143 : Escape the Corporate Grind and Design Your Own Life with Matt Doan

Adam Coelho: Matt, welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. 

Adam Coelho: Same, Adam. Let's go have some fun together. Yeah, I've been looking forward to this one for a while. I've been following your stuff on LinkedIn for maybe almost a year now, and I just love how clear you are on who you help and how you help them.

Adam Coelho: I think a lot of people can relate to feeling constrained by their corporate career as many benefits as it has. I think that people often dream about more. So I'm really excited to talk with you about how people can use their corporate career to fuel them in creating the life they really want to create.

Adam Coelho: That's the idea, man. So many thoughts here. Let's unpack it for folks. Let's do it. 

[00:02:38] Matt's Journey: From Conservative Upbringing to Corporate Success

Adam Coelho: All right, Matt, let's start by having you share with the audience a little bit about who you are, your journey, and what you're up to these days. 

Matt Doan: journey in a nutshell here. So I grew up in a very conservative household, military, religion, basically follow the rules.

Matt Doan: And I remember this very strange feeling, probably 10 or 12, where I was scared everyone in my family was going to hell. And this is religion coming over. And it was like, I can see how that made me fall in line, that subtle influencing, and then that programmed in me getting into college and then the workforce of picking logical paths, following defaults that others have gone down before, being smart, being sensible.

Matt Doan: And my parents did the best they could. God bless them. They did so much for me, and I'm so thankful. But when I got. Through college out into the workforce, I was in technology consulting. That seemed sensible.

Matt Doan: It was after the dot com bubble had recovered after its burst in the early 2000s. So things were good again and started going up the ladder and finding ways to be successful, building new skills, relationships. I was finding a lot of traction on the personal side though. Again, in my mid twenties, got married very early.

Matt Doan: at 24, had three kids by the time I was 28, and so this was a lot happening in a hurry, right? And My wife at the time was a stay at home mother. I'm going to school. So I found all of my value and what I was meant to do in that household was go earn, go succeed. And I looked around my bosses and such at work in the corporate consulting realm and figured out what they were doing to just move on up, earn good salary, earn good bonuses.

Matt Doan: I was like, let's model that. So I found all my self worth and. Didn't realize it at the time, but my identity was wrapped up in the job in that consulting career path, because I had to provide for my family at home. Consequences are I'm always gone. I'm always plugged into work. I'm up at four in the morning.

Matt Doan: I just trying to keep it together. I'm thinking about work at dinner and it's taking me over. It's swarming my mind. I had no control over it. I thought that's what it had to be. 

[00:04:53] The Breaking Point: Personal and Professional Collapse

Matt Doan: Then I remember distinctly, I was at a work meeting, it was a 24 hour trip of all things to Munich, Germany. And I just remember being on my hotel and bathroom floor, just collapsing, saying, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm actually missing my son's birthday for this right now.

Matt Doan: I can't believe that I chose this quite optional meeting instead of being there for this momentous moment. And it just broke me. And I remember that was the beginning of about a year of hell. My dad suddenly got brain cancer and he passed away in under 90 days ended up getting divorced. That in turn triggered a situation where I could only see my kids four days a month.

Matt Doan: My mental health, just crazy anxiety, depression. I lost like 30 pounds. I was a mess. Everything came crashing down and I was in therapy on meds trying to figure out, Oh my God, what happened here? And while certainly I can make better choices, I had let the job overrun my life. And I have language for this now, Adam, which says I was trapped in the corporate cage.

Matt Doan: And this is a very careful point right here. That didn't happen to me. I stepped into that cage. I said, yes, I opted in because that was my choice. I'm a person who has agency, a person who has choice. And I reflected on it and said, man, I can't believe I said yes to all this stuff. And it ripped my life apart.

Matt Doan: And I had a moment where, what am I going to do from here? I'll pause there first, see if you have any reflections. 

Adam Coelho: So many, Got goosebumps there when you just realized, like, I chose this meeting over my son's birthday and then things collapsed, in your life after that.

Adam Coelho: I'm sorry you went through that and it's, I imagine it happens gradually and there are a lot of positives about having a corporate job and a stable job and doing well, but I can see how it takes over your life. And, I wouldn't go as far to say that it's taken over my life, but I'm thinking about it, I woke up first thing this morning, I was thinking about work, right?

Adam Coelho: I don't want that. I don't need that. Andit's challenging, but please continue the story. I want to hear how you moved forward from that, because that sounds like a very challenging situation. 

Matt Doan: How's the quote go? I think it's Fitzgerald says something like it all happens gradually, then suddenly, 

[00:07:17] Rebuilding: From Corporate Cage to Personal Freedom

Matt Doan: So I had a moment where it's like, okay, do I just collapse and weather away here or do I transform as a person? Of course, I'm glad that I chose the more positive route here. And I knew I had to provide for my three kids and I owed my wife a lot of financial responsibilities and all this stuff. And I needed to become a different person.

Matt Doan: So I couldn't just leave that lucrative career. I didn't know anything else. I had to keep making the money, earning, providing for them. That wasn't an option to just leave. So I had to stay where I was. I couldn't disrupt too much, but I also knew I had to do it more on my terms because the way I was going.

