Speaker 1: The following episode was recorded before the WGA sag Aftra
Speaker 1: strikes of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: You know, I had a big success with Footloose, and
Speaker 2: I remember a lot of the films that I did
Speaker 2: after that for a few years didn't pan out, and
Speaker 2: the idea of playing a lead character was kind of
Speaker 2: like drying up for me.
Speaker 3: But that was really a.
Speaker 2: Blessing in a lot of ways, because I realized that
Speaker 2: what I really wanted to do was play characters, and
Speaker 2: if I was really going to follow my passion, I
Speaker 2: had to say no to leading roles that just weren't
Speaker 2: as good as the small parts. And when you do that,
Speaker 2: it's a scary moment. But there's something really really powerful
Speaker 2: about being able and learning to say no. And today
Speaker 2: Matthew McConaughey and me dig into this. He shares in
Speaker 2: his life and when he had to learn to say
Speaker 2: no and all the good things that came from that
Speaker 2: when he did.
Speaker 3: So lean in.
Speaker 4: Listen up.
Speaker 3: I'm pleasure welcoming Matthew McConaughey to this podcast. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for being here. It's kind of crazy that
Speaker 3: our paths haven't crossed really into work. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think we've met a couple of times, but yeah, and
Speaker 3: I don't even think we've even been in the same movie,
Speaker 3: even without scenes. So this is something that I will
Speaker 3: look forward to and hopefully occur in the future.
Speaker 4: We got time, we had time.
Speaker 3: We do hopefully hopefully. Yeah, where are you now?
Speaker 4: I'm in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 3: This is your home? Correct, This is home.
Speaker 4: Austin, Texas. I went to school here, graduated eighty nine
Speaker 4: to ninety three, moved out west with the U haul
Speaker 4: on the career, thankfully started a family made homestead back
Speaker 4: in Austin, and this is where we are. Three kids.
Speaker 4: Wife still loves me still once we around, you know.
Speaker 4: So we're doing all right.
Speaker 3: How old are your kids?
Speaker 4: Fourteen, twelve and nine? Wow?
Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome, you got years are much much younger than
Speaker 3: my fourteen, twelve and nine. You know, that's I got
Speaker 3: to say. When we went through this pandemic situation, you know,
Speaker 3: I was grateful, as hard as it was for all kids,
Speaker 3: I was grateful that my kids were older than yours
Speaker 3: because to me at that age, I think back to myself,
Speaker 3: you know, between being nine and fourteen, I can't imagine
Speaker 3: how the kids have gotten through it to be so
Speaker 3: cut off, especially at that moment when you are just
Speaker 3: ready to explode out into the world and at the
Speaker 3: friendships and you know, love and sports and all these things.
Speaker 4: We're navigating coming out of that right now, and their
Speaker 4: re entrance into paternal groups and there, whether it's the
Speaker 4: ballet or the sports team and have that sense of
Speaker 4: community for the first time that you can trust, oh,
Speaker 4: we're going to be with them next week and the
Speaker 4: week after that, which they didn't have that for three years.
Speaker 4: They're navigating that and that's even awkward, the reentry. But yeah,
Speaker 4: those three years were.
Speaker 3: And we.
Speaker 4: I would say, lean, we were on the conservative side
Speaker 4: of the quarantine. And we have a ninety year old
Speaker 4: mother who's still with us, who was very susceptible their
Speaker 4: immune systems, so we really went to lockdown. And that
Speaker 4: meant obviously, since we were taking care of my mom,
Speaker 4: that mean we had to sort of keep it tight
Speaker 4: with the kiddos as well. So I tell you what
Speaker 4: I mean, good side, more family dinners, they get to
Speaker 4: see their parents, take care of their grandmother, you know,
Speaker 4: more I don't know, more puzzles, more stuff. Forced they
Speaker 4: were forced to get creative and I'm trying to know
Speaker 4: I'm speaking of the upside, But yeah, they did miss
Speaker 4: that sort of outside of the house, where can I go?
Speaker 4: Because that was everybody was in limbo, we as adults
Speaker 4: were in limbo. I think that was one of the
Speaker 4: most frustrating parts is you couldn't really make a plan
Speaker 4: outside of You couldn't project more than in trust, in
Speaker 4: projection more than four day five days out for so long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, especially when we had this terrible realization. I've
Speaker 3: heard a lot of people say this, just like I
Speaker 3: felt that two weeks and we were going to be done,
Speaker 3: you know, even though the very smart people were telling us,
Speaker 3: are you out of your mind? This is not how
Speaker 3: this rolls? But but you know do it. Being I
Speaker 3: was in New York, didn't doing the shutdown, and I thought, well,
Speaker 3: the show's shut down, it'll be back up and run
Speaker 3: and you know, I'll just I'll come to LA and
Speaker 3: hang out with But my wife was out here with
Speaker 3: my son. You know, I have a ninety year old
Speaker 3: mother in law. And that's the other piece of it
Speaker 3: that uh, you know, you do you really were We
Speaker 3: were forced to look at our families as something that
Speaker 3: was I mean not that I ever take my family
Speaker 3: and the people in it for granted. But but I
Speaker 3: do think that the that the pandemic really, as you said,
Speaker 3: put a big focus on families and how we felt
Speaker 3: about it. I remember that I was in the quarantine
Speaker 3: with my son, but I wasn't allowed to see my daughter,
Speaker 3: and that was like the craziest thing because it's like,
Speaker 3: here I am with this, with this you know, man
Speaker 3: in the house. Just it was just a series of
Speaker 3: coincidences that he happened to be locked He locked un
Speaker 3: out with us, and then my beautiful little girl, is
Speaker 3: a few years younger than him, would eventually come over,
Speaker 3: but we'd be outside and we wouldn't be able to
Speaker 3: touch each other. And I was like, this is fucking crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is having when we finally it's the
Speaker 3: tiniest thing, but you know, when we finally embraced, you know,
Speaker 3: it was like this beautiful moment that that that I thought,
Speaker 3: this is something that I have to remember and hold
Speaker 3: on to. Yeah. Yeah, amen, Well, so you mentioned that
Speaker 3: you all, I think that's I mean, I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: walked down down this road many times as I have.
Speaker 3: But I think that the origin stories of someone that
Speaker 3: is such a phenomenal performer as yourself are fascinating to people,
Speaker 3: and I'm I'm curious about that moment where you say,
Speaker 3: all right, this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 5: With my life.
Speaker 4: Well, it sort of found me. I was. I was
Speaker 4: at University of Texas Philosophy liberal arts major. I decide
Speaker 4: I want to go into storytelling business in the business
Speaker 4: that we're in, and I want to get into college
Speaker 4: communication to the film department. I don't have any art,
Speaker 4: but I got a three point eighty two GPA and
Speaker 4: that was helpful. So the GPA got me in. I
Speaker 4: go to film school. I think I wanted to be
Speaker 4: in front of the camera. Just what didn't have the
Speaker 4: balls to admit it at that point.
