Sean Michael Crane's Unstoppable Mindset
Sean Michael Crane's Unstoppable Mindset
Level Up Your Fitness & Nutrition With Head Coach Matt Fleming
Ready to unlock the secrets to a fulfilling life? Discover the transformative power of mindset, fitness, and sobriety in our latest episode of the Unstoppable Mindset Podcast, featuring an enlightening conversation with Matt Fleming. We challenge you to break free from self-imposed limitations and embrace a life of clarity and purpose. Sobriety, as we argue, is not a restriction but a superpower that brings unparalleled focus and decision-making prowess. You'll hear personal stories and live audience questions that highlight the profound shifts sobriety can bring, fostering self-mastery, inner peace, and a deeply rooted sense of gratitude.
Ever wondered how to balance financial awareness with health improvement? We provide straightforward advice on managing business finances and emphasize the importance of distinguishing between personal and business expenses. Our discussion transitions into the crucial realm of health maintenance, even with a packed schedule. From meal prepping to staying motivated by a strong personal "why," we explore practical tips that can help you sustain healthy habits while chasing your entrepreneurial dreams. Neglecting health can have dire consequences, and we underscore the necessity of being connected to your long-term goals for better lifestyle choices.
Facing stress head-on and staying consistent are key themes in this episode. We delve into the critical role of mindset shifts in overcoming daily pressures, sharing actionable strategies and personal anecdotes that highlight the power of a compelling "why." Consistency and perseverance are paramount, and we discuss the importance of showing up every day, pushing through negative self-talk, and focusing on daily victories. Finally, we explore the transformative power of meditation and goal-setting, providing insights into how these practices can help overworked parents achieve a balanced, fulfilling life. Tune in for an episode packed with wisdom, practical advice, and inspiring stories that can guide you toward long-term success.
Welcome back to another episode of the Unstoppable Mindset Podcast. I'm your host, shawn Michael Crane. I got my guest, matt Fleming, with me. We're down here at the Santa Barbara Unstoppable HQ. Man, we live in paradise, right? And today we're going to be doing a Q&A. We're going to go over everything related to mindset, fitness, nutrition, leadership, entrepreneurship, making money, online coaching, being the best parent, being a superhero, leader and father for your family like everything that you could think of. So we got a bunch of questions that we're going to be answering, and we're also live on a couple different platforms, so we're going to be drawing questions from that audience as well, and let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:Look you guys, you got to give your all to this life if you want to be able to look in the mirror and be proud of who you see. So many people just half assass it. They make excuses and most people are just their own worst enemy. They can't get out of their own way, like that's a term. You hear a lot. Get out of your own way, get out of your own way.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? It means you need to start thinking differently. You need to stop listening to yourself and start listening to other people who have success, and you have to trust the process and man. You have to recognize that you only get this lifetime once. You don't know's after this, you don't know where you're going to go. We have faith, we have beliefs, but while we're here, why not make the most of it? Like dude, I don't want to let an hour pass me by without giving my all, let alone a day or a decade, and too many of you don't know what's at stake and you keep letting this time pass you by. So today we want to questions and provide value. So we got one of our team members here, jared Starks. Jared, go ahead and hit us with the first question.
Speaker 2:When people say sobriety is a superpower, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:exactly Okay. So the question is when people say sobriety is a superpower, matt, what do they mean by that?
Speaker 3:When people say sobriety, well, I mean, first off, whenever you're sober, you're going to think more clearly and make better decisions right. And I mean there's so many benefits to being sober. I've not been sober for many years of my life and my life was absolute chaos. And when I got sober, things just started, slowly but surely getting a lot better. You know, attracting the right people into my life, getting more opportunities, being able to focus on my health there's just the benefits are you know they're endless right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're endless. And to answer your question right here, jose, we're live on Facebook on this one. I'm going to answer that question about taxes after this, because that's a good one. But dude, sobriety like here's the thing. Some people can drink occasionally and still function. Some people can smoke a little bit or, you know, party on the weekend and get high and they can still function. I can't. I tried that and I'm a fucking maniac in anything I do. So if I'm drinking, I'm drinking all day long, every day. I'm doing drugs, I'm staying up all night. I'm reckless, I'm wild. You know, I just learned that about myself Now.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm a different man than I was 10 years ago, 12 years ago. I feel like I could have a beer right now or a cocktail, and never have another one again. But why? What would that do for me? You see, people drink for a feeling, an effect. I have that feeling and effect right now. I'm fucking high on life, I'm tapped in, dude, I'm living such a beautiful life. I would never want to alter my state. Most people don't feel that way, so they want to alter their state. They need something, a substance, something outside of them to alter the way they feel. And because of that man they're never going to reach the pinnacle of life. They're never going to reach the top of what I believe we're all here to discover within ourselves, and that's self-mastery, that's inner peace, that's gratitude at the highest level. So, for me, sobriety gives me clarity, it gives me peace. I'm so tapped in when you're not sober, you're not tapped into the messages from above, you're numb to them and you're just existing. You're almost like an animal. You're reacting to life. You see, when you get sober and you walk a path that your heart is calling you to walk for long periods of time, you start to find this deeper message resonating within you. Some people say it's the voice of God, some people say it's universal intelligence. Whatever it is, I'm tapped the fuck in. Why would I sever that connection? That message is what's led me here to this moment in my life. That message gave me my beautiful children, my wife, my career, my friends, my coworkers, my team, this fucking mission we're on. Why would I ever sever that connection?
