Transformative Travels and Good Mood Lessons with Matt O'Neill

He does this through adventure , with his family and by helping others to overcome their challenges and be in a good mood . You may want to have a pen and paper ready for this one , because I know you'll find some great takeaways and lessons . Get ready to be inspired by adventure and telling ourselves to be in a good mood . Welcome to Journey with Jake .

This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature different guests or guests as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .

Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges .

After all , it's not all about the destination , as it is about the show . My name is Jake Bushman and I am the host of Journey with Jake . This is episode number 119 . Today we have a good one today . I was honored to have Matt O'Neill on the show with me .

Matt is the host of the Good Mood Revolution podcast and he really got me in a good mood after struggling a bit with my mood , so the timing was perfect for this . Before we get into my conversation with Matt , remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts . That way , you don't miss an episode of Journey with Jake .

Also , I am now putting the episodes on YouTube so you can search Journey with Jake podcast on YouTube if you prefer to watch the episodes . I'm still trying to find the best format for YouTube , so I appreciate your patience as I work through that part of it . What a great conversation I had with Matt O'Neill .

We talked about adventure , family , spirituality and being in a good mood overall , and Matt worked with me on a few things to help me . So in my opinion , this episode had it all . If you liked this episode , you will also love episode 50 with endurance and success coach Mario Minnert . Okay , let's get to the episode with Matt O'Neill .

I'm excited today because I have Matt O'Neill on the show with me . Matt is someone who I'm really interested to talk to because he's all about being in a good mood and how to achieve happiness and it's kind of all on the inside and what we can do for that .

He's also an adventurous guy , so we're going to talk a little bit about that and some of the adventures he does with his family . Matt , welcome to the show . Welcome to Journey with Jake .

And they said and I'll elaborate what they mean by that they said , if a normal week you go to work , you put your kids to bed , you make dinner , you go to bed , the next day you go to work , so on and so forth , this week rolls into next week , rolls into next month , rolls into next month and six months goes by . Then a year goes by .

You can't really remember any day . That time went super , super , super fast because it was all super boring and routine and we think we want this routine . But then if you're like , oh man , what's something cool you did this year , you always remember your vacations , right ?

So the chip and Dan Heath said the more like power adventure you put into your life , the more you remember for the year . It actually makes the year go slower . You pack more life into your life and so you're totally onto something . Your podcast is completely rad and I love what you're doing .

You think , okay , when you do something adventurous , it's gonna make time go by quicker and faster , and while that experience may happen fast , you think back on it more and you reflect on it more . I love looking .

Grow up in Michigan there's kind of gray skies , there's not a whole lot of cool stuff to do , it's all right . You know , colorado was super cool , so I was mountain biking in the summer , we were , we were camping and hiking and it was just killer . It was awesome . But then I'm like , all right , I want to go experience the beach .

So I was going to fly to San Diego next and I put money down to go to San Diego and get into real estate and live in Pacific Beach Park that's where my condo was going to be with my buddy Adam . But my cousin was in Charleston , south Carolina , and so I'm like , all right , hey , I'm going to go check out the other coast and check out that beach .

And I got to Charleston and I was just like this is it . I could feel it . As soon as my feet touched the ground I said this is where I'm supposed to be . I just knew my whole future was there . And then I met my wife , katie . A couple of years later , we have four kids .

I have a couple of different companies in the real estate space property management company and real estate sales company about 80 employees or so . So that's kind of a big life , but what I love to do , my passion , is to teach people that happiness is truly a choice , regardless of how many struggles we think we're going through .

Anything really where we're suffering is just a negative narrative that we're telling ourselves . So that's what I teach on my Good Mood Revolution podcast .

So I'll teach other people how to do it and that'll , like , make me accountable to feeling good .

I mean San Diego comes to mind . San Diego is a beautiful city right there with great beaches , but somehow you ended up on the other coast , in Charleston , South Carolina . You said it felt right when you got there . What was it about Charleston that that made that feel like that for you ?

It was just as soon as I was walking on the ground in Charleston . I just had a knowing . This was my destiny and my future . I can't explain it any better than that .

Of course I was a big time skier and snowboarder and that was my adventure in Colorado . When I got here , I'm like man , I anti-mountain biked and mountain biking is a big adventure sport . When I got here , everything's flat , there's no mountains . They call it the low country because we're all on sea level and I'm like I got to figure out this ocean .

