Trust (w/Matthew McConaughey)

Published Sep 19, 2022, 4:00 AM

'The Conversation About the Men' was created to provide an opportunity to show another side of men that we may not always get the chance to see…and this has never been on display more than when Amanda sits down with Matthew McConaughey. 

Matthew talks about growing up in a household of domestic violence, being victimized at a young age and how he refuses to allow his emotional baggage to drag him down. It's apparent that his inspirational attitude serves as self-motivation as he explains how his own childhood has paved the way he and his wife raise their children and how he continues to come from a place of trust with everyone he meets.

To talk about this and every episode please head to: 

community.amandadecadenet.com

Hello and welcome to the conversation with me, Amandit Acadeney. This episode is the first of my special series about the men, where I talked to men about their lives and the complexity of modern masculinity. On today's episode I have an amazing conversation with an icon of modern masculinity, actor Matthew mcconaughey. He's at with a companion work book to his best selling Memoir Green Lights. I started our conversation by asking him some of the questions that he asked of his readers in the Green Lights Work Book. A warning to listeners. In this interview we discussed mature topics, including sex and Matthew's personal experience with being sexually assaulted. Here's our conversation. Okay, I'm gonna ask you some questions from your new work book, companion to Your Memoir Green Lights. The first one is are you a trust first or trust last person? I'M gonna Trust First Person. It's Um I go into any situation I'm coming into. This is what you and I are just meeting before you even tell me you're we have a mutual friend. I'm coming in with trust reverence that you're gonna be good at what you do, that you're gonna mean when you say that you're gonna not necessarily have my best interest in mind, but we're gonna have an honest conversation, that you're not gonna be sneaky, untrustworthy, trying to screw me over, blah, blah, Blah Blah. Now I've got another little Fox over here that is listening for things and it will measures in time when any anybody I first meet or any place I first go, that can lower that from trust. But I go and trust high first. That's incredible. I look at projects, I do people. The thing is even myself, no one ever, including myself, ever hits the mark of my my my trust level at entrance level. Everyone comes in under them are it's only human. I've never made a movie that was as good as I imagined it would be. I've never met somebody that actually lived up to the reverence that I held form going in. I've never lived up to my own expectations of things. Every time I go approach something, always coming under the mark. But I find that I think the marks higher because I went in with a percent trust. I hit a higher mark than if I had gone with the lower with the low trust, and not and let and let it gradually rise. Well, it's interesting because I think people do respond to how you treat them initially. Right, and if we treat people with trust, then the hope is that they will behave in that way until and of course there are there's the antenna for like, all right, is this how I think it is? But I loved that question because a lot of people are trust lost. So Um, let's do another one. When have you succeeded because you've out hustled someone with more talent? Well, it's happened to vaunch. I'm trying to MHM. It's happened to work a bunch. It's happened in my career where, I don't know, I mean someone else had see, had proven they had more talent, I think, maybe than me, but I kept knocking on the door. I took enough no, no, we said no, and then I got picked because the powers that be, those people on the line that we didn't know, we're listening. We're like, who's the guy that just keeps coming back? Yeah, well, we've got we've got the burden hand, but they're kind of sitting back going well, of course she picked me. But this this guy keeps coming back and he's pretty damn good at what he does, but he's got he's a Charlie Hustle. Yeah, you gotta Watch it, because you can. You can turn it to be. You can tell someone that and they and they can think it means. Would just go be an absolute pain in the ASS. Right, there's a fine line. Read the room. Um, okay, I'm gonna ask you one more. Um, is what I want what I need? MHM. What is your experience of getting what you want but learning it's not what you need? Oh Geez. Well, look, first of all, where what we want is what we need? where, if you religious or not, that's to use the term heaven. That's heaven on earth. I think you know. We have desires. We we were passionate animals. We want certain things. Now, when we're those match. That's actually what I needed. That actually fed me for tomorrow. It gave me, it enriched me. I ate a healthy meal because it made me feel better tomorrow. I tended to this relationship my wife or my children, and it was it's, it's, it's. I enjoyed it, but it also was good for me. That's the one. That's the lineup, isn't it? When those two can sync up, which is not which is not always easy, because a lot of times, what do we do? We well, I know what I need to do, but I don't want to do it. Well, I know what I want to do, but I'm and have a hangover to marrow because I don't need to Um. Well, your question was, what's the last time I wanted something