Shaun Newman Podcast - #302 - Matt Enns

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Former private investment advisor & currently the founder and head coach of SVRN Man Professional Coaching. We dive into quitting his job, tackling who he is & moving his family from BC to Texas. November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's. Get your tickets here: snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes/ Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

This is Brian Pekford. This is Danielle Smith. This is Glenn Healy. Hey, everybody. This is Paul Brand. This is Dr. Peter McCullough. Hi, everyone. This is Jamie Saleh, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. You know, I just had my mind partially blown. I had an email come in, long story short, it had the word fireside in a fireside chat. Anyways, I googled it because I was like, if you go back in the podcast, episode 100, and Raul McLean talks about it being, oh, it's kind of like a fireside chat. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly what this is, right?

I'm talking about the podcast. Anyway, so I've never Googled fireside chat before. And, of course, you know, I have an email come in, the word fireside chats in there. And for some reason, I decide to Google fireside chat. Well, it turns out the fireside chats were a series of evening radio addresses given by Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 193 and 9.

1994. It blew my mind. I was like, huh, well, there's a little piece of info for you. So if you've been listening for the last 200 episodes since Ron McLean came on on episode 100, he brings up fireside chat and I just, you know, I envision being at the lake, you know, sitting around a campfire and having a chat. That's what I envisioned. It turns out, and if everybody caught what he was talking about, I assume what he was talking about, then, And actually, no, 100 years ago, close to, a president of the United States. It was coined that as he talked to the radio, talked to the public, as they worked through some very, very troubling times back then.

Anyways, there's your little funny trivia for a Monday morning. Now, let's get on to today's episode. We've got a good episode. We've got great episodes coming this week. Good one today. Before we get there, today's sponsors. Canadians for Truth, non-profit organization, consistently on Canadians who believe in honest integrity and principle,

leadership in government as well as the Canadian Bill rights, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Rule of Justice Laws. I just got a tour of their 9,000 square foot facility, and let me just say I think my jaw was on the floor for 90% of it. Now, obviously they got renovations coming and all that good stuff, but sat down with Theo, and he gave me a walk around, you know, it's got a little bit of everything, and I'm curious to see, I think it's September 25th is their first broadcast, and I'm really, really, interested to see how that goes and everything else it comes with it so if you're looking to see

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and what that's going to mean to everybody. So we're working together there. In the meantime, if you're interested in importing firearms, they specialize in importing firearms from the United States of America. They've got a great selection, man. Their showroom now is something else. So if you're in town, make sure to stop in a Proffer River. They are the major, well, the team at Proffert River does all the appropriate paperwork on both sides of the border if you're trying to get one in from the United States into Canada.

All you've got to do is go to Profitriver.com. They are the major retailer of firearms, optics, and accessories serving all of Canada. Tyson and Tracy Mitchell with Mitchco Environmental, they are in full swing right now as the spraying season continues on. It's going to be, you know, as I think about it here, they're going to have a bunch of their workforce heading back to college. Geez, where did summer go? I don't know.

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tail of the tape, brought to you by Hancock Petroleum for the past 80 years. They've been an industry leader in bulk fuels, lubricants, methanol, and chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial or oil-filled locations. For more information, visit them at Hancockpatroleum.com. He's a former private investment advisor, founder and head coach of sovereign man professional coaching.

I'm talking about Matt Enz. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Matt Enz. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast. Today, I'm joined by Matt Enz. So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on.

Thank you for having me. Now, I've been listening to Matt all morning and all yesterday, but for the audience member who's just tuning in today and doesn't know who Matt is. let's start with a little bit of your background and we'll just kind of jump in here mad as we as we go along so if you want to you know give a brief long summary it doesn't really matter to me whatever you think is important for the the audience to know okay let's rock yeah um well um i am a coach for um i help men who are not sure if they love the job they're currently doing figure out if they should sort of reorient themselves and approach their job with more appreciation or if they need to in fact go off and do something else. And if they do, I can help them through that process.

And I came to this as my occupation over a very, very long period of time. And most relevantly for this discussion, I was for all of my 20s, pretty much, I was an investment advisor with the biggest bank-owned investment firm in Canada, which because of the oligopoly that exists in Canada in the finance sector, we're actually the fifth largest big I shouldn't say we anymore but that company is the fifth largest wealth management company in the world so

hyper competitive industry very very much a grind industry you know hit the phones hit the seminars hit the mailouts nonstop and I really enjoyed it and I was kind of working my way through it but when I got to a level where I finally had the success that I was chasing for social long

I realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do So it was one of those stories where I kind of achieved that success at a young and of age to know that that's not actually what I wanted. And I had this enormous opportunity to, you know, kind of double or triple my income from what was already a pretty good income. And to my great surprise, I was very, very disappointed and kind of sad about the whole thing. And so as I tried to kind of unpack that, I came to the surprising realization that what I had been working at for most of my adult life was not actually what I wanted to do. And so from there, I had to sort of figure out what I wanted to do and go deep inside of myself and figure out, you know, who am I? What do I want? Why have I been on the wrong path for so long? And how can I figure that out? And so that's led me to where I am now, which is, I'm sure we're getting to a very different place than I was even just, you know, even just a year ago, but especially, you know, the last two, three, four, five years. So just so I have this correct, you were about to double or triple your income. You enjoyed the job. You enjoyed the job. job, but you went, I don't know if this is what I want to do for life. Like when I listen to it,

I'm like, man, like so many people would maybe kill. That's a terrible way to put it, but would love to be in that situation, right, where you're making very good money to be in a job that's probably stable, blah, blah, blah. I can, I can add on a ton of there. And yet, uh, I, I know firsthand from where I sit, because I quit a very well-paying job to come do this every day, right? And, and so I fully understand, but I think it's good for the audience maybe to understand where your mindset was at when you're, you know, you're almost a decade in working a job that's, you can see where it's going and it's going to very wealthy places, rich places, lots of money, that type of thing. We can certainly use those terms in different ways. I just, I guess I'm, I kind of want to crawl in

the brain of Matt for a second here and see exactly what was going through your brain at those times. Was it, was it pressures from, you know, family and friends? Or was it just the workplace drain of like, man, I don't know if I can sit in this cubicle and make phone calls the rest of my life. Yeah. Well, I should probably mention that my personal life was falling apart. So that was a huge determining factor in all this. And what I realized throughout this process was that part of the reason, you know, definitely not the primary reason, but one of the reasons why my personal life was falling apart was, was my career. But the underlying reason was that I was not living in alignment with who I was. And this first started to occur to me, you know, during

COVID when I was working from home for the first time really ever. I had flexible work hours, but I primarily worked in the office. And I just realized like how much I loved being at home, how much I loved having that extra time to be by myself and to be introspective and to work at my own pace. And that got me sort of questioning, you know, more fundamentally, why am I going into the office? Like, you know, if I, if I didn't realize how much I love being at home compared to being in the office, how much more about my job is there that I'm confused about, essentially. And at the same time, you know, the world was changing because of COVID. My wife and I were separated. I was struggling with a very, very long-term addiction to alcohol. And, you know, all that's kind of happening at the

same time. And for the first time of my life, I started to be genuinely honest with myself and say, you know, you're living this life that isn't yours. You're sort of on this track where you've been going from A to B to C to D, just because that kind of feels like that's the next thing you're supposed to do. But never because I'd actually sat down, understood myself, understood my proclivities, my nature, my desires out of life, chosen my own destination, and then structured my life as a way to reach toward that destination. I was just on, you know, I was in the matrix, like so many people are, right? It's like you go to school for, you know, 15 years and you're taught to obey and to ask when

you go pee. And then, you know, once you're done that, well, the next thing you do is you go to university. And once you've done that, this next thing you do is to go to a corporation. And then he started to work with the corporation and make more money. And then you buy the house and you get the car, the second car. And I wanted a lot of that, luckily, but I didn't want all of that. And I wasn't going down that path because it was my path. I was just on that path.

And after a while, it became more and more intolerable in smaller and smaller ways. And that's part of why the drinking, the marital problems, all those things came up because I wasn't living a life that was causing me fulfillment. So I had no fulfillment to share with the people around me. I'm glad you kind of gave a little bit more of a backstory because just to be like upset with your job or whatever, not upset. Just you get the point. But you tack on everything else and you go, I feel like a lot of people understand that. You know, I had this.

I'd be curious what your maybe light bulb moment or, you know, red flag moment, whatever it was. I was watching, this is us with my with my. wife and there's this moment where uh god and i'm forgetting character names but the husband the dad um has been out drinking and and he's laying on the outside of of the floor and she comes and sits by him and basically he's like you know when you're you're great but when you're like this you're like pretty much great to no one my wife didn't have to say boo she's an amazing woman but i've watched that and i'm like that's me at times not all the time i'm definitely not there but but that is me and it was one of those light bulb moments of i need to start

changing this. And that was a few years ago now and I started writing about it and started, you know, some of the stuff that I've listened to you talk about and certainly want to get to is, is starting to like understand yourself a little bit better. And I think a lot of people, especially through the age we live in, COVID, all these things, you can have a lot going on personally. And if you can't find the root of some of that, it can be a really tough problem to solve. So when I come back to your job, I'm glad you expanded because, I mean, being separated and drinking, those two right there, man, those are two problems that would weigh heavy on a lot of people.

Yeah, and they definitely weighed heavy on me. And I had been doing, you know, I had been not showing up in my marriage as I should have been. And not even because there wasn't the desire to. I just didn't know how, right? I was doing the best that I could at the time. And I was surviving the life that I'd built for myself. and I was surviving the beliefs that I built for myself, you know, throughout that time.

And luckily for me, the pain in my life became so acute that I had to sit down and take a look at everything and be like, okay, the beliefs that I've built for myself to live by, the life that I'm building, the career that I have, obviously it's not functional. Like reality is slapping me in the face over and over and over again and saying, hey, this is not working. Like, okay, you're making money. You're finally starting to make good money. But other than that, like, nothing in your life is where you want it to be. And so do you want to just continue to live the way you're living? Or do you want to acknowledge that and say, okay, that's on me. What did I do wrong?

