Author: Matthew Ferry

There are no jerks in the world until you show up. Do you get that? People aren’t anything until you label them and give your opinion about what they are. What we don’t like in people is what we’re unwilling to accept about ourselves. So every time I work with someone, and they start to talk like, “Well, I don’t like this, and I don’t like that. He’s a jerk…” I ask them to start to examine themselves – who they are. Who is the person that is making the complaints? We find out that the person making the complaints…

So it turns out that giving thanks is actually good for your health. According to Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Davis, adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections, and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. What are you waiting for? I recommend that you do two things. One, do the ten-ten visualization. I like to, every day, spend a moment visualizing 10 things that I’m grateful for. And then, 10 of my goals and dreams. I just visualize. I just…

It’s hard to be happy when you’re not employing healthy habits in your life. It’s so easy to skip the healthy habits and focus on the urgent matters of day to day living. Yet, that choice has diminishing returns. Pushing yourself can create a down cycle which means you have to push harder and harder. This leads to burn out and potentially even illness. When you are in a down cycle it’s difficult to be happy and engaged. Yet, happiness makes a big difference in your ability to connect with the people in your life. It affects your productivity. It…

I received this note unsolicited from Sherry Haylett today and I was moved to tears of joy.  Sherry has coached with me personally and she just completed the Breakthrough to Bliss weekend retreat.  I hope you are as touched as I was 🙂 Breakthroughs, Bliss & Happiness “Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and wondered “Who am I?  What is wrong with me?  Why am I here?  Why I cant I?  When will I ever just get it?”  You know, get the relationship, get the job, get the friends etc.  Well, that was me before I…

To create happiness in your life takes a different set of success tools. The target is different. It’s not longer material success or accomplishment. The new target is emotional success. This is the next domain of success. Once you realize that success does not make you happy, you suddenly find yourself on journey.

Did you know when you set goals, intentions or dreams, it immediately creates contrast? Think about it like this; you set the goal to be kind. In that moment, all the things in your life that piss you off come up. All the places in which you have to examine how you are not kind and how you relate to the world in an unkind, judging, mean, nasty way begin to flood your thoughts. Same thing with setting an intention to make more money. The minute you do that, your mind instantly becomes aware of all the money you DON’T…

Are you creating standards that make you feel bad about yourself, about your personality, about your situation? Are you holding yourself accountable to standards that don’t even exist? I’d be willing to bet that you are. Take my client, for example, she sets a goal every single month to bring in $30,000.00 in revenue. Every single month she brings in about $12,000 to $15,000 in revenue. I keep saying to her, “Why don’t we set a goal to bring in $15,000 because that is a stretch month for you?” And she keeps saying, “No, no, I can do $30,000. Whatever…

So, are you a habitual robotic psycho who can’t control his response to things? Are you stuck in your belief that the way that you’ve been conditioned to behave is the right way? And the way that other people have been conditioned to behave is the wrong way? Are you holding people accountable to agreements they never made? Are you mad when people don’t do the things that you want them to do? Are you mad when people don’t do the things that you want them to do? Come on. Let that stuff go. You are not the ruler of…

You can never set “big” enough goals to keep you motivated and working everyday.  A more reliable process is to set goals that “mean” enough to you that you are inspired to keep working every day.  Inspiration is defined as imbued with the spirit to do something.  That can only be accomplished through meaning.  Consider that the bigger problem is that you are looking at your current work as “hard”.  A far more powerful idea is to change the relationship you have with work.  In my book Creating Sales Velocity I talk about writing a gratitude list every day.  Try…

A client writes, “My mom brings out the tribal warrior in me and we have some pretty intense exchanges. Today I was practicing being compassionate and thinking she is doing the best she can and then in her presence I felt furious. My nerves were on edge and our exchange was terrible. What can I do when I feel like just out of nowhere provoked intensely. I know I am not a victim of my mom but she makes me really mad. I think she acts inappropriately and out of bounds.” My response: Somewhere along the line, The Drunk Monkey…