In this episode, I was interviewed by the Global NLP Conference about how to make big life decisions you won’t regret. Angela Wells, co-founder of the conference, asks some great questions which allows me to share:
- What key tools I personally use to make decisions to live a life true to myself and actually do it not just think it
- How you can shift from analysis paralysis and being stuck in life
- One killer NLP strategy to transform your motivation to take action
- How to take back control when your career or life problems seem impossible to solve
- How to not sweat the small stuff and spend your time more wisely
- The commonalities between my guests on the Burn From Within podcast on how they made hugely successful life and career changing decisions
- How Covid has changed everything in people’s minds and why The Great Resignation is happening right now
Resources:
- Use my special discount code MATT10 when you register for the Global NLP Conference (and check out all the amazing speakers and sessions) here
- For those that want a free guide to making big decisions with no regrets, including audio clips sharing real strategies from people I interview as well as clips from Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos who use this framework, go to www.burnfromwithin.com/noregrets and I'll send you my audio guide free today!
- Connect directly with me directly on LinkedIn here - leave me a voice note to really get my attention (thanks Valerie Mekki for that tip!)
- Check out Tony Robbins' explanation of the NLP Dickens process here on YouTube - I've adapted this for career and life decisions. The foundational structure is truly powerful for motivation to take action!
To book a free 20-min confidential call with Matt to discuss any career or life change challenges you are having, go to www.burnfromwithin.com/call
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt (00:30):
This week, I was interviewed by the global NLP
conference about how to make biglife decisions.
You won't regret.
Angela Wells co-founder theconference asks some great
questions, which allows me toshare.
What key tools I personally useto make decisions to live a life
true to myself, and actually doit, not just think it, how you
(00:53):
can shift from analysisparalysis and being stuck in
life.
One killer NLP strategy totransform your motivation to
take action.
How to take back control whenyour career or life problems
seem impossible to solve.
How to not sweat the small stuffand spend your time more wisely.
(01:18):
The commonalities between myguests on the burn from within
podcasts.
On how they made Shuliesuccessful life and career
changing decisions.
How COVID has changed everythingin people's minds and why the
great resignation is happeningright now.
The full show notes and videosof other interviews are
(01:39):
available@burnfromwithin.com.
Four slash interviews so listenall the way through and enjoy I
found so much benefit from NLP.
And one of the reasons why Ifound so much benefit and, and
why I'm doing this session inparticular is being able to
connect with my.
My unconscious and, and actuallyfiltering out all the data from
(02:04):
social media and work andeverything else to connect with
my unconscious so that I havesome kind of clarity in order to
make decisions to, to have a, tolive an authentic life.
Which is one of the biggestregrets of the dying, you know,
the biggest regret of the dyingfrom the top five regrets of the
dying by Bronnie ware was.
(02:24):
I wish I lived a life true tomyself, not one that others
expected of me.
And I think NLP in particularhas helped me live a life true
to myself.
And now, you know, I used towork in a corporate job in
London for, for many years.
I'm from the UK originally.
And Through NLP, I've madeconscious decisions by tapping
(02:48):
into my unconscious and, andfollowing my intuition and
making.
Informed decisions about manythings in life.
That's from, you know, startingmy own business.
I went into e-commerce propertyinvesting.
I've done some NLP training aswell through to moving com
countries traveling all aroundthe world.
(03:09):
Been to over 60 countries nowbeen living mainly abroad for,
for the last three or fouryears.
Thailand, I'm now in Georgia,Tbilisi in Georgia.
So.
I guess like, you know, I thinkthe fundamentals of, of what
I've learned from NLP and allthe tools I've been using myself
from this place of how can Ilive a life choosing myself.
(03:30):
And one of the ways to do thatis using NLP and so many
beautiful tools in NLP to beable to make decisions
authentically, which aren'tinfluenced by other people, but
they're influenced by your ownunconscious, what you really,
really.
Angela Wells (03:45):
What are some of the the key tools that you find
the most useful in order to liveyour most authentic self in
making those decisions?
Matt (03:56):
That's a really good question.
I mean, I can, I can just giveyou some straight up tools that
I think are particularlyhelpful.
Firstly.
There's, you've got to look atthis, that question in a couple
of ways.
One, you need to know what, youknow, you need to know about
yourself.
You need to know what, like,where are you right now in your
life?
(04:16):
And Like, what is, what is agood life for you?
Like what is a well-designedlife?
Like, what does a good life looklike?
You know, that if you were tolive a life true to yourself,
what would that look like?
What would that sound like?
Would that feel like, like, howdo you know that?
And so yet you there's, there'smany tools to use to to explore
(04:36):
your unconscious, to, to, tokind of get some clues as to,
you know, what lights you upinside.
What what motivates you?
What energizes you there's NLPtools.
There's also, you know, othercoaching tools, there's
psychometric tools as well.
I am a big proponent of cite thestrengths, find.
Psychometric test as, as aninitial indicator of, you know,
(04:57):
what kind of activities energizeyou, they're just clues, they're
not prescriptive.
I think some of these kind oftests that tell you, you should,
when you grow up, you should bea fireman or a fighter pilot,
you know, that's, that's far tooprescriptive, but having an
indication of like whatenergizes you and the kind of
activities that energize you inwork in play, I think is useful.
(05:20):
I think So that's one thing thatthe self-awareness exercises and
you know, the coaching that Ido, I also not only use NLP, but
I use design thinking principlesas well to, to basically kind of
have a scorecard of where you'reat in different areas of your
life, whether it's work, playhealth love, those are the kind
(05:40):
of four main areas that I focuson.
And once you kind of get a senseof If you rate yourself out of
10 for each of those four areas,one of those areas is going to
come up shorter than the others.
And that's a great area to tothen focus on and narrow, narrow
in on and and then startplanning.
Okay.
Well, if I'm for, in, in thearea of love out of 10, how can
(06:00):
I what, what can I do to improvethat score?
Okay.
So, so there's, you know,there's many, many different
tools.
So that's one thing like the, Iwon't be able to go into all of
them in this image, but that,you know, that's kind of a
snippet of of, of like how youshould think about this.
Like self-awareness of likewhere you are in life and what
(06:22):
is a good life for you.
That's that's important.
The second thing is like, when,you know, Is what, what you want
in life, like w w you know, whatmight motivate you or excite you
to, to, to find out more of,well, it's really about
following your curiosity.
And when you follow yourcuriosity, one of the most
powerful tools that designthinkers use as well as NLP is,
(06:44):
is, is using the tote model.
So, you know, if you have anidea of, well, you know what I'm
thinking of changing my career,I've I've been in accounts for,
you know, 20 years, but actuallymarketing.
It seems really interesting tome.
I'm quite curious about that.
Well, you know, toting and, andtesting out.
(07:08):
Potential life of being amarketer and being in that
market.
How can you do that?
So kind of setting yourself someprojects where you're actually
able to do totes test operate,test exit.
We call in NLP in designthinking, we call it prototyping
and, and that's, it's the same,exactly the same process that
engineers use to, to, todeliver.
(07:29):
The iPhone or hinges on the iMaclaptop.
Exactly the same.
You're testing things again andagain, and again, until you, it
feels right.
It looks right.
It sounds right.
It fits the market.
If it's yours, if it's yourself,your authentic self.
So, so the other part of theequation is the first part is
self-awareness of course, andjust really understand that,
(07:51):
getting to know yourself moreNLP is some of the best tools
I've seen for that.
The second part.
You know, if you have an idea ofwhat you're doing, of what you
want to do, you know, part ofthat is curiosity and that, and
then from that it's, it's, it'shaving a bias to action and, and
testing that out and seeing howit feels your felt experience
(08:13):
when you adopt one of these newprojects that you're curious
about could be a new career.
It could maybe be maybe ifyou're thinking about moving
abroad, maybe you spend sometime outside of your town every
weekend and just see how thatfeels.
You know, so tow is a big one.
And then there's this thirdaspect, which is, you know,
what, you, you, you know, whatyou, who you are, you know, what
(08:37):
you want to do and what youbelieve.
And, and so then the questionis, well, you've got to take
action, right?
And there's a lot of people thatknow what they want to do.
Maybe they want to start a newcareer or maybe, and they know
what career they want, or maybethey want to move abroad or, or
travel more or.
You know, become a musician orwhatever they want to do, and
they know that and they've maybetried it out and test it out
(09:00):
with projects.
And so, you know, then the nextthing is, well, now I need to
actually make a decision to, tocommit to this a bit more.
So that's scary for a lot ofpeople.
And if you go from.
Thinking, oh, I want to have anew career or a different life
path.
And then you to actually doingthat, it's, that's overwhelming.
(09:22):
That's and a lot of people Ispeak to, you know, who are.
You know, business people,engineers, designers, you know
people would work in tech forexample, that they they're, they
are an analyst.
They like to analyze things.
A lot of people in finance, liketo analyze things as well.
I know you're familiar withthat, that world of finance as
well.
And, and so, you know, analysisparalysis happens.
(09:44):
And so the, the kind of the lastpart is, well, how can you how
can you take out.
In manageable ways because youknow, again, part of the, the
biggest regrets, I read a arecent survey by, I think it was
a British charity.