And when I started asking myself that question, to my dismay, there was no end to that answer. Like every question I answered meant 10 new questions popped up. And you mentioned another podcast that I was on where I talked about this a little bit more. And I had to go on this journey where I started asking myself, honestly, okay, this isn't going well. What about your beliefs, your behavior? yours, your habits, your decisions contributed to that. Not what did somebody else do, what did life do? This is just how things is. What did I do to cause that problem? And when you honestly ask yourself that and you actually want to know the answer, like you get an answer that you don't want

and you get, if you've been ignoring them your whole life, you get that deluge of answers like over and over and over again. And it took me 18 months of asking myself those questions for one, two, three hours a day before I finally ran out of like really big answers to work on. And so by the end of that, it was like, there wasn't a whole lot of me left. And so to rebuild from that point wasn't even necessarily like a decision I made. It was kind of just like, well, the person that you are now is nothing like the person who lived in life that you built previously. So if you're going to take a second shot of this, if you're going to have a second chance in your career, in your marriage, in your life, managing your addictions, you better rebuild this in a way

that's consistent with the part of you that you found that is genuinely you, the part of you that's left over after asking all those hard questions. A couple of things, as you were telling a bit of your story. One of them was I wasn't showing up in my marriage like basically you didn't know how to do any different. When you say that sentence, what did you exactly mean? I did not understand feminine needs as compared to masculine needs. So, you know, probably in an effort to be empathetic towards my wife, I tried to put myself

in her shoes and imagine what she would want. me to do. And I tried to do those things. And I did them inconsistently and sporadically. And what I really needed to do was rather than trying to figure out a solution and then enact that solution once or twice. It's like, oh, I should do more dishes. So I'm going to do the dishes twice this week. And then expect my wife to be all ecstatic about it and, you know, hop in bed with me. What I needed to do was, like, deeply understand who she was, her needs and also understand, you know, that the feminine needs are different than masculine needs. So just because I'm trying to provide solutions for her

or trying to get our finances to a good place, that's not all that she needs. She needs me to show up in a different way. She needs me to show up in a way that indicates through my action consistently over the long term that I'm aware of what she wants and needs and I'm supporting her in that particular way. So how did you change then from then until now? What was one of the big things that you've done?

I mean, once again, there's probably several. But, you know, like you mentioned the dishes. Well, I think lots of women would say, well, that's a given. You got to be doing the dishes. I chuckle about it, right? But what really changed the mentality-wise of since then until now that's helped prepare some of that? Rather than looking at marriage as like, okay, I got to figure out what the four or five boxes I got to tick to make her happy are. It's like, I have to be the person who naturally ticked.

those boxes, whatever they are. So rather than thinking, okay, she's upset that I don't do enough about the house, I should try to do more around the house. It's like, I should actually become a person who cares about the house and who wants to expand the sense of order in the house. So rather than saying, okay, well, fuck, you know, she's mad at me. I guess like I'll try to do the dishes. Like, I'll try to do them like, I'll do the dishes every day this week. I'm going to try and do that. And then you do that and it's happy in it lasts a week and, you know, whatever. It doesn't really, it doesn't fix anything. Whereas now, I try, I've tried to train myself to be like, okay, the state of the house matters. Whitney works very, very hard in the house. I need to,

at the very least, not contribute to that. And I need to have a constant attitude of trying to make the house look better. So when there are messes here and there, like, just to clean them out, just to clean them up before it becomes an issue that I know she's concerned about and that I know she wants to ask me to help with, like just be a partner in the house without that need having to arise first. Does that, does that, does that? that makes sense at all? You know, I think when you looked at it from, I'm going to help ease her problems to their my problems. I think that's just a mentality change, right? Of like, this is my house too. And my kids are making just as much a mess as her kids are because there are kids.

It's just a, it's a bit of a mentality change, right? Like I, yeah, I just, I go back to when you're making your big shift, you know, there's a lot going on in life for you, you know? And, and it's not just success. It's it's multiple different things as is in every person's life, I think, right? Like, you know, I've listened to you talk about this. I mentioned this before we started, you know, you're a career coach and you try and orientate people from, you know, running away from hell to running to heaven. I hope I said that right. Did I say that right? And one of the things I was curious about, you know, is like that's Jordan Peterson 2.0 pretty much. Like Jordan talks a lot about orientating your life, right, cleaning your room, taking ownership for oneself, that type of thing.

And so I totally get what you're trying to say. The thing that I struggle with now, and I'm saying this before we started is, I agree with that, you know, you want to run to the good. So for three years, I ran as hard as I could in my ever-awaking hours to build a podcast and to get it to there, right? And now you're down in Texas, which is super cool. I'm kind of curious on how you got down there and why you left Canada, but we can table that for a second. But now that you're down there and you're doing things that you want to be doing and you're out of the other rat race, how do you continue to motivate yourself to get to the next mountain peak

or whatever you want to call it, right? Because, you know, like we all have goals. And normally you're supposed to write goals off into like, you know, I'm pointing to the air, nobody can see me anyways. You know, like a mountain peak and then the next one and then the next one. and then the next one and the next one. And when you get there, you should have another one. So you're constantly motivating yourself.

But that's tough because some of those goals, it is like climbing Mount Ambrose for a lot of people. And that can be as small as just going in the gym for six months in a row or whatever their goal is to building a podcast kind of thing. And I was curious on your thoughts on being in heaven, so to speak, to use some of your words. Yeah. So to turn that back a little bit, so there's a difference between running from hell and running towards heaven. And the vast majority of people spend most of their life, if not their entire life, running from hell. And what that means is they're showing up to work so their boss doesn't get mad at them and they don't lose their job. They're doing the dishes so their wife doesn't get mad at them.

They're going to the gym because they hate being fat. And so it's all this like running from hell. And that's not necessarily a bad thing because, you know, if you are overweight and you want to stop being overweight, like that's a powerful motivating force because like you're, you're tired, you're unhappy, you lack pride in yourself. And so that's a powerful motivating force to get you to the gym. But if you keep going, eventually what's going to happen is you're no longer going to be fat. And if you're eating well, obviously. And so then you have to do this massive paradigm shift, which is you have to switch from running from hell to

running towards heaven. So you have, so when you're no longer motivated by those negative factors, like if you're no longer overweight, and this is what happens to a lot of people is they stop going to the gym then because they kind of lost the thing that was motivated. So you have, motivating them to go there. And what needs to happen is the switch to running towards heaven. So in that case, what you have to do is rather than running from all these things that are trying to hurt you or that you're afraid of, you have to consciously and intentionally construct things and construct a vision that's enticing enough for you that you're happy to run towards it. And so if we're going to the gym, that might mean, okay, well, I'm, I'm, you know,

I'm decent shape now. Why do I keep going to the gym? My whole reason to go to the gym was losing weight. It's like, well, find a vision that's compelling for you. Maybe you compete in a martial arts tournament. Maybe you do a marathon. Maybe you want to just look more physically buff. And once you create that vision, then you can keep going to the gym in pursuit of that vision. And I think if we get, you know, and that's a, that's a very big switch to make because it's almost like a predator versus prey thing. You know, when you're in a state of predation when something's chasing you, you release very, very similar chemicals to when you're the predator. But the actual nervous system, state is very, very different.

And obviously the motivation is very, very different. So they might seem similar from the outside. But when you're going on that journey, it's a profoundly different experience. And more specifically to your point, when you have arrived in heaven, you know, when, you know, like in my own life, when I have an unbelievable marriage now, my kids are thriving. I live where I want to live. I have this beautiful, abundant life that I just could not be more thrilled about. I have, you know, no addictions, nothing. that running from hell is no longer obviously.

A motivator. Yeah. Yeah. So what you have to do then is you have to start creating more difficult and more compelling visions of heaven. Right. So whatever mountain you've just climbed, take that time to let that settle in to adjust to that new reality and then begin to construct a new vision of where you want

to be next. And this time, you know, rather than constructing that vision based on like, I don't want to feel this, I don't want to feel that. I don't want to have this. I don't want this person to be mad at me or angry at me. then you say, I'm so ecstatic about this thing. I want to experience that more deeply. I love that I have access to this.

I want to have more access to that. And you build this hyper, hyper motivating visions that when you wake up in the morning to go chase, whatever it is you're going after, you don't need to be afraid anymore because it's so exciting that you can't stop yourself from working towards it. That's the pivot, the pivot switch. When you talk about weight, I think a lot of people get that. I get that. I had this idea back before COVID because it was while I was,

it was after the birth for our second child, I believe. I had the anyways, I gained a bunch of weight. So I had this, you know, I'm going to set these things in motion. You know, I started very small because I realized once I started writing about it, I'm like, oh my God, if you try and fix 50 things at once, you're not going to fix anything, right? It's almost too confusing for you to see a build, or at least I don't know your thoughts on this, but I built one thing at a time. So I actually started out with a, we'd read a book.

And in the book was a guy who talked about a push-up a day. Because when you go down for a push-up a day, you don't go down for a push-up a day. You do five or ten or as you do it more and more, you get up to 50. And then you get bored of it because you're like, I don't want to get down to do 50 push-ups or 100 push-ups. It's just, and so what comes next is you go to the gym. Anyway, so I did this. The problem was, is then you got to a weight where you thought you wanted to be. and then what's the next step? And that's a difficult, to me, you hit on something there because

that's a difficult thing. What's next? And you have to find something next to keep going because if you don't and you just rest on your laurels, so to speak, that's where you do stop doing everything that got you there. And then you fall back down or up or whatever we're going to call it, so to speak, I would think. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And, you know, I, First of all, I totally agree with you about like sort of that minimum incremental progress. I heard a story once about a person who they hated working out, hated exercising. They were grossly obese. And so they started going to the gym, walking inside, staying there for 60 seconds,

and then going home. They did that for 40 days. Just went to the gym, came home, didn't exercise or anything. And then they started to slowly add in a few minutes of exercise. And then, you know, you have that cascading effect. And, you know, a year later, they lost 120 pounds or something. And that's how I construct everything in my program with my clients. is like you have to create a goal that's challenging enough that it excites you to actually

complete it, but doable enough that you're likely to actually get it done. So I have people who come in and they're like, let's just say their lives aren't perfectly put together. And they're like, okay, I'm waking up at 4.30 a.m. every day. I'm going to the gym for an hour and a half. Then I'm going to do breathing and meditation. Then it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's like you haven't got up before 10 a.m. in two years. Like, how about like, would you feel happy if we got up at like 840 for one whole week? It's like, yeah, yeah, I actually would feel good about that. Okay, well, let's just start there. And then we can start adjusting that once we build on that success. Once you get that dopamine and that reward and you start getting into the cadence of winning, then you can start adjusting that and getting more, you know, more challenging with it. But like you said, if you keep doing this, eventually you're going to get to a place

where you have no more, you know, very obvious problems, no more gaping wounds. And it's like, well, what do I do now? Like my whole life, I've been running from these. problems like hell that just kind of pop up on their own. And heaven does not just pop up on its own. Heaven is something that each of us has to intentionally construct and then begin to align our actions with that future. And yeah, like you said, it's a total pivot. So the things that got you to, or the nervous state and the mental state that got you to the place where you eliminated those massive problems, it's not going to be the thing that gets you to your vision

of heaven. It's got to be a totally different process. Well, and here's the thing. Here's the, here's the the thing that I've had to wrestle with, right? So you get to, and I'm talking weight right now. I'm just talking, working out and going to the gym. You get to where you're like, you're in really good shape. And then you fall all the way down the hill. And you know how to get back to the top of the hill, but you can't do that by pressing the easy button, right?

