Matthew McConaughey on avoiding cynicism and finding gratitude

Summary

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Podcast Summary: ReThinking with Adam Grant

Episode: "Matthew McConaughey on Avoiding Cynicism and Finding Gratitude"

Date: September 23, 2025
Host: Adam Grant
Guest: Matthew McConaughey

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Episode Overview

This episode of ReThinking features a candid, entertaining, and philosophical conversation between organizational psychologist Adam Grant and Oscar-winning actor, writer, and philanthropist Matthew McConaughey. The main theme is how to resist cynicism, cultivate gratitude, and keep striving for meaning through belief, optimism, and honest self-reflection. Matthew shares both personal stories and thought-provoking insights, drawing from his life, career, and recent book, Poems and Prayers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Belief and Battling Cynicism

• McConaughey describes his personal struggle with growing cynicism and his resolve to resist it—choosing to nurture belief instead:

  • "Belief, I hope. Think it's in short supply. I believe we need to think more about it, pursue more of it... I felt it coming on, and I wasn't ready to wave the white flag and say, oh, so this is just kind of how it is." (03:15)

• He draws a distinction between skepticism (healthy, discerning doubt) and cynicism (destructive disbelief):

  • "Skepticism, discernment, being discriminate with your choices and judgment. That's wise... Cynicism is looking around at reality and... you’re going, do we have a compass?... That’s an early death." (07:12)

• Adam notes the "cynical genius illusion" in psychology: People mistakenly see cynicism as a sign of intelligence, but science shows it’s more of a defensive posture protecting against disappointment or exploitation. (08:08)

• McConaughey on what he was guarding against with cynicism:

  • "Risks, curiosity, romance, mentorship, real fulfilled love, trust. Probably protecting my heart as much as my head." (08:54)

2. Embracing Doubt and Managing Expectations

• Adam challenges Matthew's confident public persona:

  • "You're the ultimate avatar of confidence. You experience self doubt?" (03:57)

• McConaughey admits to self-doubt and describes "missing the mark," especially as a father and creator:

  • "Doubt comes for me when there's a gap between my aspirations... and who I actually am." (04:08)
  • He shares a personal example about struggling to prioritize time with his kids before a book tour. (04:53)

• He deals with this by open communication and “front loading” quality time with family, accepting that sometimes aspiration and execution won’t perfectly align.

3. The Pursuit and Power of Optimism

• Optimism, faith, and believing in the unknown are key for McConaughey:

  • "To be curious, to still go, well, I don't know. And that's what belief is. That's what faith is. I don't know. God exists. I don't know there's a heaven. I do know and believe that... believing in something and chasing it makes this life better." (10:09)

• He discusses chasing "divinity" in art—setting almost impossibly high aspirations and being okay when the reality falls short:

  • "I've never done a performance... that met my expectation... But I look at them going like, boy, the idea that I had about what I could do... was so divine, and that's the reason I did it." (10:38)
  • Accepting that art may become meaningful or understood only years later.

4. Handling Past Mistakes and Growth

• On being embarrassed by past work or writing:

  • "I was quite embarrassed to write Green Lights... eight days of sitting there, looking, reading journals... I was going, are you kidding me?... But after about eight days, those same stories I started to giggle at, and I started to go, well, at least you tried." (18:28)
  • Emphasizes self-amnesty and appreciating the growth visible in old mistakes.

• Adam sums it up:

  • "They're actually a symbol that I've grown." (20:43)

5. Making Positives Plural, Negatives Singular

• A notable insight:

  • "The negative is singular. The positives are plural. Please sell them as such." (24:01)

• Adam observes most people do the opposite—cataloging many nuanced negative emotions but few positive ones. Matthew encourages consciously expanding our vocabulary and focus for gratitude and joy.

• Practice of compounding gratitude and “feeding the good wolf” leads to more optimism and resilient, selfless actions:

  • "Feed your good wolf and more goodness will come. More value will come to your life." (24:34)

6. Unconditional Gratitude & Giving

• McConaughey on unconditioned giving:

  • "The thanks you expect will hold you entitled, but the gratitude you give will breed freedom." (26:49)
  • Giving must be unconditional; competition or scorekeeping breeds resentment: "The giving has to be a one way. And if you’re playing quid pro quo... now we're competing." (27:07)

• On gratitude rituals:

  • He starts prayers/meals with gratitude. Authenticity matters more than frequency: "It does mean a lot more when I do make that moment." (29:09)
  • He uses humor to unlock vulnerability and honesty in gratitude circles with his Just Keep Living Foundation. (30:07)

7. Writing to Forget, Publishing to Remember

• McConaughey on journaling:
  • "I never wrote things down to remember. I always wrote things down so I could forget." (31:08)
  • Publishing decades of journals is therapeutic and an act of reconnecting with belief: "This is helping pull me out of my own doubt." (31:30)

8. Lightning Round Highlights

• Worst career advice: That acting should only be about inhabiting another, not connecting personally. (34:38)
• How space movies changed him:
  • "God’s backyard’s bigger than I thought... I'm much more of an astronaut’s mind now." (35:15)
• Being shouted "all right, all right, all right":
  • He enjoys it, shares its serendipitous origin: "I ain’t arrogant enough to not, not enjoy that." (36:10)
• On parenting teens:
  • Learns to hold his tongue and maintain access: "To hold my tongue and just listen... It’s helped us maintain access." (37:55)
• Accepting imperfection:
  • "Not quite sure how to do it wrong, but pretty damn sure I didn't do it right. It's just a little amnesty that we can have with ourselves for kind of fucking something up." (38:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On cynicism vs. skepticism:

  • "Cynicism came from me going, yeah, maybe that's just how it is... But they also don't believe. They live in doubt of so much, if not everything. And I think that's an early death." — Matthew McConaughey (07:12)

• On gratitude and giving:

  • "The thanks you expect will hold you entitled, but the gratitude you give will breed freedom." — Matthew McConaughey (26:49)

• On ambition and self-compassion:

  • "You learn how to do it right by doing things wrong. It's just a little amnesty that we can have with ourselves for kind of fucking something up." — Matthew McConaughey (38:59)

• On optimism and belief:

  • "Belief is very different than hope. Hope... doesn't have an engine behind it. If you got what you hope for... you got lucky or fortunate. Right. But if it’s a dream that comes true that you believe in... that's because you saw it, you believed in it, and you made one step at a time to get that." — Matthew McConaughey (13:58)

• On fame and “all right, all right, all right”:

  • "The first three words I ever said [on camera]. And they precede me to this day. I ain’t arrogant enough to not, not enjoy that." — Matthew McConaughey (36:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:15 | McConaughey on belief and resisting cynicism | | 04:08 | Admitting to self-doubt and “missing the mark” | | 07:12 | Cynicism vs. skepticism and its dangers | | 08:54 | What cynicism protects us against | | 10:09 | On faith, optimism, and belief | | 10:38 | Chasing divinity in art, learning from imperfection | | 18:28 | Being embarrassed by past writings—self-amnesty | | 24:01 | “The negative is singular. The positives are plural.” | | 26:49 | “The thanks you expect will hold you entitled..." | | 29:09 | Authentic, meaningful gratitude vs. rote ritual | | 31:08 | Writing to forget, publishing to remember | | 35:15 | Changing perspective on space and possibility | | 36:10 | “All right, all right, all right” story & embracing fame | | 37:55 | Parenting and listening to teenagers | | 38:59 | Self-compassion about imperfection |

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Conclusion

This episode offered a blend of philosophy, humor, and practical wisdom on navigating ambition, doubt, gratitude, and human connection. McConaughey’s approach is honest and self-deprecating—encouraging listeners to seek belief over cynicism, embrace imperfection, and multiply the positives in life.

Transcript

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[Matthew McConaughey]

A half hour monologue with Carl Sagan and when he was done and talking about where we are in the universe, where the Earth is, where our galaxy is, where this universe we're in, there's multiple universes and a black hole in the middle and basically it's expanding just as a balloon does, as the universe expands. And our galaxy is right here at the top left corner of the number five on a clock and right he got to the end and I was overwhelmed and in myself I was like, therefore God exists. And before I could say it, he goes, and therefore God doesn't exist. I went, whoa. Wow. He and I laughed our ass off. It was beautiful.

[Adam Grant]

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Welcome back to Rethinking my podcast with Ted on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

[Adam Grant]

You probably know Matthew McConaughey from one of his many acting roles.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

I love his space movies Contact and Interstellar, or the cult classic Dazed and Confused or Dallas Buyers Club where he.