Speaker 3: Interesting but when you first what you were thinking about
Speaker 3: being behind the camera, or at least that's what you
Speaker 3: were telling yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, in hindsight, I look back, and most of the
Speaker 4: other students on the crews would want me to act
Speaker 4: in their piece, or when I was trying to direct,
Speaker 4: i'd hop over in demonstrate. So I was and I
Speaker 4: really enjoyed that and was evidently being told he's pretty
Speaker 4: good at that. Just shut your mouth show me what
Speaker 4: you're talking about? You know what I mean? I walk
Speaker 4: in the right bar at the right time between my
Speaker 4: junior and senior year in Austin, Texas, top of the
Speaker 4: High I walk in this bar because one of the
Speaker 4: guys in film schools is the bartender and he's gonna
Speaker 4: give me free training. So I walk in there and
Speaker 4: he springs over a free Vodkent Tonic and says, hey, Matthew,
Speaker 4: there's a guy at the end of the bar.
Speaker 2: He's a producer.
Speaker 4: He's in time producing a movie. I went down and
Speaker 4: introduced myself to this And do you know this man,
Speaker 4: Don Phillips, great casting director Don Phillips.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, it does sound familiar.
Speaker 4: I've tried to think legendary. He works Melvin and Howard.
Speaker 4: He was a producer. He cast Fast Time to Ridge
Speaker 4: My High cast Days Confused, which is what he was
Speaker 4: in town casting at this time.
Speaker 3: Days in Confused, which is having its thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 4: Hey yeah, yeah, amazing, Phil, hadn't I introduced myself to him.
Speaker 4: Three and a half hours later, we kicked out a
Speaker 4: so said bar into the night. He's like, hey, you
Speaker 4: ever done any acting? I said, well, I'm film schooled
Speaker 4: here and I was a mineral life commercial for about
Speaker 4: that long. Was more of a modeling job. Oh, you
Speaker 4: might be right for this part. Come on down to
Speaker 4: this address tomorrow morning and have a look.
Speaker 3: I go down.
Speaker 4: There's a script. It's tagged with three scenes. Check this
Speaker 4: guy out named Woodson. You might dig him. I go
Speaker 4: read for it. I get the part. Those three scenes
Speaker 4: turned into three weeks work. Like Richard linklad of, the
Speaker 4: director kept inviting me back to the set. The actors,
Speaker 4: Jason Lundon, Cole Holser, Ben Affleck, they would all integrate
Speaker 4: me into scenes. They would just lob me stuff that
Speaker 4: wasn't scripted, and sure they were writing me into this
Speaker 4: into the movie. So I ended up working three weeks
Speaker 4: on that best fiom class I could have ever taken.
Speaker 3: Trust me.
Speaker 4: I went back by senior year to film school, and
Speaker 4: a lot of the teachers thought I was an arrogant
Speaker 4: prick because I knew I knew the practical work on
Speaker 4: the set, and I'd be like, no, actually that's not
Speaker 4: how that's on, or actually could be done this other way.
Speaker 3: It's tough to teach that stuff in the classroom.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I was already out of the book, and
Speaker 4: I was out of the book, and then I had
Speaker 4: the practical experience. So I graduated film degree. Drive out
Speaker 4: West just as days is about to come out in
Speaker 4: that U all twenty five hundred bucks, a bunch of
Speaker 4: frozen loves for bread, get out to uh. I got
Speaker 4: to tell you this story I had. I had the
Speaker 4: doors la woman sitting on the sitting on the passeng
Speaker 4: your seat, ready to play it for my entrance in
Speaker 4: my truck. Pull my U.
Speaker 3: Al right, would that be a a cassette or this CD?
Speaker 4: I believe CD O CD. Okay, now this is about it.
Speaker 4: It's a little over seven minuteating myself.
Speaker 3: I'm dating myself with that question.
Speaker 4: I got made a track, but I but I have
Speaker 4: it sitting there and you know that. So the drive
Speaker 4: from Texas twenty four ish hour, well around hour twenty two,
Speaker 4: I come across a little street that's an exit off
Speaker 4: of the IT in out near Indio. It's called Sunset Dry.
Speaker 4: I go, is that's it? I'm making great time. It's
Speaker 4: time to put the tune in and creak it up.
Speaker 3: Baby.
Speaker 4: Well, as you would know, I listened to that song
Speaker 4: twenty seven freaking times in a road because it's another touch,
Speaker 4: another two and a half hours, you get the Sunset
Speaker 4: Sunset Drive and a Sunset Street.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, they need to rename that street. Matthew
Speaker 3: McConaughey way had me. I think, I think that would be.
Speaker 3: That would be, that would be a great move. I
Speaker 3: want to I'm gonna I'm gonna start lobbying the town
Speaker 3: of Indio to name that street Matthew McConaughey Way. That
Speaker 3: is a that is an amazing story. Well listen, I
Speaker 3: mean the thing is is that Los Angeles for people
Speaker 3: that haven't been here before, that's it is a very
Speaker 3: confusing place to land if you've lived pretty much anywhere else,
Speaker 3: because it's very hard. You can be in it and
Speaker 3: have a hard time finding it. Yeah, it's like where
Speaker 3: is the center of it?
Speaker 5: What is that?
Speaker 3: Where is the spot? And even if you think you're
Speaker 3: you know, in your mind you're going to Hollywood, but
Speaker 3: then there's just like that's not even Hollywood. Like like
Speaker 3: I remember coming out and I was just like, uh,
Speaker 3: there's a famous Stevie wondersong, you know, uh, living for
Speaker 3: the city that starts. He says, uh la, just like
Speaker 3: I pictured it. No, he says, New York, just like
Speaker 3: I pictured it, skyscrapers and everything. Stevie Wonder says this
Speaker 3: at the top of it thing, and it's kind of
Speaker 3: like a little audio play that plays. My buddy John
Speaker 3: l was out here and when I first got out here,
Speaker 3: he picked me up at the airport and drove me
Speaker 3: around and I said, La, just like I pictured it. No,
Speaker 3: skyscrapers are nothing. I was just looking around like there's
Speaker 3: nothing here. I don't I don't know how to hold
Speaker 3: on to this place.
Speaker 4: A lot of latitude, and it's such a transient city,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, I've met thirty seven people born
Speaker 4: in La in Maye since nineteen ninety two. In thirty years,
Speaker 4: that's just over one year. Not many people are actually
Speaker 4: from born and bred in la And every time I.
Speaker 3: Talk, I love that you're keeping I love you that
Speaker 3: you're keeping track.
Speaker 4: I am keeping track, Yeah, because I've noticed it happened
Speaker 4: so sparingly, you know. And yeah, a lot, a lot
Speaker 4: of latitude. It's not necessarily a walk in town.
Speaker 3: I you know, you have such a remarkable career in that,
Speaker 3: you know, you took a very very solid and successful
Speaker 3: kind of you know, leading man in a certain kind
Speaker 3: of role and a certain kind of film thing that
Speaker 3: you had established and just completely turned it on its head.
