#243: How to Fear Less -- Vince Vaughn

Vince Vaughn (@WildWest https://twitter.com/wildwest) is one of the most prolific actors, writers, and producers in the world. He's acted in more than thirty major motion pictures that have gone on to gross more than 1.7 billion at the box office. He is largely credited for redefining the R-rated comedy with his performance in the 2005 hit Wedding Crashers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396269/, which set the record for highest grossing R-rated comedy at the time. He is -- and will continue to be, I expect -- one of the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood. As a listener to this podcast, Vince reached out with his production company Wild West http://www.wwpsp.com/ to see if we might do a TV show together. The result is Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss http://tim.blog/fearless/ -- "less" is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. More details about the show can be found at tim.blog/fearless http://tim.blog/fearless/. I got the chance to catch up with Vince at Vulture Festival http://vulturefestival.com in New York City. In this conversation, we get into stories of his early beginnings, how to negotiate, his cold-calling career, and important decisions he's made as a producer, an artist, and a businessperson. I had a blast doing this, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by 99Designs http://99designs.com/tim, the world's largest marketplace of graphic designers. I have used them for years to create some amazing designs. When your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99Designs. I used them to rapid prototype the cover http://99designs.com/tim for The Tao of Seneca, and I've also had them help with display advertising and illustrations. If you want a more personalized approach, I recommend their 1-on-1 service http://99designs.com/tim. You get original designs from designers around the world. The best part? You provide your feedback, and then you end up with a product that you're happy with or your money back. Click this link http://www.99designs.com/tim and get a free $99 upgrade. Give it a test run... This podcast is also brought to you by Trunk Club http://trunkclub.com/tim. I hate shopping with a passion. And honestly, I'm not good at it, which means I end up looking like I'm colorblind or homeless. Enter Trunk Club http://trunkclub.com/tim, which provides you with your own personal stylist and makes it easier than ever to shop for clothes that look great on your body. Just go to trunkclub.com/tim http://trunkclub.com/tim and answer a few questions, and then you'll be sent a trunk full of awesome clothes. They base this on your sizes, preferences, etc. The trunk is then delivered free of charge both ways, so you only pay for clothes that you keep. If you keep none, it costs you nothing. To get started, check it out at trunkclub.com/tim http://trunkclub.com/tim.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, we're just seeing an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by 99designs. I've used 99designs for years for all sorts of graphic design needs. Whether you need a logo, website, book cover, or anything else, 99designs was created to make great designs accessible to everyone and to make the process of getting designs much, much easier. So when I first started out, for instance, testing prototype covers and getting prototype covers for the 4-Hour Body, I went the contest route. That is one option. This is a great solution if you're looking for fast, affordable design work and the ability to choose from dozens of options, risk-free. Let's say you need something late-night, quick turnaround. Well, people in other time zones, other countries can also help you solve that problem. Since then, I've worked with 99designs on a separate

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  path or a different option, and that is the one-to-one project service. So, in a number of cases, and I'll give you one example, when I wanted to create the cover for my audiobook, The Tao of Seneca, this was a very important project to me, I decided to use their one-to-one project service. And with this service, you can invite a specific designer to your project, agree on a price, and then work together until you're satisfied. And they allow you to iterate and provide feedback and all this stuff. And I haven't shared it yet, but we also got some incredibly good, really some of the best illustrations I've ever seen from using this one-to-one project service with a handful of different designers and illustrators. It blew my mind. 99designs makes this all very easy and efficient. So

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  you can check out The Tao of Seneca design and other work that I, and your fellow listeners for that matter, have done on 99designs at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. Again, that's 99designs.com/tim.

• 2:11Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Trunk Club. There are two types of men out there. You know who you are. Guys who love shopping for clothes but are short on time, category A. And those of you who hate it, category B. I am in the latter category. My fashion sense is also probably somewhere between homeless and confused with a dash of lazy added in. Either way, you can take heart. And I've used Trunk Club now and have found some of my favorite pieces of clothing that make me look a lot better than I would be able to handle on my own. And there are many reasons for that. But you can get clothing that fits perfectly and looks amazing without ever stepping into a store again, thanks to Trunk Club. And they make it very, very easy.

• 2:56Tim Ferriss?

  And the clothing is handpicked by a personal stylist, your own personal stylist. All you have to do is go to trunkclub.com/tim, type in your measurements, share your likes and dislikes, they'll pick your clothes from more than 80 top brands and ship them right to your door. You keep what you like, you send back what you don't. If you don't like any of it, send it all back. Doesn't matter. And Trunk Club is not a subscription service. This is what appealed to me, among many other things. I didn't want to constantly be getting dinged by things or have to deal with the headache of constantly getting boxes. It's not a subscription service. Shipping is always free and you have five days to try on the clothes. So, a couple of points here. Number one, get started today.

• 3:40Tim Ferriss?

  Go to trunkclub.com/tim, try it out. You get premium clothes, expert advice, no work, no risk. That is a winning combo. And I have found some of my favorite Espadrilles shoes from them, bright green. I do like the color green. And they actually work. I've had so many compliments on these shoes and more people ask me where I got them than any other pair of shoes I've ever had. And more shirts, I ended up keeping about, I would say, three quarters of my box, which I did not expect to do. So go to trunkclub.com/tim and check it out.

• 4:16Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I am sitting in a hotel room overlooking the High Line in New York City because I was here for something called Vulture Fest. What is that? Well, it is a very important event for the world of television, entertainment, film, and so on, alongside others like, for instance, the TCAs, the Television Critics Association. And I'm mentioning this because it's related to today's guest. Of course, my job is to deconstruct world-class performers, to pick out the lessons and habits and favorite books and so on that you can use in your own life. And the guest today is Vince Vaughn. Many of you know Vince, of course. Doesn't need a lot of introduction, but he is one

• 4:59Tim Ferriss?

  of the most prolific actors, writers, and producers in the world. He's acted in more than 30 major motion pictures that have gone onto gross more than 1.7 billion at the box office. He is largely credited for redefining the R-rated comedy with his performance in the 2005 hit Wedding Crashers, which set the record for highest grossing R-rated comedy at the time. And he is, and will continue to be, I expect, one of the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood. His handprints have been put outside the Chinese theater, and I know of many things that are irons in the fire that you will be seeing in the forthcoming months and years with Vince. And one of them involves me.

• 5:42Tim Ferriss?

  Vince has listened to this podcast. He reached out to me, along with his production company, Wild West, to do a TV show together. And it is out right now, starting May 30, 2017. It is called Fearless. That's fear less in parentheses with Tim Ferriss, because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. Big, big difference between those two, and I could not be more excited. There are 10 episodes. It is on an incredible set with a live audience surrounding us. We use video. We use images. In some cases, live demonstrations onstage. And as of May 30, 2017...

• 6:24Tim Ferriss?

  30th, you can watch the first episode, which is with David Blaine, master illusionist and endurance artist for free at ATT.net. So check that out for free. And Faux Show, you should take a look at this episode, David Blaine. People, meaning you guys, have asked me for so long for David Blaine. And now you can see him live performing magic, getting into his personal stories at ATT.net. So look for Fearless with Tim Ferriss, and you can find it on that homepage. And all of the rest of the episodes, you'll be able to find as they're released on DirecTV, if you have DirecTV or want DirecTV. And you can then stream them on DirecTVNow.com.

• 7:09Tim Ferriss?

  And there is a free trial option that you can check out. So there are no reasons not to take a look. And some of you have asked, for instance, and I've seen these on Twitter in the last couple of weeks, you know, I buy one of your books and give you 12 bucks every three years, but I've had benefits for 10 years. That doesn't seem fair. What should I do? Well, if you want to spend just a few bucks after watching the first episode, I would really appreciate it. And you can check out the entire season of Fearless. So that is that. We cover so much in this conversation with Vince and get into stories of his early beginnings, how to negotiate his cold calling career, as it were, at least a few jobs that contributed to that,

• 7:54Tim Ferriss?

  and many of the most important decisions that he made as a producer, as an artist, as a business person, an entrepreneur, for instance. I really had a blast doing this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And please check out Fearless with Tim Ferriss. You can also find the trailer and other things at tim.blog/fearless. And again, the entire episode for David Blaine can be found at ATT.net. As always, thank you for listening.

• 8:37Tim Ferriss?

  All right.

• 8:41Tim Ferriss?

  Thank everyone for coming, but we're missing half of the show here. So, without further ado, let's bring out Vince Vaughn.

• 9:08Tim Ferriss?

  I look a lot shorter in person.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  This feels very intimate and comfortable, the white room with the skateboard ramp.

• 9:16Tim Ferriss?

  We will be doing a skateboarding demonstration afterwards, which is why we have the Kurt background. Thank everybody for coming. This is gonna be a fun conversation. Vince and I have had a chance to spend a good amount of time together. We are gonna delve a lot into his story, many of his decisions and adventures, some of which I think you will have not heard before, certainly, many of which I will have not heard before. And I thought we would just start with a little bit of context. So, this show is something that I have, in some form or another, wanted to do for a very long time. And we connected initially through the podcast. So, I thought maybe if you would want to give a little bit of background as to how we connected and how this came together.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:55Tim Ferriss?

  And then, I'll switch gears and we'll go way back.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  I'm a fan of Tim's, and I really appreciated the books, as well as the podcast, his investigations into things, and finding ways to effectively get past your trepidations or fears and become able to engage in things in a way that was more fulfilling. So, I liked his whole journey and the way that he approached it. So, I sort of was like the Warren Buffett of producers, in that I really like to just engage in things that I'm excited about or that I really enjoy, because you do end up spending quite a bit of time on it. So, as a fan and someone that was enjoying it, I reached out to Tim and said, "If this

• 10:41Speaker 02

  feels like a compliment to what you're doing, and still not taking from what you're doing, is there a version of doing this where we kind of record it with people that feels like a good continuation?" And I referenced your TED Talk, specifically, the dealing with fear. And your vulnerable experiences younger with some pretty traumatic experiences. And how that, instead of suffocating you, or maybe it did at the time, how later in life, you were able to readdress those.

• 11:09Tim Ferriss?

  It's part of the reason that I'm excited to talk to you in front of all these folks, because we're going to get into some of those moments for you, certainly. And it's a portion of life that is very often glossed over and that people don't see when they idolize people on the magazine covers. And they assume that they're flawless and that perhaps, as a result, you as a normal are, in some way, uniquely flawed. And instead, wanting to showcase how people can succeed despite the weaknesses and pain that they might have experienced or developed over time. So let's go way, way back and talk a little bit about childhood. I figured that'd be a good place to start. How would you describe your childhood? Where did you grow up?

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Well, um...

• 11:57Tim Ferriss?

