The Art of Manliness - #95： Following Your Curiosity With Brian Koppelman

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well today on the

00:00:20.640 show we have brian koppelman and brian is a man of many hats he started off his career in the music

00:00:26.300 industry discovered tracy chapman then he switched over to screenwriting and he's written films like

00:00:31.980 rounders solitary man oceans 13 walking tall runaway jury has also produced several other

00:00:37.960 films currently he has a podcast on grantland called the moment where he interviews all sorts

00:00:43.880 of different people definitely recommend you go check it out and today on the show i brought brian

00:00:48.880 on because we talk about i know a lot of you guys are young guys just starting off your career and

00:00:53.100 there's this idea or myth that you have to have everything figured out before you start your

00:00:57.760 career and brian's a perfect example that's not necessarily the case the key to a successful

00:01:03.260 career is not knowing every step you're going to take it's acquiring skills that will open up new

00:01:09.320 opportunities to you as they come up that wouldn't be open to you otherwise if you didn't have those

00:01:12.720 skills we also talk about how to handle setbacks rejection failure because he's faced a lot of it

00:01:18.060 as a screenwriter we talk about his creative process his writing process i know a lot of you

00:01:22.860 are creative types um we talk about what he does to get the muses or get the creative juices flowing

00:01:29.540 and then we also talk about what he's learned about being a man from writing films i'm always

00:01:36.100 interested in and looking analyzing films on what we can take away from them on what it means to be a

00:01:41.140 man so it's a just a really fascinating discussion i think you're gonna enjoy this so let's get on with

00:01:46.080 the show brian koppelman welcome to the show um and brad it's my pleasure to be here i love listening

00:01:54.420 to your show so it's great to get to talk to you well thanks man so let's start off with this question

00:01:58.520 you have one of the most varied work backgrounds i've ever seen and i'd like to use this as starting

00:02:03.980 off point for our younger listeners because one thing we try to hit on on the site when we talk about

00:02:08.180 your career is that you don't have to have things figured out when you're 20 years old right that

00:02:13.980 there's no straight path to the career that you want so can you walk us through your background

00:02:19.560 how you went from music producing to film and screenwriting and podcasting tell us what happened

00:02:25.480 i mean i even think i'm happy of course of course i'm happy to do that but i even think that the

00:02:29.180 specifics of that and i will do that i'm not gonna not do that i'm happy to sort of walk through any of

00:02:33.500 the the specifics but you know the global thing that i picked up and not only in hindsight now

00:02:39.360 looking back but even as i was going through those things i had a professor in college and uh this

00:02:44.260 guy's name is sol gittleman i went to tufts in in boston and he looked at us one day in class and he

00:02:49.920 said i just want you guys to know that before you're 30 people live longer now people have a different

00:02:54.880 kind of existence there's this idea that you're going to come out of college know exactly what

00:02:58.360 you're going to do pursue that thing and stay at that job forever that career that industry you guys

00:03:03.640 are walking into a different world don't panic if you switch three times before you're 30 years old

00:03:10.200 if you do i think that just shows that you're curious engaged interested not settling remember

00:03:15.100 i told you this here when your parents friends significant other are worried that i said if you

00:03:21.840 keep chasing things for the right reasons you'll land okay and i will tell you that um that's not the

00:03:28.380 only thing uh that was sort of like a beacon but the idea that i wasn't bound by assumptions i had

00:03:38.080 yesterday or a year ago but that i could take in new information grow and make new assumptions

00:03:45.300 and that if i kept doing that if i kept being willing to be uncomfortable and take those risks i would

00:03:52.520 and follow my curiosity you know people talk about whether you should follow your passion or not but for me

00:03:57.480 i frame it slightly differently i talk about curiosity yes passion uh obsession but if i would keep

00:04:04.100 following the things that i really cared about and then i worked as hard as i could to get closer to

00:04:11.920 that direction i was like well that'll get me to a better place and so that you know started when i was

00:04:19.280 19 um and i was at college and you know then went into the music business uh and i had family

00:04:27.120 connections to the music business my dad was in the music business so i knew about that business

00:04:30.860 um but uh when i found or you know um a recording artist ended up becoming very successful and i

00:04:37.760 discovered her it seemed like that's what i was going to do but i i was immediately or not immediately

00:04:44.340 fairly fairly soon realized i didn't want to be an executive in any business even a you know a

00:04:50.300 business that seemed glamorous that that that particular path wasn't for me to be somebody kind

00:04:54.580 a shepherding artist so for i went to law school at night because i thought i wanted to be a civil

00:04:58.540 rights lawyer and i wanted that education so i did that at night because i felt like i needed

00:05:02.680 that body of knowledge i needed to uh continue to grow my mind and i thought all right i'm going to do

00:05:08.980 this and go at night and when i was doing that uh i and i really started doing work to figure out

00:05:16.640 what i who i wanted to be i realized well maybe that wasn't the answer

00:05:19.780 and around that time a little later when my first child was born that's when it really

00:05:26.680 crystallized for me that i wanted to be the kind of person who could come home

00:05:30.880 and tell his kids to do whatever they wanted to be and that if i wasn't gonna face whatever i was

00:05:39.100 really scared of doing and i really wanted to do i wouldn't be able to be that kind of father and

00:05:43.280 that's when i realized hey i want to make movies uh and i got to figure out how to do that i have to

00:05:48.680 figure out how to live as a creative person and that's when i then you know really started

00:05:52.680 making a conservative effort on a daily basis to do that and i've followed that pattern ever since

00:05:57.420 so i would just keep adding since then i haven't abandoned anything i've just added to it i've used

00:06:03.080 that same approach to attack any field of endeavor in which i was really interested i'm curious did you

00:06:10.420 finish law school because i went to law school too yeah i finished man okay yeah i did too i finished

00:06:15.620 i started the blog while i was in law school and then it took off and by the time i graduated i was

00:06:20.900 like i'm not going to practice law i'll just do this me too i knew and i was playing poker by then

