Matthew McConaughey on Vision, Preparation, and Balancing Ambition with Family & Freedom

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 413.

Matthew:
You can waste away chasing green lights that are plugged into a little, two volt battery that aren’t going to shine for long. They’re stops, they’re not stays. So how can we define the ones that are like, “No, that’s an eternal green light. That’s a green light that I’d be honored to do now and I believe will pay me back and I’ll be proud of tomorrow.”

Intro:
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Brandon:
What’s going on everyone, it’s Brandon Turner host of the BiggerPockets podcast here with my co-host Mr. David Greene, for one of my favorite interviews I have ever done in my entire life. I was looking for this forever and I’m just excited to release it to you guys today. Today, we’re talking with Matthew McConaughey, David, thanks for joining me today on this momentous day for me. I don’t know, I’m like I’m a fan boy here. This is great.

David:
Fan boy, yeah, I would say that that accurately describes you, but it’s very impressive watching your preparation for this. And it just reminded me why I respect you because you went hard and this interview came out very, very good. And I’d say you deserve probably 54% of the credit for that.

Brandon:
Wow. Thanks man. Appreciate you. So today we’re interviewing Matthew McConaughey. Of course, you all know him. He’s an Oscar winner for Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club. He’s been in like half the chick flicks, romantic comedies ever made, A Time to Kill, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days; my wife was very excited about that one. Dallas Buyers Club, like I said, True Detective, Wolf of Wall Street and a million other movies. He’s phenomenal. And here’s the thing I’d been following him on Instagram for a long time. And then I find out he’s coming out with a book it’s called GreenLights and I’ve been watching him do his little… talking about it for the last few months.

Brandon:
And so we’ve been I don’t know, desperately maybe is the word, but trying to get him to come on the BiggerPockets podcast. Probably not the right word there, but I’ve been working at it. And then Kevin, our producer actually comes in for the win and was able to lock it down, which is pretty exciting. The thing you might be wondering is why is a guy like Matthew McConaughey who does acting going to talk to a bunch of people who are interested in real estate investing and money and entrepreneurship. But the truth is, the advice he gives on this episode and in the book is some of those, the most valuable information that’s going to make you either successful or not successful in life. And the way he phrases it within stories is just unbelievable. It’s a phenomenal book, so definitely check it out. David, you killed it on this interview as well. You had a lot of good insights, so I’m excited for people to hear it.

David:
Thank you. To be fair, Matthew made it really easy. Matthew, if you’re listening to this, thank you very much. You’re obviously a very good storyteller. And I thought that he came across sharing stories that were relatable to anybody. It was definitely not like we’re talking to somebody in Hollywood and this would never apply. I caught myself throughout the entire interview thinking, yes, this is what people go through when they can’t pick a niche, they don’t know what to do. Yeah, this is what people go through when they’re taking the wrong course, they’re on the wrong path and it doesn’t feel right and they don’t know how to get on the right one. So there’s some really good stuff here specifically when it comes to finding the mindset that will lead to you being successful that should be applicable for almost all of our audience.

Brandon:
100%, so today’s quick tip is simple, just go pick up a copy of GreenLights from Matthew McConaughey. It is amazing. They did not pay me to say that. I literally, I read this book and I was like, this was phenomenal. I read almost the whole thing in one sitting until while there woke up and had to get up. But it was hard to put down, so many good stories in there and we probably covered 1% of those in today’s talk. So go pick it up, I think you’ll love it. And now, I think we’re ready to jump into this thing. Anything you want to add before we start, David?

David:
No, let’s bring in Matthew.

Brandon:
All right, here we go. You guys, this is our interview with Academy Award winner, Matthew McConaughey. All right. Matthew, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast, man. It is amazing to have you here.

Matthew:
Thanks, Brandon. And good to be here.

Brandon:
Yeah. So we’re going to dive into your book today, GreenLights and your story. I’m not kidding. I literally read every word of this almost in one sitting when I got this and there’s a quote on the back from a guy we actually had on our show, a couple of times, kind of a friend of mine, Ryan Holiday, it says, it shouldn’t surprise you that this book is good, but it will surprise you just how good it is. And that’s exactly the words I thought when I read it. It’s phenomenal. So what I really want to do, I want to go through every single page of it, but we don’t have time for that. So we’re going to highlight some good stuff today. So why don’t we start at the beginning? It’s a very good place to start.

Matthew:
Yeah.

Brandon:
Your parents, let’s start there. Lessons learned from parents. You’ve got a lot of great stories in here about your parents and about the lessons they taught you, but if you could pull out one or two lessons from your, maybe we can take mom and dad that kind of shaped you who you are today. What can you share?

Matthew:
Sure, sure. All right, mom, she raised me more than dad did. My dad was definitely around, but he wasn’t around as much as he was for like my two older brothers because business got good and he was on the road peddling pipe. But mom, I mean, I remember this with mom. All right, so you come into breakfast. If you’re kind of grumpy, she’s like, “Get your butt back in bed. Don’t you come in here until you see the rose in the vase instead of the dust in the tape.” Wow, you had to go back. Or there’s time, you’re griping about, “I got this old ragged pair of shoes. I mean, they’re not that bad but everyone else has got the new Capers or whatever, nana can I get a new pair of shoes?” And she’d be like, “You keep griping about having those shoes, I’m going to introduce you to a kid with no feet.” You’d be like, “Whoa, geez.” The queen of relativity kind of giving you a baseline about what you wanted and what you actually may be needed.

Matthew:
She also, we weren’t allowed to watch much TV and I remember her saying she tarped this, “You’re not going to watch somebody do something for you that you could be doing for yourself. Get outside, go.” So, and I mean, what else? Because you got a place you’d be nervous to go to the school dance or go to up to public speaking. She’d be like, “You don’t walk in there like you want to buy the place, you walk in there like you own it.” And then she’s had these little one-liners that as kids we’d hear and they were not up for discussion. They were Proverbs. She also gratitude is what she taught me and my brothers a lot of, to be thankful for what you have and the more you’re thankful what you have, the more things you’ll create in life to be thankful for.

Matthew:
So that’s about five on mom. Let me give you a good dad one. But dad, he was big on certain values; you don’t lie, but a particular one was you don’t say the word C-A-N-T. And I remember it was a time where I was getting up a Saturday morning, did my early morning, Saturday morning chores, was from over yard weeding and I try to get the lawnmower started, it wouldn’t start, try again, wouldn’t start, wouldn’t start. I go inside for my dad and I go, “Dad, I can’t get the lawnmower started.” And I saw him kind of look up at me.

Matthew:
He slowly got off of bed, walked with me side by side, out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, out of the garage, back round the back shed where the lawnmower that I couldn’t get started was, he sat there, he cranked it a couple of times, it did not start. He did [inaudible 00:07:22] and started messing around and got a screwdriver. All of a sudden he found the gas hose was off and it wasn’t giving direct gas to the engine, he hooked that up, crank the lawnmower. And this has gone on for about 10 to 15 minutes without him saying a word. Now the lawnmower is running and he comes over to me and looks me square in the eye. And he goes, “You see son, you we’re just having trouble.” I was like, “Ah, yes, you’re right.”

