‘Look the monster in the eye!’ 11 things I learned from Matthew McConaughey last night

Two and a half years ago, I read Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. Billed as the actor’s life story and “guide to livin’”, it is one of the wildest books I have ever read. Over 300 pages, McConaughey recounts his trials (runner-up in Little Mr Texas, 1977; receding hairline) and takeaways from the desert and the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles.

It is hugely entertaining, with McConaughey’s voice as distinctive on the page as it is on screen. But his guiding philosophy of “chasin’ greenlights” (signs from the universe to steam ahead) struck me as about as relatable as his abs. After all, this was a man who followed an ambiguous wet dream to two continents.

Even so, Greenlights sold more than 3m copies, stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 65 weeks and was widely hailed for its “outlaw wisdom”. (The owner of my local coffee shop says it changed his life.)

McConaughey, meanwhile, was transformed from an actor most famous for How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and the chest-beating scene in The Wolf of Wall Street to one of those celebrities of substance who get urged to run for office.

So, when McConaughey announced that he would be expanding on “the art of livin’” in a first-of-its-kind, livestreamed virtual event, I gave over my Monday night to catchin’ those greenlights I had missed the first time round.

Invest in yourself – even pretend money

After I sign up, a steady stream of emails signed “McConaughey” urge me to set alarms, take notes and “go all in”. “Pretend like you paid $10,000 … though this event is free, it’s WORTH that much.”

When I join the YouTube livestream, more than 250,000 people are already there, including those who did pay – for the VIP “camera-on experience”, to be connected with McConaughey himself. Their faces appear in a grid behind the perky presenter, who is urging us all to stretch, smile and close any distracting tabs in our browser. I didn’t pay, so she can’t see me cooking dinner.

At last, McConaughey appears, introduced as a “thought leader” and a “guy who has been journalling for over 30 years”. He is playing a conga. In the VIP grid behind him, a woman raises her hands above her head in joy.

There are no answers

Nearly 400,000 people are watching on YouTube, but there is no studio audience, leaving McConaughey to perform, with unrelenting intensity, directly into the camera. An appreciative atmosphere is simulated with canned laughter and applause.

Audience participation is encouraged in the chat, however, and being beamed to McConaughey on stage. We are asked to begin messages with his star-making catchphrase: “All right all right all right”. The thread moves too quickly to read.

McConaughey says he will be expanding on Greenlights, going “deeper and even more practical”. Some people worry, he says: “How do I know if a greenlight is just a battery-powered flash in the pan, or some timeless, solar-powered green light I can rely on?”

He can’t promise answers – “My appetite may be your indigestion” – but he can help us to pose the right questions, to “chart a course on life’s highway that leads us to the ultimate destination”.

Death, I think, immediately.

“The life we love,” says McConaughey. This event is supposed to be four hours long.

The art of livin’ starts with admittin’

The word “self-help” is conspicuously absent. Instead, there are references to “self-growth, self-exploration and self-development” and many metaphors, often car-related.

To begin, McConaughey asks us to set aside judgment of ourselves and others, “to clear the lane” between head and heart. “The art of livin’ starts with admittin’ – if we want to be legit, we gotta first admit. Yeah, I just rhymed. Guilty. I do that. All the time!”

He asks us to “name, claim and declare” what brought us here today. The chat lights up; McConaughey reads some responses aloud as he bangs his drum. “‘I want a better life’ … ‘I want to be a better husband’ … ‘I’m lonely’ … ‘I want to keep growing’ …” McConaughey’s drumming quickens. “‘I want to be a better MOM!’”

Don’t hole yourself up in your echo chamber

People who make you feel safe – your tribe – “may also keep you small”, he says. Aligning on political beliefs, or against others’ perspectives or opinions, is often a false source of identity: “Just some passive-aggressive, counterpunch, default bullshit!”

Wild-eyed, McConaughey exhales and steps back from the camera. “Guilty – I said no judgin’. Couldn’t help myself.”

But, he adds, winningly: we could at least try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. “It doesn’t mean we have to quit wearin’ our shoes.”

Keep on running

Our greatest strengths can also be our greatest weaknesses, says McConaughey. “That one just came to me, like, six months ago.”

His own example is resilience: “I fall down, I get up … I step in a pile of shit – I keep running.”

But, McConaughey goes on, he can be so quick to dust himself off that he makes the same mistakes. “I step in the same pile of shit every time around the bend, because I never stop to take inventory of just where that pile of shit that I keep stepping in was … I never take the time to ask: ‘Why do I keep stepping in the same pile of the shit?’”

He continues this metaphor for an unbelievably long time and returns to it three hours later.

