230. Interview With Matthew Ferry – How to Vanquish Entrepreneurial Self-Sabotage

Susan Sly 00:02
Well, hey, what's up everyone? Wherever you are, I hope you're having an incredible day. My guest today is one of my favorite humans. And in addition to being a spiritual teacher, and happiness coach, he's helped people break free of negative patterns, myself included. And in fact, for many years, he was my business coach. So for those of you who have been longtime listeners, you're gonna go under the hood in Susan's brain today, so might be scary. He's also the creator of the Rapid Enlightenment Process, and the best selling author of Quiet Mind Epic Life: Escape the Status Quo and Experience Enlightened Prosperity. And in addition to all of this, he is a tremendous human. He's a father. And in my humble opinion, he's helped more entrepreneurs truly break free, and become high conscious leaders than anyone I know. So welcome Matthew Ferry to the show.

Matthew Ferry 01:03
Whoop, super glad to be here. Thanks for, thanks for giving me such a concise intro too because really, you actually know like we did it.

Susan Sly 01:13
We did--years. And breaking through from not just limiting beliefs, which a lot of people do suffer from, but entrepreneurial anxiety. Let's just jump right in. Entrepreneurial anxiety is a disorder.

Matthew Ferry 01:28
Yeah. So

Susan Sly 01:30
there are a lot of entrepreneurs, there are people who listen to the show, they watch the show, they're thinking of starting a business, they're starting a business, and things get going along, and then suddenly, it's like, boom, roadblock and they're full of anxiety. What is going on with people? Do you think anxiety is higher than it was before? Or it's just that we're feeling it more intensely now?

Matthew Ferry 01:53
That's a good question. I've never actually even thought about it in that way. I think anxiety has probably been at a similar level for humans for a long time. But today, we do, we do live in a world where the possibility of being at peace is higher than it's ever been. So probably the contrast between those two things makes it more intense. But entrepreneurial anxiety is a real thing. It's something that I've experienced many, many times in my own career. You know, I've started music businesses, I've had a clothing line, I've launched different products, I've done just over and over and over and over. And I will say that the vast majority of the things that I've done have failed. That's just, that's just reality. You know, maybe, like 15% or something of the things that I've tried over my lifetime have actually worked, but but getting through the anxiety, and moving into a place of peace actually helps to create the clarity necessary to make good decisions and deal with the volatility and the craziness that happens whenever you're doing an entrepreneurial pursuit. So I think it's a real thing. I think that, you know, our bodies are really designed to move us away from potential failure. And unfortunately, failure is the way like, you don't, you don't fail, you're not succeeding, period. Those two are synonymous, they go together.

Susan Sly 03:20
Do you think people are becoming addicted to the feeling of anxiety because it's the new normal?

Matthew Ferry 03:29
I, you know, I don't know. It's not really my, it's not my specialty, per se, to think about anxiety in that way. But what I will say is this. Is that each of us is genetically designed to avoid negativity. And we are hypersensitive to the potential of negativity. And our world is actually like, if you look around, it's verifiably less negative now than it was 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. It's like by the numbers. Everything is better, easier, and more functional. But we have come in with the software and hardware that isn't up to date with the evolution that we've experienced, we're on an exponential. So actually learning the techniques to control the thought process, remove what I call the drunk monkey, and go into a state of peace in what is a contentious anxiety filled environment is actually a master skill. And it's one that I'm really devoted to helping business leaders and entrepreneurs experience because it's so powerful at getting your ideas to actually stick. Oh, well, the,

Susan Sly 04:53
that whole concept of going into the shark infested waters, right? So as an entrepreneur, whether it's negotiating funding or an exit or thinking about like, okay, you know, I've got to make sales to pay my staff, there is a lot of pressure as an entrepreneur. For people who don't know what the drunk monkey is, let's talk about that, because that, that whole concept helped me so tremendously, because it allowed me to take back my power.

