It's Time to Focus and Value Yourself in 2026 - Best Motivational Speech | Matthew McConaughey

It's wise, I think, to understand the machinations of how populace works, how being in with the group works, to understand the rules of each game, knowing your zone and still being able to be yourself or still being yourself if you're playing a role to get what you want. It's like the Dylan thing. He was like, what is it? Like, no, don't go. I don't know what all this be yourselves about, man. It's like, well, you are what you create, man. We're all our creations. That's a form of being yourself by going, I'm a new creation every day, which you are if you want to be. Whatever part that is, you're playing. But the best ones, you don't see them playing a part. But going back to acting, in real life or in acting, you don't see, or athletics, you don't see the work. You don't see the, oh, there's a tell. Oh, I saw him do a thing. He played an attitude. He didn't play himself. You don't see those. You don't see those things. It's seamless. Well, to me, it's like, do you want to be the actor that gets the parts that Matthew McConaughey turns down? Or do you want to get the parts that they're offering to you because they want you? But most of us go, I don't know. I'd rather just kind of get somebody else's leftovers. Right, right, right, right. And sometimes those leftovers are damn worth getting. But I hear you. When you are, when you're living and you're like, you're one of one. Yeah. You want to be the first person they ask. But you've, I've been in positions where I was the third pick. Yeah. And I saw, it was like, I'm going to show them why it should have been the first pick. Yes, yes. For the next. Sure. I'm going to invest. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to make sure I don't just dial this in, which I could connect all the dots and do it really well. Yeah. I'm going to do something that makes them go, who's that guy? Yes. I want him for first pick next time. So it can be a ramp to a higher ceiling. Totally. But I think what you're saying is it's a lot easier to just sit there and go, yeah, let me get the, let me get the leftovers and do what I can with it. And, and, and, and mimic what status quo would be for that. I mean, you can pull it off. I just think you're going to get there going. What if? Yeah. I didn't find out. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't take the chance for the, to absolutely get booed by the masses on a complete failure or I didn't get the chance to absolutely find out. And show up on the other side and they go, you did it. Yeah. How'd you do that? What is that? What is that thing you're doing? Never seen it before. When life gets busy, pause, take a deep breath, download mindset, and listen to your favorite inspirational speeches to unlock your full potential. Roy Spencer's a friend of mine. You know, Roy, GSTNM, great advertising mind, marketing mind. They had the seven up account. Okay. And I think the story goes, they were fighting against Coca-Cola and Pepsi. They couldn't get past. And I think it may be even RC. They couldn't get past the four hole. Yeah. And he said, wait a minute, we're fighting to be in the Cola category. Yeah. Let's create a new category and be the un-Cola. Right. Which became the ad campaign. And then they were number one in a new, created in a new category. Right. A new ladder that they created. Know that me personally, my greatest success does not mean like most, but just the most qualitative successes I've had in my life. Or when I'm not asking permission. Not in any anti way. Just, no, I'm not apologizing. There's nothing to apologize for. I'm not apologizing. I'm not asking permission. Yeah. But to get it, not to go like, I don't think I need it. No, that's one step away. No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not asking permission. Yeah. Not, I don't think I should ask. No, you're not there yet. If you're going, I don't think I should ask. That's already too, sort of. Yeah, yeah. Gilding the lid to get to the center. No, there's, I'm not asking permission. And almost like, not even mean to say it out loud, but just knowing it. Yeah. There's no permission going to be asked from me on this. You're thrown, you're thrown into isolation and self-reliance. And it goes a little bit deeper because you don't have the attaboys or way to go's or the soft landings. And you're like, dude, it's me on me right now. Here we go. And that's just a hell of a charge. I mean, a good charge. Yeah, sure. Of stimulation and you can get in that subjective place. Yeah. It's where you're not even, I think I'm always aware. When I said earlier, like know your zone. I'm aware because I pop into that objective spot and go, I think I kind of know. Look, I started off writing in the first two weeks. I was trying to write impressively. Yeah. I remember going back and go, whoa, just turn a phrase. Let's do more. Yeah. Two weeks I went on and then I got to the two week period. It gained a little confidence that I had some goods to share, worth sharing. And then looked at my