Matthew:
And that’s been one a real lesson. That was a good one that was charged in me by my dad, because all of the times we think we’re unable to do something even if we ourselves are unable to, we can go sometimes seek help and get it done. Which means actually, we were just having trouble.

Brandon:
Yeah. I know one of those, you call them bumper sticker moments or bumper sticker lines that that kind of change your life. These, I don’t know, call them pithy, but they’re like impactful statements, right?

Matthew:
Yeah.

Brandon:
I read one, I think it was in the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. But it was basically, rich people ask how do I afford it, they don’t say I can’t afford it. Just like that subtle shift of asking how, I think how’s the powerful word in the language; how do we do this?

Matthew:
I was just listening to my pastor the other day and this whole month is on how we think not what do we think, how do we think? And a lot of that I think is what comes out of this book and that’s why I call it an approach book. I’ve had similar situations in hardships too, to a lot of people, but maybe I looked at them in different way. Maybe I deemed what was inevitable in their situation at the right time. And then got relative to it. I’ve had plenty of times where I didn’t do that the right way, and I didn’t get residuals for the choice I made or how I approach the situation. But I do think there’s a science to the satisfaction of how we look at something, how we look at a situation.

Matthew:
Not to deny it’s hardship, that’s what I mean by red and yellow lights are the things we don’t like and green lights are the things we do. But in the red and yellows, I’ve found that they give us what we need more often than we recognize sometimes. So how soon do we look at a situation that we may not like, that may not be ideal for us and go, “There’s something I’m supposed to get out of this. There’s a lesson I’m supposed to get out of this to catch more green lights in the future.”

David:
Yeah, that’s really good.

Brandon:
Yeah, I want to harp on this or talk about the screen lights analogy here for a little bit, or the way that you use that throughout the book, now this idea of there are green lights in life, there are red lights and there are yellow lights. Can you explain for those who haven’t read the book yet? And again, I want everyone to read it, but how did that work? Why is that the theme throughout this book and maybe throughout your life?

Matthew:
Yeah. And going back over 36 years of my journals and diaries which I did to get to this book, I noticed times where there were consistent ways, consistent choices I made today that bought me green lights tomorrow. All right, there were certain delayed gratification, that’s a green light. Let’s go to the simplest one in the book, put the coffee in your coffee filter the night before you go to bed, so you can get up in the morning and just press the button. You gave yourself a green light. You set yourself up, you were kind to your future self. So I noticed there were certain choices and that’s a very simple one. And those were certain choices I made in my life that had to do with responsibility, that gave me more freedom in the future.

Matthew:
I also noticed that there were certain hardships that I had, that I looked at them a different way and I either realized that, “Okay, there’s nothing I can do about this or I mean, there is something that I can do about it, but I’m going to quit pounding my head on the wall. And I’ve got to re approach the situation from a different point of view to get to the other side, the proverbial green light.”

Matthew:
I also noticed that there were many red and yellow lights in my life hardships crisis that revealed themselves to have green light assets later in my life. The year abroad I spent, was a living hell for me. I was going insane. I’ve never been more lonely and out of my mind in my life, but I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you or the life I have right now, if I didn’t have that year.

David:
I specifically we wrote down. I wanted to ask you about The Dooley’s.

Matthew:
The Dooley’s?

David:
Yeah, the Dooley’s. That should be a movie in itself just your year.

Matthew:
Well, I’ve written the script. There’s a script.

David:
Okay, good, good.

Matthew:
I think it’s a black comedy. It think, it’s a dark, dark comedy. Yeah, so that was a year where I was, when you read the story, you’ll see, I was going out my mind and really trying to find my bearing. But it was also a year where I didn’t have everything; I didn’t have the infrastructure around me that I could rely on. Meaning, I didn’t have a friend, I didn’t have a girlfriend, I didn’t have a golf clubs, I didn’t have my most handsome I had won on my senior year. I didn’t have mom, dad, I didn’t have my job that kept 50 bucks in my back pocket. I didn’t have any of those things. I was in the middle of nowhere with nobody. So I was forced into the Socratic dialogue to try and figure stuff out on my own. And it was clumsy for a while, it was. And that’s when I really leaned into actually writing, it was in that year.

Matthew:
But that year was so hard and I endured it based on a handshake saying I would not come back home before the year’s over. And in the endurance of it, I remember every time I’d be going like, “I got to go back home, I’m losing my mind. This is not going to work.” And I would go, “No, no, no. Hang in there don’t pull the parachute yet. There’s something in this for you.” And there was, because I was forced into an introspective year and I’d never been introspective before. So I was forced to find and forge my own identity on my own.

David:
I think there’s a lot of people that struggle with that, particularly our audience that are trying to figure out. I know I don’t like where I am in life, I don’t love this job, but I don’t know how to get to the other side where it seems like people have everything they want. And one thing you mentioned about that story in particular, was that you continually sort of floated around in this. Am I crazy? Is this normal? Why do I feel like this? What can I trust? You needed to find a solid place to plant your foot so you could get your bearings and sort of build on that. And it came from them asking you to do something that you absolutely knew, “Well, I know that’s not who I am.” And you sort of built on it. Can you share what that moment was like for you?

Matthew:
Absolutely. So there was a lot of odd things happening with me in the family that I was living with and everything I kept going, “Well, call that cultural differences, call that culture.” I kept taking the high road. And in hindsight I look back and I go, “You dumb ass McConaughey, if that was a cultural difference, you better be different.” But what happened was the one thing that I needed, sometimes it can start with one little thing. They, one night asked me to call them mom and dad. And I remember that I was like, “No, thank you. No.” And I tried to take the high road again by going, “Thank you for thinking of me that way but no, I’m not calling any either one of their mom and dad, other than my own mom and dad.” And it was very clear to me that that was not negotiable. And I needed just that at that moment is when I started to really find myself because I said, “Okay, I have something I can plant my flag on. Finally, after four months over here, I have something that’s like, no, no, no. That’s not for discussion. I’m not calling anybody, mom and dad other than my own mom and dad.”

Matthew:
And that gave me some footing. It gave me a stance to go, “All right, well now I’ve got that in my pocket. There’s one because over here and all the other things that I have no idea what’s going on, it’s loaded up to about 50 and I finally got one thing that I’m very clear about and I needed that clarity to give me some identity and sense of self. And from there I worked out of it and started to compound on the things, the assets that were more me. But I talk about this in the book, a lot of times we don’t know who we are or what we want to do and give ourself a break on that. And instead by process of elimination, start eliminating the things in our lives that do not fit who we truly are and are not what we truly want to do.

Matthew:
Look, we don’t all get to do what we love. The unemployment rate would be sky high, if everybody just said, “I’m not doing this unless I love.” So we go to work. Sometimes we’ll get fortunate and our work turns into a career. Sometimes we get a job or a career where we actually look forward to Mondays, but that doesn’t happen across the board. But if we can find a spot, hopefully where we go, what am I innate abilities? What is it that I love actually that could be in demand that it could be of a service that is, that could be in demand because we have to… in business, we’ve got to realize it’s supply and demand? And what is there a way, is there an angle in the business structure that I can parlay what I love and do some really hard work evolution and education to make a product that could be in demand? Then we have a better chance of starting to make a living doing something where we actually kind of we do look forward to Monday.

