Greg McKeown:
Welcome. I’m your host, Greg McKeown, and I’m here with you on this journey to learn together how we can make life better. Today is part two of my conversation with Matthew McConaughey. It’s been great to have him back on the show, and while he needs no introduction as an A-list Hollywood star, he’s a person who I absolutely love to speak with.
You can go back and listen to the first conversations with McConaughey back on episodes 48 and 49. We’ve stayed in touch since then. So it’s been great to continue the conversation at this time. He is a fascinating communicator, whether in writing, whether he’s speaking from the heart after the devastating shootings in Uvalde. He is raw. He is real. Let’s begin.
Remember to teach the ideas in this podcast episode to someone else within the next 24 to 48 hours of listening so that you can learn, and they can learn, and we can grow together.
Keep going in this conversation. I wasn’t going to even go here because I know it’s so sensitive, but I can’t help the themes we’re talking about. I can’t help but think about the moment, that moment, the Oscar moment, the, I mean the Will Smith moment because…
Matthew McConaughey:
Are we far enough not to be able to laugh at that right now? I think we are. Aren’t we?
Greg McKeown:
I mean, there’s a lot of water under the bridge with it, but it’s like, isn’t that somehow connected to this? The idea of can you not, I don’t know. I don’t want to psychoanalyze it. I don’t know what’s going on, and I certainly don’t want to be critical, but it’s like there is something to be said here about this. If you’re centered, if you’re in a certain place, then you can handle what’s going on outside of you. And if you aren’t, then you are going to get uber-reactive. I’ve had moments. I haven’t done that, but I have had moments I’m not proud of. But I’m just not on a world stage. So nobody knows. Nobody cares.
Matthew McConaughey:
Let’s admit something though on that before we even, and just before we judge even that, let’s admit a root cause there. So we’re basically saying, have yourself in order so you can then go navigate the chaos.
Easier said than done. You sit, and you say, Hey, I don’t want to go out and risk not knowing my, I don’t want to get out and risk and not knowing my compass. We have one leg too hanging onto order too much. We’re maybe not taking on chaos enough to go find out and have to call an audible and go, geez, I don’t have the resources I usually need to clarify this situation. I got to wing it. That’s good. Now it’s a fine line. At that moment, for whatever reason, Mr. Smith was over his skis. He’s over the tip of his skis.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, it’s a good description.
Matthew McConaughey:
The moment, whatever happened, the outside world overcame his inside centeredness for whatever reason. I got theories on that. But do you then go, ugh, that’s who that person essentially is. Well, a lot of people do. That’s part of that. Let’s admit. I don’t know, that sounds like more entertainment to go. That’s who that person now, the real one came out. I well watch that. I think. I don’t think that’s true.
Greg McKeown:
That’s not how you see it.
Matthew McConaughey:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He had a buggy moment. He shanked it, to use a golf term. You know what I mean?
Greg McKeown:
But what you said there was quite compassionate because what you’re saying is yes, okay. It’s an extreme moment and you’re saying, yeah, it’s a mistake. You’re saying that too, but you’re also saying if you want to make progress and do great things in your life, you can’t just be in order.
Yes, fine. No, we don’t criticize people who just live in order because they don’t cause any problems yet. But they’re not out-creating either. They’re not doing perhaps great things in that sense, either. So you are saying, look, you’re going to have to try and manage that chaos in order in a way that’s productive. Okay. He went way over on the chaos side there. But you’re trying to allow for the, I think something like the creative process that we all have to navigate.
Matthew McConaughey:
Yeah, man. And look, we all, I have, like I said, you started to say, I’ve said we all got clumsy moments. We all have. There’s been plenty of times where I’ve done something because I knew I was right, but man, it was sure as hell at the wrong time.
Plenty of times I got a point to prove. But I’m like, dude, remind yourself you don’t have to go prove the point. There’s plenty of times you got to look. Oh, circumstance, situation, timing. I had a birthday party in my late thirties, nice birthday party with my friends, and next day I talk to my friends, they’re like, did you have a good time? They go, not really dude, why? I go, you weren’t even there. You were over in the corner. I was trying to, someone had come in with ill will to my birthday party. I was like, whoop, trespassing, Uh-uh. And I cornered this person and went on, got all my, got on my pulpit, and went on for like three hours. I missed my own party.
Greg McKeown:
Wow. You let them have it for three hours?
