" The Most Valuable 20 Minutes You’ll Spend Today | Matthew McConaughey Motivation"

Called at 7.36 p.m. I remember the number. Hey, Pop. Hey, what's up, monkey man? So listen, can I talk to you about something? Sure. Dad, I don't want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school. A little bead of sweat starts to go down the back of my neck. I'm like, here it comes. You want what? I thought he was going to go into other stuff, but like my ass. You know, that could be a hobby, but that's not a real job. I thought all this was coming. And after about a five second pause, he goes, I hear this. Are you sure that's what you want to do? Yes, sir. Then I hear, well, don't half-ass it. And man, my dad not only said okay, in the way he said don't half-ass it was also okay. Let's go, big boy. Own that. Put some leverage, get some horsepower behind where you're going. Go do it. If you're going to do it, do it. Say what you can do. Do what you say. If you can't do it, don't say you can do it. Don't over-leverage yourself. Don't over-leverage a decision and then jump in and kind of dip a toe. I think I'll try it out. No, think if you're going to try it out beforehand, but when it's time to go, dive. Finish it, find out. Come out the other side. Don't leave it and go, oh, if I just woulda, uh-uh. That keeps me up at night. I think it keeps a lot of us up at night. When you half-ass something and you just don't know whether you failed or succeeded, got what you want or didn't get what you want, finding out and looking in the mirror and going, I didn't half-ass it. I went all the way. I found out and that ain't for me. Or I found out and you're damn right that is for me. That's a great place to get to. You ever had a gut feeling that maybe you were meant for more but you weren't really sure what the next best steps were to achieve it? Me too. So what's your more? What's your destination? And I'm not talking about just more money or more things. I'm also talking about more love, more joy, more choice, more balance, more trust. What's your more? If life was nothing but green lights and we didn't have yellows and reds, things that make us pause, hardships, crises, times for introspection, then what the hell would it all be for? We need the yellows and the reds. That's how we evolve. That's how hopefully there's some ascension to our being. That's how we give some credit to time and growing older. If we were the same person today that we were 20 years ago, then I mean, what the hell are we doing? If anything, I would say to my 50 year old self, go fail more. If anything I would say to you, go fail more, forget them. Those people on the sideline that are saying the thumbs down or calling you something or being snarky, they're on the sidelines for a reason. Hustle, hustle, hustle. Sleep was sin in my household. Sin, I saw my dad asleep one time in my life. If it was daylight, you couldn't be inside. There's a fierce sense of independence. Hour, 30 minutes of TV a night max. Mom would always say, why are you gonna watch someone doing something when you can go out in the world and do it yourself? Turn that damn thing off, get outside. Had to be outside, but go get out in the world, go hustle, figure it out. We all want more out of our life. We want more out of our relationships, more out of our careers, more out of ourselves. So look, it's time to renegotiate, right? Who we are and how we treat each other. It's time to re-engineer how we can get where we want to and need to go. It's time to restore what's worth keeping from our past and what's worth taking into our future. Life's a mystery going forward to science looking back. When you look back, we can all connect every single dot. It's mathematical, scientific, how we got to this table right here. We've got plans for this afternoon, but we're not sure what's gonna happen. But everything looking back, it's all connected if we go back and look at it. And there's a whole lot of, I thought that was the end. Well, it was the end, but it was the beginning of this thing. Or I caught that red light and therefore made me 60 seconds later to get to that cafe where I met that movie producer or that woman who became my wife or whatever that is. It don't make sense at the time, but we're looking back, it's all a science. You've got this great line where you say, so many people are obsessed with how to live longer instead of how to live better. Yeah. Quantity, success without the profit. Ooh, how much more can I get? I'm for it, the longevity, I'm for it. But in the pursuit of it, are we measuring quality of life along the way? Some people aren't. I personally don't wanna have the highest number, but then go, oh, I need fun or I didn't enjoy that or I didn't, that sucked. I'm just trying to remind everyone that, just like in business, when I say success without the profit, we have plenty of people that succeed. If you got the most money, the most toys, you succeed. They didn't profit. They're not profiting with their success. Profit measures quality with the quantity. So I'm saying real success is when you have profit, but really great longevity would be for those quality years, quality time left in this life. What do you wish more people knew about the price of success in life? Well, success has taken on different definitions over time. It used to have to do. And now, you know, money, fame, that's your definition of success. So it seems to be that, and always has been to some extent, whoever has more, there's more success, more access, more money, you're the winner. I'm not saying it's a race to the red light, but I am saying the fourth quarter of that being your goal, the residuals decline on quality of life. I've met many more very rich men who chased that dollar to be successful and to be relevant for having the most money that the last 15, 20, even younger years were bewildered, lost, had no relationships, didn't have purpose, chasing