Matthew Ferry 05:24
It's an important component of the rapid enlightenment process. So there's four things that the rapid enlightenment process consists of. It's awareness of the drunk monkey and the unconscious reflexes, it's awareness of the motivation of the drunk monkey, which I call the hidden motives to survive, then it is connecting with enlightened perspectives, which are simply perspectives that assume that all as well. And then it's the skill of recontextualization, being able to take whatever kind of sucks, and rework it so that you're at least neutral if not empowered. But let's go, let's go to the idea of the drunk monkey. When I was young, like 20, something, I had a mentor who said, I had a monkey mind and I thought that was the funniest thing ever. Because back then I was a partying fool. And I was like, my mind is not a regular monkey. My mind is a wasted, crazy person. I have a drunk monkey in my head. And that stuck. And I've called it the drunk monkey ever since. And, and it's grammatically incorrect, probably should be the drunken monkey. But you know, that works for me, the drunk monkey. So the drunk monkey actually has these functions. And it's a, it's the mouthpiece for your survival mind. So you're, the drunk monkey is going to try to look good, it's going to avoid embarrassment, it's going to try to fit in, it's going to do whatever it can to follow rules that don't even exist. It's going to actually defend illogical ideas, because those illogical ideas are, are actually part of the group that it wants to be a part of. So it'll defend things that cause you to malfunction. The drunk monkey thinks that it's psychic. So I don't know if you've ever heard your mind. My mind actually believes that it knows what the future is. It's completely loony. It is definitely a drunk, wasted monkey in there. And, and when you start to understand the functions of the drunk monkey, then you can see it as a biological mechanism, rather than a trusted advisor. Because if you listen to the drunk monkey in your head, like it's a trusted advisor, you will be filled with angst even if the world is awesome.

Susan Sly 07:30
And you work with so many, although you're not doing private coaching anymore, so just so no one called Matthew and be like, Hey, can you coach me? The, but over the years, you've worked with incredibly high achieving individuals from a variety of industries, and we're talking people who, royalty, even royal family, you know, just all of these incredible people. Is this something that everyone struggles with or is it just--yes.

Matthew Ferry 08:02
100%. I mean, you and I went through this together. It's like you had, you had climbed to the top of the food chain, climb to the top of the mountain, climb to the top of the success mountain, the personal development mountain, the self mastery mountain, like when you and I met, you were a bonafide badass. And then, and you were still like Matthew. This is crazy. On my-- I have it all. I still go through these moments of like, doubt and despair and sometimes I get like, angry for no reason. And it's just, it's crazy. I am, I've mastered my mind and yet my mind just comes in just bam, sideswipes me. And I just want you know, that is extremely common, because success does not equal happiness and peace. More money doesn't equal happiness and peace. There would be no reason for my billionaire clients to hire me. Because they already have what we think should be providing them with everything that they need to be happy. They have everything, and yet, they're still saying, Why do I still feel like I'm a fraud? Why do I feel like I have to keep my foot on the gas pedal, otherwise I'm going to lose? Why do I feel like I don't belong here? And here they were, they're at the top of the food chain right now, and it didn't solve the problem. Yeah.

Susan Sly 09:20
And it's so interesting you say that because you see a lot of people who, whether it's Instagram started on this whole influencer culture and flashing, you know, whatever their Rolex or their Bentley, and they think that it's going to bring them happiness, but it's so empty. And I had the concierge for billionaires on my show and he wrote the book Spearfishing. Outstanding guy and he, he's done stuff for like Elton John, and Elon Musk, like the things that when you're a multi billionaire, you're like, what's gonna make me happy? So I'm going to rent out the Sistine Chapel and you know, I'm going to do all these things, but he kept saying it was just, it's just one emptiness after another because there's the anticipation, and the letdown, the anticipation and the letdown, and that happens to so many people. So what, if someone, you know, watching and listening, Matthew, and they're going, Oh, my gosh, this is me, my highs are really high, my lows are really low. I've achieved but I still feel I haven't achieved anything. I know, I have the drunk monkey. Where do they start?