  That's age 37.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  My hair's starting to get lighter again, so returning back. But my parents, both my parents came from single moms. And both came from very economically challenged backgrounds. And so they really had a real aspiration to give a better opportunity to their kids. So I was around a great work ethic. And I had an interesting journey in that, originally, we started off on very humble means. And my father was very self-motivated and was very successful. Started his own business and did very well. And then, as I got older, we moved into a more affluent area and had exposure to, you know, public schools, but good schools and all of those kinds of things.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  But I think it informed me where I had a work ethic. I didn't put a big focus on results, meaning finances were never a driving factor. Not that I was raised that you had to take care of yourself, but... Being good or working hard at something what was valued. So I think I was fortunate to have, um, I think you do a lot what your parents do versus what they say. So I was fortunate to have a good role models in that way.

• 13:10Tim Ferriss?

  What was your dad's business? What type of business?

• 13:13Speaker 02

  My dad, well, my dad, uh, his, his dad worked in a steel mill and on a railroad and had a small little hundred acre farm, but he, he worked on the, in the factory and that to keep the farm going. And his mom and dad were divorced, so he'd go in the summers and work the farm. And he was the first, uh, in his immediate family there to go to college. So he was a salesman. He, he wanted to make a living. So he started off with Swift Meat Company and selling stuff, and then he ended up in toys. So as a kid, it was a great profession because we always had a lot of toys. He'd have sample toys. I'd get in trouble because I'd go get them and start playing with them. He'd say, you can't touch that. That's a.

• 13:51Tim Ferriss?

  It's merchandise.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  That's merchandise, yeah. But it was odd because they would argue and do business in the way that you would in indie industry. But the comedic part to me was they were arguing over a ninja turtle. You're gonna put those damn ninja turtles on the fucking shelf, you know, and but it was.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  I found it kind of like I was watching Casino, but they were talking about, uh, they were talking about Evel Knievel stunt cycle. But he was a manufacturer's rep, so what would be sort of an agent. They would represent the, uh, the manufacturers, getting them shelf space and, you know, Kmart or Toys R Us or different.

• 14:27Tim Ferriss?

  So he'd be selling to the retailers?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Correct, correct.

• 14:29Tim Ferriss?

  What made him good at that? We're gonna get into your ability to pitch.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  No, but my dad's interesting because my dad is maybe the most honest person. He's overly bright, but, um, I think he just can connect and relate with people. I think he genuinely is empathetic with people. Um, I would see him in deals sometimes, like with a house transaction and people put down money and it didn't go through, but my dad would always give them their money back. He was interesting that way. So I think people trusted him and felt comfortable with him. In the long run, I think it really panned out for him because he, he wasn't as focused on that stuff, but he, great sense of humor and, uh, good sense of humor about himself. But I think he was very, is still very, you know, engaged with people.

• 15:19Tim Ferriss?

  One thing that struck me when we very first had dinner, this was a while back.

• 15:25Tim Ferriss?

  And this is actually something a few of my friends who have now met you on set when we were filming have mentioned, is that you ask a lot of questions, which I hate to say it, but has been unusual for me in my experience with, say, entertainment. And you're very inquiring, and I think that helps to build an empathy. Is that something that you developed at home? Did you develop it some other way?

• 15:51Speaker 02

  I think I was always curious about things and interested in people. And I like to learn and be challenged on stuff. So I don't mind. I like to ask stuff. And again, as I said, my journey with you started really being a fan of what you were doing, but I was also, I was very inspired by the background that led to you to this experience, because I'm interested in that, that some very challenging things led to this beautiful life. But there's others who could have had those things and it could have been crushing to them. And I find what you do to be an olive branch and give some skills to others to maybe choose

• 16:35Speaker 02

  the good life and not be defined by the challenges. And I think that's empowering to people, so I like that.

• 16:43Tim Ferriss?

  So for those people who don't have the context here, the TED Talk that I gave that Vince was referring to talked about a number of different challenges I had, including a lifelong fear of swimming. So I didn't learn to swim until I was in my 30s, which is embarrassing for a Long Island boy.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  Share the story as to what led to that.

• 17:01Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I was, there are many different components, but the supposed primary catalyst was a summer camp experience I had when I was a very little kid. I was a runt and generally stayed away from the playground because that was a danger zone for me. That was where you'd just get your ass kicked. That was my association. It was not for play. And I went to summer camp and kids were diving off this dock through an inner tube. Which looked like fun. I did that and a bully of the camp grabbed me by the ankles as I went through. I tried to come up and get air and kept hitting my back on the bottom of the inner tube and just thought I was gonna drown because I couldn't get my head above water. And ultimately, fortunately, somebody spotted that who was a counselor

• 17:43Tim Ferriss?

  and I didn't die, obviously I'm here, but that led me to never want to swim, period, even though I was right next to the water. And I suppose this is as good a point as any to ask you about because you and I actually haven't really spoken about this.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  But then later in life, you evaluated it differently, not being the child emotionally in that moment, right?

• 18:03Tim Ferriss?

  Later, later I had a number of people who were very instrumental in helping me to rethink swimming and also to not denigrate it. So I had, I had rationalized not being able to swim by dismissing it as unimportant. And at one point, one of my close friends, first of all, said, "This is a life skill you need to have for you and for your kids. So I'm assigning an open water race to you by the end of this year as your New Year's resolution." I was like, "Oh, I didn't realize that was up to another person to decide." And he's very, or he was at the time addicted to stimulants, meaning like ate double espressos

• 18:45Tim Ferriss?

  a day. So I said, "All right, if I'm gonna learn to swim," which is the scariest thing in the world to me, "you can't have anything stronger than green tea for a year. And if you agree to that, I'll do the open water swim." And I didn't think he'd do it and he said, "Deal." And so that was the stakes. And then someone helped me to rethink how to go about swimming in a step-by-step fashion. And, but it was that initial pain, that initial experience, that later led to rethinking swimming, which then led to rethinking a lot of things. And it's led to the show, among other things.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  And so for me, that very story was a great entry into engaging and hearing yourself and how you dissect things and the people that we're getting up and sharing. Because I think on some level, we all are looking for those things in life, how to let go of stuff and how to enjoy things in a more productive way.

• 19:37Tim Ferriss?

  Could you talk about your car accident in high school?

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Sure, yeah.

• 19:43Tim Ferriss?

  It's not something that we've talked about?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  No, I haven't talked about it much. But we were, it was after school. I had played sports and then I had stopped. I had started getting more into acting and it was during the day. And

• 19:57Speaker 02

  I was a passenger and it was raining out and the girl that was driving was swerving on the road being cute. I remember her saying, "Don't swerve, don't, you know, stop it." But she kept doing it. We were going maybe thirty-five miles an hour and then we hydroplaned. And I woke up in a ditch, my thumb ripped up, real bad, and I couldn't move. My legs couldn't move. I had paramedics over me and I had blood all around me. I was real concerned. My friend, I didn't have any idea how I looked. I wasn't tracking it. My friend was real bloody. I said, "Is Sean okay?" They said, "Yeah, he's all right." They got me in the ambulance. And then they couldn't get ahold of my parents at first because they were work traveling

• 20:38Speaker 02

  and so I just remember being in a lot of pain. There was a moment you didn't know what the ramifications were. I had a small compression which turned out to be nothing in my back but, and the aesthetic of my thumb being injured, at the time I didn't, I mean, it's now just a very bad scar on the backside of it and thankfully I have the thumb and can move it, but there's a pad that was gone. So, that was, that was challenging because it really made me evaluate the oldest cliche, you know, without your health, you don't have anything. So I really got the experience of feeling like, well, what if I can't move around or

• 21:20Speaker 02

  people go outside and play and things I had taken for granted. And then this, the, anything physical that is different that you're used to in a certain way, I think at first it's natural to feel insecure about it. And here I was, at that time knowing I wanted to pursue being an actor and entertainer. So it was a gift in, you know, processing things and putting your focus on other things and you started to realize the power of your own inner dialogue as far as what you were creating or not. So there was a lot of gifts in it ultimately, but at the time it was, I feel lucky for it in that it was without real consequences. It was a, it was a...

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Nice learning gift, in a way.

• 22:07Tim Ferriss?

  So just to, we're gonna talk a lot about that inner dialogue and self-talk, but I wanna touch on a few things that are around that same time period. And as maybe a preface to that, I will say that Vince is one of the most consistently curious people I've ever met, which is saying a lot, because my job is to interview curious people. And to give you an idea, we were just backstage, getting mic'd up, and he had questions about something called the Marcelotene. So Marcelotene is a choke that's used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by the Michael Jordan slash Wayne Gretzky of grappling, his name is Marcelo Garcia. So I was backstage choking Vince about 10 minutes ago, and there were a lot of very

• 22:52Tim Ferriss?

  nervous looks.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Very effectively, I will.

• 22:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's a good choke. Marcelo knows what he's doing. And grappling was one of the first things, wrestling specifically, that we bonded over. And could you talk about the role of sports in wrestling, to the extent that it's, that it had a lasting impact?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  I think it's important, I think, you know, George Washington, I think credited ballroom dancing and horseback riding as two of the most important things he did, because it gave him confidence physically and grace. And, you know, being a leader, I don't know that you can put grace in the body without, you know, whether it's, I took ballet, I took, played sports, I think it's important. Especially for me being tall, it allowed me to have, I think, more control and confidence in my, in my, in my height. And, so wrestling to me was really a course in resiliency and discipline. I would have loved to have played other team sports, but it was, I was very good at

• 23:57Speaker 02

  wrestling, for whatever reason, and I wasn't as accepted in some of the team sports. So wrestling is very much a loner sport. If you're on a team bus, you kinda joke around and laugh. On a wrestling bus, everyone is dead silent.

• 24:11Tim Ferriss?

