5 RULES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE | Matthew McConaughey

[Music] before I share with you some of what I do knows I want to talk with you about what I don't know not I have two older brothers one was in high school in the early 1970s and this was a time when a high school GED got you a job not in a college degree he was exemplary my other brother Pat was in high school in the early 80s and by this time the GED wasn't enough to guarantee employment he needed a college degree and if you got one you had a pretty good chance to get the kind of job that you wanted after you graduate now me I graduated high school in 1988 got my college degree in 1993 and that college degree in 93 did not mean as much it was not a ticket it was not a voucher it was not a free pass go to anything so I asked the question what does your college degree me it means you got an education means you have more knowledge as a specific subject vocation it means you may have more expertise and what your degree is in but what's it worth in the job market out there today we know the market for college graduates is more competitive now than ever now some of you already have a job lined up you've got a path where today's job is going to become tomorrow's career but for most of you the future is probably still pretty fuzzy you don't have that job that directly reflects the degree you just got many of you don't even have a job at all think about you've just completed your scholastic curriculum in life the one that you started when you were five years old in kindergarten up until now and your future may not be any more clear than it was five years ago you don't have the answers and it's probably a pretty damn scary and I say that's okay because that is how it hits this is the reality that many of you are facing this is the world that we live in the sooner that we become less impressed with our life with our accomplishments with our career with whatever that prospect isn't the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with that and these things the sooner we get a whole lot better at doing it so I'm going to talk to you about some things I've learned in my journey most from experience some of them I heard in passing many of them I'm still practicing but all of them I do believe our truth now they may be truth to me but don't think that that makes them mine because you cannot own a truth so please think of these as signposts approaches paradigms that give some science to satisfaction so your steel yours to share like into your own lives to personally apply in your own lives in your own way should you choose to so here we go number one this should come up on the jumbotron life's not easy is it up there life is not easy it is not don't try to make it that way life's not fair it never was it isn't now and it won't ever be do not fall into the trap the entitlement trap of feeling like you're a victim you are not get over it and get on with it and yes most things are more rewarding when you break a sweat to get them number two unbelievable is the stupidest word the dictionary should never come out of our mouth think about it to say oh wow what an unbelievable play it was an unbelievable book an unbelievable film an unbelievable act of courage really it may be spectacular it may be phenomenal most excellent or outstanding but unbelievable give others and yourself more credit it just happened you witnessed it you just did it believe it what about the other side of unbelievable you know that that side when we humans underperform or act out of our best character for instance man flies a suicide jet into the World Trade Center millions die from diseases every day that we have cures for Bob the Builder swears that he's going to have your house built by Thanksgiving and you can't move in until Christmas the next year our best friends lied to us and we lie to ourselves all the time unbelievable I don't think so again it just happens and it happens every day nothing that we Homo Sapien earthlings do is unbelievable and if there's one thing you can depend on people being it's people so we shouldn't be surprised we US are the trickiest mammals walking the planet I'm not worried about the monkeys I'm worried about you and me who happiness is an emotional response to an outcome if I win I will be happy if I don't I won't it's an if-then cause-and-effect quid pro quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it see happiness happiness demands a certain outcome it is result reliant and I say if happiness is what you're after then you're gonna be let down frequently are you're going to be unhappy much of your time joy though Joy's a different thing it's something else Joey is not a choice it's not a response to some result it's a constant joy is the feeling that we have from doing what we are fashioned to do no matter the outcome now personally as an actor I started enjoying my work and literally being more happy when I stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to ascertain in for exemple I need this film to be the box-office success I need my performance to be acknowledged I need the respect of my peers but all those are reasonable aspirations but the truth is as soon as the work the daily making of the movie the doing of the deed became the reward in itself for me I got more box-office more accolades and respect than I ever had before see joy is always in process it's under construction it is in constant approach alive and well in the doing of what we're faster you do and enjoying number four define success for your settlement check this out I'm in South of New Orleans a few years ago I went to a voodoo shop and they had this wooden partition against the wall of these columns and in these columns or these vials of these magic potions right and the headings above each potion defining what they would give you or things like fertility health family legal health energy forgiveness money guess which column was empty Monday somebody please tell me where else you're gonna have this much [ __ ] bet submit it money's king today it's what make the work makes the world go round it is success the more we have the more successful we are right now I would argue that our cultural values have even been financialized financialized humility is not vogue anymore it's too passive it's a get-rich-quick on the Internet riches 15 minutes of fame world that we live in and we see it every day but we all want to succeed right so the question that we gotta ask ourselves is what success is to us what success is to you is it more money that's fine I got nothing against money maybe it's a healthy family maybe it's a happy marriage maybe it's to help others to be famous to be spiritually sound leave the world a little bit better place than you found it continue to ask yourself that question now your answer may change over time and that's fine but do yourself this favor whatever your answer is don't choose anything that will jeopardize yourself prioritize who you are who you want to be and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character don't drink the kool-aid pan it tastes sweet but you will get cavities tomorrow all right life is not a popularity contest be brave take the hill but first answer that question what's my hill so me how do i how do i define success for me myself well for me it's a measurement of five things we got fatherhood we got to being a good husband we got my health I'm body and spirit we've got career and we have friendships these are what's important to me in my life right now so I try to measure these five things each day I check in with them I like to see whether or not I'm in the the debit section or the credit section with each woman and man in the red or I'm in the black you follow for instance sometimes say my career's rolling alright it's way up here in the black but I see how my relationship with my life maybe could use a little bit more of my attention I got to pick up the slack on being a better husband get that one out of the red or say my spiritual health could use some maintenance it's down here but hey man my friendships in my social life they're in high gear right I got to recalibrate checks and balances I got to go to church remember to say thank you more often something and I got to take the tally because I want to keep all five in healthy shape and I know that if I don't take care of it if I don't keep up maintenance on them one of them is going to get weak man it's gonna dip too deep into the debit section it's gonna go bankrupt it's gonna get sick dive so first we have to define success for ourselves and then we have to put in the work to maintain it take that daily tally tend our garden keep the things that are important to us in good shape I mean let's submit it we've all got two wolves in pursuit a good one and a bad and they both want to eat the best I can tell we just got to feed that good one with more than the other here we go number five don't leave crumbs and the beauty of delayed gratification so what are crumbs or the crumbs I'm talking about are the choices that we make that make us have to look over our shoulder in the future you didn't pay that guy back the money that you owed him and tonight you just saw him three rows behind you she ate you slept around on your spouse and you just found out that tomorrow she and the lady you're having an affair with are gonna be at the same PTA meeting [ __ ] again you drank too much last night you're too hungover to drive your son does 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning baseball practice these are the crumbs they come in the form of regret guilt and remorse you leave crumbs today they will cause you more stress tomorrow and they disallow you from creating a customized future in which you do not have to look over your shoulder so let's flip the script instead of creating outcomes that take from us let's create more outcomes that pay us back fill us up keep your fire lit turn you on for the most amount of time in your future these are the choices I'm talking about and this is the beauty delayed gratification by T yourself up do yourself a favor make the choices the purchases today that pay you back tomorrow residuals my business we call it mailbox money I do my job well today and that movie keeps rerunning on TV five years from now I'm getting checks in the mailbox it's a heck of a deal so whether it's prepping the coffeemaker the night before so all you got to do is press the button in the morning or getting ready for the job interview early so you don't have to cram the night before or chooses not to hook up with that married woman because you know you're gonna feel horrible about it tomorrow and your husband carries a gun or paying your debts on time so that when you do see that guy three rows back tonight you don't have to hunker down in your seat hoping that he don't see you get some ROI you know what that is return on investment your investment you customize your future don't leave crumbs you [Applause]

Channel: Johnny Bigger

Views: 3,965,471

Rating: 4.8901601 out of 5

Keywords: 5 RULES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, Matthew McConaughey, 5 lesson, University of Houston, Oscar-winning actor, speech, The Dallas Buyers Club, 5 pieces of wisdom, Life is not easy, Get over it and get, Oscar-winning, Unbelievable, Define success for yourself

Id: 8fzGPwY40Cw

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 11 2018