Matthew Ferry 10:26
I think that the beginning is to actually discern something called your most cherished experience. And you and I synced up beforehand, and determined that we should give everybody a copy of my 60 Plus page Enlightened Goal Setting workbook. And I think that that's where people should start. Because if you can get connected to your most cherished experience, the thing that the experience that is so amazing that you could be in the middle of the worst part of your entire life and day, and reconnect with that experience, and instantaneously have all those negative feelings go away. Like if you have that, then all of a sudden, you start to have some energy to be able to discern. Oh, wow, there's the drunk monkey pretending it's psychic again. Hey, there's me forecasting a future. Like I know what's supposed to happen. Oh, wow, I'm, I'm avoiding making mistakes that aren't real. I'm attached to imaginary futures that don't exist. But I'm having an exaggerated fear right now that if I lose that thing that doesn't even exist, I will be in a bad place. Right? You can't see all that stuff. Unless you start with this idea of like, well, what is it that I actually do want to experience? Because most people believe that they want to experience some variation on greed, and pride. And actually, anything that leads back to greed and pride will create anxiety and upset and frustration and negativity, whether you want it to or not. And it is absolutely shocking. Like, if we look at the concierge to billionaire guy, right? Basically what he's going to point to is like, here's something that this guy did to have more pride, and it didn't work. Here's somebody that this did to have to feel like they are better than everybody else-- didn't work. Greedy, didn't work. Over and over and over and over. These are called hidden motives to survive.

Susan Sly 12:38
Yeah. And it's, it's so interesting that you say this, because one of the things you taught me was, you don't want something, Susan, you want the experience of that thing. And I remember, we're having this conversation, and you're like, Well, what do you really want? I said, oh, gosh, you know, I'd love to have a home in Italy. And you were telling me about a client you have who had like homes all over the place, that he never went to any of them. And it was caused, causing him all this anxiety, because he, he owned them, he didn't go to them, then there was the upkeep and the maintenance and so on. And you said to me, and you called me out, and you said, Susan, you just want that experience. Do you need to own a home in Italy to have that experience? And the thing I would ask you, Matthew, so when, when an entrepreneur, especially someone who's first getting started, and they're taking on suddenly what they fear is all of this risk, and they start to revert back to patterns to even some very old patterns to sort of self soothe. So whether it's marijuana or it's alcohol, or whatever it is, how can they turn that around, even though it feels for some people so good to feel so bad?

Matthew Ferry 13:55
Well, first of all, marijuana does not feel bad, nor does alcohol.Those things feel amazing, extraordinary, exceptional. And, and I was a, I was a full throttle user of those things until I was 36 years old, at which time I realized that I was essentially looking for enlightenment in all the wrong places. And that the things that I seek-

Susan Sly 14:18
There's a song right there.

Matthew Ferry 14:19
Looking for enlightenment the wrong places. Yep. But I was looking for, I was looking for that feeling that all as well. I was looking for the feeling of, of trusting in life. And, and knowing that I was going to be okay. That's the feeling that we're all looking for. And there's nothing wrong with drugs and alcohol at all. And I'm not against them in any way. What I find is, is that when a person takes on transcending their survival consciousness, and ascending into enlightened frameworks, they tend to naturally just give those things up or radically modify them downward because like, I don't actually need to, I don't need to modify myself with something external in order to feel what I'm actually practicing feeling, right? That's what, that's what taking on an enlightened framework does. If you practice feeling what you want. You want an experience. You didn't want the house in Italy, you wanted what you thought it would give you. And then when we, when we figured out well, what will that feeling be? This is the enlightened goal setting process. What will that feeling be? Then you were like, well visit the feeling right here. And I said, Great, now we're going to figure out how to have that feeling every single place in your life now. We're just gonna juice it up. You're gonna be like that little monkey in the cage that keeps pressing the orgasm button, Whoo. Whoo, right? It's gonna be like, give me another treat. You have the power. You have the power to press that button on your own. You don't need the external thing. Now, I'm not, I don't, I don't blame or shame anybody who is utilizing those external means, go for it, have fun, do it. But you're actually looking for something that is contained within you. You're using that external source to modify your feelings downward to deal with the implied risk that you are dealing with as an entrepreneur. And, and, and it's risky. But I want to give them a technique, from my book, Quiet Mind Epic Life, that they can use to help be more peaceful with the risk. Can we do that? Sure. Something you and I have done a bunch of, it's called the worst case scenario. The best way to find your positivity is to be as negative as you possibly can. To be as extreme in your negativity as you can possibly get. And when you do that, when you face the negativity, and you own it, it transforms. What you accept, will transform what you resist will persist. So here's what I would recommend to our, all of our entrepreneur brothers and sisters out there, here's a little, here's a little, we're gonna take some bong hits on enlightened perspectives, rather than bong hits on weed, here we go. So you start by writing out the thing that the drunk monkey fears the most. And the drunk monkey has got a phenomenal imagination. So what you do is you write out the absolute worst thing that's going to happen. The company fails, you're a failure, you've lost all your money, you're embarrassed. One of my clients, his failure was so epic, that he was like, all over the newspaper as like, then you know, the number one failure in this category, it was really bad. And so you start by doing that. You actually fantasize on purpose about the worst thing that could happen, if everything unravels. Then step two, is you make a plan for the worst. So you're like the government. You know how like the government, you just imagine, they've got like a piece of paper in a glass container over there on the wall, and then it's just like, if the shit hits the fan break glass, right? And you go over and you break it, you open it up, and it's the contingency plan, if everything goes wrong.

