{"id":12379,"date":"2026-02-06T21:15:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tim-mcgraw-starting-late-with-a-20-guitar-selling-100m-records-and-30-years-of-creative-longevity-852\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T21:15:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:15:56","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tim-mcgraw-starting-late-with-a-20-guitar-selling-100m-records-and-30-years-of-creative-longevity-852","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tim-mcgraw-starting-late-with-a-20-guitar-selling-100m-records-and-30-years-of-creative-longevity-852\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Tim McGraw \u2014 Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity (#852)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/02\/04\/tim-mcgraw\/\">my interview with Tim McGraw<\/a> (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thetimmcgraw\">@thetimmcgraw<\/a>), a Grammy Award-winning entertainer, author, and actor who has sold more than 106 million records worldwide, with 49 number-one singles and 19 number-one albums. You can find tickets for his upcoming <strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timmcgraw.com\/pawn-shop-guitar-tour\">Pawn Shop Guitar Tour<\/a> <\/strong>at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.timmcgraw.com\/pawn-shop-guitar-tour\">TimMcGraw.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/02\/04\/tim-mcgraw\/\">Full bio<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/02\/04\/tim-mcgraw\/#:~:text=SELECTED%20LINKS%20FROM%20THE%20EPISODE\">Books, music, and people mentioned in the interview<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/02\/05\/tim-mcgraw-transcript\/#Tim-McGraw-legal-conditions-transcript\">Legal conditions\/copyright information<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Tim McGraw \u2014 Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/6f37d96e-09af-4638-950a-c3f4918cffd8\/embed?type=micro\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 30px; border: 0 none;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Additional podcast platforms<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/852-tim-mcgraw-starting-late-with-a-%2420-guitar\/id863897795?i=1000748239738\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/7gCm4TjCN7VbiGVyQS5E8p?si=vj0ZnqgpShWbn9EJdS-PRw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebvq8low\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcastaddict.com\/podcast\/2031148#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Podcast Addict<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pca.st\/timferriss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pocket Casts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castbox.fm\/channel\/id1059468?country=us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castbox<\/a>,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/music.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLuu6fDad2eJyWPm9dQfuorm2uuYHBZDCB\">YouTube Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/9814f3cc-1dc5-4003-b816-44a8eb6bf666\/the-tim-ferriss-show\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/podcast\/The-Tim-Ferriss-Show\/B08K58QX5W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Audible<\/a>, or on your favorite podcast platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p>Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 2+ hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Tim, it\u2019s so nice to finally meet in person.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You as well, Tim.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Really fantastic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely. Big fan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Likewise. And I have not been to Nashville in so long and it\u2019s just lovely around here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It\u2019s incredible and it changes every day. I mean, I get lost. Anytime I come downtown, I get lost because everything looks so different.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Franklin looks like it\u2019s just had facelift after facelift after facelift.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I know. And when I first moved here in \u201989, all of that, Cool Springs, all that stuff was still all countryside. And I remember land being not very expensive out there, and I didn\u2019t have two nickels to rub together, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cMan, if I could just buy some land out here and build me a little cabin, find me a club gig, everything would be great,\u201d and then cut to two years later and it\u2019s just everything\u2019s through the roof. I mean, it\u2019s just going crazy. And it doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You just offered me the perfect segue because \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s what I\u2019m here for.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Thank you. You know, I appreciate this tango that we\u2019re getting started here. I was looking back, you were kind enough to answer some questions for <em>Tribe of Mentors<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, your book, yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>My last book. And I was going back to reread it and I looked at your bio, and at the time it read, \u201cTim McGraw has sold more than 50 million records,\u201d dot, dot, dot, and all of these amazing accolades. And then I looked at the more recent and it\u2019s more than 106 million records worldwide. Your longevity is mind-boggling on a number of different levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, me too. It\u2019s mind-boggling to me too, people are still putting up with me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I\u2019m wondering, how have you thought about, or how has your creative process changed over the years? What has remained the same? What has changed? Because there\u2019s so many ingredients that you have to get right for you to, not just last, but succeed over the decades that you have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, one thing that doesn\u2019t change is great songs. That\u2019s the first check \u2014 should be the first check on any artist\u2019s list. I mean, I write, I write for every project and I\u2019ve been lucky enough to have some success with some of the things I write. But for me, the song always has to win. And wherever the song comes from, that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to be. And I listen to songs constantly. I\u2019m constantly listening. Constantly writing, constantly listening. I\u2019m hard on my own songs, that\u2019s probably why I haven\u2019t cut as many.<\/p>\n<p>But my process is pretty much the same. I think material wise, I look for different kinds of music than I used to. I still like fun songs, and if I find the right fun song, I\u2019ll do it, but it\u2019s tougher, at a certain age, to sing about Daisy Dukes and tailgates all the time. It just doesn\u2019t quite ring true to me. But every now and then something comes along that\u2019s funny and you just do it because you\u2019re an artist and you\u2019re telling a story and you do it. But I gravitate more towards songs now that not only have meaning to me, but I think people can find a deeper meaning in their own situation, in their own life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I would love for you to, if you could, maybe unpack for us a song.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It could be any song. And what I\u2019m angling for is, of course, the genesis, but also what do you do when the muse goes a little quiet, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because you can\u2019t just, as a working musician be like, \u201cWell, I\u2019m going to wait a year for lightning to strike.\u201d There\u2019s probably some process behind it. And I am not a musician, but I\u2019m deeply interested in it. One of my favorite albums of all time is <em>Graceland<\/em> by Paul Simon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, God, yes. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I was listening to his backstory as he explained how a number of those songs came together and I was just mesmerized.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So could you tell the story of any song that comes to mind and the genesis?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, wow. Probably \u201cLive Like You Were Dying\u201d would be a good place to start because that song came to me, it was right after my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, glioblastoma, and Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman sent that song to me. They wrote it about my dad when they found out that that was happening and sent it to me, and I never played it for my dad. He was sick at the time, I just felt that it was not appropriate to play a song about dying to your dad who was dying.<\/p>\n<p>Although I\u2019m sure he would have loved the idea of having a song that was about him or inspired by him. I didn\u2019t play it for him, I had the song, and in his last days, he was at our farm, in the cabin at our farm, that\u2019s where he wanted to be for his last days, and spent a lot of time with him. And I think it was right around two to three weeks after he passed away that we went to the studio to record. And we recorded in upstate New York at a place, right outside of Woodstock, at a place called Allaire Studios.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s an old Dutch farmhouse and barn up on top of a mountain. Beautiful. We had like three foot of snow. We were there for three weeks. We sent two semi trucks full of Persian rugs and furniture and just decked the place out for the band and myself for three weeks while we were cutting. And my dad\u2019s older brother, Hank, I invited him to come hang with us because Tug had just died and I know he wasn\u2019t doing very well. So I invited him to come hang with us while we were recording. And it was probably six or seven days into the recording process, and we would start late and we\u2019d go till three or four in the morning recording.<\/p>\n<p>And I remember it was about one in the morning and I had this glass booth built in the middle of the studio so I could see everybody. And there was fireplaces at each end, and the fireplaces were roaring. I had my glass booth in the middle, we were cutting this on. My uncle Hank was smoking a joint. If you know my uncle Hank, he\u2019s passed away, he passed away last year now, but he was an All-American athlete, three sports, played pro baseball for 13 years, greatest guy in the world, looked just like Sam Elliott, but was a pothead from day one. So I watched him and he was sitting over there and I just got to thinking, I thought, \u201cThis might be a good time to cut \u2018Live Like You Were Dying.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So we\u2019d just finished a song, we were doing some overdubs. I gathered everybody around and I gathered Hank around and I asked everybody what their opinion was, if they felt like tackling that song. And so about 2:00 in the morning, we cranked it up and then before the sun came up, we had that song done and it was so tough because I\u2019m sitting in the booth, in the glass booth, recording the song, directing the band, getting the parts right. And I can\u2019t help but watch my Uncle Hank the entire time that we\u2019re doing it. And he\u2019s just in a puddle over in the corner. And then he\u2019s laughing. And then he starts telling stories about Tug after.<\/p>\n<p>So we recorded the song, we got finished probably about four or five in the morning, and then we just sat and listened to Uncle Hank tell stories about Tug for the rest of the night. And I have to believe that all that magic of that night, of Hank being there, Tug had only been gone for a couple of weeks, and then Hank telling the stories afterwards, I have to believe that all of that went into that record.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There\u2019s so many different aspects to that, each of which you could unpack. When you mentioned it seemed like a good time or it might be a good time, why did it seem like a good time? Was it a feeling? Was it a feeling inside of you \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It was a feeling.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 as you looked at your uncle?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>As I looked at my uncle, it just felt like that I was being told to cut this song. Everything, the vibes coming off of him, what I was feeling at the time, and I think we had just cut something really up-tempo and pretty rocking. And I don\u2019t know, it was the mood, the snow outside, the fireplaces, my uncle sitting there, being so late at night maybe, there was a melancholy that sort of struck at that time. I\u2019m sure there were some other factors that might have been involved that struck about that time, when you\u2019re in the studio that late. But it just felt like there was magic in the air at that moment and we wanted to capture it. And we always like to say, \u201cYou could have the greatest song in the world, the greatest band in the world, greatest singer in the world \u2014 which I am not \u2014 but you could have all those factors and it still not work.\u201d And we always say, \u201cSometimes God just walks through the room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right, I want to pick up on that thread and then we\u2019re going to go back to some of your family history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because I mean, millions upon millions \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>That could get convoluted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 upon millions know your music, but I think fewer know the origin story. So we will get to that. But I also want to ask, when is the first time when you felt God walk through the door with one of your songs, where you\u2019re like, \u201cOh. Oh, okay. I think maybe we have some lightning in a bottle here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I would like to say it was \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl,\u201d but I didn\u2019t feel that way after we recorded it, because I never felt like I captured exactly what I wanted on that record. Until we finally finished it. When we finally finished it, I felt like we had it, but in the process of it, I felt like a struggle on that song. But \u201cIndian Outlaw,\u201d because I had that song for my first album and nobody liked it. The label didn\u2019t like it, James Stroud didn\u2019t like it, Byron liked it, but I couldn\u2019t talk James into letting me record it and I couldn\u2019t talk the label into letting me record it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What were the reasons they gave you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>They just said it was too controversial and it was a bad song. It wasn\u2019t country music, it won\u2019t work on radio. All the things that they were right about. I heard that song the first night I moved to Nashville. I got to Nashville at one or two in the morning on a Greyhound bus, walked down to the Hall of Fame lounge and hotel where I ended up staying for a couple of weeks, walked into the bar and everybody was closing down, the band was packing up, and Tommy Barnes and Max D. Barnes were sitting at the bar. I think it\u2019s Max D. Barnes. He\u2019s sitting at the bar, the bar\u2019s closing down. So I walk in and just ordered a beer and she said, \u201cWe just had last call, but I\u2019ll give you a beer.\u201d I sat down, so I started talking to these two guys.<\/p>\n<p>So Tommy says, \u201cDo you have a room?\u201d And I said, \u201cYeah.\u201d He said, \u201cLet\u2019s go and play some music.\u201d So me, Tommy, and Max Barnes went up and started playing music.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Within stepping off the Greyhound.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Within stepping off the bus and Tommy played \u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Want To Be There In The Morning When She Wakes Up And Finds Me Gone,\u201d which I ended up cutting both of those. Have three more songs of his that I heard that first night that I\u2019m going to cut eventually. But \u201cIndian Outlaw,\u201d heard that first night and I started playing it immediately. Learned it, started playing it in all the clubs around town, the honky talks around town. When we would go travel and play clubs all over the country, I was playing that song and we\u2019d end up having to play it two or three times a night, four times a night because people loved it so much. And I kept telling the label, when I was going in to cut my first record, this was before I had a record deal or anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So you knew it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I knew it worked. I didn\u2019t have any say so on the first album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So when we went and cut the second album, \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re cutting. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And when we cut it, I felt like, \u201cThis is either going to work in a huge way or it\u2019s going to ruin my career forever.