[Adam Grant]

Won an Academy Award.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

But Matthew is also an entrepreneur, philanthropist, teacher, and prolific writer. And he just published his second book, Poems and Prayers, which was built on decades of his journal entries, poems, and life lessons learned.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I say what I believe I should, I do what I believe I would. I acted as though I believe I could.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

We talked about optimism and cynicism, about chasing dreams and falling short of them, about finding gratitude and because I couldn't.

[Adam Grant]

Resist his take on. All right, all right, all right. Matthew McConaughey, welcome to Rethinking.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Hey, what are we thinking about?

[Adam Grant]

I think that's up to you.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Belief, I hope. Think it's in short supply. I believe we need to think more about it, pursue more of it, which is part of the reason I really wrote the book. I found myself falling into a little more doubt than I was comfortable with in myself and God, others. And I also started to notice I was becoming a bit cynical. And I've already said, buddy, if that disease of cynicism comes on, you stave that son of a bitch off. You can go be a skeptic, but don't go into that little disease of cynicism. It's an early death, buddy. And I felt it coming on, and I wasn't ready to wave the white flag and say, oh, so this is just kind of how it is. So belief. Wow.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, first of all, I'm sorry, Matthew McConaughey, you're the ultimate avatar of confidence. You experience self doubt?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Adam Grant]

When? Why?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, look, doubt comes for me when there's a gap between my aspirations for myself or what I want or who I'm trying to be and want to be and who I actually am. And I have doubts of feeling like a fraud. I have doubts because I don't believe I'm meeting the mark, which is actually the definition of sin. Sin comes from archery. It's to miss the mark, to miss the aim, to aim wrong. And that to hear it in those practical, engineering, utility, utilitarian senses just takes the onus of the agnostic side of me of going, oh, well, it had. It's such so religious. No, it's. It's very practical.

[Adam Grant]

I. I'm picturing you holding a bow, trying to shoot an arrow and missing a bullseye. When did that happen? Recently.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I mean, yesterday. I'm getting ready to head. Head out on this tour with the book. I'm going to be away from my kids for a while and looking at the calendar. Wait, how many days can we minimize or not away? And I had work to do yesterday, and I'm running out of days to spend with her now before I hit the road and I'm being overly self indulgent. To do the personal work I think I need to do while my kids are in the house. I'm like, ah, you're missing the mark, man. Shut the book, McConaughey. Get in there with the kiddos. That was yesterday.

[Adam Grant]

Talk to me a little bit about what you do in those moments, because you're not going to cancel the book tour.

[Matthew McConaughey]

No. Not going to cancel it. No. So what I do is I try to front load, I try to get ahead, I try to get into the. Into really good spot with family, with my wife. Thankfully, my wife's coming with me on the tour, but with family and the kiddos and catch up on really what's going on with them. So we're solid. We're going to leave on solid space with our relationship with each other, where they are in their life, where I am with mine. Them understanding where I'm going and why. So, you know, when you're solid like that, you're not racing against time as much. You kind of go through the day and you go, oh, I'm under the same sun as my dad. And it makes it easier when I return home. We'll be closer to just picking up where we left off, rather than, okay, we got to do something really special together and meaningful to catch up. And we have to do that sometimes. But no doubt I think ideally likes to do that. So that's how I deal with it. And I also understand that as much as I revere fatherhood, they know and understand now in the early days that papa has to go off and create and do work and try to get what he wants and conquer things and et cetera. And I think that's also a good thing for my children to see.

[Adam Grant]

It's a really great antidote to the guilt of working, is to remember, hey, this is part of being a role model for my kids.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah. And I don't think we should can overlook that.

[Adam Grant]

So let's talk about the hopeful skepticism that you mentioned earlier. And it's so strange for me to hear you say that you fell to any cynicism because you just exude optimism. Your energy leaps out of every room.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I'm glad to hear that and I am an eternal optimist. But. Or. And skepticism, discernment, being discriminate with your choices and judgment. That's wise things. Cynicism is looking around at reality and the evidence and the facts, things we're all susceptible to, the news feeds, the whatever, and you're going, do we have a compass? Doesn't seem like we have an expected and agreed upon compass here. So cynicism came from me going, yeah, maybe that's just how it is, maybe that's as good as it gets. And yeah, we know the cynic man, they're clever, they get the laugh at the party, it's academic, it's, wow, that's good. But they also don't believe. They live in doubt of so much, if not everything. And I think that's an early death.

[Adam Grant]

As I was reading and as I'm hearing you now, talk about cynicism, I was thinking about the psychology research on this cynical genius illusion where people assume that cynicism is a sign of intelligence. And you alluded to that, you said.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

It'S clever, but it actually turns out.