Speaker 3: And I'm wondering if if uh and went to some
Speaker 3: just remarkable transformational uh not only dark subject matter, but
Speaker 3: dark uh work and and fascinating characters. I'm just wondering
Speaker 3: if that was a a conscious moment or whether or
Speaker 3: not this is just the road that you take and
Speaker 3: and you see what happens.
Speaker 4: I tell you what was conscious, Kevin, is that I
Speaker 4: at that time had become really successful in the romantic comedies,
Speaker 4: and and and loved them. They were fun. It's like
Speaker 4: a Saturday night, you know, shoeless, go there and you know,
Speaker 4: bounce along the clouds, keep that buoyant tail, that fairy
Speaker 4: tale and I and and I loved it. But I
Speaker 4: just i'd met Camilla, my wife, and we had just
Speaker 4: had our first son. Now have your first child who
Speaker 4: real life hits you square in the heart, square on
Speaker 4: the head, and all of a sudden it's sober up
Speaker 4: and go. I never more alive, or is the heart
Speaker 4: and head more clear and more? Is a man more courageous,
Speaker 4: you know than the first child? I don't know if
Speaker 4: there has something to do with all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: we now realize we're literally immortal or whatever we passed
Speaker 4: on the lineage or what that is. But being a
Speaker 4: father was always my dream, and I'd just become a father.
Speaker 4: So real life was heavily dramatic for me in all
Speaker 4: the I mean, happier, big, more tears, more pain, everything after,
Speaker 4: I'd just kind of felt really grounded and courageous in
Speaker 4: the world. The Roman e Colomies weren't necessarily giving me that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, so your life is more vital
Speaker 4: than your work, right now, that's not of I'm glad.
Speaker 4: I was happy to be able to say that because
Speaker 4: there's been other times whereas like, I wish my life
Speaker 4: was as vital as my work, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure, sure, sure,
Speaker 4: And I didn't. I wanted to do find some work
Speaker 4: that felt as vital as my life, and those were
Speaker 4: gonna be in dramas. But I wasn't getting off with
Speaker 4: the dramas. I went to an agent to look, tell
Speaker 4: them I'll take this pay cut, this bay cut, I'll
Speaker 4: work for a tenth of the price of twenty like,
Speaker 4: but they just don't. They still want it, all right,
Speaker 4: So I said if I cannot do what I want
Speaker 4: to do, I'm gonna stop doing what I've been doing.
Speaker 4: And that was the hard decision, that was the tough
Speaker 4: one that Camilla and I made together.
Speaker 3: So turn stuff down, you mean, yes, just to turn
Speaker 3: stuff to turn.
Speaker 4: The rom calms down, the Action Adventures down. And I
Speaker 4: wasn't sure it was a good but I was sure
Speaker 4: in my in my in my gut that it was
Speaker 4: the it was the right thing to do because I
Speaker 4: because it felt right at two am, when I was
Speaker 4: all alone and scared, you know, I was like, now,
Speaker 4: stick with it. It's is gonna be an endurance thing.
Speaker 4: But also there was no guarantee. I thought I was
Speaker 4: maybe writing a one way ticket out of Hollywood, and
Speaker 4: Ally was gonna go, fuck here, dude, what are you
Speaker 4: talking about. You had your lane, man.
Speaker 3: You know later that's what Hollywood tends to do. So
Speaker 3: I can see why you would be anxious about that.
Speaker 4: You know, Luckily I got a newborn to tend two
Speaker 4: when I'm getting a little wobbly. Luckily I've got you know.
Speaker 4: As as weeks turned two months and I was now
Speaker 4: in Austin and not necessarily on the beach in Malibu,
Speaker 4: with my shirt off, which was sort of a life
Speaker 4: I was living that was paralleling the rom Com character, right,
Speaker 4: And so it was like where where was? Where was mcconnie.
Speaker 4: I was out of Hollywood, I was gone. I was
Speaker 4: down in Texas. There were no beaches, and I wasn't
Speaker 4: making movies. I was raising a kid and working on
Speaker 4: the working on our ranch. Days got long, that old
Speaker 4: old bottel sitting over there starting to look kind of
Speaker 4: tasty around four pm sometimes, and I had to catch myself.
Speaker 4: I go, no, no, no, no, we don't want to hang on.
Speaker 4: You got to keep a purpose here. And I stuck
Speaker 4: to it. And we had made I'd made a deal
Speaker 4: with Camilla that we're going to stick to it by
Speaker 4: hook or by crook and see what comes out of it. Now,
Speaker 4: after about two years of that plan, it's still dry,
Speaker 4: and I'm amazing. And he's telling me, hey, buddy, not
Speaker 4: only do you not have any offers, I haven't heard
Speaker 4: your name in a month. I'm going I might have
Speaker 4: just done it. I started to thinking about other vocations.
Speaker 4: You know, do I want to go teach. I want
Speaker 4: to be a high school coach. I want to be
Speaker 4: a wildlife expedition guide. I want to study to be
Speaker 4: a conductor. I was thinking of all these things and
Speaker 4: about I got to tell you this story because you
Speaker 4: love this story, because it's puritanical and it's locked in.
Speaker 4: I was on this. Okay, I get this offer for
Speaker 4: this action comedy. It was a good one. And they
Speaker 4: came in at eight million dollars like this is a
Speaker 4: tasty front fee. Okay, no thank you. They came back
Speaker 4: at ten, No thank you. They came back at twelve.
Speaker 4: I said, no, thank you. They came back at fifteen five.
Speaker 3: I said, let me.
Speaker 4: Read that script again, same script, same words as the
Speaker 4: aban I'll offer. But as you know, it was better written.
Speaker 4: It was funnier, it had more angles. I could be
Speaker 4: this guy. Man, this is guy work it anyway. I
Speaker 4: ultimately said no, and that I think was, you know,
Speaker 4: he can do something to the Hollywood that send a sort
Speaker 4: of invisible sort of Oh he's not he's not effing around,
Speaker 4: he's not.
Speaker 3: The power of note. It's the power of note.
Speaker 4: It sent something that somewhere in Hollywood, I think un
Speaker 4: said knew I wasn't bluffy, which made me, in a
Speaker 4: way maybe a little more. What's he up to? This
Speaker 4: is interesting. And that's when after about two and a half,
Speaker 4: almost three years of nothing, I think it was I
Speaker 4: think it was h even with Killer Job that came
Speaker 4: to me with this dark horror comedy that that was
Speaker 4: like nothing that had.
Speaker 3: Come across some ideas.
Speaker 4: Awesome minute and that can nothing like that had been
Speaker 4: come across my desk for decades. So to start with that,
Speaker 4: Jeff Nichols comes to me he had written Mud with
Speaker 4: me in mind, A Paperboy with Lee Daniels. Steven Soderberg
Speaker 4: calls for a magic Mike. I had already I already
Speaker 4: had the run, was holding on to Dallas Buyer's Club,
Speaker 4: but still at this time, no one wanted to make
Speaker 4: it with me, and many directors came by that I
Speaker 4: would hope direct it, would direct it, but with me attached,
Speaker 4: wouldn't direct it. Found Jean Mark Valet, the late Jehn Valet,
Speaker 4: who just moved on recently. Uh you know, Scorsese called
Speaker 4: for the first time for a Wall Street. All of
Speaker 4: a sudden, I was getting these these roles in front
Speaker 4: of me, her I was doing. I was like, this
Speaker 4: is exactly what I want.
