48. Matthew McConaughey on Fifty Years of Greenlights (Part One)

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Matthew McConaughey 

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Greg McKeown    

I was gonna ask you, how are you doing really? But then you started offering it anyway, so go.

Matthew McConaughey    

As I always like to say relatively speaking. I’m doing very well. Now, in the last five minutes, it’s why I’ve actually loved this card said something a little, a little brand-new chaos into my life that is non-negotiable. So when we’re off, when we’re done, I’ll jump back into restoring order to that chaos as best I can. That’s all I’ll tell you, I’ll be real obtuse. 

Greg McKeown    

I know, I get it, you are handling something right now, you don’t want to deal with the specifics of it. But something has given you a curveball. And you’re having to, you know, you’re having to now deal with the situation.

Matthew McConaughey    

A major curveball, and not the kind of curveball like, oh, the dog just pooped in the yard and for or in the kitchen? Now is a nice, nice major curveball that I’ll deal with. And you know what? We’ll re-record this the next time we talk and you’ll go so how was the solution to that?  And then I can probably tell the live story.

Greg McKeown    

Yes. Because it’s tricky in the midst of it, you’ve got different people’s feelings, you’ve got your own emotions. And it is this is a big enough one that and I don’t mean to say this in it, because I don’t mean in any unprofessional way. But it’s like hard to actually not be thinking about that right now. It’s a big enough thing.

Matthew McConaughey    

Yeah, this will be another one of the things that’ll be a test here, I’ll do my best to be present with you. I’ve got information that may be popping in on other texts and stuff, or someone may knock on the door. But it should be a lively conversation, no matter if we get interrupted or not.

Greg McKeown    

Is what you’re dealing with right now sufficient that you think if you write another memoir, at 100, this story could make it in is it of that proportion?

Matthew McConaughey     

It’s of that proportion, to the extent that this might just be you know, just when you think a comedy shows over, and you think you’ve heard the punch line, and it’s in and the curtains about to close, the curtain just got back open back up into Esther’s follies here. I haven’t shared with my wife or anyone else, because it’s not a matter that is like, if I had to deal with it like at this second, I’d have to say, hey, man, we’ll have to do this later, Greg, but something that will more off in 45 minutes, nothing will have changed. I just found out new information. When you find out that something is absolutely opposite, scientifically opposite of what you were relying on and what you were told you had a 99.9% chance to rely on so you planned your future for that and all those moving parts. And the one thing that point oh, one percentage chance that could have come up, that you’ve been putting together for months. Just reared its little head. So the comedy continues. And this could be a good enough one that shows up in another book, yes. So I’m doing something we talk about in the book though right now. All right. Doing that I think I’m very happy that I’m that I’m finding myself doing this because I’ve didn’t plan on it. I’m laughing. I am laughing because what just happened is completely outlandish. Now I’m on the phone, I’m on talking with you. Because as I said, I can’t do anything about it right now that I cannot do. It’s not going to get worse in the amount of time you and I talked about, right? It’s not going to change the circumstance that was that I go handle it right now. And I have to jump into that mode. So it’s inevitable that it’s happened, right. And what has happened is clear, it’s scientific. It’s not up for discussion. Um, it’s mathematics. And so I have no emotion about it besides it sucking and I’m gonna have to throw up into my plan, and many others, but I’m laughing because there you go. I mean, I’ve talked about a lot in the book, we know it we know in life, you make plans, you get it all secure all of a sudden life interrupts with different plans. And to laugh at it right now. I’m actually going to be able to, I’m already going to be able to deal with it better. I’m not belittling the crisis that I’m in by laughing,

going like, Oh, here we go, okay! So maybe that’s a good in on, on, on stuff that we can talk about because I am a big fan of sense of humor. And the problem is since humor most people say when you’re dealing with the crisis is they think it belittles the crisis or did not right crisis. I am in no way denying the real crisis that I just got presented in my life but I am going to laugh my way through this sob while I break a sweat trying to handle it.

Greg McKeown     

Well, I the thing that comes to me as you’re doing this is this like you there are things you can’t control this something you can control how you are emotionally processing it. You can make it worse, you can make a bad situation worse, or you cannot make it worse by having you know, as you say, a sense of humor about it.

Matthew McConaughey  

I got to deal with the same pile of you know what either way, right here. So I’m gonna decide to gig up my way through this. And hopefully, also, you know, when you’re the one the point person that goes to deliver the bad news, how you deliver it. I don’t want to get everyone else going oh no. Everyone else to kind of be gone like, What are you serious? And I’m gonna be like, yep, how about that? Tally that one up, never saw that one coming, yeah.

Greg McKeown     

We’re in a sense completely off script and a completely on script. Because I mean I, I just finished a book called effortless. And one of the things that I really felt drawn to with it is the idea of maintaining an effortless state and getting yourself back into an effortless state as fast as possible. And so when I read Green Lights, I actually had definitely like a kind of a linkage moment where I’m like, look, I think what Matthew is talking about with green lights is the same idea of being in an effortless state where you’re not so over forcing it so freaking out about something that you can’t be in a place where good things can start to happen to you and for you.

Matthew McConaughey   

I’m with you on that. But let I think the paradigm we got to shift here is effortless does not mean Oh, take it easy

Greg McKeown    

Right.

Matthew McConaughey 

Oh, don’t do the work. Oh, don’t break a sweat. Oh, don’t lean into resistance. Oh, don’t seek uncomfortable things. Oh, don’t go get in there, get your hands dirty and do our minds go? Oh, that’s effort. Know, what I’m saying? I think we’re agreeing with here’s like, life is the inevitability of life is that it takes effort. So since that’s inevitable, when we go into do something that’s hard that we need to give effort to going? Well, I got to do this, I’m going to do with pleasure, or I’m going to laugh through this conflict, but handle it the same way, is embracing the fact that life’s not easy. So it’s effortless in the fact of going, Oh my god, instead of going No, I can’t believe I got to do this. That’s the wrong kind of effort. Because it does not do anything to help solve the problem anymore, or get the job done and it’s just not constructive. And plus it’s kind of being mean to yourself.

Greg McKeown     

I started a little practice myself recently, where I said, Okay, after I complain, then I will say something I’m thankful for, like linking those two things together. And then what I learned immediately, was how much I complain. Like, way more than I realized before and I think of myself as positive and so on. But all of a sudden, I realized it’s, it’s with me so much more than before. And how important is to just try and quickly get back to a state. So I mean, I think so that you can be in this green lights mechanism.

Matthew McConaughey     

Let me ask you this. Did it in any part of that exercise you went through the any part of that make you see oh, my gosh, I’m thankful for so many of these things I’m complaining about. Ooh, that’s another level. I’m thankful that I’m in a position to have these many things to complain about. You know, I mean, I mean, there’s certain things and yeah, necessities, luxuries, you know, so many times we complain about things are actually not necessities, we break it down. Food, water, shelter. After that we’re in the black, if you really want to baseline the situation. Right. And so everything after that, basically lon Yup. That is a French word for a little extra. Is that fair, you think?

Greg McKeown     

I’m with you so much on this, yeah, it’s totally fair. And I think it’s that almost all of the complaints of problems of abundance. There’s a few places I really wanted to talk to you about. And one of them is right where we are in this conversation. One of the stories I thought was fascinating the book was the moment that fame happened. Yeah, the moment you acknowledged that the moment you knew about it before the movie comes out, you’re walking down the street, three or four people notice you take it from there, give it give us that great story.

Matthew McConaughey     

The Friday afternoon film a time to kill that I am the lead in and Warner Brothers studio picture based off of John Grisham novel is opening up tonight. I walked down the promenade in Santa Monica 400 people on the Promenade I walked on this Promenade all the time got to get my tuna fish sandwich with an extra pick on some ketchup 400 people on this Promenade 396 mind their business for them. Check them out. Three a couple few girls think I’m cute. One guy likes my shoes. I go have a tuna fish sandwich. Pickled ketchup go home. I come back Monday, same time at one in the afternoon. Now, since last Friday, I was there Time to Kill opened successfully Friday night all day Saturday and Sunday. Ah it’s a hit. I walk down that same Promenade Monday. 400 people in Promenade everything inverted. 396 staring at me. Four of them not. And one of those four is blind. I’m like, Huh, but we’re on the nose fly open What’s going on, very self-conscious. The world’s now a mirror. Why are they all looking at me? Someone’s coming up how is Ms. Hud. I’m like, whoa, number one your stranger who you had you know, I had a dog had you know her name was Miss Hud as you know she had cancer. I remember in that moment going, Oh, it’s from the movie that was out this week. It’s from a Time to Kill, you people saw it now. Oh, wow, how cool is this? Oh, all of that in one moment. And it was in that I felt that in that moment. And trust me, all of a sudden, the roof of options. Just went like that above my head. And so all of a sudden there was less gravity. And yeah, I was like, whoa, I’m having trouble feeling my feet on the ground. The roof just got taken off. That same Friday before Time to Kill came out, there’s 100 scripts I want to do the answer for those 100 scripts. I want to do 99 No. One Yes. Now Monday, same this just over that weekend. 100 scripts. I want to do 99 Yes, please. One. No. Whoa, awesome. Yes, I can do what I want any of these. Thank you! Oh oh, what do I do? What Whoa, do you mean? Less than three days ago, I would have done anything to do any of these scripts and couldn’t do any of them? You wouldn’t let me. And now three days later, you’re telling me please do everyone. There’s not enough time I don’t you want me. Oh you want me to decide? You want me to look at all those ones, all those that I couldn’t do three days ago that I would have done anything to do any of them and you want me to look at those discerningly you want me to actually look? Take my time and read each one and decide which one I really want to do. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. So yeah, that’s when it happened. It happened over a weekend. And, and looking back, I made a very good choice to get the hell out of dodge and go spend some time with me in a place where nobody knew my name. And they didn’t speak the language just so I could catch my breath. That memory catch up, try to try to get stabilized in the situation, I get stabilized. And okay, here’s what’s happened. The world has shifted for me. And all these options not coming. Who am I going to be? What matters? What doesn’t? What do I really want to do? hard question to answer me at that time, because I was numb with all the new frequency of things that I could do for the first time.

Greg McKeown     

It sounds like the, you know, the right problem to have. But that doesn’t make it less of a problem.

Matthew McConaughey     

Fact. Yeah, it’s an awesome problem, 100% awesome. But no, you can’t be little that it’s an actual real crisis of will now what do I do? Great problem to have, someone says you can do whatever you want to do. Awesome. Now what?

Greg McKeown     

The language for this in Essentialism is the paradox of success, you get clarity for you, it was acting was like the thing. It leads eventually to success. Because you’re so focused, you know what it is and what you don’t want to do. You get the success. And that breeds all these options. And if you’re not careful, it leads to the undisciplined pursuit of more. I think that’s what happens to a lot of people who suddenly hit fame and success, and they don’t do what you did, which I know you wouldn’t do for these reasons. But just for essentialism language you you chose to be an essentialist to step back and to say, Okay, I have all these options. Who am I? What am I what am I trying to achieve? What am I not trying to achieve? A lot of people don’t do that seems like it comes at a high cost, your thoughts?

Matthew McConaughey     

Well 100%. And let me tell you this, when I went away on my walkabout with myself, I didn’t come out of there going, clarity, I know exactly what I want to do. What I did come out of there with is well have a much greater sense of what I don’t want to do. My process of elimination, or I took some time to say, to understand who I am, to the extent more by understanding who I don’t want to be who I’m not. And so that cut a lot of the chase off and not only in fame or fortune, but in life. Boy, it’s hard to know what the hell we want to do or hard to know who we are, you know, take a little pressure off. Go figure out, let it rise of who you’re not who you say, No, I won’t be that. I don’t stand for that. I don’t believe in that. Because those are easier to put a pin on. And if you cut that off enough, all of a sudden by process of elimination, by sheer mathematics, what lies in front of you a much higher percentage of things that do feed who you are and what you actually want to do, because you cut the shape of who you’re not.

Greg McKeown     

If the best thing in life is to know what you do want. The next best scenario is to know what you don’t want. That’s what I heard you say?

Matthew McConaughey     

Yeah, and I think that We usually get to know what we want, especially younger in age by defining what we don’t want. Because in our older age, you get a little more you know, a little more culture, you get a more customized, you get to know yourself, you get a more of an identity. I’m much more playing offense now. It’s like no matter what I want, I’m going what I want. I’m funneling things in a general direction, and I can more quickly measure, does that fit in my funnel of where I’m going? No, it doesn’t. It’s out. But it takes years to create that, and I built that.

Greg McKeown     

But the whole point you’re saying is that it was a process of elimination that led to that greater level of clarity over time?

Matthew McConaughey     

Yeah, well, here’s the other thing that the process of elimination will do for you. You may not thrive, but you’re not going to fall, break your leg and be out of the race. Yeah, that’s interesting. I can’t passionately tell you from my soul, while I want to do this, and why that’s just me. But you know what the math adds up. And that looks like that won’t be in the red, that that could probably be in the black for me, or at least be even money. No, it’s not gonna be a debit, I’m not going to go backwards with this decision. So sometimes it’s about a, I’m going to keep my head above water, I had times of numbness when I first got famous, where if I look back at those interviews I gave, they’re such boring interviews, you know why? Because I was still a little numb with my newfound fame. So I would just tell myself, I don’t know how to, I’m afraid to be really colorful, as now I have more confidence to be really colorful. I’m afraid to be really colorful. So just be a gentleman and don’t lie. Like defense mechanism. If you just do that, you’re not going to step in, you know what you’re not going to, and you may not give the best interview, you may not evolve the idea of who you are. And then you’re not may not be becoming in the public eye, but you’re solid, you’re not going backwards. And so part of it’s just like hold the head over water here until I get my feet on the ground, until I get to land, and go okay, now I know what I want to do, I’m taking the idea to them.

Greg McKeown   

But you’re saying something that I think’s important and profound, which is that however you got to it intuitively, or otherwise, you said, Look, let me avoid the stupid things. Let me operate in a way that I don’t get pulled into some negative, really damaging self-cycle, which I mean, you know, you don’t have to be an insider in Hollywood to observe that it’s sort of almost the story. People work so hard for success. They’re not prepared for it when it happens. And you’re giving a strategy for like, well, how to avoid that. You’re not describing a strategy that ensures breakthrough success in the future, but you are describing a strategy that helps you to avoid breakthrough failure. If that’s the right term.

Matthew McConaughey     

I remember Don Phillips who I talked about in the story, the casting director who cast me in my first movie Dazed and Confused whose couch I slept on when I first moved to Hollywood. He was always I remember saying this early on. He’s like, he was like, Matthew, here’s the secret to this, this business, lean horse, long ride. Now let’s unpack that a minute. I get famous from a time to kill. I’m in the game. I’m in. Now you know, my star is shining bright white-hot light. The next two decisions, Amistad and Contact, my star dips. I go work with Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis in big studio films, but I’m kind of the two or the three lead. I chose a philanthropic film that I thought stories that needed to be shared with the world. I didn’t want to do things that were about me I didn’t have the identity to go No, I want the tour de force role right now. So now I want to be a part of great stories. And I am happy with those decisions, but my star dipped. People came to me like why did you choose that those roles? I had plenty of others that were leading man roles. Take the baton you’re the lead, take us. But they weren’t stories that I cared about as much. Now my star dips doesn’t dipped where I’m out. It does dip though to where now leads in dramas start to not kind of come my way. I go do start doing romantic comedies have a great time doing those gets so successful with me in the lead role, that now those jobs that I want to do are even further in the rearview mirror? Because no, you’re the rom com guy studios where you say you’re the rom com guy. And then you have that story to tell. I took off my process of elimination. I knew what I wanted to do. But I believed I could supply it but a studio wasn’t going to pay for me to do what I wanted to do. They didn’t want Matthew McConaughey in a lead role of the drama’s that I wanted to do. So I said, If I can’t do what I want to do, I’m going to stop doing what I’ve been doing and that’s why I took that two year sabbatical. Said no to the rom coms, unbranded, found anonymity again. And then rebranded. And again, when they when their dramas came to me I, I just latched on to him with fierce fangs and went and did what I wanted to do.

Greg McKeown     

Well, you say something great. I mean, that one that one liner, right? Lean horse, long road, there’s a whole volume in that idea. And to use different phrase, it’s like the discipline pursuit of less but better. Let’s be careful and thoughtful. So that we can go on for a long time have longevity in a field that is almost universally known for being the opposite. But there’s another thing I wanted to ask you about. I want to go to the very end of the book for a second. I mean, I love that you keep the journal and notes and so on over the years, and it helps for this reflection and self-reflection. But you came across a note 10 things that you wanted to do in life.

Matthew McConaughey 

Yep.

Greg McKeown    

And I want you to tell me about that, but then I have a follow up question about it.

Matthew McConaughey     

So I’m going through my journals in writing this book. I come across this journal, from 1992. And I come across this thing that says 10 goals in life. And I read them and it kind of shook me, it shook me to my core pretty good because I’ve either achieved or am in the midst of achieving all 10 of those goals. And consciously, I forgot I ever wrote them. I never looked at that list. After the night I wrote, I remember the night I wrote it. I was in the top bunk at my fraternity house when I saw it last year 2020 I remember the night I wrote it in 1992. Bout 1030 at night, before I went to bed I wrote down 10 goals. I remember writing it laying down in my top bunk by this little window right here. Think I just take it a pinch hit or something and just wrote it down and went to sleep, never looked at it again. Never consciously remember saying, well remember those 10 goals. Never saw that piece of paper again. Until last year, when I started writing the book and I looked at I’m like, wow. And some of the goals are extremely, extremely particular. Number eight, is extremely particular and precise.

Greg McKeown     

I want to read them. Do you know them, could you pull them from your memory now?

Matthew McConaughey     

You read them I wouldn’t remember them right now.

Greg McKeown    

One, become a father.  Two, find and keep the woman for me. Three, keep my relationship with God. Four, chase my best self. Five, be an egotistical utilitarian. Six, take more risks. Seven, stay close to mom and family. Eight, win an Oscar for Best Actor. Nine, look back and enjoy the view. Ten, just keep living.

Matthew McConaughey    

I’m in the midst of achieving all those. And some I specifically have achieved. So when I say I forgot I wrote it down. Well, obviously I didn’t forget that I subconsciously. Was I you know and I look back at when I wrote that look at two things that were happening in my life. I just had started and worked on my first role as an actor. Now I didn’t know if that was a one-off hobby for that summer and I never do it again, but evidently, I kind of did, didn’t I?

Greg McKeown     

One of the things that makes me think of when I read that story and hear you talk about it is something a professor once said to me, they said goals are the theory that work. And what he meant was, they work so well they almost work too well sometimes because of their autopilot nature. That if you’re not careful, you can pick up somebody else’s goals without really thinking about it and now pursue for a long time something that isn’t even important to you. And you don’t even know you’re doing it but in this case and see the very positive example of it. I have one more question about that. I wonder what are your 10 today off the top of your head.

Matthew McConaughey     

Off the top of my head well look that thought about this. I’m 51 years on this Earth right now, I wrote that when I was 21, I don’t know 21,22. So when I say I am in the midst of achieving those goals, if you look at most of those goals, relationship with God, my family, my mom finding keeping the woman for me, be a father. Those are all verbs I have, I’m in the midst of I haven’t accomplished those, I’m in the midst of accomplishing those. Alright, so I don’t have a new list of 10 goals for me. All right, I still need part of growing older. If we’ve, if we’re, if we’re in the midst of hopefully becoming who we want to become is you have daily maintenance, maintenance and attendance on the goals that you started. My you know, fatherhood a verb. I got kids 10, 11 and eight, as we all know, making the baby soon as soon as I help make the babies didn’t mean I checked that thing off my list. become a father No, I’m in the midst of that. And that will go on for the rest of my life. In a very intense way, it’ll go on for at least 18 years when my kids are in the household and I’m the father of them in the household. Finding and keeping the woman for me. Well, I believe I found the one for me now I have keep her that goes two ways. It’s not just about possession. It’s about can I help and assist her be the most her for herself? Can she help and assist me be the most me that’s a man that she fell in love with the same woman that I found love? Yes, we’ll grow and evolve the both of us and I tell this story in the book when I asked her what I have to do to lose you she said change. Well if she asked me the same question I tell her the same magic change. So keeping helping her become and remain the most herself as possible is constant maintenance. Her helping me become and stay the same man I am the best of myself truest to myself is constant maintenance. Keeping us together so that’s the good that’s work that I’m those are gardens I’m tending. My relationship with God. I have times where I go. Oh, my God. I’m the last time you are you skip church again? Yeah, you kind of feeling a little vapid there, there’s a reason you need to go bend the knee McConaughey. Maybe I’m feeling either like I’m all up number one and I’m the cat’s meow. And I don’t you know, God, I don’t need that spiritual relationship with God the moment or vice versa, feeling down in the dumps. I got a tend that garden. I understand my why of where I’m going. What I’m working on now, my challenge is to define the how. And you know, a lot of times in life, it’s the opposite. You know, how you just gotta define the why. There’s problems I’m trying to solve. I believe there’s a way to build better human beings, including myself. I believe that there’s a way to inspire individuals to take agency for themselves, to be ministers have their own personal culture. To take that agency to look themselves in the mirror, to say, I’m going to take one step closer to chasing my transcend itself to being a little bit more true, a little bit better tomorrow. Yes, I appreciate policy. And I’m so glad that the leader I voted for is in office, if that’s the case. But I understand that they none of these people or belief, if you’re a believer, people go well, I’ve just trusted in God. Not they can’t do it for us. So I’m all for the self-determining individual. And if enough of us choose that, that’s the collective change that I think we need as a people as a species moving forward. Because we’re in a space right now where we got a choice, we can evolve or devolve. And people go, well, it’s been a big de-evolution in the last year. Well, I would say, when great evolution starts, it starts with what seems to be an absolute destruction of things. So let’s build where are we going from here? That why that that I believe is needed and that I can be useful in that arena? It’s clear to me how that’s what I’m dealing with. That’s my Mirage right now that I need to define.

Greg McKeown    

Define for me just in like a sentence or two, if you can, what is your why? You kind of just did it but just give me like a shorter statement.

Matthew McConaughey    

Inspire people to believe and understand and know measurably that the choice you make today has compounding assets in your future. Understand delayed gratification a little bit. There’s a way to fill your bank account and your sellers account at the same time. What’s best for me can be best for we. What’s best for you can be best for we. What’s best for we can be best for me. What is the most selfish choice can be that is the most selfless choice. What is the most selfless choice is the most selfish choice. But those are not contradictions.

Greg McKeown     

And like, give me one more time half the words?

Matthew McConaughey    

What was your question?

Greg McKeown    

What is your why?

Matthew McConaughey   

My why, sing the music of life.

Greg McKeown   

Sing the music of life. I like it, but now but I do kind of want you to unpack it, sing the music of life.

Matthew McConaughey     

Okay. Remind, inspire individuals to understand that there’s nobody that they should get to know better. Nobody more fun to chase, to investigate than themselves. Invest in yourself, invest in yourself, invest in yourself, get some ROI on you. And real ROI on you, true ROI, true residuals in life, don’t just pay you back. They also pay the most amount of people back.

Greg McKeown   

You’re saying you are an asset worth protecting and investing in?

Matthew McConaughey     

Yeah, invest in yourself. Even if it’s a character thing, I’m not just talking about a bank account.

Greg McKeown  

Sure.

Matthew McConaughey    

Invest in yourself, take some time to get to know yourself. We’re different. I’m not a subscriber to that, oh, we’re all the same. To get there, we have to decide on common denominator of values we can all agree on and have that social expectations of each other. But we’re all different. We have different innate abilities, check out those, lean into those. See what those are. See if you can create if you can use them in a way that the world can have some sort of demand for that innate ability that you have, that you’re also willing to hustle that you’re willing to go educate yourself, get an education for, to supply something that the world can demand because yes, I’m not talking about Kumbaya. I’m, I’m a great spiritual person. I’ve got a great family, but I’m broke. No, I’m done. We want to fill the bank account to it’s a for profit proposition. Yeah, I think we need to redefine profit, we need to redefine what currency is, I think we need to redefine what success is. In the long term, we can just have a little bit of understanding of foreshadowing of the delayed gratification of when we get our payback. Because we so obsessed with the result of right now.

Greg McKeown     

One of the themes in what you just said, I think is it connects with you and your wife. And now also what you your why is for the people. If I could summarize the theme, it would be become more and more of who you really are. And less and less of who you really are not

Matthew McConaughey     

Be more selfish. And I my pastor, and many friends tell me you are pushing a big rock up a steep hill when you’re trying to tell people to be more selfish. And I’m saying, I’ll take that. I’m going with it. Because I believe in it. We’ve got to redefine what selfish means. Be more, be more self-ish. And in so many things today we can look at or selfish has a bad name has gotten a bad rap. It usually means I’ve got mine at the expense of you not getting yours. I’m not talking about that selfish. That’s an old definition. There’s a place where we can make a choice that is best for us that happens to be best for the most amount of people. It’s actually giving it’s let me throw this at you working on this this lineage, this mathematics. I believe generosity breeds gratitude. With generous I am to us with generous gardening. I’m thankful you’re thankful I’m even thankful that I’m being generous to you. Gratitude breeds responsibility. Why because the more we’re thankful for the more we’re giving value to more things, the more we want to tend their garden. We want to take care of that, I value that I’m giving thanks to that. So I value that I take care of that kids my work that reads responsibility. And that that responsibility breeds freedom.

Greg McKeown     

You mentioned earlier, your father and him passing away. But before that, there was a really key moment in some in you making a decision, right? To decide from the Latin means to cut off to kill, right, you are making a decision to not pursue what you’d gone to university for originally, what everyone was telling you to do. And instead you wanted to pursue this path of being an actor. And the person you were most concerned about talking to is your father. Tell us that story.

Matthew McConaughey  

Yeah, so I’m raised in a blue-collar household where you get a job you work your way up the ladder. Right and I was a great debater in the family and loved to stand on top the chair and debate, defend, prosecute and this and that. Well, you want to become a lawyer? I love that idea. Yes. I was ever sort of expected to be or I thought I’d be. Well ended my sophomore year in college, I started to not sleep well. The idea of becoming a lawyer. I started going I’m going to graduate I gotta go to law school or get out maybe an intern. I won’t be putting a mark on society, whatever mine will be until my mid 30s. I don’t really want to. In my 20s just getting educated become a lawyer, I want to try something that I can see if I can make a mark now. Well, I’ve been writing short stories, and sharing them with some friends that were actually  film students. They’re like these are these are good. And then also had some friends go on about being in front of the camera, you got good character, you’re a good-looking guy, try that. And I was like, oh, wow, I don’t know. Maybe I was that that false humility have gone well. And after that was too Avant Garde of an idea? What well, I encourage to say, you know, I do want to go to film school, I want to go into the storytelling business. And now I’m going to call my dad is paying for school. I’m very nervous about this call. Because I think my dad is gonna go you want to do what boy? I ain’t paying for that. So I pick out a time it’s 730. Tuesday night, he’ll be home from work, he’ll have had dinner, he’s on the couch having a beer, catch him in a good mood. So I make that phone call answers the phone as he said, What’s up monkey man? I said, Oh, pop, I’ve been thinking and you know what? I don’t want to go to law school anymore, I want to go to film school. Now I’ve got a bead of sweat running down the back of my neck thinking that I’m about to hear what the hell you talk. And instead, he listens for a second, and then goes, Well, are you sure that’s what you want to do? I said, Yes, sir. Really quickly. And clearly. Yes, sir. Another five seconds pause. And then he says, don’t half ass it. And I lit up, tears filled my eyes. On the other end of the phone line, he gave me more than approval he gave me for the privilege, he gave me accountability, responsibility, and a kick in the backside of freedom. And, you know, I’ve deconstructed that moment back one, the value of don’t half-ass it is something I think we can all take around in our pocket. It everywhere to never really goes out of style. But to you know, as parents, or as government’s got any governing sort of entity, we have structure, we have rules, you do follow the rules, and you go up the ladder. And if you follow those rules, you’re probably gonna succeed, you can do well, they’ll keep you from harm, and you can succeed. But what do we really, really, really love as parents? And what do we really really applaud as governments and businesses? When our child, or when an entrepreneur steps out of the form and says, I’m going my own way and I’m not asking permission. My dad heard in my voice when I said, I don’t want to go to law school, I want to go to film school. He heard the tone if I’d been like, Well, I mean, I was thinking, Dad, you know, I think maybe I want to if he’d heard that, already known, I wasn’t convicted. He’d had known I was bluffing. He’d have known that I hadn’t done my own personal diligence it to make my damn mind up. But I was giving him the courtesy to call and go, this is what I’m gonna do. And I’m posing it to you in a question form dad, but he heard my voice, and that’s why it goes you sure that’s what you do? And how quickly I came back and went yes, sir. That I didn’t pause and go Well I mean, you know, I think, he knew I wasn’t bluffing. And so in that moment, that conversation took 15 seconds, and he says, don’t half ass it. In that moment he was inside I’m sure going, Katie, his wife, my mom, we raised him all right. He came to me and said he’s going his own way and he’s not really asking permission. He’s not bluffing. It’s what he’s going to do. So yes. But I say to myself and the people out there when you do want to step outside of the lines, and make your own way, don’t come bluffing. Because the world is sitting there too. You have to pass initiation. The world is formed to compress you back down. I always say this I was told this great story and the industry I’m in, the acting industry, Joel Schumacher, Director of time to kill told me goes hey, they no Help Wanted signs in Hollywood. The guards at the gates are not there to keep you in. They’re there to keep you out.