\u201d Luckily it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And I think the fortunate thing, it worked, and I think that what kept me from being sort of a novelty act, that had this sort of funky, weird song that made some noise, was being able to come right behind it with \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl.\u201d I\u2019ll forever believe \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It was the one, two.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u2014 that the combination of those two songs is what set my career in motion and gave me momentum that I probably couldn\u2019t have gotten any other way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How would you describe both of those songs as a one, two punch? So the first one for people who don\u2019t know, why was it potentially controversial or different?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, because it was, and I understood why it was controversial because it was stereotypical and it was sort of a play on Native American stereotypes and there was a lot of controversy around it. And I understood the controversy and I wasn\u2019t upset about the controversy. In fact, I met with several Native American leaders that some liked the song, some didn\u2019t like the song. And my answer was, \u201cLook, I understand what your concerns are, the song\u2019s not meant to be that way. I understand your concerns. My opinion, if you need to go after me in order to raise attention and awareness to your cause, by all means, use my song for that.\u201d So if you like it or don\u2019t like it, if you could make something good happen for it from it, then by all means I\u2019m not going to be offended.<\/p>\n<p>And now when I play Native American casinos, I always, when I meet with the elders or the chiefs before the show, I always say, \u201cI have \u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d on my set, but I\u2019m happy to take it out if it\u2019s offensive,\u201d and invariably, 99.9 percent of the time, \u201cThat\u2019s why we hired you is to sing that song,\u201d so they love it. So it\u2019s been really good to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And what about the follow-up straight, the one, two?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>That song was just so powerful and such a great story. It was the epitome of what country music is all about. A great story that gets right to the heart of the matter, that hits right to the emotion, that leaves it a little open-ended and makes you guess a little bit about what happened. But to this day, singing that song, there are times where it chokes me up, still, every time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And that song was one of my first stances as an artist to where I wasn\u2019t sure if I was doing the right thing or not, but it was my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs after \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl\u201d came out. And Walter was the guy who used to run the CMAs. Remember Walter? They wanted me to do \u201cDon\u2019t Take the Girl,\u201d but they only gave me three minutes and the song\u2019s five minutes. And I was trying to explain to them that there\u2019s no way to sing this song without telling the complete story or it wouldn\u2019t make sense. So I actually turned down my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s wild.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because I couldn\u2019t do the whole song.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Was that an obvious choice or did you second guess that choice after you turned it down? The next day or the next hour, were you like, \u201cOh?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No, I think it was an obvious choice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It was obvious?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. And I wasn\u2019t too worried because the song was doing so well. And I just thought there\u2019s no upside here to doing part of this song. It\u2019s not going to do anything for me and it\u2019s not going to do anything for anybody else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A few things come to mind for me. The first is that in a digital world, or what we perceive to be virtual, folks try to do a lot virtually, and you can do a lot in terms of testing and this, that, and the other thing. But still, if you can get front of live audiences to test your material, whether you are a musician, a comedian, even in my case, as a writer, my first book was turned down 30 plus times by publishers \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Not an exaggeration, but because I had taught the material in front of classes for years and years and years, I knew that it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You knew it worked. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I knew it worked. That is the only reason that \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You had a practical sense that it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I could see it and I\u2019d honed it and I\u2019d taken out the equivalent of jokes that didn\u2019t work, doubled down on the ones that did. And that still is just so incredibly valuable having that real time feedback, especially when you\u2019re playing multiple times a night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So in your process, when you\u2019re writing a book and you\u2019re talking about trying material out people, do you have an idea or a nugget of what you want to do and then you just start riffing on it around people just to sort of get feedback?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I do. I would say that these days I will often test on the podcast to see \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Like segments or parts?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Exactly. See what resonates or doesn\u2019t resonate. So for instance, I\u2019m considering doing a huge collection of case studies from the first book, because of course people hear \u201c<em>The 4-Hour Workweek<\/em>\u201d and they\u2019re like, \u201cBullshit. That guy is a liar.\u201d And I get it, I get it. It\u2019s a controversial title, and deliberately so, but there are hundreds and thousands of case studies. And so for every reason someone might have why they object to the title, \u201cI\u2019m a single mom, I\u2019ve got five kids, I have this, I have that, I\u2019m 60 and not 20,\u201d I have an example that has walked the walk in their shoes, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So that said, a book is a huge commitment. I still find writing so difficult and I know you\u2019ve had experience with this. So I will put together a few episodes on the podcast where I\u2019m basically testing different sets of questions with case studies and I\u2019m going to see, all right, look, I enjoy doing this, but how does the audience respond? At the same time, I would say for me, I think it\u2019s very dangerous to ask your audience, or really anyone, if you have developed a creative muscle and you value it, \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d Because then you can get shaped by the masses in a way that really leads you down, I think, a lost path. In my case, I might have two or three things I\u2019m excited about. Then it\u2019s a question, which of these three? And I will feel good about any of these three, then it\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So I test that. I still think to this day, and I\u2019ve thought about potentially approaching UT Austin to do a class, it\u2019s because the feedback is so fast, they can\u2019t fake it. Even if they say they like it, if you look at their face and they are spacing out, checking their phone, you\u2019re like, \u201cMm-mm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, it\u2019s not working.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Not working.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Not working. Yep.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It is not working.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Like you said, you try things out, musicians, comedians, writers, I do the same thing. If I run across a new song that I really like, I would have the band work it up and say, \u201cLet\u2019s play it a couple times live and see what their reaction is.\u201d Now, there\u2019s a caveat to that, because I\u2019ve been doing this for 35 years now, so when you have songs people expect to hear and then you throw a new one in on them, sometimes the reaction\u2019s not exactly what you want it to be, but it\u2019s not necessarily the reaction that you\u2019re going to get if they know the song. So there\u2019s a little bit of a \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A balance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u2014 a curve that you have to put on it when you\u2019re doing it. Yeah. Back again also to not letting the audience determine what you do is a big \u2014 that\u2019s really true because, like you say, you can get lost. If you start chasing what you think people want to hear, then you\u2019re, I think you\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n<p>I think you\u2019ve got to chase what you want to hear and what you want to play. And look, my taste is not going to match up with everybody\u2019s taste and probably less and less people\u2019s tastes as the days go forward. Who knows? It may grow more, I don\u2019t know. But I have to cut stuff that speaks to me. If it doesn\u2019t speak to me, especially if I didn\u2019t write it, if it doesn\u2019t speak to me and I can interpret it in a way that speaks from my heart and speaks to someone else, if it doesn\u2019t speak to me first, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m going to make it speak to somebody else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. It turns into a guessing game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And people can spot that a mile away. Whether they realize it or not, they can.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. It just strikes me how similar. If you\u2019re pursuing creative expression and longevity, by the way, in so many disciplines, it\u2019s the same thing. It is just the same thing, right? Whether it\u2019s podcast, whether it\u2019s music, whether it\u2019s writing. Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers, hilarious cat, <em>Breakfast of Champions<\/em>, et cetera, people can pick up any of his books, they\u2019re really fun to read. And he used to say, along the lines, I\u2019m paraphrasing, but \u201cIf you open up the window and try to make love to the world, you\u2019re going to catch the flu.\u201d Basically \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You catch more than the flu.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>If you\u2019re trying to \u2014 catch more than the flu, if you\u2019re trying to appeal to everybody, you\u2019re lost.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You\u2019re lost.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And at least you know you have an audience of one if it\u2019s resonating with you and the personal can be so universal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, and again, we\u2019re so lucky as artists, writers, musicians, whatever you are as an artist, because that\u2019s therapy. You have your own built-in therapeutic machine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. So there\u2019s the aspect of creative longevity, right? How many years you\u2019ve been doing this again?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>35, I guess. Somewhere around there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>35.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. So 35 years. So you have creative longevity, right? How do you continue to follow the right scent trail, which is very personal, and not get lost? Because there\u2019s going to be a lot of temptation, a lot of external forces, expectations, right? So there\u2019s that, which we\u2019ve spoken to a bit. Physically, I know a lot of people are going to want me to talk about this, I want to talk about it. How do you think about physically being capable to do what you do? I mean, you are still performing. That is intensely physical. I have never performed as a musician on stage, but I know a few and it\u2019s jaw-dropping \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Even when you\u2019re not running around, it\u2019s physical.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, it\u2019s physical.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because of the energy that you\u2019re exp \u2014 and in my case, I can\u2019t sit still when I\u2019m performing, so I\u2019m all over the place. But yeah, focus is the biggest word I think in my vocabulary when it comes to what I do for a living, because the times where I\u2019m not focused are the times things aren\u2019t working. And I tell you that the last three years have been tough to focus with what I\u2019ve gone with \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>With surgeries and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>With the surgeries. I\u2019ve had four back surgeries and double knee replacements. And tried to work through all of it, and did work through all of it. But there was a moment in time back in the spring this year, after my third back surgery, that \u2014 or was it last year? All the years are running together. Anyway, after my third back surgery, when it just didn\u2019t work. That I thought that I was going to really be looking at not being able to do this anymore because I can\u2019t imagine not doing it the way that I do it. I can\u2019t imagine \u2014 there\u2019s no way that I\u2019m going to go out there and sit on a stool and sing for an hour and a half. It\u2019s physically impossible for me to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, you\u2019re a kinetic creature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And I don\u2019t know that anybody wants to see that from me. And so if I can\u2019t go do the shows the way I do shows, and the way that I have fun doing shows, then I\u2019m not going to give everybody what they\u2019re paying for, and I\u2019m not going to get satisfaction out of it. So there was a time where until the last back surgery that actually worked, knock on wood, that I didn\u2019t think I was going to be able to make it back. And not make it back the way I wanted to make it back. But now my focus is back, my body\u2019s back, my brain fog\u2019s clearing up from all the anesthesia. So I\u2019m feeling like I\u2019m back on a good path. I\u2019m actually feeling like I\u2019ve got a second wind now and something to prove. Which is good for me because I need that. I want to be the underdog. I want to be the guy nobody expects for it to work. I want to be that guy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Make yourself a little hungry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely. Metaphorically. And literally when I\u2019m working, I like to be hungry. I don\u2019t like to eat before I go on stage because I like to be hungry for that reason, because metaphorically it works for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I just had my first real experience with falconry and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And the falconer was very clear, he\u2019s like, \u201cYou need that bird to be hungry if you want it to hunt. It will not perform otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>If you\u2019re sated, you\u2019re not going to do much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And actually, \u201cFed up with someone,\u201d is an expression taken from falconry because if the bird is fed up, it won\u2019t listen to you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Ah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Fed up with. It\u2019s from falconry.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I\u2019ll have to remember that, that\u2019s just a good little piece of knowledge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I love those little details.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There are all these little words from falconry. Hood winked also, when they put the hood on \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Ah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Also from falconry. So focusing in <em>Tribe of Mentors<\/em>, you mentioned, \u201cMy gym is how I get refocused.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>That\u2019s my meditation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And you talked about this five rounds of 12 exercises with the bar complex, kind of adding weight and then going back down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Do you still do that or has your training changed over time? You also mentioned a pool workout. I\u2019m not sure if you still do that \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But what is the training regimen? What has it looked like and what does it look like now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Maybe it\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It\u2019s changed a little bit. I have to be a lot more deliberate and a lot more careful. I\u2019m sure that my workout routine, my three workouts a day, and that\u2019s how \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Three workouts a day?