Matthew Ferry 18:30
You have to write that contingency plan if everything goes wrong, and then you have to make peace with it. Because if you can be at peace with that contingency plan, you will be at peace. Because the drunk monkey will have nothing to fantasize about. Because the drunk monkey will go like, Yeah, but what about all those things? And you're like, Yeah, but remember the plan? And then the drunk monkey goes, Oh, yeah, I forgot. Okay, cool, we're good. And now all of a sudden, you're in a better place. From that more neutral place, you can then open yourself up to a whole other set of creativity, resourcefulness, chutzpah. I will tell you, Kristen, my wife and I, we do the worst case scenario planning all the time. And, and the reason that we do it all the time now, is that what we found is, usually contained within the worst case scenario is a whole bunch of stuff that we want to do. So we'll write out the worst case scenario. And then it's like, well, wait a second. Why do we have to wait for the worst case to do that? Let's just do that now. And we'll immediately get some new ideas and some new ways forward that came out of being completely willing to deal with these, the most negative situation possible. So, and I just want to make sure that our listener understands this idea. You don't write the plan to avoid the worst case scenario. You write the plan if the worst case scenario happens, here's what I'm gonna do. That's the way out. Yeah. That'll help them a lot.

Susan Sly 20:06
It is, is so liberating. And this release from, oh, well, okay, so, you know, oh, this deal doesn't go through and then Okay, then what's, what, you know, then what happens? Oh then, you know, then I don't have money to pay my staff and then I have to lay off my staff and then you just keep writing and writing and writing. And then suddenly the anxiety, it's the anxiety is very sticky. It has nothing left

Susan Sly 20:35
to attach to.

Susan Sly 20:37
And we have a mutual friend. And he was going to-- do you remember the story? So he was in real estate, he did some real estate investments, and he didn't realize that one of the people he was doing a real estate investment with was not the most savory of characters, and he was going to get arrested. And so he does the worst case scenario, and he's writing and writing and writing it and on Monday, they're going to take him away. And to make a long story short, he, they ended up dropping all the charges. And when we're so attached to whatever that is, the anxiety is so sticky. What we think about, we bring about. Napoleon Hill said it, Wallace D. Wattles said it. It's written about in the Bible, it's written about in the Torah, like, so when you stop thinking about it, because you've already lived it, you've let it go. Now suddenly, your brain comes up with all of these creative opportunities. Right? And I, I learned that from you, and I can't even tell you how many times I'll just sit and I'll journal. Okay, so if this happens, then this happens, then this happens then. So what? And the other thing that's cool, I love that you mentioned this, like what you and Kristen discovered in this process was, oh, there's, you know, we don't have to wait to do those things. The thing that I've discovered is, there were things that I was thinking about in the background that I thought, well, if this then this, and I thought, you know what, I'm not as attached to that, this or that as I thought I was. Right? And it's allowed me to live in a place of loving detachment of the material, of places, you know, all of these things. If you're on, if you're listening on podcast, Matthew is dancing right now. That's what he's doing. He's like, it's about friggin time, Susan.

Matthew Ferry 22:32
Yeah, baby. Well, detachment is interesting, you know, the mutual friend that we're talking about, who, you know, accidentally did a transaction with an unsavory character and was being investigated by the FBI. He actually went to, went to a hotel with his fiance at the time with a gun. And he was going to kill himself, because he was positive that he was going to go to jail. And in that moment, he had the sort of epiphany to well, you know, what if I did go to jail, like what would I do? And, and he wrote out like, who he would be and what he would do in jail, not to avoid jail, but in jail. And he got so inspired by who he would be in jail, and the, and what he would do from jail to be a contributor to the underdogs of the planet, which is his favorite group, that he essentially put the gun away, and, and said, Fine, if I go to jail, I'm going to jail. And he went home. And the FBI never called him again. And he has now become the inspiration that he saw in that moment. Like that moment, changed his life forever, by doing the worst case scenario and figuring out like, oh, wow, you know what, that's not that bad.

