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Matt Hogan's Blog Posts

I’m Coming Back To Social Media?

Published on January 5, 2026

The first time I ever opened up TikTok, I blinked and 2 hours of my life was gone.

I deleted the app.

A few years later and… every. single. app. is. the. same.

I open up Instagram, blink, 2 hours gone.

I open up Facebook, blink, 2 hours gone.

I open up YouTube, blink, 2 hours gone.

Besides that, X feels like a toxic cesspool and Linkedin feels too business-y for me.

None of it feels aligned.

Which is why I haven’t posted to social media in as long as I have. I focus my energy on posting to this blog and have been stubbornly holding back my creative inclinations to post to social media until I found a platform that prioritized content distribution differently..

Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with short video… I just want to blink and find myself still in the same moment… surrounded by words, artistic images, and intriguing dialog—not eyeballs deep down rabbit holes I never asked to be sucked down.

And a new space I’m dipping my big toe into for 2026 is Substack. It feels like a space that finally doesn’t prioritize video shorts but rather prioritizes the written word.

Which is noteworthy because different primary content medium platforms attract different audiences. And a platform that prioritizes actively reading the written word over passive video consumption… is going to attract a much different kind of user.

One that’s maybe more intentional… more thoughtful… more engaged and ready to connect in more authentic ways…

Why? …Because it’s a more demanding and difficult medium to consume.

Which is the point.

Which is where I think my people will be.

Come check it out…?

Reconsider “Personal Development” Books

Published on January 3, 2026

Here’s a key insight I discovered after nearly two decades of personal development reading: it comes packaged best in the classic literature section of the bookstore.

The major difference is this: self-help books give the essential, actionable, key takeaways needed for… well… personal development. It’s the stripped down version of an insight that we attempt to push into memory from the outside-in.

Classic literature, however, tells a story. And oftentimes, a story that takes hundreds and hundreds of pages to unpack and fully digest. During which time, you’re living another life… seeing reality through another’s eyes… feeling their emotions and living out the consequences of their actions in real time—as if they are your own… and you’re nurturing an understanding that grows from the inside-out.

This difference in how we retain insight and how it affects us cannot be understated.

The insight being pushed down often gets rejected by what’s already deeply rooted and has been growing for decades within. It’s like trying to blow a tree over with your best exhale.

The insight that’s planted and is given hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of space and time to grow is able to entrench its roots and become a powerful tree in its own right. Eventually overtaking the resources from the “old-ways trees” and seesaws power into the new.

So the next time you’re at the bookstore or contemplating what you’d like to dive into next—with the intention of developing yourself personally—consider the classic literature section over the self-help isle.

The classics are called classics and have stood the test of time for good reason.

Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself

Published on January 2, 2026

My name is Matt.

I’m here to help connect people to their higher calling.

In real life (IRL), I’m a martial artist who runs a brick-and-mortar martial arts school. It’s here—in a traditional martial arts setting that emphasizes respect, discipline, and unity—that I meet people face-to-face and we exercise our bodies, minds, and spirits together. There’s no phones, no hateful/toxic energy, or otherwise distractions. Just a sacred training space, a focused curriculum, and a community of open-minded individuals. I know how impactful a space like this can be on a person’s life because of how drastically it impacted mine—my current goal being to help open more locations that can serve others in similar ways.

Online, I’m a writer who helps busy people do inner work. It’s here—this blog to be exact—where I reflect on recent experiences, wrestle through things I’ve learned, and contemplate my current inner landscape so as to extract a written insight that can also be shared (and read in 1-minute or less).

MoveMe Quotes is my personal quote library turned public website that houses some of the best insights I’ve discovered on my own inner work journey. I’ve also written 30-day guides for the busy person to help them live life with less regret and build habits in an anti-hustle-culture way. And I do 1-on-1 coaching.

In addition to training martial arts and writing I love to read, rave, and play basketball. I’m definitely not a morning person. I definitely am a dog person. And I definitely don’t believe in pinky promises.

Thanks for being here with me :)

Inner Work Prompt: How would you introduce yourself in 280 words or less?

8 Hours Of Cleaning

Published on January 2, 2026

I spent about 8 hours cleaning, organizing, and preparing my house for 2026 today.

Two observations as I reflect on it:

1. Chain tasks together. Going one task to the next to the next is always easier than doing one task, stopping, and trying to start back up again. This is as true for cleaning as it is for productivity at work as it is for personal development.

2. Prepare your environment in a way that makes getting the things you gotta/wanna get done easier. Keep your workout area clean, have your workout clothes ready, write down your workout the night before, make sure the equipment you need is prepared and organized, and so on. Also: hide the bad foods in the kitchen, keep a fruit bowl out (and filled), meal plan, have healthy cravings alternatives for when you need something sweet/salty, etc.

Getting everything done that I got done today felt incredible.

If you haven’t prepped your environment like this in a while, it’d be an excellent thing to consider at the outset of 2026.

Music > Podcasts?

Published on January 1, 2026

There was a time when I was very much podcasts > music. The thought being, if you have the time to listen to something, why not make it something “productive” that can help you gain valuable insight and possibly help you improve your life?

But then I hit a point of saturation where too much of a good thing was flooding my mind. And I realized that what I needed wasn’t more time devoted to productive self-improvement (which is a large part of how I spend my time professionally)… what I needed was more time to let my mind… breathe.

And I am now very much in my music > podcast era.

Because what I learned is that space is just as important as what fills it. Too much stuff in your house, for example, and no space to move isn’t a good thing—more space would be… Nor would too much exercise and not enough rest be—rest is when the body rebuilds and recovers itself… Or when you think about how awful too much work and not enough play feels… the beauty is in the balance.

There’s nothing wrong with podcasts.

It’s simply to say: give your mind/body space to breathe from whatever is heavily saturating it/them.

Maybe even something to cheers to for 2026?

Post Show Depression

Published on December 31, 2025

After a really good music show, some describe the feeling after as a crash—a drastic come down back to reality—even as post show depression.

Because when you’re at a really good music show, you’re not attached to reality as you know it. You’re somewhere else. Somewhere transported, somewhere high above, somewhere freeing and loved filled…

But as I heard someone describe it today… it doesn’t have to be a crash followed by depression… it can be something we gracefully carry back down with us and intentionally integrate into our reality as we now know it.

Because being at a really good music show isn’t a detachment from reality—it is reality. And what’s happening there can happen elsewhere, too. We just have to learn how to carry that updated understanding of reality with us.

Trust And Surrender

Published on December 29, 2025

While at a music show last night, a distressed women crossed paths with a group of friends and I.

After calming her down, we gathered that she lost her friend group and was freaking out because it had been over an hour and there were quite literally thousands of people there… which meant poor (read: no) phone reception… constant changes and shuffles in the waves of people… and to make things worse for her, I don’t think she was even five feet tall—so she was surrounded by walls of people at every turn.

What happened next, though, was pretty incredible.

We created a space for her to calm down… where she could feel safe in the sea of strangers… where she could dance a little of the anxiety away…

And quite literally the moment after I finished saying, “Sometimes this is what happens and you have to just lean into the side quest, and just trust that it will all work out…” she looked back over my shoulder and finds her friend group.

And she started sobbing.

And we all started celebrating.

And we all had a sunshine and rainbows universe alignment moment.

…Had she continued on the distressed, anxiety-ridden path she was on, she would’ve continued in the exact opposite direction of where her friends were. Us creating that space for her got her to turn around and realign with a better path.

And as it usually does… the universe delivered a memory, a lesson, and a remarkable moment all wrapped into one.

Sometimes, as hard as it might be, we just have to learn to trust and surrender.