#804: Robert Rodriguez, The Wizard of Cinema Returns — The "Fear-Forward" Way of Life, How to Overcome Self-Doubt, Learning to Love Limitations, and Counter-Intuitive Parenting That Works

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show where it is my job to interview world class performers to break down how they do what they do, what are the frameworks Tools, influences, so on and so forth that have helped make them who they are. My guest today. Is back. At long last, he is one of my most requested guests for a follow up, Robert Rodriguez. He is a film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and composer. He does everything.

0:32 Absolutely everything. And to give you an idea of the genesis, while a student at the University of Texas at Austin, UT Austin, that's right here in my backyard in nineteen ninety-one, Rodriguez wrote the script to his first feature film while sequestered at a drug research facility as a paid subject in a clinical experiment. I'm not making that up. That paycheck. Covered the cost of shooting his seven thousand dollar film El Mariachi, which won the coveted audience award at the nineteen ninety three Sundance Film Festival and became the lowest budget movie ever released by a major studio. If you want the full story on that, listen to our first conversation. Which you can find in the show notes. Rodriguez wrote about these experiences in Rebel Without a Crew. A perennial guide for the independent filmmaker. Really, it is a guide to Bare bones, bootstrapped entrepreneurship of any type. It's worth reading. Then he went on to write, produce, direct, and edit a series of successful films, including Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Faculty, and The Spy Kids franchise, which is huge. Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Frank Miller's Sin City.

1:36 We can be heroes, and he's also collaborated with director James Cameron on the film adaptation of Alita Battle Angel. His films have grossed more than$1.5 billion at the box office. Then in 2000, I suppose somewhere in the middle there. Rodriguez founded Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas, which I've visited a number of times. It's worth checking out if you ever have the chance. He recently directed the Lady Gaga Ariana Grande video Rain on Me and episodes of The Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett and launched Brass Knuckle Films, an Investible Action Film Slate. What does that mean? If you've ever wanted to pitch Robert Rodriguez a film idea or get profit participation in action films and sequels He tells you all about it.

2:17 in this conversation, but there are lots of tactical takeaways, lots of actionable bits of advice that you can use, and that is his style. He had an entire dossier of things he'd been collecting over the last nine, ten years since our last conversation that he wanted to share on this podcast specifically. So you can find him on X. at x.com slash rodriguez r-d-r- I G U E Z, and on Instagram slash Rodriguez at Rodriguez. He's Rodriguez everywhere.

2:48 So No. Just a few words from our sponsors. We'll get right to this very, very practical tactical conversation with Robert. Rodriguez.

2:58 Listeners have heard me talk about making before you manage for years. All that means to me is that when I wake up, I block out three to four hours to do the most important things that are generative, creative, podcasting, writing, et cetera. Before I get to the email and the admin stuff and the reactive stuff and everyone else's agenda for my time for me. Let's just say I'm a writer and entrepreneur. I need to focus on the making to be happy. If I get sucked into all the little bits and pieces that are constantly churning, I end up feeling stressed out and That is why

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4:57 Way back in the day. In twenty ten, I published a book called The Four Hour Body, which I probably started writing In two thousand eight. And in that book I recommended Many, many, many things. First generation continuous glucose monitor.

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7:55 Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now it is. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endocrine. Sure. All right.

8:21 Doctor Rodriguez. Here we are again. Yes. It has been almost ten years. Can't you believe it? Ten years. And uh I can't believe it's been almost ten years number one. My decision to go bald early was helpful in making me look somewhat similar to the way I was in the black shirt. And some people may not know also when I first moved to Austin, which is coming up on eight years, also nuts. I did not have any

8:48 Plates or silverware at my house. And I Invited you over for dinner not even thinking of this and you're s you're kind enough to bring over I still have it this red plate and a couple of your like dungeon forks and knives. Yeah. So thank you for that. Sure. Absolutely. And a lot has happened in the last ten years.

9:09 And uh we've continued to hang out and talk and you have A whole new bag of tricks. Our first conversation was a barn burner of an episode. Yeah. People were super excited by it. There's a lot of tactical advice. And you have explored a lot, you have found a lot, you've fine tuned a lot. And stumble upon new things. You stumble upon them literally, you know. So yeah, we adopt them and I store'em away so I can tell you about'em. Look at this. And I've stored ten years worth of stuff. So we open the vault.

9:42 And here we are. Let's just start with a very broad question. I mean, what are some of the things that come to mind that have happened since we last spoke? Well, what's wild is just like a month ago I we just put out an audio book For the first time for Rebel Without a Crew, the book that kinda started it all for the In the nineties, in ninety five.

10:03 I remember Desperado, Dust till Dawn, Four Rooms, and that book all came out within four months. And my son. My first born. Five things of the past four months. I'll never forget. But it was full of stories and my diary on how I did mariachi and it really To this day, people come up and say, not only did it help them start becoming a filmmaker, but it helped them start their own business. You know, or it just applied to so many things as you know. The idea of just taking on a big challenge, betting on yourself, going where no one else is. That's very entrepreneurial stuff.

10:34 What's wild though is I hadn't read it since I wrote it. So when I had to suddenly do an audiobook for it. Couple months ago. I was astounded, I'd forgotten so much of the details and then I was like I now I see why it was so inspirational. It blows your mind'cause you know, when you're younger

10:51 Six months. Feels like six years. Yeah. But now when you hear the dates,'cause the dates of my journal How quickly? I go from clearly

11:01 Clueless and penniless filmmaker. Making a movie, having the idea, having a movie. Doing it by myself. Trying to sell it to Spanish home video. To instantly being the toast of the town is just unbelievable. You could see why people would read the book and just drop it and go

11:17 I gotta go make something. 'Cause the only reason that happened is'cause he took action. He got up and made that movie. What do you hear? most from that book. from readers because one that pops up a lot from our episode because we talked about it a bit.

11:33 And also stuck with me in the book. was and I'm sure you have a better way to phrase this, but basically making A list. of assets, right? Not focusing on what you don't have. Yeah, focus on what you do have. Right. So if you got a turtle and pit bull and you got A friend who's a school bus driver, it's like all right, we're gonna figure out how to work that into the script.

11:53 And it's all point of view, right? It's like you can really concentrate on what you don't have. In life. And that becomes your focus and then that becomes your life. All the things you don't have and never get. But when you leverage what you do have, it's all about leveraging what you do have.

12:08 It's also a thing I call freedom of limitations. Like if we had to make a movie right now with this Broom. That's it. It's kinda very freeing. It's like okay, this is all we have to work with. You can come up with a million ideas. When you can do anything remember we're trying to make a short film. When you've got unlimited It's harder, is it not? That's one of my great embarrassments. We're gonna talk about it. We are gonna talk about it because it's exactly what we're talking about. Because You can do anything.

12:37 Right. And a lot of times when you can do anything you can't do anything. The canvas. Because you just it's too wide. Yeah. So the smaller aperture, the fact that I had very little things was a blessing. And people took that lesson, applied it to business and The whole time I'm reading this, you can hear I'm laughing and I I stop several times many times during the book to update. I go, by the way. What you just heard Never happened before this and never happened against it. It's very rare. This is lightning in a bottle. And it's like a movie. You see incredible setup.

13:10 Payoff setup payoff where A setup huge setup falls in my lap. Don't even know what to do with it. It pays off in a huge way two weeks later. And then three weeks later, then four weeks later.

13:21 And then you also see why Like I was really bummed I couldn't sell the movie Spanish on video. I was gonna sell it for twenty thousand dollars before Christmas and the contracts weren't through. I went home a failure and said, Merry Christmas, I didn't sell the movie. I was really bummed. And then you see because it's so

13:37 A journal. One month later. I had an agent suddenly because of the movie. Good thing I didn't sell it. I was chasing those guys down for the contract. They could have had it for twenty thousand dollars. Two months later I sell it for ten times that.

13:51 Yeah. Incredible. And I'm the toast of the town and getting my First movie deal. I mean, it's unbelievable. When I was reading it, I was like, Now I see why. Because when you're living it, you don't know how special it is because it's fast. Thirty years later, it's like it still is an unbelievable story. And I think it will still inspire people today. And in that example, too. It makes me think of advice I got from

14:12 A mentor of mine at one point and he said Sometimes you need life to save you from what you want. Yes. Yes. In that instance. That's what I I really wanted that. And when something doesn't work out, we think we made a mistake. Like that's one of my you know favorite stories. To your next success is in your failure because you followed your instinct, you gotta dig in deep and look.

14:32 And I show you that like I made we would call four rooms. The bomb. But I took it on instinct, not'cause I thought it would make money. If I just be upset about it. and be bummed about it, like wow, I must have made a wrong choice.

14:44 I haven't learned anything. But if I go sift through it, the ashes of that failure, I find I got the idea for spy kids from that'cause I saw Antonio and his Asian wife look like a cool international spy couple because they're dressed in tuxedos, and I thought, what do these two kids have to say the bird? There's five of those movies now. And then also it's an anthology and it didn't work. I thought

15:02 Instead of four stories, maybe three stories, One director, not multiple directors. I'm gonna try it again. Even those ontologies never work. Why would I do that? Because I just did it and I saw what I could do better, and that was Sin City.

15:14 Two of my biggest movies came directly. From a movie that we you would consider a failure. So you only know that by journaling, by keeping track of the things that you thought were a mistake and you realize Oh with time that was the right instinct, but sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. It's the only way to get there.

15:34 And if you don't do it, you don't get there. Yeah, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more. When I talk to people and they say, Yeah, I journal. Right. I'm like You do. But you should see what Robert does. And I'm sure we'll talk more about journaling because it makes me think of one of my friend's mothers, very sweet older lady. She was on a chairlift. Skiing. Yeah. She's still very active. She lives in Idaho.

15:56 She was chatting up the woman next to her on the ski lift. She's like, Oh, what do you do? And the woman's like, Oh, I'm a swimmer. She goes, Oh, me too. I'm a swimmer. It was Daratora as the Olympian, right? So it's kind of like there's journaling and then there's Capital J Mark Light's journaling, which we'll get to. But I want to ask you first because I just experienced this, was it yesterday? I'm time traveling because there's a whole warp with South by Southwest. But I Got to see you on stage with your daughter Rihanna.

16:23 Yes. And I thought to myself, holy shit, she's really good, right? Like I was gonna clap anyway, like no matter what, obviously. But I thought to myself Wow, she's really good.

16:35 I wonder how many performances she's done. And the answer was I know I waited until the end'cause I didn't want to tell anybody. I want to make sure it went right. She never Ever

16:45 Performed. Before on stage or to a crow. Yeah. But uh we'll get to this thing later because I want everybody to hear this. It's so inspiring. And I've stumbled upon it. It's counterintuitive. Farning.

