Unraveling Addiction through Martial Arts Mastery with Sifu Matthew

What if the transformative power you needed to change your life lies in a blend of martial arts, meditation, and a strong morning routine? That's exactly what our guest, Sifu Matthew, a master of martial arts and a survivor of a troubled past and addiction, has used as a catalyst for his personal growth and healing. Sifu Matthew shares his inspiring journey from a chaotic childhood to becoming a martial arts expert, using his mastery over various forms to combat addiction and harness his wild energy into a force for good.

Sifu Matthew's story isn't just about overcoming adversity, but also about understanding the intricate web of addiction, the lies it tells us, and how it impacts not just the individual, but their community as well. From the interplay of DNA, trauma, and personal choices, he walks us through his pivotal turning point - the moment he chose to shed his past identity and step into a new version of himself. This episode offers a deep examination of how we can recreate our realities, highlighting the importance of acknowledging and taking ownership of our failures on the path to success.

You also won't want to miss hearing about Sifu Matthew's powerful morning routine, a harmonious blend of martial arts and meditation that maintains his energy and chi. This episode delves into the power of repetition in shaping our reality and how mentorship and personal growth are integral to sobriety. Sifu Matthew's resilience and wisdom serve as key reminders that success leaves clues, and by understanding principles, we can all transform ourselves. Listen in and join us on this enriching exploration of personal growth, healing, and transformation.

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Transcript

Baz porter: 0:04

Good everybody, and welcome to another episode of Rise from the Ashes. As you know if you've been listening this for a while now it's all about people's journeys how to overcome adversity and not just survive, but thrive through that journey. I have a special guest with me today. His name is Sifu Matthew, and he has insight, knowledge on how to overcome adversity and pain and use it not just to help other people, but thrive and be a serious leader in his industry. I'm going to let him introduce himself because, as I keep saying, no one introduces themselves better than the person who is speaking. Matthew, please tell the world who you are, what you do and what brought you here today.

Sifu Matthew: 0:56

Thank you, vaz, a pleasure to be here and excited to do this with you. You're inspiring and you hold a great space for growth. So I am here because I have spent, I would say, much of my life understanding how to use the martial arts sciences to deal with problems. And basically the problems that I deal with are recovery, so recovery from addictions, recovery from injuries, recovery from imbalances, and that would basically include anything from severe addictive issues, severe mental issues, severe emotional imbalances, severe substance all different types of substance abuses and then also what happens in the body around those things. So it could also be people who have imbalances in their electricity or in their organs which cause the addictions. Right, it could be dietary things, it could be genetic things, but helping them understand how to balance those out and then also the injury part of it. And I came to this through, I would say, necessity.

Sifu Matthew: 2:18

So I learned the martial arts or started in the martial arts when I was about four years old and arguably it could have been three, it could have been four, but my father was actually my father was into judo. He was already a brown belt in judo, so I was just kind of thrust in there and I was absolutely a wild kid and I was in a very, I would say, wild home, so it was very unstable home for sure, strong, abusive childhood, and so, from the age of as little as I can remember, there was stuff going on, so I was trying to release a lot of energy that I could not, so I was breaking bones. When I was little, I was breaking everything, I was getting into trouble. You know, I was like falling off a porch. I had internal bleeding like by the time I was probably five, I broke my collarbone, I tore my finger open. It was kind of nonstop with me in a sense of that. I was not really, I guess, able to be stabilized by anybody. So I was put into the martial arts at a young age, which was brilliant for me in that it just gave me an outlet to do something, actually do something, and to actually do something that required physical force, and this started in Boston.

Sifu Matthew: 3:36

I was around a phenomenal judoka. He was a French resistance fighter in World War II and he was an incredible guy named Alexandre El Mali de Buenos and he was also a. He was a Kodokan black belt, so he had been to the Kodokan in Japan. He got his black belt from there. So he was very good and he was an expert in Judo, jujitsu and Savat, which is French foot fighting. So I basically had my, I would say, my life path carved out there, studying with him for a very long time until I got my black belt in Judo and Jujitsu, you know. To get to the important facts, I would say that I was definitely not stable when I was kid.

Sifu Matthew: 4:29

I would have stability in my martial arts and many things, and I was kind, had a good heart, but there was too much stress and trauma around and too much violence in certain areas, so couldn't really find that point and I started drinking when I was nine and so the you know, I'll say from the beginning there was this very strange balance between martial arts, the sober guy, and then there was the other guy who was like, had a tremendous amount of like unwound trauma you know we have the Holocaust in our family there was a lot of heavy, heavy nervous system damage, lack of relating, hysteria, violence, substance, all of those things that you wouldn't necessarily expect in the type of home I grew up in. But these things, as we know, happen all the time. And so the martial arts stood as a pivot point for me to get out and almost like that was the real me. Now, interesting thing about it was I didn't start right away, even though I was exposed to Qi like I was exposed to Qi Gong when I was pretty little. So I was fortunate to get into some classes. My dad was doing some of it and for me it was something that was like very innate, very innate to understand that it was like already there. It was sort of like I learned it and I was like, oh, I understand, like I got it, I felt it, I understood what it was, and then basically I would say, went through life, you know, went through other martial arts, moved on to Wing Chun. I became a sifu in Wing Chun like a you know, a teacher in that, and learned Bagua and Shinki and lots of other things and at the same time got sober at 22,.

Sifu Matthew: 6:13

Got sober because absolutely would have died, without a doubt, and it happened pretty fast, where I just knew I was guided by someone who had told me, you know he thought I had this problem and I was like, okay, I'll go to AA. I went once, worked, you know, I kind of liked it, didn't like it. Then the second time I went and then stayed there for a while but then started also doing my own thing after that. So it was in the rooms for a few years and went to my own thing. So the real issue at hand was that I had a lot of injuries and a lot of issues. So I played a little bit of basketball in college Division 3, I wrestled in college as well and I was also very active. You know I was sparring a lot, had a couple of small fights like in rings and then some competitive stuff.

Sifu Matthew: 7:01

But by the time I was out of college and kind of in my late 20s, I had a lot of issues in my body and was not like nothing was really getting fixed, and so I started to spend more time going into what I knew, which was let me go into the wellness, healing aspects of these things, and started studying other disciplines as well as wanting to master my own electricity and realizing that if I could understand my chi, my real force, my internal force, maybe I could put some of these things to rest. And I did, and I did, and it took a long time and it was very challenging, but I was willing to do that. I was able to actually resolve quite a bit of my pains and issues and got to a point where I became very good at it, to the point where I started working with people and obviously over the years have worked with a lot of different types professional athletes, you know, people dealing with those types of issues that were not resolving physical and imbalance. So the main, I guess, takeaway here was that the sober martial arts system came. I was helping people, mentoring them with addictions.

Sifu Matthew: 8:11

The sober martial arts came from an extreme need to go deeper, an extreme need to understand where I was failing and where things were not working for me and where they were not working for other people, and to get past the surface to the core and understand how does this all work?

Sifu Matthew: 8:32

Why are people who have mood swings, who have ADHD, who have severe addictions, who are not able to stay stable, who are addicted to porn, who are addicted to drugs, who are violent when they don't want to be, what can we do to get to the next level? Because there's a lot of challenges and I personally could see within myself like, growing up, I had definitely, I would say, mood swings, for sure, and did not understand how to deal with any of it, like it was not something I could regulate, even though, yes, I would breathe a little and I could focus in my martial arts, but it was fleeting, it was very fleeting, didn't stay. So the journey became about wanting to understand how can I use body position, electrical force, internal power to change these things immediately and to also understand the landscape of that Like literally understand mental disorder from the landscape of an electrical imbalance in you that you can actually change if you understand how the whole organism works.

Sifu Matthew: 9:40

And if you understand how the whole organism works, you're going to be able to control your force. So that's really the tip off point to how you know, the past few years I launched into this and I also had a brilliant mentor who co-founded this with me, who just had phenomenal insights to, yeah, explaining how to use this, how to see it, how to understand it, how to kind of look at the uniqueness of this in that it's not the same thing, because people need specificity, people need a specific thing to do versus like, let's just go breathe, let's just try yoga for that. No, because addictions, mental illnesses, need very specific remedies for the individual to understand their power. So I'm going to cap this intro off with the bottom line was for me, everything's a force-related issue.

Sifu Matthew: 10:37

It's force-related, it's not thought, only thought-related, because our actions come from our forces and if our forces, our real internal forces, aren't balanced, we fail everything. So we could think, you know, as you were talking about earlier outcomes, we could want an outcome, but then we don't have the force. So it's like we want to sail our boat from here to Miami, but the boat is paper, and that's your force. And if your force is not going to, it's not there, then we're lying to ourselves. And so the force measure for me is the truth, in a sense, and addictions, as we know. They're filled with lies which we can talk about, and so force has to be the measure of how do you get into your real core force, which is not just what you're thinking.

Baz porter: 11:23

So I'm going to lead you on to that. I want to talk about the addictions and the lies within the addictions that we create for ourselves. The scenarios that we believe. How would you explain that in your own language? To really focus in on these addictions and the lies and the relationship between them?

Sifu Matthew: 14:34

You know it's addiction to me is a lie number one, because you're in a position where you're saying that, no matter what happens, I'm not good enough, I don't have what I need. You're saying I don't have what I need. We're looking at this is the way SMA breaks it down is like there's a level of greed in addiction. It's always wanting something. It never has enough. So that is a lie and that is a disconnect from what I would call the universe. You know, you call it whatever you want in your religious language, but it's a lie from what's happening scientifically, in that we're connected to electromagnetic fields all the time and there's an interaction. So for me to say I'm alone, I have nothing, is a lot. It's actually an illusion.

Sifu Matthew: 15:23

So the addiction itself is starting with a lie. Now, from there the lie could be. It could be a lie of God, I'm not, I don't have God, I'm not close to God. Then we could become religious fanatics, we could go and we could start, you know, doing things that are coming from a wrong place. We could be sexual addicts and saying like I just I'm not fulfilled. So the addiction mind is going to lie to you and tell you whatever you have is not good and in the process it will destroy what you have, it will destroy grace, it will destroy reality, it will destroy the people around you because it doesn't care. So that lie, that lie inside, will grow itself out and create massive problems.

Baz porter: 16:07

Yeah, I agree. You said something key there for me and that was it has. It has a knock on effect. So I thought going out and this is proven now scientifically we are we can be a result of our DNA. So things are passed down through DNA, rna and the whole passing down of lineage through other people's drawers, your father's trauma, your grandfather's trauma, etc. It's proven. We can change the protons within our nervous system to create different realities.

Baz porter: 16:45

I love what you said. It's a. It's an addiction to the reality we are entering because we have a choice. What was the pivotal moment in your life where you had that choice of carrying on in the in the same pattern broken bones, internal bleeding, abuse, etc. From? I'm now stopped. I am no longer identifying with that version of me and stepping into that new version of yourself. What was that like?

Sifu Matthew: 17:15

Interesting. Okay, so I will. I will say that it's all the time for me, in a sense, that there were these pivotal moments of like. When I got sober that time at 22. I was like I'm done drinking, and I was. I was a wreck. You know, just just briefly, without going through all of it, but people have heard these stories before. So I was drinking a ton. It's kind of a binge drinker, you know blacked out a few times, not huge blackout, but I was getting alcohol poisoning very frequently and there's there's absolutely could have killed myself and I just decided I was done.

Sifu Matthew: 17:57

But the thing for me just fascinating is I feel like they're in the sobriety journey, in the journey of listening and being open. I've got to see it every day because the parts of this are not done. And that's the thing that I was saying. And you're saying this about the DNA, right? So if that DNA coding is there and it's putting impressions on you, right, you're impressed.

Sifu Matthew: 18:23

And you got to work just like you're building muscles or building a kung fu skill at the gym. You got to repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. And you got to lay in new energy and new force. New force because we're experiencing things through force. So for me it's literally like I just see layers, like there are times where I look at I'm just like, oh man, you're still missing that. Okay, let's shut, you know, let's pull that, switch down on that one. But that's how I'm seeing it, because I'm like really have a part of myself that's so refined and strong and clear, and then there's the other part that's not, and I'm trying to can constantly bring the two together, where there's only that one part, that is the skill, the clarity, the power, the energy, of course, and then the other parts are less. So I love that.

Baz porter: 19:15

And the thing is that discipline. One of my mentors says to me not just me, but to many other people as well repetition is the mother of all skill. It's like building a muscle, and it's key that you recognize that at a very early age, going from what you were going through at the time going well, I need to level up, how am I going to level up? And you're questioning things, to demand within yourself that expectation. And then the expectation then became the reality. But it came from a thought of I'm better, I can be better, I am worthy of this. It's a statement that people are don't like telling themselves because they don't actually believe it. I am worthy Because we're conditioned in the reality that it is saying we're not worthy. You need to be in fear. You need to look out one outside of yourself to complete yourself all the time.

Sifu Matthew: 20:15

And it's because it's a condition reality.

Baz porter: 20:19

Right, but there's, you're very successful what you do. You're a commander and a leader in your space. Who did you follow? Not so much follow, but who did you role model? Who was one of your, a couple of your major role models? You said you had a mentor, a color mentors. You can name them. You don't may miss it to you, but what was really the inspiration behind that for yourself?

Sifu Matthew: 20:46

So I think that one of my mentors named Mary Grace was a phenomenal mentor in her ability to see layers, just like layers of what was being missed. You know what is not there, and so that was something that took me to the task to look at where I wasn't doing what I thought I was doing or where I was being defensive, around my hiding behind wounds, a hiding behind weaknesses and wounds, and I realized that in if you want to go to combat, you will know right away. If you are wounded or not, you'll know, because you will be tested. If you want to lie to yourself, you won't know, and you can continue to play that game. So there's a level of number one being willing to not stop at anything less than perfect, and that doesn't mean being perfect as a being, because we're flawed. It means acting with perfection toward what your goals are, not taking less.

Sifu Matthew: 21:56

So that was one person who had massive influence on me. And then it was other teachers. I had a wonderful I still work with him Sifu Gerald Sharp, who's an incredible teacher of Bagua, and Wu Tai Chi and Xing Yi, and I mean just his art form in and of itself is so inspiring because the way he moves and what he does is a. It's like an opening space to understand more of humanity. The best way I can say it is those who've done these types of arts, like meditative arts or martial arts, that really have proper electricity and chi. You're experiencing new things in the moment so that when you're interacting with people that way, if you're open to listen, you're going to be learning a lot more. So he's been an inspiration as well.

Baz porter: 22:50

I like what you just said about learning my journey. I had to overcome myself and the illusion that I knew everything and it took me a while to do that and from ego and work through to ask for help. And I asked him who actually he knew what they were doing and wasn't just to make believe or try to patch work things together, but actually had a result from the adversities that they went through. And I was so. For so long I thought I can't ask, I'm embarrassed to ask, and as soon as I open myself up and drop that persona, that identity of I'm unable to ask, I give myself permission to do that. It opened up a whole world of opportunity to me and I start to listen to other leaders in the space of entrepreneurship, marketing, etc. Etc. And I realized that I wasn't the only one and it wasn't anything about what I was doing. I had to provide a service that was valuable, wanted and could change other people's lives. It was never about me, right, and I modeled and studied some of the best people in the world, limited people like yourself, that were continuously changing other people's lives. And I truly believe that success does leave close, because if you look at all the greats in the world today. They all resorted to an area of expertise that they become very, very, very good at the book, the MacModian Hill thinking you're very rich.

Baz porter: 24:49

Mostly programs of personal development originate from that book. They've just been very enviable along the way. Business models, things like this. There's 33 two-service, two business models out there that really work service-based and industry-based. You either run over it, but you've got to diversify and you've got to know what you're good at, place your strengths and then surround with your people that have your weaknesses but encourage you at the same time. Who did you? I mean you had some mentors, but who did you surround yourself with other than your mentors, your peers, because they're different people aren't they?

Sifu Matthew: 25:33

I had good martial arts people around me Cifual and Goldberg. I had spiritual mentors as well. I was working with someone named Bill Bodry, who is a student of Nanhuai Chen, who's also an incredible teacher. He's a business mentor and a meditation expert. So there were quite a few that I was asking from, and I'm pretty generally open to learn, so I would go after what I felt I needed, but I still would say that there were issues in needing to really crack through the core and then, until I was able to take full ownership, nothing was going to happen the way that I wanted to.

Sifu Matthew: 26:26

There's a level of to me looking at where are you in reality? And if you have a problem, you created that, and if you don't see that, you're no way to ever solve it. Even if it seems like it's happening from the outside, it's not because you're at the center of it. So that's something that I've looked at. Yeah, there have been so many different mentors in so many levels. I've had mentors as writers, mentors in the wellness field, some mentors in business, and basically I just try to keep myself open to what I need to know and, most importantly again, see where I'm resistant or see where I'm blocking Because that definitely was an issue for me that I needed to track, kind of like you're saying, knowing everything is like, yeah, the part of the addict needs to protect itself while it's failing itself to death, while it's dying inside, it needs to know everything and it's a big problem until you would attack, that literally attack it.

Sifu Matthew: 27:39

It'll kill you.

Baz porter: 27:42

No, I agree, and it's just interesting how you went from where you were into where the space you are now, by commanding your own presence, but also recognizing internally what was working or isn't working, what needs to drastically change and equally, being conscious of that even today, because we are always evolving beings, we're always wanting to get to that next level and we can't go backwards, because there is no such thing as time.

Sifu Matthew: 28:11

That's how it goes.

Baz porter: 28:13

But the aspiring leaders. You have people that have gained. You've looked for wisdom and learned from what was people talk about? Routines in the morning, nighttime routines, morning routines Is there anything that really you do specific that is has really transformed your life? I know people meditate in the morning several times a day, especially with what you do. Is there a specific routine that you could advise some of our listeners to just try out? It may not work for them, but at least they have that knowledge.

Sifu Matthew: 28:52

Yeah, I live on those routines, by the way. So I would say that's the core of SMA. Sober martial arts is literally to live consciously in that plane of understanding that you're living life in a ritual. And if you don't choose and you're not using your power, let's say and I'll delineate what I'm talking about real power versus false power, then you're going to be in trouble, you're going to fail. So, in answer to your question, yeah, and what I enjoy so much is creating rituals, different ones or different practices for myself and other people that are going to work specifically for an issue that I'm having.

Sifu Matthew: 29:38

So right now, let's say, I have a long morning routine. It's a few hours. So I'm not recommending everybody needs to do that, but my routine has been about number one going to sleep in a proper electrical state. So before I go to bed, when I can, because I tend to work a lot of hours and I'm about a five-hour sleeper around. So for me, I know if I don't manage my chi properly, I'm not going to be able to function on five hours. I'm not going to be able to have my energy. If I do, it's going to work well. So before I go to bed, I have routines where I'm actually charging my electrical field. So I'm charging my electrical body using certain positions that came through SMA around balancing the water in the body, balancing my heat in my body and then also trying to get rid of excess stress pattern. So it would be like if you have something you're worried about, if you're in a battle with someone, if you've had a relationship issue, if you're worried about your business or money, get it out of your field, get it out of your mind, get it out of your electrical field so that you at least can get to a point where you're trying to restart, because otherwise what I've noticed is the body holds tensions. You can't see them, it's not possible, but unless you really look, but the rhythms in the organs are going to be a problem. And then you're going to go to bed. You're not going to sleep well, you're going to wake up stressed. That's something to do.

Sifu Matthew: 31:14

Then there's a whole series of things I do. So sometimes in the morning, if my body's tired, I will go into a certain type of fire position right away, lying on my back, and I tell myself before that I'm going to do it. So I'm just like that, wake up and I hold that position because that's actually raising my body heat and then I'll use a certain type of breath, like I'll use an inhale through the mouth, exhale through the mouth breath that raises my heat very quickly. I'll stand up, do a position again for a minute or so just to again get myself acclimated here. Then I will come out usually and I will do seated quick review of what I'm actually working on, not like detailed targets, but more like this is what I'm working on in this routine today.

Sifu Matthew: 32:01

Review it quickly, make sure that I'm aligned with what I'm achieving and what I'm working on. So, dealing with, let's say, lower back issue, I'm repairing a little misalignment, so I know I'm going in that direction with my workout routine. Review also how I want to maintain my energy that day. I also take a few minutes and I concentrate on my electrical field and I see where it's weak. So I start, I focus, I take certain position, I'm keeping myself in a deep trance, I'm breathing and then I'm listening to what's happening and I'll feel right away. Okay, there's a blockage in my throat today or my head's very active. I need to get it into the earth.

Sifu Matthew: 32:41

And I just kind of start to connect to that work with that. Then I go through a sequence of movements that are based on charging the elements of the body. So I'm actually working directly with my organs as well as my mental state and my emotional state, and I'm working through basically electrical particles, some specific positions and sort of balancing my system out. So that'll do that for a while. Then I'm going through another set of lineman exercises, connective tissue exercises and a little bit of martial arts after that, and then I'll finish with usually meditation.

Baz porter: 33:25

No, that's amazing because most people, including myself, would never have the discipline to do that. Every single day I meditate, I go walking, I visualize the day, etc. Etc. But that is extensive routine. That has been, from what I can see, gathered over many, many years of trial and error, and you know how your body works, you know how you envision your day, save the day off. But one thing always fascinates me is anybody who's ever successful, of any level, they always have a certain routine. It doesn't matter what it is, but they have a systematic way of getting out of bed, what they're doing, how they're setting their day up. Meditation is always, always, always in there and it's that meditation that we can drop outside of ourselves, into our true self. I mean, you say, do it last, after balancing out everything else. Now that must be extremely powerful after doing everything else to lead up to that meditation.

Sifu Matthew: 34:32

Yeah, yeah, you know it's really interesting. So I look at these things as like I look at it through the lens of power and force. Okay, so sometimes you know and this is what I think a lot of people get challenged with is that they'll sit on the cushion. I hear this. I've had this probably for decades with students who come to me, some of them who've been like you know, they're in the self-help field or they're like leaders of their own right and they're having trouble dealing with the regular ups and downs of the day and the emotions. And they're like I was on the cushion, everything was great, and then I got off the cushion and basically get your ass kicked. So I'm training myself and you to go no, you're not on the cushion.

Sifu Matthew: 35:12

Train to understand what's happening in the movements in your body, and then you could bring that into your meditation. So meditation for me is about actually more force than it is just mind is understanding the two together. It's really getting the energy core active enough so that you're making the changes, so that when you are hit with something it's not a huge issue for you, and also this level of being able to employ it during the day. So I'm always doing something meaning like I'll sit down at my desk, I'll clear my space.

Sifu Matthew: 35:51

I have certain things that I do. I'm raising my fire up, raise my heat up, often because I want my body to be very hot, because when it's hot in a way, it kind of burns things out, keeps everything clear and fluid and relaxed. So there's a lot of different things I would do, and then I'll also cool it. Sometimes if I'm feeling really stressed or something's happening, I'm going to stop, take a posture and move my force. And to me that's what I teach my people, because like you're going to get hit, you're going to get challenged, you're going to have issues. There's no way around it.

Baz porter: 36:23

There was once someone, a wise man, once said the more you progress you have, you're still going to have problems. Problems don't go away. The higher, higher up you level up, they just get. The problems evolve more. They're bigger problems and the smaller problems. But when you look at you mentioned this earlier failure and the next sometimes people view it as a negative, but it can also provide valuable lessons. Can you share some of the huge failures that you've had and how you've used them to overcome and also change the failure into a setback, into a success, and how it propelled you forward? Sure, that was a long question, I know.

Sifu Matthew: 37:16

No, no it's all right, I want to gather something.

Baz porter: 37:25

I think I don't know Because it's a very poignant. People don't do this very often. It's a point to note for the people who are listening to this People who pause and gather their thoughts are collective and they are very concise about what they're going to say next. So if you're listening to this and you haven't got a notepad and pen, I highly suggest you go and get one, because what's about to come next is probably going to blow your fucking mind, Matt please carry on Okay.

Sifu Matthew: 38:00

So you know, the first thing I would say is that the failures for me, like where I'm at right now in my life as a sober expert, is to see where my personality was defective in what I was doing. So there were circumstances, there were challenges with business where I had failed and then, you know, lost money in business and then wanted to bring that back again To me. The issues were my, let's say, self-centeredness, my addictive personality that I did not fully grasp. So to me, like those failings in personal relationships are not being received as I thought I was, was an issue for me. And in looking at that and unraveling that and saying, okay, wait, you were really self-centered in that area, you weren't caring about everyone in that business situation, that would help turn things around.

Sifu Matthew: 39:06

With my physical body. I had absolute messes around stuff, just like ankle injury surgery. A few times I had a hip injury that was. I just had surgery on it four months ago and I was fighting with that thing stupidly for about six or seven years because I'm really good at helping people heal without surgery. But I got to a point where I was like you can't do it, dude, You're just not going to do it, no matter what, the body's smarter than you wants what it wants.

Sifu Matthew: 39:41

So let it go, and I let it go it healed so fast after because of the things I was doing.

Sifu Matthew: 39:46

So it's those to me levels of again trying to take more ownership to where I'm at in this moment and my failures in school when I was younger. Like, look, even right now, when I look at how I went through school wanting to do certain things and then didn't do the other things very, very kind of addictive in that way I'd be like, no, I'm going to just kind of get out of that, I'll hide my way, I'll cheat, I won't show up, but then the things I want in a and I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best to get an A in that attitude needed to be crushed. So looking at the attitudes, the energy and what I'm resonating at every given moment is where my power to become more successful is, because people look at me and they know. So if I'm going to come in and I'm not being clean or pure, I've not accepted my failures and actually worked on changing them. It's a big, it's a big problem.

Baz porter: 40:41

Now that makes a complete sense to me and, as I said, if you haven't written that down, press pause and go back and re-listen to that, because that could unlock something for you that has been holding you back. From now you're looking towards. You know, building, constructing, expanding, doing all that. Where do you see your in, you and your industry headed in five, three to five years time? What do you want to be in that, in your space, or even if you're going to still be in that space, yeah, yeah definitely going to be in this space.

Sifu Matthew: 41:16

So I see myself being a leader in this area, number one as far as showing people what to do for problems they're not solving on a regular basis and bringing out some new pieces of information regularly like new things that have not been accessible. So I definitely see myself as a voice, a major player in that area. And going past that is to have more centers set up around the methodology that we're using. So there's a sober martial arts center in New York City now and there's a doctor involved with that and other coaches that I have that I've trained.

Sifu Matthew: 41:57

So for me, I want those to get out many many places, many cities, possibly many countries, so that the system is available to people who otherwise would have no means to get better. So that's one thing for sure. And then also rise up the corporate level. You know I do work with corporations and leaders in that field, so it's really about the specific information of how you could live your life differently by understanding these principles and how those principles can bleed into everything you do, not as a hack or a quick fix, but as a way of transforming yourself. So that's kind of where I'm bullet point.

Baz porter: 42:41

That's amazing for people who come over through alcoholism and other addiction issues and we deal with it daily. Like you said, there's battle never stops. We just level ourselves up every single day to provide a bigger impact going forward. Now I was saying something to you earlier about a licensing model. It's very key for what you're doing because you can transform what you have and then build a model. Tony Robinson did this in his business. We teach his coaches and he's been licensed at that platform out to create a legacy in what he does by teaching what he does to other people. So I can see you certainly a very impactful leader in that field going forward. In three or four or five years time, what happens? Where do you want to end up? Do you want to be on a desert island somewhere, or do you want to be in a main stage in front of you know, Grant Cardo's 10X community. How does that message come out?

Sifu Matthew: 43:49

I just want to be wherever it's most powerful. So, you know, if I could control it, it would be a little bit of everything Like. I do have media coming out soon. We're going to be in Forbes and Wall Street Journal, and I have done TV in the past, you know, and I will definitely probably set up a podcast around addictions, you know specifically. So that's something I will do and I would like to speak and lecture in more places, but I guess it's just having strong communities built around this. So it would be like having strong communities in many different places and then maybe having one main headquarters, somewhere possibly, where people can come and train and constantly train, and then they can just go out and do what they need to do after that. So they'll come and they'll learn and they'll get the teachings.

Baz porter: 44:45

I like that. Thank you very much for your time here. It's privilege just to be to know you in a professional and a personal level, Matthew. It truly is. Is there anything else you would like to share with the audience of having a hold of you?

Sifu Matthew: 45:00

I'm going to drop some links anyway if it went in the description, but is there anything you'd like to say in final words yeah, you know, one little closing message you know, for people and I know we were talking about this before is that the degree of freedom that you have, the degree of challenge that you have, will call on the degree of force, possibly, that you have.

Sifu Matthew: 45:31

And so, if you are willing to love yourself enough to not take off and to not run away from what's being there, there are many ways that you could find your, your internal power to beat the situation, because the situation came because of you and it came because of you for both your positive and your negative. So if something came to you because of negative attributes, then there is a positive part of you that will probably be able to deal with it and to to really thrive and win. And that is the challenge is basically saying how do you grow through what you are and you're as which you and I have spoken about your truth? So that's my little parting message, and you could reach me at so sober martial arts dot com is where we live and everything could be found through that. And then there's a YouTube sober martial arts is going up shortly. And then there's an Instagram at sober martial arts.

Baz porter: 46:38

Awesome. Matthew, I want to thank you again for your time, your dedication and your love to people who are in your severe and the people you help. Thank you truly from the bottom of my heart, because if it wasn't for people like you, I couldn't do what I do, and it's a privilege to serve you and many, many others on their journey. I want to thank our viewers for tuning in. Please share the message, please change other people's lives by this message, by Matthew's experiences, because he is a result of what to do, from adversity rising through the ashes. Thank you very much. Enjoy your day, be blessed, have a message and be safe.