Episode #16
We often think of things we perceive will make us happier in life; a new job, more money a fancy car. The truth is that it’s never actually these materialistic things that make us happy. They may provide a temporary boost in happiness but you will soon look for the ‘next’ thing to make you happy and a never-ending cycle ensues.
To truly understand the nature of happiness, you need to focus on what you have instead of what you want… appreciation!
In this episode, Tim & Doug share personal stories and actionable techniques on how to master the art of appreciation to benefit you and the people around you. Tim shares “The power of the basics”, explaining how he has seen people who work extremely hard but no matter how much they achieve it’s never enough. Going back to basics was the answer to being able to practice appreciation. Listen now to find out how you can start feeling more appreciative of some really simple and basic steps.
What you will discover in this episode:
- How Tim overcame the feeling of being underappreciated in his daily life.
- The power of the basics, how you can go back to the basics to be more grateful.
- How simple conversation can help with appreciation.
- Writing and keeping weekly notes to practice appreciation.
- How to appreciate yourself first.
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Episode Transcript
Doug Holt 0:00
You know, to receive appreciation, right appreciation from other people, you must first appreciate yourself. You first must have appreciation inside of you, and that’s when appreciation flows. Where attention goes, energy flows, right?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man Show. I am your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host, as always, Tim Matthews, Tim, how’s it going, brother?
Tim Matthews 0:30
Very well, brother, feel very jovial after our conversation for the past hour.
Doug Holt 0:39
They’re always good. Often we joke around and talk about; I wish we could record those conversations, which we probably could. But these are a little bit more laser-focused, which I like a lot too because people are getting great responses from people we’re taking a lot of action on them, which I love. So Tim, today, the topic of conversation; appreciation. How do you receive and give appreciation? And how does that reflect on you and your partnerships?
Tim Matthews 1:08
Yeah, great question. Wow, so many facets to that question. I’m going to start by saying that appreciation has been something that I have; it’s a work in progress for me, always is. To receive it more than anything, if you know anything about my story, you’ll know where I came from. The journey that I’ve been on now my healing of my self-worth and my self-love. Naturally, my set point is to not receive love and appreciation, regardless of how it’s given to me. I do know my love language. I’m aware of it. I’m aware of Amelia’s, and we communicate as much as we can. I have tried to communicate as much as often how we both like to receive love and give love too. But for me, whenever I feel, like a new guy messaged me recently, did he say, “Hey, I’m, now I’m experiencing these funky emotions. And this is what I’m feeling. I’m feeling underappreciated”. It’s interesting because I know that if I went to Amelia and said, “Hey, I’m feeling underappreciated.” She then says, “Well, what can I do to appreciate you?” and at that point, because I’ve not had, honestly, I’ve not been doing my weekly review, we see so often where the guys stop doing the basics. And like I’ve said numerous times on this show, we don’t claim to be perfect, always on our journey. I found Doug when I stopped doing my weekly review, or when I don’t do my weekly review, that focuses on my wins for the week, the lessons for the week in all five areas, which fills my cup in such a huge way.
When I skipped that, I then struggled to feel appreciated by the people around me. So if I didn’t go to Amelia and say, “Hey, I don’t feel appreciated right now.” And her response would then more than likely be, “Okay, well, what can I do to help you feel appreciated?? I either wouldn’t know because I’m not giving myself space and time to fill my cup. Or I’d list off a few things she could do, and this has happened before. And she’d say, “Yeah, well, I’ve been doing those things. Remember when you were, this happened in the company, and I did this for you. And remember when you did this, I did that.” And she amazes me, she lists a bunch of things. She’s done, and I’m left standing, and I am like, “Shit, yeah, fuck,” and I’ve just not received them. Because I’ve been so much in the mode of doing rather than having that balance. And then she’s going to have my head. And what I’ve found to be true for me is for me to feel appreciated, and then obviously to give my appreciation to others, I get to focus on me first; it all starts with me. We spoke about codependent relationships on previous episodes and only getting my appreciation from Amelia. That I will be dependent on her to give me something I’m then not giving myself, which is not a healthy position to be in. So it’s a great reminder a lot, and I love this conversation right now. Even this conversation, it’s such a great reminder to me to be focusing on my cup and the basics and from there, all the appreciation from you, from the men we work with, from Amelia, from my family, and my friends, it all then lands.
Doug Holt 4:50
Absolutely and you know what’s great about this conversation and in so many ways because you and I have talked about this off the air before over the weekend. To watch you so eloquently as you’re speaking about this, walk through those steps. And I think a lot of us forget that just simply being in the conversation. A lot of the guys in our community are in a conversation that allows you to see the answers and allows you to stay in the path. Do you find the more that you’re talking about? Whether it’s the desire for appreciation, or the lack of feeling of appreciation, that it allows you to turn full circle and come back to a state of appreciation?
