For all you foodies out there, I'm unwrapping a McDonald's steak, egg and cheese bagel who look at this steak and the juice running down the side, get a little bit on a wrapper here and then a fluffy egg and real cheese folded over the side, looking just so good. Mm hmm. Grilled onions and about a bagel, two thumbs up, a McDonald's steak, egg and cheese bagel for breakfast. Love it. Ba ba ba ba. I participate in McDonald's.

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Welcome, everybody, to The Mind segment toward podcast.

I'm your host, Rob Dial, and I'm excited to be joined with Mr. Matthew McConaughey here. For those you guys. I don't know. Matthew just had a book come out. That's incredible. And I won't even blow smoke. I'll just tell you, it's one of my favorite books ever. My girlfriend and I got the audio book is incredible. So people have to listen to you because it's your voice and you telling the stories and we listen to it on our drive back.

We spent a month in Sedona. We were on our way back and we listened to it. And by the end I was like, fuck, I wish this was longer.

Like, I want it to keep going. Like I want. I want greenlights part two because all of the other stories that weren't put in in thirty five years and so in. So for four people I know, it's, it's literally you started journaling, which I love journaling and tell people they should journal all of the time at fifteen years old. And so it's 35 years of you going back and looking through your thirty five years of journaling and just kind of pulling out life stories and wins and losses and how it culminated to get you into the position that you're in right now.

And I can't recommend it enough. I thought it was incredible.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

And you know, the very first question, the thing that I love is in the beginning in the intro, you say, well, you know, I've been through heartbreaks, I've broken hearts, and you go through all these different things you've done. And in the very first thing you say is so the question the first question probably have is what is a green light, which is the title of the book? And that's not my first question. The first question that I had is, can you dive deeper into the story of you doing peyote in Mexico in a cage with a mountain lion?

Because that's what I know. That's what I really was hoping that you dive into. And you missed it in the book. You mention it and they never came back around to it.

Just mentioned it. Yeah. So I'm in real. They got Dorsay and Meikle and had some time off and I had met the shaman and I'd never done peyote before, but I've read enough on it and talked to enough people who had and understood that it's not something to flippantly do.

It's not something you do on Saturday night and head out on the town. No, it's you know, it's more of a spiritual adventure. And I'd met the shaman and we talked we talked about it. And I've gotten to know him a little bit. And I started talking to about about that, hey, Safeway, you know, spiritual way to do peyote. He goes, I'll meet you here at four thirty in the morning tomorrow morning. And I show up.

It's dark. And not hardly saying a word, he says, bringing hiking shoes, we start hiking and just as the sun starts coming up, he stops and we walk about a mile up this hill and he delivers a little small bite with this small black smoke in which people often don't say a word about another mile up. Now I sort of break a sweat sanza another one. Another milah, another one at a time.

We reach the top, the peak. We've gotten to the top of this beautiful mountain, the highest mountain, those around there, and just quietly sat there and listen to everything that's going on. I remember there being this was this is real. This is not a fictitious memory.

There was at the top of this mountain, there were all these like sunflowers and there were thousands of bees.

And the hum of the bees was a baseline because obviously with peyote, your senses get tuned in more so than they are under normal circumstances. And we sat there for about two hours, didn't really say much of a word at all, just sat there and thought, meditated, prayed on my own. And then we walked slowly back down and we got down. This is probably six, seven hours later after we left that morning.

And he and I saw this. This is Cage and I a cage. I mean, it was like a habitat. It was it was huge. Was probably ten feet tall, 20 feet by 30 feet.

And inside that this mountain lion and I kind of, you know, was on the frequency of Mother Nature and nestled up next to the cage and started sort of getting on the frequency of this.

So said Mountain Lion and his mountain lions pacing turned into when he was a little bit disturbed at first turned and they slowly moved towards me. As animals are doing, they get more comfortable. And he came up to the gate and instead of being aggressive, he sort of licked my hand the gate through the fencing. So I slowly moved to the entrance. Open it up, slowly slid in, he began to pace again. But I moved very, very slowly, is pacing, was not agitated as far as I could tell.

I moved to the opposite side of the habitat.

And slowly sat down and is pacing as animals do slowly move a little bit closer to me, but was not agitated and about. Now, hour and a half after I sat down, he made his way up to me about three feet away. And cut to two hours later at Madelyn's head was in my lap and he was purring.

Oh my God.

Now what's the what's the the the do not try this at home.

Here's the part. It was it was a Matalan.

And that's a wild animal. Absolutely. But it was it was fed.

So meaning I've learned that like in the African trips, when I've crossed rivers with with crocodiles and such, and you don't want to do that in the dry season when the animals are hungry and desperate, in the wet season, when they're more well fed better by the food chain, you have better chances. So that's the the longer detailed version of that story. I love it.

And I do want to talk to you about Africa, because it sounds you had some some stories from there that were incredible in the book.

But one of the things that you say in the very beginning that I really love is you say I have proof that the world is conspiring to make me happy.

And I always preach to people that there's two ways to look at life. Number one is that you can look at it as if life is happening to me and you're just thrown a bunch of circumstances and you have to wake up and try to move around them every single day. When number two is you can look at as if this is happening for me, whether it's good or bad, it's happening for my own natural progression of life. So.

