Replay: Matthew McConaughey!!

[1:35]Zibby Owens: Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, hosted by me, Zibby Owens. It's an award winning podcast with over 1,900 episodes, all featuring authors of books you love and those you have yet to discover. Listen daily five times a week. Then go to zippymedia.com and learn more about what the LA Times called the Zippyverse. Zippy Media includes Zippy's Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, Zippy Books Publishing, Zippy Retreats, Zippy's Book Club, and more. Go check it out at zippymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens. It'll take you where you need to go. Thanks for listening.

[2:16]Matthew McConaughey: Hi, everybody. This is one of the replay bonus episodes to get you through the holiday season. Maybe you missed some. There have been over 2,000 episodes. We are going into a rebrand where we're going to be changing the name of the podcast from moms don't have time to read books to Zippy's podcast. So that is happening in the new year. In the meantime, have a listen, enjoy, and let me know what you think. Bye.

[2:43]Zibby Owens: Okay. Today's guest is Matthew McConaughey. He's here to talk about his new children's book, Just Because. And now I'm gonna read his bio, but let me just say this was a complete and total thrill. I have been a fan for a very long time as I'm sure many of you are as well. I also listened to Olive Green Lights all summer long on Audible in the car, and it I feel like he just drove all over with me. Anyway, Texas native Matthew McConaughey is one of Hollywood's most sought after leading men. A chance meeting in Austin with casting director and producer John Phillips led him to director Richard Lanklater, who launched the actor's career in the cult classic Dazed and Confused. Since then, he has won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club. He's appeared in over 40 feature films that have grossed over a billion dollars and has become an author, producer, and philanthropist with his Just Keep Living Foundation, all the while sticking to his Texas roots and JK Living philosophy. He serves as minister of culture MOC for the University of Texas athletic department and the Austin FC soccer club where he is part owner. In 2020, McConaughey released his first book, Greenlights, which became an instant New York Times number one bestseller and has sold over 3,000,000 copies worldwide. His second book, a children's book titled Just Because, is out now. He currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Camilla, who was also on this podcast, so go back and listen to when I interviewed her, and their three kids,

[4:18]Matthew McConaughey: where he is a professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Welcome, Matthew. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Just Because. Oh, good to be here with you to be. Oh, thank you. Okay, a children's book because you hadn't accomplished enough other things. Why write a children's book at this point? Oh, I mean, I've got three children of my own, so I'm sure that's part of it. And my children are now 10, 13, and 15. As a parent, with children, you see them having first time experiences all the time. It's the first time every time. I mean, I don't know for how many years, but it still is for them in different ways. And you see, I see pressures they're under. I see pressure they put themselves on. I see pressure their peers put on. I see confusion. I see them battling with their own feelings and trying to feel like they need to be clear about being feeling one way about something. And this book is a little bit about tolerating that we we have contradictory thoughts. We can have dueling feelings at the same time. We can feel one way about the same situation today and feel differently about it tomorrow. And that's okay. That's all right. That doesn't mean you don't know who you are. That means, especially in this time as a youngster, that's how you're figuring out who you are. And then you start to measure the consequences and make a choice because you start to know there's an exchange here. If I choose this, I'm going through it with my elders right now. He's got three things going on that are very important to him. And all of a sudden for the first time, he's like wishing he had more than twenty four hours of his day. I'm like, they aren't giving anymore. I know you're gonna have to make sacrifices and I have to go, yeah, but if I commit to that, that means I'll be able to do less this, I know. And their feeling is this is a lifetime decision. And I'm trying to say, and also with the book, no, it's not a lifetime decision. My daughter wants to take up taking up this sport. She's like, well, so do you tell me I need to be a pro? No, you don't have to be a pro. Don't put that pressure on yourself. Just go play it. Give maximum effort. Have as good a time as you can. And if you don't wanna do it again next semester, we'll find another sport, but you don't have to be a pro. Don't put that pressure on yourself. And this book, I think allows a proper leniency for children to understand they can have on themselves. And hopefully has a conversation between parents and kids about that proper leniency, as well as what responsibilities you can take. But that's, you don't find your personal style or know what you're