Matthew AI explains how he fell out of love with reading by turning it into work, then fell back in by reading for pleasure again. The real shift wasn't his location or circumstances, it was context. Two dream jobs, a jet-ski guide and travel photographer, still burn out without managing how they frame the work.
Hey guys, it's Matthew. I am here right now in Bora Bora, which is a crazy place to shoot a video, but a few months ago I decided I wanted to take a bit of a holiday. I hadn't had a holiday in a long time and I thought if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it right. So I came out here, as you can see. I'm staying in a hut right now over the water, just like these huts that you can see over here. And I have Mount Otemanu. I think it is behind me. So it's basically one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen on Earth. Maybe when I get home, I'll insert a part into this video with some of the places that I went. In fact, Jamieson, if you want to do that, Jamieson's not here with me, so sorry Jamieson, you don't get to be behind the camera on this one. But maybe we'll insert some shots of me and Bora Bora doing different things now. How do you say hello? So while I've been here in Bora Bora, I have been reading a lot and it's made me realize something, something that I teach over and over again at my retreats, but it's made me really emphasize something in my own mind. When I was at school, I would steal away from class or my homework to go and read books on self-development or psychology or human dynamics, whatever it was that could expand my mind. I'd be the guy with, you know, inside my book, inside my textbook, I would have my self-development book that I wanted to read. And what's funny about that is because I saw it as play, I used to enjoy it. I used to see it like, you know, if someone would slip away from school to go to the ice that was my arcade. As I got older and started working in that sphere in some way, shape or form, one of the worst things that happened to me is I started seeing reading of that kind as work. Once you label something work, it becomes work to you. Something that you previously enjoyed can become work. There were two people that I met while I was here that both had completely different jobs, but both had jobs that many people would see as a dream. One of them was a... There's just people canoeing just buy out by my house. Like, look at that. Just, that's just happening. The other day I saw a stingray go under the bedroom. When in life do you get to say a stingray swam under my bedroom? Never. That's never a line you get to use. All right, back to the point. There were two people that I thought had really amazing jobs. One of them does the jet skiing tours around the island. clear blue turquoise waters. Amazing. There was another guy who I met on the jet skiing tour actually. His job was to go to resorts like this and take photographs. The picture book in my room is of his pictures of this particular resort. So that's what he does. He travels the world doing that. Now many people would see those two jobs as dream jobs. The truth is even people in those positions who seemingly on the surface have dream jobs, they still have to revisit the context of what they're doing to make sure that it doesn't become work. When reading became work for me, I couldn't open a book without having a pen and underlining everything that was useful, everything that I wanted to commit to memory, everything that I wanted to incorporate somehow into what I was doing, ideas, philosophies, techniques. And so reading became a chore to me. It became something that was associated with work. I decided, okay, while I'm here, I'm gonna read not with the pen, I'm just gonna read for fun. The second thing I did was I said to myself, I'm gonna give myself the liberty to read whatever I want to read. I'm not gonna have to read a book that is related to a seminar I'm giving shortly or something I want to learn more about for the purposes of my work. I'm just gonna read whatever I want to read to expand my mind in ways that I see as fun. Those two decisions have made reading for me this week one of the most enjoyable experiences I have ever had of learning and expanding my mind. The irony, of course, is that in reading things that even though I thought were unrelated to my work, the irony is I've gotten so many ideas anyway as a kind of tangential benefit to doing this. So I'm so happy I've done it and it's renewed my love for reading. What I want to stress to you right now is many times in the self-development world, people are encouraged just to make bold changes to their situation. You know, you don't like your job, quit. Change it. You don't like what you're doing with your life, change it. You don't like where you live? Move. There's all these bold changes to change your situation. But very often what we come to realize is we can become far happier with our situation if we understand how to change the context. It wasn't an option for me to say, well, you know, for a long time reading had become a chore because I was associated with it with work. So instead, just don't read anymore. That wasn't an option to me. I had to change the context. And by changing the context, I've become so much, it's excited me in new ways again and I've become addicted to reading in the way that I have been at various points in my life. But it's only because I changed the context. Sometimes it's not about changing your situation, it's about changing your context and then you can get so much more happiness from the same situation without having to change anything. I hope you enjoyed, by the way, this information because, you know, if you've been watching us a long time, you know that we talk a lot about flirting about attraction, about love life. But I want to bring you stuff that can help you with your life in general and I hope you like it when we do videos like this. If you do leave a comment, let me know. That's the only way I get the feedback is by knowing how you receive information like this in addition to the information on attraction. And if you really want to take things to the next level, if you want coaching on a far deeper level, then come work with me for five days. I have two opportunities for you to do that this year. One in August in San Diego on my retreat, and I have one in October in Florida. Those are the only two retreats of the year. So if you don't want to wait another year for your progress and you want to learn how to change either your situation or learn more about how you can change the context, like I did with reading and do with so many other areas of my life, then come and join me on that program and we'll spend five days working on your life. I am gonna see you in the next video when I get home.
