Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Bouncing Back: How Resilience Shapes an Extraordinary Life W/ Andrew Matthews
Australian author Andrew Matthews transformed his understanding of happiness after discovering that the happiest people he knew faced bigger challenges than he did, inspiring his journey to help others cultivate resilience and joy regardless of circumstances.
• Born into an artistic family with a professional landscape painter father and language-loving mother
• Found success as an artist but wasn't truly happy despite doing what he loved
• Had a life-changing realization at 25 when he noticed people with bigger problems were happier than him
• Read over 200 books on happiness, attitude, and the subconscious to develop his philosophy
• Discovered that happy people focus on what they have while unhappy people focus on what's missing
• Created the bestselling book "Being Happy" followed by many others including "Bouncing Back"
• Explains that we create the life we feel we deserve based on our self-worth
• Teaches that most disasters are not total disasters – they often lead to better opportunities
• Outlines the keys to bouncing back: acceptance, breaking challenges into small steps, and maintaining hope
• Emphasizes that happiness is a choice we make moment by moment
• Advises giving your absolute best to whatever is currently on your plate
• Explains why focusing on what you want (not what you don't want) is crucial for success
• Demonstrates how visualization creates the mental pathway to your desired future
Visit andrewmatthews.com to sign up for Andrew's newsletter, find his books on Amazon and Audible, and watch his videos on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured. I'm excited for today's episode. We have an author, an Australian author, international speaker, Mr Andrew Matthews. Andrew, how are we doing today?
Speaker 2:Nice to be here. It's tomorrow. Already here, josh, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:It's Monday morning in Australia, and if you could tell me the future and let me know that it'll be a good monday morning, then well, we got blue sky here, but I think it's cooler where you are yeah, this is a little bit different, so we'll take it. We'll take it, um, but, andrew, I always love starting things off to give folks a visual of who you are right and I and I love to ask who is Andrew and how do you spend your time today?
Speaker 2:You know, starting with me as a little kid, I was born into a loving family, josh, so I was blessed. I had a father who was a professional landscape painter he used to paint oil paintings of the Australian outback and the mountains and the deserts and I had a mother who had a real fascination for language, and so as I look at how I became an author who illustrates his own books, who illustrates his own books I can see that I was really lucky to have parents that encouraged me to do things that I loved. But it wasn't always a straight road, and as a kid I was always the smallest kid in school and I used to get thrown over the fence and locked in cupboards and held upside down and dropped into puddles and things like that. I hated being small, but everyone has something to deal with. And around about 15, I grew into an average-sized human, not tall enough to play basketball, but I was happy to make five feet nine. And after toying with the idea of becoming a lawyer, I decided that I was going to do what I really loved, which was study classical drawing and painting and become an artist classical drawing and painting and become an artist. And, josh, I was making my living doing what I loved.
Speaker 2:Into my mid-20s I was teaching art and I was creating my own art, but I still wasn't as happy as I thought I should be. And at 25, I made a shocking discovery I discovered that the happiest people I knew had bigger problems than me. Suddenly, I had no excuse. I mean, I knew people who were struggling their way through cancer. I knew people who had gone broke or lost their job. I knew people whose house had burned down and they were like the happiest family I knew. I knew people who had lost loved ones way too soon, who still had a better attitude than me, still had a better attitude than me, and I had to figure out how is it that happy people think and how can I be like them.
Speaker 2:So I went on this journey. I read 200 books on the subconscious, on happiness, on attitude, on anything that I could find that might be helpful, anything that I could find that might be helpful, and I paid attention to the happy people that I knew. How did they talk? What did they focus on? And gradually I cobbled together a fairly simple philosophy that helped me to move from not being as happy as I could have been to feeling pretty good about liking myself better and feeling good about my life and the future. Yeah, and then, as many people do, I thought maybe I can write a book. That is the book that I wished I'd had, and so I wrote a book called being Happy. So that was the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I would love to hear this, because you said that you were doing what you were passionate about Right. I would love to hear this because you said that you were doing what you were passionate about Right, and I think a lot of people think that, hey, if I do what I'm passionate about, then I'll be happy. What do you think was the thing that was missing? Was it just your attitude and how you saw things? What made people happy? What did you find in your studies of researching folks who were happy?
Speaker 2:The big difference between happy people and unhappy people. I've got a cartoon in my book Bouncing Back that explains this a little. There's a two-panel cartoon. So the first panel you see a very happy guy and he's eating one single slice of cake and he just looks absolutely delighted and the caption is happy people focus on what they have. And then the second panel, there's a very miserable-looking guy and he's got a huge entire cake minus one slice, and the caption to that panel is unhappy people focus on what's missing.