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>That\u2019s what I did for a long time, especially on the road touring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So look \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Was that just like before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Really?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. And they were distinctly different exercises. And the afternoon exercise was sort of an outdoor CrossFit thing with the whole band. So that was like an hour and a half. Then I would do my two-hour workout in the morning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Which was mostly weights?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Mostly weights and some cardio. And then before lunch would be running the arena or stadium stairs and doing a discipline at the top of each stairs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What\u2019s a discipline?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>A pushup or a squat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I see. I see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Or an ab or something. And so you run all the stairs and then we\u2019d take a break and eat, take a nap or whatever. And then at 2:00, 2:30, we go out for an hour and a half and do the outside stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Border collie. You needed a working dog that\u2019s got to run.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So that being said, I\u2019m sure that I hastened all of my injuries. But I remember specifically when it happened, when we shot <em>1883<\/em>, that was pretty physically demanding. And that wore us out pretty good. That was six months, six days a week, 16 hours a day, pretty much solid. And at the time I was doing shows while we were doing, because I\u2019d had shows booked. So I would work \u2018till filming until 7:00, run and jump on a plane, go do a show, get back at 3:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the morning, get up at 4:00, try to get a workout in and then be in the makeup trailer and go to the next day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Can\u2019t imagine why you wore yourself out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Not only was I tired though, I was strangely uncomfortable on stage during that because I had this big beard on and people didn\u2019t know what I was doing because we were filming a show that wasn\u2019t out yet. So people didn\u2019t know what I was doing. And I\u2019d put on about 10 pounds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So you didn\u2019t explain it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No. I tried to a couple times, but \u2014 then I\u2019d put on about 10 pounds of weight because there\u2019s just protein everywhere. I mean, it wasn\u2019t fat or anything, but because I was working out steady work, but they always had steak and stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It wasn\u2019t fat for people who haven\u2019t seen the series. I mean, that hotel scene with the, I guess kind of like the pajamas or whatever it is. \u201cYou want to fuck with anyone else? Want to fuck with my family?\u201d You do not look fat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>But I\u2019m standing on stage and I\u2019ve got this big dyed black beard and I\u2019m thinking, these people are thinking that I\u2019m dying my beard to look young because my beard\u2019s gray. I mean, my beard\u2019s snow-white. And I had this big black beard on and then I would put on this \u2014 I was just so uncomfortable on stage and worn out and tired of this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Were you uncomfortable because it didn\u2019t feel right to you or because you knew the audience was a little off kilter?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It didn\u2019t feel right to me. And I could tell that they were trying to figure out what the hell was going on too. So it was uncomfortable. But we got through them and it wore us out. And I tweaked myself a little bit a few times with my knee. And I\u2019d had some knee trouble before. And at 20, I had a meniscus done, scoped on my left knee. And at 30, I had a meniscus on my right knee, but they hadn\u2019t bothered me.<\/p>\n<p>And I think my problem is I have really high pain tolerance. And then I remember specifically we were in Montreal and I think it was three weeks into the tour, maybe four weeks into the tour, we were in Montreal and my knees were hurting, my back was hurting, things were starting to fall apart.<\/p>\n<p>And I remember turning, just a normal turn and felt both my knees, just felt like they exploded. And I went to bed that night and I woke up the next morning and from my hips to my ankles, my legs were twice the size that they were before I went to sleep. Swollen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s terrifying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. And so I got up and went to the gym. So I spent two years in the gym just on the treadmill, doing anything I could to try to stay in shape where I had to lean over the treadmill to walk because I couldn\u2019t stand up straight, just to get walking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Brutal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And then doing the show, we finished out the tour where they literally had to carry me backstage. I\u2019d get on stage, fake it through the show without acting like I was limping too badly, and then they would carry me back to the bus after the show. And then right after that tour, I had to spend a month just sort of prepping myself for surgery. And then I went straight in and had the double knee replacements.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Brutal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And then another back surgery after that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I don\u2019t want to turn this into a Tim Ferriss confessional, but so I have the pain tolerance you mentioned, having high pain tolerance, blessing and a curse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It\u2019s a curse.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Because I\u2019ve had multiple, just had elbow surgery a few months ago, which I should have had probably 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I\u2019ve had one of those.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I just kept like, \u201cI walk it off. It\u2019s fine.\u201d And shoulder reconstruction, and I won\u2019t turn this into my litany of complaints about things, but \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I just did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But the back in particular, I\u2019ve had crippling back issues for the last three to five years, which were precipitated by this crazy accident long ago where I basically caught a huge dresser falling off the loading bay of a shipping truck because I wanted to prevent it from shattering on the ground and it twisted my body around and basically tore my lat off of my body. It was a horrifying accident. But I suppose looking back, because I\u2019ve wondered this, I have a friend, his name is Kevin Kelly, founding editor of <em>WIRED <\/em>magazine, great guy. I would say for his entire life has basically done no offense, Kevin, no exercise, except for lots of walking. That\u2019s it. Lots of walking. He has, as far as I can tell, no aches and pains.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, walking is the best exercise you could do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, he\u2019s in his got to be early to mid 70s now. And so I look back and I\u2019m like, I wonder what I would\u2019ve done differently because I had a lot of intense training back in the day. I used to compete in judo and all these various things, took quite a few lumps from all that. And I look back and I\u2019m like, \u201cAll right, what would I have done differently?\u201d And I think there are certain things I would\u2019ve toned down, probably would\u2019ve given a slightly different prescription, would\u2019ve still been pretty aggressive because I don\u2019t know if I would be where I am now otherwise without that. So looking back during the, just over the decades, what would you have changed about your training in retrospect, if anything?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I would\u2019ve been smarter about it probably.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. In what way?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, I would\u2019ve trained less for sure and paid more attention to small aches and pains instead of waiting until they were debilitating.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Big aches and pains.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And big aches and pains. I would\u2019ve waited for that. Although, as you said, I honestly believe that if I hadn\u2019t decided that I was just going to get myself back in shape, because I\u2019d always stayed in shape, but after having kids and stuff, you\u2019re eating chicken nuggets all the time. I sort of let myself go for a little while. And then I did a movie called <em>Four Christmases<\/em>, which I\u2019ve never seen, still haven\u2019t seen to this day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why is that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because I think I weighed 215 when we shot that movie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How much do you weigh now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Right now I\u2019m 170. But we went to see another movie and I\u2019d taken my kids and they were small and completely not even thinking about my movie. And of course, the very first trailer that pops up is <em>Four Christmases<\/em>, the movie that I\u2019d just done, and my face pops on the screen. And my daughter looked at the screen and looked at me. She said, \u201cGeez, Dad, you need to do something.\u201d Because it looked like you could stick a pin in me and I would\u2019ve just flew across the room. And that\u2019s when I decided to get back in shape. But I do think that, and people will argue with me about this, but I believe it to my core, that had I not done that and decided to change my lifestyle, changed my workout routine, the way I looked and took care of myself, that I don\u2019t think my career would\u2019ve lasted this long.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>When was that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Early 40s. Like 42, 43, somewhere around there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How old are you now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I\u2019m 58 now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I mean, that\u2019s insane, man. You hear this, I\u2019m sure, from lots of people, but you are in great \u2014 I mean, you look like you\u2019re in great shape and not hitting on you, but I \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>That\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. But what has your workout looked like? And I won\u2019t belabor this too much longer, but I feel like mind, body, brain, these are all the same thing. They\u2019re all a super-organism.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And the exercise is a fundamental pillar of all of it for me and for you, I suspect. So what has your exercise regimen looked like for the last, let\u2019s call it year or something?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Year. Well, there was about six weeks where I didn\u2019t do anything at all, which was almost impossible for me to do. And that\u2019s probably why some of my back surgeries didn\u2019t work as well as they should have because I tried to go back too soon and get back in shape.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s the story of my right meniscus too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I\u2019ve tried to cut it down to two hours a day, but that includes \u2014 I usually walk an hour or 30 minutes to warm up because for my knees to get going, my back to get \u2014 so walking is always my start out, whether it\u2019s 30 minutes or an hour just to walk, to loosen everything up and do a lot of body weight stuff and a lot of stretching. I\u2019d never lift heavy weights. I don\u2019t do heavy weights at all. I try not to do dead lifts anymore because of my back. Although the doc says I can do them light, but I\u2019m still scared of them.<\/p>\n<p>I do a lot of body weight stuff and a lot of circuit training and then just try to do everything I do with intent and purpose and discipline and make sure everything\u2019s lined up properly when before I never would do that. I mean, I knew what I was doing. I\u2019ve had some good trainers in my life, so I knew what I was doing, but you get in a hurry and you fall back and start doing the same old stuff and you don\u2019t think, you don\u2019t put your head into what you\u2019re doing. Now I just have to be a lot more conscious about how I move and what I do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And are those two hours all in the morning typically?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>In the morning, yeah. If I don\u2019t do it in the morning, it\u2019s tough for me to do it. And then that also includes, because the older you get and especially with injuries, you got to really try to \u2014 every advantage you can get. I do a lot of red light therapy, red light, hot therapy, steam, cold plunges. I do a lot of that. So that\u2019s a good 30 minutes at the end of the workout to get all that stuff in because I do multiple circuits of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. We have a similar recipe and two or three of the smartest athletes and trainers I know who used to be absolute monsters in the gym. I mean, they are power cleaning, 300, 400 pounds, I mean, just monsters, front squatting, 400, 500 pounds. And now they do lighter weights. These are guys now, I would say kind of late 40s, early 50s. They do lighter weights. They use blood flow restriction cuffs, and they are in fantastic shape. They\u2019ve lost a little bit of muscle mass because they\u2019re not eating like 12 chickens a day, but that\u2019s fine. Probably good for your longevity too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>For sure. And my goal when I work is I never want to be big. I don\u2019t want to be a big \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Muscle cube on stage?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No, I want to be athletic, you know what I mean? And yeah, the whole big muscle thing, I don\u2019t want to \u2014 I\u2019m not going to fall into that. I\u2019m too skinny for that anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I think there\u2019s a point where probably as a musician, it just raises more eyebrows and more distracting than helpful. So let\u2019s go way, way back as promised, my delayed gratification for the audience. Sorry, it took me this long, guys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No worries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But the exercise for me is so present every single day and would love to talk. Maybe after our recording, we can talk more. But for the deadlift, for instance, like Zercher deadlifts or Zercher squats where you\u2019re holding the barbell in front really has protected my back in an interesting way for a lot of good reasons. But we\u2019ll see if we come back to that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Okay.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>If we go way, way back, I would \u2014 I mean, not to \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Back far enough that I can remember.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, back \u2014 oh, you\u2019ll remember. You\u2019ll remember. So could you tell the story of finding your birth certificate?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, God, yeah. Wow. Yeah. I\u2019d gotten home from school and Mom kept \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How old were you at that time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>11. I was 11 and Mom had kept in her closet like a Crown Royal bag that was full of coins, but she always put it in different places because we were always \u2014 because you had the concession stand at school, for a quarter you could get a candy bar back then, or like 10 cents, you could get a Coke.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And just so people can put you in space, where were you at the time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>In Louisiana, a little town, Start, Louisiana where I grew up, a little farming community. I mean, it\u2019s just a caution light and a cotton gin. That\u2019s where I grew up. And so I was in her looking for the little bag, trying to find some quarters or something to go buy a candy bar at the store or something. And I found the bag and there was a box right next to it, opened the box and right on top was my birth certificate. And I didn\u2019t think much of it. And I started looking at it and I saw McGraw where a line had been drawn through it and right above it written by hand in pencil with Smith, which was my stepdad\u2019s name. And then it said Dad\u2019s occupation, professional baseball player. And of course, being 11 years old and growing up, we were like low, low, middle class and didn\u2019t have any money and seeing something like that, it was just so hard to register.