So could you talk a little bit more into how you view life, good or bad, and as it's conspiring to actually make you happy?

Yeah, well, you just said it. I mean, it's more than it's more it's not foolish optimism. It's not a the glass half full.

Hey, lemonade out of lemons. It's not that I'm not really for that Hallmark card stuff. It's actually more survival.

And, you know, I write very early on, one of the tools that that has come to me is when faced with the inevitable get relative, there seems to be the art of how do we see things for us as soon as something's inevitable, even if it's a crisis. What's more constructive to. Let it cripple you more to go, OK, I can't do anything about this and I don't like it, so how do I make this for me?

How do I think Easter I'm going to use this momentum?

You know, sometimes you can get by that by out and enduring it. You know, people right now and covid times some people will get ahead during this time because they kept their damn head above water.

They survived, they didn't drive. But a lot of times you get through it by pivoting and saying, you know what, I'm going to look at this situation differently than I have before, because maybe the way I'm looking at it now, it's not feeding me.

It's not constructive.

I'm banging my head into the proverbial wall every day again and again and again. And there's nothing I can do about the situation.

So maybe I need to sit back up and go, well, maybe I need to look at the situation differently, a reapproach. And sometimes when we find that we reapproach it from a different angle or perspective, we find a little spot and we kind of dance by it for the first time.

Like the way past this was right there.

But I didn't notice because I was just banging my head into the problem or denying the problem. That's another thing. You know, I had that line later in the book.

Once, you know, it's black, it's not near as dark as a lot of times we are at least repeat offenders in crisis is in our life because we don't give the crisis credit and we don't look at the time we got. It'll be gone. It'll be gone. It'll be gone.

We have all those things like, oh, I'll start that tomorrow. I'll start that tomorrow. We procrastinate or whatever.

But if you look across the angle, oh, this is a real want to deal with this and say it's black, it's dark. Well, once we do that, it's actually not as dark as we initially thought. It's like when you wake up in the middle of the night, it is dark, you walk, you can't see anything, but your eyes slowly change focus and you start to pick up shadows and images and you can see better once your eyes adjust.

It helps you get your eyes adjusted if you admit something is actually dark and it's black.

So that's that's another way. But then it becomes I mean, at the very least, once you facing that inevitable hardship. Or life is not dealing you what you hoped it would do you. I mean. To look at it another way. Well, the alternative sucks. The alternative is like, well, what what's proactive about that? There's no way through this around this unless I step out it admit that there's a problem, a hardship, a crisis, and now say, am I going to endure it or am I going to pivot and go around this or am I going to live to fight another day and say, no, I'm out un I'm moving on.

Sometimes that happens in relationships. Persisting in a relationship is great. Pivoting in a relationship is great, but sometimes we've got to go, hey, it's the wrong person. White flag. We had a good run.

That's as far as we can go, which is a version of an extreme pivot. But I mean, the alternative basically at the very baseline of my my line that the world is conspiring to make me happy is like. We'll see what happens if you think the opposite. See see how your day is if you're waking up going. Everything is conspiring to make me unhappy. Now, I'm not saying that we're not all on the way to death. Yes.

You know, your people say, well, you know, life is just cruel. We're on the way to die. I'd say we're on the way to dying. But I wouldn't call that cruel.

And especially now let's flip that, if that's an inevitable fact, which it is.

So how should we go if we're deteriorating every day on our way to our death? And we want to how do we look at that? We go, oh, doom and gloom. What's it all for? It's for nothing. Or and see how that goes.

See how you see how that goes or go. The same is true. We're all deteriorating. We're on our way out of here.

So I'm going to make the best of well, I'm here to make a fun.

What's the what it's it doesn't change it again. That's why it's not foolish optimism. It doesn't change what's happening.

Sometimes it's just about how we look at it and owning up to that being a fact, if it's a hardship in our life or reality in our life and saying, well, I got to look at it and which one's going to be one more fun, which one's going to be more constructive?

Which one's going to lead to me being able to evolve, to turn pages to to to grow, be more true, all those things and have more fun for sure.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the thing that I love about the book going into what you're talking about and then diving deeper into the book is that it gives you an idea of the mindset of someone who has had success like you. And it also gives a lot into your parents in the way that they raised you, which was quite unorthodox, but it worked really well.

And the one thing that I love about the stories about your parents is that it seemed like your mom and dad were really, really good at instilling hard core confidence into you. And one of the things that I love is that you said you got your I don't know if I love it, but I love the thing behind it is that your third beating that you got was because you said, I can't.

And I remember my mom always told me you could do anything you want. You are working hard. That's it. And then she always told me she was proud of me. And that was the thing that no matter what, I think that's super important. And and your parents told you that you can't say I can't. And so I want to dive into that. And what lessons you learned from going? I can. I mean, did that give you as a child?

I can do anything. I've just got to have the right mindset and right work ethic or what did that build instill in you?

A built resilience. It built hussle. It giddyap. It built the understanding of collaboration. Let me tell you one of the examples after I had already gotten I had already learned.

And heard from my parents that can't is a bad word again, you got your mouth washed out for saying shit fucking dam, but you say a. over and over the value instilled in that, you know, the others were just words or a mindset that believes I can't do something is means they were I got that both of them, because they meant because they were. Let me know. Oh, you go out in the world with that idea. I was going to be tough on you.

