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The Matt King Show
047: Solo Episode | What 300 Multi-Millionaires Taught Me About Fear, Being "Stuck," and an Abundant Life | The Matt King Show
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Back in the saddle. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the three lessons that I learned from over 300 multi millionaires coming off the heels of the annual winter adventure mastermind up in breckenridge, Colorado. Now, every year, the gobundance group has gotten together for the last 15 or so years for a winter adventure mastermind. The cool thing about this is it's always in January, which is such a powerful time of the year. Many people start their year on January 1st, and so it's important that you have camaraderie, community, and accountability as you get ready to kick off your year. So we come together as a group every single January, and we have meaningful and honest conversations about where we are and where we want to go. My goal today is to share with you the three takeaways that I had from the event. Now, to give you some context, this is the 13th GoBundance Winter Adventure mastermind that I've had the privilege of attending. The first one I ever attended. I was in the back of the room serving waters as a GO crew member, a volunteer. I realized in that moment that if you can't afford to get into a room, if you haven't yet earned the opportunity to get into a room, the best thing to do is to serve your way into that room. So I started out by serving. Now, fast forward to today. This is the fourth winter adventure and mastermind that I've had the privilege of leading. And I'll tell you right now, standing in the front of the room leading leaders is probably one of the most humbling, but also one of the greatest honors that I've ever had in my life. I was never one to look at myself as being a front of the room kind of guy. I actually like to think of myself as the wizard of oz. I enjoyed being behind the curtain. I. But as I have grown and as I've evolved as a human, what I've recognized is I have a unique ability to lead a room in a very unique way. Most people like to talk or pontificate or ramble, but what I like to do is I like to get direct to the point, and I like to have honest, vulnerable conversations from the start. I think it's very important to open up vulnerability as early as you possibly can in order to truly experience the transformation that people desire when they come to an event or when they come to a mastermind event. So I'm gonna start with giving you a little bit of a story, and I'm gonna take you back all the way to 1915, Shackleton, on this boat called the Endurance, set sail to try to go discover and explore what all existed in the world. He and his men, unfortunately, got stuck in a bunch of ice. Most of us think about the Titanic when we think about ice, but in reality, this experience and this journey of endurance is truly one of the greatest survival stories that I believe exists inside of the history books and also one of the greatest lessons on leadership that I think we can reflect on and look back to. So Shackleton and his men get stuck, and what happens is they all get off of the boat and they think that at some point the ice is going to break and they're going to be able to get the ship through. Well, months go by, and they're unable to achieve that mission or achieve that goal. And what Shackleton decides to do is he decides to lead his men to begin breaking up the ice. As they break up the ice, they're able to start making way with the ship, all the way until they can't go any further. I mean, literally hundreds of feet away from open water, and their ship is stuck, and the ice is feet on feet on feet deep. And they realize in that moment that they're screwed. They can't get through. And so Shackleton encourages all the men again to once again get off of the boat and prepare to wait. Wait out the winter, wait out the ice and wait for the open water to break their ship free. But that never happens. Ultimately, what ends up happening is the Endurance, the ship that they were all on, ends up capsizing, goes underwater. And so Shackleton and his men get aboard the lifeboats or the safety boats, and they look for safety. They look for a place where they can find refuge. They and maybe wait to get rescued. Now, this isn't a time in the world where they had phones or even radios. They just had to wait. They had to hope. They had to pray. And so 28 men went to find rescue. What happened was, is they ended up stumbling upon this place called Elephant Island. Now, when you think about an island, you think about this beautiful place. Palm trees, sandy beaches, gorgeous blue water. But Elephant island was literally a bunch of rocks in the middle of nowhere, frozen as one big block of ice. And Shackleton and his men find refuge or rescue there for at least a short amount of time, realizing that nobody's coming to save them and that they're in the middle of nowhere, Shackleton and five other men decide that they're going to go off and try to find help for the rest of the Men, he turns to this guy by the name of Frank Wild. Now, many people, when they read or think about Shackleton or Endurance, they don't really think about this man named Frank Wilde. They think of Shackleton himself, the leader. The leader of the men. But what's cool from my perspective is Frank Wilde, I think, is actually the hero. Because what Shackleton ultimately did was he put Frank in charge of the men on Elephant Island. 