Managing A High Pressure Career | Matthew Day #597

Join us on The Man That Can Project as we explore the transformative power of travel and personal growth with our special guest, Matthew Day. Discover firsthand how Matthew's journey from a high-pressure career to a life of spontaneity has redefined his purpose, including awe-inspiring experiences from workshops in Australia to upcoming adventures in Hawaii and beyond. Get a sneak peek into the upcoming 58 2 58 event and how these journeys have profoundly impacted our lives.

Key Points:

• Reflecting on transformative travel experiences and the power of obstacle course racing for personal development.
• Shifting from seeking external validation to nurturing internal self-assurance.
• Emphasising the shift from a "have-do-be" to a "be-do-have" mindset for greater fulfillment and purpose.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Transformative Travel and Personal Growth
• 10:14 Discovery Through International Travel
• 17:23 Shifting Mindsets Towards Personal Fulfillment
• 25:22 Transitioning From External to Internal Thinking
• 35:15 Navigating Values for Personal Growth
• 51:44 Living Within Values for Personal Growth
• 1:01:54 Expressing Gratitude for Transformative Work

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:38

Thanks for stopping by again, excited for another episode. I hope you enjoyed last week's episode with Jordan and then also a couple of solo episodes that have been there. I had an incredible time in Australia. The workshop was incredible, the time with my family and friends was incredible, and I'm very excited because I'm going to be heading back to Australia at the end of September. As I did mention last week, I'll be stopping via Hawaii, so very excited to check that out. Plenty of travel happening. One thing that I am proud of at the moment is maintaining my training for the 58 to 58, which is going to be announced very shortly, which is a big event that I'm kicking off on the 1st of February next year. So very excited for that one, and I'd love you guys to think about a humble brag or a win that you've had over the last seven days and if you do want to share it with me, send me a message on Instagram or Twitter or wherever. Whichever social platform you like using. I love using them all, but mainly active on Twitter and also Instagram.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Today's guest you're probably wondering who could it be? Matthew Day Now, maddy and I, as you'll hear and I won't give it all away but we met in Europe last year, both representing Australia in obstacle course racing. Now, in this episode, what you can expect to learn is how traveling can be a transformative experience that allows the self-discovery and personal growth. The conditioning from school can create limiting beliefs and hinder our personal growth, and why living authentically means aligning our actions with our core values. So Matt is a really deep thinker and we have probably every four to six weeks we'll jump on the phone and just have a hugely in-depth conversation, which I thoroughly enjoy. He blows my mind every time we talk with just how he takes very, I guess, challenging ideas and breaks them down so that anyone can understand, and we go through a number of those today. So make sure you grab yourself a pen and a notepad for this one. You'll learn an immense amount. It was a fun conversation to have, so that's going to be enough for me.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Remember, if you're enjoying these episodes, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on whichever platform you're listening and share it. Ratings and reviews let me know that you guys are loving it, and sharing it allows something that you enjoy to be heard and viewed by other people as well. So not only are you helping me, you're helping other people see what you're learning and what's, I guess, shaping your ideas, beliefs and perspectives. It's a cool thing to be part of. And hey, the rebrand is very close, it's not far away and I'm going to do a whole episode on that and maybe thinking why is that important or relevant? Because I've evolved as a person and the direction that I'm moving in my life is continuing to evolve, much like your life, and I want to make sure that I realign to maintain the passion that I have, but also help serve you guys, my audience, on a much deeper level where you can have transformations that I've personally experienced. That's enough from me.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Let's dive into today's episode with awesome guest Matty Day. Yeah, that's one thing actually. Just quick segue is we were at dinner the other night with Hazley and he does a lot of auctioneering and his vocals hang up a bit. And then George, my brother-in-law, had vocal surgery a couple of years ago from nodules and I'm like man.

Speaker 1: 5:16

I talk all the time on podcasts and all of that sort of stuff. My voice always hurts and I don't know whether you notice when you listen to the podcast, but I'm always going to clear my throat. But he's like man. You need to warm up. Like before you do podcasts, you should be getting your vocals warmed up. You've got to always have a water bottle with you, so it helps with that sort of stuff and I knew that because I did vocal coaching a couple of years ago. But, as with most things that you don't feel like are important even though they are, I've stopped doing the warm-ups and stuff. And Amy reminded me when we were doing that radio tour before we'd get to a radio station she'd be banging out her YouTube warm-up, getting the vocals ready to sing and stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:03

So then, when I just saw your glass of water, I was like what a key warm-up key, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Well, that's it Actually, because I did Toastmaster. We had a workshop on how to improve your public speaking, and it wasn't by methods of public speaking, it was actually by having the warm-up protocol done. So you can actually allow your voice to resonate and when you do certain vibrations in your throat or clear out the gunk that builds up in it, that gets in the way of being able to articulate something as clear, or you might mumble a little bit, like I know I do sometimes yeah, it helps actually get rid of that.

Speaker 1: 6:50

It's funny like anything that you want to, anything that you want to do, well you should warm up for, like it just makes sense, we do it for sport, we do it for the gym, but we don't feel it's important to do in other things. It's like a morning routine you're warming up for the day, an evening routine you're warming down from the day. Like there's so many areas in our life where we could benefit from it yeah, that's it that's it.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But, maddie, it's good to have you back on for a round two. We never published round one and it's because you and I we went into detail on so many things and then, when we were speaking after, like I think we could do it better, in a more clear and concise way. And here we are. But for those who haven't met you before, you're a member of the academy, so a lot of the blokes have. But we connected last september when we're on the australian ocr team at the world champs, which was awesome fun. And then we did the uh team race together, which was one of the best experiences. Like we're talking about it.