Matt Doan: Obviously was not working. So I remember I hired a coach at the time and really focused on how do I make this job situation of my own design? How do I make it much more manageable on my terms? That was the vague intent I had, didn't know what was going to come of it. And over a couple of years, I was experimenting on myself, trying different strategies.

Matt Doan: And I was able to cut my work hours from 11 hours down to five hour days. quietly didn't publicly broadcast this, but I said, how could I be so efficient, so effective and make the right decision, say yes to the right things, and mostly no to everything else that I could be perceived at work as respected, effective, all those things, while getting my life back so that I could be the dad I needed and wanted to be the healthier person I knew I wanted to be.

Matt Doan: So I was able to free up time, energy, mental capacity and felt healthy for the first time ever in the corporate world, I was in my, about 30 at this point, and from there, it was about like just survival and it was good. I was a better dad. I was progressing. Then as the years went on, I was able to teach some of these strategies to people who I was working with, like those I mentored and such.

Matt Doan: Fast forward a few years, when COVID hit, I remember having this entrepreneurial bug, and I had been spending time in entrepreneurial masterminds to learn, like, what are these people doing? What is it like to own your own business, to control your own time? I was so intrigued by it. But when COVID hit, Something inside said, Matt, you've got to start a business of your own.

Matt Doan: You need to take this opportunity of being physically grounded and create something, see what's possible, explore those inner gifts that you know are lying dormant inside of you. So I built a coaching business, ran several iterations of it. Long story short, I found that I was meant to serve my past self.

Matt Doan: My past self is someone who is trapped in that corporate cage and needs to undergo a transformation, which I call becoming uncaged, where you are living life on your own design. Work is enabling the life you want to have. You are in control of that work situation, regardless of how daunting you thought it once was.

Matt Doan: You. are asserting yourself and making it very manageable, even pleasant. I work with a lot of my clients and getting to that state so that you could start to free up and be the spouse, be the father, husband, mother, whatever it needs to be, or build a new business, build a new life path for yourself, which I did too.

Matt Doan: So I started teaching these strategies and it got so much momentum. It became such a mission for me to serve my past self that I left consulting the whole corporate world in March of 2022 to pursue this full time and just create a life of my own design, jump into the deep end. And it's been the most rewarding.

Matt Doan: brutal and lovely experience ever. There are so many emotions that go into it, but just to be able to be on purpose, to love and serve other humans in deep need and just use my superpowers in ways that I couldn't before is one of the most rewarding things possible and being a damn good husband and father at the same time.

Matt Doan: That's why I did it.

Matt Doan: I love it, man. 

Adam Coelho: it so much. Congratulations, dude. I'm thrilled that you are where you are now after that low point in your life and that you used it as fuel to design life on your own terms. I think that's ultimately what we all want to do. That's certainly what this podcast is exploring.

Adam Coelho: But it's easier said than done. So I want to get very tactical about how you made that happen for yourself, how you help your clients do it. Because I think there's so much value in having that level of intentionality and just taking baby steps to make it real in your life. 

[00:11:53] Strategies for Corporate Success and Personal Well-being

Adam Coelho: So you say that the corporate cage is a mental state and that you have the keys.

Matt Doan: actually got this from a quote that George Lucas had, which says we are all trapped in cages with the door wide open. And what you realize is that, I saw my old self as letting the world happen to me, the external environment was happening to me. It controlled me. These forces were real, and therefore I needed to abide by these forces.

Matt Doan: Requests for meetings, needing to feel you have to go on travel, answer the 10 o'clock email, take a call on vacation. All these things feel on your mind. Like, they're real. Like, they're pressured, high consequence if I say no to these things. But when you start challenging the edges of what you believe to be true, and you start to say like, what if I don't do this?

Matt Doan: What if I say no? What if I defer it? Delay it? What if I push back? in kind, polite ways. And you start to see, ah, those pressures weren't as damning as I thought they were. They're not so negative. And you start to be like, there's a lot of possibility for being free in this environment and likely in any environment.

Matt Doan: You have to shift from being someone that's controlled by the external world instead of, Instead, be someone who's driven by your internal world, living inside out, right? I'm sure this is deeply something that you're into, of course, in the whole mindfulness space. And the reality is that when I learned to live inside out and assert myself, then I got tactically oriented on how to make this work.

Matt Doan: I can share some examples on how I did that for myself and how I work with my clients. Say you're in a tough corporate environment right now. You're in banking, consulting, tech, Lots of different realms that you're just always plugged in and it feels dominating. There's a few elements that I recommend.

Matt Doan: First is get off the promotion path. Okay, decline it in your mind. Think, I don't want that. Literally set that as a goal. Instead, you choose what I call a maintain path where you realize I'm plateauing on purpose. I'm okay leveling out here. This does not say quit mentally. This does not say slack off.

Matt Doan: This does not say just collect a paycheck and be a slum at work. No, but you have to release from the emotional pressure to compete with others because it's destroying you in many cases. And it said, when I say I'm maintaining, I understand what's the essential stuff I must do, knowing that I just wanted to keep this job and keep it as a lifestyle play.

