Why Matt From Yes Theory Changed His Name: The Power of Letting Go | Know Thyself EP67

I for my whole life have played this tough guy I prided myself on being this like athlete leader all these different labels of what it means to be a man when I was dying inside I'm gonna give you and it's gonna be hard I started yesterday when I was 23 filming hundreds and hundreds of videos traveling around the world when you're busy like that when you're trying to prove yourself to the world rarely are you asking yourself what you want towards the end of 2019 thinking to myself like I don't know how I'm gonna keep doing this I started to get this gnawing feeling that maybe there was something else these lessons that I'm taking with me are a big reason why I'm now stepping away from yes Theory which is I know what happens when you allow yourself to let go allow yourself to be free and just risk going into the unknown listening to your inner voice makes no sense on paper you have to let go and you have to allow yourself to be guided by something bigger than your head this is probably the most pivotal moment of my life yeah hello beautiful beings welcome back to the know they self podcast where every single week we get the honor and privilege to sit down with the brilliant mind a deep soul to learn more about the true nature of self and the world around us at deeper and deeper levels my guest today co-founded the group yes Theory which is a YouTube channel a movement of over 10 million young creatives that seek discomfort and choose love over fear and try their best to strive towards a authentic life and my guest Matt is one of my best friends on the planet is so it's been such a beautiful thing to witness his path over the past few years really unfolding and living out that ethos of seek discomfort to going inwards addressing his mental health making tough decisions writing a book all these things we're going to dive into at greater lengths and something that I really love about Matt is just how he makes all of his friends feel feel like superheroes in his eyes he always just as uh God is grounding and incredible spirit and presence so Matt thanks for coming on the show bro dude duh appreciate it yeah we uh we hang out often and we kind of just come in these chairs and mics and just mess around so yeah we're definitely said some ridiculous things in these mics just for fun but I mean dude yeah I uh it's just so cool to be here I followed the whole journey literally from before you started like when you're just planning when this was just an idea so to be here is really cool yeah that's just a beautiful thing of having shared experience with friends you get to see the Arc of their journey and the ups and downs the trials the triumphs and for you I've been like I said in the intro kind of really it's been beautiful to witness your own Journey unfolding inwards and going through some difficult moments and um a lot of individuals that follow you have been inspired by you over the years from all the things that you've done from the videos that you guys have created and obviously with alongside Thomas Cinema who I love and uh this podcast I'm excited to dive in deeper into a lot of things that you haven't shared about that I've gotten to see by virtue of being your friend and being close to it all and so yeah there's you know the saying of like you can't see the picture while you're in the frame and so it's like I feel like very much so you can't see the chapter of life you're in while it's still unfolding until you're kind of in a new chapter which you're very much so starting now and so I'd love for you to share how you feel when you kind of zoom out and you're like connecting the dots looking backwards to what this whole chapter really with yes theory has been that the man that you've had to become when the process of it and how do you how do you view this whole chapter of your life big question I love it I love starting here oh man hmm uh I started yesterday when I was 23. with Thomas and Martin Darren who were the three other co-founders and um it's been eight years since we started a little over eight years so most of my 20s were spent filming hundreds and hundreds of videos traveling around the world building this online audience and in person um and so I mean for anybody I mean like you for example or anybody that's in the Creator World in any kind of way there's this like you said right when you're in the frame it's really hard to understand what chapter you're in or what the painting looks like and I and really just in the past year and a half to two years and you've seen a lot of this with me you know we've shared so many conversations about this but finally starting to see what it looks like finally starting to see what I built with my friends the impact that it's had how it's made me feel and I'd say the overall summary of my 20s is a guy who [Music] was desperate to be seen desperate to fit in belong desperate to be successful and desperate to live a full life and I'm so grateful obviously for so many of these moments but the ultimate lesson that I'm getting as I'm leaving this chapter of my life is most of that is external most of that is how people see me versus how I see myself and so it's been now going into this new chapter the lesson biggest lesson I'm taking and I share this in the book and I've shared this on the podcast that I've done and stuff it's really just asking myself what I want which is a question I never fully took the time to ask and when you're busy like that when you're trying to prove yourself to the world rarely are you asking yourself what you want um it's more what does the world want and so now the the question is switching and it's a hard process it's a hard switch but it's cool to do it kind of publicly so I can show people what it's like to to make that transition you know to follow the whole journey not just of course the exciting big moments that you caught on camera and the hell you jump with Will and the you know the the Iron Man and all the videos and things where you really challenge yourself and provided an amazing source of inspiration for millions of people around the world like I can't even imagine the ripples that that has and the ripples that those ripples have is just kind of unfathomable and like you spoke to you know of course there was this part that was you know even starting yes Siri you know you and Thomas both were kind of you had it originated out of having a heartbreak really and trying to prove prove yourself to these girls hey man don't remind me yeah yeah it's true it's true but it's like there's that side of things but it's also mixed with this genuine urge to live life to the fullest and to explore and see the world and live an inspiring and authentic life and so it's it's of course both and while looking back I think we can have this kind of myopic cleanse of the things we did wrong or The Limited version of ourselves we operated from which is of course part of it but there's just so many beautiful lessons unlocked along the whole journey of yes theory that it'd be cool to Riff on a little bit here man because there are a series of moments of you really claiming the life that you wanted to live you know all with all you guys but the moment that you left your t-shirt company Heart City to go all in on the YouTube channel when you guys stop the production company to go all in on it there's a series of like really claiming what you want in life when you find alignment in that thing and then you fully claim it there's so much power in what it opens up who it brings into your life the opportunities the places the people it's like the universe just kind of has you on your back and gives you more serendipitous moments and so how do you feel about the power of claiming that one thing and going all in on it right because without going on this path of being a content creator and doing a lot of things which you now might feel isn't in full alignment without going through that you don't really have context so you didn't get to discover that um and also I had to learn those lessons through doing this Theory like that was the greatest gift lesson after lesson and I think yeah dude I mean I think what I realized it's like it's a calculation it's like it's like a math equation you know for the things you want in your life the only thing it requires is a very pure focus and a prioritization and that's not even some kind of like woo-woo manifestation kind of thing it's like like these are studies done that prioritizing a goal and making only like one single priority and picking it just choosing actually works um and like you said I mean there's been so many times throughout yes Theory where we got distracted you know there's so many things we wanted to do we were building this audience we're like holy [ __ ] like we we can like millions of people are following us we can do so much like finally the world felt totally open and so about yeah two and a half years in we started to really think about other businesses we wanted to build and you know like you said a production company and we're building a merch company and like literally inviting everybody into the house in Venice California where we were based and it was like the doors were open everybody's invited and everything's good to go we're just gonna do it all and what we quickly realized and this is one of the big lessons that I'm taking with me for the rest of my life is it's the I mean I say it in the book it's the classic I don't know what uh what where this saying is from but the chase two rabbits get none I forget somebody told me that very early on it's like you chase two rabbits you get none and as soon as we started these other businesses too soon our our Focus just dissipated like it kind of just it was almost like it's split in two and the channel this thing that we've been working on and fully dedicated to for two and a half years um just kind of slowed down everything slowed down the production company was doing great so we were holding on to these two businesses that were just kind of stagnant whereas if we had just stayed focused on one of them it would have taken off and that's what we realized about six months in um to start in the production company but even before that I mean before I started yesterday I'd started a clothing company it was a streetwear brand I was living in Montreal at the time and I was you know this 21 year old kid again desperately trying to be Richard Branson like I saw Richard Branson as that was my guy I was like I'm gonna be a billionaire founder entrepreneur of like 400 companies and like an icon of this world and so I you know I started a few businesses and finally got to this clothing company which was the first one that actually worked for me and about a year and a half in it was really struggling and I just couldn't figure out how to make it work like you know we were getting sales but a thing I couldn't really get it off the ground I had a co-founder but he was still in school and it was you know I was living in this tiny Studio working at a bar down the street just to make rent and externally it would look cool you know like I have I was posting on Instagram and Facebook and people were showing up to our events and I made it look from the outside like we were hot [ __ ] but internally it was just yeah it was a struggle so when I met Thomas who is the co-founder of yes Theory and uh him and I connected in 2015 . he was in a marketing class and Ito tibugi as we call him uh was uh also kind of in that mindset of wanting to build something big and he had a little YouTube channel and he was doing these little cute skits and I I was starting to recognize the power of influencers or creators online and how they could build traction for a brand so I was like dude I'll help you out with your videos you help me out with my clothing company we'll make a deal one video and we'll leave it at that um of course I I had no idea that I would be sitting here eight years later yeah talking about the thing we ended up actually building which was off the back of his YouTube channel and into um you know Adventure