16:58 The kids step up. But we'll get to that. But yeah, because it comes back to like Parenting and also Creative modeling and coaching, right? How do you view that creative. Right. Not just capability but confidence.

17:14 into other people. So I stumbled upon it. My kids were much younger than my two actors. My two actors were eight and eleven. Alexa and Daryl. And my kids were younger. You know, when you're learning how to raise kids you

17:30 You tend to go a little easier on your kid. Not to the spy kids, because they're actors. I'm treating them like performers. So they were having to do there's no kid stuntman. They're having to do their own stunts they're having to do the Daily, daily challenges, mind-bending challenges for these little kids to be action stars. They're like mini Tom Cruises that you're just throwing them in. There's no training for that.

17:49 And at the end of it, I would just see them. become so confident and superhuman they're even today the actors And I would tell myself, I need to make sure I challenge my own kids like this. 'Cause I saw them go from just Regular kids into super kids.

18:06 over the course of those three films. So I started putting my kids uh making movies with us. Like one of them came up with Sharp Burgo, I put him in as actors, as stun kids. And I kept thinking I wonder if they're gonna really resent me later for putting him to work at a young age because it wasn't their passion. These two kids that were in the movie, they wanted to be actors. That's a different that they chose.

18:27 But I tried it anyway. It was an experiment. Because I thought maybe they'll give them kind and boy, it has just opened up a whole world. We'll get to So you're gonna be we're gonna come back to that. Yeah, it's big. And I'm gonna tell you Some famous people that it's inspired, and you'll go like, Oh, it was directly because of something I told them. All right, all right. Now Right next to Re in and there was a huge screen. And

18:51 There are other things that were being Launched slash announced. So what else? Oh yeah, we had a uh the the reason we had a big party at my studio on the back lot of my studio, which still has the huge Ninety thousand square foot. Alita set because I'm

19:06 resourceful enough to put it in a corner of my studio where I could keep it. Since twenty sixteen we built it with steel support beams so we could have forever. It's the largest standing set in the country, if not the world. Well'cause they mow'em down after each movie because the next movie's coming in. But I put it in a corner of my Big section of my studio. So we can have it the film for Mexico, for other cities, you know, we've used it on every movie since then. So we had our party back there to announce this new Movie company.

19:32 that I'm doing because I realize I have so many resources there. You know you've seen my studio. I've got that huge set. I've got all the vehicles Every prop we've ever made, every costume. And usually that savings gets passed on to studios, but they just piss it away because, you know, it's just like they got so much overhead. So I thought Let's make a slate of action films. It's called brass knuckle films. Just action, because action there's an international appetite. Always. In fact, if you were to ask Netflix right now what they need, they would say.

19:59 Action, action, action. We don't have enough action. So let's make something that everyone needs and wants. Slate of four pictures, only that Fans are usually an afterthought. They're only like right now people are showing their movies at South by South West to get the fans to get their friends to go spend money on their movies for the privilege of seeing the movies. What if they made money on those movies?

20:18 Right. So you for the cost of a badge can invest into my Brass Knuckle Films. For a slate of films. That means you got four bites of the apple. One of those is gonna make money. And sequels and you share in all that because you're at the ground floor of development.

20:33 And that's the revolution that we're doing. And you People come up to me all the time with movie ideas saying, I got an idea for you. And they tell me, and they're ready to give it to me. It's like no, you get to come be a co-creator because one of the movies in that slate. is going to be picked from one of the fan investors and even at the lowest level

20:49 Everyone gets to pitch us their action movie idea. And the top 20 gets to picture directly to me. So you can be a co-creator and fan. But there's other perk, the perks alone would get you great, but it's not crowdsourcing. It's not Kickstarter. You're actually an investor. We're using Republic, which is uh, you know, can use even unaccredited investors can come invest in this and it's a platform, an investing platform. They've done it in sports and other arenas, but this is now For film and my movies especially, because I've got all my resources to keep the budget slow. Like you know how much the original John Wick costs? No idea. Twenty million. Okay.

21:23 Twenty million. The last one was a hundred. As the audience grouped. So we're making budgets between ten and thirty million. Mm-hmm. That's like a a lower to mid range budget, right? Right. That's not a lot of money. for the chance to make something that could turn into a billion dollar franchise that it is. We just keep making

21:40 bites at the apple, one of those is gonna turn into that. It's like venture capital. I mean it's it's it's and it is so fun because the fans people the other thing people always ask me, you want me to believe? Did you kill me in your movie? I'd love to die in your movie. Can you just have me die in your movie? Chop my head off, run me over, shoot me. Mm-hmm. Everyone wants to die. So that's one of the perks. So you put in enough money you get to die on screen in a creative way, whatever actually. So it's it's a lot of fun. I'm hypothetical. Somebody comes in they say, Hey, I like the I like the model a lot.

22:06 I wanna take ninety percent of it. Are there kind of limits on what investors can do? Yeah, this is just for the the develop this is to like give us money Cause we already have we can get the money for an action film, we can already fund the whole thing. Yeah, sure. I mean the international buyers alone and we could keep the domestic. Yeah. And sell it to all these guys have the publishing. We sell the foreign rights to go ahead and and and make it if we want. Or if we have such a big idea, we could take it to a studio and get all the freedoms of an independent film. We have a lot of avenues because they just need it. This is the thing. The problem is they don't know how to make an action movie. Yeah.

22:39 'Cause they have too much over and they're just too big. They spend so much. Well the incentives and and that that's why John Wick was an independent movie. That's why Beekeeper was an independent movie. Because you can go make those for less, but there's always an appetite. We're not making dream projects or, you know, art films. You know, we're not this is gonna be just things that put food on table because I want the fans to win. Yeah. Because it's gonna be one, a great story. And two, they should they should enjoy it because they're the ones When a when you've made a movie at a studio, you don't even know what you got. Yeah. Then you take it to the fans and show it to them.

23:11 In a private screening. They give you notes. And then you go, Oh, we screwed that up. We gotta go fix that. We gotta reshoot that. They're brought in at the end and then told to go spend their money on it. Yeah. It should start. with the fans and as well as finish with the fans. So that's the revolutionary thing we're doing because It's just like Rebel that I create. It's part of my whole democratizing the process.

23:31 Making it to removing the smoke and mirrors. And letting us all enjoy that process together. Because I've seen The phenomenon. Of creating a new label. Label on yourself.

23:45 label on a business and we'll get to that because I have it written down. You'll see the value of brass knuckle, but I'll tell you where I did it before. Because this is something that's happened since our last 10 years and it's a mind blower and it it ties into what the first thing you asked about family. All right, sweet. So before we get there. I am so curious because you've written and I'm sure you've read a lot of scripts. If you get

24:08 One hundred, two hundred, four hundred, five hundred, who knows? Pitches. Okay, pitches. You're not getting a script. No. We'll give a format. It should be less than five minutes. So maybe a Two or three pages at the most. Maybe one to three pages. Something to tell your story. And if you've already written I've had a lot of people come and say, I have an action script for you, can I enjoy? I said, Well, come be an investor. And you can pitch it. I tell you I've sold more pitches.

24:35 From Scripts I'd already. half written or written because I know more about the story. I really know it. So when I go to pitch it, it's very easy for me to tell you the story. You've got a much better chance than someone who's just making a pitch. Yeah. But Uh we'll give you a format. We'll teach I'm gonna train people how to do it. So that they know. So it's kind of a s film school too. Can you give us just a teaser of some of the ingredients of of a good Short pitch.

24:58 A good pitch is anything if you if we could sit here right now and I could tell you a story. About Yeah. It's a guitar player who comes into town. Mm-hmm.

25:06 He's all he wants. Music is his life. Mm-hmm. And that's all he thinks about. All he wants to do is find a place for somebody. You know. So hire him.

25:14 He goes into a bar. In this new town that he walks into. They'd don't hire musicians. He leaves. Second later, a guy with a guitar case full of weapons comes in.

25:24 Mm-hmm. Shoots the place up because he's after the the main bed hot joke to leave a message. So now the word gets out. Find the guy in black with a guitar case. Mistaken identity.

25:34 Uh. By the end he'll become the guy with a guitar case full of weapons. And he becomes every movie's like a ballad. A sad, tragic ballad. She's gonna meet somebody, she's gonna help him. She's gonna die.

25:46 And he goes to the next town. But no longer can play the guitar because he gets his hand shot. So now he has to become that thing. Yeah. That's a pitch. That's it. I can tell you that pitch because I already made that movie. I already wrote that script. It was harder when I was first just trying to figure it out. I was just taking little cards. But a pitch could be something like that where I would see the potential in it and go.

26:08 This one, we can still work on it, we're gonna hire a writer. It's that seed of an idea that gets people to stop and listen. That you wanna That you want to Fine, that's the lightning in the bottle sometimes is just the idea. And everyone's got an idea, just like everybody wants to get killed in the movie. So it's like this is how we're gonna this is how we're gonna make it fun for the fans, because it who's gonna consume it at the end of the day, it's the fans.

26:29 Not the zombies in suits that are up there who don't even watch these movies. I go up there, it's the disconnect blows my mind. You go talk to some not all executives, but you go to some studios, you can tell they don't pay to go see a movie. They don't watch movies. I don't love movies. Yeah. It's a business. And then you go talk to the fans. I was just a South by Southwest. They're losing their minds. They tell you about all the movies they've seen, about all the things they collect. They should be sharing in that, not the executives. Yeah. They're just gonna piss it away. So you you're very good.

26:58 Uh Hooks. So before we start recording, when we're out on the sidewalk. About to come into the building, you were like, Yeah, there's this one line. There's one line at the end that I figured out. What was the line? Oh at the end. When that yeah so when I told them all about this investment opportunity.

27:13 At the end I said. So This is how you manifest'cause I would been talking about manifesting. They asked me the the question, Robert, you're very positive, but do you have any human doubts? Yeah. And I said no. And I told them why and they were all clapping afterwards so at the end I said

27:29 Okay. One more thing on manifesting. This is how you do it. Next year, it's our goal to come back to South by Southwest with our first Brass Knuckle film. Now ask yourself this. If you have the opportunity to invest in being part of it. And pitch an idea that might be that idea.

27:44 Wouldn't you rather be sitting up here with us? than down there in the audience. That's how you manifest. Mic drop. Yeah, it's true. You you hit a t you set a target. I'm talking about my old trainer. I had an old trainer who'd be like We'd be working now and you can tell you just making up as he went. Two hundred. Two hundred setup. Two hundred push ups. And we just go go go go. Yeah, just picking a big number and then just hitting it. That's kind of what you need to do because if you aim low, you'll hit low. But if you aim

28:12 High, you might it might go low. I go there. And like Mariachi. When you read it.

