“Unlocking the Secrets to Happiness: Insights from Matt O’Neill, Author of Good Moods”

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Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Entertainment, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we have on the show with us a happiness expert and author of the book Good Mood Revolution. Hey, got my man Matt O'Neill. How you doing today, Matt?

What's up, CJ? Hey, I'm so thrilled to be on this show with you. As we just were talking about, the CJ Moneyway Show, top 3% global podcast. One of the most listened to podcasts in the world. Congratulations on what you're doing, man.

Proud of you. I appreciate it, man. Like we said backstage, I did not know that. And thank you for looking at those numbers, man. Hey, it's a wonderful feeling, man. Thanks a lot.

It's because you bring the truth, though. I mean, I've been listening to the show. Like, there's no BS. You're just getting straight to the truth. And people just, I think, respond to your authenticity.

Oh, man, I appreciate that, man. And, you know, Just going through emails and things like that, man, I was loving your energy. Thanks for the book, man, and the inscription and everything. I was just loving your energy, man. You know, just a positive guy. So I'm getting ready. I'm ready to be a fan and sit back and listen to this good mood, man, and see what you gotta bring to us. I've been looking forward to this 3 o'clock hour to get with my man, Matt O'Neill. Hey, so Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself, man, and about your background.

Yeah, well, I mean, we were talking about it. I grew up north of Detroit and have been looking to have the happiest life I possibly can. But man, we were talking about the city of Detroit being depressed and down and out. Well, man, it's kind of how my earliest childhood upbringing came up. And my dad was fired by the automotive industry and he was kind of in and out of jobs and You know, and then that was hard on us. And then he ends up kind of abandoning my family when I was 5, but there's 4 kids. My mom's just a secretary. And so like, it was hard times, like trying to figure out how to feed 4 kids, making $20 grand a year. And my dad can't get a job and isn't paying child support. And even when he gets a job, still not paying child support. So, you know, I kind of grew up with some scarcity. You know, think not knowing if there was gonna be enough and then that creates anxiety and fear. It was one of these things where I'm like, all right, my mom would say, hey, you've gotta get really good grades because there's not gonna be any money for you to go and go to college. So you're gonna have to get a scholarship if you wanna go to college and I need you to go to college so you can make something of yourself. So, 'cause my mom didn't graduate from college and she's like, you need to do this. Like, you gotta go and make something of yourself. So then what I did is I focused on, hey, let me be the best student I could be. And put a lot of pressure on myself. That's good. But you start to base your sense of self-worth on what you accomplish. And that's exactly what happened to me is that I started to say, well, I'm only worthwhile. I'm only good if I'm doing good. And a lot of people come up that way. In fact, you look at a lot of entrepreneurs, you look at a lot of people that like have made it, they made it trying to prove that they were worthwhile to something or someone, like trying to show the world that they actually were worth something. That's fine. It can motivate you. However, once you achieve, you can never achieve enough because we're trying to achieve something, trying to prove that we are in fact worthwhile, but no accomplishment can solve that for us. That's an internal thing. Yeah. And so I was achieving a lot and I still wasn't happy. And, um, you know, addictions came in and then addictions, they don't help you be happy either. Like they make you happy in the moment. They make you happy in the moment, and then you're like, well, shoot, then I'll just do this all the time. So I'm doing all these addictions daily because in the moment it makes you feel good, but it's not a lasting sustainable way to be happy. And, uh, thankfully, thank God, I end up making some like guided choices. I get guided to, hey, let's move away from these addictions, like literally move away from the people that are like part of this world and go start a new world without them. That was the way that I left that behind. And then I started studying different ways to actually feel good about myself. And you can be super successful and super happy at the same time. That's what's cool is that we don't have to be successful driven by I'm not enough because yeah, you'll have success that way, but you'll never feel happy. You can actually be successful and happy at the same time. And I've learned that. And now that's what I teach people how to do.