22 men were to be led by Frank Wilde on Elephant island, while Shackleton and his others took a little rescue boat and tried to figure out how to navigate 800 miles of sea to see if they could find anybody that could help them. Now, when Shackleton left, it wasn't like they said, hey, here's enough food, here's enough water, here's some shelter. You guys are gonna be good. They said, hey, we don't know when we're coming back. You don't have food, you don't have shelter, but we're coming back to get you. So Frank Wild was tasked with the opportunity of leading men who didn't know if help was coming, who didn't know if they would live to see another day, who didn't know what their next meal was gonna look like, but who all had to find hope and courage inside. And now what Frank Weill did for over 120 days was he led those men. Literally every single person survived. And what he did was he led them from the perspective of starting with a positive frame each and every morning. Frank Wilde encouraged the men, led the men, told the men, roll up your sleeping bags, the boss may be coming today. Every single day, those men were encouraged to start with a positive frame. Hey, today is the day. Today is the day we're going to seek rescue. And this is exactly how we opened up the gobundance event. We didn't open up the gobundance event because we're all going to be on Elephant island, but we did open up the gobundance event this way, because everybody, at some point in their life is gonna find themselves on their own version of Elephant Island. And I think it's important to realize that anybody, any one of us, can be a leader, a leader of men, a leader of leaders, a leader of a team, a leader of our family, even a leader of our community. And at some point in our lives, we're all going to be tasked with the opportunity to lead others. And when we get that opportunity, the question I ask these guys in the room up in Breckenridge is, will you be a leader of leaders and start with a positive frame? Or will you collapse and crumble under the pressure and the uncertainty of if help is ever going to come? So let's get into these three lessons. Now. These are my takeaways. These are my AHAs. Obviously, the people in the room had their own set of takeaways and their own set of AHAs. But I always like to sit there with my notebook and reflect on what I'm learning each and every day, what I'm discovering about myself, what I'm discovering about others. And I really try to take three takeaways from every single one of the events. Now, the first two might feel a little obvious to you, but sometimes in life we have to be reminded of the things we already know. The third one, man, this one was a big eye opener for me. So lesson number one. Success does not eliminate fear. Let me say that again. Success does not eliminate fear. All it does is it refines it. Growing up, I used to have this perspective that once I became a millionaire, that life would be all of a sudden easy. It would be exponentially more full of opportunity to choose with no limitations, with no fears. Like all my needs would be met because I had, quote unquote, money or success. But what I realized when I was 31 and did my personal financial statement and came to the realization that Melissa and I were finally millionaires was my life was exactly the same. I still had to put my shoes on, I still had to put my socks on. The sun came up, the sun went down and all of a sudden new fears started to come up. One of the fears for me that popped up was a million dollars, Albeit is a lot of money, isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, like it wasn't going to make sure all of my needs were met for eternity. Like all of a sudden I still had to go to work, all of a sudden I still had to pay the bills. All of a sudden there were still opportunities to choose where we wanted to allocate the resources that thus far we were able to earn in our lives. Fear does not go away. It really just changes its appearance. Or you change your perspective around fear. I think early on in our lives we have this fear of survival. Think about parenting like I'm a parent, A six year old, a four year old, a one year old, you want your kids to be safe and survive. Is the baby going to be okay? Are they sleeping through the night? Are they still breathing? I remember Marley, our one year old, was just sick recently and she slept for 12 hours straight. And at one point I went into her room, I was like, is she still breathing? So that early fear is this survival fear. These survival mechanisms start to kick in. How do I make it? How do I survive? How do I pay the rent? How do I go off on my own? How do I start paying down my college debt? That early fear is a survival based fear. What happens later? I think it's a fear of disappointment or a fear of judgment or this legacy fear. Let me explain this to you. So you get your survival needs met. That early fear, now that's gone. Now as you start to move forward in your life, you realize that this next fear, this later fear, if you will, starts to pop up. And it's a fear of judgment. What are others gonna think about me? What are my family gonna think about me? What are my friends gonna think about me? But then you also start to get into this judgment of yourself. Am I doing the right things? Am I spending time where I should be spending time? Am I spending my money where I should be spending my money? And then all of a sudden what happens is, is you start to get this resentment fear. Oh, I should have done this or I should have done that or they should have said this. And then what I've realized in my life is that ultimately transitions to this legacy fear. How will I be remembered? How will they think about me when we leave this meeting? How will they think about me after this deal? What will my friends say about me? What will my family say about me? Once you get over that fear and you realize