videos seeking discomfort getting out of our comfort zones with me and the guys but to kind of like summarize these two points is um about a year into building yes Theory there came that moment again which was like Chase two rabbits getting on like I had to pick okay I felt so divided and I could feel it's like a it's like a full body feeling you can sense when you're being pulled in One Direction but this other thing that you created or were a part of or whatever is like still Clinging On to you but it's adding to the weight and you're trying to get lighter so you can take on this new thing and I felt that with the clothing company I felt that with heart city so um it was a like a decision one night where I was like okay I was looking at the rack of clothes in my room that I still hadn't sold and I was like and then I was living with Martin Thomas at the time and I looked at them so I was like [ __ ] it guys we're gonna literally go all in and it is crazy we went all in within a month we get an email like the email that changes our lives that flies us out Snapchat flies flies us out to LA if we get you know they pay us fifty thousand dollars to create a show for them and then we get our first like big batch of audience so yeah man I it's it's these lessons that I'm taking with me are are a big reason why I'm now stepping away from yes Theory which is I know what happens when you allow yourself to let go allow yourself to be free and just risk going into the unknown it's still scary as a [ __ ] yeah yeah seems to always be that way it's just when you have in a big theme this whole podcast you know I feel is going to be surrendering Letting Go shedding those old identities that we've clung onto so much it's who we perceive ourselves to be it's you know it's how we've operated in the world and of course like the whole journey of yes Theory I can think of you know climbing the mountain with Wim Hof that doing the Iron Man and training seven months for that there's so many examples of that where the discomfort was like through physical pain through something external like this big mountain that you have to climb and then eventually on your journey you come to realize maybe the most uncomfortable thing is sitting alone and like going inwards maybe that's the thing that I can seek discomfort within my own reality and like you know that seems the the hardest to do and so as you started to go on this journey of course part of you love the growth of it all the success of it all the adulation everything that came from it and then there's a feeling that kind of is like oh I'm becoming a cog in the machine almost and I think this is a theme with a lot of creatives that they start something because they have this genuine innocent curiosity this passion for something and the love for it and the alignment for it is what kind of brings in many ways to success to come in and then the question comes how can I make money off this how can I turn into a business how can we grow faster and faster and then it becomes this thing that is almost using you instead of this genuine passion that it started out as and then with that you start to feel like a cog in the machine and it's like why am I doing this uh you know the joy starts to get sucked from it and you start questioning it and so take us through the Journey of you know a few of those pivotal moments where you started to feel like hold on re-questioning kind of why am I doing this and feeling like you were kind of doing it for the numbers and not for necessarily the love of it yeah I mean I feel like this is actually around the time you and I start hanging out what kind of ish yeah um but it was a little before covid and then once covet hit I mean covet was amazed I mean amazing no it was not amazing I mean kovid was brutal you know obviously I'll just leave I'll just say that government was brutal however if I'm being totally real and transparent for me it saved my life and it's okay that it can be both yes it was an atrocity for a lot of people and for a lot of people um it gave them just an opportunity for self-reflection and I think a lot of people grew a lot in that time because they were forced to look at their own [ __ ] yeah it's always a weird thing to talk about because I mean there's just so much around it but I I remember towards the end of 2019 thinking to myself like I can't I don't know how I'm gonna keep doing this we'd been doing it for almost five years and I was like I feel like I'm like my body's falling apart because we're just filming every every like Six Days Seven Days we're traveling somewhere and some days we'll go to freaking Australia for two days three days and fly back and then we'll go to freaking like Japan you know it's just constant and so my the the five years had really caught up with me and I didn't know how to express that I didn't know how to say like hey I need to pause I need to stop and take a break because I'm this I'm gonna burn out hard um and then when covet happened in March it was weird for me it was like oh my God oh my God oh my God like I have an excuse I have an excuse to stop otherwise I would have kept going until I had crashed and like you said you know I mean literally billions of other people had this moment where they had to look at themselves and sit in a room alone and think about their lives probably for a lot of us for the first time and for me as I started to sit alone I started to realize that oh filming is like hosting was never the thing that was my highest excitement and social media also not my highest excitement and um me needing a break definitely my highest excitement because as I was sit again you know I was getting still and starting to dive into myself like you said earlier I start to realize oh this is the actual like this thing this line that we've had forever seek discomfort being alone with my thoughts and and dealt with trauma was the ultimate discomfort so I had bit by bit just started to dive in so I was doing like recovery groups and therapy and all these different things and slowly at the same time stepping away from yes Theory but I mean I don't for you I guess for you because I even as you're saying all this like the the Creator kind of you know burnout Vibe like it's such a I almost like hesitate to talk about it because there's it's it's so cliche it's like you know if it builds a YouTube channel gets success Burns Out talks about it on podcasts writes a book about it and then bounces you know it's like do we really need another Creator talking about burnout but I think what's cool in being your friend and witnessing your journey is and we've talked about this with with other our other friends as well is witnessing that it's actually possible to do it in a balanced way which I had never had access to a creator that had really figured out how to you know still maintain their sanity and their joy and not put so much pressure on what they were creating um I mean because for me you started this podcast a year and a half ago you launched it a year and a half ago so I've witnessed you up like for the past two and a half years like really thinking about this and doing it and I've never really seen a moment of you being like stressed about it which is wild because I am like the whole time I've been anxiety ridden building what I built like what's going to go wrong how are we gonna fix it blah blah Where You Know What's it gonna look like in the future so to witness your steady approach to this I think is another big lesson that I'm I'm taking with me but I think this is like I'm a big fan of this podcast and we kind of talked about this before I'm gonna I'm Uno carding you right now because I I you you hold so much wisdom and you have these incredibly wise people on this podcast and obviously I want to get into my story a ton but I think it's also cool to hear your journey a little bit you know and just kind of get a Vibe for like how you got here dude you're doing something incredible thank you man yeah thank you I appreciate it I love you and you know I think there's something inherently different about the formats like podcasts are just way more chill than trying to travel around the world and film a 12 minute piece of content that's super highly engaging and it's true it's like that to me is just it's much more prone to feeling anxious and like you gotta get all the pieces together there's a lot more and so that's one podcasting is just inherently more relaxed and chill especially kind of I've set up the systems to fulfill and do the parse that are more tedious to me the editing and certain things like that but like as we were speaking to earlier of course it's possible when we're so focused on the numbers and making money it's like our purpose has been reduced down to a function what we feel like we genuinely started like innocent curiosity like we were speaking to earlier turns into this thing that is controlling us and it's no wonder so many people feel lonely and anxious as you know as they step into the Creator space and especially they're tuned into social media constantly fed different highlight reels and it's just an important reminder that we're not machines with broken parts we are human beings with unfulfilled needs and that's why the anxiety and the loneliness and all these things kind of rise and so yeah for for me I'm so grateful and privileged and honored that I've been able to find somebody that I'm so aligned with that really excites me and that it also feels like it serves the world and it also you know is growing and growing more and more on the business and financial side and when you kind of tick all those buckets there's a general feeling of you know usefulness and it doesn't feel as you know anxiety written as pumping out a new video every week or multiple times a week and you got to come up with the ideas and you know it's much more chill so that's what I would say in terms of my own flow and format with it but you giving yourself the space that you needed you know around covet time to really realize that oh this actually wasn't in full alignment with what I'd love to be doing the most like yes videos and doing a lot of these things are exciting but you thrive much more in kind of the behind the scenes and doing different things not as much forward facing on the camera um I'm excited to have you here today as part of the cameras because I mean as much as you know there's parts of it that you don't like there's a I think a lot of people online have missed seeing your like your voice and your grounding presence in in the world and that's something that you've continually provided back for me so I appreciate the reflection that's my share and now I you know reverse card back to you as the podcast though damn it fine but you know because listen yes there's a cliche the Creator burnout people have heard of that but it's your own real experience where when no matter what you're doing in life if it's not an alignment and you're not operating from a place of true genuine passion for it and it feels like aligned of course there's going to be anxiety you have unmet needs in that space and so as you started to go in the process of self-discovery and self-inquiry you started to pay attention to really your own mental health and the anxiety that was kind of um just unrecognized for a long time so how did you start to gain awareness these things and then what did it start to look like as you started to unpack this hmm in 2018 I I met this woman um nambani very serendipitously and she was a therapist at UCLA and she became a really close friend and a mentor and pretty soon into hanging out she started talking about trauma the word trauma which is hilarious to even think about this now but I literally had never thought about that word well and now it's obviously it's I mean I see it everywhere but she it was almost like she just opened this door of hey all this success is cool but this is where you're actually going to start to feel better and she introduced me to people like Gabor mate um Peter Levin Peter Levine uh waking the tiger all these you know body keeps the score it was like back to back book after book she was sending me and so I started to just look into this world of healing trauma um you know I mean I suffered from like severe severe severe anxiety um even before yes Theory so it's you know I I'd become this workaholic in a lot of ways to avoid dealing with that severe anxiety and obviously the workaholism only contributed to it more over time so Bonnie introduces me to this world and suddenly there's there's like words to how I'm feeling and I was like oh there's dissociation oh that's like a thing people talk about like feeling out of your body because I felt that like for so long but I've never really put a label on it and there's things like you know ifs internal family system inner child work like my childhood has stuff that is involved in this like that's affecting how I'm feeling now you know and I you know it's interesting I hesitate to talk about this now because I'm still in the process of this healing it's not I'm not coming on this podcast being like bro I'm [ __ ] solid you forgot your your shawl in your turban yeah yeah I'm kind of levitating and so there's this I I think that's part of the nervousness and you know being back in the world and being in yes Theory and I'm gonna join in on videos and talk about the book and all this stuff is I feel like a guy who's in the middle of the marathon talking about the first half of the marathon whereas I'm like I still got the second half to run but the reason I am doing it is because I think there is a lot of um Service as well that comes with speaking about it there's a level of connection I get from talking about it while I'm going through it rather than waiting you know for a few years from now what I'm much better and there's a level of like hey in order for me to get better I need to leave this thing and so I don't want to bounce without saying goodbye like I want to say bye and it's also kind of difficult because the people who are closest to me you know even up until recently very recently like you have seen me broken and hurt and still working through a lot of the stuff so I find that I am [Music] um ultimately I would say proud of myself and I think what I'm also learning is that by talking about it while I'm going through it um developing this sense of confidence in it in myself in this feeling of like oh it's not the scary monster you know it's mental health is like physical health it's like I think within the next few years maybe a little later it's going to be the norm to be like call the friend like hey dude my mental health is not in a good place right now and I need support and we do that for each other we're you know as we speak but there is still that little fear that's like I don't talk about it you know just don't don't don't address it especially if you're going through it in the moment um and [ __ ] dude I'm going through it and like this book is bringing it all out writing it brought it all out but now publicly being involved in all that is is uh it's just one day at a time process and couldn't do it without the support so yeah dude yeah it's it's beautiful for you just to speak into it because you imagine how many people that deal with anxiety feeling lonely at times and don't hear what you just shared well then there is one less relatable individual on the planet that makes them feel a little bit less alone and so I think it's really important to have these conversations while you're in it also acknowledging listen I don't have it all figured out but it's just it can be incredibly comforting for people um and so yeah bro the process of you going in and writing the book and now coming back online and sharing I think is just cool to share your real-time experience of how you're flowing with it all and how it's moving because it's a journey like mental health uncovering childhood wounds and Trauma it's like it doesn't just get resolved overnight as much of us would like it to so so yeah man it's been really beautiful to see your own process and really the courage that it takes to listen to that inner voice and make those difficult incredibly uncomfortable decisions of deleting your social media deciding hey I have 100 few hundred thousand followers on people see everyone's super engaged and then early in 2020 you said whatever I'm deleting it because it's affecting my mental health so I think there's so much power to talk into about choosing you and giving yourself that permission slip of course everybody that's listening that also gives them that permission slip in many ways but yeah what have you learned about the courage of listening to your inner intuition and making those big big jumps um I've learned that it it won't make sense on paper listening to your inner voice makes no sense on paper foreign where I started doing it where I started to actually listen to that voice everything made sense on paper to me at least it was all head driven brain driven default mode Network I was just calculating in my brain what would create the best outcome for myself as I started to get into recovery um one of the biggest Parts about recovery groups and all this stuff is it's in order for it to work it has to be spiritual this is you people that come into these rooms are I mean I I won't speak for people but I came into this room these rooms obsessed with control I was God I was in charge and so that comes from this survival background of like my whole life I felt like it's just been I've been in survival mode so I needed it I needed to be in control in order to stay safe however as I progressed in these groups and you know moved ahead in the steps the powerlessness is the biggest piece you have to let go and you have to allow yourself to be guided by something bigger than your head and it took me about two years to allow that to happen it was this fight I was just battling my head and my heart were just at war with each other and it wasn't until I I went to this cabin last year February of 2022 in the middle of writing the book in the middle of all the the [ __ ] show in my head I was like I gotta get away so I went to this cabin in Nevada Mount Charleston found the most isolated remote piece of land in America it's like put me here and when I get out I'll have it figured out and I didn't take my phone so middle of winter I'm by myself in this Cabin in the Woods covered in snow this Mountain's covered in snow and it gets dark at like five or six or whatever and I'm just getting scared in the middle of the night when snow falls off the roof don't even get me started literally yes I'm more scared that I've ever been like am I about to be murdered no snow is just falling this is a true story yeah so I I for the first two weeks that I got to the cabin uh I had pretty much a panic attack every day and I couldn't sleep I would sleep like three or four hours a night sometimes less you know and I about two weeks in I had this moment where I uh couldn't sleep again and it was a two-floor cabin so I would just like walk down the stairs from my bedroom and just go down to the couch and I I felt like I was losing my mind so I walked down the stairs at 3am and I sit down on the couch by the fireplace I take a deep breath and then I just kind of start talking like this I'm like you [ __ ] thank you son of a [ __ ] like you call yourself a god like you would do this to me you would make me suffer like this like [ __ ] off [ __ ] off dude and this anger this like intense built up resentment just [ __ ] poured out of me and for the next hour dude I was just screaming I got up from the couch and just was hollering at God being like shaking thankfully I was away from many of the other houses there were there there's nobody around so I I it was I think that was part of it getting away from the world allowed me to let that out you know not worry about who's gonna hear it and so this like just intense anger comes out and after about an hour I just lay back down on the couch I just leave my head back and this the first time ever happened this voice this super quiet voice goes still love you still love you whoa in the past I would have questioned it like that's not real it's not blah blah blah just making excuses for what this is but because I'd been alone for some time because I hadn't had distractions of the phone because I'd like screamed and let so much out it was unquestionable it's like whoa that was real holy [ __ ] from that point on [Music] it's been an everyday thing that voice sometimes it's harder to hear if there are more distractions around but every day in that cabin I learned to listen and I don't say this like I'm not like I don't have this like old man talking my head it's it's really just it's my heart it's this god-given heart that has been trying to communicate to me from my whole damn life and I've been shutting it down escaping from it with my freaking head and so I was able to listen to it and now my life is Guided by that voice my life is I can't make big decisions without getting still getting down on my knees waiting and allowing it to come through and when I say the voice you know it's like [Music] I say it's you know this voice is um it doesn't make sense on paper is because all these decisions that I've made since are if I were to have made these decisions in my mind do you lit you're literally psycho but because I get this guidance now from my heart and from the universe whatever you want to call that voice the decisions I'm making are leading me in a direction that I would have never gone otherwise that a Direction That's So unfamiliar because that mind the ego is just gonna only guide you to the familiar that's like it knows one thing the past the familiar blah blah blah it's just that's why you just repeat these cycles of who you are and that's why in this recovery programs they're like you can't get through without the spiritual piece because the spiritual piece takes you to the unfamiliar and the unfamiliar is where you actually become a line it's where you actually grow of course the unfamiliar is scary as a [ __ ] again why seek discomfort is like the best tagline ever because it is that's how you grow um so yeah yeah dude what a process what a freaking process um so beautiful man what you just shared I'm just getting the visual and you know talking to you around that time too of you got to be willing to face the abyss like stare at the abyss in the dark head on and say let's go I'm here you know and before it's very much like a death of sorts like you have to be willing to let go of that old egoic narrative that is so familiar and clings on to this anxiety-ridden unworthiness telling like mind of yours that continually feeds these negative thoughts and man it takes a lot of courage to be able to go there and because you had the courage to go there you're being reminded right now of everybody that it's it's so important and if you don't and you just keep operating from the headspace and the egoic mind you're gonna keep hitting brick walls and things are gonna be come crashing down at some point because you can't live there forever um so it's just an incredible reminder and I think I think so many people feel like their anxiety is like a malfunction it's like I'm broken inside you know when you're screaming I get this image of you raging to God saying why me you know and why why could you do this to me you know and then you coming in and you doing the work since then and I've seen you do the work it's like you realize that the anxiety is really a signal of something that needs to be reconciled that you haven't been paying attention to and so unless you get still unless you get quiet you just can't hear those things you're just going to continually function from that familiar State like you were speaking to and so man uh you know it's been beautiful like you're still on the Journey of course but it's been cool to see you like get more and more glimpses of that state when you listen to that intuition in that in that voice because we're all born with it we have like that first innocence and you know some traditions I call the second innocence is rediscovering that again back within yourself which comes by virtue of you not turning away what you know it doesn't want a blind eye and so yeah bro I know there's a couple more big moments I mean I remember when we were out in Hawaii earlier this year I remember there's been you know many times where you've been that courageous permission slip for many others too to like fully address and like just go there you know fully emotionally release what's holding you there and like fully address it otherwise it kind of just continually makes your reality a little bit more shitty every day yeah but then when you fully address it on it sucks while you're while you're in it uh but then you find so much more freedom on the other side of it so yeah any other moments that you want to bring up there and then also what you've like started to discover on the other side and how that intuitive voice feels to you I think it'd be cool to talk about what you just dressed Hawaii Kauai yeah yeah because I it's coming up on a year yeah that we had the first dinner yeah almost a year um so I guess a little bit of context here is probably useful yeah yeah basically so I guess it's kind of first time talking about this but yeah Maddie and I are in a men's group we got there's like eight of us guys and um it's it started out as really just like a mastermind dinner that I started to host at my house and then it just turned into blossoms into this incredible vehicle for reflecting back to each other our greatness reflecting back to each other where we're limiting ourselves the full spectrum really and it's just an incredible eight I'm so inspired and look up to every single human and they're including you and so uh it's been great and since then we you know kind of uh we meet monthly and it's like uh helping each other realize the the capacity that we have for bigness and then also like I spoke to where we feel like we're playing small within ourselves and um that process of mirroring back to each other what we see I think is incredibly powerful because when you're so close to your own [ __ ] it's so hard to see it's like if you don't brush your teeth for four or five days you won't really notice because it's been accustomed to your nose but everyone else around you will be able to smell it and so we're smelling each other's on brushed teeth I literally dude so so yeah and Hawaii was one of those well I'd love to go back just a little bit sure to how because you are the architect of this group you put it together I don't actually even know this like when that ID actually came to you why you decided to do it why at that this time in your life and why the people you picked you know because it's become such a powerful group and now it feels like one of the most aligned things in my life but again it came from yeah you know well like you were speaking to I feel like as you continue to find Stillness that intuitive voice grows and something that I spent a lot of time on is is being in that space as much as possible and listening to what you know what comes through and it kind of start start out as Whispers of like you know and an idea and something that kind of drops into your thought process of um and and also it's part of just who I am I love Community curation I love bringing together Brilliant Minds and sometimes on and off camera you know and so it just started out really as this idea to bring together some powerful people who are exceptional Business Leaders or you know been very successful in the 3D world but also I feel like are very heart-led and um leaders from that space and uh just genuine humble dudes and so I started out like that and then I I genuinely feel like I can't take credit for it because it's like a greater intelligence kind of orchestrated it and brought it together and part of it is like showing up and listening to that voice making the decision and then letting go and surrendering and see what wants to come through that and so that was kind of the process of it and then yeah I just kind of unraveled very quickly I think you were like the first or second chair and you're just like you know when there's when you cut through and you're super vulnerable like you just connect with people at that deep level which I think is a superpower of yours like continually I see that and uh and so that was the start of something incredibly special and and uh yeah and then cut scene six you know months later you're you're in Hawaii yeah well to me my perspective on this is the you sent us a text or I think you individually it was kind of like the Glass Onion Glass Onion what's that movie where they where he gathers like the eight people on an island oh but he sends them each like a very cool individual message yeah so anyways when I got the text from you I was like oh interesting like a men's group I mean I was in I was a mess you know like that was bad and I remember again being like my head being like there's no way I can be with a group of eight dudes right now like dudes I don't know except for Dre and another one you know so can I say who B Brandon yeah so Dre and Brandon are the only two I know the other six I don't not worth it I'm not trying to make new friends this is not the time in my life to make new friends I am solely I have to spend more time alone I have to you know work through my relationship with the guys in yes Theory I have to like exit that before I can start a whole new life with new people like it is it would be too overwhelming I prayed on it and it was a very clear go this was the day before I was like [ __ ] [ __ ] the morning before the morning of I did it again and it was go so it for me it's always what it's like one word go yay nay those are the how I hear it or sometimes Absa [ __ ] lutely and I drove to your place you were living in Venice at the time an hour before no 20 minutes before the the dinner with these guys I park my car and I put my head on the steering wheel and I'm like God I'm not in the shape to do this and again let's just go just go I show up and again like you said it's some of those young incredible inspiring men I've ever been around in my life and we sit around this table and everybody's nervous you know like what is hearing What's Happening Here what are we doing what's Dre brought us to you know I really is this like a uh you know are we so yeah networking thing is just like yeah a one-time thing what do we and you I mean per as always had this like incredible food and you curated this incredible night and we were going around the table and you asked each of us to share and yeah I remember going up and because I was felt so broken I was like I'm not even gonna pretend I'm okay I'm just gonna show you guys because otherwise I'm gonna hate being here and so I just fully opened up I was like yo this is where I'm struggling like I started crying you know it's like this has been really brutal these past few two years for me I've been really hard I like I'm strong I can't sleep I didn't sleep last night I didn't want to come here you know all this stuff and um just like you won't take credit for putting the group together I definitely won't take credit for opening it up with any kind of vulnerability however I also feel like the there is a gift from the desperation there's a gift from the Brokenness that I didn't have a choice it's it's almost like the universe was like just [ __ ] like I'm gonna break you down so you actually show your true self and then to be able to witness these these leaders one at a time just freaking reveal themselves that night was like leaving it was kind of like you know I I I think I bring up dating in every podcast I do because I think dating is such a great analogy for so many things in life but it's kind of like leaving a first date and you're not like whoa that you're just kind of driving home you're like the [ __ ] just happened what was that I've never experienced anything like that in my life so it's more of like again putting me in the unfamiliar whoa whoa fast forward to Hawaii six months later we're like if that was deep we just went a whole nother weapon yeah and month by month dinner by dinner trip by trip it's been I mean life-changing doesn't even feel like it does it justice yeah there's something unique about bringing in together whether it's all women or all men to kind of for those Polaris to be separate in a way because there's a there's a level of depth within each archetypal energy within masculine feminine that allows um like when it's all that you can just go really deep and there is you can you can drop in much deeper and there's just such a power to Brotherhood that we've completely lost we've lost these initiations we've lost these Rite of passages that really help us jump from being a boy to a man and so I think in the future I'm sure there'll be more that I and you know we share of kind of a blueprint of of how people can enact this in their life because it's so incredibly important for men to have other men that can support them and like I said not just all the uh the success driven motivation with money and achieving and how so many men you know Place their worth and their performance but also the emotional side that gets neglected and the balance of both is I think really important and you know we've done some incredibly challenging suffering things together like climbing up a mountain and you know and just like with ropes and it was just intense like the hardest time the hard mountains that was the hardest Mountain so there's there's a lot to that I think suffering together is just something brings people close um but then also creating that safe space for for us to express whatever's holding us back realizing that until we do that we're always gonna just be operating from at best The Limited version of herself and so yeah so much to open up there but uh but yeah I think it's just powerful and a take home for everyone else as well that whether you're in your family Dynamics friend Dynamics you know or your Creator and you share these kind of things online people always connect to what's real and to just be vulnerably sharing in a way you're no longer vulnerable because you're laying it all out there it's like the that one scene in Eight Mile when I mean I was in the freestyle battle I am white yeah I am a [ __ ] bum yeah all I do live in a trailer with my mom I think that's the line yeah and all that like just lay it out this is me there's nothing you can say because I just laid it all out there there's so much power in that yeah yeah even doing it now I feel it yeah yeah even just being open about all this it's like ah I'm good I'm Gucci yeah another big thing is you know realizing that every man and woman is on a spectrum of sensitivity and you kind of realize in your own like being there's that book HSP in order it's like the highly sensitive person and realizing that especially with a lot of creatives they're incredibly sensitive by virtue of that they have access to more of the Arts right but the shadow side of that as well is if it's not grounded if it's not integrated and you're not operating from that side of sensitivity then you're sensitive to a lot of the other things which is the anxiety and the loneliness and the negative voices and how that manifests externally as well and so how powerful was that realization of of that of me being sensitive yeah I'm just like really realizing that yeah it came from my ex-girlfriend um after we broke up she texted me and said hey I think this book would help the highly sensitive person I think Elaine Aaron is the author I always forget but um I yeah dude I remember reading it it was like reading my biography it was insane I think when you're when what's helpful what I love most about reading is when you are able to name things they kind of lose their fear like the more you're able to understand in something and put a name on it the unders the there's this sense of I don't know this wholeness that's created from it and so for me you know there's these different terms that have come into my life you know like uh HSP highly sensitive person I'm a third culture kid tck someone that grows up in different countries when they're a kid and I have had these feelings and experiences and I've always been like damn I feel so alone in this but I think again the naming of them it's actually it creates this connective piece it's like if there's a name to it that means other people must feel this way or have had these experiences which is like whoa I'm connected to them too so gradually I felt by uncovering parts of myself and learning about myself that way I connect more to more of humanity and what people have learned the knowledge they can share the HSP thing was probably the biggest one because I for my whole life have played this tough guy I know it may sound weird now talking to me but I I never used to cry I never used to say I was hurting I never used to um like show any kind of pain again in the environment I grew up in in the the system and also what it means to be a man in this world you just don't show it and I prided myself on being this like athlete in this like leader and this businessman and you know all these different labels of what it means to be a man when I was dying inside so it's hilarious it's like what do you actually what are you actually and so when my girlfriend ex-girlfriend sent me that it was a first a what the f is she is she like trying to mess with me because we broke up like what is this say hey loser you're sensitive but no it's it was the greatest gift she's like you're way more sensitive than you think and I the one of the things I I like the analogy I love that Gabor uses where like if you're touching the shoulder of someone like if I touch your shoulder now how does it feel what about if you have a burn like how does it feel now and so if you're sensitive you just feel it so much more intensely another one is I'm really affected by noise like loud noises like like cars or whatever and I was at my friend's place last year and I was he had these like really like silent windows and I would go to bed and it'd be perfect and as soon as I'd opened the window it would be like raucous it was in Copenhagen like the middle of the city and you would just hear the noise of the streets below and I was like sensitivity is that the noise comes in like the the raucous comes in and you it's really [ __ ] hard to not let it and you need so many tools to not let it affect you and then you know I once I understood it I understood that I had it it just kept like happening more more and more people pointed out like Jim or like my Stillness coach um kind of looked at me one day and I hadn't brought this up to him but after one of our sessions he was like Matt I'm going to tell you something it's like you're one of the most sensitive people I've ever met it's like [ __ ] dude why can't I be a little damn it it's just so exhausting being sensitive and I've realized at the same time the reason I was able to connect with so many people through yes Theory to our community to our audience because I really care because I can't help it and because I I do see the world and the issues in it and feel that I have to do something I have to stand for something if I don't I feel worse problem was for most of my life I was rushing into the battlefield without any armor without any tools without any sense of like how do I care for myself in this process now that I know that I'm sensitive now that I've built this skill set of you know building what I built I feel like the next phase of my life I'll be able to enter it still build still be make impacts the lead but know what I what's required for me to to not burn out just to stay good to stay aligned um and ultimately realizing it's the greatest superpower of all time yeah I will pick up on things that seems so obvious to me almost like sometimes I meet engineers and like what language are you guys talking about like they get it so easily for me it's like it's more of an emotional thing or like even this voice that comes very clear to me I know that comes from my sensitivity like I I don't know if people like I've talked to other people in recovery groups and they a lot of them don't necessarily have like this whisper that they can really pick up on and I think that whisper is a sensitive trait um so yeah dude I mean now it's all very recent for me I'm still learning how to adjust to being sensitive but there is something um cool about being a sensitive dude like my girlfriend is not used to having a sensitive boyfriend like she is uh very much getting used to having to talk about feelings and with her partner and I think there's something yeah really valuable like you said like with my friends that I can also provide is like I can see parts of them very clearly that I that they may not be able to see and I think that's also the greatest gift I can give to someone is like hey you have this you're not picking up on it but my freaking brain is on fire right now and I gotta tell you so yeah I think as I get older it'll be better better and better yeah more refined more context it's like that our greatest challenges often reveal those superpowers that we have within the gift that comes through of your sensitivity the greatest artists are usually the most sensitive you know and so I'm excited to go into and just see your path unfold of what that sensitivity contributes to the next you know art or whatever it manifests as of what you create next in your life um but it came through those incredibly uncomfortable moments and yeah it's just uh another source of inspiration and a reminder for people you know as much as I would joke of like you should create something called No Theory Bro you've heard it a million times the you know part of yesterday and just saying yes to life and saying yes it will comes your way is whenever you say yes to something you're also saying no to many other things you could be doing and so you really had to say no to everything that you were doing to fully say yes to addressing what was unreconciled within you so I think it's a it's a powerful reminder for people as well to to realize and and to honor those no's because until you can say no then your yes really has no value you know and look at you jumping off social media or these things that maybe seem novel to certain people but that has huge ripples on your life man not constantly checking you know your socials and especially when you're so in that world that's a big pattern interrupt for sure dude yeah for sure yeah another big thing in terms of just saying you know no is you had to turn down so many things to be able to really focus on the book uh I've seen these so many times over the past year or two like completely feeling beaten by the prospect of having to finish this book which is like a baby you're birthing into the world and we say the name let's talk to strangers right but don't it's crossed out yeah a little cheeky a little cheeky don't talk to strangers talk to strangers awesome things will happen yeah uh but I've seen me with so many periods like really ready to embrace this new part of your chapter of your life but not fully having reconciled and like completed the previous like kind of stuck in between both these worlds and I've seen that as well so yeah anything else you want to share of just the level of commitment that you've had to had in writing this book and I know how many times you just wanted to throw your hands up in the air and say F this I'm done yeah I mean I did an Iron Man and I've talked about it so much to the to our community because are you good what's going on with your neck oh yeah I got a a graston thing it looks like I have hickeys what that's why Drew wears Turtles that's why I'm wearing a turtle like on today's podcast my body worker yeah yeah totally totally body worker right all right all right it's actually though it's a metal tool they like scraper tissue with totally totally she's good anyways um hmm where was I uh yeah I mean I've that desired man which is a like a really intense Triathlon and I um had this whole thing where I thought it was impossible trained for seven months with uh Aaron who was uh I mean almost trainer yeah it sounds like a So Random when I put it like this but I had this like professional trainer taking me through these seven months of training to this impossible race to hit an impossible time of Under 12 hours and uh I ended up doing it training and I would train for like it was like I've never felt so um depleted in my whole life like I would have to train sometimes six hours a day you know just where I would bike for five run for one I would get up at like five every morning to go swim I would have to my diet was all over I'd have to eat so much I feel so bloated a lot of the time the problem doing an Iron Man doing these Triathlon these like running kinds of races I had the expectation that you get jacked like that you just get huge because you're getting so strong the bottom half of my body like my legs doubled in size but my arms were the flabase they've ever been so it's kind of demoralizing as well like I'm training so hard and I'm I feel like flabby so anyways that was like burnout Central not only for me for Aaron too we were dying training for this thing but we eventually did the Iron Man I eventually uh pulled through and got my dream time of 11 hours and 58 minutes so two minutes under what I wanted which was like the a pivotal moment in my life that [ __ ] was hard starting to write a book sounds cool and fun and easy ish everybody wants to write a book everybody wants to be New York Times bestseller write a memoir changed millions of lives so I was like ah take me a year take me a year and then after you help me you know I saw it leave yes Theory start a new life a little that I know writing a book is like 10 times in Iron Man and I don't say that lightly like especially I think if it's a memoir if you have to dissect your own life and give kernels of wisdom or tell stories or connect the dots between the stories or any of it and write something that's that makes sense um it just takes it out of you and thankfully the guys let me step away and work on it you know they were really kind about me just having space for as long as I needed to write this book and it ended up taking me I was hoping to do it in like six months and then publish it and then be done within a year and now it's coming up on three so I started writing it when I like yeah I was 28 when I started and I'll be 31 by the time it comes out so um I think I had this like deep hate for it I started to really hate it really start to present it as a thing I was just projecting all my [ __ ] onto it almost like it was over like I was forming a relationship with this thing on Google Docs and I think the reason I hated it so much was because I was scared to leave and I knew as soon as this thing came out that I would be leaving and so almost subconsciously I was like finding ways to just like not do it you know just not doing not do it not do it um [Music] I think this is part of the thing like I you know how we started where was like the you can't really see the painting when you're in it and this is one of those cases I I haven't even held the book yet you filed it I haven't even nailed it yet um because I want to wait till the final version is done so that I can hold it and I can't know right now what that book is gonna do for me or how it's going to change my life in the future but I will say the pride that I feel in having completed it even the fact that it's readable is astonishing to me like I can't believe like if you saw these first drafts I was like this is I don't need nobody's gonna read this like they're gonna I'm gonna show this to my friends and they're gonna be like bro what the [ __ ] are you on and now like just getting the feedback and just hearing about how like these different moments and it really you know hit people and like how it's made them think more about what they want out of life so I'm already starting to feel it you know I'm starting to feel the impact that it's having especially for people who under like who have been a part of yes Theory or the community but also anybody I think that's wanting to build anything while also finding their truth so there is a level of like kind of like we've been talking about with the men's