Matt Doan: So it gives me what I need. to support the life I want. Maybe I'm fueling my discretionary resources into a real estate portfolio. Maybe I want to take that extra time and make sure I'm always there on nights and weekends with my family. Whatever it is, you have to get off that promotion path. 

Matt Doan: Secondly, is you've got to analyze the incentive structures of people around you. So look up at your bosses. People that you would deem are asking you to do things. And you have to know, what are they rewarded for?

Matt Doan: Especially financially. Go there first. What makes them succeed in their role? And when you figure out what that is, whether through indirect or direct inquiry, to learn it. What gets rewarded in this team? This organization? How are they incentivized? Like, literally down to their bonuses, okay?

Matt Doan: Understand those things, because that's where you want to fixate. Then you go through a process of saying, okay, here's all the stuff I've been working on. It's like 20 things. Let's say 80 percent of that is fake work. It doesn't actually move the needle and help your bosses. What's the 20 percent that is real work that is incentivized to help your bosses?

Matt Doan: How can you focus there? Again, this is you being ruthlessly efficient to understand what you focus on. And then you apply what I call outcomes over hours. So that I know what I need to focus on. I know who gets rewarded. If my bosses succeed, I succeed. And then I start thinking about how do I make those outcomes come to life?

Matt Doan: How do I think through over this next month or quarter where the project's all want to position myself for the things I'll say yes to the great majority of things I'll say no to. And you focus on those outcomes and not all the hours of going to all the optional things all the daily standups that may contribute zero value and disrupt your creative flow.

Matt Doan: From there, just a couple more steps we might work through is designing your ideal day and week. You want to know, again, with ruthless efficiency, what matters most to my life, like. Health wise, family wise, personal interest wise, program that into your calendar at the right times of day in an ideal sense, and then ask yourself, how do I then slot in the work stuff that is essential, right?

Matt Doan: The essential outcomes. How do I engineer that into my own reality? I'll give you an example. One of my management consulting clients right now works in a very high pressure firm, and he was able to get it. his assistant to completely take over his email. He doesn't even do his own email anymore. He recruited five engineers around him to offload and just spread the work.

Matt Doan: And they loved it because they are able to level up in new responsibilities. And this gave him intense freedom to operate in his zone of genius, which is in leadership and not managing email, not tasking things out on a daily basis, not running daily standups. And he was just. on fire. This is where he got to and he reclaimed over half of his time because he did this.

Matt Doan: And the last thing I'll leave you with is you've got to define rules of engagement for yourself. This is like a social contract. I like to think of it as a one pager that you actually put on your desk and says, here's what I will tolerate and will not tolerate. These are my life values that I will apply into this work environment.

Matt Doan: And I know when I'm violating, cause I've drawn a bright line for myself, and I know the consequences to my health, my family, my personal interests, maybe my business, those all get in trouble if I violate and cross those bright lines. So I know that's a lot, but those are a sample of things we work through to gain control, to step out of the corporate cage, to be a high agency player, even in a demanding environment.

Adam Coelho: Wow that's great, man. I think there's a ton there and I really appreciate you laying that out for us. 

[00:18:10] Navigating Corporate Expectations and Promotions

Adam Coelho: Let's talk about the promo path, right? Getting off the promo path. This is something that I believed and I still believe at this point, but I also am like, for a while, I feel like I had.

Adam Coelho: it pretty dialed in, right? Like I could do my job well, I could do it efficiently, and my level was the highest level I could have in my job. Now I've gotten re org'd again into another job with a new manager. And the whole thing is new and different. And I feel like there's a lot more pressure and I feel like the expectations are higher.

Adam Coelho: The stakes are somewhat higher Now I have the ability to level up to the next level. And so in my mind, on the one hand, I'm like, I'm good, right? Like I'm financially, I'm good. I don't need a promotion. On the other hand, if I'm going to be gunning for these expectations that are being set for me, I might as well try to get promoted.

Adam Coelho: But

Adam Coelho: it's just because like, I'm doing it, but at the same time, I also don't really think that I feel like it's going to be a ton of work to actually do. And I really don't care, but how does somebody in this situation where the expectations are high anyways, right?

Adam Coelho: So it's like.even just going and meeting those expectations is going to take a lot of work and effort

Matt Doan: Yeah, I get where you're going. Let me break it down in a couple points. So the first thing is, this is a funny outcome. When you apply what I described, say you choose the.

Matt Doan: Maintain path, as I call it. These people are usually the ones that get promoted faster. It's wild. It's not your intent, but here's what happens. Okay, say you're a little bit more mysterious, hard to reach, but deadly effective in what you do. People see that, and it's a psychological perception where people go, wow, he or she is really hard to reach, must be busy, must be doing important things, not always on Slack like everybody else, not responding at 10pm.

Matt Doan: They seem in control, they seem like they've got their stuff together. What happens? Go to like, Robert Green talks about this in 48 Laws of Power, when you are more difficult to reach. You are more aloof, right? Maybe that's the wrong word but the person that is harder to reach, respect and honor goes up.

Matt Doan: People perceive you as someone more important and honored, and they value your time more, and they deem it precious. If you are always available, you are screwed. Your respect and honor and the minds of others goes down. You're a commodity. You do not want to be a commodity. It's the perception game, right?