Like by hopping right back into what exactly you said, I'm going to get up at 5.30 in the morning. I'm going to do this and this and yoga. And what you just said is I laugh on this side, because I'm like, I know, probably the most frustrating thing is you know exactly what got you to the first top, but you have to start back at the bottom, maybe a little more advanced, but you actually have to go back to the bottom of the hill and slowly work your bay back up until you get back

to where you were before. And then recall that lesson so you can continue on. Yeah. I mean, that's great. That's a real mind fuck, like of getting all the way down in the bottom and going, and I was literally just right there. What am I doing? Like, it's self-defeating, to be honest.

But COVID did that certainly to me, like COVID was brutal on me for that. And, you know, and I can just imagine for a ton of people, that's exactly what happened. Because COVID just took everything away, right? Took the gym away for a lot of people. And, you know, and it was like, well, I'll just go outside for a walk. I don't want to go outside for a walk. I got into a routine. I was doing this and this and this. And then I've just taken it all the way. And then you get self-defeating. And, you know, I'm no professor on this. I just know what I've experienced. And I sympathize for a lot of people. And probably the toughest thing in my, my world is standing at the bottom of the hill looking at

I got to start push up a day again, you know, just so you can, like you say, get the wins. And with the wins, you start getting better and more confident. And then you start pushing the boulder, you know, back up the hill away you go. And for a lot of people, it's hard too, because if you've already been up that hill and fell back down, like the first time, it's a lot more enticing because you're like, I've never been up there. I've never been in this good shape. I've never gone to the gym consistently. When you've already done it, you're like, oh, I've done this before. I know how hard it is.

And I'm just going to be at the place that I already was. it's not super motivating. And sometimes what helps in that situation is to introduce some kind of novelty, especially if you're a creative person, it seems like you are, to introduce some sort of novelty to make it different from the last time. I'm not going to do exactly the same thing that I did last time, because this time's different. I'm going to do different types of exercises at the gym.

I'm going to do outdoor workouts instead of inside. I'm going to do jiu-jitsu instead of weightlifting. Like whatever it is, but sometimes introducing that novelty makes going up that top of the hill a little bit easier because you're going, you know, at least a different pass. It's a little bit more encouraging. Yeah. Everybody always talks about JiuJitsu. You know, the first episode I ever did in this podcast, go back to 2019 February, a group of five of us men had just started a morning class of Jiu Jitsu. We just come, like literally that was the first I did it. I did it for like a month later and I haven't done it since. And I hear, you know,

I know Drew Weatherhead and in that group and they, oh, you know, Drew is a black belt, right? geez like I wouldn't want to get in fist cuffs with him but um everybody just raves about it and I I'm like I get the idea because it like you suck when you start like you're getting like there's nothing more to humble you than jujitsu um do you do jizu then as well are you a yeah are you a big proponent of that yeah I actually maybe the only career program in the world where um like week six is like choose a sparring martial art um and it can be jihitsu it can be wrestling, moitai boxing. It doesn't really matter. As long as it's a sparring martial art where you're actually, you know, you're not just doing, you know, Katas.

So many of us, especially in 2022, we're so removed from the cause and effect world where like our decisions don't have immediate consequences. You know, we grew up wearing bicycle helmets, even if you fell off your bike, your head was safe. And, you know, politicians can make any promise they want. It doesn't really matter if they'd fulfill them. Experts in the political class and the economic class can be wrong about every single thing they say for five straight years and then get promoted to the highest office of the land. And when you're in Jiu-Jitsu, you are forced to align your beliefs and your actions with reality every single second of every role. Because if you think that you can just push somebody off of you, because you're bigger than

them, you're going to get armed part every time you do that. So eventually you're going to have to say, okay, as much as I want to just push people off of me, I can't do that because I'm getting immediate feedback that somebody has the option of breaking my arm every single time I do that. And so it starts to repattern your. brain to be in alignment with reality and to be willing to receive feedback from reality, especially when it's painful to the ego. And there's a lot of guys who start jujitsu, and they have this idea that like, okay,

I'm a naturally athletic guy. I'm like stronger than the average person. I'd be fine. And if I can take care of my wife. I can take care of my kids if I need to because it's all good. Like I've got that natural in me. Like I see black blow, bro. Like I get really angry.

And then go to jiuitsu and then a 130 pound girl kicks the right. ass and then they're like, oh man, they can't handle it and they don't go back. Right? And then they never grow and they stay the same and they live in this world that's like moderately aligned with reality. But then other people, they go, oh, I guess I'm wrong about my own capabilities. I have to now accept about myself that I'm not as tough and as good at fighting as I am. And I have to go get humbled over and over and over and over and over again until by allowing

myself to get humbled over and over and over and over again and losing and getting beat and getting tapped and getting choked, I can eventually, over six months a year, two years, get to the place where I am now a competent fighter. And that forces you to learn to be okay with being bad at something until you get good at it. And it forces you to adjust your self-perception to more closely match reality. And I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do because you can then carry that learning and that new mindset that you've created into every other area of your life. life, into business, into relationships, like into marriage, into parenting, where you are less likely to be tricked by your own bullshit because you've had that choked out of you 150 times

in the last six months. You know, when I hear you talk about jiu-jitsu, I think of podcasting. I really do. And I should back that by saying, try being a hockey guy and then talking about politics. You know, when you say a politician gets to say whatever they want and then nothing comes of it and that type of thing, I'm like, I get that. you know anyways all i was getting is uh i hope and i i'm certainly not uh perfect at this actually i'm probably really uh green at this but uh one of the things about conversation and

confrontation and conversation and having to respect somebody else's opinion or or poke at it and go back and forth and everything else is you put yourself in like these really weird conversations and i half the time uh matt i swear i'm not good at it like i'm just like oh i i think i bombed on that episode but you expose yourself to it. And by exposing, you're actually getting better because now you've heard something and maybe you didn't like that and whatever and you move on. And I think there's a lot of similarities. And I don't know if I'm right on this. I might be just spitball on this. I think you're absolutely right. Podcasting and jiu jitzy. One's physical, obviously, one more mental. But even in jiuitsu,

there's a lot of mental there. When you got, you know, you talk about being able to lift a guy off you. I remember when we were doing it, I had a guy that was probably like 220 solid muscle laying on me and it almost knocked the wind out of me and being under that you have to mentally figure out what you're going to do as you're like in pain and can't breathe and blah blah blah blah blah blah so I see a lot of similarities

I guess is all I'm trying to get at yeah and there are a lot of occupations where that feedback is immediate you know you can look at an episode and you can see the audience reaction or the view counts or the comments and you can figure out okay that wasn't as good as I thought it was or that was actually better than I thought it was and I'm doing like social media for the first time so I'm

doing like little Instagram videos and stuff. And a lot of the time I'll be like, oh, this is a really good one. And it'll get no engagement, no views. And I'm like, okay, you know, I can say that the universe is wrong. Yeah, well, fuck me. I guess I was wrong on that. I was wrong. Yeah.

And then you get another one and you're like, I'm not going to post this. I'm like, no, no, post that one. I think it's good. I'm like, all right, you're wrong. I post it. It's like it gets all these views and all this engaging. People are messaging me. And it's like that's immediate feedback.

And that exists in a lot of industries, right? Especially in the more blue collar hands-on industries, right? So you can have any theory you want about a radiator, but if you don't fix it properly, like the car is not going to run properly. Yeah. Right. And I think that's actually why you see like in the truckers convoy and other things like this, it tends to be the blue collar working class that are least likely to be tricked by

a silly political theories and nonsense like that because they are in a world of direct engagement with reality where if they're wrong, they have immediate feedback. And so they have to keep their beliefs in alignment with reality. if you are a career politician or a bureaucrat or something like that, whether your policy prescriptions work or don't work has almost nothing to do with whether or not you get promoted and have long-term employment in the bureaucracy. So it's very easy for that type of mindset to be misaligned from reality over time and to be more easily tricked by the theories of those above them. That's an interesting point. You're right. I mean, that's an interesting point.

because politicians, a lot of them, and I once again, I always, I always point this out to the audience. I swear my audience is way smarter than I ever am. But one of the things, a lot of politicians is you can fail and still move up, wherein, you know, I just take, you know, let's take martial arts like you do UFC, you lose, you ain't going anywhere, right? Hockey, I have a big hockey. You lose in the first round of the playoffs. You ain't going on in the Stanley Cup. And that's an interesting thought. I hadn't really thought about it that way. You know, like, I wonder if that's a problem in our political system. I think it absolutely is.

Whether you're, you know, on south of the border or not, like, you look at, you know, two prominent politicians right now, Fauci, Biden, Trudeau, like, these guys do not have a track record of saying, this is how I think this thing is going to go. And then that thing actually goes that way. They've been making incorrect predictions for their entire career. They have a track record of being wrong about almost everything they've said for their entire career. And it seems to have zero impact whatsoever on their popularity. And in the bureaucracy, it's the same thing.

