YPO Matthew Mcconaughey January 2021
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Learning Ofcer Alliance Curated and Moderated by Beri Meric IVY CEO YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair *** KEY LEARNINGS FROM: Matthew McConaughey We are thrilled to share the key learnings from our session with Matthew McConaughey, Academy Award–winning, legendary American icon. If you’d like to explore inviting your team to a custom workshop based on this topic, or to our future sessions, please email IVY CEO & YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric via [email protected]. Table of Contents 1. Five Key Takeaways & Three Key Actions 2. Introduction: Greenlights 3. On Legacy Choices 4. How to Set Goals: Get Rid of the Chafe 5. Write the Headline First: How to Give Yourself Direction without Restriction 6. Why Achieving Our Goals Is Never the End Answer 7. How to Recharge 8. On Failure and Not Letting the Sideliners Get You Down 9. On Yellow Lights: What to Do with Bad Days 10. How to Cultivate Joy in the Journey 11. Relationships, Family, and Non-negotiable Choices 12. How to Put Family Life First 13. The Importance of Making Time for Your Partner When You Have Children 14. Remote Working: What I’m Excited About and Worried About 15. How to Make Contradictions of Selfish and Selfless: Reframing for the Longview 16. Common Denominator Values to Rebuild the Social Contract 17. For Young People: How to Find Your True Calling 01. Five Key Takeaways & Three Key Actions 1. Sometimes you think, if I just know what I want to do, that gives me something to constructively work and chase and climb to everyday. But the first question is harder. What the hell do I want to do, and why? Sometimes it’s about eliminating. Get rid of the chafe. Get rid of the et cetera that you don’t really need. And sometimes that will even mathematically lead us towards more of what it is we do want to do to define our goal. Now, once we define it, woohoo, that’s fun. Because now you have that stake in the sand out there. You have that reason to fire out of bed each morning. We like the feeling of small ascension each day and getting closer and things getting a tad clearer. 2. I’m all for writing the headline first and living the story toward the headline, which is a form of goal setting. Write that damn headline first and then let’s live our story towards that goal. But usually when we get there, the headline has changed a little bit. When you’re on your way to your goal, don’t give yourself a narrow one lane highway to get there. Just pick out your general direction, what your general idea of what that goal is going to be. In highway terms, I use like this, pick out if you’re going north, south, east or west. And then give yourself a 16-lane Autobahn. You can weave all through those lanes, take an exit anyway and be inspired along the way. 3. Gratitude never goes out of style. I believe generosity breeds gratitude. Gratitude breeds responsibility. Responsibility breeds freedom. If we can stay in that line, in that line of not trying to go too far backwards into the debit section, the joy will come. Then, when we’re not so obsessed with the projection of where we want to go to feel our joy or happiness, then we do start feeling more joy, just in knowing that it’s all impermanent. 4. Sometimes it’s endurance. Sometimes it’s just like, it wasn’t a magical day. What I’m doing, I’m not feeling it. I think we need to trust that some days are just like that. Some days we’re off frequency. Some days, we’re stepping in the longest line at the supermarket again, and we’re not in the flow, we’re in a constant yellow light. Now, when we’re in that yellow light. It could be a sign that, oh, I need to let this yellow light turn red and stop and dwell on this because I need to learn something. Maybe I’m in a rut for a good reason, because we need to take some time out and go, “I got to realign. I got to recalibrate. I’ve got something to learn here.” But most of the time, when we’re having a bad, we need to instead say, I’m not going to give this much credit. This is not how it’s going to be for me. I’m going to trust that I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning with a brand new day and I’m going to get back on track. I’m going to trust that the world’s going to get realigned again for me. 5. Most of our choices and relationships in life are negotiable. And with negotiations comes choices. But when it comes back to family, for me, the freedom is that that is a black and white decision, it’s non-negotiable. I gotta do what I need to do to be the best father I can be and the best husband I can be. That I put over in the non-negotiable category, which gives us great freedom because it takes away so many choices. I’m trusting in that choice being a good idea, timelessly a good idea. No matter what happens in the world, that’s always a good idea. That’s always in the black, always in the asset section. That’s never in the debit section. So, when I found non-negotiable things in my life that I felt were pure and good and true for me, when I watered those gardens and tended those gardens, and maintained those gardens, that’s when the butterflies came to me. Tree Key Actions for You and Your Leadership Team 1. Identify one area of your work or life that, like Matthew’s production company, may be a drag on your ability to commit to other ventures and priorities that are more important to you. What can you do to minimize it or even eliminate it? 2. Matthew talks about how joy is found in the process of doing something you feel equipped to do, not in the final achievement of a goal. What is one activity you find this kind of joy in doing? Set some time aside this week for it. 3. If you are in a relationship, what can you do to make sure you have that personal “check in” quiet time together, above the fray of childcare and work, that Matthew says is so important to maintaining his relationship with his wife? Whether it’s scheduling a date night or just planning to be more present, take a step to prioritize and build in this time. 02. Introduction: Greenlights I’ve been keeping journals for 36 years. I’ve been daring myself to go open up those journals and see what the hell I had for the last 15, but didn’t have the courage to do it, because I was scared of looking back. When I went to write the book, Greenlights, I was afraid of being embarrassed, ashamed, feeling guilty, and seeing times where I was an arrogant little prick. I went back to my journals, I saw all four of those things, and I felt all four of those things. But what I also noticed was this. Most of the things that I thought I was going to be embarrassed about, I ended up laughing at. Most things that I felt I was going to be ashamed and guilty of, I had already forgiven myself for. And times, even when I saw I was that arrogant little prick, I noticed that if I wasn’t the arrogant prick that I was at certain times in my life, it wouldn’t give me the confidence to put myself in a position to get humiliated soon after, which, as I looked through the chronology in my life, it seemed to happen most every time. I learned from them. I thought immediately when I sat down to write the first four days, I really thought I was heading towards something quite academic. And the day forward hit me, I was like, “No, this is not academic. It’s more philosophical and poetic.” I had to back off and said, “Look, let the journals tell you what the book should be.” And I remember the first thing that happened after a week is I had seven or eight categories, big stacks of stories, a big stack of people, places, poems, prayers, and bumper stickers. And I was sitting there with these stacks in front of me and it was like, “Okay, well, there’s my categories, my themes. Now, let me see if I can find a central theme in that.” And that’s where I found Greenlights. I noticed that I had engineered Greenlights in my life, meaning I made choices that were kind and cool to my future self in ways that I was responsible for. Noticed that I got damn lucky sometimes. Greenlights just fell in my lap and I was like, “Well, do I do something with it? Do I take advantage of the opportunity?” Noticed that those red and yellow lights in life that I do not like and nobody likes, and why do we want them. Noticed that, oh, they had lessons to teach me. I had learned lessons. That’s how I evolved.