about until you go through the liberal arts of life. I mean, that's what liberal arts in college are about. It's the furniture in the living room. And then you figure it's trying a little bit of this and understanding all of the furniture and how it works. That's part of what young people I think need to do even earlier than college is understand there's a lot of different furniture in your own living room and try them all out. Now's the time. Although perhaps you wouldn't recommend they go to Australia and stay with the Doolies. I don't know. Just guessing. I would recommend that. I know. Know. I would not be here talking to you if I didn't have that year in Australia. That sounded rough, but very funny. It was. There are a few lines in Just Because that I particularly liked. One is, Just because you follow doesn't mean you're not a leader. I love that. Yeah. How has that played out in your life? Like when's the time you followed? Well, that came to me, I think, when I was in that walkabout in Peru in like 1999. I had in my mind at that time that a leader was always in front. And obviously over there, think particularly I had a guide who knew the land and knew the pitfalls and knew what was poisonous and what was not. I sure as heck followed him. And I was like, hit him. I was like, well, you're not in front. But how are you being more of a leader? To be in front and not know where you're going or to be behind an expert who does? Oh, you're being much more leader to be in the second line. So who do we follow? And takes pressure off thinking, oh, I've always gotta be in front. I've always gotta be first. No, sometimes great leadership and taking doing the best for yourself and being the best leader for yourself and others is following the right person who knows how to navigate, or is leading the right way, a prosperous way for you and others. And it was just a click in my mind. There are places where I let my kids lead today. There's certain Saturdays where I'll go, no plans, Matthew. Let's go just do, it doesn't have to make any, don't forget logic. Let's just go do what they wanna do and let's just follow and let them lead without going, Hey, we only have till 07:00, or why do you wanna do that? No, let's just do it. Whatever. And sometimes those days are, their fancy is filled with whatever is in their line. And they're like, Ah, And it's little one offs and that's okay. Sometimes it's a project that we actually build. And at the end of the day, we've built something that wasn't there in the beginning. So I'm just following on those days. And I think that's me being a better father on that day, which is being a better leader for me on that day to them. I feel like this is, there's a fine line between that kind of day and a yes day, which is what I feel like my kids are asking me for often. Yeah. And they'll stretch that old yes day, won't they? Yes. They start to stretch it. And then I have to bring up that old, that great term that I heard from a friend of mine. Before we get into yes, full yes day, let's talk about appropriate expectations. Because you get into that yes day and you go, but you said it'd be yes. Yeah, but that's very inappropriate expectation. Mean, I we have there has to be a bit of a ceiling. Yeah. I said it can't like go on forever after the day. It has to be like confined to the day, but, you know, still didn't really work. Another one, just because you've got the gold doesn't mean that you won. Yep. Love that. Tell me about that one. Who wins the gold today in today's world? What's success? Money and fame. And that's not is that really the gold medal that we should all be pursuing? I don't think so. There's certain gold medals we give out for things that I'm like, we got to ask yourself, you want to be the best? You'll be number one? You'll be most popular? Ask yourself, you want to be relevant? Ask yourself for what? Before you just go, I want to be first. Because if you out there getting blue ribbons and everything, not necessarily gonna be there's a lot of things that we give gold medals for that are not the gold medals for us. And our acts, in my opinion, shouldn't even be gold medals at all. There's a lot of things. A lot of games out there you don't wanna win. There's a lot of scams and cons and ladders that we've told and carrots that are being dangled to go, hey, that no, you don't wanna, uh-uh, uh-uh. Don't change. You don't wanna be the first. You don't wanna be the best at that. You don't wanna be most popular at that. You don't wanna be most relevant for that. Interesting. So just because you've got the gold does not mean you won. There's plenty of gold medals out there that I think all of us can say and we can share with our children. You don't wanna win that one. Feel like this is similar to your your red sports car story and green lights. Yes. Finally get the shiny car and you realize that you've missed the adventure of the truck all along. Yes. I got I that that was my gold medal. Yes. I did it. I won. Okay, so where am I? Oh, geez. No one's really interested me. Girls interested. My friends aren't interested. I'm less social. I'm sitting there. I'm like, like resting on my laurels. I'm lean and it gets my gold medal going, Hey, look at my gold medal. Look at my gold medal. I quit playing the game. I got out of the race. Got rid of that damn