It's like, you move ahead primarily by producing policies that gain the approval of the power makers above you. You don't move up the bureaucracy by producing policies that have the intended effect in the real world. That has almost nothing to do with advancing in that words. So it's these different pressures that you have that influences the way you think and the way that you make decisions. And I think the vast majority of the world would benefit so much from trying to build a rocking chair even. Because if you have a theory about how to build a rocking chair, but every time you sit on it, it crashes and it splinters into pieces, it's like you have to adjust your theory to reality. And in a digital world, in a socially isolated world, in a world where hunger and predators are not genuine daily threats, for the vast majority of people,

it's very easy to live outside of alignment with reality and never have any feedback that pushes you, that pushes you harshly back into it. Yeah. I'm wrestling with that thought. You've got me, I'm going to probably chew on that for a bit. I get to sit down,

I get to sit down, you know, I don't know when this episode release. It might be on the day that I'm doing it. So I believe today is Monday, folks. I hope I'm banging this wrong. If this is Wednesday, I apologize.

But I'm pretty sure on Monday, this comes out, which means tonight I host a debate with four of the people who are trying to become the next Premier of Alberta, right? And I get to do it in a roundtable setting for an hour of the event, which I'm really excited for Matt, because to my knowledge, it hasn't been done, at least in Alberta. You know, here's four people vying to become Premier, but they're all in the same side. They're all in the Conservative Party, right? So I look at it and I go, in my hockey background, You don't pick a captain by destroying your teammates. The teammate that rises to the top,

all of them vote for that person, right? Like, that's what ends up happening. Sure, there can be a couple of front runners, and they become assistant captains, and you move on. You kind of get the idea. I think in Canada, we all get the idea. And so I have this opportunity to put four people on a stage

and go, how do we best do this so the leader rises to the top without saying, you're an idiot, you're an idiot, you're an idiot, I'm the best. You know what I mean? And I don't know if that's being done right now. Yeah, I mean, you would know this much better than me, but it seems that a lot of the time, like, the debates are not so much debates as everybody's got their vision of how the debate's supposed to go. And then the moderator is either to choose one side of that debate or just to create controversy, right?

And so in a situation like that where everybody is somewhat on the same team and you actually have the opportunity to ask genuine questions, it'll be interesting to see who actually and. answers the questions genuinely, instead of doing the more typical thing, which is like, oh, here's an opportunity for me to make a sound bite. Yeah, but the interesting thing about this is it won't be, oh, your 30 seconds is up, and they're off the hook. They're not off the hook at any point in time, because not only do I get to hold them accountable, hopefully, the other three individuals on the stage get to hold them accountable because there's no break in the conversation for an hour. It's a roundtable. It's like me and you sitting here and talking.

Imagine, this will never happen, but imagine like Trump, Biden, or even sticking to Democrats, Biden and Bernie Sanders and a couple other people sitting down and having to have a moderator debate, allow them for to just talk amongst themselves about current problems. And I'd have no idea. Like maybe the pitchforks will come out and I'll be like, holy crap, this is a terrible idea. Or maybe it'll be, you know, just like kind of slowly evolve into some. something that's really beautiful that maybe just shows that person is who's going to be the next premier. You can already see it and you just move on with life. I have no idea. I'm excited for it. Anyways, this took a hard left turn other than you're right. I think a lot of failing and moving up in politics seems to be, you know, like a common theme for a lot of different career politicians,

doesn't it? Yeah, for sure. And I don't think that's going to change until the electorate begins to demand something different, right? Until the electric goes, no, like, we want to actually see that you've said you're going to do things and then you actually try to do those things. But right now it seems to be the case that what the electorate demands is pretty words and answers that appease their emotions in the moment. And then whether or not you actually follow through on those is kind of irrelevant. And I think that the following through on things is becoming hopefully more relevant.

I feel like we're all, maybe I'm being general with this, I feel like there's at least in our neck of the woods, maybe, and maybe I'm wrong on this. I don't know. Maybe I feel like there's going to be more emphasis on following through on what you said. Yeah. I think there's definitely that. I mean, number one,

we've seen that that's just necessary. I mean, there has to be some accountability for what you believe in. I mean, I was thinking of this example from Rome where it's like, if you are in charge of building a bridge, you build a bridge, it collapses and someone's sun dies. It's like, well, bridge builder, your son now gets executed.

Right? I'm not advocating that. But it's like that produces a system of accountability. So there's something there's something there. I'm not advocating that again, but there's something there, right? When there's absolutely no accountability for doing things poorly or for breaking promises, there's a problem. And we're starting to see that that's a problem.

But beyond that, I think why we're starting to hold people accountable is the emergence of social media and independent media like yourself. where you can say things to your audience that you would not be able to say if you're on a nationally syndicated TV show. And rather than one or two monolithic narratives, there's now this proliferation of like tons and tons of different voices. And so there are actually many, many narratives that want to hold these people accountable, which there wasn't before. And when you have social media where everybody has a voice and where you can actually sort of get to know somebody on their social media, even if you don't know them, even if you get on stage and you're saying all these things, if they are completely inconsistent with who you are,

and there are brand new things you've never said before, and it's totally contradictory to who you were five or ten years ago, there's a digital record of that, and we can all access that. So there's this citizen-led accountability because we can actually see the other side, we can see how you used to be, and we can see you on your social media. We don't just have the news at five as the only way we're getting information about people.

So it's really encouraging to see that politicians, some of them, you know, like Pierre Pauli have on a national level, Daniel Smith on a provincial level, they're starting to engage more in that social media world and that alternate media world and say, hey, you know, here's who I am. It's actually me. I've been doing this the same way for a really long time, even if I've made mistakes and I've done it imperfectly, but like I really believe in these ideas. I've been doing it for a long time. And I think those are the people that are going to in the future.

just destroy these other career politician types who are sound bites over here and then real life over here because it's very, very hard to do that in 22. There's too many cameras. Yeah. And I would just put in one caveat in there. I think as an audience, as a group of people, if you go back into 10 years of whoever you want, we should be allowed that we should have the capability to know they can change. And as long as they talk to that, I think it's, should be perfectly acceptable, right? Like 10 years ago, I thought X. Now, after doing 300 podcasts, I can tell you, my brain has changed. And if you go back to the first 50, the first hundred, things are constantly involving. I mean, I'm sure you are too, Matt, right? The more people

you interact with and are open and willing to have a dialogue with, things are going to change. And I give space for politicians to be like that as well. But they, here's the thing they need to be able to do. They need to own that. I'm not saying that's the thing. Yeah, exactly. You can't sit here and go, oh, I got this wrong and I got that wrong. I get that. But you can say I got something wrong and then deal with the critics and move on with life. I think a lot of the population would be okay with that. Absolutely. And if you own that, you're like, hey, I used to think this and here's what happened. And now I think this. And like, this is why I changed. It's like, that's being a genuine human being. And I think that's very, very relatable. And it doesn't matter

the mistakes you've made or the bad things that you, the policies that you had in the past that you now disagree with. If you own that and you have that sense of integrity to say that, I think that's endearing to the population. What I'm talking about more so is like the politicians who just pretend they didn't say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's no explanation for why they flipped except for polls and they never address, okay, so you used to believe A and now you believe Z. And you're just saying you believe Z as if you've always believed it. Justin Rudeau. We have to be respectful of everyone. And then six months earlier, he was basically condemning the unvaccinated as misogynist and everything else.

And you're like, this guy has one screw loose, maybe 20 screws loose. We see it here in Canada on a daily basis. It's not even funny anymore how the leader of the country gets to act a certain way. You know, I just come back to with that man, National Reconciliation Day for the First Nations, and he was caught surfing in Tafino. I know it's a story that's been told over and over and over again. But it's so ridiculous. And the fact there wasn't more outrage, or maybe there was, and I just didn't see it, is almost mind-boggling because that rate there is what it is.

He's saying one thing and then doing completely the opposite. And that's what we're talking about. Anyways, I digress. No, I don't think it's a digression. I think he's a perfect example of how you should not live. I mean, I know people who know him personally, and like they all are unanimous that he's a scumbag. And I don't think that's hard to tell by watching him. but if you only watch the news that's provided by the outlets that he subsidizes,

I wonder if there's a relation, you'll get a very different picture of him, and all of the inconsistencies and the contradictions will be ignored. But again, there are a group of people who still think that the mainstream news is trustworthy and is the sole arbiter of truth. And like, okay, go do that. See how that works. See if that brings you to a life that's aligned with reality.

And there's another group of people who are waking up to alternative media and to curating their own sources of information as risky and as difficult as that is. And they're seeing the true picture. They're seeing the citizen news person with the camera watching the CBC camera person. And you're saying, oh, those are two opposite stories that are taking place. One is real. One is the falsely curated one by the CBC. And as you see that, you can't unsee that.

And then when you see the guy on TV, you know, running his mouth about this or that, you have to look at that and say, okay, I know for a fact you're full of shit. And it's now very difficult for me to trust you. But when you see other people and like even if their opinions change over time, you can tell they have the same principles that they've been espousing on and off camera for 10 or 20 years. It's like, okay, maybe you've made mistakes. Maybe you have things that I disagree with. Maybe I don't like policy X, Y, or Z.

But I trust that you're a real person. And social media and citizen media and independent media is finally giving us a chance. to actually tell who's who. And yeah, I mean, I know how I think that's going to end, but I hope more people will wake up to it soon. I hope more people wake up to it soon as well. Where boats in Canada were you based before this, Matt? I mean, you're in Texas. Where boats were in Canada were you before?

I grew up in Ottawa and then spent about half of the last 15 years between Ottawa and Vancouver. Okay. What was the final straw to get you out of Canada? Like, how long have you been down in Texas? I mean, Texas and Florida are probably the two states, maybe South Dakota, not that, you know, South Dakota's weather-wise and everything else, maybe isn't as high a destination. But, you know, for a lot of Canadians, Texas and Florida, a lot of people have been staring dreamily at those two places is like, man, I wish I lived there. Yeah. So why I left was definitely it was it was the COVID nonsense.

And I'm very careful to not say it was the pandemic that caused me to live. leave, just like it was not the pandemic that interrupted my life and everybody's lives so much the last two years. It was the policy response to COVID that's responsible for me leaving. It was the policy response to COVID that interrupted my life so much the last couple of years. And there was so much going on as far as loss of freedoms, you know, longstanding national laws being broken at will by politicians. this is happening at an increasing rate. And then when Trudeau started to, based on polls, explicitly demonize and direct hate toward the unvaccinated

as essentially an election platform, I thought, okay, this is not a good thing. There are quarantine facilities being built in multiple provinces. Maybe they'll be used perfectly in a healthy way, and they'll be all voluntary. That's not my experience or my understanding of history. So it's okay. The likely prime minister is,

is explicitly directing hate and potentially violence towards one group of people that my family belongs to. And he's probably going to get elected in a few weeks. I'm not saying everyone's going to get thrown in concentration camps. Definitely not what I'm saying, but there's a non-zero chance that things are going to escalate to a point where I don't want to be here. And so I'm not going to be here. And so we left on a short-term vacation a few weeks before the last federal election in September, we left September 9th or 10th. we didn't go back. And so you picked Texas as the destination?