[Adam Grant]

To be a defense mechanism against being exploited.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

So we've got in this, this particular paper data from almost 200,000 adults across 30 countries. People who have poor reasoning skills are more likely to see the worst in human nature, to assume that people are selfish and untrustworthy and that's how they protect themselves from the people who are. But they overgeneralize it.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Okay, it's protection.

[Adam Grant]

Exactly. And so I'm curious knowing that what were you guarding yourself against as the cynicism was creeping in?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Guarding myself against risks, curiosity, romance, mentorship, real fulfilled love, trust. Probably protecting my heart as much as my head. Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

Do you have a view on how to self protect without getting cynical? Because I think what the cynic does is they, they assume the worst in others and therefore they end up avoiding the worst. But they also miss out on all the upside and all the good that people are capable of.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yes, look, the skeptical side gives us a compass and an identity, a discernment and a judgment of, oh, I prefer this over that. I'd like to hang out with these people over those. But as you still make a choice, skepticism still gives you the chance to make the, the right and more positive choice, but you believe in it. Cynicism doesn't allow for the belief.

[Adam Grant]

I love the sharp distinction you make between skepticism and cynicism because I think a lot of people, they don't see that discerning is different from disbelieving and that you can have a high bar for what you believe while still being open to believing. Yeah, that's where the optimism comes in.

[Matthew McConaughey]

There's more than one way to be right. I mean, to be curious, to still go, well, I don't know. And that's what belief is. That's what faith is. I don't know. God exists. I Don't know there's a heaven. I do know and believe that heaven, or not pursuing and believing in something and chasing it makes this life better.

[Adam Grant]

While we're here, I wonder how far that goes. Like, what was it like when you won the Academy Award? Right.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, that exceeded. Because I didn't even have an. I didn't have an imagination. All I was. I was in there just going, like, I looked at all the names. I was like, my name's the only one that starts with M. So if you hear they called your name. And I heard, all right, that's a situation where I didn't have a higher expectation. I. And I mean this in the most respectful way. I've never done a performance or been a part of a movie that met my expectation, and I've been a part of some good ones, and I think it's safe to say I've given some good performances. I'm not saying I look back and go, oh, if I could have gone back and done these scenes differently. I'm not saying that. But I look at them going like, boy, the idea that I had about what I could do or what the film could be was so divine, and that's the reason I did it. And it comes in, and maybe it didn't reach divinity, but, ooh, it moved. It was art. It was true. It was omnipresent. It touched mythology, past and future, and rose. Those are all awesome things that I don't think I would have experienced if I wouldn't have gone in and imagined divinity at the outset. The challenge is that moment when reality comes in and you meet its measure and you see it came in below. And the overcompensation problem is. Then we go, oh, man. Nah. No, it's that moment. How quickly can we go, okay, a minus. Wow. Pretty damn good. I didn't ace it. You know what I mean? It didn't meet the. The magic of divinity, but I was having something. That's the gap where sometimes I get hung up on that. We're thinking, no, no, no, no, no. How did that not meet the mark of divinity that I was going for? Can you can hang on to that too long and be in. Bang your head against a wall and go, no, no, no. You got to come back. There was a time to come back to reality and realize that it wouldn't have been what it was, it would have reached the heights that it did had you not been chasing the divine.

[Adam Grant]

Am I. Am I hearing you right, that the Oscar itself exceeded your expectations, but you were Disappointed in aspects of your performance?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Not disappointed. No, I'm not saying disappointed, but I want to be clear on that. I thought Dallas Buyers Club. I thought Jean Marc Ballet did an incredible job directing that movie. I thought performances across the board were great. Everything. I didn't think there was a false moment in it. I thought my performance was excellent work, wouldn't change a thing. It was still, I think, a great piece of art. I think it came alive. I think it felt relevant. I think it felt urgent. A massive amount of emotions going by just viewing it. Many people did. It became a mortal thing, though. A mortal piece of art. And it is still in a condition, capsule, and it's. It's there for all time. But it. I don't think it was divine. I don't think it became, well, a movement, a life, a way of life for humanity.

