{"id":13674,"date":"2026-09-05T00:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tales-of-overcoming-the-odds-and-how-to-turn-losses-into-wins-tim-mcgraw-terry-crews-dax-shepard-and-more-881\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T00:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T04:57:03","slug":"the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tales-of-overcoming-the-odds-and-how-to-turn-losses-into-wins-tim-mcgraw-terry-crews-dax-shepard-and-more-881","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-tales-of-overcoming-the-odds-and-how-to-turn-losses-into-wins-tim-mcgraw-terry-crews-dax-shepard-and-more-881\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tim Ferriss Show Transcripts: Tales of Overcoming The Odds, and How to Turn Losses Into Wins \u2014 Tim McGraw, Terry Crews, Dax Shepard, and More (#881)"},"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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please enjoy this transcript of <a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/09\/04\/failure-into-success\/\">a special episode<\/a> about overcoming mistakes and failure. What do you do when your work is rejected, when the big bet fails, or when the path ahead suddenly disappears? As you\u2019ll hear in this episode, setbacks can often present opportunities, if you know how to look for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/09\/04\/failure-into-success\/#:~:text=All%20episodes-,Show%20Notes,-Connect%20with%20BJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Books, people, tools, and resources mentioned in the interview<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/2026\/09\/04\/failure-into-success-transcript\/#failure-compilation-legal-conditions\">Legal conditions\/copyright information<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"podcast-player\">\n<div class=\"podcast-player-inner-wrap\">\n<p>Tales of Overcoming The Odds, and How to Turn Losses Into Wins \u2014 Tim McGraw, Terry Crews, Dax Shepard, and More<\/p>\n<p><noscript><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.art19.com\/shows\/58dacbdc-646e-4585-9914-19c3de11d1ba\/episodes\/c599888a-c9bb-403c-96a9-b1bb87125ccc\/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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Listen to this episode on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/881-tales-of-overcoming-the-odds-and-how-to-turn\/id863897795?i=1000787830158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/7Hj0afOJOt88lMveJCGhiJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/+AAKebtueK58\" 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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Now, I hate to focus on something maybe superficial, but you said riding your motorcycle. Now I apologize if this sounds like a weird question, but you have three limbs that have been damaged. How do you ride a motorcycle?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> So, yeah, so you know, this was sort of a long dream that recently came true.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Congratulations. I mean, it\u2019s awesome. I\u2019m just so curious about the logistics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> Thank you. Well, it\u2019s interesting you ask, because right now there\u2019s \u2013 the man who helped make this dream come true, Randy, he ended up being my patient and our resident at Zen Hospice Project not long after he converted my motorcycle. So there\u2019s a lot to this story, my friend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So cheers to Randy and his family and his wife, I mean, and his mother, [inaudible] who I might be seeing next week actually. But so that\u2019s one piece of the story. But the other is, I love two wheels. I love gyroscopic lifestyle. I love the feeling of it. So I\u2019ve always loved riding bicycles. And then I\u2019d always wanted to get on a motorcycle, but I kept going to shops and, you know, people would sort of look at me and no one got into it. I could never find a mechanic who was willing to take it on and try to help make it happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fellow named Mert Lawwill, who\u2019s an old motorcycle racer champion, sort of legendary in that world, he happens to live around here. He lives in Tiburon. And he built a prosthetic component. I don\u2019t know what the story that inspired Mert to do this, but he\u2019s a machinist himself and a handy fella, and in his retirement he got into this business of building this prosthetic component that lends itself very well to mounting an arm onto a bicycle or a motorcycle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the first piece of this puzzle was discovering Mert\u2019s invention and getting a hold of it myself which allowed me to get my prosthetic arm attached to a handlebar in a very functional way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Now does that connection \u2013 so you have throttle, rear brake and then typically front brake on the left. How are those controls modified?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> So, okay, so Randy, what he figured out, so first was to get the arm piece and then what Randy figured out was \u2013 and then \u2013 well, then Aprilia, and I know Honda had made a version of this as well, but Aprilia makes a model, the Mana, M-A-N-A, that is clutchless. So that was a huge \u2013<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Got it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> \u2013 piece to get out of the way. So this is essentially an automatic transmission. So do away with the clutch and gear changes. So that\u2019s a huge piece of the puzzle out of the way. And then Randy figured out a way to splice the brakes, front and rear in a certain ratio into a single lever. So I\u2019m doing nothing with my prosthetic feet except hold on to the bike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m doing nothing with my prosthetic arm except for hold on to the bike. So all the action is in my right hand. Brakes the one lever, and then Randy built this box and moved all the controls, the turn signals, horn and all that stuff, over to the right side of the bike in good distance for my thumb to reach them. So I have throttle, brake lever and then the turn signal box all going with one hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> That\u2019s so awesome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> That\u2019s it, you know. Away you go!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I just have to pause here for a second and just ask everyone listening, what bullshit excuses do you have for not going after whatever it is that you want. Like, please, write in, tell us on social media why these are real excuses. With #bullshit afterwards. Oh my God, man, that\u2019s such a great story. I\u2019m so glad I asked about it. And what a really fantastic work-around. Man! Congrats, that\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>BJ Miller:<\/strong> Well, thank you, and thanks Randy and thanks for the folks at Scooteria, the bike shop in the city. I mean I \u2013 a lot of people helped me make this come true. And it took a long, long time of trying to find the right folks to make it happen, so Amen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Amen to that.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> When I was looking at your history and your book and your back story, one thing that I paid attention to as a pattern was an uncommon degree of self reflection. And so, I want to rewind the clock a little bit back to high school. And one of the stories that you put in <em>Tribe of Mentors<\/em> is related to my question related favorite failures or a failure that set you up for later success. Could you tell us a little bit about that please?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Terry Crews:<\/strong> Man, yes. In 1986, that was my senior year in high school. And I went to Flint Academy. And it was a classy school, but we were highly ranked in the state. And I used to be a basketball player. Hard to believe now. Basketball was a big sport for me. But I was the starting center on this team. And what was wild is we were picked to go all the way in the state. We had a super star on our team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we had a really, really good team. But we played against a school who decided not to play. It was the district championship. And it was right at the beginning of the playoffs. And these guys would take the ball down the court and pass the ball to each other at the top of the court and wouldn\u2019t play. And we had a coach who was like well, you know what, I\u2019m going to beat you at your own game. So, we stayed in the zone. So, we\u2019re sitting there the whole time. And I\u2019m telling you, it was the most boring game of all time. We just sat there with our hands up, and they passed the ball. And if anything happened, somebody went and got it, and you scored two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was just a mess. So, the score was really, really low. And they were up 47 to 45. And it was, literally, under a minute. And I\u2019m freaking out because, now, we\u2019re going to \u2013 it\u2019s evident we\u2019re going to lose because I\u2019m going man, this is a dumb defensive strategy anyway. We should have been going after it. But what happened is a guy threw the ball. Their guy threw the ball cross court, I intercepted it. And with literally five seconds left to go, and I take the ball all the way down the court. You got to understand. I\u2019m thinking I had visions of oh, my God, this is the thing. I\u2019m the hero. The heart is like pounding. I\u2019m already at the party. You know what I mean? And I go with this layup, and I bring it up there, and it\u2019s totally \u2013 it gets around the rim, and it rolls off. And let me tell you that place goes nuts because it was the upset of the year. And I collapsed in a heap. And I know my life is over. And you got to understand. And this is another thing. Shame among men. It\u2019s like how could you do that, man?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other players were yelling at me. The coach \u2013 I was in the locker room, and he was like you had no business taking that shot. And I stole the ball. It wasn\u2019t like \u2013 we didn\u2019t have a shot anyway. But he was like you had no business taking that shot. You should have passed it. Man, it\u2019s your fault. And everybody in the room was like yeah. And they didn\u2019t let me off one \u2013 and I remember just going oh, my God. And I went in the paper. And the paper, the next day, it was like Terry Crews had a shot, and he missed. And let me tell you, it was the most dark \u2013 when you\u2019re 16 years old, I was beyond crushed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And one guy was taunting me. I got in a fight after it at school and the whole thing. And I was just like this is awful. It\u2019s horrible. And so, it was a couple of days went by, and I was in the deepest funk. I\u2019m sitting on my bed, and I shared my room with my brother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, for some reason, he wasn\u2019t there because I always remember him being there. It was kind of crazy. I don\u2019t ever remember being alone, except that time. And I remember being alone and just thinking about I should have passed it. I should have passed it. Maybe I messed up. And what else could I have done? And then, another little voice. It said I took the shot. I took the shot. And I was like I did. I did. And I kept thinking, it was like, man, look, when you had the chance, when everything was on the line, you took your shot, man. You did that. You did that. And all of a sudden, I was like that\u2019s right. I took it. And I learned, from then on, I said, man, wait a minute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If I win or if I fail, it\u2019s going to be on my terms. It\u2019s going to be up to me. If I have the opportunity, I have to go for it. And then, I felt really good about losing the game. It was real. Now, you can call it reframing. A lot of people have scientific ways or psychological ways to do things. But I learned always to kind of reframe things so that it\u2019s to your advantage. You know what I mean? And you look at these things like wait a minute, you took the shot, man. And this is another thing because what\u2019s so crazy is that no one ever remembers that game. It\u2019s one of the least important things in my life. But the lesson I learned is still guiding me today. The fact that go for it. Take your shot. Take your time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When you get that thing, when you have that opportunity, don\u2019t mess it up because this is another thing. And I want to tell you, Tim, the scariest thought ever is one thing that blew me away is that you really do get what you want. And let me tell you what I mean. There have been times when you can be self destructive. And you think it\u2019s something else, or you think \u2013 I discovered, for a long time, if I show up late for something twice, I don\u2019t want it. And you get what you desire. Everything about you, you get what you want. Now, the way your life is, truthfully, you want it. Now, that\u2019s hard to say because a lot of people are like no way. There\u2019s so many other obstacles. There\u2019s this and this and this and this. But the truth is, if you wanted something different, you\u2019d change it. And that hit me. Like it\u2019s scary because, if I failed, or if I showed up wrong or messed up on something, I was like I didn\u2019t really do what it took to get it. And, again, that comes from taking that shot way back in high school. But now, I realize, okay, get rid of any what I call self sabotage, and you can achieve whatever you need.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> This is such a pattern that I\u2019ve seen across interviews that I\u2019ve done. We were talking about Jamie Foxx back stage. But it goes all the way across the spectrum, say Debbie Millman who is a well known graphic designer. And she realized, at one point, and then, made her mantra busy is a decision. You\u2019re disallowed from complaining responding to someone when they say how are you with a complaint that you are busy because that\u2019s a consequence of your decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Went wood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> What was that?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Who\u2019s Byron again?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> So it was like an album on spec?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Sounds a lot like book publishing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> It\u2019s a great show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> For sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> And then after these surgeries, it was another one of those times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Legal battles, it\u2019s just exhaustion upon exhaustion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Oh, it\u2019s just crazy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> And sometimes you can\u2019t avoid it, but if you can avoid it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Yeah. I don\u2019t want to be involved in legal battles unless it\u2019s just \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> And if I did do something, there was a chance it would be over.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> It was still a risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> A small world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> It was settled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Incredible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Take charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> \u2014 to really last. Yeah. What advice do you give them?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Take charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> All right. Can you say more?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim McGraw:<\/strong> Take charge of your career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And you can do all those things and it\u2019s still not happening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jessica Lahey:<\/strong> <strong\/>So I wrote <em>The Gift of Failure<\/em>, it was my first book. I didn\u2019t know how to write a book. I mean, knowing how to write a book is a learned skill, right? So the idea that a journalist who\u2019s used to writing 1,200 words because suddenly write 70,000 and do it perfectly the first time around, I had it in my head \u2014 my fantasy was I would hand my first draft in and my editor would come back to me and she\u2019d say, \u201cWell, there\u2019s no edits here. I mean, this is it. We can publish early. This is perfect.\u201d What happened instead was this. I turned my book in on time, on October 31st, and on November 1st, I went on a horseback ride with my husband. My friend of mine has horses that she lets me borrow sometimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was thrown from the horse and I landed on my head and I lost my memory and lost my ability to read for a little while. It was bad. It was really bad. Didn\u2019t remember that I\u2019d finished a book the day before, all that sort of stuff. So I had some post-concussion syndrome that was really depression and stuff. Then I got a call from my editor. Actually, I got an email from my editor, asking me to come to New York for a talk. No, yeah, that\u2019s not good. My editor is like \u2014 oh, I just idolized her. She\u2019s like a grande dame in publishing. She\u2019s amazing. So this wasn\u2019t going to be good. I went and what she said was this. Oh, God, it still makes me want to throw up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She said, \u201cThis book is unpublishable.\u201d Then she said the worst part. That wasn\u2019t the worst part. What she said was, \u201cWe need to think about bringing in a ghost.\u201d Now, a ghost means a ghost writer. I am a professional writer and she wants to bring in a writer to help me write my book. So I didn\u2019t throw up. I was actually very proud of myself for that. But I said, \u201cLook\u2026\u201d and I didn\u2019t cry, which was also a huge thing. I said, \u201cBefore we do that\u2026\u201d I needed some extra time anyway because of the head injury. That really got in my way for a while, so we had some extra time to play with. I said, \u201cGive me two chapters, give me a probationary two chapters and tell me everything I did wrong and what you want this to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I filled a notebook. I sat in her office for \u2014 I was in there for over an hour listening to how bad I was, to how much I stank as a writer, essentially. Luckily, she was also lovely and she said things like, \u201cThis happens with a lot of journalists. You\u2019re used to writing in short bursts and so you end up writing this very fragmented, large thing that doesn\u2019t hold together as a whole. Your writing is fine. It\u2019s your organization that sucks and that\u2019s what you need help with.\u201d So she gave me those two chapters and I went home and I read over a notebook full of how badly I suck as a writer and I digested it and I turned it into essentially a checklist of what not to do again. Those two chapters turned into four, which turned into six, which turned into the whole book, no ghost writer, which turned into a <em>New York Times<\/em> bestselling book.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s not the best part of the story. The best part of the story for me was that when she bought my second book, I turned that book in on time. My agent was a little nervous because she knew I\u2019d been a lot to handle the first time, right? My editor\u2019s having to line edit an entire book, because I\u2019m a ton of work. But I had run my second book through the what not to do again to-do list filter, and the book was so clean that she wanted to move up my publication date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Oh, wow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jessica Lahey:<\/strong> So it\u2019s not that I\u2019m a great writer. It\u2019s that I was humble enough to say, \u201cTeach me how to be better. I will take it to heart and I will be able to be objective about it and I will use it and I won\u2019t make the same mistakes again.\u201d So when I handed in not only <em>Gift of Failure<\/em> but then the next book, I was able to show my editor that I learned from my mistakes. And what was really sweet is she referred to me in a recent email as a dream author because I learned from my mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> You\u2019ve been very forthcoming with a lot of your challenges over time. You do something that I respect a great deal, which is not leading with solely the highlight reel. I think that that\u2019s a real service to people who are suffering, as we all are in various ways, often self-inflicted wounds. And I wanted to know if you have perhaps a favorite failure? And what I mean by that is a mistake or something at the time that you viewed as a failure, that in some way set you up for success later. If there\u2019s anything that you gained from tremendously, that at the time seemed like a shortcoming or a failure or a mistake?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dax Shepard:<\/strong> I mean, the one that jumps out immediately and is most relevant to this conversation is, I was heartbroken when CHiPs didn\u2019t open. Because back to my identity crisis, I had a three-year stretch where in my mind I decided I wasn\u2019t an actor anymore. I was a writer-director, and I liked that. It felt loftier. Well, and substantively, I feel a lot more pride over having written a script than having acted. I do think it\u2019s harder, so some of it\u2019s worthwhile. But I had decided I was a writer-director and that was going to be the next 10 years of my life. CHiPs had tested really high at Warner Brothers, and they immediately put me on another movie that I took over from some other people, and so I was doing that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then overnight that ended. I did not have that identity anymore. And they had already commissioned CHiPs 2. I was already beginning to write that. And I got very depressed for three or four months, maybe more. I started doing math and thinking, \u201cOkay, could I retire now? Could I be done now? Live on this amount of money?\u201d Blah, blah, blah. That\u2019s what I was spending most of my time thinking about is whether I was completely done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that\u2019s when I wanted to do the podcast. I was ruminating on so much stuff. I was thinking about my own life and identity and trajectory and the failure, and then I started it in the wake of that. And I think because I was so interested in failure at that time\u2014I say often on the podcast, I have nothing to learn from someone holding an Emmy over their head. I\u2019ll never be holding an Emmy over my head, but I can relate if that person cheated on someone they loved and regretted it. I can relate to the failures that led up to that. That\u2019s something I can learn from. And that\u2019s how I learned from people in AA. I don\u2019t ever learn from someone telling some victory story, it\u2019s always how they fucked up and realized it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so now in hindsight, had I had the thing I wanted, which was being a writer-director, it\u2019s so time-consuming. My kids were one and three when I finished that movie, maybe two and four; and I would have been gone. I would have taken bigger movies. I would have been way more into that. Ironically, I would have ended up making less money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This thing that I had no desire to do and this complete collapse of this identity I had and desire turned out to be something that allows me to be with my kids a ton. I\u2019m at home all the time. My wife can take work out of town if she wants. I can travel and do this. This life that came out of this epic failure, this 20-year pursuit, turned out to be something better than I had even thought to imagine. I didn\u2019t even know that this could exist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, that\u2019s a very obvious one for me now that I look back and go like, \u201cFucking thank God that thing failed.\u201d I would have been writing that movie, then directing that movie, then trying to get them to give me $100 million to do this one. Well, and by the way, the movie business is collapsing, so I would have been doing all that in a time it\u2019s almost impossible to do that. Yeah, I got so lucky in that thing not performing, crazy enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> What a story. It makes me think of something a friend of mine said, I can\u2019t recall who it was, but sometimes you need life to save you from what you want.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dax Shepard:<\/strong> oh, yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I mean, what a great story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dax Shepard:<\/strong> Well, even if you go through your own life, right, and you think of the times you got exactly what you wanted and then the times you didn\u2019t get the thing you wanted. And what I know most is that I don\u2019t know what\u2019s best for me. The things I got that I wanted did not turn out or result in anything I had forecasts or dreamt of; and yet, all these things I didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I didn\u2019t want to be on TV. I had decided in my egotistical mind I was a movie actor. I didn\u2019t want to be in TV. I reluctantly was on this show <em>Parenthood<\/em> because I was at a lull in my career. Best experience I\u2019ve ever had as an actor, opened up the doors for me to act and so many other things. Without question, the best thing that ever could\u2019ve happened to me as an actor, and it was the thing I didn\u2019t want to do. And I got to do the exact thing I wanted to do, ride wheelies motorcycles in a movie I directed, and it fucking didn\u2019t turn out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> So I went from a talented and gifted student with straight As to failing literally every subject the first quarter of seventh grade. I was chronically truant. I think I was averaging 19 days a quarter that I was actually showing up for school. My mother didn\u2019t know because the school never notified her, and by the time she got home from work at 6:00 p.m., we were all sitting around pretending to do our homework. So my poor mother had no idea until about midway through the eighth grade I was so chronically truant that I was failing all of my major subjects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So meanwhile, while I\u2019m skipping school, I\u2019m hanging out with the wrong people, much older crowd, friends of my older brother and just an older crowd and just getting in trouble. And I fall in love with a much older boyfriend at the time, think I\u2019m in love, and we want to get married and run away and get married. And so by the time I was in the ninth grade, I\u2019m 14 years old, found myself pregnant. My boyfriend at the time had given me a diamond ring. We were engaged, we\u2019re going to get married, so we run away. He was 26 at the time. I was 14. My mother, when she finds out, was going to have him arrested. She was going to put him in jail. So I run away from home and think, \u201cWell, we\u2019ve got this. We\u2019re going to get married and we\u2019re going to have the baby and everything\u2019s going to be great.