28:17 It went straight up. But if I hadn't taken the action, it would never have happened. So So many people. Wait, that's the discussion we had. About Remember you were talking about making a short film. Yep. And I said, We just gotta commit to making it. We just gotta go ready or not. Here we go. Let's set a date. We almost did it, but then both of our schedules uh both of our schedules got west. But you you understood the lesson. I understood the lesson. Because I told somebody uh this whole thing. Yeah and he was there right where you were sitting, I think I told you. Somebody was right here and they said

28:47 Wow. Everything you're saying makes sense. You know I've got a project. All the pieces are actually Pretty much there. Just because I'm not ready.

28:56 I said, that's gonna be on your tombstone. Here lie so and so. He was never ready. Why is it that art you have to be ready for? In life You didn't know you were gonna get a flat tire. You didn't know you're gonna go to work and be fired. You didn't know the fire's gonna be raging. Every day you're like this.

29:11 You know, trying to move with the you're not ready. You're not ready for anything life is throwing at you, but you make you become ready on the spot, right? Why is it that we think art and life should not be the same? Why art has to be You have to be ready before you can begin. Th there's no relation. They should be the same. You're not gonna be ready. Until you're almost done with the project, because a lot of the answers you need are not gonna happen until you're on the journey.

29:34 Yeah. And that's what keeps most people from doing it. Yeah. And so that's why we're I was gonna show you that real time, but we're we are gonna do it still. We're gonna make a short film. You're not gonna know what you're gonna make it on. And it's gonna fall in our lap because we start the process. Yeah. That is a huge, huge Huge lesson. You gotta start it.

29:52 You just have to start. I mean In a couple weeks. And I have this I don't even know if I've told you about this. I have a card game I've been working on kind of secretly for like two years. Card game? Yeah, card game. Yeah, you always love card you're always gifting me card games. Yeah. The reason that it happened ultimately is just booking a flight to go spend time With a master game designer.

30:15 And deciding by the time we leave, we are either gonna have a game or we will have stopped. Because we did a couple of I would say Mm. B minus attempts where we didn't commit in that type of way and we met in different places around the country.

30:32 And we would play test different options and different concepts. And then this Final trip was like, Okay, look. We're both really busy. We've given this a few shots.

30:41 This time We're just gonna pat our heads against the wall. Aiming up there now. Yeah. And we're gonna have a game or This is it. And that kicked off the whole process. Now it's gonna be in thousands of stores. That's great. That's the way that' that that's You know you used to ask me, How do you get so much done? It's like you know

30:59 I set the bridge on fire. And then I run across. Otherwise it's not enough stake. You have a way out, like the last ones. Yeah. You had a you had a way out. Yeah. Y'all didn't have that goal. Yeah. You'll take the escape route. Yeah, it's easier. But if you just have you've burned the bridge, you've gotta go. When we have a deadline, it's a blessing.

31:19 Like today. I even asked you earlier yesterday, I said, Do you really need it by tomorrow? Cause we could push it to literally week No, no, let's do it. Yeah. So when you have a deadline, you said you make it happen. You make it happen. But we tend not to do that with ourselves. Yeah. And it's a crippling thing. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. It's the new year, and many of you, no doubt, are planning for the year ahead. I'm doing the same, and of course, one thing that tends to be top of mind is setting financial goals, getting your finances in order. And

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32:51 This is a paid endorsement of Wealthfront. Wealthfront brokerage isn't a bank. The APY is subject to change. For more information, see the episode description. I Thinking of The audio book that you just Produce and

33:07 The book. We have spoken over the years about You writing another book. Yes. So what what happened to that one. What happened to that one. You told me right after we had our Did you finish that book?'Cause I sounded like I was almost ready. The idea was called The creative life because you know, I I was d I gave a talk once about

33:27 Pro Max or something. about creativity. They introduced me and they said, Robert, cinematographer, editor Composer, screenwriter, direct you know they went through all my credits. Yeah. And I got up there and I said I feel dizzy just hearing all that stuff. And there's this book out. I always see it in the in the bookstores at the airports called The One Thing about Doing One Thing. And I was thinking, Well, that doesn't apply to me because I obviously But then I thought there actually is one thing that I do when I think about it.

33:52 It's not those jobs. I live a creative life. I apply creativity to everything. I do. And that's why anything that touches creativity is open to me.

34:02 So I can paint. I can draw, I can do anything because Ninety percent of any one of those jobs is is actually the creative part. The technical part.

34:12 Music. Say. Ninety percent creative. Some of the best musicians don't know how to read or write music. That's the technical part. So I realized that that is like because they did all those jobs. That was the thing. So I want to write a book called The Creative Life where every chapter is about Raising your kids.

34:27 Painting. Drawing. filmmaking. You're gonna see the same lesson over and over because it all applies. So that was the idea. And you asked what happened to it. It's like I'm going through this whole new chapter that's so massive. I would feel

34:42 Dumb to put out the book now because I know this is gonna change all my thinking and it was When I turn fifty I thought I wonder if There's some other job I could have.

34:53 Where I don't have to be Doing as harder work as filmmaking. Mm-hmm. But the knowledge I have, there must be some. I don't even know what jobs are out there. This is the first job I ever got was making movies. I was so young. So I literally bought jobs for dummies and was looking through it. No joke.'Cause they have these little icons just to see what's even out there. Like I don't want that, I don't want that.

35:13 It got the filmmaker. And that little icon is a guy with his arms up like this. I said. This is the best job. Get to be creative with your friends. make stuff and then just sit back and let the money in.

35:25 Said but it says but Ninety-nine percent of film students don't get this job. So Forget that dream. Oh, clearly I got the best job. But I used to think, well, I guess I could keep making movies. I guess that's been good to me. I guess I could just Keep making more. But then I had to work with my kids.

35:43 For that Red Eleven project, remember the one where we had to do another Mariacha, another seven thousand dollar movie, but with digital cameras and show people how it's done today. We're gonna make one. And I made all the other filmmakers that were in our group. For this TV show I was doing called Rebel Without a Crew. You can only bring one person, just like I had Carlos Gallado, the main actor from Mariachi. Only one person. You gotta do everything. He can be your sound man or he can be your cameraman, but you gotta do everything. You gotta edit it, you gotta shoot it, you gotta write it, and you got two weeks. Like I had only two weeks to do mariachi.

36:12 And I saw the filmmakers just like that thing I was saying about the kids pushing them. They've only done short films. None of them had done a feature. This is your first feature. And we're gonna f document it. Documentary camera's gonna be on you like or you know, reality TV. I saw them turn superhuman. Between the first week and the second week, once they started shooting, they had no idea how they were gonna do it. They're like, oh my God, this is just so hard.

36:34 By the second week I go To ask them how it's going. They're already talking about their next three films. They like suddenly their idea of what impossible was went from that to that. Yeah. And so I did that. As well. I wanted to do that, but with my kid

36:46 Racer. I picked one kid, my son Racer. who hadn't been working with me in film at all for a while. I brought him to be my co-writer, my co-lider. My sound guy and I didn't show him how to use the sound equipment. I waited till we're about to start filming. Then I was like, okay, this is how it works. Go. And we're documenting. I wanted to show people. That even without any experience you can go make a movie in two weeks with no money.

37:06 And we did. And that thing ended up going to festival even getting over to Director's Fortnite, it can. People were flying us and paying us. To go speak. about our masterclass on how we made that movie and show clips from the making of.

37:21 We're making money from this little no money movie. The only reason that we had to stop doing a tour, we went to Colombia, we went to Sweden, we went to Paris. I mean, we were doing really well. My kids were like, Dad, you're right. This is really It's really worse. Ah, better than I thought. We only had to stop because we're shooting we can be heroes. But the reason I'm talking about this label What blew my mind about is my kids. I thought you can fly to yourself.

37:45 Yeah. Like to yourself and to just a label like a company, a fake company within your your realm, like breast knuckle. I would call that a label. I still do other things, but that has a very specific target. And I'm getting all kinds of ideas just popping in my head because I started that. It's just this phenomenon, like ideas I never would have thought of before. Cause now it's got a place to go. Just like with yourself. There's a label I'll tell you about that with yourself that really transformed. But my kids, I thought they're gonna resent me again.

38:12 I'm afraid they might resent me for having to do this seven thousand dollar movie for two weeks and see how much hard work it is. Cause they had other they had their own interests. They weren't gonna wanting to make movies. And I said, I need him to be in it because he'll be a good example. And I made my other son act in it because he made those knives. I wanted I was inspired to make one of his characters a knife guy. And I asked him to do the score too with me. Write the score. And I thought They have their own interests. They're gonna work on this one day and hate it.

38:39 I'm right I'm prepared for that. Instead they came at the end of the day. All excited, their eyes all bugging out of their head and they were like Dad. The actor didn't show up. The script didn't match.

38:49 The location at all? And when we asked you in the morning what were we gonna do? You said I don't know. We'll figure it out. We thought.

38:58 Just finally finally the the the movie that stumped my dad? But then by the end? We figured it out. Are all excited when oh they don't realize That's the creative process. That's every day on a movie. But it's also every day in life.

39:11 It's the same. And I realized on the making of that movie So little of what I was teaching them was filmmaking. It was all life lessons. How to take on this impossible

39:22 Challenge Two man crew making a feature. I didn't know we were gonna go to can. I actually didn't predict any of that. I just wanted to finish for the project. But you get blessed because of that. And uh the the label we created is'cause my son had come to me and said

39:37 I wanted to draw comics, but I'm not and it wasn't born in the golden age of comics, but I am born in the golden age of technology. So I'm thinking maybe instead of s doing storytelling through comics. give up the drawing thing and do it like with VR. So let's start a VR company. Let's start a company. I'll show you how this works.

39:54 All these VR companies need people to Buy their helmets, they need product. I call him up and say I'm I have a VR company. They'll give us money to go make them a short film. Sure enough.

40:04 I just said here. We're all have double R names, all the kids. The start a company call Double R. It's the label we made. So now we're gonna make t shirts, we're gonna make notepads. And they loved him. They were looking at him and go, because now any project any of you have, if Rihanna has an album she wants to do, or Rebel wants to put it on we can do it through double R.

40:22 It's our company. Now, when you have a company, you have a label. It's now manifested. Now you gotta do stuff to fill the you have to do stuff to put into it, right? You get all these ideas. Michelle Rodriguez and Norman Redis are in this movie called The Limit. Remember that one? Yeah. They made us a logo, double R logo, big logo. It went in front of our$7,000 movie also.

40:43 The went around the world. That same year, three projects in one year. I went to Netflix to ask what They needed any movies and they said, We need family. Spy kids type thing, can you come up with something?