That they interviewed, I think2000 people and it's in 2000
(10:07):
British adults and it said fourout of 10 people regret how
they've lived their lives sofar.
And three quarters of those ofthose people surveyed said that
they.
Th they regretted the most, notdoing things.
So the inaction was the thingthat people regretted the most
in life.
And so that's the last part ofthis equation.
(10:30):
It's how, you know, how can Itake action and what is going to
be a manageable way of takingaction.
Now, part of that is this thingcalled prototyping and toting.
And, and, but there's also someother really useful NLP
exercises that, that, that I dothat, that basically give you
motivation to do what you wantto do now.
(10:53):
And I'll, I'll tell you that.
So, so one of them that Iabsolutely.
And, and I might do it in the inour session in January at the,
at the conference is the Dickensmodel.
And that's where you future paceyourself.
You can Google this.
I think Tony is
Angela Wells (11:10):
the Disney world, but not
Matt (11:11):
the Dickies model.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this, so, so you can Googleit and I can probably put a link
below on, on the 10 and you canshare it on Facebook, but it's
basically where you.
You future pace yourself, youknow, one year from now two
years from now, five years fromnow, you can even go to the end
of your life.
And actually the most, some ofthe most powerful and biggest
(11:33):
decisions you're going to makeis when you do kind of think
really long-term.
And when you, when you thinkabout a decision that you want
to make, whether it, it mightbe, for example, moving from.
No now for example, or in twoyears time, or whenever you
want, you know, if you thinkabout these big decisions and,
and really project yourself fiveyears from now, having done
(11:55):
that.
Hmm.
And then you're looking back onyour life and really, really
like associating.
And this is where a coach reallycomes in handy.
You know, you can do it yourselfand I've got an audio guide.
I'm happy to put the link belowand you can listen to that.
But having a coach.
To guide you through.
And they S I mean, the, the,the, the conference that, that
you're holding, you know, theworld-class phenomenal coaches
(12:19):
recommend any of them that, thatare speaking at this conference,
but having a coach that, thatcan guide you through being in
your future, experiencing andlooking back, having made that
decision that you're going tomake.
And then feeling how that, howthat really feels and the, and
it might be that there's loadsof pleasure there.
And then that, that feeling thatmotivates you and that really
(12:42):
motivates you so that when youcome out of that and come back
to the present moment, you've,you've anchored and you can
anchor it as well.
You've anchored, you know, thatmotivation and that.
It gives you the motivation toact much, much more than you
would if you were just writingthings down on paper, talking to
people, then the other side ofthe equation for the Dickens
process is.
(13:03):
Is the regret feeling, right?
So it's, you know, if I didn't,if I didn't do that and I
projected myself one year fromnow two years from now, five
years from now at the end of mylife from now.
And I look back on that decisionof never having, for example,
never having gone to Australiawhen I, when I could have done
to get, I, I regret doing now, Iwish I'd gone to Australia.
(13:24):
Before I was 30, so I could havegot a longer term, these I'm
sure a lot of people probably doas well, but, but kind of
looking back and feeling thatpain of, of, of regret, because
you didn't do that.
That's a great motivating factoras well.
So this balance of massive.
From having taken that decisionand looking back at the end of
(13:47):
your life or many years into thefuture and balancing that with
the pain of not doing thatdecision, you know, when you,
and you anchor that to maybe animage or sound or word or
whatever you want, but, buthaving that tool those two that
is a two-pronged approach.
The Dickinson.
That's that's a huge way.
(14:08):
And my clients you've gottestimonials on this have, have
had huge benefit of takingaction knowing what they want to
do in life and what businessthey want to set up and, and
being clear about their goals,but not taking action.
You know, that's where that'swhere I think NLP coaching in
particular is some of the mostpowerful coaching in the world
(14:28):
for, for actually living a lifethat you're not going to be
regretful because.
There's wet there's tools ofself-awareness there's tools of
prototyping and testing toreally see if it's right for
you.
So you're managing your risk andthen there's tools for
motivating yourself to actuallytake action, where a lot of
people, particularly people whoare spend their jobs in an
(14:53):
analysis roles.
They can break out of that.
So several tools there anyway,I've ranted on a little bit
there, but well, no,
Angela Wells (15:01):
that's absolutely fine.
It's, it's quite fascinating.
Cause I was curious to know, youknow, those people that maybe
have already made a decision,perhaps like you say that
they've kind of looks back andgo, oh, I wish I'd have done
that.
And that can sometimes stop usfrom moving forward.
How do you help someone ifthey're kind of stuck in their
own sense of regret?
'cause.
I mean, as we know, the, usuallythe route of anything is to
(15:24):
actually take action, even ifit's just one small step or we
can get caught up in the regretof not having done it, thinking
it's perhaps still not possible,or it's too late.
And obviously that's a belief, aset of beliefs.
But how do you move people outof that state?
Matt (15:44):
Again?
That's a very good question,Angela.
So I think there's a few thingsyet.
One is.
You know, if someone is, itfeels regretful of not doing
something, maybe for example,they wish they changed their
career and they're in theirfifties or sixties, for example.
And they think that it's toolate.
(16:05):
They think it's too late andthey think they can never
change.
And, and they think maybe.
You know, I'm going to have tobe miserable because I haven't
done this yet, and I'll never beable to do it again.
You know, that, that, that ispotentially quite common for
people that might not be happywith their job or a relationship
or whatever is important to themin their life.
So the first, I mean, there's,there's a few things.
(16:27):
The first thing is that is adysfunctional belief, a lot of
the time.
And so, because.
You know, there's adysfunctional belief, it's a
limiting belief.
And so there, another tool fromNLP is reframing and being able
to reframe that problem and lookat it in a different light is
(16:52):
really, really useful.
And the tool that the kind offramework that I use for
reframing in particular, andthis comes from design thinking,
it kind of mixes the NLP anddesign thinking together is.
How can I reframe a problem thatthat's getting me stuck now into
a new problem that I can takeaction on?
And there's this, there's themindset of a design thinker is
(17:17):
having a biased to action.
So any if you're in, if you haveany problem in life or in
business or anything.
If you, if that problem is notactionable as a new can't take
action to move forward, buildyour way forward with it and
progress, then that isconsidered what's called a
gravity problem.
(17:38):
Now, gravity problems are thingsthat you cannot control or
they're just so big problemsthat, you know, it's going to
take a monumental amount of workto, to, to change something.
And therefore it probably isn'tworth it for you.
It might be a lifetime of workwith no rewards.
And so these gravity problems,if you do have a gravity
(17:59):
problem, then you know, you haveto recognize it.
So as an example, a gravityproblem could be COVID right.
And I spoke with about this.
And, and, and, you know, the,the, the issue of COVID, I think
we've talked about it when itwas really ramping up in India a
few months.
(18:20):
And he said something reallybeautiful from from really
reflecting a lot of about COVID.
And he was in the mountains atthe time and there was just all
sorts of crazy cases going on inBangalore and.
And there was nothing he coulddo about it.
And this is a gravity problem.
This is something that, youknow, whatever you do, you know,
you can't travel in certainareas because of COVID and you
(18:42):
can't do things because ofhealth restrictions because of
COVID.
And that might restrict somethings you can do in business.
And that might restrict somethings you can do in your
personal life.
And so that's a gravity problem.
That's something you can'tchange.
And so the thing that it sharedwith me, and this is something.
Really is adopted by designthinkers as well, is, is the,
(19:04):
the frame and the mindset ofacceptance and having that, that
mindset of, okay, that one, someof these problems that I have in
my life and my, all my careerand my relationships, they, I
can't change them.
You know, whatever I do, I can'tchange them.
You know, you might have aphysical disability, for
example, and, and, and, youknow, to, to.
(19:27):
Try and solve problems aroundthat.
It's going to be difficult.
There are work arounds, ofcourse, but there's some things
you might not be able to do witha physical disability.
That's a fact, right?
So, so having, having a mindsetof acceptance, this is what
shit.
I realized when he was in themountains when COVID was
happening Bangalore, that's sopowerful because then once you
(19:49):
accept some, a problem that youcan't solve, then you can start
looking and, and, and finding anew problem and reframing your
problem into something that'sactionable and something that
you can take steps in to buildyour way forward and make
progress.
It's not a.
You know, having a perfect lifeand the perfect career
overnight, it's about progress.
(20:10):
It's about small steps andthat's another thing.
Small chunks is really, reallyhelpful as well.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (20:16):
Yeah.
It's, it's very similar to thatmodel of, you know, what's in my
boat and what's out of my boatas in, you know, like the row
isn't this it's like, well, wecan only do what's within our
control.
Is it within.
Kind of my boat for where I amwith my, my team.
Or is it outside of that, inwhich case I have no influence
over that and then taking thesmall steps to make it happen.
Matt (20:39):
Exactly, exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (20:43):
Yeah.
It's, it's quite, I thinksometimes people do struggle
with acceptance.
And like you say, re being ableto reframe it and make it
something that is actionable,even if it's just one step at a
time.
It brings us more of a sense ofagency as Judith lo would call
it, you know, and, and a senseof control.
(21:03):
It's like, well, I can wordswithin this context instead of
that context.
Matt (21:09):
Beautiful.
Yeah.