<\/p>\n<p>It didn\u2019t seem real. And oddly enough, I had three baseball cards on my walls and on my wall in my room. His was one of them because he was one of my favorite players.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Tug.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. So I instantly called my mom and I could tell that it hit her like a ton of bricks. She was at work and I\u2019m like, \u201cMom, what is this, my birth certificate? What does this mean?\u201d And then she was like, \u201cOh, my God.\u201d That\u2019s all she said. And she said, \u201cI\u2019ll be right home.\u201d And then she came home and we went for a ride and she told me the whole story.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What was the story?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Her junior summer in high school and her mom had just left her dad, my grandpa, and they were staying in a motel that had a pool with the outdoor, like a motor court motel they were staying in. And it just so happened that my grandmother and my mom were staying there, but it just so happened that the minor league team, Jacksonville Sons, the minor league team for the Mets, all the ball players were staying in that hotel as well. So Tug and my mom met at the pool and sort of dated over the summer. And when he left and got called up or whatever and left, she found out she was pregnant. My mom was a dancer and she had just gotten invited to try out for <em>Where The Action Is<\/em> by Dick Clark, which was like his first show, the precursor to <em>American Bandstand<\/em> and all that stuff.<\/p>\n<p>So my mom had just gotten a letter inviting her to audition for it, and she had just found out she was pregnant with me. And then I have her senior portrait that she took that they always take at the beginning of the senior year. And she had just found out two days before the senior portrait that she was pregnant with me. And every time I look at that portrait, I can see it in her eyes. I can see that her whole future had just disappeared in front of her.<\/p>\n<p>And she told me the whole story and said that she hadn\u2019t talked to him since and hasn\u2019t heard from him. And I said, \u201cBut I\u2019d like to meet him.\u201d So she got in touch with his lawyer somehow or his agent somehow and he was still playing at the time. And they arranged somehow, Mom borrowed a car from her boss and some money from her boss. He said he would leave tickets for us and have lunch with us. And we drove there, he met us for lunch. We talked for a little while and he just said, \u201cI\u2019m not your dad. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m your dad, but we can be friends,\u201d kind of deal.<\/p>\n<p>And went to the game. I had a Pete Rose magazine where Pete Rose was about to break the hitting record, that I brought with me, and he took me in the clubhouse, and Pete Rose signed that. So I got to meet Pete Rose. Got to throw the ball a little bit with some of the guys for batting practice. And my mom had got me a McGraw shirt made and a Phillies hat and all that stuff. So she had me all decked out. So the next year, we met, never saw him after the game or anything, never heard from him again. So of course I was obsessed, as an 11-year-old kid would be about something like that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What were the emotions that you felt at the time? Was there anger? Was there confusion? Was there admiration? What was the mixture of emotions that you felt?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I think at the time, I don\u2019t think there was anger. I think there was some affirmation in it because we grew up in a very dysfunctional life. The guy who I thought was my dad growing up was an alcoholic and very abusive to my mom and to me. And then the second stepdad was worse than the first one. So we grew up in really scary \u2014 the commercial you see now when footsteps are coming home and kids are scared, that\u2019s the way our house was when you\u2019d hear the truck drive up. So for me, there was an affirmation of why I felt like I didn\u2019t belong with that guy.<\/p>\n<p>So it wasn\u2019t a confusion. I don\u2019t think I was young enough to register confusion. I think I was more, certainly it was more about the excitement of finding out that your dad\u2019s a professional baseball player, and certainly in the circumstances that I was growing up in. So for me, it was sort of a ray of light in a lot of ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So the next year they were playing in Houston again, and I asked Mom if I could go see the game again. So she got in touch with the agent again and said he would leave two tickets, but he\u2019s not going to see us. So he left two tickets and then it was in Houston, which was the only time I\u2019d seen him play. Cut to the first time I saw him play, he came in and gave up a grand slam. The first time I saw him play.<\/p>\n<p>But the bullpen is right along right by the stands. I mean, the stands are to that desk where the bullpen is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>10, 12 feet away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, you\u2019re right there. So he was warming up. So he wouldn\u2019t see us before the game or anything. So he was warming up in the bullpen and my mom says, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you go down and say hi to him? He\u2019s warming up in the bullpen.\u201d So I walked down to where he was warming up and I was as close to me and you as you were to him and he\u2019s warming up. So I was yelling at him, \u201cTug, it\u2019s Tim.\u201d And he wouldn\u2019t look at me. He wouldn\u2019t look at me or acknowledge me. And so I just sort of dropped it after that. Went back home. I didn\u2019t use McGraw. I used Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Just sort of forgot about it. Didn\u2019t forget about it, but not even \u2014 only a handful of my friends even knew about it. I didn\u2019t tell very many people about it. Then I got embarrassed, I think, after that, that I was just sort of thrown away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What happened? What changed?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, when I was 18, graduating high school, we didn\u2019t have any money for college. I was counting on sports scholarships and I had a few, but I was small. I graduated high school. I was 5\u201910\u201d barely and 140 pounds and getting football scholarships and basketball scholarships thinking this is probably going to work out when I get to the next level, at my size. So she was going to call about paying for college, see if he would pay for college. This is a long story. She was going to see if he\u2019d pay for college.<\/p>\n<p>I was staying out of it. I was too busy with my life. And then I remember the last high school football game, getting ready. I\u2019m down on the field, getting ready for the game to start. We\u2019d already ran through the banner and done all that stuff. And somebody taps me on the shoulder and it was my mom. I\u2019m on the sidelines getting ready to go out and play. I\u2019m like, \u201cMom, what are you doing here? We\u2019re about to play a game. You can\u2019t be down here on the sidelines.\u201d She goes, \u201cWell, I heard from Tug\u2019s lawyer today.\u201d And I said, \u201cOkay, Mom, can we wait until after the game and we get home to talk about this?\u201d Played the game, got home, and we talked a little bit about it, and then we talked about the next morning, and the deal was they\u2019d sent a contract and they said that he would pay $300 a year towards my college, and that I would never be able to contact him again.<\/p>\n<p>And if I did, the money would \u2014 anyway, $300 a year for college, and you can\u2019t contact me anymore. And that to me was enough to say, \u201cYou know what? Fine. My only request is I don\u2019t even need the money. $300 a month is not going to do anything. I don\u2019t need the money, don\u2019t need anything. My only request is that he has to meet with me one last time, and then if he wants me to sign a contract to leave him alone, I\u2019ll do whatever.\u201d And so we flew to Houston or drove to Houston, drove to Houston. He had retired at this point, and I just graduated high school, so I was as tall as him. And we walked into the hotel and Mom said, \u201cWell, there\u2019s Tug standing, checking in over there.\u201d And he had somebody with him who was his lawyer\/agent. So I walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and looked at me and said, \u201cHi, Tug. I\u2019m Tim,\u201d because he hadn\u2019t seen me since I was 11.<\/p>\n<p>And I introduced myself to the guy standing next to him, and the guy standing next to him turned completely white because I looked just like him. So he knew that the gig was up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>The gig is up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So we sort of spent the day together hanging out a little bit, and then we went to dinner that night, he, Mom, and I. And then there was a point during dinner, just small talk where I asked Mom if she could leave us alone and let us talk for a minute. And of course, Mom didn\u2019t want to do that. And I assured her that I had this, this was fine. And as soon as she left, I just looked at Tug and says, \u201cLook, I\u2019ll sign your contract. I\u2019ll never talk to you again. I won\u2019t bother you. I just have one question for you.\u201d And I asked him, \u201cDo you think you\u2019re my dad?\u201d And he says, \u201cYes, I believe I am.\u201d And he said, \u201cWe\u2019ll tear the contract up.\u201d And then I didn\u2019t hear from him for a year after that.<\/p>\n<p>But after that, we ended up starting to see more of each other. And me going while I was in college, I would drive up to Philly and visit and got to know my little brother Mark and my little sister, Cari, which was great to come out of that. But this is what I\u2019ll get back to. At the end of the day, I get asked a lot, and you said it right. A lot of people now don\u2019t know the story. They knew it at the beginning of my career, but a lot of people that know my career now that know who my dad was, they think that I grew up in that world and I didn\u2019t. So I\u2019m glad we\u2019re talking about this because a lot of people can understand now that I didn\u2019t grow up in that world. But the long and short of it is when people ask, \u201cHow could you have anything to do with your dad? How could you have not hated him? How could you have just not turned your back on him?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My answer always is he gave me something that was so precious and that was hope. Whether he meant to and he didn\u2019t or knew it or any of those things, he gave me a reason to think that I can get out of the situation that I was in, that if he can do that, then I have it in me to do something. And so for that reason alone, I couldn\u2019t hate him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Hope. Man, it\u2019s a bedrock of everything else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>If everything else is gone, if you\u2019ve got hope, you\u2019ve still got a chance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I remember talking to a friend of mine, he\u2019s got a couple of kids now mostly grown. I think they\u2019re all grown, if I think about it. I mean, the older I get, the younger people seem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, my gosh. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But, they\u2019re adults.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Tell me about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And he said, and we went for a hike at one point, and he\u2019s just a really sweet, very smart guy. And I asked him, I\u2019m like, \u201cAll right, what would your advice be to an aspiring parent?\u201d Me. I don\u2019t yet have any kids, but I really am looking forward to that, building family. And he said, \u201cIt\u2019s really simple. Your job is to love your kids. They don\u2019t owe you anything. It\u2019s not their job to love you. Number two, you have to teach them to be optimistic. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yes. Those two things make perfect sense.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. Your vision of their life and your expectations of their life, don\u2019t let it cloud your love and guidance for them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have lots of questions about family because it\u2019s top of mind for me, but I want to ask you about guitars. Here\u2019s why. Because I was looking up on the way here, Yo-Yo Ma, famous cello player. Picked up cello, probably got handed a cello, at age four.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. My understanding is you did not do that with guitars.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No. No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So how did this music thing come about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, the music thing came about because of my mom\u2019s love for music because from my earliest memory of the time I can remember my mom was always singing and playing records around the house and always had the radio wide open. So I knew every song on the radio and she would encourage me to sing. She always wanted me to sing along with her on the radio. So I knew every song on the radio, would sing with my mom all the time. We\u2019d walk around the house singing, singing in church. I mean, my friends used to give me shit all the time playing baseball because I played shortstop and the whole time I\u2019m out there, I\u2019m singing songs and playing around. So I was always singing to the point to where my sisters were always like, \u201cShut up. Just shut up. Just stop singing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And I still do it to this day. Somebody can say a word and I\u2019ll sing a song that\u2019s got that word in it. It\u2019s just in me, I can\u2019t get it out. So it was always something, but I was in the same category that you were thinking, that the guys you hear on the radio, guys that have been doing this since they were three or four years old, they\u2019re trained musicians. They\u2019re guys that \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Jackson Five.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. This is something you can\u2019t just do unless you\u2019re trained to do it since you were a little kid. So I got into college, that\u2019s when I realized when I got into college and I went out for the first football sort of round up and to see everybody when I looked around and thought, \u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m going to get killed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m going to be meat on the practice squad, never see the field and get the hell beat out of me and spend all of my time here.\u201d So I ended up not playing ball, joined a fraternity, pawned my high school ring, and bought a guitar for 20 bucks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why did you decide to get the guitar?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because I thought, I love music, I love singing, chicks might dig it if I got a guitar and learned to play a few songs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. So it wasn\u2019t so far ahead as to, \u201cThis is my career plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It wasn\u2019t a career move. This was \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A social move.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It was a move, but it wasn\u2019t a career move. And I thought I could play some clubs around town. It\u2019d be fun to do. I even thought, look, my biggest dream I could have here is get a house gig somewhere where I\u2019m making money every week and playing music.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And remind me where were you at the time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I was in Louisiana, Monroe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>In Louisiana.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>At Northeast Louisiana, which is ULM now, but back then it was Northeast Louisiana University.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So I bought the guitar and all of my friends had moved away for the summer. It was my freshman summer in college. I had a job where I worked four hours a day to plant nursery in the mornings, just moving stuff. And I\u2019d come home and I\u2019d watch CMT and watch where their fingers were on the guitars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Early YouTube.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, early YouTube. And then on music sheets, they\u2019d had these little guitar fret things where it would show you where your fingers went. So I spent a lot of years where my fingers were in the wrong position, but I would still make the chord. And my buddy, my roommates would hide my guitar for the longest time because I was so bad. But then when I started getting pretty good at it, they would hide it. I couldn\u2019t find it. But when chicks would come over to the house, they would grab my guitar and bring it to me and want me to start playing songs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Dance, monkey, dance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Exactly. So over that summer, I learned about 50 songs and I just started playing, just me and a guitar at this little catfish house called Cock of the Walk. And that was my first gig. And that\u2019s how I paid my rant for a while.