[Adam Grant]

So the gap. The gap is not so much between your effort and your performance. It's between your performance and the potential for impact.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, not a measurable impact. Like, well, how's the box office? I'm not well. Did it win the Academy? I'm not measuring on that. Those are mortal measurements. I'm measuring off of. My idea of what it could be is alive and effervescent and, as I said, deotific. And it's an immortal measurement, a mythological measurement. And that's, I think, part of where my optimism comes from. A belief in the potential, the possibility. Oh, Stuff I don't even know, but believe in. It could be. Oh, it smells like it. It feels like it. Ah. What if art people, myself, God. A belief in that. And belief is very different than hope. Hope is like. Doesn't have a pathway, you know, doesn't have an engine behind it. If you got to get what you hope for, the dream comes true. That you were hoping for some form of fashion. You got lucky or fortunate. Right. But if his dream comes true that you believe in or you get to that destination, that's because you saw it, you believed in it, and you made one step at a time to get that. That old. That old term. Dream it. You can do it. Oh, geez. I don't like that. I'm like, don't tell people that. What a horrible thing to tell people. Dream it. You can do it. What? No, no, no, no. Don't tell someone that, man. A lot more than that.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah. At least tell him that's the first of many steps.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah. At least, please. Yes. Now.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so you're kind of laying out this paradox for us that on the one Hand high aspirations drive you to excellence. On the other hand, high expectations can drive you to misery. And we want the best of both worlds. The way I've always thought about this is to say I want to keep my aspirations high but my expectations modest. So I go into a project with two goals. I have an ideal outcome that would be best case scenario. And then I have a minimum acceptable outcome where I can say, yeah, that was good enough, it wasn't as great as it could have been, but I'm not going to be disappointed if I get there. How does that land for you? Do you do the same thing?

[Matthew McConaughey]

It lands really well. And I'm getting better at myself doing a form of. That of. Look, the aspirations are high that I'm, I'm firing out of bed every morning, man. I'm doing everything, I'm covering all my bases. I'm turned on, man. Let's make sure whether you call it preparations, whatever, whatever it's going to be. And then as soon as I step away, then I go. Doesn't matter what's. Let's see what happened, man? I mean, you know, does it feel better if it does? Well, yes. Do you wonder if it doesn't do well? Is there something I could have done? Could I rearrange? Is not that. And I go about that, yes, but I'm trying to get much better at going. It lies where it lives. And I've also learned and can give myself a little amnesty in that sometimes things pop up and live their greatest life years down the road. You know, Daisy confused. No one went and saw that when it came out. It's called classic. You know, sometimes little movies pop up. Look at what talk about films. Interstellar did really well in the box office, but boy, it had a little 10 year resurgence. Like it became like a new movie that everyone wanted to see for the fourth time. You know, sometimes art pops up later on and you find something's found, an album, music is found, a book is found that all of a sudden goes, this is really relevant. Sometimes it's just the right timing. Sometimes it's the wrong timing. Sometimes the tornado or the hurricane came in last night and you declared this morning and it took your front page, bro.

[Adam Grant]

I think about this all the time. I think about all the artists who didn't even live to see their success and what a tragedy it is for, you know, somebody to say, well, my book only sold a million copies. You're lucky you got to see any of those sold.

[Matthew McConaughey]

You're right.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so I want to ask you then do you ever look back at your past work and feel embarrassed by it?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, not in film, no. Like, I'll sit down and have a hoot and holler at Texas Chainsaw Massacre Next Generation right now. It's fun, man. I got a mechanical leg. It's hilarious. And I was never embarrassed about that. Although the reason I bring that up is when that was being released, after I had done A Time to Kill, I did have people around me going, oh, you don't want this out right now. And even then, I was like, why not?

[Adam Grant]

Because it's not serious enough art.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah, the choice was like, no, that's part of the living resume. I was quite embarrassed to write Green Lights had this treasure chest full of journals. And, I mean, I could go look over and, you know, peek at something and go, oh, jeez. Uncomfortable, shame, guilt. And I went to Camila, my wife, and I'm like, hey, got this trunk full of all these journals. I think there's some good stuff in it. You know, When. When, When. When I die, will you. You mind going through that and seeing it's worth putting out? And she goes, you do it, you know? She goes, I'm not doing that. Don't put that on me. And then she got me. Helped me to load up the back of the truck with my stakes and my journals and water and tequila and head off to the desert for two weeks alone. You know, I went off and trust me, the first eight days of sitting there, looking, reading journals, stuff about me, I was. It was hard, bro. I was going, are you kidding me? Oh, who the fuck did you think you were, you egotistical little prick? Ah, I can't believe you did that. Da, da da da da da da. Trying to shake guilt and shame and embarrassment. But after about eight days, those same stories I started to giggle at, and I started to go, well, at least you tried, you know, Or. Or those stories where I was embarrassed about would be followed up with me eating shit or me falling on my face eating crow. And I would be like, oh, actually, if you weren't the cocky little shit Mr. Know It all you thought you were, you wouldn't have put yourself in a position to get humiliated, but kind of, hey, oh, okay, that's cool. Then I started to go, oh, there's a rhythm here. These guffaws, these things where you did not meet your expectation. Oh, okay, good. Yeah, it's part of life. Everyone does that. Don't edit that part out.

