#587: Terry Crews on Masculinity, True Power, Therapy, and Resisting Cynicism

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Terry Crews (@terrycrews) can do it all: author, action-movie hero, sitcom star, children’s book illustrator, advertising pitchman, playable video game character, talent show host, high-end furniture designer, and human rights activist. The list goes on and on. 

Terry’s new memoir is Tough: My Journey to True Power. In it, he chronicles the story of how he went from being a six-year-old boy with a goofy, toothless smile to being utterly selfish and angry to being a man who can finally acknowledge his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities and use his experiences to help motivate those around him. 

Terry has starred as a series regular in three consecutive TV series that have surpassed the coveted 100-episode mark: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Are We There Yet? and Everybody Hates Chris. Terry is set to star in Tales of the Walking Dead and hosts NBC’s top-rated alternative series America’s Got Talent and its spin-offs, AGT Champions and AGT Extreme.

He recently added yet another title, children’s book illustrator, to his resume for his first-of-its-kind augmented reality book, Come Find Me. Terry’s Crew is Terry’s latest children’s lit entry, a graphic novel set to be released in November 2022. Terry’s Crew provides insight into his childhood in Michigan and what it was like trying to find his place. In 2021, Terry and his wife, Rebecca King Crews, released an exclusive Audible audiobook, Stronger Together, sharing the staggering ups and downs of their relationship and how they have weathered the myriad crises that have rocked their marriage. 

Terry, a lifelong artist, released his furniture collection with Bernhardt Designs in 2017, which premiered at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York and was awarded the prestigious “Best of NeoCon 2017.”

Please enjoy!

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Hollywood life isn’t all glamorous red carpets and spotlights. What does an average working day look like for Terry, and what supplemental duty has he had to push back against? [07:43]

A lot of busy people don’t get around to reading one or two books a week, but for Terry, it makes being busy all the more possible. [13:36]

What are some realizations about success that have come to Terry while reading Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker and watching the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance? [15:04]

What’s the biggest mistake a lot of people make — in every walk of life — that causes the most amount of unnecessary suffering? [19:29]

How did Terry break himself of the habit of “victimology?” What initiated the event his family now refers to as “the D-Day moment,” and why did he carry a lifelong aversion to therapy that could have possibly helped him sooner? [23:32]

What you should be prepared to do without if you’re intent on living life as if you’re in a revenge movie, and what Terry did to regain control of his own actions instead of defaulting to chaos. [33:52]

Terry shares real-life examples that demonstrated — to his family as well as himself — that he could break destructive, impulsive patterns of behavior in favor of positive, responsible ones. [42:35]

How endurance plays into the way Terry demonstrates strength these days compared to how he expressed it in his earlier, more bombastic iteration. [53:35]

Why Terry believes the world determines winners way too early — and what we should be doing instead. [56:35]

How can competition be the opposite of creativity if resistance is crucial to growth? Terry explains. [58:58]

Terry’s thoughts on protest movements that don’t begin with the aim of reconciliation. [1:02:44]

Terry illustrates why he really is a category of one — even when he sometimes lapses in the midst of trying to live his most teachable life. [1:05:04]

Genius words from a (Thelonius) Monk, Terry’s war with cynicism, and other parting thoughts. [1:12:43]

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Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.

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