  Partially because they're all dehydrated from cutting weight.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  You're cutting weight, and you're gonna get in a fight in front of your school, or people you don't know. It's like you shake hands, and it's like you're gonna, you know, there's no one missed a block. You got, you got beat, right? And you are dehydrated, it's odd in that you're growing, and yet you're trying to maintain a weight as, I mean, it's, especially when you're doing it when you're younger, it's very challenging. But... I really felt that I got, and there's, you know, you would come out of playing football feeling like you were in shape, and then you would go into wrestling and you would realize you're not in any kind of shape, because if you just wrestle, it's exhausting, and then the only other thing you can do is run. And in the winter in Illinois, that meant hallways and stairs. We had a coach that was, he got fired, he was not fit to be with kids, but I, I felt

• 24:55Speaker 02

  like I was, I benefited from having that personality, but he was a real problem. But I remember, I feel like we need a little more elaborations, people's minds don't go crazy. Well, he was, he was, he was, uh, he had a real anger problem. He would hit you. Okay. I got hit. This isn't spotlight, I just wanna... Yeah, he punched me once in the chest after a match, he hit the wind out of me. He would, he encouraged kids hurting each other, but it seemed normal at the time, you know. He was like the Cobra Kai. Yeah, he was like Cobra Kai. It was crazy, he had his own emotional issues, so we would win a meet like sixty to six or whatever it was, and he would be angry over the few mistakes, and he would, it was, at some point you just heard the emotion being poured on you.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Remember his sister was an assistant, he'd always say, "Get me a tab and an aspirin." Or an Advil. "Go get me my, go get me a tab and Advil," and then he'd keep screaming at us. But, uh, he would sometimes, like there was a, you know, we would run these stairs, and he would say in these hallways, it was like a spread, but if you didn't make it under a minute twenty, you would add another one, right? He was intentionally, you were gonna have the bar moved, and he was trying to break your spirit. He wanted to simulate, "All is lost, what you thought was gonna get you there is not, and now will you stand?" Right? Um, but inevitably, the second string heavyweight was never gonna make that time. So the first time he would do it, he'd say, "Okay," he'd call the kid's name real loud,

• 26:23Speaker 02

  was, uh, Illinois, what was he there, I think it was, I remember the name, I won't say it, but it might have been like Eastern European last name, and he said, "He was late." So then, the first time he'd run after that, there'd be some encouragement, "Come on, you could do it." But the second or third time, kids would start yelling and screaming at him or kicking at him. And really physically forcing him, it was like a bad, a few good men. It was terrible. And I always had a problem with the third authority anyway, and I clashed with him a lot. I ended up just showing up at the meets and I was good enough that I could do that. I wouldn't go to practices all the time. I really had problems with him. He did punch me one time in the chest. But he turned out to be someone that created a past that was not truthful.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  He had told us that he made the Olympic team, but that it was when, the year that we boycotted it. And it turned out not to be true, you know? But anyway, I guess the long version of it is, I think that I gained more than I lost, even with him being challenging in a lot of ways. I wouldn't change that experience. And you can have a great coach, which there are in wrestling, and I think in general, one of the great attributes of wrestling is constitution and grit. The ability to survive painful moments and not take them on in the absolute sense, meaning to have perspective on pain.

• 27:48Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I want to touch on the word grit for a second because there are many researchers who've looked at grit and written about it. Angela Duckworth being one of them, there are many others. And also, for instance, I think it's Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset. And she talks about the sort of intrinsic versus extrinsic validation in kids. And so you were talking about your dad focusing on process. And I think that helps you to develop grit, right? Because you don't assume you're a failure if you have an isolated, say, failure on the mat, as long as you're putting in the process that allows you to persist, which I think relates to a lot of your career. But I want to talk about, maybe not the beginning of your career because it's different, but shitty jobs when you were young.

• 28:32Tim Ferriss?

  Because one other person I've had, for instance, on the podcast, Chris Sacca, who I've watched go from having a tough time affording a place in Truckee, which is like a mountain cabin, to being on the cover of the Forbes Midas issue. And so now a well-known billionaire investor. And one of his criteria for evaluating people to invest in is, have they had shitty jobs or not? Like, he likes to see people who have had shitty service jobs. So I was a busboy and got abused on Long Island for a long time. Are any particular, do any particular jobs come to mind?

• 29:09Speaker 02

  I had a few of them younger in service industry and that, but the one that was, I changed perspective on as I got older was, it seemed great at the time, but I've shared it before, but was the telemarketing job. I was old enough to drive a car, I was 16, it was the summertime, and we were always encouraged, you know, to work. So I got a job, I thought it was a great job, because I sat behind this desk and I would read this, you know, form and insert names, and I'd kind of make it my own, and I like competition, and it felt as such, and that we would all be in a room together. And it was an odd setup, looking back, it was a guy, anyone 15 years older than you seems old, that's just how life is. So he felt old to me, although he was probably younger than I am now. But he had a very, much younger girlfriend, and she would bring him soup, and they'd

• 29:54Speaker 02

  sit in the back office, it was an odd arrangement. But we would sit at this table, and we would sell, and the name would be on the board. Now, what we were selling was the point that came in question years later, because it was a nondescript building in Waukegan, Illinois, referred to as Waukezi, Illinois, but we were selling tickets to the Lake County Sheriff's Police Rodeo. So the fact that the police were throwing a rodeo would really have one suggest it was an authentic thing, because the police were throwing a rodeo, right? I don't know if the police even knew about the damn rodeo. And there was, there was a family package that was $20, which got you four, and then there was an orphan, would you like to send an orphan?

• 30:38Speaker 02

  I mean, who doesn't want to send an orphan to an event? It was a time when the rodeo wasn't questioned, the treatment of anything like that, so I was very good at selling orphans. So I'd say to the family, and my family's not going to make it, I said, but would you like an orphan to go? For $5, you can give an orphan a chance to go. Well, I don't know how many orphans there were in Lake County, but...

• 31:04Speaker 02

  They, I mean, thousands of them. Come on. So, I was feeling great, like I'm selling these tickets to the rodeo, to the sheriff's rodeo, in a nondescript building in Illinois. But I, I, I got good at calling people, you know, make them laugh, connect to them in some way, and then emotionally hit them up for the orphans if they said no to the other package. And that was an interesting one because years later, um, at 16, I took it at face value. And years later, I evaluated, you know, in those moments when your, your mind wanders, I started to question, was there ever a rodeo? And who were these orphans? And maybe I was taking money from people on a fixed income, and that didn't feel good, you know?

• 31:47Tim Ferriss?

  What, what was, uh, so the boiler room, some JT Marlin aspect aside, do you remember any of the script that you, that you had to read?

• 31:58Speaker 02

  So-and-so home, I'm Vince Vaughn calling from Lake County Sheriff's Police Rodeo. Uh, and it was something along the lines of, they wrote, "Police are throwing a rodeo in celebration of the families, and I can't make a family package for it, but would you like to send an orphan? For just $5, an orphan can go and enjoy the after..." As if like, some orphans were gonna come out and the other ones had to stay inside the place. Concept, I'm a, you know, it's crazy that you didn't evaluate, but I remember seeing it as a competition, and I did very well. I, I think I won tickets to Madonna or something for selling out. But anyway, we, we, give me a sitting outside, and every week, there was a turnover, so the bottom 20% would go, and there'd be a new 20%. And some of the people doing the job were older than I was.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  And I was kind of excited, and like, and, uh, there was a little bit of the factory mentality of people who weren't so happy or excited, and I learned that, that they had a different perspective, because they were like, the, the job really meant something to them. And they didn't, they didn't want to be in the bottom 20% of the, of the board. And then I saw kind of the, you know, turning on each other and that kind of side of things as well.

• 33:04Tim Ferriss?

  Third place, set a steak knife.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 33:07Tim Ferriss?

  Fourth place, get a fucking fire.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 33:10Tim Ferriss?

  One of those situations.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 33:11Tim Ferriss?

  I don't know if you knew this, my first job out of college was smiling and dialing. I had to sell via the phone in Silicon Valley's big data storage systems and my seat was stuck in the fire exit. I couldn't even back my chair out. They're like, no, that's your office.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  What was your pitch?

• 33:26Tim Ferriss?

  What was that?

• 33:27Speaker 02

  What was your pitch?

• 33:28Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, the pitch, well, the pitch, my pitch was a little bit different although, uh, because we didn't have work. That definitely sweetens the deal. Uh, but, uh, it was really doing my homework on the front end because I had to try to guess. I was selling to CTOs and CEOs, these large data storage systems to places like American Airlines or, uh, National Geographic Survey. Uh, I think that's the acronym. And massive at the time was like a hundred gigabytes. Oh my God, you can buy it for fifty dollars or a hundred dollars at Fry's now, but I would ask them, I'd say, I, I read about you. I'm calling out of left field. You don't know who I am.

• 34:10Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not, I'm not gonna try to make up a story, but I read an article in IT News Monthly about how you did A, B, and C. And I found it fascinating. I know you're probably busy, but I was wondering, you know, are you, I assume you're using like a Solaris system for your A, B, and C. And if I'd done my homework, they'd be like, I am. That's a good guess. And then I'd say, look, I have to run to a meeting. Of course, I didn't have a meeting. Be like, I have to run to a meeting, something like that. I would love to just send you a quick email. You can feel free to ignore it if you, if you're too busy, but I'm working with a startup. I think some of the technology could be a really good fit for you.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Pickup artist.

• 34:49Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the pickup artist approach to selling to CTOs. I was picking up CTOs.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  I'm really busy, but.

• 34:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly. False time constraint. No, yes, no. And, uh, we're gonna talk about your phone calls a bit more soon, but the, uh.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Now, did you, did you really believe in what you were selling at the time?

• 35:07Tim Ferriss?

  I did, I did. Yeah, and I, I did. There came a point later where I didn't, uh, towards the tail end where I realized, wait a second. Like, we're promising things, like the sales team is promising things. My, my friends were mostly in the engineering group because I had to understand the tech to sell the way that I wanted to sell. And then a lot of the folks in the sales team were selling stuff. That had been promised from the higher-ups that the engineers were saying they couldn't deliver. And I said, "Wait a second. In tech, that's called vaporware." And I was like, "Wait a minute. I'm not okay selling vaporware. That's not good at all." And that's when I started plotting, starting my own thing.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 35:45Tim Ferriss?

  Because I just didn't feel good about it.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 35:46Tim Ferriss?

  Is it true that you became class president because you were academically disinclined, but felt that they would have to graduate you if you were class president?

• 36:01Speaker 02

  There's a lot of truth in that statement.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Disinclined might be a strong verbiage, but at a young age, I had, I developed a real problem with central, um, one way of doing anything. And I found myself in conflict with it my entire academic, I want to call it a career. So, um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't put a real value. I always tried to think for myself. And so there were some teachers who I quite enjoyed and would get a lot out of it. And there was others that I just really didn't engage with. And I, for some reason, gave myself permission to speak my mind. And I was always, I think, empathetic in that I had a lot of different experiences

• 36:48Speaker 02

  and friends with different groups, and I was on all sides of it. So I got along with everybody. And I was very bored with school. I didn't enjoy it. I had, younger, when I was very young, I did, I did well on a, on a IQ test, and yet I was not paying attention. I just wasn't, didn't, was bored. And I remember they took me to a psychiatrist. They said, "Oh, we think he might have learning disabilities." And I was really afraid. And I, at the time, I didn't vocalize it, but I was maybe six. But I thought that at the, at the other side of this, there was a fear that they could take me from my family. So I remember like overly talking in a way that I was an expert on everything I was saying and that I knew the answers to things. And I, for whatever reason, in my young mind,

• 37:31Speaker 02

  I felt like I had to really nail this, or they were going to take me away. Uh, and it came back that I was borderline hyperactive. But that's most young kid boys, I think. Like, you can't sit still. You're not listening.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  And so I, I had that kind of thing, uh, in me. So, uh... I always loved to read and I always loved to learn and I just didn't like the process of memorizing and taking tests. I never enjoyed it and I didn't enjoy stuff that I found to be ineffective and I felt ethically challenged with playing the game, as if like if I didn't believe something, why am I writing it? Should I not be investigating a principle that's sound? Why am I catering to an individual who isn't presenting a good argument and why would I just, you know, try to get their approval and play the game versus really investigate it, which would lead to confrontations. And I got in a lot of trouble. I would cut

• 38:25Speaker 02

  school and those kinds of things as well. And so ultimately, yes, I was nervous. I had to graduate high school. My parents said, "You gotta graduate high school." And it was less, I mean, I had, it was more about, there were certain requirements I didn't meet. I hadn't taken enough years of math or, or foreign language wasn't interesting the way they were teaching foreign language. I didn't like that. I was saying Tagüsta for three years and no one could speak damn Spanish, so I just didn't enjoy the process of it. So I thought if I, if I'm senior class president, the senior class president will speak at graduation. And I was very opposed to anything class president. I didn't

• 39:04Speaker 02

  like, for whatever reason, I didn't like that kind of thing. It was not, I didn't, most kids who were running for student counselor thought, "This is gonna look great on my application to an Ivy League school." I don't know why, but that kind of bothered me. So anyway, I thought, "I gotta do this because I gotta give a speech and they'll have to, they'll have to pass me." My senior year, I couldn't miss any classes. If they didn't pass me, I would not have graduated. And the idea of not moving to California and pursuing what I wanted to do, which I knew, and the idea of having to go to summer school was a real concern of mine. So I did run for class president and I did win class president. In doing so, I did get better grades my senior year and I think some of it was perception.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Interestingly enough, because I was the class president, I found my grades to improve with very little effort.

