The 13 Truths - Matthew McConaughey [MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH]

I want to skip the flattery and the attaboys because I do know this the sooner that we become less impressed with our lives with our accomplishments with our career with whatever that prospect is in front of us the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with that and these things the sooner we get a whole lot better at doing them 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 are true now they may be true 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 your steel used 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 life's not easy 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 yeah so acknowledge the acts of greatness as real and do not be naive about mankind's capacity for evil nor be in denial of our own shortcomings 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 and you're gonna 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 a certain in for example I need this film to be a box-office success I need my performance to be acknowledged I need the respect of my peers are 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 fashion to do and enjoying number four define success for yourself define success for yourself but check this out I'm in South of New Orleans a few years ago I went to a voodoo shop and they had this this wooden partition against the wall of these columns and and in these columns or all these vials of these magic potions right and the headings

above each potion defining what they would give you were things like fertility health family legal health energy forgiveness money hmm guess which column was empty Monday first admit it money is king today is 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 in 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've got to 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 I don't 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 to 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 your soul 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 and 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 being a good husband we got my health mind body

and spirit we've got career and we got 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 one a man and 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 wife maybe you 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 but 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 them 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 admit it we've all got two wolves in a suit 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 a little more than the other one here we go number five process of elimination is the first step to our identity aka where you are not is as important as where you are alright 1992 I got my first job as an actor three lines three days work in a film called Dazed and Confused alright alright alright alright there we go so this director of that film Richard Linklater he kept inviting me back to set each night putting me in more scenes which led to more lines all of

which I happily said yes to I mean I'm having a blast people were telling me I'm good at what I'm doing and they're writing me a check for $325 a day I mean hell yeah give me more scenes I love what I'm doing well by the end of the shoot I've been to the film those three lines had turned into over three weeks work and it was mine it was wooderson's 1970 Chevelle that we went to go get Aerosmith Tickets hit man yeah it was badass well a few years ago I'm watching this film again

and I noticed two scenes that I really shouldn't have been in and one of these scenes my character would Orson III exit screen left to head somewhere and then I reinter the screen and to double check if any of the other characters wanted to go with me now and re watching the film and you'll agree if you know Watterson wooderson's not a guy who would ever say later and then come back to see if you were sure you didn't want to go now when Wooderson leaves Watterson is gone he does not stutter step flinch rewind

ask twice or solicit do you know what I'm talking about Watterson has better things to do like like in those high school girls man cuz I get older and they stay the same age the point is I should not have been in that scene shouldn't come back should have exited screen left and never come back but back then making my first film getting invited back to the set cashing that check and having a ball I wanted more screen time I wanted to be in the scene longer and more and come back into the scene right

but I should have been there Wooderson shouldn't have been there it is just as important where we are not as it is where we are look the first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not I Know Who I am I Know Who I am that's not the first step the first steps usually I Know Who I am not process of elimination defining ourselves by what we are not is the first step that leads us to really knowing who we are you know that group of friends that you hang out with that

really might not bring out the best in you you know they gossip too much or they kind of shady they really aren't gonna be there for you in a pinch or how about that bar that we keep going to that we always seem to have the worst hangover from or that computer screen right the computer screen that keeps giving us an excuse not to get out of the house and engage with the world and get some real human interaction I bet that food that would keep eating this stuff to taste still good going down it

makes us feel like crap the next week we feel lethargic and we keep putting on weight well those people those places those things stop giving them your time and energy just don't go there I mean put them down and when you do this when you do put them down when you quit go in there and you quit giving them your time you inadvertently find yourself spending more time and in more places that are healthy for you that bring you more joy why because you just eliminated the who's the where's the what's in the winds that

were keeping you from your identity look trust me too many options I promise you the too many options will make a tyrant of us all all right so get rid of the excess the wasted time decrease your options if you do this you will have accidentally almost innocently put in front of you what is important to you my process of elimination no one who we are is hard it's hard to give yourself a break eliminate who you are not first and you're gonna find yourself where you need to be I'm a six don't leave crumbs

ah 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 [ __ ] 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 trumps 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 of delayed gratification arty 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 choose not to hook up with that married woman because you know you're going to feel horrible about it tomorrow and her 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 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 Troms number seven dissect your successes and the rest of prosity of gratitude we

still often focus on failure don't we we study failure if successful with failure we dissect failure in our failures dissect them so much we end up intoxicated with them to the point of disillusion and when do we write in our diary usually when we're depressed what do we gossip about other people's flaws and limitations and we can dissect ourselves into self-loathing if we're not careful I find that most of the times our obsession with what is wrong just ends up breeding more wrong more failure the easiest way to dissect success is through gratitude giving thanks

