In 2015, Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey gave the commencement address at University of Houston. Speaking to some 4,000 graduates, he shared personal stories and lessons he hoped would help young people find their path in life.
Before he even started, however, McConaughey made a sobering but accurate observation: A college degree in and of itself is no longer a guarantee that you’ll have a great career.
“I have two older brothers. One was in high school in the early 1970s — a time when a high school GED got you a job and the college degree was exemplary.
My other brother was in high school in the early 80s, and by this time the GED wasn’t enough to guarantee employment. You needed a college degree, and if you got one, you had a pretty good chance of getting the kind of job you wanted after you graduated.
Me, I graduated high school in 1988, got my college degree in ’93, and that college degree in 93 did not mean as much. It was not a ticket, it was not a voucher, it was not a free pass go to anything.”
Now, if Matthew McConaughey found his college degree to be of little use in the job market in 1993, he’d be in for a real shock 26 years later.
With the half-life of knowledge eroding a little more each day, that certificate on paper is now a one-punch ticket at best and a completely useless credential at worst. At the same time, new career paths open up all the time. Youtuber, Instagram influencer, ecommerce strategist — a few years ago, none of these jobs existed.
Therefore, McConaughey is right in suggesting that the one big commonality people entering the workforce share is uncertainty.
“You’ve just completed your scholastic educational curriculum in life — the one you started when you were five years old, up until now — and your future may not be any more clear than it was five years ago. You don’t have the answers, and it’s probably pretty damn scary.”
Luckily, McConaughey is anything but a downer. Immediately, he offers some reassurance: “I say that’s okay. Because that is how it is. This is the reality that many of you are facing. This is the world that we live in.”
Instead of lamenting this reality, McConaughey urges us to accept it — and then do something about it.
“The sooner that we become less impressed with our life, with our accomplishments, with our career, with whatever that prospect is in front of us, the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things, the sooner we get a whole lot better at doing them.”
When you’ve spent 15, 20, 30 years of your life chasing the next grade, the next semester, the next scorecard, it’s easy to get stuck. To follow the same pattern and spend the rest of your life running after, valuing, and blaming certifications, documents, and diploma.
The truth, however, is that we live in a world where references don’t matter nearly as much as they used to. That’s what McConaughey wants us to understand and accept. To help us do this — move past a culture of credentials and into one of action, real impact, and results — he then goes on to deliver a total of 13 lessons. Today, I’d like to share five of them with you.
May they help you build the tomorrow you deserve.
1. Don’t fall into the entitlement trap
McConaughey’s first rule doubles down on his stance towards degrees and expectations: Life doesn’t owe you a thing.
“Life’s not easy. Life is not easy. It is not. Don’t try to make it that way. Life’s not fair, it never was, it isn’t now, and it won’t ever be. Do not fall into the trap — the entitlement trap — of feeling like you’re a victim. You are not. Get over it, and get on with it.”
Your degree didn’t get you the interview? Your asthma is messing with your workouts? No one cares about your first 50 articles? Boo hoo.
Every person on this planet is facing some struggle. It may be mental, it may be physical, it may be one you can totally relate to or not at all — but it’s there. Everyone has a bunch of demons locked in their closet, and life offers little sympathy and help to make them go away. That’s our job and ours alone.
Whatever you want, it is your responsibility to go out there and do what’s necessary to get it — regardless of what life throws at you in the process.
2. Never say anything is “unbelievable”
With his second rule, McConaughey wants us to widen our perspective. To make room for what we didn’t consider possible before.
“‘Unbelievable’ is the stupidest word in the dictionary. Should never come out of our mouths.”
When you say, “What an unbelievable performance!” all you’re really doing is placing something out of your own realm of possiblity that’s actually already proven to lay inside it.
“Give others and yourself more credit. It just happened, you witnessed it, you just did it, believe it.”
The same goes for the “other” side of ‘unbelievable,’ says McConaughey. We shouldn’t be naïve about the bad actions humans and nature are capable of, whether it’s terrorism, needless disease, your house being finished a year later than originally planned, or your best friend lying to your face.
“If there’s one thing you can depend on people being, it’s people. Nothing we do is unbelievable. It’s a stupid word. An unbelievably stupid word.”
3. Seek joy, not happiness
McConaughey’s next lesson addresses our often backward approach to finding happiness.
“Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome. If I win, I will be happy, if I don’t, I won’t. It’s an if-then, cause-and-effect, quid-pro-quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it. You see, happiness demands a certain outcome, it is result-reliant.”
Since happiness is fleeting, McConaughey suggests focusing on joy instead.
“It’s not a choice, not a response to some result, it is a constant. Joy is the feeling we have from doing what we are fashioned to do, no matter the outcome.”
When you can find satisfaction in your daily work, when you can let what you do in your day-to-day be enough, you don’t have to wait for big achievements to feel happy. You’ll feel content all the time which, ironically, attracts success.
“As soon as the work, the making of the movie, the doing of the deed became the reward in itself — I got more box-office success, more accolades and respect than I’d ever had before.”