Speaker 3: And I mean that was a hell of a run.
Speaker 3: That was is continues to be. I mean, it's is
Speaker 3: really really remark arkable.
Speaker 4: But it all came from me saying, no, I'm not
Speaker 4: I'm gonna quit. I don't if I can't do what
Speaker 4: I want to do, I'm quit doing what I've been doing.
Speaker 4: And I knew it was a risk, and I thought
Speaker 4: and and I understood. Look, and I had to do
Speaker 4: a lot of spiritual work at that time going because
Speaker 4: trust me, my family, my brothers and my mother were like,
Speaker 4: what is your major malfunction? It's just you gotta lane.
Speaker 4: What are you doing, man, You're you're mentally migitating here.
Speaker 4: They were like, why are you what you're you're you're
Speaker 4: you're just your jackknife and yourself. What are you doing?
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, no, I gotta do it.
Speaker 4: And Camilla knew and I knew, and I got you know,
Speaker 4: fortunate things came around, came back my way, and the
Speaker 4: things I wanted.
Speaker 5: To do well.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you need two really huge things, one being the
Speaker 3: confidence in yourself, uh you know, to be able to
Speaker 3: do that, and when that confidence wanes, the confidence with
Speaker 3: your partner to be able to say, okay, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: I'm on this this this ride, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: I'm with you in that.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, I've always felt really, you know, really grateful
Speaker 3: to have that as well. You know, because when i'm
Speaker 3: when you make these choices, you know, I don't have
Speaker 3: to tell you, you know, if you're, if you're if you're
Speaker 3: in a strong marriage, these are choices that you're making
Speaker 3: to a certain extent together, I mean, you know, and
Speaker 3: and it's, uh, it really is great that you've found
Speaker 3: someone that you're able to too, is able to you know,
Speaker 3: be there in that on that team with you. That's
Speaker 3: a that's super super cool.
Speaker 4: Well, she stood be up cool. She she stood me
Speaker 4: straight up quite.
Speaker 3: A few times.
Speaker 4: And it was like reminded me of the night when
Speaker 4: we made the decision and tears fell and she knew
Speaker 4: sincere about it. She was like, we're gonna that, We're
Speaker 4: not gonna We're not gonna let that the truth of
Speaker 4: that moment get dusty. That was true, stick to it. Well.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I've always really admired about you
Speaker 3: and I or let me just say, I could be
Speaker 3: second guessing this, but this is what I feel about
Speaker 3: myself and I see I think I see some of
Speaker 3: this in you and that is that you have the
Speaker 3: ability to take your work incredibly seriously, which you've proved
Speaker 3: time and time again to us, but you don't always
Speaker 3: take yourself seriously. And to me, this idea that we
Speaker 3: have to like, I've always felt like I don't really
Speaker 3: cared that much what people think about me. I'm really
Speaker 3: more interested in what they think about the work. And
Speaker 3: when it comes to me, you could just make your
Speaker 3: decisions up. I mean, I don't mind poking fun of
Speaker 3: myself or you know, being making an asshole of myself basically,
Speaker 3: And I don't know, can you relate to that at all?
Speaker 4: Or yeah?
Speaker 3: Can?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm to on two fronts, I think one,
Speaker 4: I don't know if I can say I don't take
Speaker 4: myself seriously. I do know that I take comedy seriously,
Speaker 4: and I take the comedy of life very seriously, and
Speaker 4: I take screw ups very seriously and I trust that
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do them, and when I do, I'm like, Yep,
Speaker 4: be serious about that hip fell on your face. Yep,
Speaker 4: that didn't work out. I do take that seriously, so
Speaker 4: that maybe helps me chuckle at that. I also know
Speaker 4: this there, you know, the certain initiations in Hollywood and
Speaker 4: they come for me. The one that came at year
Speaker 4: seven ninety two, around ninety nine was something hit me
Speaker 4: one day, and I think it was after Yeah, so
Speaker 4: after I come in with day's confused time to kill,
Speaker 4: I'm you know, on the cover of the magazines and
Speaker 4: I'm a new leading man, et cetera, et cetera. Then
Speaker 4: I did the few films in my so called star
Speaker 4: drop a little bit, and a lot of the people
Speaker 4: that were calling me twice a day wouldn't you back
Speaker 4: after time, gil were not even returning my calls. People
Speaker 4: that I had spent executives, I had spent holidays with,
Speaker 4: I couldn't give them to turn my call. And it
Speaker 4: personally hurt sure all those people, Like when I first
Speaker 4: got to Hollywood, I remember telling my moms, I've never
Speaker 4: heard people say I love you so much. I said,
Speaker 4: I've said that to like five people in my life.
Speaker 4: They say it all the time, der man, this place
Speaker 4: is great. Well, then some of those people also wouldn't
Speaker 4: return my calls, right, and I'm like, wait, but that
Speaker 4: person says me, lovely man at the part they said
Speaker 4: they looked me in the eyes that I love you,
Speaker 4: and I meant something and I can't get to return
Speaker 4: my call. But I had something hit me at year seven.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, you got to get the joke
Speaker 4: in Hollywood. It's not personal, right, your business. So part
Speaker 4: of that was not I think, leads into what you're
Speaker 4: saying about not taking certain things seriously about what other
Speaker 4: people think. And I had to get over the little
Speaker 4: bridge of you know, being pissed off at them going
Speaker 4: f you. You know what I mean. Now you're the
Speaker 4: one who wouldn't turn my car. Because then when my
Speaker 4: star went back up and I'm going, oh, now you
Speaker 4: call again, I felt like I wanted to rub it
Speaker 4: in a little bit and I was like, no.
Speaker 3: I don't do that.
Speaker 4: Be cool, be graceful.
Speaker 3: It's just businessman.
Speaker 4: Heroes back up.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Of course they return the car. Actually they call you
Speaker 4: take the ride as that man Don Phillips, who I
Speaker 4: met that night in that in that bar, and Austin said,
Speaker 4: want to give you the best advice I can give
Speaker 4: you for success in this game. So what he goes,
Speaker 4: lean horse long ride. He goes, it's going to do this.
Speaker 4: It's going to do this if you can stay in
Speaker 4: the saddle and just keep riding. Endurance can be your friend.
Speaker 3: People say, what's a secret to longevity. I say, there
Speaker 3: is no secret to longevity. Longevity, he's a secret. If
Speaker 3: you can, you can just hang in. Tell me about
Speaker 3: green Lights before we get into just Keep Living Found,
Speaker 3: which I'm fascinating, but I'm also interested in green lights
Speaker 3: on your book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so green Lights is h I finally got the
Speaker 4: courage to say, you know, I've been writing. I've been
Speaker 4: writing since I was fourteen. Journals and stuff and stories
Speaker 4: and people in character approaches to life. I mean inherently,
Speaker 4: I been waking up sometime every day in my life
Speaker 4: since I was.
