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Stephen Box: 0:00
Hey welcome everybody to the Unshakable Habits Podcast. I am your host Stephen Box, and this is the show where we help you take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable. Today, I'm going to be joined by a special guest who is going to talk about how to become. A valuable person. And he has a very interesting story because despite having a top 2% IQ, he actually really struggled in school due to poor behavior issues. Went on to university struggled. There didn't achieve the way that he felt like he should. And it was actually the surprising benefit of being on five hour car trips, that ended up turning his life around and he's going to share that entire story with you today. So I'm going to introduce you to him here in just a minute, but before we do that, jump into this,
Intro: 0:59
The right habits puts you in control of your health relationships, mindset, and more, but most people lack the tools to stick with those habits long enough to see results that is about to change. Welcome to the Unshakable Habits Podcast with your host, habit change specialist and speaker Stephen Box. Join us each week as experts share their stories, experiences, and insights, and give you the tools to build unshakable habits. So you can live life on your terms. It's time to take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable
Stephen Box: 1:45
Hey welcome everybody back to the show. I am joined by my guest today, Jeevan Matharu so welcome to the show, man. I appreciate you joining
Jeevan Matharu: 1:55
me. Thanks very much for having me on Stephen. It's it's a pleasure to be here. So, before we jump into your story tell people just a little bit about yourself. I know you are an author and a coach but what else do people really need to know about you? So obviously in my current situation, as you've said, and working as a transformational coach, so really helping people to whether they're in the costume and they really want to change their life in a more positive way, or whether they're someone who is maybe an eight out of 10 in terms of performance, and really wants to get that to a 10 out of 10. Most of those things come down to the same, or they can be the same issue there. And it's all at pair, isn't it? It's all the mentality. It's your behavior, it's your routines. And as your podcast, it's called, is it those unshakable habits? If you've got good habits and a good routine, the results should follow. That's what my job is as a coach. In terms of the book that you've mentioned. Yeah. That's the same sort of thing. So we're not more generic based then obviously books are more generic. Aren't Nathan bespoke to an individual. And obviously the book has got 25 to 30 chapters that breaks down what it takes to become more successful. So whether that's setting goals, whether it's understanding your own psychology, motivating yourself, the importance of being diligent and working hard, the importance of a good mentality. So it's all of those things really that, that work in line to increase your own stock value. If you look at Amazon as an example, as a business, the reason it's so successful is because it's a valuable company You can not go online and order something at a decent price. They can get that product to you in the next 24 hours. That's where that value of the business lies. And obviously with yourself if you were to increase your skills become a better manager, become more of the big, a big name in your industry. Obviously that then will become, turn into additional income. A lot of people get it the wrong way. Yeah. They chase income without having the skillset. And there's something that Jim Roan said that sums that up perfectly. If you also want, who's not on the book average individual looking for an above average job with above average prey, then that's, what's called frustration. Yeah. So what we need to do is we need to marry up our skillset with our income. And obviously if you're unhappy with the income work on. Yeah. So trees as an example, trees don't, so they'll grow to the largest they can. Yeah. When, they're planted, they'll grow to the biggest seed seeding. They can possible humans day tend to do that. We smoke, we drink, we have distractions, we have bad habits and that culminates into poor performance. So you mentioned my story. So that I, w I was one who felt very foul of that, as you said the top 2% of IQ, but at school I under achieved, I was predicted to get a stars and A's, and although I did okay. In probably better than most. Yeah. There's no point of being a nine out of 10. If you achieve a five out of 10, in some respects, you're better off being a six and achieving a six because at least you fulfilled your potential. Yeah. So it wasn't until I've been to school the next day. I was actually written to via Cambridge and Oxford, which is obviously similar to Harvard in terms of stature. And they will say when you've got good grades, and this was obviously before GCs nine levels, in terms of that sort of very early on ability you can see that in those sorts of examples. But I didn't want that. I wanted to party life. I wanted to go out and have fun. Yeah. When the university flunked the first year, and that was going out every night, literally going out every night from September to January in the first term. Yeah. Pulled out of university, swap universities and decided to be a little bit more diligent. But again the diligent behavior only increased very marginally. I didn't really have the epiphany at that point, but I started to get back on track in some respects because I go, okay, Yeah. So the first few years at university just about got by you just about got the grades required to, to pass if you like. Yeah. The third year I thought actually I, shouldn't be getting these sort of grades. So I sat down and this took me quite a number of hours. I had to work out what grade I needed in the final year to achieve a two, one. Yeah. I knew that I'd already messed up my chances to get at first, but I thought actually, if I can get a two, one just that's going to put me in good stead moving forward. So I sat down and I actually, it took me quite a while actually, because you've got a number of modules that have different waiting the coursework and the exams have different weighting. So has to work out how much of a percentage I need in each of my different sort of modules in third year. Which of the weightings were more important and where I should focus my time to give me maximum results. Yeah. So again, this was really not when the epiphany had happened, but really trying to just get the grade I needed with minimal work. That's all it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's university, we into a professional role following that still did some examples that I was failing and the first time, because I worked wasn't putting any work in and then finally got a few good jobs. Now, one of the jobs, and this is where you mentioned the five-hour car rides. It was on a decent salary.