Matthew:
It’s not a guarantee, but I find it, if we can parcel something that we’re ready to really put some giddy up and some hard work into, that we also have an innate ability to do which is what I try to talk to younger kids in high school and college about, because it’s hard to know what we want to do. But eliminate what you’re not good at, what you don’t want to do. And then try to ask yourself, is there an innate ability that I’m willing to work for to evolve into being something that can be a product that could be in demand that I could supply?

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s so good. Hey, you mentioned like not everyone gets to do what they love and everything I can tell or read, and from what I know of you, you love being an actor. You’re good at it, obviously, you’ve won a lot of awards, but it wasn’t all… from reading your book, you weren’t always planning to be an actor, right?

Matthew:
No.

Brandon:
Yeah. You and I had a similar story, we both got to law school and both of us were sent away. So, what changed? How did that transition go from, I’m going to be a lawyer, which is something very respectable, most parents… I mean, I remember the day I told my dad I was going to be a lawyer, I know that transition. So how did that work for you? How’d you go from, I’m going to be a lawyer to I’m going to go and act?

Matthew:
Yeah. So being a lawyer was the only thing that I had ever expected myself to do and my family expected me to do since I was 12. I was a great debater, I would argue points longer than anyone else and have some good points. So I go to University of Texas, I do my first two years of college, liberal arts, now comes that time after two years where you better be focused a little more on what your credits are for, because if you change your course direction after your junior year, you were going to lose some credits. So I’m like, “I’m not sleeping well.” The idea of being a lawyer was waking me up at night. Meaning, you graduate here, you go to law school, then you get out and maybe get a job. You don’t really start making a mark until your 30s. And I was like, “I don’t really want to spend my 20s only learning.”

Matthew:
I’d been writing. And I had a friend who was in film school, NYU, I’d been sending him short stories. He’d be like, “You’re a good writer, Matthew. And you know what, I also think you should think about in front of the camera, you’ve got good character.” Well, I couldn’t admit the fact or that, “Oh, maybe I could be in front of the camera?” That was too, I don’t know, sounded foolish and maybe it was some kind of serious half-assed modesty on my own half of thinking I couldn’t do it, but it was out of the vernacular of my dreams even. But I did think, “Oh, what if I go to film school? I could get into the storytelling business? And that sounds good and I think I could be good at that.”

Matthew:
But dad’s paying for school, so I got a call dad. “This is not going to go well,” I think. So I decided I plan it out. What’s the best time to call him? All right, 7:30 PM, Tuesday night, he’ll be home work. He’ll have had a good dinner. He’s having a beer with mom on the couch. He’ll be happy. He’ll be open to a new idea. So I call him. “Hey, little buddy. What’s up?” “Hey, pop. Listen, I don’t want to go to law school. I want to go to film school.” Now I’m starting to sweat on the other end of the line, thinking I’m about to hear, you want to do what? I was raised blue collar; you work your way up a ladder and you’re going to be our lawyer.

Matthew:
And instead, what I hear is, “Well, is that what you want to do?” I said, “Yes, sir.” I’ve got another five second pause. And I’m going, and all of a sudden I hear three of the greatest words that have ever been told to me, “All right, don’t have acid.” And I went, “Oh.” I remember my knees buckling and just going, Oh. Not that he didn’t only just give me approval, he gave me freedom and responsibility and shot me like a cannon out and gave me something to be accountable for.

Matthew:
And he loved it that he heard his son who he’d been raising to have the formation, the structure, this is the path you’re going to go on and be a lawyer. He loved that he knew I meant, “No, I’m going to go my own way. No, I’m going to be a rebel. No, I’m going to go do something completely surprising.” And he knew by the tone of my voice, I’d been thinking about it. He knew it wasn’t a hasty choice. He knew by the tone of my voice that I didn’t come up with it that day like I got an idea and throw it at him, and he appreciated that and gave me the freedom to go do it and here I am.

Brandon:
That’s cool, man. It reminds me of, I had no intention of taking the interview this direction, but I’ll throw it out there anyway, the three us kind of share a common faith in God. And it’s almost the way that I look at… I used to think that life was like we we’re like Jonah. So God’s like, “This is what you’re supposed to do. I have this plan in place for you. You’re going to go to this thing, you’re going to do this thing. If you don’t, I’m going to make a whale eat you.” In reality, I think that life is a lot more like your situation with your father, I think that the fact that you discovered what you loved, probably delighted your dad. And so it wasn’t a matter of like, well, this now I’m going to punish you, but he was excited about that.

Matthew:
Yeah. Look, I mean, I talk about it in the book, and I think about a lot in my life about the balance between self-determination and faith. I’ve had my agnostic years, and as I write in the book, I was not so much trying to be in a denial of God, but I was into, “Hey, you got your hands on the wheel.” We each have our hands on the wheel. And I was pretty secure that I’m going in my prayer that God’s going, “Yeah.” That’s why you have will; you have your hands on the wheel.” If it’s all just faith, take your hands off the wheel and run the red lights. No, that didn’t sound like a good idea. We are each driving, we are responsible for ourselves and our own self-determination in accordance with, I believe a plan.

Matthew:
So going forward I’ve had many spots where I said, like at that time when I was agnostic going, “You just got to quit letting yourself off the hook for certain things you let yourself off the hook for McConaughey, there’s certain things you’re kind of forgiving yourself too quickly was my feeling at the time was that, there’s certain things you’re letting slide and you’re a repeat offender and quit letting yourself off the hook with this. And let’s just take it in our own hands. And I remember I didn’t feel ugly, I was still nervous when I’d pray. I got more nervous because I had gone into this time where I’m like, “It’s about me, [inaudible 00:22:55] it’s about me.” But I came to a point where I was like, “You know what, I think God appreciated me going, it’s on me. I think he appreciated me going put your hands on the wheel.” And he sat back going, “There you go. Good job. I like a trier. I love a trier.”

Brandon:
Yeah. My son is 11 months old and starting to walk right now. I love it. I love watching him try and fall down. I could hold them every single time, but I love watching him do that thing. And I think that’s exactly the way that our life is kind of, I think there’s such joy in trying from above, but also for ourselves.

Matthew:
100%. I mean, it’s the approach. It’s the overcoming, that’s the verb. And the verb is the holy word, if we think we’ve got it down, one, it gets boring, two, it’s untrue because if we don’t self-inflict it, life will, and through us a curve ball, and we got to handle something, but it’s the, I write about it a lot in the book, it’s the process. As individuals even as a nation, we’re each and aspiration chasing yet. And if we realize we don’t get there, you don’t land and go, “I got it now.”

Matthew:
It’s a constant evolution and hopefully it’s a small ascension, you know what I mean? That is not just a flat line. Like, “Oh, I’m not any more evolved at 70 than I was at four.” I don’t think that’s true either. But yeah, if it’s a small ascension and we’re continually chasing yet, and if we can stay in that race and commit to that chase, knowing that you never arrived at… it’s the way I said, can we just keep achieving things on the way to the unachievable and go, “Well, that’s the place. That’s the fall down and get up, fall down and get up, wait, mamma didn’t pick me up each time. It didn’t make me social secure.”

Matthew:
I’ve got a teacher in acting that would say I love to prepare for a role and I love to come in with a steady stance, and she goes, “Great. You’re steady, you’ve done your homework. Now that you’ve done that come into the scene on one leg while you’re off balance and find your balance in the scene.” So do the work early and then enter it and go, now I’m ready to dance and call audibles and work my way through the situation.

Brandon:
Well, and so that’s a point I want to address here too, is you have this vibe, obviously that like just living, having a great time. You’re just naturally good at acting. It just comes. I mean, I watched Dallas Buyers Club last night for the first time, kind of in preparation for this and it looks like you just naturally can do that. But one point, I think you made it when you were talking to Tim Ferriss in his podcast is, you said your game is the pregame. And so can we talk about that for a minute, the preparation that goes into that you’re not like? Or maybe you are just naturally gifted at this stuff, but I think there’s more.

Matthew:
Well, I think I had an innate ability to [inaudible 00:25:46] instincts for it, but again, I didn’t take an acting lesson until 1998 and I had been working for seven years. So I didn’t know what I was doing, but inherently I kind of did know what I was doing. What I’ve learned is pregame, pre-production is when I do the work, that’s the sweat, that’s the late nights, that’s the opining and going through and how many different angles to kind of look at this. So my job, as I see it is, one, to understand who my man is in a character in a role, two, to now come and break down every scene where I’m coming in with full versions of the truth.

Matthew:
So the director could say anything to me or another actor can do anything. I don’t care. Don’t even say, cut, keep it live, keep the camera rolling. I can handle this, let’s go, do it live, don’t audition. Don’t go get prepared. I’ve done the preparation, throw it all away. Now we’re live. We’re in the game, call the audible. Look at the defense, [inaudible 00:26:40] they didn’t want I expected, change it up on the fly. We don’t even need a time out, let’s go. And that I can only do that when I do that, if I’m fully prepared. If I’m fully prepared as well, I don’t get insecure, I don’t get defensive. If somebody gives me direction or somebody does something that maybe I disagree with just roll with it, I’ll just dance with it, go Eastern philosophy with it, slide it on by and move on to the next. And so that’s when I say, when I’m working actually, when it’s live, when I’m on set, now I’m playing it. Now I’m dancing. If I’m doing my job, well, if I’m prepared enough, now I’m free.

David:
Yeah. What you’re describing is building a skill in what you’re doing by preparing for yourself, educating it, you understand acting. And so if the defense comes at you differently than you were prepared to, you’re like, “Hey, this is just football. I know what to do when this happens.”

Matthew:
It’s just football. Also do this, if you’re a defense attorney and I played a few lawyers. When I was playing a defense attorney, I studied the prosecution’s position as much or more than I studied the defense. When I started playing a prosecutor, I studied the defense as much or more than I said the prosecution. So it’s knowing also, what is it, the other sides? What is it that the obstacle that you’ve got overcome? What is their intent? What is it they want? What is it they need? And understand that and even agree with it; it’s okay. And then come back and go, “Well, now I even know what their goal is, perfect, I understand both sides. I would want that too. Great, call.” You see what I mean? So it’s understanding what would be the considered opposition as well, to understand how to play your… understand the defense well you’ll, play offense better.

David:
And do you feel that’s what made you a good debater when you were younger, is that you had this natural way of looking at other people’s perspectives which made you better at your job?

Matthew:
To have the empathy of the other side and trying to see the argument on the other side. And I got to keep working on that too, because I can get pretty bullheaded sometimes and shut down an argument and then when I go back and listen to myself or a good friend will go, “You didn’t really discuss that. You said that was [inaudible 00:28:45]. I look back and I’m like, “You’re right, I didn’t even consider it. I was so secure that I was in the know that…” Or when someone comes at you with a CliffsNotes version of a situation and you’ve already been processing it for weeks or months and you’re like, “No, I don’t have time to catch you all up on it. Just listen to me, follow what I’m doing.” I can be a better listener sometimes now.

Brandon:
And talk about preparation and getting ready for those roles and stuff. You tell a story in the book and you talked about a friend of yours, his name I want to get this right, Denton Van Zan.

Matthew:
Denton Van Zan.

Brandon:
Yeah, right. So by the way Reign of Fire, I graduated in ’03 and that came out I think in ’02. And I remember my senior year, I had a poster of Reign of Fire on my ceiling of my bedroom because I thought it was the coolest movie poster of all time and still one of my favorite movies. So Dan Van Zan, can you talk about him? What attracted you to that character so much?

Matthew:
Well, you’re well on the way to have the Denton Van Zan beard plus some.

Brandon:
I’m definitely working on it.

Matthew:
Look, this was a time where I had a two year of my agnostic years. And Denton Van Zan was not a guy trying to survive, Denton Van Zan was a guy that tried to stave off extinction. There’s a freedom in that. I love to find characters that are islands of men, that they are on their own. You saw Dallas Buyers Club? What’s that man trying to do? Stay alive. Well, you want to have a role that calls up all your resources to the most base level stay alive, talk about a need not a want. That’s a need. Well, Denton Van Zan was very similar, stave off extinction. When I’ve had that in my pocket at every choice I make, what happens? You lose sentimentality, you don’t deal with mendacious BS.

Matthew:
You don’t get overly emotional with things that aren’t just life or death circumstances and you just handle the job and you go through… So you have a very clear singular vision and it can be, what you do can be based off of, how I behave and the choices I make in a character like that are all based off of, I don’t give a damn about anything else besides staving off extinction, my own and humanities right now, period. Next. So man of few words, you know what I mean? Man of action. What are we talking about? We can do this easy or we can do it really easy. Boom.

David:
I love it. The beauty of that frame of mind is that you can’t let yourself off the hook. Like you mentioned earlier, that’s one of the enemies to success is when you start giving yourself permission for not being who you are, not heading in your own standard. The hardships that life brings are often scenarios where that’s not an option, but your circumstance, your environment, your scenarios are forcing you to hold yourself to a higher standard. And there’s something about human nature that doesn’t like that, but man when you look back at all the people that have developed something special it was usually in those scenarios.

Matthew:
You need it. A parent passes away, you’re having your first newborn, there’s a family crisis, boy, three things that’ll shake your proverbial floor and go, “Oh, all the other BS maybe I was worried about, this just took first place. This just took priority whether I wanted it to or not, it’s not negotiable.” Go handle that. I know in my life that’s been a lot of the times when that other crisis that I had like, “What am I doing? I’m not getting the work I want,” or, my career’s not going as well.” I got a much better perspective on those things, because I was having to deal with something that was much more crucial. The birth of a child, the death of my father, a family tragedy that needed me to be all hands-on deck to handle the damn thing.

Matthew:
So when those things come in life that are more important than maybe our career ambitions… I think our default thought is like, “Wait, but if I put my career ambitions in second place, I’m not going to achieve them or they’re not going to be as important.” No, if you’ve got a good work ethic, trust yourself. You actually may do better at it because you’ve taken the pressure off of it, not having to define your end-all be-all because this real dire moment came into your life and interrupted your life and your own ego and made you go to work. And you go back and things that used to be maybe… I would come out of those and go back into situations where maybe I would have been nervous or not taking the right risk and I come back going, “Oh, I’m taking this because this is nothing. I do what I have to do and I just went through, this is nothing. Watch this happen, press record.” We need them to sober us up sometimes.