Speaker 1:A lot of you, you have no idea what sobriety could do for you. So when you hear people talk about sobriety, you dismiss it. Meanwhile you're not thriving. Meanwhile you're not your 10.0 self. Meanwhile, you're not so grateful for life that you'd never want to check out. You want to check out every chance you get. That's a red flag, that's a problem.
Speaker 1:If you're somebody that needs to check out, I want you to look in the mirror and go ask yourself why do I need to check out? What's so wrong with the way I feel right now, where I need to alter myself? Why can't I feel the way I want to feel, just by the way I'm living, just by the way I'm thinking, just by the people I'm surrounding myself with? And what you'll find is there's things in your life right now that you're not happy with. There's things in your life right now that aren't at the standard you want them to be at. You're not living the life that you want. Therefore, you check out and escape and you try, fool yourself and lie to yourself, to pretend everything's okay, when in fact, you know deep down in your heart it's not. Most people never have that eye-opening moment of clarity where they're honest with themselves, so they repeat the same pattern over and over and over.
Speaker 1:When you figure this out and you really commit to a life of sobriety, it's not just not drinking, it's not just abstaining from drugs. It's a spiritual journey. It's an evolution of the way you think and the way you feel. In your consciousness, sobriety is just the buzzword. People feel You're a spiritual fucking being. Are you tapped in or are you just like an animal reacting to everything around you? That's the real truth. So if you want to achieve life at the highest level, you're going to seek spiritual connection. Okay, in order to do that, you must be sober. You must overcome all your cravings, all your bad habits. You must live in alignment with your truth for a long period of time so that you can really tap into that message and discover what you're here to do on this earth.
Speaker 2:What are the biggest benefits of regular exercise?
Speaker 1:Paul, what's up? Okay, before we answer that question, someone asked a question about taxes. So you guys, look it, I do the stuff that I love to do and that I'm really good at. I don't waste time doing the shit that I don't, that I suck at or that I don't like doing. I don't do fucking taxes. I don't worry about the automations or the funnels in my business and and online. I don't do any of that stuff. If you want to achieve at the highest level, lean into your strengths and delegate your weaknesses, that doesn't mean you don't want to educate yourself on your weaknesses, but you don't spend time doing that stuff. It would be so dumb for me to spend a bunch of time learning about and doing taxes when I can hire a professional to do it for me, right? So that's the answer.
Speaker 1:Jose's question he asked who should do my taxes. Well, initially you might, or you might, hire somebody to do them for you like a CPA. My first year or my second year in business, I was a sole proprietor. I went and took the numbers that I had to the CPA and he did my taxes for me. Now I have a team, we have an S corp or, you know, I have multiple businesses, but I have an S corp and we also have an LLC and we have a team of professionals doing our taxes, because you need people that understand what they're doing. They're professionals for a reason they went to school, they. You need people that understand what they're doing. They're professionals for a reason they went to school, they're educated. So that would be the number one answer for you. But if you don't have the money to hire a professional early on or it's your first year in business, just make sure you keep track of all your revenue and all your expenses and know what you can write off, know what's a business expense Like if you have that car detailing job and you have to get new tires for your car, that's a business expense, right? All your gas, the vehicle that you're driving, the insurance on it. So you need to be very clear on what your expenses are and you need to track your revenue. So at the end of the year when the taxman comes, you actually have some money to pay him, right? How do you know what? Important enough to track? Well, dude, like, think about it. So I would track everything. I have a separate credit card just for business expenses. So if it's Sunday and I'm out with the family and we're at the fair, I'm not using my business credit card. I'm using my personal debit card. Now, if it's Monday and I'm getting gas for my work vehicle, I'm using the business credit card, right? So I have two cards one for personal expenses and one for business expenses. That's the easiest way to track it.
