's at the restaurant and somebody comes over to him. The gentleman says, Mr. McCartney, it's my wife's birthday. All she would love, she's a huge fan. Please can she have his, her picture with you? You know?

• 45:38Simon Sinek?

  He goes, I'm sorry, I, I don't take pictures. He goes, but your picture's it. That's with firemen. I took that with firemen, but I'm sorry, I don't take pictures. I'm terribly sorry. I appreciate you asking, but I'm sorry, I don't take pictures. Paul McCartney gets up to walk out of the restaurant, walks over to the table and sings her happy birthday.

• 45:54Simon Sinek?

  Okay? That is better. That is better than a picture. That is a story.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  That's amazing. There's something about a photo. It's irrefutable evidence. That you can share with everybody of the mall. I get why people want photos.

• 46:10Simon Sinek?

  No, no, I have photos with people. Like I don't get starstruck with many people, but there are some that I really.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  And by the way, I did one with Paul. The last time I saw Paul.

• 46:19Simon Sinek?

  You have to.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  The last time I saw Paul was at his, the, the last concert and he just showed up to the VIP. I said, I said, please, and, and it's in my last book. It's a picture of me standing there and he's got the look of like, get it over with. But I made him.

• 46:32Simon Sinek?

  But it's your picture.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  You know what? And here's the thing is.

• 46:34Simon Sinek?

  Because you have to.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  And the thing is, are these guys? The other thing is.

• 46:38Simon Sinek?

  But there's a level of celebrity that is, it's otherworldly, of which he is one of the.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. The other one was Redford I did it with.

• 46:45Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Where I was like, I just, I don't give a shit. We're, I'm, I'm taking it self with.

• 46:49Simon Sinek?

  But I think it's fun when celebrities are starstruck by celebrities.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:52Simon Sinek?

  It's like, we are the world. They're all like, I can't, what? Like they're all looking around the room going.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  My favorite documentary.

• 46:56Simon Sinek?

  It's an amazing documentary. Why was Dan Aykroyd there?

• 46:59Speaker 01

  That's what I say. I could have been there. I was, I, I'm gonna go, I'm, I'm sorry. It's 1985?

• 47:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, you were, you were.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Hello?

• 47:06Simon Sinek?

  I know.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  The fuck? It really made me request, like really.

• 47:11Simon Sinek?

  And we know, we know you can sing.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  And, and I, and we know I can fake sing.

• 47:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  And there's no bigger Springsteen. I was in the cut. I was like, but then again, Madonna wasn't there either.

• 47:21Simon Sinek?

  Were you, were you in, were you at the Emmys? Cause they.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  That was the American Music Awards.

• 47:25Simon Sinek?

  Oh, it was the American, okay. We, so, cause they were all there because.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Dan Aykroyd was at the American Music Awards.

• 47:32Simon Sinek?

  I still don't know why.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Was he supplying the drugs?

• 47:34Simon Sinek?

  It never, they never touched upon it in the documentary, why Dan Aykroyd was there.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:38Simon Sinek?

  Does Dan Aykroyd know why Dan Aykroyd was there?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Maybe it's a blue, he does have Blues Brothers. That's, that's a real thing.

• 47:44Simon Sinek?

  And he can sing.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  He's the Blues Brothers. There's a real like sold out arenas.

• 47:48Simon Sinek?

  That's true. Okay. I'll give him that.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:50Simon Sinek?

  And it was at the time.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I feel better about myself.

• 47:52Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 47:53Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, that's right. You didn't have a Blues Brothers type film and you weren't selling out arenas for your singing.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  I was fake playing the saxophone and saying almost fire at that very time.

• 48:02Simon Sinek?

  Did you at least take some training on where to put your fingers or were you literally just making up whatever?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  A little bit of both.

• 48:06Simon Sinek?

  A little bit of both. I'm always fascinated how much effort celebrities or actors, not celebrities, actors put in for a part, like you have to learn the violin, like.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Simon Sinek?

  And you can tell if they're getting it, they're just making it up.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  And now with AI, you don't need to do any of that, but.

• 48:19Simon Sinek?

  It's true. Have you done fighting scenes?

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Sure. Lots of them.

• 48:23Simon Sinek?

  Like, are you good? Like, how many skills do you have?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  I have, oh, do I?

• 48:26Simon Sinek?

  That you'd never thought you would have.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Can I tell you?

• 48:29Simon Sinek?