40:55 Kinda came up with it in the room. People are always ripping off spike kids. I should just rip off myself. Little kids have to save their parents. Only what if they're superheroes and the parents are superheroes that get captured like The Avengers get captured. Little kids with superpowers. They don't know how to use them yet. And the little girl. Who has no powers.

41:12 has to wrangle them together to work together. To go save the day. Simple pitch, right? I wrote it out. Wrote it with my kids, we came up with all these fun special powers we've never seen in any movie. We took it, we sold it. It's the biggest movie on Netflix.

41:28 most watched and re-watched movie in their history, nothing can touch it, because kids watch it over and over. And over. And that has a big glorious the same double R logo in front of it. And my kids were just like Yeah. This really works. I was like better than I thought. I was just doing it as an example. I did not know it was gonna put food on the table in that way.

41:50 So I'm gonna do that again with Breast Knuckle, but with the fans, because we've done that before, because I told them Come be a part of it. Because proximity is everything. Remember I showed you that painter I went and watched? And how my painting changed.

42:04 Even though he didn't teach me one thing except I saw That he just had. A regular brush, regular paint. You didn't know how he was gonna attack it each time. It made you go like, oh, I thought I needed to know something. I had a mental block.

42:17 And I went and did it again and it was like there it was. It was unbelievable. The proximity sometimes to your loss. I tell people you come be a part of the company. The proximity to us as a filmmakers. making this stuff, you're gonna get ten ideas, twenty ideas on your own. You're gonna see your own thing. You'll be part of this, but it's almost like A master class without me even trying to teach you. That's just what I found by being proximity, by being around James Cameron, by being around George Lucas.

42:43 I've been around Spielberg. They didn't necessarily give me lessons, but just seeing how they move through the world, even for just a moment in time. transforms you completely. So let's say somebody's listening to this and those are big names. out of reach for most folks.

42:58 But they're equivalent in their world. Yeah. They're equivalent of people that they really admire. But if they just had proximity to them, they didn't even have to get a lesson from them and they would just it would just change.'Cause you're just You know, your parents used to tell you this. Be careful who your peers are. That meant one thing when you were younger. It means even more now when you're older. Like surround yourself with people who are heavy hitter. We talk to each other all the time because it just raises our game. I remember you coming over to my house and seeing, Hey, what chopper is that that you use you know you're like seeing upgrades that you can have to twice. Proximity. You pick stuff up.

43:32 Can you say more about labels and So label, I'm gonna give them my favorite label example. And it's a thing I realized now when I did the audiobook that I already knew. And had forgotten. People would come up to me sometimes and tell me some quote from my book and I would be like That's my book? I was smart back then, what happened?

43:50 But there was something I said. In the book saying Stop. Aspiring. Stop saying you're an aspiring filmmaker. People come up to you, I'm an aspiring filmmaker.

44:00 The words we use are really strong. You're always going to be aspiring. You're never going to get there if you call yourself somebody who's on the journey. Say you're a filmmaker. Make a card. Make a bus I said, make a business card that says I did.

44:13 Director, cinematographer, editor. Then what do you have to do? Just like the label, you have to conform to your identity. You have to go do that stuff now. And suddenly I have movies out. You go make movies because that's what a filmmaker does. What does an aspiring filmmaker do? Spires. Yeah. You inspire.

44:30 I knew that back then, but I'd forgotten it. And the reason I remember it is Okay, for you you always remark Hey Robert, you're always in good shape. Did I ever tell you I I hate sports. I hate working out. Did I ever tell you that? I'm not sure you tell me. All through high school. They would want me to be on the team.

44:47 Small school, so tall. Please come be on our team. I was like, I don't need sports football. Any of them. Basketball, football. We need players, and you're so big. Come be on the I was like, I don't even know how these games are played. I've never followed sports. I'm a filmmaker. I'm an artist. I'm a musician. And there's a line in the faculty Elijah Wood says, that's my line, I used to tell people, I don't think you should run unless you're being chased. I just did not love exercise at all. But then later when I was making movies, my back kept going out because I was doing steady cam because I was sitting drawing for long hours. My back every year would go out really bad where I needed like a walker. And uh Cortison shots, you know quarter sun shots on my back. I remember Ricardo Montalban and his wheelchair for and I had a walker. Spike gets to my back and then he goes

45:28 Right. I'm eighty-four, what's your excuse? You have to work out. It's like I know, I know, but I don't know wow. I hate sports, I hate working out. The next year I worked with Stallone. Spike is too.

45:42 How can I get better shape so my back doesn't keep going out he goes get the a trainer Anyone who ever Not anywhere. physically at a trainer. Say even you? Don't you know don't you just go train no. She said no no I

45:55 I I'd rather you know rearrange my sock drawer than go work out. I was like, Well even if you even need a trainer, well what chance do us mortal men have? So I got a trainer. And I would hide from him. I would pay him not to show up. I hated it. I hated working out. I would feel sick when he's coming over and I would half ass The workouts, you know,'cause I hate it.

46:15 So this woman friend of mine from Mexico Older woman. My doctor told me I have to stop smoking so I'm not smoking right now, said You're gonna go back to smoky. Because your identity is a smoker.

46:25 You're saying you're a smoker. You're gonna go back. You have to change your identity. You have to say I'm a non smoker. I'm a non

46:33 Smoker 'Cause then if you just identify yourself as that, you're gonna then conform. your identity and you're gonna what does a non smoker do? They hate smoke. Makes him sick. Stay away from cigarettes.

46:44 Alright, I'll try that. I don't know if it worked, because I didn't follow up, but right away I thought Hey, I should apply that to myself. What what the it's a good thing to go checklist yourself every few years. Where are some places that I'm not doing that, that I can change the label. So you know what I did? And you gotta go one eighty. If you go by degrees, you ain't gonna get anywhere.

47:02 Twenty percent, thirty percent bullshit. one eighty. Of course I hate working out. What do I say to myself all the time? I hate sports. I hate working out.

47:10 Hate exercise. I love food. I have to change my identity. What am I saying? I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete.

47:20 I'm an athlete by the next day. Everything changed. What does an athlete do? Loves to work out. Makes time to work out. There is no time, but you make time.

47:29 When you love something. You eat right. Because you're an athlete. As soon as your identity changes, your label You conform to that. So that's the power of

47:39 Identity in the words we choose to describe ourselves. I catch people all the time describing themselves and I go You gotta change that to scri you already out of the gate, you're talking about yourself in a way. That's not kind of helpful. Besides the aspiring which you mentioned.

47:53 Where people are handicapping themselves. Yeah. By labeling using that term. Within, say, filmmaking, are there other ways that you see people Handicap themselves?

48:06 Just in terms of how they view themselves or their situation or What they have or don't have or the any other. Common patterns that that come up. common ones. I don't know. It just kinda seems that anything that kinda takes you out of the game early by a belief you have. I don't have access or what everyone has access to. You have a phone you can make a actually a story on a phone or you can write or I just say whenever I hear anyone use some kind of negative

48:32 kind of taste into something like, Well, I wanna make something but I just don't have the time. It's like You just There's no time. If you're waiting for time to have, it's not gonna happen. All the time's gone. There's no time.

48:43 But we can make time. We can make time for anything that we put our mind to. So don't give me that shit. That's like taking A hatchet. And chopping off your left leg before the race. You literally did this to yourself.

48:55 Yeah. You just hobbled yourself for no reason with these beliefs. And it's all you. You're your own worst enemy. You're like the one in the audience in your way. The biggest obstacle in your life is you. Always. I asked you this question outside'cause I was curious what your answer was. But one of the questions that came up was So Robert, you're real positive. Do you have any human doubts? I wanted to come back to that, yeah, and your answer was no. Yeah, we'll come back to it. I just don't want to forget. It seemed like I could work it in here. Yeah, yeah, no, don't get after it. I wanted to because I'm sure a lot of people are like what? No doubts.

49:26 Yeah. Okay. So walk us through that. Yeah, so it it said Robert, you wrote positive.

49:33 Do you have any human doubts? And I said to give me a chance to think'cause I had never heard That way human does. But I say what do you all think? And then I see people going like Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.'Cause that's the real answer you would probably give.

49:47 But I like to do counterintuitive for everything. Seven. No. Why? Because that's a manifestation, isn't it? I have no human doubts.

49:56 Because I know the process too. You can't wait to be ready. They say noing's half the battle. What's the other half? Not knowing. I think that's more important because that's where the magic is. You don't know what the other half of knowing is. Yeah, not knowing is the major part of the battle. I got there to the set.

50:13 I didn't know I was gonna do any of it, but as soon as I saw how limited the options were suddenly it became very clear there was only one way to do it. And if you have that confidence going into each day. You shouldn't have any doubt. You shouldn't have any fear.

50:28 A failure? My biggest successes came from my failure. So why would I fear that? What doubts I couldn't think of any. Can you think of a doubt I should have? Like give me an example of one that doubt you think or even you, what doubts would you have? Uh I think I need to basically take the last four minutes and just listen to it every morning. I just need to replay that every morning. I think it's a good reminder. Okay, but what doubt you'll tell you, I mean, and this is a good question. But like I grew up in a in a household where there is a lot of There's a lot of negativity. And there's a lot of

51:00 We don't have X because we're never gonna have Y because. We can't ever have Z because Yeah, no, exactly. So right now you've got your own history now. Instead of that history. No, totally. So there's there's software to overwrite. Yeah. And those are formative years. So yeah, that's that's. And I can't think of any excuses that you should have. Well, just you even. What what doubts would you think you would have? Just so I can hear because then I go, Okay, I agree with that. I just hadn't thought of any. The spot the it was so on the spot, I was wondering what you would answer on the spotlight. You know what I appreciate about the question is how

51:37 effective it is at making you stumble because of the human doubt. Human doubts doubts. Let's just drop human doubt. No. But just doubt I'm like, wow, that's masterful. Have you dropped that judo move. Doubts. Do you what doubts do you have? It it they wanted to humanize you'cause you sound like Superman when you talk. You know, a lot of times when we give these talks everyone thinks you're Superman. But we know each other. We know that we we all have Weaknesses and this and that. But we don't want that and we don't want to manifest that so we don't dwell in it. My inclination would be if I were on stage in your place, I probably would have said yes. But then if we dug a little deeper into what that means to me, I think it would differ from probably how a lot of people would use it. Right. So I would have doubts in the sense that I don't know how something is gonna turn out. But that doesn't mean that I don't.

52:27 Get started. And that doesn't mean that I Stop experimenting because My whole thing is like look For instance, like I'm launching this game, people are like, what?

