- All right, guys,
welcome to another episode of The Rachel Cruze Show. And I'm so excited because
we have a guest on that if you told me like three months ago that he was gonna be a guest I would've thought you're crazy. But it's Academy Award winner and now New York Times bestselling author Matthew McConaughey. Matthew, welcome to the show. - Hi Rachel, good to be here. - Thanks for being here. Okay well, we were just
talking right before we started but the book, your newest
book, "Greenlights," it is so, so good. I mean, I read it in two days, I couldn't put it down. And I was reading it at night too, and I just started laughing
through half of it. And my husband was like,
"What are you laughing at?" And I would just like
read him these excerpts, because I was like this is
the funniest thing ever. But I want to know, so what caused you to read it, or I'm sorry, to write it? Because those of you that haven't read it, all the viewers watching probably want to know what it's about and why you decided to write it. - Well, I've been keeping
journals since I was 14 years old so for 37 years now, 35 when I started writing the book. And for the past 15 years
I've been threatening like, oh let's go away with all those journals and see if there's
something worth sharing, but I didn't have the courage to do it. Finally, a couple of years
ago, I was like, you know what, you just keep passing
the buck, McConaughey, you keep just putting it off thinking, my thought was oh no, when you die, Camila, my wife, can
maybe look through there, and if there's something worth
sharing, she'll share it, which was a cop-out. So finally I said, with her help, hey, let's get out of here and just go off alone with those journals somewhere for a few weeks
alone and see what you got. And I went away and found
stories, people, places, prescriptions, poems, prayers and a whole lot of bumper stickers, and there were stacks of these. Those were sort of the eight themes, seven or eight themes in it. And then through those categories, I found this theme of greenlights, found ways that I had engineered
greenlights in my life. Greenlights being freedom in the future. They say go, they proceed,
carry on your way, we like greenlights in our life, you know? I also saw red and
yellow lights in my life. Death of my father, red light. There was hardships,
crises, yellow lights, moments of pause, moments of
tragedy, moments of crisis. And I found that those red and yellows, even though I didn't want them
and they hurt at the time, they revealed themselves to have greenlight assets in the future. They had lessons for me
to learn in the future. So the red and yellows, we don't want them, but
we sometimes need them. And I also found a certain
way that I approached things, sometimes successfully,
sometimes unsuccessfully, that helped me create more
greenlights in my life. And so that's what I wrote about. - Well I can tell you, from a girl in Nashville who obviously just knows you as the actor, when I heard people reading your book, they're like, you have to read this book and I was like, okay. So when I finally picked it
up and read it, I was like, I mean I had no clue,
number one, your story. I didn't even really
know your marital status. I didn't much about your personal life, just really your movies. So it was so refreshing
just to kind of dig in to the human part of you and who you are and the wisdom and the
life that you bring, which I just love so much. And so on this show, we talk about life, we talk about money, but a lot of the people
viewing it are moms, they're working outside the home and really just trying to create a better life for themselves. And so one of the things we
talk about on the show a lot is that more is caught
than taught as parents. Our kids are watching us. Our example is so huge in
every part of our lives. So I want to know from you, what are a couple things that you caught on from your parents? I know you write a lot
about it in the book, some lessons in life
that you took with you as an adult that you
learned from your parents and what are things you hope your kids are catching from you? - I've always been asked, like tell me about the love that you and your family had growing up. And I always tell these stories of when we were disciplined, which sometimes they seem
to be horrific stories because they involved the
belt or what have you, but what my parents were
really trying to instill, whether you agree with the means that they were doing it or
not, was extremely valuable. I got my first butt whooping for not answering to my name, my second one for saying
I hate you to my brother, my third one for saying I
can't start the lawn mower, and my fourth for lying. And the values that they
were instilling in that were, it felt pretty obvious then, oh, these are life lessons
they want me to learn. So what's the antonym of those? Well, don't hate. Love. Don't say can't. Don't believe you can't, but understand that you
can be having trouble getting something done. And tell the truth. Don't lie. Those are three great valuable lessons to send a child into the world with that help make up who they are. Now I go about trying to
teach my children those in different ways than my mom and dad did, but I still inherently really want them to understand those things, and have those be a part of their life, and understand the importance of those. Stuff that was caught, seeing how you could not
hold a grudge in our family. Even my mom and dad, and they had some fights that
would be considered violent, the love was never questioned. The love was never in question, it was never gonna be broken. So the love was never in question. We heard it a lot in our family. I love you, I just don't
like you right now. - Classic line, right? I think we've all used that. So good.
- It's a good one. - And what I like about all of that though is it's focusing with your
kids on the character side. And I feel like, in 2021 right now, with Americans and the way, not only they handle their money, but even their family's
stuff and materialism is now become the priority. I mean, it's what can I get my kids, what can I buy, what can I get them? And it almost has trumped the character qualities of
what you instill in your kids so that when they go off on their own, they can hold their own. So when it comes to all of that, I mean you became a minimalist basically, throughout your book, I
read that, and I love that because I love that whole idea of just kind of stripping
everything away and saying, okay, this is the life we're living and not focusing on all the materialism. But a lot of people think well if I just had more stuff, if I just had more money, if I just had more
success, I would be happy. What would you say to that person? - Look, I mean, and some people aren't gonna
want to hear this out there, but we have to admit that retail
therapy is not the answer. We have to admit that
moving to the bigger house, and again, I've got nothing
wrong with the bigger house, I've got nothing wrong
with buying those things, I've got nothing wrong with fame, I've got nothing wrong
with money and being rich, nothing at all, I'm a fan of those things, but they're tools and they're actually
sublimation sometimes. They don't really affect our happiness as much as we think they're going to. And I've traveled the world, and I've seen poor, what's considered poor families without electricity who were sustaining, living off of what they had planted in their garden yesterday to eat today or what have you that were much more happy than billionaires I've been around that had more toys than everything else. Now, what are those times for me? Because I live an affluent life. We've got a nice house. My pantry's full. Our kids go to a good school, etc. But at the very least, I know, when I go off on
those minimalist trips, I have a greater respect for the things that I have now in my life. We try to teach our kids to
go seek, let's go without to then come back and see what maybe we were taking for
granted to have gratitude for. - So good. - And those things, you know, if it's all retail therapy and it's just about having
more, more, more, more, more, we're kind of hamsters on the wheel. I mean where are we going? It doesn't fulfill us
like we think it will. - Yes, which I think is powerful to hear from you honestly, though, because I always talk about how it's okay to have nice stuff, just don't let your nice stuff have you. And when it starts to own
you in so many aspects, it's so hard and you could have, I mean, you're Matthew McConaughey, so I'm like hearing that
though out of your mouth, I'm like, yes, that's the truth, like, that is what it is, and we live in a culture that we chase and chase
and chase and chase and that finish line just will keep moving if that's where you're
trying to put your happiness and your identity. - Well, and it's, what are we chasing? We all want to be relative, but we forget to ask
ourselves relative for what? My mother-in-law has a great phrase which is like what you said a minute ago. She says, "Sometimes we have et cetera, and sometimes et cetera has us." - That's it, that's it. - Our et cetera can have us, it can be wagging us. And you look around and you're going like, man, I'm trying to tend
to these 100 things and I really don't care. Well maybe get rid of some things and say, I write about it in my
book about when I said no and shut down the production
company and the music company. I said, "I feel like I'm making C's in five things in my life, and I want to get rid of two so I can feel like I could maybe
I could make A's in three." - I love that. Okay you and Camila, how long have you guys been married now? How many years? - Eight years. - Okay so money in marriage, it's a big discussion, money fights, money problems, I mean it's a big part of marriage. So for you guys, when it comes to money, do you guys make money decisions together, do you have conversations about it? Like what does it look like
in the McConaughey household? - We both come from
pretty humble beginnings. She's a farm girl from
Belo Horizonte Brazil, I'm a middle-class, blue
collar boy from Uvalde, Texas. So we both very much have a
great respect for the dollar. Neither one of us pass a
penny and don't pick it up to this day, okay? So when it comes to, you know, money, we discuss the larger stuff, and is that a want or a need? Let's see if it's a need, want it to be more than just a want. We've been just as happy
living in my airstream on the road with the kids as we have been in our house. That doesn't mean I want
to get rid of the house, but back to your character question, we were just as happy and you could argue sometimes even happier because we were just on top
of each other, you know? We make choices, we make choices where we go what's not gonna change
our quality of life? I've accumulated enough wealth to go, okay I can live this lifestyle, there's nothing else
extravagant I want out there and I want to live it where I don't, you know, I'm still excited about going and filling up
my car with super unleaded and going fill it up. It wasn't that long ago I
was like on regular unleaded going I just need half a tank, let me check my cash. So I don't sweat those things or it's fun to go down to supermarket and go down every aisle, every single aisle and go
what do we want and need here, we're gonna fill our pantry, it's fun to be able to do that. - So good. Well, number one, the fact you guys even
talk about money is huge. And I think it's a good example for people because some people just they don't, they run on two separate tracks and you even saying, we,
a lot of married couples deal with their money completely separate. And one of the things I
always try to encourage them is work together as a team
when it comes to money. And so hearing that even you
saying we versus her or I, I mean like those things are so, so key I think, in creating a
wholesome marriage and mindset. So thanks for letting me
kind of dig into that. Okay so one line you used a couple times in the book that I loved, and I want you to explain
it to the viewers, is "less impressed, more involved." And I underlined it and flapped
a couple of pages with it because I thought that is so good. So explain what that means. - Yeah, so there's things
that we have reverence for, fame, money, people, places, in our future, attainable, maybe not attainable, but we have a certain reverence for. Now we're so impressed with them that when we're faced with them, we're not able to be
actually involved with them, that woman or that man that we put on such a pedestal, that when we're together, we're not actually able to be ourselves and give of ourselves because we have them
up on such a pedestal. And it's not only unfair to
ourselves, it's unfair to them because they can't live up to it. If I hold, if I think Camila is Wonder Woman and she thinks I'm Mr. Incredible, neither one of us can live up to that. It's unfair to each other. Now we should have great
respect for each other. An athlete, pitcher gets pulled out of the bullpen, ninth inning, world series, he's very, he's dreamed of this moment, but if he's so impressed with this moment and not involved with how I'm gonna get the next
three guys out of the plate, he's not going to have a good outing because he's not going
to actually be present. He won't be involved in it. He'll have too much reverence for it. The moment will be bigger than him. Keep the respect for it, but if you're faced with it, be able to look it in the eye and go, I've earned the right to be here, I am here, it's live, I'm in this. I'm gonna give up myself,
of my truest self, and be able to receive
hopefully this moment or this person's truest self back. Be less impressed, more involved. - I love that. So, so good. Well there are a couple
of quotes I wrote down, I'm not gonna say them all, but kind of this principle, so tell me if I'm wrong, if I translated it in my head differently, you had a couple principles in the book that came to choice and that if you think you
can, or you think you can't, you're right, and you reap what you sow, this idea of of planting
things on the surface, right, like going in and doing the hard work. Would you say you agree
overall with that principal and what does that look like in your life and people watching that really you have choices in your life and making those choices can better your life or set you back? - Well that's inherently one of the themes from "Greenlights." We can engineer greenlights in our future by the choices we make today. We like to make a contradiction and think that responsibility and freedom are like sometimes opposition. But they're not, they're actually completely entwined. We are responsible for our freedom. We can take responsibilities today that grant us more freedom in the future, give us more greenlights in the future. If I'm going to, see you and when you
get up out of the chair and when you and I are in the room you left your purse there
and I steal your wallet, well I maybe immediately got
some cash maybe I needed, but have I really bought myself
a greenlight in the future? No, because now every
time I'm in Rachel's city, everywhere I go, I'm
looking over my shoulder, going I hope Rachel's not here because she probably noticed
that her wallet was gone. Now I've created stress in my life. I bought my free time in the future, I created less freedom
for me in the future. So it's a lot about delayed gratification, understanding that the