that, that later fear is just a story you tell yourself because you're afraid of what others are going to think. And when you can choose to eliminate that fear or that judgment, or even said boldly that care of what anybody else thinks about you, you then start to have this bigger life fear, this higher stakes fear. What's going to happen with the money? Is the bookkeeper stealing from me? How should I allocate my assets? Where should I spend my time? Where should I spend money? My energy? Is anybody taking advantage of me? Am I doing the right things? Am I going to regret this later down the road, when I was sitting reflecting on this sort of three stages of fear that I've experienced in my life, that bigger life fear that I'm currently experiencing is I'm at an event for a whole week away from my family. I feel like I'm doing the right thing, doing what I was called to do, doing what I should be doing, which is serving others and yet in the back of my mind there's this bigger life fear that's saying, should you be home, should you be away from your kids? Are you going to regret not being there? This week with Rylan, with Bodie, with Marley, with Melissa. And that fear just keeps showing up. I used to think that fear would disappear. And I think most people at the top, whatever you determine the top to be, think that fear is going to disappear. But what I recognized in the event is that fear doesn't disappear, it just gets quieter. And the quieter your fear is, the more dangerous it can become if you're not aware of it, if you're not aware of the fears that you're still experiencing. If you try to look in the mirror every single day and say, I'm not scared, I'm not scared, those quiet fears can become the most dangerous ones. I think that fear is ultimately an incredible thing that can help guide us and steer us through our lives. I don't think we can allow fear to stop us or paralyze us. But I do think we can listen to the fears, dig into where that fear is coming from, peel back the layers of the fear and, and ask ourselves, what is this fear trying to tell me? What is this fear trying to show me? And when we listen to that, I believe we can make more powerful choices in those moments from the right frame or from the right perspective. Lesson two, man, Lesson two is this. This concept of nobody is stuck. Nobody is stuck. They're just over committed to the version of themselves that they're currently living. Literally nobody is stuck. They are just desperately, eagerly, selfishly, egotistically committed to the version of themselves that they are in that moment I was reflecting on when I have felt stuck in my life and I felt stuck when I was 30. The only goal I had growing up was to be a millionaire by the time I was 30. Now let me just be blunt and let me be clear. Younger version of me thought that success equaled money or money equaled success. Now 35 year old version of me has recognized that money is nothing more and nothing less than just energy. The more that you allow money to flow through you, the more that money will flow to you. And money is just a vehicle to do good in the world. It's not success. But I think most people who are feeling stuck have some sense of I am stuck because of money. And if you're feeling that, what I would tell you I learned is that it's because you're over committed to the version of yourself that you Are today I'm stuck because I don't have enough money, but I get Starbucks every day, but I overspend on Amazon, but I really want those fancy shoes or that fancy car, that thing that I don't really need, but that thing that the version of me today is committed to having. Because I think that that's going to bring me more significance or more value or more worth. If you are stuck, I would encourage you to reflect on the version of you that you are currently committed to. Are you over committed to the narratives and the stories of items or liabilities or objects that you think are going to define your self worth? Are you over committed to the version of yourself that has to get Starbucks for $5 a cup because you don't have time to make coffee at home, or the coffee at home doesn't taste as good, or it's not as convenient, or do you just feel good walking into the meeting, in the conversation, holding the Starbucks cup with your name on the side of it most likely misspelled. If you're stuck, it's because you're over committed to the version of yourself that you are in this moment. And when I just sat with that and thought about that and journaled on that at the event, I realized that stuck is merely just an inability to let go of old stories or old narratives or stories that others had from us or for us that we're afraid to let go of or we're not even aware that we need to let go of. If you're stuck, think about it. What version of you are you over committed to? And how can you make the choice to look at that version of yourself and decide if you're willing to let go of those things that are truly keeping you stuck? The beauty of it, you don't have to. If you're not willing to let go of those things, that's okay. But here's what I would tell you then you're not stuck. You're just making a choice that where I'm at is exactly where I want to be. And if you make that choice, I believe you should make it from a place of gratitude, from a positive frame. This is me, exactly where I wanna be and so I'm not stuck. Now if you're stuck, the good news for you is you are stuck because of you. Now you're probably listening to this going like, how is that good news for me? I'm stuck because of me. That sounds so victimish. No, it's not victimish. I'm trying to give you a Perspective that whenever in my life I feel stuck and I recognize it is because of me and