Matt S. Law Studios

Tag: blog

  • Attack of the Crab People

    Attack of the Crab People

    I’ve heard many different speakers and authors describe the phenomenon of crabs in a basket. If you put one crab into a basket, it will climb out. If you throw several crabs into a basket, then none of them are able to climb out. Because as one crab starts to climb, the other crabs grab hold of it and drag it back down to their level. A lot of us have social environments that are full of crab people.

    My last post was about “mental inertia,” so let’s talk a little bit about “social inertia” (I thought I might have actually coined that phrase but as it turns out it already has a definition at reference.com).

    You will rise or fall to about the same level as the people you spend the most time associating with. Your closest friends have the same hobbies, same level of education, probably close to the same incomes. So, if you were to attempt to change any of these things in your own life, that may cause them to get crabby and drag you back down to their level. You are breaking habits when instead of going to watch a movie, you invite them all to a motivational seminar. You are defying tradition by going to night classes on financial planning, rather than going bowling with them on Thursday nights. And they might actually turn negative on you if you start making more money than everyone else.

    Your friends might be thrilled to see you driving a brand new Mazda that you financed, but turn their noses up in disgust at your brand new Ferrari.

    Not every peer group is like this, but I’m guessing this sounds familiar to a lot of people. The world is predominantly negative, so it stands to reason that most of your friends will be negative, too. Just be prepared, if you have a goal to grow and change your current circumstances, there is the possibility that you will have to separate yourself from the crab people.

  • Leap Before You Look

    Leap Before You Look

    There’s something to be said for leaping before you look. Often people are paralyzed by indecision, analysis, second-guessing, procrastination, planning, pre-planning, pre-planning-secondary-analysis-comparison. We wait for perfect organization, the perfect plan, the perfect weather, the perfect social situation, the perfect alignment of the stars and planets.

    Here’s a better idea: Just start, then figure it out along the way.

    While this advice doesn’t pertain to activities that could potentially kill you (parachute first, THEN jump), with most of the activities and goals that we have in life, most people suffer from mental inertia. If you remember your Physics 101, “an object at rest remains at rest.” So if you are at a complete stop right now, the hardest part is getting started. But the other half of the law of inertia says this, “an object in motion tends to remain in motion.” Once you start a task, it’s much easier to keep going, to make adjustments to your plan along the way. Ever noticed how much easier it is to steer a car that’s moving compared to one that’s parked? Successful people use the law of inertia in their favor, rather than allow it to hold them back.

    So whatever project you’ve been putting off: Start!. In your life, you will regret most the things that you never attempted.

    What do you regret never attempting? (That’s an actual question, not a rhetorical one, I’d love to hear some answers)

  • Attack Despair With Gratitude

    Attack Despair With Gratitude

    A funny thing about the human brain is that it is only capable of experiencing one emotion at a time. While people are somewhat capable of multitasking intellectually (women better than men), emotions are a whole different animal involving the focus of specific neural pathways in the limbic system of the brain and the autonomic nervous system. If you’ve ever taken a speech class or public speaking class, you may have been taught that you can trick your mind out of fear or nervousness by replacing it with excitement, or enthusiasm, or even anger. You can just roll up a magazine or newspaper and pound it against a wall or a table to get your blood pressure rising and work yourself up into a near-frenzy and presto, you are no longer nervous. I just wouldn’t recommend this before giving a somber eulogy.

    So, whenever you are suffering from depression, hopelessness, anguish, dejection, despondency, discouragement, forlornness, gloom, melancholy, misery, ordeal, pain, sorrow, trial, tribulation, wretchedness, or any other synonym for despair… the quickest way to drive it out of your mind and body is with gratitude. Just keep repeating to yourself, out loud if you need to, every single thing that you are grateful for. Even if they are dumb things that you never thought about. Anything within arms reach of you right now, be grateful for it. Then just stream of consciousness your way into everything else in your life that you can think of.

    I am grateful that I have this baseball cap. I am grateful that I have fingers with which to type. I am grateful that I can feel with the tips of my fingers. I am grateful that I can see. I am grateful for the dull ache in my muscles after yoga this morning. I am grateful that I am healthy and fit. I am grateful for the air in my lungs. I am grateful that I can take deep cleansing breaths that expand my chest and grateful for exhaling the toxins out of my body. I am grateful for grapes. I am grateful for cats (just sometimes not MY cat). I am grateful that my cat bite is nearly healed. I am grateful for the books I’ve read and will read, the books that I wrote and will write. I am grateful for the people in my life. I am grateful for the time I had with my fiance. I am grateful that I can choose to have my mind focus only on things that are uplifting me and energizing me and keeping me centered and serene and at peace.

    What are you grateful for?