Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Practical Strategies to Tackle 8 Primary Negative Emotions
Unlock the keys to emotional growth and leadership success with insights from Matt, a successful business owner from Charleston, South Carolina. As Matt candidly shares his journey of personal development and business triumphs, we explore the essential role emotional maturity plays in overcoming challenges. Learn practical strategies to tackle eight primary negative emotions—shame, guilt, hopelessness, sadness, fear, lust, anger, and desire—and discover how mastering your emotions can lead to profound organizational success.
Self-doubt and the victim mentality can sabotage even the most promising leaders. In this episode, we tackle these destructive mindsets and highlight the importance of maintaining a positive outlook despite the negativity around us. Hear how emotional frequencies can shape our outcomes and why choosing resilience, inspired by figures like David Goggins, can turn adversity into triumph. You'll gain actionable tips for cultivating a positive mindset, such as cutting off negative news feeds and embracing uplifting content.
In a world obsessed with external success, we reflect on the power of gratitude and the importance of prioritizing happiness. Drawing on personal stories and insights from thought leaders like Gary Keller and Darren Hardy, we discuss the need for a balanced life that includes family and personal joy. From integrating family time into busy schedules to receiving honest feedback from loved ones, this episode offers a roadmap to a fulfilling life where personal and professional growth go hand in hand. Plus, leadership consultant Ron Harvey joins us with invaluable advice on continuous improvement, encouraging a commitment to lifelong learning and leadership excellence.
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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience, designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, chief Operating Officer for Global Core Strategies and Consulting. I know it's a mouthful. Gcs is what we call ourselves Leadership Development Firm, based out of Columbia, south Carolina, and everything we do is about helping leaders be more effective at taking care of the people that they're responsible for and responsible to. How do you get better at the end of the day, outside of your technical skills? How do you really get better at taking care of people? And we spend all our time around that. So I won't go into great detail there, because we have a show lined up for you that I think you're going to love. You're going to enjoy the energy that's going to come from this and you're going to hear from the experts that we bring from across the world. So I'm super excited to bring Matt on and always give the guests a microphone and let them introduce themselves however they desire, so I'm going to hand it over to Matt and let him take us away.
Speaker 3:What's up, ron man? Hey, I'm not coming from across the world, I'm coming from across I-95 and I-26. I'm just like an hour and a half away from you. I'm in Charleston, south Carolina, and man, I'm just like an hour and a half away from you. I'm in Charleston, south Carolina, and man, it's so good to be on this call with you, brother.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, man Thank you man, Tell us, what do you do? I mean so you're right up the road. They got some good food in Charleston, oh yeah, no, I don't know how many restaurants? Hey, how did the Gamecocks do this weekend? We were nervous, but they pulled it off.
Speaker 3:Oh good, okay, All right. So my wife's a Clemson fan. It did not go well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it did not go well they played.
Speaker 2:A really good team too, Matt.
Speaker 3:They played the best team. I know that was tough.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I start my season off that way.
Speaker 3:I don't want to play the number being happy. I love talking about happiness. It's not fake happiness. The only way to have real, authentic happiness is to deal with the eight unpleasant emotions, and so I wrote a book called the Good Mood Revolution. I have a podcast called the Good Mood Revolution where I talk about hey, there's only eight things that get in the way of you and your happiness. And these are the eight primary bad moods and they're universal for all humans. We all feel all eight shame, guilt, hopelessness, sadness, fear, lust, anger and desire. All of us have to experience these eight moods, but it's like are we going to let those eight moods get in the way of our leadership? And we don't have to. And then there's practical tips about how to get out of each of these eight emotions. Because the reality is we create the greatest success when we feel on top of the world, and a company is only going to go as far as the CEO is their emotional development. That's it. So business success is unlimited, absolutely unlimited. We can achieve as much as we want to achieve. It's just do we have the emotional and mindset skills and the desire to make it that big?
Speaker 3:I started a real estate company in Charleston, south Carolina, in 2006. We were awarded the number six fastest growing company in the state of South Carolina. We were on the Inc 5000 fastest growing list. We have been named the number one company in the entire state to work for out of 470,000 companies. I've got about 80 employees. But all of that success came with my happiness. So in the beginning I would we do good and then I would sabotage it in like somebody would leave or sabotage me back or whatever, and so it's like is I'm like man. The best thing about being a business owner is it to be really good at this. I have to grow as a human. I have to see. Only way I can achieve my goals is to get, is to grow myself personally. So that became actually my favorite part of being a business owner was that I had to grow, and that's that's what I teach people. How to do is how to grow emotionally.