Matt Doan: Part of it is like, when you're deadly effective, you're hard to reach. People perceive you with more respect and honor. You're often the one that gets the attention during promotion cycles. And it's a little bit counterintuitive, but when you think it through that way, makes sense, right? At the same time, let's bring to your point of you're in a new organization.

Matt Doan: The expectations, the general momentum is difficult. Let's be truthful here. When you're in a new spot. We have to create a foundation for ourself. We can't assume that our past reputation carries over. These are new people. There's a new little mission happening here right now. So there might be a time, a season, maybe it's a month, three months, six months, where you have to surge and build trust, build key relationships and Alliance network for yourself.

Matt Doan: People that have your back, people that go, Oh. He or she is worth it. Like, wow, look at them. And then you say, okay, how do I release some of that? How do I get to a new season where I can choose this maintain path, for example? How do I create more lifestyle here? But if you apply what I said 100 percent of the time, it could hurt you.

Matt Doan: If you do it at the wrong time in the wrong context. So you've got to say like, if I have political capital, I've been around here a few years, people know me, like I've got trust, then apply what I'm talking about gradually. But sometimes you got to put in the work to set your foundation. No doubt. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah.

Adam Coelho: That makes sense. Yeah, I feel like I've been there 13 years, so people know me, I've been delivering right for all these years, I've never gotten a. Bad rating. And I've gotten promoted three times, so I've been doing pretty good work. So I think, yeah, I need to establish these relationships.

Adam Coelho: And honestly, what I've learned is that's my strength. My strength is connecting, building trust, building strong relationships, and then using that to, make things happen. but I think you're right. I think it gets to the next point that you brought up, which is knowing what your bosses care about and what their bosses care about.

Adam Coelho: And so I'd love some tactical ways of really thinking about that. Like for me, I'll give you our situation, we get paid on revenue, right? Like ad revenue for our partner team, basically how much money do these advertisers spend on Google ads? So that's pretty straightforward.

Adam Coelho: My manager gets paid on two verticals, And so it's not something that I can necessarily move on my own, there's certainly more I can do there, but I want your thoughts on, and it doesn't have to be this specific situation, but how does somebody who wants to get really clear on this get clear and keep that top of mind so they can use that as a filter for everything else?

Adam Coelho: Because I keep getting pulled into so many things that are, distractions and not pushing towards that. 

Matt Doan: Great idea. I'd like to answer it in two parts. The first is going back to what we said before is look at your management chain, look upward. A layer or two, to your point, right? Understand what is incentivized, what is rewarded.

Matt Doan: Even look at the strategic objectives of the organization, right? Because that filters on down into line leadership. Understand what that looks like. And that might be fairly obvious. Sometimes you might be able to even have a direct conversation with your direct leader, right? Sometimes you might have to gather that indirectly, like you might be able to ask someone in like the finance organization or someone that has connection further up the chain.

Matt Doan: Just try to get intelligence on what gets rewarded. And then I, what I love doing is actually validating this. with my direct career manager or leader, whatever you call it, the person that essentially is in charge of your reviews, right? Different terms there. But like, here's what I perceive as the most important things.

Matt Doan: Here's how I feel like I can best support them. Can we get alignment here? What am I missing? And then they're like, wow. He or she is like really dialed in understanding how strategy works, how we move the needle as an organization. I love how dialed in they are. So that gives you an understanding of where to spend your time.

Matt Doan: And then you might have to go be creative and involve yourself in a specific project that you're not on, right? Develop a skill set that you don't have yet so that you can be someone who differentiates themselves in the organization. Another element to think about is look at the general performance review system.

Matt Doan: Very checklist oriented. You understand the gradients, right? The phases of evolution, what it takes to go from level a to level B to level C. Like that is another guideposts for you to understand what's rewarded. How do I, check those boxes so that I stay in a safe and comfortable place.

Matt Doan: You don't want to end up red marks on that, right? So it's just being intelligent. How do I create a situation, create a narrative, create clear metrics for myself so that turns green as much as possible? So between understanding how the performance review system works, understanding it's a game.

Matt Doan: understanding how that game works, and then in turn understanding actual people in your leadership organization, how they get rewarded, and just try to think about what can I do that checks all of those boxes collectively. It's not easy. It's not simple. Most of us just show up into an organization and we do what we're asked.

Matt Doan: Get meetings that show up on our calendar. We go, we see what everyone else is doing. We do the same. We get assigned a project. We take it. That's very low agency. A high agency person does what I just said.

Adam Coelho: Yeah. No, that makes sense. It makes sense to get really clear on what those things are and then start just executing on those. And yeah, being in this like maintain zone, right? like releasing the promotion aspect, I think makes sense. Cause then you can just. reclaim parts of your life, right?

Adam Coelho: You can reclaim time and mental space to really think bigger about what you want your life to look like. But what about when all these meetings just get put on your calendar? Like, how do you, I feel like I have so many meetings, internal syncs, client meetings, this and that, and all hands, and you just not go.

Adam Coelho: Maybe it's that simple. And I've certainly done that before, but now it's just, I feel like there's a lot of attention. And yeah, I feel like there needs to be more trust in my situation currently in both directions. To our point 

[00:27:04] Trust Building in New Organizations

Matt Doan: earlier, new organization, there is a trust building phase.