• 39:55Tim Ferriss?

  Well, you don't want to be the one teacher who ends up flunking the class president.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:00Tim Ferriss?

  It's like a prisoner's dilemma with the other teachers.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  It's interesting to look back at your rationale, right? It was like, oh, this would position me in a way that would checkmate having to pass these classes. Worked perfectly.

• 40:13Tim Ferriss?

  When did Del Close enter the picture? And could you describe for people who that is?

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Well, I started taking, I knew that I enjoyed acting, and so I started, I lived close to Chicago, which was a great place for training, because it wasn't as if you were going to be on stage and go to a pilot or a better professional opportunity, it was really just about the training. So that was excellent. I took a workshop, I think it was called the Actors Center, Shakespeare and dance, and I met a gentleman in that that said, "You'd be very good at improv, you might like improv." And I'm a member of a group called the Improv Olympic, and I knew of Second City. And I said, "Oh, I thought maybe I'd go take classes at Second City." He said, "Well, this guy, Del Close, who started Second City, has since left. He's felt that it's become more written sketch oriented, and he started this thing called

• 41:02Speaker 02

  The Herald, in which it's true improvisation. You learn a set of skills, you'll take suggestions from the audience, and you will incorporate the games that you play, and hopefully create a linear story structure that has an ending where the things that are set up in the beginning pay off." And so I wasn't old enough to be in these bars, but they put me on stage very quickly. It was a woman, I think she still runs it, named Sharona. They were very nice to me. I went down, and maybe after two or three weeks, they put me on stage and I started performing. And it was really a writer's workshop. A lot of great writers have come out of that same system, because you're seeing others do it, you're having to think ahead of how you're going to match this up, and so...

• 41:46Speaker 02

  He was a very interesting guy. I wasn't, I had taken a few classes with him. I didn't get to know him intimately, but he would always say, "There's nothing funny about comedy," and, you know, the stories you hear about him kind of, you know, being intense about it was very true. But it was great exposure at a young age to be given the permission to actually perform and to do it, and to do it live in front of an audience.

• 42:09Tim Ferriss?

  Is it true, I read that on the first day of... Classes he gave, he would say, "There's nothing fucking funny about comedy."

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:18Tim Ferriss?

  To the students. Or does that sound like something that he would do?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  No, he did. He would say that. And I wasn't with him as much. He had, he would come in and there was classes I took with him. But it was an interesting point of view that you're not there to yuck it up and signal to people that we're having fun. Comedy, on some level, can be an overcommitment to the absurd. So something that is an extreme point of view and your absolute commitment to that could be comedic, right? So I like that as a foundation on some level, that you were, you were taking things seriously to some degree, or putting your weight behind it, if you would.

• 42:53Tim Ferriss?

  And what, what separated, when you were watching, whether it's fellow students or people who were more advanced, the good improv people from the great improv people?

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Well, there's, there's different body types. There's different energies. Well, I mean that in the way of, some people, you know this in life too, right? Like Jackie Gleason had this, or Farley had it. And I don't mean about size, it's just a presence. And then others are more intellectualized or, you know, thought out. So there's more than one way to the waterfall. There's not one size fits all. But, and you may, you know, you could draw from, I think, one of the great ways to learn is watching others. You don't learn from being isolated. You really only learn from watching others and then application by doing it. You can't learn, I think in fact, it's impossible to learn from just writing down what someone else is saying.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  But, so it was great in the live sense to draw from others and to take from them. But I didn't see it much different than method acting, and that ultimately was about listening. You had to be present in the moment for what the other person was providing. Because if you responded without hearing it, it killed the commitment from the audience to believe it. So if you said, "I'm an astronaut," one of the first lessons is yes and. So I would accept what you do and add to it. But if you say, "We're astronauts," and I say, "No, we're not. We're cowboys." Then the audience is now disengaged because there's no believability. But if you say, "We're astronauts," and I say, "Yes, and we also train horses." How are we gonna do this? I've continued the creation of the imagination.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  So in collaborating, I think listening is paramount because you, you want to be working together to create a reality.

• 44:43Tim Ferriss?

  So let's talk about listening to yourself. And this relates to moving west. So you've done talent shows. You had a, as I understand it, a national commercial spot with Chevrolet.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 44:57Tim Ferriss?

  And thank God you were tall enough to be put onstage so they wouldn't get arrested immediately if you'd been a little guy like me. And how did you decide to go west? Because, for instance, I've heard different trains of thought related to this. I remember hearing a very well-known stand-up comedian say to another stand-up comedian who was just getting started, "Don't move to New York or L.A. until you're good." Like, those are the big leagues. That's where you're gonna have people in the audience who matter, like get good in the hometown and these following places, and then move to the big city. You went from what you were doing in Chicago and then moved west. What was the internal conversation like?

• 45:42Tim Ferriss?

  How did you think through that?

• 45:43Speaker 02

  There was a different mindset at the time, I think, in general with young actors and that, you know. I don't know that I ever thought I would make a lot of money doing it, or I didn't have, I didn't define success as like, oh, make a lot of money or star in a movie and make it. To me, it was more, I really loved enjoying this. If I could be good in a scene, I'd like that. And if I could get a chance to... There was nothing in my mind's eye that was separate, meaning a commercial or a television show, anything that would be performing and making a living doing it felt like a good idea. So I had had a level of success in Chicago. My parents didn't want me doing anything professional like that until I was 18, but

• 46:27Speaker 02

  then I got an agent. That's another story, but I got this agent and I started booking the national commercial. I mean, silly things like Cyrus Robach had a universal weight machine and I would, you know, one of the demonstrators of how to use it, you know. In Indiana, farm insurance, commercial, different stuff. So I felt like I was working a lot. And I had trained quite a bit. I took it very seriously and I had, had trained a lot. Every chance I had, I was taking classes and reading. So when I went to Los Angeles, I really had a point of view that I belonged. So maybe to your friend's point, I, at that age, although of course, there was a lot more to learn and, but I gave myself that permission and I felt the opportunities would be greater out there.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  And I don't know what's in a young man's mind for how they land on things, other than it felt like a better opportunity and that's where I was putting my chips anyway. Um, and I think then the telemarketing or the sales stuff did help because I was able to call agents with confidence and suggest that they should sign me. And they, remember them saying, "We don't work with unknown people. We only work with like well-known people," as an agent in ICM. And I said, "Well, no one at my age is that well-known." I said, "I feel really like I'm ready for this." And I persisted enough that she recommended me to a girl she knew who used to be an assistant. And it was like, it was next to Pink's Hot Dogs. It was a small little office I got in and, but it was great. I had opportunities to audition, so.

• 47:54Tim Ferriss?

  So you meet with this former assistant next to Pink's Hot Dogs, wasn't it?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:00Tim Ferriss?

  And what, what do you say in the first meeting?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  I was just like, I'm here, I didn't, I was just there to be an actor. I was there to work and I was very self-assured in the fact that I would work hard and do it. And I signed up for classes and I think they just thought, "Okay, this kid seems like he's serious." But I think it's important to know that no one talked about, like the friends I had younger, there wasn't as many, there was three networks at the time and then Fox came around. But there wasn't as much opportunity, I guess. And people were really invested in studying and would talk about movies or books and, you know, exploring. There wasn't a focus on making it, or certainly not on leveraging celebrity in a way of selling. I, I've never done a commercial or, I don't think there's, if people do that, there's nothing wrong. But I saw that very different. I never wanted to be in that.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  So it was really just, you know, acting, imagination, exploring, you know? It's not that there's anything regal about it, other than the fact that, um, it's a joy that you have. But, um, there wasn't any sort of financial.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Component to it. In fact, you probably weren't gonna make a lot of money if you were gonna go into acting. And I think that served myself and my friends, that there was really a focus on getting better and learning about this. And it really is a gift, sort of going in and learning about yourself ultimately, which I think in life is sort of what you've come to realize as you get older is really what the journey is.

• 49:23Tim Ferriss?

  How did you make ends meet during that time?

• 49:25Speaker 02

  I was very fortunate that the Chevy commercial, and it was literally, I never talked, I caught some car keys, and then they would put that in different clips. Sixty thousand dollars I would made off that in a year, and other commercials I had that made a lot of money. So I was financially way ahead of the game, and I lived very frugally. And then I started working, and you know, you'd get residual checks and money coming in. So I was very fortunate that I, that I was a working actor at a very young age. When I say working, I mean, not well-known, but able to, to work in shows and stuff.

• 50:00Tim Ferriss?

  Able to pay the bills.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:03Tim Ferriss?

  I've heard from a reliable mutual friend, that you used to call, for instance, Disneyland and clubs to get

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 50:13Tim Ferriss?

  Comp tickets and tables. Early on.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:18Tim Ferriss?