for that which we do have for what is working appreciating the simple things we sometimes take for granted we give thanks for these things and that gratitude reciprocate creating more to be thankful for it's really simple and it worked and I'm not saying being denial of your failures no we can learn from them too but only if we look at them constructively as a means to reveal what we are good at but we can get better at what we do succeed at now personally I've read a whole lot of my bad reviews all right I've

had quite a few written by the more talented critics they are the ones who give constructive bad reviews they reveal to me what did translate in my work what came across what was seen or what was it now I don't obsess on the unfavorable aspect of their review review but I do see what I can learn from it because their displeasure actually uncovers and makes more apparent what I do do well what I am successful at and then I detect fact my life's a verb we try our best we don't always do our best architecture

is a verb as well yes it is and since we are the architects of our own lives let's study the habits the practices the routines that we have that lead to and feed our success our joy our honest pain our laughter our own tears let's dissect that and give thanks for those things and when we do that guess what happens we get better at them and we have more to dissect number eight make voluntary obligations my mom and dad since we were young they teach us things as children teachers mentors the government and on laws

they all give us guidelines for which to navigate his life rules to abide by in the name of accountability I'm not talking about those obligations I'm talking about the ones that we make with ourselves with our God with our own consciousness I'm talking about the you versus you obligations we have to have it again these are not societal laws and expectations that we acknowledge and endow for anyone other than ourselves these are faith-based obligations that we make on our own these are not the lowered insurance rates for a good driving record you will not be

fine to put in jail if you do not gratify these obligations I speak of no one else covers these but you they are your secrets with yourself your own private counsel personal protocols and while nobody throws you a party when you abide by them no one's going to arrest you when you break them either except yourself or some cops who got to disturbing the peace call at 2:30 in the morning because you were playing bongos your birthday suit yeah that was me an honest man's pillow is his peace of mind and when you lay down

on that pillow at night no matter who's in your bed we all sleep alone these are your personal jiminy crickets and there are not enough cops in the entire world to police them it's on you it's on you number nine from can to want alright check this out in 1995 I got my first big paycheck as an actor I think was a 150 grand the film ah was almost boys on the side and we were shooting in Tucson Arizona and I had to sweet a little Adobe guest house on the edge of the swirlin National

Park the house came with a made my first made it was awesome so I got a friend over one Friday night and we're having a good time and I'm telling her about how happy I am with my setup the house the maid especially the maid I'm telling her look they she cleans the place up after I go to work she washes my clothes the dishes put fresh water by my bed leaves me cooked meals sometimes she even presses my jeans my friend she smiles at me happy that I'm excited over this she says well that's

great Matthew uh if you like your jeans pressed my god I looked up batter my jaw caught hanging open I stuttered a moment had that dumb ass look that you get when you just been told the truth and you didn't think about it and I hit me I hate that line going down in front of my jeans I hate that line and it was then for the first time that I noticed it I'd never thought about not liking that starch line down the front of my jeans because I've never had a made Dharma jeans before

and since she did now for the first time in my life I just liked it because I could get it I never thought about if I really wanted it well I didn't want it there that line and that night I learned something just because you can it's not a good enough reason to do something even when it means having more be discerning choose it because you want it do it because you want to never have my jeans pressed again hey number 10 a roof is a man-made thing this may cut a little close to the

bone since the geography but I think we all were there and we will all remember where we were but in January the 3rd 1993 he was the NFL playoffs and you're Houston Oilers for playing the Buffalo Bills the Oilers were up 28 to 3 at halftime 35 to 3 early in the third Frank Reich and the bills come back to win 41 to 38 and overtime for one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history they had the bills want but they didn't really beat the others the others lost that game they beat themselves y'all remember

that huh why why'd they beat themselves or how was it because at halftime they put a ceiling a roof a limit on their belief in themselves aka prevent defense maybe they started thinking about that the next opponent in the playoffs at halftime I mean they were up and they came out plate on their heels lost the mental edge the entire second half and voila they lost in a mere two quarters defensive coordinator Jim Eddie went from being called the defensive coordinator of the year and the man first in line to be a high head coach

next year to a man without a job in NFL you ever choked nobody has ever choked I have yeah you know I'm talking about fumbling at the goal line second foot in your mouth once you got to the microphone had a brain freeze on the exam that you were totally prepared for forgot the punchline to a joke in front of 4,000 graduating students at the University of Houston commencement or maybe you've had that feeling of oh my god life just cannot get any better than this moment and ask yourself do I deserve this now what