Speaker 1:Then you need QuickBooks. You need to download or use QuickBooks, make an account on there. It's free, and it's gonna ask you to link your accounts. So you link that business account and you link that personal account. Now you have a way to track everything. Now it's in a database, okay, it's going to track your expenses and also the money coming in. The money coming in is going to go into one account. Then you could either pay yourself in your personal account or you can have it separated from the get-go. That gets a little more detailed. But just get QuickBooks, man, it's going to have you upload your information in there and then you can start to track everything. Okay, matt, answer that next question. Repeat it though.
Speaker 3:What are the benefits of morning exercise?
Speaker 2:What are the biggest benefits of regular exercise?
Speaker 3:Well, regular exercise, I mean it's going to have a ton of benefits. But first off, you know you're just going to overall feel better, right, you're working your body, you're going to enhance your mood, you're just going to be in better physical shape. If you die at some point on top of that, you know you're just gonna. The results are tenfold but um I don't know the the one more time. The biggest benefits of regular exercise. The biggest benefits of regular exercise, um, I mean, I guess, just overall improvement of health, right.
Speaker 1:The benefits of regular exercise. I mean dude exercise by far is the most empowering habit you could form in your life. There's nothing else you could do in your life right now that would have the most positive impact on who you become. Think about it you work out every day. Every day, you're going to the gym and working out. That requires you to develop discipline. That requires you to see and cultivate a vision beyond the moment, like why are you even doing this? Who are you becoming? Why is this important to you? You find a depth within yourself that the average person never experiences. Okay, that's a spiritual experience. You need to recognize that. Then, when you build up your physique and you see muscle developing, you're losing body fat, you're getting faster, you're getting stronger. What do you think happens? You start to feel proud of who you are. Your belief in yourself grows. You start to have confidence. You walk differently. You talk differently. People pick up on your frequency and your energy differently, because you created a more powerful, better version of yourself. Nothing else can do that. Read books it won't do that for you. Pray every morning it won't do that for you. Go to fucking church, go to school All those things are good, but nothing has the most widespread impact and positive impact in your life like exercise does so across the board. If you want to become a better version of yourself, the gym or working out and moving your body needs to be a daily, non-negotiable endeavor. If it's not, you are going to get passed up by the competition. If it's not, you are never going to reach your full potential. And that's probably the most important thing I could tell a 20-year-old right now Get off the fucking computer, get off your phone, get in the gym, build your physique, become someone you're proud of. It changes everything about them. It changes the neurotransmitters your brain releases. It changes your hormonal balance. It changes the way your blood's flowing through your body, the strength in your heart, the way your organs function. It changes you on a cellular level. So that's just health. Then it changes the way you perceive yourself. You know all the work you put in. You know your own worth. Because you've done it, you've lived it. So then, when you walk into a new job, or you're at that existing job and you're competing with other people, or you're competing for a girl and you're trying to find your life partner like dude, you're bringing a stronger belief and more conviction into the world. How do you think that person is going to operate? How far do you think that person is going to get compared to the guy that doesn't go to the gym, doesn't build up that sense of confidence and certainty in who he is Like it's it's night and day. You don't even stand a chance. If you're not going to the gym every day and you're not developing your mind and your body. You're going to get left behind and you're going to be one of those people that just live in that average plane of existence that you're going to regret one day. Bill, what's up? Big Bill, hold on, I'm going to divert Bill Roussel. I love you dude. Hey, jose, did that answer your questions too?
Speaker 1:This is the easiest way to understand your money. Let's say you have the business right, all the revenue that comes in, all the money you're generating from the business. You take that number. Let's say you make $100,000 this year but you spend $60,000 on the business. You got to be careful there. We're not talking about trips with the family. We're not talking about weekends with the family and stuff that's not business related Work. You know weekends with the family and stuff that's not business related Work uniforms. You're talking about the mobile detail position, right? So all the stuff that you need to clean cars and do your business, the insurance for the vehicle you're driving, tires, gas, all that stuff you minus that from revenue. Now you have your income, your profit, right? Let's say it was $40,000. That's the number that you're going to pay taxes on. That's the amount of money you use to buy groceries, take care of your family, pay your rent and do all that stuff. So I hope that helped you, jose Alright. Next question.
Speaker 2:We got anyone on.
Speaker 1:Instagram with any questions. Where you at motherfuckers Alright, what about you? Okay, that's cool, let's keep it rolling. What do we got next, Jared?