Speaker 5: Thirteen.
Speaker 4: Probably I've wake up with some sort of perspective of
Speaker 4: measuring weight. What's the approach for greater satisfaction, greater residuals
Speaker 4: in life, whether that's relationships, whether that's lay down good work.
Speaker 4: The work will speak for yourself, it'll outlive you. You know,
Speaker 4: just don't get you know those times when you get
Speaker 4: heady out there and you're like, no, just do the work,
Speaker 4: keep it simple, focus on whatever that is. I've been
Speaker 4: waking up trying to think about how to be a
Speaker 4: better person, better man, find more satisfaction, looking for myself, searching,
Speaker 4: trying to find the figure out, you know, as close
Speaker 4: as I came to the truth or if it's fiction,
Speaker 4: let's just call it that and go with it. Green
Speaker 4: Lights was came out of going back over all, the
Speaker 4: having the curders to go open up those journals for
Speaker 4: the first time in my life and go where's your
Speaker 4: head and heart been over the last thirty years and
Speaker 4: see if we can find some themes. And there were stories,
Speaker 4: there were people, there were places, there were approaches, perspectives, philosophies,
Speaker 4: there was prayers, there were poems, and I sort of
Speaker 4: went in and found personal stories to launch some of
Speaker 4: these approaches that I've tested and found worked that always
Speaker 4: were paired with stories of things that I have, grand
Speaker 4: plans I had that I thought would work, where I
Speaker 4: ate shit and it didn't work, which kind of goes
Speaker 4: back to what I was saying earlier. I take the
Speaker 4: comedy seriously as well, because I can trust in it coming,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And so that's basically what
Speaker 4: the book is. It's I found that you can we
Speaker 4: can engineer success, we can have a goal, we can willpower,
Speaker 4: we can we can right we can write that headline
Speaker 4: now and then work to go achieve it, to get
Speaker 4: to the headline in a year or two. We can
Speaker 4: engineer it. There's things we can do, there's habits. I know.
Speaker 4: It's true. Also, half of my successes, which is a
Speaker 4: lot more than I thought it was going to be
Speaker 4: when I looked in the diaries and journals of mine,
Speaker 4: over half of my successes were when I took a
Speaker 4: risk and learned to fly on the way down where
Speaker 4: it was not engineered. It was like I just I
Speaker 4: was lost, took a risk and figured it out and
Speaker 4: landed right in the bucket, hit the target, and it
Speaker 4: was like, oh, you know, I had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with plans or engineering, just went and followed inspiration and
Speaker 4: and and listened to myself and put myself in places
Speaker 4: where I can hear the truth land like a butterfly
Speaker 4: and a lightning bolt at the same time in which
Speaker 4: it does. And so it's about, you know, where we
Speaker 4: can engineer them success and where it's just part of
Speaker 4: the art of life is just dancing and and and
Speaker 4: and letting the magic and the inspiration hit you the
Speaker 4: right time and trusting in it to follow through on
Speaker 4: it and go. That was true even though nobody else
Speaker 4: may have.
Speaker 5: Heard it.
Speaker 4: Follow it, and that's that's a lot of we'green lined
Speaker 4: about that sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: Have you gotten responses already kind of you know, anecdotal
Speaker 3: sort of responses for people who've looked at the book
Speaker 3: and have reached out to you to to say that
Speaker 3: it helped them in some kind of way.
Speaker 4: I have, and I think the most consistent one is
Speaker 4: people that have come up and not just say hey,
Speaker 4: I like your book. And people come up and strangers
Speaker 4: and will stop me, put two hands on my shoulders,
Speaker 4: make sure they're looking them in the eye, and go.
Speaker 4: Your stories and the risks that you took are telling
Speaker 4: me that my stories and the risk are matter, and
Speaker 4: I'm taking more risk. I'm in this place in life
Speaker 4: because I went shed that's right. He was talking to me.
Speaker 4: I was in a similar situation, and I, instead of
Speaker 4: taking the risk, I went, now I don't think I will,
Speaker 4: and now I'm going to do that. That's been the
Speaker 4: most gratifying thing is to get that reverb, that mirror
Speaker 4: pop back at me with someone going thank you for
Speaker 4: those stories. They made me feel like my stories matter.
Speaker 4: They made me feel like I'm going to take a
Speaker 4: greater risk tomorrow than I did today because of a
Speaker 4: foolish fear of what happen. That's been the greatest compliment.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, because I mean, I you know, I don't
Speaker 3: need to tell you, but it's when you hear somebody
Speaker 3: have that kind of reaction to performance. It's one thing,
Speaker 3: you know, thank you for making that movie, Thank you
Speaker 3: for telling that story. That meant a lot to me.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I feel like I can only take credit to it
Speaker 3: up to a point because somebody else wrote it and
Speaker 3: it was a character and it was a mighty boat.
Speaker 3: But if it's if it's your own book, it must
Speaker 3: just be very very satisfying, gratifying. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 3: that's a cool thing. So, Matthew, I want to bring
Speaker 3: on Lei Claiborne, who is the director of program strategy
Speaker 3: and community Impact for Just Keep Living Foundation, which is
Speaker 3: based in Los Angeles, and I want to hear about
Speaker 3: this great work that you're doing, and Matthew, how this
Speaker 3: whole thing came together.
Speaker 4: So fifteen eighteen something years ago, I knew I wanted to.
Speaker 4: I was always looking for a time and the best
Speaker 4: way to give back. I've been raised in a family
Speaker 4: where we had a pretty ritual ways to give back,
Speaker 4: but now it's coming into my own success. It was like,
Speaker 4: what do I want to do. I knew I wanted
Speaker 4: to do something to prevent, prevent before you to cure.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a ten million great ways and means
Speaker 4: to give time, philanthropy, et cetera. But I knew I
Speaker 4: wanted to prevention for cure. So that led me to go, oh, youngsters, children,
Speaker 4: And then I started studying from kindergarten on up what
Speaker 4: are these young men and women need? And settled on
Speaker 4: high school students because it became very clear that's the
Speaker 4: last that's the last four years you kind of have
Speaker 4: them where there's a principal, there's a parent, you've got
Speaker 4: some responsibilities you got to take care of. As soon
Speaker 4: as you graduate, you're on your own, you're independent, you're free.
Speaker 4: And if you were screwing up in high school, which
Speaker 4: you might have got a demerit for in high school,
Speaker 4: you might be putting in jail for in real life
Speaker 4: once you get out. So it was the demographic of saying, look,
Speaker 4: this is the time to get young men and women
Speaker 4: to if they're all on the wrong track, help me
Speaker 4: get on the right track. If they're on the right track,
Speaker 4: let's help them double down on that and see the
Speaker 4: opportunity to stay on the right track for success in
Speaker 4: the future. We settled in high schools. We then settle
Speaker 4: on Title I high schools, which are the lower income
Speaker 4: high schools that we found that needed it, that needed
Speaker 4: some of this direction and support the most. I think
Speaker 4: our first one leon wasn't our first one Venice in
Speaker 4: la and then Hamilton, yep. And now we're in how
Speaker 4: many schools.