choices we make today are compounding assets in our future and to be able to see
further down the line and see how the choices we make today, responsibilities we choose
to take or don't take, have consequences. Check in with yourself, who yourself is five years
from now, 10 years from now and have a look back when
you're struggling with a choice, go, what would myself 10 years
from now think about this? How's that gonna land? Is it gonna be something
that promotes more growth and health and truth for me
and my loved ones or less? Just know that that's compounding assets and we can engineer during this. I'll also say this though, this is a fun thing about the greenlights. The art of the catching the greenlights is what do you do with the yellow? - The caution, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Sometimes a yellow light's there for us because you know what,
we need to slow down. We need a red light. We need to pause, take some introspection,
check in with ourselves, we need that intervention, we need that pause. Sometimes though catching the greenlight is about approaching that
yellow light and going I ain't giving that crisis credit. I'm putting the pedal to the metal and blowing right through this light. You know what I mean? Because we get in ruts sometimes, we're slowing down at
too many yellow lights and we're making
mountains out of molehills and dwelling in our red light, oh woe be me where you're creating crises where maybe you should've
just blown by that, don't even give that credit, put the pedal down,
drive through that one. Other times, it's like, no, I need to heed this yellow, I need to slow down, take a pause. - Yeah and back to what you
were saying earlier, though, I'm like, you have to be
present enough in your life, in your situation, in your relationships, to know in the yellow light, to discern, do I speed up or do I slow down, right? And so to be aware, to be in your life, be in your life and
aware, which is so great. - And understand what you really value, understand what you
really value and those, that list of things we value in our life and what order they're in, those change in our life, they're different for young men and women before they have a family. The value meter changes. Things take different priorities
as we grow through life, and that's fine. But ask yourself, what
is it that I really value that I'm growing here in my life? - So good. So much wisdom. And seriously, it's all
in the book, you guys, "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey. Okay, can I ask you one like semi "People" magazine question? - Absolutely. - Since I have you, okay. Out of all your movies, Matthew, what's like the one that you look back on that was the most fun to shoot, like on set with the people, the storyline, the character, all of it. Like what's the one that you're like, yes, that was really fun? - Well, I got to go back
to my very first one, "Dazed and Confused." - Yes, all right, all right, all right. - I had written lines in that and I ended up working three weeks. So I'm coming to set in the
summer of '92, Austin, Texas, and it was one of the
greatest summers of my life, and I did not know at that time if that was a one-off hobby, if that was gonna be like one
thing I did that summer of '92 and then I went off and did
something else in my life. And here it is 29 years later and it's turned into a career
that I love off of that, started off in one summer
night in Austin, Texas, 1992. - Okay in order for all
that to happen though, you would say that there's a level of confidence and awareness that you kind of charged in there, like you had some, you were proactive in
the situation, right? So there's a lesson for
that for people of like, yeah when you engage a situation, you're gonna look a whole lot different than if you kind of just sit back and let things happen to you. - Well I was incredibly
impressed to be there but I realized then right then,
oh, you better be involved. You can't be in this thing going, we have to be more than
just happy to be there. When we're in a moment
that's of good fortune or something goes well, we have to be more than, I'm all for gratitude, but gratitude does not
mean a false modesty or a not giving ourself
enough credit to go, no, let's get in this, let's look this situation in the eye and do what I need to do and focus on what it is I need to do. So yeah, I've had some been in
the right place, right time, but also taken some opportunities when they showed up for sure. - For sure, taking initiative. I love it. Well, Matthew, thank you,
honestly, so much for stopping by. I really, really appreciate
it. It was an honor. And again, everyone it's "Greenlights." It's such a good book. So, so good. So guys pick it up anywhere books are sold and thanks again,
Matthew, I appreciate it. - I appreciate it, Rachel. Thank y'all. (upbeat music)