Speaker 1: 7:44

On the last potty, like I still just remember being in such pain. You guys were injured, I was hurting like insane, insane amounts, but then you're still running in this beautiful landscape and you're like this is one of those pinch myself moments where it sucks because it hurts, but it's just so beautiful and picturesque at the same time. So it's cool to be able to experience those moments with you. And also we've built a mateship off the back of that, which is cool. And every time we chat, you blow my mind with some new concept or idea around. So many things, from like trauma to why people experience depression, happiness, piecing puzzles together through some of the stuff we'll talk about today. So I'm genuinely excited for this chat. We have a few ideas of where it could go, but, as with every good conversation we have, we'll just let it fly out and know there'll be immense value for it.

Speaker 2: 8:38

Absolutely no, I definitely appreciate having us back on again for that and, yeah, that time at Genk was, yeah, absolutely special there to firstly know that, yeah, the work that's been done, like with all our sports and everything, it's gotten us to give us the opportunity to have the chance to race over in Belgium for the OCR World Champs and then, wearing the green and gold as well, racing there with you and David, yeah, that was definitely one of the highlight highlights of my sporting um sporting efforts that I've done. So, yeah, it's definitely definitely great to have that opportunity there with you and go through that that suffer fest there.

Speaker 1: 9:15

The suffer fest is a good way to describe it, but dude, you were. You spent five months backpacking around europe. Can you give us a bit more about that experience, like what triggered you to want to go do that, and a few things that you learned about yourself and, I guess, ideas that you had along the way?

Speaker 2: 9:32

Yeah, so that was coming off the back of being in business for well, I was trying to start businesses up as soon as I was out of high school, so 18 onwards and 32 now and yeah, a lot of time spent trying to build businesses and um had only just sold out of my business, um, only a few months before going overseas. Um, and as well as other personal things that were going on like just just personal life going on like just just personal life, circumstances that go on as well. Um, it was just if the like I was so focused on business and personal challenges that were going on that I never really got the chance to stop and explore the world. Like sports around, like brisbane and what uh around the world, and the sporting I was doing the obstacle course racing and other things like that.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Let me go off to different areas around australia and overseas, sometimes to go race, um, and I was, and each time I was doing that, I was just really craving, wanting to go back. So, um, yeah, when the opportunity came to sell out the business and um, nothing in front of me at that time, yeah, it was the perfect time to pack up a backpack, not have any plan and just go with the flow, because when you're in business, you're trying to be in control all the time and instead I went overseas, had no idea what the hell I was doing, no plan, had no idea where I was going to have, like my second destination was going to be um, yeah, it was just really craving just that, just random experiences.

Speaker 1: 11:11

That's all I was doing, like um, and just moments of like joy was that challenging, coming from such a high pressure career, the structure that you had and the responsibility that you had to just go completely the other other side?

Speaker 2: 11:30

because, as you were saying that, I was thinking about that for myself and I feel like that is something that I would have definitely struggled with I think having at least the experience with doing obstacle course racing and the lessons you learn from it was good preparation, because the sport is designed around manufactured adversity and getting yourself thrown into the unknown. So having that sort of a backing of five years of being involved with the sport really helped to make the travel going overseas a lot easier. But yeah, it was definitely hard. Like I think it hit me it was. It's a weird feeling of knowing that leaving, ducking off and leaving all the friends behind, family behind um, changing up, going from having hype that in a high pressure career, all these sorts of structures in place, and all of a sudden it's just all narrowed down to having a ticket scanned, jump on a plane and then go completely elsewhere, was really pretty much a pivotal turning point in how to force yourself to be different.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Can we talk more about that? Like forcing yourself to be different. What does that look like? And when you had the idea of doing that, how did that unfold?

Speaker 2: 13:02

I think, with listening to so many podcasts over a lot of time, you just hear different ways in which people think and, um, how people have explored things differently, or just you take on random concepts or principles or whatever it may be, and you just realize those sorts of things are missing in your life. And one thing that I had one quote that I was really powerful powerful before I went away that I really started pondering on was, as we grow up, we always ask what do you want to do, but never who do you want to be. So that there I was pondering on that for a while before going over, and while I was away as well, I was always thinking like who do I want to be? Like act like, like done this career for so long and pursued business for so long, but really, at the end of the day, I had you could have so many like external looks of success, but it doesn't actually make you be who you want to be at the end of it. It's like I want to be the person having fun, having a good time with my mates, sharing memories, creating memories with people, but business and other challenges were taken away from that. So I wasn't able to be that person, and the chance to go overseas was a great way to have.

Speaker 2: 14:31

No one around you can be any version of who you want to be with so many people around you that you may never see again. But you got the chance to just try new things, try different ways to interact with people. You find people that you gel along really well with. Some people, like I, could be with you for a couple of days. I think the way we want to have fun is going to be completely different, so you get those opportunities there to explore all sorts of things without any. There's no negative behind that. Either it's like we're just different, people do different things, or we think along the same lines. We have fun in the same way. Let's just keep doing things together. So yeah, definitely allows for that.