that I did not need? Last night, yeah, the third one. You know, I wanted to need it now, but I did answer. Wanted it. And then, you know, in the words of the Great Pedro Album Motivar, the Spanish director, we were eating Um at a at a great restaurant in Spain one day and they brought up for uh, French fries covered melted cheese with all these great Friday eggs on top of it, and the guests that I had brought was a real sort of very nutritionist guy. He was. He was looking at that going, oh my gosh, this is I'm not sure I should eat that. That is not good for my for my my internal tract. Right, the death death on a plate. And then Pedro Leans over the centualist years and he goes. The pleasure is good for you. M Bad, but that's true. True, that is true. Right. So sometimes those things that you want, that you don't know that you need them, but actually the experience of them, the pleasure of it, is what you need. See, these are your questions. We started with your questions and I loved them so much I just wanted to open with that. So you wrote a lot about trauma in your book and You wrote about a lot of things, but you don't even really label it trauma, but you talked about a lot of childhood experiences that, for me, I was surprised when I read them. Um, some of them specifically were to do with violence between your mom and your dad, and Um that your mom broke your dad's nose and that your dad broke your mom's finger and that your brother and your dad got into, you know, physical, physical fights, and when I read that I thought I wonder if you've been in therapy. And then I also sort of researching and people were really shocked by those stories. The world was pretty shocked. So I'm curious whether you were surprised at how shocked people were reading about some of your family interactions. I wasn't shocked. I had a hunch that you know, uh, that that was gonna be wait, what, you know? You called right now. You want to go. What do you call it? You want to you want to go back and and pro rate the situation. You're calling. You read that situation. You're calling CPS, you're calling child texts. But now we are. But, but you know, then it was also different, by the way. You know, it was been different, and my mom and dad were uniquely different. Like my mom, she to this day, at ninety. Just just left her having a cup of corfege. She would tell you to your face. Now that's what I needed to communicate. I was she needed that kind of resistance. She wanted that. She doesn't regret a minute of it. And she started all those fights with my dad. That Middle Finger of hers that's broke is not broken because my dad reached out broken. It's broken because my mom would at him on the head and he'd got Katie, Katie, stop it, stop it. But maybe she wanted it. Maybe she wanted it and she didn't need it. She would say she needed it. MM HMM. What do you think she needed from that? Look my mom to this day, whatever if something the conversations going smooth for more than ten minutes, she's gonna throw a wrench in it just to Jack Knipe the situation because it's going to smooth. Come on, spices up my nature. She came from. You know, I write about it. I don't know if I wrote about in this book. I'm writing about it now. But this is how we some of to learn who we are, what we want to do or our own identity. It starts not with, Oh, I know what I want to be. It starts with, let me push away what I don't want to be. Now. My mom turned out to be a great mother to me and my two brothers. She had no mother. She had a mother that was jealous of her, that would that, that hated her, despised her, she's not to be a good mom. She just basically said, well, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna do the opposite of what my freaking mom did, and I so. She just didn't know what to do. Just said I'm gonna do everything the opposite of her. She needed she you don't know to this day she needs. She needs it and that's part of her community. Needs conflict. Yeah, she definitely needs compic mom is still ninety years old, young and flying because she's taken the path of most resistance. So are you? Are you like your Mamado? Have you had have you experienced yourself as inheriting traits from your mom that you're like, hang on, I love my mom, my mom is awesome, but I've got this trait of hers that I don't want to bring that into my family life. Have you experienced that? Yeah, I mean there's quite a few. I've tried to update the I L S. You know, I'm all with the for the values and everything that my mom, my mom. I think my mom and dad were wonderful mothers and fathers and really and what they taught, how they went about it. I don't choose to practice the same way. Um, it's just want to just I don't know. I'm just looking for a more evolved way, hope, and not in any way judging what they did is wrong for me. But also, I'm saying, I want to. I'm see, I'm someone who, if I have to raise my voice, I immediately catch myself and go what did you not handle to get to the point where you even had to raise your voice? Let's go back and pick up those chromebs. So I my mom to raise your voice was part of the daily. Hey, there's a more different than Italians, but it was part of the daily. That's what you do. And what do you mean? And even today she'll raise her voice, my mom will, and the kids are like, they're like, they've got to know it now, that's just how Mam Mac speaks. They're not, they're not. They're not used to that, because that's not how