Ep 311 | 3 Essential Strategies for Overcoming Barriers and Achieving Emotional and Financial Abundance

He overcame limiting beliefs and healed his trauma so he could live a life of emotional and financial abundance . Guys , this is gonna be a great conversation because we're all looking for this and I think Matt could point us in the right direction on how to overcome those things but better yet , become a better person in life . Matt , welcome to the show .

Thank you for having me Appreciate it , You're welcome . Warm introduction . Thank you , You're welcome . Sorry for a little bit of a delay and we had some recording issues , but look forward to having our conversation . Thank you Me too . All right , so before we get into it , can you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself ?

It's a journey that I wish I would have had appropriate help for , as I went from debilitating anxiety and depression . So I've committed my life to helping others work through unfulfilling lives and create lives of abundance .

And it turned into where two of the clients I started working with I worked with long term one for about seven years and one for about eight years and the journey immediately shined a light on my cracked foundation .

I like to say I've had no business starting a business because I was completely ill-equipped for the self-advocacy and boundary setting that was required . I'd always been a top performer , like really solid top performer in my career . I fell into sales . I did well with it .

I always had really nice bosses who cared about me and something got too rough , they would help me fight the fight . I wasn't really somebody . I've always been a nice person and starting my own business I had to . There was I had to advocate for myself and I quickly realized I couldn't do it . I wasn't valuing myself appropriately .

Was working 1618 hour days on a plane , 1234 times a week , every week , running myself completely ragged , anxious , and that turned into feeling depressed , got so bad that I ended up feeling suicidal and that was a little scary , to say the least Wound up going to the doctor because something was wrong and he discovered that I had hypertension not a big surprise

with all the stress that I was under and I just kept spiraling until it started turning into panic attacks . I wound up in the hospital two times thinking I was dying of a heart attack .

And just it forced me , it kicked me on a healing journey and I like to say I'm grateful for this because if it wasn't for the wake up calls , I would have just probably ended up skating just north of rock bottom my entire life . I would have just probably ended up skating just north of rock bottom my entire life .

Before this , I was definitely an anxious child and an anxious adult and when I turned 18 , 19 years old I found alcohol and marijuana Just never got too out of hand but just numbed what I needed to make it through life .

And looking back , I don't remember a single moment until I was 35 or so where I actually sat by myself and just felt things and just went for a hike without music or without distracting myself through tons of different kinds of therapies and coaching , and eventually learned my value and learned how to set boundaries and was able to advocate with my clients and

renegotiate my agreements . So I ended up earning a million dollars a year , over $100,000 a month , many months , by the services my firm was providing , and it was definitely hard to go in there and advocate for myself like that Did it .

And , yeah , this kept like the therapy and coaching and everything eventually led me to realize the reason that I had been struggling the way I was because I had a traumatic childhood , hadn't been dealt with and had just been swept under the rug and I ended up hating myself and not really , and I thought that something was wrong with me .

Up hating myself and not really and I thought that something was wrong with me . Like that's how I'm living my whole life until I started to do the work and heal from it . That kind of took me . The past several years I've been on this healing journey .

I'd like to say that the healing journey has turned into a personal growth journey , and so earlier this year I actually parted ways with the two clients I'd been working with .

I just no longer found the work fulfilling anymore and have gone into full-time coaching and mentorship where I'm helping other entrepreneurs and executives change their lives the way I've changed mine .

There were a few things that definitely forced me to inquire further . Ending up in the hospital and it was a tragic day David , my partner , and I we've been together for now 12 years . We were together during this time and we were living in Manhattan at the time and moved to LA .

So the day that we moved to LA was the day I went to the hospital thinking I was dying . So my first night in my new city I checked into a hospital bed upstairs and made it and everything . I was very compliant . I went to the doctors , but I didn't know much about emotional health . I laugh about it now . I didn't know that emotional health mattered .