Matt Doan: It's two way. Like we can't ignore that because that's how humans work. 

[00:27:12] Reclaiming Time from Meetings

Matt Doan: Then I think you start to have to start just dealing with the low hanging fruit, like an all hands meeting, say. A hundred people are invited and you could gain back an hour and a half. And think about what you could do with that.

Matt Doan: I didn't go to many all hands meetings in the latter part of my corporate career. I even challenged the daily standups, which had daily standups and stand downs. Doubly debilitating in my mind. Literally they would start meeting sometime. I kid you not. Here's the leader's question. So who has something to talk about?

Matt Doan: Not a good meeting. 

Adam Coelho: It's not a good 

Matt Doan: meeting. Okay. So here's how much time I wasted there. I dreaded it leading up for the 45 minutes before that meeting. I was dreading going 15 minutes of it, hated it. 30 minutes after that, I regretted going. What's that like an hour and a half or so of waste of my best morning time, my creative juices are put to that day after day.

Matt Doan: That, that was not a good use of my time. And I helped engineer a situation where we actively turned off the daily stand downs and went down to like Two stand ups a week with mostly async stuff on Slack. And I log in on slack at 10 a. m. Check that the world wasn't on fire by not being on at 8 a. m.

Matt Doan: Yeah, because I could do deep work in those first couple of hours and Actually move the needle and that takes some political capital take some ingenuity Takes having some trust built with people to do that. You can't just come guns blazing as a new person but being thoughtful and thinking, actually, would everyone want this?

Matt Doan: Would everyone benefit from this new situation? Maybe someone just needs to be brave enough to suggest it.

Adam Coelho: Yeah, I actually, I'm thinking back. I remember reading a post that you wrote exactly about this. And I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of, Non meeting time that's wasted because of the meeting, right? Like, why am I, what are we even doing? And then you, before and after is also wasted because of that.

Adam Coelho: So yeah, I remember that. And yeah, anyone who's listening to this should definitely follow Matt on LinkedIn because he's putting out great content every day like this. Okay. So let's say we reclaim some of our life, right? We've got our corporate. Situation dialed in, right? We're in the maintain mode.

Adam Coelho: We're doing what we need to do. We're respected in the organization. We're delivering what we need to deliver. Now we've got some space. What do we do with that space, Matt? 

[00:29:44] Creating Space for Miracles

Matt Doan: I love that you use that word. Space is the place where miracles happen. This is absolutely necessary. There is no better life.

Matt Doan: There's no different path in life without creating space first. So we have to create it. That's why you and I just spent 20 minutes essentially talking about creating space. So I always start there. Then, I think about What do we do with that? Two things. 

[00:30:07] Envisioning Your Future Self

Matt Doan: One, I believe you have to step into your future self.

Matt Doan: And then thirdly, the third piece is about creating your new path. And I like to think that entrepreneurially, I'll tell you why in a second. Again, I'm talking to people that are mostly in corporate environments, high achievers, but it's not really sitting well with them. And they want something more from work in life.

Matt Doan: That's who I'm talking to, right? So secondly, after we get some space, like we just talked about, we have to envision, to use your term, I know that you are huge on this, when we envision our future self, step into some time period, three, five years ahead, and immerse yourself. What does it feel like?

Matt Doan: What is the energy flowing through your body? What is that person doing? Who are they surrounded by? What are they saying yes to? What's a 24 hour span look like in their world? Get there. Get excited by it. Don't think incrementally better. Don't assume, like, 1 percent better. Like, literally. Think 10x better.

Matt Doan: I love this thinking. Get 10x better in your mindset. What does it look like? Who are you around? How excited is your family at the person you've become? Look at the smiles on their faces. Think of your financial situation. Think of the work you're doing. Stuff that sets your heart on fire. Like, get there in your mind.

Matt Doan: And you have to go there Every day. You have to reconnect to that dream every day. I love journaling. I love long meditative walks. I like to make sure that I'm going back to that, and whenever I feel out of whack, upset, pressured, whatever. I take time and I'll go quiet. I will meditate on that state and I will get there again in my head.

Matt Doan: I will reset to the best of my ability, reconnect to that and just say future self, Oh my God, that is so meaningful, so powerful. And it starts to pull me forward. And I have to go there every day on purpose through ritual or else I'll forget. And I will be consumed by what is. Can't afford that. So that's the main thing is develop a set of practices to define and be your future self now.

Matt Doan: I love that term from the book by Ben Hardy, like you have to be your future self now. And the value of being that person versus waiting for your future to take place is invaluable. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah, I love that and that's what I am all about and I've created incredible Results in my life by doing that, right?

Adam Coelho: Just visualizing and journaling and getting really clear and practicing the mindsets and beliefs that are going to help me get there, right? I think of it as planting seeds in my mind because of how our brain works. Neuroplasticity, everything we think, feel, and pay attention to changes the structure and function of our brain and our brain is predictive.

Adam Coelho: Based on those seeds that we plant, that's what we get in our reality. And so it's super powerful. I love kind of all the examples that you gave of going into that three to five years out and practicing that every day. That is super powerful. And I'm just thinking that like, I. I know this stuff, I do it, but I really have to get back to having a little bit of a morning routine and an evening routine.