We were between, so we went back and forth between Texas and Florida a handful of times because both of those places you were still allowed to be a natural human being, which we really enjoyed. And we just like the culture in Texas better. I love both places. I especially love the leadership in Florida. But my wife and I are both very big into Brazilian jihitsu.

And Austin especially, because as conservative as I am in so many ways, I like to be around liberal people. I enjoy their company. I enjoy the variety and the diversity and the culture and the art. And so Austin has this really nice mix where it's very, very liberal, but it's surrounded by very, very conservative people. So the liberals can't get to do crazy.

The conservatives can't get too boring. And on top of that, you have all of these kind of cultural icons that are moving to Austin, which may me think it would be a very interesting place to live. and if things continue to escalate, you know, well beyond where they've escalated so far, there is a will to draw a line in the sand in Texas that I haven't found elsewhere. And so I feel like I feel like I found my community here for that. That's, I know a lot of people here in Alberta would wish, Alberta would stand the way Texas or Florida, certainly has to have desantis, I think has become a hero for a lot of people.

Just in, you know, like, we can have our opinions. And if you don't like it, there's other provinces or states where you can go and it's a little different. You know, we don't have to all be identical. And I think Texas in particular really personified what Albertans thought. Like, you look down at Texas, you're like, that's us. I mean, it's right at the tip of the United States, but that's Alberta, right? For sure, for sure. That's what we stand for is a lot of what's going on in Texas.

So it's interesting to hear that you went down there. I know you're not the first person on here to talk about getting out of Canada before, you know, everything came about last fall. Have you ever had thoughts coming back or you're like, no, it's Texas now. Texas is home. Well, once I never ever had considered leaving Canada. And I thought that what would happen is as things got worse, I'd probably end up in Alberta because I thought that. the political class in Alberta would better reflect the will of Albertans and would put up some safeguards against the federal government. Which, you know, one candidate in particular is actually

finally talking about. But that did not happen. And Alberta was not the safe place that I hoped it would be because based on the culture of Alberta, it could be. But based on the legal and political system in Canada, it couldn't be. So I thought as much as the culture of Alberta will provide a safeguard against freedom is being taken away, the political system in Alberta, as it currently stood, could not. And that's what I love about the way the states is constructed is that you can have states that are completely off the rocker, but they can't impose their will across the whole board. Whereas in Canada, if you have a federal government that's off its rocker, that means the whole

country has to comply to some degree. And that didn't give me any comfort as far as the safety and the well-being of my children as they grew up. And since I've been here and I've connected with such a huge community of life, minded people, I'm getting taxed at a way lower rate. The highest marginal tax rate in BC was 53.5%. I mean, after a while, that felt like I was not respecting myself by allowing myself to be treated that way. And especially when I decided that I didn't have to stay in Canada, as much as I love Canada so much, I had to make a decision, do I want to stay here because I love this country,

in spite of the fact that it doesn't seem like my country at the highest levels loves me or my family, or do I want to go somewhere where I think I have the best probability of giving my family a beautiful life. And I had to choose my family over my own loyalty. How hard of a, how hard was it to get to like to transition to being there? Not in the sense of like day to day. I mean more in the sense of like was it an easy thing to do to be like we're moving to Texas. No, no, no, it's a disaster. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

we applied for a particular type of visa, basically a small business visa where you make a minimum sort of investment size, show proof that you're running a legitimate business, you're not just trying to go vacation and doing the application as a way to extend your vacation. And it was pretty straightforward. There's a lot of very difficult ways to get into the states, and there's some that are easier. And this one, as long as you've got the initial investment, which is like call it $50 to $100,000, grand. It's not that difficult to get the visa approved. So when you talk about your business, were you specifically as in coaching? That's what you

Yeah. So when I sold my finance practice, like my my group of clients, we, we move here and I started that coaching company. Yeah. How has a, you know, I feel like, and I mean, no disrespect in this whatsoever. And I could be completely wrong. I think it's no different than saying podcasting has become popular because it has. I feel like life coaches have become popular. Am I wrong on that? Yeah, let's talk about that. No, you're not wrong with that. And it's an unfortunate thing. I mean, I think, you know, the Pareto's distribution still holds, right? Like 80% of people in any given occupation are not particularly competent. 20% are relatively competent and then 4% are genuinely good at what they do. And I think life coaching, I forget the statistic, but like,

75% or something of life coaches are part-time. And I think what that means is like, you know, they have a title on their Facebook page that indicates their life coach, but I don't know if they have clients. And it's similar to like business coaches too. You know, I was looking for a business coach for a long time, but the problem was every business coach that I came along had far less

business success than me. And so it's like, well, why would I hire a life coach who has a life that I wouldn't want to live? Right. And I think that's maybe the problem you're getting at. And on top of that, there's absolutely no official accreditation or certification to become a life coach or business coach or a career coach. So it is the degree of competency varies very widely to say the least. So how is how is, I'm glad you put it that way, because you're paying on on all those points, right?

How has it, how has it been going? Like are you like, you know, you talk about, we kind of went the full gamut here. We were talking about different things at the start than Paul. for, you know, how, God, I cannot reiterate this how many times on the show. I'd never thought when I started this bloody thing, that's what I would be talking about and interested in at this point. No way. I digress.

Well, that's why it's named after. It's got to be sports. Oh, yeah. Well, I had, you know, you're a Canadian boy. I had, my 100th episode was Ron McLean. And shortly after that was Don Cherry and, and, you know, Jay Honor. And guys like that, right? Like, that's what.

Beautiful, beautiful souls. Yeah, that's what I was into. Yeah. But the state of Canada in particular when what the deuce is going on. And so now I- Voices are needed. It's almost like, you know, I've hit the brakes and gone the complete opposite way. And that's fine.

That's why it's my name and not, you know, as I joke around grassroots hockey podcast or something, right? Because how can you talk about what I'm talking about if that's what it was? I forget where the heck I was going. I just, how, yes, I was going. Yeah. Well, yeah. So you go from, that's right. You go from, I think what everybody, you know, strives to do.

And you talk about this off the start. You get your degree. You get into something. You've become good at something. You get paid really well. And you've shifted gears. You've moved out of the country. And now you've become something that, you know, when I look at it, Matt, I feel like,

you're right. There is no like, I got to get a PhD before I can call myself a life coach. Which means you have to be very good at what you do. do, right? Because you're relying on, I think, and maybe I'm a little bit wrong on this, but I'll wait to hear, maybe I'm right. You're relying on what people say about you and how their experience went to filter in more. Because that network of people, because I think tons of people, once they understand what a life coach is, are like, oh, like I could, yeah, that sounds, you know, for myself in particular, I used a career coach in 2013 or 14, I think. And I, at the time, I had no idea what it was.

and then I spent the money on it and it turned out to be one of the best things ever did. So I know they're out there. I know they're great people out there. So how has it been going, I guess? Yeah, it's been going. It's been going amazing. So where do I start with that? So when I decided to sell my old business, I was very, very particular.

Like, I'm not just going to do something that makes me money or that has one or two things that I enjoy. Like it has, well, I get ownership over my schedule. I can increase my income based on my own efforts, not based on a raise every year. I want this job to take every single blocks and to be exactly what fits the vision of life that I want to have. So I had to think very, very, very careful about what that was. And I took like almost a year to really work that through, like, who am I, what am I good at, what experiences do I have that people will be willing to pay for? What would actually make me feel good? What kind of world do I want to see? What do I want my kids to live in?

And how can my occupation contribute to that? And when I did all of that, I never, ever wanted to be a coach or plan to be a coach. it kept coming back over and over and over and over again. All of your experience, all of your skills, and the thing that you want to most see in the world can all be, can all happen within the realm of being a coach. And so when I started doing this, I was very concerned that I wouldn't know how to do it.

But it turns out, you know, I was in financial coaching essentially in my prior occupation. But now instead of talking about stocks and bonds and, you know, return on investment, I get to talk about the things that I care about, most, right? Psychology, family, mindset, all that stuff. And so my experience actually applied very directly. And then financially, I put it together using my business experience and my sales experience, my marketing experience that I thought it would make pretty good money. But I thought it would take a long time to ramp it up. But when you're doing what you're meant to do, like, I'll make more money my first year of coaching than I ever did in my previous job, which I hope

that would happen, but I didn't think that was going to happen. That was not what I expected. And I also thought, well, you know, in my prior job, I had all these targets and I did well and I hit my targets, but I didn't always do as much work as I planned on doing. But when you're doing what you want to do, I can't tell when I'm not working because basically anytime I'm not busy with family obligations or something else, I'm just working all the time. And I absolutely love it. And I did this on purpose. I'm like, well, do I want to be like in my old job working? And then what I do for fun are completely separate categories. It's like I can't tell which is which.

And so I basically wake up and I just work all. all of the time. And I'm not grinding and forcing myself to do it. I'm just in flow state because this is roughly the stuff that I would do my spare time anyway. So it's going incredibly well. And I'm living life on my own terms. I get total ownership over my time. I'm employing,

if you include my wife, I'm employing three people now. If you include my kids, which I will employ for tax purposes at some point, maybe say I'm employing five people, but let's not push it. So three people. And yeah,

and it's going well. And as far as the accreditation, I wanted to make a point on that. I think certifications and accreditations are far less important right now than they've been, at least in our lifetimes. And I think they're going to continue to be less important very, very, very rapidly. And the reason is so many degrees from university have been so diluted to the point where a degree from a university is no longer a proxy for competency. Maybe 30 years ago, if you had a degree in literature, it meant you actually understood literature and were an excellent right. If you have a degree in literature now, it really doesn't say anything.

It has almost no bearing on whether or not you're a good writer. And when you look at even the harder certifications like economics degrees or PhDs and mathematics and that sort of thing, while they still indicate that you have a minimum level understanding of the subject matter, it doesn't mean that you're an expert. And you look at the vast majority of medical doctors in Canada who don't know a thing about health or nutrition. They can't fix anything. They can just make symptoms go away.