Speaker 2:I created that cartoon because I think it it shows it describes the principal difference between happy people and unhappy people that happy people have a habit of asking themselves questions like what do I like about my life? What do I love about my wife? What do I like about my job? My job may not be perfect, but what's good about it? They're stuck in traffic. They say I might be stuck in traffic. What's good about being stuck in traffic? Well, I can listen to Josh's podcast. For a start. I'm not walking, I'm not getting wet, that's good. I can afford a car, that's good. So we find in life what we look for, and happy people have a habit of looking for things that are going to make them happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you were just talking about the subconscious mind and how that works. Right, you talked about, hey, your brain is going to look to find evidence of your thoughts, which is why we talk about why it's so important to practice, and what you're mentioning is gratitude and practicing gratitude and being more intentional about being present and looking at what do we have and what do we love about where we're currently at, what we currently have, who we currently are right and find acceptance in it. Right, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. Beautifully said and in a sense it's about finding perspective that even though our life isn't perfect, well, has anyone else ever survived the problems that I have? And more than likely we're going to find people who have survived much more serious things and people who have a better attitude who already have a tougher life than we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so in being Happy, that book that you wrote I'm looking at the title here A Handbook to Greater Confidence and Security. Where does confidence and security come in to play of being happy?
Speaker 2:Well, happiness is the starting point. Well, gratitude and acceptance of our situation is the starting point for happiness. But as soon as we find that we can be happier within ourselves, lots of things happen. We have more energy, we're healthier, we solve problems faster. Happy people solve problems 20% to 30% faster than unhappy people. Even happy doctors diagnose illness 30% more accurately. So get yourself a happy doctor 30% more accurately. So get yourself a happy doctor.
Speaker 2:As you've mentioned, when we're happy, we notice opportunities because we're expecting good things to come along. We're a magnet for other happy and uplifting people because suddenly they want to be around us, and then we're more likely to take a risk. If we're happy, we say, well, this might work, I should try this, I should start a podcast, I should write my book, I should start my little online business because, who knows, it might work. So all of those things stem from work. So all of those things stem from being happy, and a part of that is also we've got to at some stage. You say you know what is the fundamentals of this being happy?
Speaker 2:People say do you need to love yourself? You've got to at least like yourself. Why? Because we create the life that we feel we deserve. And if I don't like myself, I may stay with a partner that treats me badly. I may work for a boss for 20 years that treats me badly. If I don't like myself, I might let my kids walk all over me and say well, it's only me. If I don't like myself, I might punish myself with what I eat or what I drink. It's not consciously, but it's all a part of saying well, I don't really deserve a life that is that good and so much of it.
Speaker 1:As you said, josh, is the subconscious mind that is serving things up to us that we feel we deserve yeah, and man, I want to re-say that for folks who didn't catch it we create a life that we think we deserve and it's subconscious. It's not necessarily conscious. We might say, hey, hey, you know I want this fit body. You know I want to, like you said, start this online business, I want to start a podcast, I want to. Whatever goals that we might have, we don't put consistent action behind it and a lot of times it does come from. What you just said is we create a life that we think we deserve and it's subconscious, and so we probably avoid the things that we know will help us get what we actually want in life, because we feel like we don't deserve we've all known people who maybe ladies, who keep on finding male partners that treat them badly.
Speaker 2:And we look at those ladies and we say they are so beautiful and they are so smart and they have so much warmth to offer they have, they are so caring and and they go and find themselves partners that treat them badly and they don't consciously say I want to go out and screw up my life or or get into a relationship but it is just as bad as the last one. But underlying all of that is that I don't, at the heart of it, feel that I deserve a beautiful life and I don't deserve to be loved just for who I am so how can folks start to one and and I know folks who probably are sitting down listening to this podcast right now they're like wow, is that me?
Speaker 1:So awareness is key, but also, too, what can folks start to do to grow their self-image, kind of develop a higher self-esteem?
Speaker 2:We can make a decision that from today, I will never, ever say anything bad about myself. I will never criticize myself. If I can't think of something good to say about myself, then I won't say anything. So that is one way that you know how some people say oh, I'm so stupid I always get all the bad luck. Or if anyone's going to screw it up, it's me. Just watch me screw it up. We stop all of that. So we don't even have to do anything. We just have to stop doing something.