So I'm like I'm going to get into surfing . And then when I had kids , I got my kids into surfing and this is adventure we get to do together because I love to surf , they love to surf and the way that they love to surf , they love to surf . And , uh , you know , the way that they love to surf is because I put them in these camps .

At the camp , they all their friends are doing it . The high school people are the teachers . So of course , my kids are like looking up to these high school kids Like they're the coolest people ever and now they're all like catching waves and it's awesome .

But she came home and she's like dad , I surfed six waves today . I'm like dude , that is killer . How did you do it ? Like what ? What happened ? How come you were so brave to do that ? And she said well , I saw the other kids doing it and I was like , whatever , I'm in .

Can you talk a little bit about these trips that you've done and then kind of maybe share a few experiences ?

they're we . We just kind of get together and we always get together and do something super cool . So every every winter , I go to the winter adventure with these guys and it's at a different ski resort . This year we we skied Vermont uh , stowe Mountain . I'd never skied Vermont before . It was really cool , but I was hanging out with some guys 2019 .

So my kids were five years younger . So my oldest at that time was five years old and this guy had sold his company and moved to Hawaii with his kids and he just was like looking over the ocean . He could see whales breaching every day . So he lived an epic life himself .

A guy named Brandon Turner who started one of the biggest podcasts ever , sold his podcast for $50 million . Podcast is called Bigger Pockets . It's a real estate podcast . I'm hanging out with Brandon and he's like you know , the coolest thing I've done is I do a one-on-one trip with each of my kids every year . I'm like , well , tell me about it .

He's like they pick . They tell me what they want to do , anything they want to do , I'm like I'm in . He said it has changed my relationship with all of my kids because usually we're around all the other kids , but on the one-on-one trip we're in the plane together , we're in the hotel together , we're doing exactly what they want to do .

And he said your relationship gets to a level it can't get to otherwise . And around the same time I read this book called 18 Summers by a guy named Jim Shields . And Jim said you only have 18 summers and then your kids are gone and sure , they'll come back with their spouse and they'll have Christmas together , but they're out of the house .

You think you have forever , especially when they're in the diaper age and you're running around all the sports . That's where we're at right now . Every single night's a different sport summers and then they're out . And he said so this is what I do with my kids . He said every month I do a one-on-one day .

So I took those two ideas and I implemented them into my life and so every month I do one one-on-one day with one child and I've got four . So that means each child is getting a one-on-one day every four months , right ? And each year I do one one-on-one trip with one of them . So every four years they're getting a one-on-one trip with me .

So I'm not like Brandon , I'm not doing four one-on-one trips a year , I'm just doing one a year . This is doable . This was a way I could make this thing work . So that was five years ago . So my first one-on-one trip was with my daughter and my buddy had just had a baby .

And I'm like , hey , do you want to go fly out to the Quad Cities and see Mr Mike and meet the new baby , bella ? And she's like , yeah , that'd be awesome . So that was the very first one-on-one trip . When she was five . We flew out to Quad Cities , iowa . We went to Apple Orchard and picked apples and you know , and just did some cool stuff .

So she did , she was five , she didn't know what she wanted to do . I just this was just like the adventure . But we stayed , we .

We stayed at my buddy's house , we slept in the same bed together , we , like you know , flew on the plane together and and we had a blast and we always , you know , we still telling stories about that trip , about her picking up these rocks , and it was cool .

So then the next , the next one-on-one trip I did was with my , my next oldest daughter , and she . She said I want to go to Disney . I'm like , okay , cool . Usually people are like man , disney is not my favorite place . I can tell you , if you take one child , just a one-on-one trip to Disney , it is the most fun you could possibly have .

See other kids that don't want to do this ride , that don't want to wait in that line , and people are hot , people are tired . I'm with Cameron and I'm like what do you want to do , cam ? And she's like I want to eat ice cream for breakfast . I'm like , heck , yeah , let's go get some ice cream . So we go get ice cream .

We're sitting down on the bench eating ice cream for breakfast and I'm like now , what do you want to do ? She's like I want to do that ride . So we go do that ride . And then halfway through the day she's like you know , dad , I want to go to the pool . And I'm like let's head , I wanted to do .

So I did another trip with Kelly , totally different trip . She wanted to do different things , different parks . My other daughter , harper we went back around and she said all right , I want to shop . I'm really into shopping . And this was when she was eight . So I'm like , well , where do you want to go shopping ?