the dollar, they at least did it. They were good at it. They made it happen, but they didn't feel what they were doing. They couldn't even necessarily say what they were really good at. Just good deal makers who made the right calls in certain mathematics. It's also why I wasn't surprised when Trump first got elected. He had fame, he had money. We sell that every day in the West as this is how you make it. It's America. This is what you do. It's America. Be less impressed and more involved. More involved. Yeah. What did you mean by that? Where did that come from? It came from, we grew up hardcore on gratitude. I'm a very thankful guy. And then being thankful and having gratitude is very important, but you can't stop there because too much just, oh, I'm so happy to be here. You're so impressed to be here. Thank you for having me, which we should have, but if you live only there, we can't be present and be involved in whatever we're doing and do it as well as we want to do it. You got to go, no, thank you for letting me be here and I'm supposed to be here. Now let's go. If I'm even talking to you, if I'm here going, man, I'm so happy to be here. If I'm just happy to be here and go no further than that, I can't have, we can't have this conversation. I'm not, I won't be there yet. I can't be grounded enough to have it right here. I'd be like, I'd anticipate my thoughts. I'd say something that may is only the pretty stuff and not the ugly stuff or, oh, don't want to be me. So to be involved allowed me to be more honest and have more courage. When we're involved, we're more honest and have more courage to do what we're fashioned to do, how we're fashioned to do it. What about love? We always knew we were loved. There's never a question that we were loved as loving each other, loving mom and dad, being loved by mom and dad, and making, mom would always keep on making sure you're loving yourself. I remember breakups, heartbroken. She'd let us mourn. She was a great ear, very sensitive ear to that kind of, to pains like that. After a day, she'd crank up the ACDC, man, and go like, now, skid up. You're worth it, her loss. Come on, get out of bed, uh-uh. Come on, uh-uh, quit moping, lift your head up. Come on, come on, buddy, we got this, uh-uh, her loss. Maybe the day, no more than that. What's the difference between a nice guy and a good man? A nice guy gets along. Yeah, I'll do that, yeah, I'll do that. They don't necessarily have discernment or judgment, not sure what they stand for or stand against. It's like, yes, yes, yes, sure, yeah, hey. A good man has ideals that they stand for and they'll stand against, and when they're tested, a good man is not a nice guy. I didn't want to keep forgiving myself on Sunday, and then repeat and do the same ---- again, Monday through Friday, and then go, oh, now I can be forgiven. I was like, no, man, forgive me, father. I know what I'm doing, and I keep doing it. Cut the, hey, quit giving yourself that out, that parachute, even though you may have it, even though word says grace of God will forgive you. Yeah, I needed to strong-arm myself, put my damn hands on the wheel, look in the mirror and go, it's on you, because it is. Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome. If I win, I will be happy. If I don't, I won't. It's an if-then, cause-and-effect, quid pro quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it. See, happiness, happiness demands a certain outcome. It is result-reliant. And I say, if happiness is what you're after, then you're gonna be let down frequently, and you're gonna be unhappy much of your time. Joy, though, joy is a different thing. It's something else. Joy is not a choice. It's not a response to some result. It's a constant. Joy is the feeling that we have from doing what we are fashioned to do, no matter the outcome. Now, personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work, and literally being more happy, when I stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to a certain end. For example, I need this film to be a box office success. I need my performance to be acknowledged. I need the respect of my peers. All those are reasonable aspirations, but the truth is, as soon as the work, the daily making of the movie, the doing of the deed, became the reward in itself for me, I got more box office, more accolades, and respect than I ever had before. See, joy is always in process. It's under construction. It is in constant approach, alive and well, in the doing of what we're fashioned to do, and enjoying. I think it's why a lot of relationships don't work. We make her Wonder Woman, and she makes us Superman, and neither one of us can live up to it, and that we've got that bulb, that honeymoon bulb turned up to 100 watts, and the honeymoon's over. We're trying to deal with some real, just some real base stuff. Let's leave it at 20 watts. We're just lit, but we're not just feverishly superhuman, and I think a lot of us just purport that on someone else, and they can't live up to it, and it ends up not being fair to them, and then they do the same to us, and we both walk away going, I underwhelmed, and if you forgive me, and you believe that I mean, I'm truly sorry, I'll do my best not to ever do that again. You believe that, and then you forgive me. First order of business is for me to change the behavior that I have, so I don't have to come say sorry to you again. That I think we miss sometimes, that sometimes people go, I'm sorry, forgiven. Oh, cool, we're even. All right, back to it, and all of a sudden you're like, you did it again. Dude, you have a little rule, I thought you were gonna course correct, you know? I've got a course correct. The offenders, the first order of business for the offender to go, I'm gonna do what I can not to have to say I'm sorry to you again. I think George Janko says, every man knows God when he's at his lowest, that there are reliable times