Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Matthew McConaughey: Greenlights | Human Behavior | E101

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Alright, Alright, Alright!   You all know and love our guest this week. Matthew McConaughey is a Texas native and one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men. Matthew first broke out on the scene with the cult classic Dazed and Confused. Since then, he has won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club, appeared in more than 40 feature films that have grossed more than $1 billion, and become a producer, creative director, and philanthropist. Matthew has been in cult-classic movies such as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Dallas Buyers Club, Dazed and Confused, Interstellar, and more! Aside from being one of our generations most popular actors, he and his wife Camila are the founders of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, and he serves as the Minister of Culture/M.O.C. and a full time professor for the University of Texas. On top of all of these accomplishments, Matthew is now a best-selling author. His first book Greenlights is a #1 New York Times Bestseller and has already received rave reviews.  In this episode, we discuss Matthew’s childhood and how his family instilled confidence in him from a young age, his dedication to journaling throughout his life, and his early film beginnings. We’ll then get into how he landed his breakout film roles, why he took a break from acting to reinvent his image, the meaning behind the title of his new book, Greenlights, and some great life lessons he has to share.     Sponsored by Podcast Republic: https://www.podcastrepublic.net/podcast/1368888880   Clubhouse Master Negotiation on Feb 2nd Event with John Lee Dumas, David Meltzer, Heather Monahan and more!:  https://www.joinclubhouse.com/event/9mWKeJnm   Social Media:   Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on ClubHouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com   Timestamps:   02:41 - Why Matthew Wrote a Book Instead of Making a Movie 04:35 - Matthew’s Process of Writing the Book and Journaling 09:18 - What Does “Green Lights” Mean? 12:53 - Why ‘Unbelievable’ is a Horrible Word to Matthew 15:13 - Being “Little Mr. Texas” 17:40 - Origin of Matthew’s Confidence From Childhood 22:40 - Turning a ‘Red Light’ into a ‘Green Light’ 29:04 - Matthew’s Decision to Go to a Cheaper College 32:46 - Why Matthew Went to Film School 37:45 - How He Got His Part in ‘Dazed and Confused’  45:56 - Experience with Romantic Comedy Movies 52:55 - How Matthew Deals with Celebrity Status 59:16 - The Just Keep Livin Foundation 1:01:32 - Matthew’s Secret to Profiting in Life   Mentioned in the Episode:   Matthew’s Book, Greenlights: https://greenlights.com/ Matthew’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officiallymcconaughey/ Just Keep Livin Foundation: https://www.jklivinfoundation.org/

You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halitaha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast. And that's on purpose.

I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of ex-FBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and best-selling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, how to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young and, profiting podcast. All right, all right, all right. You all know and love our guests this week. Matthew McConaughey is a Texas native and one of Hollywood's most sought after leading men. He first broke out on the scene with a cult classic dazed and confused. Since then, he's won an Academy Award for his work in Dallas Buyers Club, appeared in more than 40 feature films that

have grossed over $1 billion, and has become a producer, creative director, and philanthropic. aside from being one of our generation's most popular actors, he and his wife Camilla are the founders of the Just Keep Living Foundation, and he serves as a minister of culture and a full-time professor at the University of Texas. On top of all of these accomplishments, Matthew is now a bestselling author. His first book, Greenlights, is a number one New York Times bestseller. In this episode, we discussed Matthew's childhood and how his family instilled confidence in him from a young age, we'll also discuss his dedication to journaling throughout his life and his early film beginnings. We'll then get into how he landed his breakout film roles, while he

took a break from acting to reinvent his image, the meaning behind the title of his new book, Green Lights, and some of the great life lessons he has to share. Hey Matthew, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Hello, Halle, hello, all you young profiteers out there. Well, Matthew McConnor, you are a guest that really needs no introduction. You are one of the biggest actors of our generation. You've been in over 40 feature films. And you're coming on our show today to talk about a new book called Green Lights. And so I was curious to try to get insight into, with all your acting background, with your film production background, what made you think about writing a book? Why didn't you just shoot a movie? Yeah, good question. Shooting a movie. All right, I'm

I'm acting in someone else's script, directed by someone else, lensed in a camera by someone else, and edited by someone else, before it gets on screen for the viewer to watch it. That's four filters separate from my first original raw expression. I was like, a book will be only one filter. It's the written word. It's a much more direct line of my art or means of communication to you because I'm directing it.

I'm lensing it. I'm editing it. It's my script. And I wanted to, I've always loved words, you know? I mean, I have a career where I perform. It's not necessarily about the words. The word's only 10% of what an actor actually does. I wanted to say, well, can I get across what I want to be just the word?

Can it be written in a way that you can hopefully see me perform in it? listen to the audible, and that helps. But can it have my voice without actually having audibly my voice and my performance? And that was a challenge I wanted to tackle. And I was hoping, you know, that I had stories and some wisdom I've learned along the way that I could share that people could apply to their own lives as well. So let's talk about the process of actually writing this book, because from my understanding, you actually went on a trek by yourself in the desert to kind of write this book. You also journaled a lot growing up all throughout your life. So tell us about the process and also journaling and your process and writing the book with that. Sure. So I've been

keeping journals since I was 14, so 37 years now. And just, and always have. And many did them for myself trying to write like anyone at 14 years old, probably mostly confused, trying to figure out what's going on? Why do I have pimples on my face? Why did, why did Gretchen break up with me, blah, blah, blah, things like that. And then I also continued to journal when maybe I felt very certain about things. When I was on my frequency, when I was succeeding, when I had successful relationships, when all of a sudden I began to have successful working relationships, personal relations, when I was happy in life. I continued to journal then. And I bring that up because that's when most of us, even if you do journal, that's when most of us stop journaling.

Because when things are going well, we go, oh, I don't need to write this down. This is how it's supposed to be. I'll always remember this. No. Write down, dissect your success as much or more than you dissect your failures or when you're confused and lost because we will forget. And I know for me, my journals have been a great tool to go back and look at. At times in my life, say if I'm off, if I'm in a rut again, I've gone back and looked at my gerals and said, well, what were you doing, Matthew? What were your habits back when you were rolling, when your relationships were good, when you felt like you were in line and on time? And I found habits that I followed that led to, gave us sort of a science to what satisfaction

I had that then presently helped me recalibrate and go, well, I need to start doing that again so I can get back in line. And they've helped me get back on track. The writing of the was I took all those journals away to the desert for, it was a total of 52 days in solitary, spread out over five different trips. And I wanted to go away alone because I didn't want to have the luxury of going, oh, well, let me check my messages or the luxury of going, hey, let me call so and so. I wanted to go to a place where there was no internet connection,

where I had nobody to interrupt me, where even if I got bored, I had nowhere to run. And the only place I could run to was to look back at my journals and who I've been over the last 50 years. And I wanted to be stuck with that person and look that person in the eye. And that was the process of writing the book. Yeah. It's so cool that you journaled since such a young age. I think a lot of us have interesting stories growing up and we just forget them.