Sweep up the crumbs of your past

When McConaughey was 11 and living in a trailer park, his dad told him that his mother was on an extended vacation in Florida. Twenty years later, McConaughey learned that his parents had actually been divorcing for the second time.

“Dad thought it was best for me not to know, and I gotta say: he was right,” McConaughey says. “And besides – they got remarried for the third and final time anyway. True story!” The automated audience hollers.

Everyone tells white lies, says McConaughey, “but those lies leave crumbs in our past – crumbs that we are eventually going to have to sweep up”.

He enacts a scenario of escalating deceit with such energy and conviction that I am left convinced that I have told a lie and forgotten about it, and will shortly be caught out. He is actually a really good actor.

You, too? McConaughey, too

McConaughey tells the story, familiar from Greenlights, of becoming famous overnight (well, 72 hours) thanks to 1996’s A Time to Kill. Shaken to his core by the attention, he sought out a monastery in the desert and counsel from a resident monk.

Over four and a half hours, McConaughey unburdened himself to Brother Christian, who never said a single word.

Finally, after McConaughey found himself with no more anguish to expend, Brother Christian leaned in. He said: “Me, too.”

“With those two words, Brother Christian invited me back to the human race,” McConaughey tell us.

He invites us to speak our fears aloud – “to confess”. Then he comes up close to the camera. “Me, too.”

We’re supposed to be sweatin’ in our boots

We’re too old to be afraid of the dark, says McConaughey. He entreats us to “shake those damn nursery rhymes … to quit turning our dreams into these damn nightmares”.

After all, what is it, really, lurking under our beds? Could it be our fear of failure?

“We have to look the monster in the eye and hold that son of a bitch’s eyes,” says McConaughey. “I’m tellin’ you: don’t blink. If you hold its gaze, it’s gonna bow and it’s gonna HEED … ”

And if we don’t, well: “That son of a bitch starts growin’, like a shadow on the wall.” He almost howls: “As we REcede, it PROceeds!”

McConaughey tells us to post our fears in the chat – “if you dare”. He then reads them aloud, banging the drum, accompanied by some bluesy guitar. “Alcohol … age, rejection, my past! Divorce, control … mental health! My finances! My father!” I imagine this is what Johnny Depp’s band sounds like.

McConaughey concludes on the fear of “not being able to pay my bills”. “Amen,” he adds, his hands in the prayer position. “It’s not easy, is it?”

Be grateful, achieve greatness

McConaughey urges us to embrace our individual talents – “something you do pretty darn well on a consistent basis”, be it caring for your children or telling jokes. “Maybe you’re a great whistler!” He whistles a jaunty tune to canned laughter.

Whatever it is, McConaughey says, “have more GRATITUUUUUDE for it”.

“The recipe for your particular secret sauce is under the hood of what you do WELLLLL, not what you don’t. Start trying to be great at what you’re good at, instead of good at what you’re bad at.”

This is, in fact, good advice. I feel invigorated, despite myself.

Trust just a little bit more

McConaughey retells the story of the wet dream – in which he was floating down the Amazon, naked, watched for some reason by “African tribesmen” – acknowledging that it is “peculiar and ironic”.

His point turns out to be about learning to trust ourselves and each other. We live in a world where distrust has become our default position, says McConaughey.

The findings of a study last year, which said fewer than 30% of people trust their neighbours, seem to cause him physical pain. “Aww, jeez – that’s gross,” he says, his hands at his temple.

“I don’t believe we are ever going to truly move forward, individually or collectively, without having more trust.” Again, I agree!

He proposes that we agree to try to trust “just 5% more” and see where it leads us. He calls it “The 5% More Trust Coalition”.

Merge on to the highway – but there’s a toll charge …

For nearly two hours, McConaughey has not stopped moving, rhyming, drumming, singing, all with seemingly the utmost sincerity. It has been unexpectedly mesmerising – somewhere between the actor’s studio and a new-age preacher.

By now, I am riled up. I am ready to start livin’.

But, for some, this new commitment to trusting and risk-taking is shaken by what happens next. This live event that we have all been part of, makin’ history for the past few hours, is revealed to be a promo for Roadtrip: The Highway to More – McConaughey’s new “immersive learning experience”.

Basically, it is an online course – and a great deal, we are told (not by McConaughey, but by one of his partners in this endeavour, the celebrity entrepreneur and business author Dean Graziosi). Normally $4,507, today only it is $397!

As we are shown a 10-minute commercial, I am surprised to see people in the chat – who have just unloaded their fears and dreams on to McConaughey, and heard him sing them back – almost uniformly raging against the hard sell. “What a long commercial,” writes one. “This is America,” writes another.

I have no doubt the course will make a gazillion dollars, all the same. That the organisers don’t turn off the chat, now being flooded with angry and crying emoji, suggests they think so, too.