The Hidden Art Of Reinventing Yourself - Matthew McConaughey - #863

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What does don't half-ass it mean to you?

**Matthew McConaughey** (0:04)
Ah, if you're gonna do it, do it.
Say what you can do, do what you say. If you can't do it, don't say you can do it. Don't over-leverage yourself. Don't over-leverage your decision, and then jump in and kind of dip a toe. I think I'll try it out. No, think if you're gonna try it out beforehand, but when it's time to go, dive. Finish it, find out. Come out the other side. Don't leave it and go, oh, if I just would, uh-uh. That keeps me up at night. I think it keeps a lot of us up at night. When you half-assed something, you just don't know whether you failed or succeeded, got what you want or didn't get what you want. Finding out and looking in the mirror and going, I didn't half-ass it. I went all the way. I found out and that ain't for me. Or I found out and you damn right that is for me. That's a great place to get to. But the limbo of not knowing, if you half-ass something, the limbo of going, I had you in my back.

**Chris Williamson** (1:01)
What could have happened?

**Matthew McConaughey** (1:02)
You don't know.

**Chris Williamson** (1:04)
Were you surprised when your dad said that to you?

**Matthew McConaughey** (1:07)
Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (1:07)
When you were going to take a pivot in life trajectory?

**Matthew McConaughey** (1:11)
I wouldn't have been in the top 100 things I thought he would have said. I was fully stabilizing in that moment. As I said, I called Tuesday night, seven o'clock, he'll have had a beer. He's already had dinner, not Monday, because that's the first day of the work week. He'll be a little more stressed. Catch him at Tuesday. When I unload this, that I don't want to go to law school, I want to go to film school. And I really thought he was going to go, you want to do what? Again, the family I grew up in, the idea of me thinking at the idea of going in to film, it's like a very Saturday idea, a hobby idea, not a job. And when I shared it with him, the pause that he took, another bead of sweat started on my back of my neck before he goes, well, don't half-ass it. Now, we'll say this though, I do know now, and I didn't know it then, I've realized it in the last 10 years, the way that I asked him is part of the reason he gave me that answer. I really wasn't asking him. I called him and said, dad, what do you got my command?
Said, I don't wanna go to law school anymore. I wanna go to film school. I didn't go, I'm not feeling, I'm not sure about law school. I think I may wanna go to, if I'd have stuttered into that, I think he would have again heard me half-assing what I wanted and gone.

**Chris Williamson** (2:40)
In the process of being told to not half-ass it, you didn't half-ass it.

**Matthew McConaughey** (2:44)
The way I asked, he asked and he heard my own conviction. And I think what he had in that moment was what I think every parent wants to hope to have with their kids, is that we raise our kids to go in a structured form, follow this, and you can get most of what you want and like. But what, and that can work, but what do we really want our kids to do? We want them to follow that and then bust out of it one day and not even ask our permission. That's when we're going, that's my boy, that's my girl, that's my child. We wanted to break out and I think what he heard then was I was breaking out without really asking his permission. I was clear, I spoke up, didn't stutter, my voice was out of my throat a little bit.
I think that was part of why in that moment he gave me the answer, don't have to ask.

**Chris Williamson** (3:29)
Do you think that sentiment carried forward into how you got the role for Dazed & Confused that I'm going to continue to lean in, I'm on the front foot and ten toes down?

**Matthew McConaughey** (3:41)
Yes. Now, how much that direct sentiment from that night when he told me don't have to ask it had to do with that? I mean, yeah, it did have something to do. Look, when he said don't have to ask it, he was, and I talk about this in the book, he wasn't only give me permission, he was giving me a responsibility. He was going, I knew I had his word with me in my future decisions. I was making them for more than myself.