[Adam Grant]

It's so fun to hear you narrate that arc of learning to laugh at yourself. Because I think, I think so many people look back at their past mistakes and they're embarrassed by them and they're over identifying with their past self as opposed to saying, look, the stupid things I did in the past, those are not a mark that I'm incompetent.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

They're actually a symbol that I've grown.

[Adam Grant]

And now I can see those limitations and realize that I've transcended them.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yes. And then to carry on and go, I hope I have the courage to do some stupid shit in the future. I hope I don't now say, oh, that's enough to learn. I've got my cozy, secure walls now. Don't take any chances, maintain. And I'm at a time now where I'm like going, maybe you need to scoot some things off the desk. Maybe need to put out a couple of campfires and double up and lean into these ones that mean the most to you.

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[Adam Grant]

So this reminds me of something you wrote that stopped me in my tracks when I was reading the book you wrote. The negative is singular. The positives are plural.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Please sell them as such.

[Adam Grant]

That was so interesting to me because in psychology we see the opposite. People are so good at pluralizing the negative. One way that jumped to mind right away is if you look at the just the vocabulary the average person has for negative emotions. The list is a mile long. There are all these nuances and ways of capturing different kinds of unpleasantness. On the positive emotion side, people are like love, joy, maybe amusement, serenity. I'm running out of terms pretty quickly here. Yeah, so talk to me about reversing that.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, for starters, it's more fun compounding assets. Why not try and be great at what we're good at instead of working so hard to be better at what we suck at? Speak of the negative in the past tense and you will block its prophecy in the future. In there is an internal optimism, but I think it's more than that. I think it's internal pragmatism. I think it's survival. It's. I'm going to go back to belief. We got good wolves and bad wolves, man. Both are hungry. Which one we feeding? Feed your good wolf and more goodness will come. More value will come to your life. You will see more value in others. And in seeing that in others, they, many times more than we give credit for, will respond in kind. It's also how we wallow in crisis. Don't give the crisis credit. It's looking for credit. It wants you to wallow. It loves company. Misery loves company. It's a very true statement. We. We somehow feel like, oh, what is it about where. When we like to feel like the victim, when we want the victimhood? What is that? And we need to watch that and catch ourself and go. That's not feeding me. That's how you make the goodness plural, the positives plural, and the negative singular. Block the negative's path to prophecy. Ask yourself who or what you die for. Start there. Then you're gonna find yourself living more for what you believe in, and that's gonna make positives plural. It's a selfish act, ultimately, I believe, partially at least. The ultimate selfish act, I believe, is also the most selfless act. There's a place where what is best for us is what's best for the most amount of people. The egotistical utilitarian, I call it. It was. Wrote a paper on it in college, I remember.

[Adam Grant]

Egotistical, egalitarian. I love it.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Egotistical, utilitarian. Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

So I guess something else that I was curious about around the making the positives plural. You've talked a lot about and you write a lot about gratitude. Let me read you two lines of yours that particularly struck me. First one was you said, the thanks you expect will hold you entitled, but the gratitude you give will breed freedom.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

I've run into so many challenges with people who give with the expectation of gratitude coming back to them and then feel slighted or disappointed. You obviously have an antidote to that. Talk to me about that.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Well, we all know it. We don't necessarily do it. I know it. I don't necessarily do it all the time either. The unconditional gift, the unconditional giving, the unconditional gratitude, it ties a bit into high belief, but then realistic expectations. The giving has to be a one way. And if you're playing quid pro quo about, oh, I got to get the same back, now we're competing. Now we're playing tit for tat. We've seen relationships blow up because of that. We've seen divorces over that stuff. I've lost girlfriends over that stuff because we were competing, you know, tit for tat. Tit for tat. Not a way to go. And it doesn't allow for grace either.

