YouSaid · the spoken record

Tim McGraw

lines on the record: 141
first: 2026-02-04
most recent: 2026-02-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There is one new song to interrupt you that people can find that we did that we didn't put on streaming or anything. You can only find it on. My socials, but a song called Different that I think people should get a listen”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anything. I got plenty of public complaints, but I'm not going to hear them. Stand up comedy. First of all, thank you for having me and allowing me to be a part of your book.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because that song to me. Represents so much the video too. So much of what the world needs and what we don't have right now is humility and kindness. Of course, love should be in that as well. But without humility and kindness, We're lost and we seem to be lost right now. So that song to me is a beacon in a lot of ways. That one and lived like you were dying to me are songs that don't belong to me. I just happen to be lucky enough to be able to sing them for people. They belong to everybody.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And, you know, and sometimes you think it's not a good night because your ears don't sound great or your voice isn't doing what you want it to do. And sometimes those turn out to be the best nights. I mean, my best basketball game I ever had, I think I scored 52 points. And I had the flu and it kept trying to get the coach to take me out of the game because I thought I was hurting the team. I thought I was playing terribly. Then he showed me the book after the game.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a symbiotic relationship that happens. And to me, art is magic. That's what real magic is, is art, any kind of art. And the magic happens when you're up there and everything's going great for you and you can tell everything's going great for the audience and you have this symbiotic electrical relationship where you're all in this groove together and you're all sort of in suspended animation for a while where you leave the world outside and all of a sudden we're all in this fantasy world that we create that we're all living in for this hour and a half. And when that happens, when the whole world just sort of shuts down and you're in this make-believe world that all of a sudden becomes the real world that you're in for an hour and a half, two hours where nothing else exists except for that world.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's what it reminds me of is sports. It certainly reminds me of football before the games. And it reminds me of the locker room and it reminds me of just when you get your uniform on and you feel like you're 10 foot tall and bulletproof. It's when I put the cowboy held. It's like Superman's cape. You put the cowboy hat on. You're ready to go. But”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you just try to create a ride and an emotion and an experience. And that's the fun part for me is try to create a movie for everybody to see.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Somebody's always going to miss a song that they wanted to hear because you can only do 22, 23 songs in a show at the most when you've got, you know, 70 or 80 singles and a bunch of number ones. You can't get them all in.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can't get on that way. That's for sure. And they're always good, but every third show or so you have that one show that's like, this is why I do it. This is why I do it. And you're right, touring is more grueling. Touring is more expensive. You pay for everything. You're doing three nights in a row, but it's your stage, your design, your ideas. The way you want it to look, all those things, that's the fun in it for me is building the stage and putting the show together. And that's also the hardest part is putting the set list together because, you know, after 35 years and Ton of records, you're never going to get everybody's favorite song in.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And just a huge fan of their music. And I'm excited to get out with those guys. And then we're doing sheds for the summer, and then we'll do some more shows as well. We'll be doing some fairs and festivals. It's going to be a busy year. We're going to be doing a lot. And there's a couple movie and TV projects in the works. And then my oldest daughter's working on a Broadway. She's a Broadway actress and singer, so she's working on some stuff. My youngest daughter's a singer. an actor. She's in Landman. She just toured open for Brandy Carlisle or European tour last summer. My middle daughter works for Earth League International, a big nonprofit. She sings as well, but she's more the brainy action with Stanford, got her master's degree from Stanford, worked in Congress for a long time. They're all doing well.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Album wise, like I said, we're in the middle of an album, and the album's going to be called Pawnshop Guitar as well. It's a song I wrote back to the story I told you where I got my first guitar, where I pawned my high school ring, my freshman year of college, and bought the guitar. Luckily for me, my grandfather found out about it, went back and got my ring for me, although I don't know where it's at. My wife has it somewhere. So I wrote the whole song around that story. And we were looking for tour titles. you know, trying to find the right tour title. I thought Podshock guitar was good. We all thought it was good just because of the story that it told. And it conjures up some good imagery. So we start that tour. I think it starts in July. The tour starts in July. I think we're doing three fourth stadiums and sheds. The chicks will be out on the stadium tours with us. And I'm a huge fan of those guys. We did a George Straight tour together years ago and then they opened for me on one of my tours years ago.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a point in diminishing a turn. So you look at things under those lenses like, all right, this will give you higher visibility. All right. I've got plenty of visibility. I don't need to do that. You know, the only thing that it gets into is, all right, you got to sell tickets to your concert. Then there's some things that you would probably say no to that you'll say yes to because you got to pay everybody. So there's some compromises that you have to make to your, not principles, but to what you're willing to do workwise. But yeah, the older you get, the more it's easier to say no because you know more about what the outcome is going to be and whether the outcome is going to be beneficial enough for the time or it's not.