4. Define success for yourself
As with happiness, a good question to ask about success is: What does that even mean? To show what a poor job our society does of answering this question for us, McConaughey tells the following story:
“I went to a voodoo shop south of New Orleans a few years back — they had vials of “magic” potions stacked in columns with headings above each defining what they would give you — Fertility, Health, Family, Legal Help, Energy, Forgiveness, Money. Guess which column was empty? Money.”
We all know the sayings. Money is king. Money makes the world go ‘round. McConaughey says even our cultural values have been financilized. Humility isn’t cool. There’s no admiration for people playing the long game. “It’s a get-rich-quick-on-the-internet, 15-minutes-of-fame world we live in,” he says.
The only way to not get dragged into this never-ending cycle of wanting more is to define success for yourself. What do you really want? If the answer is still money, that’s fine! But maybe you’d prefer being healthy and fit, having a happy family, or a thriving marriage. Maybe, you want to be famous, spiritually sound, or leave the world a better place. The answer doesn’t matter half as much as asking the question. What does success mean to me?
“Continue to ask yourself that question. Your answer may change over time and that’s fine, but do yourself this favor: Whatever your answer is, don’t choose anything that will jeopardize your soul. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don’t spend time with anything that antagonizes your character.”
5. Make decisions you’ll be happy about tomorrow
Finally, McConaughey drops a wonderful analogy about minimizing regrets. “Don’t leave crumbs,” he says.
“What are crumbs? The crumbs I’m talking about are the choices we make that make us have to look over our shoulder in the future.”
The classic movie example McConaughey gives is the guy who didn’t pay back his debt. One night, he’s in the theater, and, suddenly, three rows behind, a dark face pops up. Shit. Others are drinking too much before an important event, cramming before a deadline, or eating food that drains your energy. Ugh. These are the crumbs McConaughey talks about.
“They come in the form of regret, guilt, and remorse — you leave ‘em today, they will cause you more stress tomorrow, and they disallow you from creating a customized future in which you do not have to look over your shoulder.”
Of course, there’s an alternative. Instead of making choices that’ll cost us tomorrow, we can also create outcomes that pay us back. McConaughey calls it, “the beauty of delayed gratification.”
“Tee yourself up. Do yourself a favor. Make the choices, the purchase today that pays you back tomorrow. Residuals. In my business, it’s called “mailbox money.” I do my job well today, I get checks in the mailbox five years from now — heck of a deal.”
The concept of ROI — return on investment — can be applied anywhere, McConaughey claims. Whether it’s setting up the coffee maker and laying out your clothes the night before, preparing for a job interview well in advance, or not sleeping around with committed guys and gals, every choice you make that’ll leave you happier and a little more relaxed tomorrow is a choice worth making.
“Don’t leave crumbs,” he says. “Don’t leave crumbs.”
A roof is a man-made thing
There is one other lesson McConaughey gave that really stood out to me: “A roof is a man-made thing.”
“You ever choked? You know what I mean, fumbled at the goal line, stuck your foot in your mouth once you got the microphone, had a brain freeze on the exam you were totally prepared for, forgot the punchline to a joke in front of 4,000 graduating students at a University of Houston commencement speech?”
According to McConaughey, the reason we sabotage ourselves right before the finish line is that we put artificial limits on ourselves. Ceilings that keep us tied to the familiar. Roofs. But they’re just in our heads.
“We shouldn’t create these restrictions on ourselves. A blue ribbon, a statue, a score, a great idea, the love of our life, a euphoric bliss. Who are we to think we don’t deserve or haven’t earned these gifts when we get them?”
It’s true. A college degree is no longer a golden ticket to success. In a chaotic world like ours, nothing is. All there is to do is the work itself. The work of doing a great job, regardless how menial the task. The work of deserving the accolades and riches you desire. The work of building a life you love. To do this work, all we need are five rules:
- Accept that life’s not fair.
- Never consider anything to be impossible.
- Find joy in what you do instead of chasing happiness.
- Create your own definition of success.
- Make decisions that’ll give back to you tomorrow.
This may not be the recipe you’d hoped for when you set out to get an education, but it’s the recipe you, and I, and even Matthew McConaughey needs. And even though this whole higher-education situation is crazy, ridiculous, and, yes, unfair, there’s also something beautiful about all the non-credential career opportunities that pop up on the daily: no more ceilings.
Whatever limits may have been there to what you want to be, who you want to become, the internet has destroyed them completely. You get to invent yourself. You, and you alone. But in order to do this, we have to play like there are no ceilings. Set our sights on the highest heights we can fathom.
“Bo Jackson ran over the goal line, through the end zone, and up the tunnel.
We do our best when our destinations are beyond the measurement, when our reach continually exceeds our grasp, when we have immortal finish lines.
When we do this, the race is never over. The journey has no port. The adventure never ends because we are always on our way.
Do this, and let them tap us on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you scored.” Let them tell you, “You won.” Let them come tell you, “You can go home now.” Let them say, “I love you too.” Let them say, “Thank you.”
Take the lid off the man-made roofs we put above ourselves. And always play like an underdog.”
Always play like an underdog. Run right up the tunnel. I like that.
This attitude won’t guarantee you’ll always succeed, but when you do, you’ll exceed everyone’s expectations — including your own. You won’t play just to play or to satisfy other people’s rules. You’ll always be playing to win.