He believes that “a greenlight is being kind to our future self. It’s things in our life that affirm our way, they say ‘go, proceed, more, please carry on.’
While yellow and red lights make us slow down in life — they can be crisis, hardship, intervention, interruption.”
Finally, he says, “I found all the red and yellow lights in life revealed themselves to have at least a greenlight asset in the future. They have a lesson in them that we were supposed to learn.
Any hardship, any pause we took, any intervention, interruption… they have greenlight assets that will be revealed to us later.”
McConaughey adds, “Red and yellow lights eventually turn green in the rearview mirror.”
As McConaughey says, “I created a lot of the greenlights by taking responsibility today, which created freedom for me tomorrow.
I made decisions today, and sometimes even sacrifices, that teed me up for more pleasure or more of what I wanted tomorrow.”
One way to get back in line, he says, is not to “put the pressure on what you want, just get rid of the stuff that we know isn't feeding our true selves by process of elimination — those people, places, things, habits that give us a proverbial hangover the next day.”
He says, “If you get rid of enough things that don't feed you, aren’t giving you residuals, or teeing up green lights in your future, by sheer mathematics, you'll have more options in front of you that do feed your true self and will feed the greenlights in your future.”
He goes on to say, “If you can project into your future, tomorrow, next week,10 years from now, before you make these decisions, have a little chat with yourself and ask, ‘What does my future self think about the decision I'm making now?’
Our future is a compounding asset. The decisions we're making are part of that compound. As we’re writing the story and making the investments, understand that every decision will have a consequence.”
“The question we need to ask ourselves is: what is success to us? More money? That's fine. A healthy family? A happy marriage? Helping others? To be famous? Spiritually sound? To express ourselves? To create art? To leave the world a better place than we found it?'
What is success to me? Continue to ask yourself that question. How are you prosperous? What is your relevance?
Your answer may change over time and that's fine but do yourself this favor – whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that would jeopardize your soul.
Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Don't depend on drinking the Kool-Aid – it's popular, tastes sweet today, but it will give you cavities tomorrow.
Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill. But first answer the question.”