Stephen Box: 7:56
Let's, actually pause there for just a second, cause I, I want to go back a little bit and talk a little bit about some of what you just covered before we move into that transition period. So one of the things that you, mentioned there, and I think this really ties in well with, for anyone who listened to the podcast the first season we did everything through this lens of the unshakable habits framework, which is all about starting with a vision and then taking that vision to figure out what skills you need to develop and then taking actions to develop those skills. And for you you also were hitting on where we've shifted the focus for the second season of the podcast here, which is on this idea of deep health. And a couple of those areas are about environmental health. They're about mental health. They're about emotional health. And for you, you're hitting all of those. Cause you're saying, Hey the people I was hanging around with the things I was doing that was the environmental aspect of it. Although you had this really high IQ, the expectations and where you actually were, they didn't meet the, they didn't match up. So you weren't maximizing your potential. And so I wanted go back and revisit this because I want people to really realize that this isn't just like run of the mill oh I didn't do that. Great. This is like really what we're going to get to here in a second is that realization of I'm not maximizing myself, but you just hit on something really quick. I want to point out, which is before you got to the big transformation, small transformation started to happen. It was, I had this moment where I started realizing. That I wasn't living up to my potential that I could do better, but you weren't fully motivated yet. So you wanted to do better, but you took the lazy way out, right? Like you're like, I'm going to do this a super simple way. I'm going to do just enough to raise my standards. And that was like where you started it. And I think so often we think we have to start at the very best. We have to figure out the best way to do everything. We need to come up with a perfect plan. We need to lay everything out and it has to be absolutely spectacular. But over and over again, when I interview people, what I find out is those first steps are always imperfect every single time. And you just highlighted that exact thing with that. If I just want to, I'm going to go back and revisit that. Yeah.
Jeevan Matharu: 10:31
This, the same goes that the climbing of the mountain, whether it's Mount Everest or something, a lot smaller starts with a single step. So the first thing that you need to do is to actually take that step in the right direction. For me it wasn't necessarily a case of I've made the big jump, but I was making these Stoltz small inroads that allowed for me to improve moving forward. And I feel that everyone should be the same we should all look to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. As I said, with the trees they will grow as a large, as possible as we wore many hats of animals that will be the best hunter they can be. You should be no different. And it's really important that To make the world a better place, you should be competitive person. First, if you were a better person, you would maybe have a better family be able to look after your kids better. They would have better community around you. So it all starts with yourself. And whether that 1% a day as the same generally goes, or it's something even more. It's really important to, to have that vision and the mentality that you want to achieve, the best that you can possibly achieve. There's no point them to achieving self-sabotage is rife. And I was really caught of that as well during my younger years. I've realized now that you, don't need to self-sabotage, you should actually be using routines and habits that will improve you. And not those that will put you with detriment that does that make sense team?
Stephen Box: 12:13
Yeah, no, absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. And the question that kind of came up for me there as you were talking was, I'm curious because I don't want you to speak for anybody else here and speculate to what might hold them back, but in reflecting back, what do you feel it was that was holding you back? What prevented you from maximizing your.
Jeevan Matharu: 12:35
As I said, their real self-sabotage is massive. I, was self-sabotaging and was that based on fear of success? Fear of failure. I don't know it at that point, because it's, you don't have any difficult to go back and understand how you were feeling at that point, because you were looking at it from a very different perspective. Now, I think this, again, this is one of the sayings, is that the man who walked into a river and walked back out neither the river, or the man is the same again, because the river has changed because it's obviously the ripples and the rivers have some of the mud sweat, let's say, gone into the referral. And the man that's come out of the river is obviously changed as well. Yeah. So it's a case of that. All of the bits that I've gone through in life, it made me a different person. Looking back, I'm looking back with those thoughts in mind was it the fear of. Failure or successes done. That was it the self-sabotage what, exactly was it? And for me, I just maybe felt that it was just ability only that would get you through something. If I'm smarter than Mr. Smith surely that should transpire into a better life. And what I tend to realize is that is not the case is absolutely not the case. If anyone watches soccer, as an example, obviously you guys call it soccer. We call it football over in the UK. Cristiano Ronaldo is not the most technical or technically the best football player, but he works really, hard, which puts him on par with Massey, for example, who look Ronaldinho. He had more ability to make the both of them, but yeah, lots to go out for a drink and take drugs. Yeah. If he had the same work raters as Rinaldo and had the mentality in the vision, and then we'll come on to vision. As we probably progress, he would have been a greater player. Yeah. Someone armor now, though, he tells himself through affirmations on the best, on the greatest, I'm going to be the top goalscorer in the champions league or the league or whatever, and people thinking I could say that all day long, but the reason why it's important is that your behaviors we'll, forward in line generally with what you say about yourself. People say, oh, I love a drink. I do. I love going out on the weekend and getting pierced. Their behavior will then fall in line with that. If you tell yourself I'm diligent, I'm a businessman. You will tend to behave in more of a business like way. And what that comes down to is what's called positive based goals versus negative based goals. If I say to you, Steve, look, don't think of elephants, right? Your mind automatically thinks of elephants because it's a negative statement. So don't do this, don't do that. So instead, and this is where people set goals incorrectly. They say things such as, I don't want to be fat. I don't want to be single, et cetera, et cetera. And then life actually becomes more like that. So instead, why not let or, why not say something along the lines of, I want a relationship versus I want to, I don't want to be seen cool. They mean the same thing, but to your subconscious mind, they don't mean the same thing. Your actions behind that will be very, different. If you say I want to be a professional book. You will end up going to the gym a lot more and you'll go to the boxing gym. You keep yourself in good health. And one of the things I did to, stop doing those health detrimenting activity you're smoking, you're drinking would say, I'm an athlete. I think it's don't smoke. Yeah. That one really resonated with me to help you change that behavior. Instead of saying, I don't want to smoke anymore. Yeah. The subject is smoking. So your mind continues to, or drinking for that matter. You might continue to think of that. Whereas now I think of athletic performance, which then steers me away from those behaviors anyway. So it's a very slight change, but I really know it's a difference in in, in, my life. And as we said there has been such an improvement in in, in, my life and my achievements. At the moment, I'm number 22 in the UK as an under 73 player in June, Nice. Yep. And that's a lot of that's come down to mentality. Yeah. I can see my work. I feel myself as being the the best, whether it's now I'm technically or not, you then work harder and you have that inner drive and it all comes down to that. You have to visualize something in the mind. First, I actually visualize and write down my goals. The and that was one of the goals that I wanted to get was being in the top 25 in the UK. And that's now become apparent without having that goal, the chance of you achieving that is very, different. It's much more unlikely. So what we have to do is set goals that are specific. We all know the smart sort of anagram that goes with goals, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. And all of those that specific is the main one. Yeah, to be specific about what you're after, we'll determine again, the routines and unshakable habits that you've built into your life. Yeah. And then beyond that the activities will determine results. We'll take my book. For example, if I was to say, look, you can write a book in a year. Many people will see that as quite an overwhelming task, but let's break that down. Let's say the book is 350 pages, which is not too shabby. Ready for a book. Yup. All you have to do is write one page a day. That's it. So if you break down those goals into smaller goals, the chance of achievement is much, much greater. Yeah.