Speaker 5: Forty four programs fifteen cities.
Speaker 4: Forty four to fifteen cities. So that's what we've done.
Speaker 4: It's an after school curriculum twice a week for a
Speaker 4: few hours where these young men and women voluntarily come.
Speaker 4: Number One, what I did not know was an asset
Speaker 4: of the program going in is that it's it's the
Speaker 4: first safe place that a lot of these young men
Speaker 4: and women have to go after school. They didn't that.
Speaker 4: I had no idea that that would be an asset.
Speaker 4: I did not even know that that was needed going
Speaker 4: into this. The students let us know that the basis is,
Speaker 4: there's a there's a there's a they come into set
Speaker 4: goals there's a physical goal, whether that's I want to
Speaker 4: make the soccer team next year. Right now, I cannot
Speaker 4: run a quarter of a mile. Can you help me
Speaker 4: get in shape try and make the soccer team, or
Speaker 4: maybe proms coming up in three months. My sister and
Speaker 4: I have one dress. I need to lose three pounds
Speaker 4: to fit in the one prom dress by prom. All right,
Speaker 4: we're going to help you meet that goal. There's nutritional goals.
Speaker 4: We go talk to them and their parents. Hey, nothing
Speaker 4: wrong with those five burgers from the fast food stop
Speaker 4: last night. But look, let's take that same amount of
Speaker 4: money and walk you through the supermarket in the produce section.
Speaker 4: Some beans, maybe some meat if you want it. Spend
Speaker 4: the same amount of money, have a healthier meal, and
Speaker 4: get to cook it as a family in your own
Speaker 4: kitchen together. Which we believe in that that family time
Speaker 4: is really important healthy life choices physically, mentally, spiritually. Community
Speaker 4: service has become a huge part of this this again,
Speaker 4: I did not think this was going to be popular.
Speaker 4: When we started to say, hey, let's let's let's let's
Speaker 4: ask these children to give community, to give back to
Speaker 4: their communities. I thought back to my high school years Kevin,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I wasn't going to give you
Speaker 4: a Saturday morning at four thirty am to go pack
Speaker 4: for the make some some some packages for the troops,
Speaker 4: or clean up a beach in Venice, or clean up
Speaker 4: a highway, or go help out some elders. I wasn't
Speaker 4: going to do that at four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent of our students jumped on the community
Speaker 4: service and still do today.
Speaker 3: Now amazing.
Speaker 4: What it is is, well, the lesson I'm getting from
Speaker 4: that I think we can all give them that we
Speaker 4: have to be reminded that everybody wants to be accountable.
Speaker 4: Nobody really wants to free hand out. They want to go, oh,
Speaker 4: put me to task, what what do you? What do
Speaker 4: I gotta do for this? I want gives them ownership, integrity,
Speaker 4: and the dignity. And I'm amazed at one hundred percent
Speaker 4: and they still do sign.
Speaker 3: Up for for for.
Speaker 4: All the community service that we that we offer. So
Speaker 4: those are those are some of the pillars. The final
Speaker 4: pillar is gratitude, which is sort of the halo over
Speaker 4: our foundation. The end of every curriculum, students sit around
Speaker 4: and in the circle and say thank you out loud
Speaker 4: to everybody, all their peers, in front of each other.
Speaker 4: This is something that we practice in my family before meals.
Speaker 4: So we tried it out with these young men and women,
Speaker 4: and trust me, it didn't go well to start off with,
Speaker 4: because to say thank you for something in front of
Speaker 4: your peers in high school is not necessarily cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 4: So I remember the first time we went around in
Speaker 4: the circle and I was like, got to me and
Speaker 4: I said, really thankful this program, and no, no, no,
Speaker 4: and the next person goes thankful to Jayuliving program. The
Speaker 4: next person said, well, I'm thankful to Juliving program. And
Speaker 4: then we were like okay. After a couple of weeks,
Speaker 4: no one was really speaking up about what they were
Speaker 4: thankful for. They were kind of repeating what the person
Speaker 4: from said. And I noticed that Camille and I noticed that, oh,
Speaker 4: they're taking this as like it has to be something
Speaker 4: very serious and dramatic. And I remember it's coming up
Speaker 4: on Halloween, I think leon and it got to me
Speaker 4: and I was like, man, I'm thankful. I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: some candy Saturday night. And then I went, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I met and we're like, yeah, you don't have to
Speaker 4: be thankful for something that's like don't dout do dumk,
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden they started going, well, I'm
Speaker 4: thankful I got a kiss from my girlfriend last week,
Speaker 4: and I'm thankful this, and I'm thankful I'm feeling sexy today,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden they started to laugh. This
Speaker 4: sort of the the pressure of what you had to
Speaker 4: share to be thankful or came off. You'd be thankful
Speaker 4: for something that's happy and easy, and what that did
Speaker 4: is led to people weeks later and now sharing real
Speaker 4: things that were really hard, like my my sister got
Speaker 4: out of the hospital, my dad got a job. And
Speaker 4: the best reaction we've heard of this think gratitude circle
Speaker 4: is this student say their favorite thing about is they
Speaker 4: are now hearing their peers say thank you for something
Speaker 4: that they have in their life that they've always taken
Speaker 4: for granted and never voiced thanks for. And that is
Speaker 4: the reciprocity of the gratitude that I love about our
Speaker 4: gratitude circle that we have in the program.
Speaker 3: I've seen it. I've seen it, I've watched the videos
Speaker 3: of it in action, and it is a very very powerful,
Speaker 3: simple yet powerful tool and leon you know, part of
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to sort of highlight on this podcast
Speaker 3: is is certainly the fact that there are actual famous
Speaker 3: people who are trying to do something positive in the world.
Speaker 3: But the other thing is the people who are behind
Speaker 3: the scenes and on the ground and and and you know,
Speaker 3: doing the the the hard work of of this on
Speaker 3: a daily basis. And I'm curious from your perspective, I
Speaker 3: think you said you've been was it seven and a
Speaker 3: half years?
Speaker 5: You've been with seven half years?
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, which is a long time. What do you
Speaker 3: think it was in your upbringing, or your childhood, or
Speaker 3: just in your personality in general that drew you to
Speaker 3: this kind of work, Because there's a lot of other
Speaker 3: things that we can do other than you know, helping
Speaker 3: other people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of stuff I love
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 6: But I always go back to this time I have
Speaker 6: when I played Little League growing up in Ontario, California,
Speaker 6: I had a chance to volunteer to help kids with
Speaker 6: Down syndrome learn how to play baseball.
Speaker 5: And I'm like eight years old, I'm like, oh, I'll
Speaker 5: do a mom whatever whatever.