Susan Sly 24:08
Why do you think that is? When we really, you know, we talked about the, there's things like, forgive and forget, just let it go. Very-- good luck. In my experience, actually do forgive and forget, and they actually, very few let it go. Why do you think it is, though, that when there is a true release of it, that the circumstance changes in the natural? Why, in your opinion, why is that?

Matthew Ferry 24:33
Well, we'll start, we'll start with the, the biological imperative to hold grudges. So there's an imperative, though, that each of us has, its an evolutionary advantage, and that is to hold a grudge. So there's something that is negative that you hate, you don't like it, and then you hold it in mind, and you hold it in mind, because that's a super effective way to avoid it in the future. You walk over, you pet a dog, the dog bites you. The next time you see a dog, you actually have a physiological response. That's a grudge. So the idea of forgiving, and forget, forgive and let go, and all of that stuff, it's wonderful, you know, new age bumper sticker wisdom, it's wonderful, I love it. It's impractical, because you're actually hardwired for the opposite. And the possibility of you doing it is very, very low, unless you understand the mechanisms that are in place. So the first thing to do is to identify your grudges. And to release them. I would say this though, if you don't know what your most cherished experiences, if you don't go through the enlightened goal setting process, and get connected to what your most cherished experiences, it's not likely you're going to see the grudges that you're holding on to. The grudges will seem real. But when you compare and contrast them to your most cherished experience, all of a sudden, you're like, whoa, wait a second, why am I holding on to that? And now you'd be willing to go through the process. And it is a process. It's not magic. It's not like, and now I know my most cherished experience, everything changes. It's not like that. That's, there's real work involved in you going into a state of profound peace of mind. But let's say that you do that. And you do change your mind and you have an epiphany like you've had in the past or like our friend has had. Why does that change everything? Well, it changes everything for two reasons. One, your consciousness goes up. So that means that you expand what you can see. So you suddenly see more than what you were seeing before. So all of a sudden, you're like whoa, hey, somebody turned on the lights, there's a whole thing of dust bunnies over there in the corner. I need to get a vacuum for that, that's gross. You see more, and as your consciousness goes up, you accept more. So those are the two variables, what you could see and what you accept. When you see more and you accept more, it changes your perspective. When it changes your perspective, it changes your behavior and your decision making. Early man thought that the world is flat, and that affected their behavior. So they would look out at the horizon and say, I'm sticking close to the coastline. Not going out there where I'm gonna fall right off. Then it's like, oh, wait a second, actually new piece of information, the world is round. And then suddenly, those brave adventurers like our listeners, right, if our listeners are entrepreneurs, brave adventurers, those brave adventurers got that new piece of information, and used it to go and push the limits and explore farther than anyone had ever gone before. They didn't need new skills. They weren't, they didn't have to become better sailors. They had the same skills, the same boats, the same everything. It's just that the context changed. And when the context changes, it changes their mind, their thinking, their world, their behavior, their decision making, everything changes, and that'll change your world. Make better decisions, you'll have better life, period.