David:
A lot of that clarity will come from knowing who you are and what the right move for you is in any given moment, and I know Matthew, you have a story or a belief system about when you became a father that the next six months of time you had immense clarity on exactly who you were and what you needed to do. And I thought you gave some advice that was some of the best I’d heard when you said, “Whatever your gut tells you during that time, buy this stock or make that move, triple down on whatever that is.” Brandon and Kevin here both just became new fathers, and I’d love if you could share some advice about how you know when you’re in that zone.

Matthew:
Because you’re in it. Did that just all of a sudden change? Have you seen further wider or clearer in your life than right now?

Brandon:
Yeah, 100%. And a lot of it just the perspective. Like what you just said, when you go through those hard moments of life, all of a sudden put’s in perspective but also when you go through the really good ones, I completely changed my entire work life around that maybe.

Matthew:
Well, and you just became immortal. You just did it. Man’s never more masculine than at this time, and again, I don’t mean macho. I had certain things where even before having my first child where maybe I was more macho or something and I look back and after I had my first child I’m like, “Oh, okay.” The old penis size joke is out the window now, I just created a child. You know what I mean? I just brought life into earth. That’s what that tool’s for, you know what I mean?

Matthew:
So it’s a great time of clarity and I do believe it’s when a parent becomes immortal. And hopefully you’re fortunate enough, we all are, that our children have children pass it on, their children have children pass that on. And it’s the greatest shadow we can leave, the greatest beam of light we can leave. Talk about a legacy choice, he’s made one. You created one and now when you’re gone, what that, as you move on and that child moves, as you raise and shepherd them and they move out of the house that’s the beautiful extension of ourselves, the most beautiful, I think.

Brandon:
Probably my favorite line in the entire book was when you said and you said it a couple of time, it was, “The only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was a father.” I thought it just resonates, you know those statements that just resonate in your soul and you’re like, “Yes.” So I’m wondering now that you’ve been a father, you have three kids, right?

Matthew:
Yeah.

Brandon:
So what have you… I guess not so much what have you learned, but to a young father like myself or many who are listening to this, what kind of advice can you-

Matthew:
You have a son or daughter?

Brandon:
I got two now. My daughter is four but I got a-

Matthew:
Oh, you got two?

Brandon:
Yes, a son who is 11 months old.

Matthew:
Okay. So as you’re probably already starting to tell, it’s more DNA than you probably thought. I mean, I really thought it was like 80, 20 to the environment side and all of a sudden I had a child and like, “Oh, that’s inverted. They are who they are, okay. I can-”

Brandon:
Especially with two. I raised them both the same way it’s like, “Why is my second one insane and the first one was an angle? I don’t know”

Matthew:
Right. The second one, which you’re probably getting with your four-year-old now is how much sooner and earlier in their age they pick up innuendo between you and their mother. They pick that stuff up so quick. I remember my other son was like, I don’t know if he was two or three and there was something about the dinner that night and they loved corn and I didn’t know if we had it, so I say to Camila, my wife, “Hey, do we have any C-O-R-N?” I do want to say that out loud, she’d be like, “Oh, corn, we have corn?” And if we didn’t have it, then, well, I’m done. “Do we have any C-O-R-N?” She’s like, “Yeah, I’ll get them.” My son looks up he just goes, “I know how to spell dad, corn.” I’m like, “Dang, I didn’t think he knows how to spell that yet.”

Matthew:
As you know, it’s their first time every time. And though we’ve been down that path, the similar path they’re going on or in a situation 100 times, it’s their first time. I try to look at it like a limb on a tree, a child’s not afraid of heights until they fall. So when do you take away that innocence? If they’re up there 10 feet, whatever, eight feet and it’s got a nice grassy lawn below it and they’re out on the limb and they haven’t fallen yet and they’re confident as all get out, maybe let them keep going because if they fall and they get a bump and bruise that’d be good for them.

Matthew:
But then all of a sudden, they’re up there about 30 feet and you’re like, “They’re not afraid of falling yet. They’re not afraid of heights, but if they fell from that one, we’re going to the emergency room.” Maybe I need to calmly and coolly go, “Hey buddy, come over here, look over here on the truck of the tree. Yeah, come down. There’s a little lizard, he’s just below that, come on.” And slowly walk them down to where you go like, “Okay, do you want him to fall from that height?” But yeah, where do we let them go negotiate on their own? Because what do we remember the most?

David:
The painful lessons, yeah.

Brandon:
The difficult times.

Matthew:
The difficult, the lesson, the experience, much more than when we’re told. “Don’t go up there because if you fail you would be hurt.” They’re like, “What, I’ve never fallen before. Why’d you just now make me scared of it for the first time?” So where do we let them negotiate? Where do we put in front of them? Not ask them, “What do you want to do in life?” Ask them, “What do you love?” Keep throwing that in front of them and then just try and keep them out of any kind of harm that could really, really harm them, but other than that they’re pretty resilient little buggers.

Brandon:
That they are. It’s been amazing to watch the… You’ve been through it now with three of them, watched their, what do they love, their interest? Which way do they go? And then to be able to try to pour into that where it’s like, it’s not my thing but I love the fact that Rosie loves ballet I don’t know why, I don’t get it. There’s something in her that just resonates that way, and that’s been fun.

Matthew:
Yeah. And they’re turning me on, they turn us on as parents and get us into things that maybe we wouldn’t have done before, unless they were interested in that. All three of my kids are better on computers now than I am. They teach me how to have to navigate this stuff. My daughter’s the best at it. She’s got the scientific mind where the rest of us, then family are trying to figure out how to get these things going she’s just like, “Here you go.” “Oh, all right. Thank you.” My oldest son is very much like me, we’re storytellers. We like to create like where’s the… We can’t find the car keys. Well, maybe they were in the jacket that you came in with last night. And did mama maybe put that in the closet because maybe it’s still in the jacket pocket in the closet, so maybe we should go there. Or maybe mama took the car out earlier and she’s got them and she’s upstairs.

Matthew:
And then Vida will walk by, my daughter, the really one who just cuts right to the truth, walk by and she’s been over on the side just drawing and doodling. And she’ll just walk by with that look and go, “Hey, look at my picture.” And you look at the picture and go, “That’s great.” And she’ll go, “Cool, thanks. Did you check the ignition?” And you walk off, and damn sure they’re in the damn ignition and you’re like, “Ah, okay.” While Levi and I were over here working up a conspiracy theory and Vida’s like, “Did you check the ignition? Later.” And she was right.

Brandon:
I love it. So good. All right, man. Let’s go back to acting a little bit here, and I want to translate this to something everybody deals with. You’re getting started, you’re doing these films here and there and then you get this major role I think it was A Time to Kill and everything changed in your life. Can you talk about that transformation? What did that movie do for you before and after it coming out?

Matthew:
So I started acting in ’92 in Dazed and Confused, but it wasn’t until ’96 when A Time to Kill that I became famous and I remember it very clearly. The Friday before A Time to Kill, it opens up 7:00 PM Friday night. Well, that afternoon at 4:00 PM three hours before A Time to Kill’s about to premiere, I’m walking through Third Street Promenade. 400 people in the Promenade, 396 minding their own business, four of them looking at me; two girls who thought I was cute and a couple of other guys who liked my wardrobe. I go have a tuna sandwich and go back home.

