The Jim Fortin Podcast

EPISODE 127: “How Matthew Went From Having It All And Still Not Happy To Leveling Up And Peace”

August 26, 2020

In this episode I talk to one of my current students, Matthew Bonadona. And, you’ll hear how he went from having it all in life and still not being happy to still having it all and bliss.

This is a really great episode because so many of us have so much and we’re still not happy and that was exactly Matthew’s case. You may or not be able to relate to his exact scenario but all of us are looking for a better life, and he’ll tell you how he found that for himself.

When he met his life was a “disaster.” Days upon days or anxiety and never enough are forever gone for him.

He talks about how his life shifted when he started living from the “inside out” instead of the outside in.

Matthew also talks about “how to become the person you want to be.” As he talks about how his life revolved around “what if thinking, stress and anxiety” and he lived in “fight or flight mode for 20 years.”

I can go on forever but it’s better if you just listen to the episode and hear it all for yourself. And, what he did, you can do!

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Full Episode Transcript

Intro

Jim Fortin
You’re listening to episode number 127 of the Transform your Life from the inside out podcast. In this episode I talked to a student of mine, his name is Matthew Bonadona. And in our time together, he shares with you how he went from having it all in life, quite literally and having an amazing life and still not being happy. He went from there to leveling up, and peace and mental wellness, and even kicked many years of anxiety in the midst of all of that. Now in our time together, he will share with you how he did it. And what I want to share with you is what Matthew can do, you can do. So if you’re interested, and you want to know about how Matthew took all this, you know this this mess in his life. As a matter of fact, you’ll hear him call himself a disaster. How Matthew went from that to again, leveling up peace and one of the best relationships he’s ever had with his wife. Well, if you want to Learn all all of that, then keep listening.

Jim Fortin
Hi, I’m Jim Fortin, and you’re about to start Transforming Your Life from the inside out with this podcast. I’m widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation. And I’ve coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you’re going to find no rah rah motivation and no hype. Because this podcast is a combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels you’ve never thought possible. If you’re wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you. Because you’re going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want then becomes possible for you. I’m glad you’re here.


Matthew’s Journey: Stop Living From the Outside and Start Living From the Inside

Jim Fortin
Okay, so today, we’ve already been Got an intro here the podcast we’re talking to Mr. Matthew Bonadona , I love your last name. I think a lot of people in the group love your name bhana Donna, and as I said, it reminded me of Rosanna Danna from the 1970s. Saturday Night Live. Anyway, Matthew, somebody that we knew would be a good person to share a message with you guys. Before we started talking, I’ve known Matthew now for, I guess, four months. But before he and I started talking today, he said something about I made a note here about his life being and he’s gonna explain what this means being a disaster. And that’s the exact word you use is the disaster. So where I want to go in our time together is you also said to me, you’ve got everything that people are supposed to want in life, I mean, whatever that is for you, but you have a good life. Why are you not happy? Is what I wrote that down. So let’s go there. What does that mean when you share that sentence?

Matthew
Well, I think in society with television and how everything is portrayed to us it’s go out and get a job on a business, make a lot of money, buy things have experiences and your life is gonna be like this as the pinnacle of life. Correct. And so as my family, you know, in my businesses grew over the years, and things became attainable. I was even further miserable than I was when it wasn’t like that. I mean, the pressures of business, the pressures of continuing to succeed in life, and, you know, you’re going to go out and you’re going to get XYZ, whatever that is, and that’s gonna make you happy. And then you have it. And you realize, wait a minute, it’s cool for a week, but, it’s not it’s not what life is about or what life should be about, in my opinion. So, when I said I was a disaster, people would come up to me and be like, Oh, man, you got everything, you know. Yeah. Now I feel some lucky gal and I’m just sitting there going. I just want to be with my family. I just want to, be able to take three days off and not have to worry about anything or answer the phone. Or I can go and talk to this person because I just want to go and talk to them and I’m not worried about you know what they’re gonna think.

Jim Fortin
Yeah. So you you stop living from the outside and started living from the inside.

Matthew
I live more from the inside now than I’ve ever lived in my entire life.

Jim Fortin
Hmm, that’s, that’s huge. And I want to go somewhere here completely off this topic. Now, you being in a program of mine recently, you shot a video with a very vibrant community, as you know, very active and supportive community. You shot a video but it wasn’t till maybe the fourth week of our time together something like that. You saw. He does. I’m going to go with this.