Matthew McConaughey:
We went at it for three hours and came out of it with a hug and understanding. But I turned around, and everyone was gone. I missed my party.
Greg McKeown:
It didn’t go badly in the end. You dealt with it. You worked through it, but not at the right time.
Matthew McConaughey:
Looking back, I’m like, you could have better timing. Maybe you want to tell that person, Hey, you want to meet up tomorrow? I don’t know what kind of party be at? I don’t know. You know what I mean? There’s plenty of things I’ve done that are awkward that are like, oh yeah, you may be right bro. It’s bad timing. So there’s considerations of knowing your zone.
There’s a lot of things considered that our mind does in a moment that when we’re aligned to it, the math adds up, and you go, oh, risk-reward. Yep, I’m taking the risk. Risk reward. No, I’m going to hold onto, but I mean I look back, a lot of successes and satisfaction and achievements of mine have been where I was like, bam, I’m going for it, and I’m going to see what happens.
I think I may have mentioned this to you last time when I wrote Green Lights, looking back to my life, I thought that 90% of my successes, whether they’re relational, career, whatever, were by design and engineered through having a goal and the willpower to go achieve it after writing a book. I’m not sure 50% were because of that.
Greg McKeown:
That’s so interesting.
Matthew McConaughey:
At least 50% and definitely the most sort of spiritual successes or breakthroughs had nothing to do with the engineering. Besides saying, I’m tying my shoes, and I’m heading out. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to find. I’m just going to hopefully put myself in a position to get lost so it can find me. It was not a, there was no will, there was no goal. There was no, I’m going away to work out this problem. No, I’m going out because I just got to get away to let memory catch up to let the divine speak to me. It was jumping off and learning how to fly on the way down. So dipping into that kind of chaos is very important, I think.
Greg McKeown:
Hertzberger talks about there being two kinds of strategy. He says there’s emergent strategy, we’d say sort of bottoms-up strategy, and then there’s intentional strategy, like top-down strategy. And he says, you need both, but this is what you are saying, right? It’s like you thought it was all intentional, but as you reflected and learned, you’re like, oh, but there’s this whole other side that I wasn’t, I wasn’t even the author of it. I wasn’t driving it. I was just open to it.
Matthew McConaughey:
And now, looking back, you see it was all intentional. Like I said, it’s all science looking back, but I look back, it was not intentional. I didn’t know it was intentional. So it’s also trusting those moments and go, Doesn’t make much sense to me right now. But I’m going to lean into it. I’m not moving. I’m not going to go to something that can take my attention off of this – back to Essentialism. I’m going to be naked in this spot and not have all the things that I can go to go, not catch my breath and just endure that and see what happens. That’s been some of the great beauties of my life when that happened. But it wasn’t top-down.
But again, looking back, it was trust in those moments. And I go, intuitively, did I know? Do we know? Do we really know when we’re in ’em and how much is it that we just need to endure the discomfort and go trust it. Trust it. It’ll end up coming. But then how much do you have to go? It’s time to pull the parachute, man. This ain’t working. I got to go by. You know what I mean? It’s a constant game. It’s an art, and it works sometimes, and it doesn’t others.
And hopefully, when it doesn’t work, you don’t have a public moment like someone we were talking about earlier who all of a sudden you’re just crushed, and you’re going to have to work your tail off to get back.
We built things in our lives. I want to take risks. I don’t want to be foolish with what I’ve built, though. I don’t be foolish with my family, foolish with whatever wealth I’ve accumulated. I want to be a fool with it.
Greg McKeown:
One of the questions that’s growing out as I’m listening to you today is what the effect of success has been. The unintended consequences of, and by success actually meaning specifically, fame, I think, which I’m not saying is success, so I prefer that word. But for example, when we were talking about friends, I remember the Beatles saying something like this. They said after a while, they said we didn’t know who we could trust. And they went further. They said in the end they said the only people we could trust were the people who had known us before we became famous. Because so many people were just coming at and they just, who are you and what do you want? And so on.
Do you feel that, or are you feel somehow different to that? More centered yourself and no, I’ve still just, I don’t know. Do you relate to that?
Matthew McConaughey:
I do relate to it, and I definitely went through that stage of feeling like I could only trust those who knew me before. But I also had to deal with what the other side of that coin is. A lot of people who you knew before, oh, they change more than you do when you become famous.
Greg McKeown:
You mean in a jealous way? Is that how they changed? How did you see the change?
Matthew McConaughey:
Jealous of attention of, oh, you succeeded to maybe you gained fame that maybe they didn’t get. And so just to see you where if you had a screening at the Cargill Theater at your local town where you grew up, and there’s a crowd of 500, your friends may say, well man, I used to come here at the Cargill and it was just the four of us. Who are these other 496 he’s talking to? Hey, hey, hey. Who do you think you are, man?
Oh, big time. Oh, and you go, oh dude, come on. No, no, no. So yeah, there’s a bit of that. So the person that’s interesting and then Jim and Jane call who were merely acquaintances, maybe played on the other baseball team, and you met ’em, you ran into ’em once a summer. They come out of the woodwork, and they’re like, dude, it’s me, Jim. What’s going on bro? We got to hang out. You’re like going. We never hung out back then. What makes you thikn we are going to hang out now?
Oh, so you too big time for me. You get that. It happens.
Greg McKeown:
So you are saying, which makes sense, that it changes relationships, you for people you’ve met since, but also, which is probably pretty disorienting. It changes the relationships you had before.
Matthew McConaughey:
A hundred percent. I tell that story in the book. My mom changed. My mom’s still in love with my pain and love that more than being, more than acting like my mother. I trusted her for eight years, going like, damn man, she wants to be doing what I’m doing. She’s watching me going, I’m not doing this from the front row. I want to be up there doing that. Well, that’s like, and I’m calling home sometimes on a Sunday personal thing to talk about. And if I’m going to read about what I shared with her on Monday, what I said Sunday, read about it in the paper on Monday. I’m like going, what the hell? So for eight years, we had a bit of an estranged. So that’s somebody very close to me, a mater, my mother. So yes, at the same time, the people that were there before, it’s hard.
Friendships are hard. I have a great friend who we’re peers, buddies. He came on and worked with me, and managed me for a while. Well, I didn’t notice till years later that that’s tough on a friendship because every bit of success is filtered through the one who’s famous, the lead singer. I’m the one that gets all the out of it. They’re all of a sudden in sort of a second tier or perceived to be in a second tier. Alright, no one’s going to them going. Wow, awesome. And so when you have, I think Springsteen talks about it all gets filtered through the lead dog.
Greg McKeown:
And disproportionately, right? It’s not a few percentage points, more like whatever people’s perception…
Matthew McConaughey:
No, all filtered through. So how does a friendship, how do you maintain a friendship and an honesty but yet also being able to look each other in the eye and still have to contest each other and get along? And an equal relationship when the world only feeds through your friend who’s now famous and all the accolade only feeds through them. It’s not coming to both of you, it’s only feeding through them. So the person that’s an older friend before, say, fame comes, has to be able to evolve with that. And the person who’s famous has to be able to go, I understand this comes to me. I need to make sure that we’re keeping what’s important, important and what’s not. Because it’s so much comes in, and it’s brand new for the first time, you think it’s all great, you’re like, this is all super,
Greg McKeown:
It’s all upside. You think it’s all upside for a while
Matthew McConaughey:
It’s all green. Yeah, it’s all green lights. So you look at it, not until years later enduring that you’d be able to look back and go, oh, that didn’t matter. Oh, that was froth. Oh, that was hype. And it takes time to disseminate through all that. And to have a friend with you that not that you were friends with before you got famous is helpful to have them navigate at the same time.
Greg McKeown:
It’s hard on them.
Matthew McConaughey:
Well, at the same time, you want to take things to the next level. And it’s not all about, hey, hey, it’s not all about just humble pie. Hey, you need to be more humble. No, sometimes you need to fly, bro. Go further higher. I’m here. Let’s do this.
Greg McKeown:
Oh, I hear you. I see what you’re saying. You’re saying sometimes it’s just good studying. But sometimes that friend can actually challenge you in the other way because they know you can or…
Matthew McConaughey:
You want, you need that friend to also challenge you in the other way and trust man. And it’s hard because it’s an intimidating situation. And you’re talking about going into parts unknown. Talk about taking on chaos. Come on, let’s go into parts unknown higher, further. That fame thing is wild. And so to have a friend that’s also, Hey, let’s, I know who you are. We know who each other is that you’re essentially the man who always want to be right. We’ve talked about that on many a night, many a journey together. Many a road trip together. Who the man you are, what you care about, and how do we, I’m going to help. We’re going to care about those same things now. Let’s get it on. Let’s go. Let’s fly. Come on. Right. I got you back, bud. I’m with you. I’m got an eye out for you. Let’s do this. I understand you’re David Lee Roth of Van Halen. I understand all the accolades come to you. I understand your Jagger. You know what I mean? Come on. I know we used to be standing next to each other in the band. I got it. You got the mic. I got you. Let’s go.