It's so that's so important andyou're right, that this sense of
control and autonomy in ourlives, I think, you know, that's
one of the, one of the reasonswhy people stay stuck.
For so long is because they feellike they're, they're not in
control of their lives.
And, and, you know, that's wherereframing really comes in and,
and acceptance.
So step one, if there issomething that's out of your
(21:31):
control frame, like label it asa, a gravity problem, something
that you can't take action on,right.
Accept it, and then think, okay,how can I reframe this or find a
new problem?
That's going to help me in mylife to solve.
And then take action on it and,and, you know, then you can take
a path from that.
Angela Wells (21:52):
It's quite interesting that you, you, you
say it's find a new problem,whereas with, with NLP, but it's
always like likable find thepositive and it's always like,
well, let us kind of took meback a little bit to kind of go,
oh, find another problem I cansolve.
It's like, okay.
So it also makes you think in aslightly different way as well.
Doesn't it that I guess opensup.
(22:14):
Those channels of creativity.
Matt (22:18):
Yeah.
I mean, I think this isprobably, I would say this is
one of the most important pointsto get is, is, you know, are you
working on the right problems inlife?
You could say challenges aswell.
You know, entrepreneurs thatthey, they get paid to solve
(22:38):
problems.
And, you know, you can spend allof your day in your office or
your job or your, you know, yourlife working on problems that do
they really matter, do theyreally matter to you?
Which to other people, so.
(22:59):
You know, part of this livingwith no regret is, is, is
actually taking a step back,zooming out, big, picturing out,
you know, not sometimes you'vegot to zoom out and, and, you
know, not focus on the smallchunks in the day-to-day
operations in life and zoom outand, and really take stock and
(23:20):
think.
You know, am I sweating thesmall stuff for no reason?
Like why, why am I stressingabout this?
And often when you zoom out youfind so much, so much clarity.
And, and that, and in thatsituation, in that perspective,
you can start to find otherproblems, other opportunities,
other challenges that you canspend more time on and
(23:41):
Opportunities and how you mightbe able to reframe what you're,
what you're currently doing.
So, so that's super powerful aswell, you know, taking a big
picture approach and and yeah.
You know, getting thatperspective.
Yeah.
One, I mean, one, you know, oneexample of this give you a quick
example.
Jeff Bezos, I think I think Imight've mentioned before he, he
(24:05):
He was a hedge fund manager.
I think, I think he worked inhedge funds in, in, in New York
city, Manhattan before hestarted amazon.com.
Right.
And you know, he, he had awell-paid job by anyone by a lot
of people's standards and, youknow, loads of promotions, I
think he was seen invice-president at the time.
And he said to his boss beforehe started Amazon, that.
(24:28):
I'm thinking of starting aninternet company, the Internet's
coming out, I'm thinking, youknow, maybe books might be a
good thing to sell on theinternet, cause this is just
starting out.
And I think I'm going to quit myjob and his boss told him to,
you know, think about it for 48hours and.
You know, there was so manyconsiderations to think about
(24:50):
that, you know, if he quit atthat point in time in finance,
especially in a hedge funds,there's huge bonuses that you're
going to lose.
There's you know, obviously he'sbuilt up a career and he could
be, you know, walking away frommore huge promotions and all of
these kinds of things.
And so, you know, He has athing.
(25:14):
You can look it up on YouTube aswell.
And I talk about it in mypodcast and I've definitely
share a link in LinkedIn about,about this, but yes, he, he, he
really took a long-term view andhis view, his strategy, and this
is something we're going toexplore in the, in the session
at the global NLP conference inJanuary is.
(25:36):
If I take, if he took himself,he actually took himself.
He future paced, didn't call itNLP, but he used NLP and your
future posts himself going to 80years old.
And looking back on thatdecision.
Exactly the same as what Italked about before when he,
when he took that, long-termview that 80 year old and
looking back of leaving thathedge fund and starting this
(25:58):
internet business and seeingwhere that went, looking back.
And, and thinking, would I everregretted taking that chance as
an 80 year old and thenrevisiting that and saying,
would I have regretted you know,staying in my room?
And comparing those two thingsthat, those two big life
decisions, when you zoom out andtake the long-term perspective,
(26:20):
these kinds of short-termconfusions of big bonuses, for
example, and you know, employeesfor promotions and all this kind
of stuff they kind of witheraway and, and, and that, you
know, that it's, this, thisstructure is not just about
Career change.
You know, it's about many, manyprint.
If these are, these are natureprinciples, these are principles
(26:41):
used in investing, you know,I'm, I'm currently investing in
Bitcoin and some otherinvestments.
And if you look at marketvolatilities, again, this is
decision-making and regrets.
When you look at marketvolatilities and you kind of
look at the short term, Bigswings when you zoom out and you
(27:02):
look and you really start tothink about the future and the
long-term the fundamentals.
And are you going to regret thelong-term suddenly you have a
totally different perspectiveand if you use.
If you use that mindset andreally think long-term in so
many things in life, you know,if you start thinking about
legacy more than, you know,what's going to happen next
(27:22):
week, next month, things, thingsstart to change.
And often you find you arefollowing more your values.
When you think longterm thatnaturally happens.
That's what I've noticed.
Anyway, I've I've I've digressedagain.
Angela Wells (27:42):
No, no, that's absolutely fine.
I think it is because one ofthe, for me, I think as with
most people, you know, one ofthe main benefits certainly of
knowing and understanding NLPis, is the modeling aspect with
your podcast where you'veinterviewed.
So many people through differentkinds of career transition, you
know, I mean, it's, it's, we'll,we'll share the links later for
(28:05):
your podcast.
Cause some of the, some of theinterviews are really
fascinating as to how peoplehave gone from, you know, this
long-term like you say, securecareer to something that's like
almost completely the oppositeto what they were doing, that it
allows you to be able to modeltheir strategy, their thinking.
And even that sentence.
(28:26):
You know what, it's, what it'slike.
Cause you know, you're makingthis big transition and at some
point you've got to jump intothe own loan you know, which
takes courage and then continueto do so.
What are, what are some of thethe commonalities that you found
in doing this with people, withstrategies perhaps, and beliefs
through doing your interviewsand your.
Matt (28:48):
Yeah, well, I mean, I just talked about Jeff basis is a
strategy.
Regret minimization theory, lookit up on YouTube.
He, he literally talks about itand I've shared it on the show.
But I mean, I interviewed acouple of dozen, no more than
that.
Almost 40 people now who havehad career changes and big, big
(29:09):
life changes.
You're right.
Modeling is, you know, somethingI'm fascinated with in NLP
learning how people do thestrategies they do.
And this particular strategy ishow do I make big decisions with
no regret?
Right.
Whether that's a career decisionor a life transition, you know,
difficult one to make.
And you know, let's talk aboutsome of the examples that, that
(29:32):
I've of people I've interviewed.
And then we can maybe go intosome of the commonalities there.
So I had a lady called Kim orLeschi who is a.
Leading sales consultants, theowner, she, she owns a Kao
advantage group over in Canadaand years ago.
She had a painful breakup with aboyfriend.
(29:52):
She was very, had a verysuccessful sales career working
for American express, I thinkand you know, kept on getting
pay rises.
And after this break she had amoment of clarity and she
decided to go traveling.
And six months out, when she,after she went traveling, she
wrote an award-winning blog andbook.
(30:13):
Then when she got batchedcreated her own successful sales
sales agency, and she even metOprah.
Right.
So we're going from, because of,because of the success you had
and.
So that, you know, there's allthe stories that I've selected
and interviewed have been peoplethat have had huge success in,
(30:35):
in however they define successand they've all had these
decision points in their life.
And so, you know, that that wasone example.
And I mean, another one I had asecretary who is.
He was basically travelingaround the world.
He felt very lost kind ofdrifting in life.
He was backpacking at the timein Canada and his good friend,
(30:59):
Chris died when he was just 24years old.
So he was quite young back then,but he's one of his best friends
died at 21.
And again, you had a moment ofclarity and realization, and
this process just kind ofhappened unconsciously.
And it totally changed his life.
And now he's created a globalmovement called 100 things.
(31:21):
And since then, he's, he'sbasically chosen.
He made a decision after Chrisdied, his friend that he was
going to.
Live a life true to himself.
And the way he said he was goingto do that was to set a hundred
goals of regrets that he wouldhave if he died, that he didn't
fulfill.
Right.
This is quite an interestingstrategy actually.
(31:43):
And he went ahead and, and, and,you know, started spending time
doing, doing them.
And he hadn't done all of them,but he's done a lot of them, but
that created, you know, becausehe documented the process and he
was very authentic in what hewas doing.
TV stations picked it up.
He became an ESPN TV host inAmerica, moved to LA from
(32:04):
Australia.
Wrote a book had his own TVseries.
Now he's a keynote speaker.
He gets paid.
I don't know how much tens ofthousands per speech.
Doing chemo, no motivationalspeeches about this very
concept, right?
Again, wildly successful.
We never knew who would gothere.
But this was from this moment ofrealization from something that
(32:27):
happened to him and it made himthink and question life and you
know, another Person that Iinterviewed who you will know
that she's a great NLP traineryou know, with, with thought
labs initiate.
I interviewed her and, you know,she's an LP trainer.
I'm a leadership coach.
(32:47):
And a few years ago, she used towork in the pharmaceutical
industry as a kind of full-timecorporate job and you know, very
successful.
She, she kind of really made itfinancially, you know, got lots
and lots of promotions and.
You know, she, at once at onepoint, she, she told me she felt
(33:08):
really empty inside.
Even though she was reallysuccessful in her career and one
night she just, she justcouldn't stop crying.
And she actually spent fivedays.
Basically kind of searching withinside herself, in any place,
any place in the world, in thewoods of Michigan.
So like right in the middle ofthe woods you had to kind of get
(33:29):
away from, you know, society.
Busy cities.
And essentially her answers camefrom within.
And she, she told me she had animage of children that were
missing in her life.
And anyway, long story short,she moved to, she had
opportunities that came upwhere.
She moved to India to helpchildren in India in her job.
(33:53):
And she started an orphanagethere.
And for the last, I think, 20years she has now raised over 20
kids herself in this orphanage.
I mean, talk about careerchange, life change moving from
America to India and raising 20kids you know, that's something,
but she, you know what she is.
One of the kind of mostpassionate, purposeful,
(34:17):
balanced, happy people that,that I've met.
And I just absolutely lovedtheir story and facts.
I loved all the stories for,from the people I, I
interviewed.
And you asked the question,well, what are the
commonalities?
Well, you know, that thecommonalities Angela are around
going through some sort of pain,you know, and, and.
(34:39):
A lot of the time when peoplemake big life transitions and
changes it's because somethinghappens to them and then they,
and they, and it changes theirframework and maybe someone dies
or maybe someone gets there's abreakup, or, you know, maybe,
you know, you just, you have abreakdown or a burnout or
something like that, butsomething changes.
(35:01):
And then suddenly.
Suddenly you reevaluateeverything in life and you start
looking at your belief, youstart looking at what's
important to your values, andthen you start thinking, okay,
there's got to be more to this.
There's gotta be more to thisthan life.
And when I and we talked aboutJeff Bezos earlier in this
conversation, the commonalitiesAngela work.
(35:26):
Really about looking at theirwhole life and their mortality
and thinking that the questionthat they all or most of them
ask themselves and this, thisjust came up in the interviews.
I didn't wasn't really anyspecific modeling questions.
Like they all just shared theexact pretty much the same
(35:46):
question.
If I died, if I died today ortomorrow.
What would I regret not doingthe most?
That was, that was such a commonquestion.
So, so having that question andactually experiencing pain and a
lot of people are, you see a lotof people that have had these
(36:06):
realizations during COVID right?
Some people have lost lovedones, unfortunately, during
COVID and, and, you know, that'sa terrible thing.
Then I know several peoplewho've got COVID now.
And.
You know, people have been awayfrom their office and, and been
working from home and spent alot more time reflecting on
(36:27):
life.
And, and, and rethinking likedifferent options in life.
Maybe kind of finding newproblems.
They had these other problemsbefore, and now they've got
these new problems.
Right.
And it's like an, it's like aforced upon reframe.
They've actually had time tostart reframing things.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (36:44):
Well, when you.
Area of wellbeing.
I think that was kind of not inpeople's like full consciousness
before I think, as a result aswell.
Matt (36:55):
Yeah.
And I think, you know, it'sreally interesting.
I, I was having a conversationwith a guy called Gurnick Banes
who basically runs a, a thinktank in the UK and he, and, and,
and he published a report.
I think it was commented on inthe guardian, happy to, to share
the report as well in the linkswhere he interviewed in June
(37:17):
this year, 2000 people who wererepresentative of the population
of great Britain, it was aYouGov survey and he found.
Since the report was called howCOVID changed our minds and it
basically kind of surveyedpeople about how people think
differently now after COVIDhappened, like when, you know,
one, one and a half years intothe first kind of cases and the,
(37:40):
the, honestly the statistics,Angela startling, you know, 87%
of people of Britain's in thatreport.
Think it's important to have ameaningful purpose at work.
And more than a third of thosesurveys have thought about
changing their jobs.
And 39% of those said it'sbecause they wanted to find
greater purpose and greatermeaning over income.
(38:03):
And interestingly one in 10people said that they looked at
moving abroad, but shockingly.
80% of those surveyed saidthey'd done little, little, or
nothing to, to change.
Now.
Some, some of the concerns werearound money and that's
understandable.
And the other concerns werearound lack of opportunity for
those kinds of reasons.
But, but you know, this goesback to.
(38:27):
People's minds have changedsince COVID have happened.
And I think the reason for thatis because people are more aware
of their own mortality now, andthey, they actually have been
projecting unconsciously orconsciously.
And hopefully after even thisconversation today, more
conscious.
Projecting their lives of whatthey're actually doing every day
(38:50):
of their life.
You know, their typical workweek.
What if they projected thatwork?
We can continue to do it.
Are they going to be happy whenthey look back?
When they're 80 years old, thesame strategy that Jeff basis
talked about?
The same strategy.
All of these other people haveinterviewed who made these big
brave decisions to, to shift toa more authentic life.
(39:11):
Are they going to be happy?
And the answer is a lot ofpeople are not happy.
And that's why you're seeing inthe headlines even this week and
the guardian and othernewspapers the great
resignation, you know, there'sbeen people in there drove.
Leaving work, particularly inAmerica.
I think 4 million people nowhave left work, but they're
(39:33):
choosing not to go into anotherjob until they find something
that they want to do.
So I mean, the statistics speakfor themselves and it all comes
back to this reflection of.
Of our mortality and what'simportant and I have more choice
and I've had, I've had anopportunity to think when I
(39:53):
haven't before.
And this session that I'm goingto do is, is going to give
people an experience to.
Really feel what it's like tofirst of all, find out, you
know, what are you missing, butreally experience it by having
some guidance guided coaching.
And then secondly you know,start, once you worked out, you
know, what you might regretdoing, if you have a dilemma as
(40:16):
well, like how can you make thatdecision to, to, to, to, to
choose if you have a dilemma ofthings to do different parts
you're thinking of doing sowe'll explore that in the, in
the session.
Angela Wells (40:28):
Wow.
It's going to be amazing.
I think in the right time ofyear as well, being the end of
January and the beginning of anew year.
So it's, there's going to behuge amount of takeaway as there
has already been in today'sconversation.
So if people want to connectwith you, Matt, where, where
would be the best place for themto find you?
Matt (40:51):
Sure.
Okay.
You can go to my website, burnfrom within.com.
If you want to have a call withme if I've got time in my diary,
and you're generally thinkingabout a, some kind of career
change or life change, you canbook a call with me, Ben, from
within.com forward slash callcawl.
I would also encourage people.
(41:12):
LinkedIn.
Yep.
Matt, Matt, Matt, Gary Fisher,and LinkedIn.
I think I'm like LinkedIn slashburn from within probably
something like that.
You'll find me or there's anyone Matt Garfish in the world.
I should trademark it really,but.
And you know what I would, Iwould encourage people to listen
to I've I've got an audio guideis on my podcast.
(41:33):
It's also on my website.
You can download it.
It's called the guide to bigdecisions with no regrets and it
shares.
Interview it shares actuallyclips of interviews and how I've
kind of modeled this strategy ofJeff basis.
It also shares a chip clip ofJeff basis and also Steve jobs.
And it kind of connects them alltogether in a guide on how you
(41:54):
can rethink making decisionswith no regrets.
Kind of 20 minutes highlyinformative and I think you can
get it so you can download iton, I think, burned from
within.com forward slash noregrets.
And you can just enter yourdetails and you'll get sent an
email.
It's also on my podcast as well.
Kind of look for the band fromwithin podcast, it's on apple,
(42:15):
Spotify, all the major podcastnetworks burn from within, and
then just find the, the episodewhich is called the guides to
two big decisions from noregrets.
So I would encourage people tocheck that out and really start
thinking about this because it'simportant for everyone.
It's not just important forpeople that are thinking of a
job change or career change isfor everything in life.
Angela Wells (42:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
That's very kind.
So if you would like to.
Find out and experience more ofwhat Matt has to offer with
making big decisions with alittle regret and much more.
Of course, then please do signup for the conference.
We still have the early birdprice on, and if you add an
(42:55):
extra.
Code, which is mat 10.
You'll get an extra 10% of thatearly bird price.
So, Matt, thank you very muchfor the conversation today.
It's it's just been amazing andit's so much information that
you shared with us today.
The session is going to be evenbetter because it will be all
interactive.
I presume we're breakout rooms,et cetera.
So you'll get a chance to reallyexperience what Matt has to
(43:15):
share.
And we look forward to seeingyou all again, in person online,
virtually somewhere.
Very soon.
Matt (43:24):
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Angela, forhaving this conversation with me
and yeah, like you said thesession that the conference is,
is going to be highlyexperiential, highly
interactive.
You're you're going to focus onyour own decision strategies,
which is super important.
And by the end of the session,you're going to really
understand like how you makedecisions.
(43:46):
And, and.
Basically how to live, makedecisions with less regret going
forward, there will be changed.
So I'm looking, I'm reallylooking forward to any session
on the, on this conference.
I think because the beauty ofthis conference is it's so
experiential and you changeunconsciously, you change and
all of the speakers do that.