Speaker 2:We make a decision that today is the first day of a happier life for me is the first day of a happier life for me. So happiness is very much a decision we make one day after another. We've all seen a toddler, a two-year-old. He may be playing around on the furniture, he falls on his head and the first thing he does is he looks around to see who's watching, but, depending on the audience, he decides whether he's going to laugh or cry. And we may not realize it, but we live exactly the same way. We're out on the freeway cruising along and someone cuts in front of us and we make an instant decision Is this going to ruin my day? Or will I say maybe this guy's just having a tough day. We're choosing happiness 50 times a day. Am I going to let this upset me or not? So fundamental is an understanding that happiness is really a choice we're making moment by moment. We don't even have to decide to live a happy life, but we just say today, I choose to support myself, not criticize myself.
Speaker 2:I choose to be happy and I do other things like. I choose not to complain. Five minutes complaining is five minutes wasted. Here's something that's interesting. We all know that we we talk about what we think about. If I talk about, if I think about food, I'm going to talk about food. But the reverse is also true if I go talking about something, I'm going to keep on thinking about it, which is a reason why complaining is a really bad idea if we want to live a happy life. So we just if we try to fix a problem, that's one thing, but otherwise just leave complaining out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so continue to focus in on the good. That's really the root of it is just making a choice to focus on the good, even because we always have kind of these two voices in our head, right, these thoughts and, like you said, when you have these negative feelings, when you feel like complaining about your current situation, instead flipping it, and eventually, subconsciously, you'll start to think more positively, or start to think and it becomes a habit.
Speaker 2:It becomes a habit when things don't go our way. Our first thought is what's good about this? There's something good about this, and so that leads us into acceptance, which is really the first step to happiness, gratitude, acceptance when life knocks us down or when people let us down. Let's say we lose our job or we get to the end of a relationship and it's heartbreaking, or we break our leg end of a relationship and it's heartbreaking, or we break our leg.
Speaker 2:Anyone is going to say things like you know, this shouldn't have happened, or life doesn't seem fair. And we do that. Maybe in a sense, we believe that if I don't accept this rotten situation, I won't be stuck with it. You know, if I don't accept something I hate, then I don't have to deal with it. But the reverse is actually true. Acceptance allows us to move on, and acceptance is power, and the sooner that we say well, I wouldn't have chosen this, I wouldn't have chosen to be sacked or to have this broken leg, or I wouldn't have chosen to be sacked or to have this broken leg, or I wouldn't have chosen to be alone at 55 years old.
Speaker 2:But that's what I've got, and I understand that there's a cartoon in Bouncing Back about this. What I thought was breaking me is probably making me. I've got this cartoon of a guy climbing a mountain and he's sweating. He looks like he doesn't wanna be there. Even his dog is sweating and not happy either. And that's the caption "'What you thought was breaking you is probably making you'". None of us are born extraordinary. We become extraordinary by facing challenges we didn't choose, and so that all wraps up into that thing of acceptance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you talked about it and I actually looked at some of your content and we talked about disaster or you know it could be relative to how we see disaster or challenges that come our way and seeing them as good things, seeing the good in the disaster, Right, and as you mentioned, these disasters, these challenges, when you look back on life you can see, oh, these things made me who I am, They've changed the course of my life for better, especially if you choose to see it that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't learn much from success.
Speaker 1:No, we just celebrate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and maybe we're saying this is how good I am, but it's failure. That makes us think, okay, what do I need to learn here? The other encouraging thing is that most disasters are not total disasters. Yeah, in that sense, and we've all had that experience of we're at the airport, we're waiting to catch a plane and just before boarding, they make this announcement your flight is unable to leave. The next flight leaves in seven hours. And you think, oh, this is the last thing I wanted. I hate this. And then we're hanging around the airport and we make a lifelong friend. Yeah, or we have that experience where we meet someone and we think this is the person for me, this is going to be my lifelong partner, and six months later they dump us and we're devastated. And then we meet them in 10 years' time and we breathe a sigh of relief and we think ha, I dodged a bullet, yeah, so most disasters are not total disasters.
Speaker 1:And the only problem is that you only realize that looking backwards, right, and so you might as well, like you said, accept it now and realize that, hey, you know, this is how it's supposed to be and it's. This is good. Right, this is good, and even when it's hard and and going through challenges, going through disasters in the moment are extremely tough, depending on how big it is, and practicing to see the good in it is something that is definitely healing while going through it.