  Can you sword fight?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  My.

• 48:31Simon Sinek?

  Can you shoot a gun?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  My abilities are literally a mile wide and an inch deep. Like I've played so many doctors. Like if you were to God forbid, have a medical emergency right now, I could, I'm almost certain I could almost save your life.

• 48:51Simon Sinek?

  I mean, just before we turned on the cameras, there was some smoke across the street. And you literally said, I've played a fireman. Don't worry. It's okay.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  It's white smoke.

• 49:01Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. I mean, you literally, you literally did the, I played a doctor on TV.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  And that's the beauty of what I get to do is I learned so much. I have, I have a lot of knowledge.

• 49:12Simon Sinek?

  No, actually, I legit wanna know. I wanna know the skills you have. You, we know you can act. We know you can, we know you can play other people.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Shoot guns, ride horses. Um, you know, I could, I could put the fucking, I was watching Mission Impossible. Like, oh, they're gonna put the pen in his lung to let the air in. They did it. I'm like, I've done like, rescue people.

• 49:31Simon Sinek?

  What skills do you have that are applicable in the outside world that you learned because of a film or a TV show? So riding a horse, got it. You could ride a horse, not on screen. Shooting a gun, great. You could shoot, you could, could you pick up a gun, assemble it and shoot it?

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Yes. Blindfolded.

• 49:48Simon Sinek?

  Okay, that's a skill.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  I could, um, if you were to tie me up, actually, no, we'll talk later.

• 49:55Simon Sinek?

  Turn off the cameras.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  If you're, if you're, if you were to tie my hands behind my back and tie my feet and throw me into the deep end of your pool, I could survive.

• 50:04Simon Sinek?

  That's like a Navy SEAL thing.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I played a phony baloney Navy SEAL. Yeah.

• 50:09Simon Sinek?

  And so you went through the training for a few days?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, BUDs. Yeah.

• 50:12Simon Sinek?

  You did a little bit of BUDs?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. So I can do, I can do, I can do ring pickups. I can do a lot of.

• 50:17Simon Sinek?

  What's a ring pickup?

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Ring, they don't do them anymore. They're too violent even for the Navy SEALs, but they, you, you would surface in the middle of nowhere and you would tread water and put your arm in a, in like a sea thing. And then they, as Zodiac would come ripping down and would catch you and just flip you up into the.

• 50:33Simon Sinek?

  That sounds awful.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Is, or, and the Navy SEALs only do it once. What, you do it in the movie, you're doing it 14 times.

• 50:40Simon Sinek?

  What movie was this that you played in Navy SEAL?

• 50:41Speaker 01

  A terrible movie called The Finest Hour. Before Chris Pratt cornered the market on,

• 50:46Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  on entertainment, military entertainment. Um, I, I, there were only very few Navy SEAL movies and, and like, I would go to BUDs and they're like, I love your movie. I'm like, it's the only, it's really, there's only been two Navy SEAL movies. It was bad. Called The Finest Hour. Bad. But I, but again, the gift of that movie was that I got to learn a lot about that world and make a lot of friends in that world and have a little footprint in that world.

• 51:10Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really one of the best things about The Crazy Life, which is you get to meet some amazing, amazing people.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, for sure.

• 51:17Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. Who's, who, so Paul McCartney is one of the highlights of your career, meeting Paul McCartney.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Cary Grant, Cary Grant, um, you know, all those Mick.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, you get to meet your heroes. There are very few people that I have an attitude.

• 51:31Simon Sinek?

  They always say, don't meet your heroes, though.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I would say, don't get to know your heroes.

• 51:35Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Meeting is one thing.

• 51:37Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Like I, like, I'm friendly-ish with Bruce Springsteen. He's my favorite. He's my guy.

• 51:44Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  And it's gotten, like, I know him enough now, like, like I don't, like, it's like, you just, it's, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's hard, it's hard to like, cry when he's singing The River when you're gonna go pizza with him later. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's hard. I just, I, everybody needs, everybody needs to be a fan of somebody's.

• 52:04Simon Sinek?

  Ruins the magic. It's like, I remember the first time, there was this magic trick that I loved, super simple card trick, that a friend of mine used to do, and I begged him, I begged him to teach me so I could do it for other people. And he's, he quizzed me, why do you wanna learn it? I said, I wanna learn it because I wanna give other people the feeling that you gave me. He's like, that's a good reason. I'll teach it to you. And he taught me the trick and it completely ruined it. Because it's not magic. It's just a trick. And now that I knew the trick, it, I've lost, I lost the magic.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Don't lose the magic.