52:37 A game? Like that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't connect to the other things that you're doing. And I'm like, exactly. Because I wanna see you. what's behind door number three and I'm not gonna know. Unless I do this thing that's off menu. So what like what are you gonna do with it? What's next? I have no idea.

52:51 Because Anything I could plan now is not going to be as interesting as a lot. That is going to surface. If I do well. with whatever the next step is in front of me. That's it.

53:02 That's all I need to figure out. And a lot of the time you're As you said, you're gonna get there. And circumstances will have changed. The thing that was supposed to get shipped from the warehouse isn't there.

53:17 Okay. And actually, you know, side story, I'll keep it super short and then I wanna actually ask you about A name that came to mind when you said The creative life. Because then I thought the creative act and I thought Rick Rubin, and I know you've met Rick Rubin, so I want to ask about that. But

53:34 When I had my very first presentation of South by South West, two thousand seven. It was the launch of the four hour work week and I had put together The most incredible presentation of my life. I had rehearsed at a friend's garage to his chihuahuas. That was the only test audience I had. And if they got bored and walked away, I I had to change my my presentation. That was the only fine tuning. But I was so proud of this huge deck that I put together.

54:01 PowerPoint. I get to the venue, my computer crashes. Here we are. Now what? Gotta roll up the sleeves now. And it ended up being so much better than if I had used the slides. It ended up being so much better because I'd rehearsed enough that I knew the material. I didn't need the visual references. That was a self doubt that I had that I wouldn't be able to give it without the slides. Yes. And then the slides went away and it was better than I So you might have it and so you could have a doubt, but you're not gonna Live and breathe by that, you're gonna push past it really quickly because

54:31 You should have fear. You should have some fear going into something. Yeah. I call it fear forward. Fear forward. Yeah, fear forward. Yeah. Like have the fear, but don't Don't let it cripple you. Just go forward knowing you're doing something that's outside of your comfort zone and you're gonna reap great benefits. Yeah. You might slip on the first two rocks.

54:49 It might be four rooms. But if you don't look at it with a negative point of view, you turn it into spine gets. I told somebody that years ago they went fear for it, I like this. I guess that's kinda catchy. But I tell you I got to tell my kids this after we did this project together. I said, now you really know. how it works. Because like

55:08 My son Racer said he was helping me with the with the film, right? By the end of the two weeks, they interviewed him about it. He's waxing philosophical about the creative process like he's been doing it for a decade. Yeah. He said, I never knew how my dad Did Mariachi.

55:24 Mm. Every day. Well Everything was just falling apart, but we'd figure it out. Every day was figuring it out. But I never knew how he did that movie for no money, but now I do'cause we just did it.

55:34 Yeah. He didn't know either. He just started. Most people never start. He figured it out day by day. And now he knew it in his blood because he had just done it. So I got them together, I said This was the greatest project we could have done together when you work with your kids.

55:49 'Cause they get to be in the boat with you figuring stuff out. They see you. trying to figure it out and they're figuring they're part of the solution. We're gonna get into this because I'm gonna talk about nepotism. Why anyone Who says anything negative on him is you just get slapped in the face and kicked on the balls by their kids. It'll blow your mind. All right, we're gonna come back. But we'll get back to it. But this is the main thing. This is the main thing about this.

56:11 Is that I told him If I ever get hit by a bus. You all know what to do now,'cause we just did it. It's all life lessons. Yeah. You get together.

56:22 You make your plan, which is like your script. You make it as bulletproof as possible. So then you can go do your film shoot, so you can go take action. Watch all fucking fall apart. It's like your projector thing.

56:35 And then that's when you roll up your sleeves. You go. Now let's take this chicken shit and make chicken salad. And it always comes out. Better.

56:43 It always comes out better than your original plan. Yeah. Every time. Wash, rooms, repeat, that's life. You just learn the most valuable lesson of life on this little microcosm of what life is, which is a movie. Cause remember, life and art should be the same. You're writing a story.

56:59 And you're writing your own story while you're doing it, the story of who you are and who you're gonna become and what you're gonna achieve. as you're writing a fake story. That's why they go together. That's why people identify with stories. You're literally we're writing our own story. So do you have doubts?

57:13 Yeah, but I'm gonna write past it. I'm gonna write my story to where I'm not the guy that has doubts. So that's the power of Creativity. And labeling. And that's a label. Am I gonna say I'm a guy who has doubt? No, because then guess what? I now I have doubts. Yeah. And if there is a doubt, I can identify, I'm sure, like you just did, figure out a way past it right away.

57:32 So that's why I I would just say blanket. I don't I don't have any doubts because I don't want to be the guy that has doubts. Then I'm gonna figure out you know, it's kinda like you have to make your business card first that says a guy with no doubts. I'll add that to it. I have no doubts. I remember uh Kevin Smith, filmmaker. Clerks and all that. He sent me a script called Dogma. You said I wrote this script.

57:51 It's got special effects. It's all out of my wheelhouse. So but you wrote it. And he goes, yeah, but you it's definitely a Robert Rodriguez movie. You direct it. Why don't you want to direct it? It's it's too big for me. Well now you have to make it. You fear forward. You're doing something that pulls you out of your wheelhouse.

58:08 And you're gonna he was so thankful that I told him that and that he did it. Gave him the permission to go do it and it it transformed his career, you know, because now he wasn't doing The comfort zone, he was now going in way be reaching way beyond so fear forward, get out of the comfort zone. That means you're on the right track. If you don't have fear on something you're gonna do that day. Probably fucking wasting your time. You're doing something that you're just spinning your wheels. So you wanna put yourself out there.

58:34 Does not The same as having doubt, I don't think. I think it's just it's a it's a good litmus test. I have a little bit of doubt that this is my daughter's gonna be able to formor because it's it's the first time in front of a crowd. She may get nervous. I no no, she's never seen a crowd. She might step out and see the crow and freeze, who knows? But I don't wanna put that out there because I don't wanna manifest that. I wanna manifest and we're gonna have cameras filming, we're gonna make this a big moment. And she rose to the occasion because she looked like a seasoned vet. So far. Uh so Rick Rubin, his very first podcast, as far as I'm aware, was on this podcast, the Tim Ferris show. Ages ago. It was in his sauna. He actually he actually didn't think I was gonna say yes because he had a barrel.

59:16 At what was Shangri La in Malibu ended up burning down. Sadly, this is quite a few years ago now, but He said, Okay, okay, we'll do the podcast. At that time he basically did Next to no media. And he said, We'll do the podcast, but it has to be in the song. And we're gonna do the sauna and then cold plunge and then sauna. And I was like, all right. Just sweat it down. So we did it in the sauna. Now the one thing

59:39 we neglected to consider was not the temperature of the recorder, because I could put that on the floor and it was fine. It was the mic. So we had to wrap those in towels as we as we did the interview. But you got to meet Rick. handful of years ago. Yeah. What was that like? I don't wanna even speculate. I mean I have my own guesses.

59:59 It's like how you guys might Measure interact, but what was that like? Oh, it was wonderful. He showed up at my house. Okay.

1:00:08 You know, he used in town producing a band. I heard he wanted to meet, so I said, Yeah, you can just come to the house. So he shows up at my house. So I figured oh he He's probably heard some of my podcast stuff very similar to you know, his his creativity. We all approach it differently and we all have our own theories, like

1:00:22 So he shows up and he goes. I don't know who you are. Or what you do. Worrying about you. But I had a feeling I was supposed to come meet you.

1:00:32 You came to the right place. I'm gonna show you My house. You know see my creative. I'm gonna talk about my house. I'm talking about how I Drew it first, envisioned it. Built it. By the time I finish telling you about my house, you'll know who I am.

1:00:45 So I go on and I give him the whole tour and and he's like, Okay, okay, yeah. That's just like my house. It might have been the one in Malibu. That's just like my house in somewhere. And he goes, We're the same guy. So we go outside where my waterfall is and my phone we sit and he puts his feet up. And we just start talking. I just start he just wants to hear about us. I start telling him what we're talking about. All his creativity and my whole spiel on it. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going on and going on and going on and going on. I'm doing most of the talking.

1:01:11 And then As we're just leaving. He said, I want to give you My book. I'm about to put out a book. This book wasn't out yet. So he ran in the car, came back out.

1:01:21 And it was just like a galley version of the book. Yeah. I said, what is this? And he goes. Actually so pretty much everything we were just talking about is in there. I was like really okay, well I'm gonna give you my book. So I gave my books the picture I have, I'll show you is him with my book in front of my house. Oh that's and then he left. And then when he left, I'm reading I'm like, oh my God. I read the book, it's so similar but different to things that I owe'cause we all come at it from a different

1:01:45 Area. But his solutions Or similar but different because it's from a different world than mine. Same question, same kind of things. It's that hive brain. I don't know. And you said this before, you said Because you're creative, I know other creatives like this.

1:02:00 You have one foot in the magic realm. And it's like when your foot's in there, you pick up the signal from the other. So you all kind of get ideas from each other before you even met. It's why you knew to show up. And I've had people just show up. Drawn there, known they're supposed to be there, not knowing why. It's kind of magical thing that when you get into the creativity world, you really are tapping into the universe in a way to get your ideas because your your brain's not smart enough. I'm not smart enough to come up with these ideas. They're out there. You know, and everyone in every discipline has a different line for that. Like Keith Richards says

1:02:30 I don't come up with these riffs. They're all floating around. I was just the first one to pull it down and use it. You know, they all have their version of that, that it's not from them. That's the best way to think'cause then then there's no ego evolved. And if you have no ego, then it's just

1:02:42 You're a conduit for this creative spirit to come through you. Well, then you can do anything. I can be a good pipe, but just get my ego out of the way and let it come through. 'Cause you know, when you're in a flow, you know, you start I don't want to write this book. And then you start writing it. The first few lines come out. And it starts going, you can't even believe what's coming out. It's because Creative spirit, my theory is.

1:03:01 Doesn't have hands. It's waiting for you to get off your ass. And pick up the pen and then it can help. Take over. And so always take action. That's why I say always take action. Don't wait to be inspired.

1:03:13 Action first, inspiration second. Yeah. Cause if you wait to be inspired, like to make your short film. Good luck. They ain't ever coming. But if you just start making the film, Ideas you never in a million years would have come up with. come into your head because it's not you.

1:03:29 It's coming through you now. It's like finally. You're gonna go make that film we've been wanting to make. Creative Spirit must be very disappointed in people who don't take action, who sit there. And I tell you where I figured this out. When I was a cartoonist at nineteen. Yeah. I had a daily cartoon strip. It'd have to take me hours to draw it. I would have to draw a little bit, try to figure out a joke, and I'd have a deadline every day or I wouldn't get paid. I needed the money. I already had two jobs.