She said I want to go to a shopping in Miami . And so we flew to Miami . When we were down there talking about adventure , we're right off the coast , so we took a snorkeling trip . We took a boat out and went snorkeling one day and then , as we're driving by , there's this huge twisty slide .

It's like 10 stories tall and I'm like we've got to go on that twisty slide . It's like 10 stories tall and I'm like we've got to go on that twisty slide . So we pull in and we go to the top . We do this big twisty slide together , yeah . And then last year my eight-year-old was back up and this is Cameron , and I'm like Cam . What do you want to do ?

You want to go on a surfing trip ? You want to go hiking ?

So she brought her little stuffed dog with her , named Lily , and we're hiking up this mountain and it's up and up and up and up and I'm like Cam , you doing all right , and it was so intense , the uphill incline on the first day , that we stopped talking because we just had to focus on trying to get up this mountain . And then I hear her fall .

So I'm leading the way . She slips and I turn around and Cam wears glasses . Her glasses are strewn way across the way and she's got a huge cut on her head .

She had fallen flat down and held her dog and didn't put her hands down to protect the stuffed animal and he took a rock straight on her head and I turned and she's not moving and I go running over to her and I'm like Cam , cam , cam , and I'm thinking at that moment this was too much Like .

I'm an adventurous guy but I took too big of an adventure with an eight year old . This was too much .

And she ends up coming to and you know she hadn't , you know she hadn't really been knocked out , but she kind of been knocked out and I'm just holding her and she's crying and I'm just , you know , and we're miles another person in the whole time , because it was like a third . It was like a Thursday right , it wasn't a Saturday , it was .

We were the only people I'd seen , and I'm up on this mountain and I don't know how hurt my daughter is . It was a pretty scary time , man , you know . So she's got this huge gap gash , this huge lump , like she and I , and I'm like Cam , what do you want to do ? We can . We can hike back down this mountain , go get a hotel room , no shame in it .

We can get a shower , sleep in a comfy bed . And we sat there for probably 10 minutes while she just kind of thought about it , and then she said you know , dad , I came out here to hike this mountain , I'm going to hike this mountain and I'm like that , a girl .

So I took the dog out of her hands and put it in the side of the backpack and I'm like Lily can watch from here . But if you're going to fall , you got to put your hands down , you got to protect your head , all right . And then I took everything out of her pack . This was a mistake .

I didn't know that this was my first backpacking trip with an eight-year-old , so I took all the weight , any water and just left her with her sleeping bag and a couple of things .

And we get to the camp site at the top of the mountain and there's this huge fire tower at the top of this mountain and we summited the mountain that night and walked up the fire tower and watched the sunset . And we summited the mountain that night and walked up the fire tower and watched the sunset and it was like the most beautiful scene I'd ever seen .

And then we go and we collect the firewood and start a fire . We made s'mores out in the middle of the wilderness and it was awesome . And then we had two more days of that before we came back down the mountain and got in the car and drove to get a shower .

She wants her daughters to be safe , and and we were sending pictures back and forth with our phones and I'm like she's going to see this picture of this huge bandage on her head . So , uh , I was just like , yeah , cam slipped and you know , she got a little cut , which we're okay , we're good , yeah , we , we're good , yeah , we're good .

Then we get home and we tell her the full extent .

relationship with your kids ?

You know , climbing up on that mountain , finding our firewood and being out in the wilderness together , it brings us together in a way that nothing else , I think , could .

It's a national park . It seems like just the perfect first trip for Katie , because this isn't really her thing , and my other two daughters haven't backpacked before either . But yeah , we've got that coming up . And what's cool is when you're in the woods and there's no other people . It's not like a campground .

It's not like you're in a trailer park with a bunch of other trailers and everybody's setting up and they're watching their TVs on their lawn chairs . You're like out in nature and it's a totally cooler experience to me . And then also there's adventure there , because it's a little bit dangerous . Cell phones don't always work .

If you miss your , if you miss your trail , you go off trail . I mean , there's an element of danger there and this is kind of what makes an adventure and adventure is that it is a little bit dangerous , right , and when you're on an adventure , you know we're , we're going to , we're going to take the challenge up and that's yeah , it's coming up next week .

We're out there and it's almost like when we first met . We have no responsibilities and we just get to be together without all the responsibility and all that . You know how much running around . When we got back to town , we're like how the heck did we do this ?