  What, what did, how did those go? What was the strategy?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Well, I had some influences younger. I had a friend that lived in a trailer park inn. He, his mom, he didn't have, it was, I remember the first time I went to his house, there was two babies in the, in the cribs, it was a trailer park he had, and his grandparents at home. And they used to charge him a quarter to shower, which I found odd. But I come to realize that the mom had like fifteen or sixteen kids, all by different fathers. And so, I don't know that they put a huge value sadly on these kids. And he would, he was, he would survive. He would find ways to eat or do things to, to survive. And so I was

• 51:01Speaker 02

  fascinated. He could walk into places by feeling like he belonged there. He would go in a grocery store and he would just start to make a sandwich and eat it. And talk to the people why he did it. And they wouldn't bother him. And he would, he would, he would talk to the security guard as he left. And it was interesting to me, and we would buy liquor this way. Other kids would go and spot bear and have the, you know, the sailors or whoever was in the neighborhood. Sometimes you'd get it, sometimes you wouldn't. But he would buy like a, well, I would do this later in life, but it was a game to me. I, younger, I thought it was like, could you get away with this? But we would buy like a loaf of bread, some mustard. But then underneath the shopping cart, we would put bottles of vodka.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  And bear, we weren't even old enough to be buying the booze. And you'd talk to everyone and you'd go through the chuck out line. This is before things would beep. And you'd buy your bread and your bologna and you would cart out, you know, at eighteen, nineteen years old, the vodka underneath. So, as it pertained to Disneyland, it was, an actor, I won't name his name, but he became very well-known and successful. But I knew that the head casting director for Disney, I knew his name because I had auditioned for stuff at Disney. So I called the park on Saturday and said, I'm an assistant for this casting director. And I have a bunch of young actors who are starring in a movie. Now, we weren't well-known actors at all. Oh, wait a second.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  So you're the assistant for the casting director who's not at work because it's a Saturday? That's right. It was a Saturday, no one had cell phones. And I knew his name would be on the list of people. And I said, I work for so-and-so, I'm his assistant. And there's a movie starring a bunch of actors, we want them to spend some time together. And we want them to come into the park. And they would say, well, what's your name? Say my name. They say, you're not on the list. I said, I'm his personal assistant, I'm not on the list, but I think his name should be on it. And then I'd overly like spell it for them and they would say, yes. They say, well, we're not sure. And I said, well, let me give you the list of names. And I'd name like really well-known actors. Like really, really well-known actors. And I said, they would love to come in. So of course they would accommodate.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  And then in the course, once they said yes and it was approved, I would then at the end say, I'd give one name, which was my real name, right? Uh, which wasn't well-known. And then at the end, once they approved it and they were going forward, I would then say, you know what, put it under the unknown person's name because the other one probably won't want to deal with stuff. But at that point, they had already agreed. So we would go and get passes and go into the park. And go on the rides and go around and it felt like, you know, that you're looking at it now as you're older. It doesn't feel good, but younger, there was. But younger, getting, it was something fun about getting into a bar when I wasn't allowed to. I liked performing more live on stage when I wasn't supposed to be there. It was provocative to me.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Getting alcohol seemed fascinating or getting anything where I felt that I was not supposed to be doing it, I was drawn to. And this seemed interesting to me because it was like getting in and it was innocent on some level, but yes, we used to do that. We used to also do a lot of crank calling. And I would crank call, this is before UFC was real popular. We used to crank call like karate studios or these places. And I would make it like I was a troubled youth who'd gotten fights and I had real issues and I beat up everyone I ever fought and. I said, I really need to focus this and train and they'd kind of be uncomfortable and I would tell some really crazy stories. And then I would always suggest, because I was interested in the reaction. Then I would always suggest, I want to join and I want you to put me in fights, but I need to respect you, so I'm coming down to fight you.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  We need to lock ourselves in a room and I, and maybe your tricks are gonna work. I'd call them tricks.

• 54:47Speaker 02

  And I would say, I'm an emotional dragon. I live in a place that's whatever, so I would try to create a scary scenario. And, and sometimes they would say, well, you need to fight some of my underlings. And I say, I'll chew through your underlings. I'm fine, give me one underling and then I want you. Because if you're gonna teach me, I need to know that you can handle what I call a real fight.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  I used to do it and we would be crying, but sometime, I had one guy really snapped, get your ass down here. He really did have emotional things. I was like, I'm bringing my ass down there. And I would call just to see the response. I had one I used to do that was fun with some actresses that I worked with. We would be bored on location and so there would be these late night, which there still is, you know, record and tapes you could buy or a set of steak knives or some ab workout thing or what have you. And they would always say these are, you know, whatever. So I would call and in a really long process, I would ask a lot of detailed questions. Right, is this and has it been tested? Or are these standard hits? I think these are extraordinary hits.

• 55:54Speaker 02

  These sound tremendous. And does it come with this? And is there nothing? And I could tell the person's like, oh god, would this guy buy it? So, right at the point when I was gonna make the purchase order, the actress would pick up the phone and say, Herb, are you ordering something off the damn TV again?

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Get off, no, no, I'm talking to something. No, get off the phone. You don't have to know my business. I work two jobs and Herb's by, we have a pile of things that Herb doesn't use. And I gotta pay for these things and he better. So, we would create a dynamic for the person who was selling, where they had invested a lot of time. Were they gonna lie and sell to Herb? Or were they gonna listen to the distressed wife who was paying for all of the stuff? And it was different every time. Sometimes they would say, yes, ma'am, he is ordering again. And sometimes they would go along with, I say, no, I'm just a friend and we're talking. But we were, we were just bored and so we were, uh, using improv for evil, I guess.

• 56:49Tim Ferriss?

  You would've been a, you would've been a fantastic psychology professor.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:55Tim Ferriss?

  You were, as I understand it, rejected for certain roles because of your height. Is that true? I mean, that leading, uh, leading men at the time, or that the roles they were casting for, or maybe the people you'd be featured with would be shorter and there were issues there, that, that that ended up being an issue in the early days?

• 57:16Speaker 02

  I think whatever you're getting rejected for, they find a reason to say it, you know? I think when I was going out for roles younger and I was so much taller than people, they would say that. And I'm sure it played a role into it. But I think it's important, whatever you're doing, that you don't give voice to things that you're not able to change. You would have to use it in a way to find ways to do stuff. It's all neutral ultimately, even if it doesn't feel that way on some level, at least for the purposes of approaching stuff. But, you know, look, at the end of the day, it's just a lot of rejection. It's the nature of it. So, I, I had gotten turned out at, probably a thousand to one for the times that I would audition or more. Um, and it wasn't always consistent, the reasons why. But all you knew was that you weren't getting a chance to participate and so you would have to go back to the lab

• 57:58Speaker 02

  and try to get to a place of being more and more undeniable.

• 58:02Tim Ferriss?

  And when you... Are going through all these rejections. Of course, at a certain point, it just becomes second nature to not flinch as much when you get turned down for something. But if you were giving advice to, say, an up-and-coming actor who has some degree of talent but is getting rejected, and they're really just feeling like they're getting punched in the face by the world, what would you say to that person?

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Well, I think, I looked at it mathematically at a certain point, which was, I started just focusing my entire day on perfecting my craft. So I was either watching a movie, reading a book on stuff, doing monologues, taking classes.

• 58:45Tim Ferriss?

  Ordering products from infomercials.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Ordering products from infomercials came later. That was the dessert, that was a treat for having gotten a chance to work. But I would deny myself other things. I couldn't go do this, I couldn't travel, until I earned it. So I would deny myself certain things that I would want to do and say, "I haven't earned that yet," which I find to be a good motivator. And then, what I did was, if I would screen test for a movie that was a big opportunity, that would have been life-changing, it would have given me an opportunity.

• 59:14Tim Ferriss?

  What is screen testing? As an idiot, I'll ask.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Screen test would be, you're close, there's a couple people for a role, and now they're gonna film a scene from the movie with you and perhaps the already casted actor, or just a pair of people together. And in screen testing, they would just see who mixes and matches, or how do you do on camera? How do they feel you come off? And I had a couple of those, maybe four or five, for good opportunities. And when you don't get it, so you could go through seven or eight auditions to get to this point, it's between you and two or three other people. And when you don't get it, your day the next day doesn't change, meaning you still are gonna get asked to go in for five lines on a television show or something smaller. There is no advancement as far as opportunity. You were just a person

• 59:59Speaker 02

  with the same credits you had. So there was a lot of time spent to get to that, and energy to get to that moment. And if it didn't pan out, there was no change in how someone, you were no more castable as a known entity than what you were. So what would happen is, when you would get that close and it wouldn't happen, at first, I would get down. And I would take four or five days and I would just not do anything, and I'd say, "Oh, this is, I'd lose my energy." And then I started to realize that the week I took off was really two weeks. That it was a week of not getting better and it was a week of getting worse. And I said, now I've given myself two weeks less to improve at the things I'm in control of. And I started looking at it like a percentage game.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  The more I worked on things, my percentages would go up. And what I realized later was it gave you a confidence to feel like you belong there. It gave you permission to perform in situations that didn't feel comfortable. Because you had felt good about what you had brought to the table. And so I would suggest that you find a process where you're able to. I think it's important to allow yourself to feel disappointed. I think it's important that you don't turn off those feelings. But it is also important to, how do you do that as quickly as possible? That to then become productive again. And start doing the things that are going to give you a better opportunity for what you want. The same could be said for a relationship.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  It hurts your feelings, it's. But how much time is effective in mourning it and processing it? I really believe no time is not good. You need that moment to accept it. But the sooner you can get back to doing things for your own growth and the things you're in charge of. I think your chances of having the things you want in your life become greater.

• 1:01:49Tim Ferriss?

  I think also from what I've observed in you and other people who've done really well in their respective fields is that having an opportunity to be exposed to micro failures in some environment like wrestling, like auditions. Inoculates you in such a way that you develop a tolerance for rejection and that allows you to capitalize on opportunities much more effectively later because you don't take the two weeks off, right?

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:02:15Tim Ferriss?

  And it allows you to improve so.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  But then we have the problem on the other side, which I don't know if you've experienced. You see it with boxers a lot, but once you have a level of success. Can you maintain a motivation

• 1:02:27Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  to have the approach that you once had?

• 1:02:29Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  When the immediate needs are not there as strong?

• 1:02:33Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  How have you done with that? Because you're in a place right now that I find.

• 1:02:38Tim Ferriss?

  I suppose I've taken what was a liability or what I viewed as a weakness for a long time, meaning an ADHD-like scattered attention, where I would move from interest to interest. I would get very hot on something, then very cold, and then shift interest. And I viewed that as a bad thing, being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. And at some point, I asked myself, what if I turned? What if this weakness could be a strength? You know, what if this bug could be a feature? How would I describe it? And it's like, OK. You know, if I could make a career as a professional dilettante, what would that look like? And by doing that, I allow myself this sort of intravenous hit of excitement, even though on a macro level,

• 1:03:22Tim Ferriss?

  my career has improved over time. I'm continually becoming a novice. Does that make sense?

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:03:30Tim Ferriss?

  I'm always going back to white belt. And I think that gives me a certain hunger that allows me to be both excited and also not get too inflated ahead any bigger than it already is.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  So in something like a podcast, which is the continuation of the same thing, although you're exploring different people.

• 1:03:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  How do you stay? Is it that the people are different and the opportunity to investigate is different? But how do you stay focused on that, knowing that your nature is to?

• 1:03:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, so the podcast has been an anomaly. I thought I would maybe do six or 10 episodes. And I mean, the way I choose projects, and I think this is, in some respects, pretty similar to how you look at a lot of things. But I will ask myself, which of these, say, five projects will allow me to develop new skills and relationships that could last beyond the project, even if it fails? And that was the goal with the podcast. So I wanted to format it in such a way, work on it in such a way that I could, for instance, listen to audio and get rid of really annoying verbal tics that I had, like using the word "pretty good", "pretty interesting", "pretty this, pretty that". I use that adverb as this throwaway for everything. It drove me insane, but I didn't realize until I listened to my own audio. And the short answer is...