Speaker 2:long and strenuous work hours. How can they take control of their health? Well, I would say first off, you could take control of your health by getting a game plan, together with nutrition right.
Speaker 3:One of the biggest things I hear from guys in the program that work in the trades is that they they can't help but stop at the gas station or at the fast food restaurant, eat. And I just preach to them, man, if you don't have a plan, you're setting yourself up for failure. Right, get some. Find some foods you like, some healthy foods you like. Figure out you know what your diet should look like. And meal prep. It's so simple, man. It takes, you know, a couple hours at most on a Saturday or Sunday night to get prepared for the rest of the week. You know, and when you realize the benefits of what what that's going to bring into your life from eating healthy, just tracking your calories or having a general idea alone what it's going to do for you, you'll easily spend that couple hours to do that. It's really not a chore, it's just like anything else, right, like sometimes you don't feel like showering, but you know you got to shower, you know, uh, shower your stinky ass. Shower your stinky ass, hey real quick, though.
Speaker 1:Look at when you have a strong enough why. You'll always find the how Absolutely Right. So if we could take you into the future and you were 60 pounds overweight, your liver was failing, you were really close to dying and you had family members you were going to leave behind and then God brought you back into this present moment, wouldn't you change your lifestyle? Fuck, yeah, you would, because you know why you're going to do that work, why you need to get up early and go to the gym, why you need to eat clean, why you need to change your habits. You see, when you're really connected to who you're becoming, based on the way you live every day, it becomes very clear what needs to get done. But people that aren't clear on why they're doing the work, or how it's going to affect their family or what it's going to lead to in the future, they fuck around, they make mistakes, they, they procrastinate, they pleasure chase, they go after the food, they want the comfort, and they don't realize that they're just digging themselves a deeper hole that's going to be harder to climb out of. So you guys, listen to this.
Speaker 1:We work with hundreds of blue-collar workers all throughout the country HVAC, solar roofing entrepreneurs, business owners, and we see the challenges they face. And the challenge isn't knowing what to eat that's easy, you can Google it and find it out. It's not what workouts to do that's easy, you can YouTube it right. But these guys are busy. So they just want the blueprint, they want the plan. But this is the hard part and this is what we coach people on.
Speaker 1:It's your mindset, what I just shared with you a second ago. A guy who has a big enough why will always find a how. It's that type of mentality. And most people don't know what's at stake, so they waste time and they don't change. When you know what's at stake and you picture yourself dying early and leaving your family and the pain they're going to experience and not having those precious moments with your kids, you would do anything to change. So you got to correlate the work that needs to be done today with something bigger and more important in your life and you'll always show up. But the guy who becomes disconnected, the guy that forgets why he started, the guy that loses focus, he's jeopardizing everything. All right, jared.
Speaker 2:How can one effectively manage?
Speaker 1:stress in everyday life. Ooh, this is a good one for Matt. How can one effectively manage stress? You know, I see Matt sometimes walk into the gym or he'll show up at the office and he has this look on his face.
Speaker 1:I'm like, dude, what the fuck's wrong? He's like, oh, just got all this shit going on. You know I'm like, well, yeah, this is what we're doing, we're building an empire here, right, but we all go through it. There's days where I feel the effects of stress more. You know, the busier I've gotten though the the fucking attitude for all the wrong reasons. Like I'd go out and drink off, fuck it, it doesn't matter, I'll get up and go to work tomorrow, right. Like I chase girls, I get in fights, I'll fuck it Like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:I was kind of a rebel, um, but you know, I healed and changed myself while I was in prison and I came out and I still had the fucking attitude. But for all the right reasons, fuck what people think, fuck settling. You know, like all the right reasons. Like I'm not worried about what people are going to think about me, I'm not worried about them being judgmental, I'm not worried if I might fail or if it might go uh wrong. Like I'm all in, I'm all in on this life, in this dream, right, and so it's the fucking attitude for me. And uh, dude, like honestly, if you're worried about something right now. I want you to ask yourself in five years from now, is this really gonna affect my life? To stand out and, if not, let it go and move on.
