Matthew McConaughey’s 2015 University of Houston Commencement Speech

In Speech 32 Mins Read


Texas native Matthew McConaughey, an Academy Award-winning actor, delivered a very inspiring and thought-provoking commencement speech to the 2015 graduating students of the University of Houston at TDECU Stadium on Friday, May 15.

Matthew McConaughey’s 2015 University of Houston Commencement Speech Transcript

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? You hear me? Okay. Congratulations class of 2015. You guys and girls, and young men and women are the reason I’m here. I’m really looking forward to talking with you all tonight. You heard my dad played football here and I believe he even graduated from here. That was some extra incentive for me to come. Short and sweet or long and salty? A sugar doughnut or some oatmeal?

Now, out of respect for you and your efforts in getting your degree, I thought long and hard about what I could share with you tonight. Did I want to stand up here at a podium and read you your rights? Did I want to come up here and just share some funny stories. I thought about what you would want, I thought about what you might need. I also thought about what I want to say and what I need to say. Hopefully, we’re both going to be happy on both accounts. As the saying goes, take what you like, leave the rest. Thank you for having me



So before I share with you some what I do knows, I want to talk with you about what I don’t know. I have two older brothers. One was in high school in the early 1970s. And this was a time when a high school GED got you a job, and the college degree was exemplary. My other brother, Pat, was in high school in the early 80s.

And by this time, the GED wasn’t enough to guarantee employment. He needed a college degree. And if you got one, you had a pretty good chance of getting the kind of job that you wanted after you graduated. Me, I graduated high school in 1988. Got my college degree in 1993. And that college degree in ’93 did not mean much. It was not a ticket. It was not a voucher. It was not a free pass go to anything. So I asked the question, what does your college degree mean?

It means you got an education, means you have more knowledge in a specific subject, vocation, means you may have more expertise in “what your degree” is in.

But what is it worth? In the job market? Today?

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Top 30 Quotes on Purpose.

In Quotes 6 Mins Read

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain

Purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. He who has a strong WHY can deal with anyhow. With purpose, you go the extra mile because you have a compelling vision and why you are doing whatever it is you are doing. It gives you direction, drive, unrelenting perseverance, and resilience. Your purpose keeps you going when times are tough because you have a clear vision of the future.

Author and Entrepreneur, Gary Keller, Author of ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, share some great insights on the power of purpose:

Purpose is the straightest path to power and the ultimate source of personal strength—strength of conviction and strength to persevere.

The prescription for extraordinary results is knowing what matters to you and taking daily doses of actions in alignment with it. When you have a definite purpose for your life, clarity comes faster, which leads to more conviction in your direction, which usually leads to faster decisions.

When you make faster decisions, you’ll often be the one who makes the first decisions and winds up with the best choices. And when you have the best choices, you have the opportunity for the best experiences. This is how knowing where you’re going helps lead you to the best possible outcomes and experiences life has to offer.

Purpose also helps you when things don’t go your way. Life gets tough at times and there’s no way around that. Aim high enough, live long enough, and you’ll encounter your share of tough times.

 That’s okay. We all experience this. Knowing why you’re doing something provides the inspiration and motivation to give the extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south. Sticking with something long enough for success to show up is a fundamental requirement for achieving extra-ordinary results.”

Purpose provides the ultimate glue that can help you stick to the path you’ve set. When what you do matches your purpose, your life just feels in rhythm, and the path you beat with your feet seems to match the sound in your head and heart. Live with purpose and don’t be surprised if you actually hum more and even whistle while you work.

When you ask yourself, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do in my life that would mean the most to me and the world, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” you’re using the power of The ONE Thing to bring purpose to your life.

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl

Here are some great quotes on purpose:

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Book Summary – Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman.

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read

“Anyone can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way—that is not within everyone’s power, and that is not easy”. – Aristotle

Anger can be a powerful and positive motivator, useful to move us toward loving action to right wrongs and correct injustice—but it also can become a raging, uncontrolled force. Gary Chapman shares some very great insights on the very powerful emotion: “Anger” with lots of examples and learnings from the Christian scripture.

“The dictionary describes anger as “a strong passion or emotion of displeasure, and usually antagonism, excited by a sense of injury or insult.” Although we normally think of anger as an emotion, it is in reality a cluster of emotions involving the body, the mind, and the will.” Anger is a response to some event or situation in life that causes us irritation, frustration, pain, or other displeasure. Thousands of events and situations have the potential for provoking anger.

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.” – Seneca

Here are my favourite takeaways from reading, Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman:

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Book Summary: Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc.

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read

“As long as you’re green you’re growing, as soon as you’re ripe you start to rot.”

Ray Kroc was a quintessential salesman with a bias for action before turning McDonald’s into a household name; Ray worked various jobs selling paper cups, as a real estate agent, sometimes playing the piano in bands, milkshake mixer salesman, among other gigs. The 2016 movie, “The Founder,” starring Michael Keaton as Ray Kroc, portrays the story of his creation of the McDonald’s fast-food restaurant chain. 

The title “Grinding it out” brings to mind the long apprenticeship of over thirty years during which Ray Kroc worked for others as a salesman and sales manager and later in his own small business. For the great opportunity of his life did not come until 1954 when he was fifty-two, an age when some executives are beginning to contemplate the greener pastures of retirement.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. —Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

After World War II, Kroc found employment as a milkshake mixer salesman for the foodservice equipment manufacturer Prince Castle. When Prince Castle Multi-Mixer sales plummeted because of competition from lower-priced Hamilton Beach products, Kroc was impressed by Richard and Maurice McDonald who had purchased eight of his Multi-Mixers for their San Bernardino, California restaurant, and visited them in 1954.

By the time of Kroc’s death, the chain had 7,500 outlets in the United States and 31 other countries and territories. The total system-wide sales of its restaurants were more than $8 billion in 1983, and his personal fortune amounted to some $600 million.

McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain by revenue, serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries across 37,855 outlets as of 2018. McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer with 1.7 million employees (behind Walmart with 2.3 million employees). The $100 billion in sales generated by McDonald’s company-owned and franchise restaurants in 2019 accounts for almost 4% of the estimated $2.5 trillion global restaurant industry.

Here are my favourite take aways from reading, Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc:

Everyman makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own  problems.

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Book Summary – The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz.

In Book Summaries 10 Mins Read

“Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path.” -LU XUN

Jacqueline’s story is an inspiring and refreshing story on starting a sustainable nonprofit organization. She takes the reader on a journey of persistence, adventure across Africa, understanding poverty & world views, becoming passionate about your project, delivering a new model for empowering and funding sustainable projects. She shares heartwarming stories about forming a long-lasting bond with the community she was trying to serve, the need to listen, and determination to get things done against all odds.

Jacqueline Novogratz founded Acumen, a non-profit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty.

Jacqueline Novogratz left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters. She shows how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called “patient capital” can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives.

“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” -MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

Here are my favourite take aways from reading, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz:

“Poverty won’t allow him to lift up his head; dignity won’t allow him to bow it down.”-MADAGASY PROVERB

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