1:03:54 So one day I thought I gotta figure out a better, easier way. Wonder if I could just come up with a method where I go home. Fit. And just try and picture it. Just picture it and then go draw it.

1:04:06 And I'd sit there for hours and be like deadlines over Oh shit I gotta go do I just have I'd have to pick up the pen and draw and as soon as I started drawing, I would draw one drawing Three others that I was kinda oh this kinda drawing kinda goes with that. I put that there and then that would be formulated. That's the process. It's not gonna come to you if you're just sitting on your ass waiting for it to make magic. You have to physically pick up the pen.

1:04:29 Pick up the camera. Pick up the guitar. And then it's like Thank God because it doesn't have hands. Now I can come. Now let me take over. And that's the whole magic of creativity. So you shouldn't have any doubts if you could do it. As soon as you Say

1:04:44 Wow, I don't know how I did that. I wonder if I can do it again. You just shut the pipe. 'Cause your ego got in the way. You thought it was you. It's not you. Coming through you. So just be a clear pipe.

1:04:54 I know that works because I taught that to my kids. In a class. When they were younger. And right away they each wrote a book. It was unbelievable.'Cause they didn't have any

1:05:04 Anything to unlearn. You know they didn't have any experience yet. Where we all have more doubts now'cause we're all like, uh you know, it's like that that thing where you teach a Class full of grade school kids. Who can write a novel? Who can be the president? Who can do an opera? Who can dance belly? They all put their hands up'cause they don't know better.

1:05:22 You keep asking them as the years go on. hands start going down. Even with no life experience. They just all stop believing. They're that person without any Evidence that they're not. I always wanted to be that kid with his hand up. No matter what. Even if it's something I didn't know how to do.

1:05:38 Put your hand up. Because you'll figure it out as you go. Don't have a doubt. Just go do it. Just go do it. Seems to be working for you. It's that it's that do you remember that movie Being There with Peter Sellers? He's so naive. He's just a gardener. Yeah. But he gets hit by

1:05:54 car he ends up in Washington. And everyone thinks he's so smart because he's just talking about the garden and they all read into him. And by the end, he walks Across. The lake.

1:06:07 Oh. Because he's doesn't know you can't. It's the most beautiful movie you can see. Peter Sellers, I think, got an Oscar for nomination on these. And it's amazing. And you're just like, oh my God, they all think he's this prophet. And everyone's quoting him and doing their own version of what he's saying, but he's just saying. When the roots are strong. The garden will flourish and everybody's like

1:06:29 Yeah. But that naive quality. You wanna keep that naive quality. That's what got me to do mariachi. I didn't know it couldn't be done. It was only till later when people said How'd you make that movie for seven thousand dollars? You know that's impossible.

1:06:43 Really? Didn't seem that hard, but if you're telling me I c I guess I just followed my nose and I ended up at the top of Mount Everest somehow. I wasn't trying to do that. But it to some people it was impossible, but to me it was just solutions I came up with. To make up for what I didn't have. Yeah. What does your journaling look like these days? Or what inside. I'm hope I can inspire everybody in a journal.

1:07:06 'Cause it's really weird. I go do a talk and I say, How many people keep a diary or journal? Could be like a group of four hundred people. I'll see two hands. Yeah. Three hands. I'm like, oh my God, if I can leave you with any impression.

1:07:20 My big thing now I tell people this is my theory. Living is reliving. Because You know, you go to a like a concert and people have their Video cameras up and everybody said, put it away, live in the moment.

1:07:33 Counterintuitive. I say. The moment. Fleets. Yeah. You're not gonna even remember it tomorrow.

1:07:41 Do you even remember who was standing next to you to yesterday? You know, like from day to day, it just goes by'cause we see life At ninety six. Frames per second. 20k resolution. Surround sound. Like right now I'm looking at you, but I can see there's a glass here. I can see in the peripheral there's someone over here operating this thing.

1:08:00 A year from now. Five. And then ten. All our three pound meat computer can process. They might have a file photo of you in a t shirt and me in a t shirt because we kinda remember each other that way, but the metadata will be some kind of narrative that

1:08:15 We spoke and had a good time. Yep, that's it. That's all you're gonna have. And when you journal I'm shocked. I was trying to figure out when I

1:08:24 bought certain guitars. I couldn't remember. I knew some were gifted, but I couldn't remember. I just did a word search in my journals because I have a year by year journal. Guitar, guitar, guitar. So I'd read and it shocked me that, oh wow, I thought I bought this one. It was a gift from this person. How can I not remember that? This is a big guitar. This is like a$10,000 guitar. How how would I not remember that? And I would read a little bit of the diary around it. I was floored. Have you go back ten years? Yeah, even fifteen years. It's like you're reading someone else's journal. You're reading someone else's journal. And it's like, I guess I just have to take it for what it's there.

1:08:56 Well, my mom actually gave me a box of papers. that was sitting in one of the rooms in my childhood home She said, What do you want to do with this? And I opened it up. And In that box were printed out emails that I had sent my mom when I was fifteen from Japan.

1:09:16 To tell her what I was up to. And I did not remember. That was one of the most formative experiences of my life. I have a lot of memories from that period. I did not remember ninety nine percent. of what I put in those emails. It's got like a dehydrated version that you have to put water on to reconstruct, but even then it it mostly just fades away. You don't even recognize it. So it's so important to keep to your history, but imagine what's your favorite jokes? And your favorite things about life that you share with your brothers, your family, your you know

1:09:43 It's all past stuff. So living is reliving. My kids now love watching the movies of them growing I I shot so much video and kept journals of all their childhood. They all journal now, but I they have their whole childhood because I gave them the journals of their childhood. They got their whole life journaled. But I've been showing them home movies recently because I've been digitizing all the old tapes. And I thought they're not gonna dig this. Some of this shit looks like VHS. It's so

1:10:05 Cruddy and Compared to today's H D stuff. I was showing them footage of them younger. And I have tons of it. I thought later in life I could re watch and relive their wonderful childhood, right?

1:10:17 Forget it. I don't remember even filming this stuff. It's like new adventures of we're watching it not knowing what's gonna happen next. And they're watching it. I saw my son leaning into the screen to see what was around the corner. I said, you just leaned into the screen. They said, Oh wow, I I left the living room.

1:10:34 This is like virtual reality to me. I was like, wow, that's interesting. Then I realized why. Compared to our memory? That's virtual reality, even the crappiest VHS tape. You hear the sounds, you see the place.

1:10:47 You start Reformulating. They cannot stop watching it. Every time they come over, we watch new fun tape. And we find classic new things that become benchmarks of humor and jokes that become iconic. Reliving is living.

1:11:01 Like my mom Turn seventy five, and I said. We gotta do something for your seventy fifth birthday and she said, No, no, no, no, no. What don't want anything done. Why not? Cause nothing can top my sixty fifth birthday. Sixty fifth. What happened then?

1:11:14 Oh, you gave me a car and you flew in everybody from out of town. I was like, really? I don't remember that. It was only 10 years before. I must have tape. I looked it up. Found the tape put it in. Oh my God, I didn't remember any of this. So I recut the tape. Took it to her and we had a big party and I showed the tape. She was crying more. Now she knows.

1:11:32 But she gets the key, what it means. She's like, oh my god. That's like I don't have to do anything anymore, we're just playing the old tapes. It was more appreciated the second living is reliving because it does that's when it becomes iconic. And in the moment this is all just flying by and we don't know what's important. It's only by journaling that you go. This person's no longer with us.

1:11:52 What he said changed my life and I didn't know and I forgot that he told me this at this time. If I had not journaled that. So if your life is worth anything. write it down. Cause then you'll be surprised how much of it is more valuable than you think. And you're only gonna know that by journaling. What's your process? It's like end of day, word day, twelve twelve AM an alarm goes off.

1:12:14 says journal. 'Cause I figure by Twelve at night. I will finish with most bullshit, but I can actually sit and do it. I've actually got

1:12:23 My partner. Writing. Journal now. Never kept a journal before. Because of the stuff I just said. Yeah.

1:12:31 Starting to see the value in it. And they send me their journal too. That's always the best. If your partner also journals seeing someone else's perspective on a big event, I see you have to journal every day if you don't want, but at least the big events. Valentine's, Christmas, birthday, special trip. Journal I'm not taking on a trip at Journal for me and give me that as a gift. Bullets points, I used to sometimes just do bullets just like I'll try to might more now. Cause I've gone back I try to write more just more detail about what happened. Just just

1:12:59 Now I know. It goes away. It's not gonna trigger your memory. In the earlier days If I only had time to write some bullet point type stuff, I would just do that because you accumulate. No.

1:13:13 Yeah. It's someone else's journal. Yeah. Just know that. Even like Seven years ago, before my son started writing music for me.

1:13:22 He had told me I found a diary and she said, Rebel told me his one year, five year, and ten year plan. It was great. I was like, What did he r what did he tell me? I don't remember. And I asked him, Did you have it somewhere? He goes, Oh yeah, I have it on my phone. Oh shit, it's not on my phone, it's in my diary. Oh please find it and send it because now I want to know. Now I want to know because your whole life changed after that. I really want to know now. With more

1:13:45 Interest than when you first told me. Because now we know that that whatever you said is not the path that ended up. And so yeah, journaling This is so powerful and so needed because You think you're gonna remember.

1:13:58 It's just a meat computer. It's it's Not gonna Remember it at all. And now I just find myself having to leave myself breadcrumbs all day as my memory's fading anyway. Just to know what I'm doing, much less what I already did. Yeah. But it does become Iconic and you find some really fun stuff. And I find when we find a video, oh my God, this is the best thing. We find a video of us playing, having a great time, like 2003. And it the weird thing you'll find if you videotape your kids

1:14:25 And journal. You find these weird twenty year Full circle moments. You know, full circle moments like We just started working with a studio, their favorite animation studio in Japan. They love Japan. They love Japan. They're all about Japan. Japanese knife making. They build houses with no nails, my kids. Oh yeah, the joiner is amazing. I found the video tape.

1:14:47 First time I told him about Japan. Me telling them and I had I taped it'cause I wanted to see their reaction'cause it was like, you're gonna love this place. And you see their eyes light up and they watch it now and go, That was the moment of inception. That was the moment we never forgot and we built upon.

1:15:04 And to see that is amazing. But then you go back to the journal 'Cause there's stuff in the journal that's not on video and vice versa. And I go, wow, you know what we were doing, what what I was doing while we were playing all those games? I was wheeling and dealing big deals in LA for once upon time, Mexico and Cincinnati, or you know, and they see the context of what was happening in between those moments. And you get this clear picture of, oh my God, you can totally be. All in is a dad. And Allen is a businessman.

