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I was raised in Texas to “never lie” and to always “see the rose in the vase and not the dust on the table.” I was third and youngest son of a school teacher and an oil pipe salesman, and still have never forgot the lessons of my youth no matter where my paths lead across the globe.

Growing up in my family, you never questioned that you were loved. We were given responsibilities early and we had very simple rules: don’t lie and don’t say, ‘I can’t.’ The only way we got a disciplined hand off our father was if we lied. His other big thing was respect for women. Very early on, he was always talking about the respect for a woman. When you hear that from your father, you listen. It’s something that’s just been ingrained, and I’m fortunate to have had that. He would always say ‘Don’t lie. You’re going to screw up, but don’t lie!’ He taught us that you should be able to arrive at any room, and not have to look over your shoulder about unfinished business. ‘No’ was also just as important as ‘Yes’. Disagreeing was much harder than agreeing.

After graduating from Longview High, I spent time as an exchange student in Australia before returning home to attend the University of Texas… with an Aussie accent, I was fooling even my new friends until my mom and dad outed me as a Texas native on Parents Day.

At UT I was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, and studied law before being inspired by reading “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino. The book had a profound effect on me and I re-evaluated my path and goals.

It found me, that book, it's about bringing out the best in yourself. There are certain times when you're receptive to an intervention like that, and it was the time for me. The next day I had to go sign up for my law courses and I'm thinkin, 'I don't know if that's what I want to do.' That book was six-deep underneath Sports Illustrated and Playboy - and I'd sure as hell go look at sports and women before I pick up a book - but for some reason I kept digging and I found it. The next day I changed my course to film.

In my junior year, at a bar in Austin I had a chance meeting with casting director Don Phillips which led to being cast as Wooderson in “Dazed and Confused.”

After graduating from UT , moving to California, acting in some movies, I finally established my own production company allowing me to tell stories my own way, to make a living with my life, and have a life with how I make a living. Growing the company with Gus and Mark Gustawes, real brothers, and fraternity brothers who have worked with me for well over a decade, I believed in surrounding myself with people I knew, loved, and trusted.

I was told a lot that you can’t do business with your friends, but I never really believed that, and no one every really had a good answer why you couldn’t… it’s not always easy, but if you’ve got good friendships, you’ve got a trust factor. We’ve all shown each other the best in each other so, you know, all of our ideas and when we talk about things, it’s always with that in mind.

j.k. livin is more than the name of a company for me (taken from one of my lines in “Dazed and Confused”: “You just gotta keep livin’, man. L-I-V-I-N.”), it’s my mantra and a state of mind. In addition to creating things you love with the people you love, I firmly believe in helping others, and in being a good neighbor. And for a nomad like me who loves to travel, that makes for a very big neighborhood.

I’m a man who greatly prefers commas to periods in order to keep life fluid so, now and always, just keep livin

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