Speaker 2:Wow. And so you know how we do our podcast. We have real conversations and so what I tell everybody on here Matt, pull out your pen, whatever you're going to do, you can get the recordings, all the great stuff, but we're going to drop the nuggets real things. That's practical. We're pretty transparent and I love that our guests come on and like here's what I'm doing, but congratulations, I mean, you know that's competition. I'm one of those business. I got some self-development over here as I listen to Matt like hey on that. So I appreciate the competition and the challenge. You said something super important as a business owner, as an entrepreneur if the company is going to get better, you got to get better. That's non-negotiable. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. Yeah, the only thing stopping a company from growing is the emotional maturity level of the owner.
Speaker 2:So, when you think about it, what did you go through? I mean, there were rollercoaster rides, of course, as you got to where you are, you sabotage. I'm glad you're really transparent and vulnerable here, but we do sabotage oftentimes as leaders. What are the things that drive us to sabotage? I know it's not intentional. We just want to destroy our country. What are the unintentional things that we are doing? You gave out eight things that all of us deal with the demons, if you will. What is it that's causing us to sabotage unintentionally?
Speaker 3:It is the eight negative moods. So the first one is the most destructive one and it's one we all have to deal with, and it's shame. Nobody wants to admit that's an ugly word is shame. Another way to put it is the wound of rejection. You know, my friend Matthew Micheletti talks about how shame is just a wound of rejection, and when we're kids we got rejected. You know, maybe it was for me, it was my parents. I was rejected. I was told I wasn't good enough and in a way that can push you, you can be like well, I'll prove that I'm good enough.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And so you think, okay, this is going to help me, and I often hear business owners being like I'm going to prove them wrong and you can use that as fuel. I certainly use it as fuel in the beginning. That only takes you so far. You're proving that you are good enough, but deep down you actually still don't believe that you are and you don't deserve the success. And so when you feel like you don't deserve it because you're trying to prove everybody wrong that you do deserve it you eventually sabotage it because you're like there's a piece of you that doesn't feel it deserves it. And so then and you don't know you're sabotaging it you think, oh, that person stole from me, that employee went and opened up a shop competing against me, like that.
Speaker 3:But all of this stuff on an energetic level we are creating with our own emotional frequency, we're actually asking people to prove to us that we don't deserve it because we don't believe we deserve sustained success. So once we clear out the shame and it's just one of the processes that I teach then we stop having to prove that we need to be rejected because we're like no, I actually do deserve sustained success. And you start creating a company of harmony and a company of harmony. Man like culture, each strategy for breakfast, when, when everybody's happy and excited, like I said, we achieved all these awards and it's because we all like being there and we all want to be happy producing a bunch of success.
Speaker 2:So, when you think about it, matt, you wrote a book, you got the eight bad moves that are listed and people. Please grab the book and hopefully you'll have a copy where you can show on the screen for us as well. How do you help when leaders often I mean today, when you look at it there's so much negativity in our world. All you got to do is listen to TV or radio long enough or step out of your house long enough or don't listen to TV and radio.
Speaker 2:Yes. How do you help leaders that have these setbacks and these challenges? What techniques do you recommend when you do have these setback or challenges? To get back to this maintaining positivity.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, ron, I think that you just nailed it. Our listener right now. They're listening to you because you're positive and you're a can-do and you're a let's grow our leadership. So most people know I got to fill my brain with positive energy, like Ron's, unpacked right. The people who are really successful know I got to fill my brain with positive energy, like Ron's, unpacked right.
Speaker 3:The people who are really successful know I got to take the news away. I got to take the negativity out of my daily intake and I got to fill my brain instead with positivity. And so that was one of the first thing, the very first practical tips that I did is I cut all news feeds. I stopped watching the news. I stopped staying on any Fox news, cnn. I just turned it all off off my computer search history.
Speaker 3:I just wouldn't go to news. I actually don't go to social media either because it's skewed to the negative, and I started to intentionally only listen to things that were uplifting and were going to improve my mindset. Things that were uplifting and were going to improve my mindset it's garbage in, garbage out. So negativity in negativity comes out of your mouth, positive in, positive out. I get positivity and can-do leadership advice from Ron, and then I'm spitting out those same words to people around me like no, you can do that. You know what. You are a leader. You are empowered. You can handle this, because that's all I listen to is that I can handle it. But the news, of course, 80% of the world is skewed to the negative, our mindsets. 80% of the world has a negative mindset, so the news has to skew to the negative to keep their attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sells. It's unfortunate, but it sells people, not me. It doesn't sell.
Speaker 3:It doesn't sell the top 20%. The top 20 say I'm not going to fall for this garbage. I'm going to fill myself with positivity. It sells to the bottom 80%, but leaders are the top 20%. We have to protect what goes in.
Speaker 2:So phenomenal? How do you help leaders not fall into this victim mentality or not allow it to manifest as a leader? What are the things or the dangers that are posed that allows people to fall into? How do you not fall victim to things that are happening around you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, each of the eight bad moods are victim moods. Yes, they are all in and that's the 80%. So anytime we're in negativity, we are in a victim mindset. We don't notice it. We think that, hey, I'm angry because that person did this or that person said this, or we think I'm really fearful and anxious because the government just changed the whole real estate landscape. That's something that just happened in my company, right? Or however, anytime we're in one of these eight negative moods, we're actually saying I'm powerless to this external force that's having power over me.
Speaker 3:I'm a victim. There's another truth, and another truth is I am fully powerful, I am completely empowered, I am response able for absolutely everything you can throw at me and I am never a victim because I always can choose the way I'm going to respond to any situation. And I am so powerful I'm actually unlimitedly powerful that you can continue to give me obstacles, obstacle, obstacle, obstacle, obstacle, obstacle, but I'm so confident in my ability to respond and be resilient that there's nothing that could ever keep me down and I will never, ever be a victim. So that's one of my mantras is that I will never choose to be a victim and being a victim is a choice I'm not going to downplay. When I was a kid I suffered tremendous emotional abuse that there were things that when we're younger we really can't. We really are victim because we're tiny and we're small and we need our parents to like keep us alive.
Speaker 3:And people have been traumatized and in enormous ways actually write about David Goggins story in my book on the chapter on choosing responsibility and Goggins man, that he was abused.
Speaker 3:There was racial stuff that was going on with him, like he had every right to be a victim and yet he said I'm not going to be a victim, I'm going to choose to be powerful. And as soon as he chose to be powerful man, he became one of the most powerful human beings ever to live. And it actually was his father's abuse and all the abuse he took from the racism from the kids at school that he said nothing can hurt me and it became his fuel. And he wrote a book called you Can't Hurt Me and he did 4,000 pull-ups in one day and he ran 100 miles without stopping Like the dude is freaking amazing and he wouldn't have been so. It was actually the stuff that happened to him didn't happen to him, it happened for him so he could become even more powerful than anyone else in the world, and that's how we can turn our pain into our purpose. We got to rise up out of that victim story and say I'm actually more powerful than you think.
Speaker 2:Wow, phenomenal. I mean I'm glad you're bringing in the book you know Can't Hurt Me and phenomenal book. If you haven't picked it up and you're going through, how do I recover? How do I stay resilient? Phenomenal book Leaders are readers. You know that. Made it through what you may be going through. You have the book and there's some things that's written in it. What are some daily practices that you have practiced and that you share with the audience to get through and stay happy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, I'm an open book. There's nothing behind it. I'll share everything I do on any conversation. It's like, yeah, of course I put all my thoughts into one concise book and that's an easy way to consume it, but I'm happy to share absolutely everything and it is the daily practice. That really is what it comes down to. But before the habit becomes our thoughts, our thoughts create our emotions and then our emotions create our behavior and then our behavior creates our habits and our habits create our destiny. This is how it works. And so if we've got disempowering thoughts that create disempowering emotions and we end up having disempowering behavior, which is disempowering habits, like maybe drinking every single night or drug addiction or overeating addiction, and then that creates a disempowered destiny, which is my dad ended up with diabetes and that was a disempowered destiny because he couldn't get control of these habits and these emotions, so it does start.
Speaker 3:My first habit every day is gratitude. Every single morning, when my first foot hits the ground, I got a little piece of paper taped to my floor. It's been there for over a decade. It says thank you, and when my left foot hits the ground, I say the word thank, and then, when my right foot hits the ground, I say the word you and I walk through the house. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. This is just a daily habit to get me into a super high frequency, emotional frequency of gratitude, because I wake up and sometimes my mind is racing with all kinds of like oh, I got to do this and that person said this, and all the negativity, right, but gratitude completely dispels any negativity. You can't be grateful and hateful at the same time. So that's one of my easiest little habits and it will change your life.
Speaker 2:Wow, I love it and I'll tell you as we're email this morning. What do I open up? And I see an email from Matt and he's like hey, man, I'm super excited, I'm ready to come on the show. And the gratefulness and oftentimes we get so caught up in all the hateful versus grateful. I love that you said they don't coexist. It's hard to show up when you are saying thank you, mad at the world.
Speaker 3:You can't no-transcript. I'm never allowed to repeat Every day. I got to write three brand new things I've never written before that I'm grateful for Now. This seems like a tall task.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it does. I'm doing a math in my head. That's a thousand things. You got to write a thousand things this year that you're grateful for.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, this is what happens. Eventually, you name off all your kids, all your relatives, your pets, your house, every room in your house, your cars, all your co-workers, and you're like what else is there? And then you finally open yourself up to the truth that absolutely everything that ever happens is something to be grateful for the person that looked at you sideways, that they gave you an opportunity to work on forgiveness and compassion. You can say, man, I'm so grateful for that person that woke me up from my trance and now I got to be compassionate for it. You stub your toe and you realize that your foot is still on your leg and that you can walk on it. And there's people that don't have a foot today. And you're like oh, I'm so grateful. I stubbed my toe, it woke me up to the fact that I have two feet today. I'm grateful.
Speaker 3:Every single thing that happens, the things that look like bad news, are things that you can be grateful for. And when you have to write three new things, you're like OK, well, what happened yesterday that I was grateful for? Well, this happened, and this happened and this happened. And you're like, oh, man. And then eventually your mind is just like looking for every single thing that it could say it's grateful for, and then you just become grateful for absolutely everything, and that's life changing.
Speaker 2:Yes, how did you get to the place where it stays authentic? And you're not saying it just to say I just want to do it because that's what I've been told us. I've been trained. How do you make it authentic that you're actually grateful, regardless of the situation you find yourself in?
Speaker 3:Awesome question and there's days that I don't feel very grateful. No-transcript. Everything is happening for the highest good of all concerned. That is a truth. Anyone that wants to talk about it just reach out to me and I'll let you know that even the things that look like the craziest, most awful things you've ever seen is all on a long enough timeline and we're talking an internal timeline. Everything is working out for the highest good, and if we know that that's a truth and I know it's a truth and I can, I can help anybody that doesn't see it Then you say, okay, all right, this really awful business thing that I have to deal with, I have to deal with it and I know it's all going to work out. It's all going to work out for the highest good of all concern. Maybe my highest good is I have to grow, because I have this big challenge, and this challenge isn't really a problem. It's actually some a gift that was sent to me to help me grow and become more, and I know that every challenge I've ever been sent, I've become a greater version of myself because of it.
Speaker 3:And so it starts with a mood called acceptance. We say, hey, I'm accepting that. This is my reality. I'm not grateful for it yet, I'm just going to accept it. Before acceptance is resistance and we're like I don't want this to be happening. That shouldn't be happening. That's victim. We can't go there. The first step is to say I accept that this is my reality. What am I going to do about it? That's acceptance and responsibility. Once we accept it and we start to take positive action, then we can say what parts of this are actually helping me. And there's a truth Every single thing that looks like a challenge, there is an opportunity. It's impossible for something to happen to you that doesn't also have good things to it Impossible. And again, you can argue with me about this. Call me about your specific situation and then I'll help you get to the truth that something is actually good about it. Then we start to get grateful for the piece that was good about it.
Speaker 3:Like, hey, when this big government change happened and it just happened for me three weeks ago when the big government change happened here's a few positives to it 20% of the realtors are getting out of business. I've got 20% less competition. Now, hey, the ones that haven't got out of the business? They have to be better than they are Well the best are going to rise even higher. And I happen to run one of the best. So again it turned into an advantage for me.
Speaker 3:Another situation is I said, well, hey, if this is going to reduce this company's income, I'm going to raise this other company's income. So I put a lot of focus into a property management company that I had started, that I hadn't really like poured into. Well, now that company is thriving, that company wouldn't be thriving if the challenge hadn't happened. Right. So all these positives. And then I'm like, okay, I accepted it. First I did what I had to do, I took responsibility. Then I said I'm grateful for all this stuff that happens. And then, once you get grateful, you start to say I'm glad it happened.
Speaker 1:And when we're glad it happened.
Speaker 3:now we're not faking it right. So it is a progression from acceptance to gratitude to joy. But again, that's just the way it goes, or we can just get bitter and resentful and play the victim, and that's not going to help us.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and it changes your level of energy. I mean, depending on how you perceive it to be. And things are going to happen. When you start thinking of the ability to show up and keep your team happy, what are some things that leaders can do to keep their team positive and full of good energy? What can we show up and do with our team? So you got your daily practices and leaders make a lot of things happen or they get in the way of things happening. How do I need to show up to make sure my team is feeling the vibe as well?
Speaker 3:It's a great question. I can't change people unless they want to change. So part of it is like energy is attracted to, like energy. Yes, so when I was early in my career and I had these eight negative emotions that were just part of my being and my everyday and I express them and I lived in them. I lived angry Sometimes. I live fearful and anxious Sometimes, just like all normal humans do. I was just normal. I would attract other people who had anger things and who had fear and anxiety. And then I was surrounded by people that were like me. Well, as I raised my frequency, they stayed who they were, most of them, because people can't change it except they have to change themselves. I can't change them. They ended up kind of moving themselves out of my energy field. We were no longer a fit.
Speaker 3:And then my new happy energy then started to attract harmonious people who valued peace and harmony and joy and love and kindness, and they started to come to me and replace the people that were like more sharky, shark and dog eat dog and stab each other in the back to make deals, which is who I was right Like. Just in all fairness, I wanted to succeed at all costs. I was attracting people who wanted to succeed at all costs, and there's a lot of backstabbing that goes on when you act that way and you attract people that way. So what do you do when people around you aren't who you want them to be? You have to look in the mirror and you have to say they're here because I attracted them. If we want better people around us, we have to raise our again. It's all the emotional psychology of the leader. As we raise our emotional psychology, other really high vibrating people will say I want to be part of that. That's when we won the best company out of the state of South Carolina and we've been in the top 10 places to work for the last four years in a row.
Speaker 3:I'm not doing it, I am who I am. And then I also kind of at this point, know what good culture looks like and what it doesn't. For us, it's very simple. Our first core value is integrity, and our second core value is integrity, and our second core value is kindness and our third core value is accountability. I'm looking to select people who exhibit integrity, kindness and are willing to be accountable, and if somebody doesn't fit that, within a very short period of time, within a couple of weeks. If we see any type of non-integrist, non-kind, non-accountable work, we just say this isn't the place for you and we move them out very quick. But honestly, we don't have to do that that much. They just kind of like the non-integrous, non-kind, non-accountable people just don't apply. It's weird, but the world is way more magical and energetic than most logical leaders think it is.
Speaker 2:You do attract likeness, so I'm glad that you're going there. Be the person that you want in your company and I think oftentimes we don't think of it from that particular lens is be the person that you want to hire. What does that look like? And if it's money hungry competition, go after the bottom line dollar figure driven by that, then that's what you're going to attract, because that's going to happen. I'm going to take care of people, I'm going to be positive, I'm going to be happy, I'm going to be authentic, I'm going to be real, I'm going to have integrity. That's what will show up at your door, and so people are watching to see who you are, to determine if that's where they want to be at. So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 3:I actually learned that, Ron, from somebody talking about attracting their ideal mate. Yes, it was Darren Hardy and I hadn't met my wife yet. But Darren said you're out there, You've made your list, You've got your dream woman, you have this. And then he said, okay, now that you made your list of what your dream woman is, he said are you the dream man that that freaking amazing woman is going to want to marry? And he's like be honest. Because, yeah, you might say you want the perfect woman, but are you the perfect man that she would say that's who I want.
Speaker 3:And I was like, whoa, Wow, I've been looking for the dream woman but I haven't been spending enough time making myself the person worthy of that woman. But it's the same thing with employees. I want the dream employees, the harmonious of that woman, yes, but it's the same thing with employees. I want the dream employees, the harmonious, hardworking, humble, do whatever it takes, always have each other's backs. Employees. But am I the leader worthy of those people saying I will follow you into battle and always have your back and always be loyal. Am I loyal enough to them?
Speaker 3:So here's a little bit of a crazy. You know, when I was all about the dollar we made more money in my life was far more tumultuous, hurtful and painful. Now that I'm all about the people and loving them and supporting them and making sure their lives are as great as can be, because I'm as loyal as I'm looking for them to be loyal. We make amazing money like better than my childhood dreams would have been, but not as good as it was. But we have all this harmony, all this peace, all this fun. I would take what we're making now, which is maybe half of what we made when I was all about the dollar and this lifestyle, over that money and the lifestyle I had. So part of it is you're more generous. When you become more loving and kind, you just become more generous and you say I want everyone to have a blessed life, not just me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing that, because we talk about that. And what are you chasing and what are the ramifications of what it is that you're chasing? And that's in every relationship, that's in every business. No one's exempt from it. So you got to be super mindful of what is it that you're after. And you may get that, but it may cost you more than you're willing to pay, and that's happiness.
Speaker 3:Totally, totally. Yeah, and I did. I was, I was chasing numbers, right, I wanted to make $2 million a year, million a year, and this is how powerful we are. Like I said, you can do anything you want to do.
Speaker 3:But now I'm like, okay, I want to make a high amount of money and I want to be so joyful at the same time. Yes, my goal is changed, because at first it was just make this amount of money and I made it, but it was like I was sacrificing everything to do that one thing. Now I'm like, okay, this plus this, and yeah, we can be a billionaire and be happy at the same time. I learned that from a guy named Gary Keller who wrote the book the One Thing. Gary said he refuses to hang around anyone that says that being a billionaire means you don't have a great family life.
Speaker 2:Yes, I totally agree with that. I mean because I think we think it's a trade-off and it's not it doesn't have to be a trade-off.
Speaker 3:No, it's not, either or.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, because if you're a public success but a private failure, it hurts.
Speaker 3:That's no success. That is no success. In fact, I'd say that's the definition of failure.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you're looking good out there, but go with the people that you're closest to and they'll tell you what they're really going through and you realize that you're failing at the thing. That really that your purpose and what you're supposed to be here doing, and it's not just to make a ton of money.
Speaker 3:That's not what we're here for so this is one of the eight bad moods I discuss is pride. Pride says I have to look good to everyone else and it will sacrifice everything to look good. Yes, pride also says I have to accumulate and hoard and have more than everyone. Right, so that was me, was me, and I've experienced all these eight bad moods. I mean, I couldn't write about how to get out of them if I didn't get into them deep. So but here's the thing is that pride also cannot admit when we're feeling prideful, we cannot admit that we have vulnerabilities and that we're doing it wrong because we have to look good. So we always have to look good. This means we have to win every argument with our spouse. We have to win every argument with our kids. We always have to be right. That is a recipe for family disaster. So we cannot have a happy home life when we are in a prideful state. We have to heal it.
Speaker 2:You're going to start in trouble, matt, because you know we talk about pride and how often it sabotages what we're trying to do. We got to have the right answer or the last word and we got to have our way, and oftentimes that's hard to deal with. You know, in your leadership role, regardless of where that is and that's in a lot of organizations you see a lot of people that won't admit that they're wrong or won't admit that hey, that I didn't do it right, and it's very destructive. So when you think about the work that you're doing and the success that you've had and the way that you care, when did the light bulb come on for you? What was happening that actually made you realize that I'm going in the wrong direction?
Speaker 3:A tremendous amount of grace. So, just God, always like look it out for me and it's a progression. Life is a progression and I do think we have to chase our dreams and achieve them and see that the money was the booby prize before we can then say that wasn't it what society has been telling me my whole life would make me happy. I went after it. I did exactly what society told me to do. I drove the right car, I had the right house, I had the right family, I did the business, I grew the money and then that was me. And then I took an honest look at myself and said I have everything that I ever said I wanted, and then some. And yet I'm still not happy. What is the answer? And at that moment I said if all of this stuff that I thought was going to make me happy doesn't make me happy, then I have to find out what actually makes people happy. And then I went on just like I had studied about how to become successful. I studied like crazy for the last decade about what makes you authentically happy. And it's like flying all over the world meeting with the greatest spiritual gurus, meeting with the greatest psychologists, having coaches, having mentors and pouring just as much into my emotional growth as I poured into my bank account growth and, like I said, the bank account isn't well. I mean, of course, assets grow, so I have more net worth today than I did, but the income isn't as high as it was, but the emotional fulfillment is crazy high. So if there's somebody listening to this and they say, man, I'm achieving my external goals, but internally my life is still in turmoil, you just need some guidance and you can get it right. There's books you can read, there's people that you can coach with, there's people that can teach you that, hey, there's other goals out there.
Speaker 3:Another lesson from Darren Hardy. In his book the Compound Effect he talks about his dad's best friend, which was kind of like a second dad to him, had amassed a huge fortune and he was dying. He had like 50 rental houses. He had all this net worth and it was always just about getting the next rental house, all this passive income. And on his deathbed Darren went and saw him and he pulled Darren in close and he said Darren, don't make the same mistake I made. The money was the booby prize. The real prize was relationships and I sacrificed what was real for what wasn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing that you're saying that as I listen and watch. You know a faith guy I pick up on and I was listening to reading a story my wife was sharing with me yesterday about someone that had gone through divorce high profile person and they asked him what went wrong. He says I didn't value what I was supposed to value. I didn't make it a priority. They were number three in my life and that's the price you pay when you ignore the things that's supposed to be number one in your life. I ignored the things that were important chasing trips and booking, speaking and getting all these. They don't make the mistake I made. If it's for your family, make your family first.
Speaker 3:There's a book called how will you measure your life and in that book he says the reason that we prioritize work over family is that if I put in 12 hours a day at work, I can see the results immediately. Yes, I make an extra call, I set an extra appointment, I get another relationship, I make another big sale, I, I make another alliance. Immediately I can see my bank account go up Like the results are so immediate. And so we're like that's why we do it. We're like, okay, I get the dopamine hit. I put in the work. And he said here's the problem is that we then sacrifice our family, Because if you put in two hours with your child tonight, you don't see the result. You put in a date night with your wife. Marginally, nothing really changes in your marriage. You only notice, compounded over a decade, that you put in the extra two hours at night with your family. Over a decade, that you put in the date nights that you put in the connection that you put in the growth with your wife. Over a decade you put in the date nights that you put in the connection that you put in the growth with your wife. You see, over a decade you see your marriage flourish, or, over a decade, your marriage slowly disintegrates without you even noticing it, until the point that it breaks. Yes, and so that's. The reason that entrepreneurs will overwork and put the family aside is that they just don't. They don't see the results that quick. So that was a very important lesson for me when I read that book and I said, Okay, another way to put it.
Speaker 3:I was at a conference and a guy named john Roman asked me a question and he said Matt, are you a family man with a business or are you a businessman that just happens to have a family? I'm like, oh, john, and he said he said here's a good way, I'll tell you exactly how you can figure the answer. And I'm like, I want to say I'm a family man. And he's like, Okay, well, let's figure it out. He said open your calendar. I want to see the appointments that you have with your family scheduled today on your calendar and I want to see the appointments you have with your business for this week.
Speaker 3:And I opened my calendar and the only things on it were business appointments. He said, okay, so you're a businessman who happens to have a family? And he said, okay, if that's the case. Do you want to reverse it? And I said yes, I definitely want to reverse it. I want to be a family man first who happens to have a business. Reverse it, I want to be a family man first who happens to have a business. And he said, okay, I need you to start calendaring your family. And so here today or Tuesday on my calendar this morning, it was my son's first day of school. Wow. So everything else is off my calendar because my son's first day of school was on my calendar. And so walking him down, walking him into the class, getting the first day picture with him I'm not just saying this just to brag, I got it figured out I'm saying that that conversation, that moment, changed the way that I looked at how my relationships mattered compared to my business.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I mean thank you for sharing, matt, because I share the same sentiment is at the beginning of the year for all you, entrepreneurs and business owners. You're going to build that first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter. You're going to build that out. We'll talk that.
Speaker 2:You know, going through some type of a program, the danger is, if we tell our kids and their family they're important, why don't we calendar them first and then work all your activities with your clients around that schedule? So if you've got kids that's in sports, if you've got things that are important, you've got holidays that are coming up, sit down with your family at the beginning of the year and build them in and block out time, which is important. All of us have to learn that. So I love that Matt is saying that. You know we talk real and we talk openly here. Do the things to show your family they're a priority and when you're working in your business, they will give you time to work in your business. If you don't, they're going to interrupt you in your business. I can absolutely tell you they're going to interrupt you because you're not making time for them, so they're going to steal it where they can steal it.
Speaker 3:So just some easy things, some practical things. Every birthday, the whole day is blocked off. I have four kids, all four kids. Birthdays are blocked off. My anniversary day with my wife completely blocked off. My birthday fully blocked off. So Katie's birthday, of course, fully blocked off. So there's seven days of my calendar that you cannot schedule with me. On those days Now, of course, my kids go to school, so you know when it's Harper's birthday, but you can't like sneak in a two o'clock appointment with me because she gets out of school at two o'clock and so now I'm there.
Speaker 3:Another really cool thing, and this changed my family dynamic and I just did one yesterday. I do a daddy child day every month and I've got four kids and I just do one of them each month, one time a month, one day a month. It's just me and one of the kids and this one-on-one time man invaluable. Yesterday I took my six-year-old surfing. We went to the beach, I was pushing her on waves, I was catching waves and then, after surfing, I'm like what do you want to do? And she said I want to go to the arcade. I'm like heck, yeah, we're going to the arcade. And the two of us played video games together and, like you know, we went to Chick-fil-A, we got her a milkshake and she gives me the biggest hug and she says, dad, that's the best day of my life. That was yesterday. Our relationship, because of this one day a month, is greater than it would have been.
Speaker 3:But this, again, this is a calendar thing. Every single month I've got a day plan for just one child. Another calendar thing is a date night every Friday with my wife. Every Friday is blocked off. It's a date night. Now, again, this can seem boring and it can get boring if you want to make it boring. It is not boring for my wife and I. Dude, we have got 30 different fun things we want to do, because we're like, man, what's fun and exciting for us? What do we want to do? So we're going to go see Post Malone, you know, because I love Post Malone, I think he's a great singer. We're like we'll go axe throwing, we'll go bowling. It's not just go to dinner or go to a movie, because that can get rote and boring. We want to have adventure too, and so this is the ways that you can make your calendar more about your family than just about your business.
