#879: How to Reinvent Yourself and Make Bold Moves — Decisive Stories from Matthew McConaughey, Steve Young, Samin Nosrat, and More

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a special compilation episode devoted to reinvention. This is something I think about a lot. How do you shed an identity or a career that no longer fits, no longer suits you? Decide on a new chapter. How do you do that? How do you navigate any uncertainty along the way? And how do you commit to what is next? In this episode, we're going to hear from a whole cast of characters, a real eclectic crew. We're going to hear from Matthew McConaughey, who explains why he stopped making romantic comedies and turned down $15 million and waited nearly two years for Hollywood to see him differently. Steve Young talks about losing his identity that had defined him for so long and the advice another legendary quarterback gave him. Samin Nosrat on walking away from a wildly successful food business that was making her miserable and her next chapter, which led to greatness, great things, but was not an easy path. Suleika Jaouad describes rebuilding her life after cancer, when going back to her old life was no longer possible. Lori Gottlieb explains how listening to a quiet inner voice, sometimes it's whispering, not yelling, led her from Hollywood to medicine, then to journalism, and finally, psychotherapy. Martine Rothblatt tells the amazing story, and it truly is amazing, of teaching herself biology and starting a pharmaceutical company to save her daughter's life.
And last but not least, Debbie Millman gives you a simple and powerful exercise for imagining and creating the life you truly want. That has stood the test of time with many, many students of hers. So with that, I will let us get on with the show. Thanks for listening.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:42)
First up, Matthew McConaughey. Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award-winning actor whose career spans more than 40 feature films, a co-founder of the Just Keep Livin Foundation, and the best-selling author of Greenlights.

**Tim Ferriss** (1:58)
Let's talk about perhaps an uphill, perhaps a pause, perhaps something else, which I'd love for you to comment on, which did come later. And that was a decision, which I'd love to explore to say no to quite a lot of opportunities for a period of time. It seems like at one point, you're very successful. You became very famous, like you said, practically overnight. You're being offered opportunities you couldn't have imagined a week prior, and you have a string of successes, and then you realize, well, wait a minute here, I might be getting painted into a corner, and you start to say no. You start to turn down, say, action film opportunities with big paychecks, things like that.
Was that hard to do? Did other people say that you were doing the right thing and encourage you? Could you walk us through and just tell a story about that experience?

**Matthew McConaughey** (2:54)
Yeah, I'd love to. So this is around, I don't remember the year, I'm guessing it's around 12, 13 years ago. I was rolling with the romantic comedies. I had taken the baton from Hugh Grant and was the male lead rom-com go-to guy. Rom-coms are mid-level budgets, 30, 35 million. They offer a good front-end paycheck to me. They go make 60 million. I mean, the studios don't have to overspend and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make them. You get a good female and a male lead that have good chemistry. People love to go escape to them. My rom-coms are doing well. They were my bank. They were what Hollywood banked on me to be in. At the same time, I'm living in Malibu, learning to surf, got my shirt off, and the pop right to your Discovery Channel is like, I'm documenting this and I'm like, you're damn right, document it. This is the life I'm living. I love it. I worked and earned to get this life. Those romantic comedies that I get paid so handsomely for actually pay the rent at the house on the beach that I live in, in front of this water that I'm surfing in. I was full on shaking hands with Gunn. Yes.
At the same time, I did notice that any other dramas I wanted to do, or even the way people, when I said, don't meet strangers anymore, even when this people thought of me, or approached me, or talked to me, or about me, it was like McConaughey's the shirt is rom-com guy. I was like, yeah, I am.
But only I could answer that second question of, and only I could continue that sentence. No one else could. Hollywood for sure was like, no, nothing else, and so any dramas I wanted to do, or other pictures, no one wanted to make it with me.