stuff and I was like, that's bull. You're waxing the car, man. You know, the engine. Talk about the engine and the oil and you're waxing the car. Right. And I was like, that's good wax, but bullshit. Yeah. Compared to what the honest truth is. So then got the confidence to go, dude, don't write impressively. If you write it well and honestly, it may be impressive. Yes. But don't write impressively. And that first two weeks I was trying to write impressively. You got a few things that sometimes you got to watch that, too, with our cliff notes. You know, when you have something we may process it many times and it becomes obvious to us. Yeah. And then you project it or you play it out there for the first time or share it. And they're going, wow. And you're like, come on. Wow. That's an obvious one. And you're like, no, that's the one. Yeah. Don't cut that. Don't edit that one out. That's brand new. It's like the joke. Script writers do this in Hollywood. Early script is a great joke everyone loves. But they still have to go back and rewrite the script. Give them a couple of passes. They'll remove that joke. And you're like, dude, you're tired of it. Yeah. Because you wrote it a year ago and you've rewritten it twice. Remember, we're giving it to an audience for the first time. Right. They're getting it. We love that one from the beginning. Don't make a straight line crooked, man. That was a winner. Keep that winner there. Don't get a new bright idea. That is great. Even though you got bored with it because you've written it. You've done the rewrite 10 times. That's you. You didn't see the work. As they say with athletes. Yeah. You don't see the work. You didn't see the prep. You didn't see, oh, I got a planned move. Oh, I got a little thing I'm going to do. Yeah. No, you don't see any of that. Greenlights was a philosophy that was a prism that once it clicked with me, for the months, year, whatever it took me to write it, I was seeing everything through that lens. Yeah. Measuring every, oh, I just had a green light moment. Yeah. Everywhere. My dance with life. I was just, that was the music was through that lens. My new book. I've got a, what I think is a really solid lens and philosophy to look through, but I'm not without trying. Yeah. Looking at life through that lens. Yeah. So when I looked, when you start looking through the lens, I could not not write that. Yeah. It had me. Sure. Nothing else I could do. I had to. Yeah. And it was not hard because it was all encompassing 24 seven. And I was seeing it everywhere. So I haven't got there in my next book where the, the philosophy that I'm purporting is how I'm seeing life in its writing itself. Yeah. I'm probably more relaxed because when I go act, it's a vacation for me. Singular focus. Sure. I have a reverence for my craft enough where that's all I focus on for three months. I feel like that's a worthy day every day. I get to see my kids at the end of the day. My wife goes, go out the door. Do not look over your shoulder. Go conquer, kick ass. I got this stuff handled. So I'm really relaxed. I've got one thing and, and all my other work. Yeah. All the other peripherals I have. My team knows the month and a half leading up to where I go to work. Let's get those off the table. Let's anticipate. So you're not getting, I'm getting three emails a day. Yeah. I know if I'm going to give a speech or something, there's some speeches around. I'm like, dude, don't change a word of that. Yeah. Don't go off script. Yeah. But you're going to be reading instead of going engaging. Yeah. And I have times where I'm like, I don't care. And then when it's printed, I want it to be exactly what is said here. So maybe I won't be the best performing orator, but what will be, what we'll live on after. Yeah. Will be exactly what I meant to say. Let me just ask you this, Mr. Risk Taker, what's the bigger risk? Carrying on? Like you're going, it's going well. Or taking the deeper dive. I grew up only knowing sort of the courage of the persistence. Be resilient. Endure. Get up. Dust yourself off. Go. Problem with that, the Achilles heel with that is you get up and get the courage to keep on going. Every time you get up and dust yourself off, you make the same mistakes each time around. Cause you never backed up to have what I've now learned. I'm still learning is the courage to go. No, I'm going to let some people pass me in the race right now. Cause I'm going to look at why I keep stepping in that damn same pothole and twisting my ankle. The same spot. Why I keep failing when I try to get that next spot in this relationship or failing in this place to get this product of my craft to the next. There's a time for everything. And for everything you reap, there will you sow. There's a time to kill. There's a time to live. There's a time to plant. There's a time to gather. And you need both. You know, I sit here with a life where I have the luxury to ask myself and ask others. No, make a sacrifice today. Sacrifice something today for more freedom tomorrow. Sacrifice something today for a possible healthier future for your