you and your wife are. I'm assuming with them. No, no, but my mom has been living with this for doing that year. So they've gotten to see and hear and my mom. If you well, you're lucky, your wife. Is that cool that your mom has been living with you for two and a half years? Oh yeah, that very I can tell you. I'm married for twenty years and I can tell you that I would not be having my mother in law living with me for two and a half years. Something else. My wife is making some some unseid sacrifice for doing that. Um, we did it because of covid and then, you know, here's then what else? There's another cool thing my wife did. She my wife says your mom's ninety. You know, we know people like to want to remain as relevant as they can as they get older. She's invited mom and to be in like her co host with her women of today site. And so my mom goes on. She got her into h GB commercials and now comments online going Oh, they said, oh, mom, my mom feels included, relevant. I get to go dressed to come down. That's so beautiful, giving her purpose. Have you done any therapy at all? No. Why did you choose not to do therapy? I mean, I didn't have you had mentors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, Um, because a lot of people don't have this level of self reflection on their own and certainly, looking at how you grew up, I'm surprised that there are not more areas that have held you back. Yeah, and that is someone who's not inside how you were raised, but just from reading what you said. So most of us, I mean look, I was in Juvie at fifteen and and I've had mentors my whole life because I also had a really if you were to read my childhood, you'd be like, well, this girl's turned out all right, given how she grew up. Right, Um, but I've always had mentors so that I've learned how to be able to process a lot of the stuff and kind of makes sense of a lot of the stuff. So I'm wondering what that has looked like for you, because you definitely have a self awareness and a self reflection that I am surprised to hear you haven't done any therapy. What? What? What has been your modalities for healing, if you will. Um, I've had very good friends, I've had good mentors, I've had elder men, elder women, married couples that pulled it off from celebrating fifty year university that I have taken the time to sit with me, my father, my my father and mother. You know where there were, where the Messenger and the message did not meet comes you are. Is revealed a lot of times when we lose father, my dad, Dad, a lot of those Oh the message you were sending, you weren't necessarily backing up as the Messenger. What happens when that happens? You get resentful son of a bit while you were lying and then all of a sudden, if you're lucky, which I think I was, I go oh, no, no, no, that doesn't mean they meant it any less. Can I take that they just want me to be a little bit better than they were, and so I never quit believing in the things that my mom and dad would teach me in the middle of finding out that, Oh, maybe they were hypocritical about what they were teaching and what they were actually doing, but a lot of people would would actually not listen to the message if the walk wasn't being talked. Yeah, but that's just I mean, are you a parents? Yeah, I've got three kids. Okay, do you walk? Do we walk the walk of everything we talked? No, no way no. But what I'm saying is that a lot of people don't, aren't able to receive the message if the Messenger isn't walking the talks. I'm saying, it's again, you're quite unusual in that regard. Yeah, but I believed in that. But I but I I believe in make it, being able to make the word incarnate and and seeing it's. It's it's still even the reasons I looked up to things that my my my parents taught me. That I mean that that I may have found out they didn't practice then, but they were just saying. I never quit believing in that right and you know, it is what happens we're getting older. Is that part of the creep? Is you start to go the message and the Messenger start to get a big, a little bit bigger gap, and you try to what can you hang on too? And then what? You Go, damn it, they'll forgive me. Well, just we're human, they'll understand. I mean, but how did you fill in the gaps? Look, my parents never look when I talking about how they communicated, and there was even physical violence. And we talked about how we were raised and there was cool porl punction. My parents were like this is how you better do it when you have kids. Mark this is that we do it. We're not putting this on you, saying, you know, my parents wouldn't let us be grounded because that was taking away our time, and time is your most valuable asset. That's true. The same time, I'm like, well, we pick up time to take away our kids time and figure that the grounding or go to your room is a better choice than, you know, spanking or something. I mean my parents. My Mom's there, she sees that, she doesn't go, oh my gosh, that what are you doing? That doesn't work. She's she's there going that's your way, right and and whatever worked for her. You know, thirty, forty years ago, she may not make those choices today. Who knows, maybe she would. I don't know who. Well, she's running grandkids now and you know things they softened up when they get around ranks. They do, they do. You wrote in your book about being blackmailed at age fifteen into having sex and also that you were drugged and molested at eighteen in the back of