We just spent a paradise for a week and then we had to wind it all back up and remember how we got the kids off to school and how we did homework and how we did bath time . And you figure it out within a couple of days . But the first couple of days we were like man , this is a big life we're running .

You're just kind of a spiritual person and I can imagine on these trips with your daughters whether it's Disney or whether it's out in the wilderness there are some spiritual moments . What are some of those spiritual moments you have one-on-one with your kids ?

You know , you go out at sunrise and you're just on the ocean . It's like you're part of the ocean , right ? So this is why I think nature is so important .

But , yeah , I mean , I pray , so I think God is talking to me , to all of us , every moment of the day , and so every morning I start my morning by trying to shut my brain down and just like feel my breath , do some meditation , and then I put my hand on my heart and I feel my heartbeat and I just say thank you , thank you God , thank you for this

heartbeat today . I'm so glad for all the blessings I have on this day and I appreciate , you know and I'll name them off the things I'm thankful for that day . And then I asked for guidance and I say God , show me what I'm supposed to do today , whoever I'm supposed to meet , put them in my path , if I'm supposed to say something to inspire somebody .

Help me say it , you know , and just guide me on where you want my life to go on this day . That's just . You know . That's that's how I start every single day .

And then every week I journal , and so at the end of the week I have a spot in my journal that I say , where I call it miracles , and I'm like where did I see God moving in my life this week ? What was a miracle I saw this week ? You know , if you ask yourself a question , you always come up with an answer .

So every single week when I'm asking myself , what miracle did I see this week , I always am like oh yeah , man , that seemed like a crazy coincidence . You know , that was like exactly what I needed , that was the exact person I needed . Like this thing happened so coincidentally , exactly the way that it was supposed to happen .

It's really amazing If you're open to seeing how miraculous the world is around you , it really is miraculous , or we just close our eyes to it and all these great blessings are happening and we just kind of act like it's normal you know , full transparency like today was kind of a little bit of a rough day for me , to be honest .

So I'm glad that you're here , because it might just be me , hopefully some of my listeners as well , but I'm gaining a lot from it . So so I appreciate it . Yeah , no , jake , this is what I was saying , man .

I do it because I struggle with the same thing . I have challenging days . You know the challenging days like like you're talking about today . It shows up and it's heavy and it's like man and I just don't want my days to feel like that , if I can help it .

What I've learned from all of this and it's been now years of study and talking with great people like you is the only problem is the story we tell ourself . So on a challenging day , on a stressful day , we're telling ourselves some type of a story we tell ourself . So on a challenging day , on a stressful day , we're telling ourselves some type of a story .

There's some type of narrative , and if we question that story , that narrative , and see if it's really even true , we can see that there's things like the exact opposite of the story that's stressing us out is also true . What was something challenging ? What was one of the challenging thoughts today .

You know , I got a little overwhelmed and for me and that's kind of why I want to ask you about this , because for me it's a lot of like mental talk in my head like , oh you're , you can be doing better at this , you're not as good at that . So I have a lot of that going on .

So , yeah , and that's the question I was going to ask you is how are you , you know , what do you do to get that inner happiness ? Cause you said it's , you know , a lot of it's in your mind and your mood and things like that . So I

would love to hear some of your thoughts on that .

The words that you said were the nitty gritty of life . Okay , you said I got to pay bills and you could . You said I could be doing better at something . So those are the three sentences we're going to question Okay , could you do better than you've done ? No , you can't Cause it's done , it's done .

You did the best you could do and every single moment , we do the very best we can do with where we're at . It's actually impossible to do better than you're doing . It is impossible . This is an ego . This is an ego freaking game , where the ego is always belittling us and saying you could have done better , you could have done that better .

It's a complete lie . It's a complete fabrication . It's actually impossible to do better than we're currently doing or than we've done . If we could have done better , we would have , because we're always trying to do the best we can , right , right . So that thought I could have , I could be doing better than I'm doing , is a lie .

It's a negative story made up by the ego . The ego is a survival mechanism . So there's two pieces to us . We got our eternal soul . That piece lived before this body and will live on . I mean , it's just how it is . Then our eternal soul embodied this human form , and this human form is all concerned with survival . It's like all right .

So anything that I make a mistake on , I have to beat myself up about it , so I never make that mistake again . You know and this goes back to like living in tribes If you bring home the wrong berries and they happen to be the poisonous ones , you could kill the entire fricking tribe .

