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What's your Matt Damon Moment?

James Markham

Updated: Jan 17

A question that has come up in various places in recent weeks is the "what book, podcast, article etc would you recommend to your younger self / someone else starting out"


I always get a bit blindsided by these quick-fire, (in theory!) ease yourself in type questions - I just don't have that shoot-from-the-hip instinct for them, nor a prepared list of canned answers


I think the only one I've ever answered with any sense of conviction is "what would your pro-wrestling entrance music be?" (*)


But it having come up a couple of times, and me having pondered it a bit, I find myself drawn back to an old clip of Matt Damon I stumbled across a couple of years ago


It's a 4 minute clip from an interview ~10 years ago on the Graham Norton show, where Graham is asking "what was it like to win an Oscar for Good Will Hunting?"


There are two, truly wonderful, moments:


The first, is where Matt recollects holding his Oscar in a moment of quiet and being struck by (a) how meaningless it ultimately was, and (b) how grateful he was to realise it at an early age (27)


The second, is where his mother slaps him down for his ridiculous answer to "what do you want [in life]?"


For me, it's a useful reminder and challenge of what is the proverbial Oscar I'm currently working towards, and how meaningful is it?


As well as a reminder to have people around me to keep me grounded


I also distinctly remember my own 'Matt Damon Moment' - as I've taken to calling them - sat in a 9th floor meeting room in Fleet Place in the autumn of '22. There's something in the moment of clarity that Matt articulates that resonates and echoes that experience for me


Link to the video below, it's well worth a watch - it's a story told which such humility and self-awareness



(*) Toto - Hold the Line



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