the van Astralia. Are you comfortable talking about this? Could I ask you a couple of questions? You can ask me whatever you want to ask me. I don't know if I'll answer it. There's very deliberate reasons. Is why I didn't go into details on those two stories, which I'd love to predicate this this I knew, being mcconaughey, celebrity, et Cetera, that if I would have gone into details of those two stories, that quotes from those details would have been the headline. You're absolutely right. Yeah, the book would have been about that and it's not about that. Yeah, you know, and I said, because that's not what the books about. But anyway, yeah, so well as ask whatever. Yeah, first of all, I wanted to thank you for talking about that, because many men are reluctant to talk publicly about their experience of sexual assault, and so I wanted to thank you because a lot of men are sexually assaulted and there's an extra level of shame and stigma attached to men who speak about it. So thank you. Welcome. How did you know what was right? Well, I'd been taught from and guided by my parents about respect for a woman, respect for the relationship, respect for sexual intimacy, respect for space, respect that my dad had always had this thing when he tossed the birds and the bees. He sat me down and taught me the birds and the bees and he said, you know, you're getting the age, you've kissed it. And yes, heir, and he goes, well, it's gonna go. He's gonna go further than that one day. Probably gonna go, you know, to where you're gonna get intimate and there's gonna be the breast and then there's gonna then there's, you know, there's gonna be below the belt. I'm paraphrasing. And he goes and he's gonna Happen to you as well. And so he goes and he's talking to me as his son, as a male in the situation and speaking to me about a heater of a sexual relationship, he says, if you ever feel the girl, the female has a taped stop, wow. He told you about consent and he even said this. He goes. You may even feel them hesitated, and then after you stop, they may go oh no, no, no, come on, don't wow, wait till next time. And he was right. I got in certain sences where it was like no, no, no, okay, I'm out, and then saying okay, cool, I'm out. The the girl went oh, well, no, come on, and I was like no, no, no no, no, and he said just live. He goes. Trust you'll have another day if it's to be well, Um, but I was very clear again. It was not that was not right, that was not cool, that was not the way it is. So you had that internal barometer. After that I got to have some healthy sexual relations and have girls that that I that I liked and liked me, and we slowly got intimate and it was you before and clumsy and all those things as supposed to be. It wasn't ugly like that. was like when you were fifteen and then when you were eighteen, it sounds like there was another awful experience being drugged and molested. Three years later, you probably thought, I can't believe this is happening to me again. It didn't. I didn't connect him. It didn't connect him. Historically, when you look at someone that's had the way trauma does impact people as they do go out in the world and often every time they see a van or a van even a car that's the same color, or someone with the same color hair or the same statue, they have a visceral response. I'm so curious as to why you and how you've been able to metabolize these situations. You're somewhat of an anomaly to me and I'm really interested by it. I don't have a rocket science answer. I just there wasn't an option. M Hmm. I love life too much and believe in life and believe in in people. As I said, I still go trust first. I have my spider senses and my sirens, but I was like, no way am I going through life, and what I thought like that creep in my mind. Ever, I get sure and I was like, uh, bullshit, that's fiction, mccona. I do not think of mental discipline. This wasn't an option. So I'm not going through life to go be afraid because of that instance. I'M NOT gonna be afraid of relationships because my first experience was blackmail. That's an aberration. No, no, that's not the way it is. And if I go on and I'm not gonna let it beat me, that's anothering. I was competitive. I think I'm going. I'm not gonna let that beat my sense of trust in people and saying no, I can, I can ste it, you'll spare it. You're ultimately talking about not letting your spirit be destroyed. Not Negotiable. No, Huh. Happened in my denying it that it happened. No, not denying it happened. It happened ugly. Still get you've been telling you the story again. But am I gonna carry that and I just I chose no, not. No, negotiably. I'm not going to carry that bring that baggage into the life I'm going to lead and how I treat people and how I trust people and how I look at the circumstance, at the risk I may take. It was an admiration. I'm not saying it will never happen again. You'RE gonna run into some other ship, you get some other pickles, but damn it, let's let's go. How do you talk to your kids and educate them about safety in the world? Because, as someone who you know, I was sexually assaulted at fifteen and my kids are now fifteen. I have fifteen year old twins and now they're starting to go out into the world right and they want to kind of go out without me and go on the subway or go on the bus or go to the friend's house or whatever, and I find my experience as a fifteen year old having been assault it definitely coming up a lot in what I'm comfortable with them doing. So I'm wondering if you've had any of that experience and or how do you talk to your kids about being about safety and taking care of themselves in the world? Yeah, you know, we as parents go. How's it different from when I was there? Where are we? We tend to think. I don't know if we're even right or not. That is happening more now. I don't know. Well, we know more about it because of social media. We get more about it. I mean just so we definitely feel like it may be happening well, but don't you know, Um, we start off by trying to teach our kids respect of their own space and their own bodies, their own minds. What they listened to, what they put in their body, what they allow someone to to to, to do or, if you feel it, Um, and you know that is you don't want to be over sensitive because it may just be the kid joshing around. Let's wrestle. You know what I mean. You don't want it's that old thing that you know, don't let your kids talk to strangers. Well, wait a minute, I'm not. I can't purchase that. I've had some of the best conversations in my life with strangers, with strangers time. There's something to it, but to say yeah at the same time you go. You don't. You're walking home from school, you don't get in the car with somebody you don't know. People will try to tempt you with things that kids like. You know, sweets can't be fun over here. Now you gotta stay in your own sown and say no, no, thank you. If if you are uncomfortablest verbally, let the being being being public as much as possible. Get out on the burbical playground. Um, these predators out there and they are out there. Don't be afraid of the dark. That's not what I'm saying. Just try to be aware, and that's what we're still trying to do. Minor Thirteen, twelve, nine, we're still teaching him awareness, but but own your own your body, your steps in your space. Um Uh, don't be because we're huggers too. Were huggers, wrestlers and all this stuff. So it's not like, Oh, that, I'm uncomfortable. You know. And then you are really funny one. Yes, tell me a funny one. This is really funny. Take my son. We're Boston, put him in in baseball camp and he's like seven right, and these those the talks of those that kind of begun of watch out, understand your your body and your private parts. Sudden goes back from the baseball team. He's quiet all the way right home. We're like, what's going on? Finally we get tells he goes. Well, I just had a real uncomfortant situation. Day was one of those. Yeah, I was running off the field and when the other players come over and slap me on the boom, but we were like that's what baseball players do. You get a slap on the butt. That was not one of those, and so we all had a good laugh about it. But again, it was, it was, it was, but he was aware. Yeah, because things can go too far in the other direction where you get this kind of, you know, over protectiveness, right, and then your kids you're instilling fear in them, which we don't want to do, and then everything sort of tips into this incredibly PC world that is homogenized and there's no freedom of expression, Um, and so it's a fine line. As a parent, I find it a really fine line, because I want my kids to express themselves and I want them to have great conversations with strangers on the subway, Um, you know, and I want them to explore and to be curious and I want them to be able to Um, say things, you know, that they don't know on, you know, pc like. I want them to be able to express themselves. And yet we're living in a world where it's really hard to be able to funk up and make mistakes because sometimes the cost is too high. Look, we're going to find our waterline as humanity of where our sensitivity and common sense can can meet here and what real progress is. It's not saying yes to everything. We know it as parents. Um, you know the male in in in the male kid in nineteen eighties, seventies, do we? We didn't have we weren't talked that, women's favorite women, Super Heroes. Well, by the way, here's the other thing in growing a boy growing up in the seventies. I was explaining this to my son, Um, that for a boy growing up in the seventies, if he wanted to see a naked woman he had to go to a magazine stand and be, you know, have enough bulls or be brave enough to say, can I have that on the top shelf and get it put in a bag, a brown paper bag, right, and walk home and that's where he could look at it. And I was like, you've grown up with access to, you know, a really distorted perspective of what a naked woman looks like just on on your phone. So I was explaining this to him and think and it made me think about you know, do you think it's so? It's obviously so different for boys growing up today. You have a son. I have a son and I'm navigating a growing young man in today's culture. But how do you navigate that with your own son. How do you navigate what it's like to be a boy growing into a young man? Ino? Well, look, just coming on thirteen. We're about to get into those. Some specific things that are of masculinity. So far it's been character, respect for self, respect for others Um as far as anything of sexual orientation, we try to and there's a lot of ugly stuff like just POPs up on a phone. It comes through something and I don't know, but you've got to think, man, those images, the imprint are imprinted. They are my son. You've told me that imprint doesn't become a thing. My getting blackmailed at fifteen, because that's my idea, or seeing porn for the first time. They're being introduced to sex through porn or pornographic image rather than a loving relationship and seeing art and understand that the beauty of a woman's body and the beauty of your own body. And ultimately they're there to procreate, but but sensualities that sense to the pleasure that two people can give each other and care for each other in a Sexu a relation, and that dialogue is crucial for mothers and fathers to have with their sons and daughters. And you know, we've got to have it so sure, because if we leave it up to the rest, we leave it up to the world of the Internet to teach them, they're gonna be and there are people already. How I addressed it with my son, I said, look, you know how there's all kinds of movies, like Rom coms, horror movies, documentaries. Documentaries are real, horror movies on. I was like, porn is not real. It's not real. Okay, this is not what a woman's body often looks like. This is not how sexual intimacy looks like. A man doesn't often look like this or do things like this. You know, there's a there's a whole is. It's it's like a horror movie. It's it's made up. It's not a real life experience. And he understood that when I framed it like that. He's now fifteen, but I started having that conversation with him at like ten or eleven, and so did he get that? It's do you think that? Okay, but mom, it's virtual, it's another genre, that of the movie. I don't want to go spend the time. And did you? Did you get into the well, no, because I didn't want to create any shame around it because inevitably there is a curiosity, and so I said look, you're going to have a curiosity and your friends are going to show you stuff, and I just want you to know it's totally natural to have a curate to be curious about it, but I want you to understand what it is that you're seeing. Often the women are denigrated in ways that you would never do to a woman and I want you to also know that, because that is the truth. Yeah, yeah, that's we've had that conversation, but that that Shi. It's not Um, it's not nice. It's not how you treat somebody, how you treat some again, going back to just character, because again mint of thirteen, twelve and nine to sit there and say that, you know, they see how their example, best example of power man treats a woman is watching me how to treat a they see that and their in best example of how a woman treats a man to see and how their mother committed treats me. We haven't really gone into saying to them hey, that thing you saw. They didn't. They haven't so far as far as I've seen that. But I know that you know there's been there's an image that came up in conversation and we're like, I had the conversation again, the curious feeling. What was the feeling? Once you feel bad at the feeling because he probably have a natural feeling. You know, as a parent, you're trying to hold on to, trying to be stay neutral so they can be honest with you, and you hear the feeling, you go okay, you know, well, that's a real feeling, that that Um to treat someone with. What that image kind of the NU into what that imagement is is can can be? Can Be mean? Because I don't know, because any time two people are gonna get together anyway, it needs to be consensual. To go back, it means you both want to want it. You want to give, you want to receive. You want to receive, you want to give and you want it to be. Yeah, and it. Does that mean it's gonna be perfect? No, that can still be awkward. It'll still be weird on the day. You'll still you'll still get nerd. It'll all it's supposed to be. You'RE gonna you don't have butterflies. It's gonna be it's gonna be clunky's. That's how it's supposed to be. That's the other thing. The other version is you show these you know, the media shows the perfect lovemaking and then that puts people in the Bund. They compare themselves to that. Matthew, you need to make sure that when you do sex scenes and whatever projects you've got coming up, that you can show some of those really realistic, awkward situations. It's not really leading man material, but it should be. Yea, it should be. It's always room for comedy. What do you think of some of the male role models that are presented in American media? Father, Um, my middle brother Pat was my hero until I was about seventeen. Um, my pastors are really good mentor of mine. Um, I've got some group of other men that are a little older than me. Um, that's so valuable. Into generational storytelling is so value. Gotta have it. We gotta have it and pass it down. And again, I've got kids thirteen, twelve and nine. I've seeked out role models that their kids are in their twenty. They're out, they successfully went out and into the world and are doing and are doing okay. That's people I look up to. Father's I look up to because I'm still in the middle of it. I think we're doing a pretty good job, but the ones that have had or not another real lost a couple here recently Um and I'm really kind of one of those seasons where some of my role models are dying. It's getting to be that time. They're like, they lived to be eight and they died and like when did that happen? And you get to learn about death and about loss and about loving people as they transition, and that's another whole gift they're giving you on the way out. There's another there's another love story with death that we're afraid to look in the eye. All of us can. It can deliver so many of us. I write about in the book. My father's death is one of the great deliverances I've ever had. And, by the way, it's the only guarantee, isn't it? That's the only guarantee. We go and and people don't want to talk about it. I'd like to talk about it a lot with people because I think it's the only thing that for sure is going to happen. So let's be prepared as much as we can and get the stigma off of death. If you know what, it does help to start living hell a lot better, having a lot better. So true, so true. Okay, Um, I want to end this with a series of questions that I do. Um, is there any else that you want to say? They want to talk about before we move into these sort of end questions? Well, I'm gonna ask you. What do you think, because I've asked been asked a lot about you know, I've deemed as masculine. People say like Oh, you're very masculine and but I've never thought of maybe I did in younger years, as any testosterone field, that unless it would feel, but I've never thought of masculine. There's there's a masculine is very important. M Hm, it is Macho. Is Not the toxic masculinity that leans sometimes into synonymizing that there's a macho Wi is some that's just child's play. When it comes to masculine, it's not. It's not the real thing. Um, and I've had some people come to me and go look for your book Green Lights. I you kind of let me know that self reflections masculine. You let me know that direct some Downe in the journal. Pretty Fun cool. I didn't lose any of your balls doing that. Actually gain time. Um, that delayed gratifications cool and at the same time that you remind me that being conscientious is kind of cool, you remind me that having a damn good time is also very important. You didn't play all angel or lean into just all devil with me. He said were and and look, we don't want to emasculate our men. We that would be a disservice to the biggest disservice with that would probably be as to women to do to do that. And we we. I'm curious, and I ask you the question. What is your who are some masculine? Who are some males that you look at and you go that's badss. That's the mail. That's that's the kind of mail want my son to look up to. I can't really point to many men and say that is a I that I would like my son to role model or to learn from or to pay attention to. I would say Barack Obama is someone who, you know, a lot of people point to him. Um, I think he, you know, has a relationship with his wife that is loving and reciprocal and respect respectful. Um, he's a leader in a compassionate and kind way. Um. He's dealt with really hard things, Um, but with, you know, as much grace and dignity that we've been privy to. Um. So He's definitely one. But when I look at kind of popular culture and someone that my son May look up to, I find it really hard to find examples, Um, and I wish that wasn't the case, but it is the case. Part of it whether we find those for our children or not. Because you mentioned it earlier, elder males have to pass it down to the next generation in the storytelling has to go down the time tested and new definitions of masculinity that will stay in the test of time have to be translated, because I find out so often that it's not somebody trying to be different. They're just going, oh, I didn't know exactly, oh I had no idea. Oh you didn't know, Jeez, I thought. I thought you knew and you were just choosing different. It's like, no, I just didn't. No one got the guide book. No one got the guide book, and I feel I am a big believer in the power of storytelling in any medium. It's why I interview people, because I really do believe in the power of shared experience, shared knowledge and passing it on, because we don't know who's going to listen to the stories that you've told today and that is going to be the moment that they hear something and they get a piece of wisdom, a nugget of guidance that they're really needed. That's how that's how it's been for me, and so that's why I'm so committed to creating a space, especially for men to share stories, because I do think, as you said, masculinity is in a very precarious situation and it clearly can't stay the way that it was, but it hasn't got a roadmap of where to go and I want to hear from men because I want to us to collectively try to work out what that roadmap is. Thank you, thanks for asking me a question. Okay, I'm gonna do these last little ones for you. Okay, Um, this is a little section that I just do at the end. Okay, Um, what embarrasses you? Um, not begin prepared. What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for you? Oh, I mean, I had a kind one this morning. What was it? I was in it was actually yesterday. More then I was gonna yeah, I was gonna get up the I want to sleep a little bit longer, and the stage of cracked and I'm gonna come up to bring me some tea. And she saw that I was still see because his dag was gonna be up have my tea, but she just kind of went over very quiet. Did I say anything? It's kind of shut those shades from me. Take that light off, put the LID on. There the Yett. He said the team would still be worn when I did get up, and there it was when I woke up. And Boyd I can get a day. He started like that catching green lets. You really are. Do you have a cry? Yes, that once a week. What's the last thing you cried about? Oh, I cry it. I don't cry at death, I cry at birth. I cry I get his story. The other day I watched a documentary about a man that was incarcerated wrongly, MHM, and he got out of jail. Um, that's