• 1:04:45Tim Ferriss?

  And I think we have actually a good clip to elaborate on this just a bit is scratching my own itch. So for each of the podcast guests I have on, it's because I have an intense personal interest in something they're good at or have figured out, where I feel I am weak or weaker. So if I'm having, say, relationship issues and having trouble thinking through them, I'll go to an Esther Perel. If I'm having some type of a weight training issue and I want to get stronger, I might go to like a Charles Poliquin or a Paul Suttsman. And it's an intensely personal interest for me that drives each of the guests, and that gives me the variety within something that could be viewed as as uniform.

• 1:05:27Tim Ferriss?

  I'm going to ask you about how Swingers came to be because it seems to tie into frustration. But first, how much of that was word-for-word script? How much of that was improv?

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  A lot of that was improv. You know, a lot of that was improv, and it's in the moment. We had a production crew. We did that movie for $250,000, and I think our sound guy normally had done porno movies. And, you know, we were doing this stuff and taking it, and I think they were judging us a lot, like, oh, God, here are these fucking guys saying money again. And so when I did that, I looked, I caught, I think, a crew member that was maybe like like snooze fest. It was late, and so I used it as if it was patrons at the bar. And I responded in the moment as if like I'm the fucking asshole for trying, right? Like, I'm the fucking asshole in the place for celebrating my friend's crows, right? So it was, but it was all connected.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  It was the intention was obviously there, and then you would play around with it.

• 1:06:25Tim Ferriss?

  And how did Swingers come to be? I mean, of course, I'm sure there are many, many different aspects to it, but why did that movie happen?

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Well, there's a lot, you know, I think everyone remembers, I think whenever you work on a movie, people always remember their contributions greater in success and in failure. People always make it like, God, I've tried to warn them, right? But Swingers really came about because there was an auditioning for lots of parts that I felt weren't truthful or connected to what was going on. There was not, they were being written, that's why I think it's important for young people, both musically and writing-wise, whether it's film or books or whatever, to have a voice, because it's unique to the culture at that time. And I think things that resonate in the culture... Are more important than setting out for a large global thing, I think is. I think sometimes you can have things become larger, but if it starts,

• 1:07:16Speaker 02

  whether it's Boys in the Hood or something that feels like it's trying to explore the now is very viable. It's true for startups too. I mean, all the biggest startups that people would recognize here, almost all of them started with that. Right, a need, it's the same thing that he was saying, a frustration, there's something. So it felt like, for me, I had lived in Los Feliz, the old punk rock bands started playing live swing music and writing original swing music. I had always had an interest in old swing music and big band music and country music. And I still listened to it when I was older. And so when this kind of came about, you could go to a live venue and hear original songs by a 14-piece band, it was fantastic. And it was just what was going on, it was nothing we created.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  It was the environment in which we lived in, which, to your point with startups, you're seeing a need and a cause. Right, so I said to John, I said, "We can't sit around and wait for someone to write something. You know, we should go write something." And I started my journey to write something. And in two weeks, John had this story inside of him, which was leaving a girlfriend behind and moving to this unique world of, and me sort of being a guy that showed him around to these bars and these places. And we became focused on getting that movie made. We had nothing really, he had an agent, I didn't. But we would go and sit in this coffee shop, the one that was in the movie. And in our minds, we would play out, it was almost like visualization. We would play out how to get past obstacles, how it would be received. And I think this is interesting in life.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  You mean obstacles to making, getting the movie? Getting the movie made, and at the time, we had read the book The Fountainhead, which is, you know, the, I had read it earlier, John had read it, which is defiant in its pursuit of one's artistic goals. Meaning, you don't compromise, you stay truthful to what you're exploring. And so we were very young and very much wanting to not change things. There were suggestions to make the movie if there was a girl that was part of the group. Because they wanted to hear a girl's perspective. And I thought if these guys had a girl's perspective, they wouldn't act this way. You know, this is about, this is about young men. When you're outside of high school or college for the first time, how do you go up and meet someone when you don't have a comfort zone with them? You know, so it was really exploring that time.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  It was counter, it wasn't a health video, it was more what was going on. So we were rejecting of these things. And anyway, we finally, Doug Lyman came on to direct the movie. There was a journey for us to play the parts, which ended up happening. How did the director come on? To finance the movie, we couldn't get the movie made. There was lots of, we used to do live readings, and every time we do a reading, it played huge. But in the way that they would handicap things, they would suggest what's the audience for it. You know, there's a problem in Hollywood in that it's gone so Wall Street, meaning it's so quarterly. Everyone needs to drive towards a return. It's like the car industry, it used to be an engineer would get the corner office. And it's the Harvard guys get the office, it's the finance guys, you know, which, but

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  the productivity of the cars perhaps suffer sometimes. And in our industry, you know, it's the IP that's going to break through. But that can be challenging when there's a cultural things that are trying to break through. And if they can, a lot of times they resonate because people are connecting to self-growth. You know, the stages of one's life, whether it's in a Campbell way or a Carl Jung way, it's the same evolution of facing your fears and the nature of letting go of ego and those things. And the stories are exploring those in some way. So we, Doug came on, he had the money to make the movie, he directed it. He actually shot it, he was a cinematographer. And I think it was the perfect combination.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  There was conflict at the time, but I think if you would have changed any of those elements, you wouldn't have had what you had. Doug brought a great, he had not hung out in these neighborhoods or been to Vegas in these ways. And he did a great job with the camera. It felt documentary style as if you were there. And it became a key ingredient and a way to receive a movie like this. John did a phenomenal job of taking something personal and putting it in a structure and drawing on the things around him. I think it was like a band where it just worked. So it was pure, it was something that we were passionate about. It was from our lives, our childhood. And it was exaggerated with an awareness, obviously, for comedy.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  But it truly is sort of about, in this case, it's letting go of rejection of a girl and giving yourself permission to feel like you're viable, that someone could love you. First you start off saying, "How do I learn tricks to trick someone?" And at the core of that is suggesting that you yourself wouldn't be loved, right? That you, there would have to be some manipulation, which is such a terrible place to work from. I think what made Swingers so different than a lot of the pick-up stuff later was, Swingers was really kind of self-empowering. You know, he rejects Trent's stuff sort of in the end. He kind of connects to someone by being his true self. He doesn't try to be something different. And it's through going inward and finding his way that he evolves to his next stage,

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  which is now he's connecting someone from a truthful place. And so, it was to the point that you showed with the clip with Blake, it was a frustration in what was available. And then, where are the stories from our age and the motivation to create those?

• 1:12:42Tim Ferriss?

  Were there any points where you felt the movie wasn't going to get made? Or you doubted the movie?

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Oh, God. It was every day, we felt there was money, there was an arms dealer at some point that was gonna invest, I don't know.

• 1:12:52Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, I'm not getting, hold on.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  No. No, I don't, we take, we take meetings at, we take meetings at the agency and talk. They, you know, we, none of them knew, we had done Rudy and whatever, but then we'd leave and the agent'd be like, "They're an arms dealer, I think, I don't know, but here's the point, they're gonna give you a check, I don't know." So, but none of them came through until finally Doug made the movie.

• 1:13:15Tim Ferriss?

  And you knew Doug prior?

• 1:13:16Speaker 02

  I did not know Doug, I met him through John. But I think everyone-

• 1:13:20Tim Ferriss?

  How did you guys convince him to do it?

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  I think he came to a read-through, a friend of his suggested the script, and he saw the value of it and wanted to participate.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so there was, there was times we made the movie wanting to go to film festivals. In this case, Sundance was real popular. And we got rejected by Sundance. And the mission was sort of to get into Sundance. And it felt to me that perhaps the male point of view in an unapologetic way, that was very authentic to what these guys' journey was, was not in sync necessarily with what the festival was doing. So, or that and the movie. So it was interesting to have had, as part of our plan, be given a no. And that was another resilient moment where at that point, it's like Dorothy, right?

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  You had to not put a value on the wizard and go within again and say, "Well, why am I telling this and why do I believe in it?" And it was forcing us to reaffirm, approach the edit even from a greater strength of truth, of conviction of what we were doing. And ultimately, it became what it became. I like to say that we knew it, but we were naive enough to believe that if we were, we experienced this, we found a value in it. And it just so turned out that there was lots of people, maybe not living in a swing-centric neighborhood. You know, like when people would read the script, they would say, "Why can't you put in grunge music or hip-hop music or things that were popular to suggest that an audience would be more engaging?" But we said, "No, it's not interesting to us. This is a unique community."

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  And I think the uniqueness is actually what made it translate. And then swing music became, had a resurgence afterwards. But I think by not overthinking what people want, by experiencing in the same way that he's saying, realizing from a personal place what you're frustrated about or what you feel like there's lacking, sometimes that is a great catalyst to creating that very niche thing. And then it gets into the fabric in a very different way.

• 1:15:25Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I think also that as soon as you start designing something for an audience, this has certainly been advice I've received from successful writers. You stop looking at your own pain, you stop looking at your own needs, and you start making something for an imaginary figure in your head. And you start veering away from a place of honesty where you know something is concrete. And if I look at, for instance-

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  But then you're putting satisfaction in someone else's hands, which is very dangerous.

• 1:15:59Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:15:59Speaker 02

  Versus, did you attain what your goals were, knowing that your goals might change? And I say goals, I don't mean perception or results.

• 1:16:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  I mean, the execution.

• 1:16:09Tim Ferriss?

  Sure.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Which goes back to the schooling and learning in the same way for me. Am I exploring what I believe in versus trying to please someone?

• 1:16:16Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. Now, Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers, certainly has talked about this a lot. And I want to give a few other illustrations-

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  Did you see his YouTube thing with the fall-rise story? It's great. He explains the stories in kind of a fall-rise, which would be Cinderella, and he does it real nonchalant. I recommend.

• 1:16:32Tim Ferriss?

  There are a few other examples of this, I think, in your career. And you have such a filmography, we can't possibly go through all of them. But you mentioned music, so I want to ask a, just a fact-checking question, which is, later, of course, you appeared at Jurassic Park. Did you come on Steven Spielberg's radar because the Jaws-themed music was in Swingers?

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:16:56Tim Ferriss?

  And you needed clearance?

• 1:16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Tim Ferriss?

  That's incredible.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was odd, but I had never, younger I was real defiant in what I wanted to do. But I loved Spielberg's movies and went into Jurassic Park and did that. And then I really liked him. I found him to be very generous with his knowledge. He, I took meetings, he would talk about Western movies. I'm a fan of Westerns, and we would just sit as two fans and dissecting things. And I found him, which I think is very nice in someone in his position. Allowing my opinions and taking them in and turning them around and then coming back, I felt it was playful. And I found him as a person that was, uh, obviously knowledgeable to still be including

• 1:17:44Speaker 02

  in a young man's conversations in film. And that was a great quality of his that I think was, um, I enjoyed that connection in those conversations with him.