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Okay. So what was the first \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And by the way, I am still a terrible guitar player. I can play well enough to write my songs and play \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You made it work for you. When was the first inkling or the first sign, feeling maybe where you\u2019re like, okay, I think this could be a thing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>First off, the encouragement I got from my friends in college, my fraternity buddies, which that could go either way. When you\u2019re trying to play guitar and sing songs from your buddies in a fraternity, that could go the wrong way. But when it didn\u2019t, when they were encouraging me and they were giving me credit and telling me how good I was, to me, that was a big deal for a bunch of guys to tell you, your friends to tell you that when you\u2019re just trying to figure it out and you don\u2019t even know anything about it really. For them to tell you that you\u2019re good and they want to hear you do it and they ask you to sing all the time. So when I started playing clubs and stuff, I would get good reaction from the crowds and then the owners would come over and say, \u201cHey, would you want to come back?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And, \u201cYou guys are the best band we\u2019ve had.\u201d Stuff like that. And then I took a military science class and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Military science, like strategy \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. Strategy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Studying past generals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And I got to know the instructor, Captain Whitehead was his name. He was an army guy and head of the ROTC and everything there. And all the guys in the class were ROTC guys, ROTC. And anyway, we took the class and it was tactics and we were in the field doing stuff. We\u2019d spend the weekend tracking, even doing all the stuff, repelling, all kinds of stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Cool course.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It was a great course. And at the end of the course, everybody was asked to vote who was our platoon leader. Well, I got voted by all the ROTC guys as the platoon leader for the class for the year, so I was the top student in the class. And so Captain Whitehead took a big interest in me, but he thought I should be a Marine, so he kept taking me to the Marine Recruiting office. So I visited the Marine Recruiting office quite a bit, filled out all my paperwork. And one night I decided I had everything packed. I sold everything I had, sold my car, water skis, shotguns, sold everything I had.<\/p>\n<p>I think I ended up with about $3,000. I had my guitar, one suitcase and my Marine paperwork sitting on my dresser. And I said, \u201cWhen I wake up in the morning, I\u2019ll decide whether I\u2019m going to move to Nashville or join the Marines.\u201d And I fell asleep, woke up the next morning, looked over, got up, picked up the Marine paper, tore it up, put it in the garbage and went and bought a Greyhound bus ticket and ended up in Nashville.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I have so many questions. Why did Captain Whitehead think you should be a Marine?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know. I guess because I did well in the class and we got along well. He kept coming to our fraternity house and hanging out with us. We just got along well and he liked me. As a matter of fact, we played, it had to have been 15 years later after I had a lot of success. We played the military base in San Diego and it was huge, it was packed. And I\u2019m singing and playing and I\u2019m standing in the front of the stage. And I look down and Captain Whitehead\u2019s right at the front of the stage. And I got to say hi to him and talk to him a little bit afterwards. He just says, \u201cYou would\u2019ve been a good Marine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u201cYou missed the boat, son.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No, I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m kidding. The platoon leader piece is interesting to me. What do you think, even if you had to speculate, why did that happen? Why did they vote you platoon leader?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know. I mean, I just enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What do you think? Because presumably, a bunch of guys in the class or a bunch of people in the class.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. I think there were a few obstacles that I was able to figure out in moving stuff and how to build a bridge across. Just little things that I was able to figure out, or if I wasn\u2019t able to figure out, just acted like I did and took charge of it and got it done. But I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s one of those things that was really interesting to me and it made sense to me. And when you step into something you don\u2019t know anything about and all of a sudden it clicks and makes sense, it just made sense. And it really sparked my interest into being in the military because I thought, \u201cWow, if I can be around all these guys who want to do this and this works out, maybe this is a career path for me.\u201d Thank God I didn\u2019t. But I have so much respect \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I mean, who knows?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>My sister was in the Army, she was Army Intelligence. Cousins, uncles, so I\u2019ve got a long history of military family.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What was it that morning? It was a long time ago, of course, but it seems like such a <em>Sliding Doors<\/em> moment. Such an important fork in the road. What was it that led you to tear up the paperwork?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I thought that I could always go back to that and I can\u2019t always go back to the music. Because there\u2019ll come a point where that\u2019s just gone, that\u2019s passed. But the hardest part was having to call my mom, because my mom was really intent on me making something out of myself because of how hard our life was growing up and how hard her life was. I mean, she worked three jobs and going to work with black eyes and busted lips and just all the struggles that a single abused mom \u2014 well, not single, but abused mom has to deal with. She was pretty single for all intent and purpose. But I had to call her, I was in pre-law. My joke now is that I have paid more lawyers in my life than I would\u2019ve ever made as one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I believe that is probably true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, so I had to call my mom and I was scared to death because I knew how badly she wanted me to complete school and go to law school and I know how badly she wanted that for me. And for her, because of the sacrifices that she had made, because people had wanted her to give me up for adoption, all sorts of stuff. And she was a 17-year-old girl then that hung onto a kid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Tough woman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. But I called her and told her what my plan was, and braced myself, fully expecting my little Italian mom to give me a good wearing out, because she can do that. And what she said, it\u2019s going to make me cry, what she said, but she said, \u201cSon, I\u2019m surprised you haven\u2019t done it already. And if you don\u2019t, you\u2019ll never know, so you should go.\u201d And it was so shocking and unexpected that it gave me all the confidence in the world that I needed. And then when I first moved here, back to where you think everybody grows up since they were a little kid with a guitar in their hands and singing, and that\u2019s how they become famous, when I first moved here and started going to clubs and sitting in, I was thinking, \u201cWait a minute, I can hang with these guys. I can hang with these guys. I can find my niche here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How many shows do you think, how many gigs had you played up to the point that you got on that Greyhound bus?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I mean, a year or two of gigs. I don\u2019t know, 100 maybe at clubs. Mostly just me and a guitar, some with a band. I actually went to Jacksonville for about six months, because my mom had moved to Jacksonville after I started college because she had just went through another divorce and it was a terrible divorce. So she moved to Jacksonville, which is where she grew up. Jacksonville Junior College had just won the Junior College World Series. Coach heard about me a couple years ago back in high school. He knew my mom somehow. Anyway, invited me to come to play baseball at Florida Junior College.<\/p>\n<p>So I thought, \u201cAll right, this is getting old here. I\u2019m playing music, I\u2019m not really going to class like I should. Maybe I should go out there and try and play baseball, see what happens.\u201d So I moved to Florida, same thing. Showed up, was going to play baseball, hung around for a little while. Realized that I really didn\u2019t want to do that because I was playing clubs at night there too, and just decided to go full-time, start playing clubs in Florida. Did that, then I moved back to Monroe, played for about three months and then moved to Nashville.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m curious what Nashville did for you, because it makes me think of Bob Dylan before he was Bob Dylan. But moving from Minnesota to, I think it was Greenwich Village, moves to the epicenter. He\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m going to find Guthrie and I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to make it work, but I\u2019m going to figure it out. And I\u2019m going to the center of the action.\u201d And that story was really laid out for me in detail by this very, very impressive investor and fascinating human, Bill Gurley, who is in Austin.<\/p>\n<p>But he has a book coming out soon called <em>Runnin\u2019 Down a Dream<\/em>, which is about pursuing passion and finding that lightning in a bottle for yourself. But one of his sections is on going to the epicenter, going to where the action is. And I would love for you to describe what effect Nashville had. I mean, in a sense, you already sort of showed some of what can happen by the fact that you get off the bus, you go have a beer after last call and then bodda-bing, bodda-boom \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>You hear a great song.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. And songs that end up making my career. I think instantly it just lit a fire under me. And when you jump into a pool of people who are like-minded and who are all chasing the same thing, there\u2019s just such an energy that you get from everybody that\u2019s doing it. Tracy Lawrence, Kenny Chesney, and I were best friends, and we ran around together everywhere. None of us had record deals and we would compete. All these clubs, you could get up and sing and you could win $50, whoever got the most hand applause. So we were always competing to get real money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Try to outdo \u2014 Tracy usually always won, because he was the best singer out of all of us at the time. But just running around, being involved. Every night, being at somebody\u2019s apartment, playing music, writing songs every day, out every night, singing in all these clubs. It was just an immersion experience of art where you learn so much, you learn from different singers. You hear somebody sing and you think, \u201cWow, how did they do that? How can I?\u201d You imitate people, you figure things out. You see what somebody\u2019s doing on stage, you see how somebody\u2019s singing, you see how somebody\u2019s songwriting.<\/p>\n<p>It just becomes this sort of gumbo of all this magic that you find. And it just comes into every pore of your body and you just open yourself up to it and just try to learn as much as you can. And it can be heartbreaking too, at the same time. And then also recognizing where you\u2019re getting held back. It\u2019s where you start realizing you need to put more aspirational people around you, as opposed to people who are just being happy doing what they\u2019re doing. And I try to tell this to my daughters all the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That sounds like it could be very difficult.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It can be difficult because it\u2019s not about dropping friends, but it\u2019s about gathering friends that inspire you to be, that people that you want to be like, they have traits that you want to emulate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Could you describe an instance of when that happened and how you navigated it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I don\u2019t know if I can describe an instance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Or just why that even occurred to you, I guess, and how you went about finding those people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, because I needed to learn, for one thing. Because I knew nothing about the music business, how to make a record. I knew nothing about anything except for how to sing along to the radio and then play some songs I learned on the guitar. And I was an amateur, period, at everything. And so I just wanted to be around people who knew what they were doing and people who could teach me things and people that were willing to teach me stuff. And people that, if I wanted to compete, if I can\u2019t compete with this guy who\u2019s playing in a club in downtown Nashville, then I\u2019m not going to compete with the guys who have record labels that are selling millions of records.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did you find those people to learn from?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I think it\u2019s just a matter of just being out and being around people, and just learning who the people are, who are going to be aspirational to you and inspirational to you, and who the people that are going to hold you in place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Do any people kind of stand out in those, I don\u2019t know, first five years, let\u2019s just say?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, Mike Borchetta stands out. Mike Borchetta is who signed me to my first record deal at Curb Records. And he was somebody who I walked off the street, had a demo of a few songs. He tried to kick me out of his office and I made him listen to the songs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did you get into his office in the first place?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>The way I got into his office, and oddly enough, it was because of Tug. Because a guy named Bruce Windell was a friend of Mike Borchetta\u2019s and he happened to be a friend of Tug\u2019s. So Tug was talking to Bruce Windell one day and Bruce says, \u201cI know a guy named Mike Borchetta down in Nashville. Maybe I can get him a meeting with Tim.\u201d And that was it. So I got his phone number and that\u2019s all they gave me. So I kept trying and trying and trying to get a meeting with him, I couldn\u2019t get a meeting with him. So it was during Fan Fair one year and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What is Fan Fair?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, Fan Fair, now it\u2019s the big thing they have at the stadium every year where everybody plays. But back then, Fan Fair was when you would just sit and stand in a booth for three days and sign autographs for thousands and thousands of people that would come through. This was going on when, of course, I wasn\u2019t signing autographs, I didn\u2019t have a record level. So I decided I\u2019m going to go by Curb Records and see if Mike Borchetta is in his office. And I\u2019d had a demo of these \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>After him not returning anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>After him not returning my calls. And I have to back up just a little bit because there was this little place called Po\u2019boy Don\u2019s in Tallulah, Louisiana, that was in the middle of a cotton field. And it was just a little wood frame shack, but it was like a convenience store\/deer butcher shop\/crawfish boil kind of place. And in the back of the store, they had a bunch of stumps and an old wood stove, and there were a bunch of guys all in their 70s and 60s that were all playing country music. And I happened to be out in that area one day and it was in the middle of nowhere. And so I stopped in and sat down and started playing guitar with these guys, so they kept inviting me to come back.<\/p>\n<p>It was about 30 miles from school. Every Thursday night, it ended up being five or six cars of my fraternity brothers. We\u2019d all go to this little hole-in-the-wall place with all these 70 year old guys and they would give us free beer and crawfish as long as I would sit back there and sing with them. And it ended up that place getting packed and packed and packed where there were just people there every Thursday night, and it just became a really fun thing.<\/p>\n<p>So when I moved to Nashville, Po\u2019boy Don, who owned that, and it was a farm or two and he owned all the farmland around and just, he played the bass in the thing. And it\u2019s his store and he just really loved me and loved to hear me sing. So I needed a demo. I didn\u2019t have a demo, didn\u2019t have any money for a demo. So I called him and he sent me $3,000 to record a demo. So I recorded a demo and that\u2019s the demo I played for Mike Borchetta when I walked into his office. Anyway, I sit down, he said, \u201cWell, leave the CD with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So you\u2019re just, \u201cKnock-knock, anybody home?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, I walked past the secretary because I saw he was in his office. And I walked past the secretary. She goes, \u201cExcuse me.\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m just going to say hi to Mike.\u201d I walked in, I said, \u201cHi, Mike, how you doing?\u201d He said, \u201cWho are you?\u201d Then I told him my name and he goes, \u201cOh, yeah, yeah, yeah.\u201d He says, \u201cCall me next week and we\u2019ll meet.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, I have my demo here. I\u2019d like for you to listen to it.\u201d And he goes, \u201cWell, leave it on the desk and I\u2019ll listen to it.\u201d I says, \u201cWell, can you listen to it now?\u201d And he goes, \u201cNo, I\u2019m headed out to Fan Fair, I got to go.\u201d I says, \u201cWell, can you just listen to part of a song?\u201d He goes, \u201cAll right, I\u2019ll listen to a song.\u201d So he put the song in and halfway through the first one, he goes, \u201cYou got a record deal, kid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And that\u2019s how I got a record deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Halfway through the first song.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, halfway through \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Was it the first song on the demo?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, first song on the demo. And then it was convoluted after that, but I got a record deal. So I got my foot in the door, so it started from there. But he was somebody that, when a guy who runs a record label, and you know nothing about how that works, and it\u2019s the first record label I went to, sits down and listens to half of your demo, which you\u2019re not even sure is any good, and says you have a record deal, well, I think you get exponentially better in that instant.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah, yeah. You\u2019re given wings in a way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>The mustard seed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. We\u2019re going to hop around a little bit because we could go a million different directions. I mean, we could spend 20 hours talking about your career and still not run out of material. I believe it might have been in <em>Parade<\/em>, it could have been in a different interview, but correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but I think you\u2019ve said that your wife saved your life, along those lines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, God. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why is that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because I was running pretty hard. I was running hard back in the day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What does that mean?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, I was drinking a lot, which, that didn\u2019t stop after we got married, but she beat it out of me after a while. But I was just doing everything. I was a kid in a candy store, especially after I got successful. And never had any money before, never been around any of that stuff before. And then all of a sudden it became a tool that was useful until it wasn\u2019t. And when Faith came along, I was burning it wide open when we met. And she started tapping the brakes for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did she do that in a way that didn\u2019t repel you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, look at her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, right, yeah. I mean, she\u2019s got a lot on offer, this is for sure. But I would imagine, we don\u2019t know each other well, but that strong-willed guy, high-gear, high-intensity, high-velocity kid in a candy store. Faith is incredible on a million different levels and you also have a lot of options around. So what allowed her to dial some of those things back, which ended up being really important long-term for you and for both of you, without scaring you off in a sense?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, A, I knew that I was at a point where I needed to slow down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right, got it. So you had the self-awareness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I had the self-awareness that I needed to slow down at the time. B, when we met, we were 28 years old, so we were a little older and we both had success. And then C, once I met her, I didn\u2019t want to lose her. I just didn\u2019t want to lose her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What was it about her?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>She\u2019s just magic, she\u2019s magic. Not just her singing and her looks and all that. Of course, that\u2019s all a bonus, but as a person, she\u2019s just magic. She just lights up a room, and she lit me up and still does. And I wouldn\u2019t be the same artist had I not met her. I certainly wouldn\u2019t have the career that I\u2019ve had, had I not met her. I certainly wouldn\u2019t have lasted as long. I wouldn\u2019t have lasted as long. I would have burned out really quickly, I think. Especially if I had lost her during that time after I found her, if I had lost her because of not sort of bringing myself around a little bit. Then I definitely would have been in a downward spiral.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You guys met at 28. When did you change the drinking?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It took a while. I mean, it certainly calmed it down quite a bit. And it fluctuated. It would be times where it was not bad, then times where it was bad. And then it just got to where it just got out of control, and that\u2019s when she set me down. Well, actually, she sat me down a few times, but actually there was one morning in particular where I woke up and realized that it was 7:00 in the morning. I was going to have to take the kids to school soon, and I realized I had a bottle of whiskey in my hand at 7:00 in the morning.<\/p>\n<p>I had the bottle in my hand and I walked straight back to the bedroom and told her that I need help. And she goes, \u201cAll right, let\u2019s do it. I\u2019m with you.\u201d And she stuck by me the whole time. And look, it\u2019s not been a linear path, as anybody knows that\u2019s ever gone through that kind of thing. It\u2019s not a linear path. There\u2019s always pitfalls and steps backwards and steps forwards, but she\u2019s a rock. She\u2019s a rock.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You know, this is just a random thought, but at some point, if you haven\u2019t met Laird Hamilton and his wife, Gabby, Laird Hamilton\u2019s \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I know who Laird is, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. In any case, a lot of parallels in your lives.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I think also, Gabby Reese, who used to be a professional volleyball player. In any case, just a lot of parallels. I mean, intensity, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>High gear. And it\u2019s very common, at least among my friends, certainly, and even in my case way back in the day, it\u2019s like that type of intensity can also get misapplied or reapplied to something like alcohol.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely, yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And it\u2019s not always a selective intensity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No, it\u2019s not a selective intensity. And then when it becomes a physical dependency, then you\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Then you\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How has fatherhood changed you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Wow. Well, you certainly see with different eyes and it changes what your definition of love is, more so than even getting married, I think, when you have children. Because there\u2019s such a responsibility and a weight that comes with all the brightness and the light and the love that causes you to realize that that\u2019s your true eternal life, is your children, and how they carry their perception of you forward. And it\u2019s a scary proposition because you\u2019re not going to do it right, nobody does it right. You just hope you do 30 percent of it right, and you just show up. But I think the thing that it changed more than anything, and I think anybody would tell you this, and it\u2019s pretty simple, is it takes a lot of the selfishness out of you.<\/p>\n<p>And part of you has to have that, I guess, in order to succeed and to push forward, but boy, it takes a lot of selfishness out of you and puts a lot of drive and passion and responsibility and thinking of the future in your path, which provides more structure for you. And what I\u2019ve also found out too, is as the kids grow up, and Faith and I both have found out, that structure was so good because you had to be on the ball, you had to get up every morning at 6:00, you had to make breakfast, you had to take your kids to school, you had to help with homework, you had to go to practices, you coach softball.<\/p>\n<p>All those things that keep you in a good, balanced routine. So when the kids start leaving the house, all of a sudden you start, \u201cWhat am I going to do with the rest of my day?\u201d Now I don\u2019t have to get up at 6:00.\u201d So it can take away some of your focus and it can take away some of your routine and it can take away a little bit of drive once the kids are out of the house. And it comes back, but at first you\u2019re sort of lost and sort of figuring out, \u201cWhat do I do with my time here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019ve got a few chapters to get through before I get there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And then after about six or eight months, a year, then you realize, you and your wife, you realize you\u2019re home alone, then the fun begins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did you decide to be a father in the sense, how did you set rules for yourself or goals, hopes without necessarily a model for it? Part of the reason I think that I\u2019ve delayed building a family for as long as I have is that, God bless my dad in certain ways, but I wanted to do things differently if I did it at all, very differently. And since I felt like I had no role model, I felt like I had no confidence that I would be a good father. And so I was like, \u201cWell, fundamentally, if I\u2019m helping bring some life into the world,\u201d if they didn\u2019t ask for it necessarily, I mean, we can debate, gets into some deep philosophical territory and religious territory quickly, but I wouldn\u2019t want to do a bad job or more harm than good. And so I\u2019ve waited and waited and waited and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, you\u2019re going to do a bad job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I mean, everybody does a bad job. There\u2019s no training manual, but I was in the same boat. I didn\u2019t know if I was going to be a good dad or bad, I didn\u2019t know what kind of dad I would be. I knew that I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to be a good dad, and I knew that I didn\u2019t want my children\u2019s life to be like mine was. So I think in a lot of ways, maybe that the life that I had growing up prepared me to be a better dad because of what I knew I didn\u2019t want to do. And I found this business has really made me find out that learning what you don\u2019t want to do and what doesn\u2019t work for you is better than knowing what does.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right, I\u2019m going to grab that and run with it because there\u2019s an expression in Japanese \u2014 I went to Japan as an exchange student \u2014 called hanmen kyoushi. Hanmen kyoushi is like \u201copposite teacher.\u201d It\u2019s basically like an anti-role model and they show you what not to do. So I\u2019m wondering if there professionally have been any experiences, a tour, how you made a song or even chose a song in the first place that really taught you what not to do? Like an event, a song, a performance, a commitment, a partnership, anything where you\u2019re like, \u201cHmm, okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, I\u2019ve put myself in plenty of positions that I wish I hadn\u2019t. I don\u2019t know if I can specifically say what not to do. I can say be prepared all the time is always a good thing, but I can tell you my most embarrassing moment in the music business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right, let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It might be the best way to go, is Bruce Springsteen, who I\u2019m a huge fan of. And he\u2019s a friend and I\u2019ve known him for a long time, one of the greatest guys in the world, just sweetheart. MusiCares, you know what MusiCares is? Where they do a big concert the night before the Grammys to raise money and it honors a specific artist and other artists come in and do their songs. Bruce was being honored, so he called and asked if Faith and I would do \u201cTougher Than the Rest\u201d together as part of the thing. And of course we said, \u201cYes, we would love to do it.\u201d So everybody\u2019s doing their songs and there\u2019s Sting, there\u2019s all the big guys. Playing Bruce\u2019s songs. So we do \u201cTougher Than the Rest\u201d and we do a great job on it and everything turned out good. And we\u2019re sitting at Bruce\u2019s table and we\u2019re talking, and Bruce says, \u201cHey, man, at the end of this, we\u2019re going to do \u2018Glory Days.\u2019\u201d He says, \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to come on stage and just sing along with the chorus.\u201d He said, \u201cYou think you and Faith would want to come up to and do that?\u201d And I say, \u201cSure, we\u2019ll come up and we can do the chorus.\u201d We sing along the chorus of \u2018Glory Days,\u2019 so we\u2019re up there, we\u2019re on stage and we\u2019re all singing along. Bruce is in the second chorus, and he looks over at one artist and he\u2019s like, \u201cHey, come sing the second verse.\u201d And the artist is like, \u201cMm-mm, no.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So he looks at another artist like, \u201cCome sing the second verse.\u201d And that artist is like, \u201cMm-mm, no, no, no.\u201d On the microphone, he goes, \u201cHey, cowboy hat, come sing the second verse.\u201d And in my mind, I\u2019m thinking, \u201cAll right, it\u2019s \u2018Glory Days.\u2019 I know it, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever sung it.\u201d And Bruce\u2019s phrasing is some of the hardest phrasing in the world, the way he writes. And I thought, \u201cAll right, I can get through the second verse of this, I can figure it out.\u201d The words were up there.<\/p>\n<p>So I step up and I have no idea where to come in. I don\u2019t know the phrasing, I don\u2019t know anything. And everybody who is anybody in the music business is out there. And I\u2019m standing there with that, when your mom has caught you doing something or your wife has caught you doing something really bad. And where all the blood rushes out of your body and you\u2019re gut punched. So I couldn\u2019t sing the song, I\u2019m just like \u2014 and Bruce comes up beside me, he\u2019s like, \u201cBa, ba, ba,\u201d like that. And then he starts singing the song. So then I stepped back beside Faith. Can I stand up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I stepped back beside Faith, embarrassed. And I stepped back beside her and this is what Faith does. She stepped away from me. Luckily, we were able to go, they shot it in a way because it\u2019s always recorded and released and everything. So they shot it in a way that I could go back and fix the vocal where it didn\u2019t look like I screwed it all up. But boy, I didn\u2019t have fun that night at the hotel after the MusiCares thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Did you get a lot of ball busting after that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I did, I did. But none worse than mine, what I did to myself, because it was really the most embarrassing moment. There are a few moments where you feel like you\u2019re over your head sometimes. And it usually works out well, but boy, I tell you, performing on the Oscars was one of those moments where everything just seems, your body defies you. You think you\u2019ve got it under control and when you start, everything goes. It worked out, everything was fine. I did a good job, but in the moment you\u2019re feeling like, \u201cIt\u2019s falling apart on me right here in front of everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I would love to flesh out the humanizing of Tim McGraw a little bit, because for people who may not know your career, they might be like, \u201cMan, this giant just gets off the Greyhound bus and then it\u2019s like he\u2019s hitting a double and a triple and a home run and it\u2019s just endless home runs. Green lights the whole way.