Matthew McConaughey: Conscious Parenting | Forward Progress

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. As we wrap up the week, we're bringing you one of the many positive messages from our past interviews. Each Thursday, we're sharing stories of our most watched athletes, celebrities, and leaders.

0:41We hope these problem-solving narratives inspire you to tackle obstacles in your own life. This week, Matthew McConaughey. You said in your book, you're in your mid-30s. I was looking for a lifetime lover, a best friend, and a mother-to-be. at that point in your life? Why do you think you hadn't found that yet? It's a great question that I don't really know the answer to. But it's a mix of that timing. Where are we individually in our life and who do we have in them at that time? And I've been fortunate to have some wonderful relationships where I don't have any regrets of those. And we just like, you know, this is as far as we could go.

1:24So, you know, that later on, I guess, whatever age it was, that's when I met that I soon learned was be the woman for me, which is Camilla, now my wife. One of the things you guys have, at least close to in common, that I found amazing, I never even met anybody whose parents had been divorced twice, remarried three times. What do you remember from having that conversation? And we kind of laughed about it. We were always going, yeah, right? What's that no marriage thing about? Our parents couldn't quite pull it off or actually, let's look at it this way. Maybe our parents loved it so much they did it, they kept doing it.

2:02Well, maybe our parents just really loved honeymoons. So we kind of self half seriously always choked it off, but also recognized, say, if we get married, really make sure we're doing it for the right reason. We both agree we don't want to, in our relationship, go through that. I'm like, let's try and do this without divorce, remarried, divorce, remarried, divorce. Let's try and do it without such extremes here. Why were you concerned with losing yourself if you got married? I want, like I think most people want to have 100 % of an experience. And my fear then was, oh, well, if you marry, you're only getting 50 % of the experience and they're getting 50%.

2:50And then I worked to realize, no, no, no, actually, if you're with the right person, you can have 100 % of the experience with them. They can have 100%. And actually together, the funny math is it's 300%. Your kids, how do you handle situations if they say, I can't, I hate, or lie? And then the other part of the question is the concept you're trying to instill in terms of delayed gratification. So if they say, if they could say, goodbye, can you help me with this? I can't get it done. I'm going to be like, you what? And I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Like, I can't get this thing. And I'll go, you what?

3:31And then they go, I'm having trouble. Because they know enough about that that we don't want to go through, like, believing those words. and that if you are having trouble doing something, if you are even unable to do something. Hate, they got that one kind of down. That one clicked in for them really quick, really quick as a bad word and not a way to look at life or feel about people and things or each other. We're going to lie thing. We're not all going to be perfect. We're going to screw up. We've got to man up and woman up on our mistakes here. If you come up and you admit the mistake, we'll get through we'll go through it with you this leads into delayed gratification you start to becomes more stressful for you to keep up the lie to hide the lie to go to sleep with the lie on your conscience all these things will create more stress for you tomorrow which is not being kind or cool to your future self so let's deal with an immediate discomfort now But I think even us adults, I think it's a major concept that is valuable for us all, that we could all use more, give more value to the value of lay gratification.

4:48As individuals, as a nation, as people in the world, as adults, not just kids. Make an investment in yourself. Make an investment in the things that you love, your family, your friends, your business. Let it pay you back. Do things today that make it give you mailbox money, not only in your bank account, but in your soul's account. Make those choices. That's delayed gratification and the value of it. But the kids, you know, they clicked into the understanding of delayed gratification when I won the Oscar. And they said, what did you get the trophy for? And I said, well, you remember a year ago when we were working and you said, Papa, I was super skinny.

5:26You said he had a neck like a giraffe. They go, yeah. I go, well, the work I was doing then a year ago. my peers gave me a trophy for today because they deemed it excellent work and they went wait a minute you got a trophy for something you did a year ago i go yes exactly we'll be back with another positive story from a past interview next thursday and we'll pull it from our highest performing clips according to our digital community head over to youtube.com slash graham bensinger to join us thanks again for listening

6:01you