• 1:17:55Tim Ferriss?

  What else did you, of course, you've learned a lot from observing people on stage, say in improv and elsewhere. What else did you pick up from Spielberg or learn from him?

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  Well, that was really, you know, in that movie, uh, really that was my biggest thing was his ability to, um, not create a separation, to know what he wanted, but at the same time, uh, be engaging with others. Um, and, uh, yeah, I just, uh, I admired the tone in which he did things.

• 1:18:29Tim Ferriss?

  And that was in just a very open-minded tone? Or was it?

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  Confidence in that it was not pushing down to others.

• 1:18:39Tim Ferriss?

  Right. His way or the highway.

• 1:18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he would ultimately make his decisions, but without the imposing.

• 1:18:44Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:18:45Speaker 02

  Or the struggle of it.

• 1:18:46Tim Ferriss?

  Given that the most frequent question from my fans on Twitter and Facebook was something related to speed or comfort, we have to watch a clip from Wedding Crashers. All right. So the reason I wanted to show that, just aside from just shits and giggles, because I wanted to show it, uh, that became at the time the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. And I've heard about conversations of earning the rating and...

• 1:19:21Tim Ferriss?

  Why do you think that film did so well?

• 1:19:24Speaker 02

  I think we worked from a similar place of swingers. At the time, I had rejected most... After Jurassic Park, I didn't do a lot of studio movies and I just... I was offered some, but I was just more gravitating towards these independent movies. And then we got to... And then when Todd Phillips, who's still a friend, who I like quite a bit, Todd offered me Old School. The studio said, "I don't think he can be funny." He had done mainly dramatic stuff younger. And Old School felt like a great thing to me because I felt like we were doing something authentic. But I also could really, excuse me, buy into it in a way that felt like, "This is awesome. This is fun." And so I sort of got my wings in a way that I could do more commercial fare, but it was gonna be something that I was really excited about.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  So we got to do Crashers. There was a concept and an idea. The director, David Dobkin, I had done this movie Clay Pigeons with Younger, and I liked him quite a bit. But Owen is a terrific writer. I mean, he wrote a lot of the Wes Anderson stuff with Wes Younger, and he just very... He has a very interesting take on things. And we have similarities and differences. But we just approached it and started to just write, like, in the course of a month. Like, we just sort of changed the structure and the writing of the script with the director. We all just would sit and write and change it. So very much so in the spirit that you and your friends would do something, not worrying whether it was gonna be liked, not worrying whether the studio would say it was okay. And I remember first being on the set, saying some of the things I was saying,

• 1:20:53Speaker 02

  and I was like, "I can't believe no one's stopping me." Or no one's saying, "You can't say this." But I think the difference here was, we weren't earning our R. I had no intention of being shocking for shocking's sake. If you look at that scene, and you go back to the early statement that there's nothing funny about comedy, I think what makes that thing interesting is funny is, he is... Has absolute unapologetic convictions about some things that might contradict each other, and his point of view is surprising. So he is infuriated that he was jacked off under the table. He blames his friend for putting him in the circumstances, right? Like, that would be a terrible moment to have happen by a very attractive younger girl.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  But in his mind, this is a horror that no one should have. And yet, at the same time, an older woman's breasts to fondle them would be absolute bliss. That would be joy, and that would be an exceptional moment. And then he kind of puts himself in that moment like a child, like, and already, like, sense memory, right, like, in his mind, what he builds it up as. And so I think the commitment to those points of view and how they lay up against each other, and then the team players, like, you're mocking the very concept of, like, what's a healthy work environment? Yeah. And yet, it's applying very much so to sexual encounters in a house.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  So my point being that I think we really just try to define dysfunction, friendship, that feeling of you love someone, a lot of friendship. But you're like a married couple, you have real issues and problems, and they conflict. And we were only looking to pursue this. And I didn't know that it would make money or what it would do. There wasn't a lot of, you know, there was some R movies that had done well. Old School did good, and then, you know, of course, it was Something About Mary, and of course, the stuff we grew up on, or I'm Aging You More Than Me, but, you know, Animal House and these things that were, again, of that time, we were really just looking to hit the guitar chords in an honest way for what we found to be fun. And then it turned out to be a larger success.

• 1:22:59Tim Ferriss?

  See, you've had many different milestones and landmarks throughout your career. Two of them, I think, are certainly swingers, wedding crashers. The next clip I'd like to show, and then I have a question about all three, is the breakup.

• 1:23:20Tim Ferriss?

  So this movie was very successful.

• 1:23:24Tim Ferriss?

  What do you think made it different?

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  Well, I had an idea. I had never done a romantic comedy and then I, after that, I fell into the trappings of some of these. And there was a lot of good in the approach to this movie and one thing that I should have held stronger to, but to that point was I had, I was off of these romantic comedies and it wasn't my life experience. I found that, like a lot of people of my generation and I think maybe with the valuation too strongly, I was really committed to focus on my career and that a relationship was something that you could be in love or have feelings, but you had to get yourself into a certain place career-wise, which is just not necessarily always the case or true. But at that time, I had never thought about what would make a marriage work or being

• 1:24:11Speaker 02

  with someone, but I would, you know, have feelings and investigate and be with people. But I was fascinated by, because I had this experience happen, where you could be really drawn to someone and very much connected to them and not just physically, but there was something going on where you were really drawn to them. And at the same time, there were things about them that were very much so in conflict with things about yourself. It was, it was not a match. And there was always lessons, I would look at it more in a spiritual way or conscious way or psychology way. What is it that's playing out in this way? So I thought, sometimes you have to really love someone, your skillset's not

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  there, theirs isn't there, and so you crash and you burn out the relationship, you burn out the love, and now you can never return to it. You've damaged it to the point where there's no going back. And now you're a better person. If you were to meet today, you'd have a chance. But you can't meet today. And you're not going to be with that person. And there was an oddity in that moment to me of, I love this person enough to stick around and learn this lesson, and now I can't go forward with them. And it was more authentic to me in my experience at the time, that you don't end up with someone you love a lot because of your flaws, but at best, you could learn and be a better person and then go out there and meet a person again, knowing that in life, sometimes...

• 1:25:37Speaker 02

  The love you feel younger, how strong as it is, it doesn't return in the same ways. Because you've gone through that experience, you've felt those rushes before. So it's an interesting, interesting journey. So in that movie, I wanted them not to end up together. And I had two great young writers, they hadn't done a lot, Jeremy Gerilich and Jay Lavender. I had this concept, I wanted to do something in Chicago, because I was from the area. And I wanted to set up this odd couple in an apartment that you would see their flaws and differences and, you know, underneath it, see the hurt, like the scene at the door that precedes it. He wants to go in, it's not that he's absent a feeling, and he doesn't know how. And he's too afraid. And play that out in a way that's comedic but dysfunctional.

• 1:26:21Speaker 02

  And totally different, you know, it wasn't a traditional comedy throughout, you know. Kind of reversing the first half being heavy and then being light and getting what you wanted. So that was the, that was the intention. And I think, again, maybe the, the why of it, which I think is what people respond to, was I was personally interested in understanding when you destroy someone you love, a relationship with someone you love, you know, what is the dynamics in leaving? They both leave in a better place, but there's a nostalgia that, not for us, not for this moment.

• 1:26:55Tim Ferriss?

  So the reason I wanted to show these three clips specifically and talk about some of the earlier cold calling and so on is that what I've, I've found so reassuring and also tactically practical about looking at your career is, number one, you don't get in life what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. So you should be, you should become good at negotiating. Whether that's having the luck or misfortune to have certain jobs, say, that put you on phones, or just reading books like Getting Past No, Secrets of Power: Negotiating, there are a number of decent ones. That'd be point number one. Point number two is that, on a very reassuring note...

• 1:27:37Tim Ferriss?

  You don't have to be what many people conceive of as, or let me rephrase this, you don't have to create brand-new worlds that are utterly different from the one we live in to create something unique and successful. When I look at some of the most important creative decisions you've made, the projects that you've selected, they have, they appear to have two things in common. One is you're scratching your own itch. I mean, you've turned down, I know this from conversations with you, I mean, a lot of very, what people would consider lucrative opportunities, to focus on things that you personally want to do to satisfy some need or want of your own. And secondly, that you can be, or be seen as very, very original by simply being honest

• 1:28:20Tim Ferriss?

  and having the voice, and I don't mean that in a cliched way. I mean that if you simply tell the story of a bunch of dudes who are completely irresponsible on many levels, being dudes, say in the case of Wedding Crashers, because that hasn't been, say, told in a very unfiltered way, just by definition, you've done something very, very unique that can stand on its own merit. And then, let's say, the breakup, having the ending you wouldn't expect, and all of these issues that are conversations that probably everyone in this room has had at some point or another, you can in fact create something that is not only successful but original because of that. And I remember early on being told, because I was having so much trouble writing my first

• 1:29:01Tim Ferriss?

  book, and I would read, I would draft a few chapters, maybe kind of slapstick, stupid Three Stooges, because I thought I was supposed to be funny, then I'd throw it out, and then I'd try to do something serious, and it'd be really pedantic and boring, and I'd throw it out. And one of my friends said, "It's not that hard to have a voice, you just have to be honestly yourself. Like embrace your weird self and display that, and then you're consistent, and then you are sort of the one and only version of yourself that you can be."

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a journey that we all learn of tone. Mel Gibson, who's one of my favorite filmmakers, and I worked with him on Hacksaw, and without knowing it, the old Warner Brothers, when it was a family, they had a mission statement for their movies that was slightly different, but it was entertain, educate, and then Mel would say elevate. So if you just entertain people, you keep it fun and engaging, educate, they're learning about something right through the course of the movie, and elevate, you leave feeling inspired that you could do something. And Warner's thing was enlighten.

• 1:30:02Speaker 02

  But similar as a roadmap. And I think that's important, like in going to do dramatic stuff. Like, it doesn't have to be the dark keys of the piano always in earnestness. It feels false in a way. So I think being able to be light or have fun in writing. And then when you want to make a point or have it hit, you give yourself permission, it feels like, to go within and out tones.

• 1:30:24Tim Ferriss?

  So I want to, just in the time that we have left, just a whole lot, just a few minutes, ask a few questions that I like to ask everyone I interview. And I don't think I've asked any of these of you personally, when we've been talking about Marcelatines and so on before. Are there any particular books that stand out for you as favorite books? Or books that you've reread or gifted to other people?