[Adam Grant]

What's tricky about it is, you know, in some ways, gratitude is feedback that you made the difference you were hoping to. And so when it doesn't come in a way, that's somebody telling you you missed the mark. Okay. That goes to the other thing that you captured. So you said that you like to begin your prayers with gratitude.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

Is that. Is that a daily habit for you?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah, it came from certain. Just a certain practice of before meals. We went around, hey, say your thank yous and everyone says thank you. And we still practice it a lot today. And it's wonderful to have friends over again. Some of my friends, nonbelievers, no one has any trouble going, hey, thank you for this. They may not preclude it with Dear God, but it's really becomes a healthy thing. And if you try it out there, it at least makes the food taste better. It really does. Gratitude, I think, is a great place to start. Most of us can find something that we're thankful for.

[Adam Grant]

I was surprised when I first read some research showing that people who were randomly assigned to make gratitude lists weekly got more of a happiness boost than those who did it daily. And it seemed like for the daily people, they were either running out of meaningful things to be grateful for, or it just became a chore, as opposed to something you paused and really marked the moment with. How do you think about that?

[Matthew McConaughey]

I'm betting you it's the second, and I've done that before, too, when all of a sudden, you know, the prayer becomes a mantra. This is food on table. Good Lord. Bees are bad. So. Amen. What? What'd you say? Do you even know what you said? But I think it's because it just becomes a chore and a habit that it doesn't have the thought or originality behind it each time. And that can take a moment, you know? And we also don't. We always don't make that moment. I always don't make that moment. But it does mean a lot more when I do make that moment or I tell you this great story. We had this foundation, Camille and I just Keep Living Foundation. After school, the curriculum. We did this. This gratitude circle. And I. They're high school kids, so I noticed that to sit around in a circle out loud and say something you're thankful for ain't cool, right? So everyone's just like, thank you for the Just Keep Living Program. And the next person I'll for, thank you for the Just Keep Living Program. And it went like that. And I was like, tell them come out. I was like, this ain't good. This isn't working. And so I remember we went on Halloween, right before Halloween one time, and I was like, I gotta loosen this gang up. And it got to me. I was like. I said, I'm gonna start this off. I said, I'm thankful for the kiss I got from my wife this morning with tongue. And they were like, oh, yeah. Like, oh, man. All of a sudden, they opened up and they started going, man, I think it was Halloween. Because I'm gonna get some candy. All this fun stuff. Cut to two weeks later, they're sharing things like that my grandmother got out of the hospital, that my dad got a job, that my sister graduated. Oh. But it unlocked the humor, unlocked everyone to go, oh, I don't have to be shy and precious about this. And, you know, I'm big on humor, and I think it unties a lot more knots than it binds. And I don't think we give humor enough credit as a means to find gratitude.

[Adam Grant]

I hear the humor in it. I also hear a little vulnerability goes a long way, that you're not too cool to appreciate a kiss from your wife.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Right.

[Adam Grant]

So I was struck by something that you wrote in Greenlights that I think is echoed now in poems and prayers. You wrote, I never wrote things down to remember. I always wrote things down so I could forget. And now you're publishing four decades worth of poems and journal entries that you wrote down to forget.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Why?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Because I need to remember more. This writing of this book and this tour I'm doing is definitely for me. This is helping pull me out of my own doubt. So through this process, hopefully I'm going to have and will strengthen my own belief in faith in myself and others. Me as a believer in God, I want that and to have this conversation with others like this, I'm so damn excited about that. And am I going to connect with myself in new ways along the way? I already am.

[Adam Grant]

This is in part your therapy, then.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Sure.

[Adam Grant]

And your confessional, I guess.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah. Yeah. Put them all in there.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

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[Matthew McConaughey]

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[Adam Grant]

Okay, I want to do a lightning round. What is the worst career advice you've gotten?

[Matthew McConaughey]

There's a lot of people that see acting and a lot of actors that believe that are. When we do our craft well, we are just supposed to go inhabit another. But that's only half the journey. It's about seeing yourself in them, the common humanity and then coming back. Because when we perform the it's always, always extremely personal and should be and is.

[Adam Grant]

All right, you've been in two epic space movies, Contact and Interstellar.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Yeah.

[Adam Grant]

How did your view of outer space change from starring in those two movies?

