Matthew McConaughey on Success Playbooks, Philosophy of Greenlights, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show

1. 0:00 – 15:23

   Dad's Pipe Business and Mom's Mink Oil Lawsuit

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls, lemurs and squirrels, all things under the sun. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, people who are excellent, world-class at what they do, to tease out all sorts of things, frameworks, questions they ask, favorite books, influences, you name it, lessons learned. My guest today is Texas native Matthew McConaughey. He is one of Hollywood's most sought-after leading men. A chance meeting in Austin long ago with casting director and producer Don Phillips led him to director Richard Linklater, who launched the actor's career in the cult classic Dazed and Confused. Since then, he has won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club, appeared in more than 40 feature films that have grossed more than one billion dollars, and has become a producer, director, and philanthropist with his Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, all the while sticking to his Texas roots and jk livin' philosophy. McConaughey also serves as creative director for Wild Turkey and has co-created his own bourbon, Longbranch. He serves as Minister of Culture, M.O.C., for the University of Texas Athletic Department and the Austin FC Soccer Club, where he is part owner. McConaughey will launch his first book, Greenlights, on October 20th, 2020. He currently resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Camila, and their three kids while he is a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. You can find him on Facebook, Matthew McConaughey, on Instagram, officiallymcconaughey, and on Twitter, @McConaughey. The book's official website is greenlights.com. Please enjoy this wide-ranging, extremely [laughs] enjoyable and entertaining conversation with none other than Matthew McConaughey. [upbeat music] This podcast episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Sleep is super important to me. In the last few years, I've come to conclude it is the end-all be-all, that all good things, good mood, good performance, good everything seem to stem from good sleep. So I've tried a lot to optimize it. I've tried pills and potions, all sorts of different mattresses, you name it. And for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a Helix Midnight Luxe mattress. I also have one in the guest bedroom, and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something that they comment on. Helix Sleep has a quiz, takes about two minutes to complete, that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. With Helix, there's a specific mattress for each and every body. That is your body, also your taste. 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One more time, Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com/tim. [upbeat music] This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is a brand-new cereal that I eat just about every day that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. I just ate a huge bowl of their cocoa flavor about an hour ago after a short workout. Magic Spoon cereal has received a lot of attention since launching last year. Time Magazine included it in their list of Best Inventions of 2019, and Forbes called it the future of cereal. It tastes just like your favorite sugary cereal from childhood, remember that? But it's actually good for you. Each serving has 11 grams of protein, three grams of net carbs, zero grams of sugar, and only 110 calories. It's also gluten-free, grain-free, keto-friendly, soy-free, and GMO-free. All the things. It's delicious, and I don't say that lightly because most of this healthy version of X stuff is not delicious, but these guys really nail it. Magic Spoon has nailed it. It comes in your favorite traditional cereal flavors like cocoa, frosted, and blueberry. You can try them all by grabbing a variety pack at magicspoon.com/tim, or you can just grab a box or a bunch of boxes, I'm gonna order some more today, of the cocoa, which is my personal favorite. But there is a new contender for favorite flavor because they just launched two limited edition flavors, honey nut and peanut butter, which are delicious. I am a sucker for peanut butter, and, uh, it is outstanding. So I think cocoa and peanut butter are my two new favorite flavors. And fun fact, my friends are also obsessed with Magic Spoon. One of the podcast's most popular guests, Dr. Peter Attia, routinely crushes six to seven servings at a time, that's a lot, with no glycemic response. He's looked at this with a glucometer. He likes it so much he invested. Other friends, two very fine gentlemen and also past podcast guests, Kevin Rose and Ryan Holiday, also invested. So check it out. See what the buzz is about. Go to magicspoon.com/tim and grab a variety pack or cocoa, which is my favorite, or anything else. But see what strikes your fancy. Why not? Try a variety pack and be sure to use code Tim at checkout. My listeners, that's you, get free shipping and a 100% happiness guarantee, so if you're not a fan, if you don't love it, they'll give you a full refund, no questions asked. Again, check it out, magicspoon.com/tim. That's magicspoon.com/tim. Take a look Optimal minimum At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would just be an appropriate time. What if I give you alchemy? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Matthew, welcome to the show.

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey6:30

      Good to be here, Tim. How are you, sir?

   3. TFTim Ferriss6:33

      I'm doing very well, and I have just an embarrassment of riches in front of me in terms of notes that I would love to, to take some stab at covering even a portion of. And I thought we could begin with a little backstory. For those people who know your work but perhaps not your personal story, let's paint a picture of your parents. Now, I was in preparation for this conversation doing some homework, and I came across a quote of yours. Feel free to fact-check this, of course. This is from The Guardian, but it says, "One of the great images I have of my father is on the phone with a cigarette at the airport on the payphone, always peddlin'."

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey7:11

      Yes.

   5. TFTim Ferriss7:11

      What was he peddlin'?

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey7:13

      Pipe.

   7. TFTim Ferriss7:13

      And how-- [laughs] pipe. What is, what is that for those who don't know?

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey7:17

      Pipe and couplings. So he-- We were in the oil business, and to drill, you obviously need pipe, and the couplings are what connect the pipe to drill for oil. So Dad was in the pipe and coupling business, and he was c-- he would call it peddlin' pipe. Peddlin' pipe. No G-U-N, peddlin'. Peddlin' pipe, and that's what he did on the phone, eight to six, and then he'd hit the road and go make personal appearances trying to sell pipe. He started off as a, uh, truck driver, then owned a Texaco station down in Uvalde. We moved to Longview, Texas, in the oil boom, and within like six months after being in Longview, Dad had like twenty-six employees under him. That's how big of an oil boom it was. And then obviously-

   9. TFTim Ferriss7:55

      Wow

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey7:55

       ... that, that business fell through, I think in around eighty-two, and he kinda held on from there. He was always peddlin'.

   11. TFTim Ferriss8:02

       Always peddlin'.

   12. MMMatthew McConaughey8:03

       His line was great. He was always big, and he never did it. He never went bankrupt, and that was a piece of honor for him not to go bankrupt. But he was always, after the oil boom sort of busted, he was always like, "Boys, if I could just hit a lick. Oh, if I could just hit a lick." And he never did hit that lick. Um, but if he, if he had hit-

   13. TFTim Ferriss8:21

       What is a lick? Is that a, a s-

   14. MMMatthew McConaughey8:23

       A lick is a big sale. A lick is a big account. A lick is, "Okay, Mr. Jim McConaughey, I want all my pipe from you, and we're gonna drill two hundred thousand feet," ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. And so it's a huge account. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna supply all the pipe to this one large account. That would be a lick. He never quite hit it.

   15. TFTim Ferriss8:40

       [laughs] So we're gonna jump to the other track with Mom for a second here, and I'd like to have a conversation about or description maybe of mink oil. [laughs] I would like to-

   16. MMMatthew McConaughey8:52

       [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss8:55

       Could you, could you tell us how, how mink oil entered your life, please?

   18. MMMatthew McConaughey8:59

       Yeah, I would not be here talking to you right now if it wasn't for the oil of mink.

   19. TFTim Ferriss9:04

       Yeah. [laughs]

   20. MMMatthew McConaughey9:05

       I think it was about... How old was I? Fourteen, fifteen years old, ninth grade, adolescence. My mom starts peddlin', again, peddlin', my whole, my whole family was peddlin' something. My mom starts peddlin' this oil of mink product, um, door-to-door sales. "Look here, you, you, you put this mink oil on your face and it, it brings out all the impurities that you have, and once those impurities all come out, you then have clear, glowing skin for the rest of your life." That was sort of the sales pitch, right? Well, I'm fifteen. I got a few pimples as any fifteen-year-old does, and one night my mom goes, "Well, you should use this oil of mink." I'm like, "Great. Gee, that'd be-- you're gonna let me do that? Sure." So I start putting this oil of mink on my face every night before I go to bed. And after about a week I, I wake up and I've got more pimples than I had a week before.

   21. TFTim Ferriss9:54

       [laughs]

   22. MMMatthew McConaughey9:55

       And I, and I, and I check in the mirror and I go to mom. I say, "This normal?" She goes, "Oh, that's exactly what it's supposed to do. Pull out all the impurities. Keep doing it. Stick with it." Sure. And so I just religiously keep putting it on. Well, after two weeks, now I seem to be running into a problem here. I've got [laughs] my, I've got a whole face full of pimples, and, and it's, it's, it's getting pretty severe. And I go back to mom. She's like, "Oh, wow. Well, you've just got more impurities than I thought you'd have. Just keep, keep doing it. We're gonna keep bringing out those impurities." I keep it up. Three weeks go by, now I've got full-blown acne and I'm really concerned, and my mom's just staying on with it, going, "Well, no, stick with it. All the impurities are coming out." Well, I sneak off to a dermatologist on my own.

   23. TFTim Ferriss10:36

       [laughs]

   24. MMMatthew McConaughey10:38

       And this was not my mom's recommendation. Uh, I sneak out there on my own, this, and I take a bottle of this mink oil with me and I go, I go, "Doc, can you look at my face? This..." He goes, "What are you putting on your face?" And I show him this bottle. He's, he reads the label. He's like, "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is for someone that's like forty year old or not a teenage child who's got oily pores. Anyway, this is blocking your pores. Your pores can't breathe. You are ten days away from having ice pick holes in your face from the acne. We've got to get you off of this." "Okay." He goes, "We also have to get you on this stuff called Accutane. It's a year's worth of, uh, uh, medicine. It will dry you up. There will have its complications, but it'll be better than, than the acne that you're gonna have." So boom, I get on the Accutane, off the oil of mink. And around that time, my dad, who was always, as I said, peddlin' and looking how to hit a lick, looks at me, he says, "Damn, boy, I, I think we got a lawsuit against this company." [laughs]

   25. TFTim Ferriss11:36

       [laughs]

   26. MMMatthew McConaughey11:37

       "Damn oil of mink company. I mean, you're, you're a good-looking son. I mean, look at you. You're all swole up." So he, he takes me to see his lawyer. I remember his lawyer. His name is Jerry Harris. So I'm sitting down with my dad and his lawyer, Jerry Harris, and we think we got a case, and he asks me like, you know, "Hey, is your confidence lower, you know, with these, uh, with these pimples you got and this acne?" I'm like, "Well, yes, sir." I mean, he goes, "Are you doing as good with the girls?" And I said, "No, sir. Not at all." He, his eyes light up and I can tell that even at my age of fifteen that he, he's building his case and he goes Emotional distress. You were under emot— You are under emotional distress. And I look at him and I'm like, "Uh, sure, yeah, emotional distress." And Jerry slapped the table and goes, "Gosh, dog, we can get thirty-five to fifty thousand dollars off this. Emotional distress will go a long way, Jim." And my dad's like, "Hot damn, that's it. That's right, fifty thousand dollars. Let's way to go, son." And so Dad's getting all excited about this deal. [laughs] We're gonna make fifty thousand dollars off of my emotional distress, his youngest son. So anyway, meanwhile, I'm on Accutane.