And the fact that you had them saved and you were able to kind of like pull them out and then reflect on them later on and write this book. I just think is so amazing and something that everyone can take away from this in terms of the importance of journaling. Yeah, well, keep the stories alive. Again, you think when something awesome happens or you cross the truth or something's really entertaining or you individually really laugh at something, you think it's really special. Again, we always think, oh, I'll always remember that. But what happens over time is it gets fuzzy.

So one, I say, yes, journal. But two, if you have something, the verbal telling of the story, keep telling the story, and over, keep sharing the story. That also keeps it alive, but also write it down because the first way you remember it will be different than you tell it 10 years later. Stories kind of take, they become different things. You come over time, you give them different facts. So it's good to be able to go back and go, how did I originally feel about that? What originally turned me on about that circumstance in my life? And again, just, you know, I say in the book, I write things down so I can forget them, not to remember.

What I mean by that is if something turns me on in life and if I write it down, I know that I can now don't have to keep thinking, oh, don't forget that, don't forget that, because I've written it down. That means I can forget it because I go, no, I wrote that down. It's there when I want to go back to it. So I don't have to continually go through life going, don't forget that thing. Don't forget. Make sure you don't forget that. I write it down so I can forget it because I know I have it written down.

Yeah, that's something that David Allen taught me. He's the author of GTD getting things done. And basically, you have open loops in your brain. And until you write them down, you don't actually close that loop. So really good point. So let's talk about the title of your book. It's called Green Lights. And I just want to get my listeners some context in terms of what does a green light mean?

What's the difference between a green light, a red light? And is there something called a yellow light? Tell us all about that. Yeah, green lights mean go. they affirm our way. They say, carry on, please. More. Yes. Freedom. Outta boy. Outta girl. Keep on going. We like them because they keep us in our flow. They don't interrupt us. Yellow light slows us down. We don't really like it. We don't want it to have it. Wait, why am I getting this? Why am I getting interrupted right now? You know what I mean? Get out of my way. Red light makes us stop. Those are crises. or times of retrospection or introspection in our life. We need those. We may not want them, but we need them if we're going to evolve as individuals and as humans.

The red and yellow lights I've found eventually turned green in the rearview mirror of life, meaning hardships we've had or times where we've had to be introspective and look back over our shoulder and assess why we keep failing at something or why we keep running into the same problem or practicing the same bad habit. We find that later, oh, I needed that. I needed that to turn the page. I need my own life. I needed that to evolve.

I needed that grow. I needed that introspection. Because if it was all just green lights and life was one big summer Saturday, shoeless summer and like I sat at, well, then what's it all for? It's kind of like it's all for entertainment. There's no evolution. And then we'd eventually get bored. So you need the rest of it.

reds and the yellows and even hardships in tragedies in the red lights in life, there's gifts in there. And to realize that there's a green light asset in my life because my father died. You go, wait a minute, how's that a green light? No, I'm not saying his dying is a green light. That's a red light. But, boy, did I learn a bunch of courage sooner than I would have if he'd still been alive because I was trusting that he had my back, that he was a crutch for me. And his passing way made me go, you better start becoming the young man you want to become and quit acting like one and start being one. So there was a green light asset in his passing. Again, it doesn't deny the red light, but there's a green light asset in our red and yellow lights.

I totally relate to that. My dad actually passed away this past May. And since then, I remember, remember in your book, you were saying, you know, it was kind of serendipitous when my dad died because his closing of his life really led to the opening of my life. And I thought, and it was just like a nice, beautiful closing of that chapter and opening of yours. And I can totally relate because right after my father died, it's like my downloads 10x. I launched pretty much a million dollar business. I landed a TED talk. Like all these positive things started happening. And it's because, like you said, I lost that crutch of my father being there for me. I just found this new passion for life and thought, let me just work even harder than I was working before. And I really

believed in myself. And I think believing in everything and believing that life is limitless is really how you end up just accomplishing your goals. I know that you had this speech at Houston. You did like a commencement speech or something like that where you talked about unbelievable being a word that you dislike. So can you talk to us about that word unbelievable? and why you don't like that word. Oh, I think it's the stupidest word in the dictionary. Unbelievable. What an unbelievable play.

What an unbelievable movie. What an unbelievable sunset. What an unbelievable beautiful person? What? These things in life that are awesome, why would we call them unbelievable? These are the things that make us believe more in the awe of life. So it's the complete antonym.

And it's sort of, it discredits the limits of beauty. It discredits the evil mankind can possess. Let's go to the negative. Let's go to the ugly side. Somebody flew on 9-11, flew a plane into the Twin Towers in America. Unbelievable. No, it just happened. Give more credit to the evil mankind can possess.

as well as give more credit to the awe and the beauty in life. These things are not unbelievable. And so I think the word unbelievable can be used so often that we actually, it makes us numb and in denial of the extreme beauties and the extreme tragedies that life just has. You know, an earth plate comes, a tidal wave comes. It was unbelievable. Well, no, it wasn't.

It just happened. Look that in the eye. And so that's why I don't like the word. it's a cop that word. Yeah, totally. Okay, let's take things back to your childhood. I want to get into some of these really amazing stories that are in your book, Green Lights.

One of my favorite stories that I heard on there was your mother telling you, since you were a child, that you were little Mr. Texas, right? And so she told you that growing up and all throughout your life, your childhood, your teens, you believed that you were little Mr. Texas. But then later on in life, you know, when you were much older, you looked at that trophy, you dusted it off and realized that you were

just the runner up. So I thought this was a great lesson in terms of parenting and the fact that you can really instill confidence in your children. And that's really important. And I want to know, do you think you would be who you are today if you had never, like, if you never thought you were little Mr. Texas? It's a fun question and I throw it out there. Look, I think I think I would be where I am today if I had grown. But it's a good. But it's a fun question. And I throw it. It's a fun question to entertain. In 1977, I enter the Little Mr. Texas contest. I get a trophy. I'm holding a trophy. I get a picture taking me. My mom pushed that trophy, that picture up in the kitchen. And every morning tells me, look at you, you are Mr. Texas. And I grew up here.