Adam Coelho: You mentioned Ben Hardy, I'm like I'm knee deep in all of his books with Dan Sullivan, you mentioned 2x, 10x, right? The book I'm reading now, 10x is easier than 2x. Also, The Gap and the Gain I'm on that one now. Just finished the other one. Yeah, these things are super powerful, right?

Adam Coelho: We can create anything that we want, but we first have to ask ourselves, what do we want? And we can start living into it. I think there was another, that was the first point, right? There's something else. So point one is create space. 

Matt Doan: Point two is be your future self. 

[00:33:49] The Power of Entrepreneurship

Matt Doan: Point three is entrepreneurship.

Matt Doan: There we go. Let's make this argument here. Most people, like my former self, will be like, I don't have a drop of entrepreneurial blood in my body. I often give the example, like when I was growing up, I thought an entrepreneur at the high end was like a Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk building like world changing stuff down to the low end, which is like a small mom and pop shop on main street.

Matt Doan: Couldn't conceive anything middle ground, never met anyone that lived in the middle ground. But then, like I said when I was still in corporate life, I'd invest. I actually went to Dan Sullivan's program. I would go to, in Toronto with Dan and a bunch of his people, like, blew my mind. That's where I met Ben too.

Matt Doan: And it was just, you see the world they're living, how they think, the lifestyle they created for themselves. And you just can't unsee it. It's a Morpheus Red Pill moment, man. You're just like, this is possible? And many of them had come from traditional paths, medicine, doctors, corporate life. And they're were just.

Matt Doan: taking bets on themselves in beautiful ways, betting on their superpowers, understanding how that aligned with massive unmet needs in this world. And then they fused the two, which is not easy, but Wow. Can it be rewarding? So I deeply believe that especially like high achievers, those in corporate worlds, like where you come from and such, we have so many gifts that the environment we work for, like in a W2 sense, doesn't, isn't designed to allow us to use those gifts.

Matt Doan: Nearly all of those gifts, maybe 2 percent of it. like you find ways to bring the mindfulness stuff within Google, but it's not everything you do. but you could imagine in a fuller context, which I'm sure you envision all the time, Adam, is what if I'm using my gifts on a full scale almost daily?

Matt Doan: Like this is me using my superpowers constantly, and they're aligned to the people in this world that really need it. And you create a business model around it, because when you create a business around it, you can actually do more with it. You have more opportunity to reach the people you're meant to serve in this world, like be very real about it.

Matt Doan: And you can create a great life for your family. I think of entrepreneurship as Something you can do on your own time with zero dollars as a starting point when you're being really minimalist about it. But it's the most brutal and effective way to activate your highest self. You will never go through, in my opinion, you will never go through a more intense session of self discovery than the months you go through to initially get a business started.

Matt Doan: And again,are two types of businesses. You can have a cash business or a passion business. Simplified way of thinking of it. A cash business is, hey, let's just get, income flow. Let's buy a boring business. Let's buy a laundromat. You might think of creating, you got your LLC that's focused on multifamily syndication or something, passive income streams.

Matt Doan: Like that's cash flow. It's a cash business or a set of cash businesses. I'm talking about passion businesses where you have a void in your soul and you know you're meant to do something with your gifts and create a business around it. Like that is an intense transformation to go through to figure out how to do it and then link up with the people you're meant to serve.

Matt Doan: Like I'm working with people who right now are trapped in corporate hell. Their personal lives are getting destroyed. Their marriages are at risk. Sometimes their lives are literally at risk. I kid you not. Like I'm in the business of saving lives now. Didn't realize that's where I am now. And I don't doubt it.

Matt Doan: I don't doubt it. Like we talk about burnout so haphazardly, like you're just running on a hamster wheel and it's too many hours, but the consequences are divorce, children that don't get to see their parents, entire wealth creation going to nothing, just 10 years of grief from separation and divorce, like this is huge, like let's talk about the consequences of you not liking your job.

Matt Doan: Let's be very real how this spirals if you don't address it, right? So I think entrepreneurship is an avenue by which you can actually find your fire again, create purpose, create a situation, create conditions, even on the side of your day job that fuel you, that energize you, that activate your highest self.

Matt Doan: And I'm, let me just round out this conversation, which I'm not a fan of. prematurely leaving a day job. I think a nine to five is a massive asset. if you tune it to an optimal situation where it's under your control as much as possible, it becomes an asset.

Matt Doan: You value it. You love it. Creates benefits, creates opportunity for your family, for investments, for financial independence. Like there's lots of goodness there. Some people eventually will say, okay, it's time to graduate. Like with my case, some people will stay decades there, but they can be happier. And they can build on the side.

Adam Coelho: Yeah, it's interesting. when you sent me the points that you wanted that, proposed for discussion, I was like surprised to see entrepreneurship as one of the three, right? Listen, I love entrepreneurship as much as anybody I just didn't see that connection point, but I think that it makes a lot of sense, right?