Stephen Box: 18:49
Yeah. I think we're a lot of people do get into some trouble here is exactly what you were just talking about. And I liked the change that you talked about there. Really good example. I've heard in the book atomic habits, which is very much aligned with what you were saying about the smoking thing is he does, there's a difference between if you're trying to stop smoking and someone offers you a cigarette and you say, no, thanks. I don't smoke. Versus you saying I'm trying to quit. Yeah. Because if you're trying to quit, that means you still consider yourself a smoker.
Jeevan Matharu: 19:28
Yeah, exactly.
Stephen Box: 19:30
And it's that small change in language. It doesn't seem like much, but it really can cert a shift because it changes your behavior. And it makes you start to look at things like you use this example of being single versus being in a relationship. If I say, I want to be in a relationship now I have to start asking the other questions. What kind of relationship do I want to be in? What does that relationship look like? What are the behaviors that I'm expecting of myself and my partner? Oh, wait, that sounds a whole lot, like what we just got through talking about visions and skills and taking actions, versus not wanting to be single, that doesn't sound very picky. That it sounds like the first person that comes along this as I'll take you, the teacher like sold I'm in. So yeah, you might end up in the same place either way, but your chances of getting what you really want and being happy with it are much higher when you take the positive approach. This is
Jeevan Matharu: 20:27
it because you've got more, much more specificity in what you're after. And to be able to really talk in my language there with the questions upon questions, because it's all about the questions we ask That's where everything lies. How can I be better? When do I want to get this vibe? How could I do this? What do I need to do this? How can I improve? This part of math, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really important to have subsequent questions. And I'll tell you was very good at this as kids. Yeah. They ask questions all day. What's this, what's that? How do we do this? When are we going to be there? Whatever we're going to be there when they're going to be there, but they're so inquisitive and they've not been deprogrammed to be, or to feel that asking questions makes you thick. Yeah. That's a school. Whether it's school, whether it's the TV we can program to, make us think that asking questions is bad, asking questions is really, important. Or And, yeah you, mentioned the single versus relationship thing there, and again, you were very specific and what, you want for a partner, what you behave, what you want from yourself as with anything th the house that you're living in at the moment, it was first designed in the mind of an architect. It was then drawn out. It was built, decorated. And here you are, as with any idea, whether it's an idea of the ideal partner, whether it's an idea for a business, whether it's an idea for what I said to be a professional sportsman, you have to have the idea first and then reverse engineer, how to get there. Now there's the skeptics out there that are saying actually it's not just as simple as that. And it's absolutely true. It's not as simple as that, but there's no point in me saying I want to be a professional sprinter because I don't have the attributes for that. Yeah. I'm not six, four. If you look at the majority of sprinters yeah. They were faster at a young age. So we have to have a marriage between our skillset, what we're passionate about and something that interlinks with those two. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, look, there's a lot of people out there who say I want to. Be this person, let's say they want to be a a stockbroker let's say. And let's for argument's sake say that this purse, a certain stock broker has to have some mass knowledge. Yeah. Not every stock broker does, but let's say This, person does. If you failed your basic maths at college or wherever, what are the likelihood that you will be a good street stockbroker? Probably not, but you've got other skillsets, right? He might be really good at speaking. You might be very good athletically. So what we need to do is have some deep instruction and say actually, what am I good at? What type of personality do I have? What's going to give me the best chance to, be successful. We, we tend to compare a lot with each other. Oh, this guy's a banker making $200,000 a year. So you've you have this really good skill. Let's say you an artist of some kind. Yes. You might not make 200,000 pounds. But if you continue to work, you might do it a bit business, which might give you 500,000 pounds year in six years time. And it's something you actually love to do this guy, the bank, he probably sold destroyed every, year because he doesn't love his job. So there's so much that we could talk about in terms of the goal setting, getting the right career, something that gets you out of bed and excites you, because that's going to give you the best chance of this. We said, sticking to those habits. And if you're getting up every day and you're presenting your day, it might not be The, right habits and not you don't have to be comfortable at the time, but you have to have something that has got an end motivation for what you have. And that is a lot of the time, half the battle.
