The GOOD The BAD and The UGLY

It got more than ugly for me. Here is the whole story. 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
10 years ago, I hit rock bottom.

(00:02):
I don't mean like, I just kind of fell apart a little bit and I lost my job or something.
.999No, I hit rock hard bottom, like broken neck looking at jail time. 4 00:00:19,169.999 --> 00:00:20,839.999 Unfiltered with Matt Farnsworth. 5 00:00:21,231.999 --> 00:00:22,102 It was a mess.
I thought my life.

(00:24):
And today I've managed to build a successful businesses.
I've got one of the best coaches in the world.
I'm scaling like crazy.
I've left my corporate job where I was making a lot of money.
And I'm super happy and I'm going to tell you in this video why I'm so happy I hit rock bottom and how I pulled my life together after going through the hardest times in my life. 12 00:00:50,766.999 --> 00:00:53,007 And I'm going to teach you how that shaped me. 13 00:00:53,316.999 --> 00:00:57,007 So for those of you out there that are suffering, those of you out there, that are struggling.

(00:57):
I can tell you that this is not the end.
There is only one way to go from here and that is up.
You have one place to go.
That's the beauty of rock bottom.
That's the beauty of where I was at 10 years ago. 19 00:01:09,776.999 --> 00:01:11,6.999 I'm sure some of you have been there. 20 00:01:11,186.999 --> 00:01:12,177 Maybe you're there right now.
Maybe you're saying to yourself, I can't get out of this.
I don't know what to do, Matt.
This is the worst place I've ever been.

(01:19):
I'm trapped.
I'm never going to make it out. 26 00:01:22,441.999 --> 00:01:31,81.999 Well, I can tell you 10 years ago, I was literally sitting in a residence in with a broken neck, 25 staples in my forehead.
My face was bloated.
It was swollen.
My ex wife was having an affair with a Canadian roofer.
I had a felony DUI charge.
I had no job.

(01:41):
I had like 10 to my name.
I had two kids.
I was no father.
.999I had no prospects, and I was going absolutely nowhere.
.001So how did I turn it around? What did I do? I woke up one morning after my accident, and I had an attorney that said, Look, you need to go to rehab.
You need to just stop drinking.

(02:01):
And so I ended up going to rehab.
But that didn't wake me up either.
Even that accident, even breaking down like that, It didn't wake me up.
You see, I'm stubborn.
And some of you out there, you may be stubborn as well.
You may be one of those people where God is trying to punch you multiple times and say, Look, it's time to wake up.
But you don't.

(02:21):
But I was trying to survive.
.999You see, I was anxiety ridden.
Every second of every hour of my life, I was anxiety ridden.
I was controlled by my emotions. 49 00:02:33,422.1 --> 00:02:38,402 And it wasn't until about two months into recovery that I got a letter in the mail.
And that letter in the mail said to me, Hey, dude.
Your charges have been enhanced.

(02:43):
You're looking at between 7 and 9 years in prison.
That's when I hit my knees and I said, Look, God, if you exist, I'll change.
I'll do whatever it is that you ask me to do. 55 00:02:55,731.999 --> 00:02:56,482 Right now.
Please. 57 00:02:58,301.999 --> 00:02:59,791.999 Take my life now if you want.
If you're gonna put me in prison, put me in prison.
.999I'll start paying attention.

(03:03):
.999I'll start listening. 61 00:03:04,431.999 --> 00:03:05,571.999 I'll go to a recovery. 62 00:03:05,811.999 --> 00:03:07,61.999 I'll say the Lord's Prayer. 63 00:03:07,131.999 --> 00:03:08,371.999 I'll hold hands with people. 64 00:03:08,591.999 --> 00:03:09,411.999 I'll communicate. 65 00:03:09,421.999 --> 00:03:10,971.999 I'll start to talk about the issues.
And so I did.
And you know what happened? I started to change.
I started to feel better.
Sharing my story took the burden off of me.
And the stories I would tell, the rapport and the friendships and the community began to help heal me. 71 00:03:28,221.999 --> 00:03:30,412 And slowly but surely I ended up coming out of rehab. 72 00:03:30,431.999 --> 00:03:34,961.999 I ended up getting out of trouble, not completely.

(03:36):
I pled guilty to a lesser charge.
It was still a felony and I got a suspended sentence of seven years in prison suspended.
But I had to go to probation.
.999This was felony probation.
.999So I had to go and I had to pee in a cup every week and I didn't have a car. 78 00:03:56,191.999 --> 00:04:06,61.999 So I would ride my bike or my skateboard seven miles from seal beach to Westminster and I would meet with this probation officer every single week.

(04:06):
It was humiliating, but I also made a promise that I was going to do everything that was asked of me.
And I was going to do it by the book.
And I do believe that the key to our systems in the United States to recovery, I believe there is a time that you can make a choice to say, I'm going to get out of this.
And there is a way to get out of it, but it is super painful.

(04:28):
They make you suffer. 84 00:04:31,146.999 --> 00:04:33,037 You do have to play by their rules. 85 00:04:33,676.999 --> 00:04:35,017 And that's what they're trying to get you to do.
They're trying to get you to conform.
So I conformed.
I did what I was supposed to do.
And you know what? It was hard, but it changed me.
It gave me the ability to have resilience through these tough times.

(04:50):
When you look at addiction, that's what addiction is.
Addiction is the inability to deal with difficult times as they come at you.
You don't know how to handle those difficult times, and so you run to a chemical that you drink or you take that causes you to act aberrated.
And get into trouble and then that trouble and that chemical cause you more anxiety and the more anxiety that you have, the more you act out. 95 00:05:18,481.999 --> 00:05:25,872 And then you have this inability to conform to the trouble or the rules that they put in place for you because you've gotten in trouble.