\u201d The mind of a 14-year-old. Obviously things didn\u2019t work out that way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly, I went to my father who had been out of the picture most of my life and asked for him to sign for me to get married. Because of my age, one of my parents had to legally sign over my legal guardianship to my husband. So they literally signed over my legal guardianship to my husband. So my dad, thinking he would have one less child to pay child support for, because once he signed over my guardianship, he \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Right, cuts the child support bill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> \u2014 paid $100 less a month in child support. So he signed over my legal guardianship to my husband. We got married the day after my 15th birthday. I was eight months pregnant at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I guess fast-forward a little bit, a year and a half later, I was back at home. My mother was taking me to GED classes at night. I was sneaking to go to GED classes when I was still married. My husband didn\u2019t approve of me going to school. So once we separated, my mom made sure I stayed in school, got my GED. And she would bring her typewriter home from work and she taught me how to type on the kitchen table. So she taught me how to type and take a little shorthand, and I went and got a job as a secretary. I lied about my age. I got a job as a secretary when I was 16, so started working as secretary and then worked as a waitress in the evening in a bar. Also lied about my age to work in a bar. That was the only option up in the area where I was working. So for the next several years, I worked two jobs as a secretary and a waitress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And my motivation really was my son. It was kind of a significant moment for me, and I\u2019ve had a few in my life. When my son was born, I had never babysat before, I\u2019d never held a baby. I didn\u2019t know anything about babies or children. And when he was born, he was such a good baby. His crib was at the end of my bed in my bedroom. And I\u2019d wake up in the morning, and he\u2019d be awake and he\u2019d just be looking at me, waiting for me to wake up. Not crying, nothing. He would just be looking at me. So about three weeks into this \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> That is remarkable. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> Yeah, about three weeks into this experiment, I\u2019m looking at him one morning, and it just dawns on me for the first time that I\u2019m a parent and that that helpless little baby was completely reliant on me. And my mother always stressed the importance of education and work to us, and here I was, my husband didn\u2019t allow me to go to school, I would never be able to get a job, and I\u2019m looking at this poor little innocent baby and I\u2019m thinking his whole life depends on me, and what am I going to be able to provide with a ninth grade education? Not much. So that was a aha moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to resist the temptation to ask 300 questions about the last few minutes that you shared because we\u2019ll end up spending all of our time there if I do that. But I am curious for you, I\u2019m trying to put myself in your shoes at that young age, when you \u2014 and we don\u2019t need to get into the details unless you\u2019d like to share, but when you separated from your then-husband, when that happened, what did you think was going to become of you? What did you envision your path would be at that point? I have to imagine that it would have just been incredibly challenging. I don\u2019t know. You can\u2019t believe everything you read on the internet, but I read that when you were a young girl, you dreamed of being a lawyer. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> And then flash-forward, you go through this entire tumultuous experience and you land back at home. Where did you think your life was headed? Where did you think you were headed at that point?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> Well, I knew that with a ninth grade education and a single mom that I had zero chance of being able to do what I thought was most important in the world, and that\u2019s take care of my son. And when I first moved back home, I got my GED, but I still was not able to easily find a job at my age. It was 16, almost 17. I had to wait till I was 16 and nine months to take the test to get the GED. Interestingly, you needed 255 to pass the test. I got 256. I passed it by one point.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Oh my God. Talk about \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> There\u2019s another little footnote of my life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> \u2014 these <em>Sliding Door<\/em> moments. Holy cow, right? Okay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> So I knew that my mother had always stressed the importance of education and work, so I knew I had to go back to school, and I wanted to go to college. I didn\u2019t want my son to be subject to the same crappy neighborhoods and the same crappy schools that I went to. I wanted him to have a real chance, and I knew if I was going to do that, I had to go back to school and get a college education. If I didn\u2019t do that, I was standing in the same food stamp line my mother stood in with me. I remember the first day I went to get food stamps, going to the big white building by Prince George\u2019s Plaza right near my home and standing in the same line with my son that I stood in with my mom when I was a kid, and I was like, \u201cThis is not my path. This can\u2019t be my path.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so when I got my job as a secretary, they offered tuition reimbursement to go to college, so I started at community college. I just started taking one class a semester, and that\u2019s where it started, one class a semester. And they reimbursed me for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I mean, for people who don\u2019t have context, we\u2019ve been trying to schedule this for a while, and understandably you got a lot of balls to juggle. And I remember hearing just pieces of your story. This was, God, it has to be, what, more than a year ago now, I\u2019m sure. Time flies. But it\u2019s been a long while. And I just remember thinking to myself, \u201cGod, I hope someday that we can have this conversation on the podcast,\u201d so I want to thank you again for doing it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you then go from there \u2014 what is the connective tissue, sort of the catalyzing events that ultimately get you into law enforcement? What are the first few dominoes that get tipped over that start to push you in that direction?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cathy Lanier:<\/strong> So to be fair, my family\u2019s a public service family. My father was a firefighter. My oldest brother had become a firefighter right out of high school. My other brother was a police officer. I was working as a secretary. I was taking that one class a semester working as a secretary, trying to get my son in private school. I wanted him in private school. I did not want him going to those schools. I was still living in the same crappy neighborhood, but I wanted my son in a good school.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I saw an ad \u2014 I was 23 years old. I saw an ad in the Washington Post for the Metropolitan Police Department; they were hiring. And what caught my attention \u2014 it\u2019s a full page ad in the Post. Half of the page said tuition reimbursement. I\u2019m like, \u201cOh my God, tuition reimbursement. I\u2019m paying for one class a semester. Going to take me 30 years to get a degree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I went with a friend, and we went and stood in line. They were hiring a thousand cops. This was during the crack cocaine wars in Washington, early 1990. 500 murders a year. DC was known as the murder capital of the world at the time. So I just went and stood in line with a thousand other people, went and took the test, and I came out \u2014 I want to say I came out like 60 out of a thousand people on that test. So they called me right away. I was the only white female in the room. This is back in the early \u201990s. Washington DC was about 89% African American.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I mean, I felt the same drive my mother felt taking care of us is that I have a son that needs me, he needs me to provide for him, and the only way I\u2019m going to do this is get a good job, government job, not a bad option, and go back to school and get my degree. So I got hired by the Metropolitan Police in 1990, started walking a footbeat. My first day out of the academy was the Mount Pleasant riots. So my first day out of the academy, I went to work and didn\u2019t come home for five days. It was great.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I like that. That rings true to me. Let\u2019s use this as a segue to an answer that you provided very graciously in my last book, <em>Tribe of Mentors<\/em>. I asked a question in the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life? So I\u2019m just going to read this and then we\u2019ll dive into it. So these are your words. \u201cI used to resent obstacles along the path thinking if only that hadn\u2019t happened life would be so good. Then I suddenly realized: life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path. Our role here is to get better at navigating those obstacles. I strive to find calm, measured responses and to see hindrances as a chance to problem-solve. Often I fall back into old frustrations, but if I remind myself this is a chance to step up, I can reframe conflict as a chance to experiment with solutions.\u201d What led to this realization?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Janna Levin:<\/strong> Oh, man. I mean, gosh, it is one of my best, you know, how we might all have these certain boulders we nail into the wall to cling to. This is one of them for me very much so. I think we struggle with the idea of who\u2019s privileged and who\u2019s not privileged? What opportunities have you been given? What have you earned? And we all have a different balance of that. I definitely had feminist parents, I had intellectual parents. I had a lot of ups and advantages. And when I came to blocks in the road, I really didn\u2019t like that I had people to stand up on me and demand, \u201cWhat do you have to say about being a woman in science?\u201d It really bugged me. And I thought, \u201cBut you\u2019re not talking about all these leg ups I had from all these other people and how I look around and I don\u2019t see a lot of diversity. Why should I only talk about the hardship in my road?\u201d It bugged me instinctively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I think that what I realized was I had been sold because of my kind of comfy childhood and idea that life is great, and just don\u2019t screw it up. And that\u2019s false. Life is not great for most people, and they have to do a hell of a lot more than not screw it up. They have to build bridges, and pave ways, and do things no one\u2019s ever thought of. And fight poverty, and find solutions. And I just thought the people that have taught me the most have done those things and that we have to stop fantasizing that we\u2019re \u2014 my dad always said, my dad was from a tougher upbringing. And he always said, \u201cLife is unfair.\u201d He told me that all the time. Oh, my God, it\u2019s so hilarious. I can totally hear him saying it, \u201cLife is not fair. It\u2019s not about fairness. Nobody told you you were owed fairness. No such thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it really taught me to think that, \u201cOh, life is a series of obstacles. It\u2019s not a paved path.\u201d And the obstacles are what make you and when I\u2019ve really screwed up with something like that, I felt really deep shame. Nobody had to tell me to be ashamed. I felt really ashamed. And when I\u2019ve succeeded in that, I felt really good, and nobody needed to tell me I should feel good about it. It\u2019s just obvious. And so I started to see life as a series of obstacles that were test trials, teaching modules of how to be a better person and to pave the way behind you, not in front of you. And it\u2019s really been a pretty important principle for me, I guess. That when I see something happen I don\u2019t think, \u201cThis is so unfair. Why are they doing this to me?\u201d That I think instead, \u201cOkay, am I able to rise to figure out a solution to this?\u201d And I\u2019m not always able to do that. But when I do, I feel like it\u2019s genuine progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Well, it\u2019s an enabling lens of agency. Right?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Janna Levin:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> And I mean, we talked about it a little bit before recording, but I mean, there\u2019s certainly you are whoever you are. And some people certainly much more than others, you\u2019re going to run into boots in the face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Janna Levin:<\/strong> Boots in the face. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> And then the question is: what do you do when you run into a boot in the face? And \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Janna Levin:<\/strong> Yeah, so I think it\u2019s very interesting that certain people with privilege are enraged by a boot in the face because they were told that they had the road paved ahead of them. And it\u2019s an advantage to not think that. So then when the boot is in your face, your immediate reaction isn\u2019t like, \u201cHow dare you? I deserve this. I\u2019m owed this opportunity.