1:15:31 And that teach them about life. Like wow, you can have it all. You really can. You know, it just it just helps in so many ways. To document your life. Do you have any other? Parenting hacks. The biggest life hacks is just

1:15:43 Working with your kids. Like I said, I stumbled upon it, but then When I saw a racer. Being so excited about What he learned about the creative process. And then I realized Everything I was teaching them was life lessons.

1:15:55 I went from fearing that they were gonna resent me. To realizing I'm gonna make All of them. Work on a film of me.

1:16:02 That's just gonna be This is what you gotta do. Part of the deal. Not so that you can become a filmmaker. Because you're gonna learn more about life. These are life lessons.

1:16:11 And it's the best way to do it. It's project based. It's challenging. So my son, when we did we can be heroes. I thought, okay, he's done a few scores for me,'cause he he'd be playing piano. Since he was four. They all played piano. Just and it was just to connect right to left side of the brain. That's all we gave them that for. But he was our best piano player and he the ending did his last recital after high school was finished. And he was already doing knives, Japanese knives making. And he won Forged and Fire. Oh my God, did I tell you won Forged and Fire? My son got on when he was eighteen, got on Forge and Fire T and won.

1:16:43 That TV show. outdoing all these other blacksmiths he d because he'd been teaching himself Japanese knife making. And I asked him How did you win? You won$10,000. How did you what was your mindset? You were using tools you'd never even used before. They were just throwing stuff at you and problem solving, creative problem solving. And he gives me this samurai answer that I that I love, he said.

1:17:04 I convinced myself that I had already won. Somehow I won. So when I'd come up against the challenge, instead of thinking what I had to do to get past the challenge, I just needed to remember what I did. To get there.

1:17:16 But again, you'll come up with Innovation's when you're thrown into the fire. And so He was doing so good with the music, he composed a couple of scores for me, but they were just all synth based for Red Eleven for that short film that was a VR film.

1:17:36 We can be heroes, though. That's my bag. I do orchestral stuff. We'll do the score for that together. That way I can teach him orchestral scoring. That'll be the next stage. He writes the first piece, not even a picture. He saw what picture I was editing, he went and wrote it to me.

1:17:50 It's like John Williams was huge, it was massive. I was like Okay, yeah, sure. Let me check it out. I'll try the picture. I didn't want him to see me. Try it to picture. I put it to picture, it matched. I doubled it, tripled it, it fit this whole five minute sequence. I called him up 10 minutes later, come back up here and watch. It hits everything perfectly. If you could do more of this there, more of that there. He was stunned.

1:18:12 I said good news and bad news. Good news is It's awesome. Bad news is I can't help you at all. I don't know how you did this. Where did you learn music theory? They don't teach you that piano because I never learned theory and I was always proud of that.

1:18:26 That's the ten percent I thought you didn't need to know. No, I learned different how he can manipulate music because he knows theory. He goes, Oh, I learned it on YouTube. I was like, well, I'll tell you what, you're gonna have to write the whole score, but I'll help you. I'll be your assistant. I'll edit it. I'll show you how you can repeat themes. And he sat there and he did it. And he was just I could just see he was just under the gommet. I said, dude

1:18:47 This is the only way to learn. Throw you in the deep end. If you get a lung full of water, we'll fish you out. And his eyes were like this big. But years later, he came back to me and said, I'm so thankful you did that. My whole life changed because you put I I didn't know I could do it.

1:19:02 But I had no choice. He knew I could not help him. I wasn't doing it as some kind of weird teaching exercise. I had no I said, let me see your charts. The thing you have going on in the baseline only, I would do a whole score with that. How'd you come up with all this other s I I can't help you. And I remember the conductor said. Yeah, we recorded in Vienna.

1:19:22 Stops midway. I think you sent me a video of him conducting Yes. I he I said go learn on YouTube real quick. how to conduct. So I want you to conduct one of them because I want video of you with a James Bond orchestra conducting your own piece. Cause I never got to do that. Yeah. And it's you're so proud when your kids can take on the child and you see it just transforms their life. But he the Vienna conductor stopped the score and said. This is a magnificent score. I can't believe you're 20. He was 20 at the time. But again, you you throw your kids in the deep end. I tell this to all the parents I can. Because it's counterintuitive. A lot of parents would say, I don't want to push me, but I tell you, if you have the opportunity to work with your kids.

1:20:01 Do it. Because it enriches your life. Because you are Mentoring them. They're mentoring you because they're they're figuring out shit like that.

1:20:10 Which you never would have thought of. You're doing a project based thing together. that's impossible that you're all gonna overcome together. Now, how many parents do you know, like try to give their kids advice on On their job and the kids just like, Yeah, you don't you know no, you're not in my shoes. You're in their shoes. You're all trying to figure it out together.

1:20:27 So you're actually useful. You're not just some geppetto worried about their kid all the time. I always say don't just parent. Partner. 'Cause after a certain age, as soon as they're teenagers, they replace you with their peers because you become useless to them. If you win a relationship last long time, partner. Don't parent anymore. They they don't need a parent anymore. They need a partner. They need a mentor. They need an Obi Wan.

1:20:48 Because that's what they look for in their life, mentors. Be their mentor. their confidence grows when they're mentoring you back. And they're seeing their confidence source. And it's family time. You're checking all the boxes. I don't even do anything anymore. I don't take any job, any assignment.

1:21:03 Unless it's gonna involve my children. Because Life is so good that way. You're checking all the boxes. You're preparing them for life. You're learning from them. They're learning from you. And it's family time. I was telling this Just alone.

1:21:15 I was having dinner with Stallone and his wife. Yeah. Pre-Covid, right after COVID, something new. I just done We Can Be Heroes, this movie. The biggest movie on Netflix. And I was telling my son did score, I wrote it with my kids and all this. And Jennifer.

1:21:29 It's like Her eyes were just wide, like, whoa. She hits the lawn. She goes. You don't work with your daughters. You don't work with your daughters these time. I was like I was like well man I wanna get anybody in trouble here, but you know, maybe I should reel it back a little bit. But sure enough.

1:21:46 Next year. His daughters have podcasts he would show up every once in a while to help you know boost some ratings and stuff. Now they have a TV show. Family Stalone. All of them together, working together, they live in that dream.

1:21:59 And they're just so happy. So I tell people 'Cause they people can unhear it when they hear it. They just need to know someone did it and that it worked. To know oh.

1:22:09 I have a way to try that. with my kids. Cause I didn't know my kids wouldn't want it to work. And you know what happened was my kids teacher told me You know your son Racer when he was like fifteen. He loves knights. We're studying knights and we're talking about squires and I asked, Well who would you want to apprentice under? And he said, My dad I was like

1:22:26 Really? He's never told me that. Did you say? Yeah, he said it to your dad. It's like wow. How'd that feel there? It was wild. It made you sh see

1:22:35 Kids have egos too. Yeah. They don't want to go and just tell you that. They won't they might tell someone else, but they're not gonna tell you. So don't assume. Don't assume they don't want to be part of your life. Or be part of your work.

1:22:47 So I've been working with my kids since they're very young. I didn't know it would keep going. For twenty years, you know. And now it's just become the thing that we do. And they

1:22:57 endlessly inspire me because they they just have that confidence built in. But we're building a go kart together. So I tell I know some parents would dismiss it as uh an opportunity like that. And call it entitlement, but wow, you're so wrong. So wrong, let me set you straight. Because this would be, you know, a curse on your life if you don't at least know this. I would say I'm curious if you agree or not, or if you have your own position on it.

1:23:22 I would say that if you have an opportunity to work with your children, You're in that position,'cause I don't know, maybe not all jobs adapt to that, but Take it. It's a tremendous gift. To everyone.

1:23:31 involved and beyond. Cause if you refuse to do so. 'Cause you're afraid other people will call it nepotism. You are missing out the most important opportunity. of your collective lives.

1:23:44 Because look what happens. As parents when we pass away. Don't we just give everything that we Created. To our children.

1:23:53 Is that not entitlement? They had no part. And building. There was an opportunity to build this for them so that when they inherit it, they could go. I made this.

1:24:04 With my dad. Right. Right. So it's like Oh, thanks, Dad. For all the shit that I had no part of

1:24:15 That you went made without me. Being involved at all. Getting that chance to have that mentorship go both ways. To build something together. To have that family time together.

1:24:27 Because you were afraid someone would call you up. Sure. Neptism. Thanks. I'm having a ball and it's inspiring everyone who's a parent.

1:24:37 To go partner. Instead of parent their child. And have a relationship to last your whole life. Yeah. I mean what strikes me about it also, I mean there's Trust fund kids or trust affarians have a have a new term. Well, it's it's not exactly the same, but it gets used similarly. Nepo babies, right? Mm-hmm.

1:24:56 Yeah, but the connotation of that word I don't think applies to you at all because At least and this is not the Merri Webster definition, but when I think of nepotism, there is a Sort of unearned giving. Yeah. Implied. Right. Right.

1:25:11 There's an unearned giving implied. And then There is Teaching. Which you do.

1:25:20 And then there is another thing I would say a step above that. Which is Enabling someone specifically to have the confidence that they can figure it out, that they can learn, right? You didn't tell your son to go to YouTube and learn music theory. But you put him in situations, or you hinted at forthcoming situations.

1:25:41 That would require A lot of tap dancing. And figuring things out. And if we were to create some type of like Maslow's hierarchy.

1:25:53 Of working with your kids. There are different things you can impart or give, and I would say the lowest level is giving someone a fish, right? Instead of teaching them to fish. But then above teaching someone to fish, teaching your kids to fish. Is saying hey, whether it's

1:26:11 Piano fishing music theory. Or something that you are gonna come up with on your own is a solution to a problem or a challenge or a dream that I can't even think of. I'm gonna put you into enough circumstances that you have the confidence You can fear for you в конфіденці. Yeah.

1:26:31 Not knowing is half the battle, but you will get there. You can tell them that stuff all you want, but when they're doing it with you, they learn so much. Exactly. I mean that's why I said you sit even after the couch with your hands behind your trying to come up with the comic strip. It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. But you can tell them all that, but it's different when they've lived it too. That's why I did the whole if I get hit by a bus, you know what to do because it's now they know it in their bones. When I we did a talk in Columbia with a with a seven thousand dollar movie that we did together, me and the boys we went, they flew us down there to go talk and everyone was Columbia. These guys live in poverty, they were leaning forward to find out how to make a movie with no money. So they could get out of there. And we're talking

1:27:10 And one woman was asking a question about screenwriting and I was giving my answer and Racer said,'Cause he had written the script with me now. He wanted to stand up and say, what he's saying is really true because he had lived it already. It wasn't this is stuff he'd heard before, but now it really sank in because he was there. Yeah. And what's cool is if you build your family up like your team like that, you know what I hear so much now that I hadn't for probably'cause I'm older and I've been around. longer, a lot of people will just assume I'm too busy to do whatever project I'm doing alone. So they say, Yeah, we can't wait to work with you and your team. Yeah. Most people have a team. Yeah. My team is my kids. Yeah.