It takes both because sometimes that person can hold the person back.
Greg McKeown:
Well yeah, totally. And that’s really what I think you’re describing here. This puts me in mind with something. The first is that I write this little newsletter and somebody responded to this completely independent of this conversation, didn’t know that we were going to have this chat, but he responded to this article, which is all about getting past lesser goals. And he responds this way. He said, “In our company, we have a sales code we strive to live by called the Interstellar Code.” Oh, this was so cool.
He says, “From the movie to move forward, you must leave something behind. You may have to sacrifice something good for something better.” So that’s in alignment with some of the things we talked about here.
Matthew McConaughey:
Right? Okay,
Greg McKeown:
But here’s the question that goes with this. This is what I’d written in the article, but now that he mentioned Interstellar and you mentioned Cooper and Interstellar, it’s an amazing movie, and I think my favorite movie that you’ve been in, he says, what do I want so much that I’d be willing to give up what I have right now for it?
That’s my question for you. What is it now that you want so much? Do you have something that you want so much you’d be willing to give up what you have right now?
Matthew McConaughey:
Detachment. Spiritually I do mortally. No, there’s nothing. There’s nothing manmade In this world, on this earth as I know it, that I want so much that I’m willing to give up what I’ve gotten out. No way. Non-negotiable.
Spiritually, I’m working to combine what I’m building mortally into immortality. Look at me as a father. That’s when you become immortal. When you become a father, you have a lineage that’s going to hopefully go and live past you. I have things I and Camilla’s have built in life that we’re working with our kids now to hand down to them so they can curate and cultivate and work and maintain and grow after we’re gone. So I’m trying to build immortal legacies here on mortally on earth that will spiritually stay alive and physically stay alive long after I’m gone. That’s spiritual to me.
Greg McKeown:
Intergenerational contribution,
Matthew McConaughey:
Yes, individually and who be my children are as people, however much I can have a hand in that. Also, in what they create as creators themselves, independent of whatever I’ve built. But also, here’s a couple of lanes that I’ve gone in, and it’s a good highway. It’s maintained prime real estate for you. It will feed you qualitatively and quantitatively. It’s not a full safe zone, but it’s built for you. You’ve got to cultivate it now, not only cultivate it if I’ve paved two really nice lanes for you. Don’t just rest on those two lanes. Make it three. Maybe make it four by the end of your lifetime. Allow more. Scale it out a little bit. Go more latitude. Build it, grow it. That can be higher. That can also be wider. When I talk about quantity and quality, that’s spiritual to me in the mortal world. I’m not willing to trade any of that for any mortal thing on earth. I know that’s a fool’s errand.
Greg McKeown:
What I heard you say is that what matters most to you right now, what is least, well not least negotiable, non-negotiable, is being able to invest in these relationships in your family, in your children, in a way that can help them make a real contribution themselves and do it in a way that the contribution goes on generations to come like to you. That’s what I hear. That is the priority mission.
Matthew McConaughey:
Yes. And that has to do with what I do today. I know that has to do with who I am talking to you right now. That has to do with what I do this afternoon. That has to do with what I do with my free time. That has to do with what my life goes from here and what I do daily to pay the bills.
It’s not just going, oh, 53 McConaughey, Hey, succeeded got your foundation. You got a house, you got a house here, you got a house there. Woohoo. Hey on. Just protect all that because we just hand that down. That’s a hell of a lot more than you ever got. Right? McConaughey, Hey, hey, that’s better. You already broke a chain. You already upsold it. No, that’s there. I’m not going to be foolish with that. At the same time, those mortal things, those physical, if flesh items are not what I’m talking about, that’s not where I would see the most important.
Oh, I left the kids a house, and they got a vacation house past that. How can they build a life, and what things can I hand down and go, Hey, make your own way, but I paved out a path here for you, and it can pay you back qualitatively and quantitatively. You don’t have to run the foundation. You don’t have to be the CEO. I’m just saying there are some things here that these, some gardens I’m going to hand to you that still need tending after I’m gone. These are some things that have enriched my life and enriched your mother’s life, and enriched our character. We’ll open the door for you. You get in and do what you want with it. Create your own within it. That is much more important to me.