group and these different things it's like ultimately this thing wasn't even me by the end it just like the stories that need to be in it were in it and it felt more and more like I was giving it away you know and it was less about me and more about like how it would help people um but I gotta be very honest I am like so excited for November 19th I don't think I have ever looked more forward to a date in my whole entire life not even Christmas as a kid like this is both nerve-wracking and exciting but I like it's the finish line and when I crossed the finish line for the Iron Man I collapsed and instantly felt my life change and I feel like that date for me is the Iron Man times 10 and Crossing it will be yeah the most probably the most pivotal moment of my life just being able to see the behind the scenes and then also now getting to read the final product and it is very readable it's so enjoyable to read and thanks I loved it so much it's like you know it's like a movie in your head it was like in between like a novel and a biography of how it all happened because it feels unreal at times the serendipitous synchronistic moments that happened of these three dudes they're four Dudes starting out you know in their 20s with this dream and then the universe like just aligning in so many incredible ways and the power of putting yourself out there meeting strangers of having those conversations of doing the difficult things it's such an inspiring thing for I feel like our whole generation and so many people have looked up to you and your the whole the whole Squad um it's just it's such a cool thing and and now you always get to have that also to like look back on and that's an incredible representation of the Journey of it all which is which is great but I could imagine how painful it might be as you're ready to embrace as a new chapter of your life and for two and a half years you're stuck reliving every single moment you know and of course there's so many incredible Beautiful Moments to to reflect on but like to to only be focused on that one thing and rewriting and rewriting the same story over and over again it's like man kudos to you for making it happen congrats dude thanks man cupcake seek discomfort baby yeah ultimate yeah yeah dude thanks for saying that I mean really means a lot and again I mean your support throughout the process has been unreal like you've been such such a freaking good friend dude thanks man throughout and excited for your book down the line that you're gonna release that you're gonna write some point these I mean let's just say some it's already written yeah yeah all in due time you know I I think it's it's been powerful for for me to also witness and for you uh this is the power of community you know and and having you know the men's group and the Brotherhood is one thing but then also just friends and people that can support you along the process of the emotional Marathon that comes with the physical pursuit of writing a book or in a physical Marathon or whatever it is is super important so is there anything else you want to share about the power of community and friendship and how that's been supported for the whole process yeah my dad grew up in Puerto Rico and as a family every Christmas we would go and spend time in Puerto Rico and I've lived there for several months at a time you and I went traveled around Puerto Rico that was fun and there's a spirit on that island like a an energy that is unlike anything I've ever seen and all the places that I've ever traveled to and to give you an example I was traveling from Europe recently about a month ago and I flew through Madrid and I was flying to Puerto Rico to see my grandpa and in Madrid I landed connected in the airport and I'm walking through this like Giant paw you know to my gate and I hear it drumming I hear and like what the [ __ ] is going on like all the gates I'm passing are quiet everybody's on their phones computers eating not talking to each other reading whatever and I get closer to this gate and there are about a hundred Puerto Rican kids in dressed like they're all wearing the flag of Puerto Rico on their shirts and they're all just dancing and singing singing together couldn't believe it dude I was like this place that's it I get on my flight every time you land in Puerto Rico everybody claps it's one of the only place planes I'm ever in where everybody playing claps and it's like whoa whoa and then you let I land and uh I get out of the plane and I go down the stairs and I see a c a c of people it is like the entire Puerto Rican citizenship has showed up at this airport for those kids that were just dancing and singing who had done like a youth day in in Spain or like a youth week or something like their parents cousins everybody is showing up with them and I remember just looking at it like the the sense of community the sense of love between these people and I it's like this is what's missing in the world like showing up for each other like picking you up at the airport like Community is and and love and strong relationships are based off inconvenience it builds off inconvenience I show up for you when it's inconvenient for me it's easy to show up when it's convenient everybody can I've done all the work I needed today blah blah blah let's hang out now but you know if a friend is struggling or if something's happening that's unusual and like you need to show up and you do that Bond builds the trust builds and that is literally who we are we are built to connect like this and nowadays we [ __ ] hate inconvenience everything's convenient we love Uber Uber Eats we love the freaking uh instacart we love you know having access to like you don't need that support support as everything's on your phone and so I think what makes what has made the yes Theory Community my friendship with Amara Thomas and my brother all these people like that what we created the seeds of that are very similar to the Seas I see in the men's group they're different because this was a business and you know we had to make a living doing this so that it's it's difficult you know it's not just like a Brotherhood it's also a Business Partnership but in both I've seen the strength of the groups strengthened through inconvenience where one of us falls down and everybody stops what they're doing the plans they had they're like yo we got you and we're gonna we're not going anywhere like we say that lying to each other not going anywhere not going anywhere and I think it also is very indicative of like be very intentional about who you surround yourself with because you don't want to inconvenience inconvenience yourself for everybody you'll lose your mind but if there are people that you genuinely care about genuinely trust genuinely respect that you want in your life that relationship is going to grow through inconvenience and so I am very grateful for the men in the group because that's what they've shown to me and so I would say now you know with the world if you know we have so many people that I've I mean I can't even tell you how many emails messages whatever I've gotten from people expressing their loneliness sharing how brutally lonely they are because of these isolated technologies that we use I think that that is a major culprit regardless of what it is it exists we're very lonely right now and I do think the way out of that loneliness is again the unfamiliar like go towards what your heart is saying go towards the inconvenient go towards a thing that's like not a habit like go towards showing up for that person even though you you that you like kind of know but just reaching out and saying like hey I got you you know um instead of scrolling like scrolling is the easy option and so yeah I think I'm just excited to to keep showing up when it's inconvenient I think that's the biggest thing um and then yeah how others do the same for me it's such a big part of being a healthy human that we just totally neglect you know Community is immunity in so many different ways and well I've never heard that like that yeah well one day one day one day I'll be as smart God you're so smart I don't know where I heard that but it brings it rings true to me man I think you should post it on Instagram and you should say honest myself yeah I'll take right for that one yeah inevitably in life we're gonna go through these challenging moments and experiences and having individuals to you know it's like you're going through something challenging when you have somebody that's supporting you through it it makes you feel like it's totally possible you know and so um who has been that for you in your life I'm curious uh without a doubt I mean the the screw the group the guys has been you know the most powerful and you know supported for that for sure and I've been blessed to have incredible mentors in in you know individuals along my whole journey that saw more me than I saw myself in the time um starting at like 15. really yeah you had a mentor when you're 15. I mean kinda I started this this like business um this marketing kind of group at the time and there was a couple guys one sky Matt and this other guy Luke who were like a few years older than me and I was kind of hung out with older kids when I was young but um you know I expressed my desire to like to you know go down the path that they were kind of going and they took me under their wing in many ways another guy I met when I was 19 he was like a descendant Monk and uh really opened my eyes up to so many different things um even Logan like when that that whole chapter like just kind of met him and like yeah we kicked it off and you know we vibed for sure um but then moving in with him and you know very much so kind of doing a lot of life together and traveling and shooting and all the things was big and do you feel like that was a mentor kind of relationship in many in different ways I think each person and each Mentor filled different buckets of inspiration and encouragement and whatnot Logan just definitely remind me and uh when you're around somebody no matter who they are their energy rubs off on you and also their beliefs one thing that's just about him is his self-belief is infectious like the the commitment of just anything is possible and I'm capable of anything and to do it different and to follow what you know path you want to blaze uh super inspiring to see somebody playing that big at in their early 20s was just super because you were are you around his age two years younger so two years younger yeah and do you feel like that when you say it's infectious you feel like it really it stuck with you for sure and then also just by virtue of being in it you know and like watching the podcast with him and like um seeing a lot of like humbling moments on and off camera those uh there's just something about that when it opens your eyes up to I don't know we put we pedestal success and achievement and celebrity and all these things kind of off into the future like on this big pedestal and um to normalize it in a in an easeful way of just like everyone's human at the end of the day and they have their own basic needs and um I think it's easier to play at that level when you feel that intrinsically so yeah and it can be intimidating right to be around that kind of energy sure it's the bigness of it and I think that's part of the I mean the the intimidation factor of this group is you've got some some Heavy Hitters and so yeah we do and if you feel like you know if you've got these insecurities you're working through they'll definitely come up around that kind of energy and so I'm actually I'm I'm still curious on the Logan thing because this is something I don't know if people who are even listening to this even know your full background but you work with Logan Paul for how many years I lived with him for like two for two I don't know and you were in charge of the podcast and filming and a lot of it and I I met that's how we met was through Logan and I I was always so curious I was like how is a guy like Logan surrounding himself with like you know a guy like Andre or Spencer or just you know vegan spiritual like meditate three hours a day it's like it felt like I couldn't put it together yeah um but then honestly as I got to it's really interesting like getting to know Logan a little better and even like you know he's helped us out with some stuff as well it's like um yeah I started to see like his heart as well like he has a really beautiful heart and I think on social media obviously he has to play this big you know character and he's like in this incredible marketer but I could really sense why you you spend time with him you know and worked with him and I and I agree on the the like surrounding yourself with that kind of energy and it's like it's if you are staying with people who are cool with how things are that's great you're not gonna those insecurities aren't gonna come up or whatever but if you're constantly challenged by their business and your own that's the relationship you want to stay in and I you know for Amara from you for example was that like um the way Amar thinks is [ __ ] like I've never met anybody that thinks on the level of the insanity of ideas even just the other day we were in Amsterdam together and he's spitballing ideas left and right I'm like dude it's like the most incredible idea I've ever heard why like yeah so I think yeah throughout my life I think I've been really grateful for those figures um yeah dude and I think it's it's just the the bigness will forever be limited if you're not willing to go in words as well you know I think that's that's the key yeah and express and like surround yourself and expose yourself to different viewpoints in life and I think I have a part of me that is very much how Logan is perceiving in the light and Logan has a part of him that's not perceived on camera that is a big part of how I show up in my light like uh there's a curiosity and like childlike uh curiosity and and humility and heart that many people don't see of him off camera most people see the crazy expressive you know playful kid and um and all of that and then most people see me as this like meditative dude um but like I'm also like I also just love Frick to freaking play around and like you know let loose and um also I think we both have had that thing like just in childhood of uh it was such a [ __ ] and Troublemaker growing up it's so crazy to even think about that what does that even mean what were you doing just like getting in the prison like getting into detention in principal's office like all the time and like you know we would just I don't know if it was just kind of bored or not as challenged as much but I would always hang around the kids who get in trouble more that's hilarious so we're the president on that thread but uh but yeah I don't know how we got in this tangent but it's just a it's a cool thing to to surround yourself and expose yourself that uh with people that challenge you to think differently to believe bigger and yeah and all that when did you stop being [ __ ] I'm still a [ __ ] dude yeah uh probably like when I got into high school like freshman year after freshman year I like straightened out more did anything prompted or it was just probably I remember in eighth grade I was in the principal's office because my friends and I would do like these we would go in the bathroom during breaks and just fight each other what I know it sounds great it's like so obviously yeah we were like we'd have like tournaments foreign I think somehow it got recorded and this the assistant principal just stormed into my history class one day and just like he's like Audrey come now and everyone's like oh [ __ ] and my mom got called in and she slapped me in front of the principal oh my god dude yeah I never talked about that it was funny wow yeah and uh damn yeah that was that was a thing I mean my mom is like the most caring loving human ever um and that was like a tough love moment for sure you know she needed it and uh yeah I think I did because very much so I just I just realized that like uh I just realized who I wanted to be in life and that direction wasn't it so I mean that's pretty early to realize that because I was kind of a [ __ ] throughout High School yeah yeah I mean I definitely had my [ __ ] moments you know yeah it continued after that but what's honestly really fascinating about you is you never went to college yeah you uh finish high school and then join these marketing guys yeah and I went to I went to to college for like it was maybe a quarter of one semester and I just I was like I can't I know what I want to do and this is just literally not not it what did you want to do how did you know well I mean I was just a part of a group of guys you know I actually also similar like in different ways but um we were super focused on our business and affiliate marketing and everything at the time and then um I knew I was you know traveling to Tony Robbins conferences and like reading Bob Proctor and like really focused on that personal development side of things so I never gave up my curiosity and this insatiable urge to learn and read and stuff like that I just knew that you know taking calculus again was not gonna actually serve me and how I wanted to show up in the world so you know good call dude big big yeah helpful to have that awareness for sure is there any part of you that regrets that not a single part of me really I don't know nice definitely not damn it why because well it's also interesting because you're I mean I'm five years older than you uh-huh but I feel like you're very much my age which like you said you've hung out with older people your whole life but I um even you know you put together this group and like I think there's just this level of you know you have this podcast at this age you have this podcasting company that's crushing it Meraki media and like you're doing all these things and you're only 26. and I think about myself you know when we met like the age that you were versus they like what I was doing at that age and I think those four years in college as much as that needed them they were helpful to just kind of like rebalance it's like damn dude like if you're able to know at an early age what you want and not take the four-year path for University that is like I mean that compounds you know that is a a huge huge huge advantage and I think you know University can be an incredible networking thing and you know oftentimes you learn what you want by virtue of what you don't want and so it's important for some people and I was very grateful to not have I mean my mom definitely did want me to go to school and like in pursue College more but she also trusted me in a good way which I think is helps a lot I know so many people are pressured by their families especially at people that are ethnic like you know if you're Arabic or you're Indian you know and you don't become a doctor a lawyer engineer you're basically just a failure so I'm very grateful that I had you know more spaciousness to explore myself and just prove my own stability that I could make it on my own you know which every parent just wants their kids to be able to survive and thrive in their own world so was there a moment for you where after you'd made the decision kind of like we talked about earlier like when you make your decision and you focus was there a moment for you where you were like oh [ __ ] like my life is gonna look way different than most people after making a decision mm-hmm yeah probably I mean I knew it at at 15 16 when I would like I would show up in this business and my my teachers made a joke in front of the whole class and like everyone laughed about and they even like somebody made a joke and like the school play about it it was like this it was like selling these like healthy Energy Drinks like vitamin supplements and different things in like building this team around it and uh so I'd get a lot of [ __ ] for it just because it's so foreign for most people and uh I just realized that in life you got to take advice from people who have what you want and the teachers and people that I was you know that were giving me [ __ ] definitely didn't have that so um I would say that and then also silent silent meditation Retreats like that just opens you up to a whole new level I feel like um really that that's one of the I mean I say that yeah like I'm not that surprised that it is but I'm surprised that that's the one of the bigger ones that really did it did something come up during the silent meditation that transformed you oh for sure man I think a lot of it is also like we spoke to you can't see the picture while you're in the frame so you don't realize what's unfolding or transpiring fully while you're in it but there's a level of self-awareness that grows and inevitably in like a silent Meditation Retreat that becomes a conduit and makes you really capable of so much growth and moving in different directions than you otherwise wouldn't have so I mean that's got to be the biggest man having just listening and discovering that intuitive voice and knowing what you truly want and not moving from a place of uh desperation but more inspiration is just it'll put you in two different spots you know in life um damn so so yeah man but I've I've seen that similarly in your whole journey especially reading the book and getting to see some of the Nuance that I I didn't even know um man there's just so much power in claiming who you want to be choosing that and one thing that I I did want to touch on in this podcast because it's very much so in the ethos of who you're becoming is the name change you know because that's something that when people read the book most people familiar with Matt daher you know and Matt Dahlia is blooming so yeah give the context you need man but you know as you release this book November 19th comes you're claiming who you want to be in this different chapter and this idea for changing your last name came about because hmm [Music] oh man that's the first time uh addressing this one whatever you do just don't [ __ ] it up the what don't [ __ ] it up yeah don't look it up just don't say the wrong thing everyone's gonna hate you I got it I gotta get it I'm sorry uh uh all right forgive me if this is gonna come out a little all over the place but I'm gonna give you full truth and it's going to be hard but I feel like it's important for me to talk about it out loud hmm when I was born my dad has three sisters so when I was born my dad went to my grandfather just goes the first son to carry on the name is born kind of vibe from what I've heard I wasn't there so maybe it happened differently but this is what I remember from that story and then my last name [Music] my family is like very tight like we are big family big Puerto Rican Family and every Christmas I spent with all my cousins all my aunts all my uncles in Puerto Rico you know and we're the Dyers and it's really interesting that I even say that because it's spelled d-a-j-e-r and in France when I was growing up before I moved it's easy but in America when I moved to America at seven nobody knew how to pronounce my last name and I was never really taught how to pronounce it so sometimes I would say danger some people would call me de hair some people would call me dahir and some people would say the most random [ __ ] you know I'm like the year or whatever I don't know and so I always grew up with a sense of like I don't even fully know [Music] um how to pronounce my own name and I'm very I love my family to death and I I like my grandfather like this person that I inherited this name from like I was just with him like I you know it's I'm so close to this to my lineage um and while I was going through this beginning of the healing Journey I um I I started to read Eckhart a lot and at the beginning of Eckhart Tolle's book um a new Earth the first page is about flowers it's about how I think 100 million years ago flowers showed up on Earth and at first it was one flower and then another one there and he essentially uses this the flowers this metaphor for or is this analogy for how uh The Awakening of humanity is first happened slowly with individuals you know here and there around the world but gradually builds and builds and