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Matt Hogan's Blog Posts

Who Is A Rich Person?

Published on June 7, 2024

…This is the question we’ve been discussing this week at the martial arts school I teach at.

Some of the student answers we received ranged from, “Someone who has a lot of money” to “Someone who has a lot of kindness” to “Someone who has a lot of friends” to “Someone who has a big house and fancy car” to “Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos” etc.

And after discussing those answers, the answer we offered for the students to reflect on was, “Someone who appreciates all they have.”

…If your mind immediately goes to rich by comparison, then you’ll always be poor.

There will always be someone out there who has more money, more luxury items, more connections, more resources, more privileges, etc. Always.

And this is the trap so many of us fall into when we equate richness to being about what we have in comparison to.

Richness, I’d encourage you to consider, has nothing to do with comparison.

Richness has everything to do with perspective. It’s a feeling that can be cultivated—not a title earned from a number of zeros.

And once we realize this and can start actively cultivating that feeling of richness in our lives via appreciation, gratitude, mindfulness—suddenly the game we’re playing changes.

…Suddenly we get to step off the hamster wheel we’ve been trained to run on (the one that only speeds up and gets harder the harder we speed up and run)—and get to start soaking it all in instead. With each step… each conversation… each touch… each smile… each exchange along the way.

P.s. I also published: 20 Heavy Michelle Zauner Quotes from Crying In H Mart on Cancer and Grief

Problem Solving Like A Gardener

Published on June 6, 2024

An inner work exercise: pick a problem, any problem, you’re facing in your life right now… write it down.

Inquire as to whether the problem is being caused by a deeper rooted problem or if that problem is the core problem that can’t be traced any deeper.

If it can be traced deeper, write down that bigger problem and continue until you get to the core.

Next, move in the opposite direction, start at the core problem and string together all of the additional problems that one root problem is causing—creating a roots-of-a-tree looking diagram.

Continue until all of your ideas are exhausted.

Then… study that diagram. Look closely at the impact of that one root problem. Imprint that impact on your mind. Let it soak deeply into your conscious awareness.

Continue this inquisition by imagining, like a gardener tending to the weeds of a garden, how this problem will respond if you remove or “solve” one of the superficial layers… visualize how, with the root still in tact, it’ll just grow back and manifest itself equally, if not stronger, than before.

Then, visualize how the problem will respond when you remove or “solve” the core problem… visualize how, like a weed being yanked out in full, all of the connected problems will be solved, too.

Finish by mentally repossessing all of the energy you normally devote to the solving of superficial layer problems, and vow to unleash ALL of that repossessed energy on the root problem itself.

Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed and outnumbered—not because of the number of problems per se—but, because of our lack of focus on root problems vs superficial problems.

Maybe Fighting Isn’t The Answer

Published on June 5, 2024

A mother of one of my martial arts students was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

…Yet, seeing her in person, you’d never know.

She’s vibrant, she’s warm, she’s smiling, she’s taking care of her 7-year-old son’s needs without so much as a single complaint (that I ever hear)… and she’s even DJing on some weekends.

At first glance, some might see this as being possible denial. A possible refusal to acknowledge the diagnosis so the pain or reality isn’t felt. A possible toxic positivity, some might say, to focus exclusively on the good while ignoring fully the bad.

…But, this isn’t the case with this mother at all.

After further inspection and conversation, the vibrance and warmth she’s emitting isn’t coming from denial… but from a refusal to fight.

Which might sound confusing… refusing to fight a cancer diagnosis?!

The idea, she explained on her GoFundMe page, came from the admin of Love Your Cancer Free Life group. He said: “When you fight, it fights back. Rather than fight, accept.”

“Obviously he doesn’t mean to just roll over and play dead.” Lisa explains.

“…It’s more about not feeding into the story that everyone is told about how cancer should look and feel. What he means is come to peace with its presence and accept the need to respond for change.”

She then continued to quote the admin saying, “Fighting is a reaction. Acceptance is a response. Taking authentic action, not reaction, to create the change needed for healing. Stop putting energy into the fight and start placing energy in your POWER for healing.”

…Something we might consider doing in the “fights” of our lives, too.

Looking Problems Dead In The Eye

Published on June 4, 2024

I felt an interesting shift happen in me when I sent out yesterday’s post about NOT being on track with my 2024 goals.

…Like that post in and of itself helped replenish my depleted inner sponge.

…Like admitting I wasn’t perfect at following through on what I initially set out to do freed me in some unexpected way(s).

…Like sharing something imperfectly human like that made me feel more in tune with my imperfect human nature.

…And, most surprisingly, like I can now proceed forward from that “wrung out” slump and begin the process of “refilling” and engaging in additional creation efforts.

It makes me think that this is why we state the challenges we’re facing out loud… so that we can (finally) look them dead in the eye, see them, shape them, feel them, understand them, and begin the process of moving forward from them.

…Rather than allowing them to remain as open processes in the background of our mind that lurk in the shadowy parts of our awareness… sucking life energy from our days that could otherwise be devoted to solving the very things we’re just not clearly stating (and therefore not looking at) as problems.

P.s. I finished uploading quotes from The Prophet. You can read my 18 favorites here.

Currently NOT Crushing My Goals

Published on June 3, 2024

I’ve been having a hard time creating outside of these daily 1-minute posts.

My new year resolutions were to write one additional longer form article each week, create two new digital product guides, and create my first ever video course.

I have barely made any progress at all on the latter two goals and have published only a handful of new, longer form articles since the new year.

The feeling I’m having is one of being too wrung out—like a sponge who has been squeezed too tightly and is only left with a dampness and a slow trickle of fresh water to re-soak with.

I can think back to times when I was creating easily. Busting out longer form articles almost daily… creating guides with volumes of enthusiasm… building digital ideas well into the night—even on weekends and holidays.

Which isn’t what I’m feeling now. And I’m learning to be accepting and mindful of it so as to not stop showing up or quitting—this is a comfort zone trick—but to keep showing up anyway while simultaneously feeling every bit of what I’m feeling.

This is the real trick: to merge with what you create so that what you create can help make you. Every part of the journey matters. No part should be skipped. Now is the time for a heavier focus on refilling. Soon, it’ll be time for another season of wringing. This is what the mindfulness and acceptance allows… a complete cycle.

…Which might be worth considering if your art is chronically incomplete.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

The Secret To Better Self-Control

Published on June 2, 2024

One of the best pieces of advice I can offer for building better self-control is to prepare better alternatives.

The thing to understand is that if you say to yourself, “Don’t eat the cookies” the mind doesn’t hear the “don’t”—it just hears “cookies” over and over again.

…And it’ll keep wearing away at your self-control until you cave in.

Better would be to have a solid alternative ready that you can shift your focus to when you need it, on demand. For example, rather than “not eat cookies” being the focus, eat a protein bar with peanut butter on top instead (what I do). Or if you want to control yourself from eating anything additional at all, get into a book or task asap so that your mind can shift away from the thing you’re trying to avoid.

The secret to better self-control is in the speed—the quicker you can begin an alternative, the less willpower you’ll drain and the more you’ll have for other things later.

Another example: today I took a sticky note and wrote at the top, “Instead of socials:” and underneath started a list of things I can do on-demand when I’m feeling lazy and like I want to browse mindlessly. I listed things like “RV” (to search for an upcoming trip), “Posters” (to create for MMQ), “Philly D” (a news show I watch), etc.

Which might sound silly, but is kind of what I need when I’m feeling lazy and mindless. No thinking, just look, type, and go.

Bottom line: when you’re under a spell of desire (cookies, socials, etc), easy is everything… because easy is fast… and fast is the secret.

Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Published on June 1, 2024

One of my students asked me the other day, “I practice so hard… why do I still make mistakes?”

And I said, “Easy. Because you’re human.”

The outcome of practicing hard isn’t perfect.

…Expecting this of ourselves is to overlook our nature as imperfect creatures.

The outcome of practicing hard is better… and better is the most we should ever ask of ourselves as we continue our quests not towards perfect… but towards understanding… towards confidence… towards art… towards mastery… towards self-actualization… towards legacy… towards expressing what it means to uniquely human—uniquely us.