medal, that car. Got back in the race. Got back in the game. It's backed up myself. There you go. One thing I was really struck by in a lot of the stories through green lights is all the opportunities that presented themselves. You showed up, you were on time, you were at the place that we were supposed to be, and you were willing to do anything to get there, whether it mopping the bathroom floor in the nightclub, to showing up at an audition, to being a hand model, to just all these things. There seemed to be nothing you weren't willing to do to get to what the goal was that you wanted to do. So tell me a little bit more about that and how that served you well. Well, you know, I bring up another line in green lights, but a lot of times it's not what choice we make. It's just make a damn choice and commit to it. Yep. It'll get you in the door. It'll get you in the door of opportunity where maybe you'll find the thing that is the gold medal you're going after and you can chase it. But you wouldn't have seen that opportunity unless you went and said, yeah, quit biting my nails. If you tell me you're gonna pay me a little money from a hand model, okay. You know what mean? Yeah, I'll go mop those for, I'm not looking to be a professional mopper. I don't really This isn't the job I would came over here to talk to you about, but that's what you need right now, let's go. And what did it do? Ten minutes later, put that mop down. You wanna wait tables? Yes, I do. Okay. It was a test to me. So sometimes life throws these in front of us. It can be measured like in that Homer Hill situation where he said mop the boards, he was measuring me. It can be other times where, I don't know, I I can make a little money off my hands if I quit biting my nails. Okay. Do I wanna be professional hand model? Not necessarily, but it's in that world of something in front of the camera. I'll be around an ad shoot, which is a world I want to be in. Then I get a PA job. And then I go on the right bar and meet the right guy and get cast in a movie. These things lead to places. A lot of times I think success we find ourselves in it. It's not necessarily something that we wrote the headline and went after. A lot of times it is. But so many times it's like, no, just go take the opportunity. If it's not going to discredit you or go get your character or take you into the debit section, or you're not gonna get hurt by it, then try it out. Sometimes just why? I don't know, just because. You try it, find out. You may even, even when you find out, nope, that's not for me. That's knowledge. That's choice. That got rid of something down the line. It got rid of another variable that's like, no, I've done that before. That's not for me. How would you know unless you tried it? Very true. These are all very inspiring little snippets in the story, and I'm sure there's so many more. I just wanted to touch briefly on your amazing philanthropy and the things that you're doing to really help the world. I know there's so many celebrities and people of influence who adopt different things, but I feel like you are across the board doing things that impact so many different types of people, so many different areas of life, whether it's the plane you just got, which is so amazing going to Maui to the Greenlights Initiative, the Grant Initiative, which is so creative and interesting. Just Keep Living. All these things. Tell me about your views on philanthropy and like, what are you trying to do? Even the private public government partnerships. I mean, it's so interesting. Right. How do you how do you think about your philanthropy in general? Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to quints. They focus on high quality essentials. 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[18:05]Matthew McConaughey: Prevention before cure and create incentive, restore, and follow through. There's so many very valuable places to give time, efforts, monies to cure. Very valid, need them. My lane that moves me and turns me on is, oh, what about the tools to prevent before you need to cure? That's why we went to young people in high school, Title I schools with the Just Keep Living Foundation. Restore, nine fires. They need restoration. They need to survive right now. There's gonna be new plans about how they're gonna thrive. Right now, it's basics. It's called stabilize, necessities, diapers, food, water, power. That's as far as we need to think. We don't need to be talking about yoga instructors. You know what I mean? We're talking basic needs right now. The Green Lancer Grant Initiative, that's about follow through. It's about first bills passed in thirty years to help make schools safer. The money's there. It's there. Oh, it's really hard red tape to get that money. Okay, can we simplify that? And this is not political because the government wants to spend that money and the schools need it. So can we simplify the communication process, the application process? How do you best chance to get awarded those grants process? Nothing sexy about it. It's very utilitarian. But it is also something else I believe in is the private sector working with the public sector. So the private, if I'm a private citizen and I'm working with the public government that communicate the government, too many times our leaders get in position or bills passed and