I'm little Mr. Texas. Well, it was just a couple years ago that I come across that picture. Cut to 2019, 2018, and I zoom in on the nameplate on the trophy and it says runner up. Well, I'm like, wait a minute, 1997, 87,07,07, 17, 41 years later, I find that. And, you know, and I remember I went to my mom. I'm like, Mom, I was runner up all these years. She goes, no, no, no, you were little, Mr. Texas. I go, Mom, it says runner up. She goes, no, the kid who won, his family was rich.

and they had enough money to buy him a really expensive suit. We call that cheating. So you're little Mr. Texas. So she's still like even gets in there and says, no, you're still it. So that's my mom is a great malapropper. And that's what I grew up believing. And, you know, when we grow older, we all find that little white lives that were told us. Hopefully they're harmless.

Some of them can be harmful. But we find out, you know, I'm sure maybe you found out things about your father who just passed away. things where the message was different than the messenger. You know, there's a gap between those. And I know I did when my father moved on. I've done that. I felt that way many loved ones moved on. And the first feeling that sometimes we get is, well, how dare they?

They didn't live by that, but they were telling me that. Well, get over that part and go, no, you know what? They want to be a little bit better than they were. They maybe weren't able to act it out, but they wanted me to be able to. And there's grace in that. So that was an innocent little white lie that my mom told me for 41 years. But it all worked out. So how else did your parents instill confidence in you?

Because as an actor and you were actually a very natural actor. You just walked on set basically to start your acting career and you didn't really go to school before you started first acting. So you had this natural confidence. And I think little things like this add up. So what else did your parents do to instill confidence in you do you think? You know, we were always pushed to be ourselves, know ourselves. And it's true to this day. Who else is more interesting or should be more interesting to get to know than ourselves.

And if we can then be more of ourselves, we are inherently becoming more original daily. Because there's only one of us. So, you know, we see people, we look up to people, we see things, we want to be more like them. I wanted to be more like my older brother. Yeah, all that's fine. But boy, if you can sit there and go, who am I? And I know my parents are still like, wait, get to know yourself. You be confident with who you are as much as you can be.

And that's not easy. That's not easy to do. But it's a task worth taking up. It's a challenge worth taking. And it's a challenge that's never over. I'm still doing it. I'm going to be doing it hopefully until the day I die. It's a challenge that's never over to constant, infinite quest that we never really arrive at being completely our true of selves.

But boy, what a race to be chasing, you know, after our true of selves. You know, and my mom would throw out quotes like, you know, we'd be nervous to go to the dance in junior high with our first date. And she'd be like, don't you walk into that place like you want to buy it. You walk in there like you own it. You go like, whoa, what? Okay. You know, so like, you know, she threw that line back at me before my time to kill audition, which I was very nervous, which I ended up getting.

I called her and she was like, don't you walk in there like you want that part. You walk in there like you are that part. And just great mental perspective to go, okay. And that has probably helped me, and I think it's something that can help all of us, not let moments become bigger than we are in them, which is, I think, is a very good thing for us all to try and understand. Don't let the moment become bigger than you. You gain self-respect from that.

You gain self-trust from that. You gain confidence from that. Yeah, I think that's a really good insight. And it kind of goes back to like your journaling. You seem to be very introspective, like you like to reflect on your life, rate things down, think about it, and that probably also helps your confidence, too, because you get to know yourself better. Well, yeah.

I mean, I've also, you know, in the writing of this book, to go back and look at my journals from 36 years of me in the past was a daunting task. I'm not a nostalgic guy. I don't really like to look back. I don't even watch all my movies. I don't watch any of my interviews. I'm like, wow, I don't want it. It's uncomfortable.

I'm like, no, I was there. You know, I know what I did. I felt it. I don't need to go back and look at it. and be a voyeur on it. I know I felt what I did, but I don't like to look back and see replays of things I've done or look back in my life and see who I was. Well, to do that, I went back and I was like, man, I'm going to be embarrassed of who I was at times. I'm going to feel shameful. I'm going to feel guilty. I'm going to see times where I was an arrogant little prick and I'm not going to like

who I was. And I was like, well, I dare you, McCona. Hey, I dare you to go look back. And I was all those things. But I found out that most of the things I thought I'd be embarrassed about I laughed at. Most of the things I thought I'd be shamed about and feel guilty about, I'd either already forgiven myself for or forgave myself for in times where I was like, yeah, you were an arrogant little know-it-all. Boy, that was ugly. Boy, you were such a know-it-all.

It was ugly. But then I noticed, well, actually, your arrogance at that time in your life, Matthew, gave you the confidence to put yourself in a position to get humiliated, which you needed, which you wouldn't have had the confidence to put yourself in a position to get humbled if you wouldn't have been that arrogant. So everything sort of had its own little green light, you know? At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is

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results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed, is all you need. Yeah. It's so interesting. And speaking of red lights, green lights, let's talk about a red light that you had. And it's another one of my favorite stories from your book. It was your trip to Australia.

So you went to Australia for one year, a Rotary Exchange program after you graduated high school. And you stayed with a very unusual family. You were a very nice kid. You were trying to be respectful to them. And you didn't really know if it was just cultural differences or if something really was going on. And tell us about that story, how it was a red light. red light and how you turned it on its head and turned it into a green light. Well, so I had just come out of high school where I was catching all green lights, meaning

I made straight A, so mom and dad were happy in high school. I just turned 18, which meant for the first time I no longer had a curfew. I had a car. It was paid for. I had a job. I had 45 bucks in my back pocket at all times. I was dating the best looking girl at my school, dating the best looking girl across town. I had a poor handicapping golf.

I was rolling. Like, go to Australia, and it's like a screeching halt. I'm in this little town in the middle of nowhere. I got no car. I got no friends. I got no girlfriends. I do have a curfew. I have no job.

And I don't even have my golf clubs. And I've got nothing around me. And I was with it in a strange circumstance with an unusual family. And I went a little bit insane. while I was going insane over there. The reason I was going insane is because I only had me to rely on. I was writing 14-page letters to me and returning them, writing a 14-page letter back to me.