Tim Matthews 5:30
Oh, wow. Yeah, completely. I mean, as you’ll recall from our conversation, we’re bouncing messages back and forth. Now I love using you as sounding boards. Again, thank you for always being there and doing that for me when you ask great questions. And in the process of answering those questions and being in the conversation. I come full circle, and I realize, what’s going on? What have I stopped doing to feel this way? What do I get to do on the weekend when we’re speaking about this? You don’t start to join again, a call with me, oh, I can make time. It’s okay. And I’m like, I’m all good now. I was completely fine. I can have fun with the conversation, feeling this, putting it aside quite honestly, avoiding whether it’s big or small. It’s irrelevant. It’s avoided. I think some of it has to do with a lot of the passings of people I’ve experienced in my life that I’ve experienced in my life over the past few weeks, didn’t get you thinking more as well about how you live in your life and what’s going on, and now really feeling those feelings of appreciation. But yeah, just simply being in the conversation and what came out of it. For me, Doug was the power of the basics.
Doug Holt 6:48
Explain that more.
Tim Matthews 6:50
Okay, I’m going to use the experience we had over the past few months. So we have a program called The Brotherhood, as you know because you lead it. So we have a program called The Brotherhood. The only way that men can or are eligible to go into that is to go through The Activation Method, of course. The Brotherhood is where the movement is that The Powerful Man movement is a movement of men serving an impact in and living in their highest potential and without force without hustle without the grind. The Brotherhood is really what the home of that movement, but quite a few months ago, when it used to be the inner circle, what we found was that some of the guys had come through The Activation Method, achieve some great shifts, some great results by doing the basics, because usually, they come into The Activation Method, not having much of a routine or not having any routine and the energy behind all their action is proving, forcing, and needing a lot of fear-based energies anywhere. As a result, no matter what they achieve, it’s never enough. And also, how they’re going about achieving it means that it’s coming at the cost of everything else in their life.
So as you know, when the guys come into The Activation Method, they first go through the truth, which sets them free from the lies of internal themselves. The lies have caused them to think and believe that they must have all these things outside of themselves, cars, money, homes, holidays, to be a man. I’ll be happy or whatever. As a result, they often sacrifice health, happiness, and relationships in the process. So when they instill the truth into their life, and then the creed and the pillars, which are the basics and basic shifts in how they see themselves how they operate, I’m not going to name them all because when they won’t make a lot of sense in the context in this conversation, but to join The Activation Method you will find out. Still, when they instill the basics into their lives, we then found a few months ago that they went into the inner circle because it was the next level and because they were then setting themselves bigger goals than in all areas. But never experienced before and then stopped doing the basics and when they then stopped doing the basics. Within a few weeks, they put themselves back into that same energy and that same stare. That got them into The Activation Method in the first place. The word feeling appreciated, or feeling overwhelmed, they were feeling rushed, they were feeling that void came back because they weren’t doing the basics, and I think a message that often gets converted, that I see getting converted or anywhere is one that doesn’t work all you need to do this one program. And that’s it, and all your problems are solved. It’s true, and I see all the time, do we?
Doug Holt 10:08
Oh, yes,
Tim Matthews 10:10
It’s like going to the gym, and it’s like doing the reps. And if you go to the gym and you’re working out, and you get your body into some great shape, what happens when you stop going to the gym? You start to lose fitness and lose shape and lose strength because you stopped doing a basic. The guys were doing the basics here in The Activation Method, and you know that I do personally notice a fuel mile and appreciation. One of them is that weekly review, every Sunday, at the end of the week. Usually, in the morning, around 10 am, 11 am, I take myself off for two hours on my own. Usually, it’s in the spa; love me some spa, usually to the spa. And I’ll journal, I’ll go through the process that we give the guys in The Activation Method to review their weak points, and I review my week. I’ll take that two hours to be and reflect. So one of the things I love about being in the spa is my mobile phone is not anywhere near me; it’s just me, the sound of the water, the warmth, that heat. I just fill my cup, and I’ll leave; that was such a feeling of peace and calm and gratitude that I wanted to have that even when I have some of the basics in my life, such as my daily meditation and modern daily journaling. They’re all great. But what I find is at the end of the week, when I do that review, it’s almost like a marker in time. It’s almost like it just cuts off the boom. And it gives me some space to fill my cup. It is such a huge one that is one of the key basics.
