MBA1693 Must Read: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

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Hey oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show where it's our business to make your business better every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a must read episode on our Must Read Episodes. I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me Entrepreneur As a thinker, as a person on Planet Earth. I share with you its insights, its takeaways and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Green lights by Matthew McConaughey. Yep, Matthew McConaughey the actor. Now I know you might be thinking, what can Matthew McConaughey, the guy from Lincoln Lawyer from Failure to Launch from Wolf of Wall Street. What is this guy going to teach me about running a better business or having a more fulfilling entrepreneurial career? Well, I was surprised how much I learned this book. I had no intention of making this a must read if it was a good book. It was just a personal read. But I learned so much about how I can improve myself as an entrepreneur and therefore improve my business through this amazing read. We'll talk about some of the things that Matthew McConaughey learned along his career, how you can apply some of the things that he did in your own business and your entrepreneurial journey and why is the book called Greenlights? I'll also share with you some little things that he does in this book that make it an entertaining read that you may want to Think about next time you write something, whether it's a blog post, an ebook, or even a published book like Matthew McConaughey. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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Before I read Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey, all I knew was this was a collection of stories from Matthew McConaughey. It's sort of his memoirs or some of the things that he's learned so far in his life. I also knew it got incredible reviews. Some of the reviews that I saw online and on Amazon just made me say, I gotta buy this book. I gotta read this book. Books like this don't get that kind of acclaim unless they're really, really good. And I have to say, after reading it, I am so glad I did. The first thing I wanna say is that this is such an easy read. And if you love the way Matthew McConaughey tells stories, if you like him as an actor, you'll probably en on audible. He does a narration, so you'd really enjoy in audio form. It's one of the easiest books I've read in a long time. It's so entertaining. It's so easy to kind of follow along. There are no lulls. It's not extensively long for no reason. It's not overly preachy or boastful. He's actually pretty humble. And a lot of the advice he gives are just really honest and just really fundamentals of living a fulfilled life. So what are some of the takeaways? There's so much in this book. I don't want to just throw them all out here. I want to leave you with some so you can discover on your own. But here are the big takeaways I loved about this book and how you can apply them to your own journey as an entrepreneur, into your own business as you move forward this year. Takeaway number one has to be that. A big reason why Matthew McConaughey is successful as an actor, as an entrepreneur himself. He is an entrepreneur because he has a big stake and he's a part of his own whiskey company called Wild Turkey, a big Reason for success is that he loves experiences. He's not afraid to fail. He tries different things. He challenges himself as you go through the book. Throughout his life, he is always looking for ways to broaden his mind, to get better, to learn, to have an experience. And this opens up so many doors. It opens up so many opportunities for him, whether he was a teenager when he went from Austin, Texas to Australia as an exchange student, or auditioning for his first role in a movie, or even how he met his wife. One of the things you learn is that you just are going to have more chances of success in life, in business, if you give things a try, if you try different things, if you open up the doors. A lot of us were very tunnel visioned, a lot of us, and I'm speaking by myself sometimes, you know, where you just do the same things over and over. You're not open to other experiences. You may go to the same places to eat, you may go to the same holiday destinations, you might even speak to the same people, have the same friends. You really are closing yourself in. The more you open yourself up, the more you meet different kinds of people. You challenge your thoughts, you challenge your ideas, the more you try different places to go, different opportunities, challenge yourself to do things maybe you didn't do before. Get on stage in an event, do a webinar, be a guest speaker at a virtual summit, take on a new hobby. Whatever it is, it's going to teach you something. And that's what he really talks about in this book, is that sometimes it's not going to be fun, sometimes it's going to fail. Right? Your attempt to do something is going to fail, but you're going to learn something and it's going to open up an opportunity for you to later on reflect and say, hey, this built character in me, this built an element of my personality, in my skill set. It built an element of resilience that I didn't have before. And because he does so many things and tries so many things, he is able to develop and improve quickly. This reminds me of Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad's author and his theory of fail fast. You know, don't be afraid to fail. Just get it over with, Fail fast. You know, try things, do things, learn how not to do something and then go ahead and do it. I mean, you're going to read about amazing experiences he had throughout his life, whether it's floating down the Amazon river or going to Africa and wrestling with a local wrestling champion, or following his dreams literally following his real dreams, he has at night just to try, just to see. And I think having that openness really allows you to grow and allows you to really have chances to improve and make relationships that can benefit you in the future. The other thing I really loved about this book is that he had these little side notes that went on like bumper stickers. He loves bumper stickers, and he makes up his own bumper stickers. And they're really just short pieces of advice. And they're like a summary or a takeaway of what he learned from a story he just shared. And it's a good way to kind of put things in a boat, tie it up and just kind of say, okay, here it is. This is really what the learning is from this story. So it's not just giving you stories for entertainment. It actually is a learning moment. And I love the way he kind of wraps it up in a bumper sticker. Another takeaway is that through many stories he shares in the book, he puts himself in situations where he's forced to actually learn and deliver on what he needs to deliver on. He's forced to have an outcome, whether it's auditioning for a part that maybe is a little bit challenging, something that he's not ready for. But by putting himself out there, he forces himself to read the script and get into character and make it his own. By saying yes to something that he's not really maybe qualified for even, he forces himself to grow. And this actually is applied in a lot of stories that he shares in life, not just in his acting career. He shares a story about his trip to Europe and how he explored Europe, and he really didn't have a plan, but he just said, I wanted to do this. He goes there and he figures out a way to make it happen. Sometimes we need to do that to ourselves. We need to put ourselves in a situation and say, hey, you know what? I'll figure it out. I'll do something. I'll make it work. In our own businesses, a lot of times we don't do anything unless it's super calculated and thought out almost to a fault, where when we do take action, it's just too late. We're behind the curve. So what we want to do is just throw ourselves in a situation. Sometimes it doesn't have to be incredibly high risk to say, hey, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to do it, and I'll figure out a way to make sure I'm successful there. This could be announcing to your email list that you'll be writing a book and be releasing it on a certain day. This holds you accountable. This is making you feel like, hey, I got to answer the bell, right? I got to answer that ring and make sure I do everything I can to hit that deadline and not let down my audience and my email list. Put yourself in a situation where you have to succeed. There is no other alternative. Another interesting takeaway that I kind of picked up from this book is that Matthew McConaughey actually enjoys a lot of alone time. He enjoys a lot of time on his own, reflecting, journaling, going on a road trip with just him and his dog. He likes company, he likes being around people. But he feels like when you're always with somebody, you don't get a chance to reflect, to think, to evaluate your ideas, to make decisions about what you want to do in life and what you believe in, or to work on the things that you've set out to work on. Whether it's personal goals, things you want to work in within yourself, or your actual business goals, focused alone time can really be beneficial. And you should try to carve out some time, even just an hour or two a week, where you get to have some time just yourself and be comfortable with being by yourself. Because this is where you can really reflect, think, evaluate, and really have some. What is called deep thinking or deep thought, or as Cal Newport puts it, deep work. I mentioned journaling. That's another takeaway. I started journaling again after hearing this book because I really thought, wow, he was able to put this book together because he journaled throughout his life, and I didn't journal every single day. But his life is pretty much journaled. He has notes, he has memorabilia, he has pictures. And he used all these notebooks that he filled in the years he's been journaling to come up with this great book. Our memories don't serve us so well. It's funny because he shares stories and he reflects back at pictures or reflects back at his notes and realizes his memory is actually pretty flawed and what actually happened was different than how he remembers it. So even if you just take five minutes a day and don't beat yourself up, if you skip a day or you miss a day, I just try to make a habit as much as possible. So if I miss a day, I just pick up the next day and I don't beat myself up. Just keep writing. Just keep journaling. And even if you have nothing to write about, just be like, hey, this is what's going on in my mind. This is what I'm going to do today. These are some of the things I'm planning to do next week. And it's a nice record of where you're at right now in your life. Maybe you're not going to use it to write a book in the future, but it's nice to have. It's your legacy. It's a snapshot of your life that maybe even can pass on to the next generation and beyond.