Speaker 1:Because we do this to ourselves all day long. Every day, you stress over money, you stress over what's going to happen next week, you stress if something might go wrong later in the year and dude, things always have a way of working themselves out. That's what I've found. Whether it's the way you want it to or the way that God has planned for you, things are going to work out, and instead of focusing on if they might not, focus on the fact that you're alive today, that you have eyes and you can see colors, that you have legs that you can walk around on, like you have a million things right now to be grateful for, are you thinking of that one thing that's not going your way and you're going to be a little pussy and whine about it. Like that's the problem with people. They allow these fake situations, these fictitious scenarios in their minds, to steal their joy, and so this is something Matt and I talk about a lot, because I'm not saying he's a pussy, but I do know what it's like when you're starting on your journey of sobriety. You're starting on your journey as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:It's tough. There's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of stress. I know what that's like. I've been there so I can see it. When he walks in the room, his demeanor is a little different, his energy is a little different, and this is part of personal development. We all go through it. But the person that can acknowledge it, work through it, they grow. The person that doesn't and try to suppress it, that's the guy that goes back to the drink, that's the guy that stops growing. So, matt, what is your take on stress? How to manage stress? What has some of your own experience been Like? Just be honest with people, because that's what everyone relates to, everyone's stressed out in these beautiful lives that we get to live. It's a shift up here. You guys, I want you to recognize that.
Speaker 3:No man, you're absolutely right. You know, I let it get to me differently on different days and sometimes I let it show, but I've shared this before.
Speaker 3:One thing that I promised myself a long time ago that, no matter how I'm feeling, I'm going to show up the exact same every single day. And what does that mean? Well, I'm going to continue to get my workouts in, I'm going to continue to eat the right foods. I'm going to continue to push myself down to the most small detail of reading a book over watching TV, or listening to a podcast over a song, or trying to learn and grow in all aspects of life. There's some days where you know I feel really good and I'm going to take over the world, and there's other days where I feel so defeated, the negative self-talk, the fear, the doubt kicks in. I start caring what people think again, even though I say I don't, and it's something I'm working on every single day. But again, going back to what I started with, is that you can't show up differently on those days. How you feel is irrelevant, right, the work that needs to be put in has to be put in. And some days, you know, my work effort looks a little bit better than others. Right, like my 100% one day might not look the exact same as that 100% the next day or the next week, because just certain things going on in life, what you're letting get to you, but you just got to keep pushing through and keep on doing the best that you possibly can like. That's what I tell myself. It's that whole one day at a time mentality. As long as I put my best effort, whatever that may look like today, into the 24 hours ahead that I have in front of me, that I'm blessed with, you know I'll be all right and I continue to do that day in and day out. And then, you know, weeks compound into months and months turn into years and uh, you know. Next thing, you know you look back and you've made a lot of progress. And so, again, like you said, I'm still new on this. You know I'm coming up on three years sobriety, which is huge for me, but I mean I have 13 years roughly of uh destroying my life too. So I've got a lot of work. Like you said, I have a lot of uh I have to. I've lived the old way for so long that you know this is still new and um, there's going to be a lot of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. And just keep on pushing through, doing it the best you can.
Speaker 3:The, the staying in gratitude has been one of the biggest things, you know. Um, I like to put myself in a state of discomfort and really think so, like whether that be cardio, going in the steam room, getting the ice bath and just really thinking, thinking about all the things that I have to be grateful for Because, like you're right, whenever you really sit and think about it, these things we take for granted being able to get out of bed, not being sick, having a working body, having a car, having a place to live, you know, food in our stomachs all these things that we just take for granted and you wouldn't realize until they were stripped away from you. You know those acts of gratitude will shift your perception on your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and something you said is really important Like in the beginning stages, the most important thing you can do is train yourself to show up and do the work, despite how you feel, because you know that's how you proved yourself that this path is going to work for you. Like, over time, you improve who you are, you create more opportunities and you get better results. But in the beginning stages, like, you can't see that far ahead and what you have to do is win the battle each day. Like you get up and you have demons that you got to face. Fucking conquer them. You have doubts and fears inside of you. Prove them false through positive action. You're tired, you don't want to go to the gym. Do it anyway. Like, whatever those things are, you know you need to do. The best thing in your first stage of personal development and growth is train yourself to do them every day, no matter what. And that's what Matt's doing and I tell him all the time. Like, over time, you're going to get more clarity. Over time You're gonna have these breakthroughs and over time, he's going to start to see himself as this newer version of who he's grown into.
Speaker 1:A lot of people, when they want to change, they still identify as their old self. Like Matt said, he has 13 years of using and three years of sobriety. Well, his subconscious mind still identifies with the old version of himself because it outweighs the new person. Now he's not going to need 13 years of positive work to start identifying with this new person. Right, it's going to be a couple more months, a couple more years, but all of a sudden he's going to go through that massive breakthrough. He's like this is who I am. There's no chance I'm ever going back. I proved it to myself. I know who I am and it's going to really click for him.