And so hats off to you initiatefor.
(44:07):
Organizing this fret, thisformat, because there's not many
conferences that do that.
And you know, it really is anopportunity for, for big change
over these few days.
So thank you.
Thank you.
All the links mentioned in thisepisode are in the show
notes@burnfromwithin.com forwardslash N L P conference.
(44:28):
And if you want to get in on theaction and join my session And
many other speakers andfacilitators.
at the global NLP conference inJanuary.
Register right now with myspecial discount code mat 10
that's M a double T.
One zero.
The links to book your ticketsare in the show notes.
Until next time live withpassion, purpose, and balance
(44:48):
and burn from within.
This week, I was interviewed by the global NLP
conference about how to make biglife decisions.
You won't regret.
Angela Wells co-founder theconference asks some great
questions, which allows me toshare.
What key tools I personally useto make decisions to live a life
true to myself, and actually doit, not just think it, how you
(00:53):
can shift from analysisparalysis and being stuck in
life.
One killer NLP strategy totransform your motivation to
take action.
How to take back control whenyour career or life problems
seem impossible to solve.
How to not sweat the small stuffand spend your time more wisely.
(01:18):
The commonalities between myguests on the burn from within
podcasts.
On how they made Shuliesuccessful life and career
changing decisions.
How COVID has changed everythingin people's minds and why the
great resignation is happeningright now.
The full show notes and videosof other interviews are
(01:39):
available@burnfromwithin.com.
Four slash interviews so listenall the way through and enjoy I
found so much benefit from NLP.
And one of the reasons why Ifound so much benefit and, and
why I'm doing this session inparticular is being able to
connect with my.
My unconscious and, and actuallyfiltering out all the data from
(02:04):
social media and work andeverything else to connect with
my unconscious so that I havesome kind of clarity in order to
make decisions to, to have a, tolive an authentic life.
Which is one of the biggestregrets of the dying, you know,
the biggest regret of the dyingfrom the top five regrets of the
dying by Bronnie ware was.
(02:24):
I wish I lived a life true tomyself, not one that others
expected of me.
And I think NLP in particularhas helped me live a life true
to myself.
And now, you know, I used towork in a corporate job in
London for, for many years.
I'm from the UK originally.
And Through NLP, I've madeconscious decisions by tapping
(02:48):
into my unconscious and, andfollowing my intuition and
making.
Informed decisions about manythings in life.
That's from, you know, startingmy own business.
I went into e-commerce propertyinvesting.
I've done some NLP training aswell through to moving com
countries traveling all aroundthe world.
(03:09):
Been to over 60 countries nowbeen living mainly abroad for,
for the last three or fouryears.
Thailand, I'm now in Georgia,Tbilisi in Georgia.
So.
I guess like, you know, I thinkthe fundamentals of, of what
I've learned from NLP and allthe tools I've been using myself
from this place of how can Ilive a life choosing myself.
(03:30):
And one of the ways to do thatis using NLP and so many
beautiful tools in NLP to beable to make decisions
authentically, which aren'tinfluenced by other people, but
they're influenced by your ownunconscious, what you really,
really.
Angela Wells (03:45):
What are some of the the key tools that you find
the most useful in order to liveyour most authentic self in
making those decisions?
Matt (03:56):
That's a really good question.
I mean, I can, I can just giveyou some straight up tools that
I think are particularlyhelpful.
Firstly.
There's, you've got to look atthis, that question in a couple
of ways.
One, you need to know what, youknow, you need to know about
yourself.
You need to know what, like,where are you right now in your
life?
(04:16):
And Like, what is, what is agood life for you?
Like what is a well-designedlife?
Like, what does a good life looklike?
You know, that if you were tolive a life true to yourself,
what would that look like?
What would that sound like?
Would that feel like, like, howdo you know that?
And so yet you there's, there'smany tools to use to to explore
(04:36):
your unconscious, to, to, tokind of get some clues as to,
you know, what lights you upinside.
What what motivates you?
What energizes you there's NLPtools.
There's also, you know, othercoaching tools, there's
psychometric tools as well.
I am a big proponent of cite thestrengths, find.
Psychometric test as, as aninitial indicator of, you know,
(04:57):
what kind of activities energizeyou, they're just clues, they're
not prescriptive.
I think some of these kind oftests that tell you, you should,
when you grow up, you should bea fireman or a fighter pilot,
you know, that's, that's far tooprescriptive, but having an
indication of like whatenergizes you and the kind of
activities that energize you inwork in play, I think is useful.
(05:20):
I think So that's one thing thatthe self-awareness exercises and
you know, the coaching that Ido, I also not only use NLP, but
I use design thinking principlesas well to, to basically kind of
have a scorecard of where you'reat in different areas of your
life, whether it's work, playhealth love, those are the kind
(05:40):
of four main areas that I focuson.
And once you kind of get a senseof If you rate yourself out of
10 for each of those four areas,one of those areas is going to
come up shorter than the others.
And that's a great area to tothen focus on and narrow, narrow
in on and and then startplanning.
Okay.
Well, if I'm for, in, in thearea of love out of 10, how can
(06:00):
I what, what can I do to improvethat score?
Okay.
So, so there's, you know,there's many, many different
tools.
So that's one thing like the, Iwon't be able to go into all of
them in this image, but that,you know, that's kind of a
snippet of of, of like how youshould think about this.
Like self-awareness of likewhere you are in life and what
(06:22):
is a good life for you.
That's that's important.
The second thing is like, when,you know, Is what, what you want
in life, like w w you know, whatmight motivate you or excite you
to, to, to find out more of,well, it's really about
following your curiosity.
And when you follow yourcuriosity, one of the most
powerful tools that designthinkers use as well as NLP is,
(06:44):
is, is using the tote model.
So, you know, if you have anidea of, well, you know what I'm
thinking of changing my career,I've I've been in accounts for,
you know, 20 years, but actuallymarketing.
It seems really interesting tome.
I'm quite curious about that.
Well, you know, toting and, andtesting out.
(07:08):
Potential life of being amarketer and being in that
market.
How can you do that?
So kind of setting yourself someprojects where you're actually
able to do totes test operate,test exit.
We call in NLP in designthinking, we call it prototyping
and, and that's, it's the same,exactly the same process that
engineers use to, to, todeliver.
(07:29):
The iPhone or hinges on the iMaclaptop.
Exactly the same.
You're testing things again andagain, and again, until you, it
feels right.
It looks right.
It sounds right.
It fits the market.
If it's yours, if it's yourself,your authentic self.
So, so the other part of theequation is the first part is
self-awareness of course, andjust really understand that,
(07:51):
getting to know yourself moreNLP is some of the best tools
I've seen for that.
The second part.
You know, if you have an idea ofwhat you're doing, of what you
want to do, you know, part ofthat is curiosity and that, and
then from that it's, it's, it'shaving a bias to action and, and
testing that out and seeing howit feels your felt experience
(08:13):
when you adopt one of these newprojects that you're curious
about could be a new career.
It could maybe be maybe ifyou're thinking about moving
abroad, maybe you spend sometime outside of your town every
weekend and just see how thatfeels.
You know, so tow is a big one.
And then there's this thirdaspect, which is, you know,
what, you, you, you know, whatyou, who you are, you know, what
(08:37):
you want to do and what youbelieve.
And, and so then the questionis, well, you've got to take
action, right?
And there's a lot of people thatknow what they want to do.
Maybe they want to start a newcareer or maybe, and they know
what career they want, or maybethey want to move abroad or, or
travel more or.
You know, become a musician orwhatever they want to do, and
they know that and they've maybetried it out and test it out
(09:00):
with projects.
And so, you know, then the nextthing is, well, now I need to
actually make a decision to, tocommit to this a bit more.
So that's scary for a lot ofpeople.
And if you go from.
Thinking, oh, I want to have anew career or a different life
path.
And then you to actually doingthat, it's, that's overwhelming.
(09:22):
That's and a lot of people Ispeak to, you know, who are.
You know, business people,engineers, designers, you know
people would work in tech forexample, that they they're, they
are an analyst.
They like to analyze things.
A lot of people in finance, liketo analyze things as well.
I know you're familiar withthat, that world of finance as
well.
And, and so, you know, analysisparalysis happens.
(09:44):
And so the, the kind of the lastpart is, well, how can you how
can you take out.
In manageable ways because youknow, again, part of the, the
biggest regrets, I read a arecent survey by, I think it was
a British charity.
That they interviewed, I think2000 people and it's in 2000
(10:07):
British adults and it said fourout of 10 people regret how
they've lived their lives sofar.
And three quarters of those ofthose people surveyed said that
they.
Th they regretted the most, notdoing things.
So the inaction was the thingthat people regretted the most
in life.
And so that's the last part ofthis equation.
(10:30):
It's how, you know, how can Itake action and what is going to
be a manageable way of takingaction.
Now, part of that is this thingcalled prototyping and toting.
And, and, but there's also someother really useful NLP
exercises that, that, that I dothat, that basically give you
motivation to do what you wantto do now.
(10:53):
And I'll, I'll tell you that.
So, so one of them that Iabsolutely.
And, and I might do it in the inour session in January at the,
at the conference is the Dickensmodel.
And that's where you future paceyourself.
You can Google this.
I think Tony is
Angela Wells (11:10):
the Disney world, but not
Matt (11:11):
the Dickies model.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this, so, so you can Googleit and I can probably put a link
below on, on the 10 and you canshare it on Facebook, but it's
basically where you.
You future pace yourself, youknow, one year from now two
years from now, five years fromnow, you can even go to the end
of your life.
And actually the most, some ofthe most powerful and biggest
(11:33):
decisions you're going to makeis when you do kind of think
really long-term.
And when you, when you thinkabout a decision that you want
to make, whether it, it mightbe, for example, moving from.
No now for example, or in twoyears time, or whenever you
want, you know, if you thinkabout these big decisions and,
and really project yourself fiveyears from now, having done
(11:55):
that.
Hmm.
And then you're looking back onyour life and really, really
like associating.
And this is where a coach reallycomes in handy.
You know, you can do it yourselfand I've got an audio guide.
I'm happy to put the link belowand you can listen to that.
But having a coach.
To guide you through.
And they S I mean, the, the,the, the conference that, that
you're holding, you know, theworld-class phenomenal coaches
(12:19):
recommend any of them that, thatare speaking at this conference,
but having a coach that, thatcan guide you through being in
your future, experiencing andlooking back, having made that
decision that you're going tomake.
And then feeling how that, howthat really feels and the, and
it might be that there's loadsof pleasure there.
And then that, that feeling thatmotivates you and that really
(12:42):
motivates you so that when youcome out of that and come back
to the present moment, you've,you've anchored and you can
anchor it as well.
You've anchored, you know, thatmotivation and that.
It gives you the motivation toact much, much more than you
would if you were just writingthings down on paper, talking to
people, then the other side ofthe equation for the Dickens
process is.
(13:03):
Is the regret feeling, right?
So it's, you know, if I didn't,if I didn't do that and I
projected myself one year fromnow two years from now, five
years from now at the end of mylife from now.
And I look back on that decisionof never having, for example,
never having gone to Australiawhen I, when I could have done
to get, I, I regret doing now, Iwish I'd gone to Australia.
(13:24):
Before I was 30, so I could havegot a longer term, these I'm
sure a lot of people probably doas well, but, but kind of
looking back and feeling thatpain of, of, of regret, because
you didn't do that.
That's a great motivating factoras well.
So this balance of massive.
From having taken that decisionand looking back at the end of
(13:47):
your life or many years into thefuture and balancing that with
the pain of not doing thatdecision, you know, when you,
and you anchor that to maybe animage or sound or word or
whatever you want, but, buthaving that tool those two that
is a two-pronged approach.
The Dickinson.
That's that's a huge way.
(14:08):
And my clients you've gottestimonials on this have, have
had huge benefit of takingaction knowing what they want to
do in life and what businessthey want to set up and, and
being clear about their goals,but not taking action.
You know, that's where that'swhere I think NLP coaching in
particular is some of the mostpowerful coaching in the world
(14:28):
for, for actually living a lifethat you're not going to be
regretful because.
There's wet there's tools ofself-awareness there's tools of
prototyping and testing toreally see if it's right for
you.
So you're managing your risk andthen there's tools for
motivating yourself to actuallytake action, where a lot of
people, particularly people whoare spend their jobs in an
(14:53):
analysis roles.
They can break out of that.
So several tools there anyway,I've ranted on a little bit
there, but well, no,
Angela Wells (15:01):
that's absolutely fine.
It's, it's quite fascinating.
Cause I was curious to know, youknow, those people that maybe
have already made a decision,perhaps like you say that
they've kind of looks back andgo, oh, I wish I'd have done
that.
And that can sometimes stop usfrom moving forward.
How do you help someone ifthey're kind of stuck in their
own sense of regret?
'cause.
I mean, as we know, the, usuallythe route of anything is to
(15:24):
actually take action, even ifit's just one small step or we
can get caught up in the regretof not having done it, thinking
it's perhaps still not possible,or it's too late.
And obviously that's a belief, aset of beliefs.
But how do you move people outof that state?
Matt (15:44):
Again?
That's a very good question,Angela.
So I think there's a few thingsyet.
One is.
You know, if someone is, itfeels regretful of not doing
something, maybe for example,they wish they changed their
career and they're in theirfifties or sixties, for example.
And they think that it's toolate.
(16:05):
They think it's too late andthey think they can never
change.
And, and they think maybe.
You know, I'm going to have tobe miserable because I haven't
done this yet, and I'll never beable to do it again.
You know, that, that, that ispotentially quite common for
people that might not be happywith their job or a relationship
or whatever is important to themin their life.
So the first, I mean, there's,there's a few things.
(16:27):
The first thing is that is adysfunctional belief, a lot of
the time.
And so, because.
You know, there's adysfunctional belief, it's a
limiting belief.
And so there, another tool fromNLP is reframing and being able
to reframe that problem and lookat it in a different light is
(16:52):
really, really useful.
And the tool that the kind offramework that I use for
reframing in particular, andthis comes from design thinking,
it kind of mixes the NLP anddesign thinking together is.
How can I reframe a problem thatthat's getting me stuck now into
a new problem that I can takeaction on?
And there's this, there's themindset of a design thinker is
(17:17):
having a biased to action.
So any if you're in, if you haveany problem in life or in
business or anything.
If you, if that problem is notactionable as a new can't take
action to move forward, buildyour way forward with it and
progress, then that isconsidered what's called a
gravity problem.
(17:38):
Now, gravity problems are thingsthat you cannot control or
they're just so big problemsthat, you know, it's going to
take a monumental amount of workto, to, to change something.
And therefore it probably isn'tworth it for you.
It might be a lifetime of workwith no rewards.
And so these gravity problems,if you do have a gravity
(17:59):
problem, then you know, you haveto recognize it.
So as an example, a gravityproblem could be COVID right.
And I spoke with about this.
And, and, and, you know, the,the, the issue of COVID, I think
we've talked about it when itwas really ramping up in India a
few months.
(18:20):
And he said something reallybeautiful from from really
reflecting a lot of about COVID.
And he was in the mountains atthe time and there was just all
sorts of crazy cases going on inBangalore and.
And there was nothing he coulddo about it.
And this is a gravity problem.
This is something that, youknow, whatever you do, you know,
you can't travel in certainareas because of COVID and you
(18:42):
can't do things because ofhealth restrictions because of
COVID.
And that might restrict somethings you can do in business.
And that might restrict somethings you can do in your
personal life.
And so that's a gravity problem.
That's something you can'tchange.
And so the thing that it sharedwith me, and this is something.
Really is adopted by designthinkers as well, is, is the,
(19:04):
the frame and the mindset ofacceptance and having that, that
mindset of, okay, that one, someof these problems that I have in
my life and my, all my careerand my relationships, they, I
can't change them.
You know, whatever I do, I can'tchange them.
You know, you might have aphysical disability, for
example, and, and, and, youknow, to, to.
(19:27):
Try and solve problems aroundthat.
It's going to be difficult.
There are work arounds, ofcourse, but there's some things
you might not be able to do witha physical disability.
That's a fact, right?
So, so having, having a mindsetof acceptance, this is what
shit.
I realized when he was in themountains when COVID was
happening Bangalore, that's sopowerful because then once you
(19:49):
accept some, a problem that youcan't solve, then you can start
looking and, and, and finding anew problem and reframing your
problem into something that'sactionable and something that
you can take steps in to buildyour way forward and make
progress.
It's not a.
You know, having a perfect lifeand the perfect career
overnight, it's about progress.
(20:10):
It's about small steps andthat's another thing.
Small chunks is really, reallyhelpful as well.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (20:16):
Yeah.
It's, it's very similar to thatmodel of, you know, what's in my
boat and what's out of my boatas in, you know, like the row
isn't this it's like, well, wecan only do what's within our
control.
Is it within.
Kind of my boat for where I amwith my, my team.
Or is it outside of that, inwhich case I have no influence
over that and then taking thesmall steps to make it happen.
Matt (20:39):
Exactly, exactly right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (20:43):
Yeah.
It's, it's quite, I thinksometimes people do struggle
with acceptance.
And like you say, re being ableto reframe it and make it
something that is actionable,even if it's just one step at a
time.
It brings us more of a sense ofagency as Judith lo would call
it, you know, and, and a senseof control.
(21:03):
It's like, well, I can wordswithin this context instead of
that context.
Matt (21:09):
Beautiful.
Yeah.
It's so that's so important andyou're right, that this sense of
control and autonomy in ourlives, I think, you know, that's
one of the, one of the reasonswhy people stay stuck.
For so long is because they feellike they're, they're not in
control of their lives.
And, and, you know, that's wherereframing really comes in and,
and acceptance.
So step one, if there issomething that's out of your
(21:31):
control frame, like label it asa, a gravity problem, something
that you can't take action on,right.
Accept it, and then think, okay,how can I reframe this or find a
new problem?
That's going to help me in mylife to solve.
And then take action on it and,and, you know, then you can take
a path from that.
Angela Wells (21:52):
It's quite interesting that you, you, you
say it's find a new problem,whereas with, with NLP, but it's
always like likable find thepositive and it's always like,
well, let us kind of took meback a little bit to kind of go,
oh, find another problem I cansolve.
It's like, okay.
So it also makes you think in aslightly different way as well.
Doesn't it that I guess opensup.
(22:14):
Those channels of creativity.
Matt (22:18):
Yeah.
I mean, I think this isprobably, I would say this is
one of the most important pointsto get is, is, you know, are you
working on the right problems inlife?
You could say challenges aswell.
You know, entrepreneurs thatthey, they get paid to solve
(22:38):
problems.
And, you know, you can spend allof your day in your office or
your job or your, you know, yourlife working on problems that do
they really matter, do theyreally matter to you?
Which to other people, so.
(22:59):
You know, part of this livingwith no regret is, is, is
actually taking a step back,zooming out, big, picturing out,
you know, not sometimes you'vegot to zoom out and, and, you
know, not focus on the smallchunks in the day-to-day
operations in life and zoom outand, and really take stock and
(23:20):
think.
You know, am I sweating thesmall stuff for no reason?
Like why, why am I stressingabout this?
And often when you zoom out youfind so much, so much clarity.
And, and that, and in thatsituation, in that perspective,
you can start to find otherproblems, other opportunities,
other challenges that you canspend more time on and
(23:41):
Opportunities and how you mightbe able to reframe what you're,
what you're currently doing.
So, so that's super powerful aswell, you know, taking a big
picture approach and and yeah.
You know, getting thatperspective.
Yeah.
One, I mean, one, you know, oneexample of this give you a quick
example.
Jeff Bezos, I think I think Imight've mentioned before he, he
(24:05):
He was a hedge fund manager.
I think, I think he worked inhedge funds in, in, in New York
city, Manhattan before hestarted amazon.com.
Right.
And you know, he, he had awell-paid job by anyone by a lot
of people's standards and, youknow, loads of promotions, I
think he was seen invice-president at the time.
And he said to his boss beforehe started Amazon, that.
(24:28):
I'm thinking of starting aninternet company, the Internet's
coming out, I'm thinking, youknow, maybe books might be a
good thing to sell on theinternet, cause this is just
starting out.
And I think I'm going to quit myjob and his boss told him to,
you know, think about it for 48hours and.
You know, there was so manyconsiderations to think about
(24:50):
that, you know, if he quit atthat point in time in finance,
especially in a hedge funds,there's huge bonuses that you're
going to lose.
There's you know, obviously he'sbuilt up a career and he could
be, you know, walking away frommore huge promotions and all of
these kinds of things.
And so, you know, He has athing.
(25:14):
You can look it up on YouTube aswell.
And I talk about it in mypodcast and I've definitely
share a link in LinkedIn about,about this, but yes, he, he, he
really took a long-term view andhis view, his strategy, and this
is something we're going toexplore in the, in the session
at the global NLP conference inJanuary is.
(25:36):
If I take, if he took himself,he actually took himself.
He future paced, didn't call itNLP, but he used NLP and your
future posts himself going to 80years old.
And looking back on thatdecision.
Exactly the same as what Italked about before when he,
when he took that, long-termview that 80 year old and
looking back of leaving thathedge fund and starting this
(25:58):
internet business and seeingwhere that went, looking back.
And, and thinking, would I everregretted taking that chance as
an 80 year old and thenrevisiting that and saying,
would I have regretted you know,staying in my room?
And comparing those two thingsthat, those two big life
decisions, when you zoom out andtake the long-term perspective,
(26:20):
these kinds of short-termconfusions of big bonuses, for
example, and you know, employeesfor promotions and all this kind
of stuff they kind of witheraway and, and, and that, you
know, that it's, this, thisstructure is not just about
Career change.
You know, it's about many, manyprint.
If these are, these are natureprinciples, these are principles
(26:41):
used in investing, you know,I'm, I'm currently investing in
Bitcoin and some otherinvestments.
And if you look at marketvolatilities, again, this is
decision-making and regrets.
When you look at marketvolatilities and you kind of
look at the short term, Bigswings when you zoom out and you
(27:02):
look and you really start tothink about the future and the
long-term the fundamentals.
And are you going to regret thelong-term suddenly you have a
totally different perspectiveand if you use.
If you use that mindset andreally think long-term in so
many things in life, you know,if you start thinking about
legacy more than, you know,what's going to happen next
(27:22):
week, next month, things, thingsstart to change.
And often you find you arefollowing more your values.
When you think longterm thatnaturally happens.
That's what I've noticed.
Anyway, I've I've I've digressedagain.
Angela Wells (27:42):
No, no, that's absolutely fine.
I think it is because one ofthe, for me, I think as with
most people, you know, one ofthe main benefits certainly of
knowing and understanding NLPis, is the modeling aspect with
your podcast where you'veinterviewed.
So many people through differentkinds of career transition, you
know, I mean, it's, it's, we'll,we'll share the links later for
(28:05):
your podcast.
Cause some of the, some of theinterviews are really
fascinating as to how peoplehave gone from, you know, this
long-term like you say, securecareer to something that's like
almost completely the oppositeto what they were doing, that it
allows you to be able to modeltheir strategy, their thinking.
And even that sentence.
(28:26):
You know what, it's, what it'slike.
Cause you know, you're makingthis big transition and at some
point you've got to jump intothe own loan you know, which
takes courage and then continueto do so.
What are, what are some of thethe commonalities that you found
in doing this with people, withstrategies perhaps, and beliefs
through doing your interviewsand your.
Matt (28:48):
Yeah, well, I mean, I just talked about Jeff basis is a
strategy.
Regret minimization theory, lookit up on YouTube.
He, he literally talks about itand I've shared it on the show.
But I mean, I interviewed acouple of dozen, no more than
that.
Almost 40 people now who havehad career changes and big, big
(29:09):
life changes.
You're right.
Modeling is, you know, somethingI'm fascinated with in NLP
learning how people do thestrategies they do.
And this particular strategy ishow do I make big decisions with
no regret?
Right.
Whether that's a career decisionor a life transition, you know,
difficult one to make.
And you know, let's talk aboutsome of the examples that, that
(29:32):
I've of people I've interviewed.
And then we can maybe go intosome of the commonalities there.
So I had a lady called Kim orLeschi who is a.
Leading sales consultants, theowner, she, she owns a Kao
advantage group over in Canadaand years ago.
She had a painful breakup with aboyfriend.
(29:52):
She was very, had a verysuccessful sales career working
for American express, I thinkand you know, kept on getting
pay rises.
And after this break she had amoment of clarity and she
decided to go traveling.
And six months out, when she,after she went traveling, she
wrote an award-winning blog andbook.
(30:13):
Then when she got batchedcreated her own successful sales
sales agency, and she even metOprah.
Right.
So we're going from, because of,because of the success you had
and.
So that, you know, there's allthe stories that I've selected
and interviewed have been peoplethat have had huge success in,
(30:35):
in however they define successand they've all had these
decision points in their life.
And so, you know, that that wasone example.
And I mean, another one I had asecretary who is.
He was basically travelingaround the world.
He felt very lost kind ofdrifting in life.
He was backpacking at the timein Canada and his good friend,
(30:59):
Chris died when he was just 24years old.
So he was quite young back then,but he's one of his best friends
died at 21.
And again, you had a moment ofclarity and realization, and
this process just kind ofhappened unconsciously.
And it totally changed his life.
And now he's created a globalmovement called 100 things.
(31:21):
And since then, he's, he'sbasically chosen.
He made a decision after Chrisdied, his friend that he was
going to.
Live a life true to himself.
And the way he said he was goingto do that was to set a hundred
goals of regrets that he wouldhave if he died, that he didn't
fulfill.
Right.
This is quite an interestingstrategy actually.
(31:43):
And he went ahead and, and, and,you know, started spending time
doing, doing them.
And he hadn't done all of them,but he's done a lot of them, but
that created, you know, becausehe documented the process and he
was very authentic in what hewas doing.
TV stations picked it up.
He became an ESPN TV host inAmerica, moved to LA from
(32:04):
Australia.
Wrote a book had his own TVseries.
Now he's a keynote speaker.
He gets paid.
I don't know how much tens ofthousands per speech.
Doing chemo, no motivationalspeeches about this very
concept, right?
Again, wildly successful.
We never knew who would gothere.
But this was from this moment ofrealization from something that
(32:27):
happened to him and it made himthink and question life and you
know, another Person that Iinterviewed who you will know
that she's a great NLP traineryou know, with, with thought
labs initiate.
I interviewed her and, you know,she's an LP trainer.
I'm a leadership coach.
(32:47):
And a few years ago, she used towork in the pharmaceutical
industry as a kind of full-timecorporate job and you know, very
successful.
She, she kind of really made itfinancially, you know, got lots
and lots of promotions and.
You know, she, at once at onepoint, she, she told me she felt
(33:08):
really empty inside.
Even though she was reallysuccessful in her career and one
night she just, she justcouldn't stop crying.
And she actually spent fivedays.
Basically kind of searching withinside herself, in any place,
any place in the world, in thewoods of Michigan.
So like right in the middle ofthe woods you had to kind of get
(33:29):
away from, you know, society.
Busy cities.
And essentially her answers camefrom within.
And she, she told me she had animage of children that were
missing in her life.