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Right.

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Huh?

Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby. Get with the times.

Right?

Wait, so we shouldn't get the parachute pants? These are making a comeback, I think.

Discover is accepted at 99% of places.

That take credit cards nationwide, based on.

The February 2025 Nielsen report. Guys, I want to give you one more takeaway, one more thing I loved about Greenlights, and it's all about the title. Why is it called Greenlights? Well, Matthew McConaughey talks about in the book, and I'm not going to really do it justice, but I'll give you a summation or I'll basically paraphrase what he said. When he says green lights, he's referring to traffic lights. Green means go. And he believes that there are certain events in your life, there's certain things that happen that are like a green light moment where it says, hey, you're on the right path. Keep going, keep doing what you're doing, Keep striving, keep moving in this direction. And he talks a little bit about how to be aware of these things, how to be aware of when an event is a green light. He also talks about what to do with yellow lights and red lights in your life. Are those necessarily bad? Will those ever serve you in the future? Does a red light always mean no? Or maybe it's just no for now and you're just not ready for that opportunity. You're not ready for that experience. Maybe you'll become a green light in the future. I'm going to let you read the book and find out. Guys, Green Lights was such a fun read. I've learned a ton about his life. I've learned a ton about how I need to make some adjustments in my own life and my habits to be a better seeker of opportunities, a seeker of new challenges, a seeker of new experiences. This will make me a better person. It will make me a better entrepreneur, it will make me a better business owner. Thank you so much for listening to the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. I highly recommend you pick up Greenlights either on Audible or Kindle, or paperback or hardback. It's a great, great book. If you have not hit subscribe yet on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast, go ahead and hit subscribe. It's absolutely free. And by hitting subscribe, you get access to business lessons in our archives. So go ahead and do that now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Success leaves clues. I learned that from Tony Robbins and it's so, so true. Matt McConaughey is very, very successful. He made the most out of his life. He came from very simple beginnings, from a small town in Austin, Texas, a blue collar family, and he had all the excuses in the world to give up. So anybody that you have any level of respect for what they've accomplished, read their story. They're going to give you a few nuggets that can help you along the way. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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