Adam Coelho: Like it allows you to move into doing what you're meant to do, sharing your gifts as you put it more of the time. And when you were talking about like corporate is only set up or designed or allows you to give a little bit of those gifts, that's what I'm feeling now. I'm feeling that in a big way.

Adam Coelho: And I am proud of how I've been able to bring my passion and honestly, my passion for mindfulness and financial independence and envisioning grew out of my work at Google where I became a facilitator of this program called Search Inside Yourself. It's an emotional intelligence program that teaches it through mindfulness, and I've been able to carve this out for myself there, but, I've done it less and less.

Adam Coelho: And I feel like in my current situation, it's not valued as much that said, I still put it on my expectations and I'm still going to be building it there. And I think about it as I have my on the job side hustle and my off the job side hustle. And I like that, but at the same time, I'm like, I should be doing this all the time, right?

Adam Coelho: Like I hear from people. that the coaching conversations that I have with people, I see the results that they get by getting clear on what they actually want and taking those baby steps to make it happen. And so it's like, man, this lights me up like these type of conversations lights me up.

Adam Coelho: And then I got to go back and answer my emails, it's I think you're right. I think there is, like, entrepreneurship is a path to doing that more. And I would add for, this being a financial independence podcast, the more you use your corporate career to build that financial independence, then you can do that without needing to worry about putting food on the table for your kids.

Adam Coelho: And your family. That is my vision of like fire, right? It's not about retiring early and doing nothing. It's about doing entrepreneurship, which has always been my dream. And I am doing it. I have to remind myself of that. I am doing that now, but to be able to do it full time or whatever level of time I want to put into it, but without the risk of it needing to work, because that's a whole different energy and feeling when you have, when it's like, I need this to work.

Adam Coelho: Like you don't make decisions as well. I think. Yeah. 

Matt Doan: Operating from a state of need though, the universe feels that, and it doesn't work out very well. I'm curious. As you been doing entrepreneurship in addition to a demanding situation at work, that environment you talk a lot about detachment and understanding how to use that effectively.

Matt Doan: What advice would you have for people on how to think about detaching in some sense from the work pressures to be the person you need to be at home or building something on the side?

[00:41:49] Mindfulness and Detachment

Matt Doan: Yeah, I think that 

Adam Coelho: it starts with awareness, right? Like, that's where mindfulness comes in. And you, as you practice meditation and cultivate this capacity for mindfulness, you can start to notice when you're thinking about work when you probably shouldn't be. And instead of beating yourself up about it or letting it continue, you can become aware that it's happening.

Adam Coelho: And you can ask one question, is this useful? And if it's not useful for what's going on right now, if you're at dinner, it's probably not useful. So you can just choose to let it go and come back to what's happening right now. And I think that's why mindfulness is such a superpower in general, because you can become aware of your thoughts.

Adam Coelho: I think so many of us have just This autopilot narrative, and it's usually not very positive going in our minds all the time, and we don't really pause to become aware of what's actually going through our head at any given time. And. I think that's what a daily meditation practice can be because it allows you to notice when your mind wanders and choose to bring it back.

Adam Coelho: And so that's I'd say like cultivating mindfulness because it's also going to help you become more self aware. And I think ultimately what we're talking about is starting to become a lot more self aware about what is important to you and what kind of life you want to be living and just starting to reclaim that little by little.

Adam Coelho: As you say that, I think 

Matt Doan: about a very tactical situation, at least in my past self. So I'm sitting at dinner, wife and four kids, mind thinks about there's an email that I'm expecting tonight and it could really suck. What do I do with that? I think about it and I use this analogy before Adam, which is, it's a ship, it's a thought passing in front of you.

Matt Doan: You just let it sail away, say goodbye into the distance. We will revisit that ship. at the right time, but you acknowledge it, you watch it, let it sail, come back to present moment. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah, that's exactly it. when I teach mindfulness at Google, I use that analogy.

Adam Coelho: the same thing could be said for clouds, right? for longest time, I found it super helpful. Like you're sitting on the bank of a river. the ships and boats and canoes and kayaks are just going by. And you're not grabbing at them to hold onto them. You're not pushing them away.

Adam Coelho: You're just letting them float by. it's not only thoughts, it's emotions as well. The more you can tune in with mindfulness, which I just think of as a kind, curious awareness, to what's going on in your mind, your body, and your environment, you start to notice that all these things are just transient experiences, emotions, thoughts, everything.

Adam Coelho: when we get into trouble is when we try to grasp them or we try to push them away, right? We're resisting what is rather than just saying it's like this right now. So there's meta attention and action right there. Yep, absolutely. And that's what it's all about. All right.

[00:44:47] The Mindful Fire Final Four

Adam Coelho: So let's switch gears now and move into what I call the mindful fire final four. You ready, Matt? Okay. So the first question is about envisioning. I'd love to hear, now that you're doing this full time, what is your vision for your life and what you want to create 

Matt Doan: Well, first and foremost, I think about my family, and I use this term very specifically, unshackling them from the bonds of the default path. My oldest is in high school right now. She's thinking about good college, good job. I'm like, I see what's happening. I know this. And I want to be the role model that says, wow, when you actually live by your heart and take charge and are intelligent, you can actually create something out of nothing that's of your own design.