And anyway, long story short,she moved to, she had
opportunities that came upwhere.
She moved to India to helpchildren in India in her job.
(33:53):
And she started an orphanagethere.
And for the last, I think, 20years she has now raised over 20
kids herself in this orphanage.
I mean, talk about careerchange, life change moving from
America to India and raising 20kids you know, that's something,
but she, you know what she is.
One of the kind of mostpassionate, purposeful,
(34:17):
balanced, happy people that,that I've met.
And I just absolutely lovedtheir story and facts.
I loved all the stories for,from the people I, I
interviewed.
And you asked the question,well, what are the
commonalities?
Well, you know, that thecommonalities Angela are around
going through some sort of pain,you know, and, and.
(34:39):
A lot of the time when peoplemake big life transitions and
changes it's because somethinghappens to them and then they,
and they, and it changes theirframework and maybe someone dies
or maybe someone gets there's abreakup, or, you know, maybe,
you know, you just, you have abreakdown or a burnout or
something like that, butsomething changes.
(35:01):
And then suddenly.
Suddenly you reevaluateeverything in life and you start
looking at your belief, youstart looking at what's
important to your values, andthen you start thinking, okay,
there's got to be more to this.
There's gotta be more to thisthan life.
And when I and we talked aboutJeff Bezos earlier in this
conversation, the commonalitiesAngela work.
(35:26):
Really about looking at theirwhole life and their mortality
and thinking that the questionthat they all or most of them
ask themselves and this, thisjust came up in the interviews.
I didn't wasn't really anyspecific modeling questions.
Like they all just shared theexact pretty much the same
(35:46):
question.
If I died, if I died today ortomorrow.
What would I regret not doingthe most?
That was, that was such a commonquestion.
So, so having that question andactually experiencing pain and a
lot of people are, you see a lotof people that have had these
(36:06):
realizations during COVID right?
Some people have lost lovedones, unfortunately, during
COVID and, and, you know, that'sa terrible thing.
Then I know several peoplewho've got COVID now.
And.
You know, people have been awayfrom their office and, and been
working from home and spent alot more time reflecting on
(36:27):
life.
And, and, and rethinking likedifferent options in life.
Maybe kind of finding newproblems.
They had these other problemsbefore, and now they've got
these new problems.
Right.
And it's like an, it's like aforced upon reframe.
They've actually had time tostart reframing things.
Yeah.
Angela Wells (36:44):
Well, when you.
Area of wellbeing.
I think that was kind of not inpeople's like full consciousness
before I think, as a result aswell.
Matt (36:55):
Yeah.
And I think, you know, it'sreally interesting.
I, I was having a conversationwith a guy called Gurnick Banes
who basically runs a, a thinktank in the UK and he, and, and,
and he published a report.
I think it was commented on inthe guardian, happy to, to share
the report as well in the linkswhere he interviewed in June
(37:17):
this year, 2000 people who wererepresentative of the population
of great Britain, it was aYouGov survey and he found.
Since the report was called howCOVID changed our minds and it
basically kind of surveyedpeople about how people think
differently now after COVIDhappened, like when, you know,
one, one and a half years intothe first kind of cases and the,
(37:40):
the, honestly the statistics,Angela startling, you know, 87%
of people of Britain's in thatreport.
Think it's important to have ameaningful purpose at work.
And more than a third of thosesurveys have thought about
changing their jobs.
And 39% of those said it'sbecause they wanted to find
greater purpose and greatermeaning over income.
(38:03):
And interestingly one in 10people said that they looked at
moving abroad, but shockingly.
80% of those surveyed saidthey'd done little, little, or
nothing to, to change.
Now.
Some, some of the concerns werearound money and that's
understandable.
And the other concerns werearound lack of opportunity for
those kinds of reasons.
But, but you know, this goesback to.
(38:27):
People's minds have changedsince COVID have happened.
And I think the reason for thatis because people are more aware
of their own mortality now, andthey, they actually have been
projecting unconsciously orconsciously.
And hopefully after even thisconversation today, more
conscious.
Projecting their lives of whatthey're actually doing every day
(38:50):
of their life.
You know, their typical workweek.
What if they projected thatwork?
We can continue to do it.
Are they going to be happy whenthey look back?
When they're 80 years old, thesame strategy that Jeff basis
talked about?
The same strategy.
All of these other people haveinterviewed who made these big
brave decisions to, to shift toa more authentic life.
(39:11):
Are they going to be happy?
And the answer is a lot ofpeople are not happy.
And that's why you're seeing inthe headlines even this week and
the guardian and othernewspapers the great
resignation, you know, there'sbeen people in there drove.
Leaving work, particularly inAmerica.
I think 4 million people nowhave left work, but they're
(39:33):
choosing not to go into anotherjob until they find something
that they want to do.
So I mean, the statistics speakfor themselves and it all comes
back to this reflection of.
Of our mortality and what'simportant and I have more choice
and I've had, I've had anopportunity to think when I
(39:53):
haven't before.
And this session that I'm goingto do is, is going to give
people an experience to.
Really feel what it's like tofirst of all, find out, you
know, what are you missing, butreally experience it by having
some guidance guided coaching.
And then secondly you know,start, once you worked out, you
know, what you might regretdoing, if you have a dilemma as
(40:16):
well, like how can you make thatdecision to, to, to, to, to
choose if you have a dilemma ofthings to do different parts
you're thinking of doing sowe'll explore that in the, in
the session.
Angela Wells (40:28):
Wow.
It's going to be amazing.
I think in the right time ofyear as well, being the end of
January and the beginning of anew year.
So it's, there's going to behuge amount of takeaway as there
has already been in today'sconversation.
So if people want to connectwith you, Matt, where, where
would be the best place for themto find you?
Matt (40:51):
Sure.
Okay.
You can go to my website, burnfrom within.com.
If you want to have a call withme if I've got time in my diary,
and you're generally thinkingabout a, some kind of career
change or life change, you canbook a call with me, Ben, from
within.com forward slash callcawl.
I would also encourage people.
(41:12):
LinkedIn.
Yep.
Matt, Matt, Matt, Gary Fisher,and LinkedIn.
I think I'm like LinkedIn slashburn from within probably
something like that.
You'll find me or there's anyone Matt Garfish in the world.
I should trademark it really,but.
And you know what I would, Iwould encourage people to listen
to I've I've got an audio guideis on my podcast.
(41:33):
It's also on my website.
You can download it.
It's called the guide to bigdecisions with no regrets and it
shares.
Interview it shares actuallyclips of interviews and how I've
kind of modeled this strategy ofJeff basis.
It also shares a chip clip ofJeff basis and also Steve jobs.
And it kind of connects them alltogether in a guide on how you
(41:54):
can rethink making decisionswith no regrets.
Kind of 20 minutes highlyinformative and I think you can
get it so you can download iton, I think, burned from
within.com forward slash noregrets.
And you can just enter yourdetails and you'll get sent an
email.
It's also on my podcast as well.
Kind of look for the band fromwithin podcast, it's on apple,
(42:15):
Spotify, all the major podcastnetworks burn from within, and
then just find the, the episodewhich is called the guides to
two big decisions from noregrets.
So I would encourage people tocheck that out and really start
thinking about this because it'simportant for everyone.
It's not just important forpeople that are thinking of a
job change or career change isfor everything in life.
Angela Wells (42:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
That's very kind.
So if you would like to.
Find out and experience more ofwhat Matt has to offer with
making big decisions with alittle regret and much more.
Of course, then please do signup for the conference.
We still have the early birdprice on, and if you add an
(42:55):
extra.
Code, which is mat 10.
You'll get an extra 10% of thatearly bird price.
So, Matt, thank you very muchfor the conversation today.
It's it's just been amazing andit's so much information that
you shared with us today.
The session is going to be evenbetter because it will be all
interactive.
I presume we're breakout rooms,et cetera.
So you'll get a chance to reallyexperience what Matt has to
(43:15):
share.
And we look forward to seeingyou all again, in person online,
virtually somewhere.
Very soon.
Matt (43:24):
Yeah.
Thank you so much, Angela, forhaving this conversation with me
and yeah, like you said thesession that the conference is,
is going to be highlyexperiential, highly
interactive.
You're you're going to focus onyour own decision strategies,
which is super important.
And by the end of the session,you're going to really
understand like how you makedecisions.
(43:46):
And, and.
Basically how to live, makedecisions with less regret going
forward, there will be changed.
So I'm looking, I'm reallylooking forward to any session
on the, on this conference.
I think because the beauty ofthis conference is it's so
experiential and you changeunconsciously, you change and
all of the speakers do that.
And so hats off to you initiatefor.
(44:07):
Organizing this fret, thisformat, because there's not many
conferences that do that.
And you know, it really is anopportunity for, for big change
over these few days.
So thank you.
Thank you.
All the links mentioned in thisepisode are in the show
notes@burnfromwithin.com forwardslash N L P conference.
(44:28):
And if you want to get in on theaction and join my session And
many other speakers andfacilitators.
at the global NLP conference inJanuary.
Register right now with myspecial discount code mat 10
that's M a double T.
One zero.
The links to book your ticketsare in the show notes.
Until next time live withpassion, purpose, and balance
(44:48):
and burn from within.
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