[Matthew McConaughey]

It was like, oh God's backyard's bigger than I thought. And that's me growing up. Small town. I had a principal who told me at kindergarten that that cloud in the sky was as big as the world. And so when I said, if that's as big as the world and I can see the outskirts of it, it's so far away, I'm not even going to think about outer space. I'm just going to look down and deal with the ground. And so I didn't dream, I just learned to deal. Then, of course, you grow older, you get on the first few flights and all of a Sudden your planes in the middle of that cloud and all of a sudden my idea of the backyard and how you can look up and how space travel and possible life out there. Wow, that would be awesome if there was. And yes, that's an explorative place. But before then I was always like, nope, I'm a sailor before an astronaut. Don't even talk to me about being an astronaut. It's too far off to deal with. But I'm much more of an astronaut's mind now.

[Adam Grant]

Wow. How do you really feel when people shout all right, all right, all right. At you?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Pretty damn good. And here's why. Dude, I walked on the set of Days confused in this on a Thursday night in the summer of 1992, and there were three lines written in that script for my character. And I wasn't supposed to work that night. I was just doing a hair makeup test and Richard Linklater comes up and circles me. He's like, yeah, right on. Cool. All right, this is Wooderson. Yeah, you got it. And I. All right, man. He approves and I go to say goodbye and he goes, hey, hang on a minute, I got this. You know, it's girl. Marissa Rabisi's playing the red headed intellectual over here and she's got her kind of nerdy friends in the car. You think Wooderson would maybe go pick her up like, yeah, man, water snikes, all kinds of chicks. Boom. Next thing you know, I'm in the car getting a lav layer. Mike, we go up, opening of that scene, I say those three words and they were three affirmations of what my character did have. He had his car, he had rock and roll, and he had a doobie, the Slater. And he was going to get the fourth thing that he liked, which was going to pick up the redhead intellectual. So in my mind I was like, oh, I got three out of four going to get the fourth. All right, all right, all right. First three words I ever said on camera. And if you see the film, it's not even on camera, it's a wide shot above. First three words I ever said. And look, Adam, I didn't know if that was going to be this little hobby, one off thing I did one summer for a week in Austin and never did it again. And it turned out to be a career. And that's the first three words I said. And they precede me to this day. I ain't arrogant enough to not, not enjoy that.

[Adam Grant]

That's awesome. I love your perspective on that. Never gets old. Nah, what is something you've rethought or changed your mind about lately?

[Matthew McConaughey]

My children. I talked to a friend of mine, Bart Naggs, who's successfully raised three daughters. And as my kids are becoming teenagers, he goes, makana, just do whatever you can to maintain access to them. So before that, if they shared something, I would interrupt, go, hey, hey, hey. You shouldn't be doing it. I would make judgment and then speak it. So we do that, our kids will start to not share things with us. To hold my tongue when they're saying something and sharing something that maybe they shouldn't do. To hold my tongue and just listen and withhold judgment and then talk about it, and then maybe at the end cast. Well, you know, if you do that, this could happen. It's helped us maintain access.

[Adam Grant]

I think that's powerful. Okay, so you wrote in the book, you said, not quite sure how to do it wrong, but pretty damn sure I didn't do it right. What's that about?

[Matthew McConaughey]

Oh, geez, what's that not about? It's just a flip on the. You know, you learn how to do it right by doing things wrong. It's just a little amnesty that we can have with ourselves for kind of fucking something up. You know what I mean?

[Adam Grant]

I've had those moments a lot. It made me smile when I read that. It reminded me of when we were on stage in Austin a few months ago, and at the very end, this thought popped into my head, and I think I thanked you for making sure we don't get it all wrong. All wrong, all wrong. And somebody came up to me afterward and said, congratulations, that was a solid dad joke.

[Matthew McConaughey]

That's a pretty good dad joke, man.

[Adam Grant]

I wanted it to be a real joke.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I mean, if you just said, all right, all right, all right, might have got a laugh, but then have been like, well, why'd you say that? The author's sitting right next to you, Adam. But you flipped it. You made a show. Don't let. Make sure we don't get it all wrong. All wrong, all wrong. I bought it. I purchased.

[Adam Grant]

Well, this has been such a blast.

[Matthew McConaughey]

Oh, thanks, Adam. Appreciate it.

[Adam Grant]

Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winick, and our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hylash, Ban Bang Chang, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung, Manivong and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Layton Brown.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I don't know that you come over. You're not gonna steal a coaster.

[Adam Grant]

That would be a very unambitious thief.

[Matthew McConaughey]

I'm looking around. There's not much in here yet.

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