Matthew:
Also on that Friday, there’s 100 scripts I would have done anything to do but 99 of them were not being offered, one of them was. Cut to Monday, so we got Friday night it opens, Saturday, Sunday, now Monday, same afternoon, same time 4:00 PM. I walk back down the Promenade to go get my tuna sandwich, just like I did last Friday. 400 people on the Promenade, now 396 of them are staring at me and four are not, it’s completely inverted. Also of those 100 scripts, I would have done anything to do just two days ago; 99 nos, one yes, now Monday, 99 yeses, one no. The world’s a mirror.

Matthew:
Someone comes up, “I’m sorry about Ms. Hud.” I’m now going, “Whoa, wait a minute. What’s your name? How’d you know I had a dog? How do you know her name is Ms. Hud? And how’d you know she had cancer to say I’m sorry about it? You just skipped four formal howdies and went straight to that.” “Oh, I love you. I love you. Oh, we love you Matthew.” Wait a minute, that’s a big word, man. In my family, we’ve only said that to four different people everyone’s saying that [inaudible 00:42:57] Do they mean it? I don’t know.

Matthew:
So all of a sudden, well, my ceiling of options in my life the roof came off, my feet started to feel a bit off the ground. I needed to discern what was real, what mattered, who I was in all of this, what to take in as meaningful and what to disregard. So I got out of Dodge and the first place I went was to this monastery in New Mexico, Monastery of Christ in the Desert. And with all the new found affluence and all the champagne and caviar and pats on the back and “Oh my God. Unbelievable. You’re so great, blah, blah, blah.” And all these, “You can do any of these scripts.” And I’m going like, “Wait a minute, two days ago I would have done any of them and now you’re telling me I can do all of them. Well, what do you want me to do? How do I find some discernment and discrimination in my own self to decide? I don’t know, I need more than 24 hours a day and you’re not giving them.”

Matthew:
So I went away and I went to this monastery where they said if you come off the small old two-lane highway and you walk the 13 and a half mile dirt road, if you ring the bell we’ll find a place for you to sleep. Well, I go in there and I sleep the night. I wake up the next morning and I told the father, the abbot of the monastery, I said, “I need to talk to somebody. I got some things going on in my life and my mind, I want to get off my chest.” He goes, “This man, Brother Christian would be a great man to talk to.” So Brother Christian and I go for a walk across this desert together. He’s got his hands behind his back and I’m letting it out, man. Oh, sins of the mind, sins of the thought, sins of the deed. I had a disk. I don’t understand this. My head and my heart are not communicating as well as I wish they were. I feel disconnected from God, et cetera.”

Matthew:
Four hours, I purge, confess, made a confession. I’m weeping, man. We end up back at the chapel sitting on a bench and I’m finishing up my confession, boogers are running down my nose, I’m crying and I finish. He hasn’t said a word in four hours, he just listened. And I finish and I’m waiting there, 15 seconds go by nothing. And then I look up at him and he looks at me and he goes, “Me too.” I’m like, “Oh, thank you. Oh my God.” It was exactly what I needed to hear. He was letting me know that I wasn’t the only one, that this is part of the human experience. He did not give me advice. He let me know that, “Hey, this is part of the human experience.”

Matthew:
It let me forgive myself for a lot of things. It let me move on in my life for a lot of things and I went back, navigated, did some films and then very soon after that took another trip by myself where I went off to Peru and flown to the Amazon. I had 22 days of my own with a backpack. I’ve taken many trips into solitude and very much a backer and believer that that’s good for each of us to do when and if we can.

Brandon:
Yeah, I totally agree. I think that advice too, about the listening, is something that most husbands, especially myself, could take a page out of and learn. I’m the first one who wants to be like, “Well honey, this is what you should do to fix your problem,” versus-

Matthew:
A lot of times our wives don’t want to hear the solution. Guilty, yes.

Brandon:
I had a guy recently tell me, he said when you get in those situations, ask the question, do they want me to fix it or do they want me to feel it? And it’s just like that simple phrase, do you want me to fix it or you want me to feel it? And so, I will literally ask my wife now, when she’s complaining about something I’m like, “Honey, do you want me to fix this or do you want me to feel this?”

Matthew:
What does she usually say?

Brandon:
99% of time, “Just feel it with me. Just be here in this moment with me. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it better.”

Matthew:
So actually, asking that question out loud does it sort of overly contextualize the moment to where she’s like… Because you know what I mean, sometimes if we have to ask that question it’s like, “There’s nothing romantic about it, it’s like now we’re scheduling things. What do you mean? “If you would have just felt it instead of trying to fix it, it would have been better than if you asked me if you wanted to feel it.” So she’s good with it, she’s good with you asking?

Brandon:
Yeah. She’s been good with it but the truth is it’s if you ask it, I think you already know the answer, I think I already know what it is so I don’t need to ask it because the answer is always the same.

Matthew:
Heard, heard, heard.

Brandon:
All right. Okay, so let’s go back to, you’ve got all these things… you became famous basically overnight, and now you have a million good options. Now people listening to the show right now maybe will never be famous in that regard but they do have a lot of good options that sometimes just the green lights just line up and you just go, how do you know what to do? How do you know what the right path is? How do you pick the right thing?

Matthew:
Yeah, right. That’s the great question. If we are, and when we are in those times of affluence or we have set up and do have a lot of green lights in front of us. I went through a bit of a time where I was in a non-deserving complex, I think it’s got an updated name someone clinically called that. But I went through a time where I just… Are you kidding me? All of this is awesome, I’ll just do this. I’m so happy to be here. But the lesson I learned after my father passed away or continued to try and learn is, being less impressed and more involved. If we’re in a fortunate position to have green lights in front of us that we’ve created or gotten lucky or whatever it doesn’t matter, we have to look and go, “All right. Because I can now for the first time, let me ask myself if I really want to before I do.”

Matthew:
Because you can waste away chasing green lights that are plugged into a little two-volt battery that aren’t going to shine for long, they’re stops, they’re not stays. So how can we define the ones that are like, “No, that’s an eternal green light. That’s a green light that I’d be honored to do now and I believe will pay me back and I’ll be proud of tomorrow,” whatever that proverbial tomorrow is on our deathbed or beyond.

Matthew:
So disseminating between those in times of affluence, is I think the real art and real challenge. Especially when it comes upon us for the first time. As I was talking about earlier, “I need more than 24 hours a day I would have done any of these yesterday and now you’re telling me I can do all of them?” Try and jump ahead, I’m a big fan of jumping ahead in our lives. And in the book, I actually call it the ultimate ahead which is, go all the way to the eulogy and say what’s the story that’s going to introduce me when I’m gone forever and I’m writing that story now. But if you can’t go that far or have trouble going that far, just go ahead five years. If you can go further, go 10 years and have a look back and have a conversation with yourself 10 years looking back going, “How was that? What do I think about that time, that choice you made, that way forward?”

Matthew:
Also, there’s a lot of lights we catch on the way to where we want to go and if we’re fortunate enough to be able to see where we want to go, ask if it’s on the path or if it’s a detour or sometimes actually that’s a green light but it may actually be taking me the other way and maybe having me doing a full U-turn. That’s not the one I want, I’ve got my headline written where I want to go. So again, when you can ask yourself if you want to before you do, is a pretty good one.