Matthew
Yeah,

Jim Fortin
He shot it. Video and now four months later you’re on my podcast and you know that I have a pretty sizable audience much larger than our, our group that you were in. And you wouldn’t shoot a video initially because of what?

Matthew
Because of the way that I speak.

Jim Fortin
Exactly. I’m laughing now really hard guys because he’s now on the podcast and notice now, three months ago he would because he’s your Cajun, right you’re you’re Louisiana.

Matthew
I’m from South Louisiana. I have an extremely thick accent. Yeah, I mean, I did not want to shoot a video or do anything because I thought of myself as unpolished. not educated people gonna hear the way I talk and immediately, you know, think that I’m on educated. So I had a lot of a lot of internal emotional fears around it.And then in reality Yeah, and in reality, that’s a people needed to hear me talk. I needed that for myself. I needed to be able to overcome that hurdle. And I do it through your program.

Jim Fortin
And now now your shooting video and you’re doing audio doing a podcast for crying out loud? For a lot, a lot of people that are gonna download this and a lot of people are going to learn from you. There’s no question and that’s what happened and our time together is that people heard you and they could resonate. So let’s go back here. What do you think you know, you you have a good life. And before you came into the program, you had a good life. And initially, I wanted to talk about which I don’t think it’s where I want to go now so much, but I wanted to talk about leveling up. But you didn’t just level up, you leveled up in,You see people when people talk about leveling up so many, so many people talk about leveling up and your external world, level up your work, level up your money, level up all these physical external things, but it didn’t seem as I’m hearing you, that’s how you you’ve leveled up to date. So can whatever you can share. Let’s share. Let’s dig in. So as you hear me saying this, what do you want to start sharing about your emotional leveling up?

Matthew
Yeah, um, you know, I kind of coined the phrase in the group, I’m not motivated, I’m elevated, you know, we’re here to level up people. And that kind of took on a life of its own but leveling up to me was becoming the person that you want to be and that’s what I learned in the program was, who am I being not what am I doing? Not what, what I’m having, whom I’m being and, you know, my life was centered around 20 years of stress and anxiety, and I mean, bad shut down. The irrational thoughts, worry about everything. I lived, what I would call a what if lifestyle, whatever the worst case scenario was. That’s what I live. I mean, day in, day out It wasn’t until I realized, I mean, I lived in flight of fight. Pretty much for 20 years. I’ve seen every therapist, I’ve seen psychiatrist, I’ve seen psychologist, I’ve talked to energy people. And it would always send back to that. And throughout your program, which I believe is 14 total weeks. I mean, the anxiety and stress was massively reduced in three or four weeks. I mean, I even mentioned that to you in the group, like, Oh, my God, how did this happen? You know, in the group, so I love that.

Jim Fortin
Matt, I want to I want to interrupt you in guys listening. I know somebody once said, Well, Jim, interrupts people. Well, I interrupt because I want to I want to expand on that for people listening, because they want to know people right now are listening. And they’re saying, Oh, my gosh, Matt, you know, I have the I have the anxiety. I have the stress every day and they’re thinking if that guy did it, what did he do? What if you can put it together? Maybe it’s not one thing, but What happened for you or in our time together that took you from that stress and anxiety? To, as you said massively reducing it in a few weeks.

Matthew
I never took the time to sit. And I asked myself questions. I never realized the answers were within. And so what I did was, as we were going through certain steps, I realized, wait a minute, I’ve been committed to stress and anxiety. And what I mean by being committed is as things would a circumstance in your life would happen. My neural pathways will already set the stories I tell myself too. This is how you deal with it. You stress you go through anxiety, correct. It could be something as simple as I’m on my way to work, and I get in a traffic jam and it triggers me and then I’ll start worrying about being late. Well, what does that do for the rest of your day? It throws your day off if you sit there and hop on it correct on how I was laid today. traffic was the And I live that way. That’s a simple example. But I lived that way for years. And what I did differently was I started to pay attention to my thoughts. I started to rearrange my thoughts as far as how do I feel? Is this the worst case scenario? Is this just a story? Is this something I’m telling myself? And I realized pretty quickly, it’s the same thing. Just plug and play the circumstance. So I would say in a nutshell, I was able to get out of it by thinking my way and I asked myself to correct the correct questions. What impact does this have on the rest of my day? It’s nothing. It’s one thought. You have them. You have 10,000 of them a day. It’s one.

Jim Fortin
Let’s move on.

Matthew
Yeah.

Jim Fortin
So let me ask you there. If you were sitting across from somebody and you’re having a margarita and it’s not even you’re not even on podcast or any of that? And they said to you, you know, what’s one of the most valuable things you’ve learned in the last year in your life? And you said, I wrote down here pay attention to your thoughts. Do you think it’s a fair statement that if more people became aware that they’re even going through thoughts on a daily basis, that would change their life?

Matthew
That would be the understatement of the century. I think it would massively change everything about your existence. Your thoughts are your existence. I mean, that’s we are thoughts. But, you know, we’re the creator of our thoughts. So you have the power to create, whatever you think up. And I would definitely say that paying attention to how you think as well as,paying attention to what you say to yourself, the words you use and how powerful words can be and thoughts can be. I think people would be amazed what they could accomplish.

Jim Fortin
Yeah. Very, very true self talk, right, which is what we talk about partly in the program. Let me ask you here. And I know you have and I appreciate you preparing, I know you have some things that you want to cover. So we’ll get to those. We’re not gonna have time for all your entire list, but we’ll get to them. Well, let me ask you this your data, you got to I think two kids, right? Yes, sir. Okay, and you’re married? How has this how has your shifted, shifting shifted? Your marriage?

Matthew
Well, that’s, that’s good, because we’re gonna, that was the second thing that I talked about was on my list as I’m present. I’m present anybody out there who has stress and anxiety. Understand, you get on this mental loop, right? You get on this loop and you cannot get off the loop and it’s just what if? I’ll work myself out of it. Okay, what about this? What about Dale? So I was not present for the first five years of my child’s life. I mean, I wasn’t there. I was at the games. I was at home. But mentally, I was at work, I was thinking about my health or all these things. So I wasn’t present in my marriage. I wasn’t present with my children. I never really sat back and had the laugh with them. And what this has done for me, or what has changed for me and made it better was I became present. I took control well not control but I basically paid attention to my thoughts and said, we’re not going to go there. We’re here right now. And this is the most important thing to me. I wanted to why I was unhappy was I was not living my values, my values is family, outdoor life second success third. Well, my family’s first well how you gonna live a family value? If mentally you’re never there.

Jim Fortin
Which by the way, let me add there. So we did that we did an exercise on that to help you discover your subconscious values. Well, I think I think Think what you discovered is even though your family even though you said your family was your highest value, you were still living and putting maybe work or external things and bowing down to the external things and making those your highest value or paying attention to them without even recognizing it. So you were literally ignoring your highest value, which which in your heart was your family is your family.

Matthew
Yeah, I mean, that is spot on. I was. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it. I got such in a routine. a habit was so deep that I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I wasn’t doing it anymore. We talked about, you know, in the program blind spots. I never saw it. I didn’t see it until I saw it. And then the sudden it was like, wow, I mean, you’ve been doing this for five years. How did you not recognize this?

Jim Fortin
Yeah, you just got on you got an autopilot which is what we as humans do. With your autopilot, unfortunately had you in stress and anxiety all the time your fight or flight, which actually was conditioning the brain to like a little engine running at the back of your head, the back of your bottom of your brainstem just running are the bottom of your brain put it that way just running all the time would fight or flight anxiety anxiety, anxiety and stress and now…Ah…Take a deep breath. you’ve pulled yourself out of that. Now let’s go here because a lot of people listening and he’s smiling it guys if no one

Matthew
Cause great now Man.

Jim Fortin
Audio. That’s where he’s going to go is how has it affected your relationship with your kids?

Matthew
We just went to 30A in Florida for nine days. I’ve never picked up the phone. Like never worried about work. We dock jumped with the kids. I got a two year old I had a jumping off the dock. You know we want a lake with a partial view of the beach so the beach was like 100 yards and we will present like it was the best family vacation. I I didn’t even stress on the road trip, which was 12 hours, you know, to go there. I was just in the moment. I was happy. And, when you go on vacation, you have all these stresses, kid routines, anybody on you know the podcast who has children, it’s very hard, but a two and five year old when you travel in 12 hours. And we had a blast. I mean, we really focused on just being together as a family, my parents and my brother came up and visited me for a day or two while I was out there, and just seeing my my children with their grandparents. I never took time to realize how special that really was to me. I got to do that.

Jim Fortin
Thank you. And let me go there. Matthew, I hear what you’re saying. And again, I don’t want to promote TCP and you’re not but I want to go there with what I want to say is and I don’t this might not even apply. So I’m asking because it may apply, as you’ve changed. Have you had an impact on before you answer? I’ll tell you why I’m asking. As you’ve changed, have you had an impact adults? Have you had an impact on them around you? And what have they noticed? And what changes have they had? And the reason that I mentioned this only for anybody listening is we want the world to change so badly. But when we change the world, a lot of times changes around us automatically. So wherever you want to go with that, or whatever you can toss in there.