I thought that it was no reason to debilitate somebody . So I went to any doctor that you could possibly imagine , any specialist , and nobody could figure out what was going on until finally a neurologist said this is absolutely anxiety . He was like the rudest guy . But whatever , don't come back here , you don't need to be here , don't waste your time .

Like you should be , like you have , like anxiety , you don't need to be here , don't waste your time , you have anxiety . This isn't a brain problem where you need brain surgery to get out of my office .

And then probably the biggest moment was my partner and I were in couples therapy and , just putting it out there , couples therapy was one of the best things I've ever done with my life and I don't know that we would be together still if it wasn't for couples therapy . We just learned coping not coping , but communication skills and problem resolution skills .

That's what I was trying to say . But it was a Friday night . I remember very vividly . We were sitting on the couch in her office and she was like a little bit more aggressive , like in a good way . We felt very safe with her and everything we developed , like the report . We were going to two , three hours of therapy a week .

And then she was like matt , tell david what you need . But I was like , no , I can't tell him what you need . And I was like I can't , matt , tell him what you need . And she kept pushing me and then I just burst out into tears and it I was surprised by what happened and I just let my my , I released what I'd been holding in and just started .

I can't say what I need . I've always been punished for my fears . I've experienced , I said , I've always been punished for my needs , not fears . I've always been punished for my needs . I've experienced horrendous loss in my life for expressing my needs and I'm afraid .

And so she's like first of all , I'm so sorry , like I didn't realize that this was hidden , so sorry for pushing you , but it was fantastic because at the root of it and like the next day , I woke up realizing like , oh my gosh , like I had a traumatic childhood and none of this had been dealt with .

And that was really the invitation that I needed to start really getting to the root of what was going on and start working through it . Self-worth and confidence , issues that were holding me back from living a life that was fulfilling . I didn't know we were allowed to enjoy life .

I really remember meeting people in college and saying things like hi , I'm Matt , I'm needy or I'm difficult to be around . I'd walk up to people and say that to give them an out . That's how low my self-worth was .

It never taught me how to fish . It never taught me how to overcome getting knocked down and getting back up every single time because you don't get a chance to stay down . Corporate America okay , you get kicked . You still get a paycheck . You still get a bonus . You still get stock options . You still get a paycheck , you still get a bonus .

You still get stock options you still get medical insurance . Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart , but also if you've got things brewing under the hood . It's tough , even tougher than it is while you're healthy and good between the ears .

And I got to know myself and got to know my strengths and I've always been a very compassionate , like empathetic person , like I remember I'm definitely a I'm in , a hypersensitive person . I always thought that was a weakness and I've learned to embrace those strengths as an entrepreneur .

I think that this is , this is like the biggest untapped piece of wisdom , I think for anybody who's running a business . People are your most valuable assets and you have a good employee , a great employee . Treat them very well , treat them the way that you want to be treated .

It always makes me laugh when I hear somebody who's making hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and they have somebody who's doing most of the work and they're like , oh , they make good money and they make a wage that you or I couldn't even live off of . You need to treat people well and give them what they need .

You're driving into work all the time . It's a long drive . I know that this is probably affecting the way you are with your family , but you need to treat people with a lot of compassion and I did that and it really got me the support that I needed from my team , from the people that reported to me .

I appreciated them immensely and they really respected and appreciated me . But I think you asked something in there like how I work with entrepreneurs now to help them , and I think there's a couple of things that I found that most entrepreneurs don't really sit down and ask and it's what do you really ? What are you really creating ? What do you really want ?

And what I have learned ? I'm sure many listeners out there agree creating any business is hard , even if it's . You think I'm going to do this thing because it's easier . It's not . There's no like getting a good , paying , full time job is hard right now .

So if you , if you can really hone in and I help people with this hone in on what you're really looking to create , that's the easiest way to run a business , to start a business .