kids. I understand that's a luxurious position. I'm not going to apologize that I'm in it. But I understand to someone in misery, they're going. It's a privilege, man. I'm trying to put food on the table right now. I'm paying my rent tonight. You want to talk to me about investing in my future? I'm trying to feed the family tonight. I'm not thinking past that. I can't think past that. Well, if you don't have the hope or believe in something, you're definitely going to remain where you are. And if you have hope and faith in something, I'm not saying it's 100% get out of jail. You're going to absolutely get out, but you got the best chance to. And what if there is nothing there, man? What if there's nothing to hope for? What if there's no next? I don't know. But either way, not having any hope or faith in anything is a certain way to remain where you are. But if you can find something, something that no matter how small, to look forward to and continually have faith in and chase, well, then your life here is going to be better now. 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. Now, 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, if I just thought it, that keeps me up at night. I think it keeps a lot of us up at night. When you half-ass something that 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 damn right that is for me. That's a great place to get to. I think part of the challenges in life is a lot of us are running around half-assing ourselves, half-fooling ourselves, not full of ourselves, not studying ourselves enough, not holding ourselves to task enough, not patting our own self on the back when we do get what we want enough, not cracking our own whip on our backside when we do get out of line, even though we knew better. I wish we were more full of ourselves that way. Someone said this to me before, Matthew, you're so full of yourself. And I, without thinking, I was like, well, who else am I supposed to be full of? That's a good line. And I stopped there and I was like, that's exactly what I meant. And I wrote that down. I wish more people were more full of themselves. I think we should take some time to be able to look in the mirror and own that thing that we pulled off and go, good job. That's what you wanted. That's what you got. At the same time, be able to, as we do more often, look in the mirror when we fail and go, bogey, you did not pull that off. Give others and yourself more credit. Happiness, you can't guarantee it, but there is a science to satisfaction there. You can look at habits that engineered less pain in your life, maybe more pleasure, but at least less pain. And that's, that's a win. 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. Start with what do you have an innate ability to? What's in your DNA? You know, I wanted to play basketball for years. I wanted to dunk. And it ain't my DNA, bro. I was never, I'm never going to dunk. No matter how hard I worked at it, I was never going to dunk. That's what I wanted to do. So look at what do you have an innate ability for? And then what then are you willing to pursue an education for, work for, hustle for that for which you have an innate ability for? And if we're going to talk about making a living, is that which you have an innate ability for? And now I've educated yourself, your talent to have a talent for, is that and how can that be something that the world demands? Because it's supply and demand. Boy, you can end up doing something you got an innate ability for, plus you become really good at it. And you learn the craft and the world demands it. You can supply it. There you go. But some of us have an innate ability, but we're not willing to, we don't work for it. We don't improve our skills. We kind of rely on what we got and it kind of become middle of the field. Sometimes I don't have the ability for it, but I'm going to learn a new craft and I'm going to hustle at it. And then actually, when we get good at something, we kind of can start to go, oh, I didn't know I loved it. I didn't like this anymore, but I like it now. It starts to feel good to do over and over. I was lost, man. I'm lost. I'm writing 16 page letters to myself and I'm returning them with a 17 page letter. About what? Existential cues, existential questions mixed in with, oh, everything is going great. Trying to talk myself and keep my head up. You know what I mean? And I said, okay, if I can't do what I want to do, I'm gonna quit doing what I've been doing. Cut the ----, McConaughey. Quit giving yourself that out, that parachute, even though you may have it. 