when people turn toward faith. And how many people turn at the end of their life? And I wonder, you know, if there is a God, is that in the same way that, you know, Catholicism could say, sin all week, but if you meet it and you ask for forgiveness on Sunday, you're washed clean. Well, I see some people use that as a crutch and go right back to repeat offending. I've got a poem in here, I'm gonna forgive me, Father, for I know what I do. And I'm curious like, is that okay? There's the forgive me, Father, for I know not what I do. And I'm writing about, well, forgive me, Father, there's times I know exactly what I'm doing, and I do it anyway. That was an error of volition, not accident. That choice I made. Now, if I'm gonna keep making that choice and be a repeat offender, I'm not ready to go, yeah, but if I ask for forgiveness on Sunday, I'm all clean. We do it all again. I'm not ready to, I'm gonna, no, no, no, hang on. Buck stop here. I said, what's better? I'm gonna pull him in here, call it heaven or not, and try and find it and see if this kind of answers that question. Tomorrow is not today's measurement when the misery is bad enough. Right? It's people forever. But if you can find something that you can keep going, something that no matter how small, to look forward to and continually have faith in and chase, well, then your life here's gonna be better now. Heaven or not. And I was like, time to become a man. Walk forward. Peripheral vision. Get it. Own yourself. Walk forward with more courage and start becoming the man you wanna be instead of acting like it and putting it off. I'm nervous before I'm gonna go speak or something. I got a little thing in my wallet. You're gonna die one day, McConaughey. And I'm like, oh, that relaxes me. If I'm going in, you know, complacent, I got another note, I'm gonna tell myself, what you're about to say and do will outlive you. So you better do it well. If I said I can't, my dad's teeth just start to go. Excuse me? You sure you're not just having trouble? I remember this one time, I was going out to do my chore Saturday morning, mow the lawn, and I checked everything for me to start. I'm going inside, I said, dad, can you help me? I can't get the lawnmower started. He turned around, I saw his mowers and went, and he got up, walked with me through the kitchen, through the garage, out the backyard, went to the lawnmower, messed around, pulled a couple of things out, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, about 10 minutes, boom, cranked it. And while the lawnmower was running, right there, he came over to me and bent down and looked me in the eye and goes, see, son, you were just having trouble. I think in life, you want to be finding people that believe in you more than you believe in you, that hold you to higher standards. I think that's the definition of a good friend. I think that's the definition of a good partner, a good definition of a good husband, wife, you know, that they remind us of the best of ourselves. Shine that light, remind us, because we do. I know I do. It gets, put the blinds on it, and I don't see it. I'm interested in so many things that my hunch is to not take on more campfires, but to keep putting logs on the fires that I've built. And to do that, the clouds that come with fall, just nip ambition in the bud, just a little bit. I kind of like, I'm not as big of a fan of the 30 foot tall ceiling. I feel ambitious looking laterally, instead of, I'm looking for the dreams and the poems and the prayers, to become the reality. And I like a little bit of shame. I got to forgive that deed, that person for that deed. And again, not necessarily trust him, but do my best to forgive him. And that can take me a while. And I think that what takes me the most time to forgive the betrayal is me, when and if I betray myself, forgiving myself, because we forgive too quickly. We're just resilient. We hop up, dust yourself off, forgive you, let's do it again. We do become repeat offenders because we didn't take time to put ourself or feel the guilt of the wrongdoing and pay a little penance to look at and go, I don't want to feel this again. I don't want to do that action again to make myself feel this way. I don't, it doesn't feel like me. I don't want to, I don't want that person to have that sadness or anger with me again, or the world to have that sadness and anger from this deed. I don't want to feel that again. And that takes some pause to then go, now I forgive myself. Let's carry on and trust and be ready to do the work to say, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna just let that slide anymore. I'm successful. I've got a home. He's got a gate. I've got a security guard. Keep that log on those fires going. That's the main thing, man. You do that, there's nothing better you can do. Hang on, man. You can do that, but you still need to engage. What, are you gonna become a live-in father? No. Kids need to see you go to work. Need to come with you to go to work. They see you and your mom going places without them. Engage in the world. Go find out some new things, learn some new things. Whether that's the physical frontier or the mental frontier. Take more risk there. Why? Wait a minute now. So we're saying, if success is the key, if success is the measurement, and you can get it by lying, cheating, and stealing, and still be rewarded the gold medal, that's what's happening. Are we ready to say that's okay? Are we ready to say that's just how it is? We have leaders in positions now that are saying, yeah, just win. Just win, just succeed. But yeah, yeah, you get there. You did it. Congratulations. Come to the front of the line. So what are the ethics? I don't know. What'd the winner do? Well, but they, wait, what about rules? Oh yeah, by the way, the rules, if you follow them, you're a sucker. I started to find myself going, no, wait a minute. I'm not ready to say. That's just how it is.