“Don’t walk into a place like you wanna buy it, walk in like you own it.”
Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights
If there’s one thing I learned from reading Greenlights it’s damn, that guy had a lot of confidence.
Whether it was following his wet dream to Africa or committing to being a vegetarian without knowing what vegetarian even meant, he was always walking into the place like he owned it.
Matthew’s confidence can best be summed when he was a nobody and wanted desperately to play the leading role for a movie; he looked the director dead in the eyes and said, “That role should be mine.”
Greenlight.
I listened to the audiobook as I drove from Cleveland to Raleigh—by the end it was as if I had taken a road trip with an old friend.
McConaughey’s philosophy reminded me a lot of the lessons taught in The Alchemist: whenever you’re pursuing your treasure, the universe conspires to help you. Throughout Greenlights, Matthew took signal after signal from the universe and followed the path unabashedly.
And it worked well for him. Between Mathew’s steel confidence and the universe’s signals, he seemed to forge a life worth living and worth exploring.
As with every book, I always try to abstract the lessons I learned so that they can be tied into usable knowledge. But to pull the usable knowledge, we really need to dive into this concept of confidence.
What is confidence and how is it built?
Confidence starts on the inside, but manifests on the outside. It can easily be spotted in an imposter with the tremble of a vocal cord or the nervous twitch of an eye. Confidence is attractive to the onlooker but invisible to the actor.
Confidence is one of those elusive traits that we each wish we could embody. It is the reason we enjoy videos of guys picking up girls on YouTube, seeing the lone coworker raiser her hand to ask a question during the meeting, and looking towards our fearless leader when all has gone to hell.
No matter how many times we see examples of confidence, it never seems to manifest in self-confidence.
Instead when it’s our turn to ask the girl out, we make an excuse, and we walk away.
Most people believe that they would have more confidence if they had further certainty in the outcome.
If I knew the girl would say yes, I would ask her out; if I knew the entire class wouldn’t laugh, then I would ask my question, if I knew that this business decision would yield a positive ROI then I would make it.
But this is often the wrong way to frame confidence—in fact true confidence comes not from being certain in the outcome but knowing that you can handle any outcome that occurs.
Me personally, I used to be deathly scared of getting called on in class to answer a question. The mental chatter kept warning me of the impending embarrassment if I answered the question incorrectly, and so I’d always shrink to make myself as small as possible when the teacher asked, “anyone?”
In these situations, it’s not about knowing that the class won’t laugh at us, but instead understanding how do we react if that happens?
Do we tell ourselves we’re stupid? Do we chastise ourselves for the idiot mistake? Do we run away and hide?
Or do we value ourselves for taking the risk? Do we value ourselves for trying? Do we reward ourselves for our daring foray?
As with most topics, it seems the beginning starts with understanding ourselves and our values. As a kid, I used to value myself for getting good grades and being smart. Ten years later, I now value myself for learning. It’s not that I always make the right decision, it’s that I know that even if make the wrong decision I can handle it.
As John C. Maxwell said, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
Once your reframe your world to that simple sentence, suddenly doors open up. Stop worrying about being right, stop worrying about getting the job or the girl or the investor’s money.
Instead, worry about what your inner voice says when you don’t. What are you telling yourself in your lowest of lows?
Are you saying you have done bad things and that makes you a bad person?
Or are you saying that you have done bad things and that made you a better person?
It’s a small difference in vocabulary, but a massive difference in beliefs.
So, if you want more confidence, then walk into the place like you own it; but when they kick you out, sit there with your thoughts for a little bit. Listen closely to what they’re saying. You might just find what you were really looking for.
Greenlight.
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