Speaker 2:And it's easier to tell other people to do it. I understand that. Yeah, yeah, other people to do it. I understand that. Yeah, yeah, it's easy to say. Well, you know, I can see how a divorce is really going to be a learning experience for him and he'll come out of it better. But when you're in it it's no fun at the same time. If we pay attention, then we can see how many times in life something's happened that we thought was a disaster but actually took us on a journey that was so helpful and we never want to go through the things that we need to go through that make us into the people we want to become. So, you know, it's the tough stuff that we say that's the last thing I wanted that generally turn us into quality people yeah, yeah, that's the challenges that shape us, um and and so about bouncing back right, because that's that that's the key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we do face these tough times and it's the rebound time, you know, no matter how small or big, right For me, I think I can think about something small where, hey, you had a goal for something and maybe the habits that you had you kind of fell off and now you feel guilty, you feel some type of shame about it, but it's like, hey, let's bounce back and get right to it. Uh, maybe you know you lose your job and so you're in a rut, for, you know, a little bit, you don't feel good, uh, and so you need to bounce back and look for the next chapter, right, and so, um, bouncing back. Why do you think this is important? To write this to um, to talk about this and help folks bounce back from disappointment, disasters, different things like that.
Speaker 2:All of us are bouncing back from something at any time. We're bouncing back from having spent too much or eaten too much, or we're bouncing back from not getting the promotion that we thought was ours, or we're bouncing back from a relationship that started out well. Or we're bouncing back from maybe we get to 50 and we thought my life was meant to be better by now, or I thought I would be financially secure by now, or we're bouncing back from illness. So what I wanted to do was see if I could learn from resilient people. I know, and resilient people we all know. What is it that resilient people do? Resilient people do? So acceptance is something we've looked at so critical that early on we say I wouldn't have chosen this, but maybe I can see some purpose in it. But even if I can't, this is what I've got, and so the first step is I accept where I'm at.
Speaker 2:The next thing is that we break down what we need to do to make our lives better into little chunks, daily chunks that we don't get overwhelmed by. You know, now I'm broke, or now I'm jobless, or now I'm alone, or now I'm sick. What can I do today? It's like we talked about climbing a mountain. If you're climbing a mountain and you get stuck on a ledge, then suddenly all of your awareness, all of your focus goes into getting off that ledge. You're not worried about all the bills you've got to pay over the next 30 days, You're not worried about all the things that could go wrong in the next year. You're just saying I just need to deal with this ledge and eventually you claw your way off that ledge. And then you deal with the next bit and effective. People live life in 24-hour compartments and that's what we're designed to do.
Speaker 1:Take things one day at a time.
Speaker 2:Yep, and when one day is too much, then sometimes we just need to bring it down to let me just get through the next hour. All of us get challenged and hurt and wounded. We're talking about being wounded. What can I do? Just today to make it better, and then I'll deal with tomorrow, when tomorrow comes. Go on to make it better, and then I'll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.
Speaker 2:So we talked about acceptance. We talked about chunking it down into little things and dealing with today, or even less than one day, maybe an hour at a time. And then the other thing that we need is we need a picture of our better life. A better life starts in our mind. We have to see it. We say what is it that keeps resilient people going? It is hope. It is a vision that this is me as a more confident person. This is me with money in the bank. This is me with a loving relationship. This is me being happy. Even happiness begins as an idea we have. We think I could be happier. Okay, so what would that look like? And and what steps can I take to be the happier me? And so every step of progress, every aspect of a better life, begins as an idea, and that is critical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think too many people realize how amazing visualizing and imagining a better life can be for you and how great of an exercise that can be to kind of journal about you know, like you said, what do you want your future you know to look like and visualizing it, especially when you're going through a tough time, especially when you're in a time of uncertainty. Right, I think that's a lot of times for myself. I know when I start to feel a little bit anxious. Um, and uneasy is when things are uncertain all right, I don't have clear, and so able to look five, ten years later. Um, make, brings a smile to my face, right, and it makes me. It makes things clear, right.