Do the one that you actually really want to do because it's going to take extra push , it's going to take extra effort and when you love what you're doing , it's going to be a lot easier .

And probably the biggest gift that I have in the world to give other entrepreneurs right now is to help them value themselves appropriately , value the product or service that you are selling . I've seen so many people , so many businesses , that it's just a race to the bottom . Someone's not buying and we think , oh , let's lower the price .

It doesn't matter If someone like someone who's not going to spend $100 is probably going to walk away at $90 on something too . The problem isn't a price problem .

What we really need to do is , rather than charge a hundred , we really need to be charging $200 and finding the people that are going to pay the $200 so you can afford to build a business that you're going to be able to walk away from and get the help that you need from .

And it's all about marketing , it's a branding , it's about positioning , and most entrepreneurs don't realize that . They think it's a price game and it's very often not .

So I really help people gain the courage and confidence to sell a product at the price that it should be sold for , so they can create the business that will offer them the lifestyle that they desire .

But that is a big deal in this space , because I'm not just a podcaster , we're also an affordable housing developer and we're also a broker slash lender in the mortgage space and you want to talk about a race to the bottom in both of those spaces is huge . Everybody wants it for practically nothing .

Hey , I want to get a mortgage but I don't want to pay anything . That's a problem . If you don't , if you're not going to pay the fees that are associated with getting a mortgage , then you're not ready for homeownership and you can't .

There's times where you can't have that conversation with people and just trying to be transparent and upfront and honest with them works very well for me , but for most people in that space it does not , because there's always going to be somebody that's willing to race to the bottom , like you said , to get it , get that deal done , not me , it's just .

It's not worth my time . I'll spend more time with that person than I will do with somebody that's willing to pay the fees and make sure that they're ready to go . It's tough . And do you want referrals from that person ? No , no , and that's and all joking aside .

When I got into that side of the business a while back , I was taking those and that was a challenge because those referrals I was spending , yeah , 60 to 70% of my time on and I couldn't get them to the finish line , just for the simple fact they had several challenges that I felt I could fix , but it wasn't me fixing it , it needed for them to fix .

And until you can switch that mindset off to where I need to attract and work with clients your avatar , whatever you want to say customers that are ideal , just like you said , you're selling a product or a service and it needs to be priced appropriately , and then you go out and you find those companies or individuals or clients whatever you want to call them

that will buy it at that price .

grows .

I've had to grow a lot over the past several months as I've been business developing and figuring out what I really wanted , when I finally realized that I already had a business that was making me tons of money , where I was working 15 , 20 hours a week because I had gotten it all systematized and had people doing the things that I didn't want to do , and

walked away from it because I wanted something fulfilling . I wanted something that was me . I'm 41 years old right now . My partner and I are actually just going through surrog . Old right now .

My partner and I are actually just going through surrogacy right now , so we're on our journey to be dads Something also I never thought I'd be able to do before the healing and growing work . I'm creating my own extremely fulfilling business and so many of us think , oh , I have to post on this thing . I have to do that , we have to do this marketing .

We need that billboard . There are endless ways to market your product or your service and the more authentic you are to you and oftentimes your customer is similar to you . So if you're not responding to a billboard and you're not making action based off of billboards , you're seeing chances are your cut , chances are your customer is not going to either .

So what I like learned and this is like crazy and I'm so happy to be able to share this with you right now . But it's like I'm realizing , like what I enjoy doing and this , like I love writing , I love talking about this journey that I've been on , so I'm sharing a lot more about that .

I'm using it as a way to connect with people and the biggest thing is I love cooking . I really am trying I would love to continue my life in the cooking area and I'm using it as an opportunity to bring people together .

So I've started hosting in-person events in my home , inviting other entrepreneurs and executives into my home and just getting to know people , and I'm like realizing like this is my superpower I can cook all day and I love helping people and it's all coming together in a very unique way that , that it's a very intimate experience and it's about gaining trust with

people and I'm just I'm just sharing that because I want to demonstrate that market the way that feels good to you , that feels authentic to you , that doesn't feel like a slog and you're going to be set up for success forever .