Speaker 6: So then in that act of me teaching, like someone
Speaker 6: who did it, you know, those simple fundamentals of swinging
Speaker 6: a ball or running to your right the first base.
Speaker 6: It kind of took me back a little bit, and
Speaker 6: it's all and it's been something that's always kind of
Speaker 6: been in me of like helping people that not necessarily
Speaker 6: can do exactly what you do, but how can I
Speaker 6: articulate my skill set to someone else so they can
Speaker 6: do what I do? So that was kind of like
Speaker 6: the leaping.
Speaker 5: Point for me.
Speaker 6: And then growing up, I was really instilleding to hip
Speaker 6: hop culture and just be born rite break born with
Speaker 6: is breakdances or elemented hip hop, and that's what was
Speaker 6: my real kind of leaping path to get into teaching
Speaker 6: inner city youth a skill set. So from there on
Speaker 6: it just blew my mind and I was able to
Speaker 6: teach the students how to use movement and rhythm to
Speaker 6: tell stories right, and then I got leadership skills, started
Speaker 6: running programs, and then twenty years later seven and a
Speaker 6: half of the later years I've been with just keep Living,
Speaker 6: and it's just been it's been awesome because it's always
Speaker 6: been like that little bit of fire that was in
Speaker 6: me at eight years old to teach kids how to
Speaker 6: play baseball, to teaching someone my skill set and passion
Speaker 6: for dance to turn into someone's mentor. It's just been
Speaker 6: a crazy journey and it continues to give me the
Speaker 6: fire too.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: Everybody's always like, why do you keep doing this? You
Speaker 6: know you're in the director level and saying, well, you
Speaker 6: know what, When I get to go to these events
Speaker 6: and get to experience students' first time experiences, that's.
Speaker 5: What gives me the fuel.
Speaker 6: Because there's so much work we still need to do
Speaker 6: in the world. And if I'm able to play a
Speaker 6: part to give them platform and have these students utilize
Speaker 6: our resources, I'm all in.
Speaker 3: I'm all in, that's amazing. Can you do they still
Speaker 3: have the opportunity to uh, to learn how to dance
Speaker 3: for you or to learn some.
Speaker 5: Sim you know.
Speaker 6: Every now and then I'll pull a few tricks out
Speaker 6: the bag, and I love it's a compliment, like a
Speaker 6: day come days or whatever. So whenever I can't get out,
Speaker 6: I do a crazy low hip hop dance workout. I
Speaker 6: make sure I work out when we're not just teaching
Speaker 6: you know, wow moves, we're actually working for it.
Speaker 5: So it's been great.
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Speaker 4: As you know, we can have a good idea and
Speaker 4: everyone can agree on it, but if you don't have
Speaker 4: the commitment and enthusiasm of the people that are there
Speaker 4: day to day on it, it's it's not going to work.
Speaker 4: That's what Leon, you seven and a half years. I mean,
Speaker 4: you came in and you said, it's what fuels you.
Speaker 4: You you don't you're not playing a part in the
Speaker 4: service that you're given with these children and with the program.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's you seem to love it. You seem
Speaker 4: to He does refuel, does seem to refuel you? Like
Speaker 4: I was saying, you're not putting on it. Leon's not
Speaker 4: putting on a different hat when he shows up to
Speaker 4: go like okay, let's go, let's go to work. He's
Speaker 4: always on it and you know where's that? Where does
Speaker 4: that come from? And then secondly, I don't know what
Speaker 4: with stories. You've been there seven a half years. Can
Speaker 4: you share a story or antidote of someone who came
Speaker 4: in as a freshman and maybe it was maybe was
Speaker 4: was wobbling and went out and now seven a half
Speaker 4: years later they're doing something that the program and people
Speaker 4: like yourself help them get on track to do.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, man, Well, just just to answer the question
Speaker 6: about fire, like, where does that come from? It's about
Speaker 6: being a quality of service, right, There's nothing like how
Speaker 6: is someone who's very passionate about something teach that to
Speaker 6: you or show you that. I think that's what I
Speaker 6: want to give these kids. Let them know like, hey,
Speaker 6: I may not be your day to day instructor, and
Speaker 6: I'm at this director level. I'm still here with you
Speaker 6: and I can still give you a skill set and
Speaker 6: still be passionate about seeing you do good. So I
Speaker 6: think the students just want someone they can talk to,
Speaker 6: listen to, a cheer them on, like I'm the student's
Speaker 6: biggest cheerleader, you know what I mean. So, in regardless
Speaker 6: of stories, oh yeah, there's one, and it will start
Speaker 6: With our first program at Venice, we had a student
Speaker 6: named Chris Rassinos. Oh, like, he's the ultimate jk L
Speaker 6: student post a child for sure. So when he came
Speaker 6: in he was a freshman. Like many they'll come for
Speaker 6: like the free snack or you know, maybe they don't
Speaker 6: have a gym membershi if they want to come lifts
Speaker 6: of weights, and Venice is one of the.
Speaker 5: Schools that has actually access to a weight room.
Speaker 6: Not all our programs do, and that's why our curriculum
Speaker 6: is really based on you don't have to have equipment
Speaker 6: to work out, right, That's what we're really basing on.
Speaker 6: But anyhow, you know, he would come once twice a month,
Speaker 6: but he had this energy. He always was like, Hey,
Speaker 6: I want to learn how to I want to learn
Speaker 6: how to box, I want to learn how to do
Speaker 6: more fitness. He was more focused on the fitness. So
Speaker 6: the thing that I saw turned his life around was
Speaker 6: he was already doing bad at school, right, but when
Speaker 6: he went to this thing called campum Buntu that we
Speaker 6: take all our high school kids to in Los Angeles,
Speaker 6: flipped his mind, changed his mind. He really started to
Speaker 6: understand what gratitude meant. He understand what like being transparent
Speaker 6: man with taking risks man. And you know, it's one
Speaker 6: of those things where you're either gonna rise in the
Speaker 6: occasion or you're not. When you're in these camp settings,
Speaker 6: right because you're amongst your peers, You're like, am I
Speaker 6: gonna do this?
Speaker 5: Am I not going to do this? What am I
Speaker 5: looking at here?
Speaker 6: So I would say after that first year him coming
Speaker 6: going to that camp, he came back. He had a plan.
Speaker 6: You know, he started to come to school more, we
Speaker 6: saw more in the sessions. He started to really take
Speaker 6: his fitness to a whole other level. And just to
Speaker 6: fast forward a few years, his senior year, he started
Speaker 6: really taking up boxing, like boxing was his thing. And
Speaker 6: always when I was like, well, what is he gonna
Speaker 6: do with that?
Speaker 5: Like how what is he? What is he really gonna
Speaker 5: do with that? Like it's a great skill set about
Speaker 5: what is he gonna do?
Speaker 6: And then little behold, not only did he become an
Speaker 6: actual counselor at this camp that we were taking students
Speaker 6: to called camp and butu so he was so at
Speaker 6: the time when he was a counselor there, we were
Speaker 6: already taking new students up and he was mintoring them.