Man, I'm sitting here listening to you. I heard you say about your upbringing and thanks for sharing that. But with me, I was on the opposite side of the spectrum. I had my mother and father coming up in the household, but I made some choices along the way as I got older and I was doing things. And the only reason I'm bringing this up because you brought up about addiction and stuff, just getting addicted to, let's say marijuana or you know, drinking or having a sex addiction, you know. And at one point, man, I, you know, I'm sitting here listening to you and I'm like, man, no wonder me and this guy connected so much from the jump. Because man, you know, just like you say, man, you know, you doing these things because you trying to cover up from what you're actually going through. So it make you feel good for the moment. But then at the end of the day, that problem and that situation still gonna be there. You know, once you get done and come off that high, or get from laying with this woman or the alcohol wear off, the same situation still gonna be there. And so like what you said was key to me. And that's one thing that, 'cause I told you I stayed in Detroit for 5, for 6 years, is God removed me from where I was at. I went to Detroit, it was only me and my cousin. So I didn't have nobody, you know what I'm saying? Nobody, not saying that things stopped, but it changed my perspective. And outlook on life. You know what I'm saying? And I believe from that moment right there, that's where I started writing my first book at, in that time. And I think from at that moment right there, man, is when my trajectory of my life started changing around, man, started turning around. So I listened to you, man, and that was some good stuff right there that brought up some memories myself.

Yeah. And I think it's important to note all of my addictions didn't stop right then at the move either. But I had a new trajectory, just like you're saying. I had a new trajectory. Well, you know, here's the issue with addictions is that they release a bunch of dopamine, like a bunch of dopamine. You know, even a pornography addiction, that releases a bunch of dopamine in our head. In pornography, like, man, one pornography session can be as much dopamine as heroin. Okay, our brain loves it. It's like, oh man, this feels amazing, why don't we do this all the time? But the problem is, is that when we use up all of the dopamine— dopamine is what makes us happy, that's the chemical gets released when we're happy— when we use it all up on, on artificials, like let's say it's drugs or alcohol or sex, we— a sex addiction is a real thing, man. It's a real thing because dopamine is released. So if we use it all up on that, then something like in real life happens. Like real life, like we do something nice for somebody and we do something nice for somebody and they say thank you. Dopamine gets released then too. But if we don't have anything left because we keep depleting it every single day with addictions, it actually feels kind of dull. It's like, and then we're like, why go out and do hard things? Like be successful in the world or do nice things for other people when I could just do these addictions and I could feel better in a minute? Because the reason is, is that that's not lasting and sustaining. In fact, there's always a comedown.

Mm-hmm.

So what we want is we want to find happiness. Sure, look, I still drink sometimes, will still do drugs sometimes. I just don't want it to be an everyday thing.

Yeah. Like you say, not habit forming, you know? And what people do is what they do. And sometimes, you know, some people can break away from some things and just, you know, and be done with it, you know? And still can be around people that do it, but it don't affect you. It's just all about, you know, how you perceive it and how you take it. Let me ask you a question, Matt. How can happiness be a skill that can be mastered?

Yeah, man. This is the thing that nobody really gets until you get it. But once you see it, you can't unsee it. Is that the only person that's deciding if I'm happy in this moment or not is me. We don't think it, you know, it kind of actually sounds far-fetched when I say this, like, hey, every single moment of your life you could choose to be happy. You'd be like, no, I can't. I couldn't choose to be happy the day I got fired from my job. You can, because who's the one inside of us that's saying I'm not happy today? Yeah, me. So the day I get fired from my job, I'm making up a story about how that's unfair. How am I going to pay my bills? That person's a jerk. Like, all of this stuff is just stories. We are making up stories and our stories are making us unhappy. That same day we get fired from our job, we can make up a whole new story. And the story could be, I'm grateful for the times that I had with that job. I'm grateful for the people that I met at that job. I'm grateful for the skills that I developed in that job. I'm also now excited that I've got an opportunity to go pursue this other passion "Because I haven't been pursuing it because I've had this steady job. And so, now, I've got an opportunity to go do the thing I really wanted to do. In fact, this is the best freaking day of my life. I'm so glad I was released from that." They're both a story. But one of them makes us really unhappy and the other story makes us freaking excited and on fire. So, it's like, how long do I want to sit here and suffer in my negative stories today? It's my choice.

It's my choice.

The thing is, this is why I say happiness is a skill, is that you have to become really skillful at recognizing that I'm telling myself stories that are making me unhappy. And once we get really skillful at this, you got to start small. Like, you got to start with the dude that cuts you off in traffic. And instead of being all pissed off and that guy's a jerk or whatever, start telling yourself new stories about, well, hey, maybe they're about to have a baby and he's got to get there sooner, right? Like, I don't know what's going on with that guy. The one story makes me feel bad, the other story makes me feel good. So, start with small stories. And if we start with small stories, then eventually, we can have something big happen like lose our job and we get so good at figuring out how to reframe our perspective that we can be happy even on that day. But you can't just go from, I've never practiced this stuff, to straight away, I can be the happiest on the hardest days.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. And that would be the struggle for people because like you say, I think most people nowadays would just think about the negative aspect of it. And just like what you saying, and that's like with anything, it all takes practice. You know what I'm saying? What we call it repetition, you know, of things that you have to do over and over again, over and over again, because life comes from within. And so, you know, 'cause your good mood talks about that it's from within. That's where your happiness comes from, from within. And if you sad and gloomy on the inside, then everything on the outside gonna be sad and gloomy as well. So I agree with you on that. And so as we're talking about the mood, tell us about your book, "Good Mood Revolution." Yeah, man.

So CJ, there's only 8 things that make us unhappy. And in my book, the first half of the book talks about the 8 bad moods. All of us experience all 8 of them. And, and once we understand that there's only 8 different ways that we feel unhappy, it's like we just need to learn what are those 8 things, and then how do I get out of, out of each one? Each of the 8 moods behaves the same way in you. It behaves the same way in me. It behaves the same way in everyone. There's nothing personal about it. If you're angry, you're going to act the same exact way as if I'm angry. We're both just going to be angry, right? Anger is not who we are. It's an emotion we experience. So, once we start to notice, oh man, I'm starting to get in that angry emotion right now, and that could show up as annoyance or frustration, right? Anger can manifest in different ways, revenge-seeking. That kind of stuff. But we're like, okay, I don't want unhappiness today. I don't want suffering today. Anger is suffering. So I'm recognizing that this emotion is coming on. My book talks about how to recognize the 8 emotions and then how to get out of them sooner. Because if I, if I follow this emotion of anger, I'm going to start to say things in an angry way, do things in an angry way. I'm gonna piss off some other people.

Yeah.

Then they're going to be mad. They're going to do some things that piss me off more, and we're both going to get more and more— like, it's the same thing as we were talking about with drugs and alcohol, right? Like, our life is ultimately going to be worse following these negative emotions. So, it's better to recognize it and before we get all wrapped up in it and make our whole world now anger for the rest of the day or the rest of the week or maybe even the rest of the month, let's get out of that emotion, get back to happiness because if I'm happy and I'm joyful, I'm treating you nice. I'm treating my wife nice. I'm treating my kids nice. I'm treating everybody I work with nice. And then how do they treat me back? They're nice to me. And then my life is beautiful. And now I'm happy and they're happy, right? So, it's like— so, my book talks about the 8 negative emotions. I'll just name them. The worst of them is shame, this feeling like I'm rejectable. That's the worst one, man. When we feel rejectable, we have to do things to get other people to reject us. That's when we're awful, right? If we believe we— that we're unlovable, we'll go cheat on our wife. Yeah, not because we actually want somebody else, but because we don't think we're deserving of love. And so we'll go ruin our marriage because we don't think we're lovable, and we're pushing people who love us away. And that's crazy, right? Our— like, we don't recognize our life is actually being run by subconscious programs, but it is. It's being run by these 8 bad moods. The next one's guilt or judgment. We can't be judging somebody and happy at the same time. So, you know, I was like, man, I suffered from judging people a lot. I judged everybody. And we don't have to because instead of judging people, we can have compassion for them. And that's, you know, I talk— the second half of the book talks about the good moods. The next bad mood is overwhelm. There's never a time that we feel overwhelmed and we feel happy at the same time. So, you know, we want to figure out how to get out of overwhelm, and I talk about that. And then there's sadness and grief. We know if we're all sad and gloomy, like you were saying, hey, the world doesn't look that bright. No, it looks sad and gloomy. Then it goes into fear or anxiety. A lot of people right now are struggling with a lot of fear and anxiety. They don't know where our country is going. They're anxious about our economy. They're anxious about their own life and where it's going to go. Man, we can't be fearful and happy at the same time. Like, especially entrepreneurs, we think about, all right, I gotta be confident. It's one of the good moods. So I talk about in the second half of the book is confidence, but confidence is the counter to this fear. Then there's desire. Desire is good, but if we get stuck in it, and this is what I was talking about earlier, like I was desiring more and more and more and more and more success. It's insatiable. So even though we're achieving a lot, when we're stuck in the emotion of desire, there's no end to it. And we, we can never actually be happy after desire. Desire is positive because we can start to make positive changes in our life, but there's 10 more positive emotions above desire that feel way better. So we, like, you, a lot of people will get to desire And then they'll say, "Oh, I figured it out. I've got— I could just have— I'll just go out and have what I want to have." And, uh, but ultimately, hopefully we wake up from that and recognize, man, even though I have what I wanted to have, I still don't have happiness. So it's not the money, it's not the success, it's not the possessions, it's not the cars. None of that stuff makes me happy. So what does? Well, beyond desire, we get into The last 2 negative moods, and then we start to get into positive moods. Uh, the, the second to last negative mood is anger. Anger can actually be a really good thing. It can be really good. We start to say, man, I don't like the way things are, and I want them to be better, and I'm going to do something about it. So anger can actually make, like, positive change for us. And then the final bad mood is arrogance, thinking that we're better than people. And we can never ever be happy thinking we're better than somebody else. So those are the 8 negative moods I talk about in my book, and then how to get out of them. Because ultimately, even if we're achieving success, if we're achieving success and we're not happy, we're still failing.

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You know, you said something at the beginning of this and made me think about a conversation I just had with my mother just today. She— I guess I was on my good mood status. She said, you know, it was something pertaining to the family or whatever. So she told me, so she brought it up again, and I said, my— I said, to be respectful, I said, I really don't want to talk about that no more because then I start feeling some type of way. And I told her, I said, I don't want to be feeling some type of way today. I got 4 interviews, you know what I'm saying? I, you know, I gotta stay in a, in a peaceful place. You know, I gotta stay in a happy mood, so I don't want the negative stuff to outweigh, you know, saying what I gotta do. So I'd rather not even talk about it and actually forget about it. It is what it is. And so I just said that to say I was working on my happy mood today, Matt.

Don't miss out on CJ Moneyway Johnson's book, Both Eyes Open and Both Eyes Shut. And get ready to pre-order his upcoming release, The Issues of Life, coming soon. Moneyway, aiming to inspire. Hey man, and see that, but that's because you have recognition at this point. You know that following this thought pattern with your mom was gonna result in you feeling a certain way.

Yeah.

And that, and that, and you're like, I don't have to feel that way. And that's, man, that's super positive. Now you love your mom, of course.

Oh, it wasn't about her, it was about a family, you know, situation.

Yeah, you love your mom and, and she loves you. And what you were doing is you're just being, you're just being like, hey, respectfully, we don't need to go there right now.

No, we don't need to talk about it.

And you know what, a lot of times that is, but that's perspective. You're like, all right, look, look, I'm not going to focus on that situation that makes me unhappy. If I start focusing all on that situation, my thoughts are going to get all wrapped up in negativity.

Yeah.

You flipped your perspective. You're like, Mom, look at what I'm doing today. I got these positive interviews. I'm talking to amazing people today. Like, so you shifted your perspective to start to look at like what was going amazing in your life. And man, like I got on the call with you today and like, you're like the happiest dude I met.

But we all can be that way.

Yeah, we all can be that way. And I think you just beautifully demonstrated like how happiness is a choice.

Oh man, I appreciate that. You said the happiest guy you had met, huh? I mean, because this is fun, man. This is fun interviewing or talking to people like yourself, man, that have positive energy. You know, I've said it to so many guests, man, that comes on the show because I don't know, man. It's just something about what PodMatch got in the water, man. I have met some incredible people, man, like you, and people that just, not just incredible individuals, but people that love to serve, that love to help others. You know what I'm saying? And so I think that's what separates you guys from a whole lot of other people, man, is just the desire to want to see people do better, to want to help people do better. Not just see it, but just actually getting out there on the grind and actually helping, man. Like with this book, you know, and let me get into this. So tell us about your podcast, man, that's under the same name.

Man, that's where the rubber meets the road, you know, and happiness is a skill. That's what we talked about. Happiness is a skill. It gets better with practice, but it's not just like— people are like, well, what do I practice? Well, that's what the podcast is about. So it's called The Good Mood Revolution. And every single week, I talk about a different aspect, a different way that we can grow our skill of happiness. And it doesn't take long, 30 minutes a week. You just, you know, you listen to one podcast 30 minutes a week. Within time, you're going to start to get all of the skills that you need to be happy and recognize that, okay, now I know everything to do. That if I'm not feeling good, that I can change it because I now have the skills and I understand how to do it. But man, CJ, like, dude, when you were just talking right there, I'm like, man, there's so many things about how to feel good out in the world. Your podcast is one of them.

Oh man.

But, but listening to uplifting things that we put garbage in, we get garbage out.

Yeah.

So what, what's most of the media out there? We know social media. Makes us feel bad. There's so many studies that say social media makes us feel bad. The news. All right, well, we'll watch the news. The news, 80% of the stories about are about who just got shot. That doesn't make us feel good.

Yeah.

And then, and then we're like, okay, well, I'll get into politics. Oh man, politics is a bunch of hate, right?

Yeah.

I'll go watch, I'll go watch the most popular TV shows. The most popular TV shows is people murdering each other.

Oh, man.

So if all we're putting in our head is negative, negative, negative, negative, what's gonna come out of our mouth is gonna be negative. What's gonna be in our heart is negative. So we have to purposefully put positive things in our head. That's why people love listening to your show. And that's why people come listen to the Good Mood Revolution podcast is because we're out there like talking positive, people are picking it up, and then what's coming out of their mouth is positive. What's in their heart is positive. You said one other thing that, that, like, I really agree with, and that is that the people you interview are helping other people. Yes. Like, the signature emotion of happiness is love. When we're loving other people, when we're helping other people, we are happy. We were actually designed to help other people and to feel good when we do it. Like, that's how God made us. God was like, when you help other people, it feels good for you.

Yeah.

So when I remember we were talking about inauthentic happiness— inauthentic happiness is addictions and like getting, you know, tricking our brain to give us dopamine. Authentic happiness is loving other people, having real relationships, you know. Now I'm not talking social media relationships. We're always like trying to get likes because that's more getting. That's like the addiction. I'm addicted to social media. How many people like me? How many people heart my post, right? That's selfish again. It's not about that. It's about a real relationship with real people that you actually care about and then doing real things that help them out. And then, when we do that, man, we're rewarded beyond our wildest dreams. Like, life becomes so happy. And so, the foundation of all happiness ultimately comes down to love.