Stephen Box: 24:30
Yeah. I've talked about that idea of environmental health. And I think sometimes when we think environment, we think just our surroundings, but it's not just our physical surroundings. It's our. Relationships, the people that are around us, it's also the space in our own head. That environment is also very important. And so you were just pointing out if your environment is toxic. If the people around you bring you down, if the thoughts in your head bring you down, if the physical places that you go to don't make you happy. You're going to have a harder time being successful in anything, because you're so miserable in that area.
Jeevan Matharu: 25:16
Yeah. You are the average of the five people you spend most time with. So if you don't like what the average of that looks like either find a new circle or spend more time alone, because at least if you're alone and you can be the average of yourself, and if you're putting in the right habits and doing the right deep work, as you've said, then you will increase your own stop. It's a case of trying to get everything aligned. Isn't it? Your motivation do, are you using the correct language with yourself? Are you organized? Are you affirming what you want? Are you writing down your goals on a daily basis? On the flip side it's not about what
Stephen Box: 25:59
you want all the time. It's been great
Jeevan Matharu: 26:01
for what you have now. You say, yeah, everyone's jealous of something that you have. And everyone who's listening is no different, right? You want to think why is anyone jealous of me? Let's just use a few examples. You're living in the UK or America, someone who's living in some of the water and countries would love to be living in, those countries. You might have a house, someone else is renting or they live on the streets. You've got a car that you probably don't like. It might be this in a bit of an old banger book. You've at least got transportation. You've got a roof over your head. You've got a job. You might not like it, but you've got a job. You've got a pet that someone really wants. Yup. Or wants something similar. I can run off hundreds and hundreds of these, but we have to be grateful for what we've got first, because that puts us in a you mentioned environmental there. It puts us in a really good state. If we are grateful for what we've got, we are more likely to achieve more. And it doesn't mean to be grateful and not push forward, but it means to actually sit back and say, look, when I was five years ago I'll do that sometimes and saying yeah, I could be doing better than I am now. I You always could it's one of those, but if I think about five years, I'm doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. Five years ago living at home or, whatever, or You wanted to actually physically own your own place. And start your own business, et cetera. You know how the book and that's all coming into fruition now. You have to be great for where things are. I There would have been a time it's even before you actually started your podcast when you had the goal of the podcast and you could see in your mind of how you wanted things to go, and now it's here It's, a case of you want to continue to grow the podcast and you ask those questions. How can I improve? How can I grow the podcast? What sort of guests do I need on? But also you should be grateful because you're doing a fantastic job. W with what you felt.
Stephen Box: 28:18
Yeah. And I think you bring up the podcast as an example, and I think this is really a good way to illustrate what you were just talking about there. Even if I look back at my very first episode, right? At the time that I started the show, my mom had came to actually live with us yet, have open heart surgery. And she ended up having to come stay with us. What was supposed to be a couple of weeks, according to the doctor ended up being five months. I was finishing two major certifications at the same time. So I've got all this stuff going on. I could very easily have said, you know what? I, just can't handle doing this podcast right now and never started it, but I had committed to it. I had people booked and that's the I'm going to push through. I can look back and I can see in some of those videos, I was so tired. Like I just, I looked horrible. Like I just looked like I was tired. They weren't my best job. But what I can do is instead of dwelling on that and be like, oh, I messed up. I messed up. I messed up. I can go, man, look at where I am now compared to those first videos. The growth is tremendous and there's that sweet spot, right? If we focus on all the mistakes we've made in the past, then we don't appreciate where we are. And if we constantly look just at like, how do I get better? What's the future? What have I had not done yet? Then we're in the opposite situation. And we never appreciate it. And you need that appreciation to grow. It really does because that's what keeps you motivated.
Jeevan Matharu: 29:56
Yeah. Again, a phrase this, that living in the past is depression living in the future. Sounds like anxiety, right? So we need to live in the present as much as possible. Yes. Right now we are planning for the future. But yeah I what you said there as well is, very telling, no, you can't look back at the past and saying, oh, I really messed up. I messed up. Look at it in the inverse. It's all about how you're viewing things. Look at the positive, saying I've learned from. I've learned that was the incorrect way to do things. As you said earlier with bar situation where, when you're looking back, you're looking at it from a different perspective because you are now a different person, even after this conversation where both different people, right? Yep. So you continuing to grow your perspective, changing every day, every minute of every day, something you read changed your perspective, something you listened to change the perspective, something you experience changes your perspective, but you're going in with the mentality of look, whatever happened, I'm taking something positive from this, right? That, that is actually how you need to look at everything.
Stephen Box: 31:02
Yeah. Even when you look back at things that you did wrong, or like mistakes that you've made, there's learning opportunities within those, there's things that came out of those that you can look at it and go, oh, you know what? Although like 99% of this might've been bad, it was at 1% glimmer and. And that's really what your strengths are. And that kind of goes back to what you were talking about earlier about finding your individual strength and building upon it. Not if you're a marathon runner, don't try to be a sprinter. And if you're a sprinter, don't try to go run marathons because that's not what you're built for. You go to your strength.