Speaker 1:So for anyone listening, whether it's sobriety, whether it's losing weight, eating clean, whatever the change you want to make like it sounds cliche, but you have to just win this day. You can't think about tomorrow, you can't think about next week. You're already mind fucking yourself and you're probably already at a disadvantage because of that. But if I told you all you have to do is stay sober today, all you have to do is work out today, all you have to do is eat clean today, then it seems much more manageable, right? And it's the act of tricking yourself to focus on the present moment, the task at hand. That's going to get you far ahead, because you're going to show up, you're going to do the work and you're going to win that day versus lose that day and sometimes even breaking it down.
Speaker 1:Even more than that you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, like hour by hour moment by moment, like let me just get through this next moment, let me get through this workout, let me get through whatever it is, you know yeah, that's why having a routine and having a plan so important, like don't trust yourself in the beginning, like trust the plan trucks, trust the experts, trust that path that you know you need to take, versus like how you're feeling in the moment. Don't rely on how you're feeling because you know that that changes day to day feelings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's irrelevant, they're gonna. They're gonna shift from day to day, moment to moment.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like how do you read?
Speaker 3:a book right you don't just read the book, you read the page.
Speaker 1:Yeah one sentence at a time, one paragraph, one page next question what can?
Speaker 2:overworked parents do to create a healthy work-life balance.
Speaker 1:This is a good one. What can overworked parents do to create a healthy work-life balance? Um well, if you have young children or a family, you know that there's no such thing as balance. It's how you're showing up in each moment of the day and the energy that you're bringing into those situations. And when I say energy, I don't mean like you have enough energy to run around, I mean like, are you happy, are you fulfilled, are you passing on love and gratitude to your kids and your wife or your spouse?
Speaker 1:So for me, man, when I work out, it creates this really good feeling inside of me. And when I do right by myself, meaning I'm doing all the right things that I know I should do in my life, I can then bring that feeling into my relationships. If I didn't work out, I'd probably be more irritable, I probably wouldn't have as much patience, I probably wouldn't be as fun to be around. You know, working out for me is like that catalyst that sparks positive thoughts, positive feelings, gratitude, love. Then I can transfer that to my family members. And the more I work out, like over the years, the more energy I have, the more stamina, endurance throughout the day. So I wake up early so I can go work out in the dark, and then I get home to prepare my kids for school and help my wife and then I go into my work day and then I go home and spend time with my family. That's my balance. That's my work life balance. But the thing is, the workout sets the tone for the entire day. That gets my mind right, I have clarity, it gets my energy up, so then I can get through my day and put forth maximum effort into everything I'm doing and get all the way to the end of my day where I'm like, dude, I fucking won. This day. I'm doing everything I said I was going to do. I'm showing up for everybody in my life that I said I'm going to take care of, I'm handling all my responsibilities and that's the way it works for me.
Speaker 1:So I mean, for anybody listening who's a busy professional, what's the old saying? You can't pour from an empty cup. So a lot of people are trying to do everything for everyone else and they neglect themselves. And what happens to you over time? You're not as happy, you're not as grateful. You lost your purpose, your drive, you're getting overweight, you're unhealthy, like it's a slippery slope. You got to make you your number one priority in life. And that doesn't mean you take away from your loved ones. It means that you put forth more energy and effort to becoming your best self. You make it a priority so you could show up at a higher level for them.
Speaker 2:Okay, how could one create clear and impactful goals for?
Speaker 3:personal growth I think having goals is really important, but getting clear and impactful goals Well, I mean, figure out what you want to accomplish, right?
Speaker 3:And I'll just give you the example of when I ran my first marathon. That was a huge goal for me because I couldn't run more than a mile and a half when I first started. Right it I? I love lifting weights, but as far as like going after a run, um, that was out of the question. So I picked a goal. Right, I picked something I wanted to achieve. It was the Honolulu Marathon in Hawaii, which I think my buddy. Colin's on here right. I can't really read that. Does it say Colin?
Speaker 1:Ayers.
Speaker 3:Colin ran it with me, so so shout out to Colin.
Speaker 1:Who ran faster I did. But that's all right, you've got to get him back.
Speaker 3:Colin? No, but we picked a goal right. We picked this marathon in Hawaii, two things I'd never done I'd never ran a marathon and I never went to Hawaii because I'd never really traveled. So I picked this goal and started training for it and it gave me a purpose and a drive.
Speaker 3:The marathon started at 4 o'clock in the morning, so I learned a lot about myself, about waking up at 3 am and getting out in the dark and running. I started off with 3, 4, 5 miles, sometimes get up to 10 miles. Then you're getting to those long trainings where you're going 20 miles, just slowly but surely building up towards that goal, and then getting to that uh you know the date of the marathon um, running and uh, getting to mile 18 and my body just breaking down Like I felt like shit, my hips started locking up, and so I learned a lot about myself in those last you know six to eight miles where I was limping. I wanted to quit so bad, but I didn't. And I made it through it and I didn't get the time that I wanted, but so I signed up for a second.