And you look at economists who have never made a single accurate prediction about the economy in their entire political career. And so I think a lot of these experts, we don't trust experts in the same way. We're going back to a more natural, more evolutionary, more tribal understanding of trust, which is, do I know you? Do I have other people that I know who know you? And do I trust you? And with social media, even though there's an intermediary, a technological intermediary, you can still get to know somebody. somebody can go to my social media page, like at the Better Career Guy on Instagram, for example, and they can go watch a hundred videos that I've made. They can watch stories every day of me hanging out with my wife and kids.

They can see the house I live in. They can see the way I treat my kids. They can see my beliefs and my ideas. And they can get a pretty good idea for whether or not I'm a competent person just on their own based on their own, using their own judgment and their own discernment. And so. Well, and the other thing that you're doing well, I think, so far from what I've seen in you meant, is your kind of. is you're coming on podcast forums, and having long discussions.

And I, to this point, have not found anything that, you know, tells bullshit like a long, like you can only keep up the charade for so long. Don't get me wrong. Some politicians, they have it just like down pat where they can, you know, they can put on a bit of a persona for a long period of time. But the nice thing about a podcast and a back-and-forth discussion,

is people get a good feel for most people. It takes a long time. That's the one thing. I mean, if anyone really wants to know who Sean Newman is, let's go back to episode one. Yeah, you can figure it out. You can have a pretty good feel for who the heck I'm about. Yeah, and there's a reason you don't see Trudeau on three-hour podcasts.

Biden was invited on the Joe Rogan experience, right? There's a reason they don't go on those things. But you see, you know, Daniel Smith will go on them. Pierre Paulyev went on Jordan Peterson's podcast, right? Because they're who they are publicly and privately is actually the same person to some degree. We all have our persona that we use in public, of course. But they're actually people with integrity where they're the same in different situations. If you had to have, you know.

But that right there is going to be interesting to watch because I've said this to Daniel. Are you going to keep your podcast going? Because she has a podcast, right? Let's use the hypothetical that Daniel Smith becomes the premier of Alberta, okay? I've had four of the candidates on all four who are going to be at Vermilion. and tonight if this is, in fact, while you're listening, it is Monday. And one of the things I said to Danielle, are you going to, you know, like, I have you on record saying some pretty, you know, like out there things.

And to me, not out there, but for a politician to get kind of pigeonholed by what she says and, you know, are you going to continue to do your podcast? And she continues to say, yeah, I want to do the podcast because that helps me learn. And I look at it and go, and we can hold you accountable for it. And to me, it's like a real, almost like an experiment to watch, right? If she becomes premier, is she going to do what she says? Or was it all bluster? Because that's, that's one of the words that, you know, critics of her use, it's bluster.

She's going to get in and none of it's going to happen. I'm like, yeah, but I'm really interesting because I'm actually paying attention, like really closely to this. Is it all going to be bluster? And for Pierre Pileep, it's going to be the exact same thing, right? At least for my generation, my age group, or maybe just for this time era. because I feel like a ton of people are paying attention. And we're all going to watch and go,

they didn't hold up their end of the bargain of what they said they were going to do and they're doing it. Or vice versa, maybe they will do it. It will create a whole new line of politicians that realize you can do what you say and move forward. I have no idea. I'm excited to see it go down to be completely frank. Yeah. And both of those people I've had the opportunity to speak with.

And I work with Pierre back in the day as an intern. and whether or not they implement what they say they're going to implement perfectly, they do believe in what they're saying. And I think it's very sad that me and you're probably the same in the population where we're like, okay, but we'll see. Because what we're used to is, especially from federal conservative leaders, is like, whatever you say has almost nothing to do with what you're actually going to do, because what you're going to do as soon as you get elected is you're going to be

trying to become the liberal approved conservative leader. the capital L, liberal approved conservative leader. And you're going to forget all the promises you made to your base. And we're so used to that disappointment that even when people with like genuine integrity, who, you know, I know Pierre believes in what he's saying now because I had conversations with him 15 years ago in his office where he said like, when I have the chance to say my own thing, here's the things I'm going to talk about. And you can see like Danielle's history of the think tank she's worked for the papers she's published, the thing she said, like, yes, her beliefs have changed on some things, but she believes in the basic principles of liberty.

And, but our, our attitude is like, yeah, we'll see because we're so used to this appointment. Or we're just skeptical of, of anyone who gets into a race for winning, right? Like, one of the things, you know, I try to be very neutral when it comes, you know, I'm going to be on stage with them. I'm not going to pull any punches on anything. One of the things Danielle has on this podcast over any of the other. candidates is that track record you're talking about. I have her on the podcast the day Jason Kenny is saying it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated talking to me about Jason Kenny's comments. Now, in fairness, she wasn't a part of government at that time, right? She was a commentator.

And we're both sitting there staring at the, this is not good. Right. And so that'll be interesting. All these things are very interesting, right? Of I just go, whether it's social media, whether it's the time or whether it's just my age. You're, you know, you having young kids, myself having young kids, Maybe we're just more in tune with what's going on. You mentioned knowing Pierre well back when he was in Ottawa and you were in Ottawa. I certainly don't have those experiences. I have the last about five years of starting to go, what on earth is going on? And I feel like a lot of people are like that.

I hope that's true. I hope a lot of people are starting to pay attention. Yeah, well, I remember having a conversation with Pierre and being so surprised, because especially back then when he was the parliamentary secretary for Harper, he had such a bulldog soundbite personality. And I had this private conversations with him. He had very, very subtle philosophical opinions on, like, you know, great works of literature and on great works of philosophy and very sophisticated, very well spoken. And his thing was like, well, basically, I have to move up the party enough to the point where I have power in the party.

And once I have power in the party, then I can begin to, you know, more clearly express what I actually believe. And again, who knows what happens if when he gets elected, power does crazy things. But at least I have the fundamental belief with him. Like he believes what he's saying, even if he ends up not acting on it or or putting into place in the way he wants to and he ends up being a total disappointment. I at least have confidence that he believes in what he's saying. What do you think then to the people that talk about all the W. whether he was there or whether parts of his support crew are a part of the world economic form, that type of thing.

What do you think about that, that? I have no idea. I mean, I have no idea if he's, you know, W-E-F plant or, you know, or if he's just like subtly influenced by their ideas. But I do think, like, of the options available, who do you want other than him, in my opinion? on the on the federal uh i can certainly put my input on the on the federal peer poliave checks pretty much every single box i like a lot of what lesslyn lewis has to say though i will say that she she has impressed me and she's um i would uh i've been trying to get her on the podcast

it hasn't worked out to this point but if i think she'd be a very interesting chat man because she doesn't say the conventional things and she has been very much to steal one of your words, a bulldog on a lot of different issues, including the W.EF, including the W.H.O. And, you know, that bill, they were trying to kind of squeak through where when the next pandemic, everybody falls in line. Like, she was the first newsletter I read on that or got forwarded that. And I was like, wow, for a federal candidate to be all over that, that's, that's interesting. Because a lot seem to wait and see what the temperature is of the audience before they say their views, which is once again something that's really shocked me about some different, in good ways,

about some different candidates coming out here in Alberta. And I look forward to, I look forward to seeing how the next couple months go because I hope, you know, over a course of two years where we got people such as yourself and, and of course I'll bring Drew back up getting out of Canada. Mike Kuzmistis was another guy, CEO of Icor. He went to Mexico with his family. You know, when I hear all these talented people getting, heck out of Canada.

It's depressing. And I hope, you know, brighter days are on the horizon, even if we got to weather some storms here, I see some of the things going on in Canada. And I go, we're not done yet. I think there's, I thought there's a lot of fight left. And I think there's some good people rising to the top and more hopefully stepping in to try and get through there as well, which I think will be exciting, exciting times ahead, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. And when I left Canada, it was, like I said, early September. And it was pretty dark. Like there was not, there was no fight in Canada. And I was like, man, like, I'm not going to fight this whole thing by myself. Like, none of my neighbors will hang out with my kids. Most of my friends won't see us anymore. Like, family won't talk to us. Like, okay, like, why am I going to get my head cut off by myself? But then I came down here and like the whole trucker thing started happening. And that goes, you know, back to that thing, the discussion about blue collar people. figuring things out a lot more quickly. And I was like brought to tears by it on multiple occasions because I was like, okay, there's still like, there's so much fight in Canada. They just don't have any representation in the national narrative. But like there's so much fight in Canada. And it's been so exciting to watch, you know, to essentially watch Canadians develop a backbone again. And it's by and large the kind of people who don't want to bother getting involved in political debates.

But they're like, man, you're making my day-to-day life so difficult and so miserable that I have to now be involved politically. and it's beautiful to watch. I absolutely love seeing it. I'm trying to remember like September, September. Where was I at in September? And September 3rd, 2021 would have been the pandemic of the unvaccinated when I had Danielle Smith on for the second time on this show to talk while Jason Kenny was basically telling everybody to go and get their vaccinate.

I mean, I hate to just beat that horse. But you're right. Those were dark days. September was a dark month. I didn't think, you know, when I talk about last winter, I was like, man, that was a long winter. That was a long winter. When it started, when the winter started, it was September 3rd. That's the day that it got really rocky.

I'm sure it started a few weeks before then too. But September 3rd, when that episode released, because I released it on the day he was talking. That's a long time ago. I kind of, you know, it's funny how these years, like it hasn't been that. Yeah. But it kind of feels like it's been a lifetime ago. The last year for me, has felt like five years.

It's been incredible. I think that's just the function of when there's so much change and so much newness and so much like intensity and fight, time really does slow down. It's kind of in a weird way. It's kind of cool how that happens, right? Because I think when you have kids like, holy crap, like time is flying by. You know? And yet things can happen that really like just slow everything right down.

It's like you're stuck in first gear. I know like nobody in this world. I mean, tons of the people who listen, including myself, drove a standard growing up in a vehicle. But for so many kids now, everything is automatic. Everything is automatic. But like it feels like you're stuck in first year. Like it's just like, right? Like for the last little bit.

Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked here. You're right. But that's interesting, though, because, you know, for the last year, I sold my business. I opened a new business. I moved to a new country. I went back and forth between two states a whole bunch of times. I was accepted into a PhD program for a while. I've had so many things happen.

And at the same time, my family's been on this adventure. And we've treated it like an adventure for our kids. We've been saying at fun hotels and going to water parks. And we're saying in a different Airbnb every two, three months still until we, you know, settle down here. And I don't really want that to change necessarily. I've learned so much from that. When life does settle down more so for us, I want to.

still be continuously introducing new experiences and adventures because it does. It slows down time. And I've got a almost five-year-old and a nine-year-old. And everybody tells you this, and you know it theoretically, but like, holy shit, is it true? Like, time just goes fast. And every year was passing by faster than one before it until I started living this totally different life and doing all these new things. And I think it's newness and novelty and adventure that caused your brain to go, oh, this isn't just the same stuff that we can skip by.

Did you ever think life could be that fun? And the reason I say that is, I assume you're in similar shoes as I am, in that you're doing something that you really believe in, that you're very passionate about. And for me, I have three under six, three kids under six. And when I was working at Baker

and then in the nighttime or the mornings podcasting, I can simply say, I was trying to give everything I had to my family, but I just wasn't seeing them. And now through this summer, which has been really cool because my wife's a teacher, so she has the summer off. And with a podcast schedule, it's flexible so I can record. And then, you know, anyways, I don't have to get into the nitty-grady of it.

But I haven't seen my kids this much. I mean, since I took paternity leave, to be honest, with my firstborn, I took paternity leave for two months. It's been a ton of fun. Do you ever think you can have this much fun in life? Never, never. I, like, what I would consider like a six out of ten happiness is like, what I was aiming for my wildest dreams.

I thought that was a 12 out of 10. And like this last year, like I've spent, we spent so much time in hotels. We've been living out of suitcases for nine months. Our stuff is still in Canada. And I've never had so much fun in my whole life. It's,

it's incredible. I'm with my family all of the time. And when you're with your family all the time, instead of just like, when you're living kind of like normal life, you're going to work, you're coming home, you're busy,

you just kind of go through the motions. And you end up, you know, like, well, I'm kind of always around my kids, but you don't have intentional time with them. And when you're stuck in a hotel room, it's like, well, we better get out of this hotel room and go do something. And so we've been doing, like, all these things that we never did. We could have done them at any point in our lives before. We could have gone to the pool.

We could have gone mini-putting, but like, we just didn't do that stuff because we kind of took it all for granted. And, yeah, I've had so much fun this last year. It's like, I'm never going to take it for granted in the same way that I did before. because like I just I just want to do more of this. Whatever happens in my life, like I want to do like that like it goes back to that conversation we had initially about heaven and hell. It's like I just want to expand this heaven that I'm living. I want I want to experience all of this more deeply because it's it's so enriching

and it's so beautiful and it's so rewarding. Well, I'm trying to remember and of course I don't have the I have a quote on the wall of the studio and I'm not in the studio today. So bear with me. It's a Joe Rogan quote. I remember when I first heard it. Can't remember. You know, the life of me I should have like literally wrote down.

the episode of his on. Do you think I did that? No, why would I ever do such a thing? Give me a sec here, because I feel like it's just saying. I might be able to help you out. I know me some Joe Rogan. Well, it's essentially the lady asked him, you know, like you're older, you have responsibility.

Can you ever get out of the life you're in? And he goes on a little bit of rent and then here it is. It goes, this is just a little tiny snippet of it. It's about three minutes. He goes, whatever time you have, attack like you're trying to save the world. And that's the little piece I took out of it. So we're sitting here talking about happy days, you know, because frankly, I'm living it.

I know you're living it. Let's say you're sitting there, Matt. I don't want to go. If you're in your 20s and you're not married or have no kids, I feel like I can safely say this. You have the world by the nuts. Just realize that and get moving. because as you get older and start to acquire things, certainly get married,

certainly have kids. You have some responsibility that makes life a little harder to turn on a dime. But let's say you're in your early 30s, you're in a job you hate. You don't even like it. You just hate it. What's your advice to them on how to maybe start to, you know, get to where you are,

to where you've literally left things to a different country? you're on this adventure. You're having a ton of fun. You said, you know, you're spending more time with your wife and kids. You're making more money than you ever thought possible. How do you pull somebody out of the mindset that they can never do that into, holy crap, maybe this is possible. What I recommend people do is pull out a blank piece of paper and write down in first person,

like you're writing a story, like I went to the mall, you know, like really like you're writing a story, write out what your life looks like in 10 or 15 years if you stay in the same life that you're in. Write it down and then reread that and say, is that a story that I find interesting? And if you do not find that story interesting, do not spend the next 15 years of your life living it. Take out a second piece of paper and write down what your life could be like if things went really, really well and you had a job you loved and you were maximizing you potential and you're getting in shape and eating well and waking up early and doing a job that you're really, really, really good at and you're helping people and it felt rewarding. And you're

doing all the things that you want to do on your bucket list that you haven't done, and all that happened in the next 15 years, what would your life look like? And would that be an interesting story to read? And if you find that story more interesting and more compelling and it excites you, figure out what you have to do to get there. Like the language of the subconscious is specificity and emotion. So if you want to not just force yourself to do stuff, but create a vision that's compelling enough that you'll actually start doing that without even trying to, it'll just be the thing that you wake up and want to do. give your subconscious a destination with a lot of specific details.

So this is the house I would live in. This is the way my wife would greet me when I walk in the door. This is the way the clutch on my car would feel when I get into it. I'm driving down this curvy road. This is what my kids would be doing and what they'd be wearing. Very, very, very specific. This is what my office would look like. This is like everything you kind of detail.

Once you have that destination in mind with a ton of very specific details, what it smells like, looks like, feels like, everything, then begin to attach emotion to that outcome. How would it feel? What kind of pride would you have? What would the excitement be? How would it feel when your mom calls and you get to tell her what you and your family were just getting back from on vacation? How would you feel about that destination? And if you can attach a large degree of specificity and emotion to your vision and that destination that you want, then all you have to do is begin to align your daily actions and your belief system with that vision. And you won't be able to help but

align yourself with that vision. Because once you have that vision with the attendant emotion attached to it, it will become so powerful in your life that to continue living this half a live existence you're living, it will cease to be an option for you. And you will figure out a way to start working towards that vision. That's very well put. And I might just add, and this is the poor man's way of adding on to what you just said, because it was fantastic. When we bike Canada, I remember thinking I took a look at the map of Canada. And I'm like, we're never getting across this country. Because in the first four day, first day, we did 40 clon. And I remember thinking like 6,500 and change, I'm like, when you do that, you self-defeat,

you're like, we're never getting there. But my brother always said, you know, half the battle is just getting on the pedals. Once you start moving, you know, that distance, even as minute as it is, shortens. And if you do exactly what you just said, you know, and you push the boulder, you know, figured of boulder, even an inch, it's an inch closer to where you want to be. And you've started exercising muscles. Honest to God, you didn't realize you had. I just go back and listen to the first podcast ever did.

And it makes my ear, like, it was, it was, it was jumping in both feet. When I listened to it, I go, man, maybe a guy should just, not erase that. But, you know, like, what is that still hanging out there for? And you can still go back and listen to it. And it's just like, it's raw. It's, it's painful at times. I still feel the nerves of that day. Like when I listen to it, it's weird.

And I'm like, but it's a good reminder of just pushing the boulder an inch, maybe not even an inch. It was a start. And a start is where you need to, you know, you can do that today. Yeah. And, you know, like you said, you go back to your first podcast and you kind of cringe. It's like the same thing with like, I've only been doing content for, you know, half a year on, on Instagram.

But when I go back to the first one, I look at it. And I don't really cringe because I knew when I started, I'm like, I know I'm going to look back on this. and this is going to be garbage. But, and again, this kind of goes back to Jiu-Jitsu. It's like, I learned that in order to be good at something, you have to be comfortable being bad at it. You have to be the fool before you can be the hero. Right.

And so it's like, you know what? Just start doing it and be bad at it. Because if you are determined enough and you're bad at it for long enough, eventually you'll be less bad. And then one day you'll even be good. And then if you keep going one day, you could be great. Right. But you have to start by just being comfortable being not that good at something.

I got a buddy who has a podcast, Vance Crow. So Vance, if you're listening out there, he, uh, he was asking me how, how it was going and everything else. And I say, ah, you know, like, it's going good. Some days I'm like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Other days, I'm like, I got the roll by the nuts kind of thing. And he's like, oh, you're in the sophomore stage. You ever heard this? And I don't know if I have. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure. Like I was thinking, you know, school. Obviously, you know, in the States, you got freshman sophomore. And he's like, yeah, sophomore, do you know where that comes from? And I was like, no. And he's like, well, so I'll read it to you. It comes from Greek word, a sophist.

I hope I'm saying that right. I'm probably butchering it, but meaning clever or wise. And then the word morose or, you know, sophomore, anyways, meaning foolish.

So you're the wise fool. I'm like, oh yeah, that's exactly where I am. You know, you've been to school. You know exactly what to expect. So you think you're like really smart,

but you've only been there one year and you're kind of an idiot. I'm like exactly where I am. And I think, I'm very, I'm actually pretty proud of that, right? Like I'm getting better. I'm getting better.

Yeah, it's like the Dunning Kruger effect kind of, where you first started out, you think you're really, really good. And then as you keep going, you realize how bad you actually were. That's a painful, that's a painful, humble thing to experience, though, you know, right? Like, you're getting just enough success that you know you're on the right track, but you're not that smart just yet, if you ever will be that smart. But it's, I find it's, it's, it's painful the first few times you experience it until you really let that lesson sink in.

And you realize on a deep level, that's just the journey. like the journey is just realizing you're not that good at stuff you're not as good as you thought you're going to be kind of crappy and then it's like hey that's just that's that's a sign that I'm on the right path how much fun yeah that's a cool realization actually to tag on to that in that like man I got a lot of life to learn things and when you realize that it's like oh boy like you don't know what's around the corner like when I when I come to the podcast I'm like you know I didn't know who Matt was before we we kicked this off. I'm like, oh, very interesting. And the thing is, is like as you move along, hopefully, hopefully as I move along, right? And you get to episode 400,

500, 500, 6, 7, 8, you get the point. It's like, how many around the corners do you run into something? You're like, wow, that's an interesting thought. That's an interesting person. And that's what's lovely about what I do. I get to do that on a weekly basis. And I'm really excited about that. Yeah, and it's so nice to look back at episode one and be like, wow, I'm like, look where I was and like, look where I am now. I'm actually, I'm actually really good at this now. Like, that's like I get such an intense feeling of pride when I look back at how bad I used to be at so many things. And I see these videos like when I started jihitsu or something, it's like, whoa. And it's like, but that's just, that's a testament to how far I've come, right?