Jeevan Matharu: 31:38
Yeah. Mistakes are great. I think we need to come out of our comfort zone a lot more and seek out failure. I'm not sure whether or not this is still the case, but in Florida there was a time where, and I'm pretty sure it might still be the case is they are more willing to lend to business owners who have been bankrupt before the new business owners. And you might be thinking more of us. That's a bit crazy, but actually there's some logic behind that. Isn't there. The guy Who's, gone bankrupt has learned a lot from that experience. And he may be able to manage the business better next time. Whereas someone who hasn't managed a business before. I still, maybe got to go through that learning process and yes, you can say you might have a great business first time. Fine. But I use that example because sometimes someone who's been through their universities is in a better place to succeed next time than someone who hasn't gone through any adversity at all. The boxer he's had the, to box for the world. How many times do you think he's been punched in the face? A little. Yep. Yep. Versus someone who's never been punched in the face. It's probably not even a professional boxer. There's probably no other scrap. With all positives comes a whole list of negative things or I want to work 500,000 pounds a year. Okay. Do you want to have days when you've worked 16, 17 hour days, not seeing the kids been traveling all around the country, if you're not willing to embrace that you probably don't deserve to have that level of income or that. Yeah. So you're not always signing up for the good you signing up for the bat. And if you want to be a professional boxer, that's use the same example. You're signing up for the fact that you're going to get hit in the face. Thousands of times, you're going to have to get up at 4:00 AM and go for a 20 mile run. When you're burning, you're dying, you've got to go into the round. Yup. Yeah. We have to love to do these struggles are to help us become better. That's what, therefore, when you know, you're getting, you mentioned mine, my situation, my story that might have happened for a reason to put me in the position I'm in now mentality wise. You also have to take the positive from every situation and continue to move forward from there.
Stephen Box: 34:08
Yeah. I'll just use analogies. Brought up this topic and you brought up boxing and I think a great quote is my Tyson said everyone's got a plan until they get hit in the mouth. And that's really what we're talking about here. It's yeah. You know what your plans sound good. And that's why I really tell people, I don't try to get this perfect plan together because the reality is no matter how perfect your plan is, no matter how much research you do, no matter how much time do you spend planning and prepping and preparing at the end of the day, when you go out into the real world and you try to take your plan out there, something's going to happen. It is going to be like in hidden the mouth. And it's not about getting hit in the mouth. It's about how do you respond to it? What do you learn from it? Do you take it in? Do you grow or do you stay on the mat?
Jeevan Matharu: 34:59
Yeah there's a lot of times where as you rightly said getting hit in the face is not good and that should give you a detour. But let's say someone's got a five-year plan. Yeah. So that's saying in five years, time, I want to achieve this, and this. And in an ideal situation, it will just be very smooth sailing in week, one, week, two week three, a lot of the time it doesn't happen. That's where the meanders come in the river. Yeah. But it's okay to have during that time where the meanders occur, that's where the skill is really being developed through the biggest times of adversity is where you develop the biggest strength.
Stephen Box: 35:38
Yeah. And really the thing I think a lot of people might miss. And tell me, if you agree with this, please is when we are in the middle of those struggles. It's not just about the lessons that we learn personally. Is really, to me, the value that comes out of it is that you learn not just what worked, what didn't work, but you learn what's important to you and what's not important to you. And to me, that's really the bigger key, even more so than learning what did and didn't work.
Jeevan Matharu: 36:09
Absolutely. Absolutely. As with any, experience you realize the good things and the bad things people get a sack from, their job or they get made redundant and they're upset. Oh I've lost the income and stuff, but it's a good time to reflect. As you said, there was things that you liked about the job and things that you didn't like about the job, things that you liked about your partner and things that you didn't like about your partner. Now that you've split up. So again, we're looking at it from a positive based approach and saying this gives me an opportunity to look at the overall picture. After events have occurred, look at which direction I wanted to have next it's like you mentioned. Picking which bits are good. And which bits on, if you look at life as being a series of gates and roads, if you like this direction, you're going to continue to go in this direction, that along the way, there's going to be doors. You're going to go down this road and say, actually, no, that wasn't for me. Let's go back on the main road. You might go off a smaller side where it all this is a quite, I quite like this. So the more experiences you have will shape you as a person, a lot more. We all know this when we've gone on holiday in combat, we genuinely have a very fresh understanding of what we're after in life. Then when we've had the same routine for two, three of them's. Yeah, because it gives us time to reflect and you're looking at things from such a different perspective. Did it give you time to, as you said What's good and what isn't good in your life and what you're looking for. I strongly suggest to everyone to have journals and to write things down, ask yourself the questions you might say I'm not successful, but what does success mean to you? Is it being a stay at home mom or is it starting your own business in a certain industry, that's earning a certain level of income and that you actually liked going to work. Everyone talks about income, but do you like going through that tough job? Do you, are you working well-paid job, but you want to come out with that and have something that you enjoy more, even though it paid you less so that you've got more work life balance, and you actually like it in the morning, got the dread of Monday morning when the morning is the prime time for heart attacks.
Stephen Box: 38:33
Yeah, it's funny because we're, both coaches and I know anyone else out there that does coach, you will be able to relate to this. Most of us. Left a job in which we were putting in a fair number of hours, started a business in which we put in even more hours than we were putting in, working for somebody else making in the beginning, a fraction of the money that we were making at our jobs. And instantaneously became a hundred times happier.
