So five days into filming his first movie, dazed and confused, some 28 years ago, Matthew McConaughey's dad, the towering voice in his life, suddenly died.
And Matthew had to figure out a way to just keep showing up, to keep going.
And his mantra became just keep living, which has become a bit of a guiding ethos.
It's sort of a lens through which he sees and lives his life.
Now, nearly three decades later, an Academy Award winning author and icon in the industry, married father three, a master raconteur, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and kind of endless creator of moments and adventures, Matthew lives life as an eternal seeker and amateur, fiercely himself in all parts of life.
Ever curious and open, he seeks experiences and wisdom and insights, always learning, always asking, really trying to figure out some semblance of what makes life worth living, what makes it good.
Much of his journey, his take on life, fatherhood, acting, love, family contribution, is offered up in a really beautiful and moving new memoir, greenlights.
It's a philosophical and poetic window into the experiences and moments that shaped him and continued to awaken him to what matters most.
Drawn from 50 years of living and some 36 years of diaries, that quest to figure out what a life well lived looks like is one that we both have in common.
And it's probably why in today's conversation, we jump into the deep end of the pool really fast, exploring everything from nature and solitude to family, love, struggle, character, uncertainty, creation, the sacred nature of being in those spaces between devastation and wild success, and how the moment that we're all in has shifted his thinking and maybe what the future we're all being called to co create might look like and so much more.
That's what you'll hear in today's conversation.
But here's what was happening that you couldn't see.
As we spoke, Matthew sat at his desk reading glasses on and pen and paper in hand.
And minutes into the conversation he began writing, taking notes regularly, jotting down ideas and phrases and insights, piecing together puzzles in real time.
Ever the seeker, a perpetual student of life, present in the moment and open to whatever it might bring, simply observing.
This was a really powerful signal to me of the way that he approaches every interaction with every being that he meets along the way.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is good life project.
I'm hanging out.
I'm a lifelong New Yorker hanging out in crested butte, Colorado right now.