I mean, I was in a Socratic sort of implosion, but I felt at the time because everyone was like, why didn't you come home? Why do you come home? Well, one, I told the Rotary people, I said, I'll go. I'll give you a handshake that I'm not coming home before the year's over. So I felt part of a challenge I wanted to live up to. Secondly, I felt like even while I was losing my mind, I was like, I had a hunch.

This is a penance for a reason. There's light. There's there's something, if you can survive this and get out of this, because I was forced to get to know myself. I didn't have anybody else to go, hey, is this cool what they're saying or what they want me to do? There's no, I had no sounding board. I didn't have mom and dad. I didn't have friends. I had to ask myself. So I had to form my own identity and form my own judgment and form my own discernment of things that I would stand up for or wouldn't stand up for, things that I would let slide or wouldn't. And it was hard because I'm an 18-year-old kid just figuring out, just becoming an adult. But it was wonderful because I was forced to. I was forced to by hook or by crook, make up my own mind

and figure out how it was going to navigate through this hairy situation without anybody else's help. And it was a great right of passage for me. And a year, you brought up little Mr. Texas earlier. Would I be here with that little if I had thought I was runner up?

I think so. Would I be here without that year in Australia? I doubt it. What makes you think that? Like, what happened in Australia? Like, tell us some of the stories in terms of some of the weird things. Well, yeah, especially read the book for the story

because the story is really well written, I think, and it's got great details in there. So I'm not going to go into those because they're better to read those. But again, it was a year in my life where I was lost, lonely, alone, losing my mind, taking up odd disciplines that when I look back are hilarious and horrific at the same time. I did not think I was losing my mind, but I look back at the letters I was writing and I look back at letters. I even wrote my mom kept ones I wrote her. I look at it. I'm like, did you know I was losing my mind? Mom? And mom's like, well, I had a hunch. I mean, you just, it's a 17 line run on sentence here you wrote. You know, when you're going and saying,

you're like, advert, too many adverbs and adverbs. You're just overly, just mentally, no, midgetizing almost, just imploding. And it was just a, it was a year where I was forced to get to know myself. It was a year of forced introspection. And until then, I had, I guess I'd been in, an introspective person, but I was much more of an extrovert. I was not a writer, not a reader. I was not a contemplator. That year, I was forced to because my only form of entertainment or freedom or sanity was me and me. And I did not always enjoy the company, but I was forced with me. So I had to get through it. I went through it. So coming out of that, I ran into hardships in life and still do today, that I'm like, oh, that's nothing.

I am, what I endured that year, this is nothing. And so I, I, I have gone through things that may, if I wouldn't have had that year, I may have thought some crises and hardships I've had in my life, I'd be like, if I didn't have that year, be like, oh, my gosh, this is daunting. But because of that year, I look at things that maybe that otherwise would have been daunting, and then I'm like, oh, no, I got this. I'll handle this. This is nothing.

And I totally agree with you. The story in the book is so entertaining. So everybody listening right now, go check out Greenlights. Make sure you buy the book, listen to the Audible. I was cracking up during the story. He basically was like almost kidnapped by this family that basically wanted him to be their son. And it's just a crazy story. You definitely got to listen to it.

I loved it. So let's talk about when you, so you came back to the U.S. And then you were going to go to college, right? And you wanted to be a lawyer for a while. I think since you were in high school, you wanted to be a lawyer. So you were going on that path. And there was one school that you wanted to go to. that was quite expensive and one that was more local that was more affordable. And your brother actually

told you like, hey, you should probably go to the cheaper school because your dad's having some financial struggles, right? And you quickly made the decision to respect your father. You never told him why he made that decision, but you went to the cheaper school and you listened to your brother. And to me, as like somebody that young, that really showed me that you were mature. You had really good decision-making skills at that age. So talk to us about that decision. Talk to us about your decision-making process in general and how you were able to have that good judgment so young. Well, we're a close family. And I knew the school I wanted to go to was SMU. It was in Dallas, Texas. My idea was that as a lawyer in the big city of Dallas, I'll be able to get an

internship early on. So when I get out of school and I'm in law school, I'll jump right into the job because I'll already have, I've planted my feet and I've planted seeds within a law firm that I want to work in because it's a big metropolis. This other school, University Texas was in a smaller town in Austin, but it was a state school, so it was about a third of the price. Well, my dad said, well, you want to go to the University of Texas at Austin? I'm like, no, sir, I want to go to Dallas. He's like, you sure? And I'm like, yes, sir. And he goes, okay, okay. And I remember he questioned, but I was wondering, why is he questioned? But he did never say, you'd be doing me a big favor because it costs a lot less.

But my brother calls me. And we're a close family. My brother says, hey, man, dad's not going to tell you this. But he's in business is tough right now. And it's going to cost 18 grand to go to SMU. It'll cost five grand to go to Texas. You'd be doing him a real solid if you chose you versus Texas. And my brother didn't call those.

I wouldn't have got that call on a whimsy. You know what I mean? My brother to tell me that and then to also know that my dad had too much pride to let me know that. I'm like, oh, okay. Yep, got it. It was sort of, it was very, very quickly made decisions. It's like, got it. Yeah.

I'll go to yours tech. And never, never told my dad that twice. So I call my dad and go, dad, I decide. I don't want to go to university texting. He's like, oh, great idea, buddy. What are, you know, super idea. Way to go. And I'm like, yep, just changed my mind, you know.

So another decision that, hey, would I be here now if I didn't go to a university of Texas at Austin, a city and a university that had been very good to me and I love a lot? I don't know if I'd be here now. Would I have ended up going to law school and become a lawyer if I'd have gone to SMU? I don't know. Well, that decision probably based on how tight we are as a family. My dad never asked anything of me. My dad had too much honor and pride to tell me to tell anybody in our family.

family. I found out since he's passed away, there were many times that he was almost bankrupt. We couldn't tell. We had no idea. We never went out. We were middle class and lived more like upper middle class, probably. We never knew he was financially strapped. Now, does that lead up to part of the stress he had that led to him having a heart attack at 62? Probably, but he never showed us. We never felt like we were going. He never once said we can. afford that. And so even at that age of 18, I'm like, what an honorable, cool thing of a father to do. He's not even letting us know that he can't afford the school. And he would have found a way. If I would have gone to that other school, he would have paid for it. He would have found a way.

And I would have never known that it was taxing on his finances. So that was obvious to me when my brother said that. So that was a quick decision to go, oh yeah, let's do data solid here. And I'll make this other school work, which it turned out to be a gift. I'm glad I went to this school, even if it was, even if it would cost three times more than the other one. I'm glad I went to this one, but it didn't. It was three times less. Well, how about another tough decision when you decided to go to film school? What was, why did you decide to just switch gears, let go of the dream of being a lawyer,

and how did your father take that information? Well, I was not, it was, I was not sleeping well for the first time with the idea of becoming a lawyer. And I had been, it's all I ever wanted to be. And now here I am, whatever, 19, 20, 20, 21 years old. And I'm starting to think, I don't know if I want to go to law school. I got to graduate here. Then I go full more years to law school. Then I get out.

Basically, I won't be working, putting my stamp or my fingerprint in society until I'm in my 30s. I don't know if I want to spend my entire 20s learning. At the same time, I've been writing a lot, been writing short stories, I've been sharing the short stories with a writer friend of mine who was telling me, hey, those are pretty damn good, probably secretly enjoying performing in front of a camera, but not even able to admit it yet. So I said I want to go to film school to get in behind the camera, to learn the art of storytelling from behind the camera and get into the storytelling business.

Well, I'm very nervous to call my father, who's paying for my school to tell him, I don't want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school. Remember, I come from a blue collar family, which is, is you get a job and you work your way up a company ladder. You get something that's dependable. The arts, film production, storytelling. That's a hobby on Saturday.

Yeah, you can do it, but that's not the way you do. I'm not going to pay for you to go get educated in that. It felt too avant-garde, too European, too whimsical of an idea to even do. Well, I decided to call him one night and tell him that that's what I'd like to do. Ask, tell. And I called him and said, Dad, I don't want to, I've decided I don't really want to go to law school anymore. I want to go to film school.

And he goes, you sure that's what you want to do? I said, yes, sir. And the next three words he said to me were incredible. He said, well, don't half asset. And I remember getting tingles at the time and almost crying because my dad in saying, don't half asset. He didn't just approve my choice. He gave me responsibility, accountability, more than privilege.

He gave me freedom, courage. and a challenge to go do it. And in looking back at that moment, because I really did not think that's how the phone call is going to go, I thought he was going to be like, you want a what, boy? What are you talking about? But in a matter of a 20-second conversation,

he said, where I told him that I wanted to make a complete career choice change in school, 20 seconds later, he said, don't have fast. I think what it was is that like any parent out there, we build structure for our children. here's what you should do. Follow these rules, stay within the lines. And that's good because a lot of us will succeed to a certain extent if we do that. And that is a very worthy thing to do. But when a parent's really, I think, happy is when a child maybe is fortunate enough to come to them and go, I'm breaking out. I'm going on my own. I'm doing it. And I think he heard in my voice when I

said, I don't want to go to law school more. I want to go to film school. Even though I was calling to ask permission, I really wasn't. And he heard the certainty in his son's voice. Because if I would have gone, I mean, I think I do. I don't know. He'd probably said, hell no, because I would have been bluffing. He'd have heard me bluffing. Right. So he heard my voice that I was not bluffing, that I really wasn't asking permission. And that's what gave him, I think, the pride, the honor and the pleasure to go, yes, that my son is letting me know I've raised him well enough for him to have the confidence to come to me and go, dad, this is what I'm doing. And that made him very happy. And I think that's something that makes any parent happy.

Yeah. And it probably really helped you, you know, because I think he passed not too long after that. It probably really helped you that he supported your acting decision. And that probably gave me the confidence to keep on going down that path. Confidence and courage. And, you know, I had my own bit of honor and pride to say, look, dad gave you more than approval to go chase down this as a career path. And now that he's gone, it gave me more courage to go, well, now you really better not half-ass it. You really better not quit at this. You really better make this happen.

You really better succeed. You really better do everything you can to be as good of an actor as you can. So inherently, I'm sure that was part of it, too, of me going, I've got more. I'm doing this for more than just me. So let's talk about the beginnings of your acting career. Like I mentioned before, you were a very natural. you ended up kind of forcing your way to get your breakout role on days and confused. So tell us about that.

Tell us how you convince the director to give you that part. Well, I go out to this bar in Austin one night with my girlfriend at the time, Tonya. And I knew the bartender who was in film school with me. And he says, hey, there's a guy down at the end of the bar named Don Phillips. He's an in-town producing a film. He's been coming here every night. He's staying in the hotel. go down and introduce you. I introduce myself. Well, three hours later, he and I are talking golf and

telling stories and movies we like, et cetera, we get kicked out of the bar. On the cab right home to drop me off that night, he's riding with me and to drop me off in my apartment. And he says, hey, you ever done any acting before? And I said, I mean, I was in this Miller Light commercial for about that long. And I was in this music video. And he was like, hey, well, you might be right for this part. You know, there's a guy called Wooderson. Here, I'm going to leave a script for you at this address. Come down tomorrow morning, pick it up. It's three lines, but it's cool character. You might be right for it. Well, I go pick up that script. There are three lines. I study those three lines for two weeks. I come back. I audition for the director,

Richard Linkletter. I get the part. Now, all of a sudden, I'm on set one night. I'm not supposed to work. I'm doing a hair, makeup, and wardrobe test, which is where you just put on your makeup and your wardrobe and your, and when the director has a free time, he walks off the set and comes and looks you up and down and gives you note to what have you. I'm not supposed to work this night. My first day to work is a week later. Well, the director comes up and looks and he goes, yeah, this is Wooderson. I like it. And all of a sudden, as I'm about to say goodbye, he goes, hey, you know, you think Wooderson would be interested in the redheaded intellectual girl in school. And I'm like, yeah, man, Wooderson likes all kinds of girls. He goes, well,

there's a girl Marissa Ribisi who's playing the role of Cynthia, the red-headed intellectual, and she's over here in the car, and she's got her three nerdy friends, and I don't know, maybe Wooderson pulls up, tries to pick her up, tells her there's a party later on. I'm like, give me 30 minutes. And I took a walk with myself, and I was like, who's my man, who's Wooderson, who's this guy, there's this scene I'm being invited into that there's no lines written for. Next thing I know, I'm in the car about to shoot my first scene ever. There's not a line written for it. All I know is the scenario.

And I'm telling myself, who's my man, who's Wooderson, the character I'm playing? And I'm getting kind of nervous. And I tell myself, to myself, I say, I'm about my car. I said, well, I'm in my 70 Chevelle. There's one. I said, I'm about getting high. I said, well, Slater's riding shotgun. He's always got a dooby rolled up.

There's two. I said, I'm about rock and roll. I said, I got Ted News at Stranglehold. the eight-track playing right now, there's three, and all of a sudden they hear, action. And I look up, cross the parking lot at the red-headed intellectual Cynthia, and I go, and me, Wooderson, I'm about picking up chicks. And as I said that, it went through my mind as I put it in dry. Well, I've got three out of four, and I'm going to get the fourth. All right, all right, all right, and pulled out. It's the first three words I ever said.

said on camera in a film. 1992. And then we did the scene. And then I kept getting invited back every night. The director kept inviting me back. And that whole cast would involve me in the scenes. They'd ask me questions in the middle of my character questions in the middle of the scene. And sort of they wrote me into the picture.

And all of a sudden, I worked three weeks. Three lines turned to three weeks work. And it was awesome. And I had a great time doing it. People were telling me I was good at it. I'm getting paid $300 a day. I'm going, is this legal? It's so much fun.

And people are telling me, I got it. Please, I go back, I graduate college, and I drive out to Hollywood with the U-Haul and $3,000 bucks the next year. And here I am 28, 29 years later, turned into a career. Wow. It just goes to show that you need to really, like, take your opportunities. Because that opportunity, you could have just chickened out. You could have just been like, you know what?

I'm not ready. I didn't get my lines. I've never done this before. You could have just chickened out. And you had that one moment, whatever, how many minutes that was, 30 minutes you said, to figure it out and get the balls to kind of just do it. And I just think that people need to realize that sometimes you need to take the opportunities that are in your face because they could just go away forever. They can. And you know, that window of opportunity so many times it opens up and we see it. And if we start to go, should I take it? That can sometimes already be too much time. It closes. So I remember, he goes, you know, I was just answering the questions.

Yeah, I'd like to, you know, me think about my man. Do you want to do this? And I'm already seeing this is like, well, it's going to be an opportunity. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do, but this is, let me go try and figure it out and then try and relax and just be my man, be my character. But yeah, they do open up. And, you know, I could have said no and still been invited back. done the three scenes, the three lines and the three scenes and could have done well. But I don't

think I wouldn't be sitting here right now with the life I have or the career I have. And, but I've tried to take that into my acting career throughout is even if it's one line character, think about what that whole character is in every scenario. Write a book on that character. So if you're in any position and someone throws you an improv line and asks you a question, you got an idea of what your person would say, your character would say. your character would say. And I guess as I'm saying, it goes along with who we are in life as well.

Know ourselves well enough. Play ourselves out and project ourselves in the different scenarios. To where if we're in them, we can improvise and be ourselves. Yeah. And it also goes back to, like, be so prepared that, like,

nobody has a choice but to give you that opportunity because they just know, oh, well, he's got it. He's so good, you know? Like, give them no choice but to, give you that opportunity if it comes up. If it comes up and it's a fine line because look, you can, you know, say, oh, I've got to look for opportunities. Yes, we do create opportunities, but you've got to, you got to know your zone, you've got to read the room, you've got to know

you're dealing with, meaning say if I wanted to be in that scene that night, but wasn't invited, which I originally wasn't. And say I went up and they were like, okay, your car, you can go home now. I'm like, no, I'm going to stay on set because I'm looking for my opportunity, right? And then maybe they're not getting the scene down and they're having trouble getting the scene. And I'm over there on the sideline nervous thinking, when am I going to find my opening to say, hey, can I get in here? And maybe I say it. And they're like, look at me and I going, who the hell is this guy trying to get in here and we're trying to, hell, no, you can't. Then I go home and then they're going, do we even want to invite this guy back to do the three lines we hired him to do?

He's a pin in the ass. He's trying to, he didn't gracefully. So it's a bit of go after what you want, but also sit back and be prepared enough for if the opportunity comes. You're like, I got it. Put me in, coach. Give me the ball. You know, but you can't be overbearing because sometimes you can be overbearing and you're a nuisance.

You know, but so it's a balance. What's up, young and profitors. I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system. Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities. And that starts with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door.

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You're in every single movie. That's when I was a teenager. I was watching you all day, you know. And so talk to us about that. Like, did you like doing rom-coms? You also say that rom-coms were green lights for you or like the green light of movies. So tell us about that and your experience there. Yeah, I did enjoy rom-coms. You know, they were light.

They were fun. When I prepare for them enough, the actual making of the movies, the acting movies, were easy. They were supposed to be easy. It's a flow. The rom-com is not the case. the characters aren't you know you say you know hello is a guy I'm an advertising agent

but the character's not about my character as an advertising agent it's just a that's a job I've got so it's not what I talk about it's not have to be job specific it's all about the lingo between the boy and the girl or the couple whoever they are do they have the sauce are you are you looking at I'm going oh this is good and you got to have a joust there's always a In a rom-com, boy means girl, usually, they go on, they break up for some reason. At the end in the third act, boy chase his girl, gets her, roll the credits. You know that's going to happen. You know the couple's going to get together.

You just want to have a good time seeing them do it. You want to think that it's going to fail, but then be happy when it does succeed. You want to be in on the joke when Kate Hudson's going to try to trick me. You want to be in on it, and I don't know it. but you, the audience know it and she does. You want to be in on the joke when I'm about to trick her, but she doesn't know it, but you, the audience knows it. You want to have fun seeing each other, us dupe each other in a fun, innocent way.

So it's about lingo. You can improvise in those things. And I had always been a very comfortable improviser, and you play out the scenario and trying to wiggle your way out of the trouble and try to come out of the scene winning. And that's part of the fun of watching rom-com, seeing each character try and win and not always winning, watching someone fail, get duped.

and then maybe recover or not. So they were great fun. And I did, you know, they're also medium budget in Hollywood terms. At that time, they were like $35 million budget, not $80 million budget. So you could put them out. They didn't, oh, the studio didn't have to put out so much bank. And the ones that I was doing were doing very well. And then they were getting played on at the time cable TV and DVDs.

And now they're still playing. So that's also money back to the studio. And they were succeeding. I was the rom-com guy to go-to guy. And I'd done like three or four now that had all succeeded. And I was starting to feel like, I'd read the next rom-com script. And I'd feel like, oh, that's a good one. But I feel like I could do this tomorrow morning.

Like, I want something that I'm looking at and going like, I don't know what I'm going to do with this character, but I can't wait to find out. And that was not rom-coms. So I decided to take a sabbatical from rom-coms. I decided to say, look, the dramatic fare I want to do, they're not offering me that. No one wants to finance the Matthew McConaughey in a drama.

So I said, if I can't do what I want to do, I'm going to quit doing what I've been doing. So I said, no more rom-coms. well, that meant I was going to go without work for a while. And I did have to go with that work for a while. I didn't get offered anything but rom-coms for the first six months. I said no to them all. And then for the next year and a half, I got offered nothing.

So I go basically two years without working, wanting to work, but not working. And then after two years, I think I gained some anonymity. I think in the audiences' eyes and the studios' eyes that make the movies, it was like, where's him con hay? Hasn't been in a rom-com in front of us on the screen? We don't know where he is. We haven't seen him shirtless on the beach in Malibu. Where is he?

Well, I was down in Texas, hiding out, saying no to rom-coms waiting, hopefully, for something else to come. Well, after two years, with that anonymity that I gained, I unbranded, and I became a new good idea for those dramatic roles that I wanted to do. So it took two years of being gone to be able to be seen for the first time as, hey, you know it would be interesting casting, original cool casting for Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, Paperboy,

Magic Mike, Mud, Burning, True Detective, Dallas Spires, but it wouldn't have happened unless I took the two years off and unbranded. Yeah, it's so interesting. interesting because, you know, you're a celebrity, right? And so you needed to do that because everybody knew who you were. They recognized you as a certain character and you needed to unbrand yourself. And that's something that I think like the average person doesn't really have experience with. We can just reinvent ourselves continually and it doesn't really, people aren't

paying attention that closely where that would ever be an issue. Right. Well, and look, and I understand, you know, in some listeners, we could be out there going, yeah, well, lucky. you, you were able to take off work for two years to on brand. Not everyone can do that. I get that. I had invested well and been very conservative with my money enough to be where I could maintain a certain lifestyle without working. And I was trying to do, I was doing some voice work during that time, but no acting. So yeah, I was in a privileged position to take time off. But the concept is still useful for anyone is to go, boy, if I can't do what I want to do, maybe I need to quit doing what I'm doing. It's again, it's about when I talk about the book about finding our own

identity, it's not always about knowing what we want to do. That's hard. What's easier is to eliminate the things in our life of who we are not, whether that's work, whether that's who we're hanging out with, where we're going, how we're greeting the day, what we're drinking, how much we're sleeping, whatever that is. So let's continue on this topic in terms of celebrity and some differences in terms of like what you guys have to deal with. And my boyfriend's actually a very famous hip hop producer and I've dealt with it with him over the years. Now I'm starting to gain a fraction of celebrity,

not anything compared to you or him. But I know that your mother, actually, you had a falling out with your mother for quite some time because she was really interested in your celebrity and even invited tabloid news people into your house and you felt like you couldn't be yourself around your mother for that reason. And I know a lot of celebrities are very private about their life and really just try to keep that separate because I'm sure it could be really hard.

So talk to us about that and maybe some of the things that you've struggled with with your celebrity and, you know, how you deal with it. Sure. Well, so, you know, I became a celebrity sort of over one weekend. And it was when a time to kill came out. I mean, I was a bit of a celebrity before maybe to a certain extent, but I became famous when a time of kill came out. That weekend, I was the lead in a major studio, Warner Brothers picture that did well.

And when that film opened on that Friday, my life changed from that Friday to the following Monday over the weekend when that movie came out. The world was a mirror. All of a sudden, everyone was looking at me and had an idea and a biography of who I was, what they thought about me. People come up and go, oh, my God, I'm so sorry about it. about Ms. Hud. And I'm like going, I've never met you. How do you know I have a dog? How do you know her name's Ms. Hud? How do you know she has cancer? What's your name? You just skipped like four

things and jumped right into my life. I'm like going, whoa, you know, three days ago you were a stranger. Now you're not, or you're at least acting like you're not. You lose anonymity. So I had to go, chose to go off on my own to take some walkabouts with a backpack to gain. my anonymity and sit with myself and go, okay, all of a sudden you have all these new options in your life. You have all, what was 99 no's and one yes last Friday is now 99 yeses and one no. Wow, that's great. But at the same time, it's like, oh shit, what do you want me to do? Three days ago, I would have done any of this, but I couldn't. And now you're telling me I can do almost all of it. And you want me to decide? So, you know, with all the options and then,

When the roof was taken off, I was like, well, there's only 24 hours in the day. What do I? What do I need some discernment here to decide what is I want to do? I needed to go off, spend time with myself, figure out what the hell mattered to me and what did. Another lesson though that I learned with fame seven years in after that becoming famous is that with fame, you start to get a lot of things. All of a sudden you get the backstage passes. You get to the front of the line. You get things carte blanche handed to you.

And it's awesome. At the same time, I went through a bit of an imposter syndrome, sort of non-deserving complex, like why me? Why am I getting honest? Do I deserve this? And I was a little awkward with the champagne and caviar that were now being handed to me for free. And I was like, okay, okay. Again, a few days ago, I couldn't even have this.

But I learned to, and all of a sudden people say, throw the word, I love you around more. And I'm like, that's a word. I've only said to four people. but everyone's telling me they love me and I don't even know them. What's this mean? And I took it personally to some extent. But I learned seven years after my fame that, oh, it's not, none of it's personal. It's business. I had, at the height of my fame, I could get anyone on the, any studio head on the phone, anybody on the phone. Well, then I go do a few movies that don't do as well. They don't return my calls.

Then all of a sudden my career picks back up and I'm doing, well, now they're calling me. well, I could either choose to go, F you, man. I remember when you wouldn't call or go, it's cool. It's all business. I got it. So when I made it less personal and said, oh, it's all business, just roll with it. Just how the flow goes of my career. And if someone who becomes famous or less famous at a time and then more famous, again, it ain't personal.

It's business. If you get that joke, that's the joke to get with fame. It ain't personal. It's business. If you get that joke, you'll be a lot less stressed. You'll be able to accept all of the adulation better. You'll be able to accept the champagne and caviar easier with grace, but you'll also, for me,

not necessarily need that for your sense of identity as much because it's fleeting. You've got to watch it with fame. When you go to that and you need the attention, look at musicians. I get it. You're on a stage. with thousands of people looking up, adoring you in a show. And what happens when you're not touring live anymore or no one's buying your albums?

