Matthew Hussey and his boxing trainer Martin discuss how people get boxed in by others' narrow definitions of them. Martin teaches Latin and ballet alongside boxing, and Hussey's August retreat aims to help women break free from limiting self-definitions and discover new capabilities.
What's the first thing I said when.
I saw your eye today? You said two things. What the hell happened to your eye? And how are we gonna film today?
And you said?
Get your camera, because we are filming today. And I'll tell you about the eye when you get here. So Jameson gets annoyed at me because I do boxing and now Muay Thai. And he's used to me getting a few scrapes and bruises and whatnot here and there. And then he got annoyed at me, didn't he today, because I got this one. And he thought we couldn't film. But I said, no, let's film anyway. Because today's topic is actually one that I think is extremely important. And it's about defining yourself and the way you define yourself. So many people in life will try to define us very narrowly. People do this because they want to stereotype.
Us.
So they stereotype us based on our personality and the way we've been in the past. They stereotype us based on our career and it's a terrible shame because we are complex creatures, human beings, and we have many passions and many things that we're drawn to in life. We can have many potential skill sets. We can have many lifetimes in one lifetime if we don't fall into that trap of putting ourselves in the box that everybody else tries to put ourselves in. We sort of have to rage against that. My personal struggle with this is as a dating coach, everywhere I go, that's what I get asked about. When people recognize me, that's what they talk to me about. When people introduce me to other people that they know, that's what they introduce me as. Anytime I do something new, and I know you feel this with me, Jameson, it's sort of like, when we're about to try something, I know there's gonna be that group of people that are like, Oi, like get back in your fucking box. What are you doing? Like, no, you're not allowed to do that. You said you were going to give advice for a living, so that's what you have to do. You said that was what you were going to do. So what? You're going to now try and make a funny video. Are you going to try and make a silly video? You're going to try and give a... I remember back when I was first public speaking, it was like, why are you public speaking? That's not what you do. Same thing with YouTube. You're not a YouTuber. That's not what you do. When I started writing, it was the same thing. That's not what you do. Get back in your box. It's one of the reasons I thought, not just playfully, let's do the video, even though I've got a black eye. I thought, you know, if I'm constantly shielding other parts of my world from this part of my world, then I'm never painting a fuller picture of myself. Actually, we've been on our way this whole time to my boxing gym because we thought we'll do this on the way to the boxing gym. I don't know if my trainer, Martin, is going to come on camera. But just to warn you, he's mad and eccentric and amazing and hilarious. So what do you think would surprise people to know about me? I'm curious to hear your answer, because you've seen me in a very specific context.
Probably that you're not really British, that you're from Staten Island. Right. Yeah.
I've done a great job of keeping that under wraps.
Oh my God, like incredible. No, I think that you box, I think the fact that you box would be the most surprising. I mean, because listen, you don't have to do that. You're in shape and you could be like everybody else. And LA is the town of looking like you're in shape and looking a certain way. But it takes a lot of guts to come into a gym, not only come in and do the workout, but going in and spar. Right. All right. Yeah. You got a little shine to that too. I like it. Do it again. Yeah.
What's something, I'm curious, what's something people wouldn't expect about you? You're a boxing coach, you're a fighter. So what's something people wouldn't expect about you?
You know, probably that I do ballet in my spare time. No. I think this, this is what I think. I went to, I had a fairly good education. So to be like, I took Latin for five years. I don't know of a lot of boxing coaches that can conjugate the verb to be in Latin. You know, it's assumed as soon as the son, not. You're not gonna find out. I did have a very good education. I will admit to that. But it hasn't done me, you know, in what I do professionally. It hasn't really carried over.
That's not true. Because the reason you attract intelligent people to your gym is because you can hold court with them.
Yes. And I like to do that. Yeah, I I. You're right about that. I like to take an intellectual. coach the boxing. It's not like, that's why people come.
To you, because they get the psychology as well as the physicality of it.
Okay, but this doesn't make sense. All right, if you're gonna do this, it's that. You have to understand why you need to take your thing. Don't just do it because the guy says, do this. Do this. Do this. Because that. That's what makes sense. I say this, you say that. We debate who's better. Me or you? All right, you gotta have an intelligent argument. If he says this, you gotta have an answer for it. All right, you gotta ask him questions. He doesn't have the answer for it.
By the way, for those of you who are coming to the August retreat this year, Martin is gonna be a special guest on one of the days. We're gonna bring him in. Maybe we'll get you doing some boxing with everyone.
I'm gonna get these kids out of the box.
Yeah, so it's gonna be amazing. We're gonna have a whole big group of women there all changing their lives for six days. stays straight. It's gonna be an incredible experience and it really is for that person that this video speaks to. The person that feels like maybe they're too narrowly defined in their life right now. They wanna break out, they wanna see what they're capable of. Hey, you've lived this long, you're gonna live this much longer. What do you wanna be different or what do you want to be different about the next few years of your life? How do you wanna explore what you're capable of that you haven't been able to explore yet? In what ways do you wanna change and grow and evolve? The retreat is just change on steroids. If you want to apply to this program and you haven't yet, go to MatthewHusseyRetreat.com, we'll link it up right here. Apply, we'd love to see you there. I'd love you to be with me, my family, meet Martin, my extended family, the people that coach and mentor me, I want you to meet them. So I will see you there guys, apply now and other than that I'll see you in next week's video. Thanks Martin.
Thanks Kid.