Speaker 6: So that was kind of like that broke the mold
Speaker 6: right there for him. And then I'm like, hey, you're
Speaker 6: still doing the boxing thing. He's like he made a
Speaker 6: career out of it at actual his own business. So
Speaker 6: he ended up doing classes out of us a place
Speaker 6: in the West, LA where me and the whole just
Speaker 6: Kipliver team we went and took his class.
Speaker 5: You know, we had a support We got to support
Speaker 5: our youth.
Speaker 3: So he's doing training, training people.
Speaker 5: He's training he's training people.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 5: And during the pandemic he had his own business. He's
Speaker 5: taking ladies out to the to the beach. Said, he's
Speaker 5: doing this thing. You know, be it all COVID safe
Speaker 5: at the time, doing this thing. But and he's still
Speaker 5: so what's cool. Here, here's here's the here's the like
Speaker 5: bring it all back right.
Speaker 6: So now we hire him to go to Venice, to
Speaker 6: go to these other schools around LA to teach this
Speaker 6: skill set that he learned a little bit in JKL
Speaker 6: just got that dedication and level of just gratitude for
Speaker 6: it and shaped it into a business. And now we
Speaker 6: support him and he's just like awesome. He's he's literally awesome.
Speaker 6: I still talk to him. I'm texted him all the
Speaker 6: time trying to book them more. I want to I
Speaker 6: want to put more money in his pocket, you know.
Speaker 6: And that's what it's about. That's what it's about. That's
Speaker 6: what this program it's about. It's about seeing the good
Speaker 6: in our students, giving them the resources they're helping the
Speaker 6: rise to the occasion and if we're able to bring
Speaker 6: it back into the fold, there's always a way for
Speaker 6: us to do that.
Speaker 5: So that's what we do here. Just keep living.
Speaker 3: That's that's such I mean, these are the stories that
Speaker 3: that you know, we want to hear. And and when
Speaker 3: when you when something comes around, that's like a double
Speaker 3: full circle. You know, it's it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 3: beautiful thing to hear. Uh. I know people listening would
Speaker 3: love to know how to help out, how to get involved,
Speaker 3: whether there's uh donations, volunteer ship, what we're how can
Speaker 3: they besides just googling? Just keep living? I mean, who
Speaker 3: knows what they'll get to give us, give us a
Speaker 3: little ways that people can get involved.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I mean you could definitely follow us on
Speaker 6: social media right at JK Livin.
Speaker 4: But no g on the essay, No g on the
Speaker 4: end of living.
Speaker 5: No, G, it's a verb. Verb is at the boss
Speaker 5: man says.
Speaker 6: Oh, but I would definitely say volunteers. Right, So if
Speaker 6: you go to our website Jklebanfoundation dot org, you can
Speaker 6: send us an email there and we're always looking for volunteers.
Speaker 6: You know, our programs are required to do community service
Speaker 6: two times a semester, sometimes more. And if we have
Speaker 6: some volunteers that reach out to us and they have
Speaker 6: a special skill set, not only can they volunteer at
Speaker 6: maybe it's a water station feeding the homeless, but if
Speaker 6: they have a skill set they could bring to the table,
Speaker 6: like they might be a martial arts instructor or a
Speaker 6: crust then we can figure that piece out. How do
Speaker 6: we bring that skill set into our program because our
Speaker 6: programs have the capital to bring in professional instructors.
Speaker 5: To teach a skill you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So anyone who has a skill set that loves to
Speaker 6: deal with high school students, and you know, high school
Speaker 6: students know if you really are about what you talk about, right,
Speaker 6: they love people who come in as passionate, and if
Speaker 6: you're not passionate, then our program is a probably not
Speaker 6: going to be for you.
Speaker 5: Because our kids really want people who live and bleed
Speaker 5: what they're telling these students. Okay, and I will say internships.
Speaker 6: Were always looking to, you know, collaborate with organizations who
Speaker 6: can provide our students with internships. Really summer internships. We
Speaker 6: don't do too many summer programs. It's more spot data
Speaker 6: events that we do, so summer internships would be huge.
Speaker 6: So any organizations out there listening, please send us an email,
Speaker 6: let us say what you do. We'll get all set
Speaker 6: up and I'll see if there's a fit for us.
Speaker 6: So for sure, volunteers, any city will do a volunteer
Speaker 6: meeting and keep you in the loop on some things
Speaker 6: that may be happening. And then any organizations that want
Speaker 6: to partner and provide internships for or just keep living students.
Speaker 5: So that's a few ways.
Speaker 4: If there's also people out there, A lot of people
Speaker 4: have come to us that go, I have a school
Speaker 4: in my community that could use this curriculum and I
Speaker 4: want to sponsor it or I'd like to partner with
Speaker 4: y'all to sponsor it. We are open to that. If
Speaker 4: you're anyone out there listening or watching that says, you know,
Speaker 4: when I got a school in my backyard or near
Speaker 4: that could use this kind of counts from curriculum.
Speaker 3: Let us know.
Speaker 4: We we are open to working in partnering with other
Speaker 4: people too, and businesses to go. Yep, it's uh, what's
Speaker 4: it run a semester thirty.
Speaker 5: Thirty well, thirty K for the whole year, thirty.
Speaker 4: K for the whole year, which is a basically paying
Speaker 4: for that teacher on the ground. Every school curriculum has
Speaker 4: a teacher on the ground in that school that is
Speaker 4: sort of our all star that Leon and the rest
Speaker 4: of the staff check in on and sort of, uh,
Speaker 4: make sure that you know we're fulfilling the mission statement
Speaker 4: within that school, but also also customizing it to what
Speaker 4: that school needs.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's amazing. That's amazing. So it's a it's a
Speaker 3: it's a it's it's a package that you guys have
Speaker 3: developed that can be put into use in anywhere. I
Speaker 3: mean right now you're in Los Angeles, right in in
Speaker 3: southern California, but we're in thirteen thirteen states.
Speaker 5: We're everywhere.
Speaker 6: New York, we're in Nashville, were in.
Speaker 3: We started in l Yeah, sorry, right, it's it's you.
Speaker 3: It's it's awesome. It's such a great thing that you
Speaker 3: guys are doing. I thank you so much for coming
Speaker 3: on this podcast and sharing it today and for your
Speaker 3: time the amazing Matthew McConaughey and Leon Claiborne. The organization
Speaker 3: is Just Keep Living and check it out and volunteer, donate.
Speaker 3: These guys are making a difference. So thanks for being here, Fellas.
Speaker 4: Kevin, thanks for having us, thanks for chatting with us
Speaker 4: and getting you give it a space talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's been fun.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six Degrees.
Speaker 2: And if you want to learn more about Just Keep
Speaker 2: Living and all the good work they're up to, head
Speaker 2: to their website at Jklivinfoundation dot org. You can find
Speaker 2: the links in our show notes, and if you like
Speaker 2: what you're here, make sure you subscribe to the show
Speaker 2: and tune in to the rest of our episodes. You
Speaker 2: can find six Degrees wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.