Speaker 2:And if we were to put a word on that, josh, we might say what it is is hope. We can get through almost anything if we have hope. We say well, I'm dealing with this divorce, I'm dealing with this business that just went belly up, or I'm dealing with this illness, this broken leg. But I can see a time when I'm beyond that and I'm healthy and I can afford to pay my rent. I can afford to travel where I want to my rent. I can afford to travel where I want to. I can see myself being more confident and being treated well by my friends and family, and that is where I'm headed. That's hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then what the hope does? It helps you kind of reverse engineer what you can do today, right? Because I think especially folks who maybe are in a situation where they don't have hope and it's like, hey, let's visualize that and start to break down. Hey, what can I do today to get there, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and for those of us who maybe think, well, this visualization, it seems a little bit dreamy, but there's not a successful athlete, pilot, actor, dancer, educator, not a successful anybody who didn't dream and see themselves succeeding at their chosen profession. We have to see it and we reinforce it. And the more that we reinforce it, the more that we see that picture, the more we move from a position of this is a nice dream to this is a nice possibility, to this really could happen, to this is going to happen, but I don't know when. To this is my life, that is what I'm moving toward and nothing is going to knock me off course yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you know, everything was visualized. This microphone I'm speaking through was first visualized before it became a physical mic, right, I'm pretty sure the books that you've written. It was in your mind first. Then, you know, as you put action behind it, more things came about and you were able to, you know, uh, refer, you know, uh, refine it and grow it. It came with time, but it was in your mind first, right, and so, um, everything that we see was first in somebody's mind and then it became reality.
Speaker 2:So we need to make it a daily practice to see our happy and prosperous future in our mind and it crystallizes, it becomes more and more real, and even to the point where, once it happens, we just, in a sense, sometimes we say, well, I knew. I mean, I've been living that, I've been seeing it, and now, here it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Having said that, life is still sometimes disappointing and whatever projects we're working on, I often share, when I'm speaking, that a lot of things that we do don't work. In fact, most things don't work as well as we hope they will. We start a podcast and we're hoping that we're going to have 10,000 followers after a month and we don't.
Speaker 2:Or we create a YouTube video and think this is going to go viral this is amazing and it doesn't. Or we write an ad. We think that's going to work, or we write a manuscript and we send it off to a publisher my first manuscript. I sent it to 60 publishers and I got 61 rejections. One publisher wrote to me twice and said forget it. So a lot of things don't work as well as we hope they will. But here's the thing if we maintain a work rate and we keep doing everything we can, then enough things work to give us momentum. And one day, usually when we least expect it, something happens that is even better than we imagined, and it usually doesn't come from where we thought it was coming from. But that's the beauty of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, it's usually and, like you said, it's usually better than what you even imagined it would be right those you know without those rejections I'm sure things wouldn't have turned out as great as it would have if you didn't get those rejections right. You kind of go back to the drawing board and figure it out, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just keep on refining what you're doing and you say, well, with each rejection, with each no, I'm getting closer to a yes. Yeah, that's what I always tell myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You mentioned and one of these things I want to mention right, bouncing back, right, and it's a lot of things that people bounce back from right. We talk about failure, we talk about rejection, we talk about all of these different things. And number one, I'm looking at the seven steps of bouncing back finding purpose and, whatever happens, Make what makes us extraordinary right. There's people out there looking for their purpose, looking for kind of what lights them up. What advice would you give to them?
Speaker 2:Now two things. The first one that I think is huge is whatever is under your nose right now, put everything into what you're doing. Give your all. You may not be in the perfect job, but while you're in that job even though sure you've told your friends I'm not going to be here forever, but while you are there, give it all. You've got friends. I'm not going to be here forever, but while you are there, give it all. You've got. Any small opportunity that comes along, crush it. Give it everything you have.
Speaker 2:And one thing will lead to another and another, and it may not be. I mean, you know, maybe you're a singer and you say to yourself well, if I had an audience of 100, then I'd really give a show, but I've only got these three people in this cafe. No, you give the show of your life to those three people, and next week you'll have six, and in a month's time you'll have 20. And in two months' time, not only are you still doing your best, but you're doing better than you were a month ago, and people are talking about you. And in a year you've got 100 and you go from there.
Speaker 2:But you start with what you have and where you can, and so if you've got a dream to do something that is not a part of your regular job, then make a start. Do what you can, start learning about it, Get your toe in the water, do whatever you can. That is going to get you learning more and connected with people who can teach you. But make a start and then just don't judge too much the opportunities that are in front of you. Just grab them and do your best opportunities that are in front of you.
Speaker 1:Just grab them and do your best.
Speaker 1:So, a few things you mentioned, there is this like, whatever you have on your plate right now, crush it and make sure you do amazing work.