And what I’m doing now and what I’ll do for the next however more years I’m here. I am conscious. I’m not, again, like I said, I’m not saying I’ve built it, so now I can do whatever the hell I want. If I can, I’m old enough now, or if I let myself, if anything, let myself believe I can do whatever I want and really believe that. I think I can do some great things. Ten years ago, if you had told me, really admitted I could do whatever I wanted, I might be a little more of a tyrant. With all that freedom. Now I have more trust in myself to go, well, if you can do whatever you want, whatever you want, go, boy.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. Strangely, there’s greater freedom in that because what you’re seeing is the risk of you falling into any number of dark paths is now much more reduced. It’s like my desire for that, those paths, it is just so much closer to zero or zero. It’s like I don’t care. So I just now…
Matthew McConaughey:
And they’re still there, and more to come. But as you just said it, my desire is much less. I’m not a hundred percent. I’m not full. I’m not a finished product. I still have. There’s temptation. I got to check myself all the time. I got to check my ego. You know what I mean? Certain, but much less. You said it much less than it’s ever been in my life.
Greg McKeown:
Well, and that’s what doing, and this is why this irony of freedom is having no desire for that. Having that sort, let’s go kind of the world fall from you to at least to some in comparison, it has fallen from you compared to where maybe you say you would’ve been 10, 20 years ago, is actually freeing you to be able to dream the next chapter, the next volume to say even both evolving strategy and top-down strategy in both ways. It’s like, hey, I’m, I’m dreaming bigger, and I’m also open, more open for what this higher contribution could be over the next 10, 20 years.
Matthew McConaughey:
That is where I am. Yes.
Greg McKeown:
This is the thing I really wanted to get to. So I could do it in two different ways, but let me just recall, the last time we talked on air, I asked you a question in kind of overtime, and it was this question. I asked, what is something essential that you are underinvesting in? And when I asked you that, you went silent for so long. I thought that the video was frozen, but I didn’t want to interrupt you in case it hadn’t. I didn’t want to mess with the moment. It hadn’t. You were just seriously thinking about it.
Matthew McConaughey:
I don’t remember what I said then, but I have an answer now.
Greg McKeown:
Let’s have your answer. Now
Matthew McConaughey:
There’s something essential that I’m in is, I’ll use the word my own religion people that word already 40% of the ears just tuned out with that word. We’ll have another discussion about where words need redefinition. So I’ll call it my own spirituality if that’s safer for more. If that can be digested by more ears, not for themselves, but
Greg McKeown:
Use the words you want. I mean, you are saying in your religious journey, your faith journey, you feel I’m under-investing in it now.
Matthew McConaughey:
I think anything with intention is a religious take in our lives. Anything, even if you’re atheist, agnostic, or whoever, I think that we could still go; you have religious intention, whether you’re comfortable calling it that or not. My spirit is what I need. I am, I could invest much more limitless than I am, and I maintain, I have rituals. I believe that when I invest more, not about just time of just, oh I need to go practice that more, but when I really get the courage to start seeing my being myself, the expression of my life through that lens, through my understanding of God’s eyes, that that’s when you don’t talk about it all being free. You want to talk about the essential about everything else that the chaff gets cut away from the wheat. And those judgments aren’t there to open up our conversation.
Those right in wrong things can be, I can speak about it and have an opinion, but they don’t have, those are, that’s mortal things. Those are on the side that can still watch those and have a disagreement and see something things wrong but be detached enough to have pleasure and enjoyment and see in that part of human nature.
Greg McKeown:
I know, I think what you’re describing, the difference. The difference is you use the word maintenance versus investment. And what you’re saying is I’m doing the, well, maybe I’m putting words in your mouth, you correct me, but I’m doing the bare minimum to maintain, I’m not doing bad in my life. I’m not doing bad things, but I’m just, I’m doing maintenance. And what you’re saying is that you feel in this moment, at least, there’s that tapping to, man, if you would invest, I give you a lot more.
Matthew McConaughey:
Yeah. And look, I try and shoot holes in that idea, that ambition, all the time. That’s the only one that it’s like you can’t defend the, there’s no, the alternative is indefensible for me. That one always wins.
Greg McKeown:
That’s the priority of your life.
Matthew McConaughey:
Or it should be.
Greg McKeown:
And eventually, one way or another it gets there again. What is in my mind is you’re talking about it. I went through an experience where I had this sort of similar spiritual prompting of like, man, you need to do more. And I took this challenge. It was a church kind of invitation, and it was 2200 references to the life of Christ. I thought this would be good for me because how is it not good to learn more about this life of service, who he is, and what I experienced almost the second I did it wasn’t just good reminders and examples but was revelation. And that’s the difference is that almost the second I had it honestly, seriously, McConaughey, I would get these promptings, these little bings. Bing. Call up so and so, and I’m like, I have not called him for, I spoke to him once in my life 20 years ago, but I’m like, okay, I had this image of him broken, man it suffering.
So I call him up, I’m like, Hey listen, I know this is weird, but I’m here, so let’s talk. And that happened so many times through the experience, including one morning; not that this was the most profound example, but one morning in this early on in the process, you’ve got to go and search right now on Oxford and Cambridge’s websites to see if you know anyone there. And I actually didn’t, but I connected with somebody that I was vaguely connected to, and now I’m doing a doctorate at Cambridge. I mean, it materially changed the strategies I pursued very directly. I could go on.
Matthew McConaughey:
To say you wanted to go do that course was a step into chaos. That was taking a risk. That was getting out of your comfort.
Greg McKeown:
It certainly was.
Matthew McConaughey:
But at least, and again in these, because people always go, well, how do you know which one’s chaos to take?
Look, I don’t know what I’m coming out of this with. I think it’s going to be good for me. I don’t know. I feel like this is a place I’m going where no one’s going to pick my pocket and where I’m not going to have to step on broken glass. I feel like what I’m, it’s going to be my own to deal with and make of what I make with it. And then look what I mean and look what the payment is coming for you.
Greg McKeown:
And I was only really even sharing it because of what your answer was. It’s like that’s what I think you are saying is a sense of if I invest differently, it’s not just, oh, I’ll be protected a little from maybe ego that can be a challenge for me or this particular challenge. It’s like, no, if I would invest more, I would get the return on effort would be so high in guidance and so on.
Matthew McConaughey:
The thought and the belief for me now my is not about protecting.
Greg McKeown:
Right. Right.
Matthew McConaughey:
It is. As I said, I use the word courage again. If I got the courage to do it, it’s woo, it’s intimidating, bro. Because it’s awesome, and it should be, and it will come with, I know it’ll come with, but I don’t know exactly what, but it, it would come with great sacrifice, but it would come with exceptional abundance.
Greg McKeown:
The language is already there. You have to give up something. You have to give up something, right? Isn’t that just the Cooper quote we just were reading? It’s like you have to give up something which is your own previous version of you. So it does take courage because it would be very tempting to go, I’ve just got a lot to protect now. I just keep what I have. But it’s also, it makes no contribution. It’s like a form of dying. When somebody does that, if you were to do that, you would feel like you were not doing what you came here to do.
Matthew McConaughey:
And at the same time, we need to say it’s okay to look around our garden if we’ve tinted it well and go, this is a beautiful garden.
Greg McKeown:
To enjoy, to be grateful.
Matthew McConaughey:
To enjoy that and give ourself credit for that.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, we do.
Matthew McConaughey:
Someone wants to be if someone could be present, but they love being mayor of their town; bravo bro, be the best mayor. If that’s what if what you want to do or mayor of your family or father of your family, whatever that is. If it’s envious of some people who are like, you see ’em that they are like, no, this is the one thing I do. It’s small. This is my house. This is my acre. This is what I love. I want nothing more. It’s like bravo.
Greg McKeown:
I sometimes I’m jealous of people like that, by the way. Sometimes when people really genuinely are satisfied, and I go, oh, that feels very nice over there. It doesn’t feel like what my mission is, but it’s easy to have holy envy for it.
Matthew McConaughey:
100%. And holy envy is a great word for it. I myself have enough, and you said it, but I’ve got enough. I want to find out in me that I’m not satisfied with just going here we are.
Greg McKeown:
Do you not think, sometimes you don’t just look at your life sometimes and go, if I had really known, let’s say 30 years ago, how good it was all going to be, how it was going to work out, how great, how surprising this was all going to work. Not that you didn’t have the aspiration for what’s been produced, but that it really all worked. That it all happened. That now, what’s possible. What’s possible in the next 20, 30 years, given that all of this, not only that you’re in a position to make a higher contribution, but also because of all the learnings that went on to get to this point. You have all of those as assets, all of that understanding of how to make things happen, of how to not just will them, but how to discover and detect your mission and then to be able to follow through I what’s possible. Is it clear to you what’s possible now? Do you have a vision of what it is, or is it just a sense I need to do more spiritual work so that I can get clearer?