Doug Holt 11:54
Hey, guys, I had to interrupt this show because I want to talk to you about a case study we put together. It’s only 11 minutes. And what we do is we go over and show you how almost 300 men have taken control of their life, already have 4X of business revenue, and are having more connected intimate sex with their partner using The Activation Method. They’re doing all this without burning down their relationships and without suffering and sacrificing their health. We want you to have this too, so go over to https://www.thepowerfulman.com/bonus/, the number 11, one, one and get this right now. It’s only 11 minutes, and it’s going to show you exactly how these men have done it. Alright, let’s get back to the episode.
There’s so much we can talk about appreciation. One of the things that come up for many people when we’re talking to them also is they don’t feel appreciation from their partner when they do not appreciate themselves. The journey that they’re personally on, and this often happens, especially with high achieving men, set big goals that are very lofty in all of their areas. They don’t feel like they’re on the path, or at least they don’t feel like they’re doing well enough. It’s not necessarily a state of are you good, Or are you valued, are you loved, but they’re not hitting their goals, or the goals are set so high that they feel that they may not hit them, and therefore they’re not appreciating the path that they’re on the things that they’ve done. Do you ever find that with the men when you’re working with them?
Tim Matthews 13:25
Oh, wow. Yeah, of course, it’s kind of like what I just described a moment ago with the guys that then went into the inner circle, some of them that went into the inner circle. And they made this mistake that forgot about the basics. Quite honestly, we kind of assumed to be doing them as well, sure we held them accountable and supported them. And we received some missing information sometimes. But at that level, we assume that you’ve got the basics in place, and you’re building on that foundation. What turned out as they were setting these lofty goals, and they did stop appreciating where they were at in the path or on. There’s a big difference, isn’t it, Doug? Between saying you appreciate something and feeling it, big difference. And you know, “Hey, I appreciate what’s going on in my relationship, and business is in a great place. I appreciate my health.” Now, it’s easy enough to say those kinds of things. And that’s what we hear often. That’s what we heard at this moment in time in the inner circle. We heard that from these guys in particular. But it wasn’t landing with them, I was speaking to one guy, and I said, “Look, what do you get to do right now today because it took itself off. And he experienced his tranquil environment where there’s a lot of peace, a lot of quiet. He took himself out of the doing mode and was very much in the being mode, and as a result, appreciation went up. His cup was being filled, and he got back from there. I was on a call with him.
And he said, You know, I wish I could feel like that every day. Well, why can’t you? As well, I was there in the environment, boom, I’m like, “No, you received it, you create the moment, it wasn’t the environment that caused you to feel that way. You ought to be there and engage with the environment and create the energy and the frame of mind, the state of being to receive it and feel and be in that way” it was a productive time frame as well because he had a lot of ideas, the action below them, but it felt flowing. Suddenly, they went back home to a different environment with different triggers. What that meant was, he then automatically assumed that he couldn’t have that. So there was saying that he appreciated various aspects of his life. It didn’t mean anything; it was meaningless because it wasn’t a landing with him. Again, it comes back to the basics. It’s very difficult to have something like a weekly review in a place where you take yourself away for two hours, and you review your week, it’s just you, it’s somewhere you love. It’s somewhere where you just can be and just feel so engaged, and it isn’t easy to have something like that in your life. And to then not feel the appreciation, it’s a different energy, and it turns from something that you are doing to someone, you are appreciative of what you’ve got, you are it.
Doug Holt 16:42
So this brings me back full circle here, and I know the guy you’re talking about, of course. We often forget, and I know we started off talking about appreciation, and we’re going all over the places we tend to do. But it’s just like anything, we talked about manifestation or creating what you want in your life, there are all kinds of ways of thinking about this. Praying to a higher power, and then it becomes real, whatever it is, but the point is, is first you need to feel it and embrace it. First, you need to own it, and then it comes into you. So it’s the idea of buying a jet, you buy a brand new jet. So if you’re looking to buy your jet, some of you probably have one, a lot of you are like, “What the heck?” I’m way away from buying my jet. But if you imagine and set yourself in that position when you first step onto your private jet, that feeling that you have that feeling of luxury. There is the host that’s waiting for you to take your order, because it’s your jet and I have clients that do this all the time, and they’ve got your meal prepped, and you’re sitting down in the leather seat that was just for you. It’s just your jet, and you’re going where you want to that feeling you have, well, the idea is you can have that feeling now. Because you’re going through the exercise, it takes about 10 minutes to get someone in that state. But if you can have that feeling now, you don’t need the jet. The jets are a tool to get you there, but to get the jet for most people, you need to have that feeling embodied within you to get to that space. Set another way; to really receive appreciation from other people, you must first appreciate yourself, and you must first have an appreciation for the inside of you. That’s when appreciation flows, you know where attention goes, energy flows, right? And that’s what we see, often with appreciation as well or any other emotion. If you’re feeling down about things that are going on in your life, that’s when you’re looking around to be appreciated. You look for that state of being because you’re looking for it from somebody else. After all, you’re looking for them to fill it within you. Now, this isn’t all the time, but oftentimes this is the case. Just like when you’re looking for love, it’s because love is lacking inside of you; otherwise, you wouldn’t be looking. Otherwise, you’d be feeling unappreciated, unloved all the time. But we tend to notice these things when they lack the inside of us.