• 1:30:49Speaker 02

  Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is, I think, the most compelling of books in that he's very, he writes it, I think, originally to his son. It's not his biography, it's his telling of it. And he was such a prolific person. And I think what's interesting, in similar ways that I enjoy you and what you do, he talks about his process. He invented the pros and cons list. The public library, the fire department. And was very prolific in science, obviously, electricity, the catheter, bifocals, flippers. But then musically, in languages, he spoke many languages. There is a falsity that you're one side of your mind or the other. They really are connected. And he would explore process very much so of how to,

• 1:31:35Speaker 02

  like, in language, he was learning Italian. He had a chess opponent that was very equal. And so they would play, and the loser, the winner got to assign a very rigorous homework assignment in the language. So it would force you to really stay focused on chess. And then if you lost, you were actually learning something that was valuable. So just systems and things that he would do and how he would approach things, where he would be somewhat vulnerable. So it was encouraging that a process could lead to change in your circumstance.

• 1:32:06Tim Ferriss?

  So that makes perfect sense to me because I've, again, I've heard stories, don't know if they're true, about early days in L.A. when you would make calls to prospective agents. And you'd say, "I'm visiting town." I want to weigh all my options before making a decision. And you had a way of presenting yourself in such a way that would hopefully become a self fulfilling prophecy, which I think is very useful. I think it's a very valuable strategy. And it makes me think of, I read this in Walter Isaacson's biography of Franklin, but he made his real money in printing, as you know. And one thing that he used to do, even though he was, he had employees and everything was

• 1:32:47Tim Ferriss?

  under control, is he would get a barrel and fill it full of all of these like print supplies and walk up and down the street and then go back in, like take a rest, drink his tea, because he wanted everyone around to see how busy and successful Ben Franklin.

• 1:33:00Speaker 02

  The paper.

• 1:33:00Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right, to then propagate more business, which in fact worked. So that makes sense.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  I think that's an important skill set is calling people that you're not comfortable with and getting access and figuring out how to do that. If you don't learn how to reach out, you've given yourself permission many times prior to even writing where you would call someone because you were fascinated and you'd be surprised if done in a way that feels good, how people are willing to sit. Because if they're doing these things, a lot of times they're engaged and processed themselves.

• 1:33:29Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I used to teach a, I used to teach a class in high tech entrepreneurship and I would assign as a, as a prize, a round trip ticket anywhere in the world to the student in the class who could get a hold of and get a response from the most difficult to reach person. And we had people get responses from Warren Buffett, from former presidents. It was amazing. And I've, I've even heard of some people, so you don't need a class to do this, but you can put together a betting pool with a group of friends and say, all right, everyone's going to put in 100, 200 bucks, whatever is enough to like sting if you lose it a little bit, and then compete to get a response from the hardest to reach person.

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  Going back to Franklin with the Juno, you know, he would have the club where people would get together and they would do similar types of things. So it's a, it's a skill, you know, it's something to definitely work on because nowadays, I think with the internet and stuff, we all have so much wealth of just information. It used to be so hard to get a book. Now, you can get information on anything. So I think getting the information is interesting, but getting the skill sets like active literacy, being able to stand up and give a speech, being able to write your ideas. I think those are all things that are good to spend time on because whatever your passion is, they'll help you in that. Because ultimately, you may need to connect or get a job or do something, and that skill set's helpful.

• 1:34:44Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I might be misattributing this, kind of like every internet quote is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but I remember hearing, this relates to maybe a separate podcast we can have on education and your thoughts on that, but at one point, I want to say Henry Ford was being interviewed, and the interviewer asked him some factual question, and he was stumped, he didn't know the answer, and the interviewer somewhat condescendingly said, "Oh, well, any fifth grader has memorized that fact," and he said, "That's why I have a library, so I don't have to memorize facts, but I know where to find them." And I think that in lieu of a library, sure, you have the internet, but even more valuable when you develop the ability to reach out to people and have conversations that make you uncomfortable and expand that sphere of comfort, you can find any information that you want, sort of from the horse's mouth, right?

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  And I think, but seeing someone like yourself, it gives permission to feel like you could do it, because I see someone who starts from a place of being drowned by a bully, and emotionally, you connect to that, you're, you know, putting a sense of memory with a terrible experience, to then realize that whatever my personal dialogue is about seeing how it goes, you know, one great thing about failure is you realize it's not as bad as your mind makes it out to be. It's, the fear is more crippling than the actual consequences. The consequences, a lot of times, feel almost relieving in a way, because now you've faced it, you've gone through it, and that kind of takes that away from you.

• 1:36:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, it's amazing how also over time, the more you don't address your fear, and meaning if you take some large fear and you break it down into the smallest possible steps, let's say for swimming, for me, it was even just putting my face underwater for a period of time, right? So forget about swimming, forget about learning how to breathe, just putting your face underwater. And then when you finally have the incentive, like this bet that I had with my friend, or rather, this mutually assigned... Near's resolution.

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  With a deadline.

• 1:36:39Tim Ferriss?

  What was that?

• 1:36:40Speaker 02

  With a deadline, yeah.

• 1:36:41Tim Ferriss?

  With a deadline. When I actually sat down and found a method of swimming called total immersion, which I recommend to everybody, which was introduced to me by Chris Sacca, who also had difficulty swimming, and he said, "I have the answer to your prayers." It took me a week, about 10 days, to go from zero laps in a pool to like 40 laps a workout as meditation. It was incredibly, it was incredibly easy compared to the mental monster that I had created for myself.

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  That's what's fascinating is how much of it is the woods that we've created

• 1:37:12Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:12Speaker 02

  versus the actual path to the destination.

• 1:37:15Tim Ferriss?

  So if you had a billboard, this is more a metaphor than anything else, but you could put anything on a gigantic billboard to get a message out to millions of people, what would it be?

• 1:37:28Speaker 02

  I probably wouldn't say anything, because I don't like to give advice to people, because I feel like you can show people the way, but they have to find their own way. But maybe it would be to learn how you learn and to learn yourself, you know, and accept yourself, learn who you are, and learn to accept and love yourself, I think is a big part of life, because within that, you might find your interest and explore, give yourself permission to explore, like the Campbell quote of "follow your bliss." And then also, learning how you learn is getting quiet and learning how to engage in things.

• 1:38:11Speaker 02

  For example, your swimming situation, finding a way to approach it where you were going to enjoy it and versus taking some sort of a course that someone says you have to do it this way. There's always more than one way to the waterfall.

• 1:38:31Speaker 02

  That'd be a long billboard.

• 1:38:35Tim Ferriss?

  Could just be a mirror.

• 1:38:39Tim Ferriss?

  Is there anything, just in closing, any recommendation or ask of the people in this room or the people listening to this for the audience? Any recommendation, ask, or otherwise? You'd like as parting words?

• 1:38:56Speaker 02

  Parting words? Oh, man, I don't know. I just feel that, you know, being engaged in life is a good thing and trying at stuff is a good thing and then really doing your own evaluations for what, how you feel about what you're doing is important. And I think connecting with people is good and laughing and having downtime and taking the pressure off and just being, daydreaming, you know, being present, not always driving towards something. Sometimes I think learning comes from letting the mind rest and doing nothing as well.

• 1:39:31Tim Ferriss?

  One thing I've really observed from you that touches on a lot of those checkboxes is, many of your interactions I've seen, I mean with me and others, is if you want to be interesting, be interested. You ask a lot of questions, so maybe focus on holding forth and holding court less and asking more and better questions.

• 1:39:52Speaker 02

  That's a more articulated version of it, yes. You know, be engaged in learning from others and watching them, for sure, more than feeling a need to pose where you're at now.

• 1:40:05Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Vince, I personally just want to thank you for helping to make fearless a reality.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  Well, I want to thank you truly and for coming in and playing. I think you do a tremendous job and there's been a lot of good that have come into my life, what you do, and I know to others as well, and I hope that continues. So, thank you for your inspiration and for your vulnerability. I appreciate it.

• 1:40:28Tim Ferriss?

  Ladies and gentlemen, Vince Vaughn.

• 1:40:35Tim Ferriss?

  Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short.

• 1:41:18Tim Ferriss?

  It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Trunk Club. There are two types of men out there. You know who you are. Guys who love shopping for clothes but are short on time, category A. And those of you who hate it, category B. I am in the latter category. My fashion sense is also probably somewhere between homeless and confused with a dash of lazy added in. Either way, you can take heart.

• 1:42:00Tim Ferriss?

  And I've used Trunk Club now and have found some of my favorite pieces of clothing that make me look a lot better than I would be able to handle on my own. And there are many reasons for that. But you can get clothing that fits perfectly and looks amazing without ever stepping into a store again, thanks to Trunk Club. And they make it very, very easy. And the clothing is handpicked by a personal stylist, your own personal stylist. All you have to do is go to trunkclub.com/tim, type in your measurements, share your likes and dislikes, they'll pick your clothes from more than 80 top brands and ship them right to your door. You keep what you like, you send back what you don't. If you don't like any of it, send it all back. Doesn't matter.

• 1:42:43Tim Ferriss?

  And Trunk Club is not a subscription service. This is what appealed to me, among many other things. I didn't want to constantly be getting dinged by things or have to deal with the headache of constantly getting boxes. It's not a subscription service. Shipping is always free and you have five days to try on the clothes. So, a couple of points here. Number one... Get started today, go to trunkclub.com/tim, try it out. You get premium clothes, expert advice, no work, no risk. That is a winning combo. And I have found some of my favorite Espadrilles shoes from them, bright green. I do like the color green, and they actually work. I've had so many compliments on these shoes, and more people ask me where I got them than any other pair of shoes I've ever had.

• 1:43:28Tim Ferriss?

  And more shirts, I ended up keeping about, I would say, 3/4 of my box, which I did not expect to do. So go to trunkclub.com/tim and check it out. This episode is brought to you by 99designs. I've used 99designs for years for all sorts of graphic design needs. Whether you need a logo, website, book cover, or anything else, 99designs was created to make great designs accessible to everyone and to make the process of getting designs much, much easier. So when I first started out, for instance, testing prototype covers and getting prototype covers for the 4-Hour Body, I want the contest drop. That is one option. This is a great solution if you're looking for fast, affordable design work and the ability to choose from dozens of options, risk-free. Let's say you need something late night, quick turnaround.

• 1:44:13Tim Ferriss?

  Well, people in other time zones, other countries can also help you solve that problem. Since then, I've worked with 99designs on a separate path or a different option, and that is the one-to-one project service. So, in a number of cases, and I'll give you one example, when I wanted to create the cover for my audiobook, The Tao of Seneca, this was a very important project to me, I decided to use their one-to-one project service. And with this service, you can invite a specific designer to your project, agree on a price, and then work together until you're satisfied. And they'll allow you to iterate and provide feedback and all this stuff. And I haven't shared it yet, but we also got some incredibly good, really some of the best illustrations I've ever seen from using this one-to-one project service with a handful

• 1:44:58Tim Ferriss?

  of different designers and illustrators. It blew my mind. 99designs makes this all very easy and efficient. So you can check out The Tao of Seneca design and other work that I, and your fellow listeners for that matter, have done on 99designs at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. Again, that's 99designs.com/tim.