My Secret Passion

0:00Before I get into today's topic, just some information here. I am currently pacing back and forth in my garage brewery. It is 56 degrees. I'm wearing a jacket. It is absolutely quiet. It is dark, and that's because we have been in a mandatory power outage for the last few days because of high winds and dry temperatures here in Colorado and I took a ice cold shower this morning because I feel disgusting and I didn't feel like going over to a friend's house and using their shower so I just took a very very cold shower and it was hard. I wasn't doing it for wellness. I was doing it literally to not feel like a disgusting human being. So I'm freezing and what really sucks is I'm recording this on a Saturday. It is about 10. Well it's about 10.41 in the

1:02morning and we have a party that we're hosting tonight at 5 o'clock and doesn't look like we're gonna have power. Who knows? But we do know some people who got the power turned back on. We are not one of those people so we'll see. I'm kind of crossing my fingers that the power gets turned on before about 12.31 o'clock today and if it does we will be able to host the party here. If it doesn't we will either cancel or more likely find another venue which sucks because I the first thing I'm gonna do is take a shower as soon as the power comes back on and throw away all the food in my fridge. Anyway it's 56 degrees in the air so the beer is a sat seller temps. That's not bad. Not too worried about that. Anyway

2:04recently I I was in Philadelphia. I just got back actually. I was in Philadelphia and mainly like South Jersey where I grew up right outside of Philadelphia to visit my family for the holidays and I do this every year usually go home I say home and I am I am home right now but I usually go back to the Philadelphia Delaware Valley area around the middle of December and I had a while I was there I had and I had a I won't say into Piphany but like I discovered something about myself that I thought I would share and I started putting the pieces together after discovering this while I was there I just I you know just having conversations with friends and my parents and family and things I I just felt out of place and usually when I go back to that area I feel very much at

3:11home I feel like a part like oh I remember I'm from this area but this time it's been 10 years since I moved to Colorado and I went back and I felt foreign and everything around me driving around town and the city and everything felt foreign to me now it's very possible that it's just been an entire year since I've been back to that area so you know just a lot has changed in a year but I just felt that way not just in driving around and being in the area but also being around people I was just felt odd and not a bad way just kind of like huh I feel like I feel like a different type of person here I didn't fit in and I

4:13was thinking about this I'm like all right what is it what is what is happening a lot of the conversation was you know my parents asking me like how business is going you know we had just had a conversation with our financial advisor that we recently hired and and I was talking to them about that and it was talking to my you know just hearing my friends tell stories about like their day and their and their life and I just like I go why why do I feel like I don't belong and I started I had a lot of free time to sit there and think about the pieces of my life and how they differ from my old life and how they differ from the life of friends and family in my hometown and I and I thought okay wait

5:21yeah I don't really know anybody that owns their own business and I don't know anybody who's thinking about early retirement which is funny out here in Colorado I actually have a lot of friends who are part of that community the part of the fire community and people who I've met outside of the fire community who told me that they are part of the fire community or at least subscribe to that life that that that that a lifestyle choice I'll say so out here in Colorado I feel more accepted which is strange because that's not how I used to feel so okay long story short I another another piece that sort of like unlocked all this for me was you know how Spotify does their like I

6:21think it's called like Spotify wrapped or unwrapped or something like that where it gives you a this it gives you a thing like who you listen to blah blah while YouTube as a user as a as a viewer of YouTube not as a creator they did the same thing not as robust as Spotify's but in that I I watched it my recap of the year and it labeled me I don't I don't recall exactly what the label was but it was something along the lines of you meaning me are really into self-help like wanting to get better and I and I they use some stupid word like you know you know you're trying to be a better person or you're like trying to like improve your life you're a self-improver whatever they used

7:23and that kind of took me by surprise because I don't think I never considered myself somebody who likes who who's into self-help let's say I don't read a lot of self-help books I I guess I technically do if business books are self-help which you could argue they are I have read you know the subtle art of not giving a fuck I've read a book I read two books this year want well yeah I read one book and listen to another one one was called The Power of Fun which is about having more fun in your life which is definitely a self-help book and the other one was we need your art which is what I listen to which is also a self-help book so I looked at like well what am I watching on YouTube and interestingly I was watching like a lot of fitness content a lot of you know calories stuff like weight loss stuff I was

8:28watching a lot of business content I was watching podcasts where obviously a lot of the topics are around self-help and bettering yourself and I went oh oh oh that's let me okay let me apply this thinking to everything I do one thing that really sort of got I really did a lot of thinking about was like I mentioned earlier right before I left for Philadelphia I had a meeting with our financial advisor and it's me my wife Steph my financial advisor in this room and towards the end of her meeting I kept saying just give me a number all I care about is what is the number that I need to save in order to actively tell myself that I no longer

9:32have to work and they Steph is just like well why does it have to be this number Matt and I go no you don't understand it's not that I'm going to retire it's not that I'm going to quit my job it's not that I'm going to change anything what I want to know what I want in life it's my financial life is the is the sheer is to just know that I can stop working if I choose to total freedom is the way I think about it I just like we had to we had to cut the meeting short because of some like we had other plans but I sort of like broke the room which was like no my financial advisor was like I don't know anyone who thinks like that and I go yeah I see I feel like I do I don't feel like I'm

10:41some revolutionary or I have some like weird way of thinking or I invent it something new I'm like all I'm saying is that's the fire movement but what's interesting about the fire movement is a lot of people I think are they like they sacrifice really hard in a short term so that they can retire early and literally stop working I'm not trying to stop working what I am trying to do is simply know that I can stop working which is kind of different and it's just a mental it's like a mental load lift you know it's that's all it is so I I was thinking a lot about that conversation and and on top of that listening to my friends and like you know and family about there like just struggles in life and non struggles just job stuff and you know life in general and when I when I got that thing from YouTube but I

11:45kind of pieced it all together and I said oh I thought that the reason I felt different was because I had the passion of wanting to be an entrepreneur I thought oh I just think differently because I have an entrepreneurial mind and an entrepreneurial mind it's just somebody who like I maybe just needs to be in control likes to like create their own decision you know all all these things what I was thinking about but I but then I was like okay but what about the other things that I'm passionate about or what about the other things I'm interested in like the whole financial thing like where did that come from because a entrepreneur or at least in the classic sense of entrepreneur does not have an enough number like a number where they're like oh I can stop working an entrepreneur is like how do I scale the business how do I make more money how

12:49do I build a bigger team how do I build better products these are things I'm interested in too but they conflict with my financial goal so then I was like well then what about home brewing like that has nothing to do with money why am I so passionate about home brewing why am I so like why am I so into it and I was like oh I am somebody this I am a type of person that YouTube says I am I am the type of person who actually enjoys and seeks out and is passionate about becoming a better person and that permeates through a lot of different lenses one of them is entrepreneurial ship not only do I want to have a great business that's just you know that's what an entrepreneur

13:52builds I want to have a killer freedom business I I so this podcast if I had to put a fine point on like what I talk about it's the act of running a lifestyle business and to some entrepreneurs you'd include an old version of myself would would be like that's just a cop out because you couldn't make money and I'm like no you don't understand maybe you do understand I don't know but for me my goal has never been to be a rich person I don't have any rich tastes like I don't give a fuck about cars I don't give a fuck about watches I don't give a fuck about yachts I don't give a fuck about fancy dinners I don't care about fancy clothes I just don't have rich people taste I don't do I enjoy the occasional caviar sure but you know I don't I kind of like cringe at a lot of

14:57rich people things so that's not interesting to me am I interested in building like a world changing changing business no not interested am I interested in building a huge team and having like being a leader and having power nope not interested what I am interested in is being free having freedom and flexibility to do and say and say do whatever I want to do with my time as long as I have my health which brings me to the health thing I went oh well that's why I wanted to lose weight so bad I got so sick and tired of being overweight or being obese that I'm like this has got to change I'm done I'm done with all of it I had a long period of grieving and which made me put on a ton of weight but I'm like okay I'm done now forever I want to get better

16:05at this and so I did I learned how to fix it and staff gave me a word that she said she also she she took some like personality tests that she scored off the charts for self actualization which I had not heard before which I guess is the clinical definition of like just some some person wanting to get better wanting to be a better person in multiple ways not just in a you know just having more money make me a better person no but I do think that reading a book about fun and trying to have more fun in life does make me a better person I think losing weight makes me a better person I think getting fit makes me a better person I don't think this is true for everybody but I for me that I kind of look at it that way and I went okay so does that explain my home brewery and I'm like oh yeah because I I think of it more as I just enjoy the act

17:13of getting better at things that I enjoy so for home brewing there is no there I don't have a casual setting I have a desire to want to be really good at it I don't even I don't have a competitive like streak I don't really compete with anybody but myself and I think it's kind of why I like snowboarding and I like golf I don't like golf but I'm trying to I'm trying because I kind of feel like if I got into any sort of summer springs fall sport that's the best one for me because it's a it's a self sport and I can just I would like I know that I will just want to get better at it just to be better at it not because I'm trying to compete with anybody not because I'm trying to win any awards not because I'm trying to make money just because I enjoy being good at

18:19stuff I enjoy being a good home brewer I enjoy maxing out my abilities I enjoy you know like I enjoy the act of losing weight the pursuit of better is the thing I like and I and I when I realize this it sort of went oh okay it means that I think what this what I learned about myself in this moment was it's it's why sometimes I have a I have a hard time like connecting with somebody on a deeper level because or it's I it's you know to be honest it's why Steph and I are so well connected because she is the same way and I'm like oh that's