• 52:32Simon Sinek?

  And don't lose the magic, right? And I think, I think this is, and I think this is to your point, which is you can meet your heroes, just don't get to know your heroes, because it turns out they're people. And, and it, you said, the song loses its magic because you know the person.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Some people can transcend it.

• 52:48Simon Sinek?

  Cause awe, awe of something or someone is a magical thing.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yes. The best.

• 52:54Simon Sinek?

  And you never wanna lose awe because that, that's jaded.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. I'm definitely not jaded. I mean, it's weird. I'm cynical, but I'm not jaded.

• 53:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Is that, is that even possible?

• 53:04Simon Sinek?

  No, no, I think so. I think, and it goes right back to where we started, which is you have joy. You have unbridled joy for life. You have unbridled joy for your career, for your, for your craft. You, you, you have fun. And you take it seriously, but I think what you teach us, and this is what I'm getting from you, what I'm learning from you, you just can be very serious about something and have a lot of fun with something simultaneously.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:27Simon Sinek?

  You can take life very seriously, because life is serious, and you can have a lot of fun with it. And you can have the struggles and you can talk about your fuckups and you can talk about your own demons. And you can have fun in all of that as well. There's absurdity in all the struggle and there is realness in all of the, in all the fun.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Like, when I, when I talk about drugs and alcohol, there's nothing more serious than that. There's nothing more serious than if you know someone who's suffering, really suffering with drugs and alcohol.

• 53:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  It's as serious as anything out there.

• 53:57Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  And when I talk, share, speak around the country, which I do a lot,

• 54:05Speaker 01

  there are big time laughs, big time, in that. Because if, if you can find humor in that, you can find humor in anything.

• 54:13Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  And, and, and there are plenty of people who can

• 54:19Speaker 01

  talk very movingly and, and you get a lot from it and you're crying the whole time.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  That's not why I got put here. I, I got put here for, to, to inject a different thing into the conversation. And, and, and I've, it's taken me a lot of years to, to learn it and to learn that like, to the extent that anybody has a secret sauce, I think maybe that's, that's mine.

• 54:47Simon Sinek?

  Stephen Colbert says, you know, you can't, you can't be angry or sad when you're laughing.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:54Simon Sinek?

  I mean, literally, you know, the, the most difficult times where we're struggling or in sad, when, if somebody can make a joke, like, humor matters. It's a salve, you know, it's, it's a balm, you know, like, and you can't be angry and you can't be sad when you're laughing.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  I remember, we talked, it's so weird that my grandmother keeps coming up in our talks, but when you were on my podcast, we talked about my grandmother. And I'm just remembering,

• 55:22Speaker 01

  when she passed away, I was blessed to be at her bedside. And she, when she finally passed away,

• 55:31Speaker 01

  there's that moment where like, oh, now what happens? And a new nurse came in and looked at me and literally, over my grandmother's, not even still warm body, produced a pen and paper. I said, could I get your autograph? She's handing it over my dead grandmother's body.

• 55:50Simon Sinek?

  Whoa.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And I remember going, yeah, I, I, I don't, I don't sign in pen.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  What are you gonna, you know, what are you gonna do, right?

• 56:03Simon Sinek?

  You can get angry, but.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Right?

• 56:05Simon Sinek?

  You have to see the, but this is the point. This is one of the things that I really have, I really appreciate about you, which is you, you see the absurdity of life and the joy of life woven in, it's part of it, right? Like, like, it's all woven. It's, it's a tapestry. And, and it's all for fun. And I think this is what authenticity is. And I think the reason you don't get in trouble when you say some of the things you do is because people know it's, it's just, it's life. And you're just pointing at it.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  I'm never saying anything that isn't, I mean, I'm, like anybody, I'm capable of saying things that aren't true. I'm capable of lying, all the things that human beings do, because we're flawed. But, but when I'm doing that thing, it's, I'm, they, everybody knows that.

• 56:44Simon Sinek?