Matthew
I can use three examples that come to my head. The first one is my marriage. I thought I had a great marriage. I was not present in my marriage. I did not hear things that my wife, you know, would tell me because I’m off, you know, somewhere else in my head. And since I started, you know, basically working my way, internal to external, it changed our relationship. I mean, my wife told me Yes, She said this the closest connection I’ve ever had to you and we’ve been together for 18 years.

Jim Fortin
Yes. Let me back up before you go on. I’m jumping out again.

Matthew
Yes.

Jim Fortin
So even though because you start and you said, Well, I had a good marriage. So you thought you had a good marriage. But what I wonder if we were in her mind the whole time, you’re thinking, Oh, I’m in a good marriage. But I wonder really what she was thinking then as opposed to now.

Matthew
She was thinking, and she’ll tell you, I mean, you know, my wife. She had to be the rock while I was breaking down with stress and anxiety all the time. And over a decade of that became a shell of the man that I was, you know, when we got together, it was always in her words. I’m dealing with a third child all the time. You know, even though you are an adult, and you are, you know, have a great life. She’s able to pick up the baggage and Once that went away, it leveled up marriage to where now, we probably have better conversations than we’ve ever had in our life. I mean, we were just on 38 we talked for three days and it was wonderful.

Jim Fortin
Maybe theres

Matthew
I really felt like a new connection with my wife.

Jim Fortin
Maybe there’s a third little Bonadona coming along now,

Matthew
I’m not in a plan so I’m almost falling. I can do another one.

Jim Fortin
Well, you guys are getting along. So and that’s amazing because as you improved your your mental, I don’t mean this in any kind of diagnostic way. But as you improved your mental health, you affected the relationship and it significantly improved her mental health and her life as well. And then I go back here I want to leave here really quickly to go back to your other two examples is your kids are young, and you’ve become two and five. You become much better living examples for your kids as the parents you are now Because see your kids through osmosis and observation would have learned to be these things that you were to, they would have learned to be stressed, most likely or anxious, or not present or not the full and complete relationship. And as a result of you changing, you and your wife have changed. Now you’ve changed the model that you are for your kids.Fair.

Matthew
That’s definitely fair.

Jim Fortin
Okay, so let me segue from the episode for just one minute. The fact that you’re here listening to my podcast means that you are serious, and you want to transform your life from the inside out. Now, that being said, you’re going to want to mark your calendar because I am doing a live no charge free training, starting on September the 3rd, it’s going to be a three part training and it’s called the BE DO HAVE series training. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to dig deeper and two ways, ways of identity that you need to Be so that you can do the things that you need to do. So that you can have what you want to have in life to health, wealth, success, money and all the things that you want. So, whatever you do, Mark your calendar, September the 3rd 3pm, Central Standard Time. And, again, whatever you do now, click the show notes. Click the link and get registered for this. No charge training. Okay, back to the episode.

Jim Fortin
Perfect, okay. And I wanted a lot of parents to see that is that our kids learn, they whatever we are, and however we are our kids learn that from us. Okay, you had a couple more examples and because I, I just wanted to visit with you because I knew we’d go somewhere I just didn’t know where and I wanted it to unravel organically. So what else do you have?

Matthew
And that’s what I wanted to I mean, I jotted around notes but everything is going to be like it’s going to be you know, and that’s that’s just kind of where we’re at and but that the second example, you just nailed it was my children. I mean, my kids were frustrated. And I would always be like, man, why is my child so anxious? Well, it was because I was anxious. They were feeding off of my energy. You wrote something to me on, you know, in the group about children absorbing and even though know that as parents, we get into little triggers little frustrations had a rough day and we bring that home with us. And that’s what our children see for that hour or two before you go to sleep. And what what has changed in my life is, okay, this is what I’m feeling. Let me talk about my feelings in front of my kids and what you know what I’m going through, you know, kind of feeling and let me let me live internally, and let them watch it. And so what we’ve noticed with our children is, they actually behave a lot better because I behave Aalot better. They sit tend to sit with themselves a little bit more. And even my son was was telling me the other day and it made me so proud. I legitimately cried and Dad, you know, we have a lot I’m very grateful that I have you and mom. Well, the reason we started they started doing that is because at night, my wife and I go over with our children’s. What are you grateful for today? Let’s talk about it. So they’re already learning by us changing what we’ve done. So that’s, that’s definitely number two. And as another adult, you know, I have a friend of mine who is struggling health wise. And whenever you talk to him the words that he tells himself about, I’m unhealthy. I’m not doing well, I’m broken. And you know, just kind of having conversations with him and saying, Look, man, look how you talk to yourself. I can relate to this. I talk to myself like that for years. Why don’t you start looking at internally? What is good about your life or your your, you know, physical condition? What are the good things and start really talking to yourself about those things. And you’re going to see a huge difference in how you feel.

Jim Fortin
Let me let me go there. Yes. Thank you for that. So week number two in our time together, we talked about which I’m going here, because you’ve been talking the whole time about this, is we talk about stories. And then you talk about your friend and then what you’re doing is you’re hearing the stories that he’s telling himself about how right you’re grinnng. Yeah, yeah. So how powerful Do you think stories are in our life?

Matthew
I would say that stories are probably 95% of everybody’s life. We all have them, right? This is how I grew up. This is the way life he is. Life actually isn’t like that. And I learn that, you know, in my four months with you is that life is choices, right? So what choices are you making? Just because your parents see something one way taught you a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean it’s quote unquote, the right or wrong way. And then what you start to realize as an adult is Oh my God, I’m a Dad, oh my god I’m a Mom. You know, you started seeing these things. And you even notice it as a parent, a lot of your listeners is gonna notice as a parent, when you look at your child, they’re five years old, and you go, oh my god, that’s me,that’s me. That’s a story I tell myself and now my child has that exact same story. I need to make an adjustment. So yeah, 95% of your entire life, I would say is stories that you either a thought you experienced or was told to you so many times that,that’s your reality.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, you as a parent, one of my really good friends. I was here when their first kid was born I saw him take his first step. He’s six now. And they even though he’s a friend, they call me Uncle Jim everything and I said, how’s your son doing? mentioning my name, but not here. And he goes, he goes, he’s doing really well. He’s growing up so fast, and the kid is a hard head. And then he said, he’s joking guess he must have gotten that from his mother. And we started laughing, because the kid learned from him. But I want to go back here for all parents, and then we’ll go somewhere else. Matthew, it’s a really important thing you brought up because I did mention in our time together, is I know some people very, very close, and they don’t have a happy marriage for a lot of reasons. And they put on the happy face for their kids. But then they wonder why their kid is always acting up. There’s so much tension between the parents even though they’re physiologically trying to show Oh, we’re mommy and daddy. The kids picking up on all the tension in the energy between the parents and is acting out on that. And what Matthew said and it’s confirming and I want people to please hear is you can put on a happy face all day long in front of your kids, but your kids are reading your energy and your vibration and your frequency. And whatever you have your kids are picking up and learning. So be very mindful. How you are with your little bitty kids is how they become. Okay, let’s do a little lottery here. I don’t know what’s on your list. Look down on your list and pick something and let’s go from there.

Matthew
Okay, so you know, one of the biggest things like in the program, I had three or four weeks where I was just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, I’m just getting hit with all these, what I call attention bubbles, which was here the blind spots I’ve never paid attention to and now that I see it, you cannot unsee it you cannot undo what you already know or have seen. And it was self love. Were always fine as a society to finedexternal Things to make us whole. And what I learned and what I started to implement was, it starts by loving yourself first. And I never did that in my life. I was the guy who it was never good enough, you know, wrote notes. Talking about being on your podcasts, they not smart enough, not polished, bad accent. Think about what I’m saying right here. What did I get myself anything positive to make myself feel competent, you know, to be on a podcast No. And, you know, hey, you’re successful. Well, Bob makes more money than me. Who cares? But that was the life it was just it was I never celebrated successes. I never thought of myself, as you know, somebody that can help others, like others help me. And really what it came down to is I just wasn’t loving myself. And that was other than the stress and anxiety. That was the biggest change of my life. I wake up every morning, and I have four mantras that I share with myself and it’s all to help myself. I love myself. Number one. I’m a successful business owner, that helps a lot of people. I am a great provider for my wife. I’m supportive and loving to my children and my wife, and I just repeat, repeat, repeat. And I do that because this is the real me. And that’s what I need to see in myself before I can make others happy. So that would be the the biggest thing that I took away from TCP and I think that’s why I had a huge transformation was answer where always there you just didn’t know the questions.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, that’s really big. So for people listening when he mentions TCP that’s the Transformational Coaching Program the accurate No, that’s fine, that’s fine that he and we had I think 511 people registered and it was I’m still laughing at this people shoot where we have a Facebook group it’s private people shoot videos and lives and all this kind of things relative to the program. And Matthew shot his first live like week number four. And you’re remember that and even said in this video, he was nervous and it gets I didn’t even look at my phone for like six hours after I shot the video because I didn’t want to see comments. And I’m laughing because you became a sensation in the group after that first video. Remember, you went from hiding to shooting videos all the time. Now, what I want to point out is grinning. What I want to point out is jokingly here but not jokingly. You talked about being on a podcast now and formed three months ago, you wouldn’t even shoot a video I’m laughing at If I see you a year from now and you got the Matthew Bonadona podcast you got 10 million downloads. You’re this internet sensation because people can relate to you.

Matthew
Yeah,

Jim Fortin
He’s laughing but and you know what, I wouldn’t be surprised that maybe he’s even saying, part of that has crossed my mind at some point that look at the people you’re helping, because a lot of people don’t. You’re just what I call me to like just a normal person, you’re just part of the world normal person. But you talk about things that so many people they don’t really pay attention to. But self love.That is a huge one. How did that happen for you? I mean, we talked about a lot in the program, and we do some things on it. But when was this epiphany for you that and what did you say to just say, I don’t even think about this right? I’ll know if I love myself or what does that mean? What was the start of this for you?

Matthew
Well, the sort of it came from, you know, for people that don’t know anything about the programs, we have a lot of coaches and the programs and all the coaches have their kind of special, you know, areas of expertise. And it was probably week four or five into the program where one of the coaches, she would always ask me these questions. And they were real deep questions. And the first two weeks, I didn’t want to answer them. Well, we had an exercise where we had to sit with ourselves and I was deathly afraid to sit with myself. I was just, I’m going to talk to myself negatively, I’m going to critique myself, there’s always going to be these issues. The opposite happened for me. That answers to a lot of the questions on why I was unhappy came out and that for, you know, three, four hours of, of me just sitting with myself and realizing wait a minute. I got a lot of good and maybe Look what I’ve come back to, you know, you talking about my videos. The community helped me so much transform. It’s the light it was the lifeline for self love that I made it. And to be able to sit with myself and be able to go over the things that I learned about myself and that time with the community and get their feedback, as well as them holding space for me was the game changer. When it came down to self-love, that was the game changer. To be able to be in a group with like minded individuals who’s on the same energy level as you are, and to be guided by people who’ve been there and done that and work their way through. It’s truly priceless. And that’s kinda that was the start of when I realized the answers were internal. And this is a big thing that I need to get over. I need to learn to speak to myself better and I need to learn to love myself and also need to learn to, you know, have gratitude for what I’ve been able to do in my life.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, that’s that’s an amazing follow up an answer from you. And what’s interesting is you said before we even did this. Am I smart enough? Well, you sound like a pretty smart guy to me and I’ve known you for a while. So I don’t think there’s any more concern that you have about are you smart enough? And especially considering the fact you’re helping people? Okay. Look over on your list pull one more thing over there that you think people would would say that’s me. There’s something that I can take from this and some some way I can grow from this.Your 4 key things now you got something in there?

Matthew
I definitely do. You know, one of the things that I think people will relate to a lot that I had is I have a really big heart when I’ve talked to friends or if I talk to my wife, right? Why do y’all love being you got a giant heart I want to help people. Well, I realized that I’m a people pleaser, and I have people please my whole life. To the point where I was miserable, and I think a lot of your listeners are going to relate to that. You don’t want to help your brother move, he should hire a mover, but you’re going to do it even though it makes you miserable. And I just recently, just recently before TCP had this exact same sample, work wise, with people pleasing, it’s the weekend, Hey, can you do this for me? Sure. I’ll do it, even though I’m with my children. And that’s really what was important for me or you know, other examples, just name them with people pleasing. And that was me, I actually wrote down. I made myself miserable by serving others. I could not tell people no, I was committed to making others like me to make up for how I felt internally. So the people pleasing was to really looking back at myself, mirror and myself and saying, you’re doing this to make yourself feel better. And really, it’s doing the opposite because it’s not from your heart. You’re not doing it from your heart, you’re doing it to help, you know to, to make their lives easier. And so now I made a commitment, like I talked about with my morning mantras, to love myself, to be happy to live the life that I want to live first. I do want to help you, I think society in general want to help people. But there is a difference between being committed to yourself and helping others and only helping others because you don’t want to disappoint or your fear, you fear that they’re not going to like you, you know, and those type of things. So that would definitely be something I think a lot of people the majority of America or the world could really relate to, to people pleasing.

Jim Fortin
Yeah. And you know, we talked about that in the program and I do a lot in the coaches do about and I just did a podcast. Episode on that recently is that generally if we’re the people pleaser, we’re doing it because we want to be liked and by please enough people, they’re not going to be mad because I did what they you know, I did what they asked me and if they’re not mad at me, then they’re going to love me and accept me. But if I don’t people please they’re going to be mad and they’re going to reject me is where most people work from. I used to be there. Now you’ve known me long enough. I’m kind of like, I don’t care.

Matthew
Exactly.

Jim Fortin
You be mad all day long. I don’t care. It has nothing to do with me. You know what? It’s 100 word text is right now you let it’s 100 degrees higher damn movement. I help you move. I’ll pay for it. But I’m not going. Yeah, I’m not going up three flights of stairs to your apartment when it’s 100 degrees outside. And I get that I’ve been there before. Where are you now? How do you when somebody asked you to do something and you don’t want to do it? Where do you come from now?

Matthew
I just talked about boundaries. Learn to you know, be committed to what I need to do. And really just setting up by boundaries and I do it in a very respectful way. You know, I really do not have time for this my schedule is full Is there a, you know, a different option that we can you know that I can help you take more or less like steering it to me first, helping second and only really putting myself where I genuinely want to do it. I would do it for free. I would you know, I would just it would make me feel good to be able to do this for somebody. And that’s how I’m living my life. And honestly, this is the best life that i’ve i’ve had right now this this exact life where it was so important for me to commit to me. And now I’m realizing back up in the podcast we talked about you know, how did your transformation help other adults? This is how, This is how take control of what not shouldn’t say take control, be mindful of the attention of what of where you want what you want to do, and just do those things. And you’ll be surprised that most people understand.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, let me let me ask you something and guys listening, want to say guys, I mean men and women and everyone just it’s a colloquialism. But is he’s corrected himself a couple of times when he uses the word take control. And he’s grinning because we talked about in the program, there is no such thing as control. You can’t control anything. You can’t even control your own thoughts. You can choose them. But back when he was having the which he talked about when you were having all these stress and anxiety thoughts, they were just bombarding you like, like Hornets. And you couldn’t control them and you’ve learned which you even said is that I can choose my thoughts. Now let me ask you this. A word that you used is do you feel I already kind of know where we’re going to go. But some people that are listening are probably thinking, well, if I look at myself first, then I’m selfish. Do you feel selfish now that you’ve got boundaries and you put yourself first?

Matthew
Not at all I feel aligned? I feel aligned, I feel that one of your coaches asked me the perfect question during my journey. What do you want? And who do you want to be in your life? And I never sat back and I did not ever ask myself that question. So I don’t feel selfish at all. If I’m internally unhappy and don’t want to do it, what good am I doing by anybody else? I’m not doing I’m not doing any good for anybody else. so now I don’t feel selfish at all. And I don’t even look at it as being selfish. I’ll look at it as being aligned on who do I want to be?

Jim Fortin
What do you want to be? and are you actually you you are you have become that because you’re operating from this place. Who do you want to be?

Matthew
I want to be a happy present father and husband and I want to live the life I want to lay up on my terms. I do not want to I do not want to live with societal norms. I do not want to lay up on how others think and what I should do in my life. You know, one of the things that I thought was amazing is the other day I watched a podcast with Elon Husk, and I looked at, you know, with training, I looked at the things he was saying, and he’s unapologetic people can call him selfish, but he does what he wants to do. He helps the people he wants to help. And because he does things this way, how many people benefit from what he creates?

Jim Fortin
In the world

Matthew
In the world I’m in and that I would have never noticed those things. If I wouldn’t went through, you know, the last four months of Wow, this guy’s got, you know, he’s living the lifestyle I wanna be.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, thank you for that and here’s here’s we’ll go final thing doesn’t matter if it came from me one of the coaches doesn’t matter. You know we have a phenomenal coaching team. I mean, these people are like amazing what they do. What’s your favorite quote and are that you live by? Whether I said it, somebody else said it somebody from the program brought it in, what’s the number one quote that you live by from our entire time together that’s life changing?

Matthew
Okay, so I have three of them and as well as areas that you mentioned that up because I have them all written down. When you change your vibration, everything changes.

Jim Fortin
Okay.

Matthew
100% possible 100% of the time

Jim Fortin
Yeah.

Matthew
You are what your attention is.

Jim Fortin
I just gotta say you better at least have that one in there somewhere you are where your attention is. And somebody asked me a couple of days ago on a podcast where I was being interviewed, and they said, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever taken away, or taken taken from. From my work, which I got from my brother in law, the shaman as you are where your attention is, what does that mean?

Matthew
I would say that it goes down to thoughts, you know, what were your thoughts, being mindful of how you think being mindful of the way that you speak? And if you’re going to sit there and you’re going to think about a negative thought, or the what if, like, I left 20 years of my life, you know, that’s where my attention was, it was on what is the negative side of this? What is the worst case of this and not what is the good about it? Where are the blessings The universe has for us in everything that we do from work to, you know, just because you went through a little pain or a little bit of adversity. If your attention was on getting that golden nugget, I would call it, it changes everything. You know, use something as simple as traffic, okay? The person cut you off. Okay, your attention can be on the person cut me off and now I’m mad, I’m going to go track them down. They had words and you know, you live you live here in Dallas. You get it? I mean, there’s a lot of people there’s everywhere, there’s no way you can avoid it. My attention would have been on the, the thing that doesn’t serve me when now their attention would be, you know, maybe they’re just late for an appointment. You know, oh, they’re, they’re speeding, they’re gonna be down the road in two minutes. It’s not gonna affect my day. So that’s kind of what it means to me. I call them tension bubbles. I try to get as many little a positive attention bubbles in my brain, that little green positive signs. And I just try to grab them all day long. And I noticed when you do that, you tend to have a really great day.

Jim Fortin
All the time,

Matthew
All the time.

Jim Fortin
Yeah, I know.

Matthew
And not to piggyback on something you said, because I know, you know, we have an allotted time frame. But for people that are listening to the podcast, I’ve been asked to do podcasts for last three years, I’ve been asked to speak for the last three to five years, I’ve been asked to go on people and being interviewed. I could never do it. I could not do it. My fear of judgment, the anxiety and stress and the worry of what are people going to think about the way I speak? I declined to everybody. And my first podcast is with you, and you command a huge audience. I’m not nervous at all.

Jim Fortin
Hmm.

Matthew
At all. I’m looking forward to this. This was an honor for me to be on the podcast.

Jim Fortin
Well I’m grinning all the way through. Thank you so much. And I’ll tell you what I’m really thinking about is I like a nice haircut.

Jim Fortin
Oh, Yeah

Jim Fortin
No kidding, guys,

Matthew
Oh yeah I like the Kobe haircut?

Jim Fortin
Well, I’m laughing because I’ve known him for a while. He’s got a full head of hair. And back when we had we’re in the COVID trenches. I mean, he would pull his hat off and it’d be like his hair would just go poof. I mean, he he had this massive massive head of hair and I’m like, he’s clean cut now. Matthew, thank you so much. I really like it was an It was an honor having you with us and you’re still with us obviously. But it was honor having you in the program. It’s honor you know, having you here because I know people listening to things you’ve talked about the self love and the stress and the anxiety and, and where your attention is in the stories. I mean, like I said, You’re just a normal guy. I’m a normal guy, but when somebody like you, you know, you might say differently than me and people hear it and they’re like, yeah, that was me. And if he can do it, I can do it. He’s giving me some tools. You’ve helped a lot of people today and I just want to the bottom of my heart say thank you very, very much. Thank you

Matthew
I will receive it. Thank you very much and thank you for doing what you do. I think you’re doing a great job and you know, I hope that you’re able to help millions in any way that I can be a part of that. I will be because you know, then you know, the podcast was this is a lifestyle for me now. Like this is this is life from here on in to being a part of these programs and really leveling up.

Jim Fortin
And thank you for that. And to come back at that is we’re always living a lifestyle. It’s what lifestyle do you choose? Do you choose stress and fear and anxiety and poverty and struggle with money or do you choose health and wellness and abundance andLove and these other things that all these things that you have in your life, Our brother. Make it a great day today. And I’m sure I’ll see you in the group. And thank you again so much.

Matthew
Thank you, sir, you have a great day.

Jim Fortin
You too. Talk to you later. Okay, bye. Bye.

 

Conclusion

Jim Fortin
Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you’re the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too, so please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions, I’m here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com. And I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my Instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we’re all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves together You and I, let’s help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes and a good one by the way, I’d be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.

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Jim Fortin

Jim Fortin

Jim is an international subconscious self-transformation and high performance expert with over two decades of expertise in brain based transformation and high performance. Using a brain based approach coupled with transformational psychology and ancient wisdom Jim has created programs that create long-term core-level life transformation in his students.

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