And it's like, I know I'm going to look back at everything I'm doing right now in five years or in 10 years or in one year. And I'm going to be like, you thought you. you were kind of good at that stuff. And you are, from my current vantage point, terrible. But it's like, that's all good with me.

That's just signs that, you know, you're progressing and growing. I love it. That's why I think they say, you know, don't compete against others. Compete against yourself,

right? Because when you're competing against yourself, you can see how far you've come. Even if, you know, like I always just use Joe Rogan. You brought them up. It's like,

if I compared myself, Joe Rogan, I think I'd be depressed living in the bedroom, curled in the fetal position, right? Like that guy is on fire. and everything else. But that's not who you compete against.

That guy's on the top of his game, at the top of the podcasting world. When you compete against yourself, whether you're talking jih Tzu or anything else in life, when you see the work and how far you've come, that's a really, like, motivating thing. Like, that's a confidence thing. I even think about going to the gym,

you know, when you go back to the guy who, you'd heard the story for 40 days, he walked in the gym and he just sat there and walked out just to build up confidence. I'm an athlete. I never was intimidated by the gym until after we had kids and I've been out of it for so long. I was intimidated by the gym. So I actually understand exactly that story.

I'm not that story, right? I obviously went in. But it took me a while to kind of feel comfortable in the gym again. And if I would have compared, I think what I was doing was I was comparing myself against all these people who are in the gym and like jacked and, you know, I don't know, bench pressing 400 pounds, whatever the number. was, you know, and you're just like, heck, it probably could have been 50 pounds, Matt, but my brain was like, holy crap, look how much, you know, and I can't, you know, you get the point. Yeah, I do. And when you do that, that's self-defeating. Like, don't do that. Compare yourself against yourself. Because if you go on in the gym or you go into a podcast, lots of people always ask, you know, how do you start a podcast? Just start.

Like, just start and make all the errors and get better and learn from mistakes. You want to get in the gym, go to the gym. And I'm sure there's easier ways to ease into it than that. But, you know, Just getting your feet going and moving is a good start or in the case of a podcast, just flipping on the screen and starting to talk. You know, I look at some of the podcasters who are coming along, man, and they are jumping by leaps and bounds just by starting, just by starting to talk. You naturally get better at this sucker. Yeah, and if you have this fundamental belief, which I used to have, which is that you have to

be good at something before you present it to the public, you're probably never going to reach the place where you're good enough to go and do that thing because you have this belief that you're not good enough. That's all it comes down to. If you're, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say if you got up, it's just like that idea right there is like, I got to be so good to get to put it out to the podcast. Oh, to the world. Sorry, not the podcast world. And so you do that. And then one person says one comment and you're like, oh, I didn't think of that. And then you'll go into your brain and while I got to fix all these things. Yeah. Yeah. You'll never release things. So true. And the truth of the matter is, that's what we're all trying to do. We're all trying to get better because

there's certain things you couldn't even think of to fix until somebody hopefully constructively criticizes it, not comes down on you. And you're like, oh, I hadn't, I hadn't thought of that. Okay, I can do that. But I mean, what am I going to do? You know, shut down the entire operation. This isn't, you know, I don't know, McDonald's. And even they don't shut down when they poison somebody, right? Like, they just keep on moving along. Yeah. Yeah. And I, had this like need to I had a need to see reflected back to me in the eyes of other people, the version of me I wanted to be. So I had to always pretend I was good at everything and pretend I'd already made it in all these different categories. And that prevented me from getting better

at anything. I didn't get better at almost anything for all of my 20s because I just wanted to be good at things and to have other people think I was good at things. And it wasn't until I was comfortable being publicly bad at things that I actually started to really get good at things. What was the first thing you were publicly bad at? Jiu Jitsu. It was Jiu Jitsu. So Jiu Jitsu changed everything for you. Definitely.

Yeah. And there's a joke in Jiu Jitsu and it's a joke in Jiu Jitsu and everything. You know, Jiu Jitsu changed my life. And it's everybody who sticks to Jiu Jitsu for a year. They all say the same thing. It completely changed my life. And because when you accept,

if you, if you continue to go to Jiu Jitsu, no matter how strong or athletic you are, you have to accept, I'm going to lose to almost everybody for at least six to 18 months. And when you decide, okay, I'm willing to be bad and to be humiliated for a year or two years before there's even a chance where I'll stop being the worst one, that reorients your whole understanding of yourself and of the world. That might be the most, you know, I go back to the push up a day thing that I said right at the start. I remember my brother dropping down beside me and I was like, what are you doing? It's like, oh, I read this thing, do a push up a day.

going home and me going, that's the dumbest thing. And I caught myself saying in my head, that's the thing. And then I was like, you know what? Let's start doing it. And it actually led to something really good. What you're telling me is, is when I get home, I should start jujitsu. That's what you're saying. I tell everybody they should start jihitsu.

And if you're going to start jihitsu, don't wait six months. Because right now, during COVID, what was the only sport that was on TV for like most of a year? the UFC? What was everybody listening to in their car and on their phones and on Spotify? Joe Rogan. Well, I was going to say Sean Newman,

but you're probably right, Joe Rogan. Sean Newman and then Joe Rogan. And so everybody is signing up for Jiu-Jitsu right now. The gym I'm out here, which is, I don't know if you know who Tim Kennedy is, he's an ex-UFC fighter. Yeah, Special Forces guy.

So he's got a gym not too far from here that I train at. And on any given day, there'll be 30, 40 people on the mat, it's probably 30, and 22 of them will be brand new white belts. And so if you want to start training, like you can wait six or 12 months until, you know, they can all kick your ass or you can start right now.

And it's like 25 to 60 is kind of the age range. How many of the newbies last? Is it a huge turnover rate? You probably don't know the figure, but I don't know the figure. but I don't know the figure like I've heard it's like an 80% nutrition rate. Um, yeah and that means like out of 20 for last right. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. And but it's hard to say because the only ones you see are the ones who go all the time. The ones who don't go, you don't even know who they are. But that's good for people to know it too, right? Like you should start, um, you should start jujitsu tomorrow. Okay. Yeah.

And then realize that this is not. going to be fun and that eight out of ten people are going to are going to leave you and you're going to be left by you know even you look at the group of five of us we had a little higher I guess but only two of the five are still going yeah so you go you're going to be put through some things you don't want to be put through it yeah but that's going to make you better oh yeah and it's the only way to get better and then you know so I took that realization and then I've been interested in like sharing my opinion on stuff on social media for a long time, but I never did it because I was terrified of rejection. I didn't want to expose myself to criticism. I didn't think I was

good enough. I didn't think I was interesting enough. And because of that jihitsu mindset, which is, you know, permeated every area of my life, I was just like, okay, I'm going to pick up my phone. I'm going to say this little thing about, you know, some career advice. I'm just going to post it. And it's like, I didn't aim for perfect. I didn't try to be a black belt at sharing things on social media because it's like, I knew I wasn't. So I knew like whatever I did, it was going to be white belt output. And then after a month or three months or six months, eventually I get to Blue Belt.

And I'd start having some, and you know, I may be a Blue Belt right now with my content online. Like it looks visually appealing. The audio is getting better. The captions are nicely designed. But that's very different than four months ago, how it looked. And so often we want to be a black belt before we start anything.

It's like, if you go to a Black Belt Jiu-Jitsu class and you don't know what you're doing, you're not going to be able to learn anything because you haven't learned the stuff that you need to learn in order to understand what. The building blocks. Yeah. So like just be comfortable being a white belt and understand that that's the way to get better. And understand that, yeah, you're going to look back in three or six months and be like, that was garbage. That's wonderful.

That's part of the process. Hmm. I don't like being challenged in my podcast. That, well, I mean, I do. But that's, I'm like, I've been getting absolutely harassed by guys in Lloyd about coming back to Jiu-Zitsu because I certainly know there's benefits. I hear it all the time. Oh, man, I'm going to have to think of this. I mean, there's also health benefits.

And I'm not, like, we're, there's this emerging understanding of epigenetics and what your DNA actually turns into and expresses itself as. And I've seen this in so many people and myself, like, not only do you get confidence in physical fitness, but like your body and your mindset begin to take on a more predatory shape. And I mean that literally like the shape of my body is changing as I do jiu-jitsu. And you see what guys have done it for a long time. it taps you into, and especially if you're involved in competitive sports, you'll have a very strong warrior archetype. And you can exercise that by being an entrepreneur like you're doing. You can exercise that by hitting the gym really hard. But it's so wonderful to give that warrior archetypes somewhere to go and something to do and somewhere to express itself.

And it changes not only your mind and your body, like it changes your being at a deep level by tapping into that, that really competitive action-oriented part of yourself. And it makes me calmer, it makes me happier, makes me harder working. it's, you know, aside for minor injuries here and there, there's really, there's nothing negative about it to do it. Yeah. Okay. Well, before I let you out of here, we got to finish with the final question brought to you by Curdmaster. And it's, it's a deep one or a shallow one, whichever way you want to go with it. It's each words said, if you're going to stand behind a cause that you think is right, then stand behind it, absolutely. What's one thing Matt stands behind? Individual

sovereignty. I believe that the most important. level of analysis, whether it's a political, sociological, economic, psychological question is the individual. My company is called Sovereign Man. And I think we are each the masters of our own domain, the king of our own kingdoms. And I didn't know this about myself until, you know, I went into my manager's office at my old job and said, no, I will not be getting this medical treatment. And I'm willing to suffer the consequences, including losing my income, which I wife and my two kids and I depend on entirely. But when you find that strength inside of yourself that like you stand on your own two feet and you are responsible for every single

thing in your life, whether it's your fault or not, that's something that I've realized I would happily die for it. That's the thing that I believe in most. Appreciate you hopping on and give me some of your time. If I do ever make it to Texas, I'll be, well, who knows, maybe we can find a way to meet up and do this in person because as we both know, it's about a thousand times better in person. Either way, it's been great getting to know you, Matt, and I appreciate you hopping on. Thank you so much for having me, and I would absolutely love to have you down here and we'll have some nice, beautiful Texas Costco rib-eyes. Sounds good, Matt. You have a great day. All right, you too. Take care.