Matt Doan: And it's great for your family and it's great for your lifestyle and it enables so much. So I think about first and foremost, just seeing their eyes light up at my success. And that is fuel for me. Then I think outward. to the souls I'm meant to help in this world. I see them in deep need every week. I have at least a dozen conversations with new people who are trapped in corporate hell.

Matt Doan: They don't know how to step out. They don't know how to get traction and make a better life for themselves, a better career. So I just think about all those people. And I used to have like a million people in my head of when I came out and I'm like, That's just distracting for me. I'm just trying to have as many conversations as I can with people week after week, and I have visions on how this scales ways that the business model can serve more people, but never in a superficial way.

Matt Doan: For example, I don't have any desires anytime soon to sell like 197 digital course where someone like watches the stuff on an app and their life changes. I don't believe in that for the consequential problems I'm solving. It's too consequential. So I'm thinking about how do I dial this up in a way that I feel good about that their life actually transforms in a sustainable permanent manner.

Matt Doan: And then I just have connectivity with these souls because they need help. And how do I bring more people with me to help them? Like, we have visions for my wife to leave teaching and join me in my business soon. She's deep spiritual meditation practitioner. She is one of the most emotionally intelligent people I've ever met in my life.

Matt Doan: She belongs in something like this. She's maxed out in the teaching world and she knows it in her soul too. So I'm just taking it week by week, trying to help souls and make sure that their lives get better in tangible ways. Like you and I have been talking about and they carve new paths for themselves that are very different, that are financially lucrative, that create time freedom, that create freedom of purpose and relationships.

Matt Doan: I want all of that in their world. So I don't have a grand scheme anymore. I'm taking it week by week, trusting my intuition, just trying to have those conversations one at a time. 

Adam Coelho: I love it, man. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that and the work that you're doing and this conversation. I appreciate it a lot.

Adam Coelho: All right. Question number two, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial 

Matt Doan: First off, subscribe to you and others in this space that are just generously giving such wisdom, often through hard lessons learned. Out of the gate, I deeply believe that you have to create a foundation for yourself in many ways. Financial cushion, skills, experiences that can be leveraged later. So take for example, you use your 20s as a season of life to grind in a sense, to use that term.

Matt Doan: Don't love that term, but here we go. You grind, create a financial cushion, you create credentials, credibility. Open up doors with relationships. Your 30s, for example, might be a time to then leverage that. How do I make smart financial investments? And I might have started those a little bit earlier, right?

Matt Doan: how do I make smart financial investments? How do I get entrepreneurial, say, in my 30s so that I can turn on a more active income stream that is not capped, but is exponential in theory? How do I get that going in addition to putting my day job on autopilot? And then how do I get more aggressive into different levers of FI?

Matt Doan: How do I think about that? Starting small, getting comfortable, educating myself from people like you on how to do this well, but like an intelligent, slow diversification, more and more stepping into you using your gifts. 

Adam Coelho: Very cool. Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. Skills, finances, they're all important, right?

Adam Coelho: I often think about money as the, enabler of that foundation. But yeah, skills and relationships and reputations are just as important. If not more important, cause they allow you to make more money. 

Adam Coelho: All right, question number three, Matt, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or 

Matt Doan: Don't beat yourself up over it. It's going to feel like you're failing constantly. The point is not to not think that's an impossible task for humans. Just give yourself immense grace. And every time you find yourself wandering, catch it, like you say, let it drift down river. Come back to center. If you have to do that a hundred times in 10 minutes, doesn't matter.

Matt Doan: That activity will create progress. And the funny thing I found about meditation and mindfulness is that you don't often realize you're getting better. It's not like we can have as a performance, like measurement that feel like we're getting better. It's only in retrospect, like when you measure your gain, not your gap, right?

Matt Doan: When you look at your gain, where you're like, Oh, The last month I've been emotionally at ease. I felt this feeling of joy. I haven't had stuff rock my world like it used to. Look at all this presence I have with my family. They're actually telling me about it. Didn't notice it, but they're telling me I'm like more energized or look at all that progress I had on building my business where before I felt like I had no time.

Matt Doan: I would attribute much of that as to getting into that state. And then I think it just takes a retrospective look to see what progress might Tangibly look like 

Adam Coelho: very good 

Adam Coelho: the last question is how can people connect with you online and learn more about what you're working on? 

Matt Doan: So the place I'd advise people that are listening to this show is right now, go bookmark episode 89 of Uncage Yourself, which is the podcast I run. That episode in particular will give you a mindset on how to create freedom in corporate and eventually become more entrepreneurial.

Matt Doan: Very tactical episode 89 of Uncage Yourself. You can find me in lots of ways from here, but that is the place I would start. Lots of value right there. 

Adam Coelho: All right, perfect. We'll link that in the show notes and we'll link your website and your LinkedIn so people can follow you there as well, but I love that.

Adam Coelho: Matt, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your experience and wisdom with the audience. I know I got a lot out of it and I'm sure they did as well, so thank you. 

Matt Doan: for your tactical questions and pushing me. This is the type of thing people want more of, Adam, is people asking deep questions, challenging thoughts, because this is what provides meaning to people in need.

Matt Doan: So thank you for what you're doing here and how you do it. I appreciate it, man.