So any little mistake , the ego is like no , you , you suck , you can't , I can't believe you said that . Or you say and think about going back to tribal days you say the wrong thing to the biggest , strongest dude in the tribe and then he challenges you to a duel and he could kill you . So literally , saying the wrong thing in public could kill you .

So that's why people are afraid . We beat ourselves up about saying something stupid in front of other people , and that's one of the afraid we beat ourselves up about saying something stupid in front of other people . That's one of the things I'll beat myself up about . Like oh , I can't believe you said that .

Like , oh , I can't believe you , but all of this stuff is just an ego game of survival and it doesn't actually help us . It doesn't help us . In today's world , telling ourselves we could do better makes us feel worse . Like you said , like today was a tough day . Well , when you feel worse , you're not doing your best .

You know , anytime you feel like burned out or drained or like , oh man , like life's so heavy , you're not your best self .

But on a day when you feel amazing , when you feel like on top of the world , when you're like high-fiving people in the hallway and you're like giving everybody compliments because you feel so good , on that day , you can really move mountains , you can do anything , because anything is possible . On days we feel amazing , anything's possible .

So it's really really important work to find these stories we're telling ourselves and then ask ourselves , if it's true , the answer is maybe half true . And then ask ourselves if it's true , the answer is maybe half true Then to look at the opposite , so I could be doing better .

The opposite of that is I couldn't do better than I've done , and we just talked about how that's true and in fact I've done my best . That's a much more empowering story . So we say now I'm like okay . I would just turn this thought around as soon as I identify it in myself and I'd say , okay , I've done my best .

Now I might be like , okay , maybe there's some things I want to improve on . How am I going to work on it ? Like , what action am I going to take to ? There's always , if we , as soon as we feel good about ourselves , we can get super creative .

Anything we want to do better at , we can go read a book on it , hire a coach on it like model , the best right . How does that ? How does that land ?

But he went to clemson and he like went to the games and when he was 55 years old he was like donating money to clemson and he just always had this dream of playing .

Well , they opened up something for the biggest sponsors of Clemson to like go on the field and practice with the players and Kimbo at 55 years old , was catching passes in a Clemson practice from Deshaun Watson , who went on to win the national championship that year . And so people are like , yeah , you can't play in the NFL .

I'm like you don't know the essence of your dream . There's a validity to it . If you really really have a dream , you can fulfill the essence of that dream in some way , the way that Kimbo did All right . So do you mind if we just look at one more ?

So then it's always like hanging this pressure over us and it's like the pressure is a total again . It's a total story that drags us down and is not fun and it is not empowering . It makes us worse .

So when I you'll notice this , now that I've brought it to your attention you're going to start to notice that the ego gives you this pressure and says you don't have a choice . You have to pay your bills . You do , you actually do have a choice . You could just not pay bills .

When I catch myself in pressure , ego pressure I stop and I'm like I'm not going to be pressured by you , and then I say I don't have to do what you think I have to do and I'll sit there until I can notice that not paying bills is a totally valid option for me , that I could just not go to work , I could blow off every appointment , I could get fired .

Sure , there's consequences to it . I could not pay my bills . They could take my house and then I could start over . I could pick up a new career , I could rent a new place , I could get back on my feet . I wouldn't die . I've got this option to not pay bills .

And once I know that I have an option to not pay bills , then I'm like , okay , I could do either . Which one am I going to choose to do ? Well , today , maybe I don't feel like doing any appointments . You know , today , today , I feel like just telling people that I need a mental health day .

I'm going to go to the beach , I'm going to go surfing and I'm just that's just going to be my choice . That could be my choice . Right , that's a totally valid choice . Could you get fired over it ?

Sure , it could be a consequence to it , but maybe some days , that's actually the better choice is to say I'm going to take some time for myself , because when I feel amazing , tomorrow because I poured into myself , I'll get twice as much done as I would have grinding it out today and tomorrow .

Or sometimes I'm like all right , well , I'm going to choose to pay bills today , but I'm going to choose to do it in a way that makes me happy . And so you get to add so when something's your choice , instead of the ego pressuring you and saying you have to , you're like , no , I'm choosing to .

Then you get to ask another cool question , which is all right . Well , if I'm going to do this , how could I do this job right now and make it super fun ? And then all kinds of creativity shows up , like crazy amounts of creativity .

You know , I went to a Tony Robbins conference this one time and he's like he had to make all these phone calls and he tells this story all the time . He's like , well , I'm going to make the phone calls for my hot tub . And so he gets in the hot tub and he's calling everyone back and he's telling them .

He's like yeah , I'm watching the sunset , I'm in my hot tub , this is the best day of my life . And the phone calls went from this big , heavy , had to do thing to this super fun thing , no-transcript , boom , we're having fun and the whole day turns around . I like it .

I mean it's already making me feel better just talking about it . So that's incredible . That's pretty wild .

like when you were younger . A younger version of yourself was like dude , if I could have that life , the life you have now , I would be in heaven . That's exactly the life I want . So , like a lot of times we're like shaming the life that we dreamed of and this is truly our dream life .

It was tough man , you know , if you were , if you were Irish in New York and early 1900s it was like 1904 , when they landed on Ellis Island you were a scab , you were taking jobs like discrimination that was so heavy and they lived in pretty poor conditions , right , because there were poor people from Ireland and , yeah , they all got sick , they got tuberculosis

and they died . And my grandfather was an orphan on the streets of New York . And when we're young and big life events happen , our brain is too small to figure out what it means , and so we typically we're really self-centered as a child , not in a bad way , it's just how it is . All children are just really self-centered .

They can't really grasp the totality of the world yet , and so what my grandfather did is what any child would do . He decided that there was something wrong with him . He's like I don't deserve a mom , I don't deserve a dad .

There must be something pretty messed up with me that God doesn't love me enough to give me any protection and that I have to suffer through this . And he was bouncing in and out of orphanages At the same time . My grandmother was born right around the same time and her dad died also tuberculosis Talk about some coincidences .

Her mom , early 1900s she's a widow now young widow has this baby . You can't go get a job Women didn't work in 1905 . So she gave her baby away and then she had five other kids and my grandmother's being raised by her grandparents , watching her own mom raise a whole nother family and not raise her . And so what does she think ? I don't deserve a mom .

There's something messed up with me . I don't deserve a dad , I don't deserve a mom , I'm unlovable . And this isn't true . This is like , on a grander scale , an untrue thought the ego makes up . And it makes it up because it has to come up with a reason Like why did this happen to me ? Why don't I have a mom , why don't I have a dad ?

Well , there must be a reason . And so the ego just makes one up . And then that whole narrative runs your life If there's something wrong with me , I'm unlovable . And then , uh , so when they met , because people would like energy , and this is the energy of shame . They're , like , super attracted to each other . So they met , they fell in love .

They had two kids . My dad was one of those kids . And then parents are always doing the very best they can . That's what I said to you earlier . We always are doing the best we can .

So my grandmother she didn't want her kids to get blindsided by how much the world is going to beat them down , so she just never hugged them and never loved them and was like you guys are going to have to be tough because the world's tough .

And so she thought she was helping them by not loving them and making them tough so they could survive a really harsh world . But now my dad and his brother , they're like there must be something wrong with me . My own mom doesn't love me , right ? And so my dad grows up feeling unlovable . He meets my mom .

My mom's got similar like unworthiness traits about her and you know they're attracted to each other . I'm born and my dad is super mean , crazy mean and never , never lets me feel like I can accomplish anything or that I'm any good and that I'm always trying to earn his approval and can never get it . Then he abandons our family .

When I'm five , I'm like I'm unlovable . My five-year-old self is like I don't deserve a dad . I don't deserve to be treated well . My mom's a secretary . She's got four kids . I'm one of four $25,000 a year . It was tough times . I was born into a cycle of shame , a family line of feeling unlovable and unworthy .

And that was to my benefit , because as I grew and I learned how to heal that and then learned that I was lovable . Now my pain has become my purpose and I want other people to heal this inherent feeling that there's something wrong with them and that they're unlovable , which is , by the way , the root cause of all of it .

All the bad moods stem from that one thought that maybe there's something a little bit wrong with me and maybe I'm unlovable .

Any any of the bad acts are coming from shame , a feeling that I'm unlovable , and in fact , shame feels so unlovable that it wants to prove it's unlovable , and so it like , does the worst things to prove and make a self-fulfilling prophecy that there is something wrong with it . And so then the world is like what the F ? I can't believe you did that .

And they're like , yeah , no , I know there's something wrong with me , I don't know . And that's why people do really terrible things is because , deep down , they don't feel like they're worthy of anything good , and so then they prove that . So you need to heal it , and all of us have some of it to deal with .

