tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. a concern -- a conversation with director tom shadyac. death experience made him rethink his life. he has written about back in a new book called "life's operating manual." >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: tom shadyac was living a life was the pinnacle of success, at a string of blockbuster comedies. he has a multimillionaire's salary and a 17,000 square-foot mansion. 2007ycle accident back in caused him to reassess his life.

change thaticled a took place in the heart and a documentary. he has a book out called "life's operating manual." i was going to run a long clip of the best of your work. but everybody knows your work. the book.rt with almighty"hing "bruce again, there are so many life lessons in that movie. i was watching and the book comes across my desk in time for our conversation. what you are doing is having a conversation between two people. your true self and your fear self. truth is talking to fear and

truth is talking -- fear is talking to truth. >> i did not plan it that way at all. i plan to write a series of essays. moviebeen touring with a and getting a lot of questions. i could hear people's questions as i was writing. i could you're my own fear, people think this is on realistic. people think this is naive. a conversation happened naturally as they finished the essays. i looked at what i felt, my own fear would say to these essays. i came up with these dialogues. i have been writing dialogue for 20 years because i am a director. it was very natural. tavis: tell me about your fear. what makes your fear unique? all of us have a fierce. >> -- have fears.

>> we are born with love and fear is what we've learned. if i did not look a certain way, dress a certain way, have a certain job status, i would be unworthy. my fear came out of do i was supposed to be as opposed to the love in me. is what the conversation is in the buck. my fear is saying, you are crazy, dude. you are out of the paradigm. tavis: who were you expected to be? , i come from a family of lawyers. i was expected to be a professional, not an artist. i was never uplifted for my art. i was always finding humor to be an access point to the conversation. my mother was in a wheelchair

since i was very young. we used to watch johnny carson. those were not the things my culture said, you can make a life that way. this is what society respect and you need to do it that way. fortunately, i stepped in to that fear -- always did that thing you are afraid to do -- and that changed my life. tavis: one of johnny carson's regular guests was bob. writer.e the youngest ride >> i lived in virginia. -- my uncle said, if you want to submit jokes to mr. hope. he called one day. he called the house, it is a bob hope for tom. my mother said, who is this?

and this is the queen of england and she hung up. for july, he called back. he said to me comment -- fortunately, he called back. he said to me, can you do it again? i did it again and he hired me and that was my first job. about a freeing to fly. -- fruitfly. morgana ,r -- something about the seventh inning stretch mark. move on. will i am getting fearful. we talked about your fears and everyone of us can resonate about what people expect from us. the journey and life that takes you to your own truth.

the bicycle as to accident in 2007 taught you about your own truth. >> it is interesting. most people feel the bike accident had meet radically changed my life. i had been changing my life for 10-15 years. i had been looking at the hypocrisy azide accumulated. my moral teachers told me not to accumulate. i was changing my life for some time, but i was doing it quietly. i did not have public conversations about it. i never made a movie about it. when i faced my own death, that is a very powerful motivator, i lost my fear. what else is there to fear? that is the ultimate fear. when i face that, i said, if

this is my last expression as an artist, i have to share my journey. i have to share work i have been and what i have discovered. not as a way to say, i know something that you do not. it pushed me into that powerful place for i said, i do not care. everybody thought i was crazy. i am going to do a little documentary, they take a lot of effort and time. i did not care. i dropped into my truth. the reason you are interested in bruce almighty from a spiritual level is because that is what i care about. that is what we talk about will we get together. it is not all silliness, we talk about this thing called god, whatever that is. what is it? what is our relationship to that?

of one ofave a clip my favorite scenes. when morgan freeman is having an encounter with jim carey. ♪ >> having fun? take a closer walk with me. let me explain the rules. you left in such a rush, i did not get to explain. fingers freaked me out. >> i did the same thing to gondi. ndhi. you can have all of my powers. you cannot tell anybody you are

god and you cannot mess with free well. -- will. >> can i ask why? >> yes, you can. that is the duty of it. are so many lessons in this, so many things to come to terms with. about this for you notion of free will that becomes the epicenter of the struggle? why that was so critical? >> i am standing in a different place now. i am always questioning everything. we have aidea that power in our lives that we give away. it is the power to walk an act and be and do the things that

are in uniquely. we give that power away. jim gave that power away. he said, i cannot control anything in my life. god, you have all the power. the hold journey is to say, you have the ultimate power. you have the power to love. that was an important idea to me. a really important idea. people think the power is out there, and the greedy corporations, people do not have the power to withdraw their power. it can be a seed that can grow. did you come to learn that lesson in your own life? >> i've had the blessing through -- to be around so many great minds and i have learned so much. it began to appear to me as a kind of -- as i coalesced all of

the teachings. i looked at the signs that maybe there is a manual for this thing, right? and then you look at birth and do you think, what if there is a manual for that -- and then you look at birth and you think, what if there is a manual for that? why are things askew here in the world? god gave us instructions. we are not following the instructions on the box. the instructions on the box are all around us. look at nature, we think of nature because of the store we tell ourselves. everything is survival of the fittest, but it is not. it is a cooperative system that runs. it is all around us. the instructions are everywhere

and we have not looked. we have not looked and seen the oak tree. the human body is a cooperative system. when it does not, when something is taking it more than a need, the body shuts down. the answer is right in front of us. this idea of god, all of this book -- a mystical tradition say god is and everything. god would be in that system all around us. that is what we talk about in the book. tavis: i did not mean to cast aspersions on anyone who happens to be a christian in this business, i do not know many folk to operate at the level who are so open about their beliefs. me ask this question without offending anybody. herdoes one own his or

ethics, ineliefs, this business at the level you operate? i can think of brazilian zero million situations. -- a million situations. >> i have grown up. that is a fear based idea that i cannot be who i am in everything that i do. that is the social sphere, at the collective fears saying, you cannot put out this idea in the middle of the very self-centered business. you have to be egoistic. i have to be me. i do not fit in this business, i am out. when i think of myself as a christian, it is important for me to say, there is no question jesus was the most influential spirit in my life. there is a power in this story.

am not dogmatic in any way about that. i do not think i know something more than you or anybody else. i am interested in people's story. backward twice. it really is looking at that fear. always do what you are afraid to do. i am not afraid to be me anymore. every one of the religions has this notion of love at the epicenter. it is about loving thy neighbor as by itself. self. we live in a world for

something,elieved love is that the center of the thing we believe. what the world lacks so much of his love. you did not shy away from talking about the notion of love. >> it is incredibly practical, it is how things work. the base of love is cooperation. work, look at how things it is love. love may be the force that animates the blood in the body. it keeps the electron rotating. it keeps -- love as practical. that is why einstein said our moral heaters are geniuses in heat -- are moral leaders are geniuses in the art of living. educate. love is a very practical. we think it is a sentiment.

i did not find it sentimental in any way. i find it practical. i'm still fascinated as to how you operates in a space that seems anti aesthetical to what you believe. younto the medical to what believe. the only thing we're hollywood m of meat is the love of money. hollywood -- the only thing that we're hollywood and love meat is the love of money. is the love of money. do not get me off on a tangent. it is not practiced by this particular industry.

use it at the center of this industry, a huge success, and the love that you believed and the love you espouse does not seem to be in circulation around you. yet you stay centered and focused. >> that is a big question. ithink it is important that pulled myself and surround myself into that love. believe our business is beating to the drumbeat of how much can i get to for me? that is why our economy is askew, that is why we have haves and have nots. it is important for me to pull myself out of that solution and feed myself every day.

i have conversations with people like you. i am able to meet with documentary filmmakers who are seeing in justice in the world. call nutritional food rather than the junk food. are you number one of the box office? this is what is coming out opposite of view. guess who won this award. none of this matters to me. that is the junk food. i have to make choices, make life choices that pull myself out of that idolatry of magnitude. what youlieving believe, it does not necessarily believe that you have to take a vow of poverty. have seriously downsize your situation over the years.

you really have changed your lifestyle where money is concerned. still a work in progress. when i downsize in terms of square feet or in terms of the money i have to sustain, i upsize everything else. know all my neighbors, you have to. you cannot take the trash out where i lived and run into 10 people. it is cooled. i love them all. my back, right? teach,e more time to more time to write, wartime to become involved with organizations -- more time to become involved with in organizations. people doing good work in the

world. this downsizing, i would not continue to downsize if i did not upsize in something more powerful. it really is true that it is letting go of a false god and embracing a truer guide. tavis: i have a couple of friends who live their lives this way. my life is not terribly complicated. minend other friends of have even less complicated lives. you have less staff. how does less stuffed simplify your life? i revel in the joy i see my friends bring forward because they lived simpler lives. joydoes that bring greater to your life? >> are stuff tends to own us. everything you have require some type of energy to maintain or to

upkeep. when you let go of that, it feels like. to be enlightened means you are light. stuff weighs you down. reads you in a lifestyle that may not be your own -- it rots and livestock that may not be your own. what i have found is -- it roots you in a lifestyle that may not be your own. if that works for you, fine. it sounds -- >> how is it working for you? how is the lights in your eye? feel younger in terms of perspective, more energy. if that is working for you, i have not met the person who has been accumulating and does not

feel stressed by that accumulation. if it is, i want to know. if it is true, tell me, i want to know. what do you want to take away to be from "life's operating manual"? hope is we can begin to have a conversation as to why things are the way they are. we have school shootings, an economy that is working very well for some. we have all these problems. of it as symptoms. they are all symptoms of something. that wemoral chasm have. we have technological growth that is crazy. revolution has yet to

come. i want people to have that conversation. there is a reason we're having these problems. we're outside of the way things work. morality is practical. if we can talk about the mental illness in all of us, how we all participate in not winner-take- all scenario, that is the winner taking all in a very abhorrence way. i want people to see that we're all brothers and sisters. understand that, it can get pretty fun. tavis: is there space to continue to make blockbuster movies? >> i think these trees are blockbuster. -- truths are blockbusters. tavis: the book is called "life's operating manual."

the author is director tom shadyac. clyde to have you on this program. >> great to be -- glad to have you on this program. >> great to be here. tavis: as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time of thehe future country's middle class. that is next time, we will see then. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do.

walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more.

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