\u201d That your reaction is instead, \u201cOh, that\u2019s who you are. You\u2019re the guy with the boot and what can I do to go around you? What can I do to go over your head and to be okay with that?\u201d I think a lot of us cling to the degrees and the accolades and trust me, it\u2019s helped me and my wife to have those things. So I\u2019m not dismissing them. And I\u2019m really grateful for them. But if you\u2019re not going to get that accolade, big deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Learn how to pivot, move away from the boot, the boot actually has no power unless you insist on continually pushing against it. Unless you consider it your only avenue forward. And you\u2019re just going to keep pushing until the boot and convince the boot and that, forget it. Move to the left and figure out something else, and go over their heads. And that\u2019s really, really liberating. That took me much longer to realize and it\u2019s super liberating. Suddenly they\u2019ve got no power over you if you\u2019re not interested in the avenue that they offer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I loved your answer in the book, and I love your explanation. Life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path. It\u2019s actually very relieving in a way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Janna Levin:<\/strong> It is. And it makes you less resentful. Like why did this happen to me? And this is an unfair. No, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s an opportunity to develop yourself. It\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">###<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I want to bring up one of the lines from <em>The Lion Tracker\u2019s Guide to Life<\/em> that \u2014 it certainly pops to mind quickly when think about this book. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s a line that a lot of people bring up. I know it\u2019s a line that Josh has brought up and I\u2019d love to just hear you explain why this is in the book and why it matters. Quote, \u201cI don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going, but I know exactly how to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Boyd Varty:<\/strong> Oh, I love that. Don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> I love it. Absolutely. It really, if you take a moment to pause and contemplate, the implications are pretty profound. So I\u2019d love to just hear you riff on this and why and how this ended up in the book?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Boyd Varty:<\/strong> Well, there were two things that Renias used to say regularly. The one,<br \/>\u201cHi ta kuma\u201d: \u201cWe will get it.\u201d And it was almost like this kind of incredible self-talk that he would have when the track was cold or the track was \u2014 we weren\u2019t making progress. I would look at him and you\u2019d say, ah, hita xikuma, we\u2019re going to get this. And then often he would say too, \u201cI don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going, but I know exactly how to get there.\u201d And what he\u2019s saying, he\u2019s talking to the dynamic of tracking, which is\u2026 It\u2019s an interesting, energetic dynamic. He is profoundly committed to finding that animal, but he hasn\u2019t allowed that commitment to become a burden of some kind. He is working moment to moment on the signs that he\u2019s getting. And you can think in a vast wilderness as trackers, we also talk about the first track, in a vast wilderness, 360 degrees of wild terrain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All he needs is the next first track and then the next first track and then the next first track and the next first track. And he\u2019s able to dial down the infinite possibilities of where that animal could have gone to a moment of knowing and a moment of presence and then another moment of knowing and another moment of presence. And all he needs is that next sign. So he doesn\u2019t know where it\u2019s going, but he knows how to get there. The next moment of presence. The next thing I know to do. And it might be a good segue there just telling you a little bit about how the tracking process changed for me over the years, but let me know \u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Boyd Varty:<\/strong> \u2014 if you want to go there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Tim Ferriss:<\/strong> Dive in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Boyd Varty:<\/strong> So I had these encounters, Tim, whereby I had a childhood following animals and learning this art form and really the dynamics and the psyche of the tracker, how a tracker approached the process of finding an animal in the middle of nowhere and then watching how consistently good trackers delivered an outcome. They found the animal they were looking for. And at that time as a young child, I thought I was learning that skill. And then through my early 20s, I had a series of pretty traumatic encounters and the result of that was that by the time I was about 23 or 24 years old, I had found myself frozen by trauma.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was depressed. I was uncertain how to move forward and in the way trauma limits options, I felt my myself extremely limited. I did not have access to a lot of emotionality. I did not have access to different choices. I was stuck. And at that time I was very lucky to meet a woman who came on safari and she became my first mentor. And the reason I guided her was because Alex, my friend, who also features in the book, he had guided her a year before and he said to me, she\u2019s a martial artist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I was very interested in martial arts, as I know you are. And so I went into the guide room and in the guide room, there was this board where every guide got their name put next to the clients who were coming in. I rubbed off someone else\u2019s name and I put my name next to her, to guide her and that moment absolutely changed my life. Her name was Dr. Martha Beck and she arrived on the safari and we went out the first two days and she said something on the second day that I felt something in me like really moved. We were driving along and I was telling her about the restoration of the land and she said, \u201cI really understand this and I believe the restoration of the planet will come out of a transformation in human consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the minute she said it, whatever my grandfather knew or my father knew, or my uncle knew when he saw that leopard, I felt that thing move inside of me, that idea struck me very dear deeply. And then on about the fourth day, I\u2019d driven back to the camp and I\u2019m in my safari gear, I got my rifle. I\u2019m the guide, I\u2019m rugged guy. I\u2019m out there tracking lions. And she turned and she looked at me and she said, \u201cI\u2019m ready to talk to you.\u201d And I was sort of taken aback. I said, \u201cWell, what, what do you mean?\u201d She said, \u201cI can see what you\u2019re carrying and I can see how stuck you are and I want you to know that I can help you and I\u2019m here.\u201d I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever had one of those instances where someone sees you when you\u2019re in one of those places, but I\u2019ve felt myself becoming really uncertain and then I felt tears starting to come to my eyes. And then there was this moment where this woman is hugging the safari guide and just consoling me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And she was an incredible healer and she was exceptionally adept at transformational processes. And so she started to teach me how to move through the trauma and the suffering that I was stuck in. And as that happened, my relationship to tracking started to change and I started to see this art form in a different way and I realized that I was looking for something and all of the skills and the mentality of the was highly adept to being in a transformational process. The first thing that you will have to do, if you want to go track a lion in the wild, is you will have to become super uncomfortable with unknowns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You\u2019ll have to give up all the ways you try to know what to do and say, I don\u2019t know how to do this. All trackers operate using unknowns to almost bring them to life. You will need to develop your track awareness. Track awareness is teaching yourself to be attuned to a very specific set of signs, metrics but self-generated. Like when I was a kid, Renias would take me out to a game path and you would say, walk down that game path and tell me what you see. And I would come back and I would say to him, I saw a herd of impala walk there and he would say, \u201cHeh mfana, famba uya languta futhe.\u201d: \u201cYoung boy, go look again.\u201d And as I was walking away, he would say, \u201cphuza mati phela.\u201d He\u2019d say, \u201cPut your head down like the way an animal drinks.\u201d \u201cPut your head right down against the trail and look like you drinking water, like an animal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I would come back and I would say, \u201cI can see where the herd of impala walked, but they actually walked over the tracks of a leopard. And I can see where a mouse ran across the path. And then an owl swooped down and its wing touched the ground.\u201d And each time I walked down that path under his guidance, there was more information. And that idea became very important to me. The idea that there is information in your life, if you are looking for transformation, but you have to teach yourself to attune to it. And so, what do you need to attune to in transformational processes? Things that make you feel expensive, things that make you feel alive, letting go of your rational idea of what you should do and noticing what you move towards. Noticing what you\u2019re curious about, noticing the people who energize you, the activities that make you feel more alive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I started to see through the eyes of the tracker, the first track. The first track being the next thing you know to do, letting go of where that animal might be or letting go of where you think you should be and just doing the next thing you know to do and the next thing you know to do. If you watch great trackers, they drop into what I call the following state. And it\u2019s so beautiful, if you watch Alex and Renias in the following state. The following state could be the find almost as constant creative response to what is occurring. If the track cuts left, Alex will click and he\u2019ll say, \u201cI\u2019m on the track.\u201d If it cuts right, Renias will be on it. They\u2019re getting a sense of the mood of the animal. They\u2019re using their own body to attune to the way the animal is moving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And in that way, like almost feel the animal as it\u2019s walking out ahead of them at the same time, they are vectoring and they are getting a sense of their bearings using waypoints of marula trees up ahead. When you watch them, they\u2019re almost having fun in it, they\u2019re playing, they\u2019re playing on that track. And so you will need to develop the following state in your own transformational process. How can you play? How can you be creative with not knowing what you\u2019re trying to create or this place you\u2019re trying to get to, but being open and willing and aware and attuned. You will almost certainly lose the track and I\u2019m sort of saying this to see how the tracker came to me in a different way as I got into my own journey of healing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You will lose the track. You\u2019ll be in the middle of it thinking I\u2019m deep in the following state, I\u2019m right on track, and then so suddenly it\u2019ll be gone. And you will need to build community around you of other great trackers, people who are willing to move with you, follow with you. And the core of it is really that there is something inside of you that knows. There is a part of you, you might call it your wild self. You might call it the track of your life, or as native people call it your medicine way. A part of you that beyond rational thought reacts when you become more in tune with yourself and sifting away, the layers of socialization, all the things you should do, all the things you have to do to start to be able to follow the trail of that place inside of you, became really what the core of my own journey to healing was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I live like that to this day as a tracker, trying to be present, resting into the unknown, attuning and trying to fall into the following state with what energizes me, makes me curious and pulls me forward.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n<h3 id=\"failure-compilation-legal-conditions\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">DUE TO SOME HEADACHES IN THE PAST, PLEASE NOTE LEGAL CONDITIONS:<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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 class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><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=\"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><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 a special episode about overcoming mistakes and failure. What do you do when your work is rejected, when the big [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13674","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\/13674","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=13674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}