Yeah, that's the most, that's the most important thing. And we have to love because God is love, like you say, you know. If we can't love what we doing, and what we doing is to love, to help others, even though, you know, sometimes they may not receive it. I've learned some things by reading the Word of God and things of that nature. Sometimes, and God, he puts us out first. And even when people hating and people not liking what you doing, it's not for us to hate on them back because he sent Matt first, or he sent CJ first, for those very ones, for the same very ones that's not liking your podcast, not liking your book, the same one he's sending us back to them to bring them to where we are. And so we have to guard our hearts in a sense where our hearts don't get hardened and start doing or acting the same way that they act towards us, because that's not how God God made us. He made us different. And that's how I— that's just how I look at it, man, from reading the story of the Book of Joseph. I take a whole lot of things out of that, man. And that's one aspect that I learned from that.

I love that you said God is love. I mean, the Bible says that God is love. And when we abide in God, we are abiding in love, right? That means— this is what I'm talking about. Love is the basis of all good moods. As we let our hearts be loving, what we're actually doing is we're letting the energy of God come through us. Who doesn't want the power of God? Yeah, right? Like, the all-powerful Creator created everything. The power of God actually is love. Yeah, it is crazy. And we can have the love of power or we can have the power of love. And this is the difference between success driven by the 8 bad moods. That's the love of power.

Yeah.

And yeah, you can be successful, but you can't be happy. The power of love, that's where I'm going to serve humanity. I'm going to, even in my business, right? So I own a real estate business, man. I want to serve the 80 people that work in my business. I want to love them. Today, I train them. Before I walked into my training, I sent blessings to the people I was going to see in my office. And I want them to love their clients that want to buy and sell houses. I want them to bless their clients. Yeah, it's business. But man, a business powered by love, you can be successful and happy. You're making all these ripples through like eternity of like how much greatness you can be doing out there in the world. And, and, and, man, it like, that really, really feels good. And instead of just doing business just to be selfish, but it doesn't mean you can't be successful because you certainly can. You cert— there are so many people out there, uh, that have loving businesses that are highly successful. I used to think it was this either-or thing because the Bible kind of talks about that too, about how like it's easier for, uh, uh, thread a camel to go through an eye needle, you know what I'm saying?

For a rich man to get to heaven. Yeah, to get to heaven.

I'm like, I'm like, oh man, that's— but, but you know, if you, if you really think about it, it's not that money is the root of all evil, it's that the love of money. Love, the love, the love of money, where we're like making money the idol That's the root of all evil. And that again is greed. So, you know, I've had to work on this myself because I want to have a life of freedom and abundance so I can bless others, right? And because it feels good, right? I love having freedom. I want to go on a nice vacation. I want to buy my wife something nice. I want my kids to not have to struggle like I struggled. And yet at the same time, I want to I want to be of service to humanity. What's really cool is that when you start to have success and abundance and you feel good, you really want to just like be so generous and kind to people that you interact with. And, uh, and then that makes you feel really good. So we can, we can have both. I know that this show is, is really focused on entrepreneurship and leadership, and I just want all the entrepreneurs and leaders out there to know it's not an either-or game. You can be extremely successful and extremely loving at the exact same time. It's not either or, it can be both.

It definitely can be both. You know, some people experience both and I'm like you, I want to be the one on the side where I can experience success and I can experience, you know, the love aspect of it. You know, getting to where, like you said, you said, "Sankia," and I hear a lot of people say that too. I want to be in a position where I could take vacations and be there with my kids. My son playing basketball and just doing the things that you want to, you're able to do, man. And so yeah, I agree with you, can have both, but it takes, like I think what you've given us today is a positive mindset that it gotta come from within and it gotta be done in love. But let me ask you this, Matt, 'cause you touched up on it, man. You said that the things that you do at your business, you train people and everything. And train your employees. Tell us, man, what practices have you put into your business that helped you become the number one company to work for in Southern California? Congrats, by the way, on that.