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. Time to become a man. Walk forward. Peripheral vision. Get it. Own yourself. Walk forward with more courage and start becoming the man you want to be instead of acting like it and putting it off. Work at that hustle, hustle, hustle. I can't, I hate, and lying are three things that you got in trouble for. So what did I learn from don't say can't? That unable to do something, even if you can't pull it off, you can go find help. Which means you were just having trouble. What did I learn from getting a butt whooping for saying I hate you to my brother? Well, what I was learning is the antonyms to those words. Because saying I can't, lying, and saying I hate you were bringing me pain. So the opposite must bring pleasure, right? Tell the truth, love, and believe that you can. Those were the values how I remember them getting instilled in me. And to this day, I still have them. Trying to transform to my kids as well in a different way than my parents did. Anything exterior should not give you your identity. Why are you going to watch someone doing something when you can go out in the world and do it yourself? Believe is a verb. Do you remember these? Yes. You wrote this roughly around the same time in 92. Roughly actually when I was born, funnily enough. I saw the date on the top and thought it was a few days after my birthday. And again, you put fatherhood number one, but there's a series of other things on this list of your 10 goals in life. As you reflect on those goals, do you wish you hadn't written any of them? And is there anything else you wish you had written? No, I wouldn't change a thing about it. 10 goals in life. Become a father. Find and keep a woman for me. Keep my relationship with God. Chase my best self. Be an egotistical utilitarian. Take more risks. Stay close to mum and family. Win an Oscar for best actor. Look back and enjoy the view. Just keep living. I don't know what I'd add to that. One of the things that you've talked a few times about is this idea of needing resistance. You've said it two or three times. And we're going back to what it is to be a man and what it is to be a well-orientated, stable man. Needing resistance. Is that a goal to aim for? I think it's just a necessary necessity for having more than just an individual life at the top of the high rise. You got to have some resistance to have some form. You got to push off of something to go somewhere. It's very hard when you're just floating and no gravity and no resistance to actually pursue a north star. You have no leverage. You're floating. Where's the art? Probably more anarchy than art. So resistance gives form. Heard great artists say this. Limitations reveal style. Resistance. It's like in green lights. Life's just nothing but green lights. You got no yellows and reds, no reasons to pause or crises that stop you. Resistance? What are you, just go in circles? Do you run out of gas and get dizzy? I don't see that. How do we evolve or devolve without resistance? Now, picking the right resistance is an art in itself. It's challenging. I've been clumsy with it in my life. When, especially when I got famous and got success. Man, there's enough people telling me I love you and the caviar and the champagne. I was like, ----, why me? I don't deserve any of this. Things up on purpose just to say like, I tripped myself running downhill so I could bloody my own nose and go, ah, now I can feel. Okay, okay, now my heels are on the ground. I need, it's clumsy. So I don't think we need the kind of resistance that we create that can harm us or get in our way for getting in our way's sake. Cause I've come to learn. I think we all are. No, when things are going really well, resistance is going to come. If you stay with, if you have any ambition, resistance is going to come. We often see resistance as a form of failure and something that we should endeavor to avoid. You think about the avoidance of like people building families or even many people consider that we're living in a bit of a comfort crisis. This is slightly a different sort of analogy, but most of the diseases that we have today, whether they're diseases of, I don't know, the mind, like, you know, people feeling lonely and isolated or physical diseases. 80% of Americans getting back pain, but no one in the Hadza tribe in Africa getting back pain. They're all a consequence of us continually choosing comfort, which is a short-term friend, but long-term enemy. And the resistance I think is, is something increasingly we can choose, opt out of. It's a choice too. I mean, can I hit a little point that's on this subject? It's called tips included. And I wrote this based on participation trophies. Entitlement, how too much of something can be just as harmful as not enough. How we all need good fortune, good fate and charity sometimes, but we shouldn't rely on that. Okay, called tips included. When extra credit's included, credit doesn't get as due. When more gives us less, the exchange rate's gonna skew. When amnesty is offered, going into the crime, we're more bound to commit it because there's no fine. We start playing to tie instead of going for the win when participation is the trophy for every cow in the pen. If I stay on the porch because you picked up the slack, when you look over your shoulder, I can't have your back. If there is no curfew, we're gonna stay out all night. No tab at our bar, we're gonna get drunk and start a fight. All these long lenses got us losing our sight. You keep lifting it for me, I'm gonna lose all my might. When a four-star duty suits a six-star rate, we