Jeevan Matharu: 39:04
Yep. A hundred percent you in control of your own destiny. And if you were to ask most, people earn a hundred thousand pounds working 40 hours a week for something you don't like or earning 50,000 in something that you love I don't know what the answer would be, but it's probably going to be in the 95% loss. Yeah. So as you said Never be too scared to take the jump as well, guys burn the bridges and, go for something because you've got to be bold in life. And at the end of the day, you can always go back to the life that you had previous. Yeah, you can always go back to that nine to five job whether it's at the same business or a competitor of some sort in the S in a similar guys, you could go back to that job. So take, the risk, be bold because look, that's where the risk, and return ratio comes from. And, look even if you don't get that return, initially, the long-term return is always there. The long-term return is always there. You've developed as a person, you've got some more skill sets you've become more resilient or disciplined or organized, or there's something that's happened by taking that step that improves you. Obviously the original story of burned, the boats burn the bridges was that they obviously sell to the and the commander told them to burn the boats because they wanted to take the island. And if they didn't burn the boats, obviously the moral of the story is that it gave them no way to recover. Yeah. So they have to go a hundred percent and make sure something happens. And then as you said obviously I left my job and started the coaching and obviously businesses in, in, in retirement planning, which is obviously the industry I was in prior. And I'm obviously getting both obviously writing book, but you have to have things going on maybe not the first idea that you've got going to work. You've got to have a few things that you're working on and the same time of the day, you've got to have hobbies I do, as I said, judo, okay. Hiking. And I've got mountains that I want to find and that's on the agenda. Yeah. So you should always have areas of your life that you're looking to develop. Yeah. Even your hobbies, you shouldn't be just there thinking, oh, it's just for fun. You should always have goals and everything you do. Yes. There is a smaller portion of your life that is literally just watch TV and. Zone out and, the calibrate, but for everything else, there should always be a positive trajectory. Otherwise what's the point.
Stephen Box: 41:51
Yup. So before we get any further into that, because I think we're at a good transition point here to some people might be out there thinking wait a minute, I want to know what the heck happened to the rest of the story here. What, having all these five-hour drives. So we're, talking about transitions and having those moments of realization and everything. So I think it's a good time to go back to that right now. So take us to where you were in your life making these drives and what happened.
Jeevan Matharu: 42:21
Yeah so as I said, I had a a decent, job petrol paid for going out to meet clients and stuff, but I was putting in a lot of hours and actually, if we look at how many hours I was putting in for how much I was getting over. In five, 10 years time, it just didn't seem right for me. So drawing the time at this job as I said, I was traveling all over the country, going to these client meetings. So it was times where I was in the car for five hours a day and in meetings for maybe four hours, four and a half hours as well. So obviously as you do, you normally listen to music and the radio and stuff. And I started to think actually this is such a waste of time. If it's 25 hours, a hundred hours a month, basically. Yeah. That's on spice to a lot of hours over the year. So I thought what, how can I best use this time? So again, this is where the questioning started to really take place. What's going to give me the best chance of being good at this job, because obviously it was bonused and stuff. So how can I be better at sales? So go onto YouTube podcasts or whatever it. Is I'm trying to understand how, what could be better at closing sales or getting appointments or whatever it is. So that's where it really starts to say Brian, Tracy there's a few videos that Brian Tracy has on sales, but as you all know, with YouTube and any of these sort of sites, really, they give you linked videos and LinkedIn information. So Brian, Tracy has other personal development videos as well. So start today's a Nightingale multi think and grow rich as the book Et cetera, et cetera. So all of these guys really Jim wrote on two massive one for me, Jim rein Tony Robbins. So all of these sorts of. So self-help guys and guys that are philosophical guidance as well, that really helped you to understand the purpose and the reality of the world. Really. So, yeah, that's really where the journey started. So I'll start, I listened to these to five hours a day, really helped my performance at work as well. And it just had this new leaf library. And since then I've really been wind focused on, being the best I can be. As I said, whether it's within that sort of endeavor or whether it's with obviously my hobbies and interests obviously read quite a lot now as well. Because I feel that the more information that you can take in, as we talked about earlier, with the perspective, it gives you a much better perspective on life, so if you ask a child's perspective, Not that they can't give great advice because they absolutely can versus someone who's up to 50 years on this earth, they see things a little bit differently. So why not learn from someone who's already been through what you're going through? There's books on the, as we said, sales there's books on how to start a business, how to start a podcast, how to improve your life. Yeah. How to be disciplined, motivated all of those things. So if of information out there, the question you're asking yourself is why aren't you listening or reading those? Is it because you don't want to access if you've got fear of success? Yeah. These are the questions that you need to ask. And, really that those five hour sort of car journeys really helped me to become the person I am today and gave him the drive to be bold in life. Start my own businesses and really try and develop as a person.
Stephen Box: 46:11
So you just said something there that I want to revisit here, which was, you talked about this idea that yes, there's all this information out there. And I think some people might even be in the opposite position right. Where they, listen to all the books, they read all the websites, they look at stuff all the time. They aren't information overload. What they don't do is they don't take any action. So can you share maybe a little bit about how did you go from just taking this information in to making it actionable?
Jeevan Matharu: 46:45
So I think with the information thing, if we just go back a step, so the, information thing was, primarily based on time management. So I was wasting time in the car, listen to the same songs I've listened to you for, 20 years or whatever. I don't think you will look at this time, look at this what this time is worth. So now when I'm driving around or doing the dishes or. Anything mundane really where you don't need total focus. Yeah. So that's when it gives you a time to kill two birds with one stone. So that's when I have that information overload. Now sometimes I don't know if sometimes there's a lot of answers within yourself and that's obviously our job as a coach is to draw those out. So maybe I'll sit there in the car and say, okay, what went well today? What didn't go well, how can I improve this part of my life, et cetera, et cetera. And attempt to try and do that at night time so that while I'm sleeping, some of those answers contri comes to the forefront in terms of action. That was obviously your, main question. You just got to do it. There's no procrastination involved. If you want to do something, you have to start with a single step. When you hear something I heard, that really is quite good. So if you're driving at night, I'll see you in America. There's long, straight roads. Isn't there. It was a big place, right? You were driving from Washington to New York or something. Yeah. It's a long drive. You can't see the destination. Yeah. It's a long way away. Yeah, but you just trust the next 20, 30 feet. All that your headlights can see. That's all you need to focus on that next 20, 30 feet is what you can see. And you have faced that you are going to get to the destination because you've got signs. You've got your sat nav. But you don't need to think that far in advance. That's how often to look at life now whether I want whatever I want in five years time, whether it's X number of books, whether it's X number of coaching clients, whether it's my financial advisory side, that business to be at a certain level. Yes, it's good to have those ambitions, but all what I focus on is the next 30 feet, the next 30 feet. Because if I focus on something too far in the distance, that's when you have accidents. Yeah. If you're trying to look where Washington is, when you drive from New York, you could hit that there in the road. Yeah. So we need to just make sure that we motivate ourselves to get going. Because once you get going, it's actually easier to stay going. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Just, start even if you don't want to. And we all know this from going to the gym or exercising, you don't feel like going, but once you've gone, you feel great. Yeah. So if you're waiting for a time that you feel like doing it, you're never gonna get around to it. Yeah. So we've just got look, David Goggins is someone to listen to it. I don't know if you're familiar with him or not he's got some real good gems in terms of how to look at things. But as I said, it's all about mentality. It's all a fair plus. That's the only difference between those elite people and those that aren't in the but yeah, it's just one of those things, really.
Stephen Box: 50:19
Yeah. So, just to put a nice bow on that and all I'm really doing here is just repeating the things that you've already told us. But we talked about the small step, right? It's don't try to do everything at once. It's take the small step, embrace the fact that mistakes are gonna happen and failure's going to happen. What can you learn from that? What, what works? What doesn't work? What do you like? What do you not like? What fits your skill sets then really started look okay. Maybe there's a skill that you have. But it can be developed from maybe you're okay with it now you could be better with it now you can actually take steps to build that skill up, but then you're looking at what are my abilities? So we talked about the idea of don't try to go out and be a sprinter if you're a marathon runner. So it's really finding your unique abilities and then building those skills up. But it all starts with taking that small step because motivation doesn't precede action. Motivation happens as a result of action. Yeah. I miss anything there. W what do you want to add to that? Yeah
Jeevan Matharu: 51:32
it really depends. I think sometimes you can motivate yourself prior to acting because a few, whatever the reason is let's say you want to start a business and whether it's for monetary reasons, or just because you love the business or whatever it's going to be, there is a subconscious motivations as to why you want that. Mike, maybe you want your red Ferrari. Maybe you feel that you want to be wealthy so you can get the best looking spouse possible. Maybe you want to start that business, earn that income to give you the flexibility to travel internationally and be financially and, location independent. So there is a motivation deep down and only, you know what your real one is. Just be totally honest with yourself. That's for me, there is always a motivation, whether it's for the kids I want to, and that's a real big one that I see is that I want to do this for the kids. I want to send them to college. I want to send him to university. I want to leave them money so they can buy a house and all those sorts of things. So that's a driving motivation prior to acting because then obviously the data sets for the business and work hard for that reason. Yeah. Other people have got some more selfish reasons, as I've said, they want to get a red Ferrari fine. But at least that makes you start to, to act as opposed to procrastinate you. Procrastination is just a waste of time. Literally a waste of time. So you've got to act, and this has got a very old story. It might be bastardizing it to mix them, but it was a big decision to be made. And obviously all the council was here and asking should we go should we do this? Or should we do this? And the general just said, yeah, just go to do that one. And one of the kids went up to him and asked him, how did you know that was the right thing to do? He goes, I don't, but it's the quickest way to find out whether or not it is the right way to go or not. Because if it's, let's just say that you're going down pathway or pathway. Oh, you could stand at the start and say, oh, AOB or B, and you'll be, oh, tell me a bit more about a, tell me a bit more about being the fastest way you're going to find out is to start going down path. They realize it's the wrong way. Turn around and go round cuspy right. People didn't want to do that because they are, they have fear of failure. Maybe they have imposter syndrome as well, where they're saying actually I'm not in a position to make this decision because I'm not intelligent or knowledgeable enough, let someone else wait a month. Decision that's imposter syndrome. So, yeah for, me, sometimes you've just got to, act and understand that failure and wrong decisions are part of the process, which then allows you to make better decisions further on down the line.
Stephen Box: 54:34
Yeah. Yeah. And if someone is suffering from imposter syndrome, watch her episode from last week as we actually just did an episode on coming and positive syndrome. So perfect timing. Yeah.
Jeevan Matharu: 54:46
Yeah. Or me imposter syndrome is a massive one. Everyone has it. I'm sure you'll have it. I have it. Sometimes you think, oh I'm not even that great, but then you have to sit down and think, look what I've done. I've helped this client have how this, guy get retired. I've sold books, done this on number 22 in judo, one F too fast at the weekend. And you think, yeah it isn't there. I'm not an impostor. It's just a natural, thing. Everyone, every single person has it. It's just how strong your imposter syndrome is.
Stephen Box: 55:22
Yeah. Yeah. So one thing I wanted to touch on real quick was so this idea with motivation, right? I find it. Because you were kinda talking about motivation as well. I think some people call like their why or inspiration. So I found that kind of interesting. You just do have different definitions of motivation, which is interesting in and of itself. So one thing I do want to just point out for people is yes, you will have underlying reasons, otherwise, why are you doing something? If you don't have some reason for doing it. Yeah. So, just to clarify, like what, I was saying when I say that the action comes before the motivation, a lot of times is that desire to do it right? That, in the moment, desire to get up and take the action. If you're waiting to be inspired, they don't do that. You're probably going to be waiting a long time, but every now and then you might get lucky and get in the mood to do something. But usually it doesn't work that way. Usually it's the action that leads to the motivation. Like you gave the example with the exercise earlier, where you might not feel like exercising, but once you go, you're like, oh yeah, this is awesome. So like you just tell yourself, I'm going to go workout for five minutes, five minutes. And you're like, I must've just keep going. Cause I'm starting to feel better. Yeah.
Jeevan Matharu: 56:39
What does inspirations desperation that leads to action? And fortunately, actually for, all, for most of us, we're in a position where we were not in the desperation state, where we live in on the street where we've got to feed the family. Some people might. Yeah, but we're not in that desperation state. So the other state is inspiration and sometimes it's hard to be really inspired. That's going to drive you, what'd he say, oh, I'm quite comfortable. I've got a job. And I've got, I can go out on the weekend with Namaste and, all that sort of stuff. So in inspiration, although when it's done well is stronger than desperation, but for the most part, desperation is the quickest driver to people acting because they have to, otherwise they are sink or swim, isn't it thing. So, yeah, I think with, motivation in the moment, it's about that discipline. Cause I think that was what you're referring to is saying how can I motivate myself to keep going? That's just discipline. It's, reprogramming your subconscious to say I'm someone who keeps going when things get bad, not someone who turned away, it's all about those affirmations. So there's three things I do day. In terms of writing down other than my daily to do this, which is obviously evident. Yeah. I write down what I'm grateful for about my goals and I write down affirmations. So those three things in the morning put me in a really good positive mindset for the day. And it helps me,
Stephen Box: 58:18
sorry, I was going to say let's be specific here. So when you say goals you write down your goals for that day. Are, you right now? Long-term
Jeevan Matharu: 58:25
goals? I'm working towards for the next 12, 24 months so that my daily habits reflect that. So at the moment, it's to write a new book by the end of the year. So that allows me to do a bit of work every day on that book to, to be in the top 10 in the judo rankings, by the end of the year. Makes me train effete, what most days it makes me look and enter event. In terms of the coaching side, to have a certain number of clients by the end of the year in terms of the wealth management side, to have a certain level of recurring income by the end of the year what other ones have I got at the moment? There are a few other ones as well in terms of the, hiking stuff, as I mentioned, and the less professional stuff, but they're all goals that I'm working towards in the future that allow me to dictate my daily habits. If that makes sense. I'm not, I'm trying to learn a bit of Russian language as well. Because my friend lives in those sort of countries. So when I go out there, it's good to know a little bit of basic Russia. So, that dictates the actions. Yes, you can do your daily goal. That daily goals are more like the to-do list. So I have the goals, as I said, for 12, 24 months. And then my daily to do list is in line with those goals. Okay. Write a page of the book. That's in line with the goal of writing the book by the end of the year. Do my client meeting. Okay. That's in line with the coaching or the retirement planning businesses. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's good to have those targets to email. So really you're using those goals as like a reminder as a check-in to say are the actions I'm taking a day moving me toward those things. Perfect explanation. Yeah, absolutely. Love
Stephen Box: 1:00:26
it. Love it. And we are actually believe it or not already add an hour. So I don't want to take up too much of your time. I know it's super, super late there in the UK. So I do appreciate you joining me today. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put a slide up. That's going to have your book up on the screen. And when when I do that, if you could just tell people a little bit about the book and then tell people how to actually get in contact..
Jeevan Matharu: 1:00:56
Perfect. Yeah. So the book itself, as we've talked about is, split into 25 to 30 chapters that are all aligned to help you to become your best self. So whether it's showing gratitude, whether it's setting goals, motivating yourself, understanding your own psychology, how to communicate better, how to have a positive mentality, the basics of self improvement. So all of those sorts of things and more the importance of physicality as well, because obviously strong, physically strong mentally. As I said, it's all of those things in, in, in one, easy to read self-help manual. So you can get that on Amazon, whether it's your you're in the UK or the states or anywhere else in the world for that matter, that can be ordered on Amazon in terms of the coaching side, it's vanquish, transformational coaching. So I'm sure that there'll be links attached to this video. So please just get into. My job is to help you to become your best self. So we need to understand the reasons why you're maybe not in the best position currently and what we can do. We can forward so different to counseling where we look at the past coaching. It's about looking towards the future and together, obviously we help build that plan for you. So yeah, that's probably the best two, two ways to, obviously get in touch with me or to purchase the the book. There is another book coming out towards the end of the year, as we've said, and that's going to be a question a day, not come up with the title of the book yet, but it's something along those lines where every day is the question, and you can jot down your answer. So where do we want to be in five years' time? Great. There's some, there's an area there for you to jot that in your answer. There's some guidance and then a further area to add even more detail. And there's going to be obviously 365 plus of those that you'll be able to sit down once a day, go through. And really look at where your life is going. What skill sets do I have that could meet that I could monetize. Okay. And that might be a question. So there's this, there's tons of stuff there that you can work on. And the good thing about that book is, that everyone's copy is going to be different. Your copy, and mrs. VITSA, Mrs. Jerry's copy is going to be very, different because obviously they have their own answers to those questions and are developing their own life plan. So yeah, watch out for that one. And that should be here later on a mere
Stephen Box: 1:03:27
awesome. Or again, a G even appreciate you coming and joining us today and really given a whole lot of insight. I know people really got a lot of value out of this today. So I just want to remind everyone that none of us are born unshakable, but everyone has the ability to become So we'll see you all back next Tuesday.