19:21like we don't need to have interesting common that's the deep underlying thing that we have in common that's the thing we admire about each other and and it doesn't matter where it's applied as long as it's being applied so I don't know I found that fairly interesting because I never looked at it that way I never considered myself someone who was like I who was like obsessed with self-help because I do think there are people who are obsessed with self-help but then they don't actually do it you know it's like it's the same type of person who reads a lot of stuff about business but doesn't run one and as always sort of the wancher pinor that person I don't relate to because I'm like well I didn't read anything before I did my I kind of just wanted to do it and then I learned as I went and I read as I was going and I kept trying to like stay like I

20:27paced myself and kept trying to improve and not and I and I kind of always knew where I was you know there just I made a ton of mistakes like I absolute ton of mistakes and I should I should be you know way further along than I am if I was really ambitious but but that wasn't again the goal because the goal was never money it was that not you know of course make enough money to survive make enough money to quit your job and do this whole time yes that was certainly a goal and it's kind of still a goal so you know as long as I'm still playing the game I'm winning as long as I'm still in the game I'm good I don't need to be the top I don't need to the best I just want to be good that's all and I like that I like that feeling I like the feeling of reading a book about having more fun and then actively you know coming up with habits and

21:30ways to achieve those levels of fun that's fun to me and there's one other area and I here's how I here's what really sort of locked it in for me was I this is so so crazy to even think about so I am a 42 year old male married no kids we do not plan on having kids we do not want the kids I am not interested in being a father however every time I interact with fathers or with parents I am constantly thinking how would I do that what would I do and there's a part of me that knows for sure that if I became a parent or if I even was a parent I would apply the same level

22:31of passion to that as I do anything else which is oh I want to be good at this and again I'm not you I'm trying to be clear that I'm not using the word I want to be the best I want to be the greatest it's I'm not saying that I am saying I enjoy being good at things and if I were a parent I know for a fact that I would want to be good at good at it like I would want to be a role model for other parents I know that because I feel that way in everything I do I no one really knows like I don't really I mean besides this podcast I don't really talk about those things in pot like when I'm around my friends I don't talk about business or money or you know even home brewing I

23:33don't I mostly I just talk about like pop culture drink and beer you know music things like that movies that's mainly what I talk about and you know with my parents it's just kind of like you know what's going on weather sometimes money just to let them know that I'm okay so I don't know what to do with this information I just realized it and went okay the I just I just figured out how I tick I just went another level how do I use that well it is I mean it it explains a lot of what I already do and how I look at life and approach things but I'm wondering if like as a stupid example with golf if I go oh so I need to like golf is an interesting one and it's so like

24:39who gives a shit right it's just golf is a game I'm not somebody who plays games so for me it's it's not it's a tough one to get into because I know that I'm not it you know it's like oh you got better at a game that doesn't make you a better person it just makes you better at a game but if it had some other benefit like oh you made more friends or you got exercise or it helped your business or perhaps it could do all of those things but I still just see it as a game but I go oh if it has some sort of element of Matt is trying to get better at being a person being a like better at the game of life let's call it then that's probably going to be something he sticks with so as a case in point and I and I been thinking a lot about this which I'm like

25:39why is it that of all the things that I do consistently this podcast is probably the most consistent thing that I do I get sort of like withdrawal if I don't do this and it's because I am bettering a lot of pieces of myself one I am talking out things like this and learning about myself learning about how to make the business better thinking about money it's it it allows me to clarify my thinking which is a version of self-help I am also getting 10,000 steps when I do this which is bettering my physical health which is bettering me as a person and so that is the truth so like that's the drive of why I do this

26:40consistently and so if I can start to pick things that make or at least what I believe makes me into a better person I am more likely to do it because that's my true passion if it goes against that then it you know it's going to be harder to keep up that habit because I am you know maybe doing self-harm or destruction or whatever and what's crazy is like or or if I if it if it makes my life more challenging or difficult in a way that doesn't make me a better person I basically avoid it at all costs and that is all subjective what you think makes you a better person could be very different than what I think makes me a better person and I think it's person dependent and I believe that if you are listening to this podcast chances are you are

27:42very similar to me and that is a type of person a person who is trying to to who sees the world through who who progresses through the world through the lens of wanting to get better either at a skill or just as a person or whatever whatever again whatever your definition of that is I think that we are of similar ilk and I don't know I just think that's really interesting so that's that's all I have for this episode um I am freezing it is cold and power still not back on it is past 11 a.m so within another if this power doesn't go out on doesn't come I was really hoping it would come back on during the recording of this episode I there's basically like no communication from the power company besides you know it's supposed to

28:45come on by about 10 o'clock tonight which is very unacceptable but you know I guess we made it's better than a wildfire so I have to at least appreciate that there's always a tradeoff so anyway let me know what you think let me know if you have any ways that I can use this information I don't know shoot me an email mad at moneylab.co and I'll talk to you next time