take our hands off the wheel and rely on fate. Eating all we can at the all-we-can-eat buffet gives us a 3.8 education and a 4.2 GPA. We steal from ourselves and get away with the scam. What's the measure of merit with less give a damn? These unlimited options sure have me confused while all the conveniences are keeping me properly lubed. In this red-light district with the horror of inflation, the ROI's math don't pay for vacation. So let's just admit it, this extra credit's quite a fluffer because when the tip's included, the service will suffer. The conveniences, the long lenses, everything's like, oh, and we've out-convenienced ourself. What's AI gonna do to us? Talk about convenience. How much, and I wanna keep hearing studies, I wonder if you have an opinion on this, how much of you coming up with an idea and then writing and rewriting it, thinking about it, no, no, no, no, that's not an X word, oh, no, this is what I really mean and how to get to, how much of that is really valuable to get it beyond just an intellectual idea, more valuable than just going, ah, there it is. Because what comes out of AI, incredibly impressive. Like a hunch is that, yeah, we can use it for like signpost to help us, oh, that's good, thank you for helping me organize. But there's a value to us going through the sweat equity of learning something. The studies have just, they've just come out using different things like Chachapiti have actually proven what you've just said to be true, that when people use AI to produce a piece of work, not only can't they recall what they've made, but they also start speaking in language more like the AI, so they start to lose their own voice. People like Richard Fryman, the physicist has said, the best way to learn something is to learn it and then to go through the pain of writing it, condensing it down to a simple truth like you do so often in your new book, Poems and Prayers and then sharing it with the world and then getting the feedback and if the world understood it like you meant it, like that poem you just shared, you understand it, that's evidence that you get it. So I think AI is going to be great for me saying something to you but not learning something myself and I think if you want to defend creativity and innovation and the ability to think, you actually have a huge opportunity which is to go left when everyone's going right and it goes to what you were saying there, you were talking about be careful when you mess with incentives, be careful when you choose the easier road, be careful of the unintended consequences and AI is a prime example of an unintended consequence of you taking the easier road today. Look, I still got to learn how to take a vacation because, you know, there's some times when the wind's at our back and we've earned it. There's some times when it's easy street and it's like, yeah, don't interrupt this, man. This is a sweet ass song. Trust that the hill's coming. Again, don't be so impressed with this and don't, what I have to do is don't fall into when things are going really well, I go, ah, there it is. That's the mean. No, it's not. Not with any ambition, it's not. Or not with life happening, it's not. Reality, shoot for an A and make a C. It's better than shooting for a C and making an F. So go for perfection. Reality always comes in under it, but in that moment when you see the inevitable reality, the outcome, the result, how quickly can we go, okay, but I got so much more out of it, the job, the person, myself, because I went for perfection than if I'd have just gone for, nah, dude, just, I mean, you know, just pass class. And, but what can be hard for me sometimes is it can take me too long to come down from when, oh, it didn't hit perfection. And maybe it takes me a week to go, dude, now do you finally realize that, of course you weren't going to get perfection, but you got so much more out of it because you went for perfection. Yeah. So be pleased with reality because you got a good grade on it, man. That was good. That piece of art was, wouldn't have been that true if you wouldn't have been, I don't know, like I always say this all the time and I never mean this in a disrespectful way. I've never done a movie or a performance that lived up to what I thought it could be because I'm thinking it can be divine. It comes out, maybe majorly inspiring, may speak to masses, even have some magic to it, but I don't think it's divine. And I think everything that's ever been built that's great or creatively brilliant has come from someone who has a big, a big expectation gap. And of course, the very definition of that, you're never going to close it. And actually, probably the reason you then are motivated to move to the next thing and pursue divine again is because it wasn't divine last time. Maybe there's still something left on the table and that means you never arrive. Right. But if you can find something that can keep you going, something no matter how small to look forward to and continually have faith in and chase, well, then your life here will be better than it is now, heaven or not.