happens when we get that feeling we tense up we have this sort of outer body experience where we are literally through seeing ourselves in the third person and we realized that the moment just got bigger than us never felt that way ah and it's because we have created a fictitious ceiling a roof to our expectations of ourselves a limit where we think it's all too good to be true but it's not and it's not our right to say or believe it is we shouldn't create these restrictions on ourselves a blue ribbon a statue a score

a great idea the love of our life our euphoric bliss who are we to think that we don't deserve or haven't earned these gifts when we get them it's not alright but if we stay in process all right within ourselves in the joy of the doing we will never choke at the finish line why because we aren't thinking of the finish line cause we're not looking at the clock we're not watching ourselves on the jumbotron performing the very act that we're in the middle of no we're in process the approach is the destination and we

are never finished bo Jackson what do you do used to run over the goal line through the end zone and up the tunnel the greatest snipers and marksmen in the world they don't aim at the target they aim on the other side of the target we do our best when our destinations are beyond the measurement when our reach continually exceeds our grasp and when we have immortal finish lines and when we do this the race is never over the journey has no port the adventure never ends because we are always on the way so do

this do this and let them let somebody else come up and tap you on the shoulder and say hey you scored let them run up and tap you on the show and say mint you won let them come tell you you can go home now let them say I love you too let them say thank you take the lid off the man-made roofs that we put above ourselves and always play like an underdog here we go number 11 turn the page the the late and great University of Texas football coach Darrell royal if y'all remember

him he won national champion in 69 he won a couple of national championships hello Darrell oh he was a friend of mine and a good friend of many people now a lot of people looked up to this man one of the people looked up to him was a musician named Larry now at this time in his life Larry was in the prime of his country music career he had number one hits and his life was rolling and he had it picked up a bad habit of uh snorting the white stuff somewhere along the line and

at one particular party after a a bathroom break Larry went confidently up to his mentor Darrell and he started telling him the story Oh Troy listen as he always had and when Larry finished his story and was about to walk away coach royal put his gentle hand on his shoulder and he very discreetly said hey Larry you uh got something under on your nose there but Larry immediately hurried to the bathroom near where he saw some of the white powder that he hadn't cleaned up his nose he was a shame he was embarrassed as much

because he felt so disrespectful to coach royal and as much because he'd obviously gotten too comfortable with the drug to even hide it as well as he should well the next day Larry went to coach's house he rang the doorbell coach answered and he said coach I need to talk to you Darrell said sure come on in Larry confessed he purged his sins to coach he told him how embarrassed he was and how he had lost his way in the midst of all this fame and fortune and towards the end of an hour Larry who

was in tears he asked coach he said coach what do you what do you think I should do my coach being a man of few words just looked at ma call me said Larry I have never had any trouble turning the page and the book of my life Larry got sober that day and he's been sober for the last 40 years you ever get in a rut you know I'm talking about you get the funk it's stuck on the merry-go-round of a bad habit I have but we're gonna make mistakes you got to own them

then you got to make amends and then you got to move on guilt and regret kills many a man or their time so turn the page get off the ride you are the author of the book of your life turn that page number 12 give your obstacles credit you know those uh no fear t-shirts that were out I don't know if you used to wear them ten years ago no fear you may remember those are just me I saw him everywhere all right I don't get him and I never did I mean well I try

to scare myself at least once a day I mean I get butterflies every morning before I go to work I was nervous before I got here to speak tonight I I think fear is a good thing now why because it increases our need to overcome that fear all right say your obstacle is fear rejection all right you want to ask her out or you want to ask him out but you fear that he or she may say no all right you you you want to ask your boss for that promotion but you're scared he's gonna

think you're overstepping your bounds well instead of denying those fears declaring say the fear out loud admit it give them the credit they deserve don't get all macho and act like they're no big deal and don't get paralyzed by denying that they exist and therefore abandoning your need to overcome them I mean I'd even subscribe to the belief that we're all destined to have to do the thing that we fear the most anyway at some point so give your obstacles credit and you will one find the courage to overcome them or you will to see

more clearly that they're not really worth prevailing over so be brave have courage and when you do you get stronger you get more aware you get more respectful of yourself and that which you fear number thirteen so how do we know when we cross the truth thirteen was asking why did I pick thirteen that's an unlucky number well I don't know when thirteen got the bad rap and became the mongrel of numerology it's never done me wrong thirteen in fact thirteen has been a pretty lucky number for me and I want to tell you how