1:27:46 And it gets us more jobs. Like a video game company wanted a be in partnership with me and say, well let me tell you who my team is. All my kids are gamers. I got them into games when they were really little. They know this world inside out. One of them's even a game designer. That's my team and they're in my house. We love

1:28:02 This, we want to work with you. We're gonna take it to the next level because We've done this other project and this other project and this was the process we did. Th done deal. We're doing it now. Now my kids get to make a game. A real game, like a big ass game. And you get to do it together because you've already trained them to be And it used to be a joke when I had so many kids, I had five kids. I would say oh yes my future casting crew. I would just say it as a joke. Hey it turned out to be true. They're my casting crew. So

1:28:28 Is there Anything to the story of the double R's besides the fact that you have the double R's is there more to it? Yeah, double R's just I'm from a family of ten kids. My mom's name is Rebecca and my sister's name is Rebecca. My we're the only double Rs. My mom, my sister, and me.

1:28:45 And I always just love the Alliteration, I know, like the double R's. It was it was really powerful. R Rebecca Rodriguez. No. Robert Rodriguez. So once you name the first kid with an R name, well then the second one and then the third one for and I give them regular middle names so they didn't have to be. You know, so like is rocket

1:29:05 Valentine Rodriguez Avian. He can be Valentin Avian, or you can be Rock Rodriguez, or Race Rodriguez or Maximiliano Avian. They can If they want to go into politics and not be pro wrestlers, they can change their name. you know but i didn't know they were gonna keep those names past childhood i thought it was just fun kit names yeah everybody has five names one is Bro, Joaquin Cecilio Rodriguez has five names. So he can pick his identity. I wanted him to just use it as a time he has to fill out a government. Yeah. I'm not gonna use that. But they've didn't want to get rid of their first names. They love their first names. So I thought let's keep if everyone's keeping their first name, let's own it. Double R is kind of a cool logo. What's fun was that um it just looks cool. Double R, but it means all of us. And it makes us like a tribe and it makes us all and it gave them a lot of pride. I was surprised how much pride they had in it, and they all started coming up with ideas. Rick Rubin comes over and he saw them

1:29:54 He goes, that that was my artist name when he was a you know a DJ was double R he was double Right. Yeah. That's amazing. This is one of my other favorite things that when I've told parents. They go, I want to try that with my kids.

1:30:10 It was something I stumbled upon. No, we're having some kind of family talk with the kids. We usually have these things we call tribe talks. We talk about anything, it's like we're a tribe, like we help each other out. They get so excited about a tribe talk. And the tribe talk is like asking one another for help. I just a if I I have a new thing I'm gonna talk about that's gonna affect their lives later. Have a tribe talk about this. They're like so excited as they learn about something that I want to share with them to prepare them for life.

1:30:36 Something that I might have just learned that I wish I could take a time machine and tell myself. You can't. Closest thing too is telling your children. I used to think. Any advice I give them, I'm afraid might probably just go in one ear and out the other because

1:30:48 It's not real to them yet. They probably have to live through it and find their own mistakes. No, they would process it and give it back to me. I would be like Where'd you get that philosophy? You told me that. I didn't tell it to you like that. I said I might have said glass is half empty or half full. Oh yeah, well we built upon it. Well they take what you tell them and build upon it, right.

1:31:07 So this one was I thought I'm gonna be very honest with him. And tell him. All the major decisions I made in life, walk'em through 'Cause uh there's a funny scene. It came we got because of a movie, we did another Spy Kids.

1:31:20 There's a thing where the parents are talking about Operation Fireball with such memories about it. And the little girl asked, What is that exactly? Oh, we beat up the bad guy. We blew up his lair and all this stuff. And she's just like You could have done it a better way. You could have gone to him nicely. You could have talked to him, seen his aesthetic, you know. And it plays it out, right? So I thought I'm much rather with my kids. I bet if I told them all the decisions I was faced with. That a lot of times or lose lose. There's no there's no clear way to go.

1:31:46 And then you think ten years later you'll see what the real answer should have been? Nothing. There's never clarity sometimes. I'm curious to see what they would have done. With the knowledge more evolved. So I walk him through. It was fascinating.

1:32:01 It was fascinating. At every turn. Okay. A or B? Which way would you go? I'm not gonna tell you what I did.

1:32:11 They both suck. And do you know what they say? I don't wanna have to pick. No, you have to pick. I had to pick. You have to pick. They picked every time it was the same. Until one.

1:32:21 There you go. It's a big one, you know. Well if that's the circumstances, that's what the knowledge you have, we go, Yeah, that's all the knowledge you have. I would have done what you did too. I would have left. I should have done that, I didn't.

1:32:34 I stayed. Let me tell you what happened because I stayed. I should have done that. I knew I should have done that. But I went ahead and stayed because that's the right thing to do. I did the right thing. And it blew up in my face. Watch.

1:32:44 The right thing by external external external status. Anyone else? Counterintuitive though. But say With the evidence you have. Counterintuitive as it sounds you should go that way.

1:32:58 So you picked the right thing. I should have done that, but because I decided to do the right thing. She just felt so good after and they were so excited knowing now what life really is like. It's gonna throw shit at you that's no clear answer. Even All this time, no clarity. They know that it's a lot tougher.

1:33:17 And they're invested because it's you and them in a way. So I tell parents, I I tell I'll tell you, but several hours away. I'm gonna try that with my kids for sure. That's all my kids say. I'm curious to see what they say. But you might be surprised that it's just as unfathomable to them to have an answer. As you did. Uh okay, life hack. My favorite life hack.

1:33:41 I showed you that little spark amp, right, that I can play guitar with it. Yeah, okay, okay. You know. No time. Even when you try to make time, you can't make consistent time. supposed to walk ten thousand steps, you know, for your health, especially after

1:33:53 Fifty whatever. Time for that. Takes an hour and an hour and a half. I don't have enough things to listen to or phone calls to make to go do that. Then I love guitar. I can't be playing guitar for a freaking hour. You know, we listen to Tom Morello on his master class. You wanna get better at guitar?

1:34:10 Play for an hour a day. When it gets better than that more. So I started trying to do an hour a day. I couldn't do it consistently. So I'd be like, God, I want to play guitar. I'm not time to walk. So I put'em together. The Spark. They have some that are really small. Now they just came out with the headphone ones. Did you just put it on it's the amp is built in and you plug in your guitar wireless.

1:34:26 And I used to have just the one in my pocket, their older one. And I put a playlist on. Backing tracks, drums and bass for songs, my favorite songs. that I play to and I walk. Just around my house.

1:34:38 And you forget you're even there. It's like the Angus Young workout. You know, he's he's always he's always doing that. Reddie Van Halen running around. The music drives you, you don't even the room is gone. You're in a stadium. You're walking across the stage. Your house is bigger than most stages. Walking across. I put on like an hour

1:34:57 To an hour and a half playlist. This was like ten or twelve songs. Easy. 15,000 steps. 17,000 steps. Easy. You don't even know you did it. You don't even remember walking. You're so transported. You're so busy doing this.

1:35:13 Then I'll be at the end of my playlist girl, I'm gonna keep playing and it's you just keep walking. That's why you saw me in the crowd, walking through the crowd. I'm so used to playing walking. I w I went walking through the crowd greeting everybody that I knew instead of I said, well shit I can play and walk and not have to look at my cause I got that training. But anyway, anyone who's a guitarist The best life hack. You get an hour Plus practice every day.

1:35:37 I got so much better on guitar because of it. And you're walking. And you're not even feeling it. I don't even remember doing it. Biggest life hacker. I couldn't wait to tell you. It is I call it the rock walk. The rock walk. Gotta do the rock walk. I have My friend goes out in the neighborhood with his thing. He just walks around the neighborhood. When I saw you on stage with your daughter, that's the most I've seen you play guitar. Wow, I've only seen your guitar in the house.

1:36:00 Right. But that was the most actual playtime I have seen. Wow, yeah, yeah. That's so funny too. That's right, because I don't go just play songs. Yeah with the Hello Kitty guitar. Rocking the Hello Kitty guitar. It's a good guitar. And it looks great. Yeah. Robert We'll have to do this more than once a decade, but uh Thank you so much for all the stories and took a ton of notes. How can people learn more about breast knuckle films?

1:36:28 Where should they go? Should they check out This is a brass knuckle films. You know, website. Where you can learn all about it.

1:36:35 Get all the updates, show you how you can invest. You'll see all the perks and things for the different levels. Get a part of it. It's a community I think is really gonna appeal. to anyone who's a fan of action movies, but also filmmakers But just people who are interested in

1:36:51 People who consume. Don't just be a consumer. Make the money back. I want I want you to make the money. So that you're not just consuming and watching a movie. If you like movies, this is the best way. It's I try to figure out ever since I was a kid, how can I get paid to watch movies? I want to use all the time.

1:37:06 It's the closest thing. Yeah, Bass Knuckle Films. Beautiful. All right, folks. We're gonna link in the show notes to everything, 10.blog slash podcast. Thank you, Robert. Thank you for giving me a forum to tell people. I just uh just like with my book, I always wanted as soon as I made Mariachi, I wanted to share it with people because I knew I would have Appreciated.

1:37:28 Hearing that as a filmmaker who had no money from a family of ten. That it was possible,'cause everyone made it sound like it was not. So I just wanted to shout it from the mountaintop. And I still feel that same way as I discover things I went I wanna tell people because it the feedback loop is amazing, you know, when people come back and tell you how they worked it into their life in their own way. It inspires you all over again. Inspires you even you're like, well, you just inspire me now to go try that way.

1:37:52 So yeah, I love sharing that. Yeah, incredibly energizing. It's a virtuous circle. And for everybody Listening and watching, till next time, be just a little bit kinder than is necessary. to others and to yourself. Thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.

1:38:25 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

1:39:14 Way back in the day, in 2010, I published a book called The Four Hour Body, which I probably started writing. in two thousand eight. And in that book, I recommended many, many, many things. First generation continuous glucose monitor. and cold exposure and all sorts of things that have been tested by people from NAS and all over the place. And one thing in that book was athletic greens. I did not get paid to include it, I was using it. That's how long I've been using what is now known as AG1. AG1 is my all-in-one nutritional insurance and I just packed up, for instance, to go off the grid for a while and the last thing I left out on my countertop to remember to take, I'm not making this up, I'm looking right in front of me.

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