my choices, I then give myself the ability to choose something else for myself. Nobody is coming to give you permission to stop buying the coffee. Nobody is coming to give you permission to let go of the stories of yourself or the version of yourself that is keeping you stuck. But you can let go of all those things. You can have the hard conversations with yourself, and you can be extremely authentic and real with yourself and say, this no longer serves me. Now the third lesson. And the third lesson comes from what I would define as an American hero. We were fortunate at the gobundance event to have a guy by the name of Michael Durant join us. Now, I didn't even know who that was when he first was presented to us as a possible speaker at the event, but after doing some research, I knew who he was. I just didn't know the name. The movie Black Hawk down is based on these soldiers on these American heroes in Somalia trying to fulfill a mission, a mission that was given to them by the US Government to protect our safety, to protect our freedom, and to defend our rights and the rights of others by what at that time I would call a terrible leader or a terrible human. Michael Durant and his crew were helicopter pilots, and they were just executing a mission that they were told to execute. Now, the Somalians got smart at some point, and they realized that these helicopters were coming in to achieve or accomplish a mission, and so they started shooting down these helicopters. Michael Durant and his crew, unfortunately, were shot down. And as the helicopter tailspun and crashed into the city, all of his men were injured or wounded. I think some of them from the crash itself were actually killed. Michael and a few others weren't yet dead. So they did everything they could to fight off the Somalians. They shot, they fought, they threw things, they did whatever they could. I mean, they were trapped by a helicopter, badly wounded from the crash, but yet they were trying to save themselves. Every single one of those men, unfortunately, lost their lives, except for Michael Durant. The Somalians realized that their leader at the time wanted a prisoner of war. Their leader wanted somebody to make the poster child of, this isn't okay, we're going to torture your people. And so they took Michael Durant captive as a prisoner of war. He had, again, just been in a bad helicopter crash, had been in a firefight, had watched all of his friends and his teammates in that crew pass away or get killed. And he had a compound fracture in his leg, literally Bone sticking out of his leg. And the Somalians took him to a prison where he was held as a prisoner of war for 11 days. The story is wild, and if you don't know it, I would encourage you to go look into the story of Michael Durant or go watch the movie Black Hawk Down. But the lesson. The lesson that Michael gave all of us was that you truly find out who you are when things go sideways. And if who you truly are when things go sideways can start with a positive frame or a positive mindset, just like Mike, just like Frank Wilde did, you can truly come out the other side of almost anything you end up experiencing. Think about that. You are held as a prisoner of war with a compound fracture in your leg for 11 days in a Somali prison. You probably don't speak the language well. You just watched your friends get murdered. How do you possibly survive? How do you possibly find the drive or the desire to keep living? You're being tortured. Your friends are gone. You're stranded. Like Frank Wild, you have no idea if anybody's coming back to you. But what Michael said was this. He started with a positive mindset every day. And he had mantras and he had thoughts, and he had. And he had things to get himself back into a positive mindset. When he wanted to quit, when he wanted to give up, when he wanted to encourage the Somalians to just kill him and take his life because he was done with it. He was sick of being treated that way. At one point, a version of the Red Cross that was in Somalia at the time came to visit Michael, and they brought him a Bible. He still to this day has that Bible. And what he did was he used journaling and reflection as a way to stay in a positive frame. But because he was afraid that the Somalians would read it, he came up with his own codes that only he could read, that only he could understand. And still to this day, he's the only person that can read it. He's the only person that can understand it. And he looks back on that moment, and he realizes that when things go sideways, you find out who you truly are. And if who you truly are can start with a positive frame or from a positive perspective, who you truly are can endure anything that is thrown your way. I mean, think about that. Frank Wild, Elephant Island. No awareness if help is coming. No food, no shelter. Every single day, Men, roll up your sleeping bags. The boss may be coming for us. Or as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, your helicopter just got shot down. Your men murdered, killed. You taken Captive as a prisoner of war in Somalia. No awareness of what they're going to do to you. No clue if anybody's ever going to get to you. Not sure what this compound fracture really means. If you're going to get an infection, if you're going to die, are they going to torture you? But if you can start with a positive frame, when things go sideways, you'll find out who you truly are. And who you truly are is somebody that can endure anything that is thrown your way. Financial hardship, health issues, relationship issues, job transitions, whatever it is. Ask yourself, how can I start with a positive frame? One of my early mentors, a guy by the name of Rock Thomas, actually