Susan Sly 28:14
That was like a mic drop Lady Gaga. So I, like I, yeah. The thing I'm most excited about, about the enlightened goal setting processes is you know, I think about the years we coached. Matthew coached me, so many things happened. I mean, you know, my, my wealth increased, my self worth increased, the value of what I was adding in the world, I cleaned up a lot of stuff. Matthew mentioned the dust bunnies, there were a lot of dust bunnies. And people kept saying to me, wow, you seem so different. And I didn't realize that I was that person entering a room with the anxiety, with the fear, with the proving, you know, all of those things. And you taught me how to become an amazing manifester. And it was through that, some of the listeners, if you've been with me for a while, they know the story of how I met Wayne Dyer and all Dr. Wayne Dyer. And I'll give Matthew the credit. So through this process of enlightened goal setting that Matthew taught me, so I wanted to meet Dr. Wayne Dyer. And one thing I knew was he did Bikram yoga, and I would go to Maui. And I kept saying I'm going to meet Wayne Dyer and I kept visualizing that I would meet Wayne. And so, I go to the yoga studio and I said to one of the gals, is that someone's regular spot? And she said yeah, but he's not here today. And I said, cool. So I take the spot, afterwards we start talking and I said oh, you know, the person whose spot I took you know, hopefully they you know, you know, they're okay. And she said Oh no, you know it's Dr. Wayne Dyer. Do you know who he is? He's traveling for speaking. And I said, Of course I know who he is. We start this conversation. She said, he's a close friend of mine, he needs to hear your story. I'm literally at the airport flying out the next day, and my phone rings, my old Blackberry. And I haven't gotten rid of it, Matthew, because the voicemail is still on there. And it's this voice. I say hello. And it's like, Susan. Like, hello. He said, this is Wayne, Wayne Dyer. And I was like Dr. Dyer. Anyway, so Wayne and I became friends. And I mentioned the story because the work is so important. And the sequence is so important. I see a lot of people trying to skip steps like you don't, and you know, Matthew and I, I don't think you should be drinking and doing drugs. Because it's in my mother was an addict. And she passed two years ago. She was she was an alcoholic, she was an addict. And she used to avoid. To avoid experiencing anything. And if you need to take something to get to an experience, then that thing owns you. And if something owns you, you're not living your life. So that's my throwdown. But this work, when you start the process, and you start in step one, it changes everything. So I'm so excited for everyone. And--

Matthew Ferry 31:29
We should give them a, we made up a custom URL just for them. And so it's Matthew and Susan, I can't remember. Enlightened goal setting or goal, just goal setting, right? MatthewandSusangoalsetting.com, and then that'll redirect you to the right page. So go to Matthew, and my name has two T's. M-A-T-T- H-E-W, Matthew and Susan and spelled out. Okay, goal setting.com. Do that. Because it's really, it really comes down to this. If you're an entrepreneur, and you want to find an authentic way to be at peace, while kicking ass, living your dream, finding and living your purpose. If you want to find a way to rise above that negativity and the anxiety and all the looping thoughts that are distracting you from from living the life that you want, then you found the right podcast. This is the one for you is like your intuition led you to the right spot. You clicked on the right one, this is it. This will change your life. All you got to do is go through the process of the workbook and you're just going to be Wow, your job will be on the ground. It's so cool. And it works for, it works for poppers and it works for billionaires, it works for go getters, and it works for people who are like, I don't know what I want to do. It doesn't matter.

Matthew Ferry 32:54
Yeah,

Matthew Ferry 32:55
I love it. You know, you and I worked together, I was looking at my notes here, I went and looked at my files. We worked together for five years in this process. And we did-- 5 best

Susan Sly 33:05
years of your life.

Matthew Ferry 33:08
We did the enlightened goal setting workshop together every quarter of every one of those years. So we did the enlightened goal setting process together four times a year for five years, 20 times. And your life accelerated in ways that were absolutely unreal. When you called me back and you're like, I was thinking about you. And so I just thought I should touch base. And we connected, this as a few weeks ago. I literally, my jaw was on the ground. The spot that you're in today, the spot is, it is so far from where you were. I mean you were, you were way over there. And now today you are sitting in this incredible spot. I'm so incredibly proud of you. And I'm so, I'm so enthusiastic about the possibility of your listeners taking this on and jumping in and doing some enlightened goal setting themselves. I think that, I think that there's some incredible stories that you and I get to be privy to later when people are like, I listened to the show. And you're not gonna believe it, right? It's that kind of thing. It's gonna be so cool. And I love

