“You choose resistance at the right times and you go through it you have greater pleasure on the other side of it.”
“Look, we all like pleasure over pain, but I think what we forget sometimes is there’s a greater pleasure that can come if you go through resistance.”
“I was living in at the time that was the first bit of real clarity no that is not open for discussion all these other odd things that have been happening to me.”
“I didn’t have a crutch I didn’t have my car I didn’t have a girlfriend I didn’t have a job I didn’t have money I didn’t have my parents”
“I thought about what you would want I thought about what you might need I also thought about what I want to say and what I need to say now hopefully we’re both going to be happy on both accounts”
“I graduated high school in 1988, got my college degree in 1993 and that college degree in 93 did not mean as much it was not a ticket it was not a voucher, it was not a free pass go to anything.”
“Your future may not be any more clear than it was five years ago.”
“You don’t have the answers and is probably pretty damn scary and I say that’s okay because that is how it hits this is the reality that many of you are facing this is the world that we live in”
“The sooner we become LESS IMPRESSED — with our life, our accomplishments, our career, the prospect in front of us. As soon as we become LESS IMPRESSED — and MORE INVOLVED with these things, the sooner we get a whole lot better at doing them”
“I’ve always enjoyed trying to entertain what the definition of a hero is all through life”
“You say there are heroes every day that that do good deeds I don’t know if that’s heroic”
“When I got fame and success and started a foundation; just keep living the map school foundation that’s doing very well I didn’t; I chose to do that now whether that’s heroic, I don’t think it’s heroic but what I’m leaning into is this some people say it’s a responsibility once you have success it is your responsibility, I don’t think that’s true! I think it’s a personal choice just it’s like you know every day the choices we make”
“I don’t think we make good choices for anybody unless it’s personal”
“I’ve been fortunate to have an innate ability and work my backside off to be at least pretty damn good at some things; still got some things in the debit section; I will say this: my favorite job in the world has being a father I don’t know being a good father is a heroic job it’s just being a good father”
“Even that (man of character) is not a responsibility but a choice”
“The only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was to be a father in my life and then, I’ve also learned now that okay, well, just because you helped make a child doesn’t mean you’re you did the work of a father; fatherhood is a verb”
“These character choices we make, choices we make every day are our compounded assets for our future”
“I have been blessed with a long view of life; realizing early on that investments in ourselves today can tee up ROI and our future”
“The choices we make today are compounding assets of our future and can tie us up for success”
“Choices of character are long-term choices that deal with delayed gratification”
“I think, you know, those ‘hints angels of truth’ are around us all the time; it’s just we don’t always notice them they’re there, but we don’t notice them and it’s understandable, but in a high-frequency life, a lot of noise coming in on all of us”
“I have learned early on to listen to that spider-sense in me, that says that you need to go get away McConaughey!, you need to go spend some time with yourself, open up the autobahn between your head and your heart, because right now, it’s a bit of a one-way gravel you know dirt road for you, and you know your heart and your mind aren’t really uh in sync as much in sync as they should be”
“I’ve had a pretty good threshold for when I do get that spider-sense, to say that oh you need to get out of here McConaughey you need to leave what you’re in”
“You can get outside and have a clear view, you need to leave where you are right now and find out what do I find out when I go away memory catches up, oh demarcations between events that maybe I was handling and I’m good at handling events uh just being in the middle of it going”
“I didn’t notice what had happened to me like for instance when I got famous, I didn’t notice what that was until I got the hell out of dodge and went on a 22-day walk about with myself in Peru; then I was like ohhh that’s what happened! oh that’s what that event! or circumstance or run-in with that person was about; because they were all on top of each other at the time I wasn’t able to separate things that were going on too much frequency”
“I’ve learned to enjoy the solitude not necessarily enjoying my company in the solitude which usually the first 12 days I do not enjoy my company I’m shaking demons off my back feeling regret, lost, confused trying to figure stuff out and usually around day 12 or day 13 I’ll have a breakthrough”
“When I leave those trips the big fun challenge is how do I take that truth the solitary truth back into the masses back into the stadium of life and ride that bull that rodeo of life and remember trust that this truth that crossed me that found me while I was in solitude, is true now then and forever wherever I am that’s the hard part”
“The initial reaction to leave and go into solitude is a defense mechanism, is a survival mechanism, is a whoa whoa whoa I’m I’m not feeling grounded here, uh mentally spiritually uh so I need to I don’t know what the answer is but I just know I got to get out of here where I can hear myself think I know I got to get out of here where I can be in a place where I can receive some of the truth”
“…now in my life, I’m in this bit of a rut I’m complacent with some of those things I’m doing some things that are that are not feeding myself”