In 15 , 20 years ago you'd have to advertise in a newspaper or have email and that's it . Now you can touch hundreds , if not millions , of people through social media , but people don't realize how addicted it is , one but two . They don't use it as a as an effective tool to be yourself .

Put your marketing out there and attract those customers or clients that you're looking to do business with . People think , oh , I put one video out and it doesn't go viral . I'm done , damn . It's taken me eight years to get where I'm at today with the podcast , but also social media , and I'm just starting to get nice traction .

I could have given up eight years ago and it would have been done and over with , and I would have never been able to see any of the results that I've been working on for the last eight years , and that's entrepreneurship in a nutshell for me is if you continue to go , improve yourself , put yourself in a better position , become a better person , you're going

to win in the long run . You just have to be patient enough to get through the trials and tribulations . Absolutely .

And this , like what's really hit me like over the past few months is I'm I'm going all in on this and I'm like I am being patient , I am adapting as things go on , and it really hit me like when we're starting businesses , we have to believe in ourselves . We have to be willing to put a lot on the line , and I don't really know many .

I know it's happened . I know there are people that have lost assets because they've had to gamble them , but I think in the long run , 99.9% of entrepreneurs can say that it does all work out in the long run . And I read a ton . I find so much inspiration from other people's stories . Peace with it .

I am like if I have to make some changes in my life , if we have to move to a smaller house one day while my partner and I pursue our dreams , that's part of the journey . And like when I really stopped to ask myself is that really the end of the world . Energetically wise , I don't really want to spend the time and allocate resources to having to move .

That's not something wise and I think I won't have to . We've saved very well for the journey . But I think it's reframing how we look at this . Like we saw our parents retire or our grandparents retire at 55 or 60 years old in many cases and sit on a couch for , you know , 20 years .

I know that was my case and now what I'm coming to terms with and what I've worked with my clients on , it's like we live a lot longer now rather than working so we can retire at 60 years old and not enjoying our lives . Like I want to be working in my 70s and maybe even in my 80s a little bit .

I don't want to be working , you know , 40 plus hours a week . I don't like . But , yeah , like showing up for six hours a day , three or four days a week doing something I love yeah , do that . So is that worth trading a few moments right now of saving relentlessly ? Heck , yeah , it is .

And I think so many of us need permission to look at this differently . And that's really what I have found my footing and love working with people on is helping them rebuild their lives and creating a second half of their life that is much more enjoyable than the first .

So I do some consulting still and business coaching , helping people especially with business development and getting out of their own way A lot of entrepreneurs .

I think we have to become a salesperson , but there is a science behind it , there are tips and tricks and there are methodologies behind it , and I've found that one of the biggest secrets to sales and growing a business like this is you got to be honest with yourself . Be honest with what your customers really are responding to .

Is your offer really that compelling ? What is the competitive landscape like ? The sooner that you can be clear and be honest with yourself about the real obstacles in getting market share , the sooner we can work to remedy that and have a knack for seeing things as they are and telling people what they may don't want to hear .

And I also don't get activated if they don't want to listen to me . I'll say it until I'm told not to .

Mistakes didn't have to happen , but it uniquely positioned me to have had watched probably a hundred million dollars of mistakes go out the window . They didn't have to , so I'm happy to help others learn what I've learned .

At mattgerlachcom , my website mattgerlachcom , you can download a six-step workbook that I put together , which is really a distillation of my entire life's work and my healing journey that's helped me , and what I work with clients on , in creating fulfilling and abundant lives , and I have a podcast as well that you can all access from my website mattgarlackcom .

I'm on social media .

And I think that's how we run our businesses we be compassionate and treat people nice and treat customers nice and treat our employees nice , and that's really the foundation of all my work . So thank you for saying that .