(05:26):
You can't conform to those rules. 97 00:05:27,441.999 --> 00:05:30,662 So what you have to do is you have to step aside and you have to say, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this and I'm going to work really hard.
And what this did is this laid the foundation for me to have success because it taught me to have the humility.
Coming out of recovery to realize I probably wasn't gonna be able to make movies anymore.
It wasn't a good job for me So what did I find? I found bodybuilding. 102 00:05:50,276.999 --> 00:05:52,577 I Loved weightlifting.

(05:52):
It absolutely changed my being if you want to become a man and you really Want to impress people and women let me tell you guys there's nothing like putting on some muscle Science has proven that men with muscle are more attractive and they make more money and they do better.
You're going to be more successful if you have a strong physical presence and you're going to be happier because you're going to be stronger, you're going to feel better.

(06:19):
.999So I started lifting weights and I just kept going and I absolutely loved it. 106 00:06:22,642.001 --> 00:06:23,932 My body thrived on this.
This changed who I was.
My evolution happened in that gym.
That was part of pushing through.
.999I learned how to push through beyond anything I'd ever done in my life.
.999That was the most I had ever felt pain and continued through the pain to the other side and started seeing results.

(06:42):
And you know, the results take a while.
You 90 days.
It doesn't happen that way.
It is years of dedication.
Even if you take steroids, you take TRT, testosterone, the bottle doesn't lift itself. 117 00:06:55,551.999 --> 00:06:57,472 This attracted different people into my life.
This attracted different women.
.999I'm not going to say that I dated all the right women, but I ended up meeting the perfect woman. 120 00:07:04,341.999 --> 00:07:08,31.999 But prior to this, I got some calls from some people who were friends that wanted to help. 121 00:07:08,141.999 --> 00:07:10,191.999 They actually needed some help with their company. 122 00:07:10,811.999 --> 00:07:14,301.999 And one in particular, I ended up helping that was a financial firm. 123 00:07:14,461.999 --> 00:07:16,631.999 And that's how I ended up in the financial space. 124 00:07:17,181.999 --> 00:07:18,331.999 They wanted help with their videos.

(07:18):
Oh, and they're marketing.
They'd seen what I had done on my movies.
I had made a movie that was very popular.
It was a crazy slasher movie.
It's still popular today.
.999People still buy it. 131 00:07:29,601.999 --> 00:07:33,441.999 And I marketed that movie and it grew like crazy.
.999It was viral marketing.
And so a friend of mine saw that and said, why couldn't you cross pollinate that and do that in my space? Why couldn't you do that right here in finance too? So I ended up getting creative.

(07:45):
And I ended up helping that firm grow by over 2 billion in AUM in four years.
So I became the guy who was the go to person to help other people brand, automate, write scripts, create videos, and essentially teach them how to become a celebrity in their market using my Hollywood secrets.

(08:08):
And that is where I had the most success.
In fact, after this, the company was acquired.
My friend's company was acquired.
And I ended up becoming a part of that deal.
The company that acquired, my friend's company, wanted me to come and work for them, and they paid me a lot of money to do that.
.999Again, helping advisors and clients create their branding and their marketing to sell.

(08:30):
A lot of people have a very difficult time creating a personal brand that stands out.
It's a difficult thing to do.
So I ended up having success there, and then three years later, the very company that hired me, fired me.
I made a lot of money with this company, Enough that when they did fire me, I had enough saved that I was able to take care of myself.

(08:50):
So from the time that I left rehab, ten years ago, On my face, drunk, 25 staples in my forehead, my neck, and a brace, to now, I have made a lot of money, I've totally transformed my body, I've met the woman of my dreams, I moved out of the state that I used to live in, into a different state, I have Accomplished writing a book.

(09:14):
I now coach with Bedros Koulian.
I'm launching a company this week.
I am the happiest that I've ever been.
I found God. 151 00:09:22,266.999 --> 00:09:25,347 I speak at events and my life is totally transformed. 152 00:09:25,476.999 --> 00:09:31,876.999 The main reason why my life has been so transformed is definitely humility.
It all comes down to being able to be humble enough to say I'm willing to stive off immediate gratification.

(09:42):
I'm willing to delay it so that I can have success and then you act on the items that need to be acted on that are right in front of you.
.999You stay focused. 156 00:09:53,671.999 --> 00:09:54,772 You stay out of the weeds. 157 00:09:55,421.999 --> 00:09:59,972 If you need to delegate jobs to other people, you do that and you pay them to do it. 158 00:10:00,81.999 --> 00:10:05,292 You create a great product first and you start selling and that is how you have success.

(10:05):
You can have a million ideas.
You probably do as an entrepreneur.
You're probably brilliant.
But all of those little ideas in your beautiful brain are going to absolutely destroy your success if you can't focus on one thing.
That doesn't mean you can't put out content.
That doesn't mean you can't create a podcast.
That doesn't mean you can't, you know, have, uh, social media or blogs, a website.

(10:26):
.001All of that happens.
I'm saying it's all focused around a couple of key topics that make up who you are and what your goals are.
So get those aligned.
Stay focused.
Stay the course and don't give up.
Never give up.
That, that's a big one.
If you give up and you start something else and you give up again and you start another thing, you're just creating a train wreck in your brain.

(10:53):
.999You're stopping all the neural pathways from being able to form and complete the task at hand. 175 00:11:00,216.999 --> 00:11:13,127 And so when you're able to follow through and complete what you were working on to begin with, to fruition, 100%, it looks like a beautiful laid out train track to your destination.

(11:13):
And that's where you want to go.
That's where success lies.