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Matt Hogan's Blog Posts

Don’t Confuse Patient With Passive

Published on March 16, 2025

Being patient is a strategy that prioritizes future benefits over immediate gains. Being passive is choosing to have no strategy… and just allowing things to happen without any action on your part.

Being patient is being persistent in the face of injustice and taking action time and time again to make a change that faces a lot of resistance. Being passive is being a bystander and allowing injustice to happen.

Being patient is working day in and day out to realize a dream that requires consistent—oftentimes monotonous—work to be done. Being passive is hoping things work out without a plan.

Being patient is giving the person you like reasons to like you back—without crowding them or being annoying. Being passive is not saying anything to the person you like.

Inner Work Prompt: When it comes to the different domains in your life… are you being patient? …Or are you really just being passive?

P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.

Don’t Sleep On This

Published on March 16, 2025

Tonight, the martial arts association I’m a part of hosted our annual awards banquet.

After all the food was eaten and presentations were awarded, we opened the floor up for dancing.

And throughout the night, I had a bunch of people tell me how fun I was…

…When all I tried to do was get others to have fun.

There is such a power in this realization that I think a lot of people let slip under their radar.

If you want to have fun… get others to have fun.

If you want to be respected… give others respect.

If you want to be remembered… be the one who remembers others.

This formula has an incredibly diverse range of applications…

All you have to answer for yourself is… what is it that you want?

…And then simply go give that generously to others.

Understanding Envy To Understand Yourself

Published on March 14, 2025

Want to get to know yourself?

Pay attention to what you envy.

And once you start to understand what that is…

Understand that it probably isn’t that.

What you’re probably after are the feelings that having that thing evokes.

And once you understand that…

You can begin the real inner work of evoking those feelings without needing the thing(s) at all.

The Best Roller Coaster

Published on March 13, 2025

Just as you wouldn’t compare the rise of one rollercoaster with the feeling of finishing the first fall of another… so too shouldn’t you compare the rise of one relationship with the peak feelings you had in another.

Give each relationship space to breathe… give it time to rise… let yourself fall… feel like you’re feeling each moment for the first time. And let the rollercoaster of your past fade into the background.

Let the best rollercoaster be… the one you’re currently on.

Vibe Over Everything

Published on March 12, 2025

Feeling awful from the toxic cycle of hate, division, and fear that is constantly spewing from your modern day screens? Let me offer you some top tier advice:

Go to more music shows.

I have yet to experience another place on earth that is more universally uniting, accepting, and love spewing—generally speaking and with some exceptions.

The thing about music is that it emphasizes vibe above everything. And removes from the emphasis divisive topics and accompanying differences.

The thing about us humans is that we all want to feel seen and heard. And we want to experience the good vibes that result in joy, excitement, and pleasure. Nobody truly wants the opposite of that. Which is why music is such an incredible medium… it connects people from a vibrational standpoint and then facilitates the flow of good vibes that come from that connection (feeling seen and heard) and the music itself.

It allows us to meet others from a vibrational standpoint first. It allows us to see what unites us first. It allows us to find the common ground between one another first.

And then…

And then… how much better it will be to discuss divisive topics and differences…

Turning Nightmares To Dreams

Published on March 11, 2025

Laying in bed the other night, I felt a wave of grief and paralyzing fear come over me as my mind drifted deep into the thought of death—the inevitable conclusion and reality of my life.

And I laid there with it for quite some time… Imagining the various ways it all might unfold for me.

I imagined the various ages I could be… I imagined the various ways it might occur… I imagined the types of regrets I might feel…

And it absolutely terrified me.

To think about this unimaginatively impossible occurrence happening only once… getting no do-overs or heads up as to when it’ll all come to an end… being gone for the rest of time as life continues on without me… being forgotten… being nothing…

…And then I woke up the next morning.

And not only did it feel like another chance… but it reminded me that sleep is a type of exercise in death. It’s time spent being completely unconscious and evaporated from reality… and there wasn’t even a single moment of fear from when I fell asleep to when I woke up.

Live your days as mini-lives unto themselves. Fulfill as much of your life as you can from that moment you wake until the moment you sleep. Exercise and familiarize yourself with death. And, as Leonardo da Vinci said, the rest should take care of itself: “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.“

An Inner Work Lesson From The Movie Up (2009)

Published on March 10, 2025

In the opening scene of the movie Up, we’re immersed in a five minute recap of the life and love shared between the two main characters of the story: Carl and Ellie Fredricksen.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s must watch animation. Here’s a link.

For whatever reason, this scene popped into my mind today as I was thinking about life and love and relationships (once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand) and it got me thinking about Carl and Ellie’s dynamic.

The above link doesn’t show it, but essentially Ellie comes crashing into Carl’s life when they’re kids and just lights up his world. She’s talkative, energetic, and filled with a contagious sense of adventure. Carl doesn’t talk much, is portrayed to be a little awkward, and seemingly defaults to routine and what’s comfortable.

…Inside each of us is both a “Carl” and an “Ellie,” eh?

What I got to thinking about as I replayed this dynamic is how important it is to try and nurture the “Ellie” that’s inside. Not that there’s anything wrong with the “Carl,” but waiting for an “Ellie” to come crashing into and light up your life simply isn’t a good strategy.

The one that tends to show up is simply the one we choose to feed with the nourishment of our attention and energy. There was a point in my life, for example, when I could distinctly identify as being mostly “Carl.” But, since I’ve started nourishing my inner “Ellie”… I’ve made so many new connections and experienced countless incredible adventures.

Which is all to say… being the “Ellie” who does the crashing and lighting up… my friend… is an excellent strategy.