Matthew McConaughey:
I got a vision of what’s possible.
Greg McKeown:
Concrete. Is it concrete for you?
Matthew McConaughey:
It’s very real in my projection eyes. It’s not something I’m going to put into words here. It’s something that
Greg McKeown:
It’s not to be published yet.
Matthew McConaughey:
I’ll just do it. And it hopefully would just be something that is happening live. And you look up down the road and go, is that talking about what? You know what I mean?
Greg McKeown:
You didn’t publish the 10 items of your list, including best actor, when you wrote it. Yeah. No.
Matthew McConaughey:
Right, right, right.
Greg McKeown:
So this is your new 10 list, let’s say.
Matthew McConaughey:
It found, yeah, found later. And I’ve got, I have a vision of what I can put in what I see myself put into practicing happening.
Greg McKeown:
What you said last time, we went through a whole process, but the one-word answer you gave last time, the first word, once you’d taken that time to think, you said leadership, and then, all right, we went through a process of saying, okay, what does that look like? Would it be, if you had to guess, it was a little mini sort of speed coaching thing. Okay. Would you choose, okay, the governor of Texas? Do you want to do that? Nah, no. Not if I, no. Okay, would you want to? And we went through a whole series like that and where we came to was if I could create a kind of institute, I don’t know if we even called it Green Lights Institute, but that kind of idea. because at one point, you were like, ah, church, but not a church. Not something that everyone could be participating in, and people could certify themselves like it Green Lights coaches and a way of being able to, I think if we could put it now in language from this conversation, it’s something like being able to do for others what you are currently trying to do for your children.
Now it’s not at the same level, but I would love to empower and enable people to be able to detect and design their mission and to be able to fulfill it. A kind of Green Lights movement. Now that was last time. I don’t know if that’s still the same, but that’s what…
Matthew McConaughey:
They’re in the same bucket. I mean, if you put the two words in if I said leadership last time, I said spirit this time spirit, leadership. Leadership. Very similar spirit. I like that line. I like that rocket.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. And you have a challenge. I mean, honestly, I know a lot of people have the idea that when somebody has money or if they have fame or if they have a certain set of things, that, oh, they got it. They’ve made it. And, of course, it’s nice problems to have, but it’s still a problem to be able to discern between all these different ideas and all these different investment possibilities and scripts too, and all these things to discern between all of this. Hold on, what’s the one big next thing? What’s the next level of contribution? Not just more of the same.
And I, I’m very sympathetic for that challenge because just because it’s a nice problem to have doesn’t make it less of a problem. So to me that I assume that that is a significant part of the challenge of, like, okay, well, how do I even get enough space, enough clarity to get clear again on how to invest in this next level?
Matthew McConaughey:
Part of that has to do with going back to that Interstellar quote that you had written in. It’s going to take, it’s not just compounding interest going forward. It’s going to take sacrificing and getting rid of some things that are already here. It’s going to take getting rid of a few campfires that I maybe give too much attendance, and have fewer fires on my proverbial desk, but bigger ones and one main Valhalla fire.
That kind of goes also back to the theory we were talking about earlier is the essentialism, invest in the cause. Invest in the root cause, not the effect, not the periphery, not the amendment for me, what I believe it’ll take when to get there. Will I, I see that, oh, you got room for these other little campfires? I’ll probably all be, and if I get there, it’ll all be probably in the same flame.
Greg McKeown:
The next chapter, the next major green light, is going to be fascinating. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. I was going to put this in the intro anyway, but you wouldn’t have heard it if we do it like that. You have a way with words that’s so unusual, so distinctively you both in your writing and even in our messages. Your messages are always so particularly deliberately you. I could pick them from anyone. I would know they were yours and the same in the way that you think. It’s always a pleasure to have the conversation and the chance to talk and to thought deeply. So McConaughey, thank you for being on the show.
Matthew McConaughey:
You are welcome, Greg. Always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for challenging who we are and what our potential is. Capacity is where we’re going. I’d never get off with you feeling like, oh my gosh, you got to have the answer right now. But Al is always a great exercise of, hey, we went in there, we unpacked some things, we got into the hood a little bit. Appreciate it.
Greg McKeown:
Thank you.
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