David:
Yeah. I like it. I heard one of my basketball coaches when I was in high school told me that one out of 10 people can handle adversity but out of those 10, only one of them can actually handle prosperity. That the weight of prosperity can be very, very difficult. So can you share a little bit about what you’ve learned when it comes to maybe wanting more green lights than you’re ready to handle at this point in your life and that not always be in a blessing?

Matthew:
Yeah. Again, I think it’s art on both sides. There’s an art to running downhill when things are going well. I have face-planted myself with that non-deserving complex, “Wait a minute, this is going too well. It can’t be this good, I don’t deserve this.” Poof. “Oh, well, you didn’t need to do that Mcconaughey because the uphill’s coming,” as we find out later. So that’s not a great prescription, although I understand it. There’s other times where it’s going so well, I just said that you’re just caught up in it and you’re just going, “Man, I’ve been doing this for two years now. I’m on autopilot. I don’t even feel my feet on the ground. What’s important to me? I don’t know, but I can do it to just keep on doing it.”

Matthew:
We have to create some sort of demarcation for ourselves when we’re succeeding or else it can all start melt together and it feels like one thing and you look back and, “Oh my gosh, my career is so awesome, and just where I wanted to be. Oh my gosh, my wife and I are divorcing. Oh my gosh, my kids are wondering where dad is. I got all the asset. I went into the black here, but I went into the red back there.” So where do we constantly check in on, how’s my career doing? How am I doing as a husband? How am I doing as a father? How am I doing with my relationship to God? Just checking in with these things, whether it’s at the end of the day or at the end of the night if we can’t get to them through the day. But try to check in and go, “Am I still in the black here? I’m I still on the asset section in these parts of my life?”

Matthew:
Because sometimes it’s easy to get the blinders going full ahead and the green lights and not look in the rear-view mirror and all of a sudden… or not look next to you and you pass by. You’re running faster than your spouse. You’re running faster than your kids and you’ve blown by and you look back and you thought they were right there on your side and they weren’t, because you weren’t looking. We just got to just check in, I think, from time to time and say, “What are the things I value? Let me write those things down,” and just daily check in on those. I know we’re not going to be perfect because if we’ve got a good spouse, we’ve got a good family, they’ll understand there’s a season for everything. “Hey, dad’s going to really go hammer the road right now. Dad loves what he’s doing. He’s so happy to have worked to get to a place he loves what he’s doing, he’s really going to put his nose down on this. Okay, now I need you all to come with me or just be there for me and understand that I’ll be away.”

Matthew:
Usually they’ll understand, if we set it up early. And then if they understand, we can go do that thing without having to do the old proverbial look over our shoulder and wonder if everything’s okay back there because when we turn around they’re like, “We’re right behind you man go, go, go, go, go.” Just check in on those things and know that every one of our own actions for ourself, affect a lot of other people.

Brandon:
Man, that’s awesome. Well, we almost got to get out of here. We’re going to let you go in just a second, I got one or two follow up questions to close this thing. First one I’m curious, how do you balance professional ambition, like wanting to achieve these big goals? And by the way, we don’t have time to go into it necessarily but the 10 goals sheet at the end of the book is phenomenal, it was just crazy to read those 10 goals.

Matthew:
It was crazy for me to read too.

Brandon:
Yeah. Right. We’ll leave that as a tease to go check out the book obviously. But how do you balance that with this idea of desiring freedom and family and time, how do you balance the two?

Matthew:
Well, one, I’m very fortunate in that before Camila and I agreed to trying to have children, she looked me in the eye and she goes, “On one condition, when you go, we go.” Meaning my job takes me all over the world, she said, “When you go to work, we’re all going that’s it non-negotiable.” And I pretty soon said, “Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.” I had interviewed quite a few people that were elder men in my business and had asked them, “How did you do it? You have children, your work took you away, how’d you do it?” All of them said, “Well, you have to have them choose friends and school and life or dad and I let them choose friends and school.” And every one of them said, “I regret it.” Every one of them said, “I wish I would have been more selfish actually and said no, when I go, we all go. We’ll work out that other thing, I know it’ll be hard taking you away from your friends at times but we’re going to work that out because our family is what’s most important.”

Matthew:
All of them regretted not doing that. So what we’ve tried is to do what Camila said, “If you go papa, me, we all go.” So that’s a big help, meaning, I immediately have those things I was talking about a minute ago that I don’t want to go to in the debit section; my husbandry and my fatherhood, I immediately have them at the end of today in person. It’s a lot harder for someone who doesn’t have the possibility to take their family with them and they got to go home and do a phone call. FaceTime helps, but it’s not as good as the real thing but it’s a lot better than what it used to be just a phone call. But to try and maintain those relationships over a phone it’s harder.

Matthew:
I am making my own decisions on the work I want to do, but my wife’s very good at challenging me for the why on all my decisions and I’ve learned that the work that I really do love and want to do and should have done. It’s very clear when I post my argument and she cuts me off in the middle and goes, “I get it. Say no more. Yes, we’re going.” Now, if I can’t pull that off, her spider sense with me of knowing me and being able to convince her about why, she’s like, “No, I’m not convinced yet, I don’t think you are either,” and she’s usually right.

Matthew:
So I have a good person to bounce that off of when it comes down to, “Hey, we’re going to pick up our lives for six months and go away. And I know that’s not easy for you all to do, it’s actually harder for you all than it is for me. I have something that I’m going to build. I have a script and architecture of a character I’m going to build. I have something that’s given me purpose every single day, definitively. I have a structured life I’m going to and you’re all going with me and we’ve got to figure it out if we’re going to do mobile school, are we going to put you in the school there, housing, what’s the day, give the kids some structure through the day.” So there’s a lot of consideration that goes into it, but I’m in a position where I try to balance those two.

Brandon:
That’s great.

David:
I think there’s something very valuable about your children seeing you in that role, because so much work has gone in on your behalf to build the character that you have to make it in the professional world. And for your kids to be able to see how people respond to you, the respect that you hold, how you approach the day, instead of just dad that comes home and plays around with them they have no idea what you were actually doing in this huge chunk of your life, it’s teaching them the things that your father taught you that you need to pursue your passion and with that comes hard work.

Matthew:
Well, I’ve got a great example on that point.

David:
Please.

Matthew:
So I win the Academy Award for Best Actor. I got the trophy. My kids go, “Why’d you get the trophy?” I go, “Remember a year and a half ago when we were in New Orleans and every morning you get up, papa’s already gone to work. I get home, you tell me I look like a giraffe because I was so skinny.” I said, “For that 30 days ago, you remember that when papa was super skinny?” And they go, “Yeah.” I go, “Well, the work I was doing all day, a year and a half later today, my peers deemed it excellent work.” It actually framed with delayed gratification. And then they then go, “Oh, you can actually…” because you know children are immediate, it’s all about right now. They went, “Oh you can do something today that you can get rewarded for tomorrow?”