Speaker 1: 15:18

It's interesting where you think about. We are always asked, or even encouraged, to figure out what we want to do with our life, especially at school. It's like the pressure that I felt at 18, sorry, 17 when I was finishing school, to know the one thing that I wanted to do with the rest of my life, when I could not even answer that second question, which is who do I want to be? It was not a question that I started asking myself until I was around 24, 25 plus years old, and it is a big question. And especially the younger you are, you have less life experience to reference from and gain an understanding around the things that you enjoy doing, the people you enjoy being around, and then the flip side of that, the things that you don't enjoy doing and the people that you don't want to be around. So it can be quite a confronting question, but I do think that it is one of those questions that, if you go, I don't have the answer. Let's just go figure it out or find find it out.

Speaker 1: 16:16

It's why travel is such a great way to do that because, as you said, you get to meet these random people. You get to understand different cultures and perspectives and religions and ways of living that maybe sometimes challenge the way that you see the world and can help you reframe what you enjoy and and what you want to, I guess, hold closer to you moving forward. And when you start exploring that or embracing those new experiences, it then helps you flip it on its head to go. Well, based off the experiences that I've had and who I believe I want to become, this is now what I want to do, and it's only something that, as I've gotten older, it's like I want to still be so heavily involved in sport and fitness-based things, but I didn't think it was like a thing that you could do for a career and fitness-based things, but I didn't think it was like a thing that you could do for a career.

Speaker 1: 17:05

However, it's like we can make money out of anything to support ourselves. But what are we genuinely interested in, and why? What meaning does it give our life?

Speaker 2: 17:13

That's it, and I think a really good way to sort of work out how to answer some of those things there is. I learned this one when I got back, but it's the order in which you think about just the simple order in the information that you're processing there and that order of like, what do you want to do versus who you want to be. I think it comes in this order here that I learnt from someone else was it's the have do be. Once I have these things, then I can do these things and then be whatever where if you flip that order and you say I want to be this person and I'll do these things that this person wants to do, and at the end of it I'll have these experiences.

Speaker 2: 18:01

It is a much different way in which you process, how you perceive a lot of things. So if you're like, okay, I want to have a million dollars and do the things what a millionaire can do, then I'm going to be a millionaire, versus I'm just going to be a happy, fun person and do things that fun and happy people do and have these memories that a fun and happy person would have. Like you can work towards doing things in your career that a fun and happy person can't do. And, like you said, you can do things that will allow you to support your lifestyle, stuff that you're really passionate and interested in, and it really reduces the intensity, I think, in the way you perceive things which you don't know. If you have these things, how to actually navigate to get to that point or if it actually is going to produce the result that you want, you just hope at the end of it versus start with just being happy, and it's a hard thing to do just to be happy. It's not an easy thing just to if you've never put the effort in just to do that, but it's looking at what gets in the way of doing that, what is stopping you from achieving that there, and that's where people like yourself who are helping in the men's academy work towards that are hugely important there.

Speaker 2: 19:26

So it takes finding the right people that can help you discover that. If you've never had the experience to learn how to ask the questions, people that have done that work there previously will be the best place to go to actually find the examples of ways in which that can be achieved. And it's not so much you saying this is what you have to do. It is how you can think differently to allow these things to be possible, and it is a trust, the process thing. But life's a long time at the end of the day, so you've got a lifetime to learn that lesson. So I don't see why people can't put the effort into that, and I definitely know how hard it is to do that. It's taken me seven years to get to this point where I am now, but it's like the journey starts with the first steps. So, yeah, definitely always encourage people to try and take that route whenever they can.

Speaker 1: 20:24

It's a good distinction there, so I like that. So you're looking at it as have be do or be do and have is the flip side of that, and I feel for much of my life I was have be do. When I have this, then I'll be happy. And the goalposts always continue to shift because as I earned more money, my lifestyle became more expensive. Or as I closed one client, I was then thinking about the next one. And since I've even been over here, it's probably flipped more on the other side because, as you said, it is a lifetime, the journey of life can be a hundred years if we're lucky and we are what we repeatedly do.

Speaker 1: 21:08

So if we're doing things that make us unhappy, or the perception is that we're not happy doing those things, you're probably going to look back on life with not the most fond memories. But if you can find a way to either shift the perspective, to go okay, what am I enjoying about this, whether it is delayed gratification and it's moving you towards something. For example, for some people it's the gym. They don't like going, but they do like being healthy. They do like feeling comfortable or confident with their shirt off. For me, I love just going to the gym for the sake of going to the gym. So there's two ways of looking at it and doing those things make me go. That was a fucking great day and I'm happy right now. So I like that distinction there. So, going back to the travel, like when you started asking yourself those questions how or was there a difference between the mindset that you went away with and the mindset that you came back with?

Speaker 2: 22:10

That's a good question. Yeah, because I went away working out what like while I was exiting the business. I was still working out what I wanted to do when I got back and I already sort of had a rough idea. I've been working towards things for quite a long time and it's a really, really interesting question because I haven't tried to work it down to the mindset there, but it was. It was that same sort of mindset of working at who I want to be and leading with that first. So yeah, it was.

Speaker 2: 22:53

I think where I'm at at the moment is understanding intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. So I think I sent you a little while back something about like just the patterns of something about patterns of thinking there which I've done a bit of discovery with some of the research I've been doing. I've been doing and what I realized was a lot of the way that, like myself, how I grew up and I think, a lot of other people leading with that trying to meet expectations, has a root in that that first, those first two letters, that ex which is away from, like to move away from, or um, not with you, um, and that pattern of thinking was that ex of expectations which led into extraction, which led into exploitation, which led into disempowerment there, and it was the realization of where the origins of that sort of came from and how you have those sort of expectations put on you from school, um or sorry, I should say early, early growing up and you get told a lot of that same stuff in school and always trying to, and what all that's doing is setting expectations about you meeting something external from yourself and then so the expectations there something external from yourself then the extraction is taking time out of your life to achieve that perceived expectation there, and then, once you go through that cycle so many times that you keep taking time out of your lifetime, the business is taking resources out of your, out of your life and, whatever it may be, it led to then, um, like that feeling of being exploited from putting so much effort in there. You're trying to work towards something that in your head is so important, um, that you feel like that disempowerment at the end of there is like I've done all this work and I've really got not a lot to show for it. At the end of the day you can say, oh, you've got $100,000, $1 million, $10 million, whatever it is from a business there. But you've got really how you feel inside is completely different and that's the hardest bit to explain to people.

Speaker 2: 25:23

But I think that pattern there is a really powerful thing and it was learning to shift from and that was just conditioning that led to that it wasn't so much. Yet you tell yourself this is how I want to do this. This is just the conditioning that happens throughout your life that I started to realize and it was learning to go from. And I think the thinking order of thinking was external in. It's always external in, with that same well root word of ex and it's looking to do inside out. So working inside out, whatever it is going on inside, affects how you show up outside. So the mindset definitely shifted from a lot of perceived expectations external to how I felt inside and wanting to make sure that inside of me was operating at its best. How's thinking can be more beneficial to myself first and then benefit others.

Speaker 1: 26:23

So it's a lot of that shift there has gone from external to internal, which from inside out versus outside in it's such a cool thing to think about because even to this day I still fall into the trap of thinking I need things outside of myself to achieve a specific goal. And quite often you know you're very similar where it's like we've consumed so much information and and content and we've both built businesses, got great networks. You learn a lot through the fitness stuff that we do. That if you just sit down with a problem and everyone has problems we got a list as long as our arm. But if you were just to think about what the most significant problem that is holding you back from a specific outcome and I have to go get it validated by someone else first before I'm going to start acting on what I think is the right thing to do and the unfortunate thing about that is maybe our own experience around beliefs. The experiences that we've had to date are so unique that what gets me to a specific goal will be very different to what it looks like for you. Like, the journeys are always different.

Speaker 1: 28:04

So I've increased or experienced so much more success internally and externally over the last two years because I've realized that I don't need the external validation. I believe that I understand a lot of the things that I want and I have an idea of how I believe I can get there and I don't need to validate that with people anymore. I'd rather act and then get that feedback internally to go, okay, it's not working right now, maybe I do need to go to it's. It's not working right now, maybe I do need to, you know, go to talk to a, a professional or whatever it may be to to get that help. But for the first 31 years of my life it was always like, oh, someone else has the answer for me yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2: 28:49

And I think, um, I've got a, a theory on the, the origins of that type of thinking there, which I think is a limiting belief that a lot of people share. And you can hear the origins of that type of thinking there, which I think is a limiting belief that a lot of people share. And you can hear the sort of pattern when you talk to people. If you ask them to say, come to a 5k run or a 10k run or sign up to do a half marathon, you can normally predict the answer that they'll give a lot of the time. Um, and I think the origin comes down to how, the order in which we learn lessons in life and, in one way, how schooling actually changes, how we learn lessons.

Speaker 2: 29:28

If you think of it this way, as we grow up, we get given tests in life that we then learn lessons from. So, for example, example, if your parents say, don't put your hand on the hot stove, what do you know is hot like, can you actually do you know hot at a young age like it's not, until you actually put your hand on the stove and realize, ow, that's hot, and actually teach you what is hot, that you've actually learned the lesson. So if you think of it this way, you got a little dot. This is where the actual tests happen.

Speaker 2: 29:57

There's many lessons that can happen from that one dot. They can explain it all sorts of different ways and they give you three, four, five different lessons about hot. They teach you hot in the moment. They can teach you about hot, cold, all those sorts of things, what objects would be hot, what objects would be cold. So one little incident can have many different meanings and it's not until something is relevant that you can actually understand the meaning of something. Versus. In school you get given lessons that you then have a test for. So you get a lot of different lessons but you don't actually know what's going to be relevant for the test.

Speaker 2: 30:35

At the end They'll start to narrow it down close with the exam, but you go from learning a lot of information there that you have to memorize a lot of the time to actually have that test there, and the meaning for that is only relevant to the assignments or the exams that you're doing yeah and what you start to then work out there is okay, it starts broad, goes down narrators, the specifics of the exam or the assignment, and then you get validated from pass, fail, right, wrong, true, false, from external people there and if you repeat that same process, you got six or seven subjects in high school, for example, six or seven times, or six times for 24 I think, yeah, 24 over a whole year. Repeat that five times. It's 120 times throughout high school. I think it's now six years now they do.

Speaker 2: 31:30

But you got that same process of thinking, that same repeat conditioning happening many, many times when it comes to a test later on in life where you've got the freedom to think for yourself. You've been conditioned that many times there that you during that lead up to that exam of the assignment being due. You don't know whether you're going to be right or wrong, so you sort of condition yourself into thinking that 120 times for five years. You know that, leading into a test, and then come to a challenge later on in life. I feel that that conditioning shows up at a later point in time when, if you ask somebody come do a 5k run or a 10k run, you can sort of hear the same sort of thinking that they had during that time in school, show up in the when they're, I guess, confronted with that opportunity for the test. Um, yeah, that's how I think. I think a bit of the origin of that starts to.

Speaker 1: 32:33

That's my, at least my, theory behind that origin, not that there how are you implementing that in your life, now like now, with that theory? Are there things that you're doing differently or understanding differently? Obviously there is a different understanding there, but is there any examples?

Speaker 2: 32:53

I think it's. It's I'm really trying to work out how to explain this one different, but I think it's how you're perceiving problems at the time. So if you think about the exam of the assignment, a lot of that stuff's in the future and you're preparing something for future. So what that for me felt like was building up a bit of anxiety towards passing and failing the assignment of the exam and not knowing if it was actually going to be the right thing or the wrong thing. And I was always felt fairly average at everything I was doing, except for when it came to technology, um and sports. There, actually, um, that yeah, felt pretty average within there and so that always felt like it was always stuff in the future that I was worried about, where now I've realized that a lot of my skills were problem-based learning, especially from being in IT, in the technology world, diagnosing problems.

Speaker 2: 33:50

All the time You're working with a problem in real time and trying to work out how you actually solve that particular problem. So it shifted from thinking about things in the future, problems in the future, potential problems to bring it now this is actually in the moment and what tools and what resources can you use to solve the problem at the time and what would you actually need to do and what would you actually need to do to actually, if somebody offered me to come do a 20K trail race, for example, or a half marathon, and how I felt at the moment, I'd work out, okay, if I'm going to do it, what would I actually need to do to actually make it possible to achieve that versus no, I haven't trained anything, trained for it at the moment, so I'm not ready for it. It's like no, what can I actually do? So it's shifting the perspective from future to present and then working how to actually solve that problem, moving forward.

Speaker 1: 34:44

Yeah, it's just opening yourself up to be able to experience the new opportunities or outcomes, because if you automatically shut things down because you don't feel you've learned it, you just take away your resourcefulness Because no one for the example that you said, it's like no one gave you a cap on the half marathon. So if it took you 10 hours, technically, you could do it in 10 hours. Like you could do a run, like you could break that down, run, walk. What does that look like to be able to do it? If that tickled your fancy and I think they're both valid, though, right, because I think there's for me, like going back to the start of the conversation we would then think about who do I want to become? And there's moments where I plan a vision or a long-term goal, have that long-term thinking. It's then going okay.

Speaker 1: 35:41

Well, I would love these aspects of my life. I would love to still be super active and mobile when I'm in my 70s, 80s. I would love to have the freedom and flexibility to raise a family and not stress about money and have to be, I guess, chained to a desk from 9 to 5. I want to experience travel and all of these things and when I'm, I guess, thinking long-term about those things. I can then break it down because it can seem quite overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 36:10

I remember when I first set a goal to earn a million dollars and I was like it seems like a big jump from the 40 grand that I'm earning at the moment, which it was.

Speaker 1: 36:20

But then that's when you sort of bring it back to that short-term thinking and it's not even just short-term thinking and what can I do right now? It's what is the most important thing for me to do right now, like that genuine next step. So for me at that time it probably would have been hey, let's just learn to earn, or first identify how you're going to make that money. Is it going to be you're going to go to university and get a CEO C-suite job where you get paid a million bucks a year, or is you're going to create something, your own business, and pay yourself that? Like that's probably the first next logical step. And then you always go what's the next step? That I need to bridge me closer to that, because all you're doing is presenting new problems that you need to find a solution to, and every solution gives you a little bit more clarity but also presents more problems.

Speaker 1: 37:13

And that's the dance, and the more you're prepared to, I guess, persevere to solve those problems, the closer you're going to get to that longer-term outcome.

Speaker 2: 37:24

That's it, that's it, that's it, and I've, yeah, 100% on point with that there. And I think there's different ways you can. There's all different ways in which you can structure that sort of thinking there, and for myself, I follow the system of value-guided action. So over time, once you do a bit of reflection about identifying where your values lie, for me they become very core to me. So my why, my purpose, my beliefs, all those things they become really powerful structures as a foundation for directing where I want to go in life. And I think I see them in terms of it becomes your identity, right? Yeah, it allows you to I think it goes a bit beyond that and goes more into your authenticity. Your authenticity can become your identity.

Speaker 2: 38:15

And if you're living within your values, you're doing I take it as value-guided actions. When you're living within your values and you're acting upon those that is meaningful to you and when you take meaningful actions there, that allows that shows that authenticity. Behind whatever you're doing, you're not trying to fit into something. If your values are meaningful to you, it's like what Brene Brown says the opposite of belonging is fitting in. So if you're trying to fit into something that you don't, that doesn't quite work, then that's not quite like authentically. You You're going to really struggle and you're going to try and change yourself to fit into some image there of whatever it could be a group of people that you like. You've traveled from one city to another and you're trying to fit into the local crowd of the new place. Um, you meet a whole lot of, whole lot of new people there and you try and change yourself to fit into there. Um, it takes a lot of work and it'll take a lot of time to actually achieve that there before you actually belong. But if you, if you your beliefs and your values and your purpose and everything is a lot more meaningful to you, you'll actually find a sense of belonging with those people that share the same values. There's a lot less effort to actually do those same things together. We both obviously value our growth and learning and challenging ourselves with things, so for us to actually have this conversation, it just belongs together.

Speaker 2: 39:56

So that's where, if I just learn a lot of things there and I can see that you're doing all that growth work and it's not really a value of mine, but I go cool, there's this opportunity here. There I can talk to somebody who's really smart knows this stuff and I can show how smart I am. I'm going to try and fit my skills to sound like you and it's not quite authentic, so that's how I can see that there. And so by taking action towards my values, that's my.

Speaker 2: 40:24

I'll take the example from simon cynic's infinite game, where values are infinite, like. I'll look at, like, my health and fitness, joy, um, sorry, intimacy, um, creativity, curiosity as big parts of my value there and I'll take simple actions towards out there and that's just the actions I want to take. I'll work out, okay, is this going to bring me into one of those few things? Sure, and then I'll use that as a filter for the experiences I want to have in life. And then I use so that's for me, it's like the core, the foundations there, and then I'll use principles about how to navigate those things when it comes to challenges or foundational skills, like using mental models or frameworks of thinking or lenses there to help navigate those values there, and that becomes a really simple yet powerful way to order my thinking.

Speaker 2: 41:22

So, um, like that, like the, for example, when it comes to health and fitness, one principle there is you can't add exercise a bad diet.

Speaker 2: 41:33

Simple, as simple as that. You can't add exercise a bad diet. So I use that to reason with when it comes to nutrition and choosing foods that are healthier about what my body needs. I use that to reason with when it comes to nutrition and choosing foods that are healthier about what my body needs. I use that there as my example for how to make the choices about the food and nutrition I have before having the sweets or anything else of that are nice to have, like definitely don't get that out of my diet, um, but I'll take the things what what I need, because if I wanted to show up for the health, for the fitness events or the challenges I'm doing and you're right, nutrition will make those experiences a lot better. So by taking those better actions towards those things, I can actually live better in the moment, in those experiences that I'm having, of the things that provide me the most fulfillment gold, absolute gold.

Speaker 1: 42:24

I guess there was another thing you said earlier, where it was you're taking action towards your values and in that action, or the event of taking action, that also builds confidence. A lot of people, yeah, talk about wanting to build their confidence and there's a difference between self-esteem and confidence, and the way I look at it is like self-esteem is your overall opinion of yourself holistically, whereas confidence, to me, is your ability to complete a task or do that will, a desired skill for example.

Speaker 1: 43:02

So the act of doing to work towards a value increases your confidence in that specific area, and the more areas in your life that you feel confident in, the better self-esteem you have. And so when you obviously establish what those top values would be, you feel pulled. It doesn't feel like an effort to have to do the things required in order to fulfill those values. For me, it's health, it's connection, it's adventure. It's adventure, it's freedom, and the things that I believe I need to act on to make that or fulfill that come naturally. I'm a lot more disciplined to do those things. I think that's where all this interconnectedness starts happening still believe.

Speaker 1: 43:57

There's a large percentage of people and I could be wrong- and feel free to challenge that, don't want to put in the effort to establish values, to understand personal standards, to create a vision, because it's very hard to make tangible almost, however, at the same time, it is also very easy to make tangible almost However, at the same time, it is also very easy to make tangible, I think, when you think deeper and you ask more specific questions. You make what seems very vague and wish-washy very tangible, and at least that's my experience. And as a result of that, I have been able to, I guess, identify the things that I want to spend more time doing or work towards and the things that I don't, and so I don't feel overwhelmed as much as I used to, my productivity is much better and my overall happiness and fulfillment is a much higher level, and that all started from, I guess, what you just ran through.

Speaker 2: 45:06

Yeah, cool. Yeah, definitely, I think it's the thing that people don't want to do it. I think the trouble is that people have never had the example presented to them and when you start to understand about how powerful our survival instincts are in our body and mind, that at all times we're always trying to stay in control and stay alive stay alive and stay safe or be able to control the situations that you're in be able to change over to something that is so unknown would be really difficult because you've got to structure in the place that have let you stay how you are. So it's, it's nearly that. What if it ain't? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's nearly that same sort of thinking there, where it's getting you by at the moment, but it may not be the healthiest thing overall. You might struggle or run into challenges that you just can't overcome. But yeah, there's that way there to make it more tangible there, which I'm really exploring a lot myself on how to actually explain that in the simplest terms. There that value guide happens as one method there which I'm working on, which is part of the work I'm doing on at the moment, and I think one thing that is really powerful to understand with that style of thinking change there is when it comes to working into the unknown is that I learned this saying was that if you had a crystal ball and you could see yourself in the future, things like depression wouldn't actually exist, because you can actually see yourself showing up in future and your body's releasing cortisol and all the different stress hormones and whatever else influences you to stay alive. In those moments there of stress, it's keeping you in control to help think about the present moment. And if you can't see yourself in the future or can't see past the immediate problems that you've got in front of you, it is very hard to know how you're going to show up in the future. So your focus becomes really down to the problems.

Speaker 2: 47:32

There where I think values is a really powerful way to help you see into the future of like I'll wake up knowing I don't know what I'm actually doing today, but if I'm not going to take actions towards these values in health, fitness, fun, adventure, creativity, curiosity, whatever it may be I know those are the actions I'm going to do so tomorrow. I know I don't know what it actually is specifically, but I know I'm going to take some action towards that. So I can see that for me in the future I'm going to be taking, I'm going to take some action towards that, so I can see that for me in the future I'm going to be doing something along those lines there. That's going to lead towards that. And it took a long time to actually learn that lesson and, like you said, it's taking the time to actually ask those questions there about how to reach that shift, that thinking there.

Speaker 2: 48:20

But if you can see how you're going to show up in the future and if it's going to be aligned with your act, yeah, your values there, like they said, that it becomes a lot less stressful, a lot less overwhelming and it's. But it takes practice to start to think and align yourself that way. Um, so for me, I know what I'm going to be doing. I don't know the exact details of it, but I know it's going to be aligned with those actions there. Do you?

Speaker 1: 48:49

Sorry.

Speaker 2: 48:51

You finish, you finish.

Speaker 2: 48:54

I was going to say, like, after selling out my business, having a whole change up of lifestyle relationships, that I've realized how I was behaving like, how I was showing up in relationships with friends, family and potential partners, was not the healthiest of things, based on experiences that were had influences on me that I didn't realize actually were taking a toll.

Speaker 2: 49:19

Um, and how, actually, like not having the skills to handle that there, going from absolute burnout last year but still able to have visions of where I wanted to go and what values were still important to me, I was at least able to navigate into the chance of going overseas, to come back roughly have an idea about what I was doing, roughly have an idea about what I was doing and, in the space of 12 months, still be aligned with, roughly my values. And I feel great and fulfilled. Still, even though everything that was pretend, what was still in front of me, I knew what was coming up with, all the work, friends, everything to not having any of that anymore, I was still back on track after just giving myself the chance to rest, decompress, learn lessons that I didn't have the chance to learn before, properly recover, recuperate and get myself back into more revitalized state? Um yeah, and that that there's a powerful system there to allow for that that's cool.

Speaker 1: 50:24

Did you develop a list in the beginning when you, I guess, identified the things that you valued most to be able to go, okay, these are some potential things that I feel will help me fulfill those values? Because I don't know whether it's a dumb like. I don't know whether it is a dumb question or not, because to me now I have a really good understanding of the things that tick those boxes.

Speaker 2: 50:51

However, if I asked myself that before I even knew it was a thing, I think there would have been a bit of friction between me going okay, I value health, or I value adventure, and actually knowing things that I could do to achieve that, if that makes sense yeah, I think what it comes down to is it's taking the time to stop and reflect back and listing out just just writing a list out of the experiences that you've had and over a period of time and working out, sort of getting that broad list and then starting to narrow down, like categorizing, like starting to categorize roughly what they may be and grouping things together and then eventually what you try to find is do these actually belong under a particular value? So I had a lot of difficulty at the start with this. This is working with a psychologist for several weeks to properly get my head around the concept there. But once he started talking a certain way, I started talking about how I just started to do obstacle course racing and doing and how I'd gone down from I had the chance to do I did in 2019, I started that's when I started doing the sport and I did Tough Mudder at the start of the year with a couple of mates and then I signed up to a few more events by myself too, because I just loved doing it.

Speaker 2: 52:22

Yeah, it was just that chance to have. It's just a fun sport like love, climbing over stuff and get mud in dirty and all that stuff and signed up to a few events around Brisbane and I signed up to the Spartan at the Gold Coast, which I was supposed to do the 5K and the 21K beast and this was roughly, roughly I think this was right when they had the bushfires, so to postpone the event and in that time I end up getting a knee injury. So I end up only doing the 5k race at the Gold Coast but I was able to transfer my 21k beast down to Brighton, victoria, and so I signed up to do that down in Victoria and I signed up to do the 10K as well, to do the super on the same weekend, and gave myself the chance for my knee to heal it was just the ITV issue and ended up going down there to do the race and I did the 10K. My knee was fine, but until the last UK. Then it started to really flare up and I was like I don't know if I can actually do the 10k, the 20 on 20k, it's going to be twice as long and it was stupidly hard as well. Um, but I still ended up doing that there and out on course.

Speaker 2: 53:33

I was just having having the best time, just chatting with people and pushing myself and doing something I'd never done before. And when I took that story like I interacted with people and um had no idea I had no one down there as well, um, but when I took that story back to him he said he basically broke that down, saying in that time, while you're having fun, is you living within your values there? That's where you find fulfillment out. Just the experience of taking, just being in the moment, of doing like a fun challenge and having being out and having the adventure that you were having meeting people, had no idea of who you actually made and just were chatting to and you may never see them again. You were living within your values there. So what he brought it down to was just having fun, adventure, health and fitness and challenging yourself as those core values there. And we started stacking experiences on top of that there.

Speaker 2: 54:27

So when you said before about the self-esteem and confidence, there's that saying. I can't remember who initially said it, but I think I heard it off modern wisdom with chris william and he said you don't gain confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror. You gain confidence by having a stack of undeniable proof you are who you say you are and simply taking those different actions towards things that lie within your value system. You are taking actions towards things that are meaningful to you and the more you start to stack that up, the more you gain confidence in who you are within those values. And a lot of the people around you can see this guy is an adventurer. I can see you know. At times I've said to people recently this is like doing a little side hustle, taking people on adventure experiences, and they're like, yeah, I can 100% see you doing that for a long time. That's so good.

Speaker 2: 55:19

Because, I've built up that confidence around how much I love doing adventure experiences and people can see that. So it's very authentic to me to do that there and him building examples on top of that through taking more actions towards things within that value there challenging myself, doing the fun adventure, and particularly during COVID time that was all leading into COVID, I was starting to take actions towards those things and, yeah, it really paved the way forward to get to the point where I am now.

Speaker 1: 55:55

That's cool. I think that is so cool when you think about adopting the belief that I'm healthy, for example, or really leaning into that value. You then start going okay, well, what's the proof to that point of that quote that you mentioned? The proof or the evidence that I need to prove that I'm healthy? It's not hitting the snooze button, it's not making the poor food choices, it's not skipping gym snooze button. It's not making the poor food choices, it's not skipping gym or your recovery sessions. Whatever the idea of health you have is, it's doing that thing. Same with money, same with relationships. And that's why one thing I always say to clients is like whatever they're working towards in their business.

Speaker 1: 56:40

It's like you are. That. If you've got your own business, you are technically the founder. You are the founder and CEO, even if it's just you and you're a sole trader. Treat it like you would if you had 100 people under you.

Speaker 1: 56:50

If you're not an athlete like getting paid for it, you're still an athlete. I still consider myself an athlete. So I treat my recovery and my priorities like I'm an athlete and I'm fit and healthy because of that, and it's no different to any of the things that we do. So then when you go into the next chapter, like you've just said, there, people are like oh yeah, I can see that because that's who you are, that's how you're showing up, we are what we repeatedly do, and if you're constantly the adventure guy, you become the adventure guy. Yep, that's it. Can you give us a bit of a, because we've got a couple more minutes? I think we need to do a podcast every four weeks for the next couple of months, because I've got a whole lot of notes here and we've literally not even moved on to the next segment that I wanted to talk about which is fine because I think it's cool.

Speaker 1: 57:43

We get to unpack them a little bit more in depth rather than, uh, scanning over them. So that's, that's good. But the next chapter that you've moved into, like obviously rewild and students of life helping people like can you give us a bit of a chat about that?

Speaker 2: 58:01

yeah, so the rewild and students of life are two that I referred. I'm referring to them as research and education projects. Um, I have no doubt there'll be several businesses that will form under the project as I'm working towards them, but what I'm really working towards is how to help people live and operate at their natural best. So when it comes to back to that thinking of external right, wrong, true false pass, fail, whatever it may be, I don't think there's any one way that is right or wrong. There's ways in which you can live that will, um, that that life is so multi-dimensional, multifaceted, that there's no right or wrong way. It's just understanding that there are ways in which our bodies and our minds can operate and it's determining which ones are better suited. So that way, for example, you don't run into. But when it comes to handling stress, there's ways in which you can handle stress that it doesn't show up, and helping people find the ways in which they can handle stress.

Speaker 2: 59:13

There's many different ways that can be achieved Learning to help try different things and then learning lessons from those. So everyone that has ever lived has never grown up as an expert. They've always learned through life. Experience and students of life is basically taking. I want to be able to connect with a lot of the experts that have spent their time dedicated to the areas of interest that they've had and drawing in their knowledge and experience. That can be structured to help people navigate life itself and learn from other students in life about how to navigate your life and then, in turn, once you've learned how to navigate it, you can pass that on to friends, family, your kids, whoever it may be right around you and helping find those meaningful things in life as well.

Speaker 2: 1:00:11

So it's not so much what to think, it's about how to think, it's the whole. Give a person a fish and they'll eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they'll eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they'll feed for life. Um, it's that how to, how to do those things there and there's a lot of people that know the specifics of the actions that people could take and it's building that little foundations there that can help. Um, it's a really hard way. It's. It's still in its infancy, with um explaining it, um, so it's very vague at the moment. Um, but yeah, I'm building out, um what I think will be a very powerful research and education project that will help to target many different aspects of life that we need, um and having helping people that are the experts in those things as well, all align together in a sort of a bit more of a unified mission, I guess.

Speaker 1: 1:01:12

It's exciting. Sorry, it's exciting. I had a little air bubble in my throat then. That's going to be cool to watch that come to life, man. It's been awesome diving deep on a few of the the topics. I think we'll definitely book in another one for four weeks time. Uh to to dive in. There's some other things around, like mental health you're obviously four years without drinking and business stuff that I want to pick your brains about as well, so we might as well record that. Yep, I'll have to do that. I appreciate you coming on, man.

Speaker 2: 1:01:49

Thanks very much, Lockie.

Speaker 2: 1:01:50

And I'll say as well, I was going to say first, sorry.

Speaker 2: 1:01:55

I was going to say, yeah, really appreciate the time there that you've done for allowing me to come back on and also for the work that you do with, especially within the Strongman of Value and the man that Can project there you've done for allowing me to come back on and also for the work that you do with, especially within the strong man of value and the man that can project.

Speaker 2: 1:02:04

There, um, sitting back listening to a lot of the stories and examples that you provide, um, it is a very daunting and um, I can tell that you put a lot of effort into um, looking at so many examples in your life about where things have been challenging, but learning how to transform that into something educational for other people is huge. And I just want to say I think I guess on behalf of everyone whoever listens to the podcast or the work that you do with all the people in the academy as well thank you very much for the time that you put into firstly bettering yourself and then passing that experience on to other people there. It's a very powerful and very inspiring thing that you do.

Speaker 1: 1:02:50

I appreciate it, man. That means a lot, so it's always nice to hear that. And for everyone who's enjoyed this episode, I will have Matt's social media links in the show notes so you can go reach out to him and have a yarn as well. And if you enjoyed the episode, make sure you share it and definitely hit the subscribe button because Matty will be back on in about four weeks' time if I can lock him down. It'll be good. Thanks for listening, absolutely.