Tim Matthews 19:17
Yeah, completely. I mean, it might sound like I’m kind of going all over the place here with the topic appreciation, but it’s so true. It all starts with us. As you said, we cannot receive appreciation from anyone or anything, and this is one reason why we speak to so many men, and they’ve achieved so many great things in their lives. But they just don’t feel proud of their results; they just don’t. None of it lands for them. And none of it lands for them because they don’t feel appreciated by themselves first and foremost. They don’t feel appreciated by themselves, then how can you build on that with feelings of pride? I hear you just can’t, so for you too, like you said, to get appreciation from anyone, from anything, from me from Amelia, you from Erin, it always starts with those. If I am craving more and more appreciation from Amelia like I was, then yeah, there are two avenues that I get to look up. First of all, why am I craving this? By giving it to myself? First and foremost, you know what would happen? If I said to her, “Hey, I don’t feel appreciated enough.” She’d say, “What could I do?” Like I said, At the start of the conversation, I’d tell her, or I’d say, “I don’t know.” And if I don’t have a clear sign, I’m not giving it to myself. And if I tell her, then more than likely she’s going to reel off five different examples of how she’s done that. I’m not receiving it. So yeah, sure, there’s love languages and things like that you can explore within the dynamic of a relationship, whether it’s intimate, whether it’s with your kids, whether it’s in a workspace, there are all sorts of those tests you can do and dynamics, you can apply.
But none of them are going to be lasting without you first been able to give it to yourself, and it’s like Be-Do-Have, versus Have-Do-Be something we talked about so often, unless, until you’re giving it to yourself, you’re always going to be relying on outside sources, cars, women, houses, money, accolades, whatever it is, to give you that stairs. So if you could take away one thing from this conversation, one question, if you will. What can you do today to start appreciating yourself? What can you do? Right now, if you’re listening to this, just contemplate a question, what could you do today to show appreciation to yourself? It doesn’t have to be something extravagant; it could be something as simple as giving yourself five minutes in your car. When you pull up at home when you’ve left the office, the mobile turns off, and it’s just you, and you sit there you’re breathing in the silence. I send an email out when the guys first come into our world. And I asked them, you know, what type of man are you? And the choices are hustler, a substitute, or a sacrificer. The most common reply that we get back is that I am a combination of a hustler and a sacrificer. What that means is these guys go out and strive and work their asses off to create amazing things in the world for them and their families. But then they forget about themselves, the sacrifice. So it’s no wonder why they often feel like a huge void in their life. Because it’s not giving anything to themselves, it’s time-space, weekly reviews, time in the spa, massages, whatever it is. They’re not giving anything to themselves to fill their cup and feel appreciated.
Doug Holt 23:02
Yeah, so true. Well, Tim, let’s end on that note; I appreciate you for dropping knowledge for everybody listening in so much wisdom, as always, my friend. And I look forward to the next episode that we have coming up.
Tim Matthews 23:17
Yeah, me too.
Doug Holt 23:18
All right, guys, we appreciate you on that topic for listening in. And make sure when you figure out for your appreciation, what you’re going to do, go over to the Facebook group, and make sure it’s The Activation Method and share it with us and share it with other people by declaring you can bring it forth and that’s why I recommend you guys do
Tim Matthews 23:35
There is one more thing.
Doug Holt 23:36
Absolutely.
Tim Matthews 23:37
I invite you to do your own weekly review. Come up with your own routine. Give yourself an hour or 90 minutes, whatever it is, and come up with your own routine where you can review your week. Review your biggest wins, your biggest lessons, and what you get to do differently next week. And I’d love to hear how that impacts the level of appreciation you experience for yourself.
Doug Holt 24:04
Love it. All right, guys. You have been challenged or tested by Tim “The Powerful Man” Matthews. Alright, until the next episode. Have an amazing day, and we will talk to you soon.