  You're just having fun.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  That, that, when they know that I'm right. But the, the other thing that,

• 56:50Speaker 01

  about longevity, and like, you know, I did television when movie people didn't do television. Like, I host a game show. That would be career death. Like, and, and I'm sure there are probably some actors, I don't think Daniel Day Lewis is looking to do a game show. But what I, when they came to me with it, the reason I did it was I had just come off of doing a one man show. Being in front of a live audience with stakes, like actual, it's live to tape, there's no second tape. There's a hundred regular folks that you have to interact with. You don't know what they're gonna say. You don't, it's a free shot on goal all the time.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  There's money at stake that changes people's lives.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  And you're the quarterback going, do we need to be funny now? Do we need to be, to embrace the drama? Oh, do I, do I have to reset how much money we played? And it's all happening all at once, live in this enormous set. And it is so exciting. It's so exciting. And it's not at all what I thought it would be, and yet it's more than I thought it would be. And it's, it's an era, it's a part of entertainment that I'd never been in.

• 58:07Simon Sinek?

  But this is, this is, I, so, we talked about this. So you were a movie actor, where it was career death to do TV, you did TV. You're a movie and TV actor where it's considered sort of career death to now do a, a game show. What is the reason you take these pretty extreme pivots where the common sense of the industry is, you probably shouldn't try that? Like, what is the appeal of doing something so out of, you know, sort of off the, the game plan of the career?

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Well.

• 58:37Simon Sinek?

  Or maybe that is the career plan.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  I like to think that, that I, because

• 58:43Speaker 01

  I could smell bullshit a mile away, I can.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  And I hate artifice and pretension.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  So if you take those things out, then all of a sudden, you're not judging a game show negatively. And I know what it means to people like, like, people watch The Floor in a way that they don't watch anything else I've ever done. I have eight year olds watching with their parents.

• 59:13Simon Sinek?

  I love that.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  That does not happen. They're not all getting together to watch Euphoria.

• 59:17Simon Sinek?

  Right, right.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  They're not. And, and the parents aren't there watching The Summer I Got Pretty, or whatever.

• 59:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it's we live in a world in which everybody goes to their separate room to watch their TV shows.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  That's

• 59:28Simon Sinek?

  And rare are the shows that a family comes together and sits on a couch and watches together.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  And, and when I get that, and I get it all the time.

• 59:35Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  That means a lot to me.

• 59:36Simon Sinek?

  Rob Lowe, you are uniting families.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm bringing, I'm bringing back the family.

• 59:41Simon Sinek?

  Bringing back

• 59:42Speaker 01

  One quiz show at a time.

• 59:43Simon Sinek?

  One quiz show at a time. Doing the Lord's work.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 59:47Simon Sinek?

  Of all the characters you've played, who's your dream intern? Who's your CEO and who's getting fired?

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Dream intern, Chris Trager, Parks and Recreation.

• 59:58Simon Sinek?

  Who's your CEO?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I'm going with Sam Seaborn. He was running the White House, effectively.

• 1:00:05Simon Sinek?

  Who's getting fired?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Oh, 100% my character I played in Californication, Eddie Nero. 100, he's getting fired. He's going to HR immediately.

• 1:00:16Simon Sinek?

  You've worked with your son. What's one piece of advice you'd give someone about working with family?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Do it whenever you can. It's the greatest gift.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  The shorthand, the pride.

• 1:00:32Simon Sinek?

  Is it strange playing a character with your son playing a character?

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:38Simon Sinek?

  Cause, I mean,

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yes, very much so. And then, and then you can't help yourself. And also, just accept the fact that you lean into the fact that you're still dad. Like, his thing is he calls, he would never call me dad on the set. I was always Rob. Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob. As if I was, as if everybody didn't know. I want to go, hey, they know.

• 1:00:57Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Um, but we would be in a scene and I would just be thinking, I don't like his hair like that. He needs a haircut. Do you have any like?

• 1:01:07Simon Sinek?

  Kind of help yourself.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't help myself. Or like, I'd be like, I think he needs to engage his core the way he's standing here. So, and then we ended up writing that into the show.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Unstable, still streaming on Netflix. Two seasons available.

• 1:01:22Simon Sinek?

  Anything that you've learned, career or personal, that just helped you get through the day and make life a little easier?

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Live in gratitude.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Manage expectations.

• 1:01:38Simon Sinek?

  Yours or other people's?

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Mine.

• 1:01:43Simon Sinek?

  Rob, such a joy.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  So fun.

• 1:01:45Simon Sinek?

  You're so fun. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great. Thank you.

• 1:01:50Simon Sinek?

  A bit of optimism is brought to you by The Optimism Company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight, or some inspiration, or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work, or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to simonsinek.com. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.