   27. TFTim Ferriss12:38

       [laughs]

   28. MMMatthew McConaughey12:38

       And Accutane takes a year to get clear up, and you get scaly, you get dandruff, and your knees hurt, and you get slits in your mouth and everything else, but much better than this acne. And this Accutane starts clearing this acne up on my face. Well, as lawsuits go, you know, they, they drag on a while. So come two years later, I'm back in Jerry Harrison law office, sitting across the table from the, from the defense attorney. And now my acne's cleared up, okay? And this lawyer sits there and starts off the conversation with me, and he goes, [inhales] "Oh my gosh, son. [sighs] It must have been so emotionally distressful." And I'm like, "He's lobbing me a softball here. I'm gonna knock this out of the park. [laughs] Yes, sure. It was highly emotionally distressful." And he's like, "I bet your confidence was down." I was like, "He did it again. What's this guy doing? He's a horrible lawyer. [laughs] He's teeing me up for just knocking it out of the park again." I was like, "Yes, it was so emotionally distressful. My confidence was low. Wasn't doing well with the girls. I mean, man, it was bad stuff, sir." And I'm sitting there thinking, 'We've got this case.'

   29. TFTim Ferriss13:43

       [laughs]

   30. MMMatthew McConaughey13:44

       Well, this old, this old boy gets this Cheshire, uh, grin on his face, reaches under the desk and pulls out this green yearbook, and it's got a page marked on it. And he flips it open in front of me, turns it around, and opens it to a specif- that specific earmark page and points to a picture. Now, this was the nineteen eighty-eight yearbook, uh, for Longview High School, which now I was a senior, and mind you, this lawsuit started back when I was a sophomore. In s- this picture [laughs] of my senior year, he points to it and he said, "Who's that?" And there's a picture of Camisa Springs, really beautiful lady, girl, 18-year-old with a sash across her chest that says Most Beautiful. Well, arm in arm with her and next to her [laughs] is a young man named Matthew McConaughey with a sash across his chest that says Most Handsome. [laughs]
2. 15:23 – 18:07

   "I Can't" Was Forbidden: The Lawnmower Lesson

   1. TFTim Ferriss15:23

      Was it true in your family... I, I read this, of course, you can't believe everything that you read. Two things, number one, that your parents were divorced twice, married three times, so they ended up getting up one more time than they got knocked down.

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey15:34

      Yeah.

   3. TFTim Ferriss15:35

      True. Number two, that saying, "I can't," was forbidden or highly advised against in your household.

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey15:44

      Very heavily. Heavily, heavily, heavily. I remember cuss word, you could say shit and fuck or damn, and even occasionally [notification sound] maybe get away with the Lord's name in vain, but n- you weren't really... That was on the line. But the real words that we got, like, either punished for or were forbidden were hate and can't. And I remember my dad, I remember one Saturday morning when, when I was, uh, about 12, my Saturday morning chores were, you know, mow the lawn, weed eat, shine his shoes, and sweep the porches and get the cobwebs out of the corners. Well, I'd get up very early on a Saturday morning to do that, so I could have my Saturday afternoon to play, and I went out to try and start our push, uh, lawnmower, and it wouldn't start. Pull again, wouldn't start. Pull again, wouldn't start. Check the gas. Yeah, it's got gas. What the heck is going on? Damn, it won't start. And I remember going into my dad inside and I go, "Dad, the, uh, uh, I can't get the lawnmower started." And he kind of slowly turned his head to me, and I saw his molars meet and kind of grit, start to grit his teeth, and he goes, "You what?" And I knew enough right then to not say the word again. And I said, "I, I, I, I, I..." And he got up, and I didn't finish my sentence. He slowly walked with me out of his bedroom, through the kitchen, through the garage, around the back to the shed where this lawnmower was that, uh, I was not getting started. He, without saying a word, he knelt down, looked at it, checked the gas, da, da, da. Anyway, he found the little tube there that, where the gas was not transferring, and it had been disconnected. So they, so he reconnected that, pulled a few times, and it started. And there over a run- new, now running push lawnmower, he looked at me, put his hands on my shoulders, and for the first time since I said, "I, I can't get it started," he put his hands on my shoulders, looked at me, and very sternly said, he goes, "You see, son, you were just having trouble starting this lawnmower." And boom, you know? And I remember from that day, it was that lesson, it was like, oh, even if you're unable to do something on your own, you can still go seek help [laughs] or get assistance. So you're still only having trouble, even if you on your own cannot do so. That was a... Saying those words, still to this day, if I let them slip, I kind of have to look over my shoulder like, "Uh-oh. [laughs] Is Dad gonna get me?"

   5. TFTim Ferriss18:04

      [laughs]

3. 18:07 – 26:52

   The Greatest Salesman in the World and "Don't Half-Ass It"

   1. TFTim Ferriss18:07

      So there are many different forms of influences. I'd like to ask you about one that is Not your parents, it's not your siblings, it's a book-

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey18:17

      Yeah

   3. TFTim Ferriss18:17

      ... that I've read you came across that had an impact in your life, and that is The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino.

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey18:25

      Yep.

   5. TFTim Ferriss18:25

      Could you explain for people listening why that book was impactful or what impact it had?

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey18:31

      Yeah.

   7. TFTim Ferriss18:31

      Or both?

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey18:33

      Yeah, so I've never been a big reader, and growing up didn't read much, and never really liked even in school being told, "Hey, you gotta read this book. You gotta read this." Just the fact of being told I had to read something in school or by someone else sort of made it feel like it wasn't mine and, and I was not gonna have a subjective view of it. And plus, I just don't really like being told what to do. But this came to me, this book, and I always say this, I didn't find it, it found me, and I'll tell you how and why. It was between my sophomore and junior year in college at University of Texas at Austin. Now, at this point, I was always on the track to become a lawyer. I was gonna become that defense attorney. [laughs] I was gonna become that, that, that defense attorney. You know, get us some oil and make money. You know what I mean? Get the family some oil and make money.

   9. TFTim Ferriss19:20

      [laughs]

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey19:21

       I was a good debater. I, I took good stances. It started off in the family. Uh, they're like, "Jeez, oh, man," you know. I would take the table and win arguments with the family, and they'd be like, "Goddamn, you gotta become a lawyer. You gotta become the family lawyer." So that was always the plan. But between my sophomore and junior year in college, which is about the time when all those general liberal arts credits that you're getting need to have... start having some focus or you're gonna lose them, [laughs] you know what I mean?

   11. TFTim Ferriss19:46

       Right.

   12. MMMatthew McConaughey19:47

       So I'm start not sleeping well with the idea of becoming a lawyer. But I'm doing the math, I'm like, "I'm not sure it's what I wanna do. I get out of here, I go to law school, then I get out, then I start maybe get an intern. I'm really not gonna be rolling in my vocation until I'm in my 30s." And I was like, "Do I want... I don't really wanna spend my 20s just learning or spend my 20s just in school." Now, I had been writing a lot, been keeping a lot of short stories in my diaries and a lot of them wh- which are in this, in this book, Greenlights, but I didn't have the confidence to think that maybe I wanted to get in the storytelling business until a good friend of mine, Rob Bendeler, who I think at the time was NYU Film School, who I'd been sharing some of these short stories with, you know, one night on the phone goes, "Hey, you should think about, you know, getting in front or behind the camera, you know? You, you tell great stories. You got good character yourself. You know, you're a good writer. J- j- try this out." And I was always like, "Oh, no, no, I don't. I mean, that's, that's, like, too avant-garde. It's too European. It's too... The artsy, I, I, I can't do that." But he gave me the confidence to really consider it. Now, I go to my fraternity house, the Delt house, into that sophomore year for sophomore exams. I'm a studier, all right? I'm making... I got a 3.82 GPA. I'm, I, I, I, I like making my A's, and any amount of time I've got to study, I will use it every single minute. There's never enough time for me to study. I go to the Delt house and right behind it in a little bungalow is one of my Delt brothers, and I, I, I eat lunch and I sit on his couch, and I've got three hours before my exam, and I open up my book studying for my psychology exam. For whatever reason, for the first time in my life, I shut 'em and I go, "McConaughey" to myself, I go, "You got this. You don't need to study anymore." First time I'd done that. I got three hours to go. I then put on the TV. I love sports, ESPN. I'll watch cricket, The Strongest Man competition. I'll watch, you know, two grasshoppers race.

   13. TFTim Ferriss21:45

       [laughs]

   14. MMMatthew McConaughey21:48

       For whatever reason, I just, I'm not interested. I turn off the TV. Huh, I look over to my left, there's a stack of magazines. There's Sports Illustrated, some Playboys, and I'm like, "Geez, I like sports. I like checking out naked ladies in the Playboy. Let's check that out." I pick up a Playboy, flip through, thumb through that half-hazily, and all of a sudden lose interest in that. Now I'm sitting there going, "Okay, [laughs] what am I supposed to do here? Got two and a half, about three hours to kill." Well, I start peeling back those magazines, Playboys and Sports Illustrateds and everything else, and about seven deep in that stack of magazines to the left of the couch where I was sitting, I see this white paperback with this beautiful red cursive writing on it, and it says, "The Greatest Salesman in the World." And I remember reaching for it and aloud to myself saying, "Who is that?" And I pick up the book, and I start reading it. Again, I'm not, I'm not a reader, but I start reading this book, and all of a sudden I lose track of time, and I've gotten past the whole prologue to the beginning of this first scroll in this book, which is, "I will form good habit to become their slave." Now, what this book had just told me, it had just taken me on a journey and said, [inhales] "You will read each scroll," there's 10 scrolls in this book, "each scroll three times a day for 30 days until you move on to the next scroll." So it's basically a 10-month read, um, and I had gotten to the first scroll and had been now understood, I now understood that the greatest salesman in the world was whoever's gonna read that book. So I was like, "Oh, that's me. He's talking to me." Well, bam, I look up. "Oh, my exam's in 15 minutes. I gotta go." I head out, go to my exam, my psychology exam. I rip through that exam. I didn't care if I failed it. I... Something in this book had told me, "No, this book is what you need to be into right now. This book is gonna give you confidence to go do what you need to do." I rip through that psychology exam and immediately go, "I'm going to film school. I'm calling Dad tonight. I'm not gonna go to law school anymore. I've got the confidence. This book found me. This is a seminal moment in my life. I don't know how or why, but it is, and I'm gonna get the courage to call my dad and go." And that night, I, uh, remember thinking about it. "I'm gonna call my dad at 7:30. He'll have sat down, maybe had his first cocktail, already had dinner, and he'll be in a good mood for me to say, you know, 'Dad, I wanna go to film school,' I think." Well, I call him 7:36 PM. "Hey, Dad." "Hey, what's up, son?" "Listen, I, I don't..." Really, and I was nervous, and I said, "I don't think I wanna go to law school anymore. I, I wanna go to film school." And that was hard for me to say, 'cause I thought he was gonna go, "You wanna do what, boy? What the hell? Ba, ba, ba..." And I said, "Dad, I, I wanna, I wanna go to film school." It was a long pause on the phone, about five seconds, and he says, "You sure that's what you wanna do, son?" And I said, "Yes, sir." There's another five-second pause, and then he said three of the greatest words I've ever been told, "Don't half-ass it."

   15. TFTim Ferriss24:53

       [laughs]

   16. MMMatthew McConaughey24:55

       I remember him going, "Huh? Don't half-ass it." And I remember my eyes just... I lit up, and I was like, oh, my gosh, one, my dad not only approved, he gave me a responsibility. He gave me freedom. He gave me more than a privilege. He, like, sent me a flight and ending it with, like, not only do I agree and say, "That's okay, son", I'm saying, "If you're gonna do it, you better damn well go do it well and don't half-ass it." And I went down the next day, changed my course schedule, that my GPA got me into film school, 'cause I had a 3.82. I didn't have any sort of art to show them, and I started off behind the camera and then ended up as I am now in front of the camera as well. But that book, that day, that book finding me and me feeling like it was my secret and it came to me and no one told me, "Here, you need to read this book. It'll be good for you. Hey, you're supposed to read this. This is your... for school," or even a recommendation. It was not rec- it found me, and I read that book ev- I did exactly what it said, morning, noon, and night, and I read it, I've read it three times now that way, but the first time, I didn't miss one reading of that. I mean, and I had many a day where I went out in the morning on a Saturday and my day of whimsy took me to a place where all of a sudden it was 10 o'clock at night and I was, like, an hour and a half from my house, and the book was back at my house, and I'd be, like, hanging out, partying, and going like, "Oh, geez." And I would stop, [chuckles] eat something, get some coffee, drink a bunch of water, wait till whatever, 1:30 in the morning when it was time to drive, and I would drive back to my place, grab that book, and either read it and go to sleep in my bed or drive back to where I was hanging out [chuckles] with the book and read it. I didn't miss one single read for 10 straight months, and that book is the most instrumental piece of literature and motivation I've ever read for me in my life.

4. 26:52 – 31:46

   The 1992 List of Ten Goals

   1. TFTim Ferriss26:52

      And now you've produced Greenlights, this book which, as, as you've described it, is not a traditional memoir or an advice book, but rather a playbook based on adventures in my life, and I wanna hop to a particular portion of this book, which is also a scrapbook of sorts. It's very multimedia in that respect, even though it's in 2D, in book format. I want to ask you about a note, and, uh, this will segue into the practice of writing, since you've kept a diary for somewhere between 35, 40 years at this point, I believe.

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey27:27

      Yeah.

   3. TFTim Ferriss27:27

      There's a note towards the end of Greenlights from 9/1/92.

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey27:34

      Gee.

   5. TFTim Ferriss27:34

      And so 10 goals in life. This blew my mind.

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey27:38

      Mine too.

   7. TFTim Ferriss27:39

      So I wanna read these 10, and then I want you to kind of place us in your life when you wrote these 10, and then I ha- I wanna zoom in on a few of them.

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey27:47

      Yeah.

   9. TFTim Ferriss27:47

      But let me just read these 10 first. So 10 goals in life. This is in 1992. 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. That's gonna be my first follow-up question. 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. 10, just keep livin'.

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey28:13

       Yeah.

   11. TFTim Ferriss28:15

       Where were you and when were you when you wrote these 10 goals?

   12. MMMatthew McConaughey28:20

       [sighs] I was in a top bunk in the Delta Tau Delta house. I believe my roommate was Monty Wills, who I'm still friends with today from Montgomery, Alabama. I was in the top bunk. I think I'd just probably... It was the end, it was the end of the night. It was about 9:30. I was just getting, nestling in for, for a good night's sleep. So I'd just started... What was the f- date, '93? What was the month and the, the month and the day?

   13. TFTim Ferriss28:48

       That was September 1st, 1992.

   14. MMMatthew McConaughey28:51

       September 1st. Okay. Yeah, so I had just done, I had just finished Dazed and Confused.

   15. TFTim Ferriss28:57

       That's right. Yeah, it was two da- two days after finishing.

   16. MMMatthew McConaughey29:00

       Yeah. I just finished it, a job, a summer hobby, a thing that there were three lines written in a script that I got cast in because I went to the right bar at the right time, met the right guy, read for it, Richard Linklater said, "Come on," and started throwing me in scenes, so three lines turned into three weeks work. I loved it, was getting paid $320 a day. People were telling me I was good at it, and I was running around going like, "Is this legal? It's so fun." [laughs]

   17. TFTim Ferriss29:29

       [laughs]

   18. MMMatthew McConaughey29:29

       And I finish it. My father had just passed away, like two weeks earlier. Yeah, August 17th of that year. So I just finished a job that was a hobby that now, that became a career. I had just finished that. Think about it. If you do the math, I didn't think about it till now. I just finished that Og Mandino, 10 months of reading that book.

   19. TFTim Ferriss29:50

       Oh, wow.

   20. MMMatthew McConaughey29:51

       My father had just passed away. I was just going through what that meant to me and what that, what I felt like that should mean to me, and that's where the just keep livin' comes from, to keep his spirit alive even though he's physically not here. Keep things alive that he taught me, that, that keep me incentivized throughout my life, even though I couldn't rely on him personally being here to, to back me up with him. And so I remember writing those goals down, and the thing is that when, when you, you start off this conversation going, I don't know what your, what your, your adjective or adverb was about it, but I, I found that just less than a year ago in my diaries, and I'd never Looked at it or remembered that I had written it since the day I did. That date on that list, I never looked at that list again. I wrote it that night and forgot about it, or at least I thought I forgot about it. [laughs]

   21. TFTim Ferriss30:45

       Yeah.

   22. MMMatthew McConaughey30:45

       Obviously, I didn't, and that's the wild part, 'cause somewhere subconsciously, I obviously did remember it because so far I've accomplished those goals, and there's some very specific ones on there that I'm like, "What?" You know? I always thought even the acting part, win an Oscar for Best Actor, this is a time, I'd just finished Dazed and Confused. I didn't know I was gonna end up being an actor. I still thought, uh, didn't have the courage to even think I could pursue it as a career. I... At that time, I thought it might just be a hobby. I had a hobby for a summer, but obviously when I look back, I'm like, "Oh, you did wanna be. You did wanna be an actor, and you wanted to be a damn good one." So I could admit it on my journal page, but I couldn't admit it to myself. Hell, I couldn't even admit it in my dreams, but I could admit it on my journal pages. So that's where I was. Those were so... Those were three big things going on in my life, and I'd say the most im- you know, the biggest shape-shifter was Father moving on, and, uh, but that with finishing Dazed and with finishing, um, The Greatest Salesman, that's when I wrote that.

   23. TFTim Ferriss31:46

       S-

5. 31:46 – 39:11

   Egotistical Utilitarian, Taking Risks, and "Less Impressed, More Involved"

   1. TFTim Ferriss31:46

      that's quite a Venn diagram as far as a snapshot in time goes with those three sort of momentous changes, those transitions. If we zoom in on number five, be an egotistical utilitarian-

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey31:58

      Yep

   3. TFTim Ferriss31:58

      ... do you recall what you meant when you wrote that?

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey32:01

      100%. I'd written a, uh, I later, that next year, maybe it was my junior year, I wrote a, a, a long paper, an essay, John Wayne Goes West: The Egotistical Utilitarian, and I guess it was me writing a story about a fictional character that I guess was based on me going west to Hollywood. But the egotistical utilitarian, and I was like, "Boy, that's it. That's what the real prophets are. That's what Jesus was up to, making decisions." That's, that's the honey hole of when we are really can succeed or have satisfaction or live life the most truest, where the decisions we make for the I, for ourselves, the selfish decisions, are actually what's best for the most amount of people, utilitarian. Are the I where the I meets the we, where the selfish is the selfless, where what I need is what I want, and what I want is the ego. What I need is the utilitarian. What I want is freedom. What I need is the responsibility and the interplay of those things, where what I is the ego and utilitarian is the objective utilitarian we. Um, that, I was already starting to work, and a lot of that, them- these thematics are through the book 'cause they're inherently how I see life and have for a long time. But that was, uh... I was like, "Oh, that's the ultimate human, the egotistical utilitarian," where the decision one makes for themselves most selfishly happen to be the most selfless decisions as well at the same time, and where those two overlap and are one, that's the ultimate human. That was the pursuit. That was my belief then.

   5. TFTim Ferriss33:42

      And why take more risks? We might come back to egotistical utilitarianism. Why take more risks? Did you feel like at the time you weren't taking enough risks? Was it something you had learned about risks from your parents or other people?

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey33:56

      Right.

   7. TFTim Ferriss33:56

      Why take more risks?

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey33:57

      I think I was at that time seeing risk that I'd take really pay off, the risk to, in the bar at the top of the Hyatt that night, to go down and introduce myself to Don Phillips, who ended up being the casting director for Dazed and Confused, who four hours later at the end of the night after we got kicked out of the bar says, "Hey, you ever done any acting? You might be right for this part". Taking that risk. The, the, the risk to go and, and read for that part. The risk for Richard Linklater to say, "There's nothing... You're not supposed to be in this scene. You're not written in this scene, but do you think Watterson would be in it?" The risk for me to go, "Oh, yeah" and just hop in the middle of the scene and improvise and play. Those risks were paying off. I was be- also beginning to feel, you know, the risk that I took reading that damn book, The Greatest Salesman. It was the first book I ever read cover to cover, and it's a thin paperback. Mind you, it takes 10 months to read, but that was a risk for me, and I was feeling very confident with who I was. I was also thrown upside down by my dad moving on. Now, I don't know, you know, if you've lost a parent, but l- as, as a son losing a dad, you wanna talk about forced into identity. You know, my dad being this sort of crutch just because he was a- alive and above government and above law was now gone. I had no crutch. I had no safety net. All of a sudden, I remember this very clearly, this coming to me, and besides the Just Keep Livin', with keeping his spirit alive, I remember one of the first lessons of him moving on was I was... And I carved this in a tree. I remember carving this deeply in a tree for about three hours one night, "Less impressed, more involved".

   9. TFTim Ferriss35:39

      Hmm.

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey35:39

       And that leans into taking more risk 'cause I was like, after Dad moved on, I was like, "Oh, all of these mortal things in life that I re- have a reverence for," even this point of just finishing acting and maybe having a lu- you know, dreams of fame, wow, uh, all these things that I revered that were mortal, lower down to eye level. And at the same time, everything that I noticed that I was condescending or looking down upon or snubbing my nose at or going, "Ah, that's, that's crap," or, "Oh, they're, they're no good," I was like, they raised up to eye level. And I remember going, "Oh, the world is flat. Your dad's moved on. You better look the world in the eye." And by seeing the world flat, I saw further, I saw wider, I saw more clearly. I had more courage I l- I lost reverence for the mortal things that I had reverence for. I still respected them, but I lost reverence for them, so that gave me courage, and I lost this sort of, uh, snub-nosed look at things that I thought were beneath me, and I empowered them and they raised up to eye level. So all of a sudden, you know, that was a version where the I met the we for me. That was a version where what I looked up to maybe too much met what I was looking down on, and it was right in front of me, and that was how I was also taking more risk. I, I, I lost a lot of fear. I, I still had fear, but I, I gained a lot of courage to go meet my fears, and I didn't give enough credence to things that I probably shouldn't fear or have too much reverence for because they were mortal, and I was like, "Well, what, what's that? That's, you know, reverence for fame or not taking a chance to go get what you want. That's a mortal fear. That's like putting a limit on yourself, McConaughey. Why would you do that?" I even called it a sin at that time not to take certain risk, and would feel guilty if I didn't and feel like I didn't do my due diligence. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't meet my quote [laughs] that day, and God does.

   11. TFTim Ferriss37:38

       [dramatic music] Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. Did you know if you missed 10 of the best performing days after the 2008 crisis, you would have missed out on 50%, five zero percent, of your returns? Don't miss out on the best days in the market. Stay invested in a long-term automated investment portfolio. Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as robo advising, and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. Wealthfront can help you diversify your portfolio, minimize fees, and lower your taxes. Takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Wealthfront software constantly monitors your portfolio day in and day out so you don't have to. They look for opportunities to rebalance and tax loss harvest to lower the amount of taxes you pay on your investment gains. Their newest service is called Autopilot, and it can monitor any checking account for excess cash to move into savings or an investment account. They've really thought of a ton. They've checked a lot of boxes. Smart investing should not feel like a roller coaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to wealthfront.com/tim and open a Wealthfront investment account today, and you'll get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. That's wealthfront.com/tim. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term, and you can get started today at wealthfront.com/tim. [dramatic music]

6. 39:11 – 43:24

   Keeping a Diary: Dissecting Success as Well as Failure

   1. TFTim Ferriss39:11

      Why did you start using a diary, or what has that helped you to do or given you over your decades of doing it? Uh, because I've, I've spoken to many people on this podcast who journal often. They have different forms of journaling, including a, a name we talked about very briefly before recording, Josh Waitzkin.

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey39:31

      Mm-hmm.

   3. TFTim Ferriss39:31

      Very different approaches, very different reasons. What is it that you've gotten from having a diary, and maybe it's changed over time?

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey39:39

      Yeah. It's, it's evolved. I mean, my diary started off like I think most people's diaries do. You write things down when you're not in a good place or you're lost and, and, and, you know, my early diary entries were the, the why, what, where, when, hows, you know, [laughs] the, the existential questions of what is going on. Does it matter? Who am I? Oh my God, this should... So my girlfriend broke up with me. I lost it. Started off with that. So I noticed that I started writing down when I was in times of distress or disillusion, and then I started to say, "Well, wait a minute, you gotta..." Just like that Og Mandino book, by hook or by crook, you read it three times a day. I was like, "Well, we're gonna write my diary every day, McConaughey." And so when do I, when do, when do most of us, including me, not write in our diary? When things are going great. Oh, I got it figured out. [laughs] I'm not gonna need to take time to go be introspective and write down my thoughts. Everything's, everything's a green light. It's great. Well, no, I said, hang on a second. If we're gonna spend our life... A diary, the original use of a diary is to dissect failure or, or, or disillusion. I think there's some prudence in let's dissect success. Let's dissect what's going on when things are going well. Let's, let's write in this diary when you feel like everything's clear and you feel strong and confident and significant, and you feel like yourself. So I started writing in my diary when things were going well, and then started to map out certain things about... Found that what that did is when I would get in a, a proverbial rut later, I could go back to that diary and look at what was I writing and what was I doing when I felt like everything was lickety-split and I had everything handled, and I found consistencies. I found it from what I was eating to who I was hanging out with, to how much sleep I was getting, to beauties in the world that I was noticing and really were affecting me, how I approached people, how I was approaching the day, how I was approaching conflict, how I was approaching and taking in things that work, success, and I found consistencies. And so sometimes going back in those diaries, reading what I was writing when things were going well, would help get me out of a rut later on in life when I wasn't doing so well. And I remember this early on in college. It's a reason, uh, that, uh, my buddy, as I mentioned earlier, Rob Billner, said you sh- you should go in the storytelling business, is I was writing short stories, but I was also writing things down, idiosyncrasies of myself. I was really trying to get to know myself. I would always... When I'd be in a movie theater, I always laughed. I thought the funniest jokes, and I'd laugh. I'd be the only one laughing in the theater, and I never thought the stuff that everybody laughed at was funny. The collective laugh, I never even giggled at. I was like, "Ah, that wasn't very funny," but I'd laugh at how I laughed at stuff.

   5. TFTim Ferriss42:24

      [laughs]

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey42:24

      And I was like, and no one else was laughing. I was like, "No one else thinks that's funny?" I would say that in the theater. I found that I, I cried at things that other people didn't cry at. Like, I've never really cried at death. I weep at birth. Beginnings always have made me cry more than proverbial ends. So I started writing these things down and at first was feeling like, are you weird, McConaughey? Is this odd? Is this, is this okay? Can you be this kind of a person? And got the confidence to go, "Yes, you can. It's okay, but let's write down those things. Let's write down what makes you laugh, what makes you happiest, what makes you sad, what makes you angry, and don't worry if it's the collective choice of, of, of the majority. Just what, what does it mean to you? And write those things down." And so that led to character, I believe. It led to my own character. It led to me being able to maybe go play different characters, to understand and then empathize with different people and have, how different people have different things that turn them on and turn them off at different times.

7. 43:24 – 47:52

   Why "Greenlights": Red and Yellow Lights Turning Green

   1. TFTim Ferriss43:24

      Why greenlights? What is the concept or the intent behind using that word? What does it represent for you?

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey43:34

      Well, one, it's just a pretty cool title. [laughs]

   3. TFTim Ferriss43:37

      [laughs]

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey43:40

      You know, I mean, I went through-

   5. TFTim Ferriss43:42

      It's current. It's current

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey43:43

      ... you know, I, I mean, I, you know, I went through the, uh, the very earnest but not very good student, uh, independent films of, of a freshman or sophomore student like I was, you know, where you're trying to work out something as existential or you want it to sound really cool. Like I, you know, I went through forced winters, you know what I mean? Because I have in the book what I would call a lot of forced winters. Mind you, I, I call this COVID time we're in right now a forced winter. Um, I had a f- you know, my most creative times came in my forced winters of life, my year in Australia abroad on my own. But forced winter's kind of a double negative. I mean, who wants to go open a book called Forced Winter? [laughs] You know what I mean?

   7. TFTim Ferriss44:19

      [laughs]

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey44:19

      So Greenlights, much more affirmative and, and, and I love verbs. I love words that, that are verbs. Verb is the holy word, as I'm sure you know, and that it has affirmation. It, it has, it, it's, it's alive. And so greenlights, I noticed, became a theme to the book because the metaphor of the yellow and the red lights that we have in our life, whatever those hard times are, I noticed in going through my diaries of 36 years that things that were definite red lights in my life, hard times, yellow lights in my life, interruptions, interventions, things that stopped my flow and got in my way, that at some point, either sometimes immediately or decades down the line, revealed their greenlight assets in my life. I would argue my dad's passing was a greenlight. Now, his dying was a literal red light, but as I mentioned earlier, I would not be the man I am right now if he did not move on. I would've stayed lazy. I would've stayed more impressed and less involved. I would've not put myself to task and held myself and called myself to arms to man up and be more honest with myself and look at the world more honestly and have more courage if he had not passed on, because I would've had him as a crutch. I would've had this sort of subconscious reliance that, oh, if I really get in a bind, I still got Dad. I still got Pop. He'll, he, he's my safety net. So his passing revealed greenlights for me. So greenlights became a, a theme and, and it became... I noticed that sometimes it's about persisting through something, enduring something. Other times it's about pivoting. Wait a minute, I'm banging my head on the wall here. I'm basically living out the definition of insanity, trying to change something the same way over and over again, and it's not changing, so I need to reapproach this. I need to back up and, and, and, and d- maybe dance around the situation, dance around the problem to get what I want. And then other times I notice it's just you raise the white flag and go, "You know what? I'm fighting for the wrong thing here. This is going against my grain. This is not really what I, what I want and need, so I'm gonna live to fight another day and go find something else to challenge, to overcome." And so all in those are methods in which I've been able to find greenlights. Um, sometimes I've gotten greenlights, and I think we all do, by just sheer straight-ass denial. I mean, I write that line in the, in that great lesson, it's wisdom I heard from a very old man one time. You know, I've had many crises. I've had thousands of crises in my life. Hell, most of them never happened. I mean, that's partially, you can get through it by just denying that there is a crisis. Not being foolish with it, but some things I've just said like, "I'm not even gonna give that crisis credit, therefore it doesn't exist." There, that dart can't stick to me if you throw it at me, if I don't give it the... if I don't even give credit that it's a dart. You know what I mean?

   9. TFTim Ferriss47:11

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey47:12

       So, so that's, that's the greenlights. I mean, ultimately, I believe that in the rear view mirror of our life, every red and yellow light will turn green, and that may not even be in this life, Tim. I think a lot of pe- it happens for people in this life, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, 10 years from now, on our deathbed. But I, if it doesn't happen then, I think it can happen in the next life for our kids or for our kids' kids, our grandkids. It's a lesson maybe realized three, five, 10 generations from now. It may become a greenlight, uh, for some hardship that we go through in this life now.

8. 47:52 – 53:22

   Dirt Roads and Autobahns

   1. TFTim Ferriss47:52

      Well, there are a million directions we can go. I have eight options. [laughs] That'll make sense.

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey47:59

      That's my favorite number.

   3. TFTim Ferriss48:01

      Yeah, it's... Well, you know, that would make sense as, as soon as you hear where I'm going with it. So there are a number of themes that emerge in this book, which, which I take to be, as you've mentioned, a playbook of sorts and helping you to either change your reality or change how you see that reality in the service of engineering or recognizing greenlights of different types, right? And the eight themes that I've written down here, I'm gonna let you take dealer's choice on.

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey48:32

      Okay.

   5. TFTim Ferriss48:32

      So you, I'd like to... Pick, pick one and ex- and explore. So one, o- outlaw logic. Two-

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey48:37

      Yep

   7. TFTim Ferriss48:37

      ... find your frequency. Three, dirt roads and autobahns. Four, I like the sound of this one, the art of running downhill. Five, turn the page. Six, the arrow doesn't seek the target, the target seeks the arrow. Seven, be brave, comma, take the hill. Eight, live your legacy now. Where should we go first, good sir?

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey48:56

      Oh, geez, these are fun. Look, let's start... I wanna get to Art of Running Downhill, 'cause that one I know tickled you, so maybe we should just... We can start with that one, and we should, we should maybe hit dirt roads as well, dirt roads and autobahns.

   9. TFTim Ferriss49:08

      Understood.

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey49:08

       Let's do, let's do dirt roads and autobahns real quick-

   11. TFTim Ferriss49:10

       All right

   12. MMMatthew McConaughey49:10

       ... just because it's, it's, it's simple. It's a simple flip on the... I think it's Robert Frost. You know, the road less taken has made all the difference. You know? Is that Robert Frost?

   13. TFTim Ferriss49:18

       You know, I'm sure that my listeners or [laughs] my team will tell us.

   14. MMMatthew McConaughey49:23

       If, if it's not, forgive the malaprop, but do you know the quote, um, of the, the road less trave- the road less traveled-

   15. TFTim Ferriss49:28

       Yeah

   16. MMMatthew McConaughey49:28

       ... has made all the difference, right? Well, that always has been like, [sighs] take the dirt road. Don't go where the majority goes, you know? And I remember in film school, I was the frat boy, button-down shirt, jeans and boots, handshaker, non-cynical, love the sunshine. [laughs] And I was in a class with a bunch of, all the filmmakers. It was the Gothic group. They all wore black T-shirts. They'd, they stayed in the shadows. They wore their shades. They kind of huddled in the back. I remember one of our classes was, one of the things was, "Hey, everyone go see a movie this weekend. Come back Monday, talk about your movie." I'd come back and talk about, you know, Die Hard, and soon as I started talking about what I liked about it, they'd be like, "Ah, sh- that's tough shit, man. Ah, it's corporate sellout crap." And I'd be like, "Oh, geez." And I remember, and they'd, you know, they'd all gone to the Eisenstein revival that weekend and would [laughs] would talk about that. And I remember being really intimidated, going like, "Wow, they're artists. I'm not. Y- Y- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta untuck my shirt here a little bit. I got, I gotta [laughs] I gotta, I gotta quit going outside, and I gotta, I gotta not appreciate the sunshine. I gotta, I gotta quit singing out loud. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta get more Hamletian here," you know? And, and [laughs] just as I was going through that mental meditation on myself, I remember coming back again another week, after a weekend of seeing the movies, and I'd gone to the multiplex again and seen a, a popular movie and brought it up. And of course, the catcalls from all the, the, the other filmmakers in the class, all in black, huddled up, sort of going, "Ah, that's corporate shit. Uh, nobody sees that. That's a sellout." And I remember instead of backing down this time, I went, I went, "Wait a minute. Did you see? How do you know it's corporate shit? How do you know this? What makes you say that?" And they all stopped and kind of started looking at each other and started stuttering, and then finally one of them goes, "Well, I mean, we didn't see it. I mean, we don't know, but I mean, we just, you know..." And I went, "Ah, fuck you."

   17. TFTim Ferriss51:36

       [laughs]

   18. MMMatthew McConaughey51:37

       "Fuck you, man." I said, "All this time I thought y'all been seeing it, and you've got this, but you haven't even gone to see it." So that was where it hit me. I was like, oh, there I was thinking that the road less taken, you know. Sometimes a dirt road, my dirt road was the autobahn of the multiplex, [laughs] you know?

   19. TFTim Ferriss51:57

       Yeah.

   20. MMMatthew McConaughey51:57

       My, my, my... Their, their, their dirt road, you know, would've been, w- would've, would've been the same. May- they needed to go see the, go see a, a popular studio movie before just-

   21. TFTim Ferriss52:09

       Mm-hmm

   22. MMMatthew McConaughey52:09

       ... calling it off as nothing. Sometimes, you know, if there were two, and I've had it in my life, someone, say someone's an agoraphobic, their dirt road is getting out. You know? Someone who's a, a, a bit of a hermit or, or, or socially uncomfortable, their dirt road is being an extrovert. Go out, engage, practice it.

   23. TFTim Ferriss52:29

       Mm-hmm.

   24. MMMatthew McConaughey52:29

       So it's, it's a flip on that, that sometimes it- it's, you know, the road less taken can be a dirt road, yes, many times.

   25. TFTim Ferriss52:36

       Mm-hmm.

   26. MMMatthew McConaughey52:36

       The path less taken, and other times, for some people, some of us in our times in our life, it's an autobahn. And sometimes, you know, I've used to be so extroverted I never would spend time with myself reading a book or doing introspection. Well, that was a dirt road for me is to take some introspection. Now, shoot, sometimes I love being introspective so much I like being in my dark room writing more than I like engaging with people. Well, my dirt road sometimes now is like, "Put the pen down, McConaughey. Get your ass out in the world and go engage in the daylight and get out there." So it changes for us, and sometimes it's a dirt road, sometimes it's an autobahn.

   27. TFTim Ferriss53:14

       And it is Robert Frost, I can confirm.

   28. MMMatthew McConaughey53:16

       Ah. Thank you, Robert. Yeah. The other one that, that tickled you on the way down is the art of running downhill. [laughs]

9. 53:22 – 1:00:48

   Stoicism, Solitude, and Socratic Dialogue with Yourself

   1. TFTim Ferriss53:22

      Now, may I, may I actually ask a follow-up-

   2. MMMatthew McConaughey53:25

      Yeah

   3. TFTim Ferriss53:25

      ... to the dirt roads and autobahns? So it seems like, if I'm hearing you correctly and understanding, that it is a proactive approach to facing the discomforts that you may have or the hesitation that you may need to face. At least in part it seems like that is part of the lesson, and the person who introduced us, Ryan Holiday, had encouraged me to ask you about stoicism, which seems to, in some respect, tie into that since many stoics, at least historically those people we've read about, would take periods of time to do the things that would lead them to discomfort. Do you have any just, uh, just as, as a side avenue here, do you, do you have any perspectives on, on stoicism?

   4. MMMatthew McConaughey54:11

      I mean, I think I do, but you're gonna, I'm probably gonna botch this up because I, I don't exactly know the vernacular of the stoics near as well as you and Ryan do. I will say this, you know, his other book, Obstacles, the, is, is The Way, and I, I, I touch on this in my book a lot in my own way. Look, the need for resistance, the need to choose the right, harder challenge, the need to choose the harder decision for the right reasons, the need to choose the obstacles for which to overcome or at least attempt to overcome is very, very wise engagement. The need, as I talk about in my book quite a few times, to get away and go off on your own and be stuck with yourself, even if it's the worst fucking company you've ever had, that is a good thing to do. There is a good, valuable penance. There are green lights in that forcing your red light, s- forcing yourself into the red light of being stuck. With the only person you can't get rid of even though you hate him, and yes, I use that word, and I've had those times, and in those times of groveling and discomfort and I can't sleep and I'm throwing up and I can't get the monkeys off my back and I got the guilt and, oh my God, I'm lost, but I've got nowhere to go. I got no one to reach out to. I don't have a phone, I don't have a car, I ain't got a friend. Well, going through that, those sleepless nights, and going, "When is this gonna end?" And going through, "Well, all right, McConaughey, what are we gonna forgive and what are we gonna say enough's a-fucking-nough and we're changing that in our lives? And let's shake hands on this because you're the only son of a bitch I can't get rid of."

   5. TFTim Ferriss55:52

      [laughs] Well, let's... If you don't mind, I wanna take it, and this is just the nature of my perhaps unfocused, perhaps nonlinear mind, we're gonna come back to the art of running downhill. I will not forget.

   6. MMMatthew McConaughey56:07

      Yeah.

   7. TFTim Ferriss56:07

      But you're talking about, y- you were talking about the paying the penance of spending time with yourself, the red light of solitude that can create green lights. Why did you write this book as I understand it? Or you went away to the desert by yourself for 52 days without electricity. Is this true?

   8. MMMatthew McConaughey56:27

      The first 12 days were no electricity.

   9. TFTim Ferriss56:29

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MMMatthew McConaughey56:29

       The other 40 were limited electricity in places, but it was five different trips I took to, to solitary confinement each time, so I spread them out. I had to come home and take care of some, some honey dos and check in with the family, [laughs] make sure everything was running good at the homestead before my wife sent me off again and said, "Get out of here and don't come back till you got something."

   11. TFTim Ferriss56:47

       So solitude seems to be also a through line, at least a practice of sorts.

   12. MMMatthew McConaughey56:52

       Yeah.

   13. TFTim Ferriss56:53

       Any other commentary on, on solitude and in those moments when you're spending time with yourself, that... Which I guess is all the time, but I wanna know, do you have in your inner monologue a difference between when you say your last name to yourself and your first name? Or do you ever use your first name when you're talking to yourself? [laughs]

   14. MMMatthew McConaughey57:14

       I'm not... You know what? Good question. [laughs] Well, let me tell you what the best, the, the, the best thing for Mike Tyson in the future f- is what Mike Tyson wants to is... Yeah. I, I've thought about that. I... It's a fun thing to talk, talk about to yourself in the third person, but when you're in a Socratic dialogue, you gotta give your other self a name, and I guess I'll-

   15. TFTim Ferriss57:33

       [laughs]

   16. MMMatthew McConaughey57:33

       ... call mine McConaughey. Um, [laughs] and I'll just call myself McConaughey. [laughs] And I-

   17. TFTim Ferriss57:38

       [laughs]

   18. MMMatthew McConaughey57:39

       And, you know, these dialogues, let's talk about those. I, you know, this, the, that old adage, oh, don't talk to yourself. What? Bullshit. Do talk to yourself. What I think we need to remember to do is when we're asking ourselves these questions, just make sure we answer. If all we're doing is asking ourselves questions but never coming up with an answer, well, that can lead to some very imbalanced insanity at times.

   19. TFTim Ferriss58:07

       That's a really, really important point. I just wanna pause to let that sink in for people. I, so, so please continue, but that is so, so important. Just looking back at my depressive periods that I've experienced, it's when I'm asking a lot of questions and not actually taking the time to sit down and write down the answers or think about answers.

   20. MMMatthew McConaughey58:24

       Yeah. Or force yourself to remain in the discomfort of the questions instead of going, "I, I give. Where's the bottle?" Or, "Where's, you know, where's some attention?" Or, or, or, or, you know, "Where's, where's something, some entertainment? Where's the TV?" You know what I mean? So I can get my mind off of it.

   21. TFTim Ferriss58:45

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MMMatthew McConaughey58:45

       Don't abort the situation. Don't abort the times when we got the questions. Now mind you, you know, I've had to, you know, in some of those times when I'm going off and I know it's gonna be a, we're gonna, I'm gonna... Don't know how long it's gonna be till I come out the other side, I've had to take a helmet and a chin strap and a mouth guard and put padding on the walls. [laughs]

   23. TFTim Ferriss59:04

       [laughs]

   24. MMMatthew McConaughey59:06

       You know? 'Cause I knew it was gonna be a wrestling match with the me and the me. Um, so, and I've checked the floor before I go... It's nice when you go off to do these things to go, let's check the floor and make sure there's no broken glass, where, let's remove the sharp objects. [laughs]

   25. TFTim Ferriss59:21

       [laughs]

   26. MMMatthew McConaughey59:22

       Because this is gonna get four-dimensional and, uh, you know.

   27. TFTim Ferriss59:26

       [laughs]

   28. MMMatthew McConaughey59:29

       You know? So but to stick in there with it and to go through the withdrawal of the not knowing, to go through the withdrawal of the questions, um, and I don't mean withdrawal from a, from a substance. Go through withdrawal of not getting along with yourself is, I mean, a great thing to do, and it's hard for a reason. But again, that goes back to what you said. It, stay there till you answer it. Wait till you get an answer. Wait till you either figure out what you're forgiving and figure out what you're gonna, you, what you had enough of, what you're like, "No. No, I'm not putting up with that part of myself anymore. We're not gonna keep being a repeat, repeat offender on that, McConaughey." Or Tim, you know what I mean? And, and we're gonna change that.

   29. TFTim Ferriss1:00:06

       Mm-hmm.

   30. MMMatthew McConaughey1:00:06

       And then all of a sudden, there comes some grace. You come out the other side and like, oh, okay. Now I'm stuck with my buddy, the one I can't get rid of. If we're gonna do this, at least we shook hands and you're not perfect, but we're moving forward and we've evolved a little bit because of this time that we've forced to spend with ourselves. But yeah, to answer those or stick with it or, you know, to evolve the conversation from where it was when you first went into solitude, at least, you know. So I'm a fan of people talking to themselves and say it's, it's remember to answer yourself, you know?
10. 1:00:48 – 1:05:09

    The Art of Running Downhill

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:00:48

       The art of running downhill. What is the art of running downhill?

    2. MMMatthew McConaughey1:00:52

       Okay. [laughs] So I get successful. I got major fame very quickly after A Time to Kill came out, the film I did in '96. And I mean-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:01:08

       Mm-hmm

    4. MMMatthew McConaughey1:01:08

       ... from the Friday, Friday afternoon before it came out to the Monday After the weekend it came out, my whole world was, whoop, inverted. The world all of a sudden was one big mirror. I never meet strangers since that day. It was inverted. I mean, that Friday afternoon before Time to Kill comes out, there's 100 scripts out there. I wanna do n- I, I wanna do all... Are you kidding me? I'll do any of them. Well, 99, no, you can't. One of them, yes, you can. Well, in a matter of two days after that film opened that weekend and did well, that 100 scripts, it was yes, you can do 99, one no. So I was like, whoa, two days ago I would've done any of these, and could only do one, and now it's only two days later [laughs] but you're telling me I can do 99 of them. Help me, discernment, discrimination, can I make a choice? Who am I? Geez, what do I wanna do? There's only 24 hours in the day as last I checked. I need more. Um, so I was a little, you know, imbalanced, overwhelmed, um, was... didn't have my feet and my soul on the ground, and there were times that... And I also remember that same lawyer I talked about in the Oil and Ink, uh, story, Jerry Harris, I remember him telling me. He reached out. I hadn't talked to him for years. He reached out and he goes, "Hey, Matthew, you're from a small town, Uvalde, Texas. You know, you came up through Longview, Texas. Now you went out there, now you're famous Hollywood star, and you got all these things." He goes, "Make sure you don't suffer too much from the non-deserving complex. That happens with some people that get real successful from sort of humble beginnings." And it made a lot of sense to me, 'cause I was noticing that, you know, in the name of obstacles being the way, I was creating obstacles for myself, some of them very unnecessary, meaning here's my life, I'm successful, I'm rolling. I am catching green lights, I am going, I am rolling downhill. I very less than gracefully handled some of my success. I would become belligerent at times. I didn't become belligerent. Trying to pr- you know, at the end of the day I always say this, "Don't, you know, it's okay to have a point to prove, just don't always be trying to prove a point."

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:03:21

       [laughs]

    6. MMMatthew McConaughey1:03:21

       Well, I had many times where I would try to prove a point, you know what I mean? And it was my own insecurity, it was my own self trying to find some balance in this. It was me, I was seeing the mendacities of, of all these people in, in Hollywood all of a sudden saying, "I love you." And I'm like, man, I've said that to four people in my life, and everyone says it out here. Says, "Ah, ah, well, uh, they're, they're full of shit. Da, da, da, da, da." It was, it was... I was taking things personally even, and sort of sabotaging some of the, uh, red carpet wine and caviar that was being handed to me. You know what I mean? Uh-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:03:56

       Right

    8. MMMatthew McConaughey1:03:57

       ... and I was slipping to some of my more banal self at times, and doing a proverbial face plant, meaning I'm running downhill, and since this is all easy street, I need resistance, so I think I'm gonna trip myself and face plant and break my... right into the concrete so I can break my nose so I can be like, "Ah, there I go. Now I'm earning it. Now I feel it. Now I've earned it. Now I deserve it." Well, that can be a little foolish. [laughs]

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:04:26

       Mm-hmm.

    10. MMMatthew McConaughey1:04:26

        There's an art to going downhill, and so what I noticed was, oh, hard times are gonna come. It's gonna get dry. You're not gonna be, uh, able to do whatever script you wanna do. And I've had rough times. Or in a relationship-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:04:42

        We go through

    12. MMMatthew McConaughey1:04:43

        ... it doesn't go well, or someone gets sick in the family. A real uphill battle enters our life. And so the art of running downhill is about, hey, enjoy it. When you're going downwind downhill, don't trip yourself, because that uphill's coming. All right? It's gonna be, it's gonna come whether you want it to or not, so don't trip yourself and face plant right now because you're gonna have to work your ass off here very shortly anyway.

11. 1:05:09 – 1:18:12

    Saying No to Rom-Coms and the Desert Years

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:05:09

       Let's talk about perhaps an uphill, perhaps a pause, perhaps something else which I'd, I'd love for you to comment on, which did come later, and that was a decision which I'd love to explore to say no to quite a lot of opportunities for a period of time.

    2. MMMatthew McConaughey1:05:30

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:05:30

       It s- it seems like at one point you were very s- successful. You became very famous, like you said, practically overnight. You're being offered opportunities you, you couldn't have imagined a, a week prior, and you have a string of successes, and then you realize, well, wait a minute here, I might be getting painted into a corner, and you start to say no.

    4. MMMatthew McConaughey1:05:51

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:05:51

       You start to turn down, say, action film opportunities with big paychecks, things like that.

    6. MMMatthew McConaughey1:05:56

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:05:57

       Was that hard to do? Did other people say that you were doing the right thing and encourage you? Could you walk us through and just-

    8. MMMatthew McConaughey1:06:06

       Yeah

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:06:06

       ... tell a story about that experience?

    10. MMMatthew McConaughey1:06:08

        Yeah, love to. So this is around, I don't remember the year, I'm guessing it's around 12, 13 years ago. I was rolling with the romantic comedies. I had taken the baton from Hugh Grant and was the ro- the, the, the male lead rom-com go-to guy. Rom-coms are mid-level budgets, 30, 35 million. They offer a good front-end paycheck to me. They go make 60 million. I mean, it... the studios don't have to overspend and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make them. You get a good female and a male lead that have good chemistry. People love to go escape to them. My rom-coms are doing well. They were my bank. They were what Hollywood banked on me to be in. At the same time, um, I'm living in Malibu, learning to surf, got my shirt off, and the paparazzi are... Discovery Channel is like almost documenting this, and I'm like, "You're damn right, document it. This is the life I'm living. I love it. I worked and earned to get this life." And those romantic comedies that I get paid so handsomely for actually pay the rent at the house on the beach that I live in in front of this water that I'm surfing in. So I was full-on shaking hands with, going, "Yes". At the same time, I did notice that Any other dramas I wanted to do or even the way people sort of... When I said, "Don't meet strangers anymore," even the way this sort of people thought of me or approached me or would talk to me or about me, there was no consider- It, it was, it was, it was like, "McConaughey's the shirtless rom-com guy." And I was like, "Yeah, I am, and I'm..." But there, only I could answer that second question of, "And I'm..." Like, only I could continue that, that, that sentence. No one else could. And really, Hollywood for sure was like, "No, nothing else." And so any dramas I wanted to do or other pictures, no one wanted to make 'em with me. And I remember I just... We had just had, uh, uh, Levi. Camila and I just had our first son, and my life was so vital. Man, I just had a newborn. I've, I've, I've met the woman that I love and wanna spend the rest of my life with. I'm laughing harder. I'm crying harder. I'm happier than ever. Uh, life is very vital, and I'm in it. My real life is. But my work feels like, "Eh, yeah, I could do that tomorrow morning. Just give me the script tonight. Let me look at it. I can do it tomorrow morning." It wasn't really challenging me, and the rom-coms weren't challenging me, and my lifestyle was one big green light. And, you know, too many... If it's all green lights, if it's all sugar and candy, well, we, that'll make tired and tight of anybody. So I was saying, "Oh, I really want my w- I wish my work could..." I remember saying this. At least Mc- I remember looking in the mirror actually and going, "Okay, McConaughey, so if your life is more vital and true to who you are than your work, well, if it's gotta be one or the other, that's a good thing because I know a lot of people that their work is more vital than their life." So I said, "That's a good thing." I said, "But jeez, could I just get some work that might challenge the vitality of my life and the man I am in it, where I can get some work where I can be more me in it?" Well, those roles were not being offered to me. Nothing. Nope, not a chance. We won't... No studio will bank you in this drama role or this other role you want. I had control of Dallas Buyers Club at that time, but no one wanted to make it for me, nor would anyone finance it. So I decided that if I couldn't do what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was not being offered to me, it would be prudent for me to just stop doing what I had been doing and what was in the pipeline continually coming to me, which were the romantic comedies. I called my money manager, said, "All right. Look, I'm gonna stop doing the only work I'm getting offered, and I don't know how long it's gonna be till I work again. How am I doing with my money?" He says, "You've invested well, conservatively. You're fine. You can take time off." I remember calling my agent, Jim Toth at CAA. "Jim, I don't wanna do romantic comedies anymore." I remember this conversation. He goes, "Great." And I go, "Wait, whoa, whoa. What do you mean great?" He goes, "Great." And I go, "How do you say that so quick? What are you gonna say Monday morning when you go into your superiors in the office and say, 'McConaughey's not doing romantic comedies, and McConaughey's been bringing a nice chunk of 10% commission in to you guys with these romantic comedies for years now'?" And he said the coolest thing to me. He goes, "I don't work for them. I work for you."

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:10:24

        [laughs] That's a, that's a good line. [laughs]

    12. MMMatthew McConaughey1:10:26

        Mint. It's a line, right?

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:10:28

        Yeah.

    14. MMMatthew McConaughey1:10:28

        So then... And then it was, I went to Camila, my wife, and I had been... You know, I'd shed quite a few tears with her going through this, you know, am, am I, am I feeling fraudulent in my work? Uh, do I feel a lack of significance in my work? Do I feel like, you know... Uh, is it okay to be feeling, you know, this? I mean, like I said, remember, I'm the, I'm the... As we said earlier, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of going, running downhill. Why would you sabotage not doing the work you're getting offered when you can get paid so handsomely to do it? But she understood that I, that my soul was shaken and needed some recalibration, and that the work I was doing wasn't a true sort of expression of who I was in my life, and I was... I told her. I said, "Well, I wanna get, find, hold out for some work that can challenge the vitality of the life that I'm living with you and our son, Levi." And she repeated the lines to me. She goes, "Okay. You're gonna get wobbly. I've been around you. You gotta work, Matthew, and you love to accomplish. You're gonna get wobbly. You might start, you know, reaching for a little sip of something to drink earlier in the day, too." And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." [laughs] She's like, "But still."

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:11:33

        [laughs]

    16. MMMatthew McConaughey1:11:34

        She goes, "Days are gonna be longer. We don't know how long this'll last, how long we'll be in this d-" She called it a desert. "How long this'll be a desert." She goes, "But if we're gonna do this, if you're gonna do this, we're not gonna half-ass it." She repeated my dad's line to me, and I went, "Yes, ma'am," gave her a hug, put some tears on her shoulder, and we said, "Starting today, no more rom-coms." Well, rom-com offers came in to my agent for about the next six month, but nothing but rom-com offers, and I didn't even... Unless it was a major offer, uh, well, I, I just said no. And I... They just stopped at my agent's desk, Jim Toth. No. And then one of them came through that was, like, a gargantuan offer for it, and my agent said, "It's a pretty damn good script, too." And so I said, "Well, send it out. Let me read it." [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:12:27

        [laughs]

    18. MMMatthew McConaughey1:12:27

        "I wanna read it." And I remember this. The offer was, like, for $8 million, and the script was pretty good and... But it was still a s- sort of a rom-com. And I remember reading it and going, "No, thank you." And I remember feeling sort of emboldened and strengthened by saying, "No, thank you." Great. Sticking to my guns. No rom-coms. Six months into this drought. Nope, not caving in now. Don't half-ass it, McConaughey. So they come back with a $10 million offer. "No, thank you." They come back with a $12.5 million offer.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:12:58

        [laughs]

    20. MMMatthew McConaughey1:12:59

        Now I go, "Dot, dot, dot," ellipses, ellipses. "Nah, no, thank you." [laughs] Now they come back with a $15 million offer.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:13:10

        Wow.

    22. MMMatthew McConaughey1:13:10

        And I said, "Uh, you know what? Let me have another reread of that script." [laughs]

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:13:16

        [laughs]

    24. MMMatthew McConaughey1:13:18

        And I reread that script. And you know what? At $15 million, the same script that I've been offered for $8 million, the $15 million offer script, which was the same exact words as the $8 million offer script, the $15 million script was better. It was funnier.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:13:32

        [laughs]

    26. MMMatthew McConaughey1:13:35

        It had possibilities. It had angles. I had ideas. I could make this work, you know what I mean? This could work.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:13:44

        Now, I'm imagining at this point, Jim is like, "Man, this saying no thing is really [laughs] working out."

    28. MMMatthew McConaughey1:13:49

        He, [laughs] he's in, and he's over there teetering like, "I know what we said, you know, but $15 million, and it's not like... It's a pretty good script. I know it's a rom-com. It's a pretty good script." But I s- said, uh, "No. No, thank you." Well, that got the signal across Hollywood that McConaughey was taking a serious sabbatical. And-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:14:14

        Mm-hmm

    30. MMMatthew McConaughey1:14:14

        ... so don't even send him a rom-com. It got around.
12. 1:18:12 – 1:26:56

    Getting Through the Drought: Family, Purpose, and Preparation

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:18:12

       So I wanna dig into a few follow-up questions here. So, so your wife probably with some sage foresight, although I'm guessing, said you're gonna get wobbly, days are gonna seem longer.

    2. MMMatthew McConaughey1:18:23

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:18:23

       You might reach for that bottle a little earlier-

    4. MMMatthew McConaughey1:18:25

       Yeah

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:18:25

       ... than you would-

    6. MMMatthew McConaughey1:18:26

       Yeah

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:18:26

       ... normally. What were some of your practices or some of the inputs that helped you to either stave off getting wobbly or to recover when you did get wobbly?

    8. MMMatthew McConaughey1:18:38

       Hmm, good question. Look, my family, I mean my mom, my brothers supported me. They thought I was plumb crazy for, you know, turning down that $15 million offer and sitting there going like, "What are you doing?" They thought I really was face planting while running, while having a downhill [laughs] ramp to run down. They were like, "What, who in their right mind would... You're not working. Do you like that?" I was like, "Yeah, that works easy. I like it." "And they're offering you... What, what the hell is your problem?" But they knew.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:19:05

       [laughs]

    10. MMMatthew McConaughey1:19:07

        You know, they knew that I was like, you know, that I was a thinker. They've known that since long before that, that I took myself, you know, in those circumstances seriously and that I was doing some soul searching and that, and, and they thought I w- They, they, they were like, "That doesn't make sense to us, but we get it little brother. You know, you're, you're all right. Good luck." So they did support me. I'll say this, this, this helped. We had a very real crisis in the family with someone in my family that needed all of my attention and all of my time, meaning one of those real red lights that entered our life, a real crisis that, uh, a real uphill battle entered, which gave me large sense of purpose, necessary purpose. Like it's not one... It's one of those unequivocal things you don't question. It's like if I had gotten any job I wanted in Hollywood of a script to go act at that time, even then, I wouldn't have done it during, going through this family crisis. It, this was paramount. It was unequivocally the thing to take care of. So as you probably know, when, uh, the death of someone in a family or a big fa- a real family crisis, that, that, that'll sober you up, and I don't mean sober you up from the bottle. That'll sober you up from missing any sort of, again, the scripts at that time, [laughs] movies, making movies, that was a mortal thing. Dealing with this family crisis was an immortal thing. So I be- I became very involved with handling this family crisis, and that is where my identity was. That coupled with my sons being raised, he's... It's a brand-new day for him every single day. He's getting to know me. How awesome is this that I'm, get to have this time because I know I'll go back and do some work somewhere somehow later, and it's not gonna, I'm not gonna have this time, so let's lean into the assets of being forced here with your son. You're building a home with the woman you love, and you've got this family crisis that you're dealing with, which is bringing you close to your, close back, even closer to your blood family. So I was finding purpose in, in, in all of that. And, you know, as it usually happens, as it, as it was getting to the point where, well, I don't care if any, anything comes in, I'm not even thinking about it if any work comes in. I don't really care. Of course, that's about the time that the work comes in. [laughs]

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:21:30

        [laughs] You've traveled a very unorthodox path in many respects. What are some of the biggest misconceptions, if any? What are common misconceptions about you that you hope or that, that you could clarify either right now or, or through the pages of this book? Are there any, are there any mis-

    12. MMMatthew McConaughey1:21:49

        Yeah

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:21:50

        ... any misconceptions, positive or-

    14. MMMatthew McConaughey1:21:52

        Um

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:21:52

        ... positive or negative?

    16. MMMatthew McConaughey1:21:54

        Yeah. I mean, look, one misconception I think, which it used to concern me more so than it does now, is that, I mean, kinda everyone, a lot of people think that I sort of like just wake up in the morning and go roll out of bed and say, "All right, where's my mark? What are we doing today? What's, what's this scene about? What's life about? What, what, what's the responsibility here today? What is... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah." A lot of people just think I just wing it. [laughs]

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:22:21

        [laughs]

    18. MMMatthew McConaughey1:22:24

        And the truth is, like I was telling you earlier about me being a studier and loving my... I am a preparer. I, that's... I know a lot of my success and satisfaction have come from being majorly prepared. And when I'm majorly prepared, I prepare so I can, so it's not work when I get in the game.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:22:48

        Mm-hmm.

    20. MMMatthew McConaughey1:22:49

        I prepare, so that's the work. My work is pre-game. When I'm in the game, I am. When I'm best at being in the game, I am that guy that looks like I just woke up in the morning and just, "Hey, what's up?" To make it look easy comes from the preparation, so I'm daily prepared. Now, whether it's work or trying to be the best man I can or be the best husband or the best father, I'm constantly trying to work on that. You know, I have the saying with, you know, and now you reading the story of my mom and dad had a very physical and oftentimes violent, loud relationship, hence divorced twice, married three times. Me, I don't remember the last time I raised my voice to my wife or kids because for me, if I even get to the point where I have to raise my voice or I get, you know, start to feel like I'm gonna snap, I immediately, my threshold goes to, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you not handle up to this point, McConaughey, to let it get to this? There's, you, you left some crumbs somewhere in your position as a husband, a father, or a man to get to this point, so let's not stop. Let's go back and deconstruct how we got to this point to even feel like this, 'cause you, you dropped the ball somewhere along the way-

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:24:10

        [laughs]

    22. MMMatthew McConaughey1:24:11

        ... to even this feeling." And I have a pretty short threshold for that feeling of, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me recalibrate. Let me, let me, let me take some stock in how I got to this point 'cause I'm feeling like I'm about to snap, or I'm feeling like I'm even gonna raise my voice." So, you know, that's some recalibrations that I inherently and instinctually, I don't know if I say I practice them, but I, I just, that's where my head, head and heart goes.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:24:34

        Mm-hmm.

    24. MMMatthew McConaughey1:24:35

        Does that answer your question?

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:24:36

        It does. It does. I think that, that, you know, one of the sort of gestalt impressions of the book, which is, I mean, really, really fun and very delightful. I mean, so congratulations on the book. It's not easy to do. [laughs] Um, and-

    26. MMMatthew McConaughey1:24:51

        [laughs] Thank you

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:24:52

        ... and the, the gestalt impression is that you take introspection, and I, and may- maybe this isn't the right way to phrase it, but you take int- introspection seriously, and you practiced a lot of introspection. So you've been able to take these moments that otherwise might be lost in the slipstream, those moments of success where things seem to be going well, the, the lows, and you've trapped them like flies in the amber so that you can look at them later and even look at them like a flip book so you can see the trends that take you in one direction or another, and I, and then that is- That is not common. So I, I'd like to just ask one or two more questions

    28. MMMatthew McConaughey1:25:32

        That's-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:25:32

        Yeah

    30. MMMatthew McConaughey1:25:32

        ... that, that, I mean, I'm trying to get what I think we're all trying to get, which I actually... And let's talk about this, 'cause I do think it's common, that we all want more ROI-
13. 1:26:56 – 1:31:55

    The Billboard: "I Value, Question Mark"

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:26:56

       Right. It's like keeping track of plays in the game of life, right? I mean, it's, you ha-

    2. MMMatthew McConaughey1:27:01

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:27:01

       ... you have to have the ability to look back at it. So, so if you were to have a billboard, metaphorically speaking, to get a message, a question, an image, anything out to billions of people, could have a paragraph, could be a word, anything non-commercial, what might you put on that billboard?

    4. MMMatthew McConaughey1:27:18

       Ah, g- a great question, and I... And it's, [laughs] and it's one that when I, I'd like to say I think about all the time, because I do have a marketeering mind. It'd be two words with a question mark behind them. I value, question mark.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:27:33

       Hmm.

    6. MMMatthew McConaughey1:27:34

       Tim, I, I, I don't know how to make systemic change. I don't... Not that interested in politics. Seems, it doesn't seem like the right, I don't know, category maybe for the kind of leadership that I wanna listen to or in some way, some forms be myself. It seems to me that, that, uh, the common denominator or the, the, the bipartisan non-denominational solid stepping stones for us to evolve as a species, as a nation, and as individuals is based in values. The fundamental principles that we can all agree on, I don't care what side of politics you're on or what religion you are, but what do we value? What do we really value? We all wanna be relevant. Well, let's ask relevant for what-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:28:19

       Yeah

    8. MMMatthew McConaughey1:28:19

       ... before we say, "I wanna be relevant." Let's, let's, let's... And, and, and what are those values that we can go, "Oh, that's... Yeah, if I act that way, if I'm kind in that way, if I'm accountable in that way, if I have a sense of humor in that way, how is that a very selfish act? 'Cause it's good for me, good for my ego, fills me up, pays me back, gives me mailbox money-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:28:42

       [laughs]

    10. MMMatthew McConaughey1:28:43

        ... gives me green lights in my future, but it also gives you mailbox money.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:28:48

        Mm-hmm.

    12. MMMatthew McConaughey1:28:49

        Gives you, it gives other people, it gives others residuals. And our future's a compounding asset, and I think we just, we, we need to work on or, and have fun understanding that, that the things we do today, the choices we make are compounding assets to what, where we go in the future. And if we have, make more valuable choices and give more respect to the competence of values, our own personal values, we're buying more ROI. We're creating more green lights in the future for ourselves and others.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:29:25

        I value, question mark. Very important statement right there, and question. And I agree with you about the values and the also for what, right? The, the relevant for what.

    14. MMMatthew McConaughey1:29:38

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:29:38

        It's such an important focusing modifier to adjectives. They get thrown around very commonly. And-

    16. MMMatthew McConaughey1:29:45

        Yeah, you know that there's another line in there that I have, it's based off that jeans being pressed story [laughs] is when we can, ask ourselves if we want to before we do.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:29:59

        Mm-hmm.

    18. MMMatthew McConaughey1:30:00

        That s- goes along with, yeah, I wanna be relevant. Well, wait, relevant for what? You know what I mean? It's, it's just because we can, and maybe we're in posi- getting a position of influence where we get an option put in front of us that we never had before. You know, like I said, time to kill. 99 scripts I couldn't do yesterday, and now today you're telling me I can do all of them? What? Well, let's be discerning and ask ourselves, "Do I really wanna do that?" I know it's the first time I have the ability to, or the first time it's been laid in front of me that I have the option to do that, and I'm sure am happy about that. But before I do it, let me ask myself, "Wait, do I really want to?"

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:30:33

        Mm-hmm.

    20. MMMatthew McConaughey1:30:34

        You know, for me, the story about having my jeans pressed, I was so damn happy. I had a housekeeper for the first time, and she pressed my jeans. I was like, "Wow. [laughs] Look at that." And then I had a friend tell me, "Well, that's great, if you like your jeans pressed." And immediately I went, "Oh, shit."

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:30:47

        [laughs]

    22. MMMatthew McConaughey1:30:48

        "I don't like my jeans pressed." [laughs]

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:30:51

        [laughs]

    24. MMMatthew McConaughey1:30:52

        Right? When we can, ask ourself if we want to before we do, and yes, we seek relevance, but let's ask relevance for what.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:30:58

        Mm-hmm. Well, Matthew, you are one hell of a storyteller. You're a fun guy to talk to. Some, at some point, maybe separately, I'll ask you about what they put in the groundwater in Texas for this storytelling. [laughs]

    26. MMMatthew McConaughey1:31:15

        [laughs]

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:31:16

        Uh, because you, Mary Carr, I don't know what it is, uh, but, uh, that's another conversation for another day. Your book's official website is greenlights.com. Very easy for people to remember. On Facebook You are Matthew McConaughey. Instagram, officialMcConaughey. Twitter, @McConaughey. And I will include links to everything in the show notes for people at tim.blog/podcast so they can find everything that we've talked about. Is there anything else that you would like to say, share, ask, recommend, uh, with those people listening before we come to a close?

14. 1:31:55 – 1:39:30

    Closing Message: Make Sense of Humor the Default

    1. MMMatthew McConaughey1:31:55

       Sure. This came from a conversation Richard Linklater and I were having some years ago, and it came out of just a verbal ping-pong that we did. But what I think is we all should... could use right now, and I need to remind myself of it daily, especially in these times where, look, it's tough in ways that for ourselves that we understand, sometimes when we don't understand, but it's tough in ways for, for everybody in ways that maybe even they don't understand and we probably don't. So everyone can use a little bit of amnesty right now. And what I mean by that is this: if you're not sure how to respond to a situation, can you just make sense of humor the default emotion? [laughs] Can we just have a little more humor and give each other a bit of a break right now? It's tough times. Let's be for each other right now instead of against each other. And sense of humor does not, it does not get rid of the truth, does not get rid of the problem, does not get rid of the challenge. It actually reveals it sometimes in the most truthful ways.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:32:53

       Hmm.

    3. MMMatthew McConaughey1:32:54

       But we can laugh to, to have some humor through the tears and humor through the pain, and not laugh at someone else's expense. Laugh at our expense, all of our, the human existence expense. Man, we're doing the best we can.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:33:04

       Mm-hmm.

    5. MMMatthew McConaughey1:33:05

       And if we're not, we- we- we're... Le- let's help somebody try to.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:33:08

       Hear, hear. Well, thank you so much, Matthew. This was, uh, this was an incredibly enjoyable conversation and-

    7. MMMatthew McConaughey1:33:16

       Super fun for me, Tim. I really enjoyed it and love to do it anytime.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:33:20

       Yeah. Yeah. So I would love to do a round two sometime. Maybe, uh, [laughs] maybe when we're in, in, uh, proximity in Austin, we can do a 20-foot social distance, so TBD. But we... Your first book, Greenlights, is so unexpected. It is so fun. It, it is a, a romp through your mind, a romp through the turns and twists and learnings of someone who has had an unorthodox path and, on top of that, documented so much for decades. Uh, it's, it's a, it's a rare combination, so I encourage people to check it out. And for everybody listening, we'll have notes to all things we've discussed in the show notes, tim.blog/podcast. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. [upbeat music] Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is 5-Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And 5-Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up [laughs] in the, uh, the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little, tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email, and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Magic Spoon. Magic Spoon is a brand-new cereal that I eat just about every day that is low carb, high protein, and zero sugar. 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Episode duration: 1:39:30