You can't grow up without getting some type of shame or rejection , and so there's a process to it . I learned this from this guy named Matthew Micheletti .

He wrote this book called the Inner Work and I worked with Matt for a long time and Matt said all of these , first thing you have to do is you have to find the lies in your subconscious about you feeling unworthy or unlovable , and so you just ask yourself .

You just ask yourself questions like hey , when I'm feeling my worst , what am I believing about myself ? What did my parents say about me ? What did what negative events happened early in my life and what did I learn from that Like ? What did I decide about myself ?

And so I came up with a list of like 12 different things about how I was destined for bad luck and that . I , you know , like I wasn't whatever . I wasn't lovable , I was unworthy of having a dad , that I wasn't protected , that I wasn't one of the people that was blessed in the world . There's just a bunch of stuff , right , but it was all true .

It was all true to me . It's what I thought was real . And then the same thing we did with your three sentences I wrote the opposite , which is true . With your three sentences , I wrote the opposite , which is true I am lovable , I am worthy of love , I am lucky , I am blessed . And just next to each sentence , I wrote the truth or the truth .

I want to believe they're both true . If I believe I'm unlovable , guess what ? I'll do things . And it's true . It's like this Henry Ford said whether you believe you can or you can't , either way you're right . Well , if you believe you're unlovable or you believe you're completely loved and blessed , either one is true . It's just which one makes you feel better .

Which one do you want to believe ? They're both true . When I was believing I was unlovable , I would cheat on my girlfriends , and you know what they would do They'd break my heart . They'd be like F you . You cheated on me . You bastard Right and Like F you , you cheated on me , you bastard , right .

And then I'd be all brokenhearted , I'd be like , oh yeah , just self-fulfilling prophecy , I'm unlovable . Well , when I heal it , and then I don't want to mess up anything good in my life . I don't cheat on my wife , right ? Because I know I'm worthy of her love .

So there's no reason for me to subconsciously sabotage it and then get her to hate me , which I could totally do . I could go cheat on her and then she could find out about it and then she could hate me for destroying our marriage and destroying this beautiful thing that we have .

And then I would be proven right that there was something really wrong with me and I deserve punishment . Or you can heal it . And so I took that list of lies and then I did a funeral . I burned it . I burned it in the fireplace , I said some words . I said you know I'm saying goodbye to the old Matt .

This was a guy that like , really , he tried hard , he wanted people to like him a lot . You know , he believed some things about himself . I'm proud of what he accomplished in spite of what he was believing . But that guy's gone now . I burned that list of lies . Then I read my list of truths and I said I want to welcome this new Matt into the world .

This is a guy that knows he's loved , that knows he's blessed , that knows he's lucky . This is a guy that's going to go on and do incredible things in the world , blessed , it knows he's lucky . This is a guy that's going to go on and do incredible things in the world .

And then I just read that list of truths every day for the next 30 days and it cemented it . Now sometimes , yeah sure , some things will come up , like you know , somebody might harm me in some way and I'll think there'll be old patterns that are like I deserved that and I'll .

But I just , anytime I start to get into a funk , I just start to write down what was I believing , what is the thought here I was believing , and then is that a true thought or is that a thought I want to believe ? And then , what would be a more empowering thought to believe ? Usually the opposite of whatever I was thinking .

So , if you don't mind , tell us again the name of your podcast and where you know the book that you got coming out , just where people can find you if they , you know they're like hey , I want to get in a good mood . I'm an adventurous person , but I want to get in a good mood and and learn about happiness . Where can they find information ?

my love for the show and what has been created because of it . As Matt mentioned , he has a podcast called Good Mood Revolution that you'll want to check out , as well as a book with the same name available to pre-order on Amazon . So check out both of those , both the podcast and pre-order his book .

You can also follow Matt on Instagram at Good Mood Matt and check out his website , mattoneilcom . Thank you , matt . Matt O'Neillcom . Thank you , matt . Be sure , and check me out on Instagram at journey with Jake podcast .

This is a great way to get to know what is coming up on the show , and my Instagram account gives you a little glimpse into my personal life as well . Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in and listening to the show .

Please tell your friends and family about the show and if you could leave me a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever , wherever you listen to the show , that would be fantastic . We have another great episode next week with Mike Martin and how the outdoors has shaped who he is and helped him overcome his trials .

It is another fantastic episode that you will not want to miss . Just remember , it's not always about the destination , as it is about the journey . Take care everybody .