It's going to be you've done unto you know, so I remember one morning my chores were to mow the grass.

We need yard on Saturday mornings. So I go out, I'm in the back shed trying to get the push lawn mower started. It's not starting. It's not starting. It's not starting. I check everything. It's not stopping. I go inside, dad, I can't get the lawn mower started. And I saw his molars and I went, oh, jeez, no wedding.

Oh, I said the word. I say that he got up off the bed, walk past me. I walked with him. We went out the bedroom, through the kitchen, through the garage, around the back to the backyard with the shed was where the lawnmower was.

That would not start for me. He pulled it a few times, didn't start, he got down, got a screwdriver, looked around, but I found a hose like did the gas pipe that that was that was just that detached hook to our back together pump some gas started the lawnmower.

And while the lawnmower was running six feet over there, he walks over to me, puts his hand on my shoulders, leans down out of I and goes, you see, son?

You were just having trouble. Yes, and that's what I mean by a learned collaboration as well.

Yes, even if you're unable to do something, pull something off on your own, you can still ask for help or persistence or get the right tool. And it was very valuable and something that we don't allow it to say to this day either, and so it didn't instill supreme confidence of, oh, I can do anything, but it did say more so.

I, I it'll take a lot more to defeat me, right? It will take a lot more before I cry, Uncle. It will take a lot more before I go. I give it'll take a lot more before I say that's as far as I can go.

So we've got resilience and endurance and hustle and also creativity and collaboration to go again. Have talked earlier about pivot's, you know, and endurance. Getting creative about when you're running into blockade's going your mindset.

Can't figured this out. Why? Why is this relationship going this way? Why do I keep trying to get this outcome in the job?

But I'm not getting it back and I haven't yet.

I'm having trouble. And if you just say I'm having trouble, it just leaves it open. There's a way there's another puzzle is here somewhere. That's constructive.

And that was one of the values that he that he put in, as you know, just it's just a perspective of a mindset and understanding that actually, hell, you could even say if you were unable to do something for 50 years. But you found someone who could even go. Well, I mean, maybe there's even value of going, I'm not able to, but but it is possible, you know, if you want to take it all the way to that extent, which then opens up, well, maybe I didn't have that.

Maybe I wasn't educated for this thing that took me that maybe, you know, there's certain things that people have to be an expert to pull off. So say, not being so not saying I can't does not mean, oh, I, I can do everything. It's not about like. No, no, you can't be a 50 minute expert and go, well I am because I didn't say no, that's not what I mean.

It just means don't. Like I said, don't stay resilient, don't be defeated as quickly, don't quit, don't quit. We we quit, I think too often, me included, we quit things too often.

We quit relationships.

We we quit doing the hard work that we know it's going to pay off if we just stick with it and it will.

But we're so in immediate gratification. We need it. Now if I'm not getting my results right now, then I'm going to say, well, I can't do it anymore. Oh, hang on, man. This is long money. This is money. Hang in there. This one has real value, real currency. At the end, we're talking about the kind that feels the bank account and the souls account don't quit.

Yeah, I think it's I think it goes back to so many people love to start, but then they give up somewhere along the way, you know, and it's it's it's not that I can't it's just that I'm not able to yet. But it doesn't mean that I won't figure out a way. Right. Yep. And that's what I love about it.

And yet is exactly it not being able to yet is different then. I can't.

Right. And too many people try one thing and it doesn't go good right away for them. So then they go to the next thing and then they go to the next thing and then like me and nothing works out. It's like, no, it's not that nothing works out. It's just that you haven't been putting in enough time to actually succeed at something. You don't succeed at almost anything right away. It takes time to get to where you want to go.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, you know. We want things to be easy, but the hard work and the persistence of certain things, if we're doing something that we have innate ability to do and we're willing to hustle for it, and if it's in business, if there's a demand for it, you know, choose something that you can supply that can also be in demand is a pretty smart thing if you're talking about business.

But, yeah, how many times we know you work hard and actually didn't get it? Actually, I you know, I got Velva on me is for a long time in my life and career, it's been like, oh my time just makes it look easy, rolls out of bed. So it's like, oh, what are we doing today. Yeah.

I've been breaking my sweat behind the behind the doors over there so I can come out and make it look like I just rolled up the applecart. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there's so many great stories throughout it and one that there was something that you said it was a really good lesson is, you know, No.

One I was crying at the point where you were talking about your brother and his seeing eye dog. Good thing my girlfriend was driving at the time and she was driving my truck at the time because I was literally crying, laughing so hard about the seeing eye dog. So that's a beautiful story that people have to hear.

There's a great story about you build a 13 story tree house by yourself with stolen wood. And then there's another one of you. This and this one I want to dive into is a story of you wrestling the championship wrestler at a tribe in Africa. And it was at that moment and I love it because it's like you were challenged. You could have said no and nobody would have ever known. Nobody would ever judge you. One of the things that I wrote it does it says it's not about win or lose.

It's about did you accept the challenge?

It is not about win or lose, did you accept challenge? Yes. And so what's that? What's the story behind that and what made you decide to go? You know what?

Hell, yeah. Let's go ahead and arrest this guy at random guy in Africa.

I remember the moment we've been I've been as in the Barnegat of Africa, which is these. Place where fingers around the 11th century, a lot of the animist in Mali fled after the Muslim invasion and they went off to these places and built these. Camps at the base of the huge mountains where the rivers flow in these camps, these little villages are spread out between eight and 50 miles apart. And we were on about day six of our hike. So each day we'd hike the eight, 50 miles to the next place.

The chief would meet you at the boundary I'd read. The chief likes what he sees in your eyes. He puts a hand out and to give a soft handshake, not a firm handshake, that means aggression. Well, I was accepted into the chiefs like what was in my eyes. I've been accepted in the camp. You get to the camp.

There's always a young boy in camp, usually aged 11 to 14, who sort of the runner know a new guest in town.

He's going to get you a chicken. He's going to walk. He would walk me to the cleanest place in the river to then go brush my teeth and bathe and watch out for crocodiles or people would have you. You come back, they give you the best chair. I mean, the one with the least rips in it, you know what I mean? And they eat, eat chicken meal and you have like ten kids sitting around. And I and I was hungry.

I would eat all of my meal and trust me, I can clean I can clean it up.

But I would put this plate down when I was done and all those ten kids would be on it and clean it up even more.

So anyway, I get to this one camp one day and I had shown up over there, molted. I said, my name is David and I was looking for anonymity, I wanted I was going to a place where nobody knew my name, whatever name is Dave. I said I was a writer and a boxer.

Well, David in Bambara, which is their native tongue, the native language is Daouda.

Well, very quickly became clear as word of strong white men named Daouda is coming.

But they didn't give a damn about the writing part that they were interested in the boxing part. And over there, they love to wrestle. It's their pastime. And I showed up at this camp and Benjaman to after about a 40 mile hike and I was laying on my back stretch and as I usually do at the end of the walk and.

The village kind of came around and over me and I had noticed this was the ritual, I show up, I look different, I'm a visitor.

I'm going to be the night's entertainment, you know, from how I look to what I say to what innuendo we can have and jokes we can tell kids playing with the kids, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, these two young men that are about 18 to 20 started to talk sort of give me a second to get the barbecue, but just to have a bit of an aggression to it. Right.

I could tell they were talking at me and I leaned over and I said. Are they talking shit because this is exactly what they're doing, they talking shit, they challenging strong white men named two wrestling match because they say they are the champion wrestlers of all the village.

And I'm like, jeez, they're talking all that smack. And he said, you know, in America, when people talk a lot before, a challenge usually means they can't back it up because they're talking to you. But it did say in Africa, they talk too much anyway.

They're coming at me and they're getting all the other villagers excited. And the villagers know what they're saying, challenge me to a match to. And obviously in there I'm still stretching and all of a sudden the pitch of the village just skyrockets and the screams go up and I look up.

And these two boys that were talking at me just go to run off Sprint and everyone laughing going on, Oh, why?

Because who steps up Michelle burlap bag around his waist tied with a rope, no shirt, no shoes.

About five foot nine, five foot 10 tree trunk of a guy stands where the two boys stood.

This is the real champion of the village. He doesn't say a word. It comes and stands over me. He points at my chest, points to his chest, and then points to his right. And I'm laying on the ground. I know this is a challenge. My heartbeat starts to go up. I look over there and what's over there where he pointed, there's this big dirt pit.

And just as I see that my heart rate starts going up and in this ear, I'm going, Are you kidding me? No way am I going to do that.

And as I'm hearing this voice in this middle ear, I hear, are you kidding me?

If you don't, dude, you will regret this for the rest of your life. This is legendary.

You've got to find out. You've got to. And so while I'm doing that, this year's winning and all of a sudden I find myself stand up right in front of them. Heart beat pacing, I point to his chest, point to mine and move towards the big dirt pit. Now the crowd goes crazy and it's on. And I write about what happened in the wrestling match in the story.

But what happened is I had handled myself pretty well. And all of a sudden after the match became what I was called, a big man in the village, a big man in the village. In the next day, which is a beautiful part of the story, because that guy wrestled, you've got to read the denouement. He's so good. You boxed me as so graceful.

But we get to the next camp the next day after that night of wrestling where I accepted the challenge and I said to each of my God, I was like, So what about last night?

I mean, I think I did pretty good, you know? And he goes, Oh, no, you do very, very well. Everybody think that Michelle is going to have strong white men named on his back in ten seconds.

You handle Michelle. I said, ah. So I I to go. No, no, no. You were a big man in the village, not when you handed Michel, it was not about to win or lose. You were big men as soon as you accept the challenge.

And I was like, boy, take that one.

Don't forget that one mechanic, you know, and it's a good one for us all more often.

And I think the reason that we don't accept as many challenges or take as many risks like that or others, not that everyone is going to go to Africa specifically, but what was inherent in the proverb that was thrown back at me was it wasn't about the winning and it wasn't even about the losing.

Well, we usually say no to those kind of risk because the fear of losing. But what happens when we. What really, I found that through life, what really seems to happen is we need to be a lot less fearful of losing. Right. And those people that do go on and on and on about, baby, you lost.

I saw you. Number one, they're usually not. Real players in this whole game, anyway, they're usually the people on the sidelines and they're on the sidelines because that's where they belong, right? Number two. Not as many people do that as you think. More people go. Yeah, I tried that, too, and lost it. I mean, or. Wait, go. I've gotten things in my life not for victories, but because I've had people come up and go, you stepped in the proverbial ring again and lost again, but you came back again.

I want you on my team. And I think it's just don't give so much credit to the idea of losing. And don't think that you're the center of the world, especially in today, where thumbs up or thumbs down on somebody to give you to give each person their their identity via what we say about them. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't go by that.

The real ones, the ones that matter, the real players, the ones that aren't on the sidelines because that's where they those sideline people belong. Mm hmm. They they appreciate the sceptics acceptance of a challenge more than they dismiss you.

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And it goes back to like the whole mindset your parents instilled in you, like don't say you can't, there's a part of you. It's like I could beat this guy and have the greatest story of my life.

You know, I've been a Hollywood actor. I've done all of these crazy things.

But I could literally beat this guy in a tribe, in a village in Africa and have that inside of you. How do you never told this story? You still have an incredible experience that most people will never have. And I don't think people think, you know, it's a I mean, it's true, I mean, you read the book, it goes on the story. And the fact that moment when I got up off the ground to accept the challenge, still that story still being told, if I wouldn't have done that.

I don't know how many other things would have gone differently in my life. I mean, you have the story of the beautiful story of the grace of. Michelle, walk me back to the next village the next day, then I go back six years later. He does the same thing. Talk about lineage and the term I use in the book is Leave Your Scent, you know. Boy, that's leaving your sense now and. You know, for me also very personally with with that, it has a story, it has to do with the African stories and a lot of other walkabouts have taken.

But I'm needed that in my own life being famous. Because I don't meet strangers anymore and I have to sort of decipher what it is this person. You know, endearing, being endearing to me because of the biography of who I am and so so I'm always trying to measure like what I got to make sure I still are still getting credit for who I am right now. Yeah, you and I just meant we're good on this call for twenty five minutes is my worth to you.

What's my worth to you that I'm creating in our relationship in the last twenty five minutes but not before. Right. So to go away to faraway places where nobody knows my name and I have a story like this and you come back six years later and the same guy walks me 50 miles old, my hand goes off. That was all based off of the man they met named Daouda. Mm hmm. Six years ago, they didn't know I was an actor.

They had never seen me on TV. They didn't know I was famous. They had no biography. I was a stranger who showed up in a strange land. And when I show back up that whole village six years later, little village is hugging me and everyone's gone. Six years old and I'm talking to their kids. They're all six years older in the fathers and Michelle and the whole village. They all remember. It's all based off of who was the man that they met six years ago.

Who that night accepted that you.

Yeah, nothing. Yeah. And it's it's a perfect example of, like there's many times throughout the throughout the book that you can hear that you are on this journey to kind of become better and and seek new experiences.

So there's there's little that you went to Africa and this is the moment where you're actually already famous to this point. Right. So so you're already famous at this point. You go to Africa to do this. There's also stories of how you literally road trips with your dog inside of an Airstream when you're already famous as well. And then you go down to Iquitos, Peru, and go on a spiritual journey in the middle of the height of when most people feel like you've made it.

You've got to this point, it seems like you're always trying to learn more about yourself and see what other you know, I would say, like, these are kind of like a rose that's always constantly blooming. And as new petals fall off, there's new petals that pop up that we need to go, oh, I should discover this. And as you're talking about your trip to Iquitos, Peru, I know about Akitas Farouk's. I've had quite a few friends go down there.

And I was like, that's interesting. And there's only one reason why no people go down to Iquitos, Peru usually, and that's usually they do ayahuasca experiences and spiritual journeys down there.

And so I'm curious with what made you decide to go down there, do the do these experiences, whether it was ayahuasca, whether it's a spiritual journey in general, and at the point when most people be like, I've made it, why why go down there and find another part of yourself when you you've gotten everything in this world that we're taught we're supposed to have?

Well. You've got to remember, that was at a time. When, yes, the roof was taken off of all the possibilities for me, I had just gotten famous, time to kill, just come out all of a sudden every the ninety nine nose out of one hundred that I was getting yesterday were now. Yes. So when everything comes up and is open and is now a yes. A hell of a challenge. Yeah, that's a a intimidating thing.

Wait a minute. Forty eight hours ago, I would have done any of these. And now you're telling me I can do all of them and you want me to be discerning and go, well, now that I can do all of them, let me pick the one I really want out. Wait a minute. 48 hours ago, I would have done anything to do any of them.

So, you know, to use the term green light from the top. But when all was said. There were ninety nine red lights, one green light 48 hours ago, and now there's ninety nine green and one red. Well, where do I go? I couldn't travel down all these past just 48 hours ago. And now you're saying, go move on over. And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. There's a whole lot more past than I've ever had.

So I needed to go here my own self. I needed to go that memory, catch up with me, I need to go see check in with me and put myself in a place where I didn't have all the frequency of those agreements and I was choosing a red light by going away on my own where people didn't know my name. I didn't want to hear all the noise, all the yeses. Do this, do this. You're the greatest.

This is awesome. We love you. Yes. More. Please do. This would not do this one did it well. Oh man. I hear myself think so.

I had a. I had a dream that I go through that was not a nightmare, but had elements of the nightmare but was not was actually just quite the opposite, literally the opposite. And in that dream. There were two things, not dreams, but economic realities and times right in that dream. There's two things I was sure of. I was floating down the Amazon River and the banks and the banks on the left side of the river into the horizon line, African tribes.

So I went to the atlas to go look for the Amazon River in the continent of Africa and things I knew and as most of you know, you can look forever and you won't find the Amazon. The continent of Africa is. It's wrong. But in my dream, those two were the same. So then I found the Amazon, obviously in South America. Picked out a spot that's I'm heading. And I'll go chase down the first part of that.

And that's why when I was looking for somewhere to go, but that came to me as a sort of a celestial sign and actually what I didn't say is it was the second time that happened. So when I had it the second time at this time of my life, I'd just gotten all this fame and access. I went, oh, I've never had a dream. That is exactly the same frame for frame 11 second dream. I've never had the exact same dream before, twice.

And now this must be sun. This is tell me tell me something. And so I went off to the ends and as you read later in the book. That was only half the dream, the other half was the African side, which we recalled this story with one of the stories to Africa, which is what led me to Mali. Years later, I had. Again, exact same dream years after four years after I was through and said that dream came back, this exact same one, I guess I need to chase down the other hat.

What's the other thing I know? Did the Amazon. African drums, so then it was fine. Let's go to Africa, which I'm learning not better except Yemen.

And the the thing that I love about that's consistent throughout the book is that it seems like you're really OK with betting on yourself.

Like especially I remember. Or you would prefer. Yes, I remember. I was watching, you know, this is 2013, 2014. I was watching True Detective. And I was like, holy shit. I didn't know that he could act like this because you talk about how you used to be your kind of like put in this box and you kept betting you want to get out of this box and start doing something different. Right. So we watched Dallas Buyers Club last night.

So I was like, I need to watch this again just to get the whole the whole vibe of when this switch was for you and and you decided to stop doing like the rom coms and you got these big offers, it was like a million, five million said nose and then up to like seven million. I said no. And then I think they went to like fifteen and then like twenty two million or something.

And you're like, oh my God, I'm at the point where I've got to decide if I'm actually going to be real about this or if I'm going to go back to what I was actually doing. And so I'm curious behind all of that confidence and betting on yourself, how do you talk to yourself in your head?

Because I know a lot of people that I've spoken to that follow me reach out. And they just there's no self-love in their head. There's not positive self talk.

I'm curious with you. Are you do you do you build yourself up? Are you an operations guy? Do you look yourself in the mirror and you're like, fuck, yes, you're amazing. Like, how how do you how does Matthew McConaughey talk to himself in his head?

Good question. The truth for me, that usually settles on us very quietly, but like a lightning bolt at the same time came that, you know. Your work life. Is not challenging your real life at that time when I was only doing wrong and only getting off for those, it was not able to or getting offered the dramatic fare that I wanted to do, that truth came me and I said and I and I wasn't sleeping. Well, man, I'm glad I was like that was one that was not happy enough with my work.

And I remember saying to myself. Well, I'm glad your life is so vital and more vital than your work, but boy, it sure love to try and do work that can at least challenge the vitality of the life. And that was not coming through the scripts in the rom coms, the action films that I was only getting offered. So when I said. Sort of what's the big risk? You know, the bigger risk was, will I want to find that if I can't do what I've been what I want to do?

What if I stop doing what I'm doing and that would at least remove me from what is giving me my angst, it won't give me the place to go because that's not being offered to me. But maybe I just, by process of elimination, remove myself from that. So soon as that was clear that that's what I'm doing and my life helped me a lot like this is going to who knows how long you're not going to go with that work.

You're going to get wobbly. That bottle's going to look better to drink out of earlier in the day. All of those kinds of things I was going to I battled since battle. So not feeling significant that I've not been able to feel like I could accomplish things, like I couldn't build something out and purchased a one way ticket into limbo. And we all know limbo is where it sucks, you know, and it's goes back to earlier. I said I'd rather because these than I know if I win, I go, yes, if I lose like that was on you.

I just I like knowing. Right. So. What's going through my head is. It's not a daily come on, you got this once that truth was clear, that's the hardest part for me. After it's clear it's when you put it into action, I mean, I find that the truth is clear to us more often than we give it credit to be. The hard part is when do we implement? Because we're always going to what? Tomorrow will be a better time to do that.

Or maybe after this next one, let me do fourteen point five. And you just do this one and then we'll stop doing what you can kind of you can push the bucket and you can trust me. My blood family, my brothers, mother and I turn down this offer like, what is your problem?

But I admit it was clear to me and it was clear to Camila why it was for me then it was just, OK, this is what I'm doing. I don't know if I'll ever work again in Hollywood, but even if I don't, I won't regret this decision. The only thing I will regret again like saying, yes, I'll accept the challenge is not knowing. And if I stay in the business and do the movies that I'm getting offered, I can have a very affluent lifestyle and I enjoy the work of the rom coms.

I get paid very handsomely, but those will take me further away from ever being able having the chance to experience the kind of work that I want to do. And so I said I'll regret that more not knowing that I will this. And it was like, I'll I'll I'll figure out something else to do. I don't think I'll go back to law school, maybe be a wildlife guy, maybe I'll be a conductor, a teacher, a high school football coach.

I don't know. I'll figure something else out. So it's not daily after that. Decisions made that was no going back didn't matter. That was, what, 15 years ago? It's if I never if I had still only been getting off for the wrong comes, I was getting off of that time since then, 15 years ago. I don't think I would have I don't think you'd see me in any movement for 15 years. The decision was clear.

And it was just about and so once that became clear, that's again, once you know, it's black, it's not years dark. I said, it's black, man. For 20 months, it was black. Nothing came in, I was like this, but I was like, OK, again, when I say no understanding that it's black, when you start saying, realize that in this decision. Means I may never work in Hollywood again, face that blackness.

You're still willing? The dice, this concept that I would set that and let's just see now. Funny thing is that along the way, I actually started to in the last year of not getting in, I started to kind of gain strength. Because I had I had Miles under my belt, I'd been saying no to things for like. Ten months and so each day became sort of more of a badge of honor for me, a little more like.

That's right, yeah, I'm holding out and I'm still I'm still on my sabbatical. I'm saying no. And then I started to feel like, you know what? The longer I'm gone here, I think I'm build a little momentum of what? I'm definitely not going back now. It became really clear to me and at that time is when the industry started going, he's not doing any more reporting that dollar offer, he's not bluffing. So let's quit often in those, so then they would be nothing.

For another. Fourteen months and 20 months went by. Where's my confidence? Haven't seen him in a long time. He has been in theater and in our living room. He had been shirtless on the beach. Where the hell is he? And, you know, it might be a good idea for, like Lincoln lawyer killer Joe. Not Bernie Boy Magic, my true detective does, but guess who's now was now a new good idea, a novel idea, because where has he been?

No one knows where he is. And here I am ready. Put me in coach and just pounced on. But it took the UN branding before the rebrand. So the daily thing, there's not a daily. It was just reminding myself, hey. At last, this it's a longer penance, it's a longer pilgrimage than there may be again facing. We look and look at it right now and call that call it, there's something we have this called anticipation for.

And it's part and parcel with what you know, as black as the new dawn. Like in making that decision not to do the wrong things, I said you may never work again in Hollywood. That's saying faced the worst case scenario, right? But if I don't do that and I'm not going to spend a couple of months, I mean, maybe, maybe this week, maybe this week, so I'm wasting 30 percent of my energy on anticipating it being over there so I can covid right now for thinking.

Well, tomorrow, for the last eight months, there are those of us who thought, well, maybe this week. And you get up, you get your hopes up and get your hopes up, and then you do that that many time wasting energy. But if you sit there and go, this may go on forever.

Your body on the cellular level and a mental level slips into survival mode. You start conserving energy. And so that's what happened to me in that 20 minutes, I was like, I may never go back and work again. So my body slipped into. Lane horse, long run, lane horse, long ride easy, and I told myself, you go and you're going to get wobbly, you're going to get you're going to get like I will. But I think the decision was clear.

Let's remember this. True. Right here that we've agreed on. And no matter what happens, what comes doesn't come. Stick to it, trust them, and then you do. Dallas Buyers Club, you do some really big things. You win an Academy Award for best actor and completely change your life. But it all came because you decided to bet on yourself when you decided to stick to something and stay with it and stay with your guns and what you wanted to do.

And, you know, I love the I love the speeches you gave on the Academy Awards there because you talk about how you're chasing yourself in 10 years, who you want to be in 10 years, and that's who your hero is, is you in 10 years and trying to get better. And one thing I always say is that is that I believe that God has like I like to visualize that God is like a checklist. Right. Of like, OK, Rob Dayal, this is everything that he could do.

And he's doing that. He's checking off. And my goal is to get to the end, go up and God looks at and says, shit, I didn't think you were going to do this.

Much like that's that's my goal right now, is that that's what I want to have happen is like, Tim, you did well, my son, like I said, I want to see Ed. And what's amazing about it is that it kind of goes what you're saying, where it's not that you have a hero, that someone else you have a hero of the person who you want to be in your future.

And so do you have a, you know, a daily of trying to get better each day so that you do become that hero in 10 years and in this progression and wanting to see yourself get a little bit better every single day, every single day and every single day.

Yeah, I call it chasing yet. Hmm. I think it's something personally a personal credo. I think it's I think it should be our country is chasing yet. Meaning? You never get to yet. There's no landing spot. There's not a moment. There's never going to be perfect equality and righteousness in America.

Can we get a little bit better and have a small ascension in our life? Mm hmm. That means oh, I see evolution. Yeah, to small ramp, even if it's just slightly a ramp or what the hell are we doing growing older?

What do we do if we all have enough experience yesterday that we didn't have the day before, then there's got to be there's got to be if we utilize it, there's got to be a small section or at least a huge opportunity for a small section of involvement as individuals, as even as a collective. It's it's that I think realizing that, yes, we can understand that we can just. Stay in the race and commit to the chase. To be in.