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there have been times where I probably should have said no and didn't. I mean, there's been times where I've got myself in too much work. But I've gotten pretty good, I think, at saying no. I think the older I get, I don't know about wiser, but the older I get, the more I apt I am to say no. Mainly because you get to a point where I don't care to be more famous”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't have any involvement in their production, really don't have any involvement in our management, don't have any involvement in her stage design, and they just show up and do their thing. There's plenty of artists who do that and are successful. So there's always exceptions to the rule. But I think for the most part, the artists who have been around for a long time, the artists I know who have been around for a long time, they take control of their careers.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say Because people want to please people. You know, they want people to like them. I want people to like me. But if you don't learn to say no, Not in a mean way or not in a bad way, but just say, no, that's not right for me. And that's back to knowing what's right for you and what isn't right for you. There could be something that on the surface, everybody that works for you. Says, this is the perfect thing, but you've got to know whether it is or not. Sometimes you don't. You know, you can get it right all the time. There's plenty of times you get it wrong. But I think if you go with your gut, There's a caveat to all of this too because there are plenty of artists who succeed, who don't pick their songs.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Both of those things can happen simultaneously, and they have to happen simultaneously. You have to listen to smart people. But if you don't have a vision about what you want to do, if you don't have a plan about what you want to do, if you don't act on it every day, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. And you can do all those things and it's still not happening.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 and listen to people that know what they're doing, but ultimately you have to make the decisions. You have to make your choices and you have to make the right choices You and nobody can do that but yourself. And if you just coast, you might have a career for a little while, but if you want a long career, you're going to have to take charge and ownership of it. And you're going to have to guide it and you're going to have to be, have your finger on the button all the time and you're going to have to say yes or you're going to have to say no. And you're going to have to use your skills to Manage people, you're going to have to use your skills to be managed.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It turned me up to 12 after that. I mean, it kicked me into high gear for sure. And that's 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's my show's going to be like, how I was going to be able to perform? Was I going to be able to be me again? 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're right on the edge of just tipping that boulder over the hill and let it go again.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Small world. I know who I sign with 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'd 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 everything, all the dust was settled, I had an album ready to go. And Scott Borschetto was ready, and the album worked. And the juice was back. 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't like what had happened either.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Choosing the right partner. One thing, which is Scott Borschetta, who happens to be the son of Mike Borschetta, who signed me to my first deal”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't want to be involved in legal battles unless it's just absolute. But that was at a point in my career that if I didn't do something, my career was going to be over. And if I did do something, there was a chance.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If it's innately in you, but there's 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's this sixth sense in your body that knows you can't let the momentum stop because it's so hard to restart. Even if consciously you're not thinking that, there's something in you that keeps it driving because you don't want the ball to stop rolling because you're scared because you're scared if the ball stops rolling. You'll never get it rolling again. So that was a time when that was happening to me, and I thought, you know, it's going to be hard to restart the momentum.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great show, and Sam Elliott was talking to Billy Bobby. He says, You 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's just hanging on for dear life. And he can't let it go because he'll die. So he's got to hold on. He looked at Billy. We said, you're that monkey. And I looked at faith. He goes, Jesus Christ, I'm that monkey. So I feel like I'm that monkey. But I don't know that if it's intentional.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The biggest period of stuckness and the biggest period where I thought besides this period where I thought might be overs 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 tits albums out. So every time I would turn in an album that would be the final album for my contract, they would drop a greatest hits, which didn't count against the contract. So I think they ended up putting like 10 greatest hits out. They have to keep me from dropping my album. 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. Either way, I'm taking a chance with my career. 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 is a tough thing. And I heard a quote the other day. It's actually a landman. I was watching it.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get regular input from me. Nobody knows what's in your head. Nobody knows exactly what you picture, even though you might think they do. They don't. I mean, they can get close. But you have to stay involved. I'm learning that more and more. And, you know, these last few years have been tough for me to be involved as much as I want to be because I've been battling just trying to get my health back. And I'm fortunate that I have the right people around me that helps me through those periods. When your focus is on and you're paying attention to what you're doing and you know what the path is, it makes it easier for everybody around you.