Oh man, I, I appreciate that. Yeah, we're in South Carolina actually, so the other, the other coast. If I was in Southern Cal, I'd be a huge Lakers fan. Oh man, I would, I would, I'd be a Lakers fan.

I misprinted that, my bad.

No, no, but I love the Lakers, but I'm a Pistons fan. Yeah. You know, I know the Pistons aren't good. I get that. They have been good. They'll get back. They'll get back to the glory days. Um, but I moved, I moved from the Detroit area down to South Carolina.

Okay.

And, um, and I built a real estate business and there's 470,000 companies in the state of South Carolina and out of 400 out of 70,000, we were voted the number one place to work. And I'm really proud of it. It's something that means a lot to me because it means that we're doing business the right way. Yeah, we're successful. We are. But we're also treating people kind and treating people right and doing right by the community. And that's it, you know? And then people want to work in a place like that. The number one thing that happened that made us that, that helped us get that is me learning how to be happy. We weren't getting those awards when I was going after personal gain. And I was— I started the business trying to be super successful from a selfish reason. I wanted the money, I wanted the fame. I was the person that was put— that had the love of power, right? I was the person that had the love of money. I was the person that had greed. I had all of that. But I got— I got everything I wanted. I got the success, I got the money, I got you know, the house I wanted, blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't happy, and people that work with me weren't happy. And I'm like, man, there's got to be a better way. So we, uh, I picked core values. First of all, I— it always starts with the leader. It always starts with a leader. Tony Robbins said the success of the company follows the psychology of the leader. So if a company isn't where the leader wants it to be, it's because of the leader's psychology. That's the only reason that a company isn't where the leader wants it to be. It's not the people that work for the leader, it's the leader's psychology. Why is this true? You know, I know this could be— that could be a hard statement to understand. However, because like we always want to blame other people, like, oh man, if I only had these people, or if these people didn't do that, or these people did their job Who hired those people?

The leader. Yeah.

So, if you want better people, better people work for better leaders. You have to grow yourself into a person that the best people are attracted to working with. So, as a leader, I had to grow more loving, more compassionate, more kind, more generous, more caring. Instead of being all selfish and being all about me, I had to start caring all about my people. That was a huge shift, but that was a shift into good moods, right? And the second half of my book talks about, hey, once we start to get out of the 8 bad moods, how do we choose these positive moods? So, as I became a cooler person to work for, people wanted to work more for me. They wanted to run through walls for me because I would run through walls for them. We started to achieve more than I ever thought we could. And, uh, and then, and then everybody got happy too. So I created, uh, core values, just 5 core values for our company that we, we look for when we go to hire somebody. We'll let people go if they don't follow these core values, and then we live by them. And the, the first 2 core values, the first one's integrity. And, and I, I look for people that want to do the right thing when no one's looking.

Yeah.

And if, if you're willing to do the right thing when, when no one's looking, you have integrity. That's my definition of it.

Yeah.

I just want to do the right thing because the right thing is what's right. And, um, the second core value that we have is kindness. And in business, you don't usually think about business and kindness going together, man. They go together so well. We got somebody on the other end of a transaction, a real estate transaction, and they're being really mean to us. They're yelling at us. They're throwing a fit. I want everyone in my company to respond to that person with kindness. We don't know what they're going through, man. You never know what someone's going through. If someone is acting out and giving us that kind of craziness on the other side, their life is misery. And so I want us to have compassion for the person that's being mean. And compassion means, I don't know what your struggle is, but I'm here for you. Let me, let me help this, make this transaction as easy as I can, because it seems like the rest of your life might not be that easy today. And those two core values of hiring people that want to do the right thing when no one's looking and are willing to be kind, even, even when others are not, that created a culture where we became the best place to work in the state.