Matthew:
Which is basically what a green light is. “Yes, you can.” You can design, you can engineer green lights through being good at what you do. And so that was a cool lesson for them. They saw, oh, papa comes home, he eats with us, then he stays up and he puts as to bed then he stays up and he studies for two hours then he goes to bed. He’s gone when we wake up. He’s working and we see him on set. He’s professional, he knows his stuff. They were “You were doing something then that they gave you a trophy for later, how cool.”

David:
Yeah, that’s awesome. I heard that story. I thought it was hilarious that your son mentioned that you look like a giraffe while you’re out there winning an Oscar.

Matthew:
I did.

Brandon:
I love it, yeah.

David:
So the last thing I want to ask you, Matthew, is that with success in your chosen vocation or whatever you’ve done in life, it doesn’t always happen but it often precedes financial success. And I just wanted to get your 2 cents on, what’s your perspective on money, investing, giving, what do you think the best use is for money? What’s your personal approach on that?

Matthew:
Look, I’m in a very fortunate position. The rent’s paid, the roof’s over our head, the pantry’s full. Even more important to hear, as important, somebody gets sick we can go to the right doctor. My wife reminds us and the whole family of that all the time, because where she came from in Brazil it was not like that. She’s like, “Man, we’re in a position where if someone gets sick, we can actually go to the emergency room but we can reach out and try and find someone who’s the best to handle that situation. We cannot take that for granted.” She reminds us of that often.

Matthew:
It’s personal because I’m not one that wants to die with the most money or with the most toys, doesn’t turn me on. At the same time, I’m very physically responsible. Meaning I don’t… I’m all for that old adage, hey, if something’s on sale, don’t buy it unless you would have bought it if it was regular price, you know what I mean?

David:
Yeah.

Matthew:
So I came from a family that’s very much about value and the dollar and you don’t waste and if you see a penny on the ground you pick that damn thing up because you found a penny, you know what I mean? We’re trying to do our best to teach the kids that. As far as the giving back, I’ve got my own foundation that Camila and I started, the Just Keep Living Foundation, where we put a lot of our funds in that. A lot of my speaking engagements money I’ve put to that. I will say this, I do not think that charity or philanthropy is truly anyone’s personal responsibility, I think it’s people’s personal choice.

Matthew:
And I actually have said this before and I’ve had to wiggle my way out of this to explain it, but I’m going to say it again because I believe it. The more selfless we are, we find out that it was actually the most selfish choice in the long run. Meaning, the stuff we do with our foundation is a very selfish endeavor. For to see those children receive what we’re able to give them and see the smile on their faces, selfishly makes me feel good. I’m not manufacturing that idea. I’m not manufacturing that feeling. It selfishly makes me feel good and I believe that that’s the spot that I know I’m trying to chase down, which is where does the best decision for the I also become the best decision for the we? Where does the most selfish decision become the most selfless and the most selfless become the most selfish? Where does what we want become what we need and what we need actually be what we want? That’s the honey hole going forward to try and chase down.

Matthew:
I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there but that’s what the coolest dudes like Jesus and stuff were doing, they were part and parcel. Those were not a contradictory ideas. They were the third eye. They were the paradox, the beautiful place of truth. Everyone’s got a right to do what they want to with their money. I don’t want to leave my kids too much to where they don’t feel like they have to work and create and go make something happen, but I do want to leave them enough to go, “Hey, we’ve introduced you to this affluent life, we’re going to give you a little something to get started. Here’s enough to be a fishing pole,” so to speak, rather than layout an open account fish bucket, you know what I mean?

David:
A sushi bar.

Matthew:
Yeah. So everyone’s personal about it. It becomes how much is enough? Everyone’s got a different… but it’s a good question for anyone to ask themselves because what’s really enough, I’m already inches deep into the… I don’t think any of it’s soft money but after a certain point it’s like what is the difference? Is more going to actually create any different quality of life? And at someplace you can go actually no less and getting rid of some things that I have because you know what happens, you get more money you need to go build a getaway. Well, then something you need to build to get away from your get away, then you want to build a getaway from getaway from getaway and you look at me like, “Jeez, I got four places and I got staff in every one of them, taxes on those things. Well, we were there for two days last year, do we really need that place?”

Matthew:
So to actually descale sometimes and go, instead of making Bs and 10 things in our life sometimes it’s best to go, let me get four things in my life that I want to make straight As in and have more quality in those things and really double down on those.

Brandon:
That’s an excellent, excellent way to end this show because, again that advice of, I even wrote that down in here and underlined it in the book and circled it as, you said you were getting straight Bs in a lot of areas in your life and you pared down to just a few As and just made a huge impact on me. So thank you Matthew for joining us today, this was phenomenal. Really good.

Matthew:
Thank you all.

David:
Thank you.

Brandon:
Thank you. All right. Now with our episode with Mr. Matthew McConaughey a phenomenal speaker, storyteller, and just all-around wise dude. I’ve always liked that guy that’s why I was obsessed with getting him on the show.

David:
He’s very humble. I really liked that he was just so relatable. It just felt like you were talking to your buddy the entire time, and those are usually the people that have the most to offer because they’re not on this pedestal thinking that, “Well, I’m more successful than you are.” He’s literally sharing a lot of the struggles he had, a lot of the mistakes he made that led to being successful and man, that’s just such a valuable thing for everyone to hear that it was red lights and yellow lights that led him to the green lights that propelled his career forward and who doesn’t need to hear that sometimes.

Brandon:
There’s so much we did not cover in today’s because we only had an hour to sit down with him, but like I said, I’m not just saying get the book because I want you to get the book. The stories are amazing. Everything from his parents to his story of he stole lumber and built a massive 13-storey, what do you call it, treehouse, to him getting arrested for drumming naked in the middle of the night which is like crazy story that you’ll read about in the book and so much more. So check it out again, Greenlights, greenlights.com you can get his book and or anywhere books are sold I’m sure. And with that, I think we better get out of here. David, anything you want to close up with?

David:
Yeah. I thought it was very humble of you that you didn’t mention he asked you to be his butt double in the next movie, you could have taken advantage of that and let our audience know but you kept it to yourself.

Brandon:
I don’t want to brag or anything, but we do look pretty much identical actually.

David:
You do. I appreciate that about you that you didn’t share it, but I thought that everyone else should know that Matthew was actually coming after you pretty hard and set up an appointment for you to speak with his talent manager.

Brandon:
Yeah, I try. Well thanks David.

David:
Well, thank you for your hard work getting Matthew on here, Brandon. You’re a rock star, so we really appreciate it.

Brandon:
Thank you, Kevin, producer Kevin and we’ll get everyone out of here. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. If you enjoyed today’s interview, please don’t hesitate to leave comments, questions, whatever. If you’re watching this on YouTube, leave them there. If you’re listening in on a podcast app that’s cool too, make sure you rate and review the show. Let the world know that this is a good episode and a good show.

Brandon:
You can share us on your Facebook page, if you think other people would get a kick out of listening. And that’s all I got. So thank you guys. You guys are the best. You guys are what makes the BiggerPockets community so amazing. It’s the people who are everyday listening to these shows and then taking action on the stuff to improve their life and the lives of those around them. So thank you guys, you guys are the real rock stars and the real movie stars. For BiggerPockets, my name is Brandon. I’ll let David take us out.

David:
All right, all right, all right. This is David Greene for Brandon butt double Turner, signing off.

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