talked about this. No matter what is thrown your way, ask yourself, what's great about this? I remember he had this story, he got alopecia and so he began losing all of his hair. And he asked himself, what's great about this? And one of the things that popped up was, I no longer have to get a haircut. Now, if you think about that, it's kind of comical, but it's true. If you have alopecia and you lose all your hair, you don't have to get a haircut. Now, the flip side of that is you can never do your hair a certain way for a certain event. But again, going back to that positive frame, what's great about this. So just let me recap this for you for a second. The first lesson that I believe I learned from this event is that success doesn't eliminate fear, it just redefines it. Fear is never going to go away. It's only going to get quieter. But the quieter the fear, the more dangerous that fear can be in our lives. So we have to reflect on it, we have to pay attention to it, we have to listen to it, we have to lean into it, almost like a compass trying to help guide us. Don't let the fear paralyze you, but don't ignore the fear. Acknowledge it, tip your cap to it, and just keep moving forward. Second lesson, nobody is stuck. And I mean nobody. They are just over committed to the version of themselves that they are in that moment. What a powerful concept to think through. You're not stuck. You're just over committed to the version of you you are today. What a gift that is to say, wow, I'm over committed. How do I choose something different and how do I go in a different direction? You're not stuck, you're just choosing to stay there. And the third lesson, when things go sideways, you find out who you truly are. And if who you truly are can start from a place of gratitude, positivity, who you truly are can endure anything that is thrown your way. Those three lessons ultimately made me make some different choices when I got home. And they also helped me recognize that we all say we want to live an abundant life. Now, we may not use those words. We might say, oh, I want this much money, or I want this much choice, or I want this many vacation days, or I want to go on this many vacations. But if you truly define for you what abundance looks like, you'll realize that each and every one of us truly want to live abundant lives. The cool thing about this is every single one of us has a different definition for abundance. But regardless of what your definition, definition of abundance is, there are really only three pillars to abundance. The first is choice. In order to live or lead an abundant life, you must first start with a choice. And guess what? No matter if you're living in abundance or not living in abundance, every single day, you wake up with a choice, and you choose it. Now, the second pillar, the second pillar is awareness. I made a choice. What happened? But awareness is not judgment. Awareness. Awareness is just acknowledgement. It comes from a place of curiosity. I made a choice. How does that feel? How does that look? Where do I want to go? Am I going in the right direction? Am I going in the wrong direction? Now, the third pillar is after we've made a choice and after we've become aware, we literally just have more choice. If the first choice isn't allowing us to be the version of ourselves that we want to be, and we're aware that that choice is causing it, we have the ability or the power to then have more choice. What a fricking gift that is. And if you truly think through this, the word choice in pillar one and in pillar three can easily be replaced by action. They're one in the same choice. Awareness, more choice. Action, Awareness, more action. These lessons are what 300 multimillionaires taught me over the course of a week up in Breckenridge, Colorado. But these lessons, if you look back on history, like the stories of Michael Durant or Frank Wilde, are woven through all different versions of. Of success, through history, and notice I say versions of success. Michael Durant's version of success was surviving a Somalian prison. Frank Wilde's version of success was leading men to survive until they were rescued on Elephant Island. Whatever your version of success is, these three things I truly believe will help you live the life you desire. Help you become the person you dreamed of being or know you're capable of being, and ultimately give you the power to choose, become aware, and then have more choice, which again, are simply just the three pillars of abundance. The last thing I'll say is that people who grow the fastest, whatever your version of growth is, don't necessarily do it because they have all the answers. I mean, in reality, most people who grow don't come from a place of answers or judgment. They come from a place of curiosity. They come from a place of questions. The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of questions you ask yourself. If you feel stuck, if you feel overwhelmed, if you feel stressed, if you feel sad or tired or lonely. The good news? You're not alone. The bad news, everybody is going to feel that in various points of their life. But the golden ticket? Once you become aware of how you're feeling and where you're at, you have the ability to choose wherever you want to go. Hope you enjoyed this solo episode. Reflecting on our event up in Breckenridge, Colorado. Again, incredible opportunity to be in the room with people that I still struggle with. Feeling like I deserve to be in the room with leading leaders, but ultimately just trying to be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday. Because if I can get 1% better every day, I truly believe that whatever I dream of, whatever I desire, wherever I want to go, is possible.