Speaker 2:Yes, love it, matt. A lot of nuggets dropped throughout the time we spent together. So, as we begin to wrap up and you think about what you're doing in your organization, if you really want to know how successful you are, ask the people that are closest to you and let them be brutally honest. They, people that are closest to you, and let them be brutally honest. They'll tell you how successful you are. They'll tell you how good you are. They'll tell you where there's opportunities for you to do better. If you would just ask those people close, not your clients ask the people that really know you, that live under the roof with you, that are around you all day, if you give them permission and don't take it personal, they'll give you information that can help make every relationship that you really care about better. So, calendar, are there any other last minute tips that you would use or that you would share as we begin to wrap up? And then I'm going to ask you for your contact information?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to just talk about what you just said. There's a name called the Jahari window.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And it's asking the people closest to you what they truly see about you. It's painful.
Speaker 3:It is painful and I embrace it. So every single quarter, I send an anonymous feedback form to my entire company all 80 people, just two questions. It's a Google form. It's really simple simple to do, but it's just the system. Now it's baked in and we say what do you appreciate about here and then, what would you change or improve?
Speaker 3:We have a strategic planning meeting every quarter. We read the feedback and sometimes it is the hardest. In fact, every single strategic planning meeting is the hardest part of the day because we're working our tail off, we're giving everything we've got to help them be successful and then to read the this person is letting me down, or Matt, you're not connected enough, or whatever. Whatever the feedback is, it is so hard to read. And yet, getting that feedback, every single quarter says, hey, we're not perfect, we're not, we're not perfect. Okay, what are they seeing? This feedback has value. It's hard for us to read that we're not perfect, but every single time we get better from it. So I love that you brought that up. Get this anonymous feedback and we don't ask for their name. We don't want their name Because we want them to freely share what do you see? Because we want them to freely share. What do you see? Yes, but yeah, it's hard. Man, it's hard, but it also makes us better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's like going to the gym. I mean, the muscle doesn't get stronger by lifting the weight. That's easy, that's light, I mean. So you're going to have to lift the heavy stuff, the stuff that causes you sometimes aches and pains. That's where the growth happens that Matt shared. He's going to give you access to where he's at, where his book is.
Speaker 2:But this is about you getting better, and if you want to get better, it's going to require some level of sacrifice. There's just no way to get better if you don't want to sacrifice and do some of the work. You know, I tell people all the time and I try to. After the S, they say, no, you got to put some work in and then you'll see some success. And that's work in every part of your life. That's communication, that's your family, that's your religious life, those are your friends, those are your business owners, that's your community. Wherever you're supposed to put in work, please put in the work and have good people around you. To keep you honest, matt, how do we reach you? Man, you share it a lot. Someone wants you on a podcast, someone wants to get your book. Tell us where they can get your book at and how do they reach you?
Speaker 3:Man, I love that last little tidbit the W comes after the S in the alphabet. That was so good. Yeah, no, I do too. I just like that man. I just want the success without the word. But actually we don't want that. I mean, nothing feels better than putting in hard work, yes, and then seeing the success that comes from it. That's the most fulfilling right. If we just won the lottery, that'd be like, oh, that's nice, but it's way better to create your lottery with your habits. Yeah, man, so you know. On Amazon the book is available. Good Mood Revolution. If people just want to plug into having positive feelings, I have a weekly podcast comes out on Mondays called Good Mood Revolution, and then if there's a leader out there that's like, man, I've achieved all my dreams and I'm still not happy and I need that one-on-one coaching to go to the next step, I offer that and you can get that at mattonealcom.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, please reach out. You know, matt, phenomenal job, love that you're bringing that, because one thing we all know is we all in this time can use more happiness, like we all can use more happiness in everything that we do. So thank you for taking on that journey and that adventure and living this throughout. You know your organization and your family, so thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing Again for everyone that's listening. You can reach Matt LinkedIn. You're on LinkedIn as well, matt. Again for everyone that's listening you can reach Matt LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:You're on LinkedIn as well, matt. Yep, yeah, you can check him out on LinkedIn. You can get his book. You can reach out to him on email. I mean, we're accessible and we want to be accessible. He offers coaching, so thank you all for listening.
Speaker 2:Again, this is Ron Harvey with Unpacked. With Ron Harvey, we talk openly about hey, how do we get there? What are we trying? Looking for great leadership and they're looking for positive people. Feel free to reach us on LinkedIn or Global Course Strategies and Consulting. It's a mouthful. Gcs is what we call it. Feel free to reach out to us at any time. If we can help you or we can connect you with Matt or any of our guests, we'll be happy to do an introduction for you. So until next time, matt and I will sign off. You have a phenomenal week for all of you and we'll see you. Every single Monday, we release a podcast and might have a podcast as well. Follow us. There's a ton of content out there for you to be better. There's no reason that a leader can't be good. There's too much available to all of us to be better. Thank you all for joining us today and we're going to sign off and thank you, guys for joining us with leadership consultant Ron Harvey.
Speaker 1:Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.
