It is never too late!

Marina Bay, Singapore

What will it take for you to feel like you're really happy? Have you even thought about it before or are you just plugging along on the hamster wheel that is life? I am an observer of people. I love to watch people, study people, read people, and see what really makes people tick. I look around and see people who are really happy and fulfilled and others who say the only good thing about Monday is that it is only five more days until the weekend. You get the point right? I see people that handcuff themselves to a job they hate or a relationship they feel miserable in for decades or even a lifetime. I also see people who are chasing their dreams. I choose to surround myself with people that inspire me. One of my close friends is giving up an extraordinary income and a great job to chase his dream of traveling around the world. I have another close friend who just opened up his own chiropractic practice from scratch with an amazing amount of hard work and determination to transform his community. I have another close friend who is expanding his practice by leaps and bounds while keeping in great shape and building a great new marriage. I have another close friend who gave up his chiropractic practice in a foreign country making a great income to move to a place to start over because he saw more potential for fulfillment and enjoyment in his life. All of these individuals have taken huge risks in their life and have been rewarded immensely in the process. I, for one, gave up a great job near my family and sold everything and moved to the other side of the world with nothing but a couple of bags and a huge desire to create.


Unfortunately, I also see people miserable in their lives. I observe people who are broke, unhappy, and unfulfilled. I see people who are in a job they hate, making money that they can barely survive on, and going home to a relationship they do not feel fulfilled in, and a mirror they don't feel comfortable looking in. It breaks my heart to see people living like that. They just keep walking on the hamster wheel hoping for something to come along and save them from their life, or even worse, giving up all hope and giving in to a life they don't enjoy.

The reality is that many of us fall somewhere in between the "I have everything figured out and am living my dream life" and "I hate my life and I am living a miserable existence." From what I observe, we are much farther away from the first one than many of us would like to be. We get comfortable. We get complacent. We just give up. We give up on a life we would love for the life we have. We budget rather than create abundance. We settle rather than explore. We accept mediocrity rather than chase greatness.

Would you like to travel more? It really isn't as expensive as you might think if you do it right. Would you like to start a blog or a website about your passion? Do it. It's free! Would you like to start that new business you have always dreamed about? When it's your passion, it doesn't feel much like work. Would you like to learn to dance or speak a foreign language? Fei chang hao! Would you like to live in a foreign country, move to Hawaii, or even relocate to the other side of town? If the will or desire is strong enough, you can make it happen.

Learn to become a child and dream again. Dream big dreams and place massive action behind those dreams. Maybe you have a family and can't uproot your whole life just yet, you still can learn to dance, speak a foreign language, start a blog, take a trip to a really cool location, and the list goes on. Get out there and chase your dreams. You can thank me for it later.

Love,
Matt

Do you need to clean up your life?

Anyone that knows me knows I do not have a great reputation for having organized personal spaces.  Sure, the main area of my office and home look great, but it isn’t uncommon for my room, desk, personal office, closet, and even my computer to look like a tornado has hit it.  Living in a city, I do not have a car anymore, but when I had a car, it was usually a mess as well.  I just never placed a high value on keeping those things clean.  After all very few people were going to see those places and the ones that did, I was close enough with to not really care if they thought I was messy or not.  I remember the first time a few years back I heard a professional speaker illustrate his distaste for messiness because of how it carries over into all areas of life.  He stated, “Watch out for a messy car. A messy car equals messy panties.”  That analogy, while crude and tasteless, holds tremendous value and truth.  How you are in one area of your life reflects all areas of your life.  Living one area of your life exceptionally does not give you permission to be a mess in another area.  Living an exceptional life requires a commitment to all areas of life. Life is not a zero sum game. 

Unfortunately, while that comment stuck with me, it never made an impact on me enough to stimulate a lasting change.  Why? Simple.  Because I associated more pain with taking the time to file papers on my desk than the eye-sore of a messy desk.  I associated more pain with the time to straighten up my room than I did to the clutter that it had on my life.  I knew that all that clutter was creating blockages in my life, even if it was only metaphorically although I am sure it had physical manifestations as well, but it did not create enough of an emotional impact for me to change it.  The truth is that I do not enjoy the mess and the clutter.  I just did a really good job ignoring it.  I finally decided I needed to “clean up my life.” So I did things like I do when I commit to anything. I went all out and did not just put a few papers away.  I went into just about every nook and cranny and straightened everything out, even the stuff that is hidden.  I still have a few things to clean up but almost all of my personal spaces, even my computer, have gone through major transformations in the last couple of weeks. 