Man, I give you kudos on that. And I like your core values too, you know what I'm saying? Because that's life, man. I tell people all the time, even where I work at, I don't need somebody to watch over me at all times because I'm gonna do what I gotta do. I don't need the pat on the back. I don't need you to tell me you doing a good job. I'm gonna do what I gotta do even if you're not watching. You know what I'm saying? Like you say, that's the integrity and the character of a person. And as we saying now, it builds you up into bigger moments. 'Cause as you was talking about the practices, you know what I'm saying? And the things that, You do on your own the inner thing. That's just who you are. That's just what you are. And the integrity, like you say, of being nice and kind to people that's being mean to you. As we've been talking about the scripture, I think it's a scripture that says something about throwing hot coal on a person's head. You know what I'm saying? And it changes that. When you take what they're saying, what they're being mean with, and you being kind is throwing hot coals on they head. And so now it changes their perception of how they're acting, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause you've treated me with so much respect and I know that I've treated you with disrespect.

And so it changes their perspective.

They know it, yeah.

They know it and then you know what they feel like? Now they feel like they owe us something. They're like, I know I came at you crazy. You have been so cool. And then this is what they do. Then they tell everyone to work with us. So actually, the meanest ones end up being our biggest advocates.

Yeah, yeah.

Because they knew that they weren't kind and we were awesome to them, and they're like, man, I gotta, I gotta help these guys out. They were so cool to me. I, I wasn't that cool. And they feel kind of bad, and then they're like, I know what I'll do, I'll tell people to work with them. And that's— and then that helps our success out too. So, you know, but again, like We want to be kind and we want to be loving because like that's what feels good, but what you don't know is that it actually ends up benefiting you too. So we try to be selfish to get benefit, but then people don't like us and they like actually harm us and it takes us down. And you know, I'm trying to think of the scripture. It says if we put love first, all else will be added onto us. We put Jesus first, we put Christ first, all else will be added onto us then.

Yeah, right.

And so we said God is love. If we put love first, all else will then be added on to us. And so if we're just loving first, it works out better. Like, what you just— but you don't do it for that. You do it because it feels good, and then it's also good for business. So love is good for business, uh, is ultimately the, the biggest lesson.

Man, man, I appreciate you coming on, man, and sharing your joy and your insight, man. Not only that, I hear the joy that you have for what you doing and your passion, man, but I hear this being real sincere and the way that you operate with your people, man. So I, I can see why you the number one company in South Carolina. Hey, so before we leave, Matt, where can we find your book and what's your social media handles, man?

You know, really the best place to plug in is that weekly podcast. It's Good Mood Revolution, and it's on all the podcast platforms. Uh, you know, the book's the same name, Good Mood Revolution, and you can find it on Amazon. Uh, and then if you want to find me on social, it's @GoodMoodMatt.

@GoodMoodMatt. Okay. So Matt, man, is there anything else that you would like to share before we leave out of here, man? Anything on the horizon that you got coming up?

Yeah, man. The biggest thing I want to share is just appreciation for you. The number top 3% show in the world having me on, bro. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for having me on and what you're doing and just having this great conversation. I loved it.

Hey, man, I appreciate you, man. And like I say, I didn't know that. So you sprung that news on me right before we started. So I appreciate you coming on, man, and sharing your wisdom, man. And that exciting news, because as soon as we get off, I gotta go check, listen notes you said, right?

Yeah.

I gotta go check listen notes, man, and see it for myself. But I appreciate you, man, coming on, man, sharing your wisdom. Hey, everybody go get the book, Good Mood Revolution right here. He said go to his podcast, it has the same name. You gonna get this happy mood. Hey, my man got the number one company to work for in South Carolina. So you looking to get into real estate and you want a good manager, you want a good boss, Matt is your man. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your host CJ Moneyway. We outta here. Peace.

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