A little bit better, a little more true if you don't like the word better, sometimes people go better or worse. That's more or less not a little more true to yourself. Only you only we each know what that is. If you can do it just a little bit in small increments, that's as good as it gets, then you're always in the process. But what we have to watch is our result orientation. I've got to get to that goal.

I'm for I'm for I'm for those trust me, I used to read the book, I've written many a headline first that I then live the journey to the headline and pulled some of them off. So I'm all for that. But we have to watch sometimes knowing and understand that even when we do that, even when we pull off that go get that girl, get the win, that award, whatever it is. You don't go. Oh, OK.

Actually, it opens up twice as many more avenues for which with or with which to go forward and evolve and go and get a little bit better at.

There's not a land, there's not a final landing spot. In this life. Until we are now in this life, so it's it's I think it's that's what worries me in 10 years. It's just going, who am I? Who do I want? And you have to watch. It's different for everybody. How far out they can project, because maybe 10 years is too hard for somebody. And you don't want to be like, well, I want to chase who I want to become because you've got to give yourself credit for who you are right now to.

So you can't be completely objective with that to say, no, I'm going to live out my moment as I am, but it's a step at a time is the subject with the big picture in mind, which is the objective projection forward of where I want to go, who will win? And it's balancing those two, I believe, because maybe for some people that's like, hey. A month out is, as far as I can think, a month away is as far as I can project, where I can simultaneously understand the paradox in that who I want to be and who I if he can just keep stretching that as far out as possible while keeping those two in relation.

I mean, I think ultimately. The place the extent in this life is to think about your eulogy. Think about how your kids introduce you when you're gone, how the world introduce you when you're gone. Now, that's a daunting. But it's exhilarating that and even if you can't keep hold the concept of it, just give it and give it a nudge, give it a try or walk the dog out and go, I can dig them out.

I can think of my heroes in a month. What can I get better be more true in this month. And that'll lead to maybe six months down the road. And maybe you can take a year, maybe think two years, five, 10, 20, 30 and start to extend it works out your your projection muscles, you know, mentally and spiritually. But that's that's that's what that is chasing. Yeah. We can understand that. That's, that's, that's it.

You don't get there. We never get there. And that's the point now. Yeah, and literally could not ask for a better transition to the question I love to ask people at the end, but first I want to hear you, man. I appreciate your time. I love the book. Like I actually love the book I thought was amazing. I think everybody needs to get it's called Green Lights, and it's the memoir of the past 35 years, I guess, the past 50 years of your life.

But going through journals for 35 years of taking journals.

And I tell my mom it was really weird to her. I tell her I think about death every day and she goes, why the hell do you think about death every day? And my dad died when I was 15. And since that day, I thought, my time is coming at some point in time, like I know it is. So my biggest fear is to get to the end of my life and have regrets and things I wish I would have done.

And you're talking about your eulogy at the time when when people what people say about you after you leave and there's a phrase that says, you know, they say you die twice first as when you're in the casket, you stop breathing. And this last time is the last time that someone says your name. And so I'm curious with you, in between the first death and the second death, what do you think and what do you hope people say about you?

Yeah, you know. I I believe that, ah, you know, when you you know, you just you just reported an extension of saying, hey. The life we live makes us immortal, right? But when you have kids, it's nothing. Oh, now I'm actually literally immortal. My biological.

That was introduced as being somebody that, you know what, McConaghy was in home. In the world. He saw himself as who he was, and the boy sure did see himself and others. And as well. He. Danton committed he didn't have acid, to use my dad's word, he didn't have to ask things. He didn't know how to answer that. He really didn't know how to. He wasn't always right, but now it's true, we know he's right, but but he was at least true.

I had this ad director me this one time in this scene where I am saying I'm very rigid about or at least secure with what I know about what my main character and story would do and wouldn't do in this director. Was I going now we want you to do this and let go. No, like, I wouldn't do that, not doing this. And he goes, you know, I'm a guy you never wrong. And I went, thank you, because there's more than one way to be right.

And I went, Oh, I'm going to share Mark Waters. His name was a great that was a great one. Was a great lesson. So I would say, yeah, wasn't always right, but I was. Always did my best to be true and. Maybe, maybe, maybe something to. How much? Truth you get, Adam. Good humor. You know, we see that is such a contradiction, like we get a laugh at the crisis means you're denying crisis now.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You're not actually unties that. Not. Now, two people have real confrontation where they can finally get unified over a situation, and I'm probably going long on my eulogy.

They didn't have, as it were. And you know what? In that, I revered fatherhood as the greatest, most freeing and privileged job in.

Love it, man. Well, once again, I fully recommend everybody go out there, get the book. It's incredible, especially the audio book where you get to hear your voice and the voice inflection and all of the credit. As I was telling my girlfriends, like, I think he needs to be the sickest guy because he might be the most interesting man in the world. Just the shit that happens in the book and all the stories that you tell.

I appreciate you for being here. I appreciate your time. I know you're a busy, busy man and I recommend everybody go get that book. Well, I quite enjoyed talking to you and whoever raising or listening to that. Yeah. Thanks so much, man. I appreciate it. I have been fed. That's a fact, I have been fed off my credit card purchases, get me cash back for purchases, give me cash that no one else gets these rewards.

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