Huh. Real life? Regular life? It's not enough to get off to. I need more of a buzz. I can't get off to this because I was so high. Then you got to watch how much we get our identity and our sense of satisfaction and pleasure

from things that you get at the height of fame. You got to appreciate them, I think. But make sure they're not just completely making up your sense of who you are. Because in fame, it's infinite yeses. Now, that's where the devil be living. The devil be living in the infinite yeses, not the nose. I mean, too many options can make a tyrant of any of us. So that's what you've got to watch with fame.

But you have all access. Well, if you got all access, you can you can peter out and burn out because you just don't have the energy or you got to watch your health and your mental health and your spiritual health and your physical health. So take some time. If you're fortunate enough to get famous, take some time to go check in with yourself and go, what matters to me? Because I write about this in the book.

For the first time, you can do things that you never could do before. So your first instinct is go, well, yes. Why yes? because I never had the option before. So, of course. Well, ask yourself if you want to before you do when you can. I think that's excellent advice. And I just have to say that you've been so humble.

You know, I didn't know what you're going to be like. You're obviously very famous. You've got a lot of privilege, but you do give back to the community. So I did want to give you a chance to talk about your foundation. Tell us a little bit about your foundation and its mission. Sure. We're the Just Keep Living Foundation. We're in after-school Title I schools, which is schools with lower-income families and students,

a lot of single-parent homes, 50% dropout rate. So we have a curriculum in those schools after school days where kids and young men, when we come to set a exercise goal, maybe that is, I want to get in shape so I can make the football team and I'm not in shape. We'll help you get in shape. Or maybe it's, I need to lose four pounds so I can fit my proper. mom dress. We're going to help you do that. We teach you nutrition goals. Okay, instead of five cheeseburgers again for dinner, let's take that $38 and we're going to take you to a supermarket and

you can buy vegetables, rice, beans, and maybe even some meat, a healthier meal and you also get to cook it with your family. Third thing, community service. All the students have to do community service within their own community. And fourth thing is we have what we call a gratitude circle, which at the end of each curriculum, all the students sit. around and openly share something they're thankful for in life. And the coolest thing about that is the students come and they're saying, I love the gratitude circle because I'm hearing my friends say thank you for things in their life that I have in my life that I've always taken for granted and never said thank you for. So we believe that the more you're thankful for,

the more you're going to create in your life to be thankful for. I think gratitude creates responsibility because if you give more value to things, you want to take care of them. And if you want to take care of the things that matter to you, that's actually how you get more freedom. So that's what we're providing in our curriculum, given all the way down to giving these kids, some of them, it's just a safe place to go after school that they didn't have before. And where can people go to contribute to that foundation? Just keep living, no G on the end, foundation.com.com.com. or jk.lovenfoundation.org. Thank you.

Cool. I'll put that in the show notes. Okay, so the last question I ask all my guests is, what is your secret to profiting in life? Well, sometimes it's a greater risk to go for something you want, and sometimes it's a greater risk to sacrifice and say, no, I'm going to go without that. That's really another place where the art, I think, of living is, and we've been talking about that generally

for the last 30 minutes. Try if you can to say, okay, look, we all want to make money. Money's good. It's a great tool. It does help the world go around in a capitalist society.

We need money. I'm all for that. We want to fill our bank account. But let's ask herself when we're filling our bank account. Can I also fill my soul's account at the same time? Boy, if we find a way,

where we can fill our bank account and Seoul's account, where we don't fill our bank account at the expense of who we are or what we believe in. We don't like cheat and steal and screw people over and burn bridges to get what we want. That's long money. That's real profit. That's so beautiful.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much for joining us today, Matthew. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you're doing? I mean, I share some pretty cool, what I think is some pretty cool stuff on my Instagram and officially McConaughey. If you want to find out about the foundation,

just keep living.org. And if you want to find out more about the book, hopefully go check it out and read it and get something from it, but that's it, greenlightsthebook.com or greenlights.com. And hey, I'm still here, living live in live. Hopefully I'm only halfway through

this big thing called life. We'll see. Awesome. Thank you so much. Matthew. I appreciate it. Whoa. It is so surreal that I just interviewed Matthew McConaughey on Young and Profiting Podcast. It just goes to show you that with a lot of hard work, anything is possible. And honestly, I wasn't even nervous. I felt fully prepared like I've been preparing my whole life for that moment. And everything is just so serendipitous lately. Matthew is technically

my 100th guest interview on Young and Profiting Podcast. Since my 100th episode was a solo, episode, he was my hundredth person that I've interviewed on this podcast. And who better to be number 100 than Matthew freaking McConaughey? In fact, I landed this Matthew McConaughey interview just a couple weeks ago on the day that I quit my full-time job. Can you say green lights? The signs are clear that I made the right decision and I can't wait to see what happens next and I hope you guys follow along on this journey. Life is full of green, yellow, and red lights. The best. way to live is to just keep on looking forward and I hope Matthew's life stories have encouraged you to just all keep on living. If I had to just pick one favorite part of this interview,

it was when Matthew was talking about how he thinks the word unbelievable is stupid. And it is stupid. Everything is believable because anything is possible. Always remember that and try not to put limiting beliefs on yourself. I encourage all of you to go out and grab green lights by Matthew McConaughey, the Audible version was especially amazing. We are so grateful for all our young and profiting podcast listeners. If you haven't done so yet, please subscribe to our podcast so you can be alerted every time we drop a new episode. If you love Yap and you find value in these episodes, please take a few minutes to write

us a review on Apple Podcasts, especially if you have access to an iPhone. Apple podcast reviews act as social proof for new listeners and they largely impact our podcast rankings. As always, I'm going to shout out a recent review from Apple Podcasts. This week's shout out goes to Kate Geo, moving and inspirational. Hala asks all the right questions, plain and simple. Every episode leaves you with that feeling like you just walked away learning something new and valuable, whether the overall topic relates to you or not. I think this is a podcast that any professional of any age would enjoy and grow from.

Thank you, Kate, for your amazing review. And I totally agree. Young and Profiting Podcast is for all ages. And in fact, one of my biggest regrets was calling it Young and Profiting Podcasts because I think my listeners are really all ages and anyone could find value from this show. And if you're out there listening, don't forget to share Young and Profiting Podcasts with your friends and family. and remember to follow us on social media.

You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. And now I'm on Clubhouse. Follow me at Hala Taha and tap the bell for always so you know when I open up my rooms. I'll be hosting podcast office hours every single week for upcoming podcasters and live Yap events as well. Big thanks to the YAP team.

As always, this is Hala, signing off.