Here is the really cool thing.  Although I did not have an ulterior motive in “cleaning up my life,” it has positively carried over into other areas of my life.  Literally, the moment I decided to start cleaning up, the practice improved.  More people started referring friends and family in for care.  More people have been renewing their commitment to chiropractic care and the improvement in their health. There has been more synergy between the staff in the office.  My quality of sleep has improved.  When you clean up ANY area of your life, it affects EVERY area of your life. 

What are you waiting for? Pick up mop and start cleaning!

Love,

Matt

My 100 page Lifebook...

Working on my Lifebook in Chiang Mai, Thailand

For the past 3 months, my mastermind group has dedicated ourselves to working on our Lifebook.  It is a program we broke up into 12 weekly sections where we visioneer our ideal life. Not in a “wishful thinking” type of way but more in a “this is what I am going to create” type of way.  In the end my Lifebook is over 100 pages of pictures, visions, and strategies for creating my dream life.  It is meant for inspiration but there is also the pragmatic side of strategizing its attainment.  As I was completing my last section, it was asking to create my life 5 years from now.  Where would I be physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, and financially?  What would I have created and what am I going to create? What would my life look like? That is when the doubt started to kick in.  That is when I started to dream up some magnificent dreams, but my rational side would start to say, “That is not possible” and “You are not good enough.” I have a dream to speak to crowds of thousands all over the world inspiring them to live the life of their dreams.  My negative voice would tell me, “I do not have what it takes.  Do you really think you are as good as Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, and Mark Victor Hansen?” I want to create products that people could use in the comfort of their own home and computer to create and manifest amazing things in their life? My negative voice kicks in and asks “Do you really think you are as good as Deepak Chopra, Oprah Winfrey, and Jeff Bezos?” I want to create a foundation that serves underprivileged communities and families, helps them get back on their feet, and gives children a head start in life, but my negative voice asks, “Do you really think you are going to be powerful enough and influential enough to do that?”  I want to travel all around the world for months at a time or even years, but my negative voice asks, “Is that really practical? Will you really have the time?” 

We all have this negative voice.  We all have this voice that tells us we aren’t good enough; we aren’t powerful enough; and we aren’t smart enough.  We have this voice that likes to tell us to play small and play it safe.  This little voice is our ego afraid of failing; afraid of becoming bruised; afraid of being damaged.  This little voice knows if it can just convince us to play small, we will never have to worry about failing.  The reality is that if I listened to this voice I never would’ve moved across the world, built the practice of my dreams, and traveled to some of the most exotic locations around the world.  The truth is if I let that little voice run my life I never would’ve left the comfort of my hometown and explored the vast and unknown of the world.  From time to time that voice continues to creep its way back and what I realize is that my vision, my passion, my circle of influence, and my intention must be louder than that little voice.  That little voice is never going to disappear so we all have to learn how to create a relationship with it and use it like the dim light of the moon.  It doesn’t guide us where we need to go but it does provide us with the light to be aware of our surroundings.  It provides just enough protection to not be dangerous, but we certainly shouldn’t be directed by it.

I remember very distinctly when I was getting ready to graduate from chiropractic school, living in China with barely enough money to eat, and writing out my dreams in a little red journal.  I was laughing at the absurdity of what I said I was going to create in the next 5 years.  I thought it was almost silly that I thought I could create something like that in such a sort amount of time.  That was the little voice rearing its head again.  But I figured it couldn’t hurt to dream!  I just went through that journal the other day, almost exactly 5 years later than when I wrote it and was blown away by how much of those things actually came true; some of which I far exceeded.

As I sit here now laughing with disbelief at my next 5-year goals, I can’t help but wonder “What if?” What if this is just the beginning? What if that little voice doesn’t know what it is talking about? What if I am powerful beyond what I ever imagined? 

And the question I would love for you to ask yourself is “What if you are too?”

Love,

Matt