Speaker 3:One, got another goal trained even harder and beat my time by an hour. Exactly An hour and five minutes quicker. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's good. I mean, you know, when it comes to setting goals, I'm somebody that likes to have structure, but I also like flexibility in my life. Setting goals I'm somebody that likes to have structure, but I also like flexibility in my life, so I don't have like 100% regimented goals or routines. I have things that I know I'm going to do every day, but I have a little bit of flexibility in my life. I like that, um, because I think that's how you keep things exciting and you keep that creative, spontaneous energy going. I'm not I don't want to be like a robot and a machine, like all executed at a high level, because I have fucking discipline, but I like to tap into that creative side of me. You know, and that happens when I'm being a little spontaneous and I'm having flexibility in my schedule. But for anybody that wants to set goals and you have trouble being consistent, use the acronym SMART when you're setting goals specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. So let's think about that Like. Use running as an example. Matt wanted to run a marathon. That's 26 miles. So that's measurable, specific and measurable, attainable. It's attainable. He can run a marathon. Now if we were saying like oh, run a one-minute mile, that's not attainable. No humans have ever done it right. It might be one day, but not right now and again realistic. So was a marathon realistic for Matt? Yes, now. He gave himself time to train. He had a wake-up time that he was committing to in the morning to run and train. That was a good example of using the SMART acronym to set goals. It's really important that you guys have goals, though.
Speaker 1:I've been doing this for over 12 years. I know what I'm made of. I know what I can do. You know I've gone out and done Ironman's 200 mile bike rides. Uh, failed on my 100 mile ultra marathon with my brother, my meniscus tore and my leg locked up at mile 30. But I would set these goals and these high reaching goals in my life because it pushed me to be my best self, and I do that with my family. You know my goal is to buy a mansion up here on the Riviera, one of the most sought after beautiful places in the world. I'm going to have a fucking beautiful mansion. I can already see it, I can feel it, I know it, I guarantee it. If I'm still alive, in a couple of years I'll be living in a mansion on the Riviera with my family, and so I'm always setting goals with my family ways. I want to provide for them.
Speaker 1:And then in my business, financial goals, benchmarks, stuff that you have to do each and every day to reach those benchmarks. So it gives you structure and it's like the old analogy of dangling the carrot in front of the horse right. Like like if you're on a cart back in the day, you dangle the carrot in front of the horse and it keeps pulling you forward. Your goals are going to stretch you and pull you forward into the future. A guy or a man or woman, without goals they're kind of just stagnant and when you're stagnant you don't have that spark in your life.
Speaker 1:For me, when I'm challenging myself, when I have a goal that I'm striving to reach, I'm pushing myself, I feel alive and that's why it's so important to set goals. So if you're listening to this right now, I'd recommend you set goals that are physical, goals that are related to your finances, goals that are related to your family, like go through all the important areas of your life and write down and set goals and use that SMART acronym and give yourself a time frame. I will complete this in 90 days. I will complete this in six months. You know, use shorter-term goals at first, and those shorter-term goals should connect you to a long-term vision of who you want to be.
Speaker 2:Okay, how does personal development help to build and maintain healthy relationships?
Speaker 1:how does personal development help to maintain and build healthy relationships? Well, it's obvious, dude, if you don't work on yourself and you feel like shit, you're not going to be good to anyone else. You know, when you work on yourself every day and you love who you see, you then transfer that love to other people. Like if you can't understand that, then you, fuck man, come on, wake up Like dude. If you're overweight, if you're eating bad food, if you're drinking, if you're looking in the mirror and you're like, damn, I don't want to be this guy, do you know that you're just poisoning your family and the people around you with that toxic energy, like you're emitting a frequency. So when you love yourself, you're like dude, I'm so grateful I did that marathon man. I'm so happy I lost that weight. I'm so grateful I committed to this life of sobriety. Like I went to the gym every day this year. Like I'm eating clean, I'm reading books, I'm developing myself, I'm growing.
Speaker 1:You transfer such a potent energy to the people around you and it's pure love, it's infectious. They feel it. You show language in your demeanor, in the way you speak, in the way you walk, and for me that's like the epitome of being a leader. That's the epitome of being a good partner. For my wife, that's the epitome of, you know, being somebody who's pursuing my visions in life, being a good parent, like it's all about how I take care of myself, you know. So, matt, do you want to touch on that? And then we're going to answer a question for Jose. He's got a question about something about taxes and finances.