Speaker 1:Change your attitude about it, because I think a lot of folks, whatever they're currently doing, maybe it's not what they want to do and they don't have a good attitude towards it. And I can definitely admit myself, it's times where I've had bad attitudes about certain things and I have to check it. I have to say, hey, no, you know, let's actually go above and beyond what we're doing. Because, you know, I always heard the quote how you do everything is how you do everything, and so if you don't crush what's currently on your plate, when you get another opportunity or it's other things that you have on your plate that you want to put on your plate, it's going to be hard not to have a to have a bad attitude for eight hours doing this and then the next five hours, when you work on something else, just automatically flip the switch and have a good attitude. It's like, no, you got to crush everything and have a great attitude about it all, because that's the only way it's going to work.
Speaker 2:Yes, josh. I mean, I might have a job that I hate and I'm telling my friends I hate it and I'm going to quit at 4.30. What's the only way for me to have a happy day is to put my heart and soul into my job until 4.30, even though I'm going to quit at 4.30. The way to be happy at any job is to give your best. You don't give your best for your boss's sake, you give your best for your sake. And, as you say, how you do anything is how you do everything.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is that, even if you're in a job that is not ideal, when you put your heart and soul into it, then you develop skills that you may use in another job. You develop confidence that you may even end up using in your own business. Or you may be spotted by somebody who says you're working in this crap place, but your effort is amazing. Come and work for me and I'll pay you more. So let's never underestimate the importance of the current moment, because we never know who's watching. That may offer us an opportunity, and we never know how important it is for us to develop our skills for the next opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the next opportunity. Yeah, you know, really, what I've realized in our conversation right is just our current state. Right, when you talked about happiness, you talked about our current state and focusing on the good right, so that we can have a great attitude about what we do. You talked about looking at the past right as well, learning from it and realizing that, hey, the negative things that I've went through in the past have actually created you know who I am today. And then visualizing the future to help you have hope and understand what you need to do today.
Speaker 1:But in all of it, it starts with the current state and staying focused, staying present. Right, how do you stay present? How do you stay in the current moment? It can be tough, especially when you're bouncing back. It could be hard to not let past situations affect the way you think about a current situation that's negatively impacting you, right, and it can be hard for you to be worried and be worried about the future of like, hey, how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to, you know, get this job? How do you stay in the present moment?
Speaker 2:how do you stay in the present moment. Well, if we underline the importance of staying in the present moment, let's imagine that, for no particular reason, you decided that you were going to gather everything that you need to eat in the next five years and everything that you need to wear in the next five years, and you put it all in this big sack and you carried it all around on your back. At some stage you'd collapse. I mean, we decide you're not designed to carry that kind of load. Similarly, if you were to make a list of everything that could go wrong in the next five years and everything you need to do in the next five years and carry that all around in your head, again you could collapse because you're not designed to carry that kind of load. But you are designed to carry a little load that's just 24 hours worth of things to deal with or be concerned with. So living life in 24-hour compartments is so critical and it's the only way that works. We also need to perhaps remind ourselves that we can get drawn into this idea of well, the next moment is going to be better than this moment. So maybe we're having a tough week and it's only Tuesday and we say, well, I don't like this week. Everything is really hard. But Friday I've got this hot date, so Friday evening I'll be happy, right?
Speaker 2:So come Friday evening you jump in your car, you pull out onto the freeway, you're stuck in traffic, you're not even moving, so you're not happy yet. But you say I'll be happy when I get to the restaurant. Well, you get to the restaurant late, there's already this lineup of people for tables. So you say, well, I'll be happy when I get a table. And eventually you get a table, your date's not there because she's stuck in traffic. Then, well, I'll be happy when all the waiters are busy. I'll be happy when someone comes and takes my order. You finally get your food and then you take a photo of it and you put it on Instagram. I'll be happy when someone likes my chicken parmigiana.
Speaker 2:You know, and thinking, always thinking, that the next moment is going to be better than this moment, and the next moment is never going to be better than this moment, especially if, when the next moment comes, you're thinking about the moment after that. So it is an understanding that we drag ourselves back to the present. We just say let me just focus on my chat with Josh. I have everything I need. I've got air to breathe. Let me enjoy this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, let's just bring our attention right back here.
Speaker 2:Let's bring it back. I mean, you're an athlete, yeah, and the thing with high performers and sportsmen being in the zone is that you know when everything is working so beautifully and we're hitting aces or we're hitting, you know, shooting hoops. We are just there. That is all that exists. And if we could get inside the minds of the greats, we just find that they're able to shut out all distractions and just be in the moment, so much more than the people who never.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other thing that is attached to that and I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, that is attached to that and I'd be interested in your thoughts on this is that we cannot and this sort of leads to the subconscious, we cannot give our mind a message of something not to do. It's like Google Maps. You can't say when Google Maps says where do you want to go, you can't say not the airport, right, you know, you've got to say I want to go to the supermarket. You can't say and similarly, if we say don't drop this ball or don't miss this shot, the mind doesn't understand that. No, the mind doesn't understand that. No. And the great players the michael jordans and the roger federer's what sets them apart is that they are able to say this is what I want, when the pressure of the moment leads the also-rans to say don't screw it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, hey, don't mess this up, don't mess this up. And then you end up messing up. So it's like you. I mean that's so important. You have to direct your mind to where you want it to go right or what you want it to think. And so a lot of times, you know we talk about self-talk.
Speaker 1:I couldn't tell you how many times, you know, on the court, I'm telling myself hey, you know, lock, lock in, lock in, hey. And it's never me really telling myself Positive. Right, it's me telling myself the next direction, all right, especially in a crunch time period, right, it's like, hey, you need to make sure when you follow you, hey, just follow through here, follow through, you'll be great, do your job. It's easy. Rebound.
Speaker 1:It is so many different things, um, that going in your mind, especially on the negative side of don't miss this free throw, oh, this is a tough pass, don't throw it. No, I need to just tell myself, hey, follow through, breathe, follow through. Not. And it's not even hey, you're going to make it, you're going to make it. It's like, oh, no, I need to direct it exactly what I want my mind to do, which takes the pressure off. Right, which, like you said, you become more present, right? And it's like when I talk about flow, when I think about flow, it's like control without thought. It's subconscious, right. Like you mentioned before, getting into the subconscious, control without thought. I'm not really consciously thinking about it, my subconscious has just taken over and it's flowing. So when you mentioned the subconscious before, towards the beginning of the show, I was like this is perfect, because how can we start to control the way our mind thinks and thinking in a more positive way? Right, see life from a whole different perspective than a negative perspective.
Speaker 2:So much of it is about focusing on what we want, and so you give the example of when you're on the court. At the same time, you get up to give a speech and so many people will say don't screw it up, don't forget your lines. At the moment we say I'm relaxed, I'm enjoying myself. This is a breeze, I'm born for this the moment we're focusing on what we want and enjoying the process I mean the closest I came to sporting greatness was Nick Faldo, who was the world's number one golfer in the 90s.
Speaker 2:Yes, he won the British Open in 91 in a very tight finish and he was famous for being a bit grumpy and unhappy on the course. And at the press conference after his victory they said what was different about you? You just seemed like more relaxed. And he said I read this book called being happy, um, which was very kind of nick and and helped our book sales because we were just getting started at the time. But people have said to me what could you teach the number one golfer about golf? And the answer is nothing. But here's the thing when we feel better, we do better.
Speaker 2:We feel better, we do better yeah yeah yeah, we bring our best self to the table right, yeah, yeah, and, and happy thoughts flow from that and possibilities flow from that, and we focus on what we want instead of on what we don't want. I mean, I talked about this thing about focusing on what you don't want. We've all been to a game where our side is winning and they're beating the city that we most love to beat, and this is heaven. We're just. This is terrific.
Speaker 2:And about 10 minutes before the end, they're so far out in front. They start focusing on protecting their lead or not losing, yes, and they go down, yeah, and we say you know, it was all so good, all but the last 10 minutes. What happened? And you can't win a game by telling yourself don't lose, and you can't win in life by telling yourself don't lose, so it always has to be. What do I want here? You know, we're walking on stage, we're going to a job interview, we're playing tennis, we're about to serve. What is it that I want, as opposed to don't hit a double fault.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's so key and I think in the more, like you said, the more we focus on the good, the more it becomes a habit and the more it becomes kind of baked into our self subconscious and we'll start to feel better. Right, we start to bounce back faster. You know we obviously. Things will happen, challenges will happen. We'll bounce back faster. We'll bounce back, we'll be able to change our perspective on a lot of different things and so, um, it sounds simple, but it is right, it is simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, simple is not necessarily easy. So the reason we're even talking about this, josh, is because it's important, but it's not always easy, and so we all need encouragement, we need to be reminded about things that we already know. I mean all of my books, it's not rocket science, but what I'm aware of is that sometimes, if I can express something really simple, like anything, you don't forgive people for their benefit, you do it for their benefit, and if I can put that in a book and have a cartoon alongside it, somebody remembers it and they then go and use it. So, um, these things and that was just off on a tangent there but but these these things, uh, they make sense. They're simple but not always easy, but the thing is they're possible and that's why it's worthwhile talking about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And you know, I'm looking at your book, right, these are things that people go through, right, you got things that could have destroyed me, made me stronger, and I'm looking at this picture and it's this guy. He's on top of debt, rejection, loneliness, failure, bullying, other stuff I choose to forget, right, and this is to be the last thing, uh, that I chat with you about. Um, you know, I had a mentor, uh, about a week ago. He was telling me hey, you know, you can choose not to think about things, right, you can choose not to think about things, right, you can choose not to think about troubles future troubles, past troubles you can choose not to think about it. And so when I was looking at, you know, this copy of the book that you sent me, that last rock that this guy was standing on, really stuck out to me. Other stuff I choose to forget on really stuck out to me. Other stuff I choose to forget. What made you write that as the last round?
Speaker 2:Well, I like that because it was surprising in creating that cartoon. The other things like bullying, loneliness and failure. Everyone might expect that, but it is such a big part that we choose to let go of things that don't help us and don't support us. What I would say is that in forgetting stuff, our mind is not a vacuum. So if we want to get rid of worries or resentments or anything else that is not helping us, we say how do you empty your mind of something like that? And you just have to replace it with something else. So if you get up tomorrow and you're angry with your ex-girlfriend and you're angry with your coach who sat you on the bench for most of the game, then the way that you get rid of that is you start thinking about all the good times you had with your ex-girlfriend or how blessed you were to have spent some time with her Obviously she had some good points and what you learned and and how motivated you are for having had to sit on the bench for the last game.
Speaker 2:We have to replace things. We replace worries. Also, taking action often helps. If there's action we can take, then we take some action that can get that stuff out of our mind, but we were talking earlier about you can't not do something and also you can't not think about something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, you know, if I say to you, don't think of a pink elephant, come on, josh, stop thinking about a pink elephant, it's not going to help. But if, if I say, well, let's talk about kangaroos which I have in the front yard here, by the way, very cute suddenly we're into kangaroos. Yeah, yeah, you've got to replace things, replace our worries and replace our negative thoughts with something else. That's why affirmations can be really good Affirmation, because affirmations can actually help to bring in a new kind of thinking and feeling. Even when we think it's not possible, we keep telling myself you know, I'm happy and relaxed, I'm happy and relaxed, I'm happy and relaxed, I'm happy and relaxed. And you do that for a few minutes, you start to feel happy and relaxed, when you started out being anxious and stressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and over time it becomes self-conscious and then also too, like you said, taking action behind those affirmations as well. Right, yes, you know, doing both, before you know it, you've started to replace that old wiring that you have and you upgrade kind of that software that you have in your subconscious mind. Yeah, that was really neat. I saw that last stone and I was. I was scrolling down and I was like, okay, bullying, failure, what else? Other other stuff I choose to forget? Um, and this is great. Um, where can folks find you? Um, and find more of your work? Um, and get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:well, I, I have a newsletter. Uh, that's available. You can sign up on my website. So my website is andrewmatthewscom. Matthews has two Ts, it's all one word andrewmatthewscom. So that's where you'll find my newsletter. It's very short. It's got a cartoon some joy in your mailbox every two weeks and if you become too happy, you can unsubscribe at any time. I have all my books on Amazon, so we've been talking about being Happy, Bouncing Back, Follow your Heart. They're available in hard copy. They're available as e-books. Two of the books Follow your Heart and Bouncing Back are on Audible If you like to listen to your books with an Australian accent that's mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've got lots of videos on YouTube, tiktok, facebook, instagram, and so you can see my usually short little videos where I'm talking about enjoying work or relationships or happiness, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah you have so many books that I'm looking at on your website how Life Works, being Happy in Challenging Times, being Happy handbook to greater confidence and security. Follow your heart. Happiness in a nutshell. Happiness now, stop the bullying. Being a happy team. So much work, one hundred and forty four strategies for success and happiness. You have a lot and, like you said, it's available on Amazon. It's also you got you have it on Audible, so you have a lot that folks can start to deep dive into to also help replace some of those old thoughts that they have. So, andrew, we appreciate you. You added a ton of value to the audience and, like you said before, these are things that are simple, not necessarily easy, but some things that we can practice in the 24 hours that we have today, and so I appreciate you adding all the value that you showed.
Speaker 2:Josh, it's been a real joy to chat with you. I'm just so grateful. Thank you, a hundred percent, thank you.