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot like book publishing. Most of the time, the artist knows what they're doing, and then everybody sort of follows what the artists that gets successful and starts doing what they're doing. But there are great people like, boy, without Byron Gallimore, I wouldn't know my right hand from my left. He's my partner in the studio, and I wouldn't imagine making a record without him. But you find out very quickly, if you don't 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't get in control of that and you don't do it the way you want to do it, it might work, but it's not going to work for long. And there have been times in my career where I've sat back and decided, all right, I'm going to let this float and let other people make the decisions. Everything's fine for now. And sure enough, if I don't get involved, it doesn't go the way I want it to go. Now, I've got people around me now that's been around me for 20, 30 years that I trust. But even still, if they don't.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What it means to you. Absolutely. And you also realize quickly in this business that you know, you think when you move to town and you find your producer, you find you get a record label, you get all those things and everybody knows what they're doing. That's not necessarily the case.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can go out 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.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I don't, it never works. Not for me. I'm sure it works for other artists, but anytime I've done that, anytime that I've let somebody else talk me into a song, whether it be a record label hit or somebody else, taught me into a song that I knew wasn't right for me, it's never worked. It's never worked. And there's been tons of times where people didn't like the song at all, and it worked.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We build curb. We build curb for the whole thing, cut the album, did all the artwork, had the CD ready with the artwork done, and turned it into them. And of course, they hit the roof because we had spent a bunch of money making an album that we weren't. Then they listen to the album, and then they were all on board. And the good thing about that is the first one didn't work. The second one, I said, I want to do this my way and to do this and had Indian Outlaw. I'm going to do the songs I want to do. I'm picking all the songs, doing the songs I want to do. I'm going to cut them the way I want to cut them. And if it fails, it fails on my terms this time. And luckily it worked.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My producer, Byron Gallimore, that we produce together. I said, I'm ready to cut these songs, and he goes, Well, this curb heard them or they proved it. I says, nope, we're just going to book a session and go cut the album. And so we booked a session.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 the Wood album. Yeah, wood, so no hits on it. 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't want to do, the way to make music. I learned what I didn't 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 are songwriters, slowly started collecting songs. Label never even called me after the album came out because it didn't do anything, didn't talk to him at all. So I collected these songs. And I went to Byron and I said, all right, I'm ready to go record these some of these”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, the most embarrassing moment, there are a few moments where you feel like you're over your head sometimes. And it usually works out well, but boy, I take performance on the Oscars was one of those moments where everything just seems to, your body defies you. You know, you think you got it under control. And when you start, everything goes, it worked out. Everything was fine. I did a good job. But in the moment, you're feeling like it's falling apart on me right here in front of everybody.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And where all the blood rushes out of your body, and your gut punch, so I couldn't sing the song. I'm just like, and Bruce comes up beside me. He's like, I like that. Then he starts singing the song. So then I stepped back beside Faith. I'm going to, can I stand up? Yeah. I step back beside faith, like embarrassed. And I stepped back beside her. And this is what faith does. Stepped away from it. Luckily, they shot it in a way because it's always recorded and released and everything. So they shot it in a way that I could go back and fix the vocal where it didn't look like I screwed it all up. But boy, that was, I didn't have fun that night at the hotel after the Grammy Pierce thing.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he looks over at one artist Like, hey, come sing the second verse, and they already said, no. So he looks at another artist, like, come sing the second verse. And that artist is like, no, no, no. So on the microphone, he goes, hey, cowboy hat, come sing the second verse. And in my mind, I'm thinking, all right, it's glory days. I know it, but I don't think I've ever sung. And Bruce is phrasing is some of the hardest phrasing in the world the way he writes. And I thought, all right, I can get through the second verse of this. I can figure it out. The words were up there. So I step up and I have no idea where to come in. I don't know the phrasing. I don't know anything. And everybody who is anybody in the music business is out there. And I'm standing there with that when your mom just caught you doing something or your wife has caught you doing something really bad.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Music cares. You know what music cares is? It's where they do a big concert the night before the Grammys to raise money and it honors a specific artist. And other artists come in and do their songs. So Bruce was being honored. So he called and asked if Faith and I would do tougher than the rest together as part of the thing. Of course, we said yes, we would love to do it. So everybody's doing their songs and there's sting. You know, there's all the big guys playing Bruce's songs. So we do tougher than the rest and we do a great job on it. Everything turned out good. And we're sitting at Bruce's table. We're talking. And Bruce is like, hey, man, you know, at the end of this, we're going to do glory days. He says, everybody's going to come on stage and just sing along with the choruses. You think you and Faith are going to come up and do that? And I was like, sure, we'll come up. Do the course sing along the course of glory days. So we're up there. We're on stage. We're all singing along. So Bruce is in the...”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I put myself in plenty of positions that I wish I had. I don't know if I could specifically say what not to do. I can say be prepared all the time. Is it always a good thing? But I can tell you my most embarrassing moment in the music business. It might be the best way to go. Bruce Bringstein, who I'm a huge fan of, and he's a friend. And I've known him for a long time, one of the greatest guys in the world, sweetheart.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, everybody does a bad job. No training manual, but I'm just I was in the same boat. I didn't know if I was going to be a good dad or bad. I didn't know what kind of dad I would be. I knew that I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to be a good dad. And I knew that I didn't want my children's life to be like mine was. So I think in a lot of ways, maybe the life that I had growing up prepared me to be a better dad because of what I knew I didn't want to do. I found this business has really made me find out that learning what you don't want to do and what doesn't work for you is better than knowing what does.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then after about six or eight months a year, then you realize you and your wife, you realize you're home alone. Then the fun begins.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Provides more structure for you. And what I've also found out too is as the kids grow up, and Faith and I both have found out that structure was so good because you had to be on the ball. You had to get up every morning at six. You had to break breakfast. You had to take your kids to school. You had to help with homework. You had to go to practices, you had to coach softball, all those things that keep you in a good balanced routine. So when the kids start leaving the house, all of a sudden you start, what am I going to do with the rest of my day? Now I don't have to get up at six. It can take away some of your focus and it can take away some of your routine and it can take away a little bit of drive once the kids are out of the house. It comes back, but at first you're sort of lost and sort of figuring out what do I do with my time here.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“30% of it right. And you just show up. I think the thing that it changed more than anything, and I think anybody would tell you this, and it's pretty simple. It takes a lot of selfishness out of you. And, you know, part of you has to have that, I guess, in order to succeed and to push forward. But boy, it takes a lot of selfishness out of you and puts a lot of drive and passion and responsibility in thinking of the future and your path”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow. Well, you certainly see with different eyes and it changes what your definition of love is more so than even getting married, I think, when you have children. Because there's such a responsibility and a weight that comes with all the brightness and the light and the love. That causes you to realize that that's your true eternal life. Your children and how they carry their perception of you forward. It's a scary proposition because you're not going to do it right. Nobody does it right. You just hope you do.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She's stuck by me the whole time. And look, it's not been a linear path, as anybody knows it's ever gone through, that kind of thing. It's not a linear path. There's always pitfalls and steps backwards and steps forwards. But she's a rock. A”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Took a while, it certainly calmed it down quite a bit, and it fluctuated. It would be times where it was not bad, then times where it was bad. And then it just got to where it was just got out of control. That's when she set me down. Well, actually, she'd set me down a few times, but actually there was one morning in particular where I Woke up. And realized that it was seven in the morning. I was going to have to take the kids to school soon. And I realized I had a bottle of whiskey in my hand at 7 in the morning. And I had the bottle in my hand and I walked straight back to the bedroom and told her that I need help. She goes, All right, let's do it. I'm with you.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She's just magic. She's magic. She's not just her singing and her looks and all that stuff. Of course, that's all a bonus. But as a person, she's just magic. She just lights up a room and she lit me up and still does. And I wouldn't be the same artist had I not met her. I certainly wouldn't have the career that I've had had I met her. Certainly wouldn't have lasted as long. I wouldn't have lasted as long. I would have burned out really quickly, I think, especially if I had lost her after I found her, if I had lost her because of not sort of bringing myself around a little bit, then I definitely would have. Been in a dower spot.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had the self awareness that I needed to slow down at the time. B, when we met, we were 28 years old. So we were a little older. We both had success. And then C, once I met her, I didn't want her.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Drinking a lot, which that didn't stop after we got married, but she beat it out of me after a while. But, you know, I was just doing everything. I was a kid in a candy store, you know, especially after I got successful and never had any money before, never been around any of that stuff before. And then all of a sudden. Became a tool that was useful until it wasn't. When faith came along, I was burning it wide open when we met. And she started tapping the brakes for me.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First song of the demo, and then it was convoluted after that. But I got a record deal, so I got my foot in the door. So, you know, it started from there. But he was somebody that when a guy who runs a record label and you know nothing about how that works and that's the first record label I went to sets down and listens to half of your demo which you're not even sure is any good and says you have a record deal well I think you get exponentially better in that instance”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I walked past the secretary because I saw he was in his office, and I walked past the secretary. She goes, excuse me. And I said, I just want to say hi to Mike. I walked in. I said, hi, Mike. How are you doing? He said, who are you that I told him my name? He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, call me next week and we'll meet. And I said, well, I have my demo here. I'd like for you to listen to it. And he goes, well, leave it on the desk and I'll listen to it. I says, well, can you listen to it now? And he goes, no, I'm headed out to fanfare. I got to go. I says, well, can you just listen to part of a song? He goes, all right, I'll listen to a song. So he put the song in, and halfway through the first one, he goes, You got a record deal, kid. Wow. That was how I got a record deal.”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't have a demo. I didn't have any money for a demo. So I called him and he sent me $3,000 to record a demo. So I recorded a demo and that's the demo I played for Mike Roshetto and I walked into his office. Anyway, I sat down. He said, Well, leave the CD with me”
2026-02-04 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT