THE ART OF DOING - Matthew McConaughey Powerful Motivational Speech

That's it.

Some belief, not just belief in God, but I think it's in short supply.

And I think more of us need it.

And if we don't have more of it, doubt's going to win.

If doubt wins, we all going to lose.

And uh we got stuff out there to believe in.

I think people are looking for it.

I know I am.

I don't want it just because I get it.

Hang on a minute.

Right.

What is it that I really want?

What is it that I really would like?

I want to be scared of the role

that I'm going to take on cuz I'm not sure where it's going to

go,

but I'm going to trust that I'll come up on the other side.

We have to define success for ourselves.

And then we have to put in the work to maintain it.

>> And there are a lot of men

that I know who are looking for

that definition that feel like I've been told what it's not.

And then now I don't know what it is.

Let's say someone has been kicked in the nuts a good bit by life.

How do you advise them to sort of become the hero of their own

story again?

>> Man, that's a tough one.

That's a great question.

You know, I sit here with a life where I have the the luxury

to project,

to ask myself and ask others, no, make a sacrifice today.

Sacrifice a plastic ring today for a gold crown tomorrow.

Sacrifice something today for more freedom tomorrow.

Sacrifice something today for a possible healthier future for your kids.

I understand that's a luxurious position.

I'm not going to apologize that I'm in I'm in it.

But I understand to someone in misery, they're going, "Good for you, man.

I'm trying to feed family tonight.

I'm not thinking past that.

I can't think past that."

What do you ask them to do?

My indirect thing I would say and understand is well,

if you don't have the hope or believe in something,

you're going to end up you're going to definitely going to remain where you

are.

And if you have hope and faith in something,

I'm not saying it's 100% get out of jail.

You're going to absolutely get out, but you got the best chance to.

>> Yeah.

The book's about belief.

That's what I'm pedalling here.

I need more of it.

I personally believe in God

but the whole thing is not for people

that just believe in God.

Believe in trying to pursue your better self transcendent self.

If you believe in the future, you believe in your kids,

believe in the past, something.

Don't know what that is, ask yourself what you die for.

Start there.

Everyone kind of believes in something.

There's an argument that even Niles do believe and nothing.

Nothing's even something.

I I I I've never been able to really live with by hook

or by crook.

I'll get it how I can get it.

I'll lie, cheat, and steal to get it.

I got the prize and I'm still okay.

I got it.

My own shadow chases me down in the middle of the night.

And those nightmares do become my own daymares.

I have to I think I I naturally come back and look,

I I I hustle.

I'm a hustler.

I I I'm not puritanical.

I'm not making not I'm not trying to preach a absolute straight

and narrow way to go things.

I bullshitted my way into things and faked my way into making things,

pulled off stunts.

Wait a minute now.

So, we're saying if success is the key,

if success is the measurement and you can get it by lying, cheating,

and stealing and still be rewarded the gold medal.

We That's what's happening.

Are we Are we Are we ready to say that's okay?

Are we ready to say that's just how it is?

We have leaders in positions now that are saying, "Yeah, just win."

Well, ju just just win.

Just succeed.

But yeah, I don't care how you get there.

You did it.

Congratulations.

Come to the front of the line.

So, what are the ethics?

I don't know.

What' the winner do?

Well, but they Wait, what about What about rules?

Oh, yeah.

By the way, the rules, if you follow them, you're a sucker.

Uh, I started to find myself going, "No, wait a minute.

I'm not ready to wave that white flag.

Are we ready to wave that white flag and go,

we can see that's what it is."

Cuz there's many reasons to do so.

And so, I'm looking around at people and going,

I'm not finding things people to believe in,

and I'm finding it harder to believe myself.

that although those people might get to the front of the queue

and be awarded the medal,

the medal it that you're awarded

or the queue that you get to the front of might not actually give

you what you want.

And you you start by sort of reframing success,

which I think is a really important thing, especially for a young generation,

especially for men who are, you know,

the first to want to get to the top of the pyramid in certain

pursuits in life.

Okay, you can get to the top of the the pile

or you can get the gold medal,

but be careful what that medal represents.

And a medal in what, >> right?

>> And relevant for what?

We all want to be relevant.

Okay.

Like relevant for what?

We want to succeed, >> but when we succeed, do we act?

Is it worth it if we don't profit?

>> Yeah.

You said, Yeah.

>> You know what I mean?

>> If more we we're we're trained to go the quantity >> is the

is the is the goal.

That's it.

Well, then if that's sacrificing quality, >> yeah, >> or value, what we actually value,

>> what are you really winning?

>> Sometimes you can do everything right

and still not get the result

that you wanted.

And that seems like a really tough pill to swallow for people.

I think that's why people become uncomfortable with fully feeling their emotions.

>> Yeah.

>> So, where do you go?

What do you think

when I really I I gave it my all

that I bared myself

and I still got kicked in the nuts?

>> Yeah.

>> Not only did I feel like I deserve it,

I feel like I earned it and I still didn't get it.

>> Wait a minute.

But you said that's the playbook and I followed the playbook.

You said these were the rules and the regulations.

I followed it and I was good at it.

I still didn't get it.

Is there something that you tried to remember about the upside of a crisis

during a crisis or do we just need to ride

that out?

Zooming out would be

so beautiful and in retrospect

if only you could give yourself the gift of distance of time.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

And yet you know something hard is going to come again

and you're going to be swept away by the wave.

I mean, for me,

I it's it's an obvious dance of the both

because you can't jump to the objective right away

and go,

"Inshallah, oh, fate will have it.

This two shall pass.

I'm all I'm fine."

No, cuz then you don't deal with the the crisis.

Um, I do have a good I do have a pretty quick threshold for

being able to laugh,

like, honestly, start giggling

when I'm in the

because I found that I'm able to handle the better.

If I just start the quicker I start going, "Are you kidding me?"

I'll get objective and remind myself things like you going to die mak

which gives me that ah

so what this is not

as big of a deal

as I thought the result

which we know there isn't really one

and we cannot imitate someone else's exact result.

We're going to have our own thing way to get there.

Um the the approach is all I think that's that's that's the best our

life can get is one constant approach

or and with many different approaches

but knowing we never there is no result.

>> You know the story of Seisophus man gets cursed I think he was

a demigod gets cursed to roll a boulder up a hill it's heavy heavy

boulder he rolls it uphill

and just as he gets to the very top he stumbles

and it falls down

and crushes him.

Okay, >> he needs to walk back to the bottom, turn around,

pick it back up.

And Alakamu's famous line is, "We must imagine Cisphus happy."

>> That this pointless pursuit.

Uh that he finds joy in the process of doing it.

>> So I grew up only knowing sort of the courage of the persistence.

You're resilient, endure, get up, dust yourself off, go.

The problem with that,

the Achilles heel with

that is if you get up

and you have the courage to keep on going every time

and get up and dust yourself off,

you make the same mistakes each time around cuz you never backed up to

have what I've now learned

and still learning is the courage to go,

"No, I'm going to let some people pass me in the race right now

cuz I'm going to look at why I keep stepping in

that damn same pothole

and twisting my ankle.

The same spot. why I keep failing

when I try to get

that next spot in this relationship

or failing in this place to get this product of my craft to the

next.

>> Would that be uh the relinquishing of the romcom era in in a

a small part for you?

>> Small part?

Yeah.

>> Yeah, it was definitely courageous.

I did I did honestly think I'd written myself a one-way ticket out of

Hollywood. people close to me.

Basically almost everybody besides my wife was like, "What is your major malfunction,

little brother?

You got it made.

Why Why are you throwing a jack knife in this?

You're tripping yourself running downhill, man.

You You You did it."

And I had my wife

and myself to remind myself of

that 4:00 a.m. clarity

that I had in tears

when I was like,

"No, I'm I'm I'm I'm rolling the dice.

I'm sticking with it."

Yeah, man.

I did think I wrote myself a ticket out of Hollywood.

I did look at other vocations, become a teacher, a wildlife guide.

I seriously looked at those things.

But over time, and it was about 20 months, it was gone long enough.

Had found anonymity enough.

Was not in your living room in a theater in a romcom.

You didn't see him on a beat shirtless.

Where is he?

Turning down the $14.5 million offer.

Many people go, "Oh what's he up to?"

They don't just you don't just step out of Hollywood

and unless you get you turn

that down cuz you got a plan.

You got somewhere you want to go.

And I think that made me more attractive as a new novel idea.

But that was yeah

that risk took a I think it's fair to say

that took a fair amount of courage from me.

>> We often see resistance

as a form of failure

and something that we should endeavor to avoid.

You think about the avoidance of like people building families

or even many people consider

that we're living in a bit of a comfort crisis.

This is slightly a different sort of analogy

but most of the diseases

that we have today whether they're diseases of I don't know the mind like

you know people feeling lonely

and isolated or physical diseases 80% of Americans getting back pain

but no one in the Had tribe in Africa getting back pain they're all

a consequence of us continually choosing comfort >> y >>

which is a short-term friend

but long-term enemy and resistance I think is um is something increasingly we can

choose opt out of >> oh

and and we we've outconvenienced oursel What's AI going to do to us?