Susan Sly 34:23
that your work is so tangible, because the thing I want to say to everyone is, yes, you could sit at the end of the dock and visualize a feather and you know, all that stuff. You and I have-- you've done it. Were in the secret. We've done it, right? But there, the process of going through this work and these steps to be able to,and I didn't even tell you this. This just happens really cool. Um, so you know, I enrolled at MIT and the listeners, some might know that I failed calculus in university, right? So I'm like, and my dad, when I was growing up, he's like, someday you'll go to MIT. And I'm like, oh, okay, then I failed first year calculus in University. I'm like, I'm not going to MIT now. So when I became the co-CEO of radius and co founder, and I enrolled at MIT, you know, the drunk monkeys, like, Who do you think you are? You're stupid. You failed calculus. And I did. I went, and I was like, worst case scenario, okay, whatever. So I was taking one of my classes, Matthew, and it was a class on strategy and negotiation. And so they break us into groups. They give us this case study. And it's me and four guys. And I said, you know, I'll just, you know, who wants to be the lead negotiator. No one wants to be a lead negotiator. I'm like, you know, have any of you read Chris Voss' his book, you know, Never Split The Difference? No one had and I'm like, Oh, crap. And so I'm like, here are some pointers for negotiations. They're like, Susan, you should be the lead negotiator. To make a long story short, there were four negotiation teams. So eight teams, but four on one side, four and the other, and it was, we're negotiating an old case it was with Frank, oh, Kearns vs. Ford. So I was on Kearns team. And then I used all the NLP techniques in the book, I did everything. Our team, so the professor goes, Okay, what are the results? One team got no deal. Another team got no deal. Another team got a $25 million deal. My team got 85 million. Oh, yeah, baby. And the reason I share this story is going from, is just to summarize why you need to do this process, every single one of you, thousands of you all around the world, is because it works. You know, some of you write me and you're like, Well, you know, you do so much, you're going to MIT, you have this company, have this, because Matthew helped me see that the drunk monkey doesn't have to control me. That I can decide like that without the use of hallucinogenics or alcohol or anything that I could decide like that to turn something around. And that's what I want for

Matthew Ferry 37:18
all of you. But let me, let me point to, for our listener, exactly what we're talking about. What Susan has, and what you can have, too, is more mental real estate. And if you have the drunk monkey, jammin negative stuff down your throat on a regular basis, if you are looping with scenarios of this guy, if you're arguing with your business partner in the car, but your business partner is not there, it's just in your head. That you don't have the bandwidth to do the kinds of things that Susan is talking about. The bandwidth, that mental real estate gets cleared up when your mind quiets down, and you're no longer burdened by what I call FUD. Fear, uncertainty, and Doubt. And that's a common term, but it's something that is real for entrepreneurs. And when I'm talking to my clients, I'm like, Yo, what the FUD! Fear, uncertainty, and doubt has got you. Let's go through the process. And I think where your listener can really take their game to the next level is not through the skill development, which I want them to do. And it's not through better negotiation, which I want them to do too. It's actually starting by freeing up the mental real estate to make the best choice for what is next. That's what my work is about. I don't teach people anything. I just help people to have a really quiet mind. So they can be clear and free to do the things that they want to do.

Susan Sly 39:01
More mental real estate, I love that. Should we mentioned that this this tool is free?

Matthew Ferry 39:07
I think that we do. Okay, well it is free, it's free. It is free. And my book isn't free if you want to buy my book, it's Quiet Mind Epic Life. But if you want to get the 60 page workbook, go to MatthewandSusangoalsetting.com, and grab that thing and I mean it's full blown. This is full throttle. Like this is not, we're not doing the light version. We're doing the, we're doing the 'only for the hardcore' version. And the reason that I do that is that I'm qualifying. Because the types of people that I work with are full throttle. I don't work with the people who are you know, kind of doing it. I work with the people who are like crazy level doing it.

Susan Sly 39:54
And if you're crazy level doing it, go to MatthewandSusangoalsetting.com. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for being here. I'd love to have you back and have a whole discussion about mental real estate, especially when it's so easy for people to fill their mind with, you know, whether it's stuff going on politically or stuff going on with a pandemic, or whatever it is. It's so easy to do that and then finish the year and go, Oh, crap, I didn't accomplish anything. So I would love to have you back. And for everyone, if you haven't heard my interview with Steve Sims, the concierge to billionaires, there are some, there are some fun stories in there. And I highly recommend you check that out. But anyway, Matthew, love you,lLove to Kristen, thanks so much for being here. And thanks for everything you're doing in the world. Thank you for everything you've done for me and continue to do for me.

Matthew Ferry 40:45
OMG. I mean, likewise. I am so, I feel so blessed to have you in my life. Thank you for supporting me and getting my message out there into the world. And I hope that we made a difference for the listeners today.

Susan Sly 40:57
Absolutely. So if this show has been helpful, drop a five star review. If you're on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you're listening. And if you're on YouTube, drop a comment below. I would love to read your comments. It's actually me who read your comments. So be nice, because if you're not nice, I'm a nice person, so let's be nice together. So anyway, with that, God, let's go rock your day, and I will see you on a future episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship.