How to be as wildly successful as Matthew McConaughey
The two keys to success that are hidden in Greenlights.
The secrets to success can be found in Matthew McConaughey’s new book Greenlights
Alright. Alright. Alright.
If you’ve ever laid awake at night wishing you were as famous and successful as someone like Matthew McConaughey, well his new book Greenlights reveals his “secret” formula (and spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with being ridiculously good looking). In the book, McConaughey gives you his eight learnings across eight chapters, but a pattern quickly emerges that weaves through all eight learnings. And the real secret to his success is revealed…
You see, there are two things - or rather two traits - McConaughey embodies that has fuelled his enviable success story. And the good news is, if we did these two things in our lives, we’d be enviably successful too. Let me share them with you:
The first trait is a relentless, single-minded and unshakeable commitment to the role he plays - whether that's the role of actor, writer, father or husband. He best describes it in this quote:
“One in a row. Any success takes one in a row. Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more. Over and over until the end, then it’s one in a row again.”
When McConaughey agrees to a job, he gives it everything he has, and he refuses to do it half-arsed.
To play the Ron Woodroof (a man in the grips of stage four HIV) in Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey went from 83kg (185 pounds) to 61kg (135 pounds) in five months! Stop and think about this for a moment. He lost 25% of his body weight in months! Losing even 5kg seems like an almost impossible task for most of us. So imagine the sacrifice, the torment, the difficult decisions he had to make every day, every hour to achieve this.
Why did he do this? In McConaughey's own words:
"Because it's my job to and I will."
"It's my responsibility to Ron."
Commitment is one of the keys to Matthew McConaughey’s success
And it seems McConaughey has always been like this. To prepare for his role as a dragon slayer Van Zan, McConaughey headed out to his brother's ranch in the middle of summer - where the average temperature was 42c (or 108-degree) - and set himself a dragon slayer training regime as follows:
DRAGON SLAYER TRAINING STEP 1: Take a double shot of tequila every morning at sunrise before I get out of bed. "Yeah, a dragon slayer would do that."
DRAGON SLAYER TRAINING STEP 2: Run five miles across the desert daily, barefoot, every day. Two and a half miles out, two and a half miles back. "Yeah, toughen up the soles of my feet. Dragons have tough skin, and a dragon slayer would have tough soles, ward off infection. Brilliant."
DRAGON SLAYER TRAINING STEP 3: Keep his heart rate below 60 while standing on the edge of a forty-foot drop looking straight onto the concrete below. "Yeah, I'm afraid of heights, but Van Zan wouldn't be."
DRAGON SLAYER TRAINING STEP 4: Run out into the pastures every night at midnight to tackle sleeping cows. "Yeah, I'm gonna full-on tackle cows, I'll get thick, burly and strong, yeah, that's what a dragon slayer would do." (I secretly want to try this)
McConaughey doesn’t just mentally commit, he physically and emotionally commits to his job at hand. Because it was his responsibility. Because he cares about how he does his job. Imagine if we showed with the same care and commitment to our job.
Would you be successful?
HELL YEAH!
Would you be better than anyone else?
HELL YEAH!
Would you become famous within your business, industry - and beyond?
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY!
The second trait is to never place restraints or limitations on what you can do. McConaughey refused to even think he wasn't good enough. Or as he so eloquently puts it:
“Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a winning score, a great idea. Who are we to think we don’t deserve fortunes when they are in our grasp?”
And it's clear, his limitless mindset created green lights throughout his career and personal life.
There’s one moment in the book that really sticks in my mind. While on set for just one-day as an extra, a director happened to ask if he knew any male actors who might be right for the lead in a movie. Instead of nominating someone else with the necessary qualifications and experience, he boldly turned around to say "yeah, I wanna try out for that role of Vilmer."
He got it.
A no-name extra got the lead.
Time and time again, McConaughey refuses to worry about his lack of experience or connections - "should" doesn’t stop him. He always put his hand up, before he was ready. He'd front up to auditions and roles that he had no right or qualifications to go for.
The key to living a successful and happy life can be found in Greenlights
That's how he scored A Time to Kill. He “shouldn't have” auditioned, but he did. And he gave that audition everything he had.
Because he didn’t doubt himself.
Whether we tell ourselves we can or we can't, in the end, we're always right. So much of our success comes down to what we believe about ourselves.
We don't put our hand up in the meeting because we don't think we're smart enough. We don't go for the job because we don't tick every qualification on the list. We don't even let ourselves dream of "what if" because we think we’re not worthy.
The truth is, the only person holding us back is ourselves.
It's so easy for us to write off the success of someone like Matthew McConaughey, putting it down to good looks or good luck. When the reality is, he put in the work. He had the courage to go for it. And he cared enough to give it everything he had.
The moral of the story is, we can control how many green lights show up in our life.
Greenlights is a great book, even better audiobook. If you have the chance, check it out.
“Life. Like architecture. Is a verb. If designed well. It works. It’s beautiful. And it needs no direction. It needs maintenance.”