Talk about convenience.

How much, and I want to keep hearing studies.

I wonder if you have an opinion on this.

How much of you coming up with an idea

and then writing and rewriting it,

thinking about it.

No, no, no, no.

That's not ex Oh, no.

This is what I really mean.

And how to get How much of

that is really valuable to get it beyond just an intellectual idea?

more valuable than just going ah there it is

because what comes out of it incredibly impressive my hunch is

that yeah we can use it for like signpost to help us oh that's

good organ that oh help thank you for helping me organize

but there's a value to us going through the sweat equity of learning something

>> but I mean yeah I mean for through history people like Richard Fryman

the physicist has said the best way to learn something is to learn it

and and then to go through the pain of writing it,

condensing it down to a simple truth like you do

so often in your new book poems

and prayers and then sharing it with the world

and then getting the feedback

and if if the world understood it like you meant it like

that poem you just shared you you understand it that's evidence

that you get it >> right >>

so I think AI is going to be great for me saying something to

you but not learning something myself

and I think if you know

if you want to defend creativity

and innovation and the ability to think you actually have a huge opportunity

which is to go left

when everyone's going right.

>> Well, now we're going into I have that I got that thing in there.

I said, "What what's better?

Take eight.

Take eight eight big risks in life.

Sin once, miss the mark once, but get seven, achieve seven,

seven out of eight or take a 100 risk >> and achieve eight of them."

My hunch is that there's a God,

he's saying go for the hundred

and get eight >> rather than eight

and get seven.

Mhm.

>> Is you're not take

if you're not taking enough risk to sin

or miss the mark,

which is what sin means to fail.

>> What are you doing?

Don't come back with even money.

Come back with a safe bet,

which that can become a sort of recessive peace, namaste.

No, it's a it's a it's almost a it's I don't think it's what

the mystics meant when they were like be disattached.

M think go embrace

but for highs and lows

and pains and pleasures understand

that those outward things are not the things to be attached to for your

own identity.

It's got to be inward first.

Enjoy those.

Partake, but don't become attached to those for your measure without complacency.

Trust that time is on your side.

>> What do you mean that?

>> Yeah, man.

Don't get ahead or behind it.

and then I can get in a rush

and I haven't found look

and I know how to hustle

and let's go.

The clock's ticking.

We're all behind.

All hands on deck.

We got to bust ass.

No time for pause.

There's no sleep, no nothing.

Get the caffeine out.

Let's go.

>> Sometimes we got to do that.

But that is usually

because an unforeseen circumstance has happened

that there's a crisis we got to deal with

or we've uh procrastinated

and I put myself in

that position where I got we got to cram.

But it's not those two circumstances.

We got to watch oursel getting ahead of time and it's on your side.

It's a little what I mean about the living longer and living more quality.

Time's on our side

and we're forced to think

and feel especially today with how fast things move

that more productivity,

faster pace, more information, faster pace, it's better.

We're we're we're ahead of we're ahead of of time a lot.

It's the John Wooden, a great basketball coach for UCLA.

Be quick, but don't be in a hurry.

That was his note to the his basketball players.

Like, be quick, but don't be in a hurry.

You will miss things.

You know, it's it's it's it's the Lego set, man.

And you sit there and you get in a rush.

You don't read the directions.

You get to the end and you've got 12 pieces left and you're like,

"Shit."

Because you got in a hurry. you got ahead of time instead of just

that feeling of I've checked out what I need to do

and it's all adding up

and this thing's built right

and the foundation's right

and boom there's the last piece

that fits voila was with time's on our side it's not an enemy the

end death is not the enemy I do believe

that part of you know not in a rush to get there

and we can stave we want to stave it off sometimes

and that it can be a screaming fight

and partially denial can help us get there.

I understand that.

But still, it's on her side.

It's going to happen.

And since it's going to happen and there's that's non-negotiable.

Might as well go, well,

I'm not going to rush to try

and make more of it than there is.

I want to try

and spend the time I got

as well as I can produce succeed,

achieve all whatever those things are,

but also at a pace

that I'm me that I

that I that I like I like the dance to.

I I I like the give and the take.

I like the reverb.

I like the the the the cause

and effect of how things are happening at this pace.

Like start now.

That doesn't mean time's on my side.

Yeah, dude.

Inchy.

When it happens, it'll happen.

No.

Like, wake up.

The clock's ticking.

It's on your side now.

Just move with it.

Dance with it. put some soul with the the facts.