gains in strength and momentum and grows into you know a worldwide thing that book changed everything for me that book is just so good yeah I could read that book a million times and after reading it I hadn't I didn't think much of you know would come up here and there about the flower thing but I didn't think much of it but in my recovery program and also can you give a little context for that because most people are familiar with recovery with like alcohol yes and stuff recovery and how you're speaking to it is more uh it's more of um uh people who are affected by um it's like people who come from uh it's it's hard to say this because like not to generalize where I come from but from like dysfunction or um from like you know chaotic trauma and environment patterns yeah um and so it's a lot of people who you know I mean I have alcoholism in my family and so uh not directly but court and they say it's a family disease so it affects everybody and so um I was affected in my own way not I I mean I don't drink or anything I'm not addicted to anything but it's more of again I'm addicted to the control because whenever when it's chaotic the only thing you want to do is control and so yeah in the in this Recovery Group um I got a sponsor so something like a mentor essentially who could guide me through the steps and one of the things that he would do often is send me pictures of flowers he would always send me flowers and his favorite flower was the Dahlia so he would send me dahlias all the time he had a room in his house framed of framed photos of only dahlias covering the walls uh if you've never seen a dahlia it's I mean they're just I've never seen a more gorgeous flower and so I started to get really into flowers like if you go to the Getty museum here in La the freaking flowers are unbelievable I had a whole day just staring at dollies at the Getty Museum and I remember I think I sent you there for like your artist there or whatever yeah yeah yeah oh you told me about the flowers did you the Getty yeah I mean the Getty but did you tell me about that I don't know I just told you it was in a really interesting case you probably discovered that yeah yeah um but anyway so I I'm getting really into flowers I'm having this whole thing and um at one point I I'm I'm feeling myself changed so damn much and a name holds so much you know like I felt like my past was held in that name dot hair I felt like all the things that um like so many of the values that were difficult to accept were held in that name and the name started to feel less and less aligned but I also didn't feel like I didn't want to reject my family uh because there is so much love and so much good from it so I was torn I was like I wanna you know I want to evolve I want to change but I also don't know how to like not hurt my family um and then one day on a run in Joshua Tree uh about 30 minutes and I was like holy [ __ ] like how do you spell Dahlia d-a-h-l-i-a my original name is ancestral name is dahir d-a-h-e-r so it felt like all these different things like the Eckhart thing about how this uh analogy for the Awakening is through flowers and how my sponsors sending me these flowers and how my name is you know so similar to this flower I was like whoa this this really feels like me and so I had to really sit on that for a while before [ __ ] telling anybody I was gonna change my name dude because I'm like oh God if this is real but again the freaking voice as soon as it happened that voice was so clear again into the unfamiliar again into the the parts that my mind would have never done um and yeah that was about almost two years ago um and so it's been this whole process of first accepting it then telling close people in my life about it then make taking the action to legally change my name which is a whole process until then now telling our community and our audience and these people who followed us for a long time be like hey I know this is [ __ ] weird I know I'm like I've been away for three years and I'm coming back with a freaking new name um but it's true for me um I haven't lost my mind at least not yet so this is very aligned and I hope you'll accept me I hope you'll understand I hope nobody I love will be offended um and also I'm just freaking excited because I love that as last name to me it feels like I get to have both I get to have the foundation of where I come from with where I want to go and the reason just to bring It full circle back to Eckhart is um I don't think there is any other way for us as a species to survive without that evolution and it's something that he talks about it's something that a lot of people are starting to talk about have talked about for a while which is if we're going to continue letting our mind run the show and our ego run the show we're [ __ ] fully [ __ ] and the chaos I see in the world again with my sensitivity and I mean it's also just so obvious you don't even have to be sensitive to notice it is also there's this like equivalent thing happening on the other side this thing that's never happened on this planet word a large number of people are starting to talk about Consciousness we're starting to talk about presence Awakening are starting to talk about how to quiet down the noise get to the heart connect that we're not separate we are nature these things that if repeated can feel cliche but because they're true and so they get repeated um but it's a Feeling this podcast is a direct correlation to that movement you are a leader of that movement I don't think there will be one leader and you say this a lot the samsara uh technology says the next Buddha is a Sangha Sangha yeah it's not samsara is like the endless suffering wheel of completely different but it's like similar things but yeah that the next Buddha is a collective people not just one so that uh that transition of of realizing what your previous name I guess really how it's early is how you perceive it to be held it like a the war in your lineage and the trauma and well that I mean my family has a ton of trauma you know like on my French side there's like a ton of World War One World War II stuff like every single one of my ancestors fought in World War One my male ancestors of course nobody was able to had the tools to deal with it so again I I feel it in my body I feel that trauma in my body I've had to work on a lot of that and on my dad's side you know we were my great grandparents were persecuted out of Lebanon moved to Nicaragua because they were um the wrong religion and so I think you know in my family there was a ton of love but there is also a lot of like um a hesitation to explore beyond the family and which is interesting why the book is also called Talk to Strangers it's not like my family doesn't have friends and stuff I think there's just like family is everything and I think I have this hesitation to ever say that like family is everything because there's something really tribal about that and tribalism is the problem separation is the problem if you think you're different or need to be protected shielded by this group from the rest of the world that's the problem and you can be a republican you can be a Democrat you could be whatever you can like the second you become separate the whole thing falls apart and so the world I think needs people to step out of the family system and not reject their families but just like say like hey yes family is a huge part of my life but all of this is this is the family this Earth is home for me because I moved as a kid I don't have this identity to a place so I don't necessarily feel tied to a country I feel tied to this earth I think it's one of the the Privileges that I get from you know being a third culture kid um and I recognize that a lot of these thoughts are from my own experience that you know people from different upbrings and places are gonna not necessarily agree but for me um yeah they're the problems I see can be rooted down to separation and tribalism and if we can just have enough individuals brave enough to step out of that to question it um to not judge the other then I think we can create a new Earth yeah and so Dahlia really is a representation of that new Earth for you you know that claim yeah and uh incredible is there anything else there that you wanted to on the name yeah just anything else uh honestly again thank you dude because I mean I've had to tell close friends of mine and it's almost like I feel like I mean I'm not gonna compare it to this but I can imagine I can't even imagine but people who have been in the closet for a long time and then you know come out and you know that they want to like transition or let everybody know that they're you know that they're gay I think there's a you're like oh [ __ ] how are people going to react like they've seen me as this one person my whole life like what are they going to say when they find out that I'm actually this thing and so to have friends like you who immediately like there was no no sense of like what the [ __ ] like whoa cool it's like oh nice and then to not only that but not have you know I have you guys and so many close friends being like you're Matt [ __ ] Dahlia you're Matt Dahlia you are mad Dahlia so that I have that all the time is just allows me to gain more confidence yeah my name yeah beautiful man yeah dude I'm it feels like that is a representation of here deciding to be and how you want to show up in the planet and so as we start to wrap up your man I've been enjoying this whole thing but in the end of your kind of goodbye video you shared that Beginnings always hide themselves in ends and so I'm just curious as you feel into this new beginning of what comes after the book what texture qualities come into into how you think about what maybe is next in store for you and hmm yeah um um play one word play yeah my kid this inner kid needs to run around run around and laugh and play I think I've been very very serious for a lot of my life and I'm excited to not be um yeah travel explore my curiosity learn more about what I want and ultimately eventually definitely come back to a place where um I can make I can use my gifts in service to all this you know make continue to make as much impact as possible um but yeah a lot of play and that's gonna involve you know we're gonna we're gonna have some good times yeah some good hangs travels I mean bro you're like the goofiest kid ever Matt's always picking up the guitar freestyling singing random songs making everyone laugh dude I was thinking because you had to buy X-Play uh that I should I should do the same thing you should bro sing us home dude so good Matt's got a good voice people don't know so for for everyone that wants to read the book we'll leave a link down in the description that can pre-order check out the book called Talk to Strangers details the whole journey of you embarking on this incredible this incredible journey with your friends and um so inspiring man is there anything else you want to share in regards to that uh no no that's perfect yeah the the link is yestheorybook.com that's it amazing yeah dude so good thanks for supporting bro yeah grateful and love you man thanks for coming on and all the vulnerable shares and all of it and uh yeah I think this is it's just an Empower such an empowering reminder and you are such an empowering and assuring Force I think for so many people um to be inspired to go after their dreams and uh to face the parts of themselves that are holding them back from that and everything in between so thank you bro thanks dude same for you yeah it inspired me so much thank you bro and for everybody that's been tuning into this wild episode of the know they self podcast let us know what felt transformative what was insightful what really landed and hit home for you and uh this is my favorite thing ever so thanks for coming on this journey and until next time [Music] foreign

Channel: André Duqum

Views: 30,199

Keywords: know thyself, podcast, spirituality, personal growth, transformation, andre duqum, interviews, philosophy

Id: c7zPnSGZJtc

Length: 115min 51sec (6951 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 10 2023