we're like, oh, okay, we did it. And we turn our back and we move on. And we look back thirty, fifty years later, ten years later, we go like, whatever happened with that? Oh, it was never utilized. Oh, it was never spent. Oh, there was never any follow through. So in some ways with that bill just symbolic, I want hopefully to be more than for it to be as least symbolic as possible. It was passed symbol. Now let's utilize, let's be constructive with it. How can we, and then hopefully we can have measurements. Here's how it worked. Here's why let's do it more and again. Let's be affirmative, but we gotta Let's get it utilized to see first for it not to be spent. And for us to be reallocated in 2026 would be like, what were we doing? So that's just that one's follow through. And an example that I hope, I think we need more of is private sector and public sector working together more instead of just saying, No, government, my leaders in position that I want, I'm gonna sit back down. No, now's the time to get up. We gotta go be soldiers in life and what we wanna get done. And on the other side of it is we don't want the government just going, well, let the private sector handle it. Why don't we work together more on that? Amazing. Well, it's really admirable what you're doing. It's really awesome. Going back to writing for a second, obviously, reading Green Lights or actually, I listened to it all. But listening to Green Lights, you talk about when you discovered your love of story, how it was identified, when you really wrote those 15 page letters and tapped into yourself, which became an entire memoir and now this children's book. What does it feel like when you're writing? Where do you write your best work? What are the ideal writing conditions for you? What does that look like? Ideal writing conditions are alone and four to seven in the morning. And with nothing planned or no appointments on the backside. Meaning if I'm gonna write today and I have an appointment in three hours, Because I know in my mind in three hours, need to stop. So I have a curfew, no curfew. I can have no curfew. And so I give myself now, I don't say it's limitless, it's lightless. But if I can go away for a week, if I can go away for two weeks and no man, relax. You have not, I don't care if it's dark. I don't care if it's light. I don't care if you have a drink. I don't care if you don't. I don't care if you exercise. We're gonna sit right here. That's when I'm right. Now I do get up moving around and I'll have ideas that I'll come back and try and deconstruct them and fill them out and flush them out. Sometimes it's one line. This book, just because, it was a ditty. It was a 02:30 in the morning dream I had. That was a Bob Dylan poem. And I woke up with a beat, I was going, Just because I forgive you don't mean that I still trust. There's what you do, there's what I do, and yours is not my must do. Just because you're wailing don't mean that you're a crier. And just because you lied does not mean that you're a liar. Until I woke up and the hook was there and I just started writing the couplets. And I wrote for four hours and wrote about a 100 of them and went back and said, there's about whatever's in the book, about 20 or five or so that I think are really relatable, constructive and helpful for young people and can become a great conversation between parents and their kids. And put them into what's in the book on Just Because. All in a morning's work. How about that? Well, comes up sometimes musically. If I can find the rhythm, I mean, find that with writing even in green lights. If I can get the first line right, if I can get it, oh, that's it. It's got the swing and it's got the vibe and it's got the sway, it's got the rhythm. The rest of it will just write itself. The rest is easy. And sometimes I'd be up at 4AM and not get the first line to a story written until 3PM. But then I'd have the story written at 7PM. Because I got off, I got out. Oh, there it is. There it is. I hear it. I hear it. And then once I get the rhythm, sort of writes itself. Amazing. So do you read it out loud or it's just in your head? It's just in my head and it goes down and I have to, sometimes I'm still learning and it's hard sometimes to slow my mind down because my mind can go faster than my fingers. I'll get, it'll come in my head and I'll write down a word that represents each sentence. Because I'll have them, eight words under each other column. And then I'll go back and I'll fill in where those words fit and how it connected to the, and then I'll have eight sentences and then I'll have a great paragraph. Interesting. So what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Make sure it's personal. Number one, it's a lot more fun than it's personal. And it's a lot harder in a way because you kind of have to look at the mirror and go, oh geez. And it can become embarrassing. But rules are, there are no rules. But I say, make sure it's personal. Look, when I first started writing Greenlights, I found myself after the first ten days with this little hunch of I wanted to write impressive. And I looked back at my mind, I was like, yeah, that is kind of impressive sentence there, Matthew. And then I was like, that's BS. You're writing to impress. And I was like, no, write what's honest and write it well. And if it maybe that will be impressive. And if that's impressive, instead of writing impressively, there's our place. And when I got more personal, the other irony is this, the more personal you can be it's very much like the contradictions just because the more to humanity you're speaking to everyone. Now the use, it's very important to me and I think it's a clever way of thinking. When do you use first person, second person or third person? So if I'm writing, I, I, Matthew is saying write subject, we make it personal. I, I, I, I, I, great. I think that's the place to start, make it personal. But then you look at it and you go, who cares about this? This is like my diary. It's like, can someone apply this? But you can look at the same stuff that's in the first person eye and go, where do I use the you? And it becomes like, oh, I'm sharing things I learned, but you gotta watch you because people take it as advice and no one likes to be told what to do. Then you get to the beautiful spot, which is my favorite to go between the I and the third person, the royal we. So from the I and the we is where my favorite place to write from. Now you gotta watch all we. If you go all we, you're speaking in platitudes and people are going, what are you, who the hell do you think you are speaking for everybody? You know what I mean? But if you got enough, I personal in there, no one can judge that. You can judge it, but no one can condemn you for that. It's your experience. If you got too much we in there, it's like, really? So your words are the commandments? No, so it's the mixing of the I, the you and the we, and I think you have to watch it because too much you people back off and go quit telling me what to do. Too much I, it's like, well, I can't see myself in your story, man. Come on. Too much we, it's like, that's not personal law. It's like, well, who are you talking to? You're trying to talk about humanity in general? So it's the play with those, the use of those three person. Amazing. More books coming after this? Are you writing another memoir? Yes. I mean, right now I'm really excited about going around and sharing just because I have a couple of other similar things that I think would be good children's books. And I'm working on another follow-up to, I don't know if it's necessary follow-up to Greenlights, but it's in the same vein of how do we constructively move forward personally and collectively. Any secrets? And then I'll let you go. But any secrets for confronting the blank page if you don't have a song in mind or rhythm that's ready? Yeah, Well, I've had to, sometimes you do have to out endure it. Sometimes you do have to just sit there and go, I got nothing, I'm stuck. But change your, I mean, I try to, when I get stuck like that, I try to change my state of mind. Meaning I'll write differently about that. We all I think will write differently about the same subject or have a different look at it in different state of mind. Meaning when your endorphins are going right after you've exercised. When you've just come home from church. When you've had a few drinks. When you're tired. That tired, sometimes that being tired is really nice because you're thinking your mind's not too acute yet. You're kind of thinking in baselines and it's kind of low hanging fruit stuff. It's a baseline and write those down too. And then come back to the same subject, go out and change your, do a three sixty, go change where your state of mind and where your endorphins are, where your energy is, where your soul is, where you spend, and come back and have a look at it. And then again, the no rules thing. Sometimes it's just about getting that first sentence. Just get something down and if you can get that first one, it can lead to the second and all of a sudden you can get in the flow. And there's no, that's what's fun about writing. There's no rules. You can't go try. I mean, my great mentor, Penny Allen always said this to me about acting and writing. She was like, try and screw it up. I dare you. So give yourself that leniency, that freedom. Try and screw it up. Dare you. It's fun. All you can do is go back and either edit it or and go long, go edit, you know, later if you want to, you know, but go long. Don't edit while you're writing, go long. And then come back and go, yeah, got that point. You know, that could be that those two paragraphs say a similar thing in different ways. Do I amalgamize the two or do I use one because it really gets the point across? Yeah. Amazing.

[30:09]Zibby Owens: First time I've heard the word amalgamize today. So there's that.

[30:14]Matthew McConaughey: On passport forms, what do you put? Actor? Do you put author? Do you put storyteller? What do you put down? Passport? Yep. I have my passport right here just a minute ago. On this forms when you travel, occupation. Storytellers on there. Yeah. I usually tell a story storyteller. Love it. So fun. Okay. Just Because is just awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. This is really fun. I loved Green Lights and this book and and all of it. And I'm a big fan. Congratulations. And especially on your philanthropy. Bill, thank you. Thanks for the time and thanks for letting me share stories and hope you and others enjoy the book. Anytime. All right. Take care. Bye bye.

[30:58]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy Readers.