\u201d And I\u2019m curious if there are any favorite failures, things that didn\u2019t work, that ended up teaching you something important or laying the seeds for something later, or if there was ever a period of feeling plateau or stuck-ness and how you dealt with it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>There\u2019s both of those. I think failure that I learned a lot from was my first album, which we always say went wood. I think we had one song that made it to 38 off of that album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Went wood.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, it went wood, so no hits on it. And so the label just sort of forgot about me after that. And so I was slowly gathering songs, but I learned a lot. I learned what I didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What was that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>The way to make music, I learned what I didn\u2019t want it to sound like. So I slowly started gathering songs from songwriter friends of mine. Not really big songwriters, just friends of mine who were songwriters. Slowly started collecting songs. The label never even called me after the album came out because it didn\u2019t do anything. Didn\u2019t talk to them at all. So I collected these songs and I went to Byron. I said, \u201cAll right, I\u2019m ready to go record these songs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Who\u2019s Byron again?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>My producer, Byron Gallimore, that we produced together. I said, \u201cI\u2019m ready to cut these songs.\u201d And he goes, \u201cWell, has Curb heard them, are they approved?\u201d I says, \u201cNope, we\u2019re just going to book a session and go cut the album.\u201d And so we booked the session.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So it was like an album on spec?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah, and we billed Curb. We billed Curb for the whole thing, we cut the album, did all the artwork. Had the CD ready with the artwork done and turned it in to them. And of course, they hit the roof because we had spent a bunch of money making an album that we weren\u2019t approved of. And then they listened and it was the <em>Not a Moment Too Soon<\/em> album. And then they listened to the album and then they were all on board.<\/p>\n<p>And the good thing about that is the first one didn\u2019t work. The second one, I said, \u201cI want to do this my way and to do this \u2014 and had \u201cIndian Outlaw\u201d \u2014 I\u2019m going to do the songs I want to do. I\u2019m picking all the songs, doing the songs I want to do. We\u2019re going to cut them the way I want to cut them. And if it fails, it fails on my terms this time.\u201d And luckily it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So that\u2019s why you didn\u2019t reach out for approvals because you\u2019re like, \u201cI don\u2019t want some album by committee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>No. No. It never works. Not for me. I\u2019m sure it works for other artists, but anytime I\u2019ve done that, anytime that I\u2019ve let somebody else talk me into a song, whether it be a record label head or somebody else, talked me into a song that I knew wasn\u2019t right for me, it\u2019s never worked. It\u2019s never worked. And there\u2019s been tons of times where people didn\u2019t like the song at all and it worked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>How did you decide, or when you say you knew what you didn\u2019t want it to sound like, can you say more about that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. Well, you can go back and listen to my first album, you can figure it out. I just knew that there were three songs on the first album that they sort of let me run loose with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Well, they\u2019re also like what other people hear and then there\u2019s what you hear and what it means to you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely. And you also realize quickly in this business that you think when you move to town, you find your producer, you get a record label, you get all those things and everybody knows what they\u2019re doing. That\u2019s not necessarily the case.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sounds a lot like book publishing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. Most of the time the artist knows what they\u2019re doing and then everybody sort of follows the artist that gets successful and starts doing what they\u2019re doing. But there are great people like, boy, without Byron Gallimore, I wouldn\u2019t know my right hand from my left. He\u2019s my partner in the studio and I can\u2019t imagine making a record without him. But you find out very quickly if you don\u2019t have an idea about what you want and how you want to make your music and how you want it to sound and how you want your career to go. And if you don\u2019t get into control of that and you don\u2019t do it the way you want to do it, it might work, but it\u2019s not going to work for long.<\/p>\n<p>And there have been times in my career where I\u2019ve sat back and decided, \u201cAll right, I\u2019m going to let this float and let other people make the decisions. Everything\u2019s fine for now.\u201d And sure enough, if I don\u2019t get involved, it doesn\u2019t go the way I want it to go.<\/p>\n<p>Now I\u2019ve got people around me now that\u2019s been around me for 20, 30 years that I trust. But even still, if they don\u2019t get regular input from me, nobody knows what\u2019s in your head. Nobody knows exactly what you picture, even though you might think they do. They don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, they can get close, but you have to stay involved. And I\u2019m learning that more more, and these last few years have been tough for me to be involved as much as I want to be because I\u2019ve been battling, just trying to get my health back. And I\u2019m fortunate that I have the right people around me that helps me through those periods. But when your focus is on and you\u2019re paying attention to what you\u2019re doing and you know what the path is, it makes it easier for everybody around you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. What about the periods of stuckness outside of the most recent injury period and the surgical, obviously the multiple surgeries?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, the biggest period of stuckness and the biggest period where I thought, besides this period where I thought it might be over is when I went through a whole legal battle with Curb Records, that was a very dark period in my career. They kept extending my contract by putting greatest hits albums out. So every time I would turn in an album that would be the final album for my contract, they would drop the greatest hits, which didn\u2019t count against the contract. So I think they ended up putting like 10 greatest hits albums to keep me from dropping my album.<\/p>\n<p>So finally, I decided I either had to bite the bullet and try to go to court with them and get out or be stuck with them. And either way, I\u2019m taking a chance on my career.<\/p>\n<p>And we battled for a couple of years and I had to pretty much rebuild my career after that. And that was a scary time because momentum\u2019s a tough thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And I heard a quote the other day, it was actually a <em>Landman<\/em>. I was watching it and \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s a great show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>A great show, and Sam Elliott was talking to Billy Bob and says, \u201cYou know that monkey at rodeos that rides on the back of the border collie and the border collie just runs around and runs around and the monkey\u2019s just hanging on for dear life, and he can\u2019t let go because he\u2019ll die so he\u2019s got to hold on?\u201d He looked at Bill, he said, \u201cYou\u2019re that monkey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And I looked at Faith, goes, \u201cJesus Christ, I\u2019m that monkey.\u201d So I feel like I\u2019m that monkey. But I don\u2019t know that if it\u2019s intentional, if it\u2019s innately in you, but there\u2019s something about even when you know you need to take a break or even when you know you need to slow down, when things are rolling, there\u2019s this sixth sense in your body that knows you can\u2019t let the momentum stop because it\u2019s so hard to restart, even if consciously you\u2019re not thinking that, there\u2019s something in you that keeps it driving because you don\u2019t want the ball to stop rolling and it\u2019s because you\u2019re scared, because you\u2019re scared if the ball stops rolling, you\u2019ll never get it rolling again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>For sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So that was a time when that was happening to me and I thought, \u201cBoy, it\u2019s going to be hard to restart the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And then after these surgeries, it was another one of those times.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Legal battles, it\u2019s just exhaustion upon exhaustion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, it\u2019s just crazy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And sometimes you can\u2019t avoid it, but if you can avoid it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. I don\u2019t want to be involved in legal battles unless it\u2019s just \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>But I was at a point in my career that if I didn\u2019t do something, my career was going to be over.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And if I did do something, there was a chance it would be over.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It was still a risk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>What were some of the most important things in retrospect that you did to rebuild your career, regain that momentum afterwards?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, choosing the right partner, for one thing, which was Scott Borchetta, who happens to be the son of Mike Borchetta, who signed me on my first deal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>A small world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I know. Who I signed with on Big Machine afterwards because I knew he was a hard worker. So that certainly being first, but I was also recording the best album I think I\u2019d ever recorded in my life while all this was going on. Once I was cleared to record. And so I had an album ready to go by the time all the dust was settled \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It was settled.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u2014 I had an album ready to go and Scott Borchetta was ready and the album worked and the juice was back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Incredible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. But a lot of that was my team, kept fighting for me the entire time. When I went to Scott, to his label, he knew what had happened and he fought really hard because he didn\u2019t like what had happened either.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I would imagine that also injected a helpful amount of piss and vinegar to demonstrate, to really relaunch in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Oh, yeah. I think it turned me up to 12 after that. I mean, it kicked me into high gear for sure. And that\u2019s the way I feel now. After all of this and worrying about being able to come back and worry about if I did come back, what\u2019s my show\u2019s going to be like? How I was going to be able to perform? Was I going to be able to be me again?<\/p>\n<p>Now I feel like that same way I felt after coming out of Curb and starting with Big Machine and getting the ball rolling again. I feel like that we\u2019re right on the edge of just tipping that ball over the hill, that boulder over the hill and let it go again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I am so curious because you must get approached all the time one way or another from musicians at different stages in their careers. Maybe it\u2019s the son of a friend or the daughter of a fill in the blank, or it could be someone who\u2019s just coming up. Maybe they\u2019re trying to be an opener for you. Who knows?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Someone who is earlier in their career, I imagine the advice you might give them has changed over time, but if they want to be more than a flash in the pan \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Take charge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 to really last. Yeah. What advice do you give them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Take charge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. Can you say more?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Take charge of your career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Take charge of your career. Take charge of what you do. Be confident in your decisions. Listen, of course, you want to listen to people. Listen to people that know what they\u2019re doing, but ultimately you have to make the decisions and you have to make your choices and you have to make the right choices for you. And nobody can do that but yourself.<\/p>\n<p>And if you just coast, you might have a career for a little while, but if you want a long career, you\u2019re going to have to take charge and ownership of it and you\u2019re going to have to guide it. And you\u2019re going to have to have your finger on the button all the time and you\u2019re going to have to say yes or you\u2019re going to have to say no. And you\u2019re going to have to use your skills to manage people. You\u2019re going to have to use your skills to be managed.<\/p>\n<p>And both of those things can happen simultaneously and they have to happen simultaneously. You have to listen to smart people. But if you don\u2019t have a vision about what you want to do, if you don\u2019t have a plan about what you want to do, if you don\u2019t act on it every day, it\u2019s not going to happen. It\u2019s just not going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>And you can do all those things and it\u2019s still not happening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>But if you do all those things and it doesn\u2019t happen, back to your second album, right? It\u2019s like you\u2019re taking the risk that you fail on your own terms, as opposed to gambling on something that doesn\u2019t resonate for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That someone\u2019s talked you into.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So that seems to be a piece of it. Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>There\u2019s, as you said, having your finger on the button, being willing to say yes and no.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Be willing to say no is a big deal. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why do you think people are bad at that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Saying no?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Sure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because people want to please people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>They want people to like them. I mean, I want people to like me, but if you don\u2019t learn to say no, not in a mean way or not in a bad way, but just say, \u201cNo, that\u2019s not right for me.\u201d And that\u2019s back to knowing what\u2019s right for you and what isn\u2019t right for you.<\/p>\n<p>There could be something that on the surface, everybody that works for you says this is the perfect thing, but you\u2019ve got to know whether it is or not. And sometimes you don\u2019t. You know you can\u2019t get it right all the time. There\u2019s plenty of times you get it wrong, but I think if you go with your gut, there\u2019s a caveat to all of this too, because there are plenty of artists who succeed, who don\u2019t pick their songs, don\u2019t have any involvement in their production, really don\u2019t have any involvement in their management, don\u2019t have any involvement in their stage design, and they just show up and do their thing.