I've always taken these 21-day trips by myself to far-off places where I usually don't know the language and nobody knows my name their adventures one but they're also a purge all right they're cleanse for me they're like a 21-day fast from attention from all the things I have and my well-appointed life they're a check out so I can check in with me see how I'm doing be forced to be my own and my only company to have a look in my mirror and we all know what can happen when we do that sometimes we do

not like what we see well in 1996 right after I got famous from the film I did call the time to kill I I headed out on one of these 21-day walkabout and this time to the jungles in the mountains of Peru the sudden fame that I just gotten was somewhat unbalancing my face was everywhere everyone wanted a piece of me people I'd never met were swearing that they loved me everywhere I went there I was on my billboard a magazine cover it was it was just weird over a hop you know as I was

asking myself what's the reality in this and what's the [ __ ] did I deserve all this these were all questions I was asked myself who was I was another now there's always an initiation period with these trips an amount of time that it takes for the place to initiate the traveler the time it takes to disconnect from the world we just left and become completely present and the one we are traveling in now for me that initiation period usually lasts about 13 days 13 hellish days until I am out of my own way well

it was the night of the 12th day in my 21 day trip I'm settling into camp I'd already hiked 80 miles to this point and I had a 3 day trek out of me to Machu Picchu and I was full-on sick of myself wrestling with the loss of anonymity I was guilt ridden for sins of my past had a lot of curette I was lonely disgusted with my company mine grappling with these demons on this night I couldn't sleep all of these badges and banners and expectations and anxieties that I was carrying with me I

need to free myself from him so I stripped down to nothing I I took every moniker that gave me pride and confidence all the window dressings the packaging around the product I discarded them all I got rid of my lucky and faithful American cap I stripped off all my talismans from adventures past I even discarded my late father's gold ring with an M on it that he gave to me it was a meltdown of he and my mom's class rings and gold for my mom's teeth even got rid of that I was naked literally and

figuratively and I got sick got clean I felt free and light long a muddy path on this walk I turned a corner and there in the middle of the road was was this Mirage it's magnificent pinks and blues and red colors that I'd ever seen it was electric glowing and vibrant just hovering just off the surface of the jungle floor as if it was plugged into some neon power plant I stopped I stared there's no way around it the jungle floor in front of me was actually thousands of butterflies there in my path it was

spectacular so I stayed a lot and somewhere in my captivation I heard this little voice inside my head say these words all I want is what I can see and all I can see is what's in front of me now at that moment trip I had stopped anticipating what was around the corner for the first time I stopped thinking about what was coming up next what was up ahead time slowed down I was no longer in a rush to get anywhere and my anxieties were greatly eased a few hours later I returned to camp even

the local Sherpas I was traveling with they they they noticed calling out to me sohe's lose my they oh so he's lose which means you are light in Spanish see I forgave myself that morning I let go of the guilt the weight it was on my shoulders was lifted my penance was paid and I got back in good graces with my God and I shook hands with myself my best friend the one that we're all stuck with anyway ourselves and from that morning on the adventure was awesome I was present I was out of my

own way I was not anticipating next I was embracing only what was in front of my eyes and giving everything the justice that they deserve you see I crossed the truth that morning now did I find it I don't know I think it found me why because I put myself in a place to be found I put myself in a place to receive the truth so how do we know when we cross the truth well I think the truce all around us all the time I mean I think the answer you know it's always right

there right there I think it's all around us we just don't always see it you know always grasp it hear it accessing usually because we're not in the right place to do so so what do we do first I believe we've got to put ourselves in the place to receive the truth that's the minute we live in an extremely noisy world with all kinds of frequencies coming at us we got commitments we got deadlines fix this do that plans expectations and they all make it hard to get clarity and peace of mind so we have

to consciously put ourselves in places to receive that clarity and that may be prayer that may be meditation that may be a walkabout that may be being in the right company a road trip whatever it is for you schedule that time schedule it so if we do that if we hear it if we put ourself in a place to hear than we do and it's become clear a truth natural and infinite then the second part comes which is to personalize ask yourself how it works for you how it applies to you personally why you need

it in your life specifically and if you do that then comes the third part have the patience to internalize it and get it from our intellectual head thinking about it and into our bones and our soul in our instinct now we cannot rush this part it does take time so if we get that far we've received it we personalized it and we've internalized it I've gotta have the courage to act on it to actually take it into our daily lives and practice it to make it an active part of who we are and live it

do that right if we do that then we have what I believe is heaven right here on earth and that's the place where what we want is also just what we need I mean that's the ticket isn't it think about it I know that's where I want to live while we're here and they're gonna run across the Jumbotron let's make it a place where we break a sweat where we believe where we enjoy the process of succeeding in the places in ways that we are fashion to where we don't have to look over our shoulder

because we're too busy doing what we're good at voluntarily keeping our own Council because we want to traveling towards immortal finish lines we write our own book overcoming our fears we make friends with ourselves and that is the place that I'm talking about