like birth man, another another, another chance. Um, I cry usually once a week when you also just going ritual wise in church, when I'm going, when I'm praying and I'm going through my inventory of the people I care about my life and I'm going through that Rolo Dex of snapshots until I find a snapshot of them. That is how I saw them, as their most true self, not as their happiest or they're most solemn, but just as their true selves, or they weren't advertising, had no mask on, and I lock on a snapshot. I pray for more of that for them. And then I go through my list of friends and loved ones, and then I got to come to the you know who, who do? I gotta get a snapshot up now to pray for, be thankful for you. A lot of times I gotta go through that rolodex longer to find that shot of me than I do for my loved ones. But if I can find it, hold onto it, look at it, about trying to see it. That usually brings ears. That's the hardest one, isn't it? Also, yeah, how do you navigate your career and being a present father? Yeah, well, now, that wonderful wife we were talking about earlier, before we ever had children, when we wanted to pull the goalie, she said can't to me. One night put both hands on my shoulders lit me in that she goes, okay, one condition. I said yes, man, she does you go. We go. My selfish mind of the guy who always goes off to work and stays in the airstream by myself with the dog and then never go out, I'm like, I don't in my mind I'm going. I don't know. She's the whole family come. I'm not sure if I'M gonna be able to beat the artist that I can be. And as I'm saying this, I hear my I hear the voice of my mother. She's not even in the same state, I mean, but I hear this going like boy, you say yes ma'am, right now, thank you. And I went yes, ma'am, thank you, and it's like so what's happened is when I go to work for extend amount of time, we the most people have been apart from each other, me and my children or me and my wife, is nine days and fifteen years, not nine total days in a row. So when we go, we pack up traveling mcconaughey's and we go traveling mcconaugheyes, I love it. So I get to say I get to I get to get my kisses goodbye in the morning, maybe some breakfast, and I get to come home. Hey, bye, bye. They're there. They're getting me on the book into the day. So I'm not going into the debit section on my family and my husbandry as much as a lot of people in my position would have to be. I'm in a very fortunate position. I will tell you this. FACETIME, I'm sure as hell, helps a lot better than with than a phone call time. Yeah, so the whole family goes. Yeah, and do they home school or do they do school online? Go School through the school they're in work? My wife worked out a program whether we could be mobile and still go through the curriculum, zoom back into the classroom and things like that. That's phenomenal. That's great. Um, what would you tell your fourteen year old self? Hey, next year you're gonna be in a really hairy situation with this older girl's gonna blackmailk. No, no, it ain't cool. And you know what now, you know it's and and and, yeah, no, it ain't cool and uh, good luck, Yuh, I. You know, I was talking about this with a friend last night. I've got things that I pulled off or got away with in my years between fourteen and eighteen that I still wake up in the middle of night. But Damn it, maybe it adds some pickles. Man. Maybe that's some situations that if I wouldn't have been ignorant, I wouldn't have made him. Madam I don't think if I didn't know what I know now, I would have been too logical about the situation. I would have summed it up and seeing how much trouble I was in and might have choked. But because I was ignorant, I just blew right through it and the problem in the situation looked at me and was kind of like, is he blowing right through this? Is he not even giveing inst credit? Yeah, so I made it through many situations like that and it wakes me up and some of Mike recurring nightmares. Um, and I would see this, don't try and grow up too fast, because you always for me, you want to be whatever your definition of cool is. Samel, I wanted to be cool, wanted to be a little older. You know, it's fourteen. I had had the sixteen years, sixteen half the eighteen years, and that was that was good. Dated the older girls, you know what I mean? It went over the sophomore and was dating the senior girl. Who It was? It was dating Mr Lobo and the whole obviously was like there's this a little brick. Who the hell do you think he is? I'm like yeah, man, so, but at the same time, don't try to be it'll come. The time will come. Don't miss out on the years that you are and don't miss out on being able to go. I don't know I learned that yet. I don't know. It's okay now. Yeah, yeah, and it's okay to ask for help. Yeah, thank you. That is all my questions for you. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, thanks for bringing your whole self, thanks for trusting me. I really enjoyed my time with you. Enjoyed it with you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. That was actor Matthew mcconaughey speaking to me via zoom from Texas. Thank you for listening and, as always, if you my show, please comment, like and follow the conversation with the man did acadeney wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And, as always, you can follow me, Amandad Acadeney, on Instagram, twitter and facebook. Thanks for listening and I will see you next week.