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s plenty of artists who do that and are successful. So there\u2019s always exceptions to the rule, but I think for the most part, the artists who have been around for a long time, the artists I know who have been around for a long time, they take control of their careers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I interviewed quite a long time ago, he\u2019s since sadly passed away, but Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks from the UK, large religious figure, very well \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>If you\u2019re a Lord Rabbi, you\u2019ve got to be a big religious figure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>He\u2019s a big deal and very good at conflict resolution, incredibly open-hearted man. And I recall at one point with me, he shared this quote, which I\u2019m going to paraphrase, but it was effectively like one of the most important things in life is to be able to distinguish from an opportunity to be seized and a temptation to be resisted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because they can look awful a lot alike.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>They can look very similar, and what I\u2019ve seen over and over again with like all the startups I\u2019ve been involved with, when I\u2019m talking to authors who are just getting started, especially if they have a flicker of something that might ignite, is that as soon as there is a certain velocity of success, there are a lot of temptations that can pull you away from the thing that you spent so much time getting good at that brought you to that point.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I\u2019m wondering if there are any categories of things, so for me, for instance, after about a year or two of getting very distracted, speaking engagements was one of those things where I was like, \u201cI\u2019m just going to end up on the road doing speaking engagements, talking about the same thing every day for the rest of my life if I actually continue to say yes to this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And it\u2019s very seductive because they pay really well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I was like, \u201cAll right. So I\u2019m going to say no for a year, that\u2019s it, so that I can focus on these creative projects, writing.\u201d Are there any things along those lines at a point where you\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, I need to say no to this, that, or the other thing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. There have been times where I probably should have said no and didn\u2019t. I mean, there\u2019s been times where I\u2019ve got myself into too much work, but I\u2019ve gotten pretty good, I think, at saying no. I think the older I get, I don\u2019t know about wiser, but the older I get, the more apt I am to say no, mainly because you get to a point where I don\u2019t care to be more famous.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. I think there\u2019s a point of diminishing returns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So you look at things under those lenses like, \u201cAll right. Well, this will give you higher visibility.\u201d All right. I\u2019ve got plenty of visibility. I don\u2019t need to do that. The only thing that it gets into is, all right, you got to sell tickets to your concert.<\/p>\n<p>So then there\u2019s some things that you would probably say no to that you\u2019ll say yes to just because you got to pay everybody. So there\u2019s some compromises that you have to make to your, not principles, but to what you\u2019re willing to do work-wise. But yeah, the older you get to more, it\u2019s easier to say no because you know more about what the outcome\u2019s going to be and whether the outcome\u2019s going to be beneficial enough for the time or it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So let\u2019s talk about putting people in seats and tours. You have the upcoming <em>Pawn Shop Guitar<\/em> tour this summer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You\u2019ve got new music in the works.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>In the middle of working on an album right now. In fact, next week I\u2019m in the studio again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So could you talk about, just tell us more about both, and then I mean, you\u2019ve got family, you\u2019ve obviously you have your lovely wife, you still have a lot going on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>So I\u2019d love to know, and I\u2019m sure the audience would, more about both of these, right? Where can they learn more? When can they expect things? And then also how you actually schedule your time, structure your time, these days.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah. Well, album wise, like I said, we\u2019re in the middle of an album and the album\u2019s going to be called <em>Pawn Shop Guitar<\/em> as well. It\u2019s a song I wrote back to the story I told you where I got my first guitar where I pawned my high school ring my freshman year of college and bought the guitar.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily for me, my grandfather found out about it and went back and got my ring for me, although I don\u2019t know where it\u2019s at now. I think my wife has it somewhere. So I wrote the whole song around that story and we were looking for tour titles, trying to find the right tour title. I thought <em>Pawn Shop Guitar<\/em> was good. We all thought it was good just because of the story that it told and it conjures up some good imagery.<\/p>\n<p>So we start that tour, I think it starts in July. The tour starts in July. I think we\u2019re doing three or four stadiums and sheds. The Chicks will be out on the stadium tours with us. And I\u2019m a huge fan of those guys.<\/p>\n<p>We did a George Strait tour together years ago and then they opened for me on one of my tours years ago and just a huge fan of their music. And I\u2019m excited to get out with those guys.<\/p>\n<p>And then we\u2019re doing sheds for the summer and then we\u2019ll do some more shows as well. We\u2019ll be doing some fairs and festivals and it\u2019s going to be a busy year. I mean, a lot, and there\u2019s a couple movie and TV projects in the works.<\/p>\n<p>And then my oldest daughter\u2019s working on a Broadway \u2014 she\u2019s a Broadway actress and singer, so she\u2019s working on some stuff. My youngest daughter\u2019s a singer. She\u2019s an actor. She\u2019s in <em>Landman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Oh, no kidding?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>She just toured, opened for Brandi Carlile on her European tour last summer. My middle daughter works for Earth League International, a big nonprofit. She sings as well, but she\u2019s more of the brainy \u2014 actually went to Stanford, got her master\u2019s degree from Stanford. Worked in Congress for a long time. So they\u2019re all doing well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Seems like this fathering thing you\u2019ve done pretty well. I mean, they\u2019ve turned \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>They really got a good mom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And then my nephew, Timothy Wayne, is out there doing well too. He\u2019s a singer. I\u2019m the worst singer in the family, for real. I mean, that\u2019s legitimately not a joke.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Why do it? Now that might sound like a strange question but \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Why do what?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Touring. It\u2019s so grueling. I have to imagine, right? Very demanding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>It is.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s physically demanding. It\u2019s psychologically demanding. Is it something you feel on stage? Is it a quickening that you just can\u2019t get any other way? What is it that keeps you going back?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, you can\u2019t get it any other way, that\u2019s for sure. And they\u2019re always good, but every third show or so, you have that one show that\u2019s like, \u201cThis is why I do it. This is why I do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And you\u2019re right, touring is more grueling. Touring is more expensive. You pay for everything. You\u2019re doing three nights in a row, but it\u2019s your stage, your design, your ideas, the way you want it to look, all those things. That\u2019s the fun in it for me, is building the stage and putting the show together.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s also the hardest part is putting the set list together because after 35 years and a ton of records, you\u2019re never going to get everybody\u2019s favorite song in. Somebody\u2019s always going to miss a song that they wanted to hear because you can only do, what? 22, 23 songs in a show at the most, and when you\u2019ve got 70 or 80 singles and a bunch of number ones, you can\u2019t get them all in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>You can\u2019t. You can\u2019t get them all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>So you just try to create a ride and an emotion and an experience and that\u2019s the fun part for me is try to create a movie for everybody to see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>On those magic nights, just a few more questions and then we\u2019ll land the plane, but what does that feel like? I\u2019m so curious because I\u2019ve played sports. I\u2019ve had flow states in various contexts, but I\u2019ve never experienced anything with that type of environment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, that\u2019s what it reminds me of is sports. It certainly reminds me of football before the games. And it reminds me of the locker room, it reminds me of just when you get your uniform on and you feel like you\u2019re 10 foot tall and bulletproof.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s when I put the cowboy hat, it\u2019s like Superman\u2019s cape. You put the cowboy hat on, you\u2019re ready to go. But there\u2019s a symbiotic relationship that happens. And to me, art is magic. That\u2019s what real magic is, is art, any kind of art.<\/p>\n<p>And the magic happens when you\u2019re up there and everything\u2019s going great for you, and you can tell everything\u2019s going great for the audience. And you have this symbiotic electrical relationship where you\u2019re all in this groove together and you\u2019re all sort of in suspended animation for a while, where you leave the world outside and all of a sudden we\u2019re all in this fantasy world that we create, that we\u2019re all living in for this hour and a half.<\/p>\n<p>And when that happens, when the whole world just sort of shuts down and you\u2019re in this make believe world that all of a sudden becomes the real world that you\u2019re in for an hour and a half, two hours, where nothing else exists except for that world, then you\u2019re in a movie. Then you\u2019re in this alternate universe that there\u2019s nothing but joy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>It\u2019s like a utopia that you are able to create.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yes. Yes. On the good nights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>On the good nights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And sometimes you think it\u2019s not a good night because your ears don\u2019t sound great or your voice isn\u2019t doing what you want it to do. And sometimes those turn out to be the best nights. I mean, my best basketball game I ever had, I think I scored 52 points and I had the flu and it kept trying to get the coach to take me out of the game because I thought I was hurting the team. I thought I was playing terribly. Then he showed me the book after the game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Tim, if you could have a billboard, metaphorically speaking, put anything on it for millions, billions of people to see, right? Could be a quote, could be a mantra, could be scripture, could be anything, right? It could be an image. So anything non-commercial.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u201cHumble and Kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u201cHumble and Kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u201cHumble and Kind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Tell me more about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Because that song to me represents so much, the video too, so much of what the world needs and what we don\u2019t have right now is humility and kindness. And of course, love should be in that as well. But without humility and kindness, we\u2019re lost and we seem to be lost right now. And so that song to me is a beacon in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n<p>That one and \u201cLive Like You Were Dying\u201d to me are songs that don\u2019t belong to me. I just happen to be lucky enough to be able to sing them for people. They belong to everybody. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Hear, hear. \u201cHumble and Kind.\u201d Tim, we\u2019re going to link to everything related to Tim McGraw on the show notes. You\u2019ve got lots of that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Not everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>No. We\u2019ll leave out your OnlyFans page, but we have X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube. You\u2019re not hard for people to find. But is there anything else you\u2019d like to point people to? Anything you\u2019d like to say? Closing comments, public complaints, anything \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I have plenty of public complaints, but I\u2019m not going to air them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>\u2014 stand-up comedy, raw material, anything you\u2019d like to say before we come to \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Well, first I want to thank you for having me \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u2014 and allow me to be a part of your book \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>My pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>\u2014 one of your books.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>And enjoy listening to you, and I hope we can do it again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Absolutely. It\u2019s been such a pleasure. I\u2019ve wanted to connect in person for years. So much fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>And I hope it\u2019s not the last time. I love Nashville, so I\u2019ll be back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Good. Well, and when you\u2019re back, we\u2019ll talk again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>Yeah. Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>I\u2019ll cook dinner for you one night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>I\u2019m in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Or have Faith cook dinner for you. It\u2019d be better. Although I\u2019m a pretty good cook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>That is a deal for sure. And everybody listening, we will put links to anything and everything we can find. Obviously, all the ways to find what you\u2019re up to, the tour, the music when it\u2019s ready. And so \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>There is one new song, to interrupt you, that people can find that we didn\u2019t put on streaming or anything. You can only find it on my socials, but it\u2019s a song called \u201cDifferent\u201d that I think people should listen to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss: <\/strong>All right. We will find \u201cDifferent,\u201d and we will link it in the show notes at tim.blog\/podcast for folks. And as always, until next time, this is how I close almost every episode, a bit kinder than as necessary, not just to other people, but also to yourself. If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete as Jack Kornfield has said. And also as always, thanks for tuning in guys. See you next time. Thank you, Tim.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim McGraw: <\/strong>Thank you. Adios.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Tim-McGraw-legal-conditions-transcript\">DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS:<\/h3>\n<p><em>Tim Ferriss owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT YOU\u2019RE WELCOME TO DO:<\/em>\u00a0<em>You are welcome to share the below transcript (up to 500 words but not more) in media articles (e.g.,\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>LA Times<em>,\u00a0<\/em>The Guardian<em>), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Medium), and\/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to \u201cThe Tim Ferriss Show\u201d and link back to the tim.blog\/podcast URL. For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript per the above.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED:<\/em>\u00a0<em>No one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use Tim Ferriss\u2019 name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another\u2019s products or services. For the sake of clarity, media outlets are permitted to use photos of Tim Ferriss from\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>the media room on tim.blog<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0or (obviously) license photos of Tim Ferriss from Getty Images, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Tim McGraw (@thetimmcgraw), a Grammy Award-winning entertainer, author, and actor who has sold more than 106 million [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}