Speaker 3:Yeah, run that question back one more time, Jerry.
Speaker 2:How does personal development help to build and maintain healthy?
Speaker 3:relationships. Well, I think, whenever you're working on yourself and this has been my experience in my own life is that you start to attract the right people into your life. Right, like Sean was just saying, you operate at a different frequency and just different opportunities and different people will find their way into your life and the people that aren't meant to be there will find their way out and so yeah, I mean it's pretty obvious the benefits, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we got a question from Jose how do you build credit with a new LLC and then credit cards, banking question mark. So, jose, if you're still on here, honestly it takes a little while to build an established business credit because you can't get a credit card. If you're a brand new business, you have nothing for them to go off of to provide. You have, like, no history of any financial information.
Speaker 1:So for you, it might make sense just to be a sole proprietor, and what that means is you still use your personal bank account. You would just have a separate credit card under your name that you use for business, like it wouldn't be a business credit card, it would be a credit card under your name that you only use for business expenses. And then you'd have your bank account and you'd make sure every month, all your bills are paid, all your expenses are paid. That's your kind of like. Your like what you're paying yourself as the boss, and then everything left over is profit and that's what you're going to get taxed on at the end of the year. So I would just look into being a sole proprietor for now. Man, you don't want to complicate it. Be a sole proprietor, get a credit card that you only use for business purposes and then just keep track of everything through that one bank account. So I hope that helped you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a DBA. That's a DBA. That's what I had first, and then I got an S Corp. Now I have an S Corp and an LLC, but you just need a DBA to start. That's all you need. All right, let's do one more question.
Speaker 2:How can mindfulness and meditation contribute to personal?
Speaker 1:growth. Oh, this is a good one. So you know, some people think like meditation and chakras and grounding and cold plunge and all this stuff is like redundant or irrelevant or unnecessary. But man, meditation has been proven to actually change the way your brain functions. You're getting blood flow to your brain and they do scans. So people pre and post transcendental meditation or just over the span of them meditating consistently, and science and research shows that there's widespread benefits better brain functioning, blood flow to the brain, a reduction like cortisol spikes and stress levels, better sleep a lot of factors that lead to a happier, healthier life.
Speaker 1:I love to meditate. You know I like to meditate after the sauna. Or I used to get up every morning and meditate in the morning to start my day and I'd get so many creative ideas. Like I'd just be lost in space and I'd get all these ideas. Like I'd see these images. I'd envision that house on the Riviera I told you I'm gonna buy. I'd envision my kids before they were born. I envision these moments right here, years before they ever materialize into my reality. So you create things twice in life once in that first image that you entertain and the second time in reality in a tangible form.
Speaker 1:Meditation gave me the opportunity to do that. I would just close my eyes, I would sit there on the floor, I'd put in headphones that went into some therapeutic music or a guided meditation type session and I would just take deep breaths in my nose, out my mouth, in my nose, out my mouth. That's all I would focus on is my breath, and after a while you kind of forget you're doing that and you're in a meditative state. But in that meditative state you're not reacting to other people. You're not, like you know, looking externally. You're tapped in on that internal level. You know, and for me that's where a lot of my creative ideas come from. A lot of the stuff I've been able to do and materialize in my life stem from those moments.
Speaker 1:So if you're somebody that feels stuck, you're somebody that feels stressed out, overwhelmed in life, I'd suggest meditating 10 minutes every morning. When you wake up, have a little notepad by you and when you come out of your meditation, write down what you experienced, write down your thoughts, your feelings, your ideas and then, if you have some cool ideas or things you want to do, act upon them. Send that text out, plan that event, do that thing, go talk to your wife, bring that idea into your business and over time, if you do that consistently, you will drastically alter your reality. Any final words, matt.
Speaker 1:So we went over a lot of stuff. We went over sobriety. We went over some taxes and financial information how to prioritize your health if you're either a busy parent or a busy blue-collar worker. The importance of really understanding why you're doing what you're doing in order to get through those tough, monotonous days. How to combat stress in a world full of stress when we have such a beautiful life we're making it really bad by the way we think and operate Fucking psychopaths, right, and then really just how to live the ultimate life, you guys. So I hope this episode was valuable for you. If you're on Facebook or Instagram, hope you got a lot of value from it. Shoot me a DM if you have any more questions and if you're on the podcast, please make sure you subscribe and share this episode with everybody that you know. I know that there's going to be something in there that was valuable for them.