00:06:25.820 too and it was you know my that was my wife got pregnant during the way the last year of law school

00:06:33.180 at night amy got pregnant and we you know started talking about some of this stuff and then when our

00:06:37.920 first you know son was born our first child was born i have a son and a daughter it really was

00:06:43.300 clarifying and i mean since then you know i've i've thought about all this a lot and i and i'm so

00:06:50.440 i'm so lucky that i had a supportive wife uh who really is the person closest to me and always has

00:06:59.100 been and who um you know said to me i agree with you there's more here go and chase this thing you

00:07:07.360 know and i didn't quit my i'll say you know um i didn't quit my job through any of that stuff

00:07:12.400 you know i didn't abandon my responsibilities and you know you had a guest on a few months ago

00:07:18.860 what's his name cal cal newport who's great a really bright guy and um you know talks about the

00:07:25.360 the sort of pitfall of following your passion and the the that i understand where he's coming from

00:07:33.020 uh i understand that when you remove a safety net it can put you in a perilous position you chase

00:07:37.260 this thing it doesn't go well i understand all that stuff rationally but but i'm more in the

00:07:42.020 camp of somebody like john acuff or tony robbins talks about you know there's a there is a way that

00:07:47.500 you can not in an irresponsible irrational crazy way but in a concerted effortful way you can chase

00:07:55.320 down the the thing that you believe you have to do without giving up um on the the things that are

00:08:03.940 your responsibilities that you owe that you that you need to do to protect your yourself and those

00:08:09.140 that you love and so you know i just would work extra hard i would get up extra early in the morning

00:08:14.480 and my best friend other than my wife is this guy uh david levine we've been like brothers since we

00:08:20.300 were kids and we wrote rounders together by meeting two hours every single morning he would

00:08:26.820 finish bartending i would get up early before i would start my work day and we met every day two

00:08:32.560 hours a day until we finished that script we never missed a day and neither of us ever flaked on the

00:08:37.040 other guy and we you know we did the thing like showed up and did the work and then i would go on and

00:08:43.680 do the work of of the job that i was paid to do and i do think that taking these kind of

00:08:48.880 incremental but determined steps following your passion because i think if it's not your passion

00:08:54.580 it's very hard to do that you know much harder if it's not your passion if it's nothing you believe

00:08:59.300 in if it's not your calling it's much harder i think to put in the the sort of super effort that's

00:09:05.600 required to make a gigantic change or to take yourself all the way to the next level and and then i

00:09:12.380 think that sort of an unintended negative consequence of not taking those chances is and this is a core

00:09:18.460 belief that i have which is that if if you allow yourself to be blocked if you don't access the

00:09:25.660 that that most creative part of yourself when you hear the calling to do it if you do i think you

00:09:31.340 become you start to become toxic you start to you know self-loathing uh shows up and then i think you

00:09:37.880 take that out unwittingly you take that out on those that you care about and it it starts a really bad

00:09:43.460 a cycle of uh heading towards a place of darkness and depression but i think the moment that you

00:09:50.740 realize you can chase something you can you can believe in in yourself as long as you're willing

00:09:57.020 to do like really hard work to get there then then i have found through like the life i've been living

00:10:03.200 that the possibilities are are kind of limitless um anyway that's how you know that's very i know

00:10:10.080 optimistic way to look at the world and and i don't want to sugarcoat it um there were a lot of

00:10:16.320 times that it was really scary and it and it seemed like uh failure was imminent but i don't tell you

00:10:23.340 it always feels that way right i mean anytime you take a big creative risk uh when i launched my podcast

00:10:28.460 i i one of the reasons i did it was i knew i was something in was frightened of really putting

00:10:35.580 myself forward in that way uh because i but i really wanted to do it i really wanted to have

00:10:41.080 those conversations i really wanted to engage with people i admired in a very specific conversational

00:10:47.940 pursuit and uh but i was scared right i have this like kind of i have a really good life in so many

00:10:54.320 ways um and i was uh putting myself out there on grant land you know which was a uh sort of a big

00:11:01.160 platform right away and i could have really been i mean i really opened myself up to derision mockery

00:11:07.640 and i was just like no like i have to put my i have to put my money where my mouth is like this

00:11:12.260 is stuff i tell people i have to do it too and um and i've been so rewarded for having done that you

00:11:19.980 know um in so many different ways just by the people that i've met doing it and through doing it

00:11:27.620 and i found that each step of the way the same thing about making movies like you know i get to

00:11:32.940 work with and be around all these creatively inspired and inspiring people and and that just

00:11:39.340 charges my own creativity and um lights me up and and so whatever you know you asked me to talk about

00:11:45.980 to younger younger guys listening you know uh whatever the thing is that you know lights you up

00:11:54.880 whoever the people are doing that i think you owe it to yourself to find a way to start bouncing off

00:12:01.080 of those people yeah and i love your approach that's the approach that i took when i i get people always

00:12:06.380 ask me it's like oh you know i want to do what you do like did you just like risk it all and like

00:12:10.360 you know just delve right into it you know and they always say oh you're such a risk taker and like

00:12:14.580 honestly like i'm one of the like the least risk adverse people like i'm very conservative in a lot

00:12:20.160 of ways when it comes to risk and i took that approach where like i i did this on the side

00:12:25.220 right like the art of manliness started off as a side hustle where i just i got up extra early in

00:12:30.740 the morning worked two or three hours on it went to law school put in a full day of work there and

00:12:35.500 then i worked on it late into the night and i didn't make the actual leap until i was pretty sure

00:12:41.260 that i could you know support my family with this and then i made that but i but i i did have that

00:12:46.960 that itch that creative itch there and i scratched it um i just had to work extra hard and that's

00:12:52.340 always my advice to people you know it's like you don't have to jump whole hog into it you can still

00:12:56.660 be creative and take that entrepreneurial risk whatever it is um while still maintaining

00:13:01.940 your responsibilities to yourself and to your family um so i love the exact your approach is my

00:13:07.680 approach so i love it yeah i mean i was gonna say that that's i really good there's a great book on that

00:13:12.480 um my buddy john acuff uh he has a new book coming out in april called do over and but you have to

00:13:20.020 have him on the show that book should be a number one but he's written two number one bestsellers but

00:13:23.200 that book is far and away his best one and it really talks about this kind of career flip but he

00:13:30.800 wrote a book called he's written a book called quitter and a book called start and and even though

00:13:34.860 start is the newer one i would really suggest people look at this book quitter it's um definitely you

00:13:40.220 know a challenging title you know quitter it's a sort of a controversial title or but but it's about

00:13:47.000 um how to put yourself in a position that when you finally quit and make the change you're ready to do

00:13:53.260 it you're prepared and it's it kind of codifies this thing we're talking about and i've told john

00:13:58.540 i wish that i wish that i had that book when i was having to figure out for myself you're a successful

00:14:04.540 filmmaker right did screenplays for a lot of um very great films but i mean i know the process of

00:14:10.120 getting actually getting there is just bereft of rejection after rejection after rejection

00:14:15.140 how do you handle that as a writer where it's just like you submit something and there's like no i

00:14:20.900 don't like that i mean what do you do psychologically to handle rejection because even our listeners who

00:14:25.340 aren't writing screenplays they're going to face rejection in their life some form or shape so how do

00:14:31.600 you boot you know fortress or i don't girdle yourself up psychologically to handle that well it's a

00:14:38.540 great it's a great question um look you know i uh i do these vines as you know this this uh six

00:14:46.900 second screenwriting vine series that ended up turning into uh you know one of these vines has uh like

00:14:52.380 40 almost 40 million loops and uh and the last one i did the most recent one i talked about rejection

00:15:01.480 and i said you know nobody likes rejection which it's like uh nobody likes getting uh stung by a bee uh you know

00:15:08.180 it hurts uh but you know you have to just make yourself sort of uh immune to feeling it you have

00:15:14.760 to get just know hey it's a bee sting it hurts i'll be better tomorrow and i'll keep moving forward the

00:15:21.340 bee sting is not putting me in the hospital it's not knocking me out and i would say this rejection is

00:15:28.900 different than critical feedback right and but i do think that in in both things you can go through a

00:15:34.820 process or i try to go through a process which is i try to wait to grapple with it until i can look at

00:15:41.420 it dispassionately and if i can just look at it for a second and decide if there's merit in it or if

00:15:47.100 there's not if there's something useful i can take from this rejection is this rejection just that

00:15:52.040 somebody didn't get it or this rejection have to do with something fundamental but i don't want to look

00:15:56.960 at that emotionally so it may mean i have to look at that a week later i have to somehow process and

00:16:02.020 move on and then go back to it but essentially i learned very at a very young age that experts

00:16:09.560 are most are very very often wrong that gatekeepers um are paid to say no because no saves money in the

00:16:18.580 short term that saying yes is the thing that puts their jobs in immediate jeopardy and so if you

00:16:24.500 understand that they're in all aspects they're uh they're rewarded short term immediately

00:16:31.240 for uh safeguarding against loss then then you know it's not really uh a value judgment on you

00:16:39.100 and who you are and what you are and you understand that uh it has to do with the what their pressures

00:16:45.240 are what their life like what their lives are and you know when i the so the the recording artist

00:16:52.240 the singer songwriter i found when i was in college is this woman named tracy chapman and

00:16:56.460 i worked with tracy and made her demos and made her first album and uh with her she made the album

00:17:02.160 i helped her make it um but she was rejected i would take her demo tapes around all the studio

00:17:08.240 to all the record companies and they all rejected it for one reason or another and the album sold

00:17:11.760 over 10 million copies worldwide when we finally broke through and then rounders was rejected and

00:17:16.940 i've told this before but for your audience when rounders was rejected that screenplay

00:17:20.660 was rejected by every agency in hollywood caa william morris icm uta all the famous agencies

00:17:28.200 they all rejected the script and then when miramax bought the movie uh bought the screenplay

00:17:34.280 like the next day every single one of them uh called called us and tried to sign us and uh i said to

00:17:41.840 them well i read them because it was my first one i wrote a bunch of stuff down so like i would read

00:17:45.780 them why they rejected the script and uh they don't know that wasn't me that was my assistant

00:17:50.160 or some reader edit you know a million excuses and and through those experiences and then like

00:17:54.540 when dave and i produced the movie the illusionist at every step of the way that got rejected too

00:17:58.520 and i just learned from those experiences that yes it stings but you know honestly they don't really

00:18:04.220 know they they may know right it doesn't mean that they never know but what it what it what it means is

00:18:09.980 that because no is the easiest thing for them to say because no is the reflex you have to really

00:18:16.420 fight and be committed in order to get that yes and so you have to know that you are not a failure

00:18:22.480 you are not worthless all that happened is a business person made a business judgment and

00:18:29.360 in all likelihood they're going to make many business business judgments that are faulty and it's very

00:18:35.540 easy to slot yours into that category and so that's how i look at it again it doesn't mean it's never

00:18:40.820 emotionally painful in the sort of like immediate moment but it does mean that i'm comfortable

00:18:47.820 facing it it does mean i'm comfortable saying i'm going to take these next however many months

00:18:53.260 and write something on spec as opposed to you know you get to a place in this business where in

00:18:58.900 my career we have a track record david i could go pitch stuff and pitching is if you're uh comfortable

00:19:04.960 in a room with people and you know how to talk and you have a track record you know pitching you can

00:19:09.120 get an answer very quickly most of the time you're going to get a yes they're going to pay you to write

00:19:12.760 the thing and but if you spec something in other words if you take the risk of writing it without a

00:19:18.400 buyer in advance you have much more control over what happens to the material if they want it but of

00:19:24.920 course the risk is you put in all this time and they don't want it but i've got no place i'm very

00:19:29.280 comfortable taking that risk the show that i'm making right now for showtime which is called

00:19:33.200 billions and i'm shooting uh starting january 19th in new york stars paul giamatti and damian lewis

00:19:38.800 from homeland and that's a screenplay that my partner dave uh and our friend andrew ross sorkin

00:19:44.080 who's a great writer about finance for you at the book too big to fail dave and i and and sorkin

00:19:49.840 wrote this thing on spec and uh knew we could get money in advance for it from any of the cable

00:19:57.520 networks and instead we said you know what let's take this risk because then we can say to whoever

00:20:03.760 wants to buy it well if you were to buy this you have to guarantee us you're going to at least shoot

00:20:08.800 the pilot which is you know a huge investment of uh many millions of dollars and not to us but to

00:20:16.000 making the the show the only way to get them to do that the only way to switch the leverage

00:20:21.760 is to take a risk and to say uh to create something that they are going to want but

00:20:28.160 the big risk is i take four months of my life or three months of my life

00:20:32.320 and they don't want it and then i've you know wasted that time i didn't earn money during that time

00:20:38.080 uh i also have to deal with the sting of the no but i've gotten very comfortable with that because

00:20:43.840 the rewards of it are so great um you know and so i can handle the little bumps in the road or

00:20:51.840 losses along the way i've trained myself to the way a fighter you know the way a fighter trains

00:20:56.000 himself to to take a stiff jab you know you watch a fighter take a stiff jab and we're so used to it

00:21:02.160 now uh and in mma especially you know you watch a guy someone land on somebody and you know a shin

00:21:07.680 kick let's say right in mma and a guy kicks another guy in the in the in the shins and you know a guy

00:21:13.520 blocks if i lift this thing you uh you know we watch them do it and they take those shots like

00:21:18.560 they're nothing but if the first time they walked in there you know that that shot to the chin was

00:21:22.640 like his shin was crippling yeah but you know what they do they as you know because you i know you had

00:21:28.640 sam sheridan on a long time ago a couple times you you know you read that that amazing thing in

00:21:32.960 sam sheridan's book when he talks about how they make their their shins really tough by like

00:21:38.400 they keep right they keep brushing them and rubbing them and hurting them and crushing them

00:21:43.440 that's the process man you got to learn to like you know love that particular kind of pain yeah you

00:21:48.240 got to become mentally calloused you know you do right yeah in order to keep growing all right so

00:21:54.640 you you mentioned your six your your vine where you dispense screenwriting advice or just like

00:21:59.440 writing advice in general and i often think that unfortunately um like storytelling is often just

00:22:05.680 like you know the importance of it is relegated to what you do or what i do like writers or

00:22:09.840 screenwriters or film but i mean do you think it's important for people who aren't in those

00:22:14.240 in that business to know how to tell a good story and if so what are the big checkpoints of telling

00:22:19.680 a good story so when you say is it important for them to be able to tell a good story do you mean to

00:22:24.960 be able to tell a good story um verbally or to be able to write a good story like to write like

00:22:30.880 yeah be able to fashion a story whether it's verbally i mean because like i can see like

00:22:34.880 storytelling like takes it like you know pitching you're telling stories whenever you're writing them

00:22:38.640 i mean yes uh it's an incredibly useful skill to have but uh for sure um but i think that it's an

00:22:46.800 innate skill the ability we all communicate through the use of story right we could all do

00:22:54.560 ask any of your friends to tell you the time they were the most embarrassed by a girl in high

00:22:58.880 school you know the most embarrassing moment they had with a girl in high school whether that

00:23:02.960 means they were in a movie theater and uh another friend of theirs saw when they were trying they

00:23:07.840 could tell you the story and in a way that would make you laugh and be engaged the reason they can

00:23:13.440 do that is that you know that moment was heightened for them so that they remember it but it's also that

00:23:18.160 they're very comfortable around you that you put them in a state where they're comfortable right so

00:23:23.120 they could tell you that story and it's compelling and funny and engaging but if you put them on stage

00:23:27.840 maybe it'd be scary so to me it's all just about finding the like authentic self right because the

00:23:33.680 more you're comfortable in your own skin the more you're comfortable being who and what you are the

00:23:38.880 more naturally and easily you can you can uh tell a story so i wouldn't even encourage people think

00:23:43.840 of it as storytelling it's it's think of it as just communicating and uh and and and becoming just

00:23:50.640 more and more comfortable being around people um and and being around yourself and and you know the

00:23:58.960 more you're pursuing the thing you're that dovetails with like that strikes the chord inside of you

00:24:04.880 then the easier it is you're you're closer to being yourself and the closer you are to that

00:24:09.520 the more people pick up on that they see your confidence they're engaged by you they read that

00:24:14.560 as charisma and then suddenly your storytelling is that much better does that make sense that makes

00:24:18.880 sense that makes sense makes perfect sense well one question i was going to mean to ask about when

00:24:22.560 we were talking about your career right you've and we've kind of talked about how you've done all

00:24:27.280 these different things i mean is there do you think there's some unifying skill or skill set that you

00:24:33.680 developed or acquired throughout all these things you've done i mean what would you say

00:24:36.960 would be like the unifying well it's a great question you know it's i think it's it's

00:24:42.320 being able to recognize the things that are going to keep my interest uh what i'm curious about you

00:24:52.160 know as a as a kid um i was a high iq kid who was not a great performer in school and at the time i

00:24:59.280 was in school people didn't recognize what adhd was uh there was no treatment for that so they didn't

00:25:05.520 you know they would read that as laziness or as obnoxiousness or uh you know as disinterest

00:25:12.880 um and so kids who you know kids who were sort of like undiagnosed add when in in my generation

00:25:22.080 i think it was really hard in certain ways to hold on to um a sense of self but i somehow had parents

00:25:29.280 who and it's very important for me i had parents who encouraged me and who didn't doubt my um my sort

00:25:36.880 of ability and my intellect despite doing poorly sometimes in school and so i started even when i

00:25:43.200 was young 13 years old 14 years old they when i would want to say hey i'm gonna start managing bands

00:25:48.720 or hey i'm gonna go to this nightclub owner and i'm gonna say can i uh have your club on saturday

00:25:53.520 afternoons i want to put teenage bands in playing for teenage audiences or hey there's a guy you know

00:25:59.200 doing something in california about heavy metal guitar players i know a heavy metal guitar player i'm

00:26:03.440 gonna here i had to get them together and take a piece of it like they encouraged it because they

00:26:08.000 saw that i was following this like curiosity enthusiasm and when i would be engaged i would

00:26:16.240 be able to really work hard and perform and get good results and so i just think that's

00:26:22.720 the the the sort of the signal thing for me and it and by the way luckily for me

00:26:28.000 reading even at even though the sort of way the adhd would manifest itself for me was

00:26:35.760 if i had to read a history a dry history book it would be like the book was radioactive radioactive i

00:26:39.920 could not do it i could there was nothing that could get me to read that book but i always loved

00:26:45.360 novels and i loved great non-fiction biography so i would read and read and read and read and i would

00:26:52.640 even take books into like when i'd be supposed to reading something else do something else in school

00:26:57.440 i would just be in the back reading all the time and so that's just a lucky that that's like um

00:27:02.000 a lucky thing right that i just happen to really love to read and that reading of course unlocks

00:27:07.600 everything else for everybody um so i love that and that would stoke my curiosity and that would give

00:27:13.840 me sort of like a road map of what i wanted to go after and chase but you know i ended up going to

00:27:17.920 a very good college because of all not you know i was of a generation where no even knew you were

00:27:22.160 supposed to have all these extracurriculars it didn't matter it wasn't something we thought about

00:27:25.680 but it just so happened i did all this stuff that made me far more interesting to a school

00:27:31.520 than someone who got you know way better grades than i did but didn't do anything with their lives

00:27:37.200 yeah um and i think i just probably followed that model the whole way yeah i love the bit

00:27:41.840 about some great parenting advice like your what your parents did with you like help encourage your

00:27:46.960 kids follow their those curiosities and it reminds me a lot of like what like teddy we're big fans of

00:27:54.000 teddy roosevelt on the art of manliness i don't know me too man i've been reading uh i i love i've

00:27:58.240 just been reading the the the book about you know when when he he was in the um i'm just blanking on

00:28:04.320 the name of it i've just been reading the book you know the one he wrote about when when he was in

00:28:07.760 the military oh the rough yeah the rough riders man yeah it's the best yeah yeah the greatest well

00:28:13.360 i mean what i love what there's like this one biographer said about teddy roosevelt like

00:28:16.640 like if adhd existed like back in the 1890s like they would have diagnosed teddy roosevelt with adhd

00:28:23.760 because he was that like that kind of kid like you know he like i'm interested in natural history so

00:28:27.280 like he like would go and shoot birds and like stuff them right or he'd write a book um and like

00:28:32.640 she said that yeah like if he was if he was alive today like they would put him on adderall and there

00:28:37.600 wouldn't be a teddy roosevelt right right yeah i think i yeah it's hard for me to tell i mean i've i've

00:28:42.400 i've taken adderall at different times in my life and uh i i don't demonize those things uh i think

00:28:48.400 that they can be useful i i've often wondered you know if i would have had that as a child

00:28:55.360 um whether it what if there's no way to go back in time you never know right would it have helped

00:29:01.120 like the painfulness of sitting in those classes and not being able to connect do you know what i mean

00:29:05.920 i don't i there's no way to know uh i agree that it's um it's crazy how over prescribed

00:29:12.320 those medicines are and i i my instinct is like yours which is to say boy i i think in the end

00:29:18.640 if you can get there without ever doing it but i have to see what it's like you know under the

00:29:23.120 under medical supervision taking it and i do understand it it's the way that you know you

00:29:28.320 have adhd is that the you know under a doctor's provision like when you're a grown-up and you go

00:29:34.320 what was going on with me and they go here take this take this medicine and try this and you know

00:29:39.760 suddenly you do see the way other people can get through the world it is a fascinating thing

00:29:44.080 to see i'll tell you that what was the difference i'm curious just like what did you notice the um

00:29:51.360 the way in which things that would have before utterly like the way in which i couldn't focus

00:29:57.200 on stuff other than if i was really really interested in it i could focus on it i could sit and just

00:30:03.120 complete tasks in a much more consistent manner in and uh i mean yeah which is a for somebody who

00:30:12.400 can't do those things um it's a really big different now by the way as a grown-up of course

00:30:17.520 i compensated in all sorts of different ways and figured a lot of that stuff out but when i if

00:30:22.320 listen if if when i was if i could have read the boring history book and i would have got an

00:30:27.920 all a's in history right instead i wouldn't read the book i would show up a half hour before talk

00:30:33.280 to people hear what they had read and still pass everything but uh you know i i wonder about it

00:30:39.760 there's no way i can know there's no way i can go back and and for sure like in the end whatever you

00:30:46.000 know what anyone i would talk to would say is that um i probably would have just been been like

00:30:52.640 like you know a success you know some kind of a lawyer you know some kind of like a lawyer in

00:30:57.680 the courtroom i wouldn't have done any of this creative i mean it's hard to tell you never know

00:31:02.000 um i do think in the end it was a big blessing also obviously it led me you know it probably is

00:31:06.640 what made me an artist right well otherwise i probably never would have become an artist i

00:31:09.840 wouldn't have had to all right so you mentioned a little bit um your approach to writing so when you

00:31:16.080 talked about when you wrote rounders with your writing partner but i'm curious what is your

00:31:19.920 approach to writing i mean it sounds like you have like a very workman-like approach to i mean

00:31:23.600 do you believe in inspiration or do you are you sort of like jack london where you have to like go out

00:31:27.040 and beat it with a club it's yeah i i i think what's gotta show up you gotta show up um you know when

00:31:35.600 you're young sometimes you can get away with the hey i'm gonna chase inspiration at two in the morning

00:31:43.200 and uh you know when it shows up i'll stop everything and i'll write like in the charles spukowski fever

00:31:48.720 dream you know um like in i don't know if you've seen the movie barfly with mickey work which is

00:31:53.040 about like one of these kind of wandering peripatetic poets charles spukowski this is

00:31:57.520 really fascinating dark twisted movie because i show up every day i show up every day and um i mean

00:32:04.800 right now i'm in production so i'm not i'm only writing working on on billions and fixing that um

00:32:10.320 other than like blog posts or whatever other little bits of writing because i'm um casting and location

00:32:16.400 scouting and putting together the show we start shooting but when i'm and that's one of the great

00:32:20.720 rewards of doing what i do is that i get to do this little thing with dave in a room writing and then

00:32:24.800 suddenly you know i'm running this thing with dave and i running this thing where there's 110 people

00:32:30.400 all working together to bring this vision that took to life and um but when we're writing every day

00:32:37.920 9 a.m in the office i i walk i take i walk in the morning my my creative practice is is pretty locked

00:32:44.480 in um i get up uh i meditate i practice transcendental meditation so i meditate for 20 minutes uh then um

00:32:54.720 i do morning pages so i do like the three longhand pages and then i take a long walk i'll walk my

00:33:00.880 daughter to school and then i will take a long walk a couple miles uh to my office i get up really

00:33:07.920 early so i'm i'm still in my office by nine sometimes before nine and um and then dave and

00:33:15.120 i meet we'll probably you know bullshit around for half an hour and then we start in and we just start

00:33:19.760 writing and we've you know we've made a plan we know what we're doing we know we're doing from the

00:33:22.960 day before we know where the thing is going some days it's really difficult because writing is hard

00:33:27.680 uh story is challenging uh sometimes it's easier and i'll if it's not going well uh you know i'll

00:33:35.280 sometimes it's because hey bry you uh flaked out and haven't done morning pages in three days so i'll

00:33:40.320 make sure i get up because you know time got away from you so i'll make sure to get up even earlier

00:33:45.200 you know for the next week to make sure i don't miss doing morning pages because that for me is the

00:33:49.760 thing that always starts the creative process going but man i've been stuck you know when i was writing

00:33:53.680 solitary man which we dave and i directed together but i wrote myself i was really stuck in the middle

00:33:59.280 of it and i couldn't figure out why and i knew i was scared of something i couldn't find the answer

00:34:02.320 i couldn't find the answer and i i realized you know i don't know what the connection is to this

00:34:06.480 and the movie's not a comedy but i decided i realized in in like doing morning pages thinking

00:34:12.720 that i always wanted to stand up i'd never really done it that i it was like one of the only things i was

00:34:18.400 truly frightened of and i did stand up for a year and a half i did four nights a week in manhattan i did it

00:34:23.280 like uh i started open mics i ended up getting to be able to perform at a bunch of clubs in the city

00:34:28.640 you know actual real gigs and somehow in that process something snapped and i was able to

00:34:34.080 find the answer and finish writing solitary man i'll do whatever i have to do i'll chase down whatever

00:34:39.360 i have to chase down in order to unlock this you know the thing that's most creative in me

00:34:46.800 but i also do show up every day to do the work because i don't know if uh if you don't um

00:34:54.400 if you don't it's too easy it's just too easy to not do it and then sort of tell yourself the story

00:34:59.760 that you know you're not really a writer you're not really an artist you're not really a creative

00:35:02.960 person you're a fraud right we're all ultimately like all that stuff is is is connected to this this

00:35:08.800 worry that as tony robbins says that you're not good enough or you know that you're that you're

00:35:13.600 really in the end if they saw what you really were they would think you were uh a fraud or fake

00:35:18.400 so but if every day that's one of the things i tell myself like a day that i wake up i'm not in

00:35:22.400 the mood to meditate or i'm not in the mood to do the morning pages it's easy and it's one of the

00:35:26.320 things i love about speaking publicly if i tell people i do that every day so if i don't do it i'm

00:35:32.080 a fraud i'm a liar so i'm like are you a liar no you're not a liar good do the morning pages that's

00:35:39.200 proof that you're not a liar right because show up at your office at your desk and write something

00:35:43.680 if you don't you're no better than those guys out there bullshitting people but if you do you're

00:35:48.560 telling the truth and like you know so i'm there doing it every day uh you know it's how i approach

00:35:55.760 i don't know it's just how i approach my whole life yeah what are morning pages i mean you what is

00:35:59.680 that exactly it comes out of julia cameron's book uh the artist's way and uh i i'll say there are things

00:36:06.800 in that book that i don't love uh the book has a lot to do with spirituality i'm an atheist but um

00:36:13.440 she came up with this idea that if you wrote three longhand pages every day in the morning

00:36:19.360 free writing is like the first thing you did during the day that it would cure a lot of people's

00:36:24.880 writer's block and she'd done a bunch of studies with this had a bunch of seminars and found that

00:36:30.080 there are it kind of solves many of the reasons people are blocked and the largest reason is people

00:36:35.520 are perfectionists and they're scared that what if they're not what they do isn't good enough

00:36:39.360 the point of morning pages is you just keep your pen moving has to be longhand for three pages you

00:36:44.480 don't stop writing you you fill these three pages and what happens when you do it every day

00:36:50.080 is first you're like neurosis and anxiety gets out on the page you if there are things you don't like

00:36:54.320 about what's going on but what happens is you've now kind of like wet the the wick you've now started

00:37:01.040 or lit the wick you've now started prime the pump whatever the metaphor is but you've started to

00:37:06.720 um get the creative juices flowing in a very free way nobody ever there's much rules about the art of

00:37:12.880 the morning pages one is you're not allowed to read what you like for five years nobody else can read

00:37:17.360 it it's not for publication it's literally to just get the shit that's in your head out and you do these

00:37:23.600 three pages and and the people i know have actually read julie cameron's book and then done the pages like

00:37:29.840 we've actually done this for three months um the percentage of those people who've written books

00:37:35.280 that have gotten published or written movies that have gotten made is staggeringly high um and

00:37:41.920 that's what that so that's what that is morning pages is is that three longhand uh free writing

00:37:47.120 pages and i did that's a big part of when i shifted my life when i was that age uh you know when i was

00:37:53.440 had my son uh when my son was born i did read two books right then i read awake in the giant within

00:37:59.680 and i read the artist's way and those two things together helped me figure out sort of what my

00:38:05.920 exact attack to doing this was going to be very cool i like that i like that practice i'm gonna

00:38:10.720 start doing that that'll help me out a lot um so you've made a lot of great movies in there you've

00:38:16.640 mentioned a few of them the illusionist rounders solitary man uh you also did oceans 13 and i'm

00:38:23.120 curious like now when because i run a blog called the art of manliness now everything i do is like

00:38:27.120 colored through the lens of like looking at it like is this manly and what can i learn about

00:38:31.680 being a man from this so i'm curious i mean are there any insights that you've gleaned from your

00:38:37.600 work on your films about masculinity or manliness and i'm talking like both the good and the bad

00:38:43.120 or do you even think about it at all i mean it's interesting i mean i learned more of that

00:38:46.880 all about by being a parent um because i i think i was more i was probably very focused on that stuff you

00:38:54.160 know like the movies that i would watch diner or the david mamet movies or the godfather movies

00:39:01.120 you know those things that made me want to do this or to put this in my head and and that i would watch

00:39:07.040 over and over again certainly sort of gave me certain ideas about what it means to be a man but in a way

00:39:13.280 you know the most manly thing is to to know that it's all really about what it means to be a human and

00:39:18.640 what it means to be a caring person and a giving person and um you know and how do you hold on to

00:39:25.360 this idea of manhood while being soft sometimes and giving and but i don't you know there are a

00:39:32.320 couple of different like kind of archetypes of the writer and yeah like hemingway is like that that

00:39:35.680 old-fashioned kind of like masculine tough thing but i think that that's an outmoded idea of of

00:39:43.200 you know manliness in a way i mean listen the most manly human being i've ever heard in my life

00:39:48.800 i think is that guy you went on a few weeks ago won the congressional medal of honor or sorry not

00:39:52.480 what it sorry who was presented with yeah by his language he didn't win it he was presented with the

00:39:56.800 congressional medal of honor paul um what's his last name oh man it's he's polish um buka

00:40:03.840 right paul buka i mean hearing his story and the way that he downplayed the events of that night

00:40:08.080 because then you know you go and look up the events of that night afterwards and he did a lot more than

00:40:12.800 he said that he did that night yeah um i mean but if you really think about what he was though if

00:40:19.280 you really kind of process it that guy that night was like the most giving human being in the world

00:40:25.120 right he was tough he was courageous these are ideas that we associate with manliness but what he

00:40:32.560 really was was self-sacrificing and giving to those those men on the battlefield that he cared so much

00:40:38.800 about and i was so moved by that and and i i called my son who i never want to go into the military he's

00:40:45.200 18 and at college and i was like you've got to listen to this because there's an ideal presented in

00:40:51.200 here about uh what it really means to like love your fellow man in a very specific way that i think is

00:40:59.280 about duty and honor obligation to hold to these ideals that just blew you know really blew me away

00:41:07.120 uh and um so yeah i think about these things but i think it's it's i look at it from a little bit of

00:41:14.800 the other side now gotcha that's that's really great stuff yeah his story was fantastic and i've

00:41:20.160 i've talked to other military guys and most of them are are very similar to paul like they're the

00:41:26.240 humblers and they just talk about they just focus about their platoon or their group that they were

00:41:30.560 with and just like how much they loved like they they say like i love those guys like they're yeah

00:41:35.840 and i think it's about the mutual sacrifice i mean the thing in that episode of your show that was so

00:41:39.760 amazing to me was you know he saved all those guys but 10 guys got killed and you could feel

00:41:47.600 the cost of losing those 10 guys even though it was so obviously not his fault was so great the pain of

00:41:54.080 that was so alive but he also would not indulge that like he wouldn't indulge in like feel sorry

00:42:02.160 for me because of i lost those guys he was just in every way to me uh the embodiment of somebody

00:42:09.520 living up to their best idea of themselves and maybe that's like the ultimate you know

00:42:15.520 manly thing to do is is have a really ambitious idea of the possibility of yourself and then try

00:42:21.840 your hardest to live up to that yeah well it's a very that's a it's a very ancient greek idea the

00:42:26.880 idea of being uh a man is uh you know having a life of eudaimonia or a flourishing life uh and

00:42:34.160 striving for this ideal you might not achieve it um but there's sure there's growth in the striving

00:42:39.440 there's something in the strike short it ties into what ryan hollander always talks about you know

00:42:43.040 those last book was about this this stoics yeah yeah um and and and sort of you know uh handling

00:42:50.720 the the setbacks and choosing to see them as as opportunities to perfect this ideal self that

00:42:58.320 you're trying to get to yeah so you you mentioned your podcast um yes it's kind of interesting because

00:43:04.240 it's a podcast that with with you have like entrepreneurs artists but it's on grant land which

00:43:09.600 is like i i typically associate grant land with like sports right and some fantastic sports writing

00:43:14.640 some of the best i've seen in in recent years i mean what what what's your goal with uh a podcast

00:43:20.960 your podcast on grant land i mean what are you trying to do with that well you know i ended up on on

00:43:25.680 grantland because i dave and i directed a 30 for 30 on the tennis player jimmy connors yeah and uh and

00:43:32.800 when i was we were promoting that 30 for 30 which i gotta say was just um rolling stone just said it was the

00:43:39.360 fifth best 30 for 30 of all time so if you guys haven't watched it because you're like no one

00:43:44.080 if you haven't watched it you're like uh tennis i'm not interested go watch it it's really good i

00:43:48.880 swear uh it's powerful and jimmy connors is really tough um the uh in doing it when i was promoting

00:43:55.440 that 30 for 30 i went on the bs report with sammons and before that i'd been on j mo's podcast a couple of

00:44:01.360 times and had done some other ones and i realized that i realized that i started doing those lines

00:44:10.720 and i i realized that i wanted to communicate in this way and i was talking to seth godin who is

00:44:16.320 sort of um uh a mentor to me in certain ways a friend and and uh gives me great counsel and and

00:44:23.920 so i started talking about it and he was like it you know get thinking to do this podcast you know i

00:44:28.480 think go ahead and chase it if you want and i wanted to so i said i was going to do it and i

00:44:32.480 called simmons uh because i know simmons and i said uh i'm thinking about doing this i knew i could

00:44:38.800 do it somewhere else there were but i was loyal to grantland i'd written for them from the beginning

00:44:42.400 i really like bill and i i thought um i thought i you know the only reason you're talking about i

00:44:48.880 thought they wouldn't want me to do it there but he was like do it give it a shot let's see if it

00:44:52.240 makes sense i talked to jacoby figured out that i wanted to center it on uh you know it's called the

00:44:56.480 moment with brian koppelman and the the the sort of central conceit of the the podcast is that

00:45:01.600 people who accomplish remarkable things process the high and low moments in their lives the inflection

00:45:07.760 points differently than we do they use those moments for fuel and that's like what i was interested in

00:45:14.560 talking about and uh you know currently does have a big pop culture presence too and so um as a result of

00:45:22.240 that uh i started doing it with them people and i got immediate feedback that people were interested

00:45:26.800 in this conversation seth myers was my first guest mario batali was my second one so right away you

00:45:31.360 know you will see that there was sort of a big difference between who those people were early

00:45:35.120 on i had baron davis on um i had mark marin on and um you know the last few weeks i've had marcus

00:45:41.760 limonis from the prophet i had killer mike from run the jewels uh i've had poker player phil

00:45:47.440 hellmuth so it does run the gamut but it's it's my one rule for the show is i will not put anybody on

00:45:55.760 who doesn't fascinate me because i can do a really great job interviewing someone if i'm really engaged

00:46:00.560 and interested the same thing all across the board because if i'm interested then i can go and dive into

00:46:06.960 the research i have things i've been thinking about for a long time about them and i can try to bring

00:46:11.520 something out and i'm i think it's been incredibly satisfying i the one i did with killer mike who's

00:46:16.160 this incredible 39 year old rapper who's finally becoming a star even though he's made great music

00:46:21.520 for a long time we come from such different places and it's so unlikely in a way that he and i would

00:46:27.280 be friendly with one another but we've had an internet friendship for years and he happened to

00:46:31.600 perform in ferguson the night the grand jury decision came that he's the only person his band run the

00:46:37.280 jewels he and this guy lp the only people not to cancel a show that night and he made this incredible

00:46:42.160 speech that you should see on youtube before he performed and he and i spoke like a week later

00:46:46.480 and when he was playing a sold out gig in new york and the way that people across all economic lines

00:46:52.960 racial lines have responded to that show in particular the letters i've gotten the things

00:46:57.680 people have said to mike it's like uh it is the most rewarding thing i know you get it from doing your

00:47:03.040 show it's so rewarding to be engaging in this big conversation now that's made possible by twitter

00:47:09.840 and by podcast that you know it's not just a conversation with mike i'm talking to thou you know

00:47:16.000 i'm engaging with thousands of people about this stuff that we're all really interested in uh and i'm

00:47:22.400 i'm just so happy to have the platform to do it you know that's great so um where can people find

00:47:27.920 more about your work and besides billions what are you have any future things planned um yeah i mean

00:47:34.720 i'm always i always have stuff planned i um dave and i produced a movie that my wife um wrote based

00:47:40.640 on one of her novels she's a novelist and uh it's called um i smile back starring sarah silverman and

00:47:46.160 it just got accepted at the competition at the sundance film festival which is a really big deal like

00:47:50.240 1.5 of the movies that try to get into the sundance get in so huge big deal that that film's in in

00:47:55.760 sundance it'll come out next year and billions is taking up a lot of my time and then there's you

00:48:00.880 know the moment if people want to reach me uh they can find me on twitter at brian compliment i also

00:48:07.120 get out my email address which is uh the moment bk at gmail.com i'm happy to hear from you about

00:48:13.600 anything but if you send me uh a screenplay or a screenplay idea or a tv show idea do not do that

00:48:20.240 if you do that brett is going to find the seven most manly guys he knows and they're going to track you

00:48:25.200 down that's right and they're going to hurt you i know don't send me that but otherwise uh

00:48:30.800 otherwise i'm interested in whatever you guys want to talk about awesome i know some manly guys

00:48:35.520 because of my i know you do work i've i've rubbed some shoulders and really manly dudes are kind of

00:48:39.440 scary all right well brian compliment thank you so much for your time this has been a fascinating

00:48:43.680 discussion it's been a pleasure hey man it's my pleasure i really love your show i love the work

00:48:48.480 you're doing love the site and uh thanks for having me on thank you our guest today was brian

00:48:52.640 koppelman he is a screenwriter and the host of the podcast the moment with brian koppelman you can

00:48:58.480 find that on itunes also just google the moment with brian koppelman you'll find it there as well

00:49:04.000 definitely recommend you go check it out well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness

00:49:09.840 podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:49:13.920 art of manliness.com and i'd really appreciate it if you would go check out our store it's store.artofmanliness.com

00:49:20.160 you can find all sorts of art of manliness products we got a really cool virtue journal

00:49:25.440 that we developed one of a kind unique you can't find this anywhere else it's inspired by ben

00:49:30.320 franklin's diary comes in a nice leather case so go check that out great thing to use and start off

00:49:36.080 the beginning of the year